No Partiality

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

The letter of James is intensely practical, but it’s never shallow. James is not concerned with our outward behavior only. He’s concerned with our hearts. He’s asking us to consider what genuine faith looks like in real life.

And this morning, he’s offering us a test case. Imagine this scene. Two men walk into the same church gathering. One is clearly wealthy. The other is clearly poor. And the church responds—not with cruelty, but with subtle preference. Better seating. Better attention. Better treatment for the rich man.

And James says to us, that exposes your heart.

We’re going to ask some uncomfortable questions today:

How do we decide who matters?
Who do we instinctively listen to?
Who do we overlook, ignore, or quietly dismiss?

Because whether we realize it or not, we are constantly making judgments about people. And James wants us to see that those judgments reveal whether we are thinking with the values of the kingdom—or the values of the world. James 2 verse 1:

[1] My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

This is not a completely new thought. James is giving us an example of good religion – something that impacts the way we speak, the way we engage with the world, and the way we treat the poor.

He commands us not to show partiality, and he gives us this example.

[2] 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,

[3] 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,”

[4] have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

This is a simple, direct illustration. James is telling us not to play favorites in church between rich and poor.

In those days, it was easy to assume someone’s wealth or poverty based on their clothing. It’s not so easy to do that in modern America. Wealthy people might show up in jeans and a t-shirt. Someone in extreme debt might show up driving a Bentley.

But the principle stands. We still have ways of deciding if another person is valuable. We do it every day. It might be what the person is wearing. It might be the color of their skin. It might be the texture of their hair. Or the way they speak. Or the language they speak.

James calls this “evil thoughts”, and it’s not an issue for one group or class of people. It’s universal. And it’s something that happens in our brain. It may affect the way we treat people, as it does in this illustration. But it might just be evil thoughts… judgments or prejudices.

And so, we should ask: In what ways are we guilty of making distinctions among ourselves? How do we decide someone’s worth? How do we decide if someone is valuable? Are we judging them on the content of their character or on outward appearances?

This is important because it impacts what James calls “true religion” at the end of chapter 1. We speak to people differently when we value them. We treat people differently. The world doesn’t value people the way God does.

[5] 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?

This is language directly from the Sermon on the Mount. It also reminds me of Christ’s conversation with the rich young man in Matthew 19. It’s difficult for a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of God. It is mostly the poor who will follow Christ. That’s a fact.

That doesn’t mean Jesus will reject the rich. There are several examples of rich disciples in
the New Testament. But God’s heart for the poor is obvious from Genesis to Revelation.

1 Samuel 16:7 – “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

Psalm 113:7 – “God raises the poor from the dust…to make them sit with princes.”

Proverbs 14:31 – “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker.”

God’s concern for the poor is not sentimental. It’s covenantal and judicial. When we treat image-bearers of God unfairly, we are offending their Creator.

[6] But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?

[7] Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

In that context, it was wealthy unbelievers who were causing the most problems for the church. They were the ones bringing accusations and committing blasphemy against the name of Christ.

But it’s still true today, at least in the sense that money gets things done. “Justice” often favors the rich.

[8] If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

When Jesus summarized the law, He always included this one. James calls it the royal law, meaning that it is the chief principle of life in the Kingdom of God. And I think it speaks to the fact that human beings are extremely valuable in God’s economy, no matter what the world says about them as individuals.

People matter more than money, more than gold, more than oil… Rich people don’t matter more than poor people. Successful people don’t matter more than unsuccessful people. Strong people don’t matter more than weak people. Smart people don’t matter more than dumb people. Attractive people don’t matter more than ugly people. Americans don’t matter more than non-Americans.

James says, if you understand this and live this way, you are doing well. But…

[9] But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

[10] For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

I’m going to mention the Sermon on the Mount often in James, because I’m convinced that James has the same purpose here in this letter. He’s raising the bar of what holiness means to us, and that’s what I think Jesus intended to do in the Sermon on the Mount.

He’s going to say something in this letter that catches all of us in sin. We’re all guilty, even though we do a pretty good job of convincing ourselves that we’re not.

But the law is not the sort of thing that you can keep halfway. It’s like glass. If it’s broken, it’s broken.

Loving your neighbor is not a participation trophy thing. It’s a win/lose thing. It doesn’t matter if you lose the game by 1 point or 100 points, you’re still a loser.

Think back to chapter 1. James teaches that our evil desires, when they have conceived will always give birth to sin and sin will always result in death. There’s no such thing as a woman being sort-of pregnant. She is or she isn’t.

And the law is like that. You’re either holy or you’re not. Spoiler alert: you’re not. Neither am I.

[11] For he who 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.

Before you say, I haven’t committed either of those sins, I would again remind you of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, if you’ve ever hated someone then you’ve broken the sixth commandment. And if you’ve ever lusted for someone then you’re guilty of breaking the seventh commandment.

What is James trying to accomplish? He’s putting us in front of the mirror of the law to remind us that we too have sinned. He’s leveling the playing field.

Sin and death make all the world’s standards of human worth irrelevant. Money, fame, beauty – what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
And now that James has humbled us, he delivers the Mike Tyson uppercut.

[12] So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

[13] For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

And there, for the first time, James hints at the Gospel. He doesn’t tell us how mercy triumphs over judgment. He’ll get to that in chapter 4. But he’s talking to believers who already know about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

James is using God’s mercy as a pattern for the mercy we are being called to show others. That’s the surface application. Don’t be quick to judge other people, because you’re a sinner too. Be merciful as God has been merciful with you.

But there’s a deeper application when you consider everything James has been teaching us about sin so far.

One of the ways we typically respond to seeing our own sin is by trying to excuse it. It’s not my fault… we will blame anyone and everyone else before we will take the blame on ourselves. We blame our parents. We blame the system. We blame the Devil. We blame God. And we may have had some bad experiences that shape the way we think, but we still make decisions and those decisions hurt other people and they hurt us.

We often deny our sin completely, usually by defining it in better terms.
I’m not arrogant, I just know what I’m doing.
I’m not angry, I’m just passionate.
I’m not gossiping, I’m just asking people to pray.
I’m not greedy, I’m just being prudent.
I’m not being selfish, I earned this.
I’m not stealing, I’m just borrowing it indefinitely and without permission.

Or we see our sin for what it is, and we respond to it incorrectly.

Sometimes we respond with shame, which cripples us with despair and instead of repenting we often fall deeper into sin.

Sometimes we respond by promising to try harder, but without the proper motivation and orientation we will eventually default back to shame.

What then is the proper response? We take the sin to God and plead for mercy before we do anything else. Think of it like any other relationship. If you offend or hurt someone, what do you need to do first before you try to make things right? You seek forgiveness.

And true repentance always leads to action. It may not be perfect or permanent, but there will be movement and growth.

James has done something very intentional in this passage. He has stripped away all the categories we like to hide behind to confront us all with the same reality: we stand equally guilty before God’s law.

But “mercy triumphs over judgment.”

The judgment doesn’t disappear. But it has been answered—in Christ. God does not ignore our partiality, our prejudice, our evil thoughts. He judged them fully at the cross. And because that judgment fell on Jesus, mercy now triumphs for everyone who trusts Him.

And that mercy changes us. If you have received mercy, you will give it.

If God has not treated you according to your sins, then you cannot insist on treating others according to their perceived value according to the world.

This is not about trying harder to be nice people. This is about living as people who know they have been spared from the judgment they deserve.