“8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 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.”
No one likes to be on the outside looking in. I’m part of a facebook group of like-minded believers; let’s call it ‘Reformed Pastors’. I’m also part of a secret facebook group made up of certain people within that group; we make administrative decisions for the Reformed Pastors group; let’s call this group ‘Leaders of the Reformed Pastors’. So, you have the ‘Reformed Pastors’ group and then you have the secret group—'Leaders of the Reformed Pastors’.
I think it would be cruel but hilarious to drop that there is a secret ‘Leaders of the Leaders’ group. If a conversation gets too heated on the Leaders of the Reformed Pastors page I could post, “I think we should kick this to the ‘Leaders of the Leaders.’” Suddenly all those leaders who thought they were on the inner circle aren’t so sure anymore. ‘Who is in this group? Why wasn’t I invited?’
Now of course, the minute I truly consider doing that, I realize that there probably is a Leaders of the Leaders of the Reformed Pastors group and I’m not part of it. No one likes to be left out of the inner circle.
You know how the inner circle works. You remember it from high school. You know who is in the inner circle in your work place. How do you get inside?
An inner circle is purposefully exclusive. An inner circle exists, in part, to keep people out. Now not all official leadership structures function like inner circles. Most inner circles are, in fact, informal.
The inner circle has a dangerous attraction. The desire to be on the inside will cause a man or woman to make any number of foolish decisions. Some buy items they can’t afford. Others cut loose friends they’ve had for years.
Have you ever treated anyone poorly in hopes of joining the inner circle? I think that most of us can remember cruel words we’ve said to someone that we considered less important than ourselves in hopes of impressing someone we considered more important than ourselves.
Favoritism is the way of the inner circle. Considering some people as more significant than others is the way of the inner circle. Discrimination based on wealth, intelligence, attractiveness, athletic prowess, or popularity is the way of the inner circle.
Inner circles exist in almost every community. Churches can develop an inner circle. That is a profoundly troubling development because the church, by definition, must not discriminate. We must not consider some people as more significant than others. We must not show favoritism. It is the law.
Favoritism breaks God’s law. Love fulfills God’s law. That is the claim of this sermon: Favoritism breaks God’s law. Love fulfills God’s law.
We see this in two points. First: love fulfills the law. Second: favoritism breaks the law. In verse 8, we will see how love fulfills the law. In verses 9-11, we see how favoritism fulfills the law.
First: let’s see how love fulfills the law. James has been focusing our attention on what is genuine. Genuine listening not only hears God’s word but puts what God has said into action. Genuine religion cares for those in distress. Genuine religion flees the sin of the world. James is now focusing our attention on genuine love. The favoritism that we saw last week was not genuine love.
Some members of that first century church were fawning over the rich and inadvertently humiliating the poor. That was not loving, and love is the rule of relationships for Christ’s people. We see that in verse 8, ‘If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.’
James calls that command the royal law because it is the law of the land in the kingdom of God. This love is due to your neighbor and your neighbor is everyone you meet.
That was the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus asked the expert in the law, “Which of these three –the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan –do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
You are to do likewise to everyone. You are to do to everyone what you would want anyone to do to you. That seems straightforward, but even that can be twisted. Some in our culture define loving your neighbor as affirming your neighbor in whatever choices they make. They label any lack of affirmation as hate-speech. They hear Jesus’ words, “love your neighbor as yourself,” and say, ‘amen. I want to be affirmed in whatever I do and so I will affirm everyone in whatever they do.’
That’s not the love that James had in mind in verse 8. That’s not the love that Jesus had in mind when he taught the greatest commandments. Jesus taught you to love others by treating them according to God’s commandments. That’s why he said the entire law hangs on the command to love. Paul explained what Jesus meant saying that, ‘the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself”… therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.’
You love your neighbor by treating them the way God commands you to treat everyone. The law of God is what love looks like in specific actions. People who roll their eyes at God’s law are rolling their eyes at love. Read the Sermon on the Mount. That is what love looks like in action. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where people treated each other that way?
There is no great mystery about how you are to treat people. You are to treat everyone you meet with love. You put love into action by putting God’s commandments into action.
The commandments tell you how to treat others. You will find this particularly helpful in dealing with people whom you find difficult. Imagine there is someone that you find burdensome. You find her actions to be hurtful. She puts whatever you say or do in the worst possible light. What do you do with a woman like that? You love her by keeping the commandments. Love is patient. You act with patience towards her. Love is kind. You act with kindness towards her. You don’t run through the laundry list of your record of wrongs against her. You make it your business to believe the best about her. You treat her the way God has commanded you to not only treat her but to treat everyone.
The call to love is universal. You are called to be kind to the unrepentant homosexual man marching in a pride parade just like you are called to be kind to the man whose theological views line up perfectly with yours. You are not to dishonor in any way the man whose politics you find reprehensible. Nor are you to boast about your situation to the man who has made such unwise and ungodly decisions that he might never enjoy what you have.
Jesus goes so far as to apply this love to your enemies. By telling you to love your enemies, he isn’t telling you to put your heart in their hands. He is telling you to treat them according to his commandments. He is telling you to treat them the way that you would like to be treated. That is what every reasonable voice today is clamoring for in our culture. Our cultural commentators would be wise to give Jesus a second look.
We all know that we are supposed to love. God’s law shows us what love looks like. Now we see what love does not look like. That is our second point: favoritism breaks the law.
James was writing to a church with noticeable favoritism. They favored the rich over the poor. Now how serious was that issue? To clothe the issue of favoritism in modern language, ‘how serious a matter is racism? Is that on par with murder? How serious a matter is sexism? Is it closer to idolatry or forgetting to recycle?’
James explains its seriousness in verse 9, “But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
Treating a poor man differently from a rich man wasn’t just a fault; it was a sin; it was a violation of God’s law. Exodus 23 commands, “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits,” and, “do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.” You must not favor the rich over the poor or the poor over the rich. You must treat them evenhandedly.
Showing favoritism to the rich or the poor is not just wrong. It is a sin. That’s why James said, “if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
You need to know what is sin and what isn’t sin because if you don’t know what sin is and what sin isn’t, you will be confused about how to treat people. GK Chesterton was right, “If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.”
Emily Post’s nineteenth edition of Etiquettehas 736 pages that includes far more commandments than the Bible and the people in our culture that those commandments very seriously. Read Dear Abby.
Now I have nothing against etiquette but if you can’t tell where that book stops and the Bible starts then you will be confused about how you must treat your fellow man. You won’t know when you’ve been sinned against and when you’ve just been offended. You won’t know when you need to forgive and when you just need to move on. You won’t know what God requires of you.
If you break a social norm like etiquette that is merely a matter of wisdom. If you break God’s law, that is a matter of sin.
This sin of favoritism is no small matter. It isn’t just one infraction that is outweighed by your general goodness. It is so grievous that it breaks the whole law just like Moses did when he smashed those tablets. That’s verse 10, “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.’
Now James isn’t saying that no sin is worse than another. A moment’s thought will tell you that you would rather be mocked than murdered; you would rather your spouse have a lustful thought than commit adultery.
James isn’t saying that no sin is worse than another. He is saying that God’s law has an inescapable unity and that therefore to break one command is to break the whole thing. God’s law is whole cloth. You can’t pull one thread out and expect it to preserve integrity. You can’t humiliate a homosexual man and then say, ‘but at least I didn’t physically harm him” without breaking the whole law of God.
You don’t get to pick and choose how to treat people as groups of people. Favoritism assumes that you do. Favoritism says that it is okay to dishonor that man because he is a Democrat or because he is a Republican. Favoritism says that you can decide which commandments to apply to whom. Favoritism is about the inner circle. That is not loving your neighbor as yourself.
James’ view of love is consistent. It is to be consistently applied to all. It is also consistent with itself. James says that in verse 11, “For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’” The same God spoke the entire law. Every command is consistent with the others. You don’t get to pick and choose, and you don’t have to pick and choose.
That is a relief. The world has ten thousand rules about how you should treat people and many of them are inconsistent. We are told a man must not treat a woman differently from a man in any way, but he must never forget that she is a woman. We are told sexual relations have no moral importance but the worst crimes that can be committed are sexual in nature. We could go on and on with these inconsistencies that the world applies according to favoritism.
The world’s laws are inconsistent because they arise out of favoritism and they are applied with favoritism.
God’s law gives no man a free pass. The richest CEO and the poorest employee of the company are on equal footing before the judgment seat of God. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
On that day the difference between favoritism and love will be clear. It will be seen that favoritism is really all about me and love is really all about others. You show favoritism when you think that your actions will benefit you. You show love when you think that your actions will benefit others.
This is part of the last judgment. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and help you?” “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”
That is the final celebration of love for neighbor. Here is the final condemnation of favoritism. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and not help you?” “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Love is about benefitting others. Favoritism is about benefiting you and benefiting the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned will not benefit you. If you are out for your own benefit, you will not love them. You will only benefit those who can benefit you. Jesus calls that such favoritism worthless. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.”
If you have no love for those who cannot benefit you, you would not love Jesus if you met him on the street. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”
Jesus put himself outside of the inner circle. “He was despised and rejected by mankind.” The follower of Jesus is willing to follow Jesus out of the inner circle. The follower of Jesus stops showing favoritism. He starts showing love. Amen.