The Sin of Partiality

If you would turn with me to James chapter 2, three. Looking at verses one through 13.

As we continue our study of this very short but very practical book in the New Testament James has just warned us against the tendency of hearing the word without doing the word listening but not obeying. And so now he gives us an example of what hearing without doing might look like James to verses 1 to 13 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 the poor man in shabby clothing also comes in as 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 is promised to those who love him. 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 I which you were called. If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 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.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it 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. So speak and so act as 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 is the word of the Lord's prayer Holy Spirit. You are the one who searches everything, even the deep thoughts and counsel of God the father, you indwell us that we might understand and believe and obey. The truth is that have been freely given to us by the father in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit would you teach us tonight. Give us your perfect wisdom, that we might walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we been called in Christ Jesus's name I pray, amen they can be seated James's message in our text tonight is very simple and straightforward. It's that there is no place for partiality in the church because partiality is antithetical to the gospel. I think it's interesting that the sin of partiality is very much front and center in the current cultural moment in which we find ourselves today. It seems that the loudest voices are telling us incessantly that the most egregious vices. The worst offense has been committed. The most common sends of the age are all rooted in some underlying expression of unjust prejudice, partiality, whether it's racism or social justice gay-rights feminism. All of these causes have at their roots. The accusation that one group is unjustly judging and mistreating another group and so depending on whether you are the accuser or the accused. You're either hyper passionate about your cause or you get hyper annoyed that you're being unjustly accused of being unjust. I never cease to be amazed at how relevant and timeless. God's word is here we are living in the 21st century dealing with cultural tensions that to us seem unprecedented. And yet, in the normal course of events we come tonight to a text written 2000 years ago that addresses this very contemporary current issue of the sin of partiality.

So what were going to do tonight is what sincere Christians have have always done were going to go to God's word and were gonna let that word rather than the culture around us. Instruct us and shape our thinking and our beliefs and our behavior.

The devil has spent all of history. Trying to redefine sin on his own terms and to redefine how sinners are to be redeemed from sin, and so we need the corrective of God's word. We need to get both our definitions and our solutions with regard to sin from God. So that being said, we have been forced tonight the word of God, a word that gives us the definitions it gives us the solutions. In fact, it answers all the questions that we need to have answered. To be able to fully identify and be redeemed from the sin of partiality three questions I want us to consider tonight. First of all, what is partiality. How does Scripture define this and that everyone seems to be talking about.

Secondly, I wants to ask what makes partiality so wicked, is it really all that bad, does it does it warrant a sermon tonight and then finally when asked how do I rid myself of the sin of partiality.

In other words, what is God's solution.

Three questions and three answers from the word of God's list begin. First of all, what is partiality the word partiality in our text. Here is a compound word from two Greek words, the verb to receive or to accept and the now face. So to show partiality is to accept the face. This is an expression of figure of speech that describes the way people tend to size each other up based solely on what is visible in English idiom that might mean something similar would be our are saying to judge a book by its cover when we say that we mean a person is making a value judgment about something based solely on external immediate impressions rather than on thoroughfare analysis someone who is partial is a respecter of persons. They assess other people based on outward circumstances rather than intrinsic merits. Someone, for example, is rich or maybe physically attractive woman. They must be smart and talented. If someone is poor, and ugly. They must have a character flaw. It made them that way. This is partiality. Judging from appearances now in James's example. He describes a well-dressed man entering a room where the church is gathered, perhaps for a worship service like this one, and in following this well-dressed man there enters a shabby poor looking fellow.

The usher reached the well-dressed man.

He offers him a seat of honor while he disregards a shabby man and even tells him to sit on the floor at his feet. This this usher has made value judgments based solely on what he can see the sin of partiality. Now be honest I've gone to church all my life and never, to my recollection, have I seen a service in which the ushers reserve the best seats for the well-dressed and the wealthy and forced the poor at the sit on the floor. I think something culturally specific to James's timeframe is going on here something that must be lost to us in the year 2021, but that doesn't mean the sinful tendency to be a respecter of persons is lost on us. Surely we can understand the attitude behind this this action and there are other ways that we today share in the sin of partiality.

In fact, the apostle Paul expands the categories a little bit beyond just rich versus poor.

In Galatians 3, Paul says that in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

And then he mentioned several categories that were evidently matters of partiality in his day, and I think we can identify with these in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, that has to do with ethnic distinctions when it comes to membership in the church of Jesus Christ. Ethnicity does not add or subtract and Alex of value or credibility or clout to anyone.

Paul says that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, and I think broadly, this has to do with socioeconomic status. We don't have slaves in our culture anymore, but certainly there are distinctions of social class.

Some people are white-collar professionals who manage huge corporations and make millions of dollars a year. Others are blue-collar laborers, whose bodies and and bank accounts reflect a hard earned wage. Neither of those statuses adds to nor subtracts from one's value in the body of Christ annexed Paul says there is no male and female. This obviously has to do with gender distinctions. Neither gender adds to nor subtracts from a person's union with Christ. Paul continues his list in the in Colossians 3 and he includes a couple more categories us. Look at those were briefly he says there is neither circumcised nor uncircumcised. This is a reference to the Jew and Gentile distinction, but with special emphasis on religious practices of each week, we might apply this categorical distinction to maybe the denominational differences that we have today. Some Christian circles observe a formal liturgy, while others an informal liturgy.

Some some Christian groups enforce a very strict ethic, and when it comes to things like drafts or music or dating while others are more lenient with these things within the scope of the church. These external differences don't determine any individual Christians value and there's one more categories it that Paul mentions, there is no barbarian or Scythian. I think these would be distinctions of cultural taste or cultural refinement. The Christian who is maybe comfortable way high up on the refinement scale is no less or no more in Christ than the Christian who could care less about the scale. Why because it's not ethnicity or gender, or social status that gives moral and spiritual value.

It's Christ. So at its most basic level, partiality is about basing our value judgments and treatment of other people on superficial grounds, artificial categories, but there's more to this sinful attitude than just that. James goes on to point out that partiality involves not just the shallow, superficial judge minimalism but it's up as a shallow judge mentalism that's accompanied by wicked motives. He says in verse four that in their shallow judge mentalism. These Christians were actually making themselves judges with evil thoughts with wicked motives. You see there's nothing wrong inherently was showing honor to the rich. What James's readers were doing wrong was that they were only showing honor to the rich to the neglect of the poor. Their motive was wrong. This expose the fact that their their motive was not one of love for the wealthy. Nothing wrong with loving rich people know their motive was one thing to benefit from their pandering to the wealthy to the rich's love for other people was their concern. They would've shown equal honor to the poor man, but they didn't so their inconsistent behavior expose the wicked motives. Evidently some sort of vain desire of attaining favor from the wealthy. You may read these verses and be thinking to yourself, why don't pander to rich people. So I'm not guilty of the sin of partiality which you know some of us are probably more comfortable around poor people.

And so we end up showing partiality, but in the opposite direction.

Perhaps we feel inferior around wealthy folks. We resent the fact that they have what we don't have and so maybe we ignore and spurn the rich telling ourselves. They're just hoity-toity and we hobnob with the down and out because it makes us feel better about ourselves is the same route.

Sin of partiality it's it's a shallow judge mentalism it's grounded in selfish motives.

I think we all have a tendency to redefine the sins we are guilty off so as to minimize our guilt will do that when I think about the sinful attitudes and thought processes that lead to partiality. I find myself downplaying the seriousness of it all. Sinclair Ferguson said that he would much rather have had James describe partiality in terms of having more of an affinity toward certain people than others or or getting along with certain personality types better than others when it makes it sound. Also palatable, doesn't it not really judging others unfairly and just naturally drawn to people that are, you know, pretty much like me what's wrong with that. What is it that makes partiality so wicked.

We need to wrestle with this question because until we come to terms with the seriousness of our sin. We really won't be motivated to deal with it like we should, so this brings us into the second question that our text answers and is this what makes partiality so wicked, what makes partiality so wicked in their several answers. The first is that it dishonors genuine brothers and sisters in Christ. Verses five and six has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, but you have dishonored the poor man. Now we need to be careful here James is not saying that a person is safe simply because he is poor nor that a person is condemned to hell simply because he is wealthy.

These these statements are generalizations. James doesn't mean that only the poor, and none of the rich are chosen by God for salvation. Scripture has plenty of examples of both rich Christians and poor evens. James is simply stating a principal and a general truth that many of the poor and few of the rich are chosen in the Bible tells us why this is the case, and it has to do with God getting the glory for saving sinners. First Corinthians 1 says that God chose what is low and despised in the world so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So it has nothing to do with some inherent virtue in poverty or some inherent vice and wealth that's not what's going on here.

It's important for us to understand this because it corrects the world's notion that the sin of partiality is always and only in one direction the world would have us believe that partiality is a send only the rich and powerful commit against the poor and powerless. And that's not true.

It's not power and wealth that make partiality wicked partiality is wicked because it is a demeaning and a dishonoring of fellow errors of the image of God, some of whom have who have even been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and that dishonoring of another person can happen in both directions. The powerful toward the powerless and the powerless toward the powerful. We become are specters of persons by favoring the rich to the neglect of the poor were treating someone for whom Christ died as if their worthless. That's what makes it wicked when we pander to the rich. For the sake of personal gain were acting as if the rich person's spiritual need for salvation is is inconsequential, so long as we can benefit from their material abundance. That's what makes partiality so wicked, so partiality is wicked because it dishonors the rich by ignoring their spiritual need. It dishonors the poor by ignoring their physical need. Not only does partiality dishonor the rich and the poor. It also dishonors the honorable name of Christ.

Verse seven says that the rich, to whom James's readers were evidently pandering were by their treatment of the church blaspheming the honorable name by which believers are called when we honor those who dishonor Christ, we are indirectly dishonoring Christ to be so easily enamored with the enemies of God simply because they dress well or are highly educated or can pad your pocket is to bring reproach upon the Christ whom they blaspheme through their ill-treatment of the church. John Calvin said this, he said, when the pumps of the world become preeminent so as to cover over what Christ is.

It is evident that faith has little vigor to be enamored with trinkets is to demean the real treasure to honor that which Christ despises is to despise Christ. This is what makes partiality so despicable. But notice 1/3 reason why partiality is so wicked, it's because it is a transgression of the second great commandment transgression of the second great commandment. We see this in verses eight and nine if you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture which is you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well, but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. So James tells us here that the opposite of partiality is love for one's neighbor.

Now that raises the stakes doesn't in fact Jesus was asked which is the great commandment in the law and he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment within Jesus added in a second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And that's the royal law that James quotes in verse eight, but then Jesus concludes by saying on these two commandments love for God love for our neighbor depend all the law and the prophets. Theologians have pointed out that every command in the Bible can can trace its ethical moral grounding back to the 10 Commandments of the 10 Commandments are sort of a shorthand a summary of all of God's commands and the 10 Commandments themselves can be summarized by these two great commands that Jesus highlights in his in his answer about which command is the greatest.

The first four commandments and the 10 Commandments are explicitly about our relationship to God and there summarized by this command to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind and in the last six commandments of the 10 are explicitly about our relationship to our neighbor with each other and there summarized by the second great commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. Paul makes this very point in Romans 13 when he says the commandments starts to list the 10 Commandments, you shall not commit adultery shall not murder, you shall not steal. You shall not covet in any other commandment are summed up in this word you shall love your neighbor as yourself is a list follow this through James equates the sin of partiality with a breaking of the law to love your neighbor as yourself and loving your neighbor as yourself is a summary of over half of the 10 Commandments which is itself a summary of all of God's moral law books.

This means that when we show partiality we are breaking the law of God on grand scale. This is no minor offense.

We can hardly excuse the sin away is just a personality quirk or an affinity for certain dispositions know partiality is a failure to love people and ultimately a failure to love God's law, but then James ups the ante even more. In verses 10 and 11. Not only does partiality dishonor our Christian brothers and sisters. Not only does it dishonor the honorable name of Christ. Not only is it a transgression of the second great commandment, but partiality also incurs a comprehensive guilt incurs a comprehensive guilt. Verse 10 introduces the principal regarding God's law.

It says whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it is the God's law is a perfect unity. It bears no inconsistencies, no contradictions, and so to break even just one part of the law even if the rest of it is is externally kept, is to incur guilt. It would be like an athlete who who keeps all the rules of the game, except one wouldn't matter if he kept every other rule and excelled in every other way he would still be disqualified as they say close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades right but with certain things close doesn't cut it.

It's got to be all or nothing. By definition can't be sort of male or female, by definition, it's got to be one of the other.

You can't be mostly dead, by definition, it's got to be one or the other. So it is with the law of God you can't be generally law-abiding, you either The law or you broken and if your lawbreaker at any point you really have no grounds for saying you know, I may have stumbled here and there but deep down I really do love God. Calvin said that would be like a judge who condemned nine thieves and acquitted the 10th is inconsistency and exposes the fact that he really doesn't hate crime he hates men in the same way to obey parts of God's law while neglecting other parts exposes the fact that it's really not God's law that we love a partial obedience is a pretend obedience, not a real one other reason, this instruction is necessary is because of our tendency to rank sins according to greatness.

In fact, an entire book has been written on this very tendency. Like most of us here grace are familiar with the book respectable sins. We tend to rank our sins based on their respectability and don't misunderstand different stands have varying levels of of consequence or scandal attached to them, like the Westminster confession points out that some sins are indeed more heinous than other synapse certainly true. Don't deny that Jesus himself speaks of of some sins being greater than other sends John 1911 certainly to look lustfully at a woman is to commit adultery with her in your heart, but it is even more heinous, more scandalous, more consequential and damaging to commit adultery with the woman in the body. We understand that right so James's point is not that all sins are equally heinous or consequential, or scandalous's point is that all sin equally incur guilt before God. The smallest most un-heinous sand contains enough wickedness to condemn us to help. Evidently there was a tendency among James's audience to think of partiality as a light center respectable sin and they use that thought process to excuse away their partiality, they failed to realize it, even if it were a light sin is a sin that made them full-fledged lawbreakers comprehensively guilty before a holy God. But what we need to also see is that James point versus late 90s that partiality doesn't even qualify as one of the light stands at the heavy sin it's a it's a big one it is. It is a heinous offense that strikes at the very heart and purpose of God's law. So we say what partiality is. We seen the depth of its offensiveness to God. The urgent question in is how I rid myself of partiality, how to get rid of this. What is God's solution as I'm preparing my sermons often try to find a recording of a of a good preacher that I can trust to has breached the same text that I'm preparing and I'll listen to that sermon at some point in my in my preparation process. Just so that I can have God's word preached to me before I go and preach to someone else. This past week, I'd I chose a sermon from Sinclair Ferguson this very text. It was so helpful and in convicting, but he said something in the sermon that amused me to share with you.

He said tongue-in-cheek, sort of, that Christians go to the Bible to learn what they should do and then they go to the local Christian bookstore to learn how they should do it. I think there's some truth in that that you are saying. He said we tend to overlook the said what we tend to overlook is the fact it's the Scripture text usually gives us both the what and the how and we may not like the how we may think we need a little more specific direction then Scripture gives, but Christians, we need to get into the habit of of depending on and looking to the Bible, not just for doctrine, but also for application was take the Senate partiality. For example, the world as well as the church in many quarters has all sorts of ideas and suggestions for how we can go about ridding our culture of of prejudice and discrimination and racism essentially of partiality and the general consensus seems to be that the path forward is through some sort of penance or reparation some kind of amenities that need to be made in order to redeem ourselves from this vile cultural sin, so they say the powerful need to forfeit their power wealthy need to forfeit their wealth. The privileged need to forfeit their privilege not hear me out.

There are contexts and situations where deference and sacrifice and generosity are beautiful expressions of love and frankly Christians ought to be the first ones in line to offer such expressions of love but church doing these acts of love making these gestures of of personal sacrifice and condescension cannot and will not ever redeem us from our sin, we cannot make enough reparation to remove our guilt. This works oriented endeavor that the world tells us will solve all of our partiality problems is not the solution to partiality or to any other sand for that matter. So what is the solution voted so simplistically beautiful. Verse 12 James says so speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty, for judgment is without mercy. The one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. I rid myself of partiality by looking to Christ as the remover of my sin. And as the remover of my enemies. Sin is he as long as I'm artificially judging everyone else for their faults and flaws and infirmities and annoyances. I'm oblivious to my own need for repentance. But the minute I realize I'm just as guilty before God as the next person in my only hope in life and death is for God to have mercy on me, and suddenly everyone else's issues are not the issue, and I'm liberated to show to others the same mercy that I have been shown by God. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty, not condemned by the law to an eternal hell like we deserve. No, speak and act as those who have been shown mercy. We are to give that same forgiving mercy to others and realize this mercy extends in both directions. It applies to the one who is stronger than I am who oppresses me and it applies to the one who was weaker than I am, whom I oppress. We are to treat and speak to others as we have been treated and spoken to by God.

God's disposition towards us is one of mercy, even though we deserve judgment are disposition towards others, particularly as it relates to bearing with their infirmities demands mercy of how one preacher said it, he said, except he wished to undergo the rigor of the law, you must be less rigid toward your neighbors. We also do act that we may not, through too much severity underestimate the indulgence or mercy of God, of which we all have me to the last and that's really it is and it partiality at its root isn't underestimating of God's mercy and indulgent for sinners. Are you struggling to love that high maintenance energy taker who wants to be your best friend take a moment to contemplate how high maintenance.

You are to God. Are you struggling with bitterness toward that wealthy, self-absorbed colleague who seems totally unaware of his Kurtz roughshod treatment of those around him. Remind yourself of God's disposition toward you and how he bears with your blind spots and stubbornness so all the world is busy trying to fix its partiality problem in all the wrong ways church. Let's show them how to do it God's way.

Partiality melts away when we confess it for the sin that it is and repent of it by loving, as we have been love by forgiving as we have been forgiven by letting the mercy we have been shown triumph over the judgment we are tempted to show Jesus said, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another and by this.

All people will know that you are my disciples) father, you've given us instruction on how to love each other you've given us your Holy Spirit's to empower us to to follow that instruction and you've even credited us with the righteousness of Christ to cover our sin.

When we failed to follow that instruction now. Help us Lord to go from this place, speaking and acting as those who have been shown divine mercy. All in Jesus name, amen