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James 1:26-2:13
26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
2:1 My brothers,1 show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
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Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Alright. If you would open up your bibles to the book of James. I'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys now, and this is a cardinal mistake. Any any sinner, any I am a sinner. Preacher should do.
Joel Brooks:I am incredibly tired. Alright. I I am not going to have coherent thoughts like I just did. So I'm gonna need you guys to hang with me. Alright?
Joel Brooks:It's just been one of those those weeks. Alright? And so we we might just kinda talk through this text. I'm gonna need I'm gonna need a little grace. I need grace every week.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna need you to give me a little extra grace this week. Okay? As we go through James 2, we're actually gonna begin, 2 verses before that, chapter 1 verse 26. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before god the father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Joel Brooks:My brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. And if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not god chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.
Joel Brooks:Are not the rich ones, the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blasphemed the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You are doing well. But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
Joel Brooks:For whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment, it was is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
Joel Brooks:Mercy triumphs over judgment. Pray with me. Lord, I ask you to honor the very reading of your word and that you'll be strong where we are weak in listening and in speaking. God, I pray that you would open up dull minds and hardened hearts. May we not just hear your word, may we do it.
Joel Brooks:And now I pray that my words would fall to the ground, blow away, and not be remembered anymore, but lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. My Greek professor at Beeson, doctor Kinmen, killer Kinmen. He had a profound impact on my life, and it wasn't because of the Greek.
Joel Brooks:I actually really struggle through Greek, but it was often when he taught the class, he he would stop, you know, in the middle parsing a verb, and he turn around, and he would just preach to us. And then he would just turn around, and he would just resume Greek class. And, and it was those little miniature sermons that really changed my life. I remember, you know, one time he's he's parsing some some participle, and he just stops and he turns around, and he says, you know, I think 3 miles down the road, there's an abortion clinic, and there's women lined up to get an abortion. And you're here, And he starts he starts riding on the board, and I'm like, what what in the heck?
Joel Brooks:What what what is that about? And he turns back around a little bit later and says, I assume you're here because God has called you to study the bible, and and it is his calling is the reason you're here and not over there. And so, you better be all here. We're like, I'm going to study some Greek. You know, I'm going to study some Greek.
Joel Brooks:Another time he had a really profound impact on me, he was, you know, parsing some kind of verb this time, I guess, and he stopped and he turned around and said, how many of you are concerned about the poor? I think we were doing some we were translating something in Luke, and it how many of you are concerned about the poor? And we're all nodding, and he goes, no, I wanna I wanna, you know, raise hands. I mean, we're in seminary for crying out loud. All of us raise our hands because we all care for the poor.
Joel Brooks:Alright? And he goes, that's great. Alright. Somebody want to tell me like, what do you do for the poor today? Anybody do anything for the poor today?
Joel Brooks:Raise your hand. Nobody. And he goes, alright. I guess that was unfair. I mean, you've probably been at school all day.
Joel Brooks:Anybody do anything for the poor the last few days? Raise your hand. Not one person raised their hand. Yes, Alright. This past week, how many of you have done something for the poor this past week?
Joel Brooks:Raise your hand. We're in seminary, pastors and training, not one person raised their hand. He goes, the last 2 weeks, and and you had a person like finally raise their hand. He said, the last month, he had about 3. He goes, I'm confused.
Joel Brooks:Can you please somebody please explain to me how you care for the poor? You have deceived yourself. And what he did was just unpack James. We've we've got this picture of ourselves in our head. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:I really care about these people. I really care about the poor. Yes. And then, but we look at our actions, and we're not a doer of the word, and he called us out on it. Let me read to you James 2 1 through 4 again, because when James says to be a doer of the word, he has something particular in mind.
Joel Brooks:For him here, it is it is reaching out to the poor. That's what he means when he says to to be a doer of the world. And he says, my brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. And if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place.
Joel Brooks:While you say to the poor man, you stand over here, or over there, or sit down at my feet. Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? And James is apparently addressing a real situation that happening during during the worship services. And so during the the worship services, the rich were given the best seats in the house, while the why the poor, the low class had to to to be in the back or stand against the walls. It probably be reverse and, you know, contemporary circles.
Joel Brooks:The poor would have to sit up front and the rich would get the, the, the back seats, the ones that everybody loves. You have to remember in this day, this is very common because the whole idea that we have of every person is created equal, every person has indelible rights, that did not exist. The very things that we take for for granted now that seem like common sense that everyone everyone has rights, that is actually a Judeo Christian ethic that didn't take hold to will after this. For them, it was common sense that, no, some people are born to be the elite. Other people are born to be slaves.
Joel Brooks:Aristotle himself had said, you can just look at some people and see that they were meant to be slaves, And Aristotle's a lot smarter than probably anybody here. It's not a common sense thing that you look at people and you think, oh, everybody's created equal. Christianity is what brought that out. What we're seeing is James fleshing this out right here. He is saying, hey, it doesn't matter if you're poor or if you're rich.
Joel Brooks:We show no partiality. We treat everyone the same. Now, personally, I've never been to a church where I have seen this happen. You know, where, you know, some rich person is escorted, you know, to the front seat, and poor, like, I'm sorry, you can't come in here. I've I've never seen that happen.
Joel Brooks:For us, it's much more subtle. I have seen this. I've seen pretty much you look at any church and the leadership of that church, the elders of that church are almost always the elite. Very rarely will you find it in a large church, a poor elder. It's almost never.
Joel Brooks:It's an anomaly if you can ever find one. Most people think, hey, if this person is wealthy, they can run a business well. If they can run a business well, they can run a church well, and so they bring them into leadership of the church. That's showing partiality. Another kind of subtle way, and I saw this a lot at the, the former church that I was at, is designated gifts.
Joel Brooks:The rich would come in and say, hey, here's, here's $50,000, but but I want the $50,000 used for this. And it's usually something that's not at all a priority as as for the church. The elders, the the the staff, none of them have thought, this is a direction what we should be doing as a church, but this rich person wants this done. And then when the church takes it, they have given partiality, have shown partiality to the rich because they're not gonna let the poor dictate how they spend their money. So I've seen it suddenly done that way.
Joel Brooks:But this is how I usually have seen it done, something I I think all of us in here have done, maybe experienced. And that's when somebody comes into the room, and you look at them. And maybe, you know, if you're a girl, you notice that cute shoes or something. Hey, you know, we have matching shoes. You know, you instantly just kind of check them out.
Joel Brooks:Wow. You know, we could be friends, and, you realize they're somewhat intelligent. They're kind of pretty, they're beautiful. So instantly, you're you're kind of drawn into a conversation with them. You realize that, they're well connected.
Joel Brooks:A lot of the people who they mentioned that they know, you know, and and you like, or you wish you were in those circles as well. And, and the more you're talking like, man, this person is like great at conversation socially, they're pretty cool, and man, I'd love to have have these people or this person over to my house. And so, you swap numbers and like, that's great. Another person comes in, nothing to look at, and they're single, they're they're they're alone, not dressed that well at all, but you're gonna be kind. I mean, come on.
Joel Brooks:It's church. You're gonna be kind of be, hello. So good to have you. Welcome into this place. You begin talking to them, and you realize, you know what?
Joel Brooks:Yeah. And they're they're not really all there. You kinda you kinda make a little snap judgment on that. They probably didn't go to the best school. Obviously, they're they're socially awkward, And so, you're kind, you're courteous, but you're dismissive and you walk away.
Joel Brooks:That is showing partiality. Because you don't have to just be rich in wealth. I don't think we really struggle with that as a church, like, we're gonna show partiality just to those who are rich. You can be rich in education, rich in social standing, rich in your, your connections. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Just rich and being a good conversationalist, rich and having a home that's fun to go to, And so, we immediately, when people come in, we size up those rich people, and we think they have a lot they can offer us. I can borrow some of their wealth into my life. We might even call them life giving people, fun to be around, and then we quickly label other people who come in. They're emotionally unstable. There's always drama in their life.
Joel Brooks:They're gonna be a drain. They're just gonna drain me. And so, you don't you don't wanna go there. Showing partiality. And I think it plays out so many times in our midst.
Joel Brooks:And let me tell you, if you look at a person and you size them up and you think, you can already tell this person's just gonna be such a drain, you need to ask yourself, where are you going to get filled? Who fills you? Is it the Lord who fills you up, or are you going are you treating all your relationships, the people who come in as idols that you go to and serve and ask for joy and fulfillment from them? If that's the case, yes, people
Connor Coskery:will drain.
Joel Brooks:We need to remember Jesus was poor. Jesus was homeless. Isaiah says that he had no beauty that people would be drawn to him. He didn't walk in and people thought there's a winner. Jesus identifies with the very poor that we so easily reject.
Joel Brooks:Now, I think the early church struggled some with this. They struggle some with showing partiality. If you remember when we were going through the book of Acts, in Acts 6, you had 2 groups of widows. You had the Hellenist widows, and you had the Hebrew widows. Basically, widows who spoke Greek, and widows who spoke Hebrew.
Joel Brooks:All right? And the the widows who spoke Greek were beginning to complain because they were not getting the money that the Hebrew widows were getting. So the church was taking care of the poor Hebrews' widows, but not the poor Greek widows. Now I don't think that was because the church leadership, they went in a back room, and like, alright guys. What is it?
Joel Brooks:How can we steal money from these poor Gentile widows? What can we do to take money away from them and give them to our widows? I don't think that was happening. What was just happening was, there's people they identified with. There there's widows who who came from their culture, spoke their language, and it was just easy.
Joel Brooks:They just kind of meshed with those people and so they would meet their needs. The other people, they didn't mesh with. They didn't quite really understand slightly different culture, different language. So their needs weren't met. I don't really think it was malicious.
Joel Brooks:But the church saw it as a huge problem. When that problem was brought to the apostles immediately, they said, we have to come up with a solution. And this is when the deacons were born. So they said, we're gonna get a group of people to take care of this problem. And if you remember when we went through Acts and we hit chapter 6, we went through all of the names of the deacons.
Joel Brooks:Every name was Greek, not Hebrew. All 7 of the men had Greek names, came from Greek culture, And what you see is astonishing that the early church is doing because usually when you get hold of power, you wanna keep power, But here, power was with the Jewish Christians, and they said, we need to take that power away from us, and we need to give it to the people who are poor and oppressed. That is almost unheard of. To give to enable the poor to have real power, to make real decisions with real money that are going to affect the church. That's what the apostles did.
Joel Brooks:That's what our church needs to look like. That's what we need to do. I want you to look at verse 13. This is a strong verse. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
Joel Brooks:Mercy triumphs over judgment. I mean, that is just a strong hit you in the face verse, which means exactly what it says it means. Yeah. There's 2 different ways that you can look at mercy. There's a there's a general sense of mercy which just kind of means kindness, forgiveness.
Joel Brooks:Then there's the specific type of mercy, like when a beggar would would say, have mercy on me. What they're saying is, give me aid, give me help. And and James is using both of those types of mercy there when he says, for judgment is without mercy. That's in the general sense. Judgment will be without forgiveness, will be without any kindness, to one who has shown no mercy, and that's in that specific sense of aiding the poor.
Joel Brooks:The people who need it. So if you don't do that, you'll be shown no mercy. How can James say that? It it doesn't sound like it's the gospel. Sounds like very works based there.
Joel Brooks:But but what he's saying is that if the gospel is in you, then that is an evidence of the gospel is helping the poor. Alright? It is, because that is what the gospel is. When a man comes before you in shabby clothes look at that that line in verse 2, shabby clothes. That word shabby there, can mean filthy.
Joel Brooks:So I want you to picture this scene. Picture a man coming in here in filthy clothes. You can smell sweat. You can smell urine on these clothes of a man who comes in here. When a man comes in here dressed like that, James is saying you should be reminded of the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Because Isaiah says that when you stand before God, your righteousness is as filthy rags. That's exactly what you look like, And God showed incredible mercy on you, and he clothed you in white. He clothed you with his righteousness, and he took away your shame, and he made you presentable to him. And if if that gospel is in you, that is shown to others. It can't help but be shown to others.
Joel Brooks:So so that that's what he's talking about here is the gospel manifesting itself by serving the poor. And let me tell you that when we serve the poor, when we serve the least of these, we're we're not only demonstrating the gospel that is within us, we're actually receiving more of the gospel. We're actually receiving love, and we are receiving grace as we demonstrate and as we give the grace. Some of you, might be familiar with, an author, Henri Nouwen. He actually died in 1996.
Joel Brooks:He was a famous author, speaker, professor. He actually was a professor at Yale, and at Harvard and Notre Dame. So, I mean, he's got pretty darn good credentials here. I mean, he was a Christian. He was an extraordinarily gifted man.
Joel Brooks:During the height of his accomplishments, the the height of all of his speaking tours, he quit, And he decided to go work at a place called La Arche, I think is how you pronounce it. It's a French word, La Arche, in Toronto. And this was a community for the mentally handicapped. And what some people don't realize this is when he decided to do this, a lot of the bigwigs in the Christian community called him up and tried to talk him out of it. Eugene Peterson called him up and said, you're making a big mistake.
Joel Brooks:Philip Yancey called him up, said, you're making a big mistake. They said, we respect what you're what you're doing, but God has given you extraordinary intelligence. Don't do what any other person can do. Anybody can do that. But but you can do these extraordinary things, and they tried to talk him out of it, but he he went anyway.
Joel Brooks:And I just want to read you an account of of this from one of his letters. He actually wrote a letter, about this. He said, I left the university and I went to large, a community of mentally handicapped people and their assistants who try to live in the spirit of the beatitudes. So I went to Toronto. I would just like to talk to you a little bit about the very beginning of me being there.
Joel Brooks:The first thing that this community asked me to do was to work with a man named Adam, of all names, Adam. It sounded like I was working with humanity. Adam, a 24 year old man, was very, very, very handicapped. He couldn't speak. He couldn't walk.
Joel Brooks:He couldn't dress or undress himself. You never really knew if he knew you or not. His body was very deformed. His back was distorted, and he suffered from continuous epileptic seizures. And they said, Henry, we would like you to work with Adam.
Joel Brooks:I was so afraid. Here I was a university professor. I had never touched anybody very closely, and here was Adam. Hold him. At 7 in the morning, I went to his room, and there he was.
Joel Brooks:I took off his clothes, held him, and walked with him very carefully. I was frightened because I thought he might have a seizure. I walked with him to the bath and I tried to lift him into the bathtub, but he was as heavy as I am. So I started to throw water over him, and to wash him, to shampoo his hair, and to take him out again, and then I had to brush his teeth, comb his hair, bring him back to his bed. I dressed him in what clothes I could find, and I took him to the kitchen.
Joel Brooks:I sat him at the table and started to give him his breakfast. The only thing he could really do was lift the spoon to his mouth, and I just sat there and watched him. It took about an hour. I have never been with anyone for a whole hour just seeing if they could eat. Something happened.
Joel Brooks:I was frightened for about a week, a little less frightened about after 2 weeks. After 3 or 4 weeks, I started to realize that I was thinking about Adam a lot and that I was actually looking forward to being with him. Suddenly, I knew something was happening between us that was very intimate, very beautiful, and that was of god. I don't know if I can say it well. Somehow, I started to realize that this poor broken man was the place where god was speaking to me in a whole new way.
Joel Brooks:Gradually, I discovered real affection in myself, and I thought that Adam and I belonged together and that it was so important. I want you to understand a little better what happened between Adam and me. Maybe I can say it very simply. Adam taught me a lot about God's love in a very concrete way. I find that extraordinary.
Joel Brooks:Henri Nouman was not only able to demonstrate the gospel to the least of these, he actually was able to receive it from the least of these as he ministered. Nahwan would later talk in, in some of his books, he would talk about how God revealed to him so much about who he was as he ministered to Adam. He goes, look at Adam. He goes, you know, you're just like that. I help and I help and you're unresponsive.
Joel Brooks:I'm there with you next to you, and you don't even know it. I do everything for you, and you're ungrateful. So that's you, and I've loved you. And you got to see that and to experience the gospel in an entirely new way. So by serving Adam, he came to serve Christ, and Christ served him.
Joel Brooks:Such a beautiful picture. And one of the things that he talked about, something I I want to mention that that I think James alludes to, is he says, when I sat down before Adam, my credentials meant nothing. It's like I could it's like, hey, you know what? I actually taught Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame. Adam's not impressed with that.
Joel Brooks:You know, hey, you know you know how many books I've authored? I'm a pretty famous speaker. Not impressed at all. He had to lay all of his glory aside. All of it.
Joel Brooks:James alludes to this. In verse 1, look there. It says my brothers chapter 2 verse 1. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our lord Jesus Christ, the lord of glory. Alright.
Joel Brooks:James, I mentioned, when we started the book, he only uses Jesus's name twice. This is the second time he's not gonna mention it anymore. He's doing it for a very reason. 1, calling him even the the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants you to know that he is our king.
Joel Brooks:This is a kingdom value. That's why later he calls this the royal law. This is a king's decree that we treat others like this. Alright? But then he says, the Lord of glory.
Joel Brooks:Why does he use the term here when introducing a whole section about the poor saying that, Jesus is the Lord of glory? What he's doing is, he's saying, if you want to serve the poor, you have to realize that you're not your own lord of glory. That you don't spend your life trying to glorify yourself, trying to get accolades for yourself, trying to get people to respect you. That that's not what this is about. Jesus is the lord of glory.
Joel Brooks:Alright? All glory goes to him. You put aside your glory. You want to see him glorified. That's why you pour in others.
Joel Brooks:I think he he is alluding to that here. Have you ever wondered how it was? How could Jesus pour into people who I look at, and I think there's no way I could even invest an hour in that person this week? And Jesus over and over again poured into them. Well, one of the reasons is this, Jesus in all of his glory up on his throne, descended.
Joel Brooks:And when you get a view of what of what Jesus, who he was, the glory he had, and when he descended and took on human flesh, and he came down, down, down, down, down, down, down to our level. Let me tell you what. There is no difference between the most educated rich man and who we would see as poor scum. When you've descended that far down, there's no difference between the 2. The the problem is with us when we look at when we're looking at our own glory when we're looking at our own glory, we're thinking, wow, this is such a huge drop from my own glory all the way down here.
Joel Brooks:We need to be looking at the glory of Jesus. When we're looking way up there, the difference between there to here and there to here is nothing. He's saying, be captivated with his glory. He is the lord of glory. I hope in hearing this, I know I've thrown a lot out there.
Joel Brooks:My prayer for us as a church is that we would hear this word. We would not be like the man who looked in the mirror for this one brief moment, saw ourselves clearly, and then walk away and forget. But that through his grace, we would now do. Pray with me. Lord, you were rich, and you became poor so that through you, we might become rich.
Joel Brooks:We're rich in every way. Everything we have in this life is a gift from you, And spiritually, you have given us new life and new joy, and that is worth celebrating. Thank you. Thank you for becoming poor. Thank you for humbling yourself so much, even to the point of death on a cross, so that we might experience what we experience.
Joel Brooks:Lord, and may that be our fuel, may the natural outpouring of that, being how we treat those, who we see as the least of these. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.