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Show No Partiality To The Rich Of The World Because God Favors The Poor In Spirit-James 2:1-13

By Charlie Vensel | June 14, 2008

Introduction: I grew up in an upper-middle-income home in northern Florida. Yet, from about the time I was old enough to remember, my parents were making their ways up the social ladder. Their careers were going well, the $115 mortgage payment was starting to look small, and our vacations were getting nicer. I remember the special dinners out when my parents would talk about my mother’s bonus or the new bid my father was just awarded.

Socially, I was beginning to run in circles a couple of pay-grades above my parents’. Our house was just one block away from the river where the doctors and lawyers lived. Their kids were becoming my friends.

But, there is nothing like some greener grass to make you want more, right? I admired the kids that lived on the river. I admired their homes and stuff. I enjoyed their country club memberships.

I really came to admire the rich. By all outward appearances, they had everything. I was bound and determined to be rich when I grew up too; I would have it all.

I don’t think that’s anything strange for a teenager to want in this country. We are obsessed with wealth and power, aren’t we? Not many of us aspire to modest means, do we? No, we want it all.

As a culture, we admire the powerful. We glorify the dollar. Think of the hit TV show, The Apprentice, where the rich and powerful Donald Trump is portrayed as the king of the country; why is it so popular? We love the rich and powerful.

Or consider all the other reality game shows where people are trying to win a million dollars; we don’t want them to lose, we want to see people getting rich. Think of all our advertising; no one is advertising the image of poverty, “Buy this and you’ll be rich,” is the message. It is true wealth enamors us as a culture.

And, as a culture, you might even say we prefer the rich to the poor. Who wants to hear stories of hunger, addiction, and violence when we can hear tails of Caribbean vacations, our own Temptation Island? Who wants to watch the Unicef documentaries when we can watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Who wants to work at the homeless shelter when your boss wants you to play golf with him this Friday? Who wants hard and dirty, when we can have it easy and clean? Indeed, as a culture, we prefer the rich to the poor.

But, as seminarians, God’s future soldiers, are we really any different than the rest? Think about it, we want to hear the stories about the people who leave here to take Senior Pastor positions earning the big bucks; it gives us hope that we can dig out of the financial hole we’ve dug in seminary. We want to hear tales of wealthy parishioners donating land and building buildings; it gives us hope of job security. We don’t want to hear about struggling pastors and broke churches because we don’t want that for ourselves. We want to hear about success, often success in terms of the world.

We all want to serve in financially secure churches, don’t we? You may say all these things are not important to you now, but I promise you when you get out there, they will be. People don’t give, you don’t have work; it’s that simple. Just because we are in the church does not exempt us from the temptation to favor wealth over poverty.

Transition: So, how do we avoid this temptation? How do we deal with this tension? What is God’s desire for seminarians and future church leaders? Well, our text today, James 2:1-13, deals with this very issue. In it, we will find that James’ advice is pretty straightforward:

PI: Show no partiality to the rich in the world, because God favors the poor in spirit.

I. We Look at Outward Appearances

Transition: Now, we are all in seminary, we have had a great education. We all know that we are not supposed to show favoritism to the wealthy, because God favors the poor. But, if that is all this passage is telling us, that it’s just about money, we can pack it up and go home, leaving just the same as when we came in, and preach it to those who don’t know any better. But, I don’t think it is. I think there is a lot more here for us than we might think.

See, wealth can be a lot of things, can’t it? It is certainly more than just money. It can be education, credentials, knowledge, ability, skill, polish, giftedness and good looks; those never hurt anyone in finding work; they never hurt anyone in life.

Who doesn’t want these things as much as money? We strive after and prefer these things in the same way. They impress us. We favor those who have them, don’t we? These things make people rich in the world; they are as good as cash. We try to impress others with them like whipping out a Platinum Card.

Illustration: There’s a wonderful story about a Chicago bank that once asked for a letter of recommendation on a young Bostonian being considered for employment. The Boston investment house could not say enough about the young man. His father, they wrote, was a Cabot; his mother was a Lowell. Further back was a happy blend of Saltonstalls, Peabodys, and other of Boston’s first families. His recommendation was given without hesitation.

Several days later, the Chicago bank sent a note saying the information supplied was altogether inadequate. It read: “We are not contemplating using the young man for breeding purposes, just for work.”

Application: Remember what the Lord told Samuel when Samuel was not impressed with David’s appearance when compared to his older brother, “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1Samuel 16:7 NIV)

Clearly, such things impress us, but not the Lord. The Lord wants to be impressed with the heart, with character.

Transition: We are fascinated by outward appearances. In fact, we rarely ever take a look beyond them; to do so is messy. But it doesn’t stop there; we also discriminate based on them.

II. We Discriminate Against Others Based on Outward Appearances

James opens our passage with a hypothetical situation. A rich man and a poor man enter the sanctuary. The rich man is wearing fine clothes and a gold ring. The poor man is in shabby clothes. It is quite a contrast. The church elders say to the rich man, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet.”

Why would they say such a thing? They are looking at the outward appearances and sizing the visitors up. They are determining the value of their guests. “Who is worthy of honor,” they’re asking?

But, James is very clear that this sizing up is discrimination; it is favoritism.

Illustration: Yet, we are no different in this seminary. We have come to be enamored with credentials, polished speech, knowledge, and ministerial abilities; it is part of the seminary culture. Most of us want to be like the shining-stars, the “rich” of God’s kingdom.

Think about it…we admire the professors that can articulate their points quickly and beautifully, but can also make their opponents look like fools. Their books are the ones we will keep after we leave here. They are the ones we will quote in our sermons. They are the ones we want to get to know; they are the ones we want to call our friends after we graduate. It is their names we will drop in a crowd at just the right moment. These are the “good” professors in our eyes; the “rich” ones.

On one hand, we admire the A students, the brilliant, and the elite. We admire those gifted in speech, like those that win the Senior Preaching Awards. We admire the students who appear to have it all together, balancing family life, school, and church, all while excelling in their callings. “Those are God’s chosen,” we say.

On the other hand, most of us would not want those that had a “C” average working on a group project with us. Most of us loathe to listen to someone speak who just doesn’t do it very well, or at least as well as our heroes. And we tend to see those who struggle with balancing life, work, church, and school as disappointments, people to be avoided because they are less blessed or gifted; they are our poor. Sometimes, even the professors make fun of the less than average student. “They don’t have a legitimate calling to ministry,” we say.

PI: We all know that James says to show no partiality to the rich in the world, because God favors the poor in spirit.

But, we do it anyway, every one of us. We discriminate against others based on outward appearances. If someone has it all, we love them; if they don’t appear to meet our ideal, we shun them. We don’t even bother to get to know them. We avoid them.

Application: What are we saying when we judge our brothers and sisters according to outward appearances? Just like James 2:3, we are saying, “Here’s a good seat for you,” for the people who look like they’ve got it all together, and to the strugglers, we say, “You stand there,” or “Sit on the floor by my feet; you are a disappointment to me.”

• I wonder how many of God’s faithful we don’t get to know because of this kind of attitude?
• I wonder how many stories we miss of God’s faithfulness and victory in the lives of the poor in outward appearances?
• How many of those stories would demonstrate more faith and devotion than the stories of any of the “elite” we have come to admire?
• God knows, but we are content to keep things on the surface, outward appearances.

P/I: Show no partiality to the rich in the world, because God favors the poor in spirit. We all know it, but we do it anyway.

Transition: So, we are impressed with outward appearances, and we discriminate against others according to them. But, perhaps as destructive to God’s church is when we, God’s future ministers, judge ourselves against others’ outward appearances as well.

III. We Discriminate Against Ourselves Based on Outward Appearances

We can really do a number on ourselves too. When our outward appearances don’t seem to meet the ideal, we’ve got big trouble. The devil is dancing.

Illustration: We were really worried about our children when we moved off to seminary. Our son was 8 and our daughter was 3. They were well settled in their schools, near their extended family, and friends. Our hometown was all they knew and they were thriving. They weren’t very excited to go.

My wife and I thought that we would be just fine. We were adults, we had faith, and we had seen the Lord do some amazing things to make seminary possible. You all know that it is not an easy thing to do, and those of you who have kids, well, just multiply all of that difficulty.

It wasn’t easy, but the Lord was with us. We were encouraged and saw ourselves as God’s chosen people to go and answer his call to ministry. I don’t mean to say that our heads were too big; but that we believed we were called and God equips those he calls, doesn’t he?

As it turned out, the kids did just fine. I was the one who had the trouble. I showed up for my first class with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, Systematics IV-Ecclesiology and the Sacraments, which was a senior level winter intensive. I was the only first-semester guy in the room.

Dr. Ferguson would lecture for hours on end, his command of the Scriptures and Church History astounding. The senior-level students were able to track with him and comment along the way from their personal ministry experience. I felt completely inadequate by comparison.

Illustration: I had starting attending a church in our denomination near by where I would do my field-ed work and where I would be walked through the ordination process. Again, I found myself a first-semester guy among seasoned professionals and final-semester postulants. They could preach and teach almost as well as Dr. Ferguson; it looked as though they were all so gifted. They could do ministry better in their own strength, than I ever could with God’s anointing. I again felt completely inadequate.

What was I doing in the midst of all these qualified people; I was certainly out of my league? I began to question my calling. I found myself so impressed by others’ knowledge, academic degrees, levels of competency, abilities to woo a crowd, and giftedness, that I not only felt inadequate, but also looked poor by comparison.

Illustration: Some of you might be thinking that now and you might be thinking that when you finish school and are ordained, that temptation to discriminate against ourselves will go away; our inadequacies will somehow dry up. You might be thinking we will finally have all the outward appearances in order, and then we can proceed with great success. But that is not the case.

I was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church eighteen months ago, and a priest back in December. I only have 7 more credit hours to go to graduate. I was offered a great job here in Denver as a Senior Pastor, in spite of not quite yet graduating. I’m about as close to being finished or “arriving” as I can be. For all practical purposes, I’m crossing the finish line.

The other day, I heard one of my peers at a neighboring church pray; his prayer makes me look like a new Christian. I understand he won the Senior Preaching Award here at Denver Seminary a couple of years back too. He is a saint. I once again find myself looking poor and inadequate by comparison.

And today, I stand up here before you with fear and trembling. I wish I was afraid of the weighty task of preaching God’s Word, but that’s not it. I’m terrified partly because you are my peers, and I know a couple of you are going to get up, maybe even later today, and blow the socks off of this sermon. I’m terrified and a lot because I have no notes. I’ve never done this before. I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass the priestly office, the school, or myself. It makes me feel inadequate just to think about it. My outward appearances are not looking so good right now.

Application: See, it is inevitable that if we compare ourselves to the outer appearances of others, we will come up short. As James says, “they will exploit us…they will drag us into court.” There is always going to be someone who appears to have more going for them; someone’s always going to have more money. They are perhaps better actors than we are, or to give them the benefit of the doubt, better trained, more experienced, or just simply more gifted.

We begin to think we are not worthy or that we are not able to do what God has called us to do. We begin to believe God has not equipped us. We start to become stagnated and paralyzed in ministry. When we haven’t believed God is faithful, we have a serious problem. We are calling God a liar, and the devil dances again.

Transition: So, we look at outward appearances, we discriminate against others based on them, and we discriminate against ourselves, but this is all sin.

IV. Discriminating Based on Outward Appearances is Sin

James tells us first thing in this passage, “My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.” (James 2:1 NIV) That’s about as plain a command as we can get. To violate it is to sin.

He tells us, “…You have become judges with evil thoughts…” That’s not good either.

But, if we are still not sure, he goes on to tell us that discriminating, or showing favoritism, is a violation of the 2nd Great Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In fact, he does it in such a way as to tell us if we’ve kept all he law, and stumble in favoritism, we’re as guilty as breaking the whole law. Clearly it is sin, and a big one.

Transition: We are all guilty. We’ve discriminated against others, and against ourselves. So, how do we correct this? What is the proper response for God’s people?

Conclusion:

V. But We are to Judge in Accordance to the Heart (Conformity to Christ)

Well, here are a couple of things for consideration:

First, “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?” (James 2:5 NIV) We’re back to the heart again.

God is not impressed with what the world is impressed with. He is not impressed with money, looks, skills, abilities, degrees, knowledge, or pedigrees. He’s just not. He is impressed with people who know that they can do nothing without him.

Application (Others): If you are relying on any of your gifts, ancestors, or accomplishments to succeed in ministry…if you are relying on appearing better than others for your value…if you are relying on anything but being a redeemed sinner for favor with God, give it up. He’s not interested; he’s looking at your heart.

P/I: We show partiality to the rich in the world, but God favors the poor in spirit.

Application (Self): God can work with a heart that is humble; that sees itself as poor. For those of us who play the comparison game, we need to remember that we have been chosen to be rich in faith. God has equipped us to do what he has called all of us to do.

Not every one of us will be a Paul, Deborah, or John. Not every one of us will be a Wenig or Blomberg. That’s okay. God can still use us mightily. We have great value. We will do a lot more than we think we can. We will grow into our callings. We’ll get there as long as we are dependent upon him, and not our outward appearances. We must be poor in spirit, not poor by comparison.

P/I: We show partiality to the rich in the world, but God favors the poor in spirit.

Second, “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!” (James 2:12-13 NIV)

Application: Everyone is equal at the foot of the cross. No one is more a saint than any other. There is no second class Christian.

We would do well to see each other as redeemed sinners: the gifted, the rich, the poor, and the average. All of us have received mercy and all of us must give mercy. We are in no position to discriminate against others or ourselves by those things that enamor the world. We don’t want God’s justice; we want his mercy.

If we are going to be impressed by anything, let it be God’s mercy in saving sinners. We are all poor, but we are all very rich in the Lord.

PI: So, let us show no partiality to the rich in the world, because God favors the poor in spirit.

Amen.

Topics: James |

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