Favoritism in the Fellowship part 1

Well take your Bible and turn with me this morning to the book of James, James chapter 2. We're going to be in James chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 and we are continuing our series Good Works Flow from Good Faith and we're just going verse by verse sometimes word by word through this wonderful practical book of James. I think that you see by now that it is what I have called a practical easy to understand instruction book for the Christian life. It's not about words, it's not about declarations, it's about living the Christian life. The nuts and the bolts of walking with God, serving God, and loving God.

This is a manual for Christian living as we have learned and we are learning. Now as we transition into chapter 2, I want this morning to introduce to you and to us an often overlooked attribute of God. Now you might say what is an attribute? What does that word attribute mean? An attribute is part of the nature of God. It is part of who He is. It is a description of His nature. Now let me give you an example of what I mean. When I say God is holy, we understand what that means holy. God is separate. God is separated. God is unlike us. That is an attribute. This is one of His attributes and part of His nature. I could say it like this.

He is eternal. He is sovereign. He is just. These are attributes of God. They're more familiar attributes like His love and His mercy and His grace. You could get your mind around that. Now as I go through that, that is not an exhaustive list, but a list of attributes, you understand what I mean by the character and the description of who God is. But whether we know it or not, we are familiar with certain attributes of God. But this morning I want to introduce to us the attribute of impartiality. The attribute of impartiality. God is an impartial God.

Some of you might not have ever thought about it like that and I want to show you real quickly from the scripture that we see that God is impartial in four different ways. You can jot this down. This is really part of the introduction to help us get started in understanding this attribute of God. First, God is impartial in salvation. God is impartial in salvation. Some of us are familiar with what went on in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 10 and chapter 11. Remember that great story where you had Peter who was a Jew who had been converted by God and he had a vision of God and a call of God to go to the house of a Roman centurion, a Gentile.

And as God was working in his life, what did Peter say? Peter said, "No, Lord, I've never touched anything unclean." But yet see, God was up to something bigger than Peter and we know the story. Peter went to the house of Cornelius. He was born again and his whole household was born again. God did a miraculous work and then in Acts chapter 11 when Peter goes back to Jerusalem, he gives a report to the church there and they begin to backpedal. Peter went into the house of a Gentile, that unclean man. But yet when they heard the testimony of God, what do they say there at the end of chapter 11?

They said, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life." What do we see? God is not partial in salvation. Second, we see that God is not partial in judgment. God is not partial in judgment. We see this in 1st Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 16. The scripture says, "You shall be holy for I am holy." Then verse 17, "And if you address father, the one who notice impartially judges according to each man's work." Now what is Peter saying? Peter is referring to what we call the judgment seat of Christ. We understand that from 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 10. What does Corinthians say? What does Paul say?

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the deeds done in the body." What is that? That's the judgment seat for those of us who were born again. And we will be rewarded for the deeds that are done and we see that Peter says God is impartial in judgment. Third, we see God is not partial in discipline. We learned this in our study of 1st Timothy. We learned this when we were in chapter 5, beginning in the verses around verse 17 and on down. As we learned about church discipline in the life of the elder, the pastor, the ministers in the life of the church.

And when we're learning about this church discipline for ministers, what does Paul say? He says to Timothy, "I solemnly charge you in the presence of God in Christ Jesus and his chosen angels to maintain these principles what without bias doing nothing in the spirit of what? Partiality. God is impartial in discipline. But fourth, I want us to see that God is not partial in dealing with people. God is not partial in dealing with people. A great example of that is the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1. Now this genealogy is not a complete genealogy. Matthew, one of the disciples who was a Jew, gives us this genealogy.

But if we do a little study, and I've done this in years past, of the genealogy of Jesus, we will see this truth. First, we see in the genealogy of Jesus a woman named Tamar. She was a Canaanite woman, a Gentile. Also second, we see Rahab, who is the Moabite prostitute, who hid the spies as they went to explore the city to take the city of Jericho for God. She was a Moabite, a Gentile. Also we see Bathsheba in the genealogy of Jesus. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah. She was the one who committed adultery with King David. And then as we continue, we see Mary and Joseph. They were nothing more than poor peasant people.

When we look at their lives, they came from an insignificant family. And they came from an insignificant tribe. And they came from insignificant places. What am I showing you? God is not partial in dealing with people. This is an attribute of God in that He is impartial. And we need to explore the potential problem of partiality within the life of the church. Now the title of the message this morning, and I know you write these titles down. I like the title. It helps us get our mind around what God's wanting to teach us. The title of the message is "Favoritism in the Fellowship." Favoritism in the Fellowship.

Let's look at these verses just a few. James says, "My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes and say, 'You sit here in a good place,' and you say to the poor man, 'You stand over there or sit down by my footstool.'" Verse 4, "Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?" I want us to explore this subject of partiality, and the title of the message is "Favoritism in the Fellowship," and I want us to see that there are three main truths.

I'm going to give those to you on the front end, and then we're just going to flesh these things out as we wade through the verses. The first main truth, or number one, is the principle that's taught. The principle that is taught. The second main truth, or number two, the distinction is revealed. The distinction is revealed. And then number three, or Roman numeral three, the sin exposed. So the principle that's taught, the distinction that is revealed, and the sin that is exposed. So let's explore this truth. Number one, the principle that is taught. And we see this in verse one. Go back to the verse.

"My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism." James is teaching the people a principle. Now let's just look at some truth in this verse that will help us understand what's going on here. First of all, I want you to see James' heart, the heart of James. Notice he uses this word "brethren." Now I don't know if you know it, but this is a habit of James. We see James use this word "brethren" a lot of different times. In chapter one, verse two, verse sixteen, verse nineteen, chapter two, verse five, verse fourteen, chapter four, verse eleven, chapter five, verse seven.

What am I showing you? This is a habit of James to call these people "brethren." Some translations say "beloved brethren." What do we see here? This is the heart of James. James is a loving spiritual leader, and he's writing to brothers and sisters that he knew. Many of these people he knew well, because we know the context. They were scattered because of the persecution, and they have left Jerusalem. This is the heart of James, a loving spiritual leader, writing to brothers and sisters in Christ. Second, I want us to see the contradiction, the contradiction.

James is saying, now I'm quoting the verse here, that having faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Notice it's almost like he piles words up. What does he say? "My beloved brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ." He is saying that having our faith in the wonderful, glorious Lord Jesus Christ, and yet holding on to favoritism, is a contradiction. To possess Christ, and to walk with Christ, and to love Christ, but yet to make distinctions among men, which Christ never made, is a bold contradiction. And right here in verse 1, he reveals the contradiction. Then third, I want you to see the command.

I want you to see the command. Now we do see that he says, "My beloved brethren, my brethren, do not." Some of you might not see that. You might go over that, but then he goes on to say in the language, you will see he says, "Do not with an attitude of favoritism." Now what am I trying to show you? If we do a little study with a language, in its construction, this wording is in the emphatic, meaning that James is being forceful in his command.

I guess if I could use voice inflection, and speak with my hands, and speak in ways which you cannot necessarily write down, James is saying it's like this, "My brethren that I love, do not do this." This was a command. It's in the emphatic. This is not a suggestion. And then fourth, we see the problem. I'm reading from the New American Standard. It says, "An attitude of personal favoritism." Now with this language, it carries the idea of making a judgment on appearance, and giving special respect or special favor based on appearance.

It speaks of judging solely on a superficial level with no consideration of a person's true merits, their true abilities, or their true character. And this is the problem. "An attitude of personal favoritism." I love what John MacArthur says. I ran across this quote this week. He said, "The idea is that we cannot hold the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very presence and glory of God, and be partial." Jesus himself was impartial. And as indicated by his humble birth, his family and upbringing in Nazareth, and his willingness to minister in Samaria and Galilee, regions held in contempt by the Jewish leaders.

What is MacArthur saying? Jesus was not impartial. How can we be impartial? And I'm going to tell you, church, we must notice the spiritual principle, but not just notice it. We must embrace the principle this taught, and we must realize that biblical principles are timeless. Let me repeat that. We must realize that a biblical principle is timeless. We don't live in James Day. We've not been scattered from Jerusalem. We don't have Jew and Gentile in our fellowship, but what we must see is the principle that is timeless, and the principle that is taught. Now what is the principle?

Simplistically, favoritism is incompatible with the character of Christ. Favoritism is a contradiction with the very person and character of Christ, and favoritism has no place in the life of the believer. That's the principle that is timeless. Truth number two, or Roman numeral number two, I want us to see the distinction, the distinction that's revealed. Let's look at the verses. We're going to cover verse two through three now.

For if a man comes into your assembly or your fellowship or your meeting with a gold ring and he is dressed in fine or bright clothes, and there also comes a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one wearing the fine clothes, and you say, "Sit here in the good place," and you say to the poor man, "Stand, you stand over there," or "Sit down by my footstool." What we see here is the distinction that is revealed. Now in verses two and three, we see the attitude of personal favoritism being fleshed out. It starts out with an attitude.

We see that in verse one, and James identifies that, but now we see this attitude is turned into action. Now some truth right here in these verses. First, I want you to see the place of the situation, the place of the situation. Verse two, "For if a man comes into your assembly," the King James in the English Standard Version that many of you use, uses the word assembly. Now the new international version uses the word meeting. It all means the same thing. What is James saying?

"For if a man comes in your assembly or comes into your meeting place," and the place of this situation is their place of worship, the place where they would gather to worship. Now in James' day, there were many Jewish Christians who were still assembling in the synagogue. They had not made that complete break from Judaism. Now we don't know if that's taking place as these Christians have scattered from Jerusalem, but we do know that in the early days of the faith, many Christians would still meet in the temple there in Jerusalem. But it doesn't matter if it's the temple or a local synagogue or someone's home.

What we're seeing here is the place of the situation, the place of this occurring, is the meeting house of God's people. I guess in our language we could say it like this, they were at the church house. Second, I want us to see their treatment of the rich man, their treatment of the rich man. "For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes," and you, verse 3, "and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes," and you say, "you sit here in a good place." Notice their treatment of the rich man. We see his appearance literally in the original language.

It means that he had a handful of gold rings. It literally reads a gold fingered man, and literally in the original when it refers to his clothes, it means that he had brightly colored clothes. What am I showing you? His appearance immediately denoted that he was a wealthy individual, but also noticed their reaction. He is immediately given a good place to sit. And what they say, verse 3, "and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes," and you say, "you sit here in a good place." That's their reaction. But notice their distinction. They went out of their way for the rich man. They set the rich man apart.

So we see their treatment of this rich man. We see his appearance. We see their reaction, and we see their distinction that they made. But also, third, their treatment of the poor man. For if a man comes into your fellowship, and he has a fist full of gold rings, and he's dressed in fine bright clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes. Notice his appearance. He is obviously poor, and he is obviously dirty. I thought about it like this. Poor people can be clean. I've met many poor people who were clean, but I also know that rich people can be dirty.

But we see that there are two things that indicate that in his appearance, that he is poor and he's dirty. And it is obvious for the assembly to see. But also notice their reaction. He is given a place of disrespect. Now in their meeting places, it was not traditional for them to have benches or pews or chairs. It was traditional for a few places of prominence for leaders, maybe a bench or two. But for the most part, the congregates would sit on the floor. And so we see that there in there, that that comes into play in their reaction.

And you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, but you say to the one who was poor, "You stand over there or sit down by my footstool." So what we see is, we have a church member who is sitting in a place of prominence and even has his feet propped up and notice their reaction. He's given a place of disrespect. They just say, "You sit down there by my feet." See, they've made a distinction. They pushed the poor dirty man aside and look, they've disrespected him.

So we see the treatment of the rich man and we see the treatment of the poor man and we see as we break it down, we see the appearance, we see their reaction and we see their distinction. Now question, is this a hypothetical situation or is this real life? We really don't know. James does not indicate if this is a hypothetical situation. Really it seems to be hypothetical and a lot of the Bible commentators that I read seem to think that it was a hypothetical situation.

But either way, if it's hypothetical or a real life situation, James is revealing the attitude within their heart by showing their people in the fellowship how they react to real life situations. Because listen church, actions always reveal what is in the heart. You get that? James has already declared what's in their heart but he is proving what's in their heart by revealing their actions. This might have been a hypothetical situation but if it wasn't going on, he wouldn't have taught it. And look, these actions are proving what is in their heart that he's already stated in verse 1. I thought about it like this.

I can remember one of the churches that I served in years past. I never forget that in the life of that church there was a very, very rich man. As a matter of fact, this man was in such a position that many people knew who he was. He was very famous and he was very wealthy. Now when he walked in the door, he did not dress in a very wealthy and famous way. But it was very interesting and really very sickening to see how people in the life of the church would react to this man. People would ignore glaring sin in his life. People would ignore very poor doctrine in his life and he was given positions of prominence all in the life of the church.

Why? Because of who he was. Because of how thick his wallet was. Because of his name. Because he had a certain position in the culture. And what I saw was they saw who he was, they reacted to who he was, and they made clear distinctions. But I'll also never forget in that same church there was a poor man. This poor man was very well known because he grew up in the life of the church and he grew up very rebellious. He grew up very lost and he got off into drugs and alcohol but yet God saved him. And I'll never forget the first time I met that poor man.

I think before he got finished shaking my hand he was giving me his testimony about how God saved him out of drugs and alcohol. And look God saved that man and God gave that man a ministry and he went around to different churches giving his testimony about being saved and born again and delivered from drugs and alcohol. I'll show you just how poor this man was. I'll never forget the day he was so proud that somebody drove him to Jackson to buy him some new teeth. He lost all his teeth because of drugs.

And you know I'll never forget somebody nominated that poor man for a position of leadership in the life of the church and it was sickening to watch how people treated that man. And see those two examples show us how the people in the life of the church they saw these two individuals, they reacted to those two individuals and they made clear distinctions. They elevated the rich man and they shunned the poor man. And I'll be honest with you all those people that made that grave mistake that horrific sin they ended up with egg in their face. Truth number three or Roman numeral three I want us to see the sin is exposed. The sin it is exposed.

Look at verse four notice what James says he says have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives or evil faults or evil reasonings? I've already said it. Actions will reveal attitudes but listen close actions reveal sins that are hidden in the heart. James is about revealing a sin within the hearts of those readers. The situation of the rich man and the poor man may have been hypothetical but the sin which James was exposing was very real. Now I want us to notice a few things out of this short verse. Verse number four. First I want us to see they had made distinctions.

They definitely had made distinctions. Go back to what James says have you not made distinctions among yourselves? See it's almost like James sets them up. I mean he tells this story and he lures them in and then he says have you not made distinctions? They obviously had made distinctions. The situation may have been hypothetical with the story but listen their sin was not. It was real. Second I want you to see that they had judged people. Excuse me. They had judged people. This is judging solely on a superficial level that I said earlier with no consideration of a person's true merits their true abilities or their true character.

This was purely on a superficial level. They had judged people. But then third I want us to see they did have evil motives. Look at verse four again. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges? Notice with evil motives some translations say reasonings or thoughts and what we see is they had evil motives and thoughts in their hearts. The English standard version in the NIV they read evil thoughts and the literal translation of these words is judging with vicious intentions. That's how evil it was. They were judging with vicious intentions. Simply put they were acting like people of the world.

They were distinguishing among people in the fellowship whether they were members or visitors we do not know but they were making distinctions among the people and James reveals this evil sin. James makes them see this by asking a question. Go back to the verse. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? It's like he sets them up with this hypothetical situation and then he drives the truth home that they had these evil thoughts and motives and reasonings so evil within their hearts. Now I'll say it like this.

If we study our own actions, if we really examine our own actions we will see what is in our own hearts. I ran across something that Matthew Henry the old Puritan commentator wrote. He said it like this. Trace your partiality till you come to those hidden thoughts which accompany and support it and you will find those to be evenly exceedingly evil. He goes on to say this respect of persons is a heinous sin because it is to show ourselves most directly contrary to what? To God.

And I want to say to you that if we examine our actions and how we react to different people then if we trace those reactions back and we see what is in our heart we will see the sin exposed. Now as I begin to conclude I want to ask us a few questions. I really want you to get these and I invite you to jot them down and what I mean by conclude we're moving away from the text and we're really moving into applying what we're learning this morning and I want you to write this down because how we react to the message is going to dictate the days to come. First, our number one, we must let the principle be buried deep in our hearts.

What I mean is if we're not careful when we learn the principle, yes God does not show favoritism. God is an impartial God. We can nod our head to that. We can check that off our list. You know we can even just say oh I agree but if we're not careful that principle will not be buried deep into our hearts. It needs to be a state that is driven deep in the ground and it needs to be a truth that is revealed to us that we never get over. This principle must be buried in our hearts and in our thinking in the way we approach all people. God does not show favoritism. Second, we must examine our own reactions to people.

We must examine our own reactions to people. Now as I say that your first reaction is oh yeah well I'm good. I'm good here. Your first reaction is to think just kind of scan the horizon and to say yeah I'm good here. I react well to people. That's not good enough. I think most of us need some hypothetical situations put in our path. Maybe there are real-life situations for you that need to be put in our path and I want to ask you a few questions. What are your reactions to people of a different race? What are your reactions to people of a different race?

Listen I'm so thankful that's never been an issue here in the life of this church because racism is a sin. But I'll tell you there are churches in the Lincoln County Lawrence County area where people of another skin color are not welcome. I'm telling you there are people that will be pious and they will sound so religious and they will sound so godly but you let somebody that has a different skin color walk in the door of the church and immediately there is favoritism and partiality. How do we react to people of another skin color?

Because listen church I've never been all around the world but as I pan my eyes around the globe there are all different shades and colors and God loves them all. We know the little children's song. Jesus loves the little children and he loves black and he loves white and he loves red and he loves yellow and he loves every shade in between and I'll tell you when you examine how you deal with people of another race and you really get honest and you trace the reaction back there could be sin in your heart that you have partial feelings. You show favoritism to people of a certain color.

The next question your reactions to religion your reactions to religion. Most of us here are familiar with those young men who ride bicycles the Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses. You know I want to be honest with you. It's easier for us to be kind to the cults sometimes than people that are under the umbrella of Christianity. What I mean is how do we react to people who might not necessarily be Baptist.

There were times in my life where if you weren't Baptist I mean I just thought you were pagan and I reacted that way but as I studied church history I learned that there were many different churches and many different denominations and many different people who were not Baptists who clearly love God. How do we react to people who are not like us even in the under the Christian umbrella. What about people who have different convictions? What about their people who come from different theological backgrounds.

What I'm showing you is if we're not careful in the life of the church as we come in contact with people who might not have come from the same theological tree or they might not hold true to certain biblical convictions or certain convictions that we've adopted in our our life then if we're not careful we can be partial or impartial or we can show favoritism.

In other words what I'm showing you is sometimes in the life of a fellowship somebody comes along that is a cookie cutter image of who we are and we'll automatically run to them but yet somebody comes along and they're not just quite like us in their convictions or in their theologies and sometimes we can shun them. I've done it. Third question, what is your reaction to class? Now we know we have class in society. I'm thankful that it's not like India. This harsh rigid caste system. I know it's an overgeneralization but we have you know upper middle and lower class. It's a wonderful thing in our culture.

You can be of the lowest of low class but yet you can work hard in our culture and you can move up out of that. But how do we react to people who are not necessarily in our class? Maybe we're far more wealthy than they are and we come in contact with them and I'm not just trying I'm not trying to be rude but we know this language is in our culture and when we look at them we just say they are not in our class. How do we react to them? Another question, how do we react to people of a different age?

I was discussing this with brother Keith this week and he brought this up to me and and I'd forgotten it because see we don't realize it but there are a lot of churches who identify a target group. What I mean is they will have a target group that they have identified in the culture in their neighborhood in their city in their town and they say we want to go after a particular age group. Isn't that partiality? Isn't that in a way favoritism? Jesus never did that. Jesus didn't shun the widow and go after the young because they could benefit his ministry. Jesus took whoever came his way young or old. The disciples said oh get the children away.

He said no bring the children to me. It didn't matter if they were young or old Jesus made no distinction of age and I think there are a lot of churches they want to go after the young. They want to go after those who can benefit the church. Now what am I showing you? As we look at these hypothetical situations this causes us to examine our own reactions to different people whether they're of a different race or maybe they're of another another religion or maybe they just don't look like us in their Christianity. It causes us to look at how we react to lower class and middle class and upper class.

It causes us to look at how we react to young people and old people. The third thing I want us to see how you react. Trace back the thoughts of your heart and if there is any favoritism or partiality call it what James calls it. It is evil, it is wicked, and it is sin. See listen church if you do not call it what God calls it then there is no hope for repentance, forgiveness, victory, and restitution.

If you say well that's just the kind of how I am preacher I was raised that way you'll never get victory you'll never repent the blood will never be applied and you'll never have victory and be free from that sin and look James calls it evil and wicked and sinful. The title of the message this morning is favoritism in the fellowship. See that question must be asked by you. You have to answer that because listen as we progress being the church that God wants us to be we cannot show favoritism. God never has Jesus never did the Apostles never did and God won't put up with favoritism in the fellowship. Let's pray.

Lord I thank you for the bold and direct truth that we learned this morning.