How To Treat People Right

blessed be the name of the lord i would say that the heart of worship is summed up in that first and great commandment you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and all your strength and i'm thankful he knows how to read hearts don't you because he knows what's deep within and our relationship with him how blessed we are to be in his presence wherever you're at standing seated would you lift your hands heavenward and just thank him for his presence on this night and know that he reads your heart he reads your heart lord god thank you so much that you see beyond the words and they are

inadequate and even a song as it were but you see the heart and the love that's in it for you and we offer our thanks for this night together in your presence amen amen and we are going to take a little time to a degree to look to the second commandment which is love your neighbor as yourself but i first want to take a few moments to welcome everybody you can be seated those that are standing god bless you for your faithfulness to god's house and it is a joy to be back in church and we've been doing this for a little bit now on wednesdays and i think gradually we're getting back to where we want to be so

we're thankful for that and i will take a moment since there still is a quote-unquote online presence to thank everyone for joining in there trust that god's word will be a blessing to you i will take a quick moment to welcome i think there's a special guest i have no way of knowing but i was told we have a special guest in a young lady by the name of [name redacted] for those that remember brother and sister stanley chambers this is her great grand their great granddaughter that's tuned in she lives in versailles missouri and uh i appreciate this family the chambers married my parents brother chambers did back in 1953 and then her grandmother judy bentley was my sunday

school teacher when i was six years old and there are a lot of other connections over the years my mom worked for brother chambers at the headquarters of the united pentecostal church so a lot of little connections so it's a joy i know her primarily through bible quizzing amber does too as well of course she's highly involved in senior quizzing and so we welcome [name redacted] on here i can only conclude that she heard her old quiz director was teaching tonight and so she chose to tune in and i thank you for that back on september 9th for those of you that are here are watching online you may remember i taught that night on short notice and chose to look

at the book of james and when i saw that i was scheduled for tonight i decided that i would just continue that a little bit it was kind of a happenstance that i did it that one night but this i wanted to go into the next chapter the second one i think it is a timely message and in a few minutes when i announced my title let me just say now i'm not implying that any of us are falling short in this area but i think you will agree there's always room for improvement in any area of our lives and certainly it doesn't hurt to remind ourselves and i'll also throw this in before i read from the scripture i

don't consider myself to be the epitome of this topic or the prime example for folks to follow i'm learning as i go too and hopefully we can learn together from the scripture it's james the second chapter and you can remain seated because i'm going to read the entire chapter before you panic there's only 13 verses so this is from the new king james version you can look along on your bibles and you may want to just keep your bible open because i'm going to try to look at this passage uh throughout the lesson uh verses by verses so my brethren do not hold the faith of our lord jesus christ the lord of glory and you'll notice it does say

the faith talking about the teaching the doctrine the lifestyle so it's it's talking about our living for jesus christ don't hold that with partiality for if there should come into your assembly a man with a gold 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 stand here 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 life which he excuse me 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 the noble name by which you are called 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 stumble 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 the one who shows no mercy mercy triumphs over judgment may god add his blessing to the reading of his word this evening and as i say you may wish to keep that second chapter open as we'll be referring to several verses from it uh in this opening verse of chapter 2 james begins discussing uh what we could say in so many words how to treat people right and that's my lesson title this evening how to treat people right one of our biggest problems in life is that we have difficulty

with people relationships and getting along with others can be challenging i think for those who have lived for god for a particular length of time rather than there be some strong pull from the world where we might be tempted to commit a overt sin probably we're going to find ourselves having misunderstandings disagreements relationships not going quite as they should and they can if we're not careful pull us down uh fill us with attitudes and spirits that are not pleasing to god and and it can be just as damaging to our soul in fact it is just as damaging to our soul as a quote unquote overt sin so james gives us what we're going to call the principle then the

problem and then the prescription of how to treat people right in this passage uh how to get along with people so first of all the principle verse one as we read my brethren have not the faith of our lord jesus christ the lord of glory with respect of persons in so many words he's saying as a believer don't show favoritism don't be guilty of prejudice don't be guilty of partiality the term respect of persons literally means this an acceptor of the face so going by what you see could be another way of stating it you receive somebody at face value on the basis of how they look the new english bible uses this word there snobbery so james is telling

us don't be a snob don't be someone that accepts people on the basis of superficial or surface judgments the good news bible translation of it says this never treat anybody in a different way according to their outward appearance that is god's word to us and just to show us that we can be mistaken about outward appearance the writer of hebrews tells us that we should i don't have the reference here but we should not be forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some of entertain angels unawares his saying you could be talking to what you think is a stranger and based by based on outward appearance it's you know no one of great significance but he said it could actually be

an angel that god for any reason has sent your way and so be careful in that regard so that's just an example of how we can be mistaken with outward appearance we shouldn't judge a book by its cover although unfortunately we sometimes do but just as we shouldn't do that we shouldn't judge people by their appearance alone so let's look at some areas of discrimination to put it that way discrimination is a distinction based on group class characteristics versus judging someone or accepting someone based on individual value as a human being or their merit and in order to deal with the issue of favoritism we need to look at some common areas and if this were a smaller class setting

i probably would go around the room and and ask you to throw out some areas of discrimination that we might be uh that would fall into but let me just give you the list that i have and if you have some of your own shaking notes you can certainly add this to that one area of discrimination is what james is talking about here and that is of appearance we uh often because of appearance make judgments we do discriminate beauty is and i'm talking in our society our world especially i guess here in america beauty seems to be everything in our world if you're a cute kid you've got it made if you're not well tough luck right i read a

book years ago entitled hide and seek by james dobson he's a family counselor and had the radio program for years and all of that still may i don't know in syndication i think he's up in years now but he says in this book hide and seek the the most highly valued personal attribute is physical appearance and if you think about that in your own life just society and commercials and marketing and all of that it does tend to hold up that statement and he shared an example when his daughter uh was 15 months old so this was years and years ago she's well into adulthood now but when she was 15 months old you know they would take her in

this account he shared to a grocery store or wherever doctor's office and typically people would notice her oh such a cute little kid the gugus and the gagas and all that but uh when she was 15 months old she hit the table i don't remember now if she was running or somehow tripped hit the table and injured her mouth and temporarily it disfigured it so there was a period of time where it was turned in such a way that it really wasn't so pleasant to look at and dr dobson related how that when they would go out in public that he noticed that now nobody was paying attention to her whereas before they had been saying all the cute little

things and giving her the gugus and gagas and now uh it wasn't happening he could only conclude that they were looking at her and physical appearance caused them to to make a judgment and to back off and to not give her any attention strictly on that basis and it was kind of an eye-opening experience for him and that whole book is about building self-esteem in our children and he of course is decrying the whole idea of judging a person by their physical appearance and that was just a striking example in his own experience where he saw it firsthand where it had been his daughter had been treated one way but then when she had the temporarily temporary disfigurement she was

treated another way so we don't want to judge based on appearance also another area of discrimination is ancestry it's sad but true but we do judge people according to their race nationality ethnic background and this probably doesn't fit under ancestry but i'll also mention gender at this point we sometimes discriminate on the basis of gender and we just unthinkingly at least i hope it's unthinkingly subconsciously judged by stereotypes i was thinking you know i can pick on the british because i got a whole lot of it in me but you know there's the stereotypical british who's got the stiff upper lip and the dry sense of humor and you know running like clockwork everything on time and pish-posh and all

that business and uh you know you can judge people based on their ancestry and you know maybe for good maybe for bad but still judge them and we have to of course be careful about that another area of discrimination is age and i guess we could discriminate on any age but usually the common places are the extremes of being too young or too old i will just say as an example just just using my age 61 i think because of the big party last year thanks to pastor everybody knows i'm over i'm 60 plus now but uh thank you pastor but uh he says i'm such a great caring shepherd but uh let's just say a 17-year-old would refer to

me as grandpa boomer now it's true i'm a grandpa but the tone and the context of them using that term grandpa boomer uh would seem to indicate that they think i'm over the hill ready for the nursing home and can't contribute to society or life and that's discrimination uh based on my age thinking that i'm no longer worthwhile so if there's a 17 year old calling older people 61 year olds in particular grandpa boomer you should be careful about that but the other extreme of course is too young and we can recognize there are examples of young and old alike who are productive and useful in society and certainly in all walks of life and this is particularly true regarding

spiritual things the uh classic example would be david and goliath i think you know that story when goliath was challenging the armies of israel for a champion and defying god nobody would fight him david comes along as a young shepherd and he's ready to take him on and saul the king of israel really in effect discriminated against him for his age he said you're too young you just can't do this and of course we know the rest of the story he very much with god's anointing and power behind him took care of the giant and won a great victory for israel and so while he could have been discriminated against and maybe even disallowed to participate thankfully he was able

to go forward and do what he felt in his heart to do a great victory was won so we have to even be careful in that area too and then achievement is another area of discrimination uh our society does seem to gush over winners and losers or i mean we could say heroes and zeros it's all about success and status in our society and i guess i won't go down that trail but i guess there's even a little bit of a celebrity consciousness in christianity where we have our quote unquote heroes and maybe superstar speakers or something like that and we we have to recognize that uh it's not wrong to achieve certainly in fact the parable the talents in

matthew 25 if you want to read that later that whole parable is based on the idea of do something achieve get busy take what god has given you and use it for his glory so there's nothing at all wrong with achieving but we and we should i will add give honor to those to whom honor is due but james is saying simply we've got to guard against special treatment to the disdain or the exclusion of those who perhaps haven't achieved or maybe not achieved as much and so that's where we got to be careful that we don't get drawn to the quote-unquote superstars and uh avoid other people and make that kind of discrimination and then a last area uh

in this list that i've done is affluence that might be the most common distinction or we judge people by their wealth or at least their perceived wealth whether they're rich or poor the economic status you might just ask yourself what attitude do you have toward people who make more money than you do what attitude do you have toward people who make less money than you do and we don't always know that but again we're kind of judging by appearance and a lot of people who seem to have nice things may be deeply in debt for all we know right so i always tell myself that when i see those well i won't even name a car so i might get

in trouble but expensive cars there we go when you see those go by you might think to yourself they could be deeply in debt or they might be well off and paid cash for who knows but uh affluence is certainly an area rich poor we've got to be careful uh neither you know it's neutral if you're blessed with a lot of money praise god go your way rejoicing be generous as paul wrote to timothy and help people do all you can to further god's kingdom if you don't have quite as much serve god just as well and do everything you can but we do have to be careful and notice that it's neutral and not discriminate in those areas and

presumably because it was a problem james in this second chapter picks out the area of affluence as an example of discrimination and we probably could uh fit any of these that i've listed into this example but he chooses that of the rich and poor and so i'm going to go with that from the new international version verse 2 it reads suppose a man comes to your meeting wearing gold rings and fine clothes and a poor man and shabby clothes also comes in if you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say have a good seat i have a here's a good seat for you but say to the poor man you stand over here or sit on

the floor at my feet have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts and so in so many words james is saying a couple of strangers come into church and we know they're strangers because they don't know where to sit right they don't have their favorite spot uh see what i did there but they come into the church and the first guy is just dripping with wealth gold rings literally in the greek it means he is gold fingered and he has fine clothes the other guy is apparently poverty stricken destitute shabby maybe hair on kim who knows and a decision has to be made where are we going to seat these two individuals james said if we

take the rich guy to the front row to show him off and say here's a prime spot we want you right here but say to the poor man you you go off to the corner somewhere where you're out of sight literally in the greek under my footstool then we're partial and james says that is wrong now i will say this observed that james didn't criticize the wealthy man for having wealth rather he was criticizing the church for showing partiality in effect the poor guy should have been sat on the front row just as well as the rich guy and the partiality should not have been shown and so that's the example that he gives and apparently it was something that

was happening in the church there or in the churches that james was addressing so that of course is the principle now let's look at the problem and there are three things i'll look at problems with favoritism one is it's unchristian to show favoritism if we want to be like jesus we can't play favorites because he didn't when it come came to accepting people and think of john chapter 4 the woman at samaria the woman at the well when it came to accepting people just as human beings created by god he didn't show favoritism certainly when it came to the gospel as he was declaring it in his ministry he didn't play favorites and when it came to morality he didn't

pull anything back he you know he told everybody the same thing the same message when it came to morality so if we want to be like christ we can't play favorites again from the new international version james writes my brothers as believers in our glorious lord jesus christ don't show favoritism so faith again our lifestyle and favoritism are incompatible they don't mix in this term respect of persons is found from what i was able to study or you could use the word favoritism it's found five times in the new testament and in each instance except for in james here it's referring to god not having respect of persons or playing favorites it's talking about god and one of the references

is in romans chapter 2 verse 11 and it reads this way for there is no respect of persons with god god does not show favoritism it says and the inference for us is when we show favoritism we're not like god we're unlike him if we do and jesus treated everyone with uh fairly with dignity and further evidence of this that god loves everybody of course is seen in acts chapter 10 i didn't go back and review but just from memory uh you might recall that story too the apostle peter was waiting on lunch to be prepared and had a vision and there was a sheet let down from heaven and there were all kinds of animals that were forbidden in

the jewish diet and in the vision he was told to eat of those and of course he recoiled and said no no i can't do that i'm a devout jew and that happened a number of times and finally god got through to him and said what i've called clean don't you call unclean and i don't know that the apostle peter had it all uh come to his realization what was being said at that point but i i do know somewhere along the way the two men came from cornelius the italian man and uh when he got to that household and opened up his sermon or started his sermon here was his first line of a truth i perceive that god

is no respecter of persons so he got the message and he thought a gospel message a saving message was only for jewish people but god was showing him it's for everybody jew and gentile alike and so it's clear evidence that god does not show respect of persons so if god is no respecter of person here's the logical deduction neither should his people be right if god doesn't respect or show favoritism neither should his people and i think in fact i know i'm with people who agree with this if there's one place in the world where there should not be any discrimination it's the church if there's one place where people can come in no matter what to seek god to

hear the gospel to be saved or if you're already saved to to be strengthened and renewed and uplifted and have a place to worship it's here this is it if there's any place on earth it is the church of jesus christ and this ought to be a place no matter who you are or what your background is you're welcome here and i do believe that we are striving to be just that that's why i said at the outset i'm not implying that anybody is missing the mark but i think it's good for us to review these things from time to time so it is unchristian favoritism is also unreasonable uh verses five through seven james is saying in effect it's

illogical doesn't make sense uh he says god has chosen the poor has not god chosen the poor to be rich in faith and inherit the kingdom now he's not saying that it's good to be poor and bad to be rich he's not saying that only the poor will be saved and i looked and there's probably any number of commentaries but i looked at one uh by the man named barnes on this passage of scripture the fifth verse and he says it's probably just as easy for me to share it with you directly he said there are circumstances in the condition of the poor which make it more likely that they will believe the gospel than the rich and that in

fact the great mass of believers is taken from those who are in comparatively humble life so it's senseless to look down upon the poor so the fact that god has chosen even one poor person to be an heir of the kingdom lets us know that it's good enough reason for us to not treat the poor with neglect whatever that definition would be he doesn't expect people to be wealthy to be saved that's for sure so it's unreasonable to treat them with partiality and on top of this uh going on with what james is saying and again this must have been an issue i didn't study the background of this but he says on top of this the rich could not

care less about you so why are you so worried about pleasing them or making them happy verses six and seven he asked is it not the rich who are exploiting you are they not the ones who are dragging you into court are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong so in the new testament it was apparently the nobility i know with the romans it was they were the ones feeding christians to the lions the nobility the upper crust that were persecuting and judging and insulting christians and james was just making the point you know they're they're treating you so badly why are you even worried about trying to make an impression

on them or treat them with partiality thankfully times have changed and today's church isn't being persecuted uh directly i guess by the wealthy at least not in this extreme that james was referencing but it still doesn't make sense to show favoritism with the rich and poor either one because god doesn't and so we shouldn't he wants everybody to be saved and i know this is a question that i know the answer but aren't you glad that god doesn't check your wallet before he saves you i don't know that i would be here if that was the qualification but aren't you glad that it's not based on our checkbook or savings account or level of income anything like that he says

his promise of the spirit is to all those who love him if you have faith in god and repent you can be saved you can be delivered regardless of how much money you have or don't have it is for everyone so wealth does not deserve any special treatment is what james is saying in so many words or the lack of it and i like this statement someone has coined your value is not based on your valuables whatever their amount your value as a person is not based on your values and i have chapter and verse for that jesus said a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses so that has nothing to do with

your value your worth in the sight of god james says let's not show favoritism because it's unchristian unreasonable and then it's also unloving and here's where we get to verse 8 the primary reason he says if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself you do well and if you're wondering why it's called the royal law it's because think of this if we obey that one law love your neighbor as yourself we would please god in every other way we would fulfill all the law and you can just think of the ten commandments if if i love you as i love myself i'm not going to lie to you i'm not going

to murder you i'm not going to cheat you and so on and so forth because i don't want to be treated that way and so i'm going to love you to the point that i won't treat you that way if we just fulfill that one law love your neighbor as yourself think of that we would fulfill all the law galatians 5 14 says for all the law is fulfilled in one word or really means one phrase even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself so that's paul writing there so if i play favorites i'm being unloving and the bible does say that how we relate to other people shows how much we really love god first john 4

20 if a man says he loves god and hates his brother he's lying how can you love god whom you have not seen if you don't love your brother whom you have seen some pretty strong words pretty direct words but it is the truth of scripture and so how i relate to you proves how much i love god according to what john wrote and of course favoritism then would be unloving to show you the seriousness of this verses 9 and 10 james says if you show favoritism you sin so there you have it in black and white you sin and are convinced or convicted by the law as law breakers whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles at just one

point is guilty of breaking all of it and here i'll ask this rhetorically how many laws do you have to break to be a law breaker one how many crimes do you have to commit to be a criminal one and that's what he says for who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder if you don't commit adultery but then you do commit murder you're still a law breaker right you can't you know just pick and choose your commands and so james is saying people think favoritism is such a small sin but if you break god's rule you break god's rule and that's just as much a part of god's law as any other command that he's given

so we do need to be careful verse 12 speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom because judgment without mercy will not be shown to anyone who has been merciful mercy triumphs over judgment so love treats people with mercy and love gives people what they need perhaps not what they deserve and we do know jesus said in what we call the sermon on the mount blessed are the merciful for they shall have mercy so that's the problem unchristian unreasonable and unloving and now quickly here with the few moments i have left let's look at the prescription of how to treat people and how we do that three quick steps one we

accept everybody do you know that's why people have a hard time do you know why people have a hard time accepting others is a question i wanted to pose and it might be lots of answers to that but one is we can confuse acceptance with approval and there is a difference okay acceptance and approval there's a big difference you can accept somebody without approving of his or her lifestyle you really can uh a person may be doing something totally contrary to the word of god and you're not going to join in with that lifestyle or approve of it in any way but yet you can be accepting of him as a person fellow human being creation of god someone that

you genuinely love without approving of the sin he's involved in fact if you do love him you're probably going to speak truthfully to him in love about some of the heirs of his way according to scripture so it's that old adage love the sinner hate the sin and that's so vital and i think our world tries to mislabel us as the church and say that we're bigots and full of hate and all of that but that's not the case at all as that added says we love the sinner we love people we love individuals we accept them as fellow human beings but we might indeed as scripture instructions hate sin and then when it comes to the church brothers and

sisters romans 15 7 says wherefore receive you one another as christ also received us to the glory of god the new international version of that verse says this except one another then just as christ accepted you so that's a start acceptance and we're certainly trying to cultivate that here at apc and as you probably can imagine we've got people from every kind of background in this church people who have been saved by grace and it doesn't matter where you've been it matters where you are and where you're heading that's what matters and so if you want to grow more and be like him this is the place to be and we want to accept everybody and then along with acceptance

appreciate everybody that goes a little bit further than acceptance philippians 2 3 and 4 says let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mine let each esteem other better than themselves look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of other and i like looking at other english versions of that it says do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit that's the niv but in humility consider others better than yourself each of you should look not only on your own interest but also the interest of others so appreciate everybody uh value them tell them so and i don't know maybe with some people it might take a little more

creativity but i think we can appreciate everybody can't we to some extent and you're probably thinking that about me right now i'm cutting into your time this might be a silly example but i was thinking of ted drew's frozen custard some of you might head there after this but when you really think about it though it is just custard frozen custard vanilla custard but what to me makes the distinctions are all the different toppings in fact i go they're overwhelmed trying to figure out what i want i have several things that i like unfortunately but it's good but it's the toppings and you know think of that just as an example what if we were all the same what if

we were all vanilla what if we were all uh you know of the same personality be kind of a boring group of people wouldn't it but god has flavors of personality in his kingdom if you don't believe that read your bible there's every character imaginable in here uh personality wise and the bold and the shy and all that it's here for us letting us know that god has all kinds of flavors so appreciate everybody for who they are and then lastly affirm everybody first thessalonians 5 11 says wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another and again the niv says encourage one another and build each other up so if somebody stumbles we don't want to criticize do we want

to sympathize and realize hey you can turn this around you want to be an encourager not a condemner not someone who's critical or judging i i was thinking uh last saturday we had the memorial service for ladonna sharp a lot of you knew her but if you were here or watched online you heard lester green who had been her pastor in jacksonville for a lot of years and he had nothing but good to say about her in fact he made the statement uh i wish i had a church full of individuals or people like her and it was just apparently in that setting and we knew her here too to be the same she was just someone that was encouraging

and he described all the different ways no criticism no backbiting no lack of cooperation just always there faithful you could count on her and her husband and on and on and that's the kind of people we want to be as we serve god together so god is saying in this book of james that the church that accepts and appreciates and affirms people is the church that's going to be blessed going to be found doing his will and of course that doesn't happen accidentally we've got to put our shoulder to the wheel and work on that and thanks be to god we are doing that and so in closing i'm so thankful that god treats us right and by right i'll

say it for me not what i deserve but he treats me right in the sense that he shows mercy compassion and helps me along the way not playing favorites or respective persons i'm thankful for god's unconditional love thankful that he doesn't judge us by our outward appearance as samuel learned back in the outward in the old testament and he doesn't discriminate based on our background our age or money or anything like that but he loves us as a soul and as simon peter learned he's going to save whosoever will and i'm thankful for that and i guess the obvious conclusion is this if he does that for us shouldn't we do that for others and i believe you're in agreement

with me the answer is yes stand with me if you would and i'm gonna ask you to cap this off with a word of prayer uh right where you are of course and uh let's just ask god to help us be the people he wants us to be i know this was on the practical side but i'm uh very much thankful that god's word that it does give us these kinds of insights to help us in our relationships because that's what life is made of relationships and we want to do things god's way so let's pray for ourselves that god will help us lord thank you so much for mercy and grace and compassion thank you that you are not

a respecter of persons but have brought us mercifully into your great kingdom and now help us as we look within our own hearts to mimic you in a way of putting it to do as you want us to do and as you don't respect persons help us not to do that either and to love and to have mercy and compassion we certainly don't want to alter the truth change the truth we want to stand for it but we can do that and still love people and so use us for your glory let us be lights in darkness let our works glorify you i pray and help us jesus to let our light shine that of love and mercy and compassion

as you have shown to us and i pray that you would do these things in the precious name of jesus christ amen and amen would you offer some thanks to god for his kindness to you we are so very very thankful for what you've done for us god and how you've helped us this night we celebrate you amen amen praise god