Don't Play Favorites

Good Morning!

Something occurred to me as I was mowing the grass and thinking about the passage for this week, and more specifically, the focus of this series.

It is a truth that we learned in our study of Hebrews, and I will reference that message today.

The focus of our study of James is to develop and understand True Faith.

I’ve repeated each week in various ways that true faith never stops growing.

In thinking about James chapter two, it occurred to me that there is another aspect of faith that we haven’t talked about yet.

Today James is going to point us in that direction, and actually, we began talking about it over the past three weeks.

Not only does True Faith continue to grow, but also, it always reveals itself.

We’ve talked a lot over the last three months about faith, but what is it?

Actually, we talked about this on January 2 of this year.

Here is what we said.

Biblical faith is the certainty that it will happen, not based only on hope or hard work but on the revelation of God’s truth and character.

I was listening to a podcast this week titled “How do you know”.

It was a discussion on the way we learn things and where knowledge comes from.

They were talking about it from a philosophical stand point, but what I gathered is that there are only a couple of ways we learn things.

Someone teaches us.

We learn it through life experiences.

In reference to our faith, I would contend that our faith can be established or increased by someone teaching us, but the growth is minimal when compared to us experiencing God doing a work in our lives.

I can tell you that God is a provider and you can believe it, but it doesn’t hold the same weight as God revealing Himself as provider when you need it most.

Our faith grows the most as we experience God working in our lives.

The knowledge that comes through those kinds of experiences radically changes our understanding and trust in God.

One of the main points of that message in Hebrews was that it is time for us to put our faith into action.

I even referenced James 2:14, which is the anchor of this section.

I went back and read through that message and was shocked when I read the next part of that message on faith, and I saw that the Holy Spirit was already working us toward this idea.

I literally copied and pasted this from the other message on Hebrews 11 the faith chapter.

“It (Hebrews) was written to remind them that true faith moves the person from belief to action.”

Do you see the journey that God has had us on for the last eight months?

God is continuing to speak the same message.

It is by allowing God to work in our lives that our faith is grown and that faith will reveal itself to the world around us.

As we discussed last week, we have all, individually and corporately, been called to action.

We have been called to make disciples.

I want all of us to realize that as our faith grows, it will be revealed to the world by virtue of itself.

Let me say it another way to make sure we get it.

If you grow in faith as God works in your life, you cannot hide it.

Think of the examples that we saw in Hebrews 11:

Noah

Abraham

Moses

And consider as well some New Testament guys.

Paul

Peter

James

All of these people changed the world around them, not by their cunning and power, but as they let God work in their lives.

God directed, they obeyed, and due to their faith, they altered history.

God’s desire and intent is that the world would come to know Him as He transforms you into his likeness.

In the same way that True Faith reveals itself, the inverse is also true.

The lack of true faith is revealing.

The world may or may not notice when we are not growing, but you sure do.

This can take many forms, but often, you are aware that your faith has become stagnant.

I am purposefully not going to quantify that with examples, but I would be willing to bet you know or have experienced that before.

As we are about to see, the lack of true faith has gotten the church into some trouble over the years.

Let’s jump back one verse before we get into chapter two.

James ends the last section by describing a person of true faith.

James 1:27 CSB

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The kind of religion that God desires to see is one that is focused on the needs of others and on becoming more like God.

In chapter two, he describes what happens when we try to live out this Christian life apart from a growing faith.

In this next chapter, he deals specifically with the results of a church that DOES let itself become stained by the world in how they treat people.

Take a look at the first four verses with me.

James 2:1–4 CSB

1 My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. 2 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, 3 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,” 4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

There are a couple of important things that we need to understand as we break down these verses.

James is using a process called “intertextuality”, which is a fancy way of saying that he is using the OT (written Torah) to help us understand the NT (oral Torah given by Jesus).

He will show through his use of the OT and Jesus’ teaching that there is no place for partiality in the church or kingdom of God.

We will look at several of those passages in a moment.

Verse one is the instruction, and the following verses are the illustration.

James is most likely using an example of something that actually happened in one of the churches.

The sad reality is that the same problem still exists today.

Our goal today is to understand what James means by favoritism, or as it is translated in other places, “partiality,” and then make personal and corporate applications.

To get to the application, we need to see that this idea of not showing partiality is not just James’ idea.

It is not in God’s nature to show favoritism.

Look at some of the verses and experiences that would have shaped James’ teaching on this issue.

Leviticus 19:15 CSB

15 “Do not act unjustly when deciding a case. Do not be partial to the poor or give preference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly.

Deuteronomy 1:17 CSB

17 Do not show partiality when deciding a case; listen to small and great alike. Do not be intimidated by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too difficult for you, and I will hear it.

Proverbs 24:23 CSB

23 These sayings also belong to the wise: It is not good to show partiality in judgment.

John 7:24 CSB

24 Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment.”

Acts 10:34–35 CSB

34 Peter began to speak: “Now I truly understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, 35 but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

We could go on and on, but you get the point.

God does not show favoritism.

As followers of Christ, who desire to be made more like Him, we should adopt the same attitude.

James 2:1 CSB

1 My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

If you go back and look at the Greek word for favoritism/partiality, it says, “don’t receive the face.”

This literally means to accept someone based on their outward appearance.

He is telling the church that as they “hold” to the same faith as Jesus, we should act as he did.

We should love as he did.

This sin of partiality or favoritism that James is addressing falls firmly under the “love your neighbor as yourself” category.

James is not making a request of the church but rather instructs them to stop showing favoritism.

When the church shows favoritism to one person over another, it teaches the world that God does the same.

It is teaching false theology to the world around us.

It convinces us and the world that being wealthy or popular makes us more loved by God, which isn’t true.

I’ll be honest, at first thought, I felt like I and we have a pretty good handle on this.

But then I asked Jesus...

As I prepare and study for each sermon, one of my requests of God is that he would show me how the passage applies to my life personally.

I always get one of two things, or sometimes both.

He shows me something as it happens that week, or he reminds me of something from my past.

This week he brought up a story from my past that I've tried to forget.

It certainly isn’t one of the worst things I’ve done but isn’t one I’m proud of either.

The boys in the blue jean jackets.

When I was in eight grade, enjoying youth group life at my church, two new boys showed up at church one Sunday morning.

As an eight grade boy, who was still trying to find his place in the YG, I felt threatened by them.

Not for any reason other than the insecurity that comes with being an eighth grader.

That evening when we gathered for youth group, they came.

They seemed to be nice enough guys, but they dressed a little weird.

(Thought the guy who dressed like a cowboy.)

Both of them were wearing denim jackets and for some reason that made them strange to the group and to me.

As I have thought back through that night, I can only remember two things that made them stand out as someone that I didn’t want in “My YG”.

First, was the way there were dressed.

The second was that they didn’t understand the rules of the game we were playing and they messed it up.

Without spending a ton of time going into all the details, I can sum it up to say that I spent my evening messing with these two guys with purpose of making sure they didn’t want to come back.

It is also important to know that I was a believer and I was not alone in this endeavor.

As you can probably guess, we were successful and they never returned.

I am incredibly saddened by this story for two reasons.

One, there was absolutely no reason for us to feel or act that way towards these two boys.

Two, this is not an uncommon experience for many that visit churches.

It happens to students and adults alike.

In our passage today, James gives an adult version of the same story.

Unfortunately, it is a sad reality that still shows itself today and has throughout history.

Sometimes it is intentional, but I would go as far as to say that most of the time, it is a subconscious thing we do without even realizing it.

It comes from an internal value system that we have learned over the course of our lives.

We are going to spend most of our remaining time today looking at verse one and understanding what James is saying so that we can make an application.

Let’s look at it again.

James 2:1 CSB

1 My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

All of us have the same struggle.

If someone looks different or acts different from us, we make judgments about who they are as a person.

This is the very thing that James is speaking against.

We look at a person and immediately accept or reject them based on nothing more than what we can see.

James James 2:1

The world’s love shows its true nature in its lack of love for the many who suffer under desperate circumstances. Just as James earlier demonstrated the incompatibility of double-mindedness and prayer, he here showed the impossibility of combining faith and the approval of the world.

It is impossible to combine faith and approval of the world.

BOOM! THIS IS A MIC DROP!

James was talking about this in verse 27 when he warned the church to keep itself “unstained by the world.”

As I said a moment ago, most of this struggle for you and I is going to be in the subconscious.

We don’t even realize we are doing it.

That is why it is so important to let God reveal and deal with this sin in our lives.

As we examine our own lives and consider how we have treated others, we must begin to see the vast difference between how Jesus sees the people in our lives and how we do.

At the beginning of today, I talked about how true faith reveals itself, and so does a lack of faith.

How you think of people that aren’t like you is telling about where your heart is.

I’m not talking just about what you say out loud, although that is important.

I’m talking about the things that you think but know that it isn’t okay to say out loud.

We cannot be like the world.

We need Jesus to work in our hearts, to grow our faith until we see the people around us the way that He does.

Our hearts need to be changed so that we no longer see value in anything other than the fact that we are all image bearers of God.

In verse one, James gives Jesus a title that we don’t see anywhere else in scripture.

He calls Him our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

One of my commentaries pointed out that James gives such a great title to Jesus and then reprimands the church for giving His glory to those whom they wish to please.

By showing favoritism to some, we are giving away Jesus’ glory to others.

We are saying to that person, the others in the room, and Jesus that this favorite person is more important than Jesus.

Jesus said that we are to Love God and love our neighbor, but when we show favoritism, we are making that person our god.

We are elevating them to a status that they were not created to hold.

That destroys their view of themselves, the church's view of them, and the perceived value of those you reject to honor the other.

James is saying in the starkest way possible, if you are going to do that, don’t do it while proclaiming the name of Jesus.

In doing so, you are defaming the name of Jesus and raising up another.

You are destroying the testimony of the church and peoples’ understanding of God.

As I was thinking about the implications of this sin or partiality, God showed me why He had formed our church the way He has.

This destruction is one reason why it is so important for TGP churches to be elder-led.

You have seen it, and I’ve seen it when men are given power in the body because they have deep pockets or loud voices.

Rather than the gospel of Jesus being front and center, their desires and egos are.

The church was not intended to be ruled by the rich and the popular but by the Holy Spirit.

But rather than pointing fingers at those in our past, we should examine our own.

When have we placed more value on pleasing someone than on serving God?

Ask God this week to reveal the areas in your life where you show favoritism.

You may be surprised by what He says.

Because most of us were born and raised in the south, there are things buried deep in us that God needs to deal with.

Don’t be like eighth-grade Will.

Don’t judge others based on their outward appearance or because they don’t understand the structure of your life.

As we grow in our faith and understanding, God's goal is to grow into a body of believers that is diverse in culture, socioeconomic status, race, and life experiences.

Before that can happen, we must let God deal with how we show partiality.

There is a new song, Kingdom, that was released by Maverick City.

Listen to these lyrics.

And if you ever wondered What Heaven looks like It's looking like me and you And if you ever questioned What Heaven sounds like Just let it fill the room

The kingdom of God is filled with people that don’t look like us, sound like us, or think like us.

We need to let God teach us to embrace that diversity.

As we do, as God grows our faith, we are going to discover the beauty of God’s creation.

One of my most influential friendships is with Pastor Roger Green from Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist church.

There is so much about our lives that is different, but you know what we have found in common?

Our relationship with Jesus and the ministry He has called us to in our communities.

When we sat down for the first time and shared a meal and our stories with one another, I was blown away by the similarities.

As we embrace those different from us, we will be blessed by the love and beauty that is found in those people.

God wants to work in your personal life to reveal His Kingdom.

As he does that personally, it will overflow into our body.

God wants to push you, to challenge your faith and let it develop into True Faith.

That faith is going to change your life and the life of this body.

I can’t wait.

Let’s Pray.

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