Favoritism in the Fellowship part 2

what I called an overlooked attribute of God. Now, remember, I kind of gave us a little lesson or helped us understand what an attribute is. An attribute is part of the nature of God. What I mean is God is holy. He is separated from us. He is unlike us. The thing that we know, God is set apart. He is holy. That is an attribute of God. We understand that God is sovereign. That is an attribute of God. He is all-powerful. He holds all power in His hands. More familiar attributes are the love of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God. Those are characteristics of the very nature of God.

The week we looked at an overlooked or a misunderstood or a never understood attribute of God, that is the impartiality of God. Now, we are learning that God is impartial in dealing with man. I gave this some introductory material that helps us get our mind around that. We see in the scripture that He is impartial in salvation. He loves Jew and Gentile alike. He is impartial in judgment. Whether it is us as Christians at the great white throne judgment or the lost when they stand before the judgment of God. God is impartial in judgment. God is impartial in church discipline. We understand that from places like 1 Timothy and Matthew 18.

Then we see that God is impartial in dealing with people in the life of the church. I want to introduce this morning's message by revisiting the conclusion of last Sunday morning's message. We had to look at how we react to the message that was at hand. The message at hand last week was favoritism in the fellowship. I really helped us in the conclusion to examine our hearts, examine our actions, and hopefully get down to the very thoughts of our heart, the thoughts of our mind, and the motivations. I want us to pick back up with that as we introduce this morning's message.

First of all, remember, I told you that we had to remember the principle that is being taught. That great wonderful principle is that God does not show favoritism. We must not just check that off our list. It must be buried deep in our hearts. It must form who we are and how we approach people. In other words, it must cause us to look at people the way God does. That is fully embracing the principles that are being taught. Second, I said to us that we must examine our own reactions to people. It's not enough for us to say, "Well, preacher, I'm good here. I love everybody." It's not enough for us to just say, "Well, I'm okay here.

I might have needed to hear it." And I gave us some hypothetical but yet realistic circumstances. I ask you how you dealt with people of another race. There are some people in the life of the church. If their skin color does not match theirs, they will show favoritism. We have to examine how we deal with people of another race. Also, I ask you how you react to people of another religion, or even how you deal with people who are under this umbrella of Christianity.

You know, as we live in the life of the church and work in the life of the church, and as we just live this thing called the Christian life, we're going to run across people who have different convictions than we do. In other words, they might live out their Christian life a little different than we do. Now, there is a difference between biblical convictions that are lined out and personal convictions that God has led us to. And there are some people that will show favoritism as they run across people who have different convictions. Maybe people who have different theological beliefs. I've run across all different types in my journey.

I shared with you last week, there was a day in my life where if you weren't Baptist, I just kind of crossed you off the list. But as I've studied church history and I've gotten to know how God works in this old thing called the world, there have been a lot of people who were not Baptist who really loved God and were used greatly of God. I ask you how you dealt with people who were at different stations in life. You know, in our culture we have the lower class and the middle class and maybe the higher class. I know when I went to India, I saw that rigid caste system.

But how do we react to people who were different than we are in this culture? We have people who were of lower class but they were greater snobs to people who were of upper class because they were different. How do we react to people who were different places in our culture? And how do we react to different people of different age? What am I trying to show you? When we explore these hypothetical but yet realistic circumstances that we come in contact with, it will cause us to see how we really do react to different people.

And the third thing I challenge you to do is to trace back the thoughts in your mind, the thoughts in your heart to get honest with yourself and see if there is any favoritism or partiality that is in you. And we learned last week in verse 4 that if there is, it is exceedingly evil because God is an impartial God. Now we are going to continue exploring the possibility of favoritism or partiality in the fellowship. And the title of the message this morning is "Favoritism in the Fellowship Part 2." Favoritism in the fellowship part 2 and we are going to be in verses 5 through 13. Let's look at the text together.

James continues with this subject. He says, "Now listen my beloved brethren, did not God choose 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. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? If, however, you will fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, for you are doing well." Verse 9. "But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not commit murder.' Now if you do not commit adultery but you do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." Verse 12. "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy." Mercy triumphs over judgment. Now I've gotten into the habit of giving you the main points of the message so that you can follow me a little easier.

And last night I thought about giving you the main points and I'll just leave them on the screen. And it will help us as we dive into these verses. We've got a few more verses this morning. But you'll see the main points of the message are the contradiction in the people, the violation of the word, God's word, and then number three, the invitation to obedience. The contradiction, the violation, and the invitation all in these fellowships, these people that James is writing to. Now I do encourage you to take notes.

I trust that you take notes for your own personal study so that you can go back and learn a little more about what God is trying to teach us this morning. So let's just dive into the message this morning. Let's look at number one, or Roman numeral one. The contradiction that is in the people. The contradiction that is in the people. Look at the verses with me again.

Verse five, James says, "Listen, my beloved brethren," that's that love heart again that we see, "did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him?" Notice verse seven, "But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?" This is the contradiction that is in the life of the people.

Now last week I shared with you that the previous verses, verses two and three, that this was a possibility, there was a possibility that this was a hypothetical situation. We look back in verse two and three, he says, "For if a man comes into your assembly," we don't know if this was a real life situation in these verses, but we do know that the sin that was in the fellowship was very real. Now this is a contradiction right here in verses five through seven. This is a contradiction between God's character and their behavior. Notice what he says in verse six, "But you have dishonored the poor man." In other words, James is incurring guilt.

The situation previously might have been hypothetical, but their contradiction was definitely real. And we see a contradiction between their behavior and look, the very character of God being illustrated right out of these verses, verses five through seven. Now let's break down some of these verses and let's notice some truth that's going on in the lives of these believers. Let's just notice that God chooses the poor man. First, God, he has chosen the poor man.

Verse five, "Listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him?" Now what's going on with this language about God choosing the poor? Many people do not fully understand what the Scriptures say about the poor. Let me just show you what the Scripture says, these words right here. These words, "poor of this world," it literally means "poor as to the world." Let me say that again.

When you go back to verse five, when it says that God chose the poor of this world, in the original language it literally means "those who were poor as to the world." In other words, what James is saying is, "those who were in poverty." It cannot mean what Matthew chapter five talks about, "those who were poor in spirit," because a rich man can be poor in spirit. But what he is saying here is, God has chosen the poor of this world, those who were poor as they pertain to this world. There is a sovereign choice here. Also, I want you to notice the other language, "heirs of the kingdom." "Heirs of the kingdom." Now, what does this language mean?

It literally means the entirety of salvation. Everything that is part of being right with God. So let me go back and read the verse. "Listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose the poor, those who were poor in this world, to be rich in faith. They are heirs of the kingdom. They are born again. They are right with Him, which He promised to those who love Him." And what we see here is, God is expressing that He has chosen to work in the poor. Many people might not realize that. Let me break this down a little bit for you. First of all, I want you to see that God chose Israel.

Those of us who know our Old Testament, we do know that God chose Israel. You don't have to turn there, but let me read to you what Deuteronomy says about God choosing Israel. Chapter 7, verse 7. "The Lord said, 'The Lord did not set His love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any of the people, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.'" What do we see here?

God's people were so poor that they were slaves in Egypt. They were chosen of God. They were chosen of God, and they were poor. Also, I want you to see that God, He did choose Jesus. What does it say about Jesus? Listen to 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9. Notice what Paul says about Jesus. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." What do we see in that verse?

"The Lord Jesus Christ laid down everything in glory, and when He came to this earth, He was poor." Now, I don't want to go any deeper because of the sake of time, but if we look at the disciples, God chose the disciples and what? They were poor. And all through the work of the New Testament, we see that they had an ongoing ministry with who? With the poor. Now, are they chosen in their poverty, and their poverty warrants that they are right with God? No. They must be saved by grace through faith, just like you, just like me, but what we see here is God has a heart for the poor. Also, second, I want us to notice the sin of the rich.

So we've seen that God has chosen the poor in verse 5, but notice the sin of the rich. I'm going to start with verse 6, but it really gets into verse 7. "But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you in the court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?" Now, who are the rich mentioned? There's a lot of debate here as to who James is talking about. Several Bible commentators that I ran across said that most people believe that this is some of the religious leaders there in Jerusalem. One particular group would have been the Sadducees.

The other particular group would have been the Pharisees. We know them in the Scripture as the Sanhedrin. Those are the ones who prosecuted Jesus hand in hand with the Romans. But see, for various reasons, the Sadducees and the Pharisees hated Christ, hated this thing called Christianity, and they literally prosecuted the followers of Jesus Christ. And we do know that Saul was given authority from the chief priests to do what? To persecute Christians. And what did he do? He drugged them in the court. He cast them in the prison under whose authority? The Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees.

And maybe these were the people that James had in mind as he is writing. But I want you to notice what these rich people did. First, I want you to see that the rich abused them. Now this word "oppress" that I'm reading from, the New American Standard, it's also used in the English Standard in the King James. Now in its original, it means to exercise a tyrannical power over others. Let me say that again. It means to exercise power over others as a tyrant. That's what this word "oppress" means. This simply means that they were being taken to civil court as tyrants. Let me go back and read the verse.

Is it not the rich who oppress you as tyrants? And what do they do? They drag you into court? But also, I want you to notice that the rich, they blasphemed God's name. He goes on to say, "The last seen the fair name by which you have been called." These very rich people who oppress the Christians, these rich, they are the ones who curse the name of Christ. They hurt the name of Christ, and they curse the name of Christ by which these Christians have been saved. See this phrase in the text there, verse 7, "By which you have been called." It places an emphasis on their personal relationship with Christ. And see, notice the great contradiction.

Go back to the verse. "Listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose 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, you have dishonored this poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you as tyrants? Do they personally drag you in court? Do they not curse in blaspheming the name by which you have been saved?" This is the great contradiction. And we find this contradiction really brought out in verse 6, because what does James say? "But you have." This is not a hypothetical sin. The poor that God has chosen, these Christians have dishonored.

And it was a problem within their fellowship, and it was a problem that was within their hearts. And see, any favoritism, any partiality that's based on race, that's based on religion, that's based on class, that's based on age, any favoritism at all, it is a contradiction. Now, you're going to notice how it builds on last week, because last week we saw that this was a sin in verse 4, and we saw that this was a sin that had very evil motives but now it goes from a sin to a contradiction. And listen, this is a contradiction because this is completely and totally opposite of the character of God.

These Christians are saying, "Yes, we love Christ. Yes, we've been born of God, but yet they were holding on to a sin that was completely contradictory to what? The very nature of God, the very personality of God, an attribute of God. God was impartial, He is impartial, but yet they are acting in a partial manner." I thought about a great example that I witnessed in one of the churches that I serve. Let me kind of tell you the story to understand and illustrate what I'm trying to show you, how this works. One of the churches that I served in the past, we had the privilege of being a Red Cross shelter during times of emergency.

That's been a little while since we had a hurricane of that nature, but the church that I served, we were a Red Cross shelter, and when one of the hurricanes was coming along, we would get a call and we would open up our doors to those who were fleeing from the storm. Now, of course, we all remember Katrina. You know, it wasn't a false alarm. It was the real thing, was it not? And I remember in the life of that church, we were a shelter, and we had hundreds of people. We just opened up the door, we pushed the Sunday School material aside, and we put people on the floor, we put people everywhere.

It didn't matter where they came from, if they were rich or poor, black or white, we opened up the door and we were a Red Cross shelter, but yet because we were a church, we were able to minister to them in the name of Jesus and proclaim the name of Jesus and preach the gospel. It was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. It was trying, it was difficult, but it was a great opportunity. And let me tell you, these people were poor. They might have had something before the storm, but many of them lost everything. I'll give you an example of what I mean.

I got in the habit of recognizing the people who were there, and one morning at the coffee pot, I noticed a gentleman there who looked different, and I said, "Have you just gotten here?" And he smiled, and he said, "Yes, I was rescued off my roof this morning." Now, there were some of us who rode out in the storm, and we stayed and we ministered, but there were some in the life of the church they fled. Now, I'm not going to throw a stone at someone for leaving, but we stayed. But I will never forget, there were some in the life of the church when things calmed down, they came back.

And there were some in the life of the church, when they came back, they assumed their places and their positions of leadership. And I'll never forget there were certain people, they began to voice things like this. They began to say, "You can't treat these people this nice. They will never leave. You can't feed them that way. They will never go back home." What were we seeing? These people did not want them there. They were showing favoritism. They wanted their Sunday school class. They wanted life as usual in the life of the church for themselves. It was about them.

They did not want people who looked like that and acted like that and smelled like that in the doors and the halls and the rooms of their church. And see, they would have told you that they loved God. They would have told you that they served God. That their attitude and their action was a complete contradiction to the very character and nature of God. These people lost everything. They had no home to go back to. I mean, it was completely idiotic to say, "They just need to go back home." Where? A massive contradiction. And to show you how contradictory some of these people were.

Some of the resources that the world brought to the life of the church to share and give and minister to these people, some people in the life of the church just began to hold on to those resources for themselves. A contradiction. And those of us who wanted to minister were heartbroken. So we see the contradiction, the life of the people. Let's move on to Roman numeral two or number two. I want us to see the violation of the word. The violation of the word. Let's look back up, pick back up in verse eight.

It says, "If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." You are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not commit murder." Now if you commit adultery, but you do not commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Now, what are we seeing here? James is moving a stepfather. James has already moved a stepfather than last week's message.

He pointed out the sin last week. Now he points out the great contradiction to the very nature of God. And now we see that he moves a stepfather and he shows them the depth of their sin. He has shown him the great contradiction to the character, but now he shows them how they have violated the very word of God. Now a question. What does James mean when he says this royal law here? Go back to the verse. "If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law of God." What does this word royal law mean? Now the English Standard and the King James and the NIV all use the word royal law. Now what is this?

James is referring to what is called the Great Commandment or the Greatest Commandment. You don't have to turn there, but I will flip over to Matthew, Matthew chapter 22, and we will see this Great Commandment or the Greatest Commandment. I'm going to pick up in verse 34. "But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him," this is Jesus a question, "to test him." And notice how they were trying to test Jesus. He said, "The greatest commandment of the law." Now Jesus did not pull this out of his ear. He quotes the Old Testament.

He says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as your self." And we know that Jesus goes on to say that all of the law, all of the prophets, all of the Old Testament, they hinge on these two greatest commandments. And so what James is doing is, he is quoting the royal law. It was given by the lips of Jesus. He was royalty. And he is quoting the Great Commandment or the Greatest Commandment.

Now let's break this down and let's look at what we see. First, he questions them and he says, "If you are in obedience," look at verse 8, "If, however, you are nullifying the royal law according to the Scripture," what is he saying? He's posing it almost like a question. "If you are in obedience," James is questioning their obedience to this commandment. Now in a nutshell, what is this commandment? We've already read it. He says, "The greatest thing that you can do is to love God, and the second greatest thing you can do is to love others." And what is he saying?

"If you are in obedience to this law, you are doing well." Go back down to what he says. "If, however," verse 8, "you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well." So what he's saying is, if you are in obedience to what the royal law, words of Jesus say, "You are doing well, you are in right standing." But then second, notice what he says, "If you are in disobedience," verse 9, "But if you are showing partiality, you are committing sin." If you are showing partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

But notice, James goes on kind of this long discourse right here in verse 10 and 11. Let me read it. "For whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not commit murder.' Now, if you do not commit adultery, but you commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." Now, why does James go from partiality and favoritism to adultery and murder about the royal law? What he is teaching is this. If you have broken one law, you have broken all of the law. You get that?

What he is saying here and showing us here is that if we are in perfect standing, if we are in right standing with God, and we have committed murder, then we are guilty of breaking all of the law, therefore we are a law breaker. And what he is saying right here, if you are in disobedience to this one issue of favoritism, then you are a law breaker. See what he says? He says, "If you are in obedience, you are doing well. But if you are in disobedience, you are a law breaker, a transgressor." James is revealing to them that their favoritism is breaking all of the law of God.

It is breaking the law of God, first, in loving your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, he is saying, they have broken all of the law of God. It is first, it is first and second, to love God first and to love mankind second. And because they were in violation of this, they were in violation of breaking all of the law. And any favoritism is a sin. We learned that last week. It is a contradiction to God's character, and now we are seeing that they are in violation of breaking all of the law of God. Remember the story? Remember the Red Cross shelter? Remember the people who came back when things settled down?

Remember the people who moved in and said, "We've just kind of got to get rid of these people?" They would have been the ones who would have shouted the loudest, "Yes, we love God." But yet they were unwilling to love their neighbor as themselves. They were the ones who had nice homes. They were the ones who had peace and security. They were the ones who had money in their pocket. They were the ones who had jobs to go to. They were the ones who had clean sheets to go lay down in at night. But yet they were unwilling to love the ones that God had brought their way the way they would have wanted to be loved.

And look, it was all because they did not look like them, they did not talk like them, they did not act like them, they did not have the same morals and values like them, and they were in violation of the Word of God. They broke all of it. Number three, or Roman numeral three. James gives an invitation to obedience. The invitation to obedience. Look at verse 12. "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy." Mercy triumphs or wins over judgment.

James now appeals to the readers here to fully consider the danger that they were in, to fully consider all that he's teaching them. He is inviting them to examine their actions. Now listen, in light of what he has written, and he has written the Word of God, he is saying examine what you are thinking and what you are saying according to the Word. He is calling them, listen, to obedience. And I want you to notice two things. I want you to see, he says be obedient in speech, and second, be obedient in your actions. Go back to verse 12. "So speak and so act." It's not enough to act in obedience. They were to speak in obedience.

It's not enough to speak in obedience. They were to act in obedience. But I want you to notice some other truth right here. They were to speak in obedience and act in obedience and act in obedience. Go back to verse 12. "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty." Now this phrase, "law of liberty," it speaks of the gospel. It speaks of the gospel that they had experienced. It speaks of the saving grace that they walked in. So what do we see? He says to them, "You speak and you so act." What?

"In light of the gospel that you have experienced." And also he says, "Speak and act in obedience in light of the judgment." Because what do we see in verse 13? The judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. He is speaking of the judgment. And what he is saying is, "I invite you to be obedient to what I have told you." But you be obedient in your words and your actions. Not just words, not just actions, but in both. In light of the wonderful, glorious gospel that you have experienced. And in light of the fact that you will be judged. James is appealing to the readers here to be obedient.

In both speech and actions, they must be in harmony with the character of God and also with the Word of God. Remember those who came back from the storm? Remember those who came back and assumed their positions of authority? Remember those who came back? There were some of us who said to them, "We ask of them." We said, "No, we can't do these things." Yes, we must continue to minister. There were some who were in contrast to their attitudes and their actions and their words. It was nothing more than an invitation to be obedient to the Word of God that they had at their fingertips. But yet there were some who rejected.

There were some who did not want to be obedient to the Word of God. They wanted their Sunday school room. They wanted their church hallways. They wanted their sanctuary. They wanted their fellowship hall. They wanted their church services the way they always had them. And they refused to be obedient. In action. Because listen, with their words they said they were obedient. But their actions proved otherwise. Now, I want to move to a different part of the message. Last week during the conclusion I asked you to write some things down. I'm not necessarily going to ask you to write some things down in the conclusion of this message.

But I want to tell you a couple of stories. But I don't know if you've noticed it. But James is giving us another test. Haven't we seen test after test after test in Chapter 1? In Chapter 1 we had the test of trials. Did we not? Positive trials, negative trials. Then we had the test of the temptation. If we were going to fall prey to that temptation. Then we had the test of the truth of the Word of God preached. When the Word is preached we either adjust our lives to the truth or we reject it and we fail the test. But now we have the test of treating others. How do we treat others?

I want to tell you a couple of stories of some tests that I have seen. The first story I see in Scripture. I studied this this week. I knew of it. I looked at this test and read of it. And I discovered some new material. You know last week we talked about how God is impartial with salvation. And how in Acts Chapter 10 and Acts Chapter 11 God sent Peter to the house of Cornelius. Peter a Jew, Cornelius a Gentile. And he preached the Gospel. They were born again. The Spirit came. And then Peter goes back to Jerusalem. And they looked down on him and scored. And they said Peter you've gone to the home of a Gentile.

But yet Peter said no wait a minute. God saved. God worked. God poured out the Spirit. And then in Acts Chapter 11 Verse 18 what did they say? They said praise God. God has given the gift of salvation to the Jew and to the Gentile. God is impartial. And Peter was right in the middle of the very nature and the character of God being impartial to Jew and Gentile alike. But there came a test. Years later Peter is in the church of Antioch. Years later Paul after he had been running his race he comes to Antioch and what does he find? He finds Peter acting one way with the Jew and he finds Peter acting one way with the Gentiles.

He was in good fellowship with the Gentiles and then when the Jews would come along he would change his behavior thus exhibiting favoritism towards the Jew. And let me tell you Paul rebuked him right there. He didn't print around it. This was nothing more than a test. And look this should convict us and bless us. Why? Because Peter could fail this test. And he found out the significance of Antioch is this. Antioch was the main most Gentile church. And yet Peter is being showing, having a partial attitude, favoritism to the Jews right there in the Gentile church. And he failed. But praise God Paul comes along and he rebukes him.

He corrects him. There is repentance and there is restitution. I'll think about another test. This was back when I was in my youth ministry days. Years ago when I was at First Baptist Church in Ellisville, Mississippi we had a vibrant, growing, strong student ministry. And I'm thankful for it. And God did some great things. I had a group of students who had a very strong heart for missions. We spent lots of times on the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana. I taught and trained those teenagers to witness to homeless people, to feed homeless people, to share the gospel with homeless people from the Bible, not a gospel tract.

We went in homeless shelters. We worked in a church that was poor. And we had a heart for missions. God began to burden me that if I could do that in New Orleans, why couldn't I do that in my town? And we started doing that in the local trailer park down the street. But God sent us a test in the form of a little boy. I didn't know this, but there was a family who always brought their children to Vacation Bible School, and they were the Martins. Father was Charles. His wife was Debbie. Now, I don't know how to say it, but I'm just going to be honest. Charles was mentally challenged, and so was Debbie.

And they had two children, Michael, in Rodney. I didn't know this, but they always brought Michael and Rodney to Vacation Bible School. But that particular year, they brought them, and the workers at Vacation Bible School said they're too old for VBS, but we have youth VBS at night. You come back then. And they came. And look, somehow, some way, Michael Martin, now everybody else called him Mikey, adopted us. What I mean is, Michael Martin came. He came to everything that we did. He came to every youth service. He came to every activity we could ever do. I'll show you his face. Michael Martin never found a shower. He never found a bathtub.

I don't think he knew what a bar of soap was. If you'll notice, he has on about three t-shirts. His personal hygiene was real poor, and he was very mentally challenged. But Michael, or Mikey, adopted us. Everywhere we went, he went. We loved him. We embraced him. We cared for him. If we went somewhere, he went with us. And we had to take care of Mikey. And I'm going to tell you, it was a wonderful, glorious thing to see teenagers who had everything together in life. They were the most popular. Embrace Michael Martin. I had an older, mature, college Sunday school teacher. His name was Matt. Mikey was in Matt's Sunday school class.

Matt took care of Mikey. Mikey came. He came to Sunday school. If he acted out, we corrected him. And you know, there came a time when something went on that I never knew how to handle. But there was a service, and Mikey Martin came down, and he said, "I want to give my life to Jesus." I never dealt with that with a mentally challenged person. I just took him at face value. And you know, as Mikey kept coming to church, in his very simplistic mind, he had an understanding of what was right, and he had an understanding of what was wrong. This was what was right. Come to church. Do what we tell you to do.

Come to church, listen to the Bible, come to Sunday school, and live that. And his understanding of wrong was acting out in school and getting in fight in the Treta Park. And you know, Mikey came. And you know, I prayed, and I sought God, and I said, "God, how do--" God said, "Just take him at face value." Well, to speed up the story, Mikey died. A tragic accident drowned, petrified of water. He was wading in the Leaf River about knee deep, and he stood off, stepped off a sandbar, ground. That was the first funeral I ever preached. I couldn't tell you who was there, because all I could see was tears.

And you know, as I sought the Lord, as I tried to leave the church that day, when I got the news that Mikey Martin had drowned, as I went home, I had to get away from everybody, and I got in my house, and I closed the doors, I locked the doors, I took the phone off the hook, and I began to get in the Scripture, and I began to pray, and I said, "God, I do not want to go to a funeral." And just preach Mikey Martin into heaven. I don't want to just do that.

And as I was in the Scripture, and as I was reading, and I was praying, God brought me back to that mind where He committed His heart and His life to Jesus, under the preaching of the Word, and this is what the Lord showed me. God did not say for us to love Him with a good mind. He said for us to love Him with a mind that we have. And Michael Martin loved Jesus with the mind that He had. Now, I don't tell you that story to be a tearjerker, but Mikey Martin came into our fellowship, and we had to adopt Him because He adopted us.

He sat on the pews, He sang in the youth choirs, He was baptized in the baptistery, and look, everybody loved Him, quirks and problems and all. When youth choir was dismissed, He didn't step kindly over the step, He jumped over the step. He was baptized in January. He kind of acted out in the baptistery. I thought I was going to have to get Him, and I did. I got onto Him, but I found out it really wasn't His fault, they had forgotten to turn on the heat, so it was cold. Now, why do I tell you that story? He was the poor. He was the poor, and I don't understand it, but I can't send Him our way, and we had to love Him and accept Him.

So I've told you about Peter, and I've told you about Mikey. But what's the third test? The third test is us. Vacation Bible School, sometimes on Wednesday nights, God has sent some different children our way. And just to be honest with you, that's a test, because we cannot show favoritism to any of them. And I'm doing my best to teach my children that God loves them as much as He loves us. So my question is, do we have favoritism in our fellowship? Because listen, church, if we have favoritism in our heart, if we have favoritism in the way we act out to people, that is favoritism in the fellowship. Will we ever master this sin?

Will we ever just conquer it and it never creeps up in our lives? I doubt it, because it kind of followed Peter. But it cannot be. We cannot embrace it. We cannot let it linger. We cannot let it stay in our fellowship. Why? Because look, it is a violation of the character of God. It is a violation of the Word of God. And I think what James is doing is James is giving us an opportunity to be obedient to what we have learned. The tide of the message this morning is favoritism in the fellowship. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for the Word. I thank You for the truth.