Breaking Down the Walls of Favoritism
Notes
Transcript
A. Rapport for the time
The world in which we live on a daily basis revolves around rules based upon man’s desire to make progress in their own name. I’m told from an early age I can be anything I want to be and do anything I want to do. My dreams are based upon a secular world noticing that I’m alive and rewarding me for being so great. This is the natural state of mankind in the year 2025.
This favoritism comes from making myself known and creates more opportunities for me to get even more. This is the human way.
As Christians I’m to live my life differently from the world. It is what we are told in:
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ sacrificed his life for us that we might have a way unto salvation. Our life is to be different as we give of ourselves to others not seeking what we can get but giving of ourselves.
B. Review of the text
What James has told us is a life that is not like everyone else.
• Trials
• Wisdom from God
• Humility
• Unchanging God
• Don’t deceive yourself
• Goodness of God
• Embracing God’s word because of his Goodness to us
• Living our Faith out —Being a doer of the word-True faith
C. Reading of the text
1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,”
4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
D. Relevance of the text
As we get into chapter 2 James will challenge our hearts on an action level to allow us the opportunity to ask about our actions and how they relate to representing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
T.S. James will begin with the picture of partiality.
I. Picture of Partiality
I. Picture of Partiality
1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
partiality—Literally—to accept a face,
To make unjust distinctions between people by treating one person better than another—show favoritism. We are not to make decisions about people based on external factors, whether it be dress, color of skin, or general appearance.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,
10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
11 For God shows no partiality.
12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
I love the expressive words that are used by James as he paints pictures for us. Show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Understand that you do not have the ability to be impartial without your faith in Christ.
NASB
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 2
1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.
Jesus Christ—the Lord of glory
7 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!
Christ Jesus revealed the Glory of God to you and I.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
v. 2 provides us the beginning of an example
2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
The idea of a person walking in with gold ring may not mean much to us today but when this is written it was a huge status symbol for someone to have a gold ring. We can understand the picture of a person walking into our congregation in a 3 piece suit all decked out and a person that walks into the building wearing dirty clothes that have a bunch of holes in them. James establishes the scenario so that we can put ourselves in the situation and ask ourselves how we would handle it.
T.S. James goes from giving us a picture to Judgmental judgments.
II. Judgmental Judgments
II. Judgmental Judgments
3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,”
4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Judging by outward appearance they were taking people and giving them the best seats in the house.
38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces
39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts,
This is how the scribes and the pharisees were treated during the time of Jesus. They were seen by outward appearance to be holier than others so they deserved to be treated differently. This is not how the economy of our Lord works.
Even our churches today and the places people sit are different. The best seat in a church is the back row and the worst is the front row. I know that because in almost 12 years of preaching at Fellowship very few people have ever sat in the front row but plenty have loaded in from the back.
Judges with evil thoughts——judges with vicious intentions.
The Letter of James, Second Edition 1. Rebuke for Discriminating against the Poor (2:1–7)
James’s point being that the discrimination exhibited in the community is another manifestation of a wavering, divided attitude toward God. The improper “division” being made between rich and poor reflects the improper “divisions” harbored in the minds of the believers. Consistently Christian conduct comes only from a consistently Christian heart and mind.
Judging this way and treating people differently begins with evil thought in our own hearts. Told you James was not going to hold back. Why are they evil thoughts? Because you are treating someone different because of what you THINK you can get out of them and anther person for what you THINK THEY CAN NOT GIVE YOU. The main point is that you are basing the decision around yourself and that comes with evil intentions.
T.S Instead of living like the world we are to look to Choosing God’s choice.
3. Choose God’s Choice
3. Choose God’s Choice
5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?
Make no mistake We are told to look at the world differently by James and our Lord. If you think about who Jesus came to be around and spend the most time with while he was on Earth it was not the people we would have thought. In our mind he should have spent time with the religious elite of the day. These are the people that should have understood, according to our standards, exactly what he was speaking of when he came to die for our sins. Instead, our Lord and savior spent time with what we would consider the lowly of the earth. Fishermen, tax collectors, those without standing in the community but when placed in the hands of Christ became people of great significance in Eternal Kingdom of God.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
The Letter of James, Second Edition 1. Rebuke for Discriminating against the Poor (2:1–7)
Christians, however poor in material possessions they may be, possess spiritual wealth presently and anticipate greater blessings in the future. It is from this spiritual vantage point, not the material, that Christians should judge others. Whether believers or unbelievers, people should not be evaluated by Christians according to the standards of the world
Think about how the Lord works in scripture. He raises up people into prominent positions from time to time. (Joseph, Moses, King David) But very often he uses those that no one would imagine to do these things.
T.S.
4. Dishonor and Dignity
4. Dishonor and Dignity
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
What they are doing makes zero sense. The rich are exploiting you and yet you try to curry favor with them. This is not how we as Christians are to go about our living before the Lord. Understand that we are not being told to be mean to the rich either. What we should do is treat all people the same because we all receive our identity from the same place.
We are made in the image of God and all are in desperate need of God’s saving grace found in Christ Jesus our Lord. The rich and the poor alike both need the same Jesus.
Gospel...
We are to treat both with the same respect.
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Application:
Called to be different
