On Picking and Choosing
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
9/10/06
James 2:1-10
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law
A small boy was outside playing when his pastor paid a visit to his home.
The youngster was unaware of the pastor's presence so he burst into the house
dangling a mouse by the tail. He said, "Look Ma, look what I got!" He
said, "I got a mouse. I hit it over the head with a broom, and then I
banged its head up against the steps, and then I jumped on it." And then at
that point the youngster first saw the minister, and he said, "And then the
Lord called him home!"
Now that youngster was doing, mistakenly, what some adults do quite
seriously. And that is he was using religious words. But standing there in the
living room, swinging a dead mouse by the tail, we have reason to wonder if he
really understood the meaning of his words.
And adults, especially religious folks, do that at times. You and I use
religious words, but we're not always sure what they mean. Religious words have
a way of getting frayed around the edges. And I think that's true of the word
"believe." It's a basic word of the Christian faith. In fact, it's
used over 130 times in the New Testament, and we are told that when we believe
our sins are forgiven. Belief on Jesus Christ is essential to having a
relationship with God. In fact, one of the best known sentences in the New
Testament is John 3:16, and that verse states, "For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes on him shall not perish
but have everlasting life." Now that verse says that to have a relationship
with God, to be joined to the timeless life of God, we need to believe on Jesus.
So it's essential to know what it means to believe on Jesus Christ.
Now, the word "believe" is used in English in several ways. In
fact, it's used in different ways in the different contexts of the Bible. And
all of these meanings for the word "believe" are important, but
there's only one kind of belief that relates a woman or man to God.
For example, one sort of belief that you and I might have is a belief
about God or a belief about Jesus. In the letter we just read, James writes to
the people in his care and says in Chapter 2, "You
believe that there is one God; you do well, but the demons also believe that and
tremble."
Now, James was writing to Christians who, along with devout Jews,
believed in only one God. In fact, one of the great declarations of the Old
Testament is found in the book Deuteronomy and there that text says, "Hear,
O Israel; the Lord our God is one God." That simple sentence was central to
Jewish faith and to Christian faith as well. It separated the people of
So James imagines someone quoting those great words of Scripture, and he
commends that person for right thinking. "You believe that there is one
God. You do well," he says. But then he adds, "But the demons also
believe that and tremble." Obviously, James doesn't believe that demons
have a personal relationship to God.
Now don't misunderstand. The Christian faith does have content. Paul
stated in his Corinthian correspondence the essentials of that faith.
"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried and
then he was raised from the dead the third day according to the
Scriptures." Christianity stands on those great historic facts. But it's
possible to believe those facts - that is, have a proper belief about Jesus and
God - and yet not have a personal relationship to God yourself.
When I was growing up, I memorized an assortment of facts about American
history. I've carried them in my head for over half a century. One fact that I
remember was that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln while President
Lincoln was watching a play in Ford's Theater in
Yet, as far as I can see, those facts have never really done much to
affect my life. You could change the facts, have President Lincoln die of
indigestion. It wouldn't make much difference. And you can believe the historic
facts about Jesus in very much the same way that you accept facts about George
Washington, or Abraham Lincoln, or Christopher Columbus. But knowledge about
God, or knowledge about Jesus, can no more relate a man or woman to God than
belief about the safety of airplanes can get you from
But there's a second kind of belief that falls short of belief that
brings us into a relationship to God. For not only is there a belief
"about" Jesus, but there's what we might call a belief "in"
Jesus. Remember that statement by James? "You
believe that there is one God. You do well. But the demons also believe that and
tremble." The demons have an emotional reaction to what they know about
Jesus Christ. When Jesus was here on earth, the New Testament writers tell us
that whenever he came in conflict with the demonic forces, the demons shuddered.
"What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth?" they would cry.
"Have you come to destroy us?"
This is an important distinction about what it means to believe. In this
second understanding we can go beyond a belief ABOUT Jesus to a belief IN Jesus,
a belief that stirs US emotionally. There are many folks who have sat and
listened to the "Messiah" and have been profoundly moved at that great
religious music. There are others who have heard a convicting sermon and have
shuddered at the thought of standing before a holy God. They've had an emotional
experience that left a mark on them, but in the years that followed, that
experience made no difference in their lives. Oh, they believe in God; they have
felt strong emotions about Jesus Christ. But
that’s where it all stops.
Imagine that you read about a physician who has performed a delicate operation and that that operation has cured a dreadful disease. Perhaps you read about it in a medical journal and you believe it, believe it enough to talk to other people about it. And then imagine that you have a neighbor who came down with that disease and went to that physician, and came back healed. So, you not only believe "about" the physician. You have read about the physician in a medical journal. You believe "in" that physician because your friend has been cured by the doctor.
But suppose you come down with that disease yourself. Believing about the
doctor or even having positive emotional feelings about that doctor won't help
you. If you don't go to the surgeon yourself and trust yourself to his care,
then you won't be helped at all. Believing
about and believing in are not active forms of belief.
And that brings us to the third kind of belief. It goes beyond merely
accepting the facts about Jesus. It goes beyond an emotional reaction to what we
know. In order to make the distinction, let me call this third kind of belief, a
belief "on" Jesus Christ. It means a casting of ourselves on Jesus to
forgive our sin and to bring us into a personal relationship to God. It involves
knowledge, of course, and it may involve profound religious feelings, but this
kind of belief is knowledge and feeling that results in an act of the will.
Imagine a young girl. She's asleep on the second story of her home. And
she awakes one night - middle of the night - and there is the smell of acrid
smoke. She stumbles to the door and opens it to a sheet of fire. And the young
lady slams the door against the flames and then stumbles to the window and
stares down into the smoke and the darkness. From the ground below the young
lady hears her father's voice saying, "Honey, jump!"
And the young lady replies, "But, Daddy, I can't see you."
The father replies, "It's all right, honey, I can see you.
Jump!"
And the young lady jumps into her father's arms.
Now it's a part of faith for that young lady to believe that her father
is there. It's another part of faith to believe in her father, to feel that her
father is able to catch her. But it's the essence of faith to throw herself into
her father's waiting arms.
And that's what it means to believe on Jesus Christ. It's a part of faith
to believe that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sin; and
it's another part of faith to believe that God is able and willing to forgive
you and give you eternal life. But it's the essence of faith to abandon yourself
to God completely and allow Jesus Christ to be your Savior.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, expressed it well
when he said, that to believe on Jesus is "casting yourself with a reckless
abandon on the grace of God."
Belief that brings us to God is as simple and life changing as that.
Belief on Jesus Christ makes a solid foundation for your life now and forever.
Story
(I am indebted to the work of Haddon Robinson for this sermon, which is based upon a sermon he preached.)
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St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church,
Web Site: SAPC-CT.HOME.ATT.NET
Office Email: SAPC-CT@ATT.NET
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