Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill from Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Judgment is coming. God is going to judge all of that. The question is this, are you guilty? That's the question. Are you guilty of breaking the law of God? And the answer is we all are. So for all guilty of breaking the law of God, yet we are not going to be punished for breaking the law of God because of what Christ has done, then that means Christ is the one who becomes the great equalizer in it all. And what James is saying is how dare you begin to play games with respect to preferentially treating one another when you know God was the great equalizer from the very beginning.

Guest (Male): We're looking at the book of James right now on the weekend edition of Light on the Hill. And today we focus on what God doesn't do, and that's show favoritism. What he does do is show mercy. We'll continue in chapter two with James asking three questions to help illustrate these truths. Here's Pastor James Kaddis starting at verse four.

James Kaddis: Look what he goes on to say. Are you not then partial in yourselves and aren't become judges of evil thoughts? In other words, have you not allowed yourself to capitulate to the core, the very core of what is essentially evil in your mind when you allow those thoughts to regulate how you treat one another. You're rich, so I'm going to treat you well. You're poor, I'm going to treat you like garbage, right? Think about that for a second. The the the system and this is something that I I really learned to understand a lot better and in and in real life as a father, right?

Because as a father, you begin to understand something very interesting about your children, right? Your children do not bring anything monetarily speaking to the table. Like every parent understands this, right? As a matter of fact, how many parents at one point or another just stopped for a moment to reflect upon the fact that children are expensive, right? I mean, you think about it. When it comes time for the piano lessons or the swimming lessons or the this lesson or the that lesson, forget any of those. Let's just say you don't do any of that stuff.

You just start thinking about basics, right? Like you go and you buy food for a kid and you think, gosh, you're eating I mean, can you can you stop eating for just a minute till I get my next paycheck, right? It kind of feels that way sometimes, you know? And you look at that, you realize there's nothing about children that bring you any monetary benefit unless of course you're exploiting them and that's a whole other story. And if that's the case, well then you don't deserve to have those children. But my point is there's nothing about children that bring you any tangible benefit, right?

At least not in the inception. And so when a when a baby cries, it's because that baby is signaling to you that there's a need. And when you are a person that finds joy in being able to bring that need to the table when that baby is crying for a need, there is something supernatural about that. There's something very important about that. There's something that says in your most vulnerable state, my desire is to give you everything you need to grow. In your most vulnerable state, it's my desire to be as protective as I possibly can.

In your most vulnerable state, it's my heart to give you everything that I've got that you might come to that place where you are now protected and you have everything that you need. Guys, this is how you know the influence of Satan is so strongly upon a society is when that society wants to take the most vulnerable of its society and destroy them. Do you understand? The most unsafe place for any human being to live right now statistically is not in Philly, it's not in Chicago, it 's not in San Francisco, it's not in LA, it is not in the worst of the hoods, it is not in the South Alley of Gage in between Komar and El Salinda and Southeast Los Angeles.

It's not hanging out where, you know, the white fencers are. It's not where any of that is. The most unsafe place to live statistically in this country is in the womb of a mother. It's the most unsafe place to live. There are more death There's more death that happens in the womb of a mother than any other place in this country, any other place. And actually, statistically speaking, if you live in a black community, you're way more likely to die, way more likely to die in the womb of a mother than you were if you were living in any other community.

You think about that for a second. Think about the insanity tied to that. The most vulnerable are the ones that are to be protected in a society that is Christ-centered, but the reality of it is we've lost that. So what? We we There's a bunch of classism going on. There's a whole bunch of things happening where our our priorities are backwards, and this is why we are where we are. This is why we get where we get. This is exactly what we're seeing here. These are all evil thoughts. Verse five. Hearken, my beloved brethren. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called? If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have respect to the persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. He's not saying to us that the rich are evil and it's all about taking care of the poor.

The picture that he is actually drawing here is that the assertions that are made oftentimes by becoming a respecter of persons create a mechanism of injustice. That is void of the justice of God that brings destruction in any societal growth, any societal place. The idea here is if you're looking at it through the eyes of God, you're going to end up seeing it completely different. You will view the rich a different way than you will view the way that they are before you knew the Lord. You will view the poor in a different way than you did before you knew the Lord.

because if your knowledge of God through the filling of God's spirit begin to change your mind, and it will, it will cause you to understand a very simple principle, and that is God is consistent through and through. The law of God is consistent through and through. And here's the funny thing about the law of God. This is something people don't recognize or understand or realize. And that is God has to make good on his word. God is never going to go back on his word. God is going to judge unrighteousness, and there is no way around it.

He has to. Otherwise, he himself becomes unrighteous. Otherwise, he himself is ungodly and he's a he's in violation of his own law. And so the righteousness of God is oftentimes exemplified through his perfect and real justice that is founded upon a knowledge that we cannot even begin to think about obtaining. Why? Because he walks in perfection and we don't. And this is where the story of salvation is so important, right? This is why the message of the gospel is so critical because there was only one man who could fulfill that law perfectly, and that was Christ.

Very simple, but this is an important principle that we oftentimes overlook. So let me read verse 10 all over again. It says this. It says for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of all of the points. That's basically what he's saying. So if you go to me and you say, well James, I follow the law and I follow it perfectly. You ever lied before? Well sure I have. You ever stolen? Sure I have. Have you ever looked upon a woman or a man lustfully? Yes. Well then you've broken all of the law.

You haven't just broken one portion, you've broken it all. You you violate one point of the law, you violate it all, every single last bit of it. Which is why oftentimes the mechanism of judgment that we tend to push out amongst ourselves is broken because we create rules in this area while completely failing in this area and all of those areas are relied are are tied in to God's perfect justice. They're relied they're literally tied in to God 's perfect law. And God's perfect law can only be fulfilled either completely or it doesn't get fulfilled at all.

You either fulfill it perfectly and never break a rule or you've broken it all. It's very simple, right? Broken is broken. There's no such thing. Now yes, are there different degrees of sins and there's different degrees of unrighteousness? Yes. But when you break something, you break something. At some point it can be broken not by a lot. In other points it can be broken by a whole lot. Either way it's still broken. That's the picture. That's what he's drawing here. So he goes on to say, for he that said do not commit adultery, said also do not kill.

Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. The reason why he's bringing this about is because this was the tendency when it came to the picture of classism in that day, right? The tendency was, well you know what, I'm way better than you because I'm better off. And I'm better off because I have chosen to do this in a better way and so I'm more blessed. Thus, I'm exempt from the problem that exists among us, right? And then sometimes you have people that were poor that also treated it that way.

Well, I'm not just some rich kid that was born into wealth. I've suffered a hard and terrible life and yet I'm here. I'm a Christian and so I'm better than everybody else, right? They play that game on both ends. We see it, guys. Come on. The kind of virtue signaling that we see in this world today, we see it everywhere and it's done from several different angles. It's so funny to see how this compromising picture that's created by all of humanity continues to pervert the perfect law of God and continues to pervert everything that is related to that which God says is righteous.

And here's the thing that we have to understand. Judgment is coming. God is going to judge all of that. The question is this, are you guilty? That's the question. Are you guilty of breaking the law of God? And the answer is we all are. So for all guilty of breaking the law of God, yet we are not going to be punished for breaking the law of God because of what Christ has done, then that means Christ is the one who becomes the great equalizer in it all. And what James is saying is how dare you begin to play games with respect to preferentially treating one another when you know God was the great equalizer from the very beginning.

Right? Just because you've got a lot of money doesn't make you better than the person that has no money. And just because you have no money doesn't make you better than the person that has a lot of money. Why? Because you all broke the same standard. You all have broken the law. You've all made the same mistake. You may have been the one that committed adultery and you may be the one that committed murder. Either way you've still broken the law of God which puts you in the same category, right? It still puts you in the hot spot.

It still gives you that place of being found guilty. But the mercy of God is extended in a way that delivers us from that. That's what he's about to say. Look what he says in verse 12. So speak you and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. In other words, sober up a little bit. Sober up. Because you know what we all have in common? You could be the billionaire in the room and I could only have 5 cents. But you know what? We have something in common. You know what that is?

We're all still subject to the same law of God. It isn't like the world that we're in today where the truly rich are not subject to the same rules as those who are poor, right? I I don't think we have as big of a problem with racism in this country. I think we have a bigger problem with classism in this country, right? We know that. If you don't believe me, go just stop for one moment and examine what happened with the OJ Simpson case. OJ Simpson was able to win that case because he had money, right?

Had nothing to do with him being black. It was all about him being black and unjust things happening. Well then, you know, he'd be in jail right now. But it 's all about the the class wars that continue to be played and it's always been that way. If Satan can bring race into the picture, of course he'll bring race into the picture, right? Racism is very real and if he wants to bring hatred in at that level and and uh the society that he tries to infiltrate allows that to happen, of course it's going to happen.

But the reality of it is no matter what perspective you're coming from, no matter what place you are in, understand this. You are all coming from the place of being guilty. All of us. Think that's something that pastors forget oftentimes, right? I'm so busy being the guy that's sitting here teaching you the Bible and I 'm so busy being the guy that's sitting here uh trying to uh exhort you on what's right or wrong and trying to lay down the standard for how you should live and how you shouldn't live and the things that you should do and the things that you shouldn't do that I automatically have a fleshly tendency to tell myself I'm different from everybody else because I'm the pastor.

And quite frankly, I am different. God's going to judge me harder. I mean, that's the reality of it, right? He places a greater expectation upon me because I'm the one that sits as the teacher and there is a stricter responsibility given to me. But sometimes I think, oh no, I'm a lot more lenient. God's going to be more lenient with me because I'm serving him in ministry. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a it's a complete lie. It's a complete lie. Years ago, I remembered um I remembered this like it was yesterday. I was on my way home from Idaho.

And I was Look, we were tired. Me and my sister we had been on the road for quite some time. Actually, we were visiting Dale, I believe, Dale and when he was at a church over there. And we we just wanted to go home. We were tired. We wanted to go home. And I remembered being on the highway going down the road at like Oh, I must have been going 100 mph down the highway. I got pulled over by a Nevada State Trooper, right? And I just looked at my sister and I said, it's not going to be big deal.

He's not going to write a ticket. I'm just going to badge him and and and let him know I'm a chaplain and tell him I'm law enforcement and everything's going to be great. And I and I just I was convinced of it. And so he comes up and asks for my driver's license and you know, all that kind of stuff. And he said something to the effect of when am I going to get you Californians to understand that you can't be speeding or something like that. And I just pulled out my badge and I showed it to him and I said, hey man, can you give me a little bit of occupational courtesy here?

I'm you know, I'm I'm one of you. And he looks at me and he says, really? What agency are you from? And I tell him the Southern California agency that I been or whatever. And he looks at me and he says, let me see your ID. Cuz he saw on the badge it said chaplain. He looks at the ID and I'm beginning to feel like like oh, this is going to be good. He's you know, he 's going to he's going to let me off and this is going to be you know, it's going to be good and we just going to move on, right?

And he said, I was about to let you off until I saw what you did for your department. And now I'm getting mad at him. I'm like, you know, in my mind like I want to tell him, don't ever drive in Southern California again cuz we'll pull you over and throw the books at you. You know, I'm mad at him, right? Now mind you, I was righteously pulled over. I was speeding. I should not have been speeding. I righteously deserved the ticket. And he tells me this. He says, I 'm going to throw the book at you.

And he says, you ought to thank the God that you serve that I'm not going to tow your vehicle because I know you want to go home, but I'm giving you a nasty ticket. And I just looked at him like, why? You know, I'm mad. Like I'm like And James probably like, calm down. You know, she's probably not very happy. I'm like, why? And the guy says, because you're not just one of us, but you're a chaplain and you know better. You are a pastor. You're supposed to serve God. You know better. And then that what am I going to say to that, right?

What am I going to say? Just get out of here, man. Give me my ticket. Let's get this over with, you know? What are you going to do? You just you swallow it, right? That's it. It's a wrap. You there's nothing you can do at that point, right? The picture behind it is if you have the spirit of God inside of you, then you should know better than to play the games that everybody else plays, right? That's why when you walk in a room and you're a Christian, you're a believer, you don't you don't function as a respecter of persons because you you know that every single one of us have come from the same place.

We're all people who were born in complete and total depravity requiring a savior to intervene. And if that's the case, then we know better than to be treating people based on social class. We know better than to be treating people based on riches or any of those types of things. God has called us to understand the fact that the depth of his mercy has been extenuated throughout all of us. It's the common thread that exists within our adoption that causes us all to recognize that we are all inheritors of his glory because of the mercy that he continues to show us.

And James is going to close off this thought right now. Look what he continues to say. For he shall have judgment. Notice this without mercy that has showed no mercy. And mercy rejoiceth against judgment, glories against that. Think about that for a second. Think about the picture that that creates for us. And we're going to get into this next week how it translates. It re-emphasizes the principles of faith without works is is dead. But think about what he's actually saying here. He's saying if you become the person that does not bring the mercy that God has given to you into the picture, then you will be judged without that mercy that you have refusing to that you have refused to show to others.

But because we have been given by God the picture of his perfect grace and mercy, how much more should we be we be rejoicing at what God has done for us in one another, right? You think about that for a second. That makes it really special for us too, doesn't it? Because if we become a people who think that way and we are sincere in our belief in God and we've allowed God to transform our lives, then that means not only does God keep us from treating one another preferentially based on social class, fiscal class, any of that.

But you know what else it does? It teaches us to glory in one another's gains. It teaches us to be excited for the benefit that one another begins to experience, right? When you see a person coming in complete poverty because the course of their life has taught them to make a series of bad decisions, where now they come to know the Lord and just through the simple process of making righteous and godly decisions, they are now living in a better place economically speaking. Shouldn't we rejoice? Shouldn't we be happy that God has done a great work?

Or maybe a person comes into the church who has all the money in the world and recognizes that it never did anything for them. It never brought them joy, peace, happiness, any of those things. And they came to a saving knowledge of Christ and then chose to take that money that never made them happy and use it to glorify God in their life in every way. Shouldn't we rejoice for those people? I know plenty of men in my life that are extraordinarily rich. Forgive me saying the word stupid rich, beyond comprehension rich. And every time I hear about them increasing in wealth, every time I hear about them doing something that caused their their net worth as they would call it to increase, I rejoice.

Why do I rejoice? Because I know God's going to take that blessing and he's going to use it for his glory. I know that the men that I'm thinking about in my mind that continue to grow in their net worth are men that are actually making a difference. Can I give you an example of one of the men that I know but I'm not even going to tell you his location, where in the country he is or anything like that. But he is one of the richest men in the country. And I can just tell you this right now.

He's probably top 50 in terms of the richest men in the country. And I can just tell you this right now. As God began to bless him with wealth, his daughter began to get invested in the pro-life ministry of their church. In that moment, in that time, he began to realize that she had a heart to save babies. His wife began to develop the same heart because of what the daughter was doing. And with that man's wealth, he shut down abortions in literally half his state. They're unheard of where he is, completely unheard of. Why?

Because he took the money that God has blessed him with and he gave it in droves to pregnancy centers, gave it in droves to the type of people that are making a difference in the lives of these mothers who are wanting to murder their babies, changing them. They have this incredible ministry where you have these women who are pregnant, who wanted to kill their babies, who now not only did not do that but have made it their life's goal to encourage other women to not do that. There is an army an army of people in this area that statistically speaking, it might be the safest place to live in the mother's womb in that area, right?

Why? Cuz he made a difference. He changed things.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to the weekend edition of Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. And part of our study in the book of James, listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Again, that's lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts too. We'd love to hear from you. It's encouraging to hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord. There's a place to contact us at the website lightonthehillradio.com. If this is a ministry you would like to support, there's a place to make a secure donation at lightonthehillradio.com or you can give through the Light on the Hill app.

Throughout the week you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events through a biblical worldview. Look for those at jameskaddis.com. Now with these concluding thoughts, here's Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Understand how God can intervene in ways that are beyond our capacity to even begin to think about if we simply follow the instruction that he's given us. Learning to be people who are who are respecters of that which God has established within our hearts rather than respecters of a financial or material place that somebody might be in changes all of it, doesn't it? The whole idea is this, guys, and it goes back to the recurring theme that we've been reading about in the book of James and that is this. Live a real faith. Live a real life.

Serve God with all of your heart, right? Don't allow certain things to change your perspective on what it is you should or shouldn't do outside of that which the spirit of God has told you through his word. Be people who live real, be people who live consistent and watch God do great things. And folks, he can. He's such a good God. He can do anything he wants to do. If we're willing to trust him and recognize the blessing that we've obtained through his mercy and through his grace, we'll begin to understand that life takes on a whole completely different meeting.

And it changes the way we do everything. It's that simple, you guys. It's time to keep it real. It's time to look to the Lord and understand this. The answer to the original question that I imposed is we are beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty. And God's judgment is undoubtedly coming. But because of the grace and mercy of God in our life, we do not get to experience or have to experience the insanity that will one day come for those who have waved their hands and fists in the face of God. Because of God's grace and mercy, because of the sacrifice that he's made for us, we end up becoming those who not only are not judged by God but we have become heirs of his kingdom.

It's a pretty great thing, isn't it?

Guest (Male): More from the epistle of James is coming up next weekend on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Male): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.