James chapter 2. I titled the
lesson this morning, The Evil of the Respect of Persons. James
says in James 2 verse 1, My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. Then
in verse 2 he gives us an example to tell us what the respect of
persons is. For if there come unto your assembly
a man with a gold ring and goodly apparel, and there come in also
a poor man, and vile arraignment, and you have respect to him that
weareth the gay clothing, and saying to him, sit thou here
in a good place, and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit
here under my footstool. So showing respect to persons
is treating someone better because of something about their flesh.
If it's the color of their skin, their education level, how much
money you think that they have, how nice the clothes they wear,
how much influence you think they may have in the world, and
you treat them better because of those things. That's showing
respect to persons. Now that's all the religion of
this world is interested in. Gaining respect of persons. Telling
you how to have more stuff in this life. How to have a better
life in whatever way, you know. And that's not the pure religion
that James talks about in verse 27 of chapter one, talking about
religion that's undefiled before God and the father. That respect
of persons is not that. And James tells us this respect
of persons is evil. It's not just bad manners. It's
evil. Look what he says in verse four.
Are you not impartial in yourselves? And you're become judges of evil
thoughts. In verse 9 he says, but if you
have respect of persons, you commit sin and are convinced,
convicted of the law as transgressors. Now that's, like I said, that's
not just bad manners. That's evil. That's a sin against
God. And I want to, from our text
this morning, give you seven reasons why showing respect of
persons is evil. Number one, showing respect of
persons is hurtful to the family of God. Twice in this passage,
in these nine verses we'll look at this morning, James says he's
talking to the brethren. Verse 1, he says, my brethren. Verse 5, he says, hearken, listen
to me, my beloved brethren. He's talking to the family of
God. So showing respect to persons is showing favoritism to someone
who's rich. We'll first look at someone who's
rich, an unbeliever, who's outside the church. Showing favoritism
to them just because they're rich at the expense of a poor
believer, of a poor member of the family of God. Now, you don't
need me to tell you that's not being a good brother or a good
sister. We ought to prefer our brethren, whether they're poor,
we ought to prefer our brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter
what, over any unbeliever. And that applies to every member
of the family of God. There's not one unimportant member
of God's family. Not one. And the illustration
I thought of is a baby. Now a baby contributes the least
to the family budget, don't they? Matter of fact, what all a baby
is, is a drain upon the family budget. They don't contribute
anything to the income of the family. But don't we all shower
that baby with the most love and attention? We do, don't we? So showing respect to persons
would be ignoring that baby's needs because a rich person stopped
by your house and you think you can get something from them.
See, that's evil, isn't it? It's evil. Trying to get something
that you want from that rich person at the expense of taking
care of the needs of that baby first. Well, that's evil. And our Lord warned us about
that, about mistreating his little ones. So we don't want to do
that. But this applies even to those who are in the, in the
family of God. We're never to treat one brother
or sister better than someone else just because they've got
physical gifts. Now it could be riches of this
world. It could be that they, that they
preach. I know we're to, we're to love
those who labor in the ward, love them for the work sake.
But now preachers ought not be treated any different than anybody
else. That's respect of persons. If you do that at the expense
of some other, you know, unnoticed child of God, the rich are not
to be given preferential treatment over the poor just because they're
rich. And that applies to every fleshly difference that you can
think of. I'll give you one. Men, and I'm not saying this
to women, you already know this, I'm saying this to men. are not
to be given preferential treatment over women just because they're
men, because we think men are better. And I can show you that
from the word of God. Galatians chapter 3. Galatians 3 verse 27. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew
nor Greek. There's neither bond nor free.
There's neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ. There's no difference in any
believer. We're all equal in Christ. We need him equally.
We're one in him. We're all equal in him. So showing
respect of persons would be hurtful to the family of God. Number
two, showing respect of persons is really to deny salvation by
faith. In verse 1, James says, My brethren,
have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory,
with respect to persons. Salvation is all of Christ. It's all in Him. It's all of
Him. It's all received by faith in
Him. Salvation is accomplished by
the faith of Christ. The faithfulness of Christ to
accomplish everything it took to save His people from their
sins by himself. And that salvation is received
through faith in Christ, without any of our works being added
to it, contributing to our salvation. Now you know this, you've heard
this so many times, everybody here knows this. Salvation is
not by anything we've done in the flesh. Nothing about our
flesh contributes to salvation. The only thing our flesh has
contributed to salvation is our need of a savior, our sin. Salvation
is not by our flesh. It's not by our heritage, who
we're related to. It's got nothing to do with our
flesh. Paul told the church at Colossae that in Christ there's
neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. But what? Christ is all and he's in all. It's all of him. So when we show
respect to persons because of their wealth or their power or
something that we're impressed about their flesh, what we're
denying is salvation. We're denying salvation by faith
alone because we are acting like they're better than someone else.
If we think a rich person, a powerful person is somehow more preferable
to a poor person, we've forgotten who we serve. Who is it we serve
here? James says, It's the Lord of
Glory. The Lord of Glory. The Lord of Glory is not impressed
by anything about our flesh. He's not impressed by anything
about us except what He put in us. What is the Lord of Glory
impressed by? Christ. He's impressed by faith
in Him. There are several times our Lord
stopped in talking with someone and He said, I've not seen so
great faith. Not even in Israel. He's impressed
with Christ. He's impressed by faith in Christ. Then let's be impressed with
the same thing. This is the very reason that
the Apostle Paul withstood the Apostle Peter to his face. Remember
Peter was there after the service having a having a, lost my train
of thought there, having a church fellowship dinner. And he's sitting
there enjoying the fellowship with the Gentiles, sitting there
eating, probably eating a ham. And then the Jews came in. They
came from Jerusalem and what did Peter do? He got up and left
those Gentiles and went over there and started sitting down
with the Jews and eating with them and fellowshipping with
them, giving the impression that the Jews sitting over here are
better than the Gentiles sitting over there. And Paul told Peter,
you've done wrong. By doing that, your actions denied
the gospel. Your actions denied that salvation
is by faith alone. You made it look like the Jews
deserve better treatment because they're related to Abraham. And
that's a denial of the gospel. That's denial that salvation
is all of Christ. And that's evil. It hurts the
members of the family of God. And it denies the gospel that
we preach. It denies the glory of Christ
our Savior. So if we treat someone better
because of something about their flesh, they got more money, more
power, more influence, more fame, whatever, we're falling from
grace because we think the flesh could contribute to this thing
in some way. Thirdly, showing respect to persons is to judge
by outward appearance, not in the heart. Verse 2, James says,
for if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring and goodly
apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and
you make this judgment, you're going to have more respect to
the man in the rich clothing. You're judging by outward appearance,
aren't you? And God hates that. Look over
at John chapter 7. Judging by outward appearance,
is not right judgment. And if we do that, we will almost
always make a mistake. John chapter 7 verse 24. Judge not according to appearance,
but judge righteous judgment. Judge righteous. Look upon the
heart. I know we can't look on each
other's heart, but now you can wait and you can watch somebody
long enough to see, is this a man or woman of faith? Are they faithful?
Do they love the gospel? Do they love the Lord? And let's,
oh God, help us be impressed with that. Not in what kind of
car somebody drives, what kind of house that they live in. And
I'll give you a couple examples of what would happen if we judged
by outward appearance. If you and I would have judged
by outward appearance, we, every one of us here, would have chosen
Esau, not Jacob, wouldn't we? And we'd have made a complete
mess of things. If we judged by outward appearance, we'd have
thought, seeing those two men praying in the temple, we'd have
thought the Pharisee was the one who knew the Lord. We'd have
been impressed with him, not that publican. What would our
Lord say? Who went down to his house justified
rather than the other? It's the poor man, wasn't it?
He looked upon the heart. If we judged based on appearance,
and we lived in the time of Israel before they had a king, every
one of us here would have wanted Saul to be our king, because
he had great big shoulders, and he stood head and shoulders above
everybody else. He had shoulders like Mitchell's. And he was so
tall, we thought, that's who I want to be, my king. If I was
in a fist fight, I want Mitchell to be with me with them shoulders.
That's what they thought about Saul. and we'd have made a complete
and utter mess of things, just like they did, because they judged
by appearance. And even believers can do this.
Did Samuel do it? Look at 1 Samuel 16. Samuel went
down to the house of Jesse. God told him, there's a son there.
I want you to anoint king of Israel. And Jesse started praying
to his sons, beginning at the oldest, in front of Jesse and
Jesse would see him and thought, Oh my, this man's a specimen. Surely this is the king of Israel.
And he was wrong because he was judging an outward appearance.
First Samuel 16 verse seven. But the Lord said unto Samuel,
look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature
because I've refused him for the Lord seeth not as man seeth. Aren't you glad? Man never would
have chosen somebody like me. Only God would do that. The Lord
seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looketh upon the heart. And eventually he waited
long enough and he found David. David was God's king because
David was the man after God's own heart. This matter is a heart
matter. Look at second Corinthians chapter
four. See, if we judge by outward appearance, We're using a different
standard to judge than God uses. And God has highly favored the
poor in spirit and the poor in this world, and we should too. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18. While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal. Whatever it is about somebody's
flesh you're impressed with, that's going to go away. It's
just temporary. but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Faith, a new heart, eternal life, those things are not seen, but
those things are eternal. And those are the things that
we ought to be impressed with, not the outward appearance, but
the heart. Right, fourthly, back in our
text, verse three, showing respect of persons shows a lack of trust
in the Lord. You have respect to him that
weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in
a good place. You take this best seat. And
you say to the poor, stand over there, or sit here under my footstool. You don't deserve as good a seat
as I do. Now, do you know why we would
do that? We would do that because we think about that rich man.
Oh, you come down here. We could use somebody like you
around here. We need rich men to get things done around here,
to pay for all the things we need to get done in this ministry.
We're trying to get you to stay here because we're giving you
preferential treatment. Not because we want you to hear
the message. Not because you love the Lord. No, we're trying
to get you here because we need people like you around here.
Now, we ought to treat people with hospitality. Visitors and
home folk alike, we ought to treat with hospitality. But now
that ought to be done out of love. I love for them, I care
for them and love for the Lord, not because we're trying to get
anything from them. And may God deliver us from doing that, from
trying to tailor our message to appeal to people in order
to get them to stay, especially the rich, because we think we
need you to help pay for this ministry. And if we do that,
all we're doing is showing a lack of trust in the Lord. That's
all that is. There's no other way to look
at it. Either the Lord's going to provide
or he's not. Either God's going to provide
or man's going to provide, which is. I'll give you an example,
real life example, true story. I know of a small congregation
and they had two millionaires in that congregation. And those
two millionaires caused the pastor so much problem and they finally
left because they finally realized this, we cannot control this
man. We cannot control the pastor. And everybody was so worried.
Oh my goodness, we've committed, you know, to all this ministries.
How are we going to keep paying for all this? Want me to tell
you what happened? True story. The offerings went
up. The Lord will provide. Now let's trust him. Let's not
lean on the arm of the flesh, but let's trust him. All right. Fifthly, showing respect to persons
is evil. It's evil. It's wicked. Because
it's thinking, I can choose better than God chooses. Verse five. Hearken, my beloved brethren,
hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith
and heirs of the kingdom, which he hath promised to them that
love him? Showing respect to persons is to deny God's absolute
sovereignty in election and that everything he has ever done is
exactly right. It's the best thing could have
been done. God has chosen few people out
of this world who are rich in the things of this world. Not many. He didn't say not any,
not many, not many mighty, not many noble, not many who are
rich in the things of this world as God called. Most of God's
elect that he's called are poor in this world. They just live
paycheck to paycheck. But this is talking about something
more important than that. God has not chosen anyone who's
rich spiritually, because that's self-righteous. God has chosen
the poor. He's chosen the poor in spirit. Now I know we all go through
our life thinking we're rich spiritually, thinking our righteousness
that we've produced, that self-righteousness is good enough, but before God
reveals himself to us, he's going to break us that. He's going
to reveal to us that we're spiritually bankrupt, that we don't have
anything to contribute. Those who are poor in spirit,
who can't find in themselves, no matter how hard they search
in themselves, they cannot find a reason in them that God would
choose them. Why would God choose me? Just because He would. Aren't
we thankful for God's electing love that you have to do something
in order to get it? No, but God gives it to His people freely.
So when we show respect to persons, we ignore the poor person, we
ignore somebody we're not impressed with, and we shower so much more
attention on this one we're impressed with. What we're doing is we're
by our actions showing we think we know better than God does.
God should have chosen this one. Look how much good he can do
for the church. I thought about this statement
before I put it in my notes, and I read it over this morning,
and I can tell you this is the honest truth from my heart. I
take every one of you, working men and women who believe God,
I take every one of you over a rich unbeliever every day of
the week and twice on Sunday. I really would. Because if the
Lord hadn't done a work of grace in that rich man's heart, poor
old Frank is going to become a goat herder, not feeding God's
sheep. I just, I take you working men and women every day of the
week. Your faith in Christ, your love for him, your commitment
to the gospel. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
And this is the whole motivation for this. Now think about this.
God did not choose you because you were so wonderful, did he?
If you think that, God hadn't revealed himself to you yet.
If you think, God, there's some reason God could have chosen
you over somebody else, God hadn't revealed himself to you yet.
God didn't choose his people because they were so wonderful.
God chose the people to save because he's wonderful. His name
is wonderful. God didn't choose you because
he saw he could get some advantage out of you to use for his church.
God chose His people in His grace because of the advantage that
He could give us. Faith in His Son. Life in His
Son. God didn't choose His people
because they're rich. He chose them just because He
would. He chose the poor in spirit so
He could give them glory. He could get the glory in making
them rich spiritually. James said, well, they're poor
in this world, but they're rich in faith. They're poor in this world,
but they're heirs. of everything that God has. God has made his people rich
in Christ. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich. Oh, how rich God's people are
in Christ. Then let's strive to be like
our Father, which is in heaven, in esteem highly, a broken and
a contrite heart. Let's esteem highly a heart of
faith in Christ, much more than possessions of this life. Because
those things, no matter how much you have of them, are not going
to profit anybody without faith in Christ. It'll all just be
lost without faith in Christ. The only evidence you have, you're
an heir of God. It's not how many fleshly material
things God has blessed you with. That's not how you can tell if
you're an heir of God. The only evidence you have of being an
heir of God is if he's giving you faith in Christ. Faith ought
to be highly esteemed, Vincent. Verse 6, showing respect of persons
is despising what God loves and it's loving what God hates. Verse
6, he says, but you've despised the poor and God loves the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and
draw you before the judgment seats? Generally speaking, it's
the rich and powerful people of this life who take advantage
of the poor people. The rich have advantages in courts
of law. They can hire better attorneys
or bribes or whatever, but they have the advantage. That's why
they like to do business there. It's where they got their own
court advantage. Well, then why would any poor believer want
to court their pleasure? Do you really think that you're
going to befriend this rich fellow so much that he's going to care
so much about you, he's not going to take advantage of you? Push
comes to shove, he will. If the Lord saves him, they won't
do that. But if he leaves them to themselves, that's just exactly
what they'll do. Paul told the church at Corinth,
don't you let this kind of behavior be named among you, that you're
all hauling one another before Gentile courts, before the courts
of the heathen trying to settle matters. Don't you even let that
be named among you. But that's what the wicked of
this world, the rich of this world do. And let's concern ourselves
much more with the judgment seat of Christ. Let's not be like
the rich of this world who want to haul you before the courts
and do these things. The best motivation for that
is this thought. Our Savior, rich, rich, did not
haul his people before the bar of God's justice. But instead,
he went before the bar of God's justice. After he was made sin
for them, after he was made guilty for them, And when he appeared
before the bar of God's justice, he suffered and died to put the
sin and the guilt of his people away. He did that for the poor
in spirit, those people that he loves. He didn't do that for
the self-righteous people who he hates. He did that for the
poor people that he loves. Then let's not let our actions
show that we're loving what God hates. Verse seven, do not they
blaspheme that worthy name by which you're called? Now normally
it's the rich and powerful, but you know, really it's anybody
in the flesh who thinks that they're spiritually rich in the
things that they've done. Those people blaspheme the name
of our God. They're so full of themselves,
they're so full of self-righteousness, they don't think they need God,
and they blaspheme His holy name. They blaspheme the name of Christ
by which you've been called. By which you who believe have
been saved. Well, then let's not try to get an alliance with
them thinking we need them somehow. We're not going to have an alliance
with someone who hates the blessed name of our Savior just because
we think we can get something from them. And remember this about the rich.
This thought's not original with me. Clay Curtis told me this,
but he's right. The rich are usually rich because of a reason. They hang on to their money and
don't give it away. You know what? Honestly now, we don't
need it. We don't need it. Unless God
does a work of grace and the Lord is going to provide. He
always has had it. And he always will. God's not
going to change. And I'll give you a perfect evidence of it.
The whole world was turned upside down by a few poverty stricken
fishermen. Who turned the world upside down,
who went out preaching, without any money in their pocket, and
they just preached Christ and turned this world upside down.
But there were some folks that supported them now. But you know
the folks who financially supported them? People who lost everything
that they owned because they believed the gospel. They lost
their jobs. They lost their houses. They were kicked out of the country
in which they were born, in which their family lived for generations.
They were kicked out of it, and they're homeless vagabonds. Those people support those few
preachers going out preaching the gospel and turn the world
upside down. Paul said they gave out of their
deep poverty. Brethren, God's not going to
fail. He's going to send out his gospel and he will always
make it effectual to his purpose. All right, last. Showing respect
of persons is a violation, a breaking of the royal law of love per
se. If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But
if you have respect to persons, you commit sin and are convinced
and convicted of the law as transgressors. Now, what is this royal law?
What's the law of God our King? It's the law that the King has
given us, the commandment he's given us. The royal law is to
love God and to love our brethren. By this shall all men know you're
my disciples, that you have loved one to another. This is my commandment,
that as I have loved you, you also love your brethren. The
royal law is to be loving, is to be kind, is to be gracious,
just like our Savior's been to us. So to show preferential treatment
to the rich, whether they're a believer or whether they're
unbeliever, no matter what, to show preferential treatment to
the rich, and to despise the poor, that's not loving at all. despising the poor is not loving.
And James says, if you do that, you've committed sin. And we'll
look at this next week in verse 10. If you committed this sin
against the royal law of God, you're guilty of the whole law.
Defending one point is to be guilty of all. I want to be sure I'm saying
this right. Breaking God's law, sinning against
God is heinous. It's heinous. But breaking the
royal law of love, is worse than breaking the law of Moses. I'll
tell you why I say that. The law of Moses, who is that
given to? The rebels. It's given to a stiff-necked
people who had to have the law of God or they'd turn this world
into hell on earth. He gave them, he had to give
them the law. He had to give them the law to show them their
complete and utter sinfulness, to show them their rebellion
so that they look for Christ. But to break the royal law of
love, that's a very serious business. Who's the royal law of love given
to you? That law is given to those who Christ loves. That
law is given to those who claim to love Christ. Breaking the
law, breaking the law of God is bad in every instance. But when I sin against you, when
I sin against God's people, I violated God's love to me. I violated
our love to one another as brethren. And that's worse. To violate
your trust, to be rude to you because I think I can get something
from somebody else. See what I'm saying? I don't
know if I'm saying this right, but it makes it worse to violate
love and trust. It's worse than just breaking
a commandment given to rebels. So we show that we love God and
that we trust Him and we love Him. We love His people freely,
regardless of any fleshly circumstances or difference, but we love them
freely because they're in love with the same person we're in
love with, Christ our Savior. All right. Hope that'll be a
blessing to you.