Good morning, Calvary Chapel. How could you not think about
coming after you heard that glorious invitation, huh?
If you're a woman, I'm sure you're thinking about going to
the retreat. Please turn in your Bibles this
morning to the book of James. We are now in Chapter 2.
And while you're doing that, I too would like to echo like to
echo our thoughts about those who are visiting here for the
first time. Thank you so much for coming.
And if you are those who have come before and you've come
back, we thank you that you've decided to come back and worship
with us this morning. We also want to thank those who
are listening on all the various platforms, including those who
are listening behind prison walls.
We thank you all for taking the time to be with us this morning
as we go into God's Word. Amen.
So what we're going to do, we're going to go ahead and actually
I'm going to do it this way this morning.
I'm going to read the Scriptures first, and then we're going to
go back and pray and look at them.
Would that be OK? OK, OK, so we're going into
James chapter 2 and I just want to read it first.
It says this, my brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ the Lord of glory with partiality.
For if there come into your assembly a man with gold rings
and fine apparel, and there also come in a poor man in filthy
clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine
clothes, and say to him, you sit here in a good place, and say to
the poor man, you stand there, or sit here by my footstool, In
other words, sit on the floor. Have you not shown partiality
among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Listen, my brother, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the
poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom
which He promised to those who love Him?
But you have dishonored the poor man.
Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?
Do they not blasphemy that noble name by which you are called?
If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture,
you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
You do well, but if you show partiality, you commit sin and
are convicted by the law as transgressors.
For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one
point, he is guilty of all. For he who said do not commit
adultery also said Do not murder.
Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you
have become a transgressor of the law.
So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of
liberty. For judgment is without mercy to
those, to the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over
judgment. Let's pray.
Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness that You would give
us this word that we may know Your heart and Your mind
concerning all things. We thank you, Lord, that we
serve a God that we can know because You show yourself to us.
You said if we search you, we will find You when we search for
You with all of our hearts. So Father, this morning we're
searching for You. We're looking for Your
understanding concerning this word.
Father, we need Your Holy Spirit to come and reveal this truth to
us, that we may rightly divide it and that we may live by it.
Father calls us this morning to be changed by what we hear as we
walk out of this place. Let us have a new sense of
awareness of You and a deeper love for our brothers and
sisters and have a deeper urge to be able to to be able to show
that love one to another, to be more loving, to be more
merciful. We ask you these things, Lord,
in the name of our Savior and our Lord.
Lord, be with us. Speak to us.
Lord, if you don't speak, we have gathered in vain.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen. You know, James is the kind of
book that it should come with a with an advisory.
I mean, this is a real practical book and I love the book of
James, but he he hits hard. James hits hard.
He's a very direct. So it's almost like it should
come with a with a viewer discretion note with it, you
know, viewer discretion advise, you know, please be aware the
contents of this book contains hard truth, but yet it's what we
need to hear and how good it is of the God that we serve that he
would prune us this way, cause us to hear things that can
sometimes be rough and hard to hear.
But yet it could be easy for our hearts to receive if we just
open them and allow him to plant that seed in our heart.
And he promises us that if that seed is planted, if it's
received with soft and and infertile ground, if it's
received willingly, if it's received with meekness, he tells
us over in chapter 1, if we receive it with meekness, that
means if we receive it with humility and with a teachable
spirit, then we will bring forth fruit and it's fruit that will
remain. So I wanted to be, as we go into
this, I do want to just remind you of the way that we started
last last week and we looked at the chapter back in Exodus.
And I want to go to that again because what James is doing in
this book is that he is giving us a glimpse of the character of
God when he talks about partiality.
And if you remember back in Exodus chapter 34 and today,
I'm, I'm just going to start here at verse 6, he says this.
And I just want you to listen to and pay attention as he
proclaims himself, as he shows Moses his glory.
He proclaims these words. Verse 6, chapter 34.
And the Lord passed by him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord
God merciful. Remember that He is merciful and
gracious. That means He is full of grace
for all of us. He's long-suffering.
That means he's patient with us. Oh God, thank you for being
patient with me. Sometime it takes some of us
more spankings than others to get it.
I don't know if that's you, but that was me.
But I thank God that he was patient.
He never gave up on me. Every time I reached up, he
reached down and grabbed hold of me.
He never left me in the muck, in the mire of life.
He pulled me out every time I turned to him.
That's the kind of God we serve to maybe a lot of people who
will give up on you. Look, I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm
sorry. I, I can't deal with you
anymore. I can't, I can't rock with you
anymore. I think it's a term.
Is that the term young people use now?
Is, is that right? I can't rock with you anymore.
Is is that right? Will.
I can't rock with you no more. You know, I'm we've been around
this corner too many times. You've disappointed me too many
times. But God's not like that.
He forgives and forgives and forgives.
He's also abounding in goodness and truth.
That's mercy that that that's grace.
It's kindness and truth. Last week we talked about how
good God is and even in giving us this instruction on
partiality is a another extension of his goodness to us
that we would know him. And then he says keeping mercy
for thousands forgiving. Yes, He's a forgiving God.
He's forgiving. He forgives our iniquity, He
forgives our transgression, and he forgives our sin.
And when God Forgives, he throws it into the sea of forgetfulness
that will never have to come up again.
You'll never be judged by that again.
You'll never have to hear that again.
I know sometimes with each other we may say we forgive you, but
every now and then I got to throw it up to remind you, you
know, some things that you did to me.
But God is not like that. When he forgives, he forgives
it. The problem is sometimes we
don't forgive ourselves. So it keeps coming up and the
enemy keeps throwing it at us. So this is how good God is.
So we go back over here to James now remembering those things
about those qualities about our God.
You know, it was interesting that Moses had asked to see his
glory and he told Moses, I can't show you my glory because you
wouldn't be able to look into my face and live.
But as he walked by Moses, he did show his glory as he
proclaimed those things that we just talked about.
That is the glory of God. That is the glory of God.
He is merciful. He is long-suffering.
He is he's a bounding with goodness and truth.
That is the glory of God, and that's the glory that we have to
look forward to one day of being with Him in eternity.
What a blessing. So we go back here now to
chapter 2 in the book of James and he says, my brother, do not
hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with
partiality. He says don't hold it.
And that word whole really means it means to maintain, don't
maintain or don't practice. Don't practice your faith from
the Lord Jesus Christ with partiality.
Don't maintain that you know the whole means to maintain a belief
or a practice. And James is saying, I don't
want we, we can't practice the true faith in Jesus Christ if
we're holding on to or if we are maintaining or as we are
practicing partiality and favoritism.
We had said before that when we get saved, we put on Christ,
we're clothed in Jesus Christ, but being clothed in Jesus
Christ, and then we practice something like favoritism and
partiality, then we have to look on ourselves and say what
doesn't go with this outfit? Partiality doesn't go with our
outfit of that we're clothed in in Jesus Christ because that's
not who Jesus is. Now partiality, you know, like
we said, it is favoritism, it's bias, it's giving, it's giving
preference to one over another based on a number of factors,
based on social status, based on wealth.
Some people who are partial or give favoritism based on
someone's color or their ethnicity, based on their
clothing or appearance. That's a number of things that
we may choose to give one person favor over another.
But, but, but even when it comes to like racism or, or, or
discrimination, any kind of favoritism or partiality in God
is wrong because it's not consistent with God's character
in Romans 211, Paul said. For there is no partiality with
God. He doesn't choose one over
another for any reason. We're all special in the eyes of
God. There's none of us that's more
important than the other. It has nothing to do with title.
It has nothing to do with position and God.
We're all one in Christ. There was also a comment that
was made about God's partiality in the book of Acts when our
brother Peter was called out to talk to to Cornelius's home.
And it was a room full of Gentiles, which a Jew would have
never went and socialized with a room full of Gentiles.
So going there and hearing their heart, he said this, He said, in
truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every
nation, whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted
by him. That's the only thing that God
distinguishes between. It's good and evil, it's
faithfulness and wickedness, or godliness and ungodliness, true
and lies. That's the only thing that He
discriminates. But as far as the people are
concerned, we are all one in Christ Jesus.
Now here James is talking about partiality in the church with
the treatment of the rich versus the poor.
And James says now to treat someone who is rich and well,
better dressed or someone who maybe, you know, maybe someone
who has more money. And we can tell that by the
rings. You know, back in those days,
you know, people could tell the status of other people by the
way they were dressed and by the jury that they had on.
And sometimes when he talks about these gold rings, there
are people who used to go and actually there are places they
could go and actually rent gold rings to wear at certain events
so that they can establish their status among the other people,
separates them, if you will, from other people.
And then of course, to choose them over a poor person who may
be wearing filthy clothes is wrong.
So in verses 2 and three, he gives that example, the example
of a poor man and a rich man. And he says here, have you not
in verse 4, have you not shown partiality among yourselves and
become judges with evil things if you show the rich man more
attention or more favor than the poor man?
So in other words, he says, because someone comes in and
they look like they have money and they're wearing very nice
clothes and they're wearing a jewelry, and you can tell that
this may be a person of wealth. You put them in a very good
seat, you give them the the, the good seat and then someone comes
in behind them and they may smell, they may have, they may
be wearing filthy clothes because they don't have the
money to buy the clothes that that this rich person has.
And you just disrespect them. Just totally disrespect them.
I don't go stand over there somewhere.
Stand over there or, or, or just sit by my foot here.
This is my seat here and this is my foot stool.
Sit on the floor by my foot stool.
Just totally dishonor the poor. That is not the heart of the
Lord. He didn't do it to us.
So, so even in Leviticus, back
in Leviticus 1915, he teaches us, he says do not pervert
justice. Do not show partiality to the
poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
Exodus 23 and three says do not show favoritism to a poor man in
his lawsuit. Justice should be blind and both
rich and poor should be treated equally before the law.
Hence we see the Lady of Justice with a blindfold on.
It's supposed to mean that she is blind and doesn't see who it
is that's coming to court, what color they are, how much money
they have. They're going to be judged
fairly. That's the way it's supposed to
be. But we also know that we're
human and that the justice system is run by human beings.
And sometimes there are favoritism shown, impartiality
and things of that nature, unfortunately, but that is not
of the Lord. That is not of the Lord, and it
definitely should not be here in the church.
The fact that James was addressing this issue obviously
meant that it was something that the early church was
experiencing. And unfortunately, we
experienced it today in the church.
Every time I read this section, the Bible, I have to repent.
And the reason why is because I've experienced in a church
before, a church that practiced partiality.
People were treated different by who they were based on their
popularity. Maybe they were well known
gospel singers or well known preachers, nationally known
preachers, or even family. Family was treated different.
We experienced those kind of things.
And when I read this, when I read this, even then I got
convicted by the fact that he participated in it.
But you know what? I have a mentor who taught me
that when you know better, you do better.
And that's true of all of us. When we know better, we do
better. So there may be things that we
have done before, but then once we get into the Word of God and
He teaches us the right from the wrong, the evil from the good,
the righteous from the unrighteous, the godly
behavioral versus ungodly, we behave behavior we know, and we
can do better with the power of the Holy Spirit to help to
change our hearts. Amen.
We've all done things before that we did and we didn't think
much about it. And then we get into the Word of
God and bam, it comes to our hearts and it lets us know that
this is something that does not please the Lord but thank Him
for His grace. He doesn't hold it against us
when we come and we repent. His arms are still open.
Just like our kids, right? Just like our kids.
So here in verse four he says here he says that have you not
shown partiality among yourselves and become judges
with evil thoughts? You see Jesus show no partiality
at all in his ministry. He didn't have to He he loved
and he died for the whole world. Part of the reason why people
show partiality is because they want to try to get an advantage.
Often times they think that a person comes in with a lot of
money or person with position. They think in some kind of way
this could be an advantage and that's why they would show
partiality. They think they can get
something from the person with money that they cannot get from
someone who doesn't have the money or the status.
Even if it's just hanging around with them.
Oh boy, maybe people see me in a different light if I just hang
around this person that everybody knows and everybody
likes. I don't want to hang around that
person. They don't have any status.
Nobody knows them. But yet we come into church
where we're all one and we worship together.
I think I mentioned, I think I mentioned the church out in New
York where there is you walk in that you walk in that church and
there's no certain section for those who have wealth and those
who were or popular or those who have public fame.
There was no special section for them.
Everybody worshipped together. You had a, you may have a woman
who's wearing a mink coat with gold rings beside a man who was
homeless and they're worshipping next to each other.
And see in the old church, it could probably be that way.
Actually in the old church, when that when, when, when the
Christians, when the believers will go to church, it could be
the slave who was the actual pastor of the church, the actual
one that's doing the teaching could be a slave, but they are
worshipped together if they're truly about Jesus Christ.
So he says, you know, have you not shown partiality among
yourselves and become judges of evil thoughts, judges with evil
thoughts. And that's exactly what
motivates, it's the evil motives that motivates us to be partial
and to get favoritism because we're not trusting God to give
us what we need. We're thinking that if we can
get it from this person that has a lot of money, then then you
know, if we can, if we can buddy up with them, then that will
take care of a financial need that we have.
But then that would be not trusting God.
That would be not trusting the Lord who provides all things for
us. Jesus showed no partiality in
his ministry. In fact, He said He died for
everybody. And the oldest, you know the
most publicized Scripture that we have, John 316 said to God,
For God so loved the world. He loved everybody that He gave
His only begotten Son. And whoever believed on him
shall not pass, not whoever had money, not whoever was this
color, whoever was that color, but whoever believed on him
shall not perish, but have ever a lasting life.
When Jesus walked the earth, He didn't.
He didn't show favoritism to one group or another.
In fact, He broke down all those barriers.
He ate with the sinners, He talked to women.
He broke down all those barriers that they had in those
particular times. Jesus saw the heart.
He didn't judge by the outward. So then we go to verse 5 and it
says, listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the
poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom?
Has he not chosen, chosen the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the poor of this world?
Now we know that in the culture, the current culture, sometimes
they do have their hierarchy of things.
You know, these people should not associate with those people.
These people should not associate with these people.
And if you're a lawyer or if you're a doctor or if you're a
judge or if you're of a, a person of high status, then
that's pretty much who your, your, your, your peer group is.
And, and they're not saying anything wrong with hanging out
with people that you know well or people who you have in common
things in common with. But the question here is how do
you treat those who are not? It's not who you associate with,
but how do you treat those who are not, is the question, Do I
treat someone badly because they're not in my group?
Do I neglect them? Do I abandoned, do I abuse them
because they're not a part of my group?
That goes to be the question. We know that, you know, we know
like you said and and you know, God came and preached to the
poor. He didn't neglect the poor.
He came and preached to the poor.
In biblical times, those who were rich were privileged, the
poor were despised. But Jesus preached to the poor.
In fact, not only did Jesus preach to the poor, he was born
to 2 poor parents. He was born and very humble and
a very humble environment in a through and the first time he
was announced by the angels, he was announced to a bunch of poor
shepherds in a field. Jesus never put himself above
anybody. The poor believers in third
world countries, you know, we, you know, when they talked about
the fact that, you know, the, that there's the poor, this
world that is rich in faith. I think about the, the, the,
the, the, the people in third world countries who we send
missionaries to those countries and we preach Christ to them.
And I'll never forget some of the, I've never gone on
missionary trips or anything, but I remember hearing from
missionaries that I've had a relationship with or spoke with.
And they would always share with me how the people would respond
when they would get a Bible, how they would hold that Bible.
They would hold it and hug it and embrace it because they knew
they had the word of God. And they would just, some of
them would just cry because they were holding the word of God.
They didn't have anything else. They didn't have decent homes.
They, most of them probably didn't even have running water
poor, but they were rich and faithful because they knew that
this life was going to be temporary.
But they have an inheritance that's waiting for them, an
inheritance that's incorruptible, an inheritance
that does not fade away. They have their riches.
It's waiting for they got, they laid up riches in heaven that
cannot be corrupted, and they held on to that faith of being
with Jesus one day and it helped him get through it.
Think about some of the martyrs, the martyrs that would be badly
persecuted because of their belief in Jesus Christ, but yet
they would hold on and they would smile and they will
continue to sing praises unto God because they knew that this
was not the end. Brothers and sisters, we need to
realize that. I don't know what situation you
may be in, but this is not the end.
This is not the end. There's something that we look
forward to. Just as they did.
So those who were rich or poor financially or in status, but
yet they were rich in faith. And then you look at the the
verse verse, the end of verse 5 when it says that, yeah, they're
rich in faith and also heirs of the Kingdom, which he promised
to those who love him. So everyone who loves and
believes in the Lord Jesus Christ have this promise of the
Kingdom rather rich or poor. See, James here is not making
some kind of a complaint against people who have money.
That's not what he's doing. What he's doing here is saying
that because you have money or even because you're poor, that
doesn't give anybody a right in the church to show favoritism
one way or the other. This is all James is saying,
because even because the rich also, if they're, if they're
rich in faith as well as financially, they have an
inheritance in heaven common because they understand that I
don't put my trust in the riches that I have.
My trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So it's promised to them who love him, those who choose him,
those who, who, who, who obey him.
Those are the ones who have this promise of the Kingdom of
heaven, those who are rich in faith, those who obey Jesus
Christ and those who and those who endure the testing of their
faith. According to James chapter 1 and
verse 12, when it says blessed is the man who endures
temptation for he had for when he is approved, he will receive
the crown of life. We all have that to look forward
to. So we hold on.
Verse 6 says, but you have dishonored the poor man.
Do not the ritual, do not the rich oppress you and drag you
into courts? Do they not blasphemy the noble
name by what you're called? What James is talking about here
is the fact that, you know, like I said, the rich were
privileged, they had money and they had influence.
The poor did not. So often times the rich in that
community or in that time, they would take advantage of those
who are poor and take their land and drag them into court because
of their influence. Things would be persuaded their
way. They could persuade things their
way and they would take the land of those who were poor or or
those who were poor may owe them something.
So because they owed them, they would take their land, they
would get them in debt and take their land.
So the, the what he's talking about are those who were rich
who did abuse and oppress those who were poor.
That's not all of them, but there are some who did in the
church and he said they drag you in the court.
That means they'll force you to go to court so that they can get
a ruling to be able to take your land or your property or
whatever. Taking advantage was a tough
thing they said. Do they not blasphemy that noble
name by which you were called. See the word, the name
Christian, although we love being called Christians, but
back at that particular time when it first, when the first
believers were called Christians, it was a way of
mocking them. It was a way of mocking them.
They were mocked. By that I mean, you know, they
it was a way that they could distinguish them from other
people. They felt they thought they were
procure your people. They were they were strange
people. These Christians, you followers
of Jesus Christ, you followers of that guy.
I mean, you know, they, they mocked them and they also
identified them as ones to be persecuted.
Paul even did that. Saul even did that.
He went out looking for Christians to persecute before
God got a hold of his heart. So he said, if that's the case,
then why if they if they're if they're abusing you the way that
they do and they drag you in the court and they blast in your
noble name, why do you give them preference over someone else?
You're giving preference to someone who dishonors those who
God honors. Why would you do that?
Then verse 8 says, but if you really fulfill the royal law
according to the Scripture, you shall love you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. You do.
Well, isn't it amazing how the Bible always comes back to the
foundation of love? It always comes back to the
foundation of love, no matter what.
He's saying here that the favoritism and partiality is
wrong. How can we avoid being partial?
How can we avoid showing favoritism to love our neighbor
the way we love ourselves? That's how.
That's how, how can we stop slandering our neighbor?
How can we stop gossiping about our neighbor?
How can we stop, you know, assassinating their character by
loving them as we love ourselves?
That's how how can we stop committing adultery and wanting
to kill, you know, people that we that we get upset with by
loving one another, loving our neighbors.
We love ourselves when the amazing thing that the Bible
always comes back to love. And that's why Jesus says that
the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as you love
yourself. It's the greatest commandment,
the only commandment, true commandment that he gave the
apostles was in James, I'm sorry, was in Matthew 13, John
13. Rather when he says that you
love one another as I have loved you, that's where it starts.
That's the foundation of everything that we are in Christ
Jesus is love. He said by this, wait a minute,
you mean not by how well I can sing?
No. You mean that not by how well I
can preach or or or or teach? No.
You mean not by how well I can I can come in and and and worship?
No, not by how well I can quote Scripture.
No. The way that people know that
you are my disciples is that you have love one for another.
That's how that's how important it is.
So he's saying here, that's how we can avoid being partial or
showing favoritism if we just obey that commandment and to
love one another as we love ourselves.
Verse 9 says, But if you show partiality, you commit sin and
are convicted by the law as transgressors came flat out and
said it here that showing favoritism and showing
partiality is a sin. Verse 10 says For whoever shall
keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is
guilty of all. For he who said do not commit
adultery also said do not murder.
Now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder, then
you have become a transgressor of the law.
So what is he saying here? What he's saying here is that,
listen, it doesn't matter how well we do and all these other
things and all these other areas of God's commandments, but if we
break one, we would be guilty of them all.
We're guilty of them all. So when someone comes in and
they say, well, you know what? I, I, I, I'm living, I'm living,
right? I'm doing this and I'm doing
that and, and I'm keeping this on.
I'm keeping that law. However, I show favoritism
within. What James is saying here is
that that favoritism is, is also a sin that needs to be repented
of. It's no different.
He is not saying, I'm going to tell you what he's not saying.
He's not saying that we are to keep the law.
That's not what he is saying, but what he is saying He's given
us the significance of even of even a a, a, a sin that some
will consider to be mild or less severe than others.
He said you need to repent for that as well.
When God puts his finger on that, you need to repent for
that as well. It's a sin and all
unrighteousness is sin according to the Scriptures.
All unrighteousness is sin. So if I decided with brother
Jerry, Brother Cliff and myself, we decide we going to lose our
minds one weekend and we going to go rob a bank.
So Cliff goes in first. Cliff comes out with 15,000,000.
Jerry goes in after Cliff. Jerry comes out with 10 million.
I go in and I come out with 1,000,000.
We all get caught. We all get caught Now.
Do you think that the 15,000,000 or the 10 million is any more of
a sin than my 1,000,000? We're all getting caught and
we're all going to be sentenced. The wait doesn't matter.
All unrighteousness is sin. All unrighteousness is sin.
He's not going to say, well, you know what?
You know you, you only took, you only took a million, so we're
going to let you go. No, no, I need to repent for
that million, just like they need to repent for the 15 and
the and the and the and the 10. If we keep 98% of the laws, what
he's saying here, if we keep 98% of the law, but we fail in one
point of the law, then we are guilty of it all.
That's why it was so important that Jesus came, y'all?
That's why it's so important that Jesus Christ came, because
as Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, we don't have to be
judged in, in, in, in righteousness by how or what we
do. We keep all them.
No, we don't have to keep all the law.
We don't have to. We don't have to be in bondage
to all of the law because Jesus Christ came and fulfilled all of
the law. But what we have, we can repent
for the sins that we commit, and we're given grace.
Bible says we can come boldly before the throne of grace that
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of
need. Verse 12 says, and we're coming
in for a landing. Verse 12 says so speak and so do
as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
So speak and so do as those who are going to be judged by the
law of liberty. Now we already established the
fact that there is no favoritism with God.
There's no favoritism with Him. There's no partiality with God,
and it should not be with us. You see, Jesus died, and when he
died, he broke. He broke down all those walls
that separated the people. He broke down the walls that
separated the Jews from the Gentiles.
He broke all those walls down that separated the differences.
And it should be in the church today.
There should be no walls that separate us with each other.
We should love everybody. We should treat everybody with
love and respect and dignity the same way Jesus did.
But even more important, we need to remember that we are
recipients of his mercy. And because we were recipients
of His mercy, then we need to be mindful to be merciful to
others. You see, we are both we, we are
the recipients of both His love and His mercy.
But we should also understand that we are also the channels
through which His love and mercy flows to others.
We have to get that. We have to get that.
I pray that the Lord really puts that in my heart so that I
realize that under all circumstances, I need to be a
channel of God's love and mercy to others, to others, and not
treat people the way I think they deserve to be treated, but
to treat people the way the Word of God tells me to treat them.
That's where we got to get to. So it says, so speak.
That means the language that we use, the words that we speak and
so do that means our actions, our behavior toward each other.
We should, we should speak and do those things as though of
those of us who will be judged by the law of liberty or the law
of freedom. And I thank God that we can be
that we're going to be judged by the law of freedom.
This not talking again, it's not talking about salvation, but all
of us will stand before the judge.
All of us will stand before God and we'll have to give an
account on what we do in these bodies.
May not be for salvation, but maybe it's for rewards with us
who are relievers. But we'll have to stand before
God one day and have to and have to account for the things that
we've done. So we should do that knowing
that the God who showed me mercy, so I should speak to
others with a merciful tongue and I should treat others with
mercy because it's the God of mercy who will one day judge me.
And also he goes on in verse 13, praise and worship team, you can
come forward. And in verse 413, he says for
judgement is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy,
mercy triumphs over judgement. Matthew 5 and seven tells he
said blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
They're merciful. This is not saying it's always
important to be able to identify what the verse is not saying.
This is not saying that because I show mercy to somebody that I
earn my salvation because I show mercy.
That's not what James is saying. We can't earn our salvation no
matter how much mercy we show. We can.
And thank God we don't have to because Jesus Christ already
took care of that on the cross. But what he is saying that if we
are saved, if we are truly saved, and if we truly have this
relationship in this heart for Jesus Christ, we will show
mercy. We will show mercy, and it's
only those who show no mercy that would indicate that there's
no relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now, none of us show mercy all the time.
None of us do. And this word is not to go out
and say you should feel guilty because you don't show mercy.
You're going to hell. That's not what this word is.
That's not what this is about. This is God's loving way through
His Word to show us His heart, and His heart is that we don't
show favoritism or partiality. That is not the heart of God,
but to treat everyone with love, respect, and dignity.
Everyone. That's the heart of God because
that's what Jesus did when He came.
That's what He did. That's the way he walked with
love, respect and dignity and and merciful.
Now with Jesus, you always use the word compassion.
We too should use the word compassion because it tells us
over in first Peter. I love this verse, by the way,
First Peter chapter 3. I'm going to go and turn to it.
You don't have to turn to it if you don't want to, but I want to
read this because I think it's just really important.
First, Peter, chapter 3, he says this in closing verse 8.
Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one
another, love his brothers, be tender hearted, be courteous,
not returning evil for evil. I can't treat you the way I
think you deserve to be treated by returning that evil that
you've treated me with, with more evil, he says.
Don't do that. Or reviling for reviling.
I can't revile you because you reviled me.
But On the contrary, blessing, I'm commanded to treat you with
blessing, knowing that you were called to this.
That's what we're called to. We're called to treat people
with courtesy. We're called to treat each other
with loving kindness. We're called to treat each other
with a tender, with tender heartedness and compassion for
one another. We're called to that.
We are not called to be evil to one another.
We're not called as I always use the example with David, when
Saul threw the spear at David, David didn't throw the spear
back. And because of that, Saul was
afraid of David because he said David behaves himself wisely.
So I pray that in this message, we, we heard the Lord's heart
concerning favoritism. And there's a lot of ways that
we can do it. You know, sometimes we can grow
up in families and in our culture, we can grow up with a,
with, with, with an environment that basic that basically
teaches us to show favoritism, favoritism or teaches us to show
discrimination just by nature of the culture that we grew up in.
But being in Jesus Christ, we're freed from all that.
We're free from the expectation of showing favoritism towards
someone because they're different from me.
We're free from the expectation of not hanging out with somebody
because they don't live in a house as nice as mine.
We're free from those expectations being in Christ
Jesus. And instead we're called to be
to be courteous. We're called to love his
brothers. We're called to have compassion.
Amen.