this morning's message is entitled it's time to clean the fridge because it's a mental note for myself. Um but but maybe you're like me, and you've brought food home. Usually it's take out, or maybe you've made something, maybe a meal, like in a crockpot meal or something, and you're like, oh, I'll have leftovers, and then you put it in a container, um and you seal it, and um but then it somehow makes its way to the back corner of the fridge, and you forget about it, have you ever done this? And so you're there, and um your fridge finally gets a little too crowded, or you get groceries, like, okay, it's time to clean, and you pull the container out and you're like, how long ago was this? Right? And like, you're afraid to open it because of everything in there. And so sometimes we leave stuff in there too long, and then it leaves the fridge not smelling so great, and and so I want to talk this morning about actually a very difficult topic, but in a way, it's, it's something that I think we've not really done a great job addressing as church as a whole. Um and so we're gonna actually take a look at a topic that really has kind of left the church not smelling too great in recent years, and we're gonna try to take a humble look at it, an honest look at this topic, and I just want to challenge you guys before you write, write off this message that and say, well it doesn't apply to me. I really think it does. I really think it applies to every single person in this room and that we could do a better job paying attention to this topic. So what is the topic that we don't talk about a lot within church today? It's the topic of partiality. And so to give you a working definition of partiality is I put up on the screen here, is that partiality can be defined as unfair bias in favor of one thing or person compared to another. So maybe a more familiar term would just be seen as favoritism. Ah so I believe next to pride, partiality is one of the greatest sins that our churches today struggle with. And and if you're hesitant or or maybe there's a check in your spirit, like I don't know. That doesn't apply to me. That applies to them. And that then mean maybe some ambiguous person that you view you view out there. Well, that's that's culture that someone else that struggles with partiality and favoritism. Uh not me. But Really, here's the big idea for this morning that I want you to write down and we're gonna break this down here over the next 30 minutes. And it's this is that faith and favoritism don't mix simply put faith and favoritism do not mix. They do not go well together. It's oil and water. It doesn't you can't have a strong growing faith and at the same time substantially, uh you know, partial or showing favoritism to one group over another. Now, let me add some clarity to this is that um really clarifying what we're not talking about and what we are talking about this morning. So when I talk about favoritism and partiality, I'm not talking about time spent or investing in leadership, and I say that because jesus himself Really spent a majority of his time with the 12 disciples investing in there leadership. And so when it comes to where do you spend your time and your resources in that particular case? I want you to play favorites and I want you to choose your family and I want you to choose investing in the people that are going to have the greatest impact in your business and your companies and things there because Jesus modeled that. So we're not talking about time and we're not talking about leadership, but what we are talking about is favoritism or partiality in terms of treatment of other people because and And I know I for years I grew up in a church like, well that's not me, that's that's a sermon for somebody else. That's for the sermon for just somebody out there. But the more I read scripture, the more I kept coming back to this topic that it really was a big issue of the early church and here we are 2000 years later. And it's just as much an issue for example, just yesterday, there was a huge story, maybe you saw this on the news when it comes to race, that there was a group of kids heckling um a native american man named Nathan phillips who was a Vietnamese war veteran, but yet he was being mocked because of his race. And so we're still seeing racism present in our culture today. Um 2018 was probably, if you had to market by a certain movement, I would probably describe 2018 as the me too movement and where, where women found the courage to speak up and stand up against sexual harassment and mistreatment and I wish the church was in a better place. But if you notice many church leaders fell and abuse scandals came to light across the board and churches tried to cover it up and it just was not good. Like there's no, no one came out of 2000 and 18 without some type of blemish from this Me Too movement. And while I'm inspired by the courage of the women that stepped forward, I'm ashamed in some ways to be associated with with churches and and a faith that allowed abuse to go on for so long and so we have to understand this is not a 2000 years ago issue. This is a present day right now, this moment here in America issue that we are facing as a country. And so it's race, it's gender. We see it in age, right? We see it in age. We see um millennials and generation Z complaining about how the old folks don't get it. And then the old folks say, fine, move out of my basement. And uh, and so and so why we see this back and forth. And and we see these things there and there's this tension behind age and and we see this in politics. I mean, right now as we speak, our government is in shutdown mode because they can't get along right. And I'm not gonna be preaching a political message and and things there too. If you want to, if you want to know my stance on certain issues, I'm glad to have a conversation, but just the acknowledgment that there are national anthem, protests and and divisions of a wall being built or not being built and what constitutes of religious freedom and where it stands. The fact is we live in a very divided country. And so this concept of partiality is very much relevant today. Last year was also marked by the red for Ed movement. And so education is a huge dividing issue about where money goes and where do we invest our resource and what happens. And we see this. And it's also centered around this concept of being prejudiced. And so people say, well, I'm not prejudice. Um, but the word prejudice really simply means to prejudge something. So if you enter a conversation with assumptions or your decision or your mind already made up, then that's prejudging someone. I've never once in the history of social media, while brief, I've never once seen somebody post a rant online and then someone respond to the comments, oh, you know what you are correct. I now change my stance, right? It doesn't happen. Like we we throw stuff online and then the people that agree with us. So yeah, yeah, yeah, take that and someone else went and we just have this division. And this is what I'm talking about this morning, about this concept of partiality and showing favoritism and division, which is really against the concept of the church is not that you can't have an opinion or or or thoughts, but the way that we deliver the way that we show it, it's really dividing our country today. Now, the christian faith has been described as the most exclusive faith in in the world, and it is in the sense that jesus himself says, I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me. And so the road to heaven, The road to faith, The road to freedom is a very narrow one. But actually, Christianity is also the most inclusive faith of any religion in all of history. Let me just give you a couple examples. We're going to throw them up on the screen here, but um, jesus himself, okay, was when he came to earth was not born, His parents were not royalty, but they were lower class, let's be real. They were lower class immigrants, okay, teenagers who and and and blue collar, hardworking carpenter and, and joseph and so mary even his entry point was not magnificent, but really humble. And then you see in there when he called the first disciples, he called people who were fishermen, he called people who were doctors and and tax collectors. So people on extreme opposites, people who are called religious zealot. So in other words, they were super hyper religious and then he also called people who were like the least religious and yet he brought them together. Um in Mark chapter five, there's a man who was demon possessed and jesus actually cast out the demons and then presents the gospel, his life has changed and he says now go and share that message with where he came from. And so he used actually a demon possessed man. And then in john chapter three, the most commonly quoted verse in all of the bible, john 3 16, he's speaking to a religious educated, most likely um rich person. Nicodemus is saying that for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. So he presents it to this religious educated, rich person in Nicodemus and the very next chapter in john chapter four, he offers eternal life to this scandalous woman who had five husbands previously and who was a good who was a samaritan who was the most rejected person of the most rejected people group at that time, complete opposite ends of the spectrum. And Jesus offers eternal life to both. Then you also see on here that in Luke chapter 10 he talks about um you want to talk about racism is that Jews and Samaritans absolutely hated each other. And so when they would take travel, when Jewish people would take travel, they would go an extra two or three days and add that to the journey just so they wouldn't come into contact with a samaritan. And then but now we have good samaritan hospital's because actually jesus flipped that story around and actually in describing what does it mean to be a good neighbor. He actually uses the extreme racial and ethnic opposite story to say no, this is what it looks like to love. We see that also in the prodigal son, someone who becomes someone who comes from rich is someone who has wealth who squanders all of that away, but then this father welcomes him back and not only welcomes him back, but then throws a feast in his honor, But at the same time we see Children approaching Jesus and in that time culturally speaking Children were supposed to be quiet and off in the corner and in Matthew chapter 19 Jesus no let them come because if you want to enter the Kingdom of God, you must have a faith like a child at the resurrection of Jesus, the very first person to see him was mary Magdalene, which is important because jesus demonstrated the value of women, that the very first witness to his resurrection was a group of women and so um it might have been the fact that men would come back and you know, brag somehow that they did it, but I don't know, but I don't know, just kidding. Um and so that was like they had women in there and so, and that's important to understand because in that time, in that culture, in that period that a woman's testimony was not seen as valid in court and so it's a battle that you see for centuries that we, we face and Jesus comes in and says, no, actually some of the most valuable people, some of the most incredible faith filled people are women who are gonna lead the early movement of the church and I'm going to demonstrate that by having them be the very first ones to see the resurrected jesus and then he said, well, okay, that was just the gospels. Well, when they started the movement, it's almost as if God said, okay, who is the least likely person in the entire world, okay, the least likely person in the entire world to start the church and I would argue that it's paul because here he was actually persecuting leading the movement against Christianity encounters jesus in Acts chapter nine On the road to Damascus and now turns around and starts church after church after church after church and and writes a good chunk of the new testament and it's the most famous christian in the world, but his prior life was the biggest antagonist to the christian faith And then when he was starting movement, he would place people in positions of leadership at a very young age and so he actually Paul disciple this guy named Timothy who commentators say at about 19 or 20, became the pastor of the largest church in the region at the church of Ephesus. And so he says, do not let anyone look down on you because your youth, but actually set the example in purity and love and speech and inaction. And so you see in this list that jesus used, rich people, poor people, men, women, jews gentiles, Samaritans, Children, adults and so all across the board, jesus is actually the most inclusive figure in all of world history And we have to understand that when it comes to partiality. So if you have your bibles open up to James chapter two And we're gonna be looking at 13 verses today and how the structure of these verses set up, it's kind of cool, it's it's verse one and then verse 12 and 13, so the first and last verses actually gives us the main point, so I'm gonna actually read those together and then it gives kind of a three phase argument in between why we should believe that. And so um let's go ahead and read James chapter two verse one. And I'm gonna read verse 12 and 13, my brothers show no partiality as you hold faith in our Lord, jesus christ the Lord of Glory. I want to pause there for a second and remind those that may not have been here in previous weeks. We talked about this earlier on that the writer of this book, the writer of this letter is actually the half brother of jesus. And so if anybody is going to be skeptical about jesus being God, it's gonna be him. But he directly says show no partiality. Why? Because you as you hold faith in the Lord, jesus christ the Lord of Glory. See, Jesus is both the object of our faith and the object of our affection. And he goes under goes on to say in verse 12 and 13, he says, so speak and so act as those who are judged under the law of liberty. In other words, this law of freedom for judgment is without mercy, to one who has shown no mercy for mercy triumphs over judgment. I love that phrase, Act in a way of the law of freedom, because mercy wins over judgment isn't that awesome. And so the concept of of clinging to jesus, here's here's the picture that he's laying out for you is that when you grab hold of jesus, you have an open hand to everybody else by grabbing hold of jesus that removes any prejudice because we understand that it's all about God's glory and his story and his power to forgive. And he gives us the freedom not to lord it over everybody, but the freedom to serve and to give to everybody around us. And so the idea is we don't show partiality because we have jesus and jesus didn't show partiality. He didn't he didn't play favorites when it came to treatment. And then so he actually gives us a picture. He gives us a picture of this. And and so he actually describes here in these verses where we're gonna break down is there are actually three components to partiality. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. There's three components, there's perspective. There's power and there's position in any case whether it's gender, whether it's race, whether it's riches, whether its whatever the case is when someone is being prejudiced towards somebody else, it's usually around one of these three categories are actually all three. So it's about perspective because you view yourself better than them. It's about power because you you desire to have something over them. And then it's about position because you think there's an internal entitlement that you deserve more and they deserve less. We're going to see these three concepts play out over and over and over again. And so perspective, power and position. If somebody is judging somebody else, it's because their perspective has changed, it's because they want power over the other person and that they seek to have a position that the other person they don't think deserves to have. And so James gives us an example. Now, in this particular example, he's talking about a major issue in that day, which is wealth, so 90% there was no middle class in that context. So 90% of people during that time, in in Jerusalem, in this general area, in the Roman empire, 90% were seen as poor or in complete poverty And only 10% were seen as rich and so it kept getting richer and richer and there was no middle class. And so the rich would oppress the poor and actually persecute them and and require and keep them in classes and keep them in systems where they had no opportunity to grow or to change their situation. And so he's going to address this inside the context of a church, Let's jump into um James Chapter two, verses 2 to 4, he gives us this example for if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man and shabby clothing also comes in 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 here or that you sit down at my feet, Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts. So the idea is you have a church setting, you have to first time guests, one who's rich, one who's poor as evidenced by their clothing. And so when someone comes in, they noticed the perspective, they see the riches or they see the lack of riches, they say, oh, this could add power to our church, or this could add power to my prestige and say, hey, oh, come sit by me, come sit right here, come take this spot. And then it actually impacts the position, said, okay, you sit here, nope, you stand back. And so you see this story exemplifies partiality in this, this context of perspective, power and position or this battle for that. And so why are we called not to to be partial? Well, he actually goes on and gives us an example, but then he gives us three reasons. If you're taking notes In verses 5-7, James is gonna say, it's foolish to do this. It's foolish to be prejudiced. It just is it is foolish to be prejudiced towards anyone. And then in verses eight through 11, he's going to say. In fact, it's unlawful. It goes against the very word that jesus talks about. It goes it goes against the very law that they were called to believe in And then in verses 12 and 13 we're gonna come back to that is that it's actually Unmerciful. And I think these three reasons also apply to us. And so we have a we have a picture, we have a setting, we have an example, but let's let's continue reading here. Why James says this is not appropriate for us to be partial or so favoritism. He actually says this in starting in verse five. Okay, listen, my beloved brothers and pause for a second, even though he's being harsh, even though he's saying, look, listen up, he calls them beloved. So even in truth, he speaks in love. So I think this is interesting because he's actually not noticed this. He's not showing prejudice towards them. You see that because sometimes we say, oh, they're judgmental, all those jerks, They're such judgmental. Well, what do we find ourselves doing then? We are judging those who judge and making judgmental statements about someone else being judgmental. Right? And so it ends up, we end up doing the very thing that we're mad at somebody else for Well, here James says no beloved brothers and sisters in christ listen, no, this is not, this is not us. This is not who we believe in verse five 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. But if you have dishonored, the poor man are not the rich ones who oppressed you. And the ones who drag you into court, are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? In other words, he's saying, look church, if you oppress people that God loves, then you're just as guilty as the culture that's depressing you, he was writing to people facing trials and tribulations. In fact, the very first thing he says in the book says, Hey, count it joy when you face trials of many kinds, just wait a second before you start judging people. Aren't you being oppressed by the same people that you're now trying to impress? Why would you try to impress the people that are oppressing? You don't do that. That's foolish. Don't don't look at the world and be frustrated with the world to turn around and say, okay, I'm now it's my turn. Don't do don't repeat the pattern is what he's saying here verse eight, he says. But 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're committing sin and convicted by the law as transgressors forever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for 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 transgression of the law. And so this idea is like, look, this goes against the very teaching of scripture is what he's saying here. This goes against the very teaching of the bible. Um, what do you, what he's trying to talk about is like God says, love God, love others, love God love others. May this be the defining defining moment of the church. May this describe everything that you do? He said, if you break one law, if you sit in this area really guilty of the whole thing, you can't get in the game. Um, it was kind of a funny highlight earlier this week. There's a player on the Lakers who um, who was getting ready to check in the game. Maybe somebody saw this and he's getting ready to check in the game. The game was about to start. He's like doing the whole feet thing off the pad, he's getting ready to check in and he looks down and he's wearing the wrong shorts. And so here an NBA player who's getting paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living can't check into the game because he's wearing the wrong shorts and so embarrassed in front of his teammates and then sold out arena and on live television in front of millions of people. He has to run back in the locker room and change from his warmup shorts into his game game shorts. And so he can't come in look church. You can't enter the game if you've got the wrong shorts on. Okay, don't don't make it all the way. Don't make it to the N. B. A. Of spiritual life. Don't make it all the way. Get ready. You've trained, you've practiced, you worked so hard. But then in this area you're wearing the wrong shorts. Like don't don't come all this way and then miss this little area. Now, it's interesting because he brings up sins of murder and adultery. Now murder really kills life. Okay, adultery kills a relationship or marriage. Um Partiality. Here's what I believe, partiality kills, partiality kills identity, partiality is looking at someone and say you're not worth it. And you've ever been in a position where someone gave you a look or a comment or a treatment and said, you're not worth it that my friends is not of God. And then verse 12 and 13 it says, so speak. And so act as those who would be judged under the law of liberty for judgment is without mercy. The one Who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. In other words, if you have received mercy, then extend that to others, You have to treat others fairly treat others as jesus has treated us. Um This isn't just the only passage on this though, there's actually lots of examples in scripture and in culture as we know it. For example, in genesis 1 27 genesis one, we're gonna see Biblical examples and cultural examples, genesis 1 27 says, let us create men are men and men and women in our own image. And so every single person has a soul and every single person has value because they are created in the very image of God, John 3 16 says Whosoever believes it's not check these boxes first, it's whosoever believes it's an inclusive statement. Revelation five says every tribe tongue, language and nation will gather around the throne of Jesus and worship him together. Guys, we have to understand that church as we know it and in Heaven as we know it, it's going to be much more diverse than what's in this room right now. And and while I would like for our church to grow and diversity, here's what we want to try to do. We want to reflect the diversity in our culture and in our community, but then we want to declare of the greater diversity of God's kingdom. So we want to reflect diversity in our community, but we want to declare of a greater diversity and God's kingdom because it's so much bigger than you or me and even our nation. I mean God's working all over the world In Colossians, 3 11 Paul writes, says he says here, there is neither Greek nor jew circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian. Scythian slave free, but Christ is all and in all. And so this concept is so much greater than we understand God's love is so much bigger than any little box we can put them into. And racism at the core. Okay, If you're taking you're gonna write this down, racism is not simply the presence of hatred. It's the absence of love. Racism is not just the presence of hatred, it's the absence of love and see I got this confused because before it's like, well I don't really hate them, so I'm not racist. Okay, but have you gone out of your way to demonstrate and show love in a practical basis? Do you treat people as yourself? Do you treat them with respect and and go out of your way to love others of christ loved us and culture, we see this, we have to understand and we have to acknowledge the fact that the church has not done well in this concept. There's a little thing and by little thing, a huge thing called the crusades where Christians literally in the early uh in the around the year 1000 went around just killing people in the name of God and that is just a forever black eye In a culture and, and we do not look good there. Um the whole concept of Reformation Martin Luther when he came and he pinned the 99 thesis to the door was because people were selling indulgences and not treating people with respect and they were taking their position and their perspective and their power and holding it over people and say no, we're gonna tax you, do you want to be saved? You better give us money. He said, no, you can't know the scriptures. We know the scriptures, so you have to pay us so we can tell you what the bible says. No, no, no. He says no. Every single person deserves scripture. Every single person deserves faith. Every single person deserves grace. And so that's the whole concept of the reformation. You look in the 16 hundreds and 17 hundreds, we see Rich witch hunts, right? Where he was like, well, we literally would kill people think of it like that's that's nowhere in that is found in scripture. Now, there's the old testament which is seen as descriptive, I'm not saying don't do this, but this is what happened. But then in the new testament we get prescriptive for jesus. No, it's about loving God, loving others love God, love others love God love others. And so over and over and over again, we see the church falling short. But while there's negative examples of the church, there's also positive. You see the idea of equality is really a biblical one. It really is. It's a biblical concept. I don't understand how you can describe equality apart from a biblical worldview, here's what I mean is that if we believe that every man, woman and child has been created in the image of God, therefore they have equal rights and they have equal chance at salvation, we are equally created, we are equally deprived and sinful, but then we are also equally saved. And so any other religion that you point to is that there's a work system. Therefore if you have privileges somehow you work for them or you can work to this level and there are different religions where there's caste systems where you have to work this hard, this hard, this hard either. Um, don't believe me, just go to a country where the gospel is not prevalent and ask yourself are minorities and women treated better or worse, see religion in and of it says, no, you have to work for something. And if I have something, you don't, I deserve it where Christianity says, no, we all need the grace of God. And they said, well then it's religion, religion is what's horrible. No, Atheism then turns to Naturalism, which says, nope, it's the, it's the survival of the fittest. And so you have things like communism and other things there too, or yeah, we can kill people because they're not people, if it's survival of the fittest, I'm fit, you're not. So you don't deserve to live. And so literally millions of people have been executed under the concept that well they're not, they don't really matter and we're going to survive. And so, you know whether it's religion or or a Theism or Naturalism, if you remove the concept of equality from scripture, you remove the value or worth of a person. Now on the flip side, while the churches had negatives think through this for a second, um in the 1800s, William Wilberforce was one of the main forces that brought the end of slavery. It's a christian. The underground railroad was started by the church, the first orphanages started by the church, the first hospitals started by the church, the ivy league schools that we know of of Harvard Princeton, Yale Dartmouth. All of these educations started by the church because they believed every woman deserves to be educated so that they can know the scriptures, the civil rights movements. Tomorrow we're celebrating martin Luther King Jr who said incredible things like darkness cannot remove darkness, Only light can do that, right? Just like hate cannot remove hate only Love can do that. Where did that come from? Because he was a preacher, rosa parks, christians, Jackie Robinson christian, it was their faith that moved them to start these movements, Men's and women's rights. When you think about the movie unbroken, um where you have louis Zamperini the ultimate story of forgiveness and overcoming he got that strength ultimately fought through because at the end of it, he found jesus one quote here and then we're just going to kind of wrap up is that um after World War two, Billy Graham visited Germany and he had had an interview with a guy named konrad Adenauer, the Chancellor of Germany who just witnessed the worst killing in world history and after talking with Billy Graham quietly, the Chancellor there of Germany said these words to Billy Graham, he said outside of the Cross of jesus christ, there is no hope for the world, ravi Zacharias says that the cross and the resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity wherever you go ask God for wisdom of how you can bring the Gospel in because where there's gospel, there is hope even in the most dark circumstances, if you bring the Gospel with you, there is hope. So let's lay on the plane, let's wrap up Well let's think about what this, what this means and I'm gonna run through a list and it's gonna be quick and I don't want you necessarily, you don't have to write all this down, but if something sticks out to you, I'm gonna give you eight things and I just want you to pick one of them, just pick one of the eight first, how do we respond, identify with jesus? Hold fast to faith in jesus, that's the first thing. Second thing, test your heart, be honest self reflect, have I been judgmental towards a person or group based on actions or or feelings I had towards them. 3rd, listen to understand, not simply to reply, listen to understand where someone's coming from? Not simply so you can win an argument. 4th be motivated by love. What's your motivation? Is your motivation to win or is your motivation the relationship right? Fifth bring the gospel into every situation, workplace family, community conversations you have because if you have the gospel there is light, says the word is a lamp unto my feet. Will you only need a lamp if you're surrounded by darkness and we're very dark times right now, but we have the lamp of the Word of God with us. Next one. Show honor. Always respect is earned. The honor is given. Therefore you choose if you honor someone or not. So regardless of the situation, are you showing that person honor and how you say how you speak of them, how you treat them because that's on you, that's not on the other person choose mercy over judgment is your first thought when you disagree with someone mercy or how dare them. And lastly act in a way that makes a difference not simply to make noise. You can complain about culture or you can impact culture, but you can't do both and you might not be able to change the entire world. But I promise you you can change somebody's world and it starts today and it starts now and now is the greatest opportunity in our country's history to display the glory of the gospel of jesus christ, Let's pray dear heavenly father. When we pray God, we come before you because we know that having a vision of you, helps us value others in this difficult topic of racism and gender battles and abuse cases and things that we're seeing all over our culture. May we just honor you and honor those by showing they have value, they have worth. And it comes through you, jesus. God, we ask for forgiveness for the church. We ask forgiveness where when we've mistreated people when we've sought perspective and power and position, God help us instead to have the lens of viewing people. As you review does God help us to understand that we are Children of God and as being Children of God, our value is eternal through your son, jesus, It's in your son's name. We pray Amen.