Sermon Tone Analysis

! /Scripture: James 2:1-13/

!  

!

The Sin */(2:1/**/)/*

 

Don’t show favoritism.

Are there certain people in your life that you have no time for?

Why might that be?

I have always believed that we should all believe in someone else that no one else believes in.

Barnabas did that for Paul when no one else in the world trusted him.

Jesus involved himself in the lives of people that were shunned by others.

His brother James saw that happen.

He saw those that were gathered by his brother.

Hardly a rabbinical school.

The challenge is to treat all men alike – and all men as we would treat ourselves.

Have you done that this week?

Have you ever experienced the pain of rejection?

I believe that Christ would seek out the people that we have rejected.

He has little time for the self-sufficient, the proud.

There are things that just don’t translate well into the spiritual world

 

!

The Scenario */(2:2-4)/*

 

People come to church looking for:

 

q       Hope

 

q       Mercy

 

q       Forgiveness

 

q       Acceptance

 

When one person is blessed we are all blessed in some way.

Likewise, when one is rejected, we are all rejected.

!

The Senselessness */(2:5-13)/*

 

q       *God has chosen the outcasts of this world to work in and through.

He has a special eye for the poor.

Every once in a while others do too.

*

 

Was there ever a more generous man or a more vigorous champion of the downtrodden than Jonas Hanway.

Children were the focus of his philanthropy.

In 18th century Britain they were often mistreated particularly when they were poor or homeless, so Jonas Hanway became a governor of Foundling Hospital.

He sought to remedy the abuse of chimney sweep apprentices.

In founding the Marine Society, he helped to cloth poor children and prepare them for secure military careers.

And yet with disadvantaged young people, only began Jonas Hanway's benevolence.

He agitated for and won numerous reforms in the public work houses.

He was among the founders of the Magdalene Hospital, the purpose of which was to care for and rehabilitate repentant prostitutes.

He was active in the Misericordia Hospital which sought to treat venereal disease among the poor.

He campaigned for the more humane treatment of prisoners, and toward the public's spiritual welfare he became a strong advocate for the establishment of Sunday schools.

It would be impossible to enumerate all of the good causes promoted by Jonas Hanway, and yet he was a despised man.

Everywhere that Jonas Hanway went derision followed.

His appearance on the street never failed to create a sensation.

Men elbowed each other uttering their contempt aloud.

Women exchanged disdainful glances.

Young ruffians jeered and threatened him.

Coachmen raced their vehicles near him hoping to frighten him or at least to spatter him with gutter mud.

For the citizens of London, the very people whose lives he had so tirelessly labored to improve, hated Jonas Hanway.

For the last 30 years of his life he was treated contemptuously regarded as effeminate, not because he was, but because of a habit he acquired during his travels in the Far East:  A habit which European society deemed unacceptable for gentlemen.

Shortly before Jonas Henway died, the people of London forgave him.

And by that time many men had actually begun to imitate his effeminate custom.

As a matter of fact there's a monument in Westminster Abbey to Jonas Hanway, presumably because of his extraordinary philanthropy.

And yet you will always remember him as the man who risked his otherwise wonderful reputation by promoting a Far Eastern tradition that centered around a strange looking, however utilitarian invention.

For you see Jonas Hanway, the friend of the poor, the defender of the defenseless, each and every day risked the abuse and derision of his fellow men by carrying with him through the streets of London a devilish device known as the umbrella.

-- Paul Harvey

 

I believe that God blesses those who are a blessing to others.

It may not always be dollars for dollars but I do believe that when he finds someone who is willing to be a good steward of his resources, he keeps the resources coming.

I think that’s true within the church as well.

I was hungry and you formed a humanities club and discussed my hunger.

I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.

I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so close to God; but I am still very hungry, and lonely, and cold.

\\ !! The Cold Within

 

Six men trapped by happenstance,

In black and bitter cold,

Each one possessed a stick of wood,

Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire needed logs,

The first man held his back.

For of the faces 'round the fire

He noticed one was black.

The next man looking cross the way

Saw one not of his church.

And he wouldn't bring himself to give

The fire, that stick of birch.

The third man sat in tattered clothes,

He gave his coat a hitch.

Why should he put his log to use

To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought

Of the wealth he had in store.

And how to keep what he had earned

From the lazy shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge

As the fire passed from sight.

For all he saw in the stick of wood

Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group

Did nothing except for gain.

Giving only to those who gave

Was how he played the game.

So their logs held tight in death's still grasp,

Was proof of human sin.

They didn't die from the cold without

They died from the cold within.

\\  

q       *When we exalt people based on standards other than godly ones we honor those who many times have no regard for us and sometimes even evil intentions.*

This was the paradoxical paradigm that James was addressing.

He was pointing out the fact that they deferred to the wealthy when they were actually abused by them.