Last time we saw that there was a serious problem of partialism within the church, and James began to address that as Christians are fleeing and they're going out from Jerusalem, perhaps many of them do experience some need, or others are just well off enough to get to where they need to go, but they cannot help to take care of all the needs of the church Well, maybe they were seeking to be partial to those who were wealthier. And that certainly makes sense from a human perspective. However, they also, in showing partiality, they were being partial against those who are needy in the church. They were not taking care of the poor. They were favoring the rich over the poor. And sadly, such partiality is not just a relic of history. And that has continued on, but through church history. In fact, there was a practice known as simony, where a person would, could, if they had the money, they could buy influence, political influence within the church. They could even buy positions for themselves or for someone else and become a bishop or something else. for just the right dollar amount. That is something that obviously should be condemned in church history, but it does continue on, and today there are churches that continue to seek to cater to the higher tax brackets, let's say. And it's perhaps due to many of the same temptations that a lot of people do experience. Now, that's one kind of partiality. There is other kinds of partiality in churches. There are churches, for instance, that target specific people groups. We've talked about that in the past. We'll talk about it more. Maybe they target unbelievers only. A lot of the Southern Baptist churches I attended in my youth seemed to only be preaching to the unbelievers. They never seemed to be preaching to believers, and as you go to a lot of megachurches, some of them will even tell you this is not for you if you are a mature Christian. This is for unbelievers to come in. They put on their sound and lights and everything else, their big production, to attract the world in, and they're hoping that the world becomes Christians who put it in the best possible terms. That's what they're hoping will happen to give them the benefit of the doubt. sometimes churches will target young people and so they will have specific music that comes in that they think is appealing to younger people. Unfortunately, what ends up happening a lot of times is that it's music that is more suited to the style of the older people who are making the leadership decisions, not necessarily the younger people. So sometimes that does not communicate well, but sometimes it does. And some churches are successful in worldly terms for doing that. There are also people who look for specific churches that fit specific molds, specific genres. So maybe they are looking for specific programs. I need a church that has X, Y, and Z program. And so I'm not going to go to this church even though it has good preaching and good fellowship because it doesn't have all the programs I need. So I'll go over to this church. That happens a lot. Sometimes it's about even meeting a very specific taste of the individual. I'm not trying to call anyone out. If you think I am, I'm not necessarily calling anyone out here. But it does strike me as strange. There are some 5,000 cowboy churches all across the United States. And it's because folks want a very specific style. They don't want the rock music, so they want the country kind of style, the western kind of style. And there's that. We don't like this church. It doesn't fit our mold as people. Let's go to this church. It fits our mold. This is a very consumeristic approach to church. I'm getting a little off because we're talking about partialism here, but there are a lot of churches that do practice partialism. There have been a lot of social justice warriors who have come into the church and said, okay, the population percentage is 40% this, and 20% this, and 15% this, and 6% that, and so on and so forth. I don't know what that adds up to, but anyway, I was just throwing out numbers. These are the population percentages. If your church does not line up perfectly with those percentages, you have 40% of this and 20% of that, et cetera, et cetera, then you don't have a godly church. It should be exactly like the population. And if you are lacking, instead of the 20%, you have only 5%, then you need to change the way you do worship to attract more of that demographic into the church. And of course, that's showing partialism at that point. We don't want to do things just so the church can reflect culture or reflect personal tastes. We do things because God has commanded us to do things in a certain way. So there are a lot of examples of partiality in churches for us to consider and to see whether we're doing that or not doing that, and why we do that. And this perhaps is better suited to my Sunday morning sermon series, and we'll perhaps get into some of these topics a little bit deeper in that series. But we certainly, as we're reading this passage, see that we should not be practicing partialism. As we started chapter two, that was a clear command that is, that is given, and we are given examples of that. We see that command continuing on as we are now reading about something that James calls the Royal Law. The Royal Law. Now what is the royal law? That is simply God's law. That is God's comprehensive law. Not just parts of God's law, but his whole law. And as it is God's law, the law of the king of kings and the lord of lords, we should seek to obey it. And so we'll see three points this evening. The first of those points is that is that we see the love of the king in the law. We do see the love of the king in the law. We don't typically think about love and law being in the same category, but we do see love in the law. and we need to see that. Second, we'll then see guilt before the king in the law. We do have guilt before the king, so we'll see that in the law. And then finally, we'll see the mercy of the king in the law, the mercy of the king in the law. And I don't have much of a PowerPoint tonight, but that just so happened to work out well because I don't have someone back there controlling the video to switch back and forth between the PowerPoint and the pulpit, I guess. So that's okay. This works out just fine for us tonight. We'll just go through this looking at the passage together. First, the love of the king in the law, the love of the king in the law. Reading verses eight and nine again, We see there, if, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Hmm. So again, we don't often think of love as part of God's law. We tend to think of them as antithetical. In fact, I've even seen Christians mistakenly say that we need to stay out of the Old Testament. We just need the New Testament. We're in the New Testament era. And we just need like the red letters of Jesus. Jesus says things, you know, in the Old Testament, there's all this judgment and wrath and fire and brimstone. Jesus says things like you should love your neighbor like yourself. And so that's where we need to be, is with the words of Jesus. I always chuckle a little bit, and I see you're chuckling a little bit, because you already know Jesus is quoting the Old Testament when he says this. James is quoting the Old Testament as he says this. This is coming from the book of Leviticus, of all places. So in the middle of all these requirements, all these rules, there is this command. And Jesus points it out, and then James follows, because it's important for us to see the love of God in the royal law. It is important for us to see the love of the king in his law. And there are many examples of God's love in the law. For instance, and just for the sake of time, we won't turn to all of these examples. I'll just give them to you. There were laws protecting the destitute. So, you might have someone who has absolutely, and when I say destitute, I mean completely out of money, perhaps homeless, no money for food. How does a person like that eat? There's not welfare. You couldn't go over to the housing authority back then. They didn't have that. They didn't have all of the social safety nets that we have set up today. So what did people have back then? Well, the love of God is seen in the law by commanding farmers, for instance, to not trim all the way to the corners of their field. Now, as a farmer, They may be very upset about that. If you are a farmer, you might be upset about that. Now, wait a minute. I planted all this crop. I should reap the full return from this crop. Why should I take care of the destitute? But... That's exactly what God has commanded, because that's the love of God being shown. God says, yes, you should be willing, in fact, to do this. There was almsgiving, there was all kinds of things, and then there were laws specifically set up so that people would have this safety net. They could walk through. It wasn't considered theft. for someone to walk through your field and just pluck something and eat it as they went along. That was not considered theft in that society. That was a food source, especially for the needy. There were also commands about dealing with civil matters. If you have an animal that is biting other people, that's something to be concerned with. We had dogs running around our neighborhood a little while ago and people talked about it because animal control had to be called out three times on these animals because they were chasing people down and they were even biting people. I think the third time is the charm, if I'm not mistaken on our laws here, but really the first time should be the charm, right? The minute the animal gets out and becomes aggressive with people and bites someone, that should be it for that animal. And the owner of the animal, should be required by law to pay the medical expenses of the individual if that person needs stitches or something else. There were commands in the Old Testament law with all the fire and brimstone that people are talking about. There were provisions like that. right there in God's law. If you start a fire in your backyard, you're burning leaves, and it gets out of control, and it catches your next-door neighbor's house on fire, guess who's liable? Well, I think in our law, it's pretty much the same there, too. You're liable. There was someone we knew, my son knew someone out here who lost her house because someone was smoking during the summertime, threw the cigarette onto a leaf pile, kept walking, and the house, that was it. The house was gone because of how dry it was during the summertime. That person should be held liable for those damages. These are things that God has set up. The law commanded parapets to be put around roofs. That's basically a railing system. Remember back then that folks would sometimes go into the upper story, into the roof. It was typically an open kind of almost like a courtyard except it's on a roof where you have maybe two walls, maybe three walls at most, but there's no ceiling, there's no roof above that. And people would get up there and they would hang out in the heat of the day. because it would be a little bit cooler up top than it would be in the house. Well, what if you bring your neighbor over and you're having a barbecue or something like that and you're hanging out on the roof and your neighbor falls off the roof because maybe at your barbecue you have I drink that, maybe a little intoxicating, that wine, maybe it was a little too sweet or something like that, and the neighbor didn't realize how close he was to the edge, and he falls off. Well, guess what? You are liable for that, because you should have had railing around your roof to make sure that he doesn't fall off. God commanded that. You know, as we think about that, there are lots of ways that these laws could be applied in a context here in the United States that would be very, very good. You know, we don't hang out on roofs typically that much these days, but, you know, having railing or fencing around a swimming pool if you have kids in the neighborhood or something like that to make sure no one falls in and drowns. You know, it's things like that. These are ways that we can consider, okay, how can I show love to other people and thus fulfill the royal law? There are numerous examples of caring for our neighbors in scripture. So this begins to answer the question, how does this apply in the New Testament era? And James moves us in that direction by commending those who fulfill the royal law, those who fulfill the royal law. Now this is a term that signifies the law's connection to a ruler. It comes from ancient Roman culture. And you would have a king, so it is therefore a royal law. He would have a command, maybe it wouldn't even be just a command from the king, but a command under which the king himself must also abide. But either way we look at it, this is a royal law. But James, of course, is applying this not to a Roman ruler, but to King Jesus. He is the lawgiver. He is the one who spoke the Old Testament. He's the one who we worship today. And so the term royal here is even similar to the word kingdom in verse five. Listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? which he promised to those who love him. And so now we are thinking about a kingdom, and James says that we have a royal law. If we're part of a kingdom, we have a royal law, and we need to abide by that law. Now James' royal law, of course, is not new here. He points us to this command to love our neighbor as ourself, As I said, that comes from Leviticus, specifically Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18. If you're wanting to look that one up and that's where God commanded Israel to love their neighbors as themselves. Well, Jesus affirmed this. In fact, he said, this is the second greatest commandment. Remember there are two great commandments, second greatest commandment alongside of loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Here, we have the command to love your neighbor as yourself. This also follows along with this golden rule of Matthew 7 12 Which says and everything therefore treat people the same way you want them to treat you For this is the law and the prophets. This is the law as God has taught it And the law can be summed up in love now As we're looking at this, an aside here, I do want to point this out because as we look at this, what Jesus called the second greatest command, people look at this and interpret two commands inside of it. They say, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, is actually commanding you implicitly that you must love yourself and then You can properly love your neighbor. I've heard this numerous times. This is part of the exaltation of self. It is very prevalent in Christian therapeutic circles and Christian psychoanalytical type of seminars and teachings. I've heard, in fact, this is how prevalent it is, In jail ministry, I've had inmates walk up to me over the years and tell me that they discovered the problem, why they're in there, because they read this command, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And they've said something like this. I discovered I couldn't love others because I never knew how to love myself. They are taught that. I've been in group settings, and I've heard other people read that and teach that, and then they'll say something like, oh, the chaplain knows what I'm talking about, and kind of wink at me and smile, and I'm like, I'm not on the same page as you here. I'm glad you quoted scripture. I am, but I'm not on the same page. But of course, you want to be polite, but then there's also, A frustration there, because you hear it so often. This is a grave misunderstanding. Jesus only calls it one command. Jesus only calls it one command. It is not two commands. And the best understanding here is that we are loving others instead of ourselves. We are putting others in front of ourselves. We should love our neighbors instead of ourselves, putting the needs of others above our own. And isn't that what the rest of the New Testament teaches us? To esteem others more highly than ourselves. That's what the royal law is teaching us. Love your neighbor as yourself, that same kind of care that you would give to yourself, how you would shower yourself with gifts, how you would take care of yourself, make sure all your needs are met, how you would feed yourself, how you would do these things. Well, guess what? That's how you should act with other people. Now, we noted That this is love, this is love. Sometimes love even requires sacrifice. But this love does permeate God's law. But it's not about emotion, it's not about emotion. It's not about even personal preference. It's something that we have to look over with this. In fact, the MacArthur Study Bible Notes this, the sovereign law, and he goes on to say, the sovereign law summarizes all the law and the prophets. The sovereign law summarizes all the law and the prophets. And it does, that's what Romans 13 says. That's what so many other places in the New Testament says. This summarizes the law. The law can be summed up in the word love. It is, it's either love of God or love of God. So genuine love puts others before self it strives for their physical and spiritual Well-being and this is something and we I think we learn in marriage We well, hopefully successful marriages, I guess I should say you learn. Okay, it's not always about my needs It's about my wife's needs for instance Yeah, I was just mentioning to my wife, I don't have a lot of sweaters. And she's like, well, just go buy some sweaters. I don't want to buy myself stuff. We have kids. I'm concerned about you having stuff. I'll like to just buy myself a lot of stuff. But that's, I think, a healthy place to be. Of course, you do, at some point, need to get yourself stuff. But it should be. automatic in our thinking, okay, is everyone else's needs being met? Especially when you have kids, it's something that comes in. You find that you don't eat as much because you want to make sure that every, the kids have all the food that they need. You know, you don't engage in gluttony because you want to make sure that they eat and that they have what they need. Especially if you're poor, you want to be conserving for them. so that they can grow up. So this is something that we do learn even on a natural level. But this is something that we should apply because of what the king has commanded us. We are doing well if we apply it. And so how does all of this connect to what we've been saying? We've been talking about favoritism. Well, that brings us to verse nine. And we better start moving a little faster here. Verse nine tells us just this, it says, But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. And so the law convicts you if you engage in favoritism. Now, what does favoritism mean? It means to lift the face, literally. That's what the term means. It means to lift the face. You say, wait a minute, how does that work? Well, think about it in terms of judgment. I have two people in front of me, and they both are talking about their sides of the issue, and I'm thinking about what they're saying. I say, wait a minute. Before I say who's right and who's wrong, guys, lift your faces up so I can look at you. I want to see what you look like. And so we look at them, and maybe I like the skin color of one person, and I don't like the skin color of the other person. and I make my judgment based on that. That's favoritism. Maybe I look at the clothing of one person, the clothing of the other person. This person's wealthy, this person's poor. I assume the wealthy person got through life because he's made upright and righteous choices, and the person over here is poor because he's only, you know, spent his money on lavish living and, you know, drugs and alcohol and everything else. And so I'm going to believe this person because this person obviously has success in life where this person doesn't. That's favoritism. That's not honestly weighing the facts. Justice, of course, as we know, should be blind. But favoritism is where you look at the face first. This is partly why the King James Version translates this respect to persons. Respect to persons. When you make judgments based on who the person is. And it's really troubling to me that there are more and more Christians I'm seeing online who are engaging in this kind of partiality. where they are saying, okay, we've noticed maybe, they're noticing that Hollywood replaces traditionally white roles, white characters with characters of other colors, other ethnicities. Oh, there's racism against white people happening, therefore we have to be racist. And this is something that someone even has told me. Yeah, we have to be racist to stop this. I'm like, no, all racism is wrong. Well, why aren't you saying something about racism against white people? That's racism. All racism is wrong. Well, yeah, but I'm talking about black people and Jewish people. The Jewish people, that's something that's really been highlighted lately. Oh, it's all the Jews. Is this not the same thing that James is talking about? We're gonna lift the face and see. Is that a Jewish face that I'm looking at? Is that a black face I'm looking at? Is that a white face I'm looking at? This is the kind of thing that he's talking about here. And we should shun all of it. This is not like a third way kind of in between media way where you're coming in between the two positions and trying to create a third way. No, this is saying, this is a completely worldly thing that you have going on here. This is what Christ calls us to in the royal law. This is what Christ calls us to in the royal law. Showing favoritism betrays the unconditional love of God. if you think about it, because this means that we are prioritizing personal preferences or perhaps personal gain over the needs of others. It's love for self first. That's what favoritism is. That's what partiality is. Love for self first, not love for neighbor instead of self. Furthermore, James highlights that this partiality is not a trivial matter, it is a sin. It is a sin and it goes against God's holy law. And so as believers, we should be reflecting the love of the king that he put into the law, the love that he shows to us, the unconditional love, whereas even when we were unworthy, we demerited God's grace. He has given it to us anyway. He has given it to us anyway, without bias, without discrimination. And so we see the love of God all through the law and through his word. But as we're going through this, you may say, well, I'm not sure I always love as I'm supposed to. I think I do show partiality, and so this says I've committed sin. I'm convicted by the law as a transgressor. This is saying I have guilt. That brings us to the next point that James has for us here. The guilt before the king and the law. The guilt before the king and the law. Verses 10 and 11. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. 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 have become a transgressor of the law. You know, I find it interesting, sometimes Christians, I find it sad, really, that Christians seem to think that they can gain additional righteousness, maybe a better standing before God, by keeping some of the law. And so sometimes they may adopt a kosher lifestyle, for instance. Okay, well, I'm gonna get rid of pork, meat, or certain kinds of meat, I'm very sorry for them. Just on that level, to throw away bacon, ooh, You know, there's so much good barbecue that they're ridding themselves of in that case. Shrimp cocktails, different things like that. Maybe they also are wanting to start to keep Old Testament feast and festivals I've known of Christians who made it a point of pride that they don't celebrate Christmas They don't celebrate Easter because the Bible doesn't mention Christmas. It doesn't mention Easter as a celebration that is instead they celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles or something else, you know, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, all of these different kinds of feasts. And some of them, you know, okay, you kind of need to have celebrated those feasts. But why, why are you doing this? Some strive to keep the Ten Commandments, to demonstrate their obedience to God. But we see the bad news here, that despite how much you are doing, if you have even a single violation, you are guilty of the whole thing. Even a single violation. So James turns to the seriousness of the guilt that we have before God here. Some might dismiss what they have done if they have engaged in the partiality that we've been considering, the favoritism that we've been considering. You say, well, this is a minor thing. Listen, when I was online, I was making memes. These were just jokes. It's nothing serious. Oh, it's serious. It's serious. One commentator notes this, James was aware There would be some who would tend to dismiss their offense of prejudice as a trivial fault. They would hardly consider themselves as lawbreakers. James went on to make it clear that this was no small offense. And it isn't, it isn't. And he dismantles his thinking by emphasizing the unity of God's law. This is not just a collection of separate commands that have been loosely stitched together by editors over time, and they said these work, and we threw out some that didn't work. This is what God has delivered. There's that joke, when Moses carries down the tablets from Sinai, He says, these are God's 15, and then one falls and breaks. These are God's 10 commandments. Okay, so is it like that? Is it just whatever got passed down to us? Of course, that was just a joke, but is it just whatever got passed down to us? No, God formed it the way he formed it for a reason, and we can't just pick and choose. We have to see what God has actually said in the law, especially when it comes to love. It's an indivisible whole that we see here. Breaking one part, no matter how small, renders one guilty of breaking all the law. As an aside, as I'm looking at this and as I was studying this this week, a little bit of a rabbit trail here, but I began to think about, okay, how does this apply within the context of what we were mentioning a little while ago in our worship service, that the broader theological community, there are believers, believers, like Presbyterian brethren, who are honest, who love the Lord, who are expositional. Not all of them are, but obviously there are many who are. And they affirm something called covenant theology. And then there are those who embrace something called dispensational theology. And of course, among the covenant theologians, there are some crazy people. And among the dispensational crowd, there are some crazy people. And everyone tries to avoid some of the extremes while also trying to see, okay, how do we understand things like the law of God? How does it apply to our lives? And there has been a little bit of a variety of approach on this. For instance, covenant theologians who affirm the ongoing covenant of works would argue that this passage underscores God's universal application of his moral law. Now, you might say, okay, what is that? Well, the covenant of works was something that they would argue started in the Garden of Eden, specifically Genesis 2, 16 and 17. God told Adam that he could eat from any tree of the Garden of Eden But the day he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he says, you shall die. You shall surely die. And so this, for many people, has covenantal implications here, that God is saying, if you do well, you will prosper. If you do not do well, you will die. And that's the covenant there. Keep my garden, you can live here, you can eat anything you want. We'll have fellowship. The moment you eat from this one tree, though, that's it. And so that's seen by many as a covenant of works that was instituted right there. Because really, it was the works of Adam that would have kept him in God's good graces, if you think about it, right? This is not something that's based on grace. It is something that is based entirely on Adam's effort. And we might even say, it's really not that hard of an effort, just don't do something, and it's one thing, And so you might say it's kind of a relatively easy thing. Now, some say that still applies today. Some say no, it's been fulfilled in Christ. But they would say this underscores the fact that, yes, there is still a covenant of works that applies to all mankind, not just those who are of Moses. But all mankind, because we are all in Adam. And so God still expects perfect obedience from all of us. And when we fail in our perfect obedience, then we are judged. And even if we are not of the tribe of Israel, of a tribe of Israel, we are still judged. And there is some merit in that viewpoint. Perfect obedience is required to stand before a holy God. And we would actually agree with that. Now, there have been, of course, many dispensational expressions over the years. Classical dispensationalism, and modified, and then progressive dispensationalism. And really, the modified and progressive dispensationalists, those are the guys you would typically see at the masters, a seminary, or over at Grace Community Church. they would approach this text a little bit differently. They interpret it through a lens of kingdom ethics, kingdom ethics. And so, as I said earlier, verse five talks about the kingdom, the royal law in verse eight there has a connection to that, and it expresses God's moral demands in light of Christ's inaugurated kingdom. inaugurated kingdom, which believers are called to reflect until he ultimately establishes his kingdom. And so we are citizens of the future kingdom of Christ. We are currently part of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, and therefore we should apply the rules, the laws of the kingdom as we await the future consummation. Now, as I've gone through that, you may not be familiar with all of these varying theological camps, you might not have a dog in that fight, and you might say, okay, I don't know anything about covenant theology or dispensationalism, I just wanna know how to best understand this. Well, regardless of the differing perspectives out there, and I really gave that mainly for the people who might be a little bit more nerdy like I am, and want to dig into that kind of theological questioning. Despite that, there is significant unity among theologians as to how we should understand these truths here. All agree first that God's law, God's law reveals God's righteous standard and humanity's universal guilt. It reveals God's righteous standard and humanity's universal guilt. It shows that none of us can keep the law perfectly. We have all stumbled in many ways. In fact, that's exactly what James says in chapter three, verse two, for we all stumble in many ways. So we are not perfect, even though God demands perfection. Second, this passage highlights the unity and comprehensiveness of God's law. the unity and comprehensiveness of God's law, demonstrating that to violate even one part is to be condemned as a lawbreaker. You break one part, you're a lawbreaker. It also points to humanity's need for a savior, as no one can meet the law's demands apart from Christ. And finally, There is a shared agreement that believers, though forgiven, are still called to live in light of God's moral standards. Even though we're forgiven, we are still called to live in light of God's moral standards, including loving one another. We should strive to reflect his character while relying on his grace. And so the point isn't to just try harder. knuckle under, put your nose to the grindstone, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. No, no. We all fail in many ways, but when we fail, we have to also see that it's like breaking a stained glass window. It shatters the whole piece, not just one segment. This guilt points us to our need for Christ's perfect righteousness. Christ lived that perfect life that we couldn't live. And he died as our substitute. He also lived as our substitute. And so he lived the life that we couldn't live, and he died the death that we should have died. So we as Christians, we are Christians only by the grace of God, so we should show that grace toward others. As James is going through this, he highlights, and I'll just make a brief reference to this, he highlights perhaps the most spectacular high-handed sins murder and adultery. In fact, even today, adultery specifically doesn't seem to be a big deal in our society. But in that society, it was a huge deal. These were seen as two greatest sins a person could commit, to strike out at either the image of God or to strike out at your spouse in this way. It's not enough to say, well, I only killed a man. At least I didn't commit adultery. There are many people who do think in those terms, though. And they judge themselves on a sliding scale like that. There's more that I could say about that, but we really need to move on here. It is an impossible standard, of course, to live according to the law of God perfectly. And so we have to recognize our guilt, and that guilt leads us to our need for Christ, Christ's righteousness, Christ's fulfillment of the law on our behalf, Christ's death to forgive our sins where we failed. We have a need for Christ's mercy. Now, some of you might say, well, I know that. I already know that. That's Christianity 101. I already learned that. Well, if you are a recipient of Christ's mercy, should you not also show the mercy of Christ to others? And that brings us to the final point, the mercy of the king and the law, the mercy of the king and the law. Verses 12 through 13 say, so speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. And so, with what we've learned so far, we should be ready to begin applying it. And we have the therefore there, the so, so speak and so act. We should be ready to apply the eternal kingdom principles from the law of the king of kings into our lives. Obviously, some that was written to Israel does not apply directly. There were things that God did for Israel to keep them separate. God commanded certain dietary restrictions on Israel. Those restrictions are no longer in effect because Christ has made all food clean. We read in Mark 7 in various places, Acts 13, I think it is, we also see that in 10, we also see that We see that God has said certain things are for Old Testament Israel, and certain things are for us. But even as we think about that, okay, Israel, where it's to be set apart, we should live as people who are set apart from the world. There's still an eternal principle that we can draw from that. And I always think with those dietary principles, well, we should watch what we eat. While we are allowed to eat shellfish now and we're allowed to eat pork, we're allowed to eat these things. Still, we're not allowed to eat like the world eats. We should still watch ourselves on that. There are certain principles that we can bring out. We don't have to dress like they dressed. We can wear mixed fabrics today. If we have a little polyester in there, that's okay. But if we're thinking about clothing principles, well, we should not dress like the world. And that means that we don't wear things that are perhaps too tight, too revealing. We just don't engage in that kind of thing, trying to turn heads. We don't wear things that are overly flashy. And if you're ever wondering, 90% of my wardrobe comes from Goodwill. You know, so I don't know, maybe at one time it was nice, but it's not something I've spent a lot of money on. And I think that that's something that, in general, Christians should practice. We're not living to turn people's heads either by emphasis on our physique or emphasis on our pocketbooks. We just simply live humble lives, and that's the way that it should be. And we show love and mercy, as the law has called us to do. That is a principle as well that we can bring out. So James concludes here by calling believers to apply the law of liberty, as he calls it here, in their speech and action. Now, when he says, so speak and so act, this isn't a one-time thing. This is a habitual act. It's in a tense that indicates that this should be an ongoing thing. This should be a pattern that we establish. Just like we establish a pattern of clothing and a pattern of eating, we establish a pattern of speaking and a pattern of actions toward other people. This should be the way that we live. Do Christians sometimes fall down? Maybe they have a pattern of speech, but maybe in the moment, too much stress happens, and maybe you snap at someone, you say something that you shouldn't have said, maybe it was a little too sharp, maybe even it had a blue word in there or two, and you're like, oh, that's not something I should have said, and so you go back and you apologize to that person. Well, that also is a demonstration of Christian action, right? Oh, yes, I fell down, I shouldn't have done that, And now I go and I apologize, and I make amends with that person. Oh, that's also Christian action, right? And then I just make plans to try to watch my mouth a little bit more in the future. Thankfully, it's been many years since I've had to apologize for some colorful language, let's say, that has left my mouth. That is something that, thankfully, over time, you can establish a pattern where even if you stub your toe, you don't have to say a bad word. It takes practice, it does take practice, but you can do that, it is possible. And so this is something that should be a habitual action, just like showing love to people should be a habitual action. Where you're not showing partiality, where you're being impartial with people, that takes practice. And the Holy Spirit does give us the power to make it a trait in our lives. to where when people see us, they say, yeah, of course that person's impartial. Of course that person is not going to just favor one side over the other. Of course that person's not, as the world would say, racist or this or that. You say, well, no, I think that person probably secretly has a thought or two. Yeah, people are people. People have certain things that they struggle with sometimes and they put it to death. And they say, I don't want that to be a part of me. And they practice to become who they should be in Jesus Christ. And it happens through the law of liberty. Now, you say, what is the law of liberty? We talked about the royal law. Well, it parallels the royal law. This is just another term for it, but it emphasizes something else. Instead of emphasizing the fact that it comes from the king of kings, this emphasizes the fact that we have true freedom when we obey it. Think about that. Now, we don't typically think about that. I've heard that religion means bondage, that law is suppressive, and so we don't have freedom whenever we are whenever we are trying to obey the law of God or obey God's word. And God has called us to freedom. Well, there is actually freedom when we rightly apply God's word to our lives. Think about it this way, a person who embraces a sin, whatever the sin may be, that person might feel free, feel free for a little while. They might, because there's, oh, I'm throwing off this inhibition. Now I can just embrace this part of me. I can do what I want in this regard. And that person might feel free for a little while. But that person will also begin to find less ability to interact with life as he or she used to. There is division in the family now because of the embracing of that sin. I'm keeping it general because it can apply to so many things here. Maybe it becomes life consuming. And it begins to even lead to divorce if the person is married. You have to live by yourself now. It's beginning to drive you away from the people and the activities that you love because the sin has become all life consuming. And because of that, it may lead to destitution itself. That does happen. where people embrace sin, maybe it's drug addiction or something like that, and they do become destitute as a result. That does happen a lot. Maybe it leads to disease, depending on what the sin is. Maybe it leads to arrest. That happens, depending on the sin. Maybe it even leads to death. There is not true freedom in sin. There's no true freedom in sin. But God's perfect revelation shows us how we must live to have true freedom. And of course, if anyone can tell us how to have true freedom, it's God. God can tell us how to have true freedom. And so believers are to live as those who have this freedom. Believers are to live as those who are going to stand before the judgment seat of God, because they are judged by the law of freedom. This doesn't mean that we won't experience any kind of judgment. Now, believers are secure in their salvation. Don't mishear me. But places like 2 Corinthians 5 describes an evaluation that comes for believers. where we see if there's a lot of gold and a lot of jewels in the ministry of some, or if it is just a lot of wood, hay, and stubble. James warns that judgment, in fact, will be merciless to those who show no mercy here. Many verses highlight that. Why is that? Because if a person continually refuses to show compassion for, let's say, poor people or some other personally disfavored group, This may well prove, this one fact may well prove that this so-called Christian is a false professor and is not a Christian at all. And that person will experience no mercy before God. Why would that person never show mercy to people? They go online and and post memes about the Jews and about this and about that. And yes, of course, I'm as upset about people who go and they post memes about white people too and different things like that. It's all hateful behavior. And it all comes from the same sinful human heart. It's just we have some sinners on this side of the room and some sinners on this side of the room. It comes from the same sinful place. Why is it that a professing Christian, though, would engage in that and not show compassion, not show mercy? Because that person has never experienced compassion. They've never experienced the mercy of God. because they've never experienced it they don't know how to show it to other people and that's why there's that divide another study notes here failure to show mercy means a failure to understand God's mercy Christians have experienced the mercy of God, and they should receive, or they should give mercy as a result. In fact, Jesus in the Beatitudes, Matthew chapter five, verse seven, he said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. It's not that we earn mercy, like, okay, well, this is the command that we have to keep. We earn the mercy of God. No, you experience the mercy of God, and therefore, you show the mercy of God, and that gives you confidence that you will experience the mercy of God. Did that make sense? Did I say that right? You experience the mercy of God so you can show the mercy of God and that gives you more confidence that you will one day experience the mercy of God. Why? Because this is God's love working through us and then working toward us. James declares mercy triumphs over judgment. That is such a wonderful promise. It's also a pointed reminder. We, as Christians, love the fact that mercy triumphs over judgment because we know we are all people who deserve judgment. We have been unmerciful to people in the past. We have been unloving to people in the past. We have sinned. We should be people who show mercy as a result of it. Okay, well, Lord, help me to live differently. If I want your mercy, help me to show mercy too. Help me to show mercy. We shouldn't be excusing sin. We should have a heart that's characterized by the mercy of God. And that evidence is the genuine faith that he has already put within our hearts, the salvation he's already wrought within us, and the readiness that we have for the day of judgment. Some of us don't have confidence in our salvation because we are not living out God's word as he has taught us to live it out. As we live it out, we might be saved, but we lack that confidence because we are not obeying God's word. God actually gives us confidence that we're saved as we are living according to his word, because we can see, yes, God's promises are working. They're changing me. This shows that God loves me, and that God wants something different of me. That builds our confidence, it builds our excitement that we're a part of something that God is doing. But that also causes us to reflect upon a sober realization that God's law calls for perfection, it calls for perfection. We all fall short, but thankfully God's provided obedience in Jesus Christ. He lived that perfect life from childhood all the way to the cross. He did everything that God commanded of him, and he didn't do anything that God commanded him not to do. He lived that perfect life, and once he got up to the cross, he was obedient all the way to the cross. and he went to that cross as well for us. He was the perfect fulfillment of the law, and that is credited to us by faith. So we don't even keep the law of God for salvation. We don't show mercy to people for salvation. We don't become impartial for salvation. Remember, James is writing to quote, my beloved brethren. They are already Christians. They are not receiving this teaching to become Christians. They are receiving this teaching because they're Christians. Because they're Christians. And so as we receive that fulfillment, or excuse me, that credit, of righteousness from Christ, we then want to live that out for the sake of other believers, for the sake of the royal law of love. So as we reflect upon this passage, let's do three things here. Let's seek to love impartially. Let's seek to love impartially, reflecting the heart of our king. Let's also seek to acknowledge our guilt. and rest in Christ's righteousness, which of course is what we seek to do in all of our worship services. Pray, acknowledging our guilt and rest in Christ's righteousness. This should be something that we do daily as well. We should also seek to show mercy, living as those transformed by God's grace. And in doing all of this, we are fulfilling the royal law. We are applying it. We are honoring the king who first loved us. So may our lives shine as testimonies of his mercy and his grace.