The King's Commandment, Part 2

Here's my third and final paraphrase of James' answer.

Number three, let's get resolved to show love and mercy. Show love and mercy, James writes in verse 12, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. The antidote to racism, classism, is to remember we are accountable.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. Let's remember that there's somebody who lives above us. It doesn't matter if you live at the very top of the mountain, there's somebody higher. Wisdom and prejudice have many causes, but they are often rooted in feelings of superiority.

When a person thinks of himself as better or more important than another, it's easy to take the next step and start treating people poorly. Friend, God hates prejudice and commands that we demonstrate unity. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey takes us back to James chapter two, where God makes his opinion clear.

On our last broadcast, we began a message that we didn't have time to complete. This is the conclusion to Stephen's message entitled The King's Commandment. In James' generation, the Jewish scholars believed that the law was a series of detached commands.

They were all separated. And if you can envision it, the Ten Commandments, they viewed as if you went bowling and there are those ten pins and you roll your ball down there and you're supposed to knock some of them over and avoid the two things along the edge, which my ball, I think there's some, well, anyhow, but you knock two over and there's eight left, but there are still eight standing. That's the Jewish comprehension during the days of James with the law. To keep one law is to gain credit.

To break a law, that goes in the other side of the column. And so at the end of the day, you might have enough of these that outweigh this and you're all right, which of course developed into something that the human heart panders after. It makes us feel good and there are a lot of people who think they're going to get to heaven because of that. And they envision God up there somewhere sitting by a scale with your name on it. And the good things you do get added to this side and the bad things get added to this side. And if you can behave long enough, you can outweigh the bad with the good. And God will say, come on in.

You did fairly well. But the law isn't that at all. It isn't separated bowling pins. It isn't deeds that we can categorize.

It's a chain. In fact, look at verse 10. Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. See, that is we are all considered law breakers because we have broken any one law. And that gives us the verdict. You are law breakers.

You're transgressors. If you break one link of the law, you break the chain and become a law breaker. By the way, if you're hanging on this over the side of a cliff and you're you're holding on to a chain with 10 links, which link is really important to you? You know, the third one doesn't matter of the ninth.

I mean, I've got I've got eight out of 10. That's all connected. I think there's another way to understand the unity of the law, which James is describing, by which we all find ourselves to be law breakers, is that they are all directly or indirectly related. And so I did this little exercise. If you take the sin of partiality or prejudice and connect it to the 10 commandments, you discover that in some way, either directly or indirectly, you have violated all 10.

Here we go. The first and second commandments are broken simply because God commands us to not show partiality. And to do so is to deny his will and place our will above his, thus idolizing our own opinion and not God's alone. The third commandment is broken because to favor someone over another is to misrepresent the name and nature of God. The fourth commandment is broken as we show favoritism in church, thus defiling our sacred worship. The fifth commandment dishonors the poor, and we should dishonor no one, especially those whom we should give our care and concern. Prejudice and favoritism effectively kills the spirit and the hopes of the poor by demeaning them and thus violates the sixth commandment. The seventh commandment is violated as we favor the rich and powerful and in so doing show infidelity and unfaithfulness to our Lord and to the bonds of this Christian fellowship. The eighth commandment is broken as we steal from the poor the dignity that is theirs as unique creations of God. The ninth commandment bears false witness because prejudice implies they have less worth than others and that is a lie. And the tenth commandment is broken because favoring the rich is a form of covetousness which values possessions over and above the value of a human being.

All ten. Now the people in this assembly might try to say, well, okay, we broke this little thing, law, but we did show some love. I mean, we didn't kick the guy out. We let the poor guy stand by the wall and sit. He had the same warmth we had. He got to hear the same message we heard. We love him too.

We just show it a little differently than when we showed it to the rich guy. No, love doesn't avoid the law. It is the highest law and it must be dispensed equally because the law is supreme and the law of love is over and above all other laws. In fact, the royal law is the law of love. Just because you love doesn't mean you're not accountable to all the other laws. You can't excuse it.

Well, I love this guy, but I'm doing all these things. It doesn't matter. No, you can't say that. Look, if I get pulled over by a state trooper on the way home today after church, now you got to use your imagination on this, but I get pulled over because on Penny Road, it's 45 miles an hour and I'm doing 47. And I get pulled over. I hate it when they do that. I'm only doing 47 and I get pulled over, but I do.

Okay, so I did. And that policeman comes up to my car and he says, Mr. Davie, I'm on my pickup truck. And he says, I'm going to have to write you a ticket. What if I said, but I love you, officer. I mean, I really love you.

But what's he going to do? He's going to look down in the window and he's going to say, excuse me, sir. And I would say, well, I just want you to know I love all the policemen of the world. You would have me get out of the truck and breathe into this little plastic thing. Listen, if I promise to love all of the state troopers, can I speed? Maybe.

I mean, I mean, no. True love does not set aside the law. It should make us want to keep the law. James is saying, if you really want to love, you keep the law. So classism and racism and culturalism and favoritism in James' mind are not just little misdemeanors, by the way.

They violate the greatest, most supreme law. Partiality, prejudice, pigeon holing, whatever you want to call it, violates both the vertical and the horizontal law of God. It is nothing less than a violation of the heart of God seen in his condescension through God the Son when we discovered that God does not play favorites. God is not targeted any income level or race above another. He isn't mass marketing the gospel to attract a certain segment of society. And I get those cards from churches in my mailbox that are doing exactly that very thing all the time. Aren't you glad God doesn't do that? Aren't you glad the gospel isn't just for people who have it together, for people who live at the top of the mountain or maybe even the middle of the mountain, that the gospel is also for the people who live at the bottom of the mountain? So what we need to do is we have to admit we have become unacquainted with God's heart. The solution is to become reacquainted with what Jesus Christ said is the greatest law that should govern everything else.

We should also get real about lame excuses, not only get reacquainted with the Father's heart, but get real about lame excuses. James is anticipating somebody in the assembly. They're going to wiggle out of this. They're going to say, OK, we could have been nicer to the poor guy, but look, we were nice to the rich guy. And so if you if you are doing your math, Steven, that's 50 50. That's one out of two. If this were baseball, we'd be batting 500.

We'd be heading to the Hall of Fame. James says, you're not even getting to first base. He writes in verse nine.

Look there. If you show partiality, you're committing sin. You're convicted by the laws transgressors for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of a law that is he is a transgressor. So James anticipates that an argument of self-defense and he anticipates it in the spirit of God moving through him because the spirit of God knows full well human nature and human nature is brilliant at concocting loopholes and excuses. Someone once said that we have several million laws to deal with all of the excuses created by people who won't keep 10 commandments.

So James anticipates their response. Look at verse 11. For he who said, Do not commit adultery also said, Do not commit murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you become a transgressor of the law. Again, he's saying the law is a unit. We're all lawbreakers, by the way, not because we've broken every law, but because we have broken the law. James is saying, here's his illustration. You don't stand before a judge guilty of murder and say, Your Honor, may I may I mention that I've never committed adultery. Expecting the judge to go, Oh, well, in that case, you can go free. And James uses courtroom language here a system of justice would not say to a guilty thief. You know, it comes to my mind there are 100 things that you've not done. So we'll let this one thing that you've done slip under the radar and you can just slide on through. You see, the problem with the human heart is is that we would look at classism and racism and we would say, Look, Lord, I haven't done bigger crimes against you, like murder or adultery.

And James is anticipating that. He says, You're still a lawbreaker because you have violated at least one of them. You can't go you can't fall into this human nature, a loophole loving, self defending culture imitating attitude. You talk to somebody on the street about being a sinner, and they'll respond to you with, Well, wait a second, I didn't do this. And I've never done that. And I've never done this. And I've never done that.

And I've never done that either. That's human nature. Because when we're confronted with the fact that we're lawbreakers, we immediately say, Well, wait, God, I didn't do that, or that or that or that. James is proving that we're all guilty of breaking the law. And the concern of his heart is this sinful deed and attitude of partiality. And he actually puts it then in the company of adultery and murder. Frankly, his point is that sin is sin and any sin is as sinful as any other sin. Some sin may have more serious consequences, but all sin makes us all transgressors.

So we're all guilty. Like the word transgressor that James uses at the end of verse 11 is a compound word that means literally to walk beside, to step over. The word is used of someone who has a path and they're supposed to walk it and they step off. The idea is of a line and you step over it. We have that same expression today in the English language. Don't step over the line.

What do we mean? Don't transgress. Sin is stepping over the line. Sin is failing to walk the line. James calls it transgression. The world and our own fallen nature will excuse it. And we will say, You know what? I've lived a good life. And if you care, I'll tell you all the things I never did.

We're guilty. I pulled off the Internet a news article some time ago about the classic illustration of this gentleman who would become at the age of 91. He was a successful businessman and family man.

And then at 91, he became known as the oldest bank robber in U.S. history. And when interviewed, he said, You know why I rob banks? Because I feel good about it. I feel awful good. I feel good for hours, sometimes days.

It's fun. In 1998, I'll read this article before his 87th birthday, a week before he entered the South Trust Bank in Biloxi, Mississippi, told the girl behind the counter to give him her money. He was caught, put in jail for three months. His cellmate was a bank robber who taught him how to rob banks successfully. When he got out of prison, he attempted again and was caught. This time he spent three years in prison. At the age of 87, he became the oldest inmate in the Florida prison system. When he got out, he eventually got a car from his nephew and attempted to rob another bank but was caught again. Now at 91, he's in prison where he died. He was interviewed during his final incarceration, which had become kind of a news interest.

And this is what grabbed my attention. During the interview, he said, I have, quote, led a good life and I have no regrets. I lived a good life.

And you know what? Much of his life probably was. But he also attempted to steal money that didn't belong to him. He also cost the taxpayer to support his incarceration and legal fees. He became a convicted felon as a bank robber. And yet even as he sat in prison, he said, I've lived a good life and I have no regrets.

What's he saying? I didn't do this, this, this, this or that. I got a scale and God would say, you've lived a good life. And that's the human heart. James is saying, perhaps to our surprise, that partiality and prejudice is part of our corrupted nature. And God isn't saying to us, don't worry about it. We'll let that slip on through because you haven't done this, this, this or that.

There are no loopholes. Even the violation of that law, even partiality makes us transgressors. So what are we going to do about it? Here's my third and final paraphrase of James answer. Number three, let's get resolved to show love and mercy as we demonstrate the gospel.

Let's show love and mercy. James writes in verse 12, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. The antidote to racism, classism is to remember we are accountable. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. Let's remember that there's somebody who lives above us.

It doesn't matter if you live at the very top of the mountain, there's somebody higher. And as believers, we will stand before him and he will reveal to us what he considered profitable or unprofitable. The unprofitable will be burned away. The profitable will be rewarded. And it is this law. In fact, James says, oh, by the way, it's the law of liberty.

Isn't that interesting? Perhaps ironic, but it's true. The believer who lives as a slave to the will of God and the law of God knows he experiences, as he obeys, the greatest measure of freedom he could ever experience. Submission to the will of God brings the greatest measure of joy. There is no greater fulfillment. There is no greater sense of satisfaction than saying, Lord, whatever it is you want me to do, I am willing to do it. And here in this text, you're telling me to topple over in my own heart the mountain, to turn it upside down, to deal with prejudice and partiality in my own heart toward others. And I am willing to do that and I will do it, for I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. By the way, this is in the context beginning back at verse 26 of chapter 1 that deals with widows and orphans and now here in chapter 2, the poor. James writes, so speak and so act, present, active, imperative.

That's his favorite. It's an exclamation point after each one of these verbs. So speak, keep on speaking, keep on doing, don't stop, keep it going. Where can you do it more? Where are more opportunities that are offering you to be able to speak in love and grace and mercy and act in love and grace and mercy? Do it.

Like D.L. Moody who said that every believer's Bible really ought to be bound in shoe leather. Just do it. Let's admit, though, that there are commands and the fact that we are commanded, there is natural resistance. It must be the Spirit of God in our lives and our surrender to the Spirit of God that takes that resistance and turns it into obedience.

There's something about responsibility that we'll put off. There's something about the pressure to be nice that we recoil against. I don't want to be told to be nice.

I don't want to be told to mind my manners. It's why your mother had to remind you all the time at the table. You ever been at the mall? I'm sure you have. Or a restaurant.

You're in the parking lot in your car and you're waiting for that person to get into their car and to pull out so you can pull in and you are convinced they are taking their sweet time. It's actually true. It is. Would you believe it? I came across.

This is just wonderful. This was free here for you. But a recent study of 400 drivers. I don't know whose job it is to study drivers in a mall, but here it is.

Four hundred drivers were studied and timed. And they found that drivers took longer to pull out of a space if somebody was waiting on them. I knew it.

I knew it was true. They actually timed them. The study discovered if nobody was waiting for the space, drivers took an average of 32 seconds to open their door, get in, start the car, and back out of their spot. 32 seconds. If they saw before they got in that somebody was waiting for them, they took an average of nearly ten more seconds. And then to those who honked, don't do that, they took five more seconds.

The key is not to let them know you want their spot. It's just human. It's tragic. It's funny.

But it's who we are. Don't push me. Don't tell me.

Don't pressure me. And James comes along and he says, do it. And if you don't, you're a sinner.

And he's writing to the church. He ends this discussion by saying in verse 13, what he began to talk about for the last 14 verses, but in verse 13 he says, For judgment will be merciless to one who is shown to mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. And don't misunderstand. This is a sermon all itself.

I'm going to do it in about 60 seconds. James is not saying mercy is earned if mercy is earned. It's not mercy. James is simply giving us in this verse two, what they call aphorisms. These are two wise statements. Grammatically, these are two statements joined without a conjunction, which means he's dropping in general truths by way of summary. The first truth is for the world.

The second truth is for the believer. The first truth is you are known for your lack of mercy. You're known to be driven to judge without mercy. You're known to classify and divide, to scramble up the mountain and step over anybody you need to to get there.

Guess what? There's a day coming when you will not receive mercy. There's no mercy at the great white throne of Revelation chapter 20.

The world will be judged and found to belong to their shock to one and the same class of people, namely the condemned. But for the believer who has come to know the Savior and his mercy, he says in this second aphorism, God's mercy triumphs over judgment because we are in Christ. His mercy triumphs.

What's your scale look like? Christ saved us according to his mercy. Titus 3, 5. God is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and our transgressions made us alive in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2, 4. In us, his mercy has triumphed over judgment and we will be all found one day, much to our surprise, to be in one class, namely the redeemed forever. The hymn writer put it this way, by God's word at last my sin I learned, then I trembled at the law I'd spurned till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free.

Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. The challenge of James to you, dear unbelieving person, is this, run to the mercy of God. The message to the servant of Christ is this, since we have received and we benefit forever from the mercy of God, can we do anything less than demonstrate the same to people who cannot do anything for us, like the orphan and the widow and the poor. We need to get reacquainted with the heart of God.

We need to get real about our lame excuses. We need to get resolved to show mercy and love to our world. That was Stephen Davey in a message he called The King's Commandment. It's the second message in the two part series called The Law of Love. If it would be a blessing for you to have this series on CD we can make that available. Give us a call today at 866-48-bible. We can give you information and help you right over the phone.

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