No Partiality is Allowable

In the opening section of James chapter 2 the issue of partiality is raised and confronted. Listener, what does this tell us about the heart and character of God? Revd Daniel brings the word of the Lord for today.

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In the opening section of James chapter 2, the issue of partiality is raised and confronted. Listener, what does this tell us about the heart and character of God? Join Reverend Daniel as he brings us the word today.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

We are continuing our sermon series on the book of James. Today, as we we know through the announcement earlier, we are looking at the theme of partiality in the context of the church assembled together. The need to show no partiality is repeated twice. First in James chapter 2, verse 1, where James begins, My brothers, show no partiality. And again in James 2, verse 9, but if you show partiality, you are committing sin. And so on and so forth. So the thought, the main idea that James is talking about is to deal with the issue of partiality in the church as we gather. So why is James emphasizing the theme of partiality and what are some lessons we can learn? I'd like to begin by uh illustrating to us or sharing with us uh a real life example. You know, traditionally uh visitors to amusement parks and attractions may spend hours waiting in line for the most popular rides and attractions. How many of us have been to uh Universal Studios? Can I have a show of hands? Wow, almost half of us have been. So I think you are familiar, at least once uh when it first opened its doors, I believe, and even beyond that, uh many of us have been there. So um so we know that if it's a weekend or uh or a popular day, usually the uh you take a long time for popular rights. You've got to queue up and wait. Sometimes could be an hour, that's a real long, or maybe at least half an hour you have to wait in line. So so of course, we know uh not only in Singapore Universal Studios, but I think Universal Studios Hollywood also gives this provision. So it provides something different, what we call the VIP experience. The VIP experience. So if you buy the VIP package at Universal Studios Singapore, you can explore um the trails of the park with a guided tour and enjoy red carpet treatment with VIP access to rides and shows during your tour. You also enjoy other exclusive benefits uh as complementary, including refreshments, a private meet and greet, and souvenirs and and so on and so forth. So this is uh published in their website, you know, uh Universal Studio Singapore, the VIP experience. But how much would someone have to pay more to um to uh sign up for this VIP experience? I'd like to suggest to us it is almost four times the original amount. So uh admission ticket is about $90, uh non-peak uh hours is about $91. So it's almost four times the amount, close to $400 if you were to take on this VIP experience. And for a child, it's even more expensive, it's close to five times the amount. So the normal admission, non-peak uh hours is about sixty-two dollars per child, but if you take the VIP package, uh the amount, balloons to almost close to five times the amount that you have to pay. So would any of us choose to do that? Take the VIP package. I mean you you can have free access and fast access, you know. When you arrive straight, you'll be ushered to uh the place where um you don't need to queue. So my first experience that was decades ago when I when it first opened, I visited Universal Studios. Um it was uh it was quite a jarring experience because we realized that it's some way I felt it was like a double standard because we were queuing very long and then there was another express queue that kind of bypassed everyone. So they were going faster and we were queuing and and the wait was extended. Right? So um so this reality is uh part and parcel of life, right? You want to uh more benefit, you actually have to uh pay more. If you want greater incentive, uh you have to pay the price, so to speak. Even if it means four or five times more. Some people, out of convenience or because they have a lot of money in their wallet, will just pay for the convenience. And I'm sure uh in the context of Singapore, there will be people who will pay for such uh packages. Some observers lament the practice, seeing it as corrosive of a wholesome civic habit. They say, gone are the days when the theme park queue was the great equalizer, where every vacationing family waited its turn in democratic fashion. Here um uh social commentators and uh have commented that there is a growing reach of money to commodify everything in our lives, even to the areas uh in this context, the entertainment arena of our lives. Even when we want to relax and have fun, we have to be willing to pay more. So in this case, instead of standing in the queue to wait for our turn, we can now pay our way to bypass the queue through the VIP experience. During the last three decades before the first Jewish war, now I'm moving to the context of James, there was a severe deterioration in the internal stability of Palestine, as well as a series of famines. During the last decade of this period, the clerics in the temple were at odds. The wealthy high priestly families sided with the Romans and deprived the lower clerics of the tithes. So there was some power play going up there with uh those rich uh priestly families siding with the Romans, depriving many of the other clerics or what we call uh temple ministers or clergy of their tithes. While the local clerics, uh the temple clergy were impoverished and sided with what the movement of the zealots at that time, where they wanted to uh overthrow the Romans through armed conflict and revolution. So it was chaotic there. Imagine a temple cleric, you know, is instead of uh uh obeying the line of authority, started to uh side with the zealots to overthrow the Romans. And when they do that, it has implications to uh to accost the Herodians and the high priestly families that hold the weight and power of authority. So naturally, in the church context, in the context of the book of James, you know, this this was the context of his time. So, how would we treat people who come through the church doors? On one hand, the church naturally, as a persecuted minority, they felt perhaps resentment against the rich because many of the rich had robbed many of the members of their lands. That was another issue. Uh so they took over the lands and many of them uh had to just give up their lands. They probably also showed discrimination against Christians in hiring their labor, and they were often the instigators of attempts to suppress the church. So uh so that's the association. Wherever you see a rich person coming, you your suspicions uh go up and perhaps uh they mean no good. On the other hand, there are some who think that if a wealthy person entered the church or was a member, there would be every reason to call him because there's uh privilege and there is certain uh kind of uh what we call uh relationship that can be formed with the wealthy such that you are able to uh glean some benefit from the wealthy person. So his money, because he probably will be filthy rich, was seen as a means of survival. Certainly, if a rich man enters the church, we should not offend the person. Because who knows, the person may end up in a Roman society to be my benefactor in some way. So that uh in the culture and time, in the time of the New Testament, it's a time of uh uh mutual benefit, uh a client patron relationship where you know you could have your patron or someone who supports you sitting in the in the uh congregation also. So you better not offend. Offend the person, otherwise, the person may withheld withhold the benefit. So the above factors affected the relational dynamics of the wealthy and the poor in the gathered community of believers. How should the gathered community of believers relate to a wealthy visitor or a poor one who visits the church? These questions form the backdrop for understanding James chapter 2, 1 to 13, our text today. So James uses a very strong tone in the Greek in these words. He says, My brothers, show no partiality. So it's almost a double negation. Absolutely no, as Christians, definitely no, partiality, as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. So, in other words, James is saying, uh, there's a qualification here that if you hold to the faith and the commitment, if you say that you are Christian and you believe in Jesus, certainly you cannot have a tin or partiality in your mind or in your practice. Because those who hold to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, are not debasing just any belief, but rather a faith commitment in the one exalted Lord Jesus, whose glory will finally be revealed in the final judgment. So the word Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord of glory was intentional. So he's saying that whenever a Christian shows partiality, you are debasing the Lord of glory, the Lord who has revealed himself, and the Lord that will come to judge. So why is James so strong in his words uh in using uh very strong uh imperative negative verbs in this instance to denounce partiality in the church? Uh there are two reasons I'd like to share with us. Firstly, we cannot hold to a faith commitment to Jesus yet show partiality because the true gospel that we embrace as Christians removes any social distinction among us. If we embrace truly the faith commitment to Jesus, we cannot practice social distinctions among us. So there's a leveling effect of the gospel. James is saying that true faith that is practiced in the church has no place for any form of social distinction practiced by the world. The world out there, the Roman Empire, the society of the day, that is their pecking order. But as the church gathers, we ought to be different. We ought to relate differently to one another. Certainly, we shouldn't allow the culture of the world, the the way the culture is run and framed, to affect what the church is and should be. So James goes on by way of illustration. He tells us uh by way of illustration in James chapter 2, verse 2 to 4, uh what happens, a scenario. He says, For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, You sit here in a good place, the place of honor, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, social distinctions in the church of God, and become judges with evil thoughts. So both men are likely to be strangers because uh they need to be directed to their seats. So, likely if you are a member of the church or the community, you won't know where's your where your favorite seat is or where to go, right? So the fact that they are need to be directed uh alludes to the uh the fact that perhaps they may need, they are neat, they are strangers and they have come into the Christian assembly. So when they enter, the man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, a sign of his wealth, is seated well, and the poor man in shabby clothing as a sign of his poverty is relegated to standing or sitting on the floor. So James said if the if you are to respond in such a way, then you are discriminating among yourselves and thereby become judges of evil thoughts. So James equates such partiality to evil. That means we are committing evil when we practice partiality. Again, very strong words. So just as how James mentioned partiality in James chapter 2, verse 1, so the whole idea, the idea, the concept of partiality is further worked out where members make distinctions among one another. You know, they size one another up and treat one each other differently based on their social class and status. So why is this so wrong in the community of God, even in our community today? Because there is a core identity, all of us sitting here, there's a core identity of what it means to be a Christian. And the core identity is that no social distinctions based on economic status, gender, class, or race should divide us. Paul reminds us in Colossians 3 verse 11 here there's no Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, scitian, slave or free. So this is the broad sweep of society from the highest class to the lowest class. There's no recognition of such as their primary identity. But Christ is all and in all. Again in Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, Paul writes that on the basis of the believer's union with Christ in baptism, he says there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So, in other words, the early church recognized a very much more fundamental principle of how they exist as a church body. It's not that there is no distinction. We all know there's a distinction of color, race, economic status. We all know, we all can see. But what uh Paul is saying is that it shouldn't be the prime primary way we look at one another in the body of Christ. Because I believe the early Christians saw something which, if we can recapture in our lives today, in our community life today, it will be powerful. Because they understood that their faith in Christ, their faith in Christ was the most uh, I would say, even subversive, life-changing event that can happen. That means the most important, the most life-changing event for a Christian is their faith in Christ. They are having received the gospel, they are having believing, belief in Jesus. So that identity forms the core of their being and what it means to be Christian. It forms their new and deepest identity while at the same time not effacing or wiping off, as I said earlier, race, class, and gender. It's there. It's there in the world. But we are different. When we are in the church, when we see one another, we are now all equal and one in Christ. Therefore, James could then say that to have a faith commitment to Christ, to profess that we have faith in the risen Christ that who will come to judge again and still draw social distinctions among ourselves or to those who come in, even as strangers, is a contradiction in terms and cannot be so. So, based on their common faith in Christ, believers are then called to love one another differently from the world. I don't know whether we have heard of the phrase, behold how they love one another. Behold how they love one another. So this uh phrase has been uh originated by this person called Aristides the Athenian. So he was an early second century Greek Christian and philosopher who actually presented a letter of defense to the reigning emperor as a testimony uh to what Christians are like in their practice. So uh of course the phrase, behold how they love one another, cannot be found in the text, but the it can be drawn inductively from just the reading of their communal life together. It displays love for one another that distinct itself from the community around them. So Aristides wrote about how Christians conducted themselves and how deeply they cared for others. So I just want to uh just read us a sample of it. It gives us a snapshot uh of how their community life was like. So just reading uh just a couple of uh uh paragraphs, this is what it says. But the Christian O king, while they went about and made search, have found the truth. And we learn from their writings, they have come nearer to truth and genuine knowledge than the rest of the nations. For they know and trust in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, in whom and from whom are all things, and to whom there's no other God as companion, from whom they receive commandments which they engrave upon their minds and observe in hope and expectation of the world which is to come. Wherefore they do not commit adultery nor fornic fornication, nor bear false witness, nor embezzle what is held in pledge, nor covet what is not theirs. They honor father and mother and show kindness to those near to them. And whenever they are they are judges, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols made in the image of men, and and whatsoever they would not that others do unto them, they do not do to others. So, in principle, it's talking about how the Christians, the early Christians, live out the commandments in their lives, the ten commandments in their lives. He goes on to say, and their oppressors they appease, and make them their friends. They do good to their enemies, and their women, O king, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest, and their men keep themselves from every unlawful union and from uncleanness, in the hope of a recompense to come in the other world. And this is important uh for our sharing today. Furthermore, if any one of them have born men or born women or children, that means they were almost a slave in their community. Through love towards them, they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so. They call them brethren or brothers without distinction. In other words, if you are a slave in the household of God, it doesn't matter because you are first a brother in Christ. There's no distinction in the family of God. And when they see a stranger, they take him into their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother. For they do not call them brethren after the flesh, but brethren after the spirit and in God. So of course I won't be reading everything, I'm just picking up some of the parts. And the conclusion of this is it says in old English, and verily, this is a new people. This is a new people. And there's something divine in the midst of them. So this is the conclusion of this Greek Christian, of course, he's a Christian philosopher, as a testimony to the emperor of the lives of the early Christians. And they were living in such a way that they gave help. And many of them came to the faith, and many of them were embraced as part of the family in Christ. So my first point, allow. Let's allow our faith in Christ to lead us to a transformed relationship with one another and the world around us. It's our faith in Christ that is determinative of how we see one another. Of course, we were, as a family, we have our quarrels, squabbles, arguments. But that is not the primary way we see one another. Because we are one in Christ. God has made us one. And we are reminded every time we partake of a holy communion, you know, because we are one body baptized in Christ. You know, let us then pursue all that makes for peace and build up and build up a common life. So allow that faith in Christ to bubble up in you. Let it come out. You know, sometimes we suppress it because we are so angry, we're so affected by a member or someone who has done us wrong. And the devil keeps many of us captive, you know, uh, because we allow those thoughts to be determinative of how we see one another. My second uh and last point allow your faith in Christ. Sorry, um let me repeat myself. Secondly, we cannot hold to a faith commitment to Jesus yet show partiality. The second reason is because God has chosen the poor and has called us to love them as we love ourselves. In a nutshell, God loves the poor. And whenever we love the poor in our midst or in our community, we are loving God. We are showing the love of God and we are embodying that love to those around us. So James goes on to say in verse 5 to 7, again using uh imperative verb listen, right? Is uh is a written in the imperative. So in other words, he's saying, listen, you know, uh pay attention, this is important, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? So God chose the poor, and his choice is just based on his election. God just loves the poor, he loves the fatherless and the widow, and they are precious to him. We see that concern peppered throughout the Old Testament. Uh, and particularly in Proverbs and Psalms, there's a few verses, I'll just read it for us, that kind of uh uh demonstrates or shows that you know we need to live out our lives, our Christian weakness, with a care and love for poor and needy. It says Proverbs 19, verse 17 says, Whoever is generous to the poor lands to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Psalms 35, verse 10, all my bones shall say, O Lord, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him. Psalms 113 verse 5 to 8. Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash pit to make make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. So, in other words, James is saying in a very straightforward way that God has chosen the poor, God has elected the poor, God's eyes are always on them, the poor and needy. But the believers that James was writing to had dishonored the poor. And when they dishonored the poor, they dishonored God. And not only that, the believers do not simply discriminate against the poor, but they do so in favor of the rich, right? In favor of those who could perhaps give them benefit, right? Whom they can benefit from, mutual benefit in their lives. So they were citing the very class which both historically and at present, when James was writing, persecute the impoverished believer. According to James chapter 2, verse 6, the rich are the ones who oppress you, drag you into court, and not only that, most importantly, they blaspheme the name of Jesus. In other words, they speak against the faith in which we stand on, which is our faith in Jesus. He goes on to say in verse 8 to 13, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. And James goes on to tell us that judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. So the person who favors the wealthy has failed to love his neighbor, the poor and needy, and therefore becomes a lawbreaker. If instead of loving one's neighbor we show partiality, then the royal law that Jesus commanded to love our neighbor, then is broken. So James concludes the section with a stern warning: judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. So, how do we love the poor? How do we love the poor among us? In the context of James, uh the word poor is qualified as those who are materially poor. The man comes with shabby clothes, indicative of his material poverty. They are also the poor that are harassed and oppressed by the rich. So the church shouldn't honor them. We shouldn't harass them further. We shouldn't oppress them, we shouldn't treat them and say, you sit down, you stand, you know, you take the place of this honor. So I want to share with us in closing the testimony of uh of a quite a well-known, established pastor, uh, his own journey uh of seeing the poor. So um it won't be a long testimony. This is just his perspective, and I'm really encouraged by how you know the Lord had just caused him to open his eyes to see the poor. So this is what he says. I spent the first four years of my ministry with world vision in Singapore. As the person in charge of communications, I would sit in front of the television every single day, keeping up with the world of the poor and needy. The sight of the little African children with stick-thin arms and legs, protruding rib cages and bloated stomachs greeted me each day. Those images broke my heart. I shed tears until I could cry no more. The next four years of my life and ministry couldn't be more different. I worked among wealthy Christian business people in Singapore and was exposed to another side of the Christian community. After four years, my eyes were no longer filled with the images of the poor, but preoccupied with the things of the world. It's funny, he says, how wealth and affluence can close the wells of our compassion if we are not careful. So Jesus himself warned his disciples in Matthew 19, 23 to 24. Truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Goes on to say, I remember 1995. I was in secondary school then. That's the year he remembered, the year of reckoning, 1995. It's also the year of uh talking about the five C's in Singapore, right? So uh when I grew up in the as a youth, we talked about the other five C's. Uh we were we were talking about Joshua 21, Under Love Singapore. So there was a lot of uh uh focus on shifting instead of pursuing the world, the five C's, uh I can't remember what they are cash, credit card, condo, country club. Can't remember what's the last one. But basically, he's saying to pursue the world, right? You are supposed to pursue Christ, character, compassion, and some others. Yeah, again I have to recall that. So this is what he says. I remember in 1995, the year of upgrading in Singapore. I too upgraded all the C's. I had the C's I had from car to condominium, from credit card to country club membership, including my computer, C. Incidentally, the only C that I did not upgrade was my wife, Cecilia. Right? Being humorous at this point, goes on to say, at the end of 1995, I was a lean. I was a lean, mean money-making machine. But my ministry was going down the drain. I knew that unless I cried out to God, I would be finished. So I did. I thank God that He gave me a second chance in the ministry, and I began my church planting work two years later. That was the turning point in my ministry. My team and I targeted a community in Singapore. So uh I started to walk the blocks and knock on doors. I got in touch with people who were poor and needy. Many of us have more than enough. These people have hardly enough. I began to understand what Jackie Poulinger meant when she said, it takes an anointing to see the poor. It takes an anointing from God for us to see the poor. Unless and until God opens our eyes, we will not see the poor. Even though they are all around us. They are out there in our communities, within the radius of our church buildings and outside the four walls of the church. They are our neighbors. So this pastor is actually uh Pastor Benny Ho. So he, the church he was talking about, the church planting work was actually uh issue, right? So he uh after serving in uh World Vision for many years, uh and of course in the in the corporate world, he left everything, uh, was revolved in the Methodist Church, pioneered and started Issue Methodist Mission, right? So which was down the road uh uh near the former Shell station. So they they grew. You know, it was uh it was a church planting work, and it began by reaching out to the poor and needy around Issue. So I remember in my youth years we had quite a few partnerships with Issue Methodist Mission, uh combined camps we had, and uh was it was a great fun time. So, of course, now he has moved on. He's now pastoring an international uh community church in Perth, Australia. God willing, yeah, I'm trying to get him to speak at one of our camps, church camps, right, so we may have a chance to hear from the horse's mouth. So for us to reach the poor, uh, this is my summary point too. For us to reach the poor, we must first see the poor as God sees them. They are our neighbors. Do we see them? And what blocks us from seeing the poor is because we are too preocupied with ourselves, with our own family, with our own needs, and also with affluence and wealth. You know, that's why when we pursue affluence and wealth, when we pursue success in the world's eyes, the poor is relegated to, you know, it's not that we don't care for them. A lot of us, if I if I ask you to go and minister one day, maybe one day we go to the slums or the rough sleepers. No, sorry, there's no slums in Singapore. The rough sleepers, at certain timing of the night, they will come out or to certain places. You know, I bet many of us will feel the compassion, many of us will feel, yes, I want to care for them because you know they are, you know, but after that, you know, sometimes we we we forget about it because we are blinded by success and effluence and wealth. So it in some way it colors what we see, or we cannot see beyond our own skin. Of course, all of us have needs, all of us have constraints, but God loves the poor. So how should we respond? How should we respond to a God who says that if you serve the poor and needy, you serve me? Of course, I can go on, we can talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan, but we shall leave it for another time. But we get the point, right? Jesus is, God is really for the poor and needy. And we need to open our eyes to see them as our neighbors. They are the ones whom God is calling us to love them as we love ourselves. And I pray uh in the years to come that YCCA we can grow our mercy ministries or compassion. Right? So I'm I do pray along with me. I'm starting to pray, and and uh I'm I'm also starting to talk to some of us in community, right? So we want to start to think about and pray about, asking God to open our eyes to see what are the needs around issue, what is the Lord drawing us to? Is it a particular community? You know, uh, and there are there are various kinds of needs, but God is not calling us to meet every need, but God is calling us to meet the needs of the poor and needy. But what is that? Who is he calling us to minister to? For that, uh uh cover uh cover your prayers as I seek the Lord together with a team to pray about what the Lord is calling us to. So let me summarize. Um, the first point uh that I like to share with us was allow your faith in Christ to lead you to a transformed relationship with one another and the world around you. Because our faith in Christ is determinative of everything in our lives, of what we see, how we relate to one another. So don't allow anything else, not social status, not uh a hurt that you have experienced by by someone in community to uh shift you from this focus of seeing one another as Christ sees us. So I believe when we allow that lens to uh um to color our world, the faith in Christ, our faith communion to Christ, breaks down all form of social distinctions. And secondly, for us to reach the poor, we must first see the poor as God sees them. You know, no point for us to just, hey, let's gather, let's do this, let's do that, you know, and at the end of the day, you know, everyone feels tired, and and that's naturally what happened, but sometimes it may be because we have stopped seeing the poor as God sees them, and we need to start there. You know, we cannot rush into it, but we need to start seeing the poor as God sees them. If we do so, then we will be reflecting the life of the early Christians, because that's how they were defined love for the poor and needy, love for the uh uh uh the orphan, the widow, and the slaves, the marginalized, and so on.

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We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.