When a few years ago, we lived in Louisville, Kentucky, I remember hearing one pastor reflecting on one of the mistakes he made as he took on a new pastorate actually in that area. At the beginning of his ministry, he decided to look at the financial giving records of all the members in his church. Now, the other elders in the church kind of discouraged him from doing that. And yet he persisted, and so over time they gave in. As the pastor's eyes beheld what different people in the church gave, he became quite disheartened. He began to understand why the other elders discouraged him from looking at these records. He became quite perplexed that some he thought would have given much were quite pathetic in their giving. And he also looked at the giving of others who would have never expected to give so sacrificially. So from that day on, he vowed never to look again at financial records. He understood the wisdom of the other leaders in the church. As he perused those records, he realized that there was a great temptation he would have going forward in showing favoritism towards certain people in the church. The temptation was to show partiality. And such a fear as this is well-founded. It's well-founded because as sinners we are indeed prone, we are tempted to show preferential treatment to those who may benefit us or our cause in some way. As obvious from this illustration, this kind of favoritism can easily seep into the church. And that's why, from our text tonight, The Holy Spirit is going to spur us on to impartiality. The text that we're going to be looking at here in James chapter 2 teaches us that we are to avoid favoritism regarding the rich and the poor. We must avoid favoring the rich over the poor. That's the big idea of James chapter 2. If you haven't found your way there, I encourage you to turn to that portion of Scripture. As you're turning there, remember where we're at in our study in James. James has summoned this scattered group of believers that are under his care to live out the faith, to be doers of the Word, to live out their faith by their words. He's very concerned that his readers are indeed the real deal. He's concerned about their spiritual standing and walk before the Lord. And of course, this is something that we ought to be concerned about as well today. At the end of chapter one, we are challenged with the idea of being true doers, word doers, being true doers of God's Word. Or another way that James puts it is to have true religion, that is to have true Christianity. And one of the ways true Christianity evidences itself is by being impartial towards all people, but especially those in the household of faith. Since this matter of favoritism is really a continuation of last week's message, I'm going to go ahead and read the first four verses of chapter 2, which we covered last week, and then we're going to move on into our text for tonight, which will just be three verses, verses 5 through 7. The Word of the Lord says, My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes. And you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, you sit here in a good place and say to the poor man, you sit there or sit here at my footstool. Have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? This is the word of the Lord. In these verses and in the next paragraph that we'll be looking at, Lord willing, next week, James is urging us on to impartiality. We are to show, again, impartiality to all people, but especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're not to have, as you remember from last week, a prejudice or a partiality based on such shallow things as dress and race and employment status and economic status and any other outward factor. Why? Because it goes against the very character of God who does not show impartiality based on those shallow things. God looks on the heart, and so He encourages us as His children to do the same thing. We've got to understand, morally speaking, favoritism is a social sin, but it's more than just a social sin. It is also a theological sin. It goes against the very character of God. It runs counter to who He is and what He desires us to be and do as the Church. We are to reflect His impartiality towards all. The poor have always been told, as we looked at last week, they've always been told, figuratively and literally speaking as well sometimes, to go sit in the corner. To go off to the side. To be on the margins. But that is not how it's supposed to be in the church. The church is to be a respite. It is to be a haven for the poor. And all the earth, it's to be that one community that stands out as a place where all, rich and poor, can be treated equally. The old saying goes this way, all ground is level at the cross. And it is. It's supposed to be anyway. In the gospel, God honors all of his sons and daughters equally. And that's the way we've got to constantly think of the church. It's a family. And in a family, there's not to be favoritism, is there? We're a family, not a club. And in a family, favoritism should not have any place. Again, just to state what we covered last week, the sort of overarching principle for this section here in verses 1 through 13 is this. As our Heavenly Father, we must show impartiality toward all, especially our brethren. Why? Well, James gives, in these 13 verses, three main reasons. We're going to save the third one for next week. But as you go through this, just recognize he gives these three main reasons, and the way he does this is by showing a contrast. Let me give you the first two. The first main reason is this, as our Heavenly Father, we should show impartiality toward all brethren. Why? Well, because we don't want to take the place of God as judge. That's one reason. The second contrast, which is for our text here tonight, is we don't want to show impartiality, or show partiality, because we don't want to take sides against God's purposes. Well, what is the purpose of God? God desires, if we want to think of it in these terms, God desires to use the poor in the earth who come to him in faith as a grand illustration of his grace to the humble and of his glory in saving the humble. It's an illustration of his grace to the lowly and his rightful pursuit of his own glory. 1 Peter 5.5 says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 1 Corinthians 1.26-31 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen. And the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. God is not going to share his glory with any other human being. And he's not going to share his glory when it comes to dispensing his grace. He is a God of grace, and He wants glory from that grace He gives out. And because of this fact, the poor, the despised, the humble, the lowly of this world are uniquely positioned. They're in an excellent position to dramatically highlight the glory of God's grace. And so, as James is going to argue in our text, to despise those that God has chosen to advance his goals of glory and grace is really to run counter to his redemptive purposes in the earth. This kind of opposition, of course, is concerning. It is particularly, though, distressing when it is occurring in the church. It's particularly disturbing in the church because all true believers that truly come to Christ must come to Christ in a lowly manner, right? They don't come high and lifted up. They come as ones who are poor in spirit. So to get into the kingdom in that way, in a poor in spirit kind of way, and then turn around and then despise those who are financially lowly, is a total contradiction. So rather than taking sides against God's purpose, we've got to avoid favoring the rich over the poor. Now tonight we want to look at three reasons for this. we should avoid favoring the rich. Why? Well, first of all, because selecting the poor is godly. We see this in verse 5. Selecting the poor is godly. If we are going to mimic God, that is, if we're going to be godlike, if we're going to be godly, we've got to select the poor. In verse 5, as we'll see here, The poor God chooses are chosen for two main reasons, two spiritual blessings. First of all, to be rich in faith, and two, to be heirs of the kingdom. First of all, God selects the poor to be rich in faith. Again, verse 5. Listen, my beloved brethren. Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith? We see from this verse that the poor, in a sense, are special objects of God's concern. And so, again, to discriminate against them is really to be a grievous affront to Him. It defies His will. This is a sovereign choice by God. A sovereign choice by God. Now, this doesn't mean that God's choice has been limited to the poor. Nor does it mean that all the poor have been chosen, nor does it mean that every rich man is doomed to be damned, just as it does not mean that all poor are sure to be saved. But generally speaking, generally speaking, the poor are usually more open to receiving the blessings of the gospel than the rich. And so, speaking purely in human terms, there seems, as it were, to be a sort of advantage to being poor when it comes to the gospel. As prepared by God, the poor more readily receive the gospel. You remember what the gospels say about Jesus. Who was it that came out gladly to hear him? Was it the rich? No, it was the common people, not the rich. James teaches that this general reality is not just a matter of chance, but really it is the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of the Almighty. As I quoted a moment ago, let me just quote a portion again from 1 Corinthians 1. Listen to the strategy. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. Jesus reinforced this same idea when he declared his messianic mission. He says, I've come to preach to who? The poor. In verse 5, James commands the attention of his readers with this imperative. He says, listen, it's time for me to give you a very brief theological lesson. Now, the way I'm going to give this to you, he says, is through a series of questions. And each one of these questions is going to demand an affirmative answer from you. The first question and answer teaches God elects or chooses the poor. We could put it in these terms. He has a sort of bias towards them. Poor. The Greek word here indicates one who is a beggar. And these are the type of people that God loves to love and care for. The kind of people He chooses. But again, James readers here are not being God-like in this manner. We know this from what we studied last week. They had these worship services and these believers were rolling out the red royal carpet for the rich as they came into their midst, but they were just totally blowing off the poor. They were showing a partiality for the prestigious over the poor. But that is not how God operates. God's sovereign choice often, not in all cases, but often is to make those who are materially poor spiritually rich in faith. And it's very ironic. The very last people that the world would typically choose is the very first people that God chooses. You see, the world operates on a merit system. It doesn't honor the poor, not just financially, but in any realm. It doesn't honor the poor in personality. It doesn't honor those who are dull or uninteresting. It doesn't advance the poor in mind, those who are slow and uneducated. It doesn't glamorize the poor in body, those who have a lot of wrinkles and are not as attractive as they used to be. And it doesn't pick the financially poor either. But God chooses these kind of people. Why? Well, we know it's not because they're just monetarily poor. That is not the main qualification. You, as well as I know, there are a lot of poor people out there who reject the Lord Christ. Nor does God choose poor people based on foreseeing that somehow they would first choose Him or trust Him. Again, this gets into the area of election, and it is unconditional. It is not conditioned upon what a sinner does. As Romans 9 clearly explains, God's choice is based purely on His grace and for His purposes. That's what Paul explains. But it's interesting here, James doesn't do a lot of explaining about election, does he? He just assumes it. And he assumes that his readers are going to assume it. Why? Well, they're good Jews. And Jews did. Their whole national identity, remember, was based on God's unmerited choice of them as a nation. Was it because they were bigger, stronger, mightier? No, they had nothing to commend themselves to God. God just, in sovereign grace, chose Israel. So, they understood this. They assumed this. This was no problem for them. And this is why James can just go right after the practical application in this and say, look, what are you guys doing? Of all people, you should understand sovereign choice of the poor, of the despised, of the lowly, but you're choosing the rich. And this aligns counter to God and His plan. This is the exact opposite of His plan. He chooses the poor to be rich in faith. Again, this isn't how it always is, but often God chooses the poor for salvation and he passes over the rich. And don't the numbers clearly bear this out? The numbers of believers is clearly slanted in the favor, true Christians, not just the professing church, but true Christians is clearly slanted in the favor of the poor. And again, there's a reason for that. There's an illustration purpose going on here. God is using all of this to teach us something. To teach us that only beggars enter his kingdom. You've got to come in as the poor guy. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor in earthly goods. There's only one way to come to Christ, and that's the lowly way. You've got to come in low, poor in spirit. And so, physically, the financially poor person illustrates spiritual poverty required, a dependence on Christ for His grace. This is what makes a person rich in faith. Conversely, what do you have in the typical rich guy? You have an independence from God. a high-mindedness towards God. And so, rather than demonstrating a richness in faith, many, many rich people demonstrate a poorness in faith, a poverty of faith. What did Jesus say? Children, how hard is it for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. You've heard me say it before. Just by virtue of being an American, we're pretty rich. And so we've got to take heed. And let me say this to you. If you are considered a rich American by American standards, then you need to take double heed. We've got to beg God to make us poor in spirit, because the fact of the matter is that it just doesn't come natural to us. As with these first century believers, We can easily forget God's view of the poor. And when we forget it, we rob ourselves of a wonderful tutorial lesson of how salvation really works, of God's unmerited choice of poor sinners. There's an old Japanese proverb that says, even Buddha cannot save those who don't have money. Thankfully, Jesus Christ doesn't operate that way. He can save the poor and make them rich in faith. Faith here is the sphere within which they receive their wealth. They are rich in the realm of faith, is what James is saying. Puritan Thomas Manton once said, So, first, James notes, God selects the poor to be rich in faith. Secondly, He selects them to be heirs in the kingdom. Verse 5 continues. Listen, my beloved brethren. Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? Heirs of the kingdom. Kingdom here refers to the whole sphere of salvation. It includes the kingdom in the present tense, or the present sense, that is, those over whom Christ rules, but it also seems to even take in future reign, future glory, eternal glory, eternal reign. So to be heir of the kingdom is to possess it, to become part of it. It's inseparably linked to salvation. To be called into the kingdom is to be called to salvation. So when Jesus, or James rather, says here, heir of the kingdom, he means inheriting everything that salvation can and will give the believer. All the eternal blessings, all the eternal rewards. So, poor Christians who have little in this world, can take comfort in this. They have, both presently and they can know for the future, they have all that the richest kingdom in the universe can possibly offer. And this kingdom is not in question whatsoever. It says, this kingdom is promised by God. It's a statement of fact. God has covenanted with the poor Christian concerning his kingdom, and he cannot lie. And further, this inheritance is not in question because the kingdom is promised to those loving God. Persevering poor saints have a present and a persisting love for God. That's what love in verse 5 means. It's a present active participle here. It's an ongoing kind of love. It does not quit. It keeps going on and on. And this kind of love is proof. It's a persevering proof that they are indeed chosen of God. Some people scratch their heads and wonder, well, how can we know who's of God's elect and who is not? Some people want to turn this into some kind of impossible, mystical evaluation. It's not. It's very simple. You want to know who's of God's elect? Look at those who persevere in love for God. They love God with a heart, soul, mind and strength in their affections, and they love Him in their obedience. And there have been and there continue to be many, many poor believers who fall into this category. They love God. They love. They don't have a lot when it comes to worldly goods, but boy, they treasure Christ. And in Him, they find their all. They supremely love Him throughout their lives. Well, from verse 5 we learn, first of all, we should avoid favoritism because selecting the poor is godly. Secondly, on the flip side of this, in the first part of verse 6 we learn we've got to avoid favoritism because slighting the poor is ungodly. In the beginning of verse 6, James continues, but you have dishonored the poor man. You might want to mark that little conjunction, but, in verse 6, of course it marks a contrast. It is saying, These professing believers that James addresses were bringing shame on the poor. But it's interesting here, if you look at the singular use of poor here, It seems that James is pointing out that it's much more personal than just sliding a sort of large group of people called the poor. If you notice there, the plural reference to the poor in verse 5 switches to the singular noun in verse 6. And we've got to ask, why? Why did the Holy Spirit switch it up? I think the reason is this. It's very personal. It's individual. It's not just slighting some large group of nameless, faceless people called the poor. When you slight the poor man, you are slighting an individual. It's very personal and it's very hurtful. Real individuals with real feelings. So rather than honoring and learning from the financially poor Christians, James says, you guys are pushing them off to the sides, you're pushing them into the corner. Now, today we might not do exactly what they did as recorded for us here in James chapter 2. That might be a little bit more extreme to us. But this sort of thing still goes on in churches today, albeit usually more subtly than what James records. And I think we all know that this should not be the case in the church. We should not slight poor Christians, and yet it is such a temptation for us in various ways. We've got to see things from God's perspective. We've got to see that the poor Christian, the lowly, the despised Christian has a whole lot to offer the church. There is incredible spiritual wealth that they can bring to the table and help us understand the Lord God better. Commenting on his letter correspondence, John Newton, of course he was the one who wrote Amazing Grace, said this, He says, I get more warmth and light sometimes by a letter from a plain person who loves the Lord Jesus, though perhaps a servant made, than from some whole volumes put forth by learned doctors. Brethren, we should not slight the poor. They have much to teach us. Let me ask us though, do we? In subtle ways, do we slight the poor, the average guy, the plain guy? when they come into our worship services? Do we find ourselves only huddling around the same people? Do we find ourselves particularly gravitating towards the affluent and the influential, or at least people that we consider to be like us? If we see two different people come in, visiting our church on a Sunday morning, and one is dressed nicely, apparently has a lot of money, and another guy who apparently doesn't have very much. Which person do we seek out first? Which one do we seek to engage in conversation first? If we know one guy is a blue collar guy, and he perhaps works for a grocery store, and then we know another guy is some kind of executive in a large corporation, which one are we going to go to first? Which one are we going to try to impress? Which one are we going to try to encourage to come and be a part of this church? Well, if we're going to follow the scripture, if we're going to show any kind of bias, if we're going to walk up to one of those guys first, it should be the blue-collar guy. It should be the poor guy, the lowly guy. You want to know why? Because that is how God thinks. It's how God thinks. It's how he wants us to think. I've had people come up to me before and tell me, this guy over here, that guy over there, he does this, he does that, he's an important person, has an important position. And there's a lot of encouragement to go talk to that kind of person. I've never had anybody ever come up to me and say, Pastor, there's a person over here who's really poor. Why don't you go talk to him first? Why don't you really try to encourage him to be a part of our church? We don't do this sort of thing. And it's to our shame. Friend, if you have ever been previously taught or if it just comes natural to you to kind of size up people who come into these doors and kind of target, okay, that person looks like he might have some financial status or at least a purported position at work. If you've been taught that before, that is ungodly. And you know what? I know that there are pastors out there that teach their congregations to think in those ways. And it is immature at best, and it is ungodly, worldly thinking. This ought not to be. If that is you, I would encourage you to change your thinking. Beloved, let me just give us a reality check here tonight. Our church, our church, is not going to attract many rich people, I assure you of that. We might attract a few, those who truly know Christ as Savior, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who long for pure preaching of the Word, who don't want the drivel of easy believism. But I'm going to tell you, and I've seen it, not many hang around for a long time And that shouldn't be a surprise because the Lord tells us it will be this way. A pure preaching of the gospel, a preaching of the gospel in its purity, one that aims at the heart, not one that's caught up in outward programs and outward appearances, is usually going to offend the rich in particular. And the reason is simple. The reason is simple. The world is constantly telling the rich man that he's a somebody. Constantly telling him, based on outward appearances, man, you matter. You're better than others. But the pure gospel, the true gospel says to the rich man, in God's eyes, you are just as wicked as everybody else. And God is thoroughly unimpressed with you. Further, the Gospel says to you, you are no better than the poor. And if you will come to Christ, and if you will follow Christ, you're going to have to admit that you're not better than anybody else. If you're going to follow Christ, you're going to have to admit that you're just as lowly as everybody else. You're going to have to understand God's not going to give you any preferential treatment. And you're going to understand if you're in a pure gospel preaching church, that church is not going to give you preferential treatment. In fact, it's going to say to you, because you're the greatest and you're the mightiest and the richest, guess what that qualifies you for? It qualifies you to be the biggest servant of all. It qualifies you to stoop down and clean and wash the feet of the poorest person in your church. That's what it qualifies you for. This is what the gospel teaches. And friends, we just got to understand, that kind of message is just not going to be appealing to many rich people today. It goes against their worldly and vain thinking. Now look, let's understand this clearly tonight. We are to love and we are to care for all people. rich as well as poor. Because the fact of the matter is, God does do a gracious work in the heart of many, many rich people. Not nearly as many as the poor. But he does touch the heart of the rich with his gospel. In fact, one of the strongest witnesses in the world during the early church was the fact that you had a lot of godly, rich believers who genuinely cared and reached out and took care of poor Christians. This is one of the main reasons why Christianity spread so rapidly. You had gracious, truly pious, rich Christians who took care of the poor Christians. And the world looked at that and they said, we don't have a category for this. This doesn't make sense to us. This is unlike anything we have ever seen. The world is constantly saying, despise the poor and push them off to the margins, but you Christians love one another and there's an equality among all of you, regardless of financial gain. So let's understand, when we look at what James is saying here tonight, God's Word is not advocating some kind of reverse discrimination here. It's not saying, OK, let the pendulum swing to the other side and start sliding the ridge. It's not saying that. What is it saying? All it's saying is we're to love and care for all people equally without preferential treatment for one over the other. And so in that light, we've got to ask ourselves, are we doing that? Seriously, ask yourself. Are you doing that, even in very subtle ways? Do we give the same kind of attention to the plain poor guy as we do to the attractive affluent guest? Or do we only talk to, do only call up, do only invite into our homes those who are very similar to us, of the same economic status? Do we intentionally minister to those who can in no way profit us in any way? Do we put our arm around a person who isn't well-kept and doesn't smell all that great? Do we seek out ways to financially help the middle-aged couple who has fallen on difficult financial times? Do we allow the poor man or woman to teach us their profound theology every time they put a few coins on the offering plate? Do we spend time with them? The uneducated, the sick, the lowly, the poor. We got to if we're going to be like our Heavenly Father. So, we must avoid favoritism because selecting the poor is godly. Secondly, selecting the poor is ungodly. And finally, because seeking the rich is irrational. That doesn't make any sense at all. Seeking the rich is irrational. As we look at the second half there of verse 6 and then into verse 7, the rich flattered, they used, they abused these Christians, and then they blasphemed their God. And yet, what did these Christians repeatedly do? They kept rolling out the red carpet to these rich guests. And so James attacks that. He punctures that incongruous act. He says, this doesn't make any sense. This is irrational. And again, the way he does this is through a series of questions, of interrogatives. Questions that reveal how the rich persecuted, prosecuted, and profaned. First of all, we see the rich persecute Christians. Verse 6, James asks, Do not the rich oppress you? What's the answer? Yes, they do. Oppress here means to exploit brutally, to tyrannize, to deprive others of their rights, to dominate someone else, to take financial advantage of someone else. And that's what was going on in James Day. This small number of wealthy landowners and merchants concentrated more and more wealth and more and more land. And in the process, it drove the poor, probably agricultural laborers, it drove them from the land and it made them more and more poor. Because of greed and selfishness, not only in that culture and not only in that age, but in every culture and in every age, because of greed and selfishness, the wealthy often take advantage of the poor. Even though the rich man does not need more money, he will still foreclose on the poor man's property without any regard for his dire circumstances. Even though he doesn't need the extra money, the rich man will charge an exorbitant interest rate on the poor man. Even though he doesn't need another vacation home, the rich man will hoard more and more money at the expense of the common worker in his company. The common worker who is just struggling to keep a roof over his family's head. Please don't hear me talking some kind of class warfare here. I'm not trying to do that. But we've got to understand the reality is there is often unbelievable greed among many rich folks and it's always been that way. They have more than enough, but they want more and more and will get more and more. How? By taking advantage of the little guy, the guy on the lowest part of the totem pole. Now, hear me tonight. It's not wrong to have wealth, right? And it's not wrong to enjoy some good things in life because you have wealth. But it becomes wrong when greed takes over and then you begin to exploit others, even in subtle ways. And again, many rich people do this. It's an ungodly mentality, a sort of survival of the fittest, a dog-eat-dog mindset, a mentality that says, I'm going to get mine. There's no doubt about that. And if I have to trample on people to get to the top, I don't care. I'll do it. This is ungodly. It shows a total lack of compassion. Along these lines, James says the rich are taking advantage of the poor. He's taking advantage of you guys. You guys are poor. Remember who James is talking to here. The vast majority of these people he's writing to were poor. And they were just falling all over these guys who were coming in with their very bright clothing. And he says, this makes no sense that you're showing them this kind of favoritism. Why are you aligning yourself with them in this way? This is madness. You are kowtowing to those who despise you, who persecute you, and as a result, make themselves the enemy of God. These are the people you're showing favoritism to. This persecution, James goes on to say, spills over into prosecution. This is an explicit example of the kind of opposition, the kind of oppression that was going on. The rich prosecute Christians. At the end of verse 6, James says, Do not the rich drag you into courts? And what's the answer? Yes. Now, the Greek is really interesting here because it indicates that these wealthy people were physically, literally doing this themselves. It wasn't that they were just, you know, sort of hitting out their hitmen and, hey, go get that poor Christian over there. No. The idea is they were personally, forcefully, with their own hands, dragging these disillusioned poor Christians into civil court. William Barclay shed some light on this. He says, in that day, if a creditor met a debtor on the street, he could seize him by the neck of his robe, nearly throttling him and literally drag him to the law courts. And that is what's going on here. That's what James is describing here. But what's really interesting about this is it wasn't really motivated by just getting more money from these poor Christians. It was really motivated by the hatred these rich people had for the faith of these poor Christians. It was religiously motivated. It was religious persecution. Based on verse 7, because these poor Christians followed Christ, these ungodly rich men used their clout to sue Christians in unjust ways. So, they weren't just doing this because, you know, these Christians really did botch things up pretty bad. They were doing this in very unjust ways. You know, we talked about this this morning, right? There is injustice, even in the law courts, and it seems that that's what's going on here. They were using their clout to unjustly sue these poor Christians. And so, did it make any sense at all that these are the people you're favoring? These are the people you're showing partiality to? You're dishonoring the poor, but you're honoring the rich? That makes no sense, James says. That's like honoring your executioner and dishonoring your friends who have been faithful to you your whole life. Makes no sense. But there was something worse, even in the persecution and the prosecution these Christians endured. The rich were profaning Christ's name. Verse 7. Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? Answer, yes. So the rich were not only physically and legally abusing these Christians, we learn here that they were also verbally abusing the name by which they were called. That fair, that noble, that honorable, that excellent, that beautiful name by which they were called. And what name is that? It is the name of Christ. Peter says something similar to this in his first epistle when he was speaking about some persecuted Christians. He says, they are reviled for the name of Christ. The rich. A lot of scholars think it could have been the Sadducees. The Sadducees, because they were wealthy, they were of the aristocracy, they were secular, they actively persecuted Christians. We don't know that for certain, but assuming that's the case, these rich Sadducees defamed and mocked the name of Christ. The name by which these poor Christians were called by. In other words, the name that they were identified by. It was the name that they found their identity in. That's what this phrase, name by which you are called, entails. It means the person to whom you belong. It's the idea of a child bearing the name of his father. Identification. And so James says, this is totally inconsistent. You're showing favoritism to those who hate your Savior. The Savior to whom you belong. Those are the kind of people you're showing partiality to. And friends, today, generally speaking, the rich still hate Christians. And yet, despite this reviling, Some believers today still irrationally favor the powerful, the prominent, and the prestigious. Money still does a lot of talking, far too much talking, even in Christian circles and Christian churches. But as in the first century, the rich today do not reciprocate that same honor heaped upon their head by Christians, do they? For example, some Christians will give just a mindless, mindless support to politicians, thinking these politicians will be the answer. And yet, let's understand, if it is to the advantage of those politicians, they will quickly sell out Christians. They won't think twice about it. They will verbally persecute, and perhaps one day even worse, the very people who put them in office. Another example. Hollywood celebrities. Many professing Christians will glamorize these people. Professing Christian teenagers will plaster their posters on their walls. Professing Christian adults will watch them on the Lord's Day evening, instead of being in the Lord's house, listening to the preaching of the Word. And this is the height of irrationality. Why should we honor those who dishonor the Lord? Those people hate the Savior. They hate Him. And so it's irrational to think that somehow they care about Him or us. Let us not be deceived. They don't care. Let us rather take comfort in the fact that Christ's name will not always be blasphemed among the mighty. their tongues will one day confess. The very tongues that curse the Christ now will one day confess Him as King of Kings. Based on God's impartiality, we must not show favoritism for the wealthy over the poor. I had a college professor of mine that once told a true story of an incident that happened in a church. along these lines. One Sunday, there was a street person, a homeless man, that walked into a church building. He was unkempt, he was dirty, he was uncouth, he smelled. And he stood in the back of the sanctuary. No one said anything to him. He didn't really know what he was supposed to do. He just stood in the back. No one said anything to him. Eventually, he got to the point in the service in which the pastor stood up to preach, and he began preaching. And as he did, this homeless man walked to the front, right down the aisle, walked to the front of the auditorium, and he literally sat on the floor right in front of the piano. He was totally oblivious that this was a social taboo. He just didn't know what he was doing was wrong in any way. Now, what would you do if you were the pastor in that situation? Would you call the ushers to come down and escort him out? Well, the pastor didn't say anything. He didn't have time to say anything. Because immediately, as this man sat down on the floor, a very well-dressed, affluent layman in the church got up from his seat, walked down the aisle, came over in his suit, and he sat down right next to the homeless guy. And he took his beautiful leather-bound Bible, and he opened it up, and he shared with the poor man. And they listened to the Word of God together. Why did this Christ-like layman react that way? I would contend he reacted that way because he understood that his Savior, though rich, yet for his sake became poor, so that he, through Christ's poverty, might become rich. Brethren, because Jesus took on our spiritual poverty that we might have his riches, we've got to avoid showing favoritism for the rich over the poor. Let's pray.