Were going to do something a little different this morning. Normally while were studying James and we go to James, we pretty much park there. We spend about 100 percent of our time in that Book talking about that specific passage. Just for myself today, my sanity, sometimes when Ive been doing the same thing for a while, I need to change it up; so what were going to do is introduce the topic in James, but then were going to broaden it and bring other passages in to play in the message. Well read James. Well identify the subject matter. Well refer back to James, but were going to be developing those points in other parts of the Bible; so well be on the same topic, the gist of the message, but well be exploring other passages. Were talking this morning about favoritism-someone favoring one over another. While were talking about favoritism, were also talking about prejudice and discrimination. If youre a favorite, that means somebody else has been prejudiced against or oppressed in some way. The chances are probable that some of you have received favoritism in your lives. How many of you were accused of being Moms favorite? Has anybody here ever been accused of that-the baby of the family? I was. I milked that thing for everything it was worth. My siblings hated me for it, but I knew I was Mamas boy. I was the caboose born 14 years after the other two. Maybe along the line youve been a teachers pet. Certainly in the course of kindergarten through high school, some teacher had to like you. Has anybody here ever been a teachers pet before? The mother lode for me was second grade. In second grade, I was the apple of Mrs. Clowhites eye. I could do no wrong. I think Mrs. Clowhite was my first crush. I was six years old, and I just thought she was beautiful. She thought I was a pretty honest, good kid. I remember she would leave the classroom-she trusted me so much, she would come in and there would be horseplay going on, and shed say, What happened? Then shed say, Now, what really happened, Jeff? Id say, Well, heres what really happened, Mrs. Clowhite. So basically she turned me into a nark in second grade, but she would reward me so I liked that. But Ive also been the recipient. Maybe youve been a teachers pet or a coachs favorite on a sports team. I dont know if Id ever been that. Ive had coaches that liked me, but I have also seen when a coach has shown favoritism; and I didnt like it. I remember our senior year of high school. We had a very competitive basketball team. Our high school was 3,000 plus kids, and there was a lot of competition to make the team. There were only so many spots on varsity, and the coach said, Okay, you guys are getting here late. Im going to lock the doors when its time to start. If youre not there, no matter who you are, youre not getting in. If you dont show up on time, youre not going to play ball, so we were nervous. We got there early that day, and a kid Id never seen before came and knocked on the door. The coach looked at his watch, shook his head and said, Youre late. Go away. About five minutes later, one of his favorites knocked on the door. He said, Youre late. He opened the door and said, Come on in. Dont let it happen again. Oh, okay, we see how the world works, right? I didnt like that. I thought, Well, what if that had been me? What if that had been somebody else? Would that [person] still have gotten in? If you are the recipient of favoritism, sometimes its okay with you because life is good for you; but if you are the victim of it, you recognize how unfair it is. You become angry, and you say, This is not just. This is not right because you recognize that you have worth too and that you have value. If you receive the treatment of a second class citizen long enough-if youre the victim of discrimination and prejudice long enough-pretty soon you start to believe it. We were all touched by the story of the little girl that we ministered to in the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican, if you are Haitian, you are the victim of prejudice because of the color of your skin and where you are from. We tried to minister to this little girl. What was her name, Sheila? Do you remember? No, that doesnt sound like its it. Anyway, yeah-Katiya. We told her how beautiful she was, and she said, Oh, no! She corrected us. She said, Im not beautiful. Im black. She just said it matter-of-factly, No, youre mistaken. We were taken back by this. God made all people. God made all colors. God made us all the same. He loves us all the same. We are no better than you. They began to explain to Katiya the Gospel, and as they did it, she started to laugh. She started to giggle, and she was saying, Me? Me? She was realizing all these things about herself. Were crying, and shes laughing. She found out the message that God shows no partiality. Christ died for all of us. God loves us all, and so that is the message of James today. Lets turn in our Bibles to James 2 and read the passage together. Just to keep you on your toes in Verse 3, the Verses are in quotes. You are going to read those verses. Ill read James passages, and you read the narration (page 1196 of pew Bibles). My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, dont 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, Heres 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 are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. Verse 12, 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! That is the story of the Gospel-that mercy triumphs over judgment. Youd think Christians would know better. Youd think because of the model that Christ set that we would not be included in those who show favoritism or those who show discrimination. When I mention that I dont mean simply the rich and the poor, and that still goes on today. The poor are still exploited today. All kinds of favoritism [occurs]. You might receive favoritism because of the way you look, because of whom you are. Certainly if you were a movie star, youd receive a whole lot more attention than you do now, right-if you are a famous athlete? If youre somebody with great political power, maybe you would, or [you have] a certain family name and a certain prestige, [you might receive favoritism]. Its not just children that practice this. In high school, there are the cool kids and the geeks or the nerds. You could be in the cafeteria hanging out with a nerd or a geek, and a cool kid walks in. What happens? You pull back because you dont want to be seen with a nerd because then youll be identified as a nerd. Maybe when youre in high school when the cool kids would walk in the room, somebody would leave you because they didnt want to be seen by you. Oh, how that hurt. Well, the same kinds of cliques that can form in high school and junior high school, that certainly cant happen in adulthood, right? That certainly cant happen in the office place. Certainly you cant practice favoritism there. Im sure you dont dissociate yourself from somebody because theyre seen as a troublemaker or as somebody you dont want to necessarily impress or be around because youre trying to impress the boss. Maybe you treat the boss better because you want advancement. You want a raise. We can be guilty of these same things. You treat somebody one way, but then you find out they know somebody thats important. Maybe you find out they are somebody important or you perceive them to be important, and you treat them differently. Thats wrong. There was a banquet a few years ago at our church, a potluck. Banquet is probably too fancy of a name. It was just a potluck. My wife was talking and fellowshipping, and a woman who didnt know her came up to her and said, Youre in my seat. My wife said, Oh, I didnt realize that somebody was sitting here. Im sorry. Yeah, thats my seat. You need to move. So my wife got up, and she moved. The lady sat down and had her dinner. My wife said, Im sorry. Ill have to carry on this conversation with you later, and she left. Later on, the woman found out that she was my wife. She came back and apologized to her, Im sorry I made you move and that I was rude to you. I didnt know who you were. How do you think that made her feel? She said, Im the same person. So Im more important now than I was before because my husbands the pastor? Have we ever done that? Have we ever treated somebody one way and then found out that they had a really important job or found out they had a lot of money or knew somebody we wanted to impress or get to know? We start to treat them differently. Thats favoritism. Maybe because of a handicap, we treat them differently than we would somebody else? When I was a little boy, I was afraid of a boy named Mike in my neighborhood. He was in a wheelchair, and he would moan, groan and contort. I used to deliberately walk on the other side of the street to stay away from him. I was scared of him. Later on, I got to know his mom and came to find out that intellectually he was as smart or smarter than anyone around him. He had cerebral palsy. His body would spasm and he had a difficult time speaking. She relayed stories to me of how kids would push him down hills in his wheelchair, how people would treat him differently; yet inside in his mind, he understood everything that was going on. One day I went into his house and got to meet him. I found out he was just like me. He loved baseball, and he collected baseball cards. In fact, he had become close friends with a player by the name of Brooks Robinson from the Baltimore Orioles who often called him to see how he was doing. He became my friend. I began to see he was no different than I. So sometimes we treat people differently who are different than we are. There was a man by the name of Rick who I knew in college. When I was in college, his dad was the dean of the university I attended. They were looking for somebody to hang out with their son, be his friend, because he really didnt have any friends. When he was born, he was deprived of oxygen for a period of time which caused brain damage his whole life. He was very different and you could tell. He could function. He could speak a little bit, but you could just look at Rick-his mannerisms, his face, the way he talked-and you would know he was different. They shared some painful stories to me and in a book they had written about what their son went through because of his handicap. They said, Were looking for somebody to be his friend. The first thing I had to do was kinda do a gut check and ask myself, Am I doing this because I want to get in good standing with the dean? Because if thats my motive, then thats wrong. Then Im just using this young man to try to get in good standing with the dean. Then I decided, You know, the dean really cant help me. Hes not my professor. Thats not my motivation. I really do have a heart for this young man. I want to make a difference in his life, so I began a friendship with Rick. I would be out with him, and I would see and experience how he would be treated differently. Sometimes people would treat me differently because I was with him. There were times when wed be walking down the street, and hed reach out, hed hold my hand and hed walk with me. It was not anything sexual. He was just saying, Youre my friend. In fact, he would say to me, You my friend? You my friend. Id go, Yeah, Im your friend, Rick, and hed put his head on my shoulder. Sometimes hed even kiss me on the cheek. That was a little embarrassing having a grown man kiss me on the cheek or hold my hand out in public, but I would hold his hand. Make no mistake about it-he loved girls. It was nothing like that. Wed be in a restaurant or at a ballgame, and a pretty girl would walk by. He did not hide it. Hed go, Wwwwww, wwa girl, wwaaa girl, wwwaaaa girl, like that. Id go, All right, Rick. Settle down. Settle down. He had all the feelings that young men have, but I remember taking him to some of the college functions. One particular day, it was a softball game. Rick loved the Cubs, loved baseball. I used to have to take him to a Cubs game every year. Even after I graduated, I was still involved in Ricks life for many years until he moved. He finally got to play, so I said, Okay, were going to play softball, and we took him to the game. Of course the guy pitched to him, and he just missed terribly. We just came closer and closer, and pretty soon he was almost on top of him, but that didnt matter to Rick. We just kept pitching to him. Strikes didnt count. Wed pitch to him until he hit the ball. As soon as he hit the ball, wed say, Run, Rick, run! He started running to first, and almost like it was orchestrated, nobody communicated this in advance, but the first baseman dropped the ball. Keep running, Rick! Run to second. Over there! Over there! He was all excited. He was smiling. Wed throw to second-another error! Wed throw to third, and the next thing you know, hes scoring a homerun. Were high-fiving him and hugging him. Hes just grinning ear to ear. His mom and dad later that week thanked me and said, Thats one of the greatest things that ever happened to Rick. He was so excited to tell us about the homerun he hit in the college softball game. Do you know what I found out? When you reach out to those whove been victimized, it lifts your spirits. You gain more back than you give. I can honestly say that when it was all said and done, I gained more from knowing Rick, being his friend and being a friend of the family than I gave him; so thats an important lesson. Jesus taught us that lesson, didnt He? Lets turn in our Bibles to the Book of Luke 4. In Luke 4, Jesus has just begun His earthly ministry. He just finished the temptation in the wilderness. Hes done some teaching and preaching, but the Disciples havent yet been chosen. Miracles have not happened. Hes just beginning to teach and preach, and Hes really popular. Hes coming back to Galilee, where Hes from-that region. He comes to the synagogue. He is the guest preacher that day. They give him the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. It says here that everybody was looking at Him. Everybody was silent. He was a hometown boy making good. Jesus begins reading the Scripture, and the verses that He read from Isaiah we find in Isaiah 61. Verse 18 (of Luke 4, page 1018 of pew Bibles) says, The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me… So right away we know that this passage is referring to the Messiah. Messiah means anointed One. Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. Messiah is the Hebrew name, and it means anointed One, literally; so it was understood that this Passage was spoken of and about the anointed One, the Christ, so He reads this Passage. …anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lords favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him, and He began by saying to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, I am the One of whom Isaiah wrote. I am the anointed One. I am the Christ. That was a bold assertion, but interestingly enough, they dont run Him out of town. Theyre listening. They know Hes a leader; they know Hes charismatic, [and they think,] Maybe He is. To have the Messiah from their home area, that is pretty cool. If the Messiah grew up in your neighborhood, thats pretty cool. As a boy, you played with the Messiah. You used your wooden utensils and tools made by the man who was going to grow up to become the Messiah. Wow, pretty cool, so nobody questions that. Nobody raises a fuss about that, and Jesus begins to preach. What He is going to say is going to be so radical, so controversial, that they wont let Him finish the sermon. They are going to rush Him, grab Him by force, and pull Him to the brow of the city-their hometown boy-and throw him off the brow of the hill to kill Him. What could He have said that was so evil and so wrong that it went from adoration and respect to hatred and wanting to murder Him? What could He have said? I mean Ive preached some bad sermons in my day. Ive preached some sermons in which youve walked out of here saying, Boy, was that a snoozer today, man! Ill tell you! That was just not good! I know that. Theyre not all homeruns. Believe me-you try this; its not easy. They are not all homeruns. Sometimes theyre bunts, strikes, but you do your best; but I have never had you guys rush me and say, Were going to kill you now, man! If youre going to throw me on I90 or something…thats never happened (congregation laughing). With Jesus, its going to happen. What does He say? When I read this Passage, dont feel bad after Im done reading it; you still dont understand why theyre mad. Ill explain it to you. Some of you are going to understand it. Others of you are going to go, Why did that make them want to kill Him? I dont get it. Verse 25, this is Jesus sermon, …I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijahs time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were man in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisa the Prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed-only Naaman the Syrian. All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way. I would have loved to have been at the front of that line, give Him the old hee-ho, and all of the sudden, Hes not there. Where is He??? What happened??? Whyd they get so mad? Do you know why? Heres what Hes saying. There was a great famine, and there were many Jews during that period of three and a half years famine, but who did God send Elijah to? A Gentile widow. There were many people in Israel with leprosy, but who did God send the Prophet to in order to heal? A Gentile man. Now do you get it? They were Gods chosen people. If you were the chosen people, that could go to your head, right? If you were the teachers pet-the coach loves you best-that could start to go to your head. You are the chosen people, Were the chosen people. They began to equate that as were the only people. Were the only ones that matter. Jesus comes on the scene, and He says, Im the Messiah, not just to the Jew, but Ive been sent to the Gentiles too. Ive come to minister to the poor, all poor-not just the Jews. Ive come to minister to the oppressed and to the downtrodden. That is My mission. They are my target audience. They are the ones Ive come to seek and save. The Messiah was to be a political, military figure who would come and set up a literal thrown and rule from Jerusalem. Jesus says, Im the Messiah, but Ive not come to set up a thrown in Jerusalem. Ive not come to lead an army and conquer Rome. I have come to reach the people that are oppressed. Ive come to reach the poor. I have come to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, and Ive come to reach all people for I am the God of all races, all nations, all people-not just the God of the Jews. There was not a worse thing He could have said, so they decided they wanted to kill Him. Were the favorites! Were the ones that deserve the special treatment! We are the chosen people! We are the entitled ones! Jesus lived that, friends. What a great marketing strategy, right? My marketing strategy is to reach the poor. Thats what He did. He became a friend to the poor, to the lepers. He became their friend. The outcasts of society-even to prostitutes-He was their friend. He became friends of tax collectors who were seen as traitors. One of them became His Disciple. Samaritans were looked down upon because they were half Jew/half Gentile. They were looked upon with disdain, but Jesus comes on the scene. When He tells a parable, who was His hero? A Samaritan. His birth, in a humble manger, not in a palace, not greeted by kings and governors, but greeted by shepherds and barn animals; so His birth, His life and His death all demonstrated the same thing. Hes a God of all the people. Is that the correct time? Holy mackerel! Wow. Lets turn to Acts 6. I have to cook now. Put on your seatbelts (congregation laughing). We are going to fly! We see that though the church should know better, it doesnt. In Acts 6 right at the very beginning, there was a division because of ethnicity. In Acts 6:1 (page 1083 of pew Bibles), it says, In those days when the number of Disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews… That has nothing to do with Jews who dyed their hair, guys, okay? Grecian Formula? I dont know. Maybe they dont make it anymore. …the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. There were Jews who were born in Jerusalem, stayed in Jerusalem and spoke Aramaic-spoke the native tongue; and there were Jews who moved away and came back from Greek countries and Greek cities who were Jews, but they spoke Greek. Their widows were being passed by. They were treated like they were second class in the church. The widows who were Jewish got the food first. Those who were of Greek culture got what was left if anything at all, and they began complaining and saying, This is not right. This is unfair. Were being treated different because of our ethnic background. Favoritism was being shown to the Jewish widows, and the Apostles had to set it straight; so even in the church-that should know better-that was happening. Theres more I want to say about that, but we have to move on. Sometimes Im convinced we should tape Saturday night because Saturday night I usually preach about 20 minutes longer. In the Book of Galatians 2, remember this concept that the Jews were not to associate with Gentiles-they werent to receive them into their homes. They werent to work with them. They were basically to be excluded from them in the realms of commerce and so forth, and so it was a radical thing for the Jewish believers to begin to accept the Gentiles. There was a group for the Pharisees called the Judaisers. The Judaisers were a sect that taught that it was the law plus Jesus. You could accept Jesus, but you had to be circumcised and you had to follow the law of Moses, so it was Jesus plus. They began to infiltrate the church and try to tell the Gentiles, Youre not really Christians. Youre not a Christian until youre circumcised. The Gentiles would say, Well, whats circumcision? The Jews would tell them, Oh, no. That's not going to happen. Theyd say, Well, we dont want to observe the law either. Then the Jews would say, Well, then youre Christians. So Paul would come to the defense of the Gentiles. [Galatians 2:11, page 1152] it says, When Peter came to Antioch… Remember, thats where Christians first were called Christians-in Antioch. There was a missionary hub of the church. …I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James… That means Jewish believers from Jerusalem. …he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. He was intimidated by them. He wanted to impress them. He wanted to be their friend. They were still seen in his eyes as the one with the power and influence, and he wanted them to like him; so when they came, he pulled back from his Gentile brothers and sisters. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. Even Barnabas. This guy was so positive, so encouraging that they changed his name from Joseph to Encouragement. Thats what that word means-son of Encouragement. Joseph, you are such a positive person, accepting person, from now on, your name is Encouragement. Even he was led astray. So the lesson here in this Passage is none of us are exempt. All of us in this room can show favoritism. All of us in this room can treat people as less than we should for whatever the reason might be. Weve touched on several. All of us can be guilty and have been guilty of that. As Christians we are not exempt. If Peter and Barnabas can fall away, so can you and I. What do we do? Verse 14, When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? What do you mean? Peters not forcing anybody to do anything. By Peter hanging with the Judaisers, he was in essence saying, These guys are right. By fellowshipping exclusively with them, he was saying-communicating in no uncertain terms of the Gentiles, To be a Christian, its not just enough to follow Jesus, but you have to observe the law too. Paul says, You dont do that. Youre a hypocrite, Peter! He told him that to his face in front of everybody. You think he might pull him aside to a private room, but he wants everybody to hear the message. You think he might be intimidated because hes Peter. Hes second in command in the church. James is the top dog, but early in the Book, Paul said in this same chapter, Im not impressed by people. He said, God knows no partiality. In the eyes of God, were all equal, so Im not impressed by whom a person is, so he was not impressed by Peter. Regardless of whom he was, he was showing hypocrisy. He was demeaning a group of people because they were Gentiles, demeaning them because of their race. He says, Im going to set you straight to your face, Peter. Peter learned that lesson years later when the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and the stage were set, Peter was the one who spoke up for the Gentiles and say, They are a part of the church. They belong to God as we do, and they are justified by faith as we are. So the second lesson in that Passage is when you see discrimination, when you see favoritism, when you see prejudice, and its in your power to do so, stand up against it. Dont just idly watch it happen. Stand up against it. Paul became a difference maker in Peters life. Be a difference maker. Stand up against it. Dont just allow it to happen, but speak up. Before you do that, get the facts. Were going to combine a lesson from a couple weeks ago. Remember, Quick to listen. Slow to speak. Slow to become angry. Make sure you have all the facts before you make a judgment and before you take action. There used to be a magazine-I dont know if it still exists-called the Wittenburg Door. It was a satire magazine that kind of made fun of Christians; but they (employees of the magazine) were Christians too, so it was okay. It was a Christian publication that put it out. They were equal opportunity bashers. They would make fun of the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Pentecostals, and the Baptists. Theres humor in all denominations. Theres stuff that we can laugh at ourselves for, and they would find that. For instance, this was back in 1980, there was a page that said, Heres what you can do with $15 million. You can feed this many thousands of people. You can give immunizations to this many thousands of people. You can clothe this many thousands of people. There was this long list of all these wonderful things you could do with $15 million. It took up the whole page. On the other side, it said, …or build a crystal cathedral. So who were they talking to? Dr. Schuller. Thats an example of their humor. One day, I get The Wittenburg Door, and its on this cheap paper-like from a bad copying machine. The ink is all smudged. The paper is really cheap. It was just common paper, and I was like, What is up with this? There was a letter that said, We ran out of good paper, so we had to give the good paper to our best customers. We have to print it out on this for you and people like you. I was like, Whats up with that? My money spends like theirs! These people have been with us longer. They give more, so theyre getting the best. Whats up with that? I said, Well, maybe Ill cancel my subscription. By the way, the theme that month in The Wittenburg Door was on prejudice. Everybody got the same magazine-everybody, every subscriber, so the next month in letters to the editor, [there were multiple comments like], Cancel my subscription! Who do you think you are? Youre preaching against prejudice? Yeah, you practice it! People like me-who do you think you are? Then as hes writing, he says, Oh, I get it! Youre trying to show me what its like to be prejudiced against! This is brilliant! I want to keep my subscription! So people were jumping to conclusions without gathering all the facts. Gather the facts. But once you know it, take action. We had an individual in our church years ago who had some deep pockets. He was giving big bucks to the church-big bucks to the church; and we were very small, so that was very helpful! They began to think that they were in control and could call the shots. Heres what I want you to do. You cant do this in the church. I dont want you to do that anymore. He starting rattling things off. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out. What are you trying to do here? Because they had big bucks, they could kind of boss everybody around and get their way. I just said, Thats not going to happen here. I appreciate what you give, but because you give money here, it doesnt mean youre going to call the shots of how we minister and how I preach. Well, I guess maybe well have to part ways then. It was kind of like, Im going to take my checkbook then too. I guess we have to then. That person left. God sent about ten other families in who when combined gave what the (wealthy couple) give within a span of a month, and we just sailed on. He wanted favoritism. I said to him, Its not going to happen here. By the way, I dont know what you give. I know what the offering is, and occasionally, Ill know if a big gift comes in because youll share with me youre going to give something; but I dont run to the books and say, Who gives what? to treat you in a certain way. I dont know if you tithe or if you dont tithe. If you do tithe, I dont know what you tithe because Im not going to treat anybody any differently in this church. I dont want to see you through those lenses, so I dont look at those numbers. I have a right to, but Im not going to. There isnt anybody in this church getting preferential treatment because of whom they are or what they give. We come into this church-no matter what your background, no matter what your job, your socio-economic status, your race, whatever it is-were all the same. We are all equal. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. There is Jew nor Greek, Gentile; there is neither slave nor free; rich nor poor; male or female; black or white; we are all one in Christ. Lets pray together and well receive communion. Father, we thank You for the message spoken through our brother, James. We thank You for how it was modeled and lived by our Savior. Lord, might we too follow his example and be people not who show favoritism but people who treat all people with equality, recognizing Christ died for all, that Christ loves all, and we all are one. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believe in Him [might not perish but have everlasting life-John 3:16]. You said if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me, (John 12:32). You communicated the message from Your birth to Your death and all through Your life that You were the Savior of all people, of all countries, of all races-whether they had disease, a handicap, a deformity; whether they had become wayward with their lifestyle-whatever their background, You forgave, restored, loved and accepted them. Might we be that kind of a church. Might we be that kind of a people. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.

08-08-10
Speaker: Pastor Jeff Williams
Series: The Gospel According to Jim
Scripture: