No Room for Favoritism in God’s Kingdom

Introduction

I want to start out today by asking you all a question.

What is your favorite thing in the entire world?

Maybe ask what is there favorite: song, sport, TV show/movie?

So as you guys look at the title of my message do not freak out because you have a favorite song or movie. That is okay! We will get there, but today we are going to start with an activity.

Up here, I have some pieces of paper that each of you need to come and get.

Do not look at it yet, but come up and grab one, and then go and sit back down.

Now that you have your paper, flip it over.

You will see there are three categories on this card. You are either, rich, poor, or middle class.

Then one of you… should be a greeter.

So if you are the greeter, I have places a stool over there by the door, please go ahead and stand by it.

If you have a card saying rich, come sit right up by me, like on the ground.

If you are poor, go stand by the greeter.

Then if you are middle class, stay seated.

Alright, so this is exactly what the passage is getting ready to say. So I am going to read the first four verses.

James 2:1–4 CSB

My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

So this is what is going on in this passage. There are some people being told hey you are rich, you can go sit in the best spot in the house. Or they were saying hey the poor have to sit by the footstool.

The footstool would have been exactly what you guys are seeing right now. The footstool of the greeter.

So I am so sorry for the greeter, but you are most likely the one who is judging people and determining if they are rich or poor.

Okay, go ahead and come back.

1. Favoritism Forsaken: Embrace Faith

I want to start out by defining what I mean by favoritism. We all have favorites, but that is not wrong.

It is okay to have a favorite ice cream flavor.

A favorite hobby.

A favorite ride at Silver Dollar City.

Because that is not what this passage is saying. When you look at the passage in whole it is easy to see this.

Some of your Bibles might say partiality and others might say favoritism. This word means:

Favoring one group or idea as an act of injustice.

Every time this word is used in the Bible, and it is only used 4 times in the New Testament, it is to people.

It is used as saying the people all are equal in the eyes of God. That there is now Jew or Greek distinguish to God. That he does not show favor to slaves or master. So in this passage it is to the rich and the poor.

We cannot allow our preferences to cause division.

This partiality is the tendency to favor one person, group or idea over another, leading to showing bias, unfair treatment, unfair judgement, or discrimination.

James start off by saying that if we want to be like Christ. If we want to hold unto the faith, that we cannot show favoritism.

Favoritism is incompatible with Christianity.

God cannot show favorites because he created all of us.

Imagine if he created you and then said, “well because you are too short, I am not going to let you into heaven.” like how can he do that when he created us. He promises that he will not because he shows no favoritism.

He cares about your heart. Where your heart is at because that is what matter.

Jesus did not say anything about appearance or wealth. The entire New Testament talks about how it does not matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, but all that matters is that you place your trust in Jesus. This is what makes favoritism stand against Christianity.

Instead of showing favoritism, we have to show faith.

So lets look at what was happening here in the passage.

This place was allowing the rich people to come and sit close to the front.

Most people think that this would have been in the temple, but if it was a house, they would be seated closer to the host of the house.

But the rich people got to sit close. Why can this be a problem?

They are looking only at the appearance. People can make themselves “look” rich.

How often do people have nice cars, look rich, but are really in debt? It is more often than what you think.

What these people would do is go and rent gold rings. You could go and rent things to look like you are richer than what you actually are so people would look at you better.

Christ does not care about your appearance or wealth, he cares about you putting your faith in Him.

So we have addressed people judging for rich and poor, but what does verse 4 mean?

James 2:4 CSB

haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James is saying, man who are you to judge.

When it comes to this, I think of clicks.

The band kids think the athletes are jocks and sports are there only personality trait.

The athletes think the academically inclined kids are nerds who should play sports.

The homeschoolers think the public schoolers are weird.

The public schoolers think the homeschoolers can only be friends with their moms.

Both the homeschoolers and the public schoolers team up against them private school kids because they are the best at everything.

All jokes aside, James is saying why are you putting yourself on a pedestal saying “I am good enough to judge you”

because when you say these things, and I understand in a joking manner it can be funny, but when you look at someone or something and judge them, you are saying that you are better by your actions.

This is causing these evil judging thoughts.

But this is what the Pharisees in the New Testament were doing. The religious leaders were the group of power because they had status, power, and wealth, but they had everything wrong.

Christ came in and focused on the poor. He foiled the plan that the Pharisees had in place.

2. Favoritism Foiled: Embrace Equality

James 2:5–7 CSB

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court? Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?

Jesus came and flipped what the world thought on its head. Jesus came and chose the poor.

They would have thought that the rich were better off. They would have viewed that the person who had a lot of stuff was because God gave them a lot of stuff, but Jesus comes and turns it around.

Jesus came and valued the poor.

Jesus taught that it was better to be poor.

Jesus makes the point that over and over again, the rich people seem to think they are better than everyone else.

That they have enough stuff, the God has blessed them with their stuff.

But he comes and says no, you’ve got it all wrong, the rich have a hard time seeing God because of all their stuff. Since they have so much they have a harder time finding God.

Look what Jesus says in Luke 6:20

Luke 6:20 CSB

Then looking up at his disciples, he said: Blessed are you who are poor, because the kingdom of God is yours.

Now what I want to make clear is that Jesus is not saying that he is showing favoritism to the poor.

That would contradict my whole sermon and what this passage is saying, but what he is saying is the poor do not have much so they are looking and seeking for something.

Therefore, they are more likely to find God.

On the other hand the rich people are not looking for God, because they have enough!

Status can be a Spiritual stumbling block.

Status can get in the way. Being rich, popular, an athlete, all of these titles can make you so focused on something that you forget about other things around you.

It can put the blinders on and you do not see what God is doing.

Just like the first message I ever taught you guys, this cannot become your identity.

Because you cannot let what you do take you away from God.

They say isn’t it the rich that are taking you to court and causing all of these problem? and it was, they were the problem makers.

They were letting their wealth cause division and take them away from God.

How easy is it to put people into a category and judge people.

This is all because we have our blinders on and do not see the rest of the world around us.

Just like the rich do not see that the poor are finding blessings where they cannot.

Look at how Matthew talks about wealth being a stumbling block.

Matthew 19:16–26 CSB

Just then someone came up and asked him, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” he said to him. “There is only one who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he asked him. Jesus answered: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother; and love your neighbor as yourself. “I have kept all these,” the young man told him. “What do I still lack?” “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard that, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

For the rich man, he had his blinders on to all of his possession, but they are going to go away. He did not realize the Jesus was saying I am more than this Earth! I am forever and what you do now is going to impact your eternity.

We are to see all as equal.

So my question is what category do you either judge or put yourself into.

Do you put yourself in a category that is “greater” than someone else?

Do you look down on a certain group?

I want you guys to see that God sees everyone as his creations

Lastly, we see that…

3. Favoritism Finished: Embrace Mercy

James 2:8–13 CSB

Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

So James is saying we have to follow the law!

Not just the laws of the government, even though that is true.

But James means the Bible, the “law” can often translate to “God’s instructions.”

Here James says that everything in there is important.

He says that if we break one part of the law, we break the whole thing.

The problem with this, is that we are all sinners.

We have all broken the law.

If you disobey God’s law you are a lawbreaker.

If you partly obey, you disobey.

If you tell a lie, you’re a liar. If you steal, you are a thief.

If you sin, you are a sinner.

We like to soften our words and say that we messed up or made a mistake

But God’s Word does not beat around the bush.

We’re sinners! We’ve broken God’s law.

We deserve punishment… Yet God gives us mercy!

Mercy Defeats Judgement

Mercy is showing forgiveness to someone who deserves punishment.

This is what God does for us.

We do not deserve him, but he offers himself to us.

Yet, this passage says that we are to show mercy, so mercy can be shown to us.

We have a part to play in the equation.

You might be like woah, since when? Are you sure James really knows what he is talking about?

Well look what Jesus says…

Matthew 6:14–15 CSB

“For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

So we have to forgive people. We have to show them mercy.

This is hard.

The best way to be able to do this, is remember the mercy that God has shown to you.

You as a sinful, lying, cheating, thief, should be going to hell.

But if you have placed your trust in Jesus, he has shown mercy on you.

Conclusion

We are called to be unified.

Guy, everyone is different. I have been there done that!

People who are different than us are easy to judge.

But we are to not show favoritism, look at everyone just how God does! How they are all made in his image.

They all have the same opportunity for God’s mercy as you do.

So this week try to not judge, go an entire week without showing any favoritism, because that is what God has called us to do.

Let’s pray