Pastor Clark Van Wick - James 2:1-13

well let's open our Bibles to James chapter 2 shall we James chapter 2 boy we sure had a great time this last week a Vacation Bible School hundreds and hundreds of kids here every day it was amazing especially the last day water day was absolutely fun yeah each kid got to you know I was sitting there under the dunk tank and each kid got to throw three balls right well they're little kids so when the when they threw their third ball and they missed there was a gal standing behind that tripped the lever that dumped the bucket on my head so every single kid got got me dunked every time it was a hundred percent duck my fingers were blue by the time I was finished it was so cold but we had a great day and we saw lots of kids get saved some come to faith in Jesus Christ and we had a great area up in the high school room for the mothers with little kids who brought their older kids to VBS and that was an amazing thing up there and and all the volunteers it was just a great week for the kingdom of God here at the barn and looking forward to next year I'll be thought out by them James chapter 2 now we have finished up chapter 1 and James had dealt with two very important issues as a pertain to the church he dealt with trials and temptations and we saw that both of those words are the exact same Greek word in the Greek language the word per it so and we saw that the definition of these words was determined by the context in which they're used therefore we saw that trials are good when they come from God because God uses trials to grow us and mature us and it leads to the crown of life but temptations are bad because they come from our own desires and result in sin which of course leads to death and we saw that temptation themselves are not sin but falling into the temptation that is the sin but ultimately God desires to use trials and temptations to grow us and mature us as believers and that's really the point that James is driving home now as we come to chapter 2 James deals with another very important issue and that involves partiality who said to Donuts for you okay for you to be always gets to Donuts handsome brute I like that guy partiality partiality so let's pick up our reading in verse 1 and we'll read down through verse 13 in our study today James chapter 2 beginning in verse 1 my brethren do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory with partiality for if there are for if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings in fine apparel and there should also come in a poor man within filthy clothes and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him sit here in a good place and say to the poor man you stand 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 loved 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 and if you really fulfill the Royal law according to the scripture you shall love your neighbor as yourself you do well but if you show partiality you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors for whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumbles in one point he is guilty of all for he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder you have become a transgressor of the law so speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of Liberty for judgment is without mercy to to the one who has shown no mercy mercy triumphs over judgment now as we mention these next 13 verses james deals with another important issue that plagued the church in the early years and that of course is partiality the word partiality it's mentioned in verse 1 it's mentioned in verse 4 and it's also mentioned in verse 9 however these are different words in the Greek language though they do carry a very similar idea in fact some of your translations might change out the word partiality with respecter of person or personal favoritism in fact one word that's used here for partiality is the word judge and it carries the idea of judging someone externally based on how they look or how they're dressed or what they drive or their status in society or the amount of money in their bank account in fact this word partiality it's a compound word the first part is Prost the second word is a very long and hard to pronounce word it carries the idea of a face if you will so when we meet people we look toward their face or the external and we judge them based on how they're dressed how they look who they are their social standing or you can fill in the blank now in dealing with partiality James is going to talk about three separate issues for you note-takers you outliners first of all he's going to deal with partiality in light of faith that's in verses 1 through 7 second he'll deal with it in light of love and verses 8 through 11 and third and finally he'll deal with it in light of mercy in verses 12 and 13 so let's take a look at this first section where he deals with faith as it pertains to partiality and there are three things regarding faith we want to look at number one the first thing is a command concerning faith a command concerning faith that's in verse one take a look in James chapter two verse one it says my brethren do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory with partiality now notice in the middle of the verse it says the Lord notice it's in italics it's not in the text now we do have the definite article that precedes the word faith it says the faith however in our English Bible it doesn't appear before the word glory but in the Greek test it does so in other words this first verse we are commanded to stop holding the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ the glory with partiality apparently holding back our faith the faith in the glory Jesus Christ is something we're already doing and we're commanded to knock it off to stop it now there's two ways we can apply this in our own lives from a practical standpoint the first way is that we should stop holding back in sharing the faith about the glory with other people because they don't look like us they don't talk like I said no dress like us they don't smell like us they don't drive the same kind of cars we do they don't work in the same kind of place as we do you follow me whatever the case may be we need to stop holding back in sharing our faith about Jesus Christ with somebody because they don't match up with what we think they should match up to be and God set the example for us by the way as it pertains to this entire issue because in Romans chapter 2 verse 11 the Bible says there is no partiality with God in other words God doesn't show personal favoritism or partiality to anybody why well because he sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for the sins of the whole world John 3:17 God didn't send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved Romans 10:13 says whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved so there's no partiality with God and he set that example for us so we need to stop not sharing the faith regarding the glory Jesus Christ with people that don't line up with who we think they ought to be so that's one way we can apply that in our own lives but there's a second way we can apply that and that is if we truly are saved if we truly are born again if we truly have the faith in the glory we will not show partiality to others because as far as we're concerned as born-again Christians there's only two kinds of people in the world those who have Jesus and those who need Jesus it doesn't matter what nationality they are doesn't matter what language they speak doesn't matter what kind of clothes they wear doesn't matter what kind of jobs they have it doesn't matter what kind of cars they drive either they're saved or they're not saved so as Christians if we're truly beholding to the faith and the glory when we see somebody we're gonna see them in light of either they have Christ or they need Christ either way we're not going to show partiality and I'll tell you this is this happens very easily because of the external you know I'll never forget Sally and I we have some friends who are music directors and and they were directing music viola at the time I believe and they had contacted us and they wanted to use the church to hold their orchestras they were doing a battle of the bands if you will with with orchestras from the different schools and we said okay and so they set up a panel of judges around four or five or six judges and a big busload of students would come in one from Biola another from another place and so on and so forth and they would come in and set up their instruments and all the parents would end up showing up and their grandparents and siblings and watch the orchestras play and they would evaluate them then another busload of students would come in you know this was an all-day thing and and one busload of students came in and this bus was unlike the other buses I mean it wasn't a yellow school bus this thing was a deluxe high end air conditioned bus with a bathroom in it it was beautiful and when the kids got off the bus I thought whoa boy they were dressed there had brand-new instruments and then the parents and grandparents start showing up and boy they were dressed I mean they were immaculate and I thought they're definitely not from around here and the cars they were driving wow what great rides anyway I this about the third or fourth presentation so I'm out where the coffee is you not saying where the coffee bar is and so I'm out there I've got a rag and I'm kind of cleaning it up because these guys are starting to roll in and I'm restocking things and I'm just I'm just getting started getting it cleaned up because you know people get a little sloppy out where the coffee is I don't know if you know that or not spill stuff and sugar granules everywhere anyway there was a few ladies standing there and they were talking a go ladies look how beautiful the church look at the waterfall in the amphitheater and they were going on and one lady goes oh I've been inside the glass inside the the sanctuary so much glass it's so beautiful and the one says boy I'd really like to meet the pastor I'm standing two feet away from him and I was I was I was almost ready to turn around and introduce myself and then one of the ladies turns she says hey we need some napkins okay so I run in the kitchen I get some napkins and bring it out and I give them some nap go here you go here's some napkins and not even a thank you I was so close to saying you know I'm the pastor I refrained I did not you would have been very proud of me I just kept cleaning and went on my merry way but the point is we need to be very careful as a pertains to this issue of partiality James commands us concerning faith and partiality and he says stop holding it back treat everybody as equals number two now the second thing regarding faith is an illustration involving faith and illustration involving faith look at verses 2 through 4 in James chapter 2 verse 2 it says for if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel and there should also come in a poor man with 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 stand there sit at my footstool have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts now this is a very powerful illustration that James gives regarding the rich and the poor because in verse two he talks about them coming into your Assembly now the word assembly is the word synagogue we might say church service now some of you have been Disraeli with us more than once and we visit a couple of synagogues when we're in Israel we visit one in Capernaum a beautiful fourth century synagogue we visit one in korazim a first century synagogue built out of the local by Sala crock and what's typical in these synagogues is there are typically two rows of bench seats on each wall on each outside wall and there's not a lot of seating so the idea is that people who were very well-to-do very powerful very prominent those who had a lot of money they got the bench seats and everyone else either stood or sat on the floor now the problem is in the ancient church there weren't very many rich rich people most everybody was poor they were slaves but those were the ones who were coming to faith in Christ so the temptation is that you would pay attention to the rich person in hopes of you know having him join the church if you will to be able to cover the cost for those who couldn't afford to chip in you follow or we're going with this so this seems to be the context in which James gives this illustration and since they were paying attention to the rich man not the poor man they were showing partiality now it's interesting it says this if a man comes in with gold rings plural now in ancient times if you are very wealthy you didn't just wear one ring you wore several rings on every finger to indicate that well I don't work you know I can't work my hands are loaded up with rings I can't really do anything so don't ask me to help with it you follow me so he was set apart from everybody else now it says this poor man came in with filthy clothes the word filthy is file in other words they were stained they were they stunk they were bad they were vile and boy what a contrast so their thoughts in showing partiality to the rich man were not just bad according to the end of verse 4 the Bible says they are evil Wow it's evil why well because they were looking to man to supply their needs not God now the context is dealing with faith don't miss that in other words they were putting their faith in man's riches not God's riches and there's a big problem with that even today you know as well as I do there's a lot of so-called mainstream denominations and a lot of churches today where the main emphasis is money you know we don't pass a plate we never have we don't ask for money we never have in fact I can't tell you how many times I had a fella come up to be very upset he said you know pastor I've been coming to this church for quite a while and and and you've never passed a plate you never talked to my about money he says how did how does someone give money to this church I put my arm around him and I said you know if you want to give you'll find a way and I turned around and walked off because it's not about that I don't want to be tempted I don't know who gives or how much anybody does give by the way never looked at it have no desire to because I don't want to fall into that temptation of showing favoritism partiality to somebody because of what we think we can get this is an important issue we need to put our faith in the Lord now this is for the church corporately but listen gang this is for us individually as well we need to make sure our faith is in the Lord you know Paul said in Philippians 4:19 my God shall provide all your need according to his riches in glory look if we're looking to man we're looking to the wrong resource we need to look to God well let's come to the third and final thing regarding this issue of faith we've looked at the command concerning faith we've looked at the illustration involving faith now number three and finally let's take a look at the admonition about faith the admonition about faith look at verses 5 through 7 in James chapter 2 verse 5 he said listen my beloved brethren pay close attention has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and the heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him the answer is yes no doubt about it so God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith now back in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verses 26 and 27 Paul said that God has chosen the weak the foolish the base the nothing's that's us here he has chosen the poor why but because they're rich in faith the poor man doesn't have faith in his riches because he has none yeah okay good three of you are awake yes he has no riches so his faith is obviously in the Lord in the glory but notice the contrast in verse six but you have dishonored the poor man do not the rich oppress you and drag you into courts do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you were called yes they do typically the church was made up of poor people slaves those on the bottom totem pole of life if you will and the rich people didn't won't have anything to do with them they were blasphemy in the name of God and and and they were dragging the poor into court so you've dishonored the rich in faith by putting your faith in the rich I think this is a great admonition for all of us not to look to man but look to God and as a church as a body of Christ it's all about looking to the Lord putting our faith in God not just for our eternal life but for each and every aspect of our life especially in light of partiality I don't know why I can't remember that word it's the weirdest thing ever number two I think it was all that water Friday on my head I don't know cooled off my brain too much number two we've looked at partiality in light of faith now let's take a look at it in light of love in light of love that's in verses 8 through 11 you say well Clarke where do you get the idea of love well he talks about the Royal law the Royal law and there's two things we want to look at in light of this royal law first of all it involves fulfilling the Royal law fulfilling the Royal law look at verse 8 in verse 8 of James chapter 2 it says if you really fulfill the Royal law according to Scripture you shall love your neighbor as yourself you do well now I'd like you to turn back to Matthew's Gospel if you would please Matthew chapter 22 in Matthew chapter 22 Jesus deals with this very issue of love because when we talk about the Royal law we're talking about the sum total of the law we're talking about the complete Word of God which of course is you say Clark are you sure oh yes take a look at verse 34 in Matthew chapter 22 pick it up in verse 34 it says but when the Pharisees heard that he Jesus had silenced the Sadducees they came together then one of them a lawyer a Pharisee asked him a question testing him saying teacher which is the Great Commandment in the law in other words what's the greatest commandment that God ever gave well jesus said to him in verse 37 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind that's the the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:5 hear o Israel the Lord our God is one you shall love the Lord so the first commandment is to love God verse 38 this is the first and Great Commandment and the second is just like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself again quoting from Leviticus 19:18 the same verse that's used in our text then in verse 40 he says on these two Commandments love God and love others hang all the law and all the prophets so all of God's law the sum total of God's law is summed up in one word anybody love ya it's exactly what Paul said by the way in Romans chapter 13 verse 10 he said love is the fulfillment of the law now this becomes pretty interesting because love is the fulfillment of the law you say wait a minute Clark didn't Jesus say in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17 that he fulfilled the law that's right he said he didn't come to destroy the law in the prophets but to fulfill them question how did Christ fulfill the law with love yeah because God is love first John four seven and eight beloved let us love one another okay fine nobody knows it yeah God is love first John four seven and eight so it's I can't even say it without singing I know it's really we did it to the kids in Sunday school Calvary Costa Mesa many years ago but the point is Jesus Christ fulfilled the law because Jesus Christ is God Almighty in the flesh and he fulfilled the law now go back to James chapter two again in verse eight note carefully at the beginning of verse eight there's a preposition it says if now that little preposition is in what we call the first-class condition we would say since since you really do fulfill the Royal law according to the scripture you love your neighbor as yourself you do well or we might say well done listening if we are living by the Royal law the law of love we won't show partiality to other people we will judge them based on the external how they dress how they look how they talk I was invited to go to a pastor's luncheon and you know I I was in construction my whole life you all know that right I was in construction my whole always wore Levi's and old shirt and I mean if you can't wipe your hands on your pants they're really not pants and Sally's been on me for the last 25 years Clark you should you should probably dress a little more pastoral you should look a little nicer you know because well anyway and I show up at this pastors lunch and I'm a little early I usually a.m. and I get there there's four or five pastors already there they're standing around and boy let me tell you these guys looked good pleated slacks button-down shirts penny loafers shiny I mean I thought wow these guys don't do anything all week long [Laughter] just being honest with you can pray for me my mind I showed partiality right off the bat I judge them based on how they looked so I'm kind of standing off holding up the wall and I'm kind of in the back there and I'm there stand around laughing and carrying on and and and one of them turns and looks at me said he said hey and he waved me over I thought oh praise God you know they're reaching out to me that was cool and I get over there they and the guy that weighed me over said hey we need another table set up over here okay so I go to the office and I said hey the guys need another table in here and they gotta go yeah room 104 and I okay fine so I go over true story I get the table I move it back over to weather and I set it up and okay it's set up with the other tables and then the guy turned I'm gonna stand against the wall again and the guy turns let me get some chairs okay so I hustle up some chairs I set the chairs around the table and then the head pastor the pastor of the church comes and the guy that actually invited me and he goes okay everybody all the rest of the guys were there and they let's gather around we're gonna pray we're so blessed today we've got a special friend of mine pastor Clark Van Wyck he passes the church here and it teaches at the Bible College is on the radio with Pastor Chuck I didn't know I was so wonderful by the way he was going on and on and on about me and and I looked over at the guy that ordered me to get the table hey listen we need to be very careful you see I judge them soon as I walked in the room I said man those guys don't lift a finger all week long you follow me so I showed partiality and what happened I got it right back at me okay so we all need to be very very careful as it pertains to fulfilling the royal law number two the second thing involves failing the Royal law failing the Royal law take a look at verses 9 through 11 in James chapter 2 verse 9 it says but if you show partiality you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors first for whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumbles in one point he is guilty of all so failing the Royal law means we are not living in light of love and we end up showing partiality to others and that according to verses 9 and 10 is a sin now if we break one law we're a law breaker we might as well have breakn broken every law that's the idea here because it only takes one lie to make you a liar follow me so when he says if we're guilty of one we're guilty of all we might as well be guilty of all if we're guilty of one that's that's the point and this is illustrated very powerfully by the way in verse 11 take a look it says for he who said speaking of God do not commit adultery also said do not murder now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder you have become a transgressor of the law so the point in verses 9 and 10 is illustrated in verse 11 with two laws now the reason we said this was pretty powerful illustration because of the two laws he chose if you committed adultery if you committed murder both of those crimes warranted the death penalty either one of those crimes equal death and that's how serious James uses this illustration to point out the seriousness of partiality that's pretty heavy we saw back in verse four it was evil here we see it's just like committing a sin worthy of death the point is we need to live by the Royal law which is the law of love and not show partiality well let's come to the third and final thing we'll start wrapping this up right here we've looked at partiality in light of faith in light of love now let's take a look at it in light of mercy in verses 12 and 13 and we just mentioned two things about mercy in these two verses number one it involves Liberty Liberty look at verse 12 in James 212 it says so speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of Liberty now the law of Moses brought bondage but the law of Liberty brings freedom as Christians we have freedom but know carefully class our freedom is not to sin our freedom is from sin we are free from the sin of partiality because we're living in light of love and that kind of love isn't something we work at or strive for it's a work of God's holy spirit in our hearts and in our lives according to Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 so when we show mercy to all in effect we're not showing partiality to any now this is an important issue because according to verse 12 we need to live our lives we need to say and do as though we're going to be judged by this law of Liberty question are we as Christians going to be judged yes no doubt about it 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10 says we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ now he's not going to judge us necessarily on what we do but why we did it what's going to be judged is the motive of our heart according to 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verse 13 so we need to live our lives in light of this judgment regarding the law of Liberty and that in turn will bring mercy upon us simple well let's come to the second and final thing involving mercy the first involves Liberty the second and I like this one it involves victory victory let's just read verse 13 again in James 2:13 it says for judgment is without mercy to the one who shows no mercy so obviously when we don't show mercy to someone we're showing partiality to others therefore our judgment is going to be without mercy but at the end of verse 13 here's the apparent contrast mercy will triumph over judgment so not showing partiality to anyone is in effect showing mercy to all and subsequently we will be judged in light of mercy and I say praise God to that because God's going to judge us in light of his mercy when we are merciful to others by not showing partiality to others that's being merciful and according to Matthew chapter 5 verse 7 Jesus said blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy so as we put this together the points pretty powerful we're gonna be victorious or we're gonna triumphs over judgment when we don't judge others or show partiality to others rather we're showing mercy to everybody and therefore we too shall receive that mercy and there's gonna be victory in fact Paul said in first Corinthians 15:57 he said but thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Jesus Christ I guess if we just simply sum this up it's when we look at people we just need to see them as either saved or not saved those who have Jesus and well those who need Jesus because ultimately that's what it's all about it's all about the eternal and when we live in light of that love that royal law we're gonna be very merciful to people we're not going to prejudge them based on the external you know in 1st Samuel 16:7 the Bible says that God does not see man the way man sees man man looks at the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart and this is an area that well I probably all of us can use a little help in father we just pray that by your spirit you would help us Lord to look past the external and Lord just look to the heart those who either have you or well Lord those who need you and Lord that we would not exhibit partiality to others but extend great love and mercy to all knowing that well Lord will be judged in light of that same judgment so Lord we pray that by your spirit you would help us help us to be those who hold back from showing partiality that we would be those who just love everyone right where they're at and Lord that we would be those who share our faith so Lord by the power of your spirit I pray that this would be true in each and every one of our lives that we would exhibit your heart that when people see us they'd see you in us your love your mercy your impartiality let it be so we pray Lord in Jesus name we ask amen amen shall we stand together if you need prayer today for anything at all be sure to come on up after service the pastors and the brothers the sisters will be up front to pray with you to pray for you to serve you and well just to minister to any and every need you might have in your hearts and lives today next week Lord willing James deals with faith and works how it blends together so read ahead but until then may the Lord richly bless your hearts may fill you with his love his mercy His grace that you would go forth and the power of his might and his Spirit he do a great and mighty work in your hearts and in your lives god bless you guys I love you so much have a have a great week in the Lord

Channel: Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship

Views: 206

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bible Study, Clark Van Wick, Pastor Clark Van Wick, CCBF, Calvary Chapel, Calvary Chapel Bible Fellowship, The Holy Bible, Temecula, The New Testament, The book of james

Id: pAYLzdFdOUQ

Length: 37min 7sec (2227 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019