Respect for All People
READ JAMES 2:1-9
The Jesus follower cannot play favorites. It is not in the character of the the disciple of Jesus to prefer one class of person to another. If this is true in our hearts we must yield that area to the scalpel of God above and pray for its swift removal. We must also leverage our best devotion and discipline against exercising it. The world quantifies matters. Worth is attributed to station, recognition and mobility in the realm of the flesh. The kingdom of God must equip rich and poor alike. The kingdom of God stands open to all on the same footing. It is up to the called out people of God to keep things as such. The way to God is for all. Let us hinder none on their approach to our Father.
It is not uncommon to find congregations riddled with prejudice. It is quite normal to find congregations so comfortable with their own biases towards the favorable that they will fight any attempt to acknowledge their sin as if it were a divisive spirit. Many are uncomfortable with the fact that they might be propagating a culture in which the disadvantaged are handicapped and the advantaged promoted. This discomfort is for good reason. This is sin. It should make us uncomfortable. When I see aged adults stringing pearls of scripture without examining the counter-evidence in regard to social awareness and engagement and their immediate impact on the communion of the local congregation, I simply look back at James. James has a way with helping us prioritize the practical. Let’s fight hard against prejudice.
“The most biblical of churches are permeated with favoritism toward the rich and comfortable, the beautiful and famous – or at least toward ‘our kind of people.’ Yet, many will insist, this necessary for the advancement of the cause of Christ. We cannot sustain our programs, we are told, unless we can attract and hold the right kinds of people. These people seem to have forgotten that the church’s business is to make the right kind of people out of the wrong kind. More often than not the wrong kind in God’s eyes are precisely the ‘right’ kind by the world’s standards – or are even ‘our kind.'”
(Willard, p. 212)
Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.
There is a difference between disciple making and church marketing. Marketing looks for “our kind of people.” Who do we want wearing our congregation’s logo? Who do we want to minister to? What kind of church are we? Who are we doing church for? All of these questions lead to marketing. The better question would be, what does Scripture say a disciple will look like when they complete the process we have assembled here? We should be able to take anyone and lead them down a simple trail towards God. There should be some characteristics we are looking for in them, such as the identity and life tactics discussed in the Beautiful Attitudes series. We should never make that identity a prerequisite for discipleship.
You can hear the seriousness and pain in Willard’s voice over this issue. You can tell when someone cares deeply about bringing the poor, wandering and lost into the fold of God. They are not afraid of calling out the speck in their own eye. He speaks with the knowledge of having been on leadership teams and boards. Willard is grieved by the programming of the people of God. Discipleship and programs are really antithetical. When we are simply people focused and focused on moving them to greater levels of commitment, we can shrink the budget and release the programming. It becomes more about a relationship and less about entertaining.
“You must not harbor hatred against your brother. Rebuke your neighbor directly, and you will not incur guilt because of him. Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh.”
Leviticus 19:17-18
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
At no point does the Bible cut corners on prejudice. The Word of God at all points cuts to the heart of human preference. What is stated in the law is fulfilled in the New Testament. The new covenant established by the blood of God-made-man raps the gavel on prejudice. What was stated in Leviticus is sealed through Jesus. In fact, through Jesus humanity is given the eternal power to love neighbor as self. Only by trusting in Jesus, inhabited by His Holy Spirit, can a person begin to understand and act out love of another over and above self-love.
Let us never hold a contemporary self importance and superiority. Living in the 17th century, Matthew Henry showed a deep and intricate understanding of the equity of God. “In matters of religion,” reads Henry’s Commentary “rich and poor stand on the same level; no man’s riches set him in the least to God, nor does any man’s poverty set him at a distance from God” (746). In a day when debtor’s prisons, indentured servitude and chattel slavery divided western society into distinct strata, Henry directly noted “all undue honoring of worldly greatness and riches should especially be watched against in Christian societies.” Many are the poor. They are with us at all times. Not only are they inescapable, they are inextricably linked to Gods kingdom and will for the world. It is not His will that the poor should be made to suffer, but it is His will that we learn their worth, that we learn humility and that we embrace identity in Jesus and His Good News.
“Snobbery, worldly standards, servile regard for the rich and powerful, personal favoritism, and worship of rank have no proper place among the people of God anywhere at any time.”
(Valentine, p. 76)
Valentine, Foy. Layman’s Bible Book Commentary: Hebrews, James 1 & 2 Peter. Vol. 23, Broadman Press, 1981.
In the end, prejudices reduce to simple and seemingly harmless preferences. Favoritism is a silent killer. It begins with a judgement of things based on the natural leaning. Any decision made on the gut or natural leaning should be closely watched. Even regenerate believers must monitor the desires of their hearts. Until we come into that final glory at Jesus’ return, the responsibility of soul or spirit care is ours. Do not embrace a thing just because you have the liberty to. We are taught rightly in the Scriptures that liberty does not demand license. Liberty can be sacrificed for the good of the other person. This is the beginning of understanding Jesus’ sacrifice. We must learn from the unique God-man who gave up all authority and embrace all humility. So are we called to follow after Him.
If we desire to follow after Jesus, we must embrace His destiny for us. Jesus would have us made wholly His. He would renew the broken within us. He would make us whole reflections of His glory. He is sure of this in His eternity. We can begin to pattern ourselves after that mold now. In his ministry, David Platt struggled over how one should live out this demanding life calling in the social and economic affluence in America. In his book Radical, Platt proposes that Americans cannot stop at verbal proclamation of the Good News, but are “also to demonstrate the gospel visibly in a world where so many are urgently hungry”(109). “If I am going to address urgent spiritual need to the body of Christ,” Platt continues, “then I cannot overlook dire physical need in the process.” We cannot ignore the disproportional standard of living among the called out people of Jesus.
Requirement of the Law of Freedom
READ JAMES 2:10-13
““You must tell them: This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let a curse be on the man who does not obey the words of this covenant, which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.’ I declared: ‘Obey Me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God,’ in order to establish the oath I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is today.” I answered, “Amen, LORD.””
Jeremiah 11:3-5
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
In the Old Testament, Israel was asked to obey a written law. In the New Testament, Jesus asks us to follow Him. We exchange laws for life, or, better said, we exchange static law for the living law of the life of Jesus. God gave Israel His holy demands. Jesus lived out God’s holy demand in human skin. We are now invited to lay down our wills, take up humility, and follow Jesus. Oswald Chambers helps peel back the application of humility and obedience in his devotional classic My Utmost for His Highest. “There is only one way by which I can get right with God” Chambers wrote “and that is through the death of Jesus Christ.” (December 1st).
Chambers goes on to say that our justification before God comes when we “get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience.” Only Jesus will perfectly obey God on earth. It is in His perfection that we stand in faith. He offers His reputation to us. He gives us His right-standing with God. It is the will of God that we would be convicted by such a great exchange and live our lives in accordance to the grace we have received from Jesus.
“The gospel is called a law. It prescribes duty, as well as administers comfort; and Christ is a king to rule us as well as a prophet to teach us, and a priest to sacrifice and intercede for us. It is a law that brings freedom, the service of God, according to the gospel, is perfect freedom. We must all be judged by this law of freedom. It concerns us therefore so to speak and act now as becomes those who must shortly be judged by this law of freedom; that we be of a gospel temperament, and that our conduct be a gospel conduct. The consideration of our being judged by the gospel should engage us more especially to be merciful in our regards for the poor. Such as show no mercy now shall find no mercy in the great day. There will be such as shall become examples of the triumph of mercy in whom mercy triumphs over judgement.”
(Henry, p. 747)
Henry, Matthew, et al. The NIV Matthew Henry Commentary in One Volume: Based on the Broad Oak Edition. Zondervan Pub. House, 1992.
The law of the Gospel demands that those to whom great grace has been applied should reciprocate such grace to all. The law of the Gospel will also birth such seeds that would desire to produce grace in the heart of the believer. God wants us to be hydrants of the living water of His grace to the world. God helps distribute common graces to the world through His called out people. This becoming character is attractive to the world. Believers will not at all times be favored by the world. We are to expect challenge. However, we can do what we can to live such winsome lives among the unbelieving that they might have faith in our good God through Jesus.
Any favoritism or prejudice will undo our best intentions to show grace. We must fight our natural preferences in full view of the glorious grace that Jesus has brought us. In his commentary in James, Dr. Foy Valentine noted that “prejudice strikes at the very heart of the Christian faith”(77). Prejudice undermines our best. Favoritism cuts the legs out from underneath the law of freedom. Preference neuters our gospel of self sacrifice. “The Church,” continues Valentine “should tolerate no class consciousness which would ape the world in ways guaranteed to alienate the poor, antagonize the spiritual, and offend the Almighty.” There is no shadow of turning with God. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Let us model the consistency of His Good News of freedom to all we meet.
“Remember, God is as Great as He is Good!”
Noah R. Hunt
POIEMA: Created for Truth 