25 Aug 9/6/26 James 2:1-13 “His Loving Arms”
9/6/26 James 2:1-13 “His Loving Arms”
Most of us remember some of the things we did when we were young. When we were young, we could get away with some things that we can’t once we get older. Or maybe I should say that we have to be sneakier to get away with them. When I was young political correctness was long overdue. We needed a wakeup call on some of the practices that just plain were not very nice. Of course, as Americans we have gotten way too carried away with political correctness. Most of the new things they put on this list today could probably be summed up in one word, nonsense! Another thing we need to be careful with is favoritism. This has been around since the beginning of time. When I worked at the Post Office, they had a category of job that you were supposed to be the best qualified. What this boiled down to was the person who got the job was the one who was in best with the boss. It had nothing to do with being qualified! There was nothing anyone could do about it. I’m sure that you have all run across this in your lives at some point. Today, we are going to take another look at James as he talks about this topic. Let’s see if we can get passed ourselves and enter a world where we won’t play favorites.
Jim Drake tells the story of an interim pastor of a church. He hadn’t been there long so the people didn’t really know him yet. Interim pastors are usually put in place so that they can see where a church is going wrong because they don’t have the bias of knowing everyone and their situations. Then they can do whatever they can to alleviate the problems of the church. They are trouble shooters. Anyway, this particular interim saw a problem. So, one Sunday, he didn’t shave or shower or brush his hair before church. He found his worst clothes in the rag bin that smelled like a rag bin and put them on. Then he went to the store and bought a bottle of beer and he poured it on his clothes. He borrowed a shopping cart and filled it with empty cans and old rags. About 5 minutes before the service was to start, he rolled his cart up to the front door of the church and went in and sat in the back row. No one recognized him because they thought that he was just another bum and the smell was atrocious. Finally, an usher came and asked him to leave. So, he left and went around the side of the church to his private office door. When it came time to preach, he entered the pulpit still dressed like a bum and he preached about how we treat people. Wow! What an illustration! I hope they got the message. We also need to ask ourselves, “How do we treat other people?” I think than one of the biggest problems we have in our modern churches is that we are friendly to ourselves but we do not extend this to strangers. I have gone to many churches as an outsider where this has happened. One church thought they were so friendly, but they never spoke to us. Always beware of this. Greet everyone is a friendly way, not just your friends.
Let’s just begin at the beginning where James tells us believers that we are not to show favoritism. Just as a reminder, most of this book, the Bible, is written for believers. We are told this in many places, by many authors and here it is again. This isn’t a book for discussion or digestion by non-believers. The reason is that they are unable to understand any of this. This is why you hear so much against the Bible by the secular world. They do not understand it. They read it like it’s some sort of story or history. This is totally wrong. The Bible is a personal message for you, each and every one of you. Each believer has to read for himself the message that God has for them. This is why we can all read the same passage and it will say something different for each of us. I try to give you one slant on Sunday mornings or during our broadcast that may whet your appetite for more reading on your own. Now if you don’t know Jesus, then there is no message for you. You can read it 100 times and you still won’t get a message. However, I have heard of several atheists who have tried to read the Bible several times in order to show that it is all wrong. What do think happened to these people? You’re right! They have gone on to become some great believers. Lee Strobel who has authored many books about Jesus came to know Him in this fashion. James tells us Christians not to show favorites.
Then he goes on to show us what we do. We see a man with a big gold ring, this is even today, and very fancy clothes. Behind him comes a man with rags, smelling of beer and bad body odor. Then we grab the guy that looks rich and we play right up to him. We get the usher to show the ragged guy out. In the process, we are judging good people and bad people by how they look. And furthermore, who are we to say who is good and who is bad no matter how they look on the outside?
This is the type of judging that Jesus talks about, and we are so very good at. He is not talking about sins that have already been judged. He is talking about treating people badly for whatever reason we use to justify our actions. One of the problems we have is that we rely on first impressions. We cannot help this. When we see something, it triggers memories or whatever in our brain and voila! We have a first impression.
The problem comes when we never try to overcome these 1st impressions. Much of the trouble of the world comes when people just go with their first impressions. If you met the pastor in our opening story, you probably wouldn’t give him the time of day for the most part. Am I right? When we are dealing with people, we have to give them a generous helping of grace when we first meet. As I said last week, you don’t know the troubles they have seen or they are going through. Our lives should be one grace episode after another. This is especially true when dealing with people.
Of course, there also has to be a warning here. We need to be careful because the evil one will try to take advantage of our grace. Just think of all the scams that are now running; the jury duty scam, the lost relative scam, the fake giveaway scam or the page deletion scam. These crooks, these instruments of the devil are waiting to take advantage of your good nature, your grace. So sometimes we have to be cautious. However, that does not mean that we block out every person who asks for something.
So, the bottom line is that we are not to treat people like the world treats people. The world sets up poverty standards and says we should not mix with them. The world sets up standards that are ridiculous in many ways. Political correctness has gotten way out of hand as I have already mentioned. We cannot call gingerbread man a gingerbread man; we have to say gingerbread person. We cannot say black sheep anymore and we cannot say white sheep either even if they are black or white. They now have to be rainbow sheep which I think is an insult to Christians who believe in Noah. I think that we could all go on and on here with one ridiculous idea after another. Anyway, we are not to follow the ways of the world.
Instead, we are to treat people in the light of God’s purposes as laid out in verses 5-7. James points out that God uses the poor so that they may be rich in spirit. We have gone over this many times but maybe we need a little refresher. These losers are not just random people. These are some of the main characters of the Bible and in our eyesight, none of them would be worth a wooden nickel. Think about what would happen to these people if God believed like the world does.
Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar and a cheat. Leah was ugly. Joseph was arrogant and abused. Moses was a murderer who had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy were too young. David, the greatest king who has ever lived, had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah preached naked and once again I won’t go there because I don’t want to scare everyone out of here. Jonah wanted everything his way and ran from God. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. John the Baptist wandered in the wilderness and ate bugs. Peter denied Christ. The Disciples fell asleep while praying. Martha worried about everything. The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once. Zaccheus was too small. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer…AND Lazarus was dead!
God used all these losers for His glory. He will continue to do this until the end of time. He used me when I was someone who had a sin record a mile long. I’m here to tell you that I was born again over 30+ years ago. I’m not the person I was 40 years ago. He is long gone. I was accepted by a couple of churches and I hope I never see that man again. I’m a child of God and I will love Him and obey Him until the day I die. There are some so called churches that would not let me be their pastor because they do not believe in the redemptive powers of God. God had a purpose for me to come to you folks and He has a purpose for each person here today. As a matter of fact, He has a purpose for every living person. All you have to do to get in line for His wonderful, auspicious purpose is accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.
Speaking of Jesus, let’s take a look at treating people according to the commandments of Jesus as we find in verses 8-11. Jesus and the Old Testament tell us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind; then comes the most important part of this as we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the part that we forget. We like to love this person but that person over there can just fend for himself. He has no part of our world. This is a sin. Favoritism is a sin. Jesus goes on to tell us that whoever breaks one of the laws is actually guilty of breaking all of the laws.
This is why Jesus had to come into this world in the form of a human. Someone had to satisfy the Law once and for all. I always asked the confirmation classes “Why did God give us the 10 Commandments?” Until they get to know me better, they will usually answer something like, so we can have a better life or to know what is right or what is wrong. Or they may have many other similar answers. I have to tell them that they are good answers but they are absolutely wrong. Their reasons have nothing to do with why we have the 10 Commandments. God gave us the 10 Commandments so that we would realize that we cannot keep them. There are only 10 and there is not a human being in the world who has ever kept them, except of course, Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament they would offer sacrifices to God so that they could confess that they had done wrong. Then God sent Jesus so that He would be the final sacrifice necessary. There is not a person here today including myself who is not covered with sin. We also make the mistake of trying to rank sin so that the sin I commit is not as bad as what you commit. People, all sin is bad and all sin is the same in the eyes of God. It makes us black as coal. As we gather today, we are all black as coal with sin, including me. We are not fit to look at the feet of Jesus and yet through Jesus Christ we can not only look but we can be embraced by the very Lord of the universe. Don’t ever think that you don’t sin. You do. But go every day to Jesus in confession. This will keep your communication line with Jesus in good standing. It will help you to be much closer to Jesus. It will help you love Him and in return He will put his loving arms around you.
Years ago, at about this time of year, we learned of Sharon’s cancer. I remember trying to write a sermon for that Sunday. I just could not write it. It took me a couple of days but I finally finished it. I had offers from other pastors to come and help but I just could not do that. What kind of pastor would I be if I didn’t carry on in the face of adversity? As I just said and this is so important; Jesus will put His loving arms around you, us, Sharon, me, our family, our church families and our friends. He is in charge. This whole world is all about Jesus.
We do not know where all this will take us. How many times have I said to you, “When people do not know Jesus, where is their hope?” All our hope has to be in Jesus Christ or there is no hope at all. Our family loves Jesus. Now we have another daughter who is very ill only we do not know the real problem. But I do know that the solution comes from Jesus Christ. He will help us and help us. The next time you take Holy Communion, think about all the things you are to be thankful for. Also, think of all the things where you need Him but you forget to ask. Then ask. Let us now ask Jesus to live in us to help us and to guide us. Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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