True Religion: Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

James 2: 1 - 17  

Cody Kennamer

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SPEAKER_01 0:18

Alright, if you would, as your aid, if you would stand for the reading of God's Word, we're gonna be in James chapter 2, starting in verse 1. You can find that on page 1075 of the Red Bible. They're in the seats there. We would love for everybody to be able to see God's word as it's read and as it's preached.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring in fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy 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 amongst yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 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? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? 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. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, You shall not commit adultery also said you shall not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but you do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. 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 justice. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Thank you, Deb. Would y'all go with me in prayer? Father, the grass withers, the flowers fall, but your word stands forever. Lord, help us to remember and embrace this reality, Father, as we approach this passage, which is um pretty straightforward. Um honestly a little more uh a little more straightforward than I like to be most of the time. And so, Lord God, thank you that this is your word, not mine. Uh, Father, I pray that in this straightforward command, this straightforward um call to your people that we would not forget your abundant grace, Lord, and that it's that grace that fuels our ability to do anything good. Lord, thank you for your spirit. I pray that you would speak to us through this morning through it, Lord God. Praise your name. Amen. Here's a truth statement to start us out this morning. It's this the way the church treats those who come into it, or those that we encounter matters significantly. The way the church treats those who come into the church or who we encounter in our communities matters significantly. We are uh in this series in the book of James, uh James, a half-brother of Jesus, and uh you know, we could kind of boil down one of the main points for James in this book, in this letter, is that actions matter. That in the Christian life, what we do, the way we talk, all of these things matters. What he says, uh you could almost boil it down to another way of saying it, is that what we do externally says something about what's going on internally. What we do externally, how we treat others, how we live our lives, says something about the way or the posture of our heart. And James, in this passage, like I said in the prayer, he is pointing pretty straightforwardly to the church, um calling them to be a people who do not look at some people and hold them high and look to other people and put them low. This is a natural uh natural tendency in the human hearts, right? Like it can be very easy for us to play favorites, to to categorize people based on the way they look. The Old Testament talks about this in 1 Samuel 16. It says, man looks to the outward appearances, but but God looks to the heart. As we've gone through in chapter one of James, just to remind us where we're at, James has has made this argument first that genuine faith perseveres, but it perseveres by holding on to God's word. He then goes on to say last week Hutch talked about um and preached on the true marks of religion. Right? That true marks of religion, of genuine faith, is those who are careful with their words, who control their tongue, who serve and care for the widow and the orphan, and who are undefiled by the world. And he's gonna develop these themes throughout the rest of the book of James, but this morning in this passage here, the beginning of chapter 2, uh James really narrows down on the topic of favoritism. And so that's what we're gonna look at this morning. Here's what we're gonna see. A simple principle I want us to think through is that favoritism is incompatible with true faith. Favoritism is incompatible with true faith. Look with me back at chapter 2, back in verse 1. It says, My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Um first off, I want us to just realize this first part. He says, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

unknown 7:54

Right?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

A lot of times when we come to the book of James, you kind of get uh you can get two reactions. Right? One is a lot of people will say, Well, I like the book of James because it's very plain, it's very practical. It tells me what to do, it gives me action steps. Well, on the same side of that in James, a lot of people come to it and say, This sounds like a lot of stuff that I need to do that I don't do. And so it leads to us feeling shame and not living up to this standard. But it's important to realize in this first verse here what he says. He says, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. James is saying that he's speaking to you, believer, you who Jesus has saved from your sin, who believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to the earth, who died for you, that took on your sin, who gave you his righteousness. It's the reality of the grace of the gospel right off the bat before we get into this strong command. But he says also in that, he says, that's who I'm talking to. You who say I believe in Jesus, I have faith in him, he says, You must not show favoritism. So, what does that mean? What does favoritism mean? Some different uh translations of this uh calls it partiality, right? Being partial to one over the other. An attitude of personal favoritism. The original language here actually literally means to receive a face. To receive someone's face. It's to look on someone and to judge someone by their outward appearance, judging someone by their clothes, by their speech, by uh the color of their skin, their hairstyle, however, and it's making a quick decision of your view of them in that moment. James gives a uh practical example of this in verses two through four, right? He says, He says, Imagine you're at church and you see a car pull up and it's uh it's a pretty nice car. You see a man come in, he's dressed well, he's got name brand clothes on, he he smells kind of good, his hair's fixed, he's got a nice watch. Um, okay, say he comes in. But since then, say at the same time you see in the parking lot, another car comes in. It looks like one of those cars that can you just tell you see a car and you're like, I feel like that car has some problems, you know. Um it's one of those cars. He gets out, says he's dressed, filthy, he's got old clothes on, old shoes. Maybe he doesn't even smell good. He says those two people walk in, and favoritism, receiving face, is to look at those two people and to see the man who's who's dressed well, who's who who who looks like he has it together, and it's to treat him differently than you would treat the other. Favoritism means lifting up one and in that lowering another. Really at the root of this. When this happens, when you do when you show favoritism, is it's not viewing people as equally made in the image of God. Because in Genesis 1 and 2 it says that all people were made in the image of God after his likeness. And yes, sin entered the world and it's messed up everything. But there's something inherently, uh, the image of God is in all of us. To look on someone with favoritism is to not view them as made in the or equally made in the image of God. James says that this is incompatible with the church. Incompatible with what the church should be doing. James has said it. He's gonna continue to say it. We see it all throughout Scripture that the church is to be one who pursues the poor, who pursues the needy, who pursues the broken, right? Hutch says often that the church, right, is not just a place for all the put-together people to come. It's a hospital for the needy, for the broken, for the poor, for the hurt. And actually, you know, if you think back to in the first part of chapter one, where James says uh this command, favoritism, it actually breaks the three marks of true religion. Right? It it breaks showing favoritism dishonors the poor and needy. Rather than being unstained by the world, it's it's actually being completely like the world. And it's often our words and the way we treat people with our words that affect people and show that favoritism. So if that's what it means, if that's what favoritism means, what does it reveal about us? About our hearts and how it may be playing out in our hearts. You know, we often dismiss the sin of favoritism. We often dismiss the sin of favoritism. James in this passage is he's not talking generically, uh theoretically. He has obviously heard that, hey, this is happening in the church. And he's speaking again against it, and he reminds us of just how serious it is in verse 8. He says, if you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing right. And he says, but if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. What is he saying here?

unknown 15:00

Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

What's the royal law? The royal law, you know, Jesus summed up, he basically said, You want to know what the Old Testament is about and the law is about? It's love God and love neighbor. And in the New Testament, he again says that that our ultimate command, the the Ten Commandments can be summed up as love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It's called the royal law because of the of Jesus fulfilling that law perfectly. That he is king over that. It's our kingdom ethic that we're called to follow. And James says favoritism, it's not loving your neighbor. When you show favoritism, it's a sin. You know, favoritism can often get bunched into that category of um respectable sins. I don't know if you've ever read the book uh by Jerry Bridges. It's called Respectable Sins, and the whole idea is just a reality of certain sins that feel more respectable. They're not as seen, maybe. And so um we accept them more in our hearts and in our lives. Favoritism, it's actually a sin that can often be pervasive in our life, yet unnoticed. Or maybe we're aware of it, but we dismiss it.

unknown 16:40

Right?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Favoritism often manifests itself outwardly, right, in our actions, but stems from our heart posture. Remember what I said about the book of James, that James is saying what what you do outwardly says something of your heart. It may be that you live a life outwardly of not showing favoritism, of not showing um partiality, but on the inside your heart is full of it. How do we just diagnose this? Who are the people that you are dismissive of in your day to lay day-to-day life? Who are the people that in your heart you say, this person is less important? That you dismiss.

unknown 17:41

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SPEAKER_01 17:41

Because when uh it's easy to follow the commandment of love your neighbor as yourself when you like that person, right? When you naturally like them. But the call is to end this, to love your neighbor as yourself, is to love um love all people. The difficult people was in your life, the hard people to love. Verse 10, he says this. He says, Whoever keeps a whole law yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking it. He again is showing the seriousness of this. That it's not something to be dismissed. He's saying, uh, right, he says, he compares, he says, he's talking about the law. He says, What if someone says, okay, I committed adultery, but I didn't murder, and so I didn't break the whole law. Right? Two sins who are which are love of neighbors' sins, um, but he says, if you break one of those, you break them all. And he's saying in this that if you if you show favoritism, you're breaking the whole law. I do want to acknowledge in this, uh this is not just a sin, right? I've been talking a lot about our internal, about our hearts, right? About us. I do want to just realize that this is also not just a sin that that we can commit, but it's one that can be committed on you. The sin of favoritism on you. That's something that can bring a lot of shame. It can be heavy on your heart living that out. So you may be asking, I'm asking this. Okay, Cody, this is a lot of bad news. Like, all right, this is, you know, come on now. Um, but there's good news in this passage, okay? There's good news because not only does the law, right, not only does this how we uh love God and love neighbor, not only does it expose our sin, expose the way, expose the ways that we fall short, but it also drives us to Jesus. It drives us to Jesus. Because favoritism has no room in the gospel. Favoritism has no room in the gospel. Look back at uh verse five. James in this passage, right, he says, he says, do not show favoritism. And then he gives an example, and then he he kind of gives this argument for why. And one of his big arguments is that it's against um against God's nature, against who God is. Verse 5 says, Has God not chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he has promised to those who love him? You see, the good news of who God is, it's not a matter where you find yourself in the world's eyes. It's not a matter of being popular or unpopular, of being successful or unsuccessful, broken, poor. In the gospel, in the gospel, even the person who is uh by world standards completely poor, completely destitute, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that person is rich in faith, is rich in the love and grace of our Lord Jesus. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. He says this, he says, For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, right, though he was with his father, he became poor. For our sake, for our sake, Jesus came to earth, came as a man to live a life for us. So that in his poverty, in his humiliation, we might become rich. The reality of the cross is, as one pastor says, that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. There's no favoritism. So what's our response this morning? What is our application to this? It's this it's the show mercy out of the mercy that we have. Show mercy out of the mercy we have. If you look back at verses uh twelve and thirteen, James says, 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. What is he saying here? Commentator, I read, they say this about this passage. They say these verses. Right? Those who have never shown any mercy have not internalized the mercy of God. Right, he's saying here that those who, when you have God's mercy, you will show it.

unknown 24:33

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SPEAKER_01 24:33

Because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. But mercy triumphs over judgment. It's the unmerited favor, the loving kindness and mercy of God through Christ that triumphs over judgment. The way we view others, right, gives us a view of what's going on in ourselves, and in turn, what we experience in ourselves will affect the way we view and treat others. And so our call this morning from this passage, right, even though it's a blunt reminder of the way we fall short and call to mercy, is also a call to know the grace you have and to share that mercy, show that, share that grace. Know the mercy you have received and show that mercy. Application question, maybe for us to think through you to think through, is what drives my mercy? What drives my mercy? Is it works? Is it my sense that I don't know, like I I don't know if I truly believe that the gospel is only Christ's work? I feel like I've got to do something. Is it reputation, right? Is it wanting to be a good citizen in the community? Want to have be able to be seen as someone who's merciful? Are you in a place in your life where you you feel like or there has been injustice done to you and you feel like you can't even show that mercy to others? The good news is that through the cross, we can and we should, right? We can feel convicted and we can be driven to repentance. But if you believe in the glorious work of Jesus, you must not feel condemned. If you leave here this morning and you came away from this passage and you said, okay, I think my action step is I need to do better. That's not the answer. Does the Holy Spirit convict? Should we be repent? Should we take action in this? Yes. But we must not feel condemned because mercy triumphs over judgment. And it's only through that mercy that we can show mercy. Do you believe this? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that your word is truth. Lord, that you use your word to challenge us, to convict us, to comfort us. Lord, I pray that we would fill all those things, Lord. Lord, thank you that you are a God who sent your son into poverty so that we might be rich. Lord, thank you for that. Thank you for your loving kindness to us. Praise your holy name. Amen.