Thank you, you may be seated. Alrighty. Thank you, Brother Jesse, for leading us in worship. Thank you, Lord, for being so, so good, redeeming us, being the good father that you are. Last week, we looked at the sin of favoritism, part one. This is our second part covering this topic from the book of James. If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your devices, please turn to the book of James. We'll be continuing our series through this wonderful book by looking at, again, the sin of favoritism. As we're finishing that out, we're gonna be in James chapter two, verses eight through 13. So James 2, verses 8 through 13 is where we're gonna be at this morning. So like I said, last week we looked at how favoritism contradicts the message of the gospel, the character of God, our profession of faith in Christ, as well as God's heart for the poor and the downtrodden. This morning, James closes his argument against favoritism by revealing to his readers, and by extension us, that favoritism, It doesn't just make us hypocrites out of you and me, but it also makes us law breakers. And before we get into the passage, it's important for us to know, in this passage of Scripture, in his last kind of argument against the sin of favoritism, let's just define in terms what favoritism is. In this context, when James is calling favoritism, we looked last week in verses 2 to 3. He gave the example of a church giving favoritism and honor to a rich person as opposed to a poor person coming into the church, right? And we saw last week as well that the reason why they gave this favoritism was because they thought they can get some sort of favor, some sort of advantage from giving more honor to the rich visitor than the poor. That's the kind of favoritism that James is talking about here. But also I want to just highlight the fact that there are going to be some terms in here that we're going to define in verses 8 through 13. He's gonna be using terms like the royal law and the law of freedom. I just wanna clear up so there's no confusion as we go through these passages. James is not advocating that we need to keep the law in order to obtain salvation or maintain salvation. The book of James has been used very often by people saying that he is, basically he's teaching that you need to keep the law to obtain salvation or maintain your salvation. We know that's not true, that contradicts scripture. What James is highlighting here is the seriousness of the sin of favoritism. That's what he's doing. And I wanna give you that disclaimer because one, verses eight through 13 were particularly challenging for me to exegete, right? To expound upon as I was writing my notes. And I know if I had trouble, looking at these phrases and understanding what James is talking about. I know that there are several other people who will as well. And I want to just kind of give you some clarity of what James is talking about here in verses 8 through 13. And so there are three questions. Yeah, there's going to be three questions that we are going to be answering today. One is our question from last week, right? Why is favoritism foreign to the Christian faith? Two, how serious is the sin called favoritism? And how does Christ call us to represent him well? We're gonna be answering those three questions this morning through our text. And so let's go ahead and go ahead and let's go ahead and read James chapter two, verses eight through 13. And the word of God says this. It says, indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. However, if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the entire law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking it all. For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to those who have not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Father God, we come before you, and we thank you, Lord, for this time together. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you, Lord, for the wisdom of your servant, James, Lord. And we thank you, Lord, that you have preserved it for us in the church today, 2024, to where we could, Lord, see what it means, Lord, and how serious sin is, and what it means to be a good follower of Jesus. Father God, I pray, Lord, that you would just give me power to preach. Help this weak man this morning preach your word. Father, I pray, Lord, you give me clarity of mind, thought, and of speech this morning. And I ask, Lord, that you would just be with us, open our minds and our hearts to receive this message with gladness. In your name I pray, and amen. So, favoritism. James starts off with verse eight through nine. James basically starts off with a positive if, and that's gonna be followed by a negative if. Both of these ifs, if you were, are on the subject of whether they're going to obey and fulfill the royal law. Now, this is a perfect time to define term. What exactly is the royal law? James is very helpful in quoting the second half of the royal law for us. What does he say in verse 8? He says, So this royal law that James is referring to isn't the Mosaic law. It isn't some sort of dietary law. It isn't part of the Levitical law. This phrase, love your neighbor as yourself, rings very familiar to us, right? As we study through scripture. James is referring to the second greatest commandment according to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's referring to here. We get this from various places in several, I think he mentions it in almost every one of the Gospels, if I'm not mistaken. Matthew chapter 22 verses 34 through 40 is what we're going to draw from this morning. Let me read that for us. When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together and one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test them. Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest? And he said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets depend on these commands. Like we were talking about before, I think it was last week, James is very, very influenced by the teachings of Jesus, right? By the teachings of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, the Book of Proverbs, he's very influenced. And you can see many kind of... things he's drawing from, in particular this royal law that he's drawing from is the second greatest commandment as quoted by Jesus. You know what's really cool is the fact that Jesus is quoting from Leviticus 19.18 when he says, love your neighbor as yourself. And so not only does this royal law come from the Lord himself, but it's also rooted in the Jewish scriptures, which could be what James is talking about when he says this royal law is prescribed in the scriptures, because that's where Jesus sourced his quote from. But let's not miss this. So James is quoting his half-brother, Jesus, here, when he says, what is the royal law? He says, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing good. So Jan gives us that positive if first, right? So if we obey and fulfill this royal law set by the Lord himself and love our neighbor as ourselves, then we are doing well because we are faithfully obeying and observing what the Lord has taught and shown us. What does he say in the Great Commission? Jesus says this. He says, baptize everybody, right? Make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then he also says, teaching them to observe everything. And that means that we're not just knowing what Jesus taught about, but we're actually observing. We're actually doing the law. We're actually doing what the Lord has told us to do. And that harkens back to chapter one, doesn't it? Being good doers and hearers of the word of God. And so James gives us that positive if, and in Romans, Paul tells us this in Romans 13, verses eight through 10, do not owe anyone anything except to love one another. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandment, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and any other commandment are summed up by this commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. The royal law from Christ is the perfect cure to the sin of favoritism in the church. Because it's calling us to view people as we would like to be viewed. Who here wants to be viewed and have their value placed on what they can do and what they have to offer? None of us want that kind of value pushed upon us, right? None of us want our work to be based upon our abilities, what we have or anything like that. So it forces us to view people the way we wanna be viewed. And it calls us to treat people the way that we want to be treated. The Bible says no man hates his own flesh, which we don't. We take care of each other. We make sure that we dress appropriately. If we come to church, we dress nicely, right? I'm not saying that you have to. I'm just saying that, you know, it's like, just don't come in your PJs, right? But we take care of ourselves, don't we? When we have a toothache, we go see a dentist. When we're sick, we go see a doctor. We treat ourselves very well when we really look at ourselves. And that's the same measure of treatment that we're supposed to treat other people. How we love ourselves is how we should love other people. So it forces us to treat people the way we want to be treated. We are called by the King of Kings to love our neighbor with the same care and consideration that we place upon ourselves. Jesus actually expands on this in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 37. I encourage you to look that up, where he actually gives that parable of the good Samaritan, because in Luke, he gives them the commandment, and then the expert of the law goes like, well, then who was my neighbor? Basically saying, so who am I supposed to love as myself? That's when he gives the parable of the good Samaritan. I encourage you guys to go back and read that. James then describes the negative if. So he gives us the positive if in verse eight, love your neighbor as yourself. If you fulfill this royal law, you are doing well. But in verse nine, he says, if however you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. So if we do not love our neighbor as ourselves, and we choose to indulge the sin of favoritism, which every one of us, if we're completely honest, have a tendency to show. We really, really do. And sometimes we show favoritism while being judges with evil thoughts. We show favoritism basically because we think we can get something out of this person. I'm gonna tell you this. How many of you guys have ever worked in a place and suddenly like the regional manager or whatever comes in? Suddenly, you know, he comes in The boss comes out of his office, which he probably never does, right? And he shakes his hand, shows him around the yard. He doesn't know anything about the yard, but he's gonna show him around, right? And then, so this person's giving this place of honor, and this person is given this special treatment because of who he is, but also what this boss can possibly do for the manager of the office, the branch manager, whatever it is, right? I can tell you this, with 100% certainty, I've never walked into the office one morning and the boss does that to me, right? That's never happened to me. But, so that's the sort of favoritism that James is saying, as a church, as followers of Jesus, we should never do. But it's so easy for us to do, isn't it? Especially if it's a church that's struggling financially, especially if it's a church that's desperate for people. especially if it's a church that's more interested in people pleasing and people chasing than honoring Christ. And so, if we indulge in the sin, we have become transgressors. And that simply means a person that violates a law, a rule, or a boundary. and goes beyond that limit. We become lawbreakers by showing favoritism. And James is going to flesh out why this is in verses 10 through 11. But before we move to 10 through 11, I think it's helpful to make sure that we don't miss this. James describes this commandment as a royal law. And he describes it in this way because it's coming from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is a royal law. When a sovereign king gives a edict, it's binding for all of its subjects and carries with it an absolute authority over them. So this means this commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is not a suggestion or a guideline. There are many Christians, people who claim the name of Christ, that treat the second greatest commandment as more of a guideline for their lives rather than what it is, a royal law and command from the Lord Jesus Christ. But the reality is that it's a command from the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is to be taken seriously. I want to bring this out because it's super easy, again, for people to fall into what is called antinomianism. And what that simply is, is the unbiblical belief that because Jesus has freed us from the curse of the law and burden of the law, then we as Christians don't have any moral laws to follow. That God doesn't expect us to follow any kind of moral code. Can I just say that as Christians, we do have a moral ethic in Scripture prescribed to us. Just because we're not under the curse of the law, the burden of the law, doesn't mean that we have no moral laws that we follow, right? We, as disciples of Jesus, have ethics in which we are to conduct our lives in such a way that brings glory to God, honor to Christ, and shines the light of the gospel in this fallen world. We're to be different The Bible describes us as a peculiar people, right? This includes the command to love our neighbors. Listen, when we decide that there are some things that are, when we decide basically that to love your neighbor as ourselves is more of a guideline than it is a command for us as Christians, can I just say, we miss the mark every single time when we do that. because we will treat people in a way that doesn't honor Christ, doesn't reflect our faith, and doesn't bring glory to the Lord. So James in verses eight to nine tells us that we can either fulfill this royal law of Christ or we can break it. We can break this royal law by showing favoritism. And now let's move on to verses 10 through 11 as James reminds his readers and us that it only takes us breaking the law once to be a lawbreaker. James here is leaving no wiggle room for his audience to justify or play off the sin of favoritism as anything less than a sin against God. Now, here's how most people think about sin. They think about sin in degrees. Now, definitely, I just wanna say, there are definitely sins that are more heinous than others. But to say that we sin in degrees, what I mean by that is simply this. I'm okay because I don't do this sin, which means it's okay if I did this, right? We can look at it like this. It's okay that I lied to my wife because I'm not cheating on her, right? Husbands, if you're here today, don't do that, all right? That's not cool. Or you can just say it like this, I do not love my neighbor as myself, right? But at least I didn't kill him, right? We can think about morality like that, right? In terms of degrees, I don't do this, so it's okay that I've done this. Right? In verse 10, we see this plain truth laid out before us in verse 10. What does he say? For whoever keeps the entire law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking it all. Now, let's stop there for a second. Remember the disclaimer from the beginning of the sermon, right? James is not saying that we need to follow the law to be saved. James is not saying that. What James is doing is he's, what he's doing here is he's highlighting the severity of the sin of favoritism, which you and me could very, very easily, very easily discount or play off as something minor. But what he is saying there is the standard of God's law, the standards of God, how The law is indivisible, right? You can't separate the law in things that you can break and things you can't break. If you've broken one thing in the law, you've broken it all. You are a lawbreaker. So if you break, he lays his truth before us. If you break one commandment, then you break them all. It doesn't matter if you keep 99 of God's standards because it's the 1% alone that makes you a lawbreaker. I'll say that again. It doesn't matter if you keep 99% of God's standards because it is the 1% that makes you a lawbreaker. This shows the popular belief that in the time of judgment, God will weigh our good deeds and our evil deeds on some sort of cosmic scale. And that will determine our eternal destiny. This verse shows us that this sort of thinking is biblically untrue. This is not found in Scripture. There's nowhere in the New Testament where it says, if you do enough good deeds, then you are going to go to heaven. There's nowhere in Scripture where it says, what Scripture does say is that God's standard for perfect morality is simply that perfection. And you and me know, in reality, There is no one that could meet that standard. There's only one person that did, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. So this type of thinking of, if I do enough good deeds to outweigh the evil deeds, then somehow I'm gonna be okay, that's unbiblical. Jesus declared this, be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect. The Bible is clear. that in the standard of God, the standard of God is perfection, that everyone on earth has fallen woefully short of this standard. You, me, everybody has fallen short of this standard, right? That's why Jesus had to go to the cross to pay for our sins. That's why we needed a perfect savior to save us as imperfect people. And so he brings out this plain truth in verse 10. In verse 11, he says, for he who said, do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a law breaker. In verse 11, James drives home this point by reminding us that just because you abstain from one sin doesn't excuse us doing another. Sometimes we can justify our little minor sins, right? Lying, could be cheating. It could be anything. And we can justify it in our minds and maybe to other people. It's like, I'm not that bad of a person because, you know, I may have cheated on my wife, but I didn't kill my wife. Or you can change that with the husband, right? I cheated on my husband, at least I didn't kill my husband. He doesn't have enough life insurance to make that worthwhile. But we fall into that a lot, don't we? Excusing one sin because we didn't do another. James uses an illustration. If you don't commit adultery, but you do commit murder, then you have become a lawbreaker at just the same. And he uses this illustration to simply point out that while there are definitely sins that are more heinous than others, like we just talked about, every sin is to be taken seriously. And it is taken seriously according to the standards of God. Let me give you an example of what I mean here using like less grievous kind of sins, something that we don't normally think about. All right. Just imagine you're getting pulled over for speeding and you're about to get a ticket for speeding. You've broken the law, you've broken the speed limit, you're gonna get a ticket. And your defense to this highway patrolman or officer is this, well, officer, before I sped, I obeyed the law to stop at the red light. So I think you should let me off the hook. The fact that you stopped at the red light has nothing to do with the fact that you broke the speed limit, right? That's the way God's standards are. It doesn't matter if you didn't commit murder, if you've lied, if you've stolen, even something small, if you've taken the Lord's name in vain, that's a sin against you. And you've become a lawbreaker and you've broken the law. And because you've broken that small little thing of what many people may consider a minor sin, it makes you a breaker of them all. There's an in, the visibility to the standards of God. And we see that in scripture. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, that's really harsh. I just wanna say that God is probably the most consistent judge ever. Because for God to excuse one sin because you didn't do another, no matter how minor we may make the case for. If he excuses one sin, that means he's not a good judge. That means we can't trust God to rightly judge the world. That means there's sin found in God. There's favoritism found in God. And that's simply not true. And so he is, after making his final point in his argument against favoritism, James goes on to appeal to his fellow Christians to speak and act as those who are judged by the law of freedom and to treat others with mercy instead of the superficial judgment that James is talking about. Now, do you see why favoritism is serious? James is going through these arguments to show why favoritism is a sin and why it's supposed to be taken seriously. It breaks the royal law of Christ to love your neighbor as yourself. You're not loving your neighbor as yourself if you are showing favoritism, if you're judging them on a superficial basis of what they could do for you versus what they can't do for you. That's like saying, as a church, shut-ins are less valuable than a consistent come-and-giver to the church. That's wrong. Again, last week we made this point, is that believers, Christians, are all equal in the eyes of God. Our value doesn't come from what we can offer God. One, because we can't offer God anything. Our value doesn't come from what we can offer God, but our value comes from whom we placed our faith in, and we'll become children of God. What makes you a Christian isn't what you do for the church. It isn't how much you give, but it's whom you place your faith in that makes you a Christian. Sometimes we can lose sight of that if we play into the sin of favoritism. James in verses eight through 11 has made it clear that favoritism is a sin. He's also made it clear that just like any other sin, it's as serious, as serious as it can be, and God takes it seriously. So James closes this topic of favoritism by coming back to one of the major themes of the letter, that a person's faith, be shown through his words and his actions to be good hearers and doers of the word of God by acting in accordance with their proclaimed faith in the gospel. Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom." Again, let's stop, define terms. The gospel of Jesus Christ is what James has in mind when he says law of freedom, because it's through the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have found eternal freedom from the bondage, judgment, and punishment of our sins because of Jesus Christ, the God-man, God in the flesh, the son of God died on that old rugged cross and he took on the wrath of the father that was rightly placed, right? Rightly placed on you and me. And he rose again the third day, defeating both sin and death, bringing salvation to all who would repent and believe in him for the forgiveness of sin. Why is the gospel of the law of freedom? Because it's freed us from the curse of the law, from the judgment of the law. from the punishment of the law, from the bondage of the law. It's freed us from this. This gospel has also freed us from the curse of sin in our lives. It's freed us to be able to faithfully live for Christ through his indwelling spirit, and it's freed us to follow God in our lives out of genuine love rather than reluctantly out of fear. The gospel is the law, friend, because it's freed us from the law. And that brings us to a question. How on earth as a Christian, how are we supposed to speak and act as those under this wondrous and merciful law of freedom? Well, James has something specific in mind here, and we see it in verse 13. In verse 12, he gives the exhortation, he gives the command, speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. Verse 13 says, for judgment is without mercy to those who have not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Be merciful is what James has in mind here. How are we supposed to speak and act as those who are gonna be judged by the law of freedom, by the fact that we've been freed by the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because remember, we touched on this before. We're free from the curse of the law. We don't have to rely on the law to justify us before God, because it's impossible. The law was never meant to save, right? But we still have statures. We still have moral ethics that we follow, such as love your neighbor as yourself, as the Lord says. but he calls us to be merciful. How are we supposed to act and speak as those who are under, who are gonna be judged by this law of freedom? Be merciful, in 13 is the thrust that James gives us. James is calling them to show the same mercy that the gospel or the law of freedom has shown them. Think about it. The gospel offers us mercy in place of the wrath of God. The gospel offers us mercy from the wrath of God through Jesus and deliverance from our rightful judgment and punishment for our sins. One of the most beautiful things about the gospel is that it's through, it's by the grace of God that we have it, right? By grace, through faith in Christ alone is how we are saved from our sins. When we truly think about it, what the gospel offers, the mercy that the gospel offers, how can we not extend that same sort of mercy to an unbelieving world? How can we reserve this sort of mercy from the poor beggar that might be coming through our doors versus the rich businessman that might come through our doors. They're both in need of that same mercy, aren't they? So James is commanding his fellow believers that they should so shine their faith in this dark and fallen world and show that their faith is genuine by displaying the same kind of mercy without distinctions. Again, one of the beautiful things about the gospel and why favoritism contradicts our most important message of our faith. is the fact that in the gospel, there is no favoritism. Poor are saved through the blood of Christ. The rich are saved through the blood of Christ. The foreigner is saved through the blood of Christ. People like you and me, Americans are saved by the blood of Christ. There is no distinction found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus, anyone who believes in his name will not perish, any one. So we're to display the same kind of mercy without distinctions to even the poorest of people. And we are to reject any kind of superficial judging in the form of favoritism. James reminds them that they should conduct themselves in the way of mercy, considering the fact that they were once fixing judgment without mercy when they were without Christ. For judgment is without mercy for those who have not shown mercy. This is a powerful truth that applies even to us today, Pathway. Why can we not show favoritism as Christians holding on, truly holding on to genuine faith in Christ? It's because we will be showing favoritism in a way that says there's favoritism in the gospel. We'll be showing favoritism in a way that directly rails against, but also it would show this, that we've forgotten that you and me were once facing judgment without mercy. before we had come to Christ. This is a powerful truth that applies to us today, Pathway. This goes back to the gospel and how we cannot proclaim the good news of Jesus while holding onto the sin of favoritism. Remember, it's through Jesus that mercy triumphed over judgment. It's through Jesus and the amazing plan of the Father that we have been redeemed. And this plan of redemption was fueled by God's amazing love for his image bearers. John 3, 16 says, for God loved the world in this way. He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. It's through Christ, mercy triumphed over judgment. How are we to conduct ourselves as Christians, knowing that we're gonna be judged by this law of freedom, the gospel of Jesus Christ? Be merciful. Be merciful and remember the mercy that was departed to you through the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we close out this topic of fabricism, let's look to answer those questions from the beginning. of our time. Why is favoritism a foreign concept to the Christian faith? Because, besides the reasons we gave last week, because it violates the second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. We cannot hold on to the Christian faith with a clear conscience if we are in the sin of favoritism. Why? Because it's breaking the second greatest commandment according to our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot claim to be disciples of Jesus while treating our neighbors unlovingly by showing favoritism in the church and even in our own lives. Let's not be like those in verses two to three. Chris says, for if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, if you look with favoritism on the one wearing the fine clothes, say, sit here in a good place, that you say to the poor person, stand over here or sit on the floor by my footstool, haven't you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges of evil thoughts? Let's not be like those believers in that illustration. Let us not be judges of evil thoughts, showing the sin of favoritism, neglecting the poor and needy for those who we may be able to gain some sort of favor from. Our second question, how serious is this sin called favoritism? Very serious, simply because it is sin. Simply because favoritism is sin, that's what makes it serious. Sin is something that misses the mark of God's holy standards, and favoritism certainly fits that description. And just like we've seen in verses 10 through 11, if you break one law, then you have broken them all. Remember, even if we could keep 99% of God's standards and laws, it's the 1% that makes us lawbreakers and transgressors. Pathway and visitors, let's not treat any sin lightly. This shows us this. Although we might look at the sin of favoritism or any other sin as a minor sin, we cannot treat sin lightly. Because it's not, it's not a light matter for God. God treats it seriously. Christian, fight your sin in the strength of the Lord. Confess your sin to the Lord. Repent and turn away from those sin. There is no such thing, hear me now, there is no such thing as a harmless sin. There is no such thing. And finally, how does Christ call us to represent him well? Well, reject and turn away from this temptation to show favoritism by remembering the gospel. When we remember the gospel and what saved our souls from judgment, what saved our souls from the wrath of God, how can we show favoritism? Remember how merciful God was to send his son to save you from the coming wrath, judgment, and punishment for our sins. Which, hear me now, verse 10 applies to everyone who's in this room. For whoever keeps the entire law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking it all. That describes everyone here. That describes you, that describes me, that describes everyone in the world. That's why Jesus, again, had to come and pay the price for our sins on that cross. So we are to display the same mercy to the poor, lost, broken, downtrodden, and yes, even to the rich, even to those who might be directly against Christ. We're to show mercy to them. Because here's the thing, favoritism, cuts many ways. And ask yourself this question, someone who completely disagrees with you on everything. Maybe they support transgender ideologies. Maybe they vote a Democrat. Maybe they don't think abortion is a sin. Maybe they think it's a right. Maybe they go completely against your Christian faith. I want you to ask this question. Are you going to have mercy upon them to share the gospel? Or are you going to show favoritism to ignore him or them? This sin of favoritism cuts many ways. And there are many ways in our lives that we show favoritism that we may not even be aware of. I just want to say this, the mercy that God displays through the gospel is the same mercy that you and me are to display in our Christian lives. We are to speak and act as those who are under the law of freedom and will be judged by it. So let's not be judges with evil thoughts. Let us be good Christ-representing Christians. I'm going to close this out in prayer and we're going to have a time of invitation. We're gonna have a time of invitation. And if you're here today and you need prayer, I encourage you to, there's several people in this room that'd be happy to pray with you. If you would like to have a meeting with me about maybe receiving Christ as your savior, joining Pathway even, or if you just need to unburden yourself and pray, I'm going to be in my office for the next 15, 20 minutes after services. And if you need prayer, and if you want to know what it means to repent of your sins and place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or you're here today and you're thinking, I want to join Pathway Baptist Church, I'm going to be in that office and I'm going to be available to you. And yeah. And Brother Jesse's gonna come up and give us a time of invitation, help us to in this time of invitation. But I just want to encourage you guys this morning, put the sin of favoritism to death, because there's no room for it in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's no room for it in the Christian faith. Let me give you an example of what I mean, what I just said about reaching out to those with mercy to those that might be completely on the opposite spectrum of what we believe. Before I was a Christian, I was pro-LGBTQ. I was pro-abortion. I did vote Republican, so I had that going for me, right? I didn't believe in the inerrancy of scripture. I believed in this loosey-goosey concept about God and salvation. And yet, when I truly heard the gospel for the first time, gave my life to Christ, something changed. Suddenly, I was against abortion because God's against abortion. God loves human life. God believes in the sanctity of human life. And suddenly, I was for God's design for marriage and relationships. But let me tell you this, I would not have gotten to that point if it was not someone faithfully preaching the gospel and inviting me to not clean myself up or get my views right or get my politics right before coming to Christ. He said, come to Christ. And the Lord changed me. The spirit changed me. The word of God changed my views. So I'm going to say, when next time you see somebody on that opposite spectrum, he's like, there's no reason for me to share the gospel. They're not going to listen. Listen, you're called to be the faithful messenger of the gospel. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that changes hearts. It's the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit that changes people. We see amazing transformations in the Bible. The easiest answer would be the Saul of Tarsus. Once a persecutor of the church, a murderer of Christians, dragging them out of their homes, after he repented of his sins, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, had that encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, became the greatest missionary the church had ever seen. So I want us to put to death the sin of favoritism in our lives. Every one of us in some way, shape or form do this sin and we need to put it to death. Deny yourselves, take up your cross and follow him.