My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here’s a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
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Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?8
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.12
Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!Everyone wants to feel loved. I don’t think there are any exceptions to this. Unless you are mentally ill, you want to feel loved. Yet, not everyone feels loved. In fact, some people feel rejected. Some people feel unwelcome. And they are.
Why? Because we often are guilty of showing favoritism. We stereotype people. We categorize them based on all kinds of real and imagined differences. And then we assign certain characteristics to these people. For instance, this past week I came across a story that illustrates this. It was titled, And Understandable Bias:
The judged glared down from his bench at the prospective juror. "And just why is it," he asked, "that you don’t want to serve on this jury?" The man replied, "Well, Judge, I’m biased. One look at that man convinced me that he is guilty." The judged scowled and replied, "That man is not the defendant, he is the district attorney."
There are certain professions that are easy to stereotype. Lawyers are one of those. So are doctors, engineers, pastors, truck drivers, cab drivers, and many others. We also categorize people by ethnic differences. We all have assumptions about the Irish, the English, the Hispanic, the African-American, the South African, the Jewish, and the Oriental. I’m sure the list could go on. But these stereotypes often have no basis in fact.
A Chinese man and a Jewish man were eating lunch together. Suddenly, without warning the Jew gets up, walks over to the Chinese fellow and smashes him in the mouth, sending him sprawling. The Chinese man picks himself up, rubs his jaw and asks, "What in the world did you do that for?" And the answer comes back: "For Pearl Harbor!" His response is total astonishment: "Pearl Harbor? I didn’t have anything to with Pearl Harbor. It was the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor!" The Jew responds, "Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese—they’re all the same to me. With that they both sit down again, and before too long the Chinese man gets up, walks over to the Jew and sends him flying with a hard slap to the jaw. The Jew yells out, "What did you do that for?" And the answer comes back: "The Titanic." "The Titanic? Why, I didn’t have anything to do with the Titanic!" Whereupon the Chinese man replies, "Goldberg, Feinberg, Iceberg — they’re all the same to me!"
While this kind of story may be humorous, all too often our own opinions are just as out of touch with reality.
We also judge people based on appearance. I found a little poem that a high school student wrote:
Paul’s girl is rich and haughty
My girl is poor as clay
Paul’s girl is young and pretty
Mine looks like a bale of hay
Paul’s girl is smart and clever
My girl is dumb but good
Would I trade my girl for Paul’s?
You bet your life I would!
We judge people based on appearance every day. Is it right? The answer should be self-evident.
When we tend to group people into these neat little categories, it is easy to forget that they are all individuals with feelings and fears, hopes and dreams, just like us. And none of us like to be put into a little box.
The Bible calls us to love one another and to show that love in practical ways. James points us to the major roadblock in the way of showing love — favoritism. And James gives us some practical advice on how to overcome favoritism. Once it is overcome, we can then take a giant step forward in showing love.
How does it make you feel to be put down? Have you ever made others feel that way? How do you feel about yourself when that happens? What can you do about it? How can you make others feel loved? These are all important questions. In our text, and James gives us two ways to make people feel loved.
The first way to make people feel loved is by getting your heart right. Before we can look outward to others we must first look inward to ourselves. Our own hearts can be the biggest problem. In verse 4 of our text, James tells us that our hearts are filled with evil thoughts when we show favoritism. He asks, "have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" It doesn’t matter how you justify showing favoritism, it springs from evil thoughts. There are three ways we can deal with our heart problem.
The first is to remember who you are. James addresses us as believers in Christ. We are believers — Christians — followers of Christ. In other words, we represent Jesus Christ. We are those who have committed our lives to live for him. So, we cannot live any way we wish. We cannot hold attitudes that are evil.
The goal for every one of us as believers is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. This is what Paul tells us in Romans 8:29. Our destiny is to be conformed to the likeness of Christ. In other words, our attitudes and actions should be Christ-like.
This brings us to the second thing we need to remember. You need to remember whose you are. This is similar to the first, but has a subtle difference. We should not only remember that we are followers of Christ, but we should also remember that we represent him before the world. In considering this, we should think about Christ himself. How would Jesus deal with others? Did he show favoritism? What would Jesus do? That question has become a popular slogan today. You see the initials WWJD everywhere. It is a very good question to ask ourselves when we are dealing with others.
The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 15:7, "Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you..." How did Christ accept you? Did you wait until you had changed your behavior? Did you wait until you agreed with him? Or did he receive you when you were still in your sin? The answer is that he accepted us before we accepted him. Remember that you belong to Jesus. How would he have you represent him?
The third thing we need to do is to remember what’s at stake. And there is much at stake. Your walk with God is at stake. In verses 9 through 13, we are told that if we show favoritism we are guilty of sin and will be judged. To hold these sinful attitudes in our hearts will impair our walk with God. Sin always interferes with our relationship with God.
If we want to live in a close relationship of intimate fellowship with God, we must not only deal with the issues of sin in our actions but also deal with sin in our attitudes. Often, we excuse the sins of attitude. We typically judge the sins of action with a harsh judgment and let the sins of attitude off easy. But the sins of attitude are the fountainhead for the sins of action. This is why repentance deals with a change of mind.
The word "repent" as it is used in Scripture always deals with a change of mind. Many people think that it refers to a change of behavior. That is not true. It is true that our behavior will change when we truly repent. But repentance refers to a change of mind. The fruit of repentance is a change of behavior. What we believe impacts how we behave. It has been said that the thought is the father of the deed, and I believe that this is true. So, our attitude should be our central focus. It our attitude is not right, then nothing else is right.
Also at stake is how others feel. Their feelings count. Their feelings count because people count. People matter to God and so people ought to matter to us.
Jackie Robinson was the first black to play major league baseball. While breaking baseball’s "color barrier," he faced jeering crowds in every stadium. While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. His own fans began to ridicule him. He stood at second base, humiliated, while the fans jeered. Then shortstop "Pee Wee" Reese came over and stood next to him. He put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career.
Wouldn’t you like to be someone that makes that kind of difference in someone else’s life? You see, the choice is really yours. You do not have to be a product of your environment or experiences. You have the power to make a choice to reject the negative and harmful practice of showing favoritism. You can choose rather to be an encourager. You can be someone who puts an arm over someone else’s shoulder and makes a lasting difference in their lives.
So determine to get your own heart right first. Remember who you are. Remember whose you are. And remember what’s at stake.
The first way people feel loved is by getting your own heart right. The second way is by treating everyone else right. Look at verses 8 and 13b: If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. … Mercy triumphs over judgment!
Be compassionate. That’s the first thing we need to do in dealing with other people. James speaks of the royal law in verse 8. It is the law to love your neighbor as yourself. So this royal law is the law of love. James also tells us in verse 13 that mercy triumphs over judgment. What James is saying here is that love and mercy are ways we treat people. Our attitude ought to be one of compassion. It ought to be one of love. It ought to be one of mercy. Our hearts ought to be soft toward other people.
One mark of Christianity ought to be our love. The apostle John tells us in 1 John 4:20: Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. In other words, we can’t claim to love God if we do not show love to others. And love is something you must show. It is not enough to simply say that we love. Words can be cheap. Love is shown in actions. When we welcome someone; when we genuinely accept them; when we include them in our group; when we listen to them — they began to feel like we do truly love them. So we must be compassionate.
Be consistent. James points out in verse 10 that unless we are totally consistent in keeping the law we become lawbreakers. You can keep every law accept one and still become a lawbreaker. We are characterized by inconsistency. God, on the other hand, is characterized by total consistency. He never changes. He doesn’t need to. He is perfect in every respect. And he is totally faithful and consistent. And we should strive to be consistent in our walk with God and in our relationships with others.
Someone said, "God is good — all the time." That is true. And we should want it to be true about us as well. We should want to be people upon whom others can count. We should want to be people others see as steadfast. They should know that we’re going to treat them the same as we treat everyone else — with love and compassion — all the time.
Jesus gave us the "Golden Rule" to live by. Some people think this rule is "Do unto others before they do it unto you." That is not what it says. It says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." In other words, we are to treat other people as we want to be treated ourselves. I know I want to be treated with compassion consistently. I believe everyone does.
Let me ask you to do two things. The first is to search your hearts for attitudes that don’t belong there — attitudes of favoritism — attitudes of prejudice — attitudes of superiority. If you find these attitudes then repent of them. Ask God to take them out of your heart. Ask God to replace them with attitudes of love and compassion.
The second thing that I would like you to do is to search your minds for people you have not treated right. Ask God to show you who those people are. If you do, you can be certain that God will reveal those people to you. Those people may be people you work with. Those people may be people you live with. They may be your neighbors, or some of your friends, or some of your relatives. You need to resolve to treat those people differently in the future. You may even need to ask those people to forgive you for treating them so poorly in the past. Resolve today to treat everyone with love and compassion, as you would want to be treated yourself.
If we will get our own heart right and begin to treat everyone else right, you can make others feel loved. May God help us to do just that.
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