Introduction:
Deuteronomy 10:17 - For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
Acts 10:34-35 - So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him."
How to Love People Like God Loves People (James 2:1-13)
- Don't Deny your faith: Christ followers are not Partial. (Jas 2:1-4)
- Don't Disregard reality: rich /= Great, and poor /= Bad. (Jas 2:5-7)
Psalm 68:10 - ...in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
Psalm 41:1 - Blessed is the one who considers the poor!
Proverbs 17:5 - Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker...
- Don't Disobey God's Word: Partiality is a serious Sin. (Jas 1:22-27)
Matthew 5:7 - Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:40-00:42
Let's turn to the Word.
00:42-00:44
Are you there, James chapter two?
00:45-00:53
And I'm going to ask that you would pray for me, and I will pray for you as we approach God's Word together today.
00:57-01:06
Father, last week we talked about where your Word says we need to receive with meekness the implanted Word, and I pray, Father, for all of us here today.
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We're ready to hear from you.
01:11-01:12
We're ready to learn.
01:15-01:19
Might the seed of your word fall on good soil in our hearts.
01:22-01:27
And produce as only you can, Father, we glorify your name.
01:29-01:32
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen.
01:34-01:35
James, Chapter two, are you there?
01:37-01:48
When I was interning out in Joliet, Illinois, I went to the first small group in this church, this Harvest Church where I was interning.
01:49-01:53
And in this small group, they had an icebreaker question.
01:53-01:58
It was, "Share the favorite vacation you've ever been on.
01:58-02:03
"What's your most favorite vacation you've ever been on?" So they were going around the room and everybody was sharing.
02:03-02:06
And I was seated next to this blonde woman.
02:07-02:13
And they said her husband wasn't with her that night, but it got to be her turn.
02:14-02:29
And she said, "Well, one time we were going to go on a cruise and she says, "My husband just really didn't wanna go." He said, "What is there going to be to do?
02:29-02:31
What's it going to be like?
02:31-02:33
Are there going to be black people there?
02:34-02:42
And she kept talking and I was just like, did I just walk into a Klan meeting?
02:42-02:44
Like what is going on here?
02:44-02:47
It got almost as uncomfortable as the room is right now.
02:50-02:52
And I'm thinking, okay, I'm obviously the outsider here.
02:52-02:56
I'm the new guy, but I gotta say something here.
02:58-02:59
I can't just...
03:01-03:04
So my mind's racing, okay, how are we going to address this?
03:04-03:10
And finally, when she was done sharing, I'm not even sure what I said.
03:10-03:24
I just turned to her and I said something like, I said, I have to ask, why was your husband concerned about black people being on the cruise?
03:24-03:28
And she doubled over laughing hysterically, tears.
03:29-03:43
She goes, "Oh my gosh." She says, "You don't know." She says, "You haven't met him." She goes, "My husband's black." I'm like, "Oh." And you know what?
03:43-03:44
He loves that story.
03:44-03:45
We became friends.
03:45-03:47
His name's Andre, great guy.
03:47-03:49
He loves that story.
03:50-03:57
But it's a story of things that were potentially very ugly that turned out to be funny.
03:59-04:03
But truth is real racism doesn't go that way, does it?
04:05-04:33
You know, it's very sad and it's very strange that we live in a world where you pick a reason, any reason to hate someone to any degree, whether it's flat out hatred, despise, or whether it's, I don't like to be around that kind of person, whether it's skin color education, or looks, clothes, money.
04:36-04:41
Call it racism, call it bigotry, call it prejudice.
04:41-04:43
They all belong to the same rotten family.
04:44-04:48
And here in James, he calls it partiality.
04:49-04:52
And that's what we're gonna talk about today because that's where he goes in the text.
04:54-04:58
So I have to ask you, are you a partial person?
04:59-05:03
Would you consider yourself to be impartial?
05:09-05:11
Do you treat everybody the same?
05:12-05:16
I mean, do you really treat and value everybody the same?
05:21-05:26
You know, what was it, a year or two ago, Nausea Harris from the Pittsburgh Steelers came to church here.
05:26-05:28
Yes, it was an accident, but he came.
05:29-05:30
(congregation laughing)
05:33-05:38
And there were a few of us that were totally geeking out, like, "Wow, Nausea Harris was here.
05:38-05:41
Nausea Harris was here." And I was thinking a lot about that this week.
05:41-05:45
Like, shouldn't we celebrate every first-time visitor like that?
05:48-05:53
The reality is partiality can happen in the church, And it can happen in this church.
05:55-05:57
And it's a serious thing to God.
05:58-06:01
This is an extremely serious thing to God.
06:02-06:04
So we have to start here very quickly.
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God is impartial.
06:08-06:08
All right?
06:08-06:12
We can't go any further really till we establish that.
06:12-06:13
God is impartial.
06:14-06:31
Old Testament, Deuteronomy 10, 17 says, "For the Lord your God is a God of gods "and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, "and the awesome God who is not partial "and takes no bribe." New Testament, Peter discovered this as well.
06:31-06:38
Acts chapter 10, says, "So Peter opened his mouth and said, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality.
06:40-06:56
"But in every nation, anyone who fears him "and does what is right is acceptable to him." See, the Bible says that God is impartial and as his children, if you are one of his children, he expects you to be as well.
06:57-06:59
So again, that's where we're going in the text.
07:00-07:04
The outline heading is how to love people like God loves people.
07:05-07:07
So I want you to jot some things down here.
07:07-07:10
Number one, don't deny your faith.
07:11-07:14
Christ followers are not partial.
07:15-07:31
All right, verse one says, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." So stop there, this is like the whole sermon.
07:32-07:46
But if you say that you're a follower of Jesus, but you show partiality to people for any reason, It just doesn't make sense.
07:47-07:54
He says you can't hold on to the faith and also be partial to people for any reason.
07:54-07:59
It's in complete conflict with what we believe.
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It'd be like saying that someone is a Christian abortion advocate.
08:07-08:10
You'd be like, that doesn't make any kind of sense.
08:12-08:17
And for somebody to be a Christian racist, it doesn't make any sense.
08:18-08:20
That's James's point here in verse one.
08:20-08:21
Look at verse two.
08:21-08:34
He says, "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." I'll stop there.
08:35-08:43
As we talk about partiality and all of that, understand that James was addressing the issue that his church needed to hear.
08:44-08:58
And that was partiality, specifically due to social status, to money. That was the issue that they needed to have addressed. So he gives a hypothetical here, right?
08:58-09:05
It's a hypothetical situation. He goes, "So, okay, so like a guy comes in wearing a a gold ring and fine clothing.
09:11-09:22
Sadly, in our culture today, I don't imagine with this crowd, but if I would share this in a different setting, I think there'd be a lot of people that would be like, that's right, shame on the rich man.
09:23-09:24
Shame on the rich man.
09:25-09:27
Being rich is bad, right?
09:28-09:30
Right, the bad man is rich, right?
09:32-09:36
And that's not what he's saying here at all.
09:38-09:42
A man having money isn't the problem.
09:46-09:47
I'm astounded.
09:48-10:02
I never thought that I'd get at this point in my ministry where I've had so many occasions over the years where people have asked me, "Do you know what Joel Osteen makes?" I'm like, "Why do I care what Joel Osteen makes?
10:02-10:03
I'm not married to him.
10:04-10:05
Like, why do I care?
10:07-10:15
But there's this mentality that if somebody has money, that's bad, and that is not at all what James is saying.
10:16-10:16
Okay?
10:17-10:18
What is he saying?
10:18-10:19
Look at verse three.
10:19-10:35
He says, "If you pay attention to the one "who wears the fine clothing and say, "'You sit here in a good place,' you say to the poor man, you stand over there, or sit down on my feet.
10:37-10:37
Stop there.
10:37-10:39
You see, the problem's not the rich man.
10:41-10:42
The problem's you.
10:43-10:47
The problem is you when you treat people differently.
10:48-10:48
Right?
10:49-10:50
Like, let's cater to this guy.
10:51-10:54
This guy comes in, he obviously has money.
10:54-10:58
Like, let's, you know, oh, we want this guy to be a part of our church.
10:58-10:59
He's got bags.
10:59-11:02
You know, that's what the cool kids call having money now.
11:02-11:04
At least that's what Samuel Gianetti told me.
11:05-11:07
And, but that was a few months ago.
11:07-11:09
So that probably changed, right?
11:11-11:12
That probably changed.
11:13-11:14
They're like, that guy's got bags.
11:14-11:16
I bet he could really help the church.
11:18-11:24
And some guy comes in and he's not looking like he has money.
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And you're like, Hey, hey bro, I don't really care where you go, but get where you're going, all right?
11:34-11:41
And understand that the early church was mostly, mostly poor common people.
11:44-11:52
So you could see why there was a temptation for this kind of bias in the people that James was addressing.
11:54-11:56
I'm not saying it's right.
11:56-12:02
I'm saying I understand why there was this temptation for bias.
12:02-12:04
You had this church where everybody's sitting around broke.
12:05-12:14
And a wealthy guy walks in, it's like, "Hey, this guy could really help the church." Right?
12:16-12:19
You know, contextualizing, and I think, you know, like church planting.
12:20-12:27
You know, I remember church starting out having, you know, a dozen people, 20 people.
12:27-12:30
We had new people and we had even less money.
12:31-12:43
And I'm just saying in that scenario, it would be real easy, like if we had one of our church planting core group meetings where two new people come in and like, oh, hi, nice to meet you.
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What do you do?
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Like, well, I'm the president of Allegheny Health.
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Like, whoa, oh, please, would you like to sit next to the podium?
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I'm so glad you're here.
12:55-12:58
And then the other guy comes in and you're like, hey, what do you do?
12:59-13:03
And he's like, oh, I mop the floors of Pantera bread across the street.
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And I'm like, oh, well, you can just, you can wait in the lobby.
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You see, you're catering to people based on external things.
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In verse four, not great.
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He says, "Have you not then made distinctions "among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts." James says, "Listen, you're making distinctions, "and that's evil because that is not like God at all.
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"That's not like God." You know, so often today we hear people virtue signal, whether in person or especially on social media, people wanna say things like, You know, I love everybody the same.
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I don't care if you're black or white or purple.
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I don't care where you work or what you do or what you have or what you make.
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Is that really true?
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Because James is illustrating here, it doesn't really matter what you say, right?
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I guarantee you, everybody would say that.
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What matters is how you treat people.
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Because if the Bible is true, and I believe that it is, every single person that you meet is an eternal soul.
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And we each have our unique bodies and life circumstances, and we present a little differently, but we have to see everyone as an eternal soul with equal value.
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That's why James says you can't hold onto the faith and be partial at the same time, right?
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So how to love people like God loves people, don't deny your faith.
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That's just not who we are as followers of Jesus Christ.
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Number two, how to love people like God loves people, don't disregard reality.
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Rich does not equal great and poor does not equal bad.
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Rich does not equal great and poor does not equal bad.
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You know, we have this tendency to show favoritism to the rich because rich people are amazing and they only do amazing things.
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True or false?
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Well, you're saying false, but we have to push back on this a little bit.
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Aren't we just overly fascinated by wealthy people?
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Like way too overly fascinated by wealthy people.
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Think of when I was a kid, there was a TV show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
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How many people, show of hands, how many people remember that?
16:09-16:13
with Robin Leach, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." Remember that?
16:13-16:16
That was a terrible impersonation, I'll work on it.
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And you're like, "Oh, I'm glad we don't have shows like that anymore." Have you ever heard of Cribs?
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How many of you heard of Cribs?
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Oh, more of you, okay.
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Isn't that like the same thing?
16:29-16:46
Like, "Hey, here's a wealthy person, let's check out their house." And the reality shows, it's astounding to me that we have reality shows, it's basically like, there's a camera crew in these people's living room and we're watching them watch TV.
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Oh, it's an exciting episode today, they're gonna go into the kitchen and fry an egg.
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Like, why are we watching this?
16:57-17:00
Because they're rich and they're fascinating, right?
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We have shows like Jay Leno's Garage, where we get to see all of the cars rich man has. And again, there's nothing wrong with having money and having stuff.
17:16-17:35
I just think it's so funny how, and so interesting, how fascinated we are. So not only do we have this tendency to be fascinated and therefore show favoritism to the rich, the other hand is we just naturally tend to snub the poor.
17:39-17:47
That whether we would verbalize it or not, there's this tendency to think, well, poor destitute people just really aren't that important.
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That's a horrible thing to say out loud.
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It's a horrible attitude to have.
17:57-18:03
There's no reality shows for poor or even regular type people.
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So if you're showing favoritism to the rich and you're snubbing the poor, well, James is about to tell us here, you're being ignorant because you just really haven't been paying attention.
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Look at verse five.
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He says, "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?" James says that God has this track record of going after the poor.
18:47-19:26
Now listen, I'm gonna be saying this a few times because somebody's gonna like doze off tuned back in and completely missed the context of what we're saying here. Listen, this is a general statement. James isn't saying the only people who have ever had faith are poor people. He is not saying that. OK, James is not saying that he's making an in general statement. In fact, there's a lot of wealthy believers in Scripture, right? Abraham, Job, Solomon, Joseph of Arimathea.
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He's just speaking in general, in general.
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God has a special regard for the poor.
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Okay?
19:38-19:39
Psalm 68, 10.
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"In your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy." Psalm 41, one says, "Blessed is the one who considers the poor." God has a heart for the poor.
19:52-20:00
Proverbs 17, five says, "Whoever mocks the poor insults his maker." It's a pretty serious verse.
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And I could spend all morning telling you all the provisions that the Old Testament law had for taking care of the poor, but we're not gonna do that.
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Look at verse six.
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He says, the first part, he says, "But you have dishonored the poor man." You've dishonored the poor by not loving them as you should.
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Do you think that they matter less?
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See James's point, he goes, not to God.
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If God regards them as such, how do you think you should treat them?
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Oh, for you, those of you that still do think that rich equals amazing, look at the rest of verse six.
20:51-21:09
He says, "Are not the rich the ones who oppress you "and the ones who drag you into courts?" Again, in general, throughout history until today, how does it normally work?
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Do poor people oppress rich people or do rich people oppress poor people?
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Which way does that generally go?
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The rich oppress the poor, right?
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That's James's point.
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Verse seven, he says, "Are they not the ones "who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?" So again, in general, who do we hear mock and blaspheme the name of Jesus?
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In general, the poor or the rich?
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Well, think about it in these terms.
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Go on a mission trip to Vision Appalachia or to Thailand and tell me how much blasphemy you hear among the poor people there.
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And then turn on some kind of one of these goofy, you know, these Hollywood award shows where they get on TV and they all pat themselves on the back and applause each other and congratulate each other.
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And how much blasphemy are you gonna hear there?
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You see, that's James's point in general.
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In general.
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James is saying partiality, showing favoritism towards the rich doesn't really make sense when you consider reality.
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When you consider history, James says, "Eh, the rich aren't always the best people." So to put somebody up on a pedestal just because they have money, James is saying that's not Not a great idea.
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And the poor?
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Well, God seems to have a special place in his heart for them.
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So should you.
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Right?
22:59-23:01
So don't disregard reality.
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Rich doesn't always equal great, and poor doesn't always equal bad.
23:07-23:12
And number three, don't disobey God's Word.
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impartiality is a serious sin.
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Look at verse eight.
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He says, "If you really fulfill the royal law, "according to the scripture, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself, "you are doing well." Love your neighbor as yourself.
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That's Leviticus 19, 18.
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I think Jesus said something about that too, didn't he?
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We should love our neighbor as ourselves.
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How, how do we love?
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How do we, he says, as yourself.
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And I've talked about this before.
23:52-23:54
We all love ourselves.
23:56-23:57
That's default mode.
23:57-24:06
And I've shared with you even recently, it just kind of, it kind of irritates me when I hear people say, "You just need to learn how to love yourself." No, you don't.
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That's the problem that every single human being has.
24:11-24:13
We are so in love with ourselves.
24:13-24:20
We are so self-focused, self-absorbed, all about me, all about my preferences.
24:21-24:23
Like, well, you know, somebody's gonna say, you know, Pastor Jeff, that's not me.
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I hate myself.
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I hate myself.
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I just hate myself.
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That's a form of self-love because you're still putting all of the attention, all of the focus, all the spotlight on yourself.
24:36-24:39
You're loving yourself by being so self-absorbed.
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But God's word tells us that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
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Like, well, how do we do that?
24:53-24:58
Well, who do you focus on taking care of?
25:01-25:02
Yourself, right?
25:03-26:06
Don't you make sure that you're the one that has eaten, hydrated, you're warm enough. There's just this natural default mode that I'm always looking to make sure that my needs are taken care of. And you see when the Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. Love isn't just sentimental feelings. Like, "Oh, I care about you. I feel a little warm fuzzies for you." Biblical love is not about the feelings. Biblical love is about meeting needs. And that's why James is bringing this verse up. If you were destitute, just pretend for a second that you were completely destitute and you walked into a church hoping that somebody could help you out somehow, how would you want people to treat you?
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Well, that's the way that you need to be treating others.
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James says, "If you're doing this, you're doing well." Actually well is a bit of an understatement.
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The Greek word could be translated excellently.
26:24-26:25
Look at verse nine.
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He says, "But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." He says, "If you show partiality to people, you're guilty of sin and you're guilty of breaking God's law." And look, I can read the room here.
26:56-27:07
I can tell on the look on a lot of your faces that you're like, yeah, he seems awfully fired up about a subject that just kind of doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
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I mean, is it really that big of a deal?
27:10-27:24
I can understand talking about, you know, lust or talking about, you know, dangers of addiction or talking about, you know, like real hatred, but this I kind of prefer some people over others.
27:25-27:26
Like, you're like, is this really a big deal?
27:28-27:30
Like, Pastor Jeff, this is kind of a throwaway sermon.
27:30-27:32
Can we get back to talking about some serious things?
27:34-27:41
Well, according to James, this is as serious as it gets.
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Because look at verse 10.
27:49-28:01
He says, "For whoever keeps the whole law, "but fails at one point, "has become accountable for all of it." This is serious business.
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How many laws do you have to break in order to be called a lawbreaker?
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How many?
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Uno, right?
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One.
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Breaking, this is what James is saying, Breaking any of God's law is defying God's authority.
28:24-28:32
So even breaking it at one point, even a point that you don't think is that big of a deal, you're guilty of breaking the whole law.
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It would be like if I took a hammer and chisel and went over to the window and said, hey, I'm gonna get you just a little piece of glass off of here.
28:40-28:50
I'm just gonna get you a little postage stamp-sized piece of glass off of this window for you, and I hold the chisel up there and crank with the hammer, what's gonna happen?
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Am I gonna get a little, just one little piece of glass?
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The whole thing's gonna shatter, right?
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And that's what James is saying about God's law.
28:58-29:09
If you've broken it at one point, you've basically said, "God, I reject you "as the one who tells me what to do "because I'm not doing this." Well, guess what?
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Now you're guilty of the whole law.
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This is serious business.
29:13-29:14
Look at verse 11.
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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." James gives an illustration.
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He didn't just pick two random sins.
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You know, adultery and murder, do you know what they have in common?
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Those were two sins that required the death penalty under Old Testament law.
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Like, wow, James put the sin of partiality and very serious company very quickly, didn't he?
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And actually, if you think about it, it's in the murder family, Because didn't Jesus say that hatred is the same as murder?
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It's not a small thing.
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Listen, and if you walk out of here today.
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Say, I, yeah, I see what he's saying, but you know what?
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There's just certain type of people that I don't prefer.
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And I'm never going to.
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Well, according to James, you not only violated your profession of faith, but you've also violated the word of God.
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In verse 12, he says, "So speak and so act "as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty." James says, "You better speak and act "like someone who's going to be judged "because your works matter." And you're like, "Okay, all right, all right.
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"Now I know you've gone off the hizzy, Jeff, "because we're not saved by our works, right?
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No, you're not.
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You're saved by faith in Christ.
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But, and this is going to be a whole other sermon someday, we're going to be judged by our works.
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We're going to be judged by our works because works reveal whether you have true faith or not.
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And that's the whole sermon next week, so we'll talk more about that then.
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But works are the basis of judgment.
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And that's why look at verse 13.
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He says, "For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy." You see, if you're someone, James is saying, that you don't show mercy to the poor, that shows that you've never known God's mercy.
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You're unredeemed.
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You have no compassion, you have no grace, you have no mercy because when you know God, He changes you.
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And His spirit makes you love people like God loves people.
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So if you don't, you haven't been changed because you haven't been saved.
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And the judgment that you're going to receive is going to be horrible.
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He says, "Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.
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So, whether the people are rich or poor, whether they're black or white, or whether they're wearing tux or crocs, if you are saved, if you know God's mercy, you can't help but wanna give that kind of love to everyone and anyone.
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without partiality.
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Oh, one more thing.
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Look at the end of verse 13.
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He says, "Mercy triumphs over judgment." Underline that in your Bibles.
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Because when you have God's mercy, when you're someone who has experienced the mercy of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, you don't have to worry about judgment because mercy triumphs over judgment. Or, as our Lord put it, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." All right, that was the introduction. Here's the sermon. It's Really, verse 1.
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You can't hold on to the faith.
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You can't say that you're a believer.
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You can't say that you're a follower of Jesus Christ and at the same time show partiality towards people.
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It doesn't work.
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It just doesn't work.
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And, you know, we look at some glorious truths in this text.
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He talked about breaking the law at one point, you're guilty of the whole loss.
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So that makes us all people who are desperately in need of grace.
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We see here that God is impartial, so we should not only be thankful for that, but we should imitate his impartiality.
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We see that we have no fear of judgment when we know Jesus Christ, "because mercy triumphs over judgment." And I thought, what better way is there to celebrate these truths than by gathering around his table?
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So I'm going to ask if our communion servers would come up and our worship team would make their way up.
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We're going to invite you to receive the Lord's Supper.
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Now, you don't have to be a member of this church to receive the Lord's Supper, but you do have to be a born-again believer in Jesus Christ.
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And if you are, he invites you.
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So in just a moment, the worship team's going to play and we're going to ask that you, when you're ready, that you would come down the center aisles, receive the elements from Brown up here, And then return to your seat to the outside aisle.
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And I'm going to ask that you would hold on to those elements.
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And then as a sign of unity in our church, I'll get up and we will take the Lord's Supper together.
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Okay, so whenever you're ready, please come and receive.
Small Group Discussion
Read James 2:1-13
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are ways that you tend to label people that you need to refrain from?
Why is partiality such a serious sin? How did James show us that it is (see James 2:9-11)?
Is James condemning all rich people (James 2:6-7)? Why or why not?
If we are saved by grace, and works do not save anyone, why are works the basis for judgment (James 2:12)? See also Revelation 22:12.
Breakout
Pray for one another, and HBC, to never show partiality.