Atlanta Bible Baptist Church

Pastor Ray P. Smith: Hey man, if you have your copy of the scriptures, I invite you to take them and turn with me to the book of James. We're going to start into chapter two this morning and talk about a very important issue. That issue is favoritism, or as James calls it, partiality. I know this is for other people because none of you are ever guilty of being partial. Listen for their sake so that you can have something to share with them.

James says this: "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 in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the 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: Has God 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 courts? Do they not 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."

Father, thank you so much again for this morning. Thank you for allowing us to get up, get out, and get in, and to be under the hearing of the word of God. What a great privilege that is. We are so blessed. Most of the world is not able to come and sit and hear the word of God without oppression. Some who dare to try to do it have to sneak. There are some places in the world where it is a crime to name the name of Christ and convert to Christianity.

But Father, we're able to come freely as often as we like and listen to as much as we desire, and to read it and have it and talk about it. We don't want to take that for granted. Thank you so much for the privilege of being here. Thank you for allowing your spirit to teach us as we sit at your feet and as he drives your word into our hearts. Give us ears to hear, hearts to respond, hands and feet to obey. Bind the evil one that he have no part in anything that is said in the next few minutes. Father, as always, we pledge to give you the praise and the honor and the thanksgiving. We look forward to hearing from you. We ask all of these things in Jesus's name and for his sake. Amen.

In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days, he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus, he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India. One Sunday, he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian.

When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and he never returned. He said, "If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain a Hindu." That usher's pride and his prejudice, his partiality, not only betrayed the name of Christ, but it turned a person who may have wanted to trust Christ into one who turned away from Christ. Partiality reared its ugly head.

Last time we were in the book of James, we talked about the test of true religion and we looked in chapter one at the last two verses of that chapter. We said that genuine faith is demonstrated by controlled speech, compassionate service, and character that is spotless. Today, we want to deal with this problem of partiality, the problem that says you don't belong with us, you go over there because we have our own stuff.

This section goes from verse one down to verse 13. I'm going to tell you right up front because we probably won't finish this today. We see the principle explained in verse one, we see a picture of it in verses two through four, then there's this paradox in verses five through seven, and then violation. I'm sorry, I could not come up with a P word to fit in my alliteration, so I used the word violation. Then verses 12 through 13, the preeminence of mercy.

This morning, we want to just cover those first two, maybe those first three points and then I'm going to pause because my time will probably be up. Let's talk about the principle. The principle: partiality is incompatible with the faith. If you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ and you walk in partiality, if you show favoritism, if you're not treating all people alike, you're in sin because you're not being like the one who saved you.

God shows no partiality. We can prove that. James says, "My brethren, don't hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism." Why do you highlight those words? Interestingly, I told you before in the Greek that word order doesn't mean anything. You don't have to do subject-verb-object. You can put any word anywhere in the sentence and it's linked together by case and gender and number.

What they tended to do is they would take the words that they want to emphasize the most and put them at the beginning of the sentence. Those words "Do not with an attitude of personal favoritism hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ" appear first in that sentence in the original language. James is saying don't you dare have personal favoritism and then say that you have faith in our glorious Lord and Savior. It just doesn't fly.

God shows no favoritism. Job says this: "The righteous mighty one who says to a king, 'worthless one,' and to nobles, 'wicked one,' who shows no partiality to princes, nor to the rich above the poor. God doesn't do that. They're all the work of his hands. We're all equal before God. There's no big I, little you, or big you, little I in the sight of God. We're all equal."

There will be tribulation, Paul says in Romans, and distress for every soul of man, not just some people, but for all people who do evil. But glory and honor and peace to everyone, irrespective of which side of the fence you were born on. Everyone who does good to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why? Because there's no partiality with God. God doesn't favor me over you and he doesn't favor you over me. He sees us all equally. Christ died for all of us equally.

In the eyes of God, we all have worth only because of what Jesus did for us, not because of anything we do, regardless of what other people say or think. Deuteronomy says this: "You shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike." I read when I was in college about these two college kids, these two girls. They were out randomly and they went down the road. They saw a rocking chair on this porch at this house, and they decided that would look really nice in their dorm room. So they went up and they took that rocking chair. They stole it.

They got caught and they got arrested, and they went to trial and they got convicted. It was interesting because when the newspaper reported, they said right down from there, there was an article about a guy who had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars and they gave him probation. Someone in the comments said that's life in America. See, the poor people, they get convicted, but the rich people, they get off.

That's not true with God. God sees everyone alike. What would it be like in our society if we were more like God and less like us? Deuteronomy 10 says, "The Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God." We sing that song, don't we? Our God is an awesome God. But listen, who does not show partiality or take a bribe? You don't have anything to offer God that will cause him to say, "Oh, okay, well, I'll turn my head."

There isn't anything that you have that God needs. He said, "The cattle on a thousand hills are mine. If I was hungry, I wouldn't ask you. I would tell you. What are you going to give me?" He covers the universe. He doesn't need anything you have or I have, so he can't be bribed. You can't butter God up. When I was in pharmacy school, we had midterms and finals. That was it. You failed the midterm, you better hope you passingly pass the final or you're going to be in summer school.

What I had this habit of doing when it was time to take the test, I made sure I got up early, I had devotions that day. I read my Bible, I read Exodus. I was praying. I did all the stuff all the way to school. You got to butter God up. You can't butter God up. You can't do anything he doesn't already know you're going to do. No partiality with God.

Leviticus 19 says, "You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly." Everybody is treated equally. Look at the situation right now surrounding Nolan Wells. What would have happened if there had not been the assumption that because he was on a boat with four white guys and he came back by himself, they must have done something? That was the assumption from the jump.

What if there was no partiality just because of the difference in ethnicity? Now, no matter how it shakes out, if they say we don't find any wrongdoing, they're going to say, "Oh, no, they covered up something." And if they find some guilt somewhere on somebody, they're going to say, "Oh, they were pressured into doing that." It's just going to divide everybody. Partiality does that. If you could just say it doesn't matter the ethnicity of the person, then you can just look at the evidence objectively and go on. But that's not what we do in this nation.

We make everything in our nation about race. Excuse me, about ethnicity. I have to be careful. I'm used to saying race, but there's only one race. I told you before, I was filling out forms at the doctor's office and they said, "What is your race?" and they put all these ethnic groups. I scratched all of those out and I put "human." The lady said, "Did you write human?" Yes, I did. There's only one race.

I'm fighting against that thought. But listen, if we saw everyone as equal before the one who created us, then we wouldn't have nearly as much trouble as we have today. Racism exists. Yes, it does. If you wonder if it does, just look at the fact that there are 350,000 Haitians threatening to be deported. Why that group? Why don't they say anything about the millions of illegals from Central and South America and China and 70 different countries who have come across the border illegally?

Why don't they make an issue of getting those people out? No, but they say the 350,000 who were brought here because it's not safe to live in that country. Now they say, "Oh, it's safe enough for you to go back." But the Justice Department says we don't want anybody flying over to Haiti because it's not safe there. But they want to send 350,000 people back there. What is that? Well, that's racism. Of course. But it's partiality. They're not treating everyone alike, and God hates that.

Proverbs 24 says to show partiality in judgment is not good. In case you missed it, he says it again four chapters later: to show partiality is not good. Why? God hates that. He hates it when we do that. I told you before, I only have so many stories, so they get recycled. When I was working at Kroger on Moreland, the Kroger was really sad because I watched every Friday. All of the people, about 70 or 75 people worked in that store, and every Friday, all the people came and lined up at the front and they all got paid.

In the pharmacy, we got paid once a month. Instant budgeting. Every now and then, I would need to go and get some changes, some adjustments made to my paperwork. I went down to corporate to HR and I walked in, and the guy saw me coming in. I'm dressed, I've got my shirt and jeans and sneakers and whatever. Then he put his head back down and went on doing what he was doing.

I walked in and came up, and he says, "Can I help you?" still looking down. I said, "I need to get some paperwork changed." "What store you work at?" and I gave him the store number. "Okay, we got seven, eight different departments. What department you work in?" I said "pharmacy." He stopped. "What were you doing in the pharmacy?" I said, "I'm the pharmacist." He said, "Oh."

You know what he did? He pushed back from his chair, he got up, he came around his desk, he walked up to me and he shook my hand. Then he ushered me to a seat and then he discussed my situation. That's partiality. It shouldn't have mattered to him what my job was, but it did. We're not to show partiality in judgment. Let's look at the picture. I'm going to show you why I put that picture up there. See that gold suit? See how it shines like that? That's the picture that James is painting.

He says if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring, dressed in fine clothes—the word "fine" there literally means shining, dazzling, bright—he comes in so blissfully dressed, so ornately, the ushers get up, they open the door for him and walk him to his seat. You say, "Have a seat, sir. Would you like a bulletin? Here's a visitor's card to fill out. In fact, do you want me to fill it out for you?" and they're just cheesing over the guy.

Wait a minute. Then another guy comes in and he's just dressed grungy. He obviously shops at Walmart. He don't do Macy's or Nordstroms or anywhere. He's a Walmart guy. He comes in, he's shabbily dressed and you say, "Oh, well, seats are in the back, go and get you one." You've made distinctions, he said. You pay special attention to the one wearing the dazzling clothes and you say, "Sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there. It doesn't matter where you go. Sit down here by my footstool, nobody can see me."

He says have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges? The word "judges" is *diakrino*. *Krino* means to judge, but *diakrino* means to separate out, divide out, so that you make a distinction between one thing and another, between one person and another, between one set of values and another. That's what you're doing with this person that God has sent in.

Let me ask you some unfair questions. Do we treat successful people differently? Do we cater to some sort of people and not to other sorts of people? One reason why the pastor doesn't know what people give is I don't want to know what you give. You know why? Because I don't want to treat you according to what you give. In fact, I only know what some of you give because you do the most complaining. The people that complain the most don't give anything. That's how it was in Michigan. It may not be like that down here.

But I don't want to treat you according to what you have. I don't want to treat you according to what you give. I want to treat you according to the value that Christ has assigned to you. That's the only thing that matters to me. I tell people all the time, they say, "Pastor, I know you're busy, I'm sorry to interrupt you." Listen, people are not an interruption of my time. They're the reason for my time. What have you got? What do you need? I will walk with you to the ends of the earth if you need my help.

Now, if you're just messing around—some people want your time but they don't want to change. I haven't got time for stuff like that. But if you're serious, I will give you as much time as you need. Just yesterday, I said, "Call me. We can talk this out. Let me know what you need. I'm here for you because you matter." People matter to God, therefore people matter to me. It's not that some people matter and other people I don't care for. People matter, period.

Whether they're successful according to what the world counts as success or not, are we more welcoming to those who can benefit us? You know, someone knocked on your door. There was this one commercial where the mom says to the daughter, "Hey, there's a guy at the door to see you," and she puts out a nondescript brand of peanuts. She said "Dr. Somebody," and she snatches that and puts the Fisher peanuts there. You've got to make a good impression.

Sometimes we think about who can benefit me. What do you have to offer me? You're only valuable because I can get something from you in return. God hates that. Do we ignore people who seem to be insignificant? The church should be the one place where everyone is welcomed equally. You come in and you're welcome. Now, you might come in with some issues that need to be worked on and ironed out, but we're all in recovery. All of us came through those doors with some kind of issue that needed to be addressed and worked out, else we never would have come through the door.

God brought us here and put us into this body, this august body, this great body of people so that we can all be healed and whole and helped. That's why he sent us here. You belong here and you're welcome here. It should not be that anyone is not welcomed here.

I pull this example out of Acts chapter 10 because Peter was number one. You know that the 12 apostles were grouped in three tiers, and the top tier, the first four, Peter was at the top of the list in all four accounts. Peter was the man, and Christ even said to Peter, "I'm going to give you the keys of the kingdom." He allowed Peter to be the one who opened the doors of faith to the Jews in Acts chapter two. He allowed Peter to be the one who laid hands on the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter eight. He's the one who shared the gospel with the Gentiles at Cornelius's house in Acts chapter 10. Peter was the man.

But Peter had some issues. Peter had some issues of racism. To make the point, God sent this righteous Gentile. He wasn't saved, he didn't know the Lord, but he was seeking the Lord. God sent an angel to appear to him and said, "Send to Joppa, the house of a man there, and ask for Simon called Peter, and he'll tell you what to do." Meanwhile, Peter was at the house of Simon the tanner. He's up on the roof waiting for dinner. He's hungry, he falls into a trance, and he sees this sheet come down with all these unclean animals on it.

He hears a voice, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat." He said, "Oh, no, no, Lord, I've never allowed anything unclean to touch these lips." And the sheet went back up. In a little while, the sheet came back down again with all kinds of unclean animals, and the voice says, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat." "No, no, Lord, I've not allowed anything unclean to touch these lips." Three times God did that.

After the third time, he woke up and somebody said, "Peter, there are some guys down here to see you. They're asking for you by name." They were these Gentiles. So Peter said, "I'm going to go with them," and he got a couple of Jewish homies to go with him and we went to the house of Cornelius. When Cornelius says to him, "I saw the Lord and the Lord said to send for you, and now I've got this house full of folks, we're all here waiting to hear what God told you to tell us," Peter says, "I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality."

In every nation, the man who fears him and does what's right is welcome to him. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew, it doesn't matter if you're a Gentile, it doesn't matter who you are or what you are, God will save you. It took him personal interaction. God had to show him: don't call unclean what I've cleansed. Sometimes we just need to learn that. We look at some people like, "Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood." We don't want to be bothered with them because they park their car on the grass.

"I need to move." You don't think about the fact that maybe that car parked on the grass is a statement to you from God that this person needs to know Christ so his value system can change. Do you think like that? You should. Instead of saying, "My property value is going down, I've got to sell while I can get some money and get up out of here," because they've got animals, and animals have this habit—they'll turn spots in your lawn green. You think of all of those reasons why they don't need to be in your neighborhood, but you don't stop to think that maybe God put them in my neighborhood so that I could be the instrument of offering salvation to them.

Maybe they won't receive Christ, maybe they won't, but what if they do? Would you say no to them? Would you leave them on the path to eternal judgment so that you can have a nice lawn? Is that the goal?

Let's look at the paradox right quick. A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement. How can that be? It's something that you look at it and it doesn't make sense that it would be that way. James says this: "Listen, my beloved brethren: Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith?" Isaiah 61, which Jesus mentions in Luke chapter four: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor."

He's chosen me to preach, to bring good news to the poor. James says God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him. The people who are downtrodden, God has lifted up. And the people who think they're all that and three bags of chips, God has brought down, so that God says neither one of you is better than any other of you. Before me, you're all equal.

I remember Preacher Brown, way back in the day. He was talking about the faith of the slaves and he said, eschatologically, slaves had nothing to look forward to but heaven because their life on earth was miserable. But they sang these songs and they talked about the day when they were walking. They said, "You know, when I get to heaven, I'm going to get me some shoes," because the master never gave them shoes. "I'm going to walk all over God's heaven."

Their whole life was confined to an area no bigger than this area down here in front of the church. The whole lot of them. Nothing for them. But they looked forward to what God would give them. He says the poor of this world, they're rich in faith. They look forward to the promise of God. He says, but you've dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you? They're the first one to lawyer up and say, "Well, you didn't sell me everything I wanted to buy. I'm going to call my lawyer and take you to court."

Poor people don't do that. Poor people get mad and then they go to the next store. It's the rich folks that fight for their right because they've got money and they'll sue at the drop of a hat. In fact, the only poor people that sue are the ones that the rich lawyer says, "If you let me represent you, then you don't even have to pay me unless I win." The lawyers are the ones making all the money.

The irony is this: the wealthy whom they were honoring were often the very ones who were oppressing them. James says why do you honor those who dishonor Christ? It doesn't make sense. That's the paradox. It's weird, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Mary said this: "My soul exalts the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." This is after the announcement that she will be the mother of the Messiah. She says, "For he has regard for the humble state of his bondservant." God could have chosen anyone. He didn't go up to the palace. He didn't even go down to Jerusalem, the city of the great king. He went down to Bethlehem, the city where David was born, and he found this one little girl. In fact, she wasn't even from Bethlehem, she was living in Nazareth.

He has regard for the humble state of his bond slave. He has done mighty deeds with his arm, he scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He's brought down rulers from their thrones and he has exalted those who were humble. God evens out, he evens the score. He's filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. Only God can do that. And because God is like that, then the people of God ought to think like that. We ought not to play favorites. We ought not to be partial. We ought to see people like God sees people.

James gives another example of the test of authentic faith. Notice Jesus never practiced favoritism. He didn't. He welcomed all types of people. He reached out to tax collectors and then simple fishermen. He reached out to children, he reached out to women in a society where rabbis never spoke to women, period. He reached out to lepers, he reached out to those hated Samaritans, he reached out to beggars, he reached out to the rich, he reached out to the poor. Jesus reached out to everybody.

We are the body of Christ, which means we ought to be open to reaching out to everybody. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Christ died for sinners from every nation, every tribe, every language, every people. In light of these truths, I have to do three things: I have to number one, examine my own prejudices. Now, I'm not going to stand here and assume that none of you have any prejudices. I know you do.

When I was working in Pennsylvania when I was in seminary, I was working at this store. There was this guy named Vince. Vince was an Italian. He loved Syracuse and the NCAA tournament was coming up. He says, "Who you got? Who you gonna root for?" Big East guy, I said, "I'm rooting for Georgetown." His whole face changed. He said, "Georgetown? But John Thompson, he's that coach who breaks the rules. He brings in all these thugs, they can't even half read. He doesn't do right. How could you possibly root for somebody like that?"

I said, "He's a brother, and his whole team is a black team. Who else am I going to root for?" He looked at me, he was stunned. Stunned me and he said to me, "You would root for a team just because the coach and the players are black?" He'd never thought like that. He didn't see race like that. He was like, people are people. He knew I was in seminary studying for the ministry, and he couldn't believe that I thought like that.

To me, I'm like, hey, if the brothers win, I'm happy. I don't know any of them. Why? Because they're black like me. Now that I'm further down the road, I realize God cares about character. It's not about ethnicity. It's about people who are either right before him or not right before him, and it doesn't matter what ethnicity they are. We have some friends from all different ethnic groups, and I think that's what God wants. Heaven's going to look like that, by the way. When you get there, you're going to be surprised.

Ask God to reveal any hidden favoritism in you. Are there areas of my life where I'm not being above board and honest with people? Then be willing to intentionally build relationships with people who are not like you. That takes courage, but I believe that's what God wants us to do.

It was related once that the Duke of Wellington stayed to take communion at his parish church, and there was a very poor man who went up on the opposite side and, reaching the communion table, he knelt down close by the side of the Duke. Immediately, people were like, "The Duke! This poor ruffian coming next to him." Someone came and they touched the poor man on the shoulder and whispered to him to move farther away or to rise up and let the Duke have his communion and then do his.

But the Duke heard and saw what was happening, and he grasped the old man's hand and he held him to keep him from rising. Then he said, "Don't move. We're equal here." Just because I'm a duke, I'm not better than you. We're equal here. May God help us, may he help you and me to think like that, to act like that, to be impartial just like God is, because he is like that.

Father, thank you again for this day, thank you for your word, thank you for the fact you don't play favorites. If you did, some of us would probably be on the outs because we don't have a lot of money or we're not that smart, we're not that good-looking, we don't have that much, or we were born on the wrong side of the tracks. Father, you don't care about any of that. You save people from every nation, tribe, and people group.

It doesn't matter where you are economically, it doesn't matter where you are, you're not favoring men over women, you're not favoring rich over poor, you're not favoring any ethnic group over others. You care about us all. You sent Christ to redeem us all. May the love of Christ, the same love that brought him for everyone, may that love fill our hearts and give us the freedom, the boldness, the courage to reach out to any and everyone.

I pray if there's anyone here who has never received Christ in the pardoning of their sins, may before the day is over, even before our service is over, may it become very apparent to them that they need to bow the knee of their hearts and receive the Christ who gave his life for them. He loves them without partiality. May they receive him today as Savior and Lord. And may those of us who name the name of Christ live like it, walk like it, talk like it. We ask in his name and for his sake. Amen.