Favoritism (Part 1 of 6)

Welcome to Truth for Life. As we begin a study in the very practical book of James, at what point does a proper show of respect and honor become an inappropriate display of favoritism? Alistair Begg walks us through the answer today as he investigates the dangers of favoritism in a local church. James chapter 1, verse 26.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself, and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 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, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 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? 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? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 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. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Thanks be to God for his Word. Before we study the Bible together, we'll pause once again and ask for God's help. Father, we come needy to you with the impact of all kinds of distractions clamoring for our attention and asking for the miraculous intervention of your spirit so that we might hear the very voice of God, even through the voice of a mere man, and that in hearing, we might believe and obey and live in the light of your truth. We thank you that you've given us the Bible, not simply to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives.

So change our lives, we pray for Jesus' sake, amen. We return to our studies in James, and I encourage you to be following along as we look to the Bible together. This is a profitable opportunity for me to remind us of the fact that when the New Testament was written, it did not have the chapter breaks in it that are present in our English translations. And so James would not have been conscious of finishing chapter 1 and of beginning chapter 2. In fact, there was no chapter 1 and no chapter 2. He was writing a letter, and his letter was a long letter, and it was a cohesive letter.

And as we've already discovered, it was a thoroughly practical letter. And I mentioned that this morning and indeed began reading at the end of chapter 1 rather than at the beginning of chapter 2 in order that we might be very clear concerning this. Because the danger is that we turn, as it were, from chapter 1 into chapter 2 and treat the subject matter at the beginning of chapter 2 as if it was to be dealt with in isolation from what has gone before.

And nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Because James is still in the same realm of thinking—a realm of thinking that really goes all the way back to verse 16, where he says, Don't be deceived. And then in verse 19, take note of this and so on, but particularly in verse 26. If anyone considers himself religious, he says, and yet doesn't keep a tight rein on his tongue, doesn't show compassion to those who are poor and needy, and doesn't remain with an uncompromising testimony before the world, then frankly, that individual has a worthless religion.

A worthless religion. And that's the distinction that comes at the end of chapter 1. The externalism that marks so many in his day and marks many in every generation that seeks somehow or another simply to maintain some kind of outward façade of religious expression is insufficient when it comes to God's understanding of things.

We define religion, and I think helpfully and simply, as the outward expressions of a living faith. That's what James is referencing here. There are outward expressions which are not representative of a faith which is alive, but the faith which is alive, he says, will not only be a listening faith, but it will be a believing faith, and it will be a doing faith. And the kind of expressions of genuine faith that God the Father is interested in and describes as being pure and faultless have to do with, number one, a controlled tongue, which James is going to tackle in chapter 3, a compassionate heart, which James is now about to tackle in chapter 2, and an uncompromised testimony, which James will deal with when he comes to chapter 4. But what he now does in the opening verses of chapter 2 is introduce us to the explosion or the expansion of what it means to be genuinely interested in those who are needy. He has identified the orphans and the widows not in a way that is exclusive to them but in a way that picks them out as being representative of those who in a culture are in need of care and compassion and need to discover the expressions of the gospel. And very, very quickly, he realizes that those who are the believers in the Lord Jesus may be tempted to differentiate between people and to forget what he has just said concerning a compassionate heart. Here then is a further test where an individual's profession of faith is challenged as he identifies what is a clear and present danger in his own day and, frankly, in every day—namely, the danger of treating people in different ways according to their outward appearance. The danger of treating people in different ways according to their outward appearance.

In short, the danger of favoritism—favoritism. And he aptly and succinctly provides a nice illustration of this for these believers to whom he writes. And paraphrasing what you have there in verses 2, 3, and 4, he says, let's say, for instance, that someone arrives at your gathering. Incidentally, the word here for gathering is synegoge, which is synagogue.

It's an indication of how early the letter of James is and how Jewish terminology was interlaced with the developing Christian terminology in the establishing of the church. He says, imagine that someone comes into your synagogue, and he has the outward expressions of wealth, he is clad in fine raiment, and he is adorned by gold. And simultaneously, another fellow shows up, and he is obviously at the other end of the spectrum. He's shabby.

His clothes are in disrepair. What happens then, he says? If you give pride of place to the visitor who is rich and disregard the poor man, then, says James, you have discriminated in a fashion that doesn't look at all like those who profess to be the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is an uncomfortable book. There is no question. Which of us can evade the immediate impact and challenge of this direct imperative?

Don't show favoritism. I don't think we'll have any difficulty in understanding what he is saying. But it may be possible that some of us think he is saying more than what he's saying. And therefore, we always, in studying our Bibles, need to be clear about what is being said but also about what is not being said.

And I think I need to make this point before we move ahead. He is not reducing everything and everyone to a common level. The Bible doesn't do that. Some people love this section in James.

I remember even as a boy hearing vociferous arguments involving members of my extended family as I tried to get to sleep at night, and it all had to do with a sort of intermingling of socialism and communism and capitalism and the Bible, and it was going all over the place as I was falling asleep as a boy. People arguing extensively and vociferously concerning what James was saying here. Everyone's the same. Everyone should be treated in the same way. Everyone's on a common level and so on. Nobody gets a special seat here. Nobody is worthy of this. Nobody gets that, and so on.

And anybody who does has missed the point entirely. Well, in my reading this week, I came across a wonderful sentence by Alec Matea where he said, The Bible is too courteous a book to allow us to lack proper respect for people to whom respect is due. I thought, That's wonderful. I must underline that.

And I did. The Bible is too courteous a book to allow us to lack proper respect for people to whom respect is due. You see, James is not condemning preferential treatment out of hand. James is not saying that, for example, to honor an elderly woman at the expense of a youth's seat would be to fall foul of his instruction. Oh, our society may be so egalitarian, and we may have lost all respect for age so as to forget this in its entirety, but the Bible is far too nice a book to forget this.

It is perfectly understandable that a boy would be asked, Would you please give up your seat and sit on the floor so that Mrs. Jenkins can sit on this night's seat? Is there anything wrong with that at all? No, it is a sign of respect.

It is respect for age, and youth takes its place in relationship to age. If word were given that the president of the United States were attending the following service at 11.15, I don't think any single person in the room would be at all surprised if special preparation were not made for his arrival and the exact location of his seat. Would there be anything wrong in that? Nothing wrong in it at all. That is not what James is talking about here. He is not talking about that.

If he were, then he would be contradicting the rest of the Bible. You would only need to turn forward a couple of pages to 1 Peter chapter 2, where Peter says, Show proper respect for everyone, love the brothers, fear God, and honor the king. And we'll just leave the king part out for now, but you get the point. I replaced it with the president just so that you would feel much more at home. We don't need to go back 200 years in your history and go on to that stuff.

No. But the clarity and forcefulness of James' teaching is not setting aside those kind of expressions of honor. If we had members of our armed forces here that had come back from Iraq, we'd recognize the dignity of their sacrifice and their willingness to serve. I would be very happy to clear out a whole section of seats in order that they might be put in position, and so that we might say thank you and that we might honor them by their presence. Would there be anything wrong with that? Would that be a violation of James 2.1–4? No, it would not.

Not for a moment. So we need to be clear when we set out to discover what the Bible is saying to make sure what it is not saying. What he is making absolutely painstakingly clear is this, that wealth does not in and of itself deserve honor. Wealth, in and of itself, does not deserve honor. If you think about it, it is only God who makes it possible for anybody to become wealthy in any case. Therefore, the wealthy person, whether he recognizes God's common grace or not, is only in that position as a result of God's goodness to him or to her. Therefore, that person should never be a snob in the first place, and no gathering of God's people should then accord or afford to such an individual, at the expense of someone less prosperous, peculiar positions of authority or leadership or stature or status.

Now, you're sensible people. You can read the Bible and look there and see whether that is in fact what is being said. Phillips paraphrases the opening verse as follows. Don't ever attempt, my brothers, to combine snobbery with faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't ever attempt to combine snobbery with faith in Jesus. In fact, in one punch to the tummy, he gives to us the instruction that he is providing, Don't show favoritism. That's the instruction really. The illustration is what then follows. But before we even get to the instruction, there is a twofold description which we made very quickly pass by, and to do so would be a dreadful mistake. I almost did it myself. I almost went immediately to Don't show favoritism in my study, so that the impact and the punch and so on of the central teaching would come home forcibly.

But then I said to myself, this isn't padding the opening sentence. My brothers is believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. So what I want us to do is to notice the description that he gives first of his readers and then of the Lord Jesus. My brothers, he says, why are they his brothers? Well, because they are believers. Because they are believers.

Now, we shouldn't just jump immediately to that and say, Well, that makes perfect sense. Because we need to recall that the brothers of Jesus, his earthly brothers, did not believe in Jesus. They were not believers. They played games with their brother Jesus. They were involved in the family life with their brother Jesus. But they did not believe in Jesus. John chapter 7, verse 5, tells us that even his brothers did not believe in him. Other people were believing in Jesus, but James and the rest did not believe in Jesus.

So what happened? Well, there came a time when he who did not believe began to believe. You see, when James writes in this way to the believers, we shouldn't think of him writing to a group of people who have some vague intellectual awareness of the existence of a person called Jesus of Nazareth.

He's not writing to people who have made an intellectual ascent to historical facts or to bits and pieces of information about a Jesus. It is impossible to embrace in a believing way Jesus until we understand the historicity and reality of who he is and what he's done. But it is possible for us to have an intellectual grasp of these things without ourselves ever having become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. So a believer in Jesus is able to look back to a precious moment or precious moments or a period of time in his or her life where consciously and personally they moved from a state of unbelief to a state of belief. Or in the case of some nurtured in a Christian home who moved from a position whereby their belief was in the environment of their home, imbibed in some senses from their parents, but there came a day or a point in their lives where they were tipped out of the nest, and they came to themselves to a personal understanding and belief and trust in Jesus.

They realized that Jesus is a Savior, and that they were sinners, and that they needed a Savior, and that they needed to ask Jesus to be their Savior and to be their friend. This is what it means to believe. Do you believe?

Do you believe? You see, when you get to verse 5—and you needn't worry about that, because we won't really get there this morning—but when you look at verse 5, and he says, "'Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith?'" You need to realize that the fact of God's choosing doesn't deny the necessity and reality of our believing. The fact of God's choosing does not deny the necessity and reality of our believing. People ask me this question just about every single Sunday. Well, if God chooses us, I suppose we don't have anything to do with it at all.

No, absolutely wrong. We have everything to do with it. God does not believe for us. We must believe. That's why today we are either believing or we're unbelieving.

John Murray, the late professor John Murray, in a wonderful passage in one of his books, uses this illustration, and I share it for your help. He says, "'We must never ignore the necessity of personal acceptance and trust. The lifeboat is no good unless the drowning man gets into it. And no one can get in for him.

He must do it for himself. Yet surely he would never say that the hand which seized the lifeboat was his salvation. He could only view it as the means by which he apprehended the proffered safety.'" See, the only thing we bring to our salvation is the sin for which we need forgiveness. And when we reach out the hand of faith, we are simply taking the safety that is proffered to us in the provision that Jesus has made. And it is in that divine transaction, in that moment, in that experiential moment in time, that all of the secret dimensions of the purposes of God become ours in their fullness and in their focus. Alec Metea puts it as follows, "'New life in Christ may trace its conscious and public history back to the moment of decision, of commitment, of accepting the Lord Jesus as one's personal Savior.'" Is there in your life a moment of decision, of commitment, of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? That's the question.

That's the question. There is no more important question than the one Alistair just asked, Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior? You're listening to Alistair beg on Truth for Life. If after today's message you have decided you're ready to follow Jesus, or if you'd like to know more about what that means, let me suggest to you a seven-minute video from Alistair called, What is the Gospel? In this brief video, Alistair walks you through the Gospel. He offers a sample prayer that you can pray at the end to help you express your commitment of faith to God.

You'll find the video and more at truthforlife.org slash learn more. Now whether you're new to Christianity or you've been following Jesus for decades, it's important for all of us to continue to grow in faith to learn more about God. And today we want to recommend a book to you to supplement your daily Bible study. The book is called God Is. This is a devotional book that explores 26 unique traits that God reveals about himself in Scripture.

As you read the book, you'll learn more about how these attributes of God affect your life as a believer. Now we're only making this book available for a couple more days, so you can request your copy with a donation when you go to truthforlife.org slash donate, or call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, you can write to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland Ohio 44139. By the way, if you're not listening to Truth for Life right now on our mobile app, you can download it from your app store. Just search for Truth for Life. The app provides access to all of Alistair's teaching, nearly 3000 messages. It also offers the complete text of the ESV Bible, which you can have read to you. The app is a great way to listen to Truth for Life each day at your convenience.

I'm Bob Lapine. Join us tomorrow as we hear the conclusion of today's message. We'll find out how religion can become worthless when the church's focus is flipped upside down. How can you keep that from happening in your own local church? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.