Study of James: The Poor vs. the Rich
Sunday, November 03, 2019
Peace to Live By Study of James: The Poor vs. the Rich - Daniel Litton
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[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word. Sections in bold are extra material that was cut from the broadcast due to time constraints]
Well, today we arrive at James chapter 2. I believe we had a good time studying chapter 1, and the varying things that James (Jesus’ half-brother) has presented to us. I also think that the Methods of Understanding I presented at the beginning of our study (in the first two messages actually) have been particularly beneficial to us in squeezing more out of our text. I have enjoyed our journey thus far, and we still have a lot of cover, and much to remind ourselves of and perhaps learn new for the first time.
Before we dive into chapter 2 here of James, let’s refresh ourselves on the Methods of Understanding that I presented at the beginning of our study so that we can re-familiarize ourselves with them. Perhaps, too, for anyone who has joined us late, this will also be beneficial to you so that you can see where I am coming from, and how I am understanding certain things here in our study. In summary, then, I said there are three methods of understanding I want us to use in looking at the Book of James here, and they are: 1) The Four Levels of Inner-Self, 2) the practice of Giving Up Control, and 3) The Law of Liberty (that is, Living in Freedom).
Here, again, are the Four Levels of Inner-Self, with a corresponding summary of what they mean. These are the four levels people can find themselves in within in their Christian development as a human, particularly in regard to their mental attitudes:
The second method is the power of Giving Up Control, or we might call it Surrendering. This is when we are not in a mental state of fear of which we allow all kinds of negative thoughts to control our minds, which, in turn, controls our lives. Obviously, this mentality is best displayed by Level Three and Four persons. This area of understanding also includes accepting whatever situations life presents to us because we do not want to be too attached to anything and thereby find ourselves vulnerable. The only real attachment we should have is God.
Finally, the third method of understanding includes the Law of Liberty. This means we understand that God has allowed us many freedoms in our lives, and we seek to live in that state of freedom. We are not bound by fear and what we perceive God wants, over-thinking this and that by mind-reading God and coming to wrong conclusions. We don’t ask the Holy Spirit simple things like what we should eat for dinner or perhaps, if we’re bold enough, about the big things like who we should marry in life. The point is that as God created Adam and Eve to live in freedom, so we find ourselves within Jesus in freedom.
Okay, now that I’ve gone through all of these methods (and may I say if you missed them, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the first two messages of this series), let’s go ahead and get back into James here. So, turning to the epistle of James. James chapter 2, starting in verse 1. I am going to read the first paragraph here. The text says:
“My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 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,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, 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?”
A couple of months ago, I watched a movie that I had been wanting to see for a long time, but just never took the time to watch. The movie I am referring to is the The Godfather (1972), which starred Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Why I had never seen it, I am really not sure. Somehow, and I’m not really sure how it lead to this, but a guy I was working with, who was a film actor and even director in college, had been talking about this movie with my other coworker, who is actually my brother, and it was decided then, between my brother and I that we really need to watch this movie. As much as my brother and do enjoy the cinema, it only made good sense.
So, one night over the summertime, we rented the movie and watched it. And my, let me tell you, I was presently surprised. No matter what you think about the subject or content of the movie, it certainly was well made—beautiful cinematography, but even more than that, it was very well acted, which Brando and Pacino’s performances probably standing out the most of all the great performances. But besides the cinematography and acting, something you notice about the story in general of the Corleone family is that they definitely took care of each other (though probably not in all the ways most families would). They cared about each other and had each other’s backs. And it didn’t even matter what position a person was in with the family. If they were a Corleone, if they were blood, they were in.
And I think this is the kind of image we get in our text today at the beginning of James chapter 2 here. The overall point that I believe James is trying to make to us is that we, as Christians, particularly as individuals of our local church body, are family. Yes, we have our Lord Jesus Christ, but the beautiful thing is that we also have our family within our local church. And it doesn’t matter what our position is—whether we are rich or whether we are poor—we are part of the family.
Yeah, we can judge based on superficial things. We can be like middle and high schoolers who care only about appearance. We can judge people based on what they wear and how they look. I think it’s funny that James here tells us not to judge a person by what they are wearing. Don’t judge a movie based on the picture on the Blu-Ray, or the poster hanging in the theater. Some of the best movies have the worst posters. That’s besides the point. Whether we look to be rich, or whether we look to be poor, whatever path of liberty we choose, our personal attitudes are to be acceptance. And acceptance and easygoingness is part of the characteristics of the Third Level of Inner-Self, the Positive Existence.
Notice how James says, “have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts.” That’s two things we need to analyze here: “distinctions” and “judges with evil thoughts.” Yes, I think the less distinctions we see within the people at church the better. What I mean is, the less the cliques. It certainly is true, and should be admitted here, that birds of the same feather flock together. And this is particularly true in our American setup of church going. Since we have so many choices, since God even allows us to pick where we want to go to church, hence The Law of Liberty, then we often find ourselves around people who think in a similar way to the way we think. That’s okay, though. Let’s not get too literal about this.
But we can see cliques within a single body of believers. Often these cliques can be based on positions within the church. Like, for instance, all the leaders may tend to hang out together. This can become problematic when the group develops a feeling of superiority or awesomeness about themselves wherein they feel the are best and brightest within the church. Of course, this reminds me of the quote from President Calvin Coolidge where he said, “nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.” That may sound a little brash, but the point is that it’s not just the leaders, or the ones we perceive as the leaders, who are the talented.
What are some of the evil thoughts we can conjure up in our minds related to this area? These are decisions that people make inside their minds. If we are judging others by an external evaluation of what we perceive the person’s wealth to be based on superficial facts, then we are acting pretty shallow to begin with. We are saying we really only care about the material. Isn’t the person that is rich in heart that God is pleased with? It is easy to look the best of everyone. Just blow a few hundred dollars on your externals and in most churches you're probably going to rank high up amongst the best looking. What good is it, though, if we look the best externally but have a shallow heart, a heart that is filled with evil thoughts? That isn’t a fun life to live. Yes, I can remember my high school days where I cared way too much about how I looked and what other people thought about that.
James says, "Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” You see, that’s the point. We are to be “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” This is the transformation, the change, that I said occurs within a person who is moving from Level Two to Level Three of consciousness. The Level Two person has no faith, or very little. They are in the Negative Existence. Because so much negativity exists, there is no way that faith can be present. However, when a person matures more and more, when they move from the negative side to the positive side, from paddling against the current to going with the current, that is when they see the Positive Existence. They have been tried in life and learned to have faith. They are no longer like the disciples were during Jesus’ earthly ministry, lacking in faith.
Did not Jesus talk about this all the time? He said that people need to have faith. He waited to see if people would indeed have faith. He rebuked his disciples on more the one occasion for not having it. He got so tired of not seeing it. He arrived at the point where he told his teachings in parables, remember, “so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’” as he said (Luke 8:10, ESV). That’s why I can safely call the person who lacks in faith, or doesn’t have it, in the Negative Existence. That’s why I can say the person doesn’t have the power of God flowing in their lives. How can it? The person doesn’t believe, so the person cannot receive. The person doesn’t exercise real trust in God regardless of what they say. The disciples would also be quick to say they believed, but then couldn’t demonstrate it with their actions. I’d rather see the actions.
What does it mean to be an heir of the kingdom of God? What came to my mind right away was The Beatitudes. Turn over quickly to Luke chapter 6. I want us to look at Luke’s account of The Beatitudes. Go to verse 20:
“And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:20-26, ESV)
See the same theme here? I sure do. Poor versus rich. James must have been referencing this. Note how Jesus started with the word poor to denote all kinds of different people: the monetarily poor, the hungry (those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Matthew tells us), the one’s who are sad, for they weep, and of course, the ones who are hated. So, then, it is the poor in money, the poor in food, the poor in happiness, and the poor in good relations.
What about the rich? What does Jesus say about them? Who are the problem people? Those, we could say, who are full of righteousness (I’m sure lots of people are flying into our heads), the ones who laugh now (perhaps they’re not concerned about sin), and the ones of whom everyone speaks well of. The truth offends. Sin offends. But didn’t everyone speak well of Billy Graham. Well, pretty much. What about that, though? We are located in American society. Things are a bit different here. He was almost universal revered; there was a great respect for the man because of the fact Christianity has been embedded into our culture. Notice, however, you really don’t see a person like that anymore, do you? Perhaps Rick Warren comes close, but I don’t think everyone speaks as well about him as they did Billy Graham, and that’s certainly not because of anything Pastor Rick has done. It’s because society is changing.
Then James talks about the fact that it’s the rich who really hurt us. For one, you don’t have to worry about a poor person suing you usually because they don’t have a lot of money. It takes money to sue. Just like the rich, isn’t also the highly educated and pompous who are often the problem? Think of rich and poor in James text here for a moment in regard to education. The prideful man, the self-righteous man, is the problem because he thinks he’s so awesome due to what he knows. And because of that it, he is much more likely to attack you than say, someone who doesn’t know as much, and definitely is more humble. The self-righteous people are the problem, not the humble. The self-righteous are those to be feared, not those with an attitude of meekness.
I want to take a little aside here if I may and say that this is one of the reasons why democracy is so impressive. You see, those who live in other social setups generally have the rich at the top and everyone else is equal. The common folks, they cannot advance in those setups, or it is much harder to do so. Here in America, it is anyone who puts their minds to it who can accomplish great things. Anyone here can earn more and more money. It’s not so much that those who are rich and those who are poor are in those positions permanently, but anyone can become rich. In other words, what I am trying to say is that the good hearted can earn the wealth. And they often do in the American setup of things. Hence, the Law of Liberty. But what has to be given up? What has to be surrendered? Ah, yes, the desire to be rich. Remember, the Apostle Paul talked about this (see 1 Timothy 6:9).
The last verse of James here in our section is: “Are they not the ones [that is, the rich] who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” This was certainly true in James’ time. Most of the rulers then didn’t even know about Jesus, or if they did, they probably didn’t think much of him. Fast forward to twenty-first century America, and many of the corporate people and rulers know about Jesus. There are those who personally know Jesus as Lord and Savior. So, we find ourselves in quite a different environment. James’ time was what we would call super-pagan. Our time in the past over-200 years America probably is not near as barbaric in most respects. It made sense then for James to say what he said considering his time. And this verse assuredly rings true for many today in other parts of our world.
I mean, yeah, let’s be real about the fact that many of the leaders of businesses in our country, the rich, do not give God the honor due his name. I think that most of them do not outright blaspheme him, at least verbally. I supposed someone could say they blaspheme God by the things the approve of, namely, certain sins he frowns upon. Christianity still rings true here within the walls of American freedom. Christianity still has a dominate place, even though many don’t even realize this. A lot of it is unspoken. It is so embedded into our society and culture.
In running a quick scan in my mind through the US presidents, I cannot think of any of them who I would attribute blaspheming God’s honorable name. And what a tremendous blessing that is for us, as American Christians. It’s a truly great thing. If you stop and think about it, all of our presidents, all 45 (really 44 people) at the time of this message being given had a Christian background. That’s an amazing thing if you pause and take that in. How good God has been to us! How much he has blessed us, as a country. Praise God. Again, though, this truth is just not going to ring true of people in certain countries throughout our world. In fact, a lot of countries unfortunately. We should keep those whom we know about in our prayers, and thereby fulfill what the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, “making supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18, ESV).
We certainly do realize that not everyone honors God’s name. Not everyone gives honor to Jesus’ beautiful name. Jesus told us to pray, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13, ESV). It is to God that the world, yes, the one we reside in ultimately belongs. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that it is Jesus who is going to rule on this earth in the near future. God is totally going to reclaim what is already his. Not only is he going to reclaim it, but he is going to put everything in order the way he wants it to be. That is good news for me, and that is good news for you. It’s good news for the world because, let’s face it, there is so much that needs fixed. There is so much that we all want to see changed. We have been changed, and we want to see the world changed.
If you haven’t been changed, you can make the decision today. God wants everyone to be changed, to come into personal relationship with him, to be made a new person through the blood Jesus’ shed on the cross for us. You can be made new today by his blood. Just as he lives in Heaven with the Father today, having risen there from death, so you too, but trusting in him, can one day also rise from death the life. All of of us who know him are going to experience this. We have liberty now, and we will have liberty in the future. The famous quote becomes true for us, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgments
The Godfather (1972) and Patrick Henry
Well, today we arrive at James chapter 2. I believe we had a good time studying chapter 1, and the varying things that James (Jesus’ half-brother) has presented to us. I also think that the Methods of Understanding I presented at the beginning of our study (in the first two messages actually) have been particularly beneficial to us in squeezing more out of our text. I have enjoyed our journey thus far, and we still have a lot of cover, and much to remind ourselves of and perhaps learn new for the first time.
Before we dive into chapter 2 here of James, let’s refresh ourselves on the Methods of Understanding that I presented at the beginning of our study so that we can re-familiarize ourselves with them. Perhaps, too, for anyone who has joined us late, this will also be beneficial to you so that you can see where I am coming from, and how I am understanding certain things here in our study. In summary, then, I said there are three methods of understanding I want us to use in looking at the Book of James here, and they are: 1) The Four Levels of Inner-Self, 2) the practice of Giving Up Control, and 3) The Law of Liberty (that is, Living in Freedom).
Here, again, are the Four Levels of Inner-Self, with a corresponding summary of what they mean. These are the four levels people can find themselves in within in their Christian development as a human, particularly in regard to their mental attitudes:
- The Depression State
- The Negative Existence
- The Positive Existence
- The Above State
The second method is the power of Giving Up Control, or we might call it Surrendering. This is when we are not in a mental state of fear of which we allow all kinds of negative thoughts to control our minds, which, in turn, controls our lives. Obviously, this mentality is best displayed by Level Three and Four persons. This area of understanding also includes accepting whatever situations life presents to us because we do not want to be too attached to anything and thereby find ourselves vulnerable. The only real attachment we should have is God.
Finally, the third method of understanding includes the Law of Liberty. This means we understand that God has allowed us many freedoms in our lives, and we seek to live in that state of freedom. We are not bound by fear and what we perceive God wants, over-thinking this and that by mind-reading God and coming to wrong conclusions. We don’t ask the Holy Spirit simple things like what we should eat for dinner or perhaps, if we’re bold enough, about the big things like who we should marry in life. The point is that as God created Adam and Eve to live in freedom, so we find ourselves within Jesus in freedom.
Okay, now that I’ve gone through all of these methods (and may I say if you missed them, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the first two messages of this series), let’s go ahead and get back into James here. So, turning to the epistle of James. James chapter 2, starting in verse 1. I am going to read the first paragraph here. The text says:
“My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 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,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, 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?”
A couple of months ago, I watched a movie that I had been wanting to see for a long time, but just never took the time to watch. The movie I am referring to is the The Godfather (1972), which starred Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Why I had never seen it, I am really not sure. Somehow, and I’m not really sure how it lead to this, but a guy I was working with, who was a film actor and even director in college, had been talking about this movie with my other coworker, who is actually my brother, and it was decided then, between my brother and I that we really need to watch this movie. As much as my brother and do enjoy the cinema, it only made good sense.
So, one night over the summertime, we rented the movie and watched it. And my, let me tell you, I was presently surprised. No matter what you think about the subject or content of the movie, it certainly was well made—beautiful cinematography, but even more than that, it was very well acted, which Brando and Pacino’s performances probably standing out the most of all the great performances. But besides the cinematography and acting, something you notice about the story in general of the Corleone family is that they definitely took care of each other (though probably not in all the ways most families would). They cared about each other and had each other’s backs. And it didn’t even matter what position a person was in with the family. If they were a Corleone, if they were blood, they were in.
And I think this is the kind of image we get in our text today at the beginning of James chapter 2 here. The overall point that I believe James is trying to make to us is that we, as Christians, particularly as individuals of our local church body, are family. Yes, we have our Lord Jesus Christ, but the beautiful thing is that we also have our family within our local church. And it doesn’t matter what our position is—whether we are rich or whether we are poor—we are part of the family.
Yeah, we can judge based on superficial things. We can be like middle and high schoolers who care only about appearance. We can judge people based on what they wear and how they look. I think it’s funny that James here tells us not to judge a person by what they are wearing. Don’t judge a movie based on the picture on the Blu-Ray, or the poster hanging in the theater. Some of the best movies have the worst posters. That’s besides the point. Whether we look to be rich, or whether we look to be poor, whatever path of liberty we choose, our personal attitudes are to be acceptance. And acceptance and easygoingness is part of the characteristics of the Third Level of Inner-Self, the Positive Existence.
Notice how James says, “have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts.” That’s two things we need to analyze here: “distinctions” and “judges with evil thoughts.” Yes, I think the less distinctions we see within the people at church the better. What I mean is, the less the cliques. It certainly is true, and should be admitted here, that birds of the same feather flock together. And this is particularly true in our American setup of church going. Since we have so many choices, since God even allows us to pick where we want to go to church, hence The Law of Liberty, then we often find ourselves around people who think in a similar way to the way we think. That’s okay, though. Let’s not get too literal about this.
But we can see cliques within a single body of believers. Often these cliques can be based on positions within the church. Like, for instance, all the leaders may tend to hang out together. This can become problematic when the group develops a feeling of superiority or awesomeness about themselves wherein they feel the are best and brightest within the church. Of course, this reminds me of the quote from President Calvin Coolidge where he said, “nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.” That may sound a little brash, but the point is that it’s not just the leaders, or the ones we perceive as the leaders, who are the talented.
What are some of the evil thoughts we can conjure up in our minds related to this area? These are decisions that people make inside their minds. If we are judging others by an external evaluation of what we perceive the person’s wealth to be based on superficial facts, then we are acting pretty shallow to begin with. We are saying we really only care about the material. Isn’t the person that is rich in heart that God is pleased with? It is easy to look the best of everyone. Just blow a few hundred dollars on your externals and in most churches you're probably going to rank high up amongst the best looking. What good is it, though, if we look the best externally but have a shallow heart, a heart that is filled with evil thoughts? That isn’t a fun life to live. Yes, I can remember my high school days where I cared way too much about how I looked and what other people thought about that.
James says, "Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” You see, that’s the point. We are to be “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” This is the transformation, the change, that I said occurs within a person who is moving from Level Two to Level Three of consciousness. The Level Two person has no faith, or very little. They are in the Negative Existence. Because so much negativity exists, there is no way that faith can be present. However, when a person matures more and more, when they move from the negative side to the positive side, from paddling against the current to going with the current, that is when they see the Positive Existence. They have been tried in life and learned to have faith. They are no longer like the disciples were during Jesus’ earthly ministry, lacking in faith.
Did not Jesus talk about this all the time? He said that people need to have faith. He waited to see if people would indeed have faith. He rebuked his disciples on more the one occasion for not having it. He got so tired of not seeing it. He arrived at the point where he told his teachings in parables, remember, “so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’” as he said (Luke 8:10, ESV). That’s why I can safely call the person who lacks in faith, or doesn’t have it, in the Negative Existence. That’s why I can say the person doesn’t have the power of God flowing in their lives. How can it? The person doesn’t believe, so the person cannot receive. The person doesn’t exercise real trust in God regardless of what they say. The disciples would also be quick to say they believed, but then couldn’t demonstrate it with their actions. I’d rather see the actions.
What does it mean to be an heir of the kingdom of God? What came to my mind right away was The Beatitudes. Turn over quickly to Luke chapter 6. I want us to look at Luke’s account of The Beatitudes. Go to verse 20:
“And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:20-26, ESV)
See the same theme here? I sure do. Poor versus rich. James must have been referencing this. Note how Jesus started with the word poor to denote all kinds of different people: the monetarily poor, the hungry (those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Matthew tells us), the one’s who are sad, for they weep, and of course, the ones who are hated. So, then, it is the poor in money, the poor in food, the poor in happiness, and the poor in good relations.
What about the rich? What does Jesus say about them? Who are the problem people? Those, we could say, who are full of righteousness (I’m sure lots of people are flying into our heads), the ones who laugh now (perhaps they’re not concerned about sin), and the ones of whom everyone speaks well of. The truth offends. Sin offends. But didn’t everyone speak well of Billy Graham. Well, pretty much. What about that, though? We are located in American society. Things are a bit different here. He was almost universal revered; there was a great respect for the man because of the fact Christianity has been embedded into our culture. Notice, however, you really don’t see a person like that anymore, do you? Perhaps Rick Warren comes close, but I don’t think everyone speaks as well about him as they did Billy Graham, and that’s certainly not because of anything Pastor Rick has done. It’s because society is changing.
Then James talks about the fact that it’s the rich who really hurt us. For one, you don’t have to worry about a poor person suing you usually because they don’t have a lot of money. It takes money to sue. Just like the rich, isn’t also the highly educated and pompous who are often the problem? Think of rich and poor in James text here for a moment in regard to education. The prideful man, the self-righteous man, is the problem because he thinks he’s so awesome due to what he knows. And because of that it, he is much more likely to attack you than say, someone who doesn’t know as much, and definitely is more humble. The self-righteous people are the problem, not the humble. The self-righteous are those to be feared, not those with an attitude of meekness.
I want to take a little aside here if I may and say that this is one of the reasons why democracy is so impressive. You see, those who live in other social setups generally have the rich at the top and everyone else is equal. The common folks, they cannot advance in those setups, or it is much harder to do so. Here in America, it is anyone who puts their minds to it who can accomplish great things. Anyone here can earn more and more money. It’s not so much that those who are rich and those who are poor are in those positions permanently, but anyone can become rich. In other words, what I am trying to say is that the good hearted can earn the wealth. And they often do in the American setup of things. Hence, the Law of Liberty. But what has to be given up? What has to be surrendered? Ah, yes, the desire to be rich. Remember, the Apostle Paul talked about this (see 1 Timothy 6:9).
The last verse of James here in our section is: “Are they not the ones [that is, the rich] who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” This was certainly true in James’ time. Most of the rulers then didn’t even know about Jesus, or if they did, they probably didn’t think much of him. Fast forward to twenty-first century America, and many of the corporate people and rulers know about Jesus. There are those who personally know Jesus as Lord and Savior. So, we find ourselves in quite a different environment. James’ time was what we would call super-pagan. Our time in the past over-200 years America probably is not near as barbaric in most respects. It made sense then for James to say what he said considering his time. And this verse assuredly rings true for many today in other parts of our world.
I mean, yeah, let’s be real about the fact that many of the leaders of businesses in our country, the rich, do not give God the honor due his name. I think that most of them do not outright blaspheme him, at least verbally. I supposed someone could say they blaspheme God by the things the approve of, namely, certain sins he frowns upon. Christianity still rings true here within the walls of American freedom. Christianity still has a dominate place, even though many don’t even realize this. A lot of it is unspoken. It is so embedded into our society and culture.
In running a quick scan in my mind through the US presidents, I cannot think of any of them who I would attribute blaspheming God’s honorable name. And what a tremendous blessing that is for us, as American Christians. It’s a truly great thing. If you stop and think about it, all of our presidents, all 45 (really 44 people) at the time of this message being given had a Christian background. That’s an amazing thing if you pause and take that in. How good God has been to us! How much he has blessed us, as a country. Praise God. Again, though, this truth is just not going to ring true of people in certain countries throughout our world. In fact, a lot of countries unfortunately. We should keep those whom we know about in our prayers, and thereby fulfill what the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, “making supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18, ESV).
We certainly do realize that not everyone honors God’s name. Not everyone gives honor to Jesus’ beautiful name. Jesus told us to pray, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13, ESV). It is to God that the world, yes, the one we reside in ultimately belongs. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that it is Jesus who is going to rule on this earth in the near future. God is totally going to reclaim what is already his. Not only is he going to reclaim it, but he is going to put everything in order the way he wants it to be. That is good news for me, and that is good news for you. It’s good news for the world because, let’s face it, there is so much that needs fixed. There is so much that we all want to see changed. We have been changed, and we want to see the world changed.
If you haven’t been changed, you can make the decision today. God wants everyone to be changed, to come into personal relationship with him, to be made a new person through the blood Jesus’ shed on the cross for us. You can be made new today by his blood. Just as he lives in Heaven with the Father today, having risen there from death, so you too, but trusting in him, can one day also rise from death the life. All of of us who know him are going to experience this. We have liberty now, and we will have liberty in the future. The famous quote becomes true for us, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
- Daniel Litton
Today’s Acknowledgments
The Godfather (1972) and Patrick Henry