Love your Neighbor

Scripture

James 2:1–13 NIV

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Pray.

Intro and review

Growing up I struggled with Christianity.....

Creed CD

James is serious about obedience, not because “it is what you are supposed to do” but because this is the application of faith in your life.

Last time we talked about James’ declaration that we cannot just be hearers of the word but we must be doers of the word. This is how we truly accept the word that is planted in us in Jesus Christ. It is not until we do the word....it is not until we walk in it, do we truly believe it.

Stagnant faith is a consequence of shallow belief.

As a matter of fact, he says that if you do not do the word then you my be deceived into thinking that things are all good. When we do not live out our faith, we can become convinced that your way is God’s way, that your desire is God’s desire.

According to James....

One of the ways that it is obvious that we have been deceived is when we discriminate against others. When we look down on others.

Passage

To highlight this, he tells one of his very descriptive visuals.

James describes, likely the church setting, and someone comes into the room dressed to the 9s....wearing Sunday’s best, and then a few minutes later someone comes in that stinks and has holes in their clothes.

If we were to take the first person....and usher them down to the front, maybe in the right seat that they might get on the livestream....you know, pretty person.

But the other, we told them they could go and watch on our TV back stage…or we walked them up to the abandoned balcony....or how about less drastic, we sat them down in an empty section. You know, dont want to worry any one else around them.

And what about the rest of us, we enter into the space and carefully subconsciously sit in other places rather than next to them.

James says, you have shown favoritism.

This is not the way of Christ. Doug Moo:

James’s way of putting the matter makes clear that discriminating against people is inconsistent with true faith in Christ.1

1 Moo, D. J. (2000). The letter of James (p. 100). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.

Serving another church and someone started coming to church after many many years.....

Not only is this unhelpful, but it is dangerous for others, it misrepresents Christ, and is an indicator of our own deception.

Three important themes that are covered in this text:

You are Poor

Not loving the poor is your loss

Our Witness is False

You are Poor

That very first verse is important....

“Brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Jesus Christ” must not show favoritism....

This greek word translated to favoritism is close, denotes partiality and is only used in 4 places in NT, two of those having to do with judgement and 2 of them having to do with God’s salvation. In all 4, God is being described as seeing both Jew and Gentile, Slave and Master, on an even playing field. The worldly descriptions of power and status mean nothing in God’s eyes...

Years ago I was in Haiti and we were travelling from door to door. Describe climate and living conditions. Using hygiene as a way to make connections. Share gospel and try and tell people about the local church.

The person we were talking to and witnessing to was a young mother. She said she went to church once and an usher sat her in the back because she wasnt dressed nice enough. You see the church in Haiti has been brought over from America in many cases and they have adopted a lot of things......

But I was taken back by this because there is literally no wealth in this village where the church lives. I turned to one of the leaders with the church and asked him what he wore to church, he said a suit....I asked him where he got it, he said he found in someones luggage that was left from a visiting team. This man had no more means that anyone else.

Poor person dressing up like they have more than the next.

Listen, that is what we do on Sunday morning in many different ways. We dress up real nice and hide the poverty that exists. We wear masks so as to not be seen for who we really are. The truth is we are all poor apart from Jesus Christ.

We love the widow because we are alone without him

we love the orphan because we were lost apart from Jesus

To look down on someone else is to very quickly forget who we are and our dependence on Jesus.

One of the best books I have ever read.... The Same Kind of Different As Me

Denver Moore is a homeless man. Debbie and Ron begin to serve the homeless in DFW. Debbie is the one that brings along her husband. What they find is that Denver begins to teach them about God in beautiful ways

“I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn't ever gon' have no kind a' future. But I found out everybody's different - the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home.” ― Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together

Same kind of different as me....

Not Loving the Poor is Your Loss

In the next section, James then turns the point slightly. Making it clear that this is not just some time of philanthropic move.

James 2:5 NIV

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

two points here:

First, it is the poor, it is the humble, its is those who have little in the eyes of the world that God is raising up. In showing favoritism we are literally turning our backs from the ones that God is raising up.

When we turn our backs on the poor, we turn our backs on the ones that God has specifically chosen.

Secondly, we are missing the power and presence of God, because that is where he is.

Where the poor in Spirit, where the impoverished, where the persecuted, where the marginalized is....that is where Jesus is.

I think too many of us are living and missing the work of God....it is probably because we are spending little time in places where he is.

Hear me church, James is not trying to turn us into the greatest non-profit in the world....he is saying that when we go into these places, we experience the presence of God in ways we wouldnt otherwise.

Those that have nothing else but him, teach us about prayer, about dependence.

Starrville Methodist

We Give False Witness

Finally, to not love the poor is to give false witness to God. If God is for the marginalized, if God is for the least, the last, and the lost....to not love them is to misrepresent God to the world.

Douglas Moo:

God, the NT suggests, delights especially to shower his grace on those whom the world has discarded and on those who are most keenly aware of their own inadequacy. James calls on the church to embody a similar ethic of special concern for the poor and the helpless.

1 Moo, D. J. (2000). The letter of James (p. 108). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.

When we value our achievements and hold tightly to all we have, we are saying that what we have is ours and not Gods.

It is as ludicrous as a 7 ft person celebrating a dunk on the playground basketball court.

“Love is the language Jesus spoke, and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire the taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing, and we are called to learn it and practice it now so as to be ready when the conductor brings down his baton. It is the resurrection life, and the resurrected Jesus calls us to begin living it with him and for him right now. Love is at the very heart of the surprise of hope: people who truly hope as the resurrection encourages us to hope will be people enabled to love in a new way” – N.T. Wright, “Surprised by Hope”

To love without favoritism is to begin practicing the language of the resurrection.

Church, I dont want us to only be a church that does fly-by mission, lets live it out with our lives.

Mission, not Philanthropy

Let’s not be philanthropists, let’s live out mission

my best friends are in a foster/adoption journey. This will be messy and hard. They heard from God years ago that they needed to downsize. They sold their house and moved into a smaller home. They jumped head first into foster care and began caring for the marginalized. They faced disappointment over and over again as they were denied different children they were hoping to care for.

Now they are getting a placement. The child’s profile is daunting. They have small children, all of this will be hard. But they are right where God is in this. They are walking in their identity knowing that they were orphans and Jesus saved them. They are walking in the presence of God because that is where he is. They are walking in power because that is God’s desire. They are witnessing to the world the mission of God.