 What's up, Radiant Church? Good to see you. My name is John. I'm the, thank you, I'm the campus pastor here in Richland and so great to see some of us in the room. I know many are watching online. We wanna say you are still part of the Radiant family. We're in this together and hopefully you're watching at someone's house, hosting a watch party or watching online. I know Portage is watching as well and we just wanna say, as a Radiant family, we are stronger together and we are excited and honored to be a part of what God's doing. So for me, it's been a long time since I've been in this position. So Pastor Sonny assured me that I still know how to do this. So that's good. But yeah, I just wanna give a shout out to Pastor Lee and Jane, but Pastor Lee in particular who has tirelessly led us in this season as a staff and as a church. He did like 300 prayer meetings in a row and preached every single week and has been just a stalwart of leadership for us. So we're so honored to have such incredible leadership in and out this church. Pastor Caleb who has helped prayer happen every single morning at 8 a.m. Hopefully you engage in that as well. And we have just become an everyday church experience here at Radiant and we're thrilled about it. So I am beyond excited to be here with you. I was studying this week and right up to the last minute for this message and I think it was yesterday or maybe the day before that my son Eric was with me and he was helping me study and which means not at all. But he ended up watching a video and he's into like these top 10s now. Top 10 biggest dogs. Top 10 scariest water parks. So he was watching top 10 most expensive jewels or something like that. So I'm trying to study. He's like, dad, dad. I'm like, yes, son. You got my full attention. Obviously what? And he's like, there's diamonds worth 48 million dollars. And I was like, that's incredible, bro. That is a ton of money. And then he goes, and yeah, you don't even have close to like one million dollars. And I said, really? How do you know that? And he goes, because I've seen you open your wallet before and I was like, okay, fair point. I don't have a million dollars. But he helped me this week study and we're in a message series in the book of James and I love the book of James. We actually talked about doing a summer series in the book of James back in February before all of the COVID craziness. And that kind of got derailed a little bit, but we're coming back to it. And I'm so excited because I think James is such an incredible, rich resource of so many practical, but yet hardcore theological admonitions and challenges for the church. And it's not a super easy book. It's practical in the sense that it's, you know what he's saying, but he's awful hard on us sometimes. So I get chapter two, I'm doing this week and next week. And some of this is harder than others to communicate and to kind of digest as Christians. But I wanted to just walk with me and let the Lord speak to your heart. If you're not aware, James was the half brother of Jesus. His mother was Mary and his father was Joseph. And he didn't believe in Jesus as the Messiah when they were growing up, which doesn't surprise you big time because, you know, brothers be fighting. But in Corinthians, it says that he saw the resurrected Jesus and he was like, my bad, bro, I'm sorry. I knew you kept your room way too clean. You probably had to be, no, but he apologized. And then he went on a mission and scholars believe that James is the very first book in the New Testament like written. It was only a couple of decades after Jesus. So just an incredibly powerful book and different than like Paul, like Paul, I love Romans, I love Ephesians, but Paul like has these insane run on sentences and this super like long theological, you know, just diatribe that, you know, and if the church is kind of like getting off the, the Markills go Colossians three, you know, if then you've been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, you know, set your mind on heavenly things, not on earthly things for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And that's Paul and James is just kind of like, you guys suck, you're terrible at being Christians. You're the worst at this and I'm gonna tell you why. So if James is a little more blunt, but hopefully you'll work with me here and we're gonna be in chapter two, but I wanna just read the last part of chapter one, 26 and 27, just if you're in the book of James, it's right after Hebrews. If you get to Peter, you went too far, but James one, 26, 27 says, if anyone thinks this is James, he is religious, but doesn't bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart. And this religion, this person's religion is worthless, religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. I think the key word, and it's not in the book of James, but that he's trying to communicate is this word of integrity. It's this word of consistency. Integrity means like oneness. And what James is communicating throughout the whole book, his entire argument for everything he says is this, if your life has been impacted by the love and grace and goodness of Jesus Christ, then it ought to change how you do this. It ought to change how you do that. It ought to change how you see people. It ought to change how you see yourself. James always puts the being before the doing. He always puts the identity before the activity. He always says, because you are this, because God's done that, because you've had this experience, it should result in something like this. And that's what he does throughout the whole book. He doesn't just say, do this. He says, no, he says, be doers of the word, not hearers only. Well, why James? Because the word, when it's implanted in your soul with meekness has the ability to save your soul or he'll say, you know, be angry, but don't sin. Or he says, be quick to listen and slow to speak. Well, why? Because anger in a person does not produce the righteousness of God. So it's always this, I want you to read it and hear it through this idea of not Paul or James yelling at us, but James saying, this is who you are. So this should be how it affects how you live. I remember Kendra and I, gosh, it was probably 15 years ago. I think she was pregnant for Addy. Went to New York City for the very first time to visit some friends who live there and they were so awesome. They set up all these like excursions for us. So we went to some Broadway, went to a Broadway show. We went to like this insane sushi restaurant where apparently they like flew it in from Japan like every single day. It was like $3 million a plate or something like that. And then we went on one of these tour guides where you get on this bus and you go throughout the whole city and you have like a tour guide. So I remember sitting down, we've never been in New York before and I'm looking and by the tour guide, there's a sign in the bus and it says this, I will not bite, kick, punch, cuss or murder. And then underneath it it said, because I'm the tour guide. And I'm reading it and I was like, I think that's supposed to be a joke. And by the laughter in this room, it's obviously hugely funny, but I'm thinking to myself, okay, I get it. Like you're the tour guide, so you're not gonna do any of those things that you put on this placard and placed in the bus. And it reminded me of what James is saying. It's not, don't do this, this and this. It's because my identity is I'm a tour guide, you can expect some certain things, the least of which is me not to kick you, bite you, cuss at you or murder you. For like staples in society. And that's the same thing that James is communicating. And then that's why he says in verse 26, but if you think you're religious and you don't bridle your tongue, you deceive yourself. Like Jesus said it similarly, he said out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, but Jesus was nicer than James. So he said it easier, but James like, look your religion is worthless if being impacted by Jesus didn't change what you say. But also what you do, he said, look, this is pure and undefiled religion, verse 27. I just wanna start with that and then we'll get into chapter two. And when he says religion, he's not talking about like cold orthodoxy, sometimes religion gets a bad rap as a word. He's talking about authentic faith. This is what it looks like, that you're going to visit orphans and widows and you're gonna keep yourself unspotted from the world. So what James is saying is I think, especially in today's culture, sometimes we wanna split that down the middle and you have some people who have an encounter with Jesus and it changes their entire outlook on the world around them. They're social justice driven, they wanna eradicate poverty, they wanna see equal footing for all people, they wanna care for the her and the needy and that's amazing. But when it comes to their personal lives, they're like, well, don't tell me what I can and can't do, don't tell me that I can't live this way, don't tell me I can't live with my girlfriend, whatever it is, like I don't need to hear that and they kinda take that side of it. And then the flip side is this encounter with Jesus that leads to personal morality. So now it affects what I do, what I say, what I watch on the screen, how I live my life. But then you have people who are totally cold and callous towards the needs of others and they have this like almost righteousness within themselves, but they don't have a heart for other people. And James, you say James, well, what is it? Social justice or is it personal morality? And James says yes, it's everything. Like when you look at your life being impacted by Jesus, it should affect how you live, but it also should and must affect the way that you see other people, the way that you see the hurting, the way that you see the needs of the people around you and the city around you. And I think today in our culture, especially in the midst of this COVID, we're again, for good reason, we're social distancing, we're staying away from people. If we're not careful, our hearts can grow cold and now we're entering into not just a period where we have all kinds of debates about, you know, mass and no mass and this and that, but we're gonna enter into a political season that may be unlike any other. So I say all that to say, as people of God, we have to understand that the presence and power of God in us is there to flow out to other people and we set the example as Christians and as people of God. So in verse two, excuse me, chapter two, we're gonna kind of break this down a little bit. So I'm gonna give you the what we're not supposed to do according to James, the why behind that and then a better way to live. So the first thing is verse one, James doesn't mess around, he tells it just like it is. Verse one, my brothers, so he's speaking to Christians, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Now that might not mean a whole lot to you. Like you probably may be right over that a few times. Your translation might say show no favoritism. That might be a better translation, but that's sort of the positive side of it. Like, but the other side of that pendulum is don't discriminate against people based on how they look. That's what James is saying in this verse, show no partiality as you hold the faith on our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Don't see people that word partiality in the Greek really means face value, like value face. It's a word I think James might have made up, but he's saying don't value someone just based on how they look. That's exactly what the world does. That's exactly what happens in our culture and in our society, but as Christians, we're not to show partiality or favoritism to a certain group of people, to a certain class of people, to a certain color of people, as Christians, we're to see value and intricate image of God in every single human being on the face of the planet. That's what James is saying in one verse. Don't show partiality, don't show favoritism. Don't judge other people by how they look, by how they dress, by how they vote, by their social economic status, by where they live. I'm from the North, you're from the South, by their age, all those old people, all these young kids. There's so many ways that we can be divided and James is about to share one that's a social economic divide, but that word is actually plural when he says partialities, when he says favoritism. So he's talking about in all of these realms, we as Christians are to not value other people above other people based on how they look or based on their class or based on their color or any of those things. So he's gonna give an example right here in verses two through four. It says, he gives an example, so here it is. He's talking about church. So this isn't some like, hey, someday you might run into this and if you do, hopefully you remember this verse, he's saying no, like right now in this room, I'm talking to you guys. So this is James. He says, for if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, literally into your church and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, hey, sit here in a good place. While you say to the poor person, you stand over there or sit down at my feet. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? And here's what I'm gonna say. Everybody does this. Everybody does this on some level. So we, as I'm reading this, I'm going, oh man, I know I struggle with that. When you see people and you do make judgments. And so I'm not here saying that can never happen. What I'm saying and what James is saying is, we have to wrestle with that. We have to give that to the Lord. We can't be okay with that. It's going to happen. You're going to have instances where you want to judge people by what they look like. We don't know anything about them, but they're dressed that way or they live in that house or their kids went to that movie or whatever it is, it's so easy, especially in our culture, to judge people only on the external. And so he gives an example about two people. One comes in with nice clothes on. The word for fine clothing is shiny. So shiny clothes and gold rings. And we know that clothing is good. I'm glad we all wore a lot of it, enough of it. It's hot, but we want clothing, right? But how many of you know, clothing doesn't just cover our body. Clothing gives a statement. Clothing gives a representation of who we are or who we think we are or at least who we're trying to be. Like I got these shoes on because all the kids are wearing them. Pro-Keds with Velcro or something. We want the cool thing or I bought this jacket and I bought these and the flip side of that is, man, if you don't have it, it's rough. I remember growing up, I was the youngest of five kids. We weren't like poor, poor, but my dad was not trying to spend money so that I could have cool clothes. Let me tell you that. So I went to a Christian school and the cool thing was Izod, that little alligator, right? And polo, like people had polo. And I was like, mom, I need a polo shirt. And my mom was like, no, you get Knights of the Round Table. And I was like, you're killing me, mother. I can't go to school. Everybody knows it's not a polo. It's like a pony, a little horse. It's not a polo horse. And instead of Izod, she bought like, and you know, with that little alligator, she would buy like iPod or something. It was like a chameleon. It was always off brand stuff. I wore tough skin jeans. Does anybody remember tough skin jeans? Their whole slogan was, your child will outgrow these before they can wear them out. So I'd be like, dear God, why can't I get holes in these knees? But I wore tough skins forever. And so clothing is important, but what James is saying is, look, we cannot make judgments based on the externals. It's not how God sees and it's not how God wants us to see. And I'm telling you, all of us Christians included struggle in these arenas. You see somebody with tons of tattoos. You make a judgment. You see somebody, a girl dressed a certain way. You make a judgment. All of those things happen. So how do we wrestle with that? Look what he says in verse four. When you do this, you've not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts. That word distinctions means divisions. You're basically dividing the community. You're saying, I get to decide who's in and who's out. I get to decide who's worth it and who's not. I get to decide who's worthy and who isn't. And he says, you're a judge. You've made yourself a judge to say, you make the cut, you don't make the cut. And our eyes just scan rooms and scan areas to see who's with us, who's not with us. And James says, but your criteria for judging is evil. Not just like, hey, man, I know there's worse things you could be doing, but try not to, he says, no, it's evil. And you know why it's evil? Because Jesus, he says the glorious one came and he found you and he found me when we were dirty. And we had nothing to offer him. We had no way to improve his life whatsoever ever. Jesus wasn't like, oh man, I should kind of team up with them. I bet I could get some influence over it. We had nothing. We were separated from God because of our sin and because of our own minds and our own sin nature. And the Bible says Jesus reached out and he touched us and he invited us into his family and he washed us and he cleansed us. And what James is saying, if you've experienced the goodness of God in your life, if you've seen Jesus redeem your heart, redeem your soul, drag your life up from the My Repit and set your feet on the clay, then we are not to go around pointing at other people and making judgments because it means our thoughts and our criteria are evil. That's what James is saying. So that's the what that he's talking about. Don't do that as you're a Christian, but he also says why. He unpacks us a little bit for us and I wanna just kind of give us, it's easy to say, well, don't do it because it's not good, but I wanna hopefully bring a little more nuance to why it hurts the heart of God when we do this. So look at verses five, verse five of James two. So he goes on and James says, listen, my beloved brother, 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. So he tells us what not to do and why don't we do that? Why shouldn't we judge people on their appearance? Why shouldn't we judge people by their economic status or their wealth or lack thereof? He says because when you do that, you're literally opposing God. You're going the opposite direction of God. God loves the poor. God cares about poor people a lot. I looked up tons of verses and there are so many where God sides with the poor. God extends grace to the poor and there are many, many more where God is not that thrilled about people who are rich in the Bible. And obviously the Bible is more nuanced than all poor people are good and all rich people are bad. That's not what it's saying whatsoever. But it's saying this, when you're poor, you have an awareness of your own neediness, your own need for God, your own need for grace, your own need for maybe food, maybe clothing. I mean, even like basic needs are just, they're so highlighted when you don't have much, but when you do, it's so easy to be self-sufficient. So easy to think, well, I did this. I created this. I worked hard for this. I went to college for this. I got an education so I could have this job. And whether we know it or not that leads to looking at other people and judging them because they're not in that position. Well, if they worked a little harder, if they had a little more motivation, guy holding a sign on the side of the highway, well, I know Taco Bell's hiring. Why is he sitting right there? Those are all thoughts that we've had in our hearts. And what I'm telling you is that God sees the poor and his heart is moved towards them, not away from them. He doesn't shrink back. The Bible says that God sees the poor and he not only showers his love on them, God is in the business of using unqualified people to advance his kingdom and to advance his plans and his purposes. It's his specialty. He looks for the David's who are just tending sheep. He looks for the Mary's who's just this Jewish girl and says, you're gonna be the mother of the savior of the world. The Gideons who are in the wine press shaking and shivering and scared. He's calling mighty men of valor. That's what God does. And 1 Corinthians 1 says he looks for those people and he confounds the wisdom of this world. And he takes the things that our world says, look at them. Shiny, gold, get around them. And he says, no, and I bring that to nothing and I elevate the weak and I elevate the poor and I elevate the overlooked and the marginalized. And those are the ones that my heart extends to and I want my people to be just like that. But it's so hard. I mean, let's just be honest. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the materialism to get wrapped up in seeing people's value for what they can maybe offer us or maybe they can even offer society. So easy to get fixated on, well, I'm the reason I'm successful. It's not necessarily good to be poor, like to not have anything or to always struggle. I'm not saying that's what God wants, but I'm saying this, people will ask me like, why do you think I've been on many mission trips? Why do you think miracles and signs and wonders are so much like more prevalent and easier to see and to be a part of in like other nations than they sometimes are in the United States because I've experienced that firsthand. And I'll tell you, when you know that you need, when you recognize I'm poor, I don't have answers, it leads you to a place of full dependency on God. And I've looked at people and I've said, God wants to heal you. And I've seen people that have no other options. You can't go to the doctor and thank God for doctors. But I laid my hand on this woman's tumor and my hands started going like this as it shrunk on her stomach. And she just began to weep. And that changed my life forever. I will never, if I live to be 130 years old, I will never forget that in the lyrics to Ice, Ice, Baby. But that's another story. But I'm serious. And then I remember being in a medical line once where we brought all these doctors. I think we were in Ecuador or Honduras. And these people were in line for hours to receive medical care and we're praying for some and healings are breaking out. And a woman cried when she was handed four Ibuprofen for a toothache. Need. She'd never had that before. And sometimes we can become so fixated on what we have or even what we don't have or what we've created for ourselves or how we've made it. And we forget that not that God wants us to be poor in the sense that we can't have anything but Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. Poor in spirit doesn't mean you're wandering around the desert like, oh, where's God? It means this. I'm humble. I'm meek. I recognize James 1 21 that every good and perfect thing comes from above. It's from the father of lights and there's no variation. There's no shadow of turning. I have not made my own success. I am not a self made person. But by the grace of God, I could have been born in Nigeria or somewhere where I didn't have anything and I didn't know about Jesus. Those are things that we need to remind ourselves as Christians is that God sees the poor differently than we do. And when we look down on the poor and when we marginalize other people we're going the opposite direction of God. And we don't want to do that. Look at the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 10. There was tons of verses I love this one the most. I think it's going to come up in the NIV. This is God saying, for the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome who shows no partiality, no favoritie, accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless in the widow and he loves the foreigner residing among you giving them food and giving them clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. I'm not going to unpack that. I'll just let that sit with us. But number one, we oppose God when we do that. Second thing is we tend to cozy up with the world instead of witnessing to the world. Look at verses six and seven. James goes on he says, but you dishonored the poor are not the rich ones who oppress you? Aren't they the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? I love how James is always going like full jeopardy. He doesn't just say, they're the ones oppressing you. You have evil thoughts. He says, are not you becoming judges with evil intentions? He like turns it into a question, but it is what he's saying. He says, are not the rich ones who oppress you? They're the ones you drag into court. Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? And there's some culture to this and some context in that the scattered Christians and Jewish people were in all these different areas and the rich people in those areas were trying to take them to court and take their land. They were literally trying to squeeze them out and take their possessions. And yet James says they're still cozying up to them. They're still trying to see, oh, can you help promote me? Oh, if I rub shoulders with them, I'll look good. And maybe they can offer me something. And he's saying, you're not even walking out the truth you actually know. That's how much hypocrisy has entered into your life. You're rubbing shoulders with them and they're the ones taking you to court. They're the ones blaspheming the name of Jesus. They're not walking any of this out. Why are you doing that? And I feel like today we need to recognize the church is never going to be cool enough to cozy up with culture. We're never gonna have enough cool stuff and lights. I remember some youth pastors at a conference I was like, well, if we just had more lights and if we just had more disco balls and more smoke like kids would think that was sweet. And I'm like, look, I love excellence. I think you can set an environment and it's powerful but at the end of the day, we are different than the world. We're not supposed to look just like the world. We're not just a gathering of people. People can gather anyway and go to the mall and go to a basketball game. But the people of God gather to celebrate who God is and what he's done and to be empowered and equipped according to Ephesians 412 to take what we know and go into the world and be salt and be light. And we can't do that if we're constantly trying to cozy up with the world, trying to get the world to like us. And please hear me. I'm not talking about we're antagonistic and we're on Facebook getting riling things up. I'm saying we recognize we're salt and we're light to the world but we also are not of the world. We're of a different citizenship. And too often churches today are doing everything they can to get people to like them, get people to come back. We don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable. That's why the gospel isn't preached. That's why repentance isn't preached in so many churches because all of someone's gonna get upset and they're not gonna come back and they're not gonna think we're friendly and they're not gonna think we're cool and they're not gonna like us and as Christians we have to understand not everybody's gonna like us. Not everybody's gonna like the church. Not everybody's gonna like the truth of Jesus and it's not supposed to be easy to be a Christ follower. It's not chicken soup for the soul. Jesus said, you wanna follow me? Okay, take up your cross and deny yourself. Then you can follow me. He set a standard that was not easy, that was not a feel good mission. He said, no, it's gonna be difficult. And I believe with all my heart, we need culture, we need our city, we need the world, not to experience just a cool church but to experience a living God and the power of the living God that changes lives, that changes hearts, changes situations. It's okay to be cool. It's not a bad thing. We have some worship leaders, they're cool. You squeeze them and skinny jeans pop out. There's nothing wrong. Nothing wrong with that. But at the end of the day, that is not what's going to attract people. It's gonna be the power and presence of God that we step into darkness, arise and shine. Why? The glory of the Lord is upon you. Darkness is gonna cover the land. Deep darkness, the people. We don't run away from it, we shine into it and then we let the Holy Spirit do what he needs to do but what James is saying, stop looking at people and thinking, what can I get from them? How can they help me? How could this benefit my existence if I get to know them? No, start looking for people who aren't like you. Start looking for people who don't look anything like you. Don't vote anything like you. They have different skin color, different social economic and I'm not saying you can't have friends. I mean, it's that have similar interests but man, some people will come to me and say, you know, me and my four buddies, we get together and we're the church, man. We just have church, four of us. We're two or three are gathered. And I say, okay, but let me just see here. The church that you go to, everyone looks exactly like you. Everybody talks like you. You all are wearing the same shoes. You all have the same ideas. That's okay, but that's not what the church is supposed to look like. We're not supposed to be a country club. We're not all supposed to look exactly the same. We're not all supposed to act exactly the same. We're not all supposed to have the exact same interests, the exact same social economic backgrounds. I love it when I see cigarette butts out by the door that people just put out. I remember one time I smelled something that wasn't even cigarettes. It was something medicinal was happening. And I was like, you know, you can have this religious spirit like, what are they doing? We're coming to church. And for me, it's like, no, come on. Let the world see, let them experience God. We need different people. We can't just cozy up with everybody who makes us comfortable. And there's so many places that it's easy to do that. I mean, places where it's not easy, it's church and like secretary of state. Those are the two places for, but there's less anger here and there's more Jesus. So, but seriously, look for ways to expand your comfort zone when it comes to people. Don't, we can't look to the world for approval. It's just not gonna work. And the last thing is this, it doesn't just break the law. It hurts the law giver. Look at verses eight through 11 in James two. James was on, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well. So he's saying, look, I'm gonna sum up the whole law. Jesus did this, Leviticus. Jesus said, if you love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing it right. Because the law gets pretty micro, gets a little crazy in Leviticus. Like your neighbor loses a donkey on your property. You gotta like bring it back with a dozen eggs. And there's just some crazy stuff. So he says, don't worry about all that. Love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do that, you're doing well. But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and you're convicted by the law as transgressors. Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it all. For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said do not commit murder. If you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So what he's saying is not, hey, every kind of sin is the same. What he's saying is, don't tell me that you're, hey, at least we're doing this and this, but we're also looking down on people. We're also showing favoritism. We're also discriminating against people. That's what he's saying. If you broke one law, you broke them all. And the laws surmise by love your neighbor as yourself. That's first. And says, if you're doing that, you're doing well. But if you're not, then maybe you haven't really experienced the grace and power of love of Jesus Christ because it's not just for you. It's supposed to affect you so that it falls out to others. And so we can't just say, well, I stopped watching bad movies and I don't swear and I don't cuss and I don't chew and I don't date girls that do. So I must be all right with Jesus. And he says, no, what is your heart like for other people? What do other people mean to you? What is your heart break for? Does it break for the things of God? And so you can't just put your laurels on, well, at least we're doing this, right? Like in my house, if my wife's like, I want you to clean your room and my daughter's like, I'm not doing it. That's not gonna go over well, right? But then she can't, if I'm about to lay down the law for her, she can't go, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I brushed my teeth and did my homework. So I'm good. I mean, it's like, no, no. You still can't talk to your mother that way. She's the law giver. So look, but here's what he's saying. Here's what I love. I want to read this verse. Verse 11, for he who said, do not commit adultery. Also said, do not murder. And I think that is such a powerful phrase in what we're talking about, because I don't want you to see this just as, oh, I keep the law. You gotta keep the law. You keep the law. There's a law giver and his name is Jesus, God, for he who said. So when we judge people, when we look down on people, when we discriminate against people, we're not just breaking a law. We're breaking the heart of the law giver. For he who said, don't do this. Also said, don't do that. It's a personal thing to God. So when we look down on poor people, it hurts the heart of God. When we look down on people who don't have what we have, when we discriminate, when we're racist, when we're looking at people through the lens of what they have or don't have, it's not just, okay, you check a box, you broke the law. It's literally hurting the heart of God. And we need to see that. And we all need to wrestle with that. That's what James is saying. It's not about perfection. It's not about, I'll never do that. I'm telling you, I don't know if you can completely stop doing that. Our carnal mind sometimes just goes that way, but when it's been renewed and touched by Jesus, that's when we stop and we say, I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna show that. It doesn't mean that we only like poor people. It just means we show them the same love, the same grace, the same compassion, the same mercy that we would show anybody else. We don't discriminate. We don't disclude them because of how they look or how they dress. That's what the world is looking for, consistency, integrity. Jesus saw me when I was a mess. Jesus saw me when I was a wreck. And if you don't think you were a wreck when Jesus found you, that's a point A for you. Because sometimes we can think, you know, well, actually God got a pretty good deal when I came in to the kingdom and I'm looking around this room and I'm probably in the top 2% pastor. So I mean, I hear you, but that's not what God's looking for. He's saying, but for God, we would be lost. Ephesians two talks about, we were on a path to total destruction. We were separated from God because of our sin. We had nothing to offer. And verse four starts with, but God, who is rich in mercy and in love, redeemed us, adopted us, set us on a solid ground and said, you're my child. You have value. Before you were even formed in your mother's womb, I knew you, I created you, I love you. And that goes for every single person on the planet, the illegal aliens, the protesters, the black people, the white people, the yellow people, every single tribe, tongue and race has value to God and they need to have value to us. That's what James is saying. That's the better way. The last verse, it says, so speak, verse 12, speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty, the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Again, James is a little harsh. Then he ends it with some positivity. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Here's what he's saying. The same way that we've extended mercy to other people is literally what God's going to extend to us. We're going to stand before God someday and we are going to give him an account for our lives. We are going to give an account for what we did with the grace and shed blood of Jesus Christ, but we're also going to give an account for how we loved people. John 13, 35, Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciples by the love that you have one for another. Doesn't mean we agree with everyone. Doesn't mean we don't have standards. Doesn't mean that we have to somehow condone all behavior, all lifestyles, but we love people and we recognize I'm not wrestling against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenlies. And I refuse to make people my enemy. I refuse it. I'm going to love people. I'm not going to show favoritism. I'm not going to exclude some people. I'm not going to hate people because they're not like me or because they're different. I want to just have a moment or two of reflection. I'm going to ask you if you would just stand. And the piano's just going to play. And I'm just going to ask you to close your eyes right now, wherever you are, online, portage in this room, in your living room. And I want you to just ask the Holy Spirit right now. I've prayed that God would illuminate. And this is what God does. He doesn't condemn me. He doesn't bring shame, but he illuminates parts of our heart. David said, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me. See if there's a wicked way in me. Know my anxieties. He said, God, I don't want parts of my heart. I don't want recesses of my heart to be dark or to be unobtainable for you. And so right now, I want you to just ask the Holy Spirit who are the people in my life that I built walls around. I've judged. I've shown partiality. I've maybe even hated. Maybe it's a certain race. Maybe it's a certain person. Maybe it's someone who wounded you badly as a young person. Maybe it's a political party. There's so many things that want to divide us, but Jesus Christ is the great unifier. And he's the one who said, if your enemy hurts you, pray for him. They spitefully abuse you, bless them. People say Christianity's a crutch. It's not, it's not easy. If you follow Jesus, it's hard, but it is the most fulfilling and it is the most potential for joy and peace in our lives and that's what the world needs. And so I'm just gonna be quiet for 30 seconds. And I want you to just ask the Lord and then we're gonna pray and close together. Who do I need to release? Who do I need to forgive? Who do I need to not judge or show favoritism to? Father, right now we humble ourselves. We say we wanna be poor in spirit, God. We wanna be aware of how desperately we need you. How desperately we need your grace every moment of our lives, remembering how you found us, how you saved us, how you redeemed us. And God, when we've experienced that grace and that love and that mercy, it is to flow from us to others. And God, I just pray right now for our church, for our city, for our nation, where there is division and we're sin abounds. I say, God, let grace much more abound. Let the grace of God, let the love of God be evident in our lives. Father, that people know that we're Christians because we love and God, we love the hurting, we love the lost, we love the poor, we love the broken as much as we love the Christian and the person that's all put together. God, we ask, let us have your eyes to see people the way that you do, Father. And right now I pray for every person who needs to forgive, needs to release, needs to ask for forgiveness from someone or a people group that God, you would allow us entrance into your heart so that we lay those at the foot of the cross so that we see like you see and we say, God, we give this to you, we give you our heart, we give you our lives, you can have it all. In Jesus' name, amen.