What would you do if it were up to you to determine the proper punishment for a convicted car vandal in Singapore? Would you insist on four lashes with the cane on bare flesh, or would you propose some alternative punishment? What would you do if you were the pastor who was offered $1,000 by a Minnesota atheist not to mention God or heaven at his teenage son's funeral? What would you do if you had been Princess Diana driving back to London with a friend and a van went off the road and went into deep water, endangering the lives of the passengers inside?

What would you do if you were state auditor, Mark Dayton, when Minneapolis council woman Hillary called and asked for a $50,000 loan to cover gambling debts? Or if a telemarketer called you at dinnertime? Do you think you would be irritated and rude, or would you, with compassion say, "Here's someone who's making a low wage, may have difficulty getting another job, and may be uncomfortable making the call. I ought to treat this person decently."

More important than what any of us would do, is how we decide what to do in these situations. All of these situations get at an issue everyone deals is, how do we treat other people? For each situation there is a Christian approach, and it is written in James 2, verses 8 and 9 which says, "If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers."

These verses raise two questions, and the way we answer these questions determine how we handle almost every situation of life involving interpersonal relationships.

Question one: Who sets the rules?

In the original version of what is commonly called the Golden Rule, we are told we should treat others as we would like to be treated. But there is a modern corruption of the Golden Rule that says, "He who has the gold sets the rules."

In some respects, I think both versions of the Golden Rule are true and right. The original we should treat others as we would choose to be I imagine myself in the other person's circumstances, and then I imagine how I would like to be treated if I faced what he or she faces. And then, of course, because I'm not in that circumstance, I should turn it around and do what I would like to have done unto me. It's the Golden Rule.

The new version of the Golden Rule, that he who has the gold sets the rules, is also good and true. It refers to the person who has the greatest wealth and the greatest power, and implies, because somebody has great wealth and great power, that person sets the rules by which everyone else lives.

Who does have the greatest wealth and the greatest power? It's God. God has all the gold that there can be; he owns everything, and to use a long, somewhat antiquated word, God is omnipotent. He is and can do absolutely anything. He's bigger, smarter, and stronger than anybody.

I may choose to disagree with him; He may say, "Don't steal," and I steal anyway; He may say, "Tell the truth," and I lie; He may say, "Don't commit adultery," and I commit adultery. But what I say and what I do doesn't change the rule in any way, because God sets his rules independent of me.

He is the ultimate boss. It is he who decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. It is God who determines what is right and what is wrong. He is the one who makes the rules, and there is nothing that any of us can do to change those rules.

Fortunately, God is kind. God is good. He's fair, and he's just. But if he weren't, there is still nothing we could do to change the rules. So, if God were bad, and if God were unjust, he set up the rules, he is still the ultimate boss and we've got to go along with those rules. He has the he has the ability and the strengthhe sets the rules and we have to follow them.

Now, as ChristiansChristians who are convinced that God is good, fair, just, and generouswe have decided to live for God. We are the ones who have decided to keep his rules. It is the smartest commitment any person could ever make. To decide otherwise is to turn against God and his rules. It is deciding to waste life and to lose eternal life.

Question two: Do I want to do what's right?

This is a question we must ask ourselves in every relationship and every situation. When raising children, do you want to do what's right? When facing temptation, do you want to do what's right? When choosing a church, when spending money, when facing a you want to do what is right?

However, that is not the only choice that we have, because we can also choose between doing what will make us happy, or doing what other people would like to have us do, or doing what is doing is what is right. Sometimes, doing the right thing makes us happy, but not always. There are times when doing the right thing is very unpopular, very difficult and very sad.

While we should be concerned about making these choices, there is something that scares me more than people who make bad choices. What scares me is that fewer and fewer people are even asking what the right thing is. Most people are saying, "I'm going to do what makes me happy. I'm going to do what's easiest. I'm going to do what other people tell me to do."

But this is not how we as Christians are to be. Christians live for Jesus Christ, and the reasons for our behavior should be very clear. Who sets the rules? God sets the rules. And do we want to do what is right? Absolutely, we want to do what is right. So, based on these answers, God gives to us what he calls the Royal Law.

The royal law

The law is royal for several reasons: it comes from God, and he's the king, the King of kings, and in terms of human relationships, it is the most important law. And, it's the best way to live. To understand the royal law, one must also understand the terms that are in the law. The Royal Law is to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is not, at least in this case, primarily an emotional concept, but is primarily a behavioral principle. It means doing something good for somebody else that is in that person's best interest. So, it may be giving that person $50,000, but it also may be withholding money from someone. Upholding God's royal law may be a tough thing to do.

Following the royal law means always saying, "What is in that person's best interest?" And if we are serious about loving others, we will always try to think through our actions and say, "What would accomplish God's best, God's good, in his or her life?" So, if I lose my temper with my wife because of something she has said or done, I have to ask myself, "Is that really going to help her be all God wants her to be?" Or if a friend does something downright stupid, and I support and encourage him, is that the right thing to dodoes that help to accomplish God's best within his life?

All of this is very theoretical. What we need to do is try it. We need to translate this into our own lives. So, think of someone you know, some person in your set of acquaintances, or remember a relationship or a decision you had to make in terms of that relationship.

What would be the loving thing for you to do for this person or in this situation? What would be the right thing that would be in his or her best interest? What action would best accomplish God's purposes in his or her life? Love.

We also need to define neighbor. It could be said that just about anyone we encounter is our neighbor, but it especially applies to those we would be least likely to love. It is not primarily those we like or easily get along with, but often it is people we naturally dislike or hurt.

A questioner came to Jesus one day and tried to trick him and asked, "Who is my neighbor?" and that's when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. It is the story of a man who was mugged, and one traveler after another ignored his plight along the side of the road, until along came a Samaritan who was part of a discriminated against ethnic group of the first century. And the Samaritan, the person least likely to help, intervened, helped the individual, actually saved his life and paid his tab to stay and get the recovery that he needed.

Most of us will never meet a Samaritan, but daily we encounter his modern counterparts. I think the easiest way to check out our thinking on this is to say, "Who would it really surprise if I helped them?" So, today the answer may be the employer or the employee who ripped you off. Wouldn't that be a surprise to everybody if that was the person you loved? Or maybe it's someone who sued you, someone of a different color or a different sexual orientation. Or maybe it's a family member with whom you have been feuding for a long time.

You may think the Bible's command to "love your neighbor as yourself" sounds like an invitation to selfishness, but understand the Bible is not suggesting we kiss the mirror. Scripture recognizes that we naturally take an interest in ourselves, and challenges us to extend that interest out to other people. So it's back to the Golden Rule one more time, of thinking how we would like to be treated and then treating others that way as well.

In western Colorado there is a road called "The Million Dollar Highway," and my guess is that both tourists and even people that live on the western slope often don't know how the road got its name. They assume it got its name because it was expensive to build. That's not correct, although it probably was expensive to build because it's through difficult terrain and at a high altitude. The real reason it's called the Million Dollar Highway is that waste material from the ore in gold mines was used as the bed for that highway, and not all of the gold dust and nuggets were removed by the mining processes available at the time. And so, there is a partial roadbed of gold that is probably worth a lot more than a million dollars. It isn't the cost that gave it its name, but what is inside it. The same is true for the Royal Law of love. Sure, it's costly, but what gives it the name is what it is made of, and it is made up of Godthe God who is love.

What not to do

James 2:9 tells Christians not only what to do, but what not to do. James says, "Don't break this Royal Law by showing favoritism. If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers." It is interesting that favoritism is mentioned here, because James addresses the problem of favoritism earlier in the text, and it seems repetitious for it to appear here.

I realize by the standards of most of the people in the world, all of us here are counted among the rich and powerful, so this text is saying that we, those among the rich and powerful, should not receive the favorable treatment of others nor should we express favoritism to others. Why does James have to keep saying it?

A couple blocks from our house there is a traffic light, and the law states that people can turn right on red, so thousands of cars do that during the rush hour in the morning. So we in the neighborhood can hardly get out. You have to wait until it's too late in order to get out on that road, so the city put up a traffic sign that said, "No turn on red," which made absolutely no difference whatsoever. A few weeks later they put a thin rectangular sign on top of the "No turn on red" sign, and it is a color, and it grabs your attention. The hope is that you will look in that direction, and the brightly colored sign will attract your attention, and you will see the "no turn on red" sign. But this still didn't make any difference.

Shortly after that, the city came back and put up two wooden sticks coming from both sides of the "No turn on red" sign, with red flags hanging down the side, and a parked a police car at the intersectionthat was really helpful, actually. The reason the city did this is because they considered it important. That's why the multiple reinforcement was there. And James, and the Holy Spirit behind what James writes, apparently considers it important to get our attentionthat favoritism is wrong.

Not primarily because it means showing nice treatment to someone who has a lot. But when we play favorites, we demean those who have less. I think that the best test of our own behavior is to ask ourselves the question, "Do I treat someone well because I expect to get something in return?"

When the Good Samaritan helped the man mugged on the side of the road, the man was nearly dead. He had no money, and the Samaritan would never get anything for his work. But he did it anyway.

Favoritism is saying, "Ah! If I'm kind to you, then you're going to owe me, and I'll get something back. But those who cannot give me something in return, well, I'm going to treat them in a shabby manner."

Now let's be honest about this: We all do it. I do it. You see people who look better, who have power, that are famous, that have influence, and we treat them in a different way. And it's wrong, but we do it.

James uses a special verb tense in this verse and I think he does it because he showed favoritism himself. In the original Greek he chose a particular tense that, in English would say, "Don't keep on doing this." James recognizes we all play favorites, we all break the Royal Law of love. But, he says, "Come on. As a Christian, quit it. Don't do this anymore. Just stop."

"If you really keep the Royal Law as found in scripture to love your neighbor as yourself, then you're doing right. But if you show favoritism you sin and are convicted by the law as law breakers."

When Princess Diana and her friend were driving along and they saw the van go off the road and into the water, they stopped. They stopped, and the crown princess of Great Britain jumped into the water and pulled the man out of the van and saved him from drowning and waited with him until the police arrived to help. And the press followed it up and found out who the man was. And discovered that he was a homeless vagrant.

Princess Diana, herself royalty, lived by the royal law of God. We can do it too. You don't have to be a prince or princess to do the same. Because God calls us all to live royally, and to love others as ourselves.

Leith Anderson pastors Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. His most recent book is Leadership That Works.

Leith Anderson

Preaching Today Tape # 198

www.PreachingTodaySermons.com

A resource of Christianity Today International

Leith Anderson is president emeritus of the National Association of Evangelicals and Baptist pastor emeritus of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.