Adult Bible Study

Well, good morning. If you don't have a copy of the handout, there's one of those in the back.

We are in James chapter 2. So as I have the opportunity through the week to look at James again and again and again, part of what

I'm praying for is that it will first speak to me and challenge me in a new way.

As I was thinking about it, especially yesterday, I go through a 100 different iterations of this, and drives my wife nuts as I'm trying to get out what

I want to say. I was thinking this, well, I don't know about the average pastor, but what

I would consider to be a good pastor, would spend at least 40 -45 minutes preaching in the word.

We sit, and it's usually a short section of scripture. Then I was beginning to think, what would it have been like to be back in those various churches?

Again, let me back up and remind us, James at one point in time was most likely the head pastor of the church in Jerusalem.

With the persecution that took place, that church was scattered, and people left in small groups to various cities and regions around, and either started a church or joined existing churches, and they began to have some problems.

So this epistle from James is going to these various churches.

So picture some Sunday morning, rather than getting 45 minutes of a sermon over maybe eight or 10 verses.

Ed Brill, as our head deacon, stands up in front and he reads a letter from pastor.

Now, how many verses did we say there were? There's about 105 verses.

If you're slow reading, James only takes 15 minutes. Now, catch the contrast.

Forty -five minutes, a few verses, carefully explained, and applied.

James, as Ed is getting up to read to the congregation on a Sunday morning, takes 15 minutes, no explanation, and there's more than 50 commands.

You're supposed to sit and digest that. Do you catch that? How would you like it?

Maybe pastor, you might want to do this when I'm gone, so I don't have to listen to it. Make every other sentence a command.

How many of you would be content with that sermon? How many of you would feel uplifted?

How many of you would be entertained? But did those folks need to hear this?

Do we, on occasion, need to hear, are toes stepped on?

But come on, half of the message, you're getting your toes stepped on? That's quite a contrast from how comfortable so many churches have gotten today.

So, that's all my introduction. I'm done. So, no, I'm not. So, here we go. Pull out your notes, please.

So, we're going to look at the first 13 verses of chapter two. This is a kind of a quick summary.

So, again, I've asked you previously, continue to ask you to look for James' heart, right?

Paul had a great heart. Look for James' heart, his concern for these people. Why does he give them all these commands, all these imperatives?

Because he realizes that they're getting off track, and he wants them back to their first love.

So, while we're looking for James' heart, my second admonition is that we would also be checking our heart.

How do we measure up? So, the first test that we looked at back in those first 12 verses of chapter one, was perseverance and suffering.

So, James, you can look at as a series of tests. We can also pull out keywords.

In the first 18 verses, the keyword, which is also probably the keyword for this whole epistle, is the idea of perfection or completeness.

The second test is the test of blame and temptation. When we're tempted, how do we respond?

What we looked at last week was the test of the response to the word, verses 19 through 27, the keyword doing.

Today, as we look at these first 13 verses of chapter two, the keyword is to love.

Troxell, remember Troxell? Had a series with him on With All Your Heart. He says, the desire to love and follow

Christ must be a sweeter song to us than the music of the world and our flesh.

Well stated. That could take a few minutes of meditation. How do we do that every day?

Then Warren Wiersbe says this, immature people talk about their beliefs, but the mature person lives his faith.

The way we behave toward people indicates what we really believe about God. We cannot and dare not separate human relationships from divine fellowship.

So, we've got a few verses to keep our fingers limber today. If you would join me over in First John chapter four, verse 20.

First John chapter four, in verse 20. These will be familiar to us once I start reading.

So, 420 of First John. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

For he who does not love his brother whom he cannot, whom he has seen cannot love

God whom he has not seen. Very, very clear truth. So, we're going to be starting out talking about the sin of partiality.

I want to look at about four passages of scripture so that we understand that partiality is not just a thought that James has come up with.

So, we're going to go back to Deuteronomy 10, verse 17. Excuse me.

Deuteronomy 10, 17. And we read this. 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. Then we can move a little bit further looking at Proverbs 24.

Proverbs 24. And in Proverbs 24, we'll be looking at verse 23.

These also are sayings of the wise, partiality in judging is not good.

Then in the New Testament, join me in Romans. Romans 2, verse 11, and there are, as you can appreciate, a host more, but these were four that I thought were very, very good.

This is really a long verse, Romans 2, 11, for God shows no partiality.

He just gets right to the point. And then finally, let's go back to John chapter 7, verse 24.

John chapter 7, verse 24. Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

So, we're finally ready to start in James. Join me in James chapter 2, verse 1.

We'll read this in different sections for this morning. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. So, we're going to spend a little time on here and just try to develop where James is coming from.

As we begin chapter 2, note what James does not do.

He does not use the word religion. So, go back, please, and look at verses 26 and 27 of chapter 1.

In verse 26, which we looked at last time, James says, if anyone thinks he is religious, pause there.

When James uses that word religious, the context is being like the

Pharisee, outward manifestation. You're doing this outward show to impress people, and it doesn't necessarily match your heart.

So, James says, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

And then verse 27, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the orphans, widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The thing is, as we get to chapter 2, verse 1, he doesn't carry on with that religious theme.

He drops that word, and he now starts out with the word faith. So, look again in verse 1.

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. He could have said, true religion is what?

Showing no partiality. But he associates partiality as contrasted against a good faith.

Do you see how he's made a little bit of a change? So, he's gone from religion, including external fake show stuff, to true faith in Christ.

So, let's look at this. So, he could have started chapter 2 with, true religion includes no partiality.

Instead, again, he's picked up on the word faith. Why? Because he desires to lead us from the external display, like the

Pharisees, to an inward reality. He says, really, you can't show partiality if your faith internally is genuine.

And we can define partiality here as treating people in different ways according to their outward appearance.

To do so, to judge people externally on their appearance is not only lousy religion, my word, but it is, according to James, to deny our faith.

That's a strong charge. If we're being partial in our response to and respect of people,

James is saying, you're denying your faith. Strong words.

Again, you're sitting in the congregation at your little church 2 ,000 years ago, Ed's reading this, and we're in chapter 2, and man, we're getting bruised.

He's hitting us hard and heavy. So, James then shares five features of impartiality.

Excuse me. And so, these are all bullet points. Now, what I'd like to do, starting back in verse 1 of chapter 2, read the first seven verses, and we'll begin to unpack this.

So, 2 -1, my brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the

Lord of glory. 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, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

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?

But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court, are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

So, let's look at this first aspect of impartiality, the principle.

Show, back in verse 1, do you see that word show? Show is in the emphatic position.

And again, I'm not smart enough to know this myself, but I read this. And what that basically means is, literally,

James is saying, stop showing this action.

Don't be partial anymore. Partiality, and I find this very, very interesting, you know, sometimes it's good to tear these things apart and understand the richness of the

Greek language. So, what is James saying? Stop showing, partiality.

Partiality means lifting someone's face, lifting someone's face.

So, it'd be like Roger, he comes in and I just go over and I grab his face and I check him out really, really carefully.

And I make an entire determination about who Roger is based upon me lifting up his face and looking at the externals.

So, continue with me in the notes. It literally, in the

Greek, this verse would read, stop holding up faces as you hold the faith in Jesus, the

Lord of glory. Now, that's the new Greek version. Aren't you glad?

We don't have to figure that out. But look at that as it's written in your notes. Stop holding up faces as you hold the faith in Jesus, the

Lord of glory. What James is basically saying is this, quit behaving like kids.

How do kids treat other kids? She's cute, he's ugly, everything is external.

And James is saying, you're behaving like little kids. You go around, you lift up the face, you look at people and you make a snap judgment, this is what they're like.

So, on one hand, you're doing that, while on the other hand, you're saying my

Lord is the Lord of glory and you're not behaving like you have a relationship to the

Lord of glory. Do you see all of that in verse 1? Now, let me go back to the

ESV. Show no partiality, stop lifting up the face, if you're literally holding on to Jesus.

You can't hold on to Jesus who is the Lord of glory and treat people like you're doing.

That's partiality. It's a big division. So, that's the benchmark.

Now, my wife and I, back on the last 10 years, we've had a number of opportunities and I just want to share two stories from my perspective.

And the reason I share stories from my perspective is because I know stories from my perspective rather than know stories from your perspective.

So, anyhow, we had gone several times to Zambia to do medical missions. And the way this was set up is there were a series of tents and several of the churches in that area sponsored, it was kind of an evangelistic outreach.

So, there would be a medical intake and as a chiropractor, they would go through,

I'd train my wife who's a nurse to do pre -exams and so she would do pre -exams in these people and there was this long queue of people that would have to get through the different stations, then they would get into my tent.

I would do the final exam, adjust them, and then if any follow -up was needed,

I would refer them to a medical doctor, physical therapist, whatever. So, I'm in my tent and these people are coming in one at a time.

In the wait times, we're upwards of two hours. I mean, there were a lot of people. So, all of a sudden, the flaps of the tent go flying open and in walks this entourage.

And here's this guy I've never seen with four or five people in flow. And what he was is he was the head of one of the

Zambian church groups. He bypassed two hours of waiting.

He walked in. He introduced himself with his big long titles and expected to be seen by me instantly.

Were some of the folks showing partiality? Didn't sit well with me.

I didn't say, hey, Jack, back of the line. I wanted to, but here was a guy, unfortunately, who was violating.

He was being partial. He was the big shot. He wasn't going to wait in line.

So, sometimes we do this, don't we? So, that's the benchmark. Gibson, one of our authors that we're using, says, when was the last time someone utterly unrewarding in every way received my love?

Probative question. So, let's go and look at verses two through four again. 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 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing, say, sit here in a good place, you say to the other one, stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves?

But he just doesn't stop there. He says, and become judges with evil thoughts.

Look at verse two, excuse me. In verse two, do you see the word if and in verse three, do you see the word if?

Then you get down to chapter or verse four and it says then. So, as it's listed in your notes, you have if you're doing this and if you're doing this, then this is the problem.

And the problem is, James says, you have made distinctions. You've made distinctions.

Remember that the vast majority of early converts were Jewish and poor.

Those that weren't poor were often ostracized and became poor. There was massive discrimination.

In verse three again, when it says, the poor man, poor man literally means beggar.

And beggar in those days and through much of history was a man in rags.

Could that happen here? So, another interesting story.

I don't know when, I like physical work. So, I don't know if Dan and I were to get together at the end of a day of hard physical work, who would look the worst?

I mean, my clothes are disheveled. I don't wear this when I'm out doing nasty, nasty work.

So, we had the grandkids over a number of years ago and I had been doing all sorts of work.

My shirt was kind of threadbare. My shoes were junky and the kids wanted to go for a walk.

So, I threw one up on my shoulder. I had the other one holding their hand and I'm out walking along our township road.

Looked like a total bum. That's okay. That's when I'm happy. So, I'm walking along. A car drives by, stops, backs up.

Lady rolls down the window and she says, do you need a ride somewhere? I said, no,

I just live right down the road. But I look like a what? I look like a beggar.

And she was having a great response. I would have loved to have just had a conversation. But sometimes we don't have that response, do we?

Now, cultural setting. Let's go back in time a couple thousand years. This is written in AD 178 by the philosopher

Caesus. He criticized believers portraying them as vulgar, quote, like a swarm of bats or ants creeping out of their nests or frogs holding a symposium amid a swamp.

Or worms in a convention in a corner of mud. Do you get what we're saying here?

How were many of the Christians viewed back then? They were at the bottom of the caste system.

Many of them were poor. Potentially even in rags, like beggars.

And James says, in your church, don't show any difference between the wealthy and the poor.

Don't be holding up their faces. Don't look externally. The absence of partiality is in Acts chapter 2, verses 44 through 5.

You don't need to look there. I'll just share this with you. Remember, what's taking place here, this would be about 45 to 50

AD. Acts chapter 2, way earlier, right? And what were they doing in Acts chapter 2?

As believers had need, they came together, sold, and shared equally.

So, James is kind of inferring what has happened. When we started out, the church was not showing partiality.

Now, many of you in your various congregations around Jerusalem, you're beginning to show partiality, and this must stop.

So, when it uses the word assembly, that's referring to the synagogue, the local grouping of Jewish believers.

Most of these assemblies only had a few benches in the very front. Those were the ones coveted by scribes and Pharisees.

Those were the ones given to the rich man. Remember, these are the ones the

Pharisees really wanted. It's kind of opposite of what we have today, where the coveted seats are in the, yeah?

So, I don't know what's wrong here, but at least I know two of you are Christians, the pastor and Mrs.

Dean. Then, we get questionable. How's that for showing partiality? Okay, but the idea is these guys would come in with their pomp and circumstance, like the head of that church that came into the tent, right to the front of the line, sit on the two or three benches in the front.

The rest of you scallywags, what would you have to do? Stand or sit on the floor?

So, Mike comes in in one particular, and he's five minutes late for Sunday school, and I say, excuse me,

Mike, you just sit right there on the floor. Or, I'm sitting in the front, because I like to show off my tie.

I'm sitting in the front, and I said, well, you can sit at my feet. Now, this was verbally expressed in the public setting of the church.

How embarrassing. That's what was taking place. To say, stand over there or sit down at my feet is a double show of public disrespect.

To do either, James says, is to become a person, a judge with evil thoughts.

Now, it's interesting, again, in the Greek, there's three words for evil, and the one that James uses here is this, in verse four.

That is the strongest of the three Greek words. Are you beginning to get a glimpse of how strong and emphatic

James is as he's taking fellow believers to task, because they're not holding true?

We can contrast this with the Sermon on the Mount. You don't need to look there. It's back in Matthew 5.

I just want to buzz through. Contrast what is happening in those churches with this, starting in 5 .3.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, those in spiritual bankruptcy. Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful.

Blessed are the poor in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. And then the last one that I read is, blessed are those who show partiality.

No. What a contrast. What a contrast. James says you got to stop that kind of stuff.

Okay. So, join me then as we look in verse four, and I hope

I don't lose you as I look at this. In verse four of chapter two, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

So, put a finger there, then I want you to go back to chapter one, verse six. Chapter one, verse six.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like the wave of a sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

Again, if we go back to the original language, the word for distinctions in verse four of chapter two and the word for wavering or doubting in one sixth is the same

Greek word. It literally means a divided allegiance, a hypocritical desire.

Now, I don't know how many of you happened to catch pastor's morning light this last Friday. But his basic theme was be faithful to one master in all areas of life, in the big things and the little things.

Be faithful to one master in all areas of life, in the big things and the little things.

So, if we go back to your notes, please, where these words stop making distinctions and don't doubt, we can't have a divided allegiance, exactly what pastor was talking about in the devotional.

You cannot serve both God and mammon, for if you do, you are not whole in your faith.

The religious leaders in James' day and in Christ's day, especially in Christ's day, were judging

Christ by their human external standards. And what did they think of Christ?

Crucify him. We can't do the same today. By what?

Lifting up their face and looking externally. Moitier says this, this is our small font, if our behavior is different than what our faith in the

Lord of glory demands, we set ourselves to be governed by wrong reasonings.

We have, in fact, committed a double fault. We have misunderstood our status as if it were our position to sit in judgment on others.

And we have trusted our own judgment as if by ourselves, we could make a true and accurate assessment.

On the contrary, James teaches by clear implication that in both status and judgment, the

Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the glory, must reign supreme.

Our values, our priorities, activities must ever be governed by the definition of true glory displayed in the person, the conduct, and the work of the

Lord Jesus Christ. I don't see any sliding scale there. It's Christ's perspective, not ours.

So we've talked about the principle, no partiality. We looked at the examples of the rich and the poor man.

And now we see in verses five through seven, the inconsistency. So let's look, let me read those for you again, five through seven of verse, or of chapter two.

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?

But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich, the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court, are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

So what we have then is in the inconsistency that exists between God's character and the attitude of a believer who is disrespectful of poor people.

As we looked in at the beginning of verse five in the ESV, it says, listen, my beloved brothers, catch what

James is doing here. He's saying, listen, he wants to get their attention again. He's referring to them as his beloved brothers.

So this is an admonition aimed at the heart and the mind. It is given not only from the standpoint of truth, but also from the standpoint of affection.

Have you ever noticed in pastor's sermons the affection that he has for us, even while he may be giving us admonition?

I don't know about you, but if someone admonishes me, if I feel that they have my best interest in mind, that's much easier to swallow.

And if you're going to give 50 admonitions in 15 minutes of reading, you better be able to demonstrate that.

So as direct and as hard -hitting as this epistle is, it still has a pastor's heart, a passion for both correcting and building up.

So this inconsistency has two parts. First, the divine choice of the poor, and secondly, the blasphemy of the rich.

As we look in verse 5, and he, James, uses that word poor, it is a term referring to economics.

Not the poor in spirit, like in Sermon on the Mount, but economically poor.

I have a host of verses listed there for you. There's many, many more. We're running short on time, because I'm talking again too much.

So you can read those on your own, but you're just going to have to trust me. So recall the

Old Testament sacrificial system, back in those boring chapters that you don't want to read, because it drones on and on and on.

Well, recall that God in his providence and wisdom made special provisions for the poor.

So their sacrifices would not have to be nearly as costly. Remember also the year of Jubilee, which helped kind of reset the financial scales.

And remember that when they were picking the crops, they couldn't pick all the way to the edge.

So God has always had in his heart a special place for the poor. So as we look at verse 5, the phrase,

God has chosen those who are poor to be rich in faith. In contrast, what were many of these folks in the churches doing?

You're dishonoring the poor. So James, in effect, is saying this.

How can you claim to be God's child, and yet think and act so differently from him?

You can't claim to be God's child, and yet, knowing that God has a special place in his heart for the financially poor, treat them with disrespect.

Then we get to the blasphemy of the rich, the last part of verse 6 and 7. Notice, brothers and sisters, the strong language that James employs.

Oppress, drag you, and blaspheme. That's, those aren't nice words.

Those aren't people -friendly, let's have a happy conversation. So the word of oppress means tyrannical deprivation of one's rights.

That literally means somebody with the power comes and gets rid of all your rights.

It's a unilateral. So all of a sudden, they've got all the balls in their court. So James is saying, this is what the rich are, by and large.

This is how they treat you. They treat you like crud, and yet, you give them special places of recognition in the church.

They drag you, and now, I've been pushed, you know,

I've been pulled, but I don't like being dragged. It's not a pleasant thing, and literally,

James is saying, whoever is doing this, these rich people, as they're dragging you, they personally, that's the inference.

Remember, there was a guy by the name of Saul, who did what to the Christians? Dragged them, and again, the structure of the original language, he personally would drag them into the courts, and then they blaspheme the name of Jesus.

So a couple of little paragraphs here, I just had to include them. MacArthur says this.

Here, James is saying, in effect, think about it for a moment. To be partial to the rich, and turn your backs on the poor, cannot possibly correspond to God's character, or to his word and will.

First, partiality is inconsistent with God's divinely choosing the poor, and second, the rich, whom you tend to favor, not only do not usually respect you, but are inclined to blaspheme your faith.

When you go against the poor and the outcasts, you go against those whom the Lord has specially chosen.

And when you favor the rich, you are often siding with the blasphemers. Then Moitur again.

If God calls us to live out the life of God by caring for the poor, he is equally determined that we should not be dazzled by the rich.

It is not that long ago, when the wealthy paid an annual rent to secure a well -placed seat in our parish churches, while those who could not raise the financial win had to be content with the seat in the far -off corners bearing the label, actual label, free.

So, it just wasn't in James' day. Even if such blatant inequality is now a thing of the past, it is by no means unusual for a person to have a voice in church affairs related not to his wisdom, but to his wealth.

In the same way, it is common for well -heeled congregations to assume they ought to have, and to get, the most gifted pastors.

While fellowships in less promising or attractive areas cannot expect more than the average, money still does the talking far too loudly in Christian circles, and where it, when it does, the glory of Christ departs.

Whoa! So, if we look at the pattern of history, it was culturally true then, right?

It was culturally true then. And he actually comes back, and he, in chapter 5, he comes back to it the first six verses, which you can read on your own.

While today it may not be so evident, think about this.

What do the wealthy often do? And I'm not necessarily talking within the church, but what do the wealthy often do?

Do we have any problems with some politicians who get inside trading deals, or great land deals, or take advantage of their situations of power?

What about white -collar crimes? Pastor mentioned this guy Bernie Madoff.

You remember good old Bernie? So, Bernie Madoff was quite a financial genius.

He actually kind of introduced electronic trading in the stock market. He became chairman of NASDAQ.

Now, if you don't know what NASDAQ is, that's okay, but if you're the chairman of NASDAQ, you are a pretty powerful guy.

In 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in jail for going ahead and ripping people off to the tune of about 60 billion dollars in a

Ponzi scheme. He was forced to repay a 150 billion, and as he got closer to the time of the court with interviews, he said,

I really didn't have to do that Ponzi scheme. I had more money than I could spend. I really don't know why

I did it. Well, we kind of understand. So, that's what the wealthy can do.

James says, don't look at the externals. Don't lift up the face. Meditate on this thought in verse 5.

Let me read it again. Has God not chosen the poor to be rich? And what does he promise to those who love him?

To be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. Our basic Christian wealth or currency, isn't it

God's gift of saving faith? No.

Kim, I didn't hear a single amen. Evidently, you're preaching last week was a failure.

So, can you re -give that today? Pastor can kick his down the road. Let me say that again.

Our basic Christian wealth or currency is God's gift of saving faith. That was kind of hypocritical.

Okay, caught you, okay. Let's go on to verse 7.

The rich are what? The ones who blaspheme. But I want you to catch this little phrase in verse 7.

Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? The phrase there, honorable name.

The common marriage custom used to be and most of the time still is, what does the wife do?

She takes her husband's name. Why? Because it speaks of the intimate, personal, permanent relationship.

James is saying, wait a minute. They blaspheme the honorable name that you, speaking to these churches, that you have taken as a child of Christ.

So, they're blaspheming the name of Christ which you have taken. Like a wife takes her husband's name and that doesn't bother you that they blaspheme the

Lord's name. You still give them areas of personal priority. Okay, the violation next.

For this, let me read verses 8 through 13. If you really fulfill the royal law according to Scripture, that is 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.

That's a powerful statement. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

For he 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.

So, speak and act of those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. Let's see if we can wrap this up in the next few minutes.

So, you understand that the royal law is all of Scripture. That's summarized in Matthew 22 verses 37 through 40.

The word love in verse 8 has the idea, when it says you love your neighbor as yourself, the idea of love there is this.

Do we love ourselves in the respect that don't we go ahead and provide care and attention for ourselves?

Not where we're sitting, you know, hugging ourselves. No, that's weirdness. But the very fact that we take care of ourselves and we show attention to ourselves, that's what we need to be doing for others.

By the way, the most important question is not who is my neighbor, but to whom can

I be a neighbor? That puts it on the offensive, so to speak.

So, how would society and how would the church change if that one law was followed?

Where we were actively seeking neighbors and loving them. The conditional clause we find in verse 9.

If you show partiality, and James says, hey, that's what they were doing, you are committing sin and you are convicted by the law as a transgressor.

The verb form there, when it says you are committing sin, basically infers that this was habitual blatant partiality.

It wasn't just on the occasion. They were doing this all the time. And it greatly concerned

James. There's two different words for sin. You probably know this in the

Greek. One word is to miss the mark. The other one is willfully going beyond God's limits.

So when we sin, sometimes we're just not good enough, right? Because we're not perfect.

That's the direction of our life. Perfection is. But if we miss the mark, while it's still sin, that's one thing.

The other one is purposely crossing the line, right? And James says you're guilty of both.

You're not good enough, plus you're actively stepping over the line. You are transgressors of the law.

So the opposite of the royal law, love the Lord your God, right? And your neighbor as yourself.

The opposite of that in verse 8 is the partiality that these folks were doing in verse 9.

Notice that we will never run out of neighbors. When James taught, when the royal law talks about neighbors, we'll never run out of neighbors, will we?

And I'm not talking about the folks within a hundred feet of your house. So here's just a challenge to us.

We must know our calling. In other words, we need to find out as we talk with God, which neighbors are you laying on my heart, right?

So that's the first. We must know our calling. Which neighbors is God laying on our heart? Secondly, respect each other's calling.

So let's say that Mike has a group of people that God has laid in his heart. It would be wrong for him to come to me and say, hey, if they're gonna be my neighbors, they got to be your neighbors as well.

Do you catch that? Sometimes people do that. Their mission in life becomes the mission for everybody.

No, no, no. Find out who your neighbors are. Don't expect other people or don't force other people to jump on your bandwagon.

But sometimes Mike might say, you know, this person, I think it would be important for you to be his neighbor as well.

Do you follow me? So find your ministry of people. And sometimes you need to bring others along because they will be very, very beneficial for that.

The appeal, and with this I'll close. The admonition in verse 12 is this, speak and act.

This is strong language calling for continuous action. This follows one of James Major's themes that a person's real faith will be evident in and through his works.

So if we go down to verse 13, we come to that phrase, mercy triumphs over judgment.

In other words, our mercy testifies to our saving faith. In verses 2 through 4 of chapter 2, a merciful spirit was replaced by a spirit of partiality.

Not good. In verse 13, the mercy that we need is conditional upon showing mercy.

In the plan of salvation, justice demands, right? For the wages of sin is death.

Justice demands, mercy pleads. What does Christ do in our behalf? He pleads and then mercy prevails.

MacArthur closes us out with this thought. Partiality is inconsistent with the

Christian faith because the Christian faith is consistent with the nature of God and God is wholly impartial.

Partiality is inconsistent with the purpose and plan of God in choosing the poor of this world to be spiritually rich.

Partiality is inconsistent with loving your neighbor as yourself.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the wisdom of James as shared to him through the

Holy Spirit. What a powerful epistle. As applicable as it was then, it is just as applicable today.

So help us Lord not to be a respecter of people, not to lift up their face and not to disregard you and let your name be blasphemed.

Strengthen us for our walk. Help us to be the neighbor that we need to be in your son's precious name.