James 2:1-13

Intro

Good morning everyone. For anyone who may be visiting today, my name is Billy and I am the Student Pastor here at Second. I want to start off by wishing all of the Fathers a Happy Father’s Day. I am so thankful to be the dad of my two girls and the one on the way. Please be in prayer for us as we transition from a one-on-one defense to a “zone” defense as we will soon be outnumbered.

Although Addie and Sadie are only turning 5 and 2 this year, I have seen such a remarkable growth in my spiritual life just from the interactions I have with them on a daily basis. Sometimes being a parent has pointed out my faults and exposed areas that I didn’t know I struggled with, and sometimes it has given me a glimpse into the love that God has for us as His children.

Even at their young age, it is incredible to see their personalities reveal themselves. In some ways, Addie acts like me and in other ways she doesn’t. And the same is true for Sadie in different ways. As parents we naturally find ways to connect with our kids that are unique to each child.

So my question for all of the parents in the room this morning is this: Do you have a favorite child? Don’t answer this out loud! Just think about it. Would you actually rank your kids, preferring one over the other, based on their achievements or their social status? Most likely not.

And that’s because whether one of your kids graduates Summa Cum Laude (Suma Koom Low-dy) and the other graduates “Thank-You-Lordy” or one has a 401K and the other works at Subway, our love for our children is not based on their standing in this world but in their identity as our children.

And the same is true for our Heavenly Father.  In Job 34:19 it says, “He doesn’t care how great a person may be, and he pays no more attention to the rich than to the poor. He made them all.”

God is not impressed by what positions we can achieve, how much money we can make, or how much we can make other people like us. He looks past the presentations of ourselves we showcase and looks directly into our hearts. His desire is for us to have faith in Jesus, and that faith is what grants our identity as children of God.

While God is concerned with judging our hearts, we often prefer to judge others based on what they can do for us. We show favoritism by accepting or rejecting other believers based on how well they fit in with us or how their involvement can boost our reputation.

This is not a new problem. As we continue in our series in the book of James, we’ll see how he explains the issue of favoritism to his readers and we will discuss how to overcome the temptation to be partial to one person over another. If you will turn in your Bibles to James chapter 2 we will begin reading in verse 1.

Partiality = “To receive the face”

James 2:1 NLT

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?

Other translations say, “do not hold your faith…with an attitude of personal favoritism” or “Show no partiality”. James’ point is clear: we cannot claim Jesus Christ as Lord while trying to retain the ability to pick and choose who is accepted and who is not. By following Jesus, we have submitted to His authority and His will of who is to be called a Child of God.

The word “partiality” or “favor” used here literally means “to receive the face”. When we show favoritism, we assume the place of God in determining who is “in” and who is “out”. It doesn’t take much to realize that this isn’t our place. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, we are unable to make decisions without our bias influencing our decisions. This is why it is so important for us to reject favoritism; because it divides the church on a line that God Himself did not draw. Showing favoritism tells other brothers and sisters in Christ that, “You might be good enough for God but you’re not good enough for me.”

I pray that our church and the church as a whole will remain diligent in pursing unity beyond the differences in our ethnicities, education, and economic status. It is not about money, or power, or fame, but it is by grace through faith that we are saved and are brought into God’s family.

I want us to look at three warnings that James gives us about showing favoritism. Three things that favoritism produces in our lives when we allow it to control the interactions we have with the people around us.

Favoritism Produces Selfishness

James 2:2–4 NLT

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?

James sets up this example for us that, while we may not have encountered exactly as he has put it, the essence of what is happening here is just as relevant today as it was then.

It may not be the a poor man in dirty clothes, but what about the new coworker that doesn’t quite fit in, the family on your kid’s sports team that doesn’t seem to take it as serious as everyone else does or play as well as your kid, or the new visitors at church who aren’t as “put together” as we are or know as much as we do?

How often do we want to look down at those people as if we are better than them? How often do we want to take their seat from the table and give it to someone else who is “on our level” or someone who we think will make us look like we are on a higher level than we actually are?

When we are presented with a choice of placing value on someone’s life, we do so with the intention of what we can gain from our actions. Notice that in this scenario, while the people James was writing to may have elevated one person and brought down another, no consideration was taken on the position that they themselves had. In other words, the option of them taking a step back to make room for the poor person to have a seat at the table never crossed their minds.

We know that this is wrong. We know that God has created us all as equals. But we still want to form our little “cliques” and groups and feel like we are better than all of the “outsiders.”

But I want us to remember this: When WE were the outsiders, Jesus offered us a seat at the table.

When our sin separated us and put us as enemies of God, Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

If we are to love like Jesus loves us, we must extend open arms to everyone. We must view everyone as equals created by God for His purpose and resist the temptation to be selfish; deciding for ourselves who can or can’t be a part of what God is doing.

The foot of the cross has enough room for everyone who believes. We cannot allow favoritism to push people away from the love that God has for them.

Favoritism Produces Shame

James 2:5–7 NLT

Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear?

When I think of how favoritism produces shame, the movie Forrest Gump comes to mind. Raise your hand if you have seen Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is my favorite movie of all time. I love that it has all of the movie genres condensed into one film.

In the movie there are two different scenes where Forrest is walking onto a bus and is looking for a seat, and while there are many available seats, each time Forrest passes by looking to sit down, the person sitting next to the empty seat places their hand over the seat and says, “seat’s taken.” This happens multiple times until finally someone graciously asks Forrest to sit next to them.

Imagine how it must feel to see an empty seat at a church then when you go to sit down you feel the eyes of all the people looking at you as if to say, “This seat’s taken, and it’s not for you.”

Shame may be a product of favoritism for the one who is being looked down on, but it is a source of even more shame for the one who looks down on others.

Jesus describes how our attitude towards others can shame us in Luke 18:9-14.

Luke 18:9–14 NLT

Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Sometimes the person we are favoring is not another person, but it’s ourselves. We try to put ourselves in the best seat in the house because we feel that we deserve it based on what we have done.

If we want to avoid the shame that comes from showing favoritism, we must become like this tax collector. We must recognize that no matter how long we have been following Jesus, or how well we are able to follow spiritual disciplines, or how many people think we are great Christians, outward actions by themselves are not the standard God uses to determine who is being a faithful follower. Jesus is looking deeper than the surface. He is looking for the faith inside of us, and the desire to know Him more— a heart that longs for God is the heart that God longs for.

Philippians 2:12–13 “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

Fasting twice a week and giving a tenth of our income are great things. In fact, these can be ways that show the results of our salvation — that God has changed our lives. But only when they are done with a humble heart that longs to serve the Lord, not from a desire to be better than everyone else.

Let’s not put ourselves or others to shame by trying to place our hands over the seat next to us to tell others that the seat is taken, but let us offer those looking for a seat a place to sit next to us as we humble ourselves before Jesus, whose table we sit at.

Favoritism Produces Sin

James 2:8–11 NLT

Yes indeed, it is good when you 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 are guilty of breaking the law. For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a 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.

I think this portion of our text is at the center of our struggle with favoritism and other sins like it. We like to place different weights on sins. The funny thing about these weights are that when we start distributing these weights, we always make sure to put less weight on the sins that we struggle with or we don’t think are as big of an issue as other sins.

I believe this is easy for us to do since our laws that we enforce in our countries have different punishments depending on the crime. We don’t make someone do life in prison for going 5 miles over the speed limit, just as we don’t give a $500 fine to a person who murders someone. The system has been created to punish some crimes more harshly than others. While I think this is a good thing, it also leads us to believe that it is ok to break some laws because they are not as “bad” as other laws we could break. There are some things we don’t even consider breaking the law since the punishment for it is so little and the frequency the law is broken is so often.

While it is true that there are different punishments for breaking the law in our country, God’s law shows no favoritism in one sin over another. Just as James explains here, the one who murders someone has sinned just as much as the adulterer. Someone who lies has been separated from God by sin just as much as a thief. And the one who shows favoritism is guilty of sin just as much as any other sinner, no matter how much lesser their sin seems to be.

As Christians we should obviously not want to continue doing things that are sinful, since our sin is what separated us from God in the first place. So how do we make sure we don’t allow the sin of favoritism to make it’s way into our lives? By loving our neighbor as ourselves. We must be humble and view others as higher than ourselves if we are to destroy the temptation of favoritism.

Humility is the enemy of favoritism because it levels the ground we place ourselves on. Our sin inclined hearts want to find ways to make distinctions to make ourselves better than others, but being humble and loving others leaves no room for discrimination.

Jesus’ teaching on the “royal law” James talks about makes it incredibly easy to see what humility look like in action. When Jesus was asked “who is my neighbor?” He gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10:30–35 NLT

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 up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. 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.’

It was the person who seemed the most undesirable and unlikely to help that actually had the heart to step in and take care of the Jewish man in this story. If the Jewish man had not been attacked, and let’s say he had been setting up seats at his table, the Samaritan would never have been given a chair. It would have been the ones he offered seats to that would have left him for dead.

But we don’t remember the story of the Good Samaritan because of the ones that should have helped, but because of the one who did. The humility and love shown by the Samaritan is our example to follow in how we should treat others.

Jesus drives His point home in verses 36 and 37.

Luke 10:36–37 NLT

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

While favoritism produces selfishness, shame, and sin…

Mercy Produces Mercy

James 2:12–13 NLT

So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free. There will 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.

Failure to show mercy means failure to understand God’s mercy. Mercy is kindness, compassion, or forgiveness shown to someone, particularly someone who deserves judgment or punishment.

Whether you have attended church for 50 years or for 50 minutes, you are a person in need of mercy.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Titus 3:5 - He saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.

When we begin to understand how gracious and merciful God and Jesus has been to us, we remove the pedestals we have put people on and we start setting out placemats.

Just as our Heavenly Father has done for us. A Father who knows no favoritism.

Closing

If you recognize that there are areas of your life where you have fallen into the sin of favoritism, remember this truth: We can run to our Father and ask for forgiveness. Even though we don’t deserve it He will give it to us.

Psalm 103:10–12 NLT

He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

But the question I want you to ask yourself this morning is this: Am I a Sinner who needs a Savior or a Saint being Sanctified?

If you are here this morning and you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, there is mercy waiting for you. There is a Father who loves you despite knowing all that you have done. He loves you exactly where you are at this morning, but loves you too much to leave you there. He wants to remove the guilt and shame that sin has brought into your life. And He has made a way through Jesus, that through faith in Him and what He has done on the cross, taking the punishment for all our sins, we can be forgiven of every sin. Even the sins that others have used against you when they played favorites and pushed you aside. Jesus paid for them all. He’s not waiting for you to get it all figured out first, He is here today calling you to join the family at the table.

If you know you have placed your faith in Jesus but are feeling that sin has crept into your life, whether it is favoritism or something else, don’t let this moment pass without a response. When we believe in Jesus we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment until we get to Heaven. We are covered by Christ’s righteousness and are considered “saints” because of that. The in between time from when we start following Jesus until the end of our lives is where God chooses to let us go through a process called sanctification. It’s a big word that basically means that God starts peeling off layers of sin in our lives over time and begins to reveal things that we might not have known at first we struggled with, such as favoritism.

A great example of this is how a sculptor makes a work of art. When a sculptor is chipping away at a piece of stone, they don’t just take a couple of big chunks off and say, “Well, I got rid of the parts that were way off from my idea, this should be good enough.”

No, they continue chipping away, starting with the big pieces and going smaller and smaller and smaller until the stone looks exactly as the artist intended. Down to the finest detail.

When we see a piece of art like this, something so creative and so skillfully done, we call it a masterpiece. In Ephesians 2:10 it says that we are “God’s masterpiece”. If an earthly artist has to put that much effort and time into the details of their “masterpiece”, then we should expect God to put that effort and time into removing sin from our lives.

Favoritism may not be something we have considered a sin or realized we struggled with. So I pray that we would ask the Lord to remove all sin from us, even down to what we might consider the “smallest one” so that we can look more like Jesus — the image that the Creator has in mind for us.

So no matter where you are in the process of showcasing the masterpiece God is making of you, in humility let us recognize our position: Unworthy and undeserving by our own works, our Father did not push us away to make room for another. Instead, he pulled up a seat and invited us to the table. And now we are blessed with the opportunity to do the same for others.

Let’s pray.