Sharing the Load

Most of us would never say we believe some people matter more than others. But what happens when our actions reveal a seating chart we didn't realize was there?

In James 2:1-13, James confronts favoritism in the church and challenges the way Christians judge people by wealth, reputation, family, appearance, and status. His words are uncomfortable because he doesn't dismiss favoritism as personal preference or harmless bias. He calls it sin.

But this message isn't only for those who have judged others. It is also for anyone who knows what it feels like to be judged, overlooked, or made to feel like the wrong kind of person. The answer James points us toward isn't more judgment, it is mercy.

What does loving your neighbor actually require? How should the mercy of Jesus change the way Christians see and treat people? And what if some of our hardest judgments reveal places where we still need Christ's mercy ourselves?

People who receive mercy don't add to the load; they share it.

In this message from the Faith in Work Boots series, Pastor Jason explores James 2:1-13 and what it teaches about favoritism, Christian judgment, church hurt, mercy, holiness, loving your neighbor, and a faith in Jesus that changes how we treat people around us.

Linkoln shares his story on why he started coming to Ravenna Church of the Nazarene and shares why you should consider doing the same.

Ravenna Church of the Nazarene
530 Main Street, Ravenna, KY 40472

Transcript

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Pastor Jason 0:00

What if the people you think are spinning the church downhill are exactly the people Jason wants you to make room for? I'm Pastor Jason Barnett, and this is The First Pastor on the Podcast. Thank you for listening in. I'm Pastor Jason Martha, aka the Nerdpath Pastor. Have you ever noticed how quickly we can size somebody up? Sometimes it only takes a few seconds. And we do that by because we notice what they're wearing, or we hear their last name, or we've learned where they're from, or hear a little bit of their story. And before we've ever really gotten to know them, we've already decided something about them. And here's what's really uncomfortable about that scenario. We've all been on both sides of that. We've all made assumptions about somebody else. And most of us know what it feels like when somebody makes an assumption about us. And sometimes those moments don't seem like a big deal. But other times they leave marks we carry for years. So today's message from James 2. We're going to wrestle with what our faith has to say about the way we see each other. And why something that seems so ordinary to us gets some surprisingly strong words from James. So pull up a chair and let's head down the dirt path together. Now, if you are going to start a new Christian denomination, right? A new denomination of the church, you know, a new denomination of the already 50,000 different denominations of Christianity out there, uh, what type of person would you want to start your church with? Think about that for a second. Who would you want in that room? Keep in mind you don't have any churches yet, right? You're starting out brand new. You have no building, you have no money, there's no district office or district superintendent you can call and complain to. And there's no pastor's office, so you can't even drop by the pastor's office and ask what's going on. And and and no one has designed a fancy logo yet. Actually, that'd be the first thing I did was design the cool new logo that I can look at. But you're starting from scratch, starting from ground zero. Who do you want in that room as you start that church? Well, obviously Jesus, yes, Tracy. But I'm talking about people in the room, right? Like it's what type of person do you want? Jesus is the most important thing. But who are you gonna go look for first? Well, first thing you're gonna go look for is you want you want someone that has some resources, right? Let's be your first. I want someone that has resources because yeah, we have no building, we have no office space. I want to find somebody that has resources so they can help us find a building, make a plan for a building, and also help us pay the bills. Me and one of my one of the pastors I used to work for in Colorado, we used to joke we were gonna go start a church with no people. We just hadn't worked out how we were gonna get paid. So but right, you get you gotta start with people that have some resources. So that's what that's where we would probably go first. And then you also want to start with people that have influence in the community, right? People that know other people, because you want to be able to have resources, but also be able to have people that are gonna bring other people into the room to help you grow quicker. That's how most of us would think, right? You want if you want to start a church, you want to find the people that have money and you want to have find people that know people. Do you realize in 1895 that's not how the Church of the Nazarene started? That's not how we started. That's not what Phineas Frisi and his crew did. Matter of fact, when the Church of the Nazarene formed in Los Angeles in 1895, they had a different vision for the kind of church they wanted to become. They weren't gonna do it. Phineas Frisee came to the start of the Nazarene church, he came out of the Methodist church. And so he knew how the Methodist church operated. He knew that you know they went after the people that had money, the people that had influence, and and those people gotta make decisions and out decide where the church went. Phineas Persians, I don't want it to be that way. He had a different vision. They believed that to follow Jesus, they needed to go where Jesus went. And that meant taking the gospel to the poor. That meant taking the gospel to the unwed mothers that society tried to hide or pretend didn't exist or tried to ship away or look down upon. That meant going into the VFWs and the American legions and saying, hey, come follow Jesus. They took the gospel of the people that society pushed away. Matter of fact, a few years later, after the church was formed there in Los Angeles, Phineas Brazizes says, It says, the evidence of the presence of Jesus in our midst is that we bear the gospel primarily to the poor. They didn't look, they didn't shy away from him, they didn't exclude him, they shared Jesus with them. That's our heritage. That's who our denomination is. That's why that's why I would pick the name Nazarene, right? What good could come from Nazareth? They picked the name Nazarene because we wanted to minister to the people on the wrong side of the tracks, on the wrong side of town. My question this morning is: are we still that kind of people? Is that who we are? I mean, it's been 130 years later, and sometimes I worry. Or no, I'm sorry. It's been 130 years, but you know, I mean we we've seen the church grow. The church of Nazareth is kind of becoming a denomination that people know about. But since we we're becoming no, no, are we still known for letting in the least of these? Or are we afraid though? Do we have this attitude or this fear that you know if I let if we let the least of those in, if we let the unwed mothers, the people society looks down upon, if we let them in, does that mean we're letting the wrong type of people in and the church is going downhill? Is that our attitude? Now, again, I'm not just picking on us. This is not a new issue for the church of Nazarene, it's not a new issue for the church in general. And it's an issue that James is gonna address, and he's gonna address it in a way that again makes us uncomfortable. If you were here last week and you left feeling comfortable, I need to go back and do that sermon again so we can understand that when you read James, you're not gonna be comfortable when you read it. And when James addresses this, he's gonna make us uncomfortable. He's gonna use words that surprise us that you wouldn't expect to hear. So we're gonna be in James chapter 2, and uh, I had pictures and I forgot. Okay. Starting at verse 1, I'm gonna read through verse 13. He says, My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism, you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. Imagine two people coming into your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor, dressed in filthy rags. Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the one wearing fine clothes, saying, Here's an excellent place, sit here. But to the poor person you say, stand over there, or here, sit at my feet? Wouldn't you have shown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges? My dear brothers and sisters, listen. Hasn't God chosen those who are poor by worldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn't God chosen the poor as heirs of the kingdom? He has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Don't the wealthy make life difficult for you? Aren't they the ones who drag you into court? Aren't they the ones who insult the good name spoken over you at your baptism? You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in Scripture. Love your neighbor as yourself. But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin. And by that same law, you are exposed as a lawbreaker. Anyone who tries to keep all of the law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it. The one who said, Don't commit adultery, also said, don't commit murder. So if you don't commit adultery, but you commit murder, you are a lawbreaker. In every way then, speak and act as people who be judged by the law of freedom. There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn't shown mercy. Mercy overrules judgment. It's the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Alright, is everybody still already? I know that was a rather long passage. I promise I'm not gonna go verse by verse through each of them, although that's what I really want to. But we started a new series here last week, and we've got one more week after this one in it, but it's a series called Faith and Work Boots, because and we're gonna stay in the book of James. And Book of James is it's interesting because James is not interested in a faith that's just all up here in your head, or just stays in your heart, right? He's interested in faith that actually puts boots on, walks around, leaves footprints in people's lives. So, James, you can't you can't study Christianity, learn all the Sunny school answers, and then put it on a book on the shelf and leave it there. He expects you to actually be changed by the Jesus you encounter. And now again, so James is very practical too, because he leaves no room to separate what we believe from what we do. And remember, last week James was kind of acting like a home inspector, right? He was going through our lives, inspecting the cracks in the foundation of our lives, the things that tempt us and threaten to wreck the whole house. Not your neighbor's house, but your house. And remember, instead of blaming the devil and blaming society for your for you giving a temptation, for you being tempted at all, James points out you're tempted because that's what you want. Alright, and so that's what we did last week. But this week he's gonna shift. He's gonna shift from focusing, us focusing inward on ourselves, but to us focusing outward on our neighbors. So chapter two begins with brothers and sisters. When you show favoritism, you deny the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when we hear the word favoritism, we we think it just means I like somebody more than somebody else. Like I like Nina more than I like David, which is not true, but just giving an example. I like you both equally, okay? I don't play favorites. Yeah. That's true, David. I should have, I should, I'm not very good at this brown nosic thing. But when you think it's playing favorite, like just I got a favorite person. That's not what this, that's not what favorite talk about. Favoritism is is like it's this idea of you look at a person, like I look at Beetle, and I'm gonna, if I look, I'm gonna look at Beetle and I'm gonna judge Beetle by his appearance. And based on his appearance, I'm gonna determine what his status in our community is. I'm gonna determine how much money he has in the bank, and maybe guess what his family's like and go off his past reputation, which be good for you. I don't know your past reputation, so I won't go very far. But that's what we that's what it's talking about. So you look at somebody else by all those different categories, and then you say to them, Alright, we have this seating chart, and this is where you're supposed to sit because this is the group you belong to. That's favoritism. That's what James is addressing. It's like when you're in high school, right, and you walked in the cafeteria and no one had to tell you, but you just knew, okay, that's the cheerleader table, I don't sit there. That's the jock table, I don't sit there. That's the band kid table, I don't sit there. These are the learned kids, that's my spot. Right? We just know. Well, what James is saying here in this opening verse is that attitude and practice of showing favoritism is against faith in Jesus. He's essentially saying you can't have faith in Jesus. You can't claim that faith. You can't say you're living in faith in Jesus if you're practicing showing favoritism to one person or another. Then he continues in verse 2 of verses 2 through 4, he's gonna give us an example. And this would have this example he gives actually would have been very common to the church he's writing this letter to. So James's letter is written to Jewish people who become Christians. And the way their church, their synagogue operated, when they would show up the synagogue for one of their meetings, if you had a gold ring on, right, that gold ring, or you had fancy white clothes on, the bright colored clothing, that meant you were somebody of status and privilege. You were somebody important. And they're important because you were somebody important, and they had a limited number of benches, right? There were benches in the middle, and there's benches along the outer walls. If you were somebody important, you gotta sit in one of those benches. Because you were important. So that's why James says when two people, imagine two people walk into your meeting. One is dressed to declare his status and wealth. And actually, when it says he's got a gold ring, the literal translation of gold ring is gold fingered. Right? He's got he's got that gold finger there, right? Showing that I am somebody of significance importance. And then the other man comes in, following him, wearing clothes that are dirty. The common English says filthy clothes. When it says filthy clothes, we're not just talking about like these are clothes from Walmart or some other goodwill or something like that. These are clothes that you can tell by looking at this person. They have a rough life. Their clothes aren't just dirty, they're shabby, they're falling apart. And it communicates that this person is living in poverty. And so, according to the seating chart of the this time period, right, because the in the Jewish synagogue, the person with the gold finger got to sit in the pews, that meant the person that came in these filthy rags, they obviously were nobodies, they were of nobody important, and so therefore they had to sit on the floor. And it was a way of saying, You're beneath me. And now keep in mind, now keep in mind, the Jewish Christians are new Christians, they're new to this faith thing. And this is this was a perfectly acceptable cultural practice because not just in the Jew script uh practices, the Roman culture was very big on what you look like and status and reputation, all those things. And James is saying that's not right. I think at the end of 4 he says, this practice makes them, these Jewish Christians, it makes them evil-minded judges. Makes them corrupt judges. See the congregation sees a poor person, but James says that that God, that God sees a person rich in faith and an heir of the kingdom. Now, let me say this. James is not saying that if you're poor, if you're living in poverty, that you are better than somebody living in wealth. He's not saying that. He's using an example of attitudes that we developed. What he's saying is that the world that we live in, the world that these Jewish Christians lived in, operated by a different accounting system than the kingdom of God operated by. You know they probably smell bad. Then you have to go sit at the feet of this rich person. You you walk into that synagogue already knowing you're beneath them. You walk into that synagogue knowing you don't really fit in or belong with them, but here I am, I'm walking in anyway. And so James is saying when you dishonor them because this person comes in walking, carrying this shame already. They already know their poor, they already know their birth, they already know their clothes are what they're supposed to be. But here you are saying you have to sit at their feet. All you're doing is instead of instead of helping them carry their load, taking that heavy load off, what you're doing is you're placing more of a shame on them. So you dishonor that person. Again, that person, that poor person may have come into that community. And they may come from a poor family, right? That family, you know, you know, there's certain people with you know the last name, you're like, oh, that person's last name. That's that's that's that's the family there with all that Barnett kid. Then she followed, was your brother named Mary? I'm like, depends. And then later on, is your brother named Jason? It depends. My poor sister Stacy got to one English teacher. She's like, Are you like any of your brothers? No. Thank God. Stacy's my younger sister for those who didn't know. But James, in this verses five through seven here, he points out that you know that person may walk in carrying the weight of their family name, but when we sign up, when we put our faith in Jesus, we start bearing our family name. We start bearing our own idea. You know who name whose name we take on? The name of Jesus. That name, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, slave or free, Jew nor Greek. You take on the name of Jesus, and Jesus is your name. So James is saying here, by them practicing this, by these Jewish Christians continuing this cultural tradition, they are literally discriminate, their discrimination against the poor enters the good name spoken over your baptism. He's saying it insults the name of Jesus that you profess. That's strong words, isn't it? He goes on, and he talks about how you know if you continue these verses, it's pointing out that discrimination and favoritism breaks the royal law of God's kingdom. And that royal law is found in Leviticus 19, and it's quoted by Jesus. And that one's very simple. Love thy neighbor. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And James in these verses, you notice what he says? He doesn't say, well, it's an accident. He doesn't say, Oh, that's how I was raised. You know what he says? He says, if you break God's law, right? What happens when you break anytime you break God's law? If you break God's law, what is that? It's sin. So James says, anytime you break this royal law, you commit sin. It's not an oops, it's not a something you can make excuses for. You can't say that's my personal preference, that's my personality, or I'm being realistic. James looks at that and in this practice says, that is sin. James is saying that that idea of us being called unto holiness applies everywhere. There is no place where Christians get to stop showing holiness unto the Lord. Not in the privacy of your own heart and mind in your home, not here when we're gathered together, and not when you're out in the community. There is no scenario where God says it's okay for you to stop being holy as he is holy. That's what James is saying here. Then we go on to verses 12 and 13, and James says, In every way then, speak and act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn't shown mercy. Mercy overrules judgment. And if you know me well enough now, you know I have moments where I like the common English Bible and other moments where I don't like it very much. I skipped that slide too. Or did I? I don't know. Anyway. But that word that the C B translates where mercy overrules judgment. That word overrules is actually, I mean, it's close in the English, but it's not really what the Greek word was saying. Not really what James was trying to communicate. That word he actually uses means triumphing over. Conquering it. So when James says mercy triumphs over judgment, mercy conquers judgment. He's saying that that no matter where we are as fishes, yes, there are things that we have to look at and say that's sin, but in the end, yes, we know God's gonna judge it. But see the thing is God's already judged it with Jesus. And instead of applying and forcing us to take that punishment, he offers us a gift of eternal life. And he shows us what he shows us mercy. And what James is trying to say here is a merciless life, a Christian that's living a life mercilessly, who's discriminating and showing favoritism, raises a question of whether God's mercy has transformed you or not. Because favoritism is a lack of mercy, it's casting judgment. And in God's kingdom, judgment does not get the final boast. Mercy does. And what James is really getting at the little boy down to a mercy shown produces oh I'm sorry, mercy received produces mercy shown. The mercy we have received from Jesus changes the way we see people. I don't care if you've been here for 10 minutes or 200 years. You've been in here for 200 years. Wow. It's impressive. Doesn't matter. You don't you the only person that is in the church that has any status is Jesus. Only Jesus is worthy to be on this platform. Only Jesus is the one worthy to speak. Only Jesus is the one worthy of honor and praise and glory. No one else. Because everyone else, everyone else of us. We're only here because God showed us mercy. At one point we were on the outside looking in, and we didn't belong here. And God says, you know what? I want you in here anyway. So none of us can claim to that status. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, elite or backwards, educated or uneducated, or by any other metric we use to divide ourselves, it's irrelevant to God. God's kingdom doesn't care about our dividing lines. You see, our society, we still have seating charts. We look back at these Jewish Christians and we look back at the Romans and think, well, that's silly. I mean, we live in a country where everyone was created equal and everyone should have the same unalienable rights as everybody else. But we still have seating charts on who gets to come sit on our table. See, yes, everyone does get the same opportunity in our country, but it's not the same starting line. It's not the same starting line. How do I know it's because some kids in our community are poor enough that they have aspirations, they have a dream, they want to go to college, but they don't have a family to back them to help them get there. And yes, they can still get there, but you know how much harder they're gonna have to work to get there? Not only do they have to work harder, they're gonna have to overcome their family reputation, their family name, they're gonna overcome their own background. The cost for them is higher. Whether you want to admit it or seat or not, it's the truth. Our society still has seating charts. Again, they might not be as signed, but it's still like the high school lunchroom. Everyone knows where they're supposed to spit and who they belong. The killer, the jock, the banker, the nerd. But our seating chart, it's based on something else. It's based on your family name. It's based on your how much money you have, it's based on your background, where you come from, it's based on your reputation. It's even based on your usefulness. And James tells us the world seating chart, the seating chart that our culture tells us is okay, the seating chart that our culture tries to arrange the world by, our American tribalism that tries to divide us into our little separate groups. James is saying that has no place in the house of God. It can't, it's not that it just shouldn't be here, it's it can't be here. Because anyone is sitting in these pews this morning, you're not here because you were good enough, you're not here because you were smart enough, you're here because you heard the voice of Jesus calling you, and you answered the call, and you received his mercy and it transformed you. And because we're here on his invitation, at his mercy, we don't get to raise the seating chart. And Jesus says there is no seating chart. You see, we live in an area, we live in a world where people are already walking in to our church carrying the shame that they have. They come in here knowing they're poor. They come in here knowing that they've been rejected by the people that love them and care about them. They walk in knowing that they don't they walk in knowing every single one of the nuts on their family tree. They walk in with the shame of failure, they walk in carrying wounds.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

And here's the thing, we as a church, we didn't, we we I'm not saying we created those wounds.

Pastor Jason 29:50

I'm not saying we did that. We live in a broken, simple world where people are broken and simple. Sometimes they create their own shame, and sometimes they just that's the world we live in. That's the simplest of it. But when they come in the church, we can't add more to it. They've already come in carrying the weight of other people's judgment. But we have a choice to add to it or to shit or to help share it, share it. By share it, I mean help them carry it. You see, this is not, it's German telling us to try harder not to judge people. Believe me, go be a car sells me for a little while about teaching not to judge people real fast. I had a guy as a doctor making six figures, he couldn't buy a candy bar on credit. I had a farmer walk in, drop a hundred thousand dollars on the desk, and say, I want that truck over there. And I just said, sir, you sure you want the white one in. You learn not to judge people. But we have a choice whether we're gonna add to their shame or help them carry the shame to Jesus. It's not a message telling us to not try to try hard not to judge, it's a message calling us to change how we see people. We have to change how we look at them. It's a mind shift that's rooted in the our love for God. And we came to Jesus in need of mercy, and his mercy is the answer. Experiencing the mercy of Jesus should impact us so deeply that we become merciful people. And James, he doesn't leave us in like in cloud nine, he doesn't leave us in hypotheticals. Again, James is practical. James teaches us to put the work boots on and walk in people's lives. And so he says in this in this passage, I think it's first one, he says, in every way then, speak and act as people who be judged by the law of freedom. He tells us what we're supposed to do. He tells us to speak and act. Not speak and act like people of the world, but speak and act like people transformed by the mercy and grace of God. Speak and act like people called unto holiness who are doing their best to live it out. Again, this is not a message that can stay inside the church walls for an hour. It's not a message that can sit on the shelf of our heart. You and I, we have to look honestly at ourselves and look at the way we see people and ask, who have I assigned the bad seat in my life? Who have I said, you have to you can come, but just come sit my feet? You have to you can come in, but you have to go stand over there Who have I reduced to their mistakes? Who have I reduced to their family name? Who have I reduced to their bank account? If you're judging someone else's life or your own life, your own your own soul or someone else's soul by their bank account, that's a terrible barometer. Who have I reduced to their clothing? Who have I reduced to their reputation? Who have I decided is the is is one of the wrong type of people who might come in and make our church go downhill. That's us taking a bad person and putting them in the bad seat. And that's us showing favoritism, that's us being prejudiced and discriminating. And James says that is sin. And when it comes to sin, there's no room for it. There's no room for sin. There's no room for any excuses that we can make to say, well, but Jesus, you know, you know their family, you know, you know where they're from, you know what they did. And James is like, you can't say that. You can't make excuses for sin because God looks at it and says, It's sin. Now when James in this passage says, uh, what was it? Uh was it anyone who breaks the law breaks all the law, it's not that anyone's sins, it's not that there are sins that aren't more heinous than others. He's not putting sins on a pedestal and raising them up and down, he's just saying, you claim to love God, then you sin. You're contradicting your claim that you love God. It doesn't matter which law it is, it pokes a hole. So again, if our sin is showing favoritism, if our shame, if our sin is reducing people, there's no excuse for it. James calls us sin, that's what we have to do. If right now, as we're sitting here, the Holy Spirit has put someone on our heart, there's only one thing we can do with it. There's only one way we can honor God with that person on our heart right now. It's that that's we go to God and we repent for the way we've put them in the bad seed. We repent for the way we looked at them and reduced them to something. We repent for the way we've used the culture's economy and its accounting practices to judge somebody's worth and value. Instead, we realize that that's a person that Jesus loves and died for. Again, when you go to God, don't try to explain it or defend it. Bring it to Jesus and ask him to change the way you see that person. Ask him to teach you to see that someone Christ loves and says someone you have judged. Now, I don't think many of us get here willfully. We don't get there on purpose. We don't become a judgmental purpose like that on purpose. We don't set out that way. No, I know that because come to kids' group on Thursday night. Those kids don't know each other sometimes. They do know better now. We've been together for a while. But watch little kids how they make friends. Matter of fact, okay, good example. We went to the Pittsburgh District family camp for our vacation this year. Last time we were on the Pittsburgh District, the only kid of mine that was walking and talking very well was Jaden. By day two, Emris comes up to me and says, Yeah, this is my friend. What's your friend's name? I don't know. What are you doing? We're hunting for toads. Just don't kiss any because no prince is allowed. She didn't stop. Emmy didn't stop to ask what the kid's name was, what her family back. She didn't care about any of that. She said found a kid that she knew when to hunt for toads like she did. So again, we don't we don't start out with those kind of attitudes, those judgmental practices and attitudes like that. So maybe part of the reason we we get the way we are is we know what it feels like to be the one in filthy rags. Maybe our filthy rags aren't isn't poverty, but maybe it's something else. And you've spent years yourself trying to prove that you deserve a good seat. Because people keep putting you in the bad seat. And so along the way, because you know how hard it is to switch seats, you become hard. And you become hard because you were formed by a world that was unrelenting. The pressure to conform and be what the world's telling you to be and measure up is it's unforgiving. It's ruthless. It doesn't care, it's cold, loveless, chaotic. You come from a a you were formed by a world that never showed you mercy. And that's how you became that. If that is you today, I want you to hear me. That person's judgment that's ringing in your ears right now, that's been echoing through your heart and mind for decades, for your whole life. That judgment of you is not Jesus' judgment of you. Jesus doesn't see you the way you've been trying to measure up to that way that person saw you. Jesus sees you and he loves you. Right where you're at. You're not worth this because of what you have. You're not worth this because of where you came from. You're not worth this because of what your family name is, you're not worth this because of what you have done or what somebody else has decided about you. Jesus is here today and he loves you, and he's saying, I'm here, I'm here to offer you mercy. And I'm here to offer you mercy in your life, perhaps the first time in a life where you've never been shown mercy before. It's gonna be weird, it's gonna be different, but guess what? It's gonna be freeing. And learning to live in that freedom is different. When you experience His mercy, when you truly experience, when you're transformed by that love and that grace, then you become someone who shows others' mercy. And then again, you don't have to add rejection to somebody who's been rejected. You can love your neighbor as yourself. Because really the love of letting your neighbor as yourself means is you help people share the load. Because we're all carrying things that are attempting to crush us, we're all carrying shame and guilt that's attempting to crush us. So Jesus can help us. And he will help us. The way the way Jesus helps us is by putting us in a community like this of believers. Where no one gets to claim the good seat and the bad seat. There's only a real person on that one. And even he says, Come sit with me at my table. So whether you recognize yourself as the person doing the judging, the person is carrying someone else's judgment, the invitation is the same this morning. Come to Jesus. Before you go, I just want to give you a moment here and invite you to respond to this message. Because maybe you were listening and the Holy Spirit brought someone to mind. Someone you have judged by their past. Maybe you judge them by their family, their reputation, or what they have, or what they don't have. And James doesn't give us an excuse for that. He calls it sin. If God has put someone on your heart, don't defend it. Don't explain it away. Bring it to Jesus. Ask him to forgive you and change the way you see that person. Or maybe you heard this sermon from the other seat. You know what it feels like to be the person in filthy rags. Someone someone that other people have judged, and and their judgment has become a load you've carried for a long time. It's made maybe it's made you're you a hard person, right? A person that that is judgmental and critical of others. And I want you to hear this again. Their judgment of you is not Jesus' judgment of you. So wherever you are right now, you can respond. You don't need an altar or a church building. Jesus is right there with you where you're at right now. So let's pray. Lord. For the person who recognizes judgment and favoritism in their own heart, give them the courage to repent without making excuses. Forgive them. Change the way they see the people around them. Teach them to see someone you love instead of someone they have judged. And for the person who has carried the weight of someone else's judgment, meet them with mercy. Remind them that their worth is not determined by their past, their family name, their bank account, their reputation, or what somebody else decided about them. Let them experience your mercy in a way that begins healing what they have carried for so long. For all of us, God, make us people who speak and act differently because we've experienced your mercy. Teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and keep us from adding to those people already carry, and give us the grace to share them. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Now, friend, if something stirred you today and you want to share your story, or if you need someone to walk alongside you with some pastoral counsel, I would love to do that. I'd love to hear your story. I'd love to walk with you. Maybe you don't have a pastor, maybe you're not attending church right now, you just need a pastor to talk to. You can email me at dirtpathpastor at gmail.com. Again, dirtpathpastor, all one word, all lowercase, at gmail.com. And I'd be honored to hear from you, and I'd be honored to participate in your journey with you. And journey together for a little while. Um and then if this episode made you think of somebody that you know in your life that maybe could benefit from listening, share it with them. I can't believe that this podcast is going to come to the end of its seventh year. And uh this podcast wouldn't be where it's at if I didn't know Jesus was using it, right? My simple voice here in Easter Kentucky to reach one more person with his word. And you're that one more person. You can help me continue to reach one more person with his word just by sharing this episode with somebody else. Um be sure to subscribe to the Dirt Pass Run podcast too, so you don't miss the next message. And you can also financially support this podcast, but just no. Uh, when you support this podcast, you're not actually supporting me. The money doesn't come to me. Uh, whatever you give goes to help support the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. And specifically, their emergency relief fund. And that's helping our denomination, our church, respond when disasters and emergency leave people carrying loads they never expected to carry. Your giving helps us be the hands and feet of Jesus. And by this I mean the denomination. The group that makes up the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. And our church gladly partners with them, and the rest are an nomination of that. Now, as you head back into your week, remember that everybody you meet is carrying something you might not be able to see. And you don't have to decide what they're worth. You don't have to assign them a seat. You can simply remember that mercy Jesus has owned you and offer that mercy to the person in front of you. And people who receive mercy don't add to the load. They share it. Until next time, grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus.