good repair and clean. If he's been living on the streets, stains and even tears would speak of that. His clothes contrast the gloss of the rich man's clothing. Now the congregation's response to these two men will speak volumes. Christians should appreciate the situation. We are described in scripture before Christ as wearing stained clothing. Our righteousness is like filthy rags. We see Joshua the priest in Zechariah 3 and 4 being clothed with clean clothing. And that's a picture of the gospel as his filthy garments are removed and he is clothed with festal robes there. As we think about the gospel, we should appreciate the fact that, yeah, we are all spiritually in the state of the poor man, even if we are not also poor ourselves. And there are some who are poor, so we should have a special appreciation for that. But unfortunately, what happens? Well, the church only warmly welcomes one of the two men, and that is the rich man. And so in verse three, we read that they pay special attention to the one who is wearing fine clothes. The idea there is to look upon something with favor, to look upon something with favor. and to invite this individual to a favorable seat. This is the same term that Mary used in Luke chapter one, verse 48, that the Lord had looked upon her humble estate and had blessed her. He had looked upon her humble estate and had blessed her. It's the same word that that's used when the man cries out for Jesus in Luke 9, 38, to look upon his son, to save his son, look upon him. Well, here the church is looking upon someone, and it's not just looking to notice things. We have security sometimes who we hope are looking at people who are coming in and noticing little things. But this is the whole church looking upon a person and saying, wow, okay, there's something good here, something perhaps to exploit. And so they offer him the best seat. Now, in the synagogue settings, of course, these were typically in people's homes. There would be limited seating. Even if you had a special building that you could dedicate as a synagogue, which most people wouldn't have at that time, there typically were limited bench seating that was available. Most people would have to sit on the floor or stand. Those were the options. The benches were reserved for VIPs, very important persons. And so most people would not have that option. But someone comes in, clothes very well, we don't want him sitting on the floor. We could even imagine some of the discussion going on. Well, if he sits on the floor, he's going to get his garments dirty. We can't have him do that. It might even seem very reasonable to people. And sometimes sin starts that way. It starts with a thought that is very reasonable. Now the thought, the problem is not, the problem is not that they asked this man to sit in a favored seat. We're gonna see that in just a moment. But this is expected behavior. This is a person who probably is used to the idea of getting a seat of honor. There are people that we see who are used to that. In fact, take a look at Matthew 23, Matthew 23 Jesus calls us out in and this is of course a problem of personal motivation when a person has expectations like this Matthew 23 We could say it was starting in verse five. They do all their deeds, talking about the Pharisees, they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. And then look here, they love, they love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats. in synagogues, and respectful greetings in marketplaces, and being called rabbi by men. This is where the heart of the Pharisees were. Jesus warns about this, about the pride of this, and sometimes it starts subtle. So we have to beware that in our own hearts. Is this something we expect? But there are people in the church, but with that said, there are people who come into churches who do expect this kind of treatment. There are people in churches that expect this kind of treatment. I remember in seminary, a warning I was given to question churches carefully during the hiring process, because in some churches, and I found this to be true, it's not about the pastor, it's not about the elders of the church, it's not about the deacons, it's not necessarily about any form of rule that they have in the church because all of that is on paper. What matters is determining if the church is following that or if there is a single powerful family within the church, a boss family. A family who has the financial power of the church because they're the rich people in the church. The family who perhaps even knows that they have control of the church and they say certain things. And if you cross them, they say things like, we have survived. The previous couple of pastors, we will survive you too. They are the true power of the church. And there are churches like that. How do people like that get into churches? Those churches saw the money. They saw the money that the people were bringing in. And they gave them the seat of honor in their church. And those people took it. Perhaps it started slow. I'm not saying it began always with evil motives, but it ended up as something that's evil. Now, this is something we sometimes see in churches. And this is what happens when you have the partiality of the rich over the poor. What do we see with the poor man? Well, the poor man is relegated to his inferior position in the church. Perhaps he needs to go stand in the back with the others. Sometimes they would have people standing outside so that they could just listen in. Maybe this person is even permitted to sit down on the floor with the other people. What a honor that is. Maybe, just maybe I have that person come up front and you might say, well, that even sounds kind of nice. Oh, I'm going to bring him to the front of the church and he sits at my footstool. And of course, remember in those days, typically when teaching happened in synagogues, it happened from a seated position. not a standing position. People would stand to read the word of God and they would sit to expound the word of God. That's typically what would happen. So you would have a footstool there for the preacher, for the pastor, and you could say, come and sit at my footstool. He'd say, well, that sounds kind of nice. Hey, you're bringing that person forward. No, it's not nice. It's not nice because Parents and teachers place children at their feet. When the Lord returns, he's gonna place his enemies under his feet. The conquered peoples of a nation were placed under the feet of the conquerors. This is not a nice gesture, especially when you factor in. the smells that must have been part of the first century foot. Come and sit at my feet. This is not a nice gesture. This is a gesture that humbles the humbled. They already don't have anything. Now the world might say, as I mentioned earlier, well the problem is that you have the rich man sitting in the chief seats. You need to take the rich man and you need to throw him on the ground. And you need to put the poor man in the chief seats. Let the rich man feel what it feels like to sit on the floor like the rest of us sit. That ain't the solution here. That is not the solution here. Why? Because that's still showing partiality. That's still showing partiality. Now here's another option, perhaps an option that no one considers. What if these two men come in simultaneously and we're looking at them and we say, oh, visitors. Hey, Bill, you usually sit over there on the bench. Why don't you let one of the visitors sit there? Hey, Bob, or whatever the first century equivalent of these names would be, why don't you let our other visitors sit down on the bench over there? How wonderful it is to have people coming in to worship the Lord Jesus Christ with us. Isn't that showing impartiality? We're treating the two people as equals. We're bringing them in. We're letting them both sit down and we're even sacrificing perhaps people who have been sitting there in those seats. Oh, there are people in churches, they don't wanna give up their seats, do they? There are churches I have seen with pews, with nameplates on the pews. so that you know who sits there. Why? Because that person donated money for that pew so that they could sit there. Don't you take that person's seat. There are other churches that say, oh, we don't do that. But they do. And if someone is sitting in your seat when you come in on Sunday morning, you're angry. Sometimes that can be a good revealer of where your heart is. I usually sit there. Oh, yeah, but that's someone new. Oh, it's great to see someone new here. I'll sit over here this week. Gets me to talk to someone I don't usually talk to. Isn't that great? What heart do you have? That's a good question to ask there. We don't want to give preferential treatment to either the rich man coming in or the poor man. Otherwise, we get to verse four and we see James's rhetorical question there. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? They have made distinctions. They have discriminated. They have discriminated. They've showed partiality and can be judges. Of course, they can be judges, but they need to be judges with righteous motives, not with evil motives. There's nothing wrong with Christians passing judgment about things. We're called to be discerning. Are you discerning though with evil motives or with righteous motives? See, Christians actually think evil thoughts when they become unjust judges, and that's what the text is kinda indicating here as we think about this. Their reasoning has actually been skewed by what they have been doing, because now they are justifying in their minds their behavior, okay, yeah, but the poor man's kinda stinky, so maybe it is good that he stands in the back. The rich man is in nice clothing, it's good that he's sitting up front. And plus, you know, if he joins our church, our synagogue, our gathering, he brings some wealth with him. So this is... Good all around. The poor man can't really do much for us. He's gonna be a drain on us, in fact. He probably needs things. We need to get him on a meal train. We need to probably give him money for new clothing. I mean, it's good that we do good things, but he's gonna be a drain on an already poor congregation. We need more rich people. And see, the thinking just slowly, but definitely shifts. How about people just need the gospel? And we need people here to hear the gospel. And if it's a drain on our resources, so be it. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and he will provide for that somehow. And if God brings a rich person in, we'll praise God for that too, because that rich person is a person who needs to hear the gospel as well. And that kind of leads me to where I'm going with this. Instead of looking at the externals, I mean, again, he doesn't even call him a rich man coming in. This gold-fingered man comes in. This man in fine, bright clothing comes in. We're not even really looking at the fact that he's a man. We're looking at the clothes. We're looking at the spectacle. We're not looking at the person. And that's where James brings us next. We need to start looking at the internal realities. We need to remember that we're dealing with people. And so James says next. how to identify the people of partiality in the church, the people of partiality. Let's not think about just rich and poor. Some people make this text just about riches, just about poverty. No, it's not just about that. It's about the people behind that. It's about the people behind that. Let's look at verses five through seven here. Listen, my beloved brethren. Did not God choose 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. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? So James begins giving us this different perspective, different perspective on these people. Sometimes it helps us to deal with our temptations, because you may be someone who is tempted. Maybe you're not someone who'd want to admit that, but you are someone, perhaps, who is tempted to look at people and make prejudgments about them. or to put it a different way, you're someone who's tempted to have prejudices. Well, if that's the case, how do you deal with that? Well, one thing you can do is realize that you are dealing with eternal souls. Eternal souls. Now, some, of course, are haters of God. and others have been chosen for God's purpose. And so James asks the people to think about this. He starts by saying, listen, listen. That kind of gets us to wake up a little bit, listen. But then he again gives that soft, that softening there, my beloved brethren, my beloved brethren. those who do suffer with temptations of prejudice, it is wrong that they have prejudice, it is sin that they have prejudice, but they still might be brethren and they need to hear, they need to hear this message so that they can repent of this sin as well as the other sins that they're committing, just like we need to repent of all of the sins that we commit and Maybe they may be different sins, but we need to continue our repentance. They need to continue their repentance too. And so he calls them to listen to this, to understand this. And he asks them to look at their favoritism, to repent of it, and consider the people here. Consider first the poor. The poor and the fact that the poor are part of God's chosen. The poor are part of God's chosen. And if they are brothers, Well, are not also the poor, brethren? They're part of God's chosen. Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom with which he promised to those who love him? So James indicates here the same thing that Paul does in Ephesians 1. By the way, again, so many people think that James and Paul are at odds. James is saying the same thing that Paul is. Because ultimately, you know what, James is not the ultimate author of the book of James. Paul is not the ultimate author of, say, Romans and Ephesians and all the rest. It is God. God is the ultimate author of these books, and he is superintending these books so as to give us a unified doctrine. And he calls us to consider his sovereign choice of sinners. And he chooses people not based on what they bring to the table. He chose the poor of this world, why not the rich? The rich could do a lot for God. That's not why God chooses people. In fact, take a look at 1 Corinthians 1 for a moment. 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1 verses 26 through 29, Paul says there, for consider your calling, brother. that there are or there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world, and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that God may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. God can do more with the poor than he can do, than other people could do with the rich. Let's put it that way. God can do more with the poor than other people can do with the rich. I mean, if we just compare numbers, who's the more charitable? Typically, poor people are a lot more charitable than rich people. God uses the weak things of the world, the things that are not, to shame the strong. And he tells us to think about this here. So this rhetorical question highlights a biblical truth. God chooses what the world overlooks. Just as James can call sinning people beloved brethren, Christians also need to see the kinship that they have with poor people, and not look down on poor people. Sometimes people do this, and I've seen it in the church, and it is a shame when you do see it, when you see someone looking down on a poor person, and they say, well, that person is just a victim of his own problems. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes that is true. But not all the time. We need to consider each person as a person. Even if there are certain demographic qualities that are present, some factors that seem to be fairly static, each person is still a person. And who knows what the Lord may do. One of those poor people that you're talking bad about could be one of God's chosen. And if you treat him like a person, God might even use you as a vessel to bring that person to him. We need to remember that we're all called by the same Lord, even if it's a poor Christian. Remember people in certain churches that would look down on us because Heather and I got married very young. We got married at 19, had our first kid at 20. People did not like that. They thought, oh, that's, I mean, you're just, you are just choosing poverty. That was almost the message that we were given. We would go into young couples' classes and then young parents' classes. We were consistently, for the longest time, about 10 years younger than the other parents in the class. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but I mean, that's just how it was. We were just all, we always tended to be younger than anyone in class. And it made us feel a little bit like outsiders because other people already had nice cars and everything else. So we're driving around in beaters and everything, because that's all we could afford. And some people do look down on that. We need to remember that we're all called by the same Lord. Now, as I go through this, I do wanna be clear, because it is possible to twist this as you look at this and you say, okay, so God's chosen poor people, so therefore rich people don't get into heaven. We have to embrace a poverty gospel. If your tax bracket is a certain bracket, at some point, it's not possible for you to become a Christian. That's obviously not true. I mean, that would be claiming salvation by works, in this case, the work of poverty. And some people, it is true that they are impoverished because of bad life choices that they've made. Are we now to say that that's the reason that they get into heaven? No, absolutely not. Poverty doesn't get you into heaven. Richness doesn't keep you out of heaven necessarily. What is it? It is Christ who gets us into heaven, and it's our sins that keep us out. I'm sometimes asked when I became a pastor if I took a vow of poverty. That's not a thing. That's not a thing. Now I do also recognize that there are some pastors who fleece the flock. And so I do understand that that's a concern. but that's not most pastors, that's not 95% of the pastors that you will meet out there. In fact, I think the number is 80% of the pastors are bivocational. Obviously, Pastor Jorge here is bivocational, and he's trying to balance work and ministry and family, growing family. That's where most pastors are. This is my first pastor where I'm full-time as a pastor. All of my ministry prior to this has been bivocational. That's where most people are. Most pastors are not Joel Osteen. Thank God, yes. Most pastors are not Joel Osteen. They are not these big wigs in these churches But with that said, obviously, it's not just about being poor. God can use rich people. God can. God can use rich people. God used, for instance, Joseph of Arimathea, a Pharisee, in fact. He owned a tomb. He was a wealthy man. And people asked him, why are you letting Jesus your two he said it's only for the weekend okay he may not have said that but he was a wealthy man that God used Barnabas sold a field that he owned he owned a field a landowner Oh Yes, a landowner, and he sold his field to help the apostles in the proclamation of the gospel. The Ethiopian eunuch was a court official with the queen. He's traveling in this fancy getup because he has money. Stephen went to preach the gospel to him. Why did the Holy Spirit have him preach the gospel to this Ethiopian eunuch? Probably because the Ethiopian eunuch then took the gospel with him back to Ethiopia. God used him. Peter preached to Cornelius, a wealthy centurion who gave to the poor. God used Cornelius. The first recorded salvation in Philippi was a business person named Lydia. God can even save rich women. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? And similarly, leading women were among the first to be saved in Thessalonica. And then finally, If there were no rich, saved people, then Paul would not have been there to write and to warn the rich not to be haughty. He was there, a man of means, obviously, who had a very expensive education, and he's writing to rich people in the church of Ephesians in 1 Timothy 6, and he warns them, hey, don't be haughty. Don't be haughty just because you have riches. There obviously are rich people in the kingdom. So what's James' point here? Well, James here makes the point that God shows poor people for his purposes and that's it, and we need to recognize that. So we are to care for someone Who's poor? We don't need to count it against them in the assembly. Perhaps they don't put on the best face for our church services. It doesn't matter. We need to care for them because that is part of God's plan. It's not our goal either to put on the best face for our church services. It's to minister to people. Ah, people, people. And James underscores this. He says earthly wealth doesn't equate spiritual riches. He says that these poor people are going to be the rich people. Look at that again. He says God chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. There are worldly heirs. The poor that God chooses are going to be heirs of the kingdom of God. So we shouldn't be looking down on poor people. We shouldn't be looking down on anyone in the church. I had someone ask me once. I went and I spoke at a church and then had a lunch afterwards with a group of people. And I was struck by a question. I had to ask the person to ask me a question three times before I could understand what the person was actually asking me. And it was something like, okay, if two people get married and they're of different ethnicities, where do they sit in heaven? I'm like, where do they sit? Anywhere they want, I guess. And I really didn't understand the question. And then finally, it occurred to me that the person thought that we would all be segregated in heaven into different sections. We would have white people in one section, and black people in another section, and Chinese people in a third section, and so on and so forth. And so she was asking me if two people of different ethnicities get together, where are they going to sit in heaven? And once it finally dawned on me, I said, are you asking me if there are different sections in heaven for different people? And she said, yes. I said, no, I don't read that anywhere in the Bible. That is not biblical. Now, if you wanna say, okay, are there gonna be nations? We can turn to Revelation 21, 22, we can look at that. But no, there's not segregation like that. We will all be able to enter into the New Jerusalem, and we will come and we will go, and the gates will never be shut. We are all one people in Christ Jesus. It's such a weird question, but he did speak of something that happens in churches every once in a while where you don't think that we are actually one family. Yeah, we say that, but of course, you know, the poor will have their area and the rich will have their area. you know, it's gonna be just like here on Earth, you know, we'll have the, you know, poor people in the valleys and then we'll have in the heights, you know, like the Beverly Hills of heaven or something like that, you know, we'll have all the rich people. No, it's not gonna be like that. We don't need to look down on anyone because of culture, ethnicity, or economic status. we need to remember that people are people, that we are talking about eternal souls. The poor are part of God's chosen. And as we're talking about eternal souls, we also need to remember that even though we might be drawn to the rich, even though the rich may do things for the church, the rich sometimes are opposed to God's plans. The poor are part of God's chosen for God's plans. The rich are sometimes opposed to God's plans. So let's think about the absurdity of preferring a group of people who are actually going to hurt us in the long run. And that's what James is contrasting here. The church was dishonoring the poor by giving preferential treatment to those who hate them. to those who hate them. Sometimes the rich man's coming into the assembly to spy out our liberty in Christ. We need to know that. We need to be aware of that. And historically, the wealthy have often exploited the poor through unjust practices, including legal manipulation of the systems and through economic oppression. On James's day, many rich individuals especially unbelievers use their influence to blaspheme Christ and to persecute his followers. In fact, the MacArthur Study Bible notes here that the term is to tyrannize, to tyrannize, they are being tyrannized by the rich. So it's ironic and sinful for the church to favor such people who are dishonoring the Lord. So believers need to remember who owns them, what the Lord has said here. The Lord has called us by His good name, by His noble name. We don't want to be a respecter of persons, period. We certainly don't want to engage in absurdity of being a respecter of persons, of someone who is blaspheming the fair name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we should hold all people to account to bad behavior. If a poor person's sinning, yes, of course we call the poor person out on their sin. If the rich person's sinning, we don't say anything, though, to them because we don't want the money to be cut off. No, we say something to them, too. We say something to them, too. If a politician we don't like, is pushing a measure that is anti-God and anti-church. We say something to them. If a politician who we like engages in inappropriate behavior in a theater somewhere with some guy that she's not married to, oh, that just recently happened, right? We need to say something about that, too. course that person left the western slope for the front range, so I guess she's their problem now. But to be clear, this behavior is reserved for the rich. This behavior is not, excuse me, reserved for the rich. There are Christians who look at this and they say, ah, yes, see, the rich are the problem. We need to partner with social justice warriors, those who advocate the voices of the poor, and we need to partner with them. They make a mistake there. because many of those activists have been just as active in slandering the church as the rich people have. Maybe they don't have the same resources, but they have been just as active as in slandering our Lord Jesus Christ. So we don't want to give them preferential treatment either. We want to treat people as people. We don't want to treat people with partiality. We don't want to tip the scales of justice for the rich person or the poor person. That's what scripture says. Don't give preferential treatment in court to the rich or to the poor. We want to treat people equally, equally. And so if they both come in at the same time, we give them both chief seats, or we tell them both to sit on the floor. We don't say, okay, well, you got nicer clothing, you get the seat. That's preferential treatment. And so don't take this passage to mean that God is anti-wealth. He's not anti-wealth. Yes, there are those who are obsessed with money. And they have problems. But there are people, as I said earlier, who are poor because they sin. That does happen. There are people who are poor because they... are addicted to gambling, they can't stop, they spend all their money on drugs or booze or whatever else. Yes, there are people who are poor because of all of those reasons. If you squander your money and your resources through sinful spiritual pursuits and lawless living, you are no more righteous than the white-collar criminal. who embezzles money while laying employees off. It might be that he affects more people, but you are both sinners. Both people are sinners. So we don't give preferential treatment to someone just because they're poor or just because they're rich. favoritism has no place in the church of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. It has no place in the church of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. It contradicts the gospel which unites all of us regardless of our earthly status. And so we want to reject it. We want to embrace Christ's example. We want to embrace his character. We want to testify of the transforming power of faith in him. So as we reflect upon this passage, let's commit, perhaps even recommit, to loving one another without partiality, honoring one another in the image of God that we all share, perhaps even honoring one another by getting out of our comfort zones and talking to people that we don't normally talk to so that we're not operating in cliques and in tight-knit groups, so that we are one body in Jesus Christ. Let's glorify the one who shows no partiality and who calls others to do the same.