The Royal Law Part 1

The Gospel has been called scandalous.

Scandalous.

I looked up scandalous in a thesaurus looking for synonyms of the word; words that mean the same thing, and here’s what I found.

Synonyms to scandalous are:

Words that mean the same thing.

Disgraceful

Shocking

Outrageous

Monstrous

Criminal

Wicked

Shameful

Atrocious

Appalling

Terrible

Dreadful

Disgusting

Abhorrent

Despicable

Those are all synonyms for scandalous.

says that the cross is offensive.

And that word for offensive is scandalon.

Scandalous.

To make someone stumble.

What could make the gospel so offensive?

Why would the cross of Christ be offensive, or scandalous to anyone?

The reason for the hatred of the Cross is it reduces all of us to the same level.

The Cross of Christ is the great leveler.

It doesn’t say any of us need Jesus less.

That there are some who only need a little bit of forgiveness.

The Gospel says all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God.

The Gospel attacks our pride.

It humbles us.

At least this is how it should be.

But over the years Christians have wrongly:

Acted as if there are different classes of Christians.

They’ve brought in the racism and divisions from the world, and introduced them even to the church.

At times Christians have acted as if there is one gospel for one type of person, and in order for someone else to be saved, he needs a different gospel.

A gospel for rich people and a gospel for poor people.

A gospel for white people, and a gospel for black people.

Today we come to , and we learn three things.

We learn that:

This is an impartial faith.

The church is to be impartial.

And our Savior is impartial.

Let’s read this together, :1-7.

We begin with The Impartial Faith.

James begins by saying, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”

Before we talk about being impartial, we should talk about the faith that we hold.

I remember sitting in a Bible study one time, and we looked at , the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

Let’s look at this parable.

.

Read .

I remember reading the parable and then discussing it together.

We talked about this foreman, who went out at 9 and hired a group of people to work in his vineyard, and promised them a days wage.

Then at noon, he again hired some people, and again promising to pay them a days wage.

Then at about 2 in the afternoon, he hired another group of people to work in his vineyard.

At the end of the day, he gathered all his laborers together and paid them exactly what they were promised, a days wage.

It says that the people who were hired first grumbled.

They thought it wasn’t fair.

They thought that they were taken advantage of because they were paid exactly what the people who were hired at the end of the day were paid.

But foreman responded to these workers and said, “I did nothing wrong. I paid you exactly what we agreed to.”

I remember discussing this and someone in the group said, “Yea that’s not fair.”

She completely missed the point.

This was a story about the grace of God.

All of us who come to Christ receive the same reward.

God is impartial.

Regardless of how long you are in Christ.

You come to Christ early in life, you come to Christ on the deathbed, same destination.

Eternal life.

Glory.

Adoption.

This is an impartial faith.

God looks at all of us the same.

Think about how the Bible describes mankind.

says that we, male and female, are created in the image of God.

All people are created in the image of God.

God didn’t create races of people.

He created people.

His original intention was for people to have dominion over the earth.

His intention was the same for all people, to have dominion and to rule over His creation.

God created mankind with the same standard, and that standard was obedience.

He placed Adam in the Garden and He said, eat anything you want, just not from that tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

You know what happened, Adam ate the forbidden fruit.

When Adam fell, all of us fell with him.

The result is that all people need a Savior.

Regardless of race or sex.

Regardless of how much money you make, or how much money you don’t make.

All people need a Savior.

And the people that God is saving - He shows no discrimination.

Fast forward in your Bibles to .

Paul is instructing Timothy in his theology and his ministry.

Look again at the impartial Gospel, this impartial faith as Paul presents it.

Verses 1-2, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

Who do we pray for?

He says all people.

Then he mentions kings and people who are in high positions.

These are typically the people that you are separated from.

You don’t know any kings.

Typically, we pray for people like us.

But Paul tells us to pray for those different from us.

Who do we pray for?

All people.

All people including those who are different, kings and people in high positions.

The point of verses 1-2 is that we pray for all types of people.

Then move on down to verses 3-4.

“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

He’s just said we pray for all types of people.

Now we see who God is saving.

Who does He save?

Verse 4 says all people.

He’s not saying that God is saving every single person.

And we know that it’s not saying that God even wishes that every single person be saved.

In the context, we are talking about all types of people.

God isn’t just saving the common man; people like you and I.

He also saves the rich man.

The royal man.

God is saving all types of people.

And how does God save?

Verses 5 and 6 answer that question.

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”

There’s just one mediator, Jesus Christ.

This one mediator is the one who saves the rich man, and the poor man.

There isn’t a special mediator for kings, and there isn’t a special mediator for the peasants.

Just one mediator.

This levels the playing field.

He saves the person with lots of sins.

He saves the person with few sins.

But it’s the same payment.

The same mediator.

Jesus Christ.

That’s why we preach Christ crucified.

And we preach it to all men.

This is the faith that we hold to.

Race doesn’t fit into it.

Place of birth doesn’t fit into it.

Color of skin doesn’t fit into it.

All that matters is Christ.

The Lord of glory.

This is our starting point.

I want you to start here.

God doesn’t tell you to become better, earn more money, and then He’ll consider saving you.

It starts with you are a sinner.

And He saves you.

It starts with all have fallen short of the glory of God.

explains that both the Jew and the Gentile, the religious and the nonreligious, the one raised in church and the one not raised in church, need a Savior.

This faith is impartial.

How can we think that that there are second class citizens in the kingdom of heaven?

You can’t.

God is saving all kinds of people, from all over the world, through the one man, the mediator, Jesus Christ.

This is the faith that James says we hold.

If we hold an impartial faith, then we must be an Impartial Church.

I told you that the Gospel is the great leveler.

It puts us all on the same plane.

Saved by grace, through faith, by Christ alone.

Yet, over the centuries, we have seen the church divide, and break up into divisions.

I’m not talking about denominations.

I’m talking about within churches themselves.

Churches divide.

They develop spiritual snobbery.

James gives us an example of that in our text.

It’s also interesting, because it describes very early Christianity.

He’s writing to Jewish Christians.

At this time they still met in synagogues.

They weren’t thrown out of the synagogues yet.

If you remember, in 586bc, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, the temple is destroyed, and the Jews were dispersed, they were sent into exile throughout the known world.

Since they couldn’t attend the temple anymore, they built synagogues.

These synagogues were the houses of worship for the scattered Jews.

Scripture would be read, and prayers would be prayed.

The synagogues were squarish buildings that faced Jerusalem.

The Jews were always looking forward to returning to Zion.

They were square buildings.

Along the walls of the buildings would be benches, but most of the people, if they sat, they would sit on the floor.

Pews weren’t invented till the 13th century.

So people either stood, or sat on the floor.

And handful of people would bring a footstool.

They would sit on a bench, then place their feet on a footstool.

James tells this hypothetical example, but it’s something that is very possible, and if you watch, it continues today.

You see his illustration in verses 2-3.

He says suppose a man comes in.

We assume he’s rich from what he’s wearing.

He says he has a gold ring.

Literally, it reads he has a gold finger.

The language might mean he has many gold rings on his fingers.

He’s wearing fine clothing.

The Greek describes the clothes as radiant.

They are bright.

The same words to describe a shining star at night, or a brilliantly bright angel in the sky.

He walks in and he’s proud.

I see this with our little boys who have shoes that light up.

When they step, the shoes flash different colors.

You see their pride as they walk into the church.

They walk, or skip, or jump, just so everyone will see their shoes.

And they are proud of those shoes that light up.

This rich man walks in.

He wants everyone to see his rings, and his fancy clothes.

He’s powerful.

He’s prestigious.

Then James describes another man.

This is a poor man.

He’s in shabby clothing.

The word for shabby is found back in , “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness ...”

The word filthiness that was describing sins, it is the same word to describe this man’s clothing.

It’s a waxy, greasy dirty.

It has a scent.

It stinks.

When the rich man comes in, an usher in the synagogue, brings him to one of those fine benches on the walls.

A good spot.

But to the poor man, it’s quite the opposite.

You stand over there.

Get far away from me.

I don’t want to smell you.

I don’t want to see you.

Out of sight.

Out of mind.

Or, “sit down at my feet.”

I told you some people would bring in footstools.

Literally, it’s sit by my footstool, or even under my footstool.

He could have offered the footstool to sit on.

But no.

It’s sit by my footstool.

Sit under my footstool.

Let me put my feet on you.

This is partiality.

James is describing looking at someone and making a decision.

To judge someone purely by how they look.

To make a glancing decision.

You hold the faith, but you treat brothers and sisters in the church differently.

It’s to look down on some believers, and to show favor to others.

We justify this behavior don’t we?

Sometimes the thought creeps in.

If we could get one good rich family in the church, imagine how much they’d give?

I bet they know lots of people.

I bet they know other people.

If we could minister to rich people, then we could be a church of rich people.

And if we were a church of rich people, then we’d be a rich church.

Sometimes we think that if we could get some influential people into the church, then we’d be more successful at preaching the Gospel.

People listen to cool people.

If we could have cool people here, then we’d be able to influence more people.

Or we don’t want to offend the rich person.

Because if we offend him and he leaves, there goes the money.

But we can offend the poor person, because he doesn’t give anyway.

James calls this kind of thinking and behavior evil.

Verse 4, “have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

This kind of prejudice, this kind of discrimination is wicked, it’s evil.

Why is it so bad?

6 Reasons why partiality, or prejudice is evil.

1. It assumes that God needs us.

It assumes that somehow God’s hands are tied.

Poor God, He’d like to reach the world.

But He can’t, because there’s not enough rich and cool people in the church.

We saw this a couple weeks ago when looking .

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

He created everything that there is.

He is not lacking anything.

When Paul stood at the Aeropagus.

He had stood in front of all these philosophers, and people who worshipped these false gods.

He had this opportunity to really sell them the kingdom of God.

To utilize them.

Imagine if these brilliant philosophers turned to Christ.

God could use them.

God could use their brainpower to enlarge His kingdom.

Here’s what Paul said in , “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

He doesn’t need us.

He saves us for His own pleasure.

He saves us because He likes showing kindness.

He saves us because it glorifies Himself.

We are saved to serve Him.

says that we are His workmanship for good works prepared beforehand.

He saves us to serve.

But He doesn’t need us to serve.

We get to serve.

We get to work for Him.

God isn’t up in heaven, and thinking, “I could do really great things down there, if only I had better resources.”

In fact, it’s the poor resources that He uses.

He prides Himself in using the worst.

, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

No one ever has any right to think they are better than anyone else … because look who God chosen.

The weakest.

2. Which leads us to the second reason it’s evil, it assumes God chose wrongly.

Look at verse 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?”

He’s chosen us.

Those who are in His Kingdom are handpicked.

That was the beauty of Israel.

God didn’t choose the biggest or best nation.

He started with two people, just Abraham and Sarah.

And He multiplied them.

says, “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

It should be a frightening thing to go against the love of God.

To think that God is loving wrongly.

3. The third reason why its evil to be impartial is because it mocks the gospel and the work that Christ has done for us.

Consider these verses:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

“Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Those verses all describe the work that God has done in the church, and how He views you.

God does not look at your clothing, or the color of your skin.

Instead, He sees Christ.

He sees Christ dying for sins.

He sees Christ’s perfect righteousness.

And to see anything else … is to ignore the work of Christ.

4. The fourth reason why its evil to be impartial is because it glorifies the temporary.

It’s a vanity to give special treatment to people based off of what they have now.

In Jesus said, ““Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

These possessions that we have, they are temporary, they are limited to this lifetime only.

As a world, we’ve been experiencing that these past couple weeks.

This coronavirus is attacking all of our strength.

The coronavirus is attacking everything that we have built up.

We boasted in our economy.

The stock markets have crashed.

We boasted in our society and culture.

Everything is cancelled.

School, universities, sports seasons.

It’s all gone.

In fact, I praise God that we are small, because we still get to have church together.

We boasted in our health.

And this little virus, can’t even see it, is taking the things we are so proud of.

Jesus says don’t build up treasures on earth that moth and rust destroy, because they can disappear in a moment.

That moment has arrived.

The real treasure in life is foudn in Christ.

The real hope is in Christ.

By the way, let’s be different from the world around us.

Let’s not panic.

Remember what we have.

James says that God has chosen the poor to be “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him.”

And no virus can take that from you.

This is eschatological.

We have riches in Christ.

We have a kingdom that we will receive.

Notice, we are not yet in that kingdom.

Christ’s kingdom hasn’t come.

But when it comes, we will be heirs of it.

says that we have every spiritual blessing.

says that there are riches for all who call on the name of Christ.

We can use our current crisis to the glory of God.

It’s a reminder that the things of this life can come and go rather quickly.

The treasures in Christ remain forever.

Someone recently asked me how we can have joy when everything is taken from us.

You know how I find joy?

Remembering what I have in Christ.

The other day, I was praying through .

is the Psalm that talks about deer panting for water.

I was especially concerned and heavy hearted over a couple of things.

Praying for some people.

And then I prayed , “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

I have nothing to worry about.

Don’t I believe in the sovereignty of God?

Don’t I trust that He is Lord and on His throne?

Yes.

We look to each other, and celebrate not what they have, but who they are in Christ.

I look at people who might look different from me, and I praise God, because in Christ we are in the family of God.

We are equal.

5. And the fifth reason why its evil to be impartial, or prejudiced is because it dishonors those who Christ has honored.

Some think that this passage might be describing a courtroom.

Some think that this wasn’t just a worship service, but a legal proceeding.

They say that because of the legal language throughout the text, that continues on into the next section.

I’m not sure about that.

But we do see that in verse 6, when you are impartial, when you give special treatment to another image bearer because of what they have at the expense of another … you dishonor the poor.

We are to love what God loves.

Hate what God hates.

But to dishonor those that God has shown honor too, is to go against His will.

6. And the last reason why it’s evil to show partiality is found in the final rhetorical question found in verse 7.

“Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?”

It’s blasphemy.

How you treat others says something about Christ.

Discrimination, racism, unjust prejudice, are not just social evils, they theological evils.

Because they blaspheme Christ.

There is a temptation to show preferential treatment to people.

To think that our worship services are for people.

And we try to impress people.

We try to impress them with our music.

Impress them with our building.

Impress them with our comfort.

And in the process, we ignore the weakest, the outcast, and the lost.

We dishonor them.

What has Christ called us to do?

To hold to the faith without partiality.

To remember that God is saving all types of people, with a single mediator Jesus Christ.

Therefore we see and serve one another equally.

When you see people, what do you see?

Do you judge them by the color of their skin?

The car they drive?

Even the sin that they have?

There is no one that is so bad that God can’t save them.

Therefore, let’s be the kindest and most evangelistic people there are.

The Impartial Savior