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Redeemer Bible Church

Unreserved Accountability to Christ. Undeserved Acceptance from Christ.

The Ministry of Mercy, Part Three

Selected Scriptures

Introduction
In an effort to mystify, embarrass, and discredit Jesus, an expert in the Jewish Law
posed this question: Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 10:25).

Jesus answered his interlocutor with a question of his own: What is written in the
Law? How does it read to you? (Luke 10:26).

The lawyers response was correct and with Jesus affirmation of the lawyers
answer, Jesus provided his own answer to the original question about eternal life.

And [the lawyer] answered, YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR
GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH
ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR
NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. And [Jesus] said to him, You have answered
correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE (Luke 10:27-28).

Then, in order to save face and to justify himself before Jesus, the expert in the Law
of Moses followed with what he thought was the clincher: And who is my neighbor?
(Luke 10:29).

For the answer to this question Jesus turned to a parable. Its found in Luke 10:30-
37. Lets read it together.

Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving
him half dead. 31 "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he
saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 "Likewise a Levite also, when he came to
the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 "But a Samaritan, who was on
a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to
him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on
his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 "On the next day
he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, 'Take care of him;
and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.' 36 "Which of these
three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers'
hands?" 37 And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said
to him, "Go and do the same."

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Notice especially Jesus question in v 36: Which of these three do you think proved
to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers hands? Jesus changed the question
into one that assumes that anyone in need is our neighbor. Indeed, he changed the question
such that the notion of neighborliness is not about whether or not another is my neighbor,
but whether or not I am a neighbor as defined and exemplified by the Samaritan.

We are our brothers keeper. And we are our neighbors neighbor. The real question
is whether or not we will notice the needy person in our path and be to him the neighbor we
ought to be.

More than that, Jesus wants us to see in the Jew laying in the gutter a picture of
ourselves. He wants us to see the one in need as a mirror into the reality of our own need
for the undeserved acceptance of Jesus himself. For like the Samaritan, Jesus is not at all
obligated to meet the need of his sworn enemies. And yet, while we were still helpless, at
the right time Christ died for usthe ungodly (Rom 5:6). While we were yet sinners
rebelling against the character and authority of the LordChrist died for us (Rom 5:8).

The truly merciful ministry of mercy is an object lesson and a showcase for the saving
power of the gospel. So if we do not understand the gospel itself and its implications for life
in this war-torn, poverty-stricken, abused and abusive world, we will not understand what
mercy ministry is all about.

Now in order properly to understand our obligation to the poor and marginalized of
the world, we need to see ourselves from Gods perspective. In fact, this is what the story of
the Good Samaritan does for us. It reminds us of what we already know deep down;
namely, that we are utterly helpless without the saving and intervening and condescending
grace of the gospel of the kingdom.

Our problem is that we all too easily forget that we are the person in the gutter. We
are the homeless man or woman living in a cardboard box or in a filthy, often grossly
immoral shelter. We are the male or female prostitute who uses sex for money for food and
alcohol and drugs. We are the widow struggling to make ends meet. We are the orphan
bereft of his or her mommy and daddy. Apart from Christ we are all these people and then
some.

And yet, as Ive said, we all too easily forget it. We become confident in our status
as Christians. Not confident in the sense of bold trust in the Lord of heaven and earth, but
confident in the sense of self-reliant, self-satisfied, and self-exalting. This was precisely the
problem with the church at Laodicea:

Because you say, I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of
nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and
blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may
become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the
shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so
that you may see (Rev 3:17-18).

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So whats the antidote to such a faulty perspective? Well, we need not ingest
anything more complex than the gospel. We need to buy the refined gold from the
commodities stockpile of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to purchase white garments that
are only available in the boutique of the Risen Christ. We need to purchase eye salve from
the divine pharmacy that makes blind men see. We need again and again to repent and
believe the gospel.

Jesus goes on to tell the Laodiceans this very thing: Those whom I love, I reprove
and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if
anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him,
and he with Me (Rev 3:19-20). We need to turn to the Lord. We need to embrace the
Christ of the Christian gospel. We need to see things through the eyeglasses of the mercy of
God extended to undeserving sinners.

By Gods grace, it is my hope and prayer that you have begun to see this anew
through the wonderful exchange recorded in Luke 10. And it is my earnest prayer that this
mornings message would allow you to travel deeper into lush forest of the gospel on the
path to eternal life.

And the only way for us to do this is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
We need to see poverty and wealth from a Christian perspective.

And in a culture of rampant materialismand I mean in the evangelical church

culture just as much as American culturein a culture of rampant materialism, it is much
more difficult to shake our worldliness in this area than we might think. To do this, lets
turn to Jas 1:9-11:

But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and
the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass
away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower
falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the
midst of his pursuits will fade away.

The Poor Are RichBoast in Your Wealth

Verse 9 addresses the brother of humble circumstances, or the brother of low social
standing because of his lack of wealth and wealths concomitant power and prestige. Then
in v 10, we read about the person James calls the rich man. So the apostle is interested here
in giving instruction to brethren of two different social classes: the poor and the rich.

No doubt you are wondering what poor and rich mean in a practical sense. Well,
the poor in the Bible refer to those people who cannot meet their own needs and those of
their family without significant help from outside. The rich are the movers and shakers;
most notably, the land owners, living as they did in an agrarian economy. They would be
men who could easily afford to meet their own needs and the needs of many others.

I ought also to add that James audience included the wealthy land owners (as Ch 5
can attest) as well as poor Jewish believers who had been forced to leave Jerusalem and

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establish new homes in the surrounding region. Most of these poor brethren would have
been facing very difficult financial situations, social dislocation, and even ostracism for their
faith in Jesus.

The emphasis in this text, however, is not on the precise net-worth of the brother of
humble circumstances relative to the rich man, but on the social standing of the individuals
involved and the tendency of one group to despise the other (rich to poor) and the other
group to envy the one (poor to rich). James wants his brethren, poor and rich, the haves
and the have-nots to see themselves from a decidedly different vantage than that of the
world.

Verse 9 begins with the poor. How should the believer with low social standing
think of himself in light of the gospel of Christ? The brother of humble circumstances is to
glory in his high position. The poor member of the church is to glory in his high position.

Notice, first of all, that this command to glory in his high position asserts that he is
already in a lofty place. Indeed, the Bible tells the poor Christian to boast or take pride in or
revel in the position he occupies. This is what it would mean to glory in his high position;
for to glory in something is to express an unusually high degree of confidence in it for being
exceptionally noteworthy.1

Usually, the language of glorying or boasting is used negatively, as in Jas 4:16: But
as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. But the term may be used
positively as well. First Corinthians 1:31 says, Just as it is written, LET HIM WHO
BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.

The issue, then, is not whether or not one boasts; the issue is the object of ones
boasting. Boasting in ones personal achievements and efforts is evil, which explains why
boasting about all the things we will do tomorrow is equally wicked. Proverbs 27:1 says,
Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth. And
Jas 4:13-14 says,

Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a
city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do
not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for
a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills,
we will live and also do this or that.

In the case of James 1, the object of the poor brothers boast is his high position.
That is, his position of high status, rank, or prominence. The same term is used in Acts
25:23: So, on the next day when Agrippa came together with Bernice amid great pomp,
and entered the auditorium accompanied by the commanders and the prominent men of the
city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in. The poor member of the church is to
boast in his position of prominence.

1
kauca,omai

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Of course, this should seem like an exceedingly strange thing to ask of his poor
audience members. I am on public assistance for my housing. I receive food stamps. And
the church pays for my familys health care. What do you mean boast in my high
position? I am not in a high position! My position is nothing of the sort!

So James is saying something completely counterintuitive. He is saying, Brother of

low rank, you must boast in your high rank. What does he mean? What rank is he talking
about?

Well, the answer is found in the word brother. Because this poor man is a Christian,
he has been seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. He has been blessed with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He has had the riches of Gods grace
lavished upon him in Christ. He has obtained a heavenly inheritance, with the abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit as the down payment of riches later to be fully enjoyed.

So the rank of the Christian poor is not simply a present possession; it is a future one
as well. First Peter 1:3-5 says,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to
His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is
imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who
are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time.

And the Bible says that what the possession of our inheritance will mean for the
future is that we will reign with Christ. We will share in his authority over all the nations
and even over all the angels. Revelation 22:5 portrays the restoration of all things in these
terms: And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a
lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign
forever and ever. And 1 Cor 6:2-3 says, Do you not know that the saints will judge the
world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law
courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?

While most of the members of the church have not occupied the places of authority
in the world in this life, all of us will in the new heaven and the new earth. So poor
believers, Christians without rank and social standing, have every reason to glory in their
high position. Rather than complain about our lack of rations and lack of respect, we must
remember that there is more to life than money. Jesus said, Beware, and be on your guard
against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of
his possessions (Luke 12:15).

Our life is hidden with Christ is God. And when Christ who is our life is revealed
then we will enjoy fully the position we occupy already in principle. So James is reminding
that in Christ Jesus a great reversal of fortunes has taken place. And though we may not
have experienced it in its totality, it is ours by faith in Christ. Those who are poor have

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become rich in the Lord. Second Corinthians 8:9 says, For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you
through His poverty might become rich.

The grace of the gospel of Christ means that Jesus made himself poor so that we
might become rich. So James is simply saying that his poor brethren need to believe the
gospel. They need to believe that God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith
and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him (Jas 2:5). So there
should be no envy, no despair on the part of the poor brother; only boasting in the riches of
the gospel of Christ.

The Rich Are PoorBoast in Your Poverty

Now then, lets see what James says about the rich man. Look at v 10: and the rich
man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. Just as
the poor man is to boast in something, so, too the rich man is to boast in something. In his
case, it is that he is to glory in his humiliation.

The rich mans tendency, as we learn from Scripture, will be to find security in his
wealth and in the power and prestige it affords. It is what makes it easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When we
have material resources we are sinfully inclined to think that they can protect us. This is
what Prov 10:15 is talking about when it says, The rich mans wealth is his fortress, The
ruin of the poor is their poverty. And Prov 18:11 says, A rich mans wealth is his strong
city, And like a high wall in his own imagination.

So instead of boasting in his possessions, the rich man is to boast in his humiliation.
The term translated humiliation may also be rendered low status. So what his happening
here in v 10 is that James is reversing the terms of the command that he has just given to the
poor among them. Just as those with low status should glory in their high status in Christ,
those with high status should glory in their low status in Christ.

The rich man should boast in the fact that he has a share in the one who made
himself nothing to save sinners like him. To follow Christ is to follow him on the road to
Calvarya road paved by his humiliation.

In John 13:14-15, Jesus says, If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I gave you an example that you also should
do as I did to you.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who,
although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to
be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made
in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:5-8).

So James is telling the rich to do the same thing as the poor: they need to believe the
gospel. In order to come to Christ, we must decrease and he must increase. We must see

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ourselves as utterly bankrupt. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven (Matt 5:3). The rich need to remember that it was their poverty that drove them to
the cross in the first place, and it is their poverty that keeps them there till the end.

Now, although James command to the rich is essentially the same as the one he has
given to the poor, there is a difference. At the end of v 10 and in v 11, he gives the reason
for the rich man glorying not in his wealth but in his identification with Christs
humiliation. Why must the one who is rich in this present age glory only in his humiliation
in Christ?

Look again at v 10: the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like
flowering grass he will pass away. The rich man should glory in his humiliation and not
his riches because he will soon die and when he does he will take none of his riches with
him.

James elaborates on this in v 11. Read it with me: For the sun rises with a
scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its
appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
Now then, v 11, beginning as it does with the word for, establishes the ground for his
comment in v 10 concerning the transitory nature of the rich mans existence.

And the ground for his comment is a proverb:2 the sun rises with a scorching wind
and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is
destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. The proverb
works like this: almost as soon as the grass and its flowers come up, the sun destroys them
with its Middle Eastern heat. So too, the rich man dies almost as soon as his money and
possessions come into full bloom.

Death is the great leveler. Speaking of the rich the Preacher says, As he had come
naked from his mothers womb, so will he return as he came. He will take nothing from the
fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand. This also is a grievous evilexactly as a man
is born, thus will he die. So what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind? (Eccl
5:15-16). And Ps 49:16-17 says, Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, When the
glory of his house is increased; For when he dies he will carry nothing away; His glory will
not descend after him.

This is what James wants the rich in the audience to remember: wealth is temporary.
One writer puts it this way: There are no U-Hauls behind hearses.3 And because there are
no U-Hauls behind hearses the command to glory only in the humiliation of the cross is all
the more imperative.

2
Here we have the gnomic use of the aorist tense.
3
John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Press, 1986, 1996),
161.

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So James is addressing two Christians, a poor one and a rich one. He exhorts each
of them to look toward their identity in Christ as the measure of their ultimate significance.
In a provocative way he calls them to remember the gospel.

To the poor believer, tempted to feel insignificant and powerless because the world
judges a person on the basis of money and status, James says, Take pride in your exalted
status in the kingdom of God. You have been seated with the exalted Christ in the heavenly
places.

To the rich man, tempted to think too much of himself because the world holds him
in high esteem, James says, Take pride in your humble status as a despised and rejected
brother of the Messiah. Do not boast in your money or social standing, for they are
temporal. Boast only in the Lord.

So the remedy for worldliness in the arena of riches is the gospel; for it is the gospel
that tells both poor and rich that in the final analysis what really matters is the treasure of
heaven. Jesus says, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:19-21). It is what is stored in
the heavenly vault that matters most.

Implications for the Ministry of Mercy

Of course, none of this should be taken to mean that since the poor on earth have
their treasures in their spiritual inheritance of the gospel we do not need to help them. Not
at all! John says, But whoever has the worlds goods, and sees his brother in need and
closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? (1 John 3:17).

But what a passage like Jas 1:9-11 does give us with respect to the ministry of mercy is
the proper framework for understanding both rich and poor from Gods perspective.

What I want you to notice about this text is that there is a sense in which, through
the gospel rich and poor are no different from one another. The rich is poor in Christ and
the poor is rich in Christ. The gospel utterly demolishes the partiality of social class, which
is what forms the foundation for James teaching in 2:1-9.

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an
attitude of personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold
ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3
and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say,
"You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there,
or sit down by my footstool," 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves,
and become judges with evil motives? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God
choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He
promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not
the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? 7 Do they not
blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? 8 If, however, you are

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fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR
NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you
are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

The reason why partiality shown toward the rich is so vile is that it violates the
gospel. It is a practice completely contrary to the gospel of Christ. A gospel perspective on
rich and poor does not treat the poor with contempt, because in the sight of God the
Christian poor man has been lavished with the riches of the gospel. Rather than showing
partiality to the wealthy, we will love our neighborour poor Christian neighboras we
love ourselves.

The importance of this conceptthat rich and poor are alike in the Lordcannot be
underestimated. The only difference between me and another person is owed, therefore,
entirely to the grace of God and nothing more. Proverbs 22:2 says, The rich and the poor
have a common bond, The LORD is the maker of them all.

Ones monetary condition is a product of the will of God alone. The only reason, I
as a rich person can meet my needs, enjoy leisure, and give to others is because of the grace
of God. My riches are the product of the unmerited favor and undeserved acceptance of
Christ. They can go as quickly (or more quickly) than they came.

When we have something, our tendency is to think that our ownership of it is the
result of our ingenuity, talent, and hard work. This is patently false. What we have comes
from the hand of God alone. But I worked tirelessly for my fortunes! I work hard for my
money. Sure you did and sure you do, but from where did you get your strength? From
where did you get your ingenuity? From where did you get your talent? Who gave you the
opportunities that others have not had? It is only by the grace of God alone.

I do not want to say that it is owing to Gods blessing that we have more than
enough food, more than enough clothes, and more than enough room. I want to say that it
is owing to Gods grace. The reason I am couching things in terms of Gods grace is not
because our wealth is not a blessing from the hand of the Lord, but because we erroneously
identify Gods blessings with our wages.

The blessings of the Lord, even if they are the fruit of our obedience, are not
bestowed upon us in a kind of quid pro quo: I do something for God and he does something
for me. No, the blessings of God, even when they are the fruit of our obedience, are still
products of his grace. For it is God who is at work in us both to will and to work for his
good pleasure.

Every blessing, no matter how much or how long I worked for it, is solely the work
of God according to the riches of his grace in Jesus Christ. That we cant take our wealth
with us when we die should be evidence enough that no amount of labor can protect the
riches we may amass, even in several lifetimes.

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With this in mind, I will be much less likely to approach the poor with contempt,
much less likely to boast in my monetary or social attainments, and much more likely to
move toward the needy with the ministry of mercy.

We must keep in mind that our tendency, as those who haveand relative to the
majority of people in the world, we are without a doubt the havesas those who have,
there is a tendency to see people in conditions of poverty, Christians or otherwise, as those
who have must be sinning. Otherwise, we reason, they would not be poor.

Passages like this one in James 1 and the one we quoted from James 2, should work
to change this perspective significantly. James does not say that the poor brother ought
immediately to repent of the foolishness that got him into his condition of poverty. The
poor brother rather is to glory in the high status he enjoys as a Christian and to remember
that his inheritance in the saints is absolutely guaranteed.

It is wrong for us to assume that simply because a person is in a financial pinch that
his own sin is the cause. We would never reason that because a person suffers from a cold
that his own sin is necessarily the culprit. Now, of course, in the case of both the cold and
the financial difficulties, the Bible teaches us that our own sin may be the cause. But even a
cursory look at Scripture as a whole tells us that poverty and illness are not always the fruit
of our own foolishnessjust read Job! That personal sin was the cause of Jobs suffering
was precisely the conclusion that his so-called counselors had drawn with respect to his
situation. And as you know, it couldnt be further from the truth.

Our attitude toward the poor (and the rich) must be rooted in the gospel. It must
flow from the belief that the rich are poor in the Lord and the poor are rich in the Lord and
that the circumstances of ones life are a product of the sovereignty of God. This is not to
say that we ought not to look to particular sins that may be the cause of ones poverty (or
even ones wealth), but it does mean that we ought not to assume that because a person is
suffering lack that there must be something wrong with them.

This is so evil. It is such hypocrisy. We need to remember that we too are poor. We
need to see our poverty of spirit as the spiritual version, if you will, of anothers poverty of
life. For when we do we will see the lengths to which Christ went to rescue us from our
spiritual poverty and will be compelled by the love of Christ to go to great lengths to rescue
others from physical poverty.

Christ did not move toward us in our spiritual bankruptcy because we deserved his
assistance. To the contrary, he moved toward us in spite of the fact that we by no means
whatsoever deserved his help. The same should be true of our approach to the poor. Even if
we have never suffered lack of food, clothes, shelter, or any other necessity doesnt mean
that we dont know what its like to be poor. For we know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor, so that we through His
poverty might become rich.

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May God grant us the grace and strength to look on people with the eyes of Christ.
Amen.

Redeemer Bible Church

16205 Highway 7
Minnetonka, MN 55345
Office: 952.935.2425
Fax: 952.938.8299
info@redeemerbiblechurch.com
www.redeemerbiblechurch.com

The Ministry of Mercy, Part 3 2004 by R W Glenn