James 2:1-13 / Acts of Faith

To keep God's law we must never show favoritism against the poor but love our
neighbors by showing mercy, not judgment.

1. Playing Favorites. Showing favoritism is a display of judgmentalism and evil

thoughts (James 2:1-4).
• Story re: playing favorites
• James says it's our spiritual duty, as believers in Jesus, never to show
favoritism. To do so is to be discriminatory and act with evil thoughts.
• When do we show favoritism?

2. God's Economy. Neglecting the poor reverses God's economy (2:5-7).

• Story
• If God has chosen the poor to demonstrate his kingdom, why do we dishonor
the poor?

3. Community Rules. God requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot be

good Christians without doing this (2:8-11).
• We want to think that we are doing what God wants us to, but self-examination
sometimes shows we are not. This is why James says "If you really keep the
royal law in Scripture...you are doing right." (2:8)
• But what if you don't keep it? Then you are a lawbreaker. (2:11)
• We cannot keep only the parts of Christian faith that we like or that we think
are important--attendance at meetings; taking the Lord's Supper; reading the
bible at home--we must keep it all, including never showing favoritism to
others while neglecting the poor (2:9). We sin when we do this.

4. Mercy, Not Sacrifice. God desires us to show mercy, derived from freedom, instead
of judgment (2:12-13).
• Jesus teaches about what God desires from us. Twice in Matthew (9:9-13 and
12:1-8) Jesus stood against those who judged him without mercy because he
showed mercy.
• There is freedom in showing mercy; we are not limited in how to serve others.
There is limitation in judging others because that attitude constantly looks for
faults and flaws.
• Mercy triumphs over judgment because mercy is the attitude we need toward
others to avoid showing favoritism.

5. Act(ion) of Faith. Be doers, not listeners only.

• It is not enough to merely listen to this sermon; we must put it into practice
(see 1:22).

© 2010 Jeremy Hoover / www.jeremyhoover.com / jeremy@jeremyhoover

 James 2:1-13 / Acts of Faith

• Begin by evaluating your own attitudes toward people--whether poor or rich;

same ethnicity or different; same background or different. Do you show
favoritism to one group over another?
• Then, take action.

© 2010 Jeremy Hoover / www.jeremyhoover.com / jeremy@jeremyhoover