A message from James 2:1-13

2. Series – ‘Developing a faith that works’
Today
‘Love others without
favouritism’
James 2:1-13

3. Don’t show favouritism
My brothers and sisters, believers in
our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must
not show favouritism
James 2:1

4. Don’t show favouritism
Favouritism = Gk ‘prosōpolēmpsia’
1st word = ‘receive’ or ‘take’’
2nd word = ‘face’ or ‘person’
Literally means ‘taking at face value’

5. Don’t show favouritism
‘Teacher … we know that you are a man
of integrity and that you teach the way
of God in accordance with the truth.
You aren’t swayed by others, because
you pay no attention to who they are’
Matt 22:16

6. Don’t show favouritism
Suppose a man comes … wearing a gold ring and
fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes
also comes in. If you show special attention to the
man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s 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? - James 2:2-4

7. For the love of money is a root of all
kinds of evil. Some people, eager for
money, have wandered from the faith
and pierced themselves with many griefs
1 Tim 6:10

8. Don’t show favouritism
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: 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?
James 2:5

9. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though he was rich, yet for
your sake he became poor, so that you
through his poverty might become rich
2 Cor 8:9

10. Favouritism violates the Royal Law
If you really keep the royal law found in
Scripture, ‘Love your neighbour as
yourself,’ you are doing right. But if you
show favouritism, you sin and are
convicted by the law as law-breakers
James 2:8-9

11. Favouritism will be judged
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
James 2:12-13

12. • Favouritism violates the Royal law
• Don’t show favouritism
• Favouritism will be judged

13. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic
ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the
creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word
with power, revealing all his mysteries and
making everything plain as day, and if I have
faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it
jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

14. If I give everything I own to the poor and even
go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I
don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter
what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m
bankrupt without love.

15. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others
than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t
have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a
swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first, ”Doesn’t fly off the
handle …

16. Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything, Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best, Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

17. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over
some day; praying in tongues will end;
understanding will reach its limit. We know
only a portion of the truth, and what we say
about God is always incomplete. But when the
Complete arrives, our incompletes will be
cancelled – 1 Cor 13:1-10