9/6/20 James 2:1-13 “Warnings and Angels”

04 Sep 9/6/20 James 2:1-13 “Warnings and Angels”

9/6/20   James 2:1-13    “Warnings and Angels”

I think that it is interesting how sometimes after I give a sermon on a certain topic, that I will open the paper, or hear on the radio or be involved in a conversation that is the exact point of the sermon.  Just recently I read in a so-called newspaper about a man who thought that the Bible can be interpreted in different ways that are dangerous.  It is dangerous to consider divorce to be wrong because so many people today get divorced.  He gave other instances and agreed with the ruling of several mainline churches.  I’m not going to open that can of worms today but I will say this much.  We talked about this very thing last Sunday as we began our study from James.  I will repeat what I said last week for those of you who missed it.  If the Bible says something that offends you or that you think is offensive, then you are probably doing something wrong.  You are probably sinning.  The Bible is always right.  One of the goals of the Bible is to tell us that we are doing things wrong and we cannot fix those things on our own accord.  We need help and that help comes to us in the form of Jesus Christ.  But Jesus Christ is of no help to us if we don’t think that we are ever wrong.  And this is what many in our society today think.  However, we all sin and fall short.  This is why we need Jesus.  As we continue our look at James we are going to find that there are ways that we fall short that we don’t think of very often.  Then let’s see if maybe we can enlist the help of Jesus Christ to help us be less judgmental.

I would like us to begin by going back, in some cases to our childhood, to when we were in school.  Does anyone remember the teacher’s pet?  This would be the person who got to do special things usually because they had done well at something.  Do you remember how you used to dislike them?  There would be a time in life when no one liked the teacher’s pet.  Well, I have a big confession to make to you today.  Often times I would end up being a teacher’s pet.  This was something that I never strived to obtain.  I never wanted to be the teacher’s pet because then no one would like me.  I hated being the teacher’s pet.  The only time it was ok was when my coach used to get me out of study hall to play ping pong with him.  I’m sure that teachers have a totally different slant on this whole thing.  But generally speaking, no one likes the concept of teacher’s pet including the person being the pet.

As we begin today, James is talking about favoritism of a little different twist but not really.  He begins by telling us not to choose favorites and he tells us a story.  He tells of the rich man who comes to church dressed in a three-piece custom-made suit that reeked of money which was made by a fancy clothier in New York City.  He has jewelry hanging everywhere.  His hair is cut absolutely perfect.  Everything about this man tells us that he is very rich.

There is another man who comes in at about the same time only this man smells bad, has clothes that are well worn and tattered and he is dirty.  The first man is ushered to the coveted seats, in the back of the church and everyone tries to talk to him.  The second man is ushered to the front pew where I can keep an eye on him in case, I have to ask him to leave.  Of course, I am telling this story in a more modern sense so that maybe we can relate to it a little better.  What we have done here is discriminated or shown favoritism of the rich over the poor.  James is telling us that we have become judges with evil thoughts.  We have talked before about why we don’t have to judge anything.  The Bible has already done this on many things and we only need to follow the Bible.  But we still do things like this and it should upset us just as all sides of being the teacher’s pet are upsetting.

Let’s take a look at a couple of reasons why we shouldn’t be favoring the rich over the poor.  Hopefully, we will see that if there is to be any favoritism it will be of the poor over the rich.  Let’s take a quick look at some of the people who God chose to carry on his work.  I think of King David when he was a shepherd and shepherds were not looked upon very favorably.  God also chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus and be one of the most important women in history.  This was at a time when women had no place anywhere except in the homes as a mother and worker.  We also see who was chosen to be disciples.  Some of these men were poor fishermen who were also looked down upon in their society.  Matthew was a tax collector and was hated.  If we look at some of the prophets of the Old Testament, we will find that many had very low beginnings.

The point that I am trying to make here is that God used a lot of poor and lowly people to get His message across.  However, God did not favor the rich or poor as He also used rich people as can be seen in King Solomon.  God will use anyone and everyone just so their heart is in the right place.  God found something amazing when He set things up in the world.  He found that poor people are much more receptive to His word than rich people.

Have you ever wondered why the people in China and Africa are so receptive to Jesus?  One of the main reasons is that they don’t have much and what they do have is always at risk to being lost to other tribes, governments or religions.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only one where it gives people hope.  It is the only religion in the world to give hope that doesn’t have to be earned.  People of these areas and others look to Jesus for hope.  The children look to Jesus for hope.

It is very hard for most of us to know what it is like to live without hope.  I have been there.  I know what it is like to live with no money or job or chances of either.  I have lived when I couldn’t afford to buy groceries.  I praise the Lord that He never gave up on me.  I praise the Lord that He was there that night so many years ago when I asked Him to live in my heart.  I have never felt such relief as I did when He first entered into my life.  Everything changed and suddenly there was a peace that I had never known before.  Many of us don’t know about these things because we have spent all our lives in the church.  This is great.  I envy you.  But there are people just down the street or road from here who are in this same predicament that I used to be in.  Reach out to them with the love of Jesus Christ.  Help them find the peace that only comes through Christ.

James isn’t done quite yet.  He tells us that it is the rich who exploit us.  It is the rich who drag us to court and it is the rich who slander the name of Jesus Christ.  Strong words for them and us.  Just think for a minute how true these words really are.  It is the rich who exploit us.  It is the rich who own businesses who go to third world countries and pay poor people less than a dollar a day to make all kinds of things we use every day.  We in turn call these people good at business.  Children are forced to make many of the athletic shoes that we all wear.  Look at what you buy in the grocery store or any other store and see where it was made.  Now don’t get me wrong.  We should be helping these places but we should not be using them so that our country and our businesses can make billions.  This is not only bad business; it is also not what Jesus wants us to do.

James tells us that instead of this we are to keep the royal law found in Scripture.  This is the second part of the greatest commandment.  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I don’t think that there are any of us who would be willing to work for wages that will not even put enough food on the table for our families and I don’t think that we should be supporting companies that do this.  And yet we call this good business.  This is not loving our neighbors.  Rioting in our streets for some fictitious reason is not loving our neighbors!

The stock market is really a big obstacle when it comes to treating our brothers and sisters in third world countries as equals.  These companies who build plants in foreign lands do so with the idea of increasing profits.  What easier way is there to increase profits than to cut labor costs by 80%?  Now they can make lots of money and their stockholders are very happy.  And who are the stockholders?  You and I are as we invest in the market whether it be by mutual funds or stock.  We cannot just be pointing to big business when we actually drive big business.  I wish that there was some way to stop this exploitation of others.  When we point at all the things that big business does wrong, three fingers are pointing back at us.

Now James comes down real hard on us.  He is telling us that one sin is as bad as the next.  I think that we have talked about that a little before.  For God there is no hierarchy of sins.  In the eyes of God, all sin is bad and He hates all sin.  It is therefore hard to say that one sin is worse than the next one.  James is telling us that if we stumble and sin, which we all do, then we are guilty of all sins.  One sin will blacken us before God.  So, if we are favoring the rich, then we are sinning against God by not following the royal law.

This is hard for us to understand here in the 21^st century.  If you ask the 75% of Americans who claim to be Christian, many disagree with this.  Many Americans think that we have a God of love and harmony.  We have a God who only does the things that we consider to be good.  They do not want to look at the truth side of God and see what they are doing wrong.  The astonishing thing here is that the truth will set you free, but people don’t know this.

Now I could go into many examples here but I would like to tell you what happened a few years ago when the ELCA was to vote on their social statement on human sexuality.  They were going to decide if homosexuality was ok for their denomination.  This took place at about 2 PM on Aug. 19, 2009 in Minneapolis.  This measure passed by one vote in an underhanded evil way.  At about 2:20 PM there was a tornado that struck downtown Minneapolis.  There was no forecast of this and the types of clouds in the area didn’t look at all like tornado clouds.  It struck without any warning.  There were no sirens or alarms.

This tornado hit the area and the building where this conference was taking place.  Many of the things outside the building that were for the conference were destroyed.  The Lutheran Church across the street which was their church headquarters was hit and the cross on the steeple was destroyed.  This happened within minutes of their vote to ok homosexual unions.  If you want to read more about this, just look up tornados in the Minneapolis area and you will find that this really happened.  I first heard of this on the internet and I checked it out because it seems that 75% of the things you get from the net are not true, but this one checked out.  You can draw your own conclusions about all of this.

What was really amazing about this was the reactions of readers of the article on the internet.  Most of the responses I read told of a God who would never do something like this.  This was merely a coincidence.  We have a God of love and He doesn’t destroy things.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but God does do these types of things.  No one was injured here.  This was a warning shot across our bow.  We were not to go any further in this direction.  God is doing this because of his love for us.  When we start to go into territory that is not of God’s will, then we are going into dangerous places.  Now I don’t know and I don’t even pretend to know what this incident means.  But I think that we should heed God’s words and obey.  Just look what at the terrible things going on in today’s world.

Normally, I don’t report things like this but this is such a good example.  God may be warning us but it is a warning that comes from the deep, deep love He has for us.  It is the same thing with playing favorites.  God doesn’t want us to do this because when we do, we may be neglecting someone who is very important in the kingdom of God.  This is serious stuff.  We don’t know who is going to be the next Billy Graham so we are to treat everyone as if they are all going to be the next Billy Graham.

Mike Wilkins tells of a little experiment that someone conducted.  They took pictures of people from all walks of life from the very poor to the very rich from the Fortune 500 list of rich people.  They took pictures of them in towels.  Wouldn’t you know, no one could tell the rich people from the poor people when they were dressed in only towels.

I know that we do a pretty good job of not discriminating against others in our churches in this area.  Most denominations welcome others, but they probably aren’t nearly as welcoming as they think.  I have heard it said that if people can’t find a church home any place else because of who they are or what they look like, they will find a home in this area.  This is a good reputation to have.  We also have to remember that these attitudes should also be in our personal life.  I can think of no reason why we would show favoritism but I know that we sometimes do.  Let’s see if we can try to stamp this out of our personal lives also.

There is an old story of a Chicago bank asking for a letter of recommendation on a young man from Boston being considered for employment.  The Boston bank couldn’t say enough good things about this young man.  His father was a Cabot and his mother was a Lowell.  Further back in his family tree was a blend of Saltonstall’s, Peabody’s and other first families of Boston.  Several days later the Chicago bank replied that the information provided was altogether inadequate.  They went on to say that they were not going to use the young man for breeding purposes, but for work.

The next person that you think is not up to your standards may be an angel.  God still loves us so much that He sends us warnings and He sends us angels.  Let’s pray to God that we may know both when they come.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.