The Sin of Partiality (James 2:1-13)

Welcome

Scripture Reading (Leviticus 19:9-18)

This passage was chosen for two primary reasons: (1) Our passage in James actually quotes from this passage and (2) Vs. 15-16, talks about the same sin that James refers to. This passage is God telling Moses what to tell the Israelites about God’s law—God, while continuously reminding them that he is the Lord their God and that he is holy and that they should be holy, says this:

Leviticus 19:9–18 ESV

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. 11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Prayer

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Pray for sermon

Sermon

This morning, we’re continuing in our series of James. We’ve been working through the book for the past few weeks, going verse by verse, thought by thought through the Scriptures. We just finished chapter 1, which ended with this exhortation to not just hear the word of God, but also do the word of God. That we ought to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; that we should put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the word of God. We learned that we ought to internalize the word of God and to do what the word of God tells us to and we learned that the goal and hope, is to practice a pure and undefiled religion that involves us doing the work of ministry without expecting anything back.

This morning, James is continuing with some great practical advice that focuses in on how we treat people that fall into different socio-economic backgrounds than we do. What I mean by socio-economic backgrounds, is that James is focusing on how we treat people that may have more money than us or less money than us. He’s really focusing in on issues of prejudice that we may have against other people including other people group, people with more or less than us, people that are educated more or less than us, and people that are simply different from us.

Let’s read James 2:1-13 and we’ll start breaking it down a little more:

James 2:1–13 ESV

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? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

We’re going to look at this passage in three primary sections: Vs. 1-7, focuses in on this sin that James calls the sin of partiality, Vs. 8, talks about this “royal law,” in that we should love your neighbor as yourself, and Vs. 9-13, talks about transgressions against the law. All of which should give us a clear image of what God expects from us concerning the law and concerning how we ought to treat those around us (even if we aren’t on the same level socially).

Let’s Pray.

The Sin of Partiality (Vs. 1-7)

Now, the bulk of this passage is actually spent talking about what James calls the sin of partiality and I think it is pretty clear what James means when he describes the sin of partiality, but before I get ahead of myself, let’s reread 1-7 to keep it fresh in our minds:

James 2:1–7 ESV

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?

James makes this statement, “Show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”

And like I said, the following verses gives us a pretty clear idea of what James is talking about when it comes to partiality, but let me give you an actual definition for partiality before we continue.

Partiality is (according to the Oxford Dictionary): an “unfair bias in favor of one thing or person compared with another; favoritism”

But the definition that the Oxford Dictionary seems to make partiality seem like your just like someone more than the other person, but that definition to me doesn’t seem to encompass what “partiality” means throughout Scripture. So, let’s take a look at a few of the times the word “partiality” shows up in the Bible.

In 2 Chronicles 19:7, King Jehoshaphat places judges throughout the kingdom and he tells them to “Let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes.” The King tells the judges that there is no injustice with the Lord, there is no partiality or favoritism or taking bribes.

In Romans 2, Paul makes the statement, “[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” In Romans 2, it is clear that God isn’t concerned with race, it doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or Greek, there is tribulation and distress fo everyone who does evil and there is glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, because God isn’t concerned with race.

Ephesians 6:5, in a passage concerning interpersonal relationships between a bondservant and master, Paul writes: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Masters do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.” Or in other words, God is not concerned with our socio-economic position, he doesn’t care if we’re a servant or we’re a master, because with God there is no partiality.

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul writing to Timothy concerning elders within the church makes this statement, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witness. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.” Which if you didn’t catch exactly what Paul is saying here, let me try and explain it differently. In the case of elders who are leading the church, if two or three witnesses come and accuse the elder of sin and the elder continues to sin, Timothy is to rebuke the elder in front of the whole church so that the whole church knows that sin is taken seriously. Timothy is to keep these rules without “prejudging” or with bias for one person or another, doing nothing from partiality. Which shows us that even in the case of pastors because pastors are elders, pastors are capable of sin. And just like how Matthew 18 teaches us to handle church discipline against someone who isn’t a pastor, we never allow the accusation from one person alone to stand (because who knows, maybe that one person just doesn’t like the pastor), but if multiple people accuse a pastor of doing something and the pastor refuses to repent from his sin, the other leaders in the church have a responsibility to rebuke the pastor in public to show the whole congregation that it doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, deacon, elder, or member—sin is sin and God doesn’t care whether you’re a pastor, deacon, elder, or member, you are responsible for your own sin. We need to quit putting pastors on pedestals, and if they’re acting sinfully, we should confront them about it (while following the principles of church discipline in Matthew 18) because every human person struggles with sin and they will not grow spiritually, if you don’t confront them for their sin. Do it lovingly, but just because someone is a pastor does not mean their sin should be ignored. Treat a pastor’s sin the same way you would treat someone else’s sin because God doesn’t care if he is a pastor or not, he is responsible for his sin.

So, quite clearly, throughout Scripture, it is clear that when the Bible says that God shows no partiality, it is that God does not care if you’re the king, if you’re a judge, if you’re Jewish or Greek; it does not matter if you’re a master or servant (or more likely in the modern-era, a business owner or employee), it does not matter if you’re a church member or a deacon, an elder, or a pastor—God doesn’t care what your title is, he doesn’t care how important you think you are. He treats all people the same, he has no favorites and he shows no unfair biases

So, when James is making this statement, “show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,” he is telling us to treat people how God treats people. Without biases with no favorites.

Douglas Moo, “Partiality translates a Greek word that means, literally, ‘receiving the face’. It is first used in the New Testament as a literal rendering of the Old Testament Hebrew language for partiality. To ‘receive the face’ is to make judgments and distinctions based on external considerations, such as physical appearance, social status or race. This God never does, as the Old Testament repeatedly affirms (cf. also Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25). And God’s people are to imitate him in this respect.” (TNTC, 91)

I particularly like the way the KJV translates the word for “Partiality,” the KJV translators chose to utilize the term, “respecter of persons” as in, God is no respecter of persons when it comes to outward, external considerations like physical appearance, social status, or race. In fact, the Bible tells us that God doesn’t think like man does in that man looks at outward appearance, God looks at the heart.

Now, if you’re wondering what James has in mind when he utilizes the term “partiality,” he gives an example of what this looks like, Vs. 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, 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,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

In the example that James utilizes, he talks about wealth. And he draws a contrast between someone who has a gold ring and fine clothing and someone in shabby clothing—and in this hypothetical example, he explains that if we were to give the rich man a position of esteem based on his clothing and jewelry and force the poor man to stand in the back, then we’ve made distinctions amongst ourselves.

Or in other words, we’ve shown this sin of partiality. Unlike God, who is no respecter of persons, we’ve differentiated between the two people and we’ve made judgment against them based on our own evil thoughts

And not only have we allowed our judgment against him cause us to think evilly, we’ve allowed our sinful mindset to actually treat him wrongfully

Our sinful mindset has caused us to treat the poor man with less dignity and honor simply because his appearance was different than the rich man’s appearance.

Now, this is an example of partiality, so remember that all of the types of partiality that I mentioned before, unfair judgments in law, Racism, employee—employer partiality, and partiality between church members and leaders are all to be considered here.

Treating people differently because they’re from a different ethnic background is the same as treating the rich man better than the poor man.

Treating people differently because they work a job instead of own their own business is the same as treating the rich man better than the poor man

Ignoring someone’s sin because they’re a pastor is showing partiality; just like treating a rich man better than a poor man would be.

Partiality includes a number of sins that are all based on the idea of treating people as less than, because they’re different.

And James is being blunt, that it is not only wrong to do this, but in the case of the rich man, it’s simply foolish.

Vs. 5-7, “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? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?”

And let me start with this one statement, James is not saying that being wealthy is sinful.

The Bible doesn’t say that wealth is sinful, money is not sinful—money is neutral. You can have a lot of money and be completely sinful; you can have no money and be completely sinful. You can have a lot of money and be Christ-like; you can have no money and be Christ-like.

It isn’t the wealth that is sinful, in fact, the Bible does mention people with wealth that were godly individuals.

This is a certain type of rich person, that is utilizing their wealth for sinful gain.

James says that it is the rich who oppress them and it is the rich who drags them into court. The rich in this instance are utilizing their wealth to harm people by oppressing them and suing them

It’s not the fact that they are wealthy that makes them sinful

It is what they’re doing with their wealth that makes them sinful and in this instance, they’re utilizing their wealth to be sinful

So sinful that James in Vs. 7, asks this, “are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?”

The rich are oppressing them, suing them, and they’re blaspheming or reviling the name of Jesus.

And yet, when the sinful rich people come to the assembly, the believers are going out of their way to make them feel honored by giving them a good seat and giving them attention. (see why I said that they were acting foolishly?)

In practicing the sin of partiality, they’re dishonoring the poor, allowing the rich to continue in their sin and still have a position of honor at the church, and they themselves have become judges with evil thoughts.

Kurt Richardson says this about partiality:

The New American Commentary: James (3) The Discrimination of God (2:5–7)

Favoritism is thus a complex sin among the people of God. It leads to division within the fellowship and offends God’s determination to elevate the poor in the life of the church. Most of all, favoritism is linked with a whole series of other gross sins of the rich in the world. These sins of persecution or oppression of the poor and lower classes of society who are associated with Christian faith detract from the glory of the Lord. Theirs is the inheritance of Christ, the very kingdom of God. To the believing poor belongs the honor of that kingdom. Utmost care must be given that nothing the church does in this present age should detract from that honor.

So, we’ve taken a large portion of our time looking at the sin of partiality and in the passage, James transitions from talking about partiality to talking about something he calls “The Royal Law”

The Royal Law (Vs. 8)

James 2:8 ESV

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

James quotes from the passage that we read for Scripture reading and if you remember with me, Jesus also quotes this when the Pharisees ask him what the greatest commandment in the Law is, and in Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the Matthew 22 passage, Jesus is making this statement that if you boil down the entire law, there’s really only two laws: Love God and Love others, because every other law and all the prophets depend on those two commandments. Put simply, if you love God and love others, you will fulfill the rest of the Law because you’re loving God and your loving other people.

Now, I do want to take a moment to talk about the sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”

Because I’ve heard multiple pastors preach that this verse is saying that you have to love yourself in order to love your neighbor. They argue that the point of this sentence is that until you love yourself, you cannot love your neighbor.

And that is absolutely not what this verse says. In fact, the Bible never once tells us to love ourselves, we’re only told to love God and love others.

Why is that? It’s quite simple—the Bible assumes that you already love yourself. It is our default position to love ourselves. It is the natural and normal position to love ourselves

Scripture never tells us to love ourselves, it assumes that we already do and in fact, people who are unregenerate, as in, they don’t believe in God, love themselves too much—that is a huge part of the sin problem. We sin because we love ourselves more than we love Jesus.

This verse isn’t saying that you have to love yourself in order to love your neighbors, this verse is saying that you already love yourself and just like you love yourself; you ought to love your neighbor.

The implication here is that if you actual do fulfil this royal law, to love your neighbor as yourself then you aren’t going to act with partiality.

To act partial towards people means that you aren’t acting in love towards that person.

To treat people differently because of the way they look, because of their socio-economic position, or because they’re different is partiality and it is evidence that we do not love them.

If we actually love them, we won’t treat them differently based on look, based on socio-economic position, based on wealth

We will treat them as God treats them, which means we need to have an accurate view of how God views people (which I’ll talk about a bit more during the application)

So, James explains to us what partiality is, he tells us that if we truly love people, we’re doing well, and then he continues in Vs. 9

Transgression Against the Law (Vs. 9-13)

James 2:9–13 ESV

9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

If you show partiality, it doesn’t matter what the reasoning is—it could be because the guy is poor, it could be because he’s homeless; you could be showing partiality because he is a different nationality—it doesn’t really matter what the reasoning is, to show partiality is to commit sin

And before we can even counter that with, “but it’s not like it’s a bad sin,” I didn’t cheat, I didn’t steal, I didn’t physically harm him, James says this in Vs 10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it all”

As humans, we tend to view sin on a scale--”it was just a white lie,” but at least I didn’t do this. And we use this logic to justify our sins because we determine that we aren’t as sinful as the other person

But God doesn’t view sin this same way that we do. God doesn’t have a scale in which one sin weighs more than the other. For God, sin is sin—so it doesn’t matter if it’s murder or theft; it doesn’t matter if it’s lying or cheating—sin is sin and if you commit sin, you break the law.

In this situation, in James, he’s making the statement that regardless of whether or not we think the sin of partiality is a big deal, God still views it as sin and to commit any sin is to break the whole law

James ends this paragraph with Vs. 12-13, “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

So speak and so act, both are written in a tense that means a continuous speaking and acting. We as Christians are to continuously speak and continuously act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty

They question that we might have, is what is the law of liberty?

Might I suggest that the Law of Liberty, is the same law that we already have access to through the Old Testament?

Why do I think this? Because James 1:25 speaks of the Law of Liberty as a mirror that we’re to look into to learn what sins we’re struggling with, to fix those aspects of our lives, and to persevere in the faith.

Not to mention that every time in the context that we’re reading, that James mentions the law, he means the law of God, which as we know from Paul, that the law brings knowledge of sin.

So, what makes the Law the law of liberty?

It’s a beautiful concept, the Old Testament law becomes the law of liberty because Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament law when he took the sins of the world, the same sins that the Old Testament law brought knowledge of, and died on the cross, was buried, and resurrected.

That same law that brought knowledge of sin becomes the law of liberty because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Which means this, when people gain a knowledge of their sin due to the reading of the Old Testament law or however they gain this knowledge, whether that’s through general or special revelation; and then they repent of their sins, call on the name of Jesus as their Lord, and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead; that law is what convinced them of their need for salvation and thus becomes a law of liberty.

The law of freedom is seen and experienced through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his fulfillment of the Old Testament law.

We are to speak and act as those who have heard the gospel, repented from our former manner of life, and have become children of God.

Which then ties back into one of the main ideas for the book of James, Be ye doers of the word and not just hearers only.

We are to take what we learn from Scripture and we are to apply it to our lives by allowing the Word of God to transform us into being more Christ-like.

We are to have a faith that motivates us to obedience and I would love to talk about that more now, but that’s actually Wednesday’s topic, so we’ll get back to that on Wednesday.

We are to speak and act like this, because Vs. 13, “judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

And I’ve said this many times, if we have truly experienced the grace of God and have taken part in his mercy; we will in turn act mercifully to other people.

This isn’t a statement that salvation can be lost to those who are merciless, this is a statement that those without mercy are probably already lost and judgment without mercy is all that’s left for them.

To those that believe, that have repented from their sins and turned to Jesus; Mercy always triumphs over judgment.

As we wrap everything up, let’s look at some application:

Application

The Sin of Partiality (Vs. 1-7)

We started this morning looking at Vs. 1-7 and what is termed the Sin of Partiality. We spent a considerable amount of time discussing what exactly the sin is and we really narrowed it down to any type of behavior in which we treat someone differently based on their socio-economic background.

If we treat someone different because of their ethnicity, their sex, their age; if we treat them differently based on what car they drive, what house they own, or what clothes they wear, we are committing the sin of partiality.

And I want to look at this sin in two perspectives:

First off, almost everyone has been treated differently based on their socio-economic background or their outward appearance whether it is at work, or at school, or maybe out in public and I’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences with this.

Unfortunately, there are people that have been treated poorly based on their socio-economic background in church settings—whether its because they’re a different ethnicity, different social class, or they simply made different clothing choices and let me speak to those of you that have been a victim to this sin within a church:

I am completely and utterly sorry that you’ve ever had to face this in a church setting—it is not right; it is a sin and you never should’ve had to have faced this in a church.

Let me assure you, that God does not treat you any differently than any other person and let me encourage you to not allow the people who treated you poorly due to your outward appearance to stop you from seeking Jesus Christ.

Secondly, if you’re guilty of committing the sin of partiality, which let’s be honest, most of us have committed this sin at some point, let me convict and encourage you with this:

James 2, specifically spells out that partiality is a sin—so don’t feel justified in your sinful behavior: (1) repent, (2) seek Jesus, and (3) don’t do it again.

If it was a recent offense or if your offense has caused damage to someone else’s life, let me encourage you to go and make it right with that person: (1) apologize to them, (2) seek to rebuild that relationship with the one who you offended (or honestly, maybe you need to go out of your way to start a relationship with that person), and work to eliminate those prejudices in your life by learning to view each and every person how God views them

And in case you need help with viewing each and every person how God views them, I’ll walk you through it in a moment when we talk about the second application point.

Application Point 1—if you practice the sin of partiality, recognize that it is a sin, repent, and return to Jesus; and if you’ve been treated with partiality, recognize that God never intended for you to be treated that way, don’t allow a person’s sin to prevent you from seeking Jesus.

The Royal Law (Vs. 8)

The Second Application point, has to do with Vs. 8, which is a statement about what James calls the Royal Law. This Royal Law, goes by many names, but the Bible says it is to “love your neighbor as yourself”

And I spent some time explaining that this does not imply that you need to love yourself first before you can love other people, the Bible assumes that you already do love yourself; the Bible is telling you that you are to love others just like you already love yourself.

So, the initial question that I want to pose is, do you actively love your neighbors? Do you go out of your way to help them, to check on them, to care for them? If not, why not?

If it’s because you never really considered doing anything like that, let me remind you, we are to love our neighbors and part of loving our neighbors is caring for them, checking on them, and helping them so if we don’t care for them, check on them, or help them, do we actually love them?

And maybe we have pretty difficult neighbors, we struggle to get along so we wonder why we should care about them, why we should check on them, or why we should love them—and its quite simple

They were created in the image of God—they have souls that were given to them by God, which means that God desires to have a relationship with them and if we truly believe that we have a relationship with God and we’ve experienced the grace and the mercy of God, we would want them to experience it as well.

We treat people with love, because they were created by God and for God; we treat people with love, because we believe in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ has told us to love our neighbors

If we truly love our neighbors, we won’t commit the sin of partiality against them.

So application point 2, check to be sure that you actually love your neighbors.

Transgression Against the Law (Vs. 9-13)

James closes out this section by saying that if we do commit the sin of partiality, we’re guilty of all of the law

And you might wonder why James says it like this, it’s quite simple, we tend to justify our sin

So, in the case of partiality, we’ll disguise our sin by questioning whether its appropriate for that person to be there and I actually had a bunch of examples of this, but I really just want to utilize one, if a homeless person were to come into a church, how would most people react?

Oh wow, that guy smells or that guy stinks

Why would he even come in here?

Why is he sitting so close to the front, he’s just a distraction

And instead of loving the homeless man, we have become judges with evil thoughts.

We cannot justify the sin of partiality, just like we cannot justify any other sin that we commit.

We cannot justify partiality anymore than we can justify lying and cheating; we cannot justify partiality anymore than we can justify murder and adultery.

To God, all sin is sin.

Application 3, pray that God reveals your sin to you: so that you can repent, turn back to Jesus, and keep following him

Pray that any sins that you’re trying to hide is revealed now, so that you can remove that isn from your life

And pray that you are willing to deal with your sin when your sin is revealed.

So, repent from partiality, be sure that you aren’t treating people with contempt because of their differences; check your heart so that you know that you’re actually loving your neighbors, and pray that God reveals your sin: in order that you repent, turn back to Jesus, and keep following him.

Closing

Now, I know that Central Pennsylvania may reopen soon, but it may still be a while before the churches reopen. As of right now, the plan is to keep livestreaming Sunday AM and Wednesday PM, however, if the churches reopen sooner than I anticipate, I will make the remainder of this video series available as soon as I can, but it will likely be livestreamed on a different day so I can start working with the local churches again. But, like I said, as of now, the plan is to keep livestreaming Sunday morning and Wednesday PM.

Thanks for joining me, I hope you have a great week! I’ll see you on Wednesday at 7pm on Zoom.