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Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, what's the application of this passage?
Some of you are tempted to think, man, Showing favoritism. Why a whole sermon on this? Why the big deal? Why not James talk about really big sins instead of little sins? The answer he says in verses 9 and 10 is because there is no such thing as a little sin.
Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffers. In restaurants and shops, and sadly, even churches, we often see preferential treatment given to those who seem wealthy or important. But God's house should be different. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr.
Robert Jeffress reveals that how we treat those who are less fortunate is a test of genuine faith. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Ever watch a pet hamster run on its spinning wheel? Their little feet become a blur.
racing endlessly and going nowhere.
Well, in the same way, some of us have a habit of jumping onto a spinning wheel with too much responsibility. Before long we wonder why we're so exhausted. Ever feel that way?
Well, I'm going to prescribe a remedy for your fatigue. It's the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska. I promise this leisurely one-week vacation promises to refresh your soul. The dates are June 13th through 20th. Check out all the details at ptv.org.
Okay, let's turn our attention to our topic for today. In our culture to day we've developed an unhealthy reverence for wealth and celebrity, often at the expense of those who have less. Unfortunately, this social idolatry has crept into the church, where we sometimes roll out the red carpet for the wealthy while ignoring the poor. But James warns us that showing such favoritism isn't just culturally wrong, it's spiritually deadly. I've written a brand new book on this topic, and others like it.
My book is called How to Know If You're Really Saved, a study in the book of James. This is the perfect choice for your Sunday school class or small group Bible study. It'll ignite lively conversation that'll draw people together. And I'm pleased to send you my book when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll share more details later.
But right now, let's turn to James chapter 2. I titled today's message, When Mr. Goldfinger Comes to Church. Pastor Kent Hughes tells a story about a woman who came from the other side of the tracks, as we used to say. She was economically disadvantaged, but she started attending a wealthy church.
She liked the singing, she liked the preaching, and decided she wanted to join.
So she made an appointment with the pastor, and the pastor gave her the once-over, decided this wasn't going to be a match.
So he tried to be diplomatic and said, You know, church membership is very important. Why don't you go home and think about it a little bit more?
So she did, and she came back the next week, determined to join, and said she wanted to join. And the pastor said, Well, you know, in our church, we prioritize the word of God, and we think the Bible has a lot to say. I want you to go home and every day of the week read a chapter of the Bible and see if God has something to say to you. She was getting annoyed, but she wanted to join, so she did that. She came back assured that she wanted to join, and the pastor said, You know, in our church, we believe in the power of prayer.
We believe that God leads through prayer.
So I want you to go back home and every day pray if God really wants you to join to show you.
Well, she left and never came back. About six months later, the pastor found her on the sidewalk and ran into her and said, Did you ever do what I said? Did you ever pray about joining our church? She said, Oh, yes, I prayed about joining it. And the Lord spoke to me and said, Don't worry about not getting into that church.
I haven't been able to get into it for the last 20 years. We're in a series titled How to Know If You're Really Saved. It's based on the book of James. And James says there's going to be some evidence if you're truly a child of God. Where there is faith.
There's going to be fruit. And if there's no spiritual fruit, then there is no faith. Faith without works is a dead, non-existent faith. And James goes through a number of tests we can see and use to see if we are truly saved or not. How we respond to trials in life is evidence of whether we're a Christian.
How we respond to temptations. Last time we looked at how we respond to the Word of God. Do we do the Word of God or are we just hearers only? And now James is going to give us another test of whether or not we're really saved, and that is how do we deal with those less fortunate than we are economically? Turn in your Bibles to James chapter 2.
Beginning with verse 1, James begins with the exhortation. Look at what the text says: My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. That phrase, my brethren, is rich. It comes from a single Greek word, adelphoi, adelphos. The word adelphos is sometimes translated brotherly.
We call phila Delphia. the city of brotherly Adelphus Lo Phileo. But the word Adelphos actually means, literally, from the same womb. Brothers are brothers because they have a common mother. And it's the same way with Christian brothers and sisters.
James says, remember what it is that unites us in the church of Jesus Christ. It's not our economic status, it's not some superficial criterion, it is our love for Jesus Christ and His love for us.
So He says, My brethren, don't hold your faith in Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism. Literally, take receive my face. To judge by face value alone. If you have a King James Version, it says, Don't be a respecter of persons. That phrase was immediately recognizable to James' Jewish audience.
For throughout the Old Testament, there was a prohibition against being a respecter of persons because God is not a respecter of persons. In Deuteronomy 1, verses 16 through 17, we find this command from God: Hear the cases between your fellow countrymen and judge righteously between a man and his fellow countrymen, or the alien who is with him. You shall not show partiality and judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's.
God is no respecter of people. He doesn't judge people according to superficial values that they have little control over. You know, a great illustration of that is in the story of Samuel choosing the next king of Israel. Remember the prophet Samuel, after Saul died, was tasked by God to go out and be a one-man search committee for the next king of Israel. And he went to the house of Jesse because that was a biblical prophecy.
The king would be in the line of Jesse. And so Samuel went to the home of Jesse, who had eight sons that Samuel could select from. And so Jesse brought out the most likely candidate, his son Eliab. Eliab was tall. He was handsome.
He was authoritative. As a friend of mine says, he looked like he came out of central casting. He was perfect for this role of king, or so everybody thought except God. Remember God's judgment in 1 Samuel 16:7? Do not look at his appearance or the height of his stature because I have rejected him.
For God does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. I've heard of people who have misused this verse as an excuse for not dressing up. For a job interview, they'll say, I don't care about that stuff. God looks on my heart.
Man looks on the outward appearance. The problem with that is, God's not the one hiring. It's a man's choice or a woman's choice in hiring. And whereas a person's lack of decor in their dress may be a reason not to hire them, it may be a legitimate reason. We kind of put a premium on that around here, how a person looks when they come to a job interview.
If they don't have enough good sense to dress up for the interview, we don't hire them. It's a reason maybe to hire or not hire somebody, but a person's dress is no reason to mistreat them in the church of God. That's what he's saying here. Don't look on the outward appearance as man does. And so James is going to give us an illustration of what he's talking about.
Look at this situation in verse 2. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes a poor man in dirty clothes.
Now this hypothetical situation. James says, if somebody comes into your church, in Greek, that's in the third class condition, meaning it's a theoretical situation that probably isn't going to happen. It was unlikely that unbelievers would ever come into a church. That rarely happened. By the way, it really rarely happens today.
There are some, but there are not that many unbelievers that come to church. He said, But if by chance a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, Now that word translated gold ring literally means he's gold fingered. That's where my sermon title came, not from the James Bond movie, but from the gold-fingered man. And he doesn't just have one ring on. He has a ring for each one of the fingers on his left hand.
You see, the rings you had, the number and the quality, was a measure of your wealth. In fact, in James' Day, there were stores you could go to to rent rings, rent a ring if you wanted to, to appear wealthier than you were. You know, we have an expression for that in Texas. People have the appearance of wealth, but really don't have it. We call them all hat and no cattle.
Well, that was somebody in James Day. They may or may not be wealthy. You couldn't tell for sure by their rings. But here's a man who pretends, at least, to be rich. He has gold rings and he's dressed in fine clothes.
That word fine, lamprey, means bright and shiny. He is dressed in a way to draw attention to himself. He's the first visitor.
Now, notice the second visitor who comes in at the same time. And there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, in soiled clothes. Here's a man who has dirty clothes because he only has one change of clothes. The word indicates not only is it soiled, it's smelly. It just doesn't smell great.
And so you've got two people coming into the church at the same time, two very different men. Notice the two responses. You say to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, verse 3: You sit here in a good place. I want you to have the best seats in the house.
Now, in a Baptist church, the best seats in the house are back there. That's where most people fight to get. In the back row or on the mezzanine, but it wasn't that way in biblical times. The best seats were down front. They were the chief seats.
They were a row of seats that faced the congregation, and behind those seats would be the ark that would carry copies of the scroll or the scrolls themselves that would be read of scripture.
So a person would be paraded down to the front, and the usher would say, you sit here. It's the same kind of seat that Jesus talked about in Matthew 23, 6, the chief seats. But to the second visitor, what does he say? Dusher says, we don't have room for you. Or, if you really have to sit down, sit not on the footstool of somebody else, sit by the footstool.
To the congregation, this man in soiled clothing was an inconvenience to be quickly dealt with and gotten rid of.
Now Let me address the elephant in the room, if I could, for a moment.
Some of you are thinking, don't we do exactly the same thing in our church? I mean, why is it we have a front row or this second row that is roped off, and we see people brought down here to this second row? They're all billionaires. By the way, any billionaires around here, no, that's not why we do it. We do it for security reasons.
We take security very serious here. And our security consultants say you should only put people you know and know well in that second row because guess what? They're the ones in the prime position to open fire or to make a charge on the platform. And so we put people there we know who are going to be there. There are times that we had dignitaries we honor in the church.
Throughout our history here, we've had congressmen, governors, senators, presidents who come. And it's a right thing, the Bible says, to give honor to those to whom honor is due. What's not right is to honor somebody. And mistreat another person at the same time. You should never favor anybody in the church when it results in disfavoring somebody else.
That's what was going on in this service.
Now, the explanation, here's what's wrong with that. James says, have you not made distinctions among yourselves or become judges with evil motives? This is a common theme in the letter of James, being a double-minded person. A double-minded person is somebody who professes to believe one thing, but acts in a way completely contrary to what he or she professes. In James 1, verses 7 and 8, James says, for that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
He says it again in James 4, verses 3 and 4. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Being doubled-minded.
What is it about favoring the rich that makes a person double-minded? What's so wrong with that? Let me mention three problems with it. First of all, to favor the rich subjugates the plan of God. It subjugates, it contradicts, it undermines the plan of God when we favor the rich.
What plan am I talking about?
Well, James goes on to say. You need to remember that when that poor man enters your church, He is not Because of some deficiency on his part. Most of the time, The reason a person is poor And the reason a person is rich is because of the sovereignty of God. God controls every aspect of our life. He has a plan for us that was written before the foundation of the world.
Psalm 139 says, and part of God's plan. includes the size of our bank account.
Now Some of you just arguing already in your heart about that. Listen to what James says in James 2:5. Listen, my beloved brethren, did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He promised to those who love Him? God had a plan. for the poor.
And that way, they would be rich in the kingdom. Doesn't mean being poor makes you a Christian, but it gives you a better shot at it. It's a lot easier for poor people to become saved than rich people, Jesus said. The rich are self-sufficient many times, not all the times, but many times. But the poor have an awareness of their need.
If you don't believe that, listen to Job 34, verse 19. Talking about God, it says, He shows no partiality to the princes, nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the what? The work of his hands. Both the poor and the rich are the work of God's hands.
Now, those of you who may be wealthy, Maybe well to do. You're arguing with that, perhaps. You say, no, that's not the reason I'm rich. It has nothing to do with the sovereignty with God. It has to do with my own hands that I have put to work for the last 50 years.
I'm rich because of me. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Who gave you those hands with which to work? Who gives you the breath every day that gives you the power to work? Deuteronomy 8, verse 18 says, It is God who gives us the power to make wealth.
No, it all comes from God. And that's why we're not to despise poor people. Part of that is God's plan for their life. In Matthew 19, 24, Jesus said, Again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Is it impossible?
No. Rich can be saved.
Some of the most dedicated to Christ members we have in our church are wealthy people. Who see their wealth not as their possession, but something that they manage on God's behalf, and they give generously to God's work. There were rich people in biblical times. Abraham and Job were rich. But that's the exception, not the general rule.
In 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 to 29, listen to what Paul said. He said, For consider your calling, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. He's saying, Do a look around your congregation, Corinthians. Have you noticed there are not that many wise people there, at least according to the flesh? They don't have earthly credentials.
You know, it used to bother me to death. When I read a statistic, that the overwhelming number of scientists are atheists, did you know that? The vast majority of scientists are atheists. And that used to bother me because I thought, You know, what is it about the study of science that made them atheist? Had they discovered some secret about the non-existence of God?
And then it came to me one day: it's not that scientists become atheists, it's that atheists who have disavowed a belief in God. tend to become scientists. They want to find an alternate system that explains why everything around us exists. That's why you don't find a lot of people with certain degrees in the Church of Jesus Christ. There are not that many wealthy either, Paul said.
I mean, if I were to ask all of the Millionaires and billionaires to stand up, there'd be some. but not many, because that's not God's plan. Yeah. God has chosen the base things of the world, Paul said, and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, that he may nullify the things that are. To favor the rich subjugates, it contradicts the plan of God.
Secondly, to favor the rich violates logic. Listen to verse 6 and 7. James said, Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?
Now, in Jewish society, it was the Sadducees who had all the money. And they would constantly Go to court to sue widows and sue poor Jews and cheat them out of their homes. And if they really wanted to add an insult, they would say to the judge, and not only this, but this poor person has become a Christian. He or she is a heretic, they deserve to have everything taken from them. And so James is saying, why do you want to favor those people who oppress you?
Well, we'll see in this third reason. To favor the rich demonstrates a lack of faith. Verse 8, if however you are fulfilling the royal law according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. All of the scriptures about how we treat others could be summed up with that phrase. Love other people the same way you love yourself.
There's much more from this passage in James to show you. We're just getting started.
So please keep listening. First, I'll remind you that I've written a brand new book to complement this teaching series and to help you dig deeper into James on your own. My book is titled, How to Know if You're Really Saved. Genuine faith is cultivated, not conferred. That's what James teaches us.
For instance, unwanted trials help us build spiritual muscle so that we can withstand whatever adversity comes our way. And here's another crucial test that might surprise you: how you treat people based on their bank account. If you're showing favoritism to the wealthy while ignoring the poor, James says your faith may be dead. This isn't about political correctness. It's about eternal reality.
Well, let me send you a copy of my book, How to Know If You're Really Saved. The biblical wisdom in this book will ignite your vision for the future and will strengthen your spiritual resolve. I'll be sure to send a copy to your home when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. David will describe other Bible study tools for this teaching series on James. But first, let me thank you for your generous support of Pathway to Victory.
When you give, you empower Pathway to Victory to broadcast these messages all across North America and even around the world. Together as partners in ministry, God is using our collective gifts to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word. Here's David to tell you more. Today, when you support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we're going to say thanks by sending you How to Know If You're Really Saved. That's the brand new book by Dr.
Robert Jeffers. Simply give us a call at 866-999-2965 or visit us online at ptv.org. And when your gift is $75 or more, you'll also receive the complete How to Know If You're Really Saved teaching series on both DVD video and MP3 format audio discs, plus the personal and group study guide. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd prefer to send your letter by mail, write to PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
That's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you back next time for the conclusion of this message when Mr. Goldfinger comes to church, right here on Pathway to Victory.
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