Sermon Transcript:

We are in a series on the book of James, we took a break last week to talk about the resurrection. But we're back this week and again, James chapter two, we're only gonna get through about half of the chapter. And you know, it's good to read and kind of go through the scriptures in this way, because we can see how things fit together. Also, what it does for both us as the communicator, and those of us that are hearing is we can't get out of certain subjects and other words, they come up in the scriptures, or they'll come up in a certain chapter or book, and we have to address them. And so that's one of the advantages of of teaching or preaching through a book. Well, let's start off James, chapter two, beginning in verse one, it says this, my dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, if you favor some people over others? For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes, and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes? If you give special attention, and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, you can stand over there or else sit on the floor? Well, doesn't this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters, hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich and faith? Aren't they the ones who are inherited the kingdom? He promised to those who love Him? But you dishonor the poor? Isn't it the rich? Who will who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren't they the ones who slandered Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear? Well, a lot in there. And so I just want to start out at the top and say, you know, it's silly for us. And we've all done it at times, to chase the almighty dollar, it's crazier still, to chase those who have chased the almighty dollar. And we've all done it consciously or unconsciously. And we're gonna see that this passage isn't primarily about those who have money or don't have money, it's about favoritism in our heart towards that. Now, we're not just at that point of whether we are thinking about money or not, he is using this as an easy illustration for us to understand a greater point and that is, again, partiality or favoritism. How do I know that Lee says right there at the top verse two, for example, for example, and this is what I love about the scriptures is that often, they'll tell a story, or they'll give an example and illustration application that we can all easily identify with. And this one just really is in real clear, we understand when we play favorites when we cozy up next to somebody because of how they look. And we want to be near them, because we think it'll make us look better, or we're able to get something from them. So let's define what we're talking about here. Again, favoritism is the practice of being unfair giving preferential treatment to one person or group at the expense of another. The meaning of favoritism is the showing of special favor, it's using the word within that we get that it's partiality, it's related to and the word was used in these verses discrimination. It's a discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes or other categories to which they belong, or are perceived to belong, that our DIS advantageous. Favoritism is present. Anytime we're making judgments about people based on external appearance. Now, this could be anything, but it's just that whole idea that we're taking something at face value, we're looking at something or we're perceiving something, and then we're making judgments about that. So it could be about gender rights, it'd be about man, men power, or women power, or whatever it could be about ethnicity could be about clothing, we understand that we saw that as an example here. We can do this both virtually or in person, we understand this because it's about our heart, we're gonna see that in a minute. It can be about the food that they eat, or what we eat, can be about the fact that you're fat or you're skinny, it could be that you look like you vote for my group or you look like you vote for that other group. So anything that we sort of perceive and then make judgments about we are an act on. We're showing favoritism. It's the whole idea of groupthink, right? That we want to be around people who think like us, and we want to affirm and continue to hear what like an echo chamber what we ourselves, right. That's why we often think about groupthink coming around social media, but it existed long before that, right here we are in the book of James 2000 years ago. And we're seeing that favoritism and wanting to be around people and hear people who are like us or that we perceive can give us something or prop us up to something has been around for a long time because what does social media do? It either amplifies it amplifies our best qualities or worst qualities. Social media didn't cause favoritism or groupthink, where does it come from? We know this biblically, it comes from our heart, right? We see this over and over again, when Jesus talks, he says, out, out of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so when you and I though, let's just think about this example. Here's what we you and I do, we do this instinctively, almost without thinking about it. Every time we enter a room that has a variety of people, and by variety, I mean, diverse, different in every sense of the word. So think of a group that's big enough that you've walked into this room or other rooms at gatherings, parties work school. And when you recognize we're not all the same, I've just entered a room, I've just entered a space, even whether that's digital, virtual or real, in which we're not all the same. What do we do? How do we respond instinctively, as humans, we, in a split second, were like one group is like me, and one group is not like me, the group like me is safer and therefore more comfortable, and more comfortable means that I have possibly more to gain by cozying up next to them. Likewise, we quickly think they are not like me, they are not safe, which means they are not comfortable, or they make me uncomfortable. And thus I have nothing to gain. I can't see on the surface anything to gain and therefore I will distance myself from them. Now again, we can do this over anything right? We've already said we can. We can base this however, a real or superficial this is we can base this on anything. Here's the deal though. Favoritism, torpedoes, us, favoritism torpedoes, US I almost said favoritism brings us down. But I didn't want you to think it was a good quality like makes us lonely or humble. It's that whole idea of torpedo us think about where he get that you said that phrase before maybe like he just torpedoed me. What do we mean by that? Well, we were going to that sort of old submarine language, where it's the whole idea of okay, there was there was a torpedo on the submarine shot towards me. And all of a sudden, just like battleship, we all played that as get whatever. Sink, right? And so what we need to understand is that favoritism sinks us. And why do I bring this up? Because we often think about favoritism as like, Well, that wasn't really right towards them, I slighted them, I really shouldn't have judged them based off the way they looked or their finances or whatever. And what we have to realize is that long before it's an insult to whoever you've just insulted by the way you act in responded, it's an insult to a holy God. And it's, it's hurting you, it's hurting you. We just think it's wrong for someone else. But favoritism does something far worse than showing just that momentary favor. What it does is it hardens our heart, it hardens our heart. And why do I say that? Because we're not concerned about what God's concerned about in that moment, we're concerned about what we're concerned about in that moment, right? I don't want to be uncomfortable, I don't want to I don't want to go there that that will force me to have to enter their world that will force me to have to put myself in their shoes. And I don't want to do that we can do this politically, right, we can make excuses. And what ends up happening is that we can stay entrenched in our position, we understand that literally social media does this to us, because algorithms are made and created to be in echo chambers so that we hear in like more stories that we've already liked. And so that's what again, what social media does, it doesn't cause anything, but it can amplify that which is already going on in our culture in our hearts. And that's what's going on here. So then we have to fight against that. Because what ends up happening is like, let's just take a belief that maybe you have you about how you get money or achieve things in life, you think,

well listen, if you just work hard enough, and do the right things for long enough, you'll be successful. And there's a lot of truth to that. But there's also a lot of truth that you can be born with certain advantages over others based off a variety of factors. But you and I are not going to empathize or sympathize with the other side. If we constantly seek out our own comfort, if we constantly play favorites, because what are we doing? We're just saying to herself, saying with our group, we want to be around something that makes us comfortable. And we're entrenched in our position because we've already made up the decision whether they're we're talking to or not. Now, when we're shutting down our hearts, we're shutting down that opportunity. What we're doing is we're missing an opportunity that could and should lead to empathy. I've already brought up that word empathy. We know that this is in short supply in our age, right? Because why? Because we don't want to see something from someone else's perspective. What's often said it's not original with me that we spend too much time talking at people instead of what talking to them. The last thing I would say about favoritism is is just stupid. I said, Well, I should say this in the sermon or not, but I said Well, I've already said silly I think I can say stupid because It's already in the text. It's already in the text. What do I mean by that? Think about what we just read in verses, you know, five and six and following me, he says, Listen, hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich and faith? Now, here's what he means by that, because there was a, there was a principle to learn here about poverty and wealth. And that is that what Jesus said on the sermon on the mount that those who are poor and spirit or poor, literally, for my sake, and for the kingdom here, and now will be rich and heaven, the reason why Jesus talks about the rich and the poor, and there's a lot to be said, and it's going to come back around and James, is because he understands something that is just true, which is that if you find yourself banking on your wealth, no pun intended, that you find yourself comfortable, then a lot of times you don't feel like you need God. Because how did many of us come to God, when we were at the end of our rope? Right? Well, we had tried everything else. When we no longer felt secure in our own way of thinking, and we come to the end of ourselves, what do we do, then we're like, turned to heaven. Repent, I believe you and I are a lot more likely to come to that conclusion, in a moment of desperation than if we have plenty of wealth to cover us. But that's the point for another day, have a side note, but let's come back to what I said, Why is favoritism so stupid for ourselves and others? Because he says this in verses five and six, aren't they? That means the rich, the ones? The ones who I noticed about the poor? are the ones who inherit the kingdom of God, he's promised him. But he says, But you dishonor the poor? Isn't it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren't they the ones who slandered Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear. So when we're trying to be, well, they're trying to act like we have something which we don't, which we're finding out here, and we've already hit some walls, we're gonna need to hit other walls as we've tried to maintain our lifestyle that we had, you know, pre COVID pre inflation, we're trying to be like Hollywood or New York, right? We're trying to say let's I want, I want people to be impressed with me, like they're impressed with him or her. And we can do this through Instagram, we can do this through literal buying of goods, we can do all kinds of things. And what he's saying is, aren't these the people who's dragging Christ's name through the mud? Like you're trying to impress the very people who are oppressing the name of Christ? What are you doing? This is very, very stupid. This is the same thing that you did when you were a middle school or a high school girl. And you went out to buy a certain outfit to look like them? Who's the them? Those girls who were mean to you? You know, I'm talking about it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, if I just get this outfit these shoes, they will accept me. How'd that go for you? Then go very well, or like, Guys, when we were in school, we weren't we wanted to be in the in class we made we bought certain shoes. So with that group would be so that they would favor us because we felt like we were on the outside progress trying to get in. And what the scripture saying what you and I know is that man, it doesn't work. And even if you achieve that, it tastes like sand in your mouth. But it sounds like kids who do this, we as adults do this, how when we want to impress someone, we don't really like whether it's at work or in social settings. Sometimes we even despise them. Because they look down on us, but we want to cozy up next to them at the first chance we get why? Because we want their favorite why these are the very people who stood against us and oftentimes stand against God and His principles, and his word. That's what he's trying to say here in James. So here's, here's what we want to do, oftentimes in the scriptures, when we find ourselves, okay, this is what we not want to do. We do not want to play favorites. We don't we don't favoritism is bad, God is good. Here's what we want to do the call, then the put off is that the put on is, let's make ourselves uncomfortable, by engaging those different than us, for the sake of our own personal growth and ultimately, the Gospel, you understand this is what it would lead to right? That if we continually sort of put ourselves in situations that are not normal, kind of go to the other side of the street, and we're gonna talk about this with neighbors and so forth, then we understand that this will lead to our own personal growth so that we don't always want to talk to ourselves. So they're not always in trench so that we don't always lack empathy and sympathy that we know that we want for ourselves, and that we ultimately want to give others in the hope of the gospel. Well, let's continue on verse eight. If favoritism torpedoes us where does he go next? Yes, indeed. It is good when you and I obey the royal law as found in the scriptures, love your neighbor as yourself. But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You're guilty of breaking the law for the person who keeps all the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God's laws. For the same God who said you must not commit adultery also said you must not murder. So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law then decide no It is it's not funny that the scriptures bring up murder. Like who's out there man like, well, I didn't do that, but I murdered oh man, shoot. That's bad. I think it's just funny. That's free. You don't get that down the street, you get that here last church. Okay? So go go the next slide. So this one once you see those the 10 commandments, that's what he's talking about, right and we're familiar with this. This is, you know, Judaism, Christianity all sort of looked at the 10 commandments, we know Moses first was given those by God on Mount Sinai, in Exodus 20, repeated again, in Deuteronomy with the giving of the Law, the 10 commandments are often seen, and I think rightly so as a summary of all the law of the Old Testament, because you know, this isn't everything, but it is a good summary. But Jesus course when he came along, he boiled these down to two, if you remember this, he said that all the law and the prophets, hang on to commands. Remember what those were, love God, and love your neighbor. Which leads to my next point that I see right here in the scriptures, which is not loving your neighbor is breaking the law. You think, oh, wait a second pastor, I've been to church a long time. I always thought that loving your neighbor was a good idea. Like Christians, those are the people who are supposed to love your neighbor, you're you're just kind of going a little too far in this. Now you're telling me that not loving your neighbor is breaking the law? Where are you getting that from? Well, we read verse nine of chapter two. But if you favor some people, again, that's how we know the whole passage is about favoritism. That other thing about rich and poor was an illustration of that. But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin, and you are guilty of breaking the law. Now one of things I want to talk about as we think about not loving your neighbor is breaking the law. This has nothing to do with Seinfeld, as much as I want it to be. It doesn't. I don't know if y'all remember in the 90s. Y'all remember the final episode of Seinfeld, it was it was kind of panned, but Elvis watched it. And if you remember that final episode, they were put in jail because they were breaking the Good Samaritan Law. I don't know if you remember this. And so what it was is that they were not loving their neighbor. And so they were hauled into prison, a literal prison. And what I would say is that when we don't love our neighbor, just like it torpedoes, us in showing favoritism, we are only putting ourselves in our own prison, not a literal one, because no one's going to come arrest you, right like they did in that silly show. But we're putting ourselves in a figurative prison by not stepping into all that God has for us. Just to be reminded that I want to remind us of that actual story of the parable of the Good Samaritan and why I think that's in the back of James's mind as he is writing these words. Think about this. This is from Luke chapter 10. Probably one of the most famous stories in the scriptures. People know this story, right, culturally, even apart from church, Luke chapter 10, Jesus replied with a story. A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along. And when he saw the man lying there, he crossed the other side of the road and past him, a temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there. But he also passed on the other side, then a despised Samaritan came along. And when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him that don't miss that Samaritan is different, very different in ethnicity and belief and background and culture than what the Jewish men were meant to see that see how favoritism plays out.

And how did he feel? He felt compassion. Another word we could say is empathy. He felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan sued his wounds with all evil and whine and bandage him, what did he do, he cared for him. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him the next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here. Now, Jesus, in His wisdom, he knows that people are asking all kinds of things to trick him and all this kind of thing. And so then Jesus asked the question very wisely. Now, which of these three would you say is a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the bandits? And guess what? One of the people listening was forced to say, the one who showed him mercy. Then Jesus said, You go and do likewise. This is so important, we think about neighborliness. Now, again, we think about like our closest neighbor, which is often your spouse, or if you have a relative that's living with you. And then you also have people that are your literal neighbors like on your street. And so one of the things that we just need to think about is not only those who look and act like us, but think about how the story was, was brought about. It was someone who looked completely be different and how God used that as a ministry moment, because why not loving your neighbor is breaking the law. And then Who then is your neighbor, anyone, anyone can be our neighbor, because we're united by our humanity. Think about this room. Think about this room, how diverse we are in how we look and how we act, and we think and economically all kinds of different ways. Yet we are gathered here together, because what binds us, it's our humaneness. It's the fact that we're creating the image of God. And that's what the Samaritan saw in this story that of course, the priests and the assistant priests did not seen. So this now gives us fuel and fire to do what to love our neighbor. And we're going to see a little bit further, what happens if we kind of choose to sort of slide off of this or to not step into that. And to not do that. Let's continue on this passage. So whatever you say, Whatever you do, remember that you and I will be judged by the law that sets you free. There'll be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you. And what is going on here. This leads to my last and final point, which is we will be judged by the gospel. You and I, we will be judged by the gospel. And I know you think, Wait a second, it's just like that last one, like I knew that, you know, loving your neighbor was a good idea. But now you said that you're breaking the law or not loving our neighbor, we're not stepping into all that God has for us in Christ Jesus. But this now we're seeing that you and I will be judged by the gospels that the gospel is good news. I mean, because we just talked about this last week, what is the gospel is that death, burial and resurrection, that we all glory, and we all send about last week, and we sing about this week? How is it that I can be judged by the gospel? Well think about what he said here in these few verses. He said, Remember that you and I will be judged by the law that sets you free. Well, what sets us free, what sets us free, the good news of the gospel. And so a lot of what is saying here is it's very similar to the last point, which is that you and I can individually hold our hands up and say, oh, man, so glad that I was set free. I don't know how he or she's done. But I'm always so glad I'm set free. Because what James is going to show us over and over and over again, as you and I don't get it, like that's as far as we take our religiosity, our spirituality, you and I don't get it. Because it's not only about keeping it in, it's about loving our neighbor. And it's knowing that if we don't do this, that will be judged by the very gospel that we say we have. Let me give you another story that Jesus told that really, I think illustrates this. This one's in Matthew 18. It's called the parable to unforgiving debtor. Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times. Not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. Now, right here from the get go. I want to say that many of us when we think about loving our neighbor, which I've already mentioned, our closest neighbor, maybe our spouse, or someone who's in our family, we think, no, no, there's an asterisk by that person. Because you have any like, a you got to understand, like, I really, really disappoint me a lot, or over and over and over again. And what this teaches us is that we are to extend forgiveness if those are asked of us over and over and over again, because that's what it means to live with one another and to show mercy. Now, let me also give a caveat to say this is not ever an excuse for abuse, or to stay in something that is perpetually sinful, right? It's very clear here that there's been a transaction that happens there's a kingdom of God movement that's going on in people's hearts, where they are asking for forgiveness and is granted to them. And there's some degree of authenticity there that can be affirmed by that community and others, that you and I, we do not have to stay in situations, whether it's family work, or otherwise, where it's continually toxic or unhealthy, or that we know in our hearts, these people cannot be trusted. You don't have to do so. So so whatever that means, get that out of your mind. This is the idea here, though, that if someone is coming to you and asking for mercy, legitimately, by the grace of God, that we are to be the people who extends it. So I'll continue on this story, verse 23, of chapter 18 of Matthew, therefore the kingdom of heaven. That's what we're talking about here can be compared to a king, who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him in the process. One of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn't pay so his Master ordered that he be sold along with his wife, his children and everything he owned to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him please be patient with me and I will pay it off. Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. But then the man In, left the king and when he left him, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few $1,000. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. And so servants fell down before him and begged for a little more time, be patient with me, and I will pay it, he pleaded, but his creditor couldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put him in prison until the debt can be paid in full. But some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. And the king called him the man who had forgiven who he had forgiven him, and said, you evil servant. I forgave you that tremendous debt because you plead with me, shouldn't you have shown mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you, than the angry King, when he sent the man to prison to be tortured until he paid his entire debt. That's what my heavenly Father will do for you. If you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters, from your heart, just a powerful story to show us that we will be judged by the gospel, it is good news. And it's great thing that we have received mercy. And as we have received mercy, we are to merciful and freely give it to others. I want to give you one sort of thing of encouragement, though, because because some of us can beat ourselves up over past decisions. Or we can see ourselves as a license to do what we want, even though we know better, will be judged according to what we know. I often say this, that we are in different spiritual journeys, even within this room. And that's perfectly acceptable and great and fine. And so, so many times what we'll do, those will go back and we'll go back a year, two years, or three years, or five years, or 10 years, or 20 years. And we'll beat ourselves up over a decision we made like, oh, shoot, like, I shouldn't have done that like, and I wish I knew, then what I know now I wish I knew about what God had for me, then what I do now, I wouldn't have gone off on that path, I wouldn't have done all that. And what we need to do is we need to leave that in the past you and I weren't accountable, because we didn't know better. Like we want to be judged according to that, because we didn't know better. And even right now, God's calling all of us in this room to different steps of faith in obedience, to the degree that we are understanding God's illumination and revelation to us. And I don't mean that with capital R, I just mean that God is revealing things and communicating with us through His Word, and through his community and all this kind of thing. But the other thing is true as well. And that is the fact that if you and I know something, and we do it, not a scripture saying that is sin. So you and I should be quite terrified. If we find ourselves knowing what God is asking us to do, we clearly understand it in His Word, we can point to a chapter in a verse and we're like, Yeah, I'm good. I think I'm just gonna go on and continue on doing this thing. That's where the danger lies, you see that. So we shouldn't be beating ourselves up over past sin. There's mercy and plenty of grace to cover that. But we also shouldn't be looking ahead and thinking that I'm good, like, Donald, just forgive me or have mercy on me because it will happen is you and I will be judged by that very gospel that sets us free. And if we find ourselves not being very merciful with others, because we're saying, Yeah, I hear that I hear that, that I should forgive, or I should step out and do that. I was just serving that way I should go down that path. But now I'm gonna do what I want to anyway, see, James, what he's doing is he's just hitting us between the eyes over and over again.

I mean, it's gonna get, it's gonna get a lot more intense we get to next week where we talk about, you know, Faith without works is dead. It's just that whole idea that he's wanting us to see that what he gave us in the death, burial and resurrection of his son is not meant to be contained and not meant to be some individual thing, but it's meant to, to spread out. We will be judged by that. Good news. I want to encourage you church, let's be obedient to whatever God's calling us to this week after Easter as we get on the spring path, the sun shining a lot of times there's new beginnings and new ways of thinking in the in the in the warm time of the year. So let's do that. Let's step in all that God has for us in Christ Jesus, individually, and corporately as a church. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. Thank you how you don't leave us alone or wandering? Wondering what you think you have told us so clearly in your Word. God, I pray for those in this room who are considering just a plethora of options. Help us to filter our decisions through the gospel, and then just take great competence and hope that what we have said about to do that we feel like glorifies and honors you will come to fruition that it'll pay dividends that the fruit will bear in due time. Help us Lord, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.