James on James

Good morning. Welcome again. I'm James Sutton, the associate pastor here. As you all know if you come here regularly, we are doing a sermon series on Hebrews, specifically looking at the preeminence of Christ—except when I preach. When I preach, we're doing a special series on the book of James. I'm leveraging my special expertise as a James to study the book of James. We call it "James on James."

Many of you in the last series, Jeff actually preached. He was doing the big questions series. He selected a passage from James. As soon as he read it, I got three texts from some of you asking if he was legally allowed to do that. I called my lawyers and they're negotiating a contract. No—of course I have no special insight into the book of James. That's not what "James on James" is really about.

"James on James" is really meant to be a reflection of the book of James and me, because I tend to be so personal in my illustrations, talking about how that applies to me. So it's James, the brother of Jesus, on James, the pastor, talking about what the implications of a resurrected Christ are—and there were so many implications for James, the younger brother of Jesus—and what those implications are for us.

The book of James is a book of wisdom. It's referenced throughout Christendom all the time because of its very practical wisdom. Some have called it the Proverbs of the New Testament. James is also one of the earliest books of the New Testament. We've talked about that. It's one of the closest glimpses of what Christianity looked like following the ascension of Christ. So it's a very important book.

We have been looking at several passages. This is our fourth sermon in this series, and we are now on chapter two. We're going to read verses one through 13. Our tradition is to read this together, so we'll do this together. Maybe? Are we going to do it together? There we go. Let's read together.

My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Sit here in a good place," and yet you say to the poor person, "Stand over there or sit here on the floor by my footstool." Haven't you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters, didn't God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don't let the rich oppress you and drag you into court. Don't they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you? Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. If however you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the entire law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking it all. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." So if you do not commit adultery but you murder, you are a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. — James 2:1-13

Let's pray. Oh Lord Jesus, we pray that you would send your Spirit, enliven our hearts and our minds as we consider your word written by your brother with very practical wisdom for us, to inspire us to act as though we believe all the things that we say we believe. Lord, would you help us to believe? Would you help us to live out of that belief and to show that to a watching world that desperately needs to see you in all your glory? Lord, work through us this morning and through your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Best Seats in the House

What are the best seats in the house? What are the best seats you've ever had at anything that you've ever gone to? That's a common kind of icebreaker question. I've been in lots of groups where that question has been asked. Here's how I answer that.

When I was in seminary, my roommate was John Roland. His brother was Ed Roland. Ed Roland is the lead singer of Collective Soul. At that time in 2000, U2 was on their Elevation Tour and they had one of their first stops in Miami, Florida. I went to seminary in Orlando. John, my roommate, called up his brother and got us tickets to see U2 on the Elevation Tour in 2000 in Miami. They were pretty good seats. You know how I know they were pretty good seats? Five seats down from us was Lenny Kravitz. At one point, Bono said, "Lenny Kravitz is in the house," and the light shifted over to all of us and I was blinded, but then I realized Lenny Kravitz is five seats down. These are pretty good seats.

Another time, not too long ago, my friend Roo Sin and I went to the Deepak to see a show. We did not have good seats. We were going to sit in the back, and we did sit in the back, but as we walked in, confetti exploded. These people came up to us and said, "Congratulations. You're the six millionth person to see a show at Deepak." But they weren't really clear on which of us was the six millionth. So Roo and I did rock, paper, scissors. He won. He was the six millionth. But he got awarded special seats for the entire season at Deepak. And because he felt bad for me, he brought me back to see a show. It just so happened to be Chris Rock in April 2022, right after the infamous slap. I got to see Chris Rock talk about getting slapped by Will Smith five seats back. Doesn't get much better than that.

How do we think about seats and what are the best seats? How do we go about that? How do we think about that as churches?

Growing up in Miami, Florida, my family went to a church and we had a pew—it was our pew. I remember one Sunday showing up a little late and someone was sitting in our pew. I was a kid and I was incensed. How dare they? That's our pew.

In fact, churches historically have thought about pews that way. Here's a fun little historical Raleigh fact: There are two Episcopal churches within three blocks of each other in Downtown Raleigh—Christ Church Episcopal and Church of the Good Shepherd. The reason there are two churches is because Christ Church Episcopal in the eighteen hundreds charged a pew fee. You paid to have a special pew in the church. So you paid for your pew, and then you showed up and got it. Some people didn't like that. In 1874, they split off from Christ Church to create the first free Episcopal Church in Raleigh, where anybody could come and sit in any pew they wanted.

It's so foreign to us to think like that, but that's how churches once thought. It's funny to look back at different historical figures and periods and think, that was wrong. That was probably not the best practice. And of course, Christ Church doesn't charge for seats anymore. We've all moved away from that.

But how do we think about it now? There are ways that in our current environment, we do the same things. We show favoritism. We expect special treatment. We think about others less than ourselves, and we write them off. We distance ourselves. We separate ourselves from them. We tend to move away and sit where we want with our friends, away from the people that we maybe don't feel comfortable around or who are a little bit different than us in some way that we don't like. It happens. And it is definitely the case that when we do that, we are sinning. But we often don't think that we are.

I think those saints at Christ Church didn't think there was anything wrong with charging for seats. They probably thought, if we charge for these seats, people will actually show up. There were a lot of practical reasons to do what they were doing. If we charge for these seats, we can give money to the poor. There are probably lots of ways in which they justified this.

Well, it's nice to know that the early church wasn't that different. They struggled with the same things.

It's interesting—as James is embarking on this, at the end of chapter one, he starts talking about what is true religion. What is true faith? He says that controlling one's tongue, caring for those in need, and maintaining personal holiness are the three marks of true religion. Now he's going to unpack all of those things. He dives right into this very strange example of seating. Because he says favoritism cannot be a part of what we do as the church. It would absolutely destroy our message and our witness.

As we read this passage and just take a cursory glance at it, you could easily think that this is just about where you sit. Is this really that important? Do we really do this anymore? We do. And more importantly, this isn't really about seating, and it's not even really about favoritism, although it is for sure. It's really about where do we find glory. What is glorious? What enamors us? What are we drawn to? What do we love? What do we value?

James is going to show us in this passage that what we ought to value is our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Notice—and this is our first point—we're going to dive into the glory of Jesus. Notice that's how James starts this passage.

My brothers and sisters—and remember, in James, anytime he says "my brothers and sisters," anytime he references that, he's coming from a place where he was literally the brother of Jesus, who biologically was born after him and who thought he was crazy during most of his ministry, ridiculed him, and rejected him until he witnessed him risen from the dead. And then he had a transformation. He became the brother not of just Jesus, but the brother of all those whom Jesus considered his brothers and mothers—those who do the Father's will, those who were his followers.

So he's referencing his high state, not as the biological brother of Jesus, but as one of the brothers who has been saved by grace through Jesus's work. And he's calling our attention to what he's about to say. He says, "Brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism."

Three things there. One: Jesus is our glorious Lord. He's ours. He loved us and he rescued us. He's referencing the beauty of what we have in Jesus—the fact that he is ours, that we have him, that we get him. That's where he starts.

And then he says he's not only ours, he's our Lord. He's referencing that not only is he ours, but we're his. He has authority to command us. He has purchased us with his blood and earned the right to be placed above all of us. He is the high king. He is ours, and we are his.

But then he says he's also glorious. And that's the thing that's unique about this phrase. And James does this all the time. People miss this about the book of James. They tend to think it's just so practical, that he doesn't really talk about theology, but he does. He just does it very briefly. He has these little phrases that you think are throwaway phrases that are just filled with rich theological truth.

The fact that he's starting here with "our glorious Lord Jesus Christ," he's calling attention to the glory of Christ, of what we have in him. We can't forget that. If we forget that, nothing that he's about to say will make any sense. It'll all seem like the rest of the world religions where we're trying to earn God's favor. That's not what he's doing. He's saying, our Lord Jesus Christ is glorious. We have him, he has us. And because of that, we can't do these things.

Let's just spend a minute unpacking this. James doesn't, because he's so close to the events and he's talking to people who have witnessed Jesus' resurrection. They know about his glory. They've seen it—most of them, many of them, firsthand or at least secondhand. They've heard about it. They're so enamored with Jesus, he doesn't have to spend as much time unpacking this, or he doesn't want to. He wants to get to the practical application. But let's take a moment. What is the glory of Christ? How glorious is he?

He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. — Hebrews 1:3

How glorious is God? And how glorious is Christ? Sometimes we get pulled away from the glory of Christ or God because we get sucked into different things. I'm in a big drone kick. I really love droning. Anybody that knows me knows that I do a lot of droning. I get up and I take pictures of the sunrise and the sunset and the city. And sometimes I get really into the drones themselves, studying which one's the best and what features they have and all these things. It kind of becomes—I'm kind of obsessed with the glory of drones. But one fail safe that's built into that hobby is that when I get up in the mornings and when I go out in the evenings and I watch a sunset, there is no drone in the world that compares.

The heavens declare the glory of the Lord. — Psalm 19:1

And that is represented perfectly in Jesus, Hebrews says.

In Matthew 17, we get a picture of this. The disciples get a picture of this on the mountain. They see the transfiguration. Jesus transforms from an ordinary human into this glowing creature that everybody wants to worship.

In Philippians 2, we get the picture that Jesus is exalted to the highest place as a result of his work. He's the name above every name—the name that every knee shall bow.

And we get a picture in Revelation 21 of a new heavenly reality where we don't need a sun because we have the sun who shines brightly. He's so glorious. So glorious is Jesus.

But notice what was visible while he was on earth. For the most part, he really wasn't what we would consider to be glorious. John 1 talks about him being before the beginning of time—the one whom God created the world through—but he was born in Nazareth. And everybody kind of looked at that, or rather, not born in Nazareth.

He was born in Bethlehem, but he's from Nazareth and everybody's like, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" He was looked down upon. He was like from the wrong side of the tracks. He was a loser, right?

Notice also Isaiah 53 talking about him. He himself kind of identified himself with this. It talks about him as a suffering servant: "Had no beauty or majesty to attract us. Nothing desirable about him. He was despised and rejected, a man of suffering. People hid their faces and he was held in low esteem."

And that was really true of his ministry. He was not looked up to. The powerful people didn't come to him and go, "Wow"—for the most part. He was rejected. He was a loser. In Matthew 27, we get his coronation. He's lifted high onto a cross. That's not glorious. That's horrible. And they put a sign above him and hailed him as a king in a mocking way. That's not glorious. That's horrible.

And then Luke 23 gives us this picture that's kind of the opposite of what we get in Revelation. From noon until three while he's on that cross, it's pitch black. There's nothing glorious, nothing splendorous, nothing shiny about that. And you know what? There are at least twenty different times in the gospels where Jesus is having conversations with people and his disciples, and he talks about his glory, and it is clear he's talking about that moment. He's talking about his suffering and his dying.

I've got a couple of quotes here. There are some people that just put things more eloquently than me. One of them is John Calvin. He said this: "Christ's whole life was a cross. His suffering and death were ultimate expressions of obedience to the Father, and through them, listen to this, God's glory was revealed most clearly. The majesty and glory of God shown the brightest in the deep abasement of Christ."

How about this guy, Tim Keller? He was pretty good at saying things. "The cross is the way to glory. Jesus redefined glory for us. True glory is seen in service, in humility, in suffering for others. Jesus' suffering and death is the ultimate display of his glory because it shows the depths of his love and the extent of his obedience to the Father."

One more. A guy named John Piper. "In the life and death of Jesus, suffering finds its ultimate purpose and ultimate explanation. Suffering exists so that Christ could display the greatness of the glory of the grace and love of God by suffering himself to banish suffering from our eternity."

Isn't it true that when we look at the cross, we are blown away by the majestic glory of who Christ was and the deep, deep love that he had for us? And if we are to be little Christs—Christians who are called to reflect that glory because it lives within us—shouldn't we also be about that? The glory of Jesus was his love for us. In this world, that looked like suffering, that looked terrible, that looked horrible, that looked like him putting himself out again and again for the sake of others. In heaven, it's described as shiny and bright and a celebration. And that's our call as believers. We're called because if we believe in him, we ought to reflect what we believe, and specifically what we think is glorious.

Doing what everybody else does here in this world, looking out for number one—there's no glory in that. Suffering for the sake of others, just like Jesus did, is reflective of his glory and what we're called to do. Alright. The Bible says, "We will know they will know we're Christians by our love." So do they? Are we?

The Partiality Test

James gives us a hypothetical situation to test our minds, how we're thinking about this. And the hypothetical situation is two people visit a church. One has gold rings—literally, he's gold fingered. He has rings all the way up all of his fingers. That's kind of the picture. He's that rich. I've never seen somebody wear that many gold rings, but I guess if you have it, why not flaunt it? That's the first guy.

He comes and the picture is like, "Hey, if you find that guy and you're like, 'Wow. He's got money. He's got influence. He's got power.' Let's give him the best seat." And then some person comes and they're in raggedy old clothes. They maybe smell bad. They're not someone of influence and you just ignore them or tell them to sit on the floor, right?

James is saying, "You're showing partiality. You're wrongly dividing how you treat people and how you treat specifically the image of God, and that doesn't reflect the love of Christ. That's not what he did."

You know, the very first pastor of our church was a guy named Kevin Thumpston. And I remember one week I was the admin. I was the church admin in those days. I was a lot of things in those days, in the early days of Christ our Comfort, that became Christ the King, our church. I remember one day I was filling out the attendance pad with visitors. There were probably only like twenty of them in those days.

And I'm going through it and oftentimes people love this joke. I love this joke. We all love this joke, right? The attendance pads come and you put in a fake name—somebody you're not. So I'm going through and there's a name that appears: Frank Reich. I'm like, I know who Frank Reich is. He's got the greatest comeback story in all of the NFL. He was the backup quarterback for the Buffalo Bills and in the playoffs, he brought them back against the Oilers from like a 30-plus point deficit. He's great. He later went on to coach at various different places. I think he just got fired from coaching the Panthers. But he's a football star. And I thought, okay, someone's being funny. They put Frank Reich's name in here. So I tell Kevin, I'm like, Kevin, guess who visited the church on Sunday? Frank Reich. He says, yeah, he called me. Told me he was coming. Who is that? I tell him who it is and he says, oh, wow.

And in the sermon that he preached that Sunday, he talked about how this one preacher had the president of the United States visit one time while he was preaching. And the preacher saw him and singled him out and said, hey, if you—the president of the United States—don't repent of your sin, you're going to hell too. You need Jesus just as much as everybody else.

Frank Reich was also kind of a leader within our denomination and our circles. He was for a little while president of RTS in Charlotte. The next week, he was preaching at my dad's church in Charlotte. And I told my dad that story. He said, oh, he was preaching here. And you know what? He used that same illustration.

I love the fact that Kevin didn't know who Frank Reich was because that's how we should treat celebrities, but it's often not. If we know who they are, we get a little nervous about them, we get excited. I got excited. I was like, Frank Reich came. Once I realized that he really came, I was excited. But do we get excited about others? How do we view that?

Kevin also had a moment maybe a year later where a homeless person came into the church and he was preaching. And the homeless person said, no, I don't want to hear a sermon on that text. In the middle of the sermon—like it'd be like you guys, one of you standing up saying, I don't really like James on James. Can we go back to Hebrews? That's what happened. And Kevin, you know what he did? He said, Well, what would you like to hear? And the guy called out some psalm, and Kevin just impromptu preached a sermon on the psalm. Wasn't the best sermon that I've ever heard, but it's the only time that I've ever seen a pastor totally change what he's preaching on based on vocal feedback from the congregation. Let's not get any ideas, but that's the way we ought to view everyone, right? Not just if Frank Reich—the seminary president slash football coach—shows up and says these things. Anybody. Why? Because they're the image of God.

No Favoritism

No favoritism is the point. But he's really going to drive this home by looking at rich versus poor. I want you to understand that we could apply this sermon to a lot of different things. We could apply it to race, gender, powerful, powerless, attractive, unattractive, etcetera. No matter how you tend to divide people, whatever categories you think of them in, James and Jesus, through James, are saying there aren't two kinds of people in this world. There's one kind. Those who are made in God's image. And those who have been redeemed in Christ Jesus, who are made in his image, deserve to be treated as royalty. Every single one of them. That's his point.

But immediately, he anticipates that there's going to be talk back. And there is, isn't there, in the church even as we think about these things? His first thing is he addresses this issue. It's almost as if the church had said to him previously, I'm not treating anyone differently than they'd be treated anywhere else. It's just normal. This is what they expect and what I expect. This is what he says back to that:

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 amongst yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Now, just for a moment, I'd like to address a pet peeve of mine, if you'll indulge me. He is not saying don't judge people. People love to say to Christians and Christians love to say, don't judge. We're not supposed to judge. We are supposed to judge. We're absolutely supposed to judge. That's not what he's saying. He's saying don't be an evil judge. Judge them rightly as the images of God that they are. Don't be evil and split them apart and say, these people matter and these don't, in whatever categories. That's a bad judge. Be a good judge.

Be a good judge who recognizes the image of God in every person, and who bends over backwards to honor them. That's what he's saying. He's not saying don't judge them. The Imago Dei, the image of God that is present in everyone deserves that. They've earned it. If you are a good judge, then you recognize that in everybody.

But notice, James—and I think it's very fascinating that this is his first case study, his first example. You know why? Because he made that mistake. We're talking about a man who judged his older brother to be crazy. When his older brother was the Son of God, savior of the world, God incarnate. He looked at him, and he looked at what he looked like in this world, and he said, that guy's not glorious. That guy is not great. That guy is nuts.

What implications does that have for how we tend to see the glory in our brothers and sisters? We probably don't see it rightly in the same way that James didn't see it rightly, and that's what he's going for. He doesn't want us to miss the glory of the image of God in anybody that comes. He wants the favoritism to go away because he wants us to glory in the right things—to be right judges who see the beauty and the amazing potential and power that God has invested in every single person that he's ever created.

Just for a moment, I'd like to say this. If you're here this morning and you think you're worthless for whatever reason, because the world has told you that—if you're adorned with all kinds of things that the world finds worthless, maybe your past, maybe it's the clothes you wear, maybe it is your money, maybe it's how people view you, maybe it's your physical fitness—it doesn't matter. What matters is you are the image of God created gloriously, and you reflect that as a part of the core of who you are. Jesus came to redeem that, to shed all of that junk and hold you up, bring you to heaven where you can rule and reign with him for eternity if you just believe in him and trust in him and look with excitement towards that glory instead of the glory that this world offers.

And if you're here and you think you're something else, Jesus has something to say. He says, look, if you've got all kinds of things that are around you, all kinds of money, all kinds of wealth, if you're a really good problem solver, if you can manage life, if you've got it all together and you think you know everything and you're wonderful, you're just as needy as the person that you judge to be not worth it. You've just hidden it with all the things that you've put around you.

And James is saying, don't buy into the world's lies. See through all the facades to see the beauty of who every individual person has been made by God and can be redeemed in Jesus Christ. Treat them all the same. It's like royalty—like everyone coming is someone famous.

The Strategic Pushback

There's another thing that he adjusts in the second part in James 2:5-7. This is probably the most common thought with regard to how this flushes out—the most common pushback. It looks like this: Isn't it strategic as a church to reach the influencers, the powerful? And aren't the poor often a distraction from what we're trying to do? That is to say, don't the rich actually serve the mission of God better? And practically speaking, when we're trying to get stuff done in the church, don't we need their resources? So shouldn't we make it pretty comfortable for them?

In this context, in the early church, I wonder if they thought, hey, a rich person has come, maybe they can protect us from persecution. You can imagine that pushback. Here's what James says in 2:5-7:

Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich ones the ones who oppress you, the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name to whom you belong?

So what is he saying there? He's addressing all of those concerns. First of all, the discomfort. Is it better to create an uncomfortable environment for those powerful influencers? No. What those powerful influencers need is to see the faith of the poor. To see that theirs is the kingdom. That's what Jesus was all about showing. He never gave two licks about the comfort of anyone that he was talking to except for the poor. He was always trying to show the rich, hey, the comfort that you have is false. He wasn't trying to make people comfortable in this world. He was trying to fit them for the next.

And then there's nobody more helpful for that than hanging out with people who are poor, who are desperate, who are needy. And if you think that's a distraction, think about this.

In Mark chapter 10, Jesus tells the disciples, "Let the little infants come to me." The disciples were trying to silence the babies. Now, we can talk about rich and poor. Babies can't take care of themselves. They're pretty poor. Without their parents, they're nothing, and they are a distraction.

Let me just tell you, when I come to church and I'm preaching, I like to sit in the front row far away from my family. It's not because I don't love you guys—I love you guys. It's because I have five kids, and inevitably, at any moment, there is some sort of argument happening in the middle of a song where I'm trying to worship Jesus. I'm trying to get my heart right because I'm about to get up here and preach, and I'm trying to keep my head on straight with all the things that I want to say. And I've got all this going on. If it's me, I'm like, let those little children go to the nursery. But Jesus was actually holding babies. He's like, bring them. Give them to me. Can you imagine if I was up here preaching with an infant? We're lucky if we make it through a baptism without them screaming. We get excited when that happens. It's because they're a distraction. They're a beautiful distraction—one that Jesus wants, that he needs in order to press home the kingdom in our hearts.

What James is saying is, think you don't need the poor? You need the poor. They should be the guests of honor because they have the clearest line of sight on the gospel that we're trying to preach.

When we talk about resources, that is the resource they bring. Is money going to get us into heaven or is it faith? The poor bring faith. The rich often come with money. It's not that we don't need both. And he's not hating on rich people, by the way. The point is not to show partiality, not to separate. He's recognizing the kingdom of God. But Jesus had a lot to say also about the dangers of wealth. He warned against the love of money. He talked about how difficult it was for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. He didn't say it's impossible. And there are examples in scripture of wealthy people who come and give and are part of the church—and it's a beautiful thing. But there are also examples of people who are wealthy that come and don't leave behind their wealth in their hearts, like Ananias and Sapphira. And there's warnings against that.

James is saying, hey, it's the wealthy people who are in love with their money. They're blaspheming the name we worship. They're not helping us. It's the poor that help us.

With regards to resource drains and contributions, a lot of times I think we tend to think this way: if we had a bunch of poor people in this church, we couldn't get anything done because we wouldn't have any money. But Jesus talks about this widow. Do you remember the widow? She showed up with two little pennies—two mites. She tossed that in, and then there's this wealthy person who's giving all this money. He says that the widow is the one to emulate.

We can't get anything done without poor people because our hearts would never change. We think our wealth and our money is getting us things. I have seen time and time again us think we've got it figured out. We figured out where we're going to worship. We're going to get this place. We're going to put it together. And then it falls apart, and somehow we realize that our plans weren't really good.

For example, when we bought a building that we thought we would use as a ministry center and we'd worship in a school, and then COVID happened. We thought this building will never work as a worship space, but it was perfect when we needed to worship outside. Was that us and our money? Did we do it? No. We were going about it all wrong. It was God who did it—always. Even when we raise money in this church, we use the phrase "we can't" because we don't ever want to think that it's our money that's going to get this done. It's always the Lord. It's always the Lord.

Nobody teaches us that better than people who are dependent on him for everything because they have no resources.

Another thing that gets brought up a lot of times is safety concerns. Aren't the poor risky? Aren't they kind of risky because they're desperate? They tend to take things. They want things. You know, most of the people that I've encountered over the years that have come and didn't have a lot of money, they have been the quickest to jump in.

I've lived with lots of people who've taught me lots of things about the Lord. But I lived with a guy who had a form of mental retardation who fled here from Hurricane Katrina, and he lived with me for about a year. He was a dishwasher manager at Tiernan Oak Irish pub in downtown. He had nowhere to go and honestly not a lot of capacity to make his own way.

That guy had so much joy and every day he'd walk into our living room and he'd say, "I just got to love Jesus and avoid drama." Every day of my life that voice comes into my head. It says, love Jesus, avoid drama. He taught me so much. Like that is so wise. I wish there were some way I could tattoo that on all of us because those words are so wise and helpful. Love Jesus, avoid drama. I get a lot of drama. But Jesus is good, and this guy, Soup was his name. Nobody taught me that better than him.

You know, it's true that actually if you look at history, this group of people that James was writing to were largely poor—and I'm not talking about American poor, I'm talking about third world country poor. In a couple hundred years, they took down the greatest empire the world has ever seen. We think we need the influence of the rich. It was the poor who brought Constantine to his knees. Whether Constantine's faith was real or not, it was the poor and their influence in the empire that brought it to its knees. Do we need the rich? And actually when Constantine got involved, things kind of got crazy and sideways in a lot of ways. The poor have influence—powerful influence that is necessary for us to forward the kingdom and the gospel in our hearts.

The Third Defense

Finally, a third defense that James anticipates: Is this really important? Is it that important? Seems like there are bigger issues facing the church than where people sit or whatever. And even if it is sinful, won't Jesus just forgive me? Isn't it just about me showing up and kind of sitting with my friends and enjoying the freedom that I have in the gospel to do that and rejoicing in the salvation that I have, and remembering that all the wrong things that I do are gonna be okay because Jesus forgives me? There's something to that, but this is what James says.

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point has become guilty of 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. — James 2:8-10

I think it's fascinating that he uses those two examples: murder and adultery. What he's saying is very subtly, and you might have missed it, but look at it real closely and see if you agree with me. What he's saying is when you show partiality, you are guilty of committing murder. You're cutting someone off and saying they don't matter. You're minimizing an image of God. You're eliminating it. That is the heart of that commandment. This is an image bearer of God. Don't kill him. Don't kill her. That's murder.

And we tend to think, well, that's not really that big of a deal if we're separate from other people racially, socioeconomically, or if we just don't like them and we separate ourselves. That's not a big deal. But it is. It's murder, James is saying. You're minimizing the image of God. You're totally writing them off, and that is a sin.

And then he goes on to say:

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

I think James is saying two things here. One, yeah, it's true. Christ died so you don't have to worry about this. It is not incumbent upon you to be perfect in order to get into heaven. But he also died to enable you to do good things. So you're no longer a slave to sin. You get to join in the glorious mission of Christ. You don't have to be held back by your sin.

It's not that sin is something you get to indulge in because Jesus died for it. It is absolutely wrong to say Jesus died to allow us to sin. But you can say Jesus died to set us free from it. And that's what James is saying. You've been set free from this. You're free. You don't have to be mundane and wallow in this glorious less life where you're all about yourself. You can join in the selfless glory of Jesus. You can be joined with him in his suffering and also joined with him in his heavenly rule and glory.

Because if we're joined by that act of love through belief in Christ, we start to look like him. We pick up our cross and we follow him. And in this life, we look like kind of like losers, maybe because we're hanging out with people that the world thinks are losers. Or maybe because we just don't care about what the world thinks is a loser when we have the greatest winner of all time who is one for us and who gives us all of his glory.

You know, in conclusion, there's this passage in Mark, Mark 10 where James and John—different James.

James and John, they kind of corner Jesus, and they get him alone. They go, "Hey, Jesus, we really want to partake of your glory. When you come into your glory, can you let us sit on your right and your left?" And it's very ironic. I love Mark because it's so ironic. I love humor. Mark, in my opinion, is the funniest gospel.

What's happening is James and John are coming, and they're talking to Jesus. They have no clue what Jesus thinks about as glorious in this life. So what they're asking for is thrones and regalia and trumpets and robes and jewels. They want their fingers ringed. They want people to recognize their power and give them praise. "Let us share in your glory." And Jesus talks to them as though they know what they're talking about. He's like, "Are you really? Do you really want this? Are you sure?"

And then he concludes, "You don't know what you're talking about. You will share in my glory"—talking about their suffering. But he's like, "To sit on my right and my left, there's prophecy about that. I'm gonna be hung between two thieves. Those are the glorious spots. Sure you want those? Do you really want to put yourself with a bunch of thieves, robbers, poor people, the losers of the world?"

They did. James and John did. They just didn't know why. They were having a conversation with Jesus about the right thing for the wrong reasons. But James was one of the first apostles to die. John was the last. They were the bookends of twelve people who suffered terribly for the sake of the gospel going forward. They shared in the glorious suffering of Christ.

What are the best seats in the house? They're with the lowly, the weak, the poor. We ought to be doing everything we can to have the privilege of sitting next to them, of having the joy of being close to them. And why? Because Jesus identified with them.

In Matthew, he says that there are lots of you that are gonna not give to the poor when they're naked and hungry, and I'm gonna say to you, "Depart from me. I never knew you," because you saw me in that situation and you dismissed me. Others, you're gonna care for them. You knew me. You knew me because you were close to them. You saw me through them. — Matthew 25

That's what those who we despise with our worldly eyes become when we put on the lens of the beauty of Christ's resurrection. We suddenly see him in them because they are his image redeemed by his sacrifice.

Draw close to them, brothers and sisters. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let's pray.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, would you help us to draw close to you? The irony is, Lord, so often in our partiality, really all we're doing is separating ourselves from you. We think we're protecting ourselves or separating ourselves from something undesirable. But Lord, you in this world were undesirable. But through the veil that this world placed on you, Lord, underneath that, beyond the skin, Lord, there was so much glory to what you did, the love that you poured out on the cross.

Lord, would you allow us to see that in one another? Would you help us to not be partial? Would you give us the joy of going far and beyond outside of our comfort zones to care and love and to find more of you in others that we interact with?

Lord, ultimately, would you use us for your glory that you will invite us to share in? We pray this in your name. Amen.

Let's stand and sing.