James 2:1-13

Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotion. This morning we are at James chapter 2. We're going to be talking about partiality, preference, prejudice, and how that is totally against God's plan for the church, the law that Christ has given us. So let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to get to read your word. Father, we pray that we would not just be hearers, but we would be doers. Lord, we pray that we would... have our eyes focused on your glory, desire what you desire, that we would be conformed more and more to the image and likeness of Jesus.
Please, Lord, help us to turn away from that which is natural according to our desires, our flesh, our will, even the world, and let us walk along a higher path, a more narrow road that you've given us in Jesus's name, amen. All right, let me find my glasses, here we go. So, James chapter two. James 2 and we're going to be looking at the first 13 verses. My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel, and there should also come a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing fine clothes, and say to him, You sit here in a good place, and say to the poor man, You stand there, or sit here at my footstool, Have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Listen, my beloved brethren, God has not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him. But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do not they blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak, and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So A, what's this about? This is about partiality. And make no doubt about it, he says partiality is a sin. That's what James is getting at, right? He's saying that showing partiality in the church is sin. That's exactly what he was getting at in verse eight. If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin. And it makes you a transgressor, a transgressor of that law, that royal law according to the scriptures.
So James is saying here, right? You can't show partiality. You can't go look into the mirror, see that you are spiritually poor, needy, and that you need mercy, and then go and forsake the widow and the orphan, or come into the church and show partiality.
That's exactly what, James is a beautiful letter where he kind of brings things up and then he'll drop it and bring it up fuller later. And this is what, he brought this up in verse nine. Chapter one, verse nine. Let the lowly glory in his exaltation but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away."
So James is saying here, don't show partiality. Let the poor exult. And let the rich be humble. You can't have rich people come into the church. They got fine clothes and fine jewelry, and they get the top seats in the synagogue, right? It was almost like stadium seating. And so the poor people would sit lower down, and so all the rich people could be up high and they could be seen. But no, no, no, no. Don't show that type of partiality. And then it just kind of gives us common sense, like, guys, think about what's going on in culture around you. The rich people are the ones who blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ. And they're dragging you into courts. They show no mercy to you. And yet when they walk in the synagogue, you treat them like they're something? What are you doing?
That's partiality. That's not exalting the orphan and the widow. That's not showing true religion, but that's sin. So he's pulling together all these different ideas, like that social class structure, and looking up to the rich, and giving them preferential treatment. And he says, no, no, no, no. That's putting them above the law. He says, no. No, that's not faith. That partiality is antithetical. That's the opposite of looking into that mirror. And you didn't learn mercy that way.
Do you notice what he said? So speak as so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. That's what he said in verse 25, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, a doer of that work of the law of liberty. That one, this one is blessed in what he does. The law of liberty and this royal law of the scriptures do not allow you to show partiality. Actually, they show that you're still dealing with the filthiness of the world. He said, don't do that. Don't go that way. Don't lean in that direction. Christ showed us a better way.
He didn't come born into a palace. He didn't come born into a rich family. No, he's born into such a poor family that they had to give one of the poorest sacrifices, a dove. And so Jesus showed no partiality. Whether he was before Pilate or Herod or rich people, it didn't matter, no. He showed partiality to the little children. Do not forbid the little ones to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven. He didn't find it a burden when those who were sick and lowly, poor, when the widow would come to Him, He exalted her in her faith, giving so much, a true trust, more than all the rich in the temple.
Mercy triumphs judgment. And we have been shown mercy by Jesus Christ. And so we trust in Him. We follow in His ways. We remember what He showed us in the mirror. And we walk away saying we are poor and needy. And we need the righteousness of Christ. We need the mercy of God. And we need to be more about loving others and loving ourselves. So this is what this is getting at, right?
I don't think I need to give you too much calling. Who are you giving preference to? What is it in your life that there are people who impress you because of the cars they drive or because the clothes they wear or the clout they have because of their positions and their wealth and their inheritance, whatever it may be, right? Who do you show preference to?
Maybe you're even one of those who you've been tempted even to maybe bend the rules for them. Wanting their favor. Not necessarily having to be paid for the bribe, but you just want to be in their good graces. And so you're willing to do things that you know you ought not to do or give them places of honor that they haven't earned.
Not so in the Church of Christ. turns the world on its head, flips things upside down. Now there will be those who try to use this and shove in some type of communistic ideology here, and that's not foreign to what's going on here. The point is, But Jesus said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of heaven.
So don't be about the riches of this world. Don't be about showing partiality. Be rich in mercy. Care for those who are poor. Watch out for the widow. Don't speak one way, with a double tongue, that you love the Lord, but then show preference to the rich.
No. We're all transgressors of the law. We're all sinners. We all need the same Christ, the same grace. And so there is no partiality in the church. We're all equal. because we're all that much in need of the love of our Savior. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would forgive us. Lord, we don't want to act like we're so spiritual that these things couldn't affect us or happen in our hearts or in our lives or in the church that we're in. Lord, we pray that you would please help us to not show preference to those who are rich, to those who are powerful and have affluence. Lord, we pray that we would show true religion, caring for the orphan and the widow. We pray, Lord, that we would watch out for those who truly need help. Lord, we know that this may be ridiculed, but Father, we are after your glory because we desire what you desire. Lord, we long to see or hear you say, well done, good and faithful servant. We know that won't happen when we show partiality.
So Father, please make us faithful servants, followers of you in Jesus's name, amen. Well, may the Lord bless you as you resemble more and more of Christ, who had all the wealth and power and the glory of heaven and humbled himself and took on the likeness of man. you. May you be more and more like Him. And may you walk in His grace. I'll see you next time. Bye.