James: Being Merciful Through the Merciful God

Well, we are halfway through James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

Now, last week Matt said that partiality is not, it doesn't line up with Christianity.

Partiality and Christianity, they don't mix these two.

And so James gives this example in James 2, verse 2.

James 2:2

And when I think about this example, he gives, I imagine it kind of like this that say a Sunday morning, a guy pulls into the church parking lot.

He is driving a perfectly restored 1997 Toyota, a Land Cruiser, deep jewel green, tan leather interior.

It means nothing to pretty much all of you, but to me, I'd walk right by you.

I would be transfixed.

I won't even see you.

I will be walking straight to that guy.

Where did what how did you do the restoration?

Where was the restoration done?

How much did you spend?

Oh wow, that was an amazing number.

You spent that much on that.

That's incredible.

Oh, you sold your company.

Oh wow, like how you slid that in.

Okay, oh, wonderful.

Good for you.

Oh, you summer in the Tetons.

Oh, I have a seat for you right next to me over here.

You sit right next to me.

And then James says, all right, that's number one.

Number two, James says, another guy pulls into the parking lot and he's on a 1997 Huffy bicycle.

Okay?

And you're not sure if his clothes are washed or not washed, and you don't want to find out.

Because he doesn't look like you, or he looks a certain way, and maybe he has on sketchers and you are on clouds, or maybe you wear on clouds and he has on sketchers, right?

Or maybe he has on Lulu or she has on Lulu, or she has on a dupe.

You know, I don't, you know, I can't believe she's wearing that.

And James says, to all that kind of judgment, James says, it's surface and it's sinful.

It's a prison that we build around ourselves as we limit love to other people.

But James has good news for us.

He calls us to a deeper way of life.

And this is where we get into James 2, verse 8 and 9.

James 2:8

If you really fulfill the royal law, according to Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well.

But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

So point number one is this the heart of the person is always the point.

The heart is the point.

Partiality is to favor one person over another because of something surface or something worldly.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't be friends with people who are like you.

It means you don't withhold welcome or love because someone looks a particular way.

It means you don't judge a book like it's cover, like we've been taught.

Now, two months ago, my youngest daughter and I, we were going to go on a lunch date.

And so I said, Where do you want to go?

You could go anywhere.

Where do you want to go?

Have your way.

Where do you want to go?

And she said, chicken salad chick.

And I was thinking more like Dave Poe's, right?

Like a burger joint or something.

So I looked up chicken salad chick and I found out this is their logo.

And I don't think I'm their target market.

But we're there, prancing our way into chicken salad chick, and we get in line, and everything is girly and it's floral.

A lot of floral going on.

Not into floral, there's it's there.

And it's time to order, and then I have to say, you know what I have to say, I would like the fancy Nancy.

So I have to order that.

They make you say that when you order, and then wouldn't you know it?

We sit down, floral tablecloth.

We sit down.

It was wonderful.

Right?

The fancy Nancy is awesome.

The broccoli salad.

Yeah, the broccoli salad, it's awesome.

Perfect little sugar cookie at the end with the little frosting on top.

It's the correct size.

Like it's unbelievable.

I went back this week with my mom.

I'm not comfortable going by myself or like meeting somebody else.

I still need a woman to I'm gonna grow, I'll grow.

So James says, move past surface to content, right?

Move past floral to chicken salad, like move past the surface.

Like the heart of the matter, the heart of the person is the point.

Now, back in our text, James actually realizes he has created a bit of a problem.

There's a problem with his example.

This is why he goes into verse 8.

Because if we are to move toward the poor, do we now judge and withhold love from the wealthy?

Because that's also partiality.

So James catches himself in verse 8.

And this is why in verse 8 he gives us an overriding point.

Verse 8.

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

So the word neighbor just means any person around you, whoever's around you, that's your neighbor.

That's the person you should be loving without condition.

Now, this phrase royal law is interesting.

James is probably referring back to a principle taught by Jesus, King Jesus, royal law.

In Mark 12.

Remember this story?

A religious expert comes up to Jesus and asks, What's the most important commandment?

Like, tell us what it's about, Jesus.

So Mark 12, 28 through 31.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

Notice that, noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer.

He asked him, of all the commandments, which is the most important?

The most important one, answered Jesus, is this Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

And say, at this point, all the good Jews would be nodding along.

This was called the Shema.

They had it memorized.

They knew this, but Jesus keeps going.

He says, the second is this love your neighbor as yourself.

So Jesus puts these two together as one guiding principle.

He says, there's no commandment greater than these.

So the point that Jesus is making, the point that James is making, is point number two, we are to love those around us without conditions for the love.

That word in Mark 12 is agape, unconditional love.

It's love without condition.

It's not conditioned upon you having a perfectly restored 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser, deep jewel green tea, and leather interior.

It's not conditioned.

If you don't have it and you just have a huffy bicycle, I should still be able to extend welcome and love to you.

That's James' point.

Now loving can be easy, right?

The person cooperates with you.

You're a lot like the person.

You both want Zaxby's for lunch today.

You both want to stay and have a metal mushroom and everything.

Works.

Amazing harmony in the relationship.

But then sometimes love can just be really difficult.

Because we're difficult or we don't line up.

The person just doesn't cooperate with all of our plans.

This week, my wife Christy showed me this clip of comedian Nate Burgotsky.

It's about one minute long.

Let's watch this.

Everybody in our family, you know, everybody's got bedtime routines in their family.

So our family, we try to send our daughter to bed like 9, 9.30, something like that.

And then me and my wife can watch TV, whatever.

My wife used to start falling asleep.

She'll go to bed like 11:30.

And then I'll let I'll sit out there and I'll watch TV until like two or something.

Sometimes go to bed.

Sometimes I guess I do left in the last two minutes.

I gotta eat it in the yard like a lion.

Like a garbage pull up in the drop like a lot.

So I'm I'm not sure why Christie said that to me.

So we've got to figure that out.

And of course it's funny because we know the we know the feeling.

Like people don't always cooperate with our plans.

Right?

Love can be difficult in any relationship.

Marriage or friendship or dating or family, anything, right?

Because people have their own thoughts, people have their own opinions.

They get in our way.

We weren't planning on that.

And Jesus says, in light of all of that and those differences, all of that, love those near you without conditions for the love.

Jumping to verse 10.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

For he who said, Do not commit adultery also said, Do not murder.

If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of law.

Now what is James saying?

Point number three.

All demand, even to love your neighbor, guides us and then eventually condemns us.

So all demand, law, all of it.

This incredible holy guidance.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

That is that is paramount.

It is so good for us.

It is perfect.

It is helpful.

And then we go and we don't always do it.

So the very thing that guided us now condemns us.

And this is why performance-based Christianity, the law without grace, it doesn't work.

It just exhausts you.

See, the call to love is going to be a path of failure.

It will be, because you won't love perfectly.

You won't live up to that.

I won't live up to that.

And that's why we need God's grace in our call to love.

Because you knew you should have been patient, you weren't.

You knew you should have been kind.

You weren't.

You should have been welcoming, you weren't.

We need the call, but we also need mercy.

This is where James takes us.

Verse 12.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty, for judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

These verses read a little bit like a proverb.

They're kind of feel coded a little bit.

You feel like I need to read that about 10 times to figure it out.

Here's point number four.

We need the relief of mercy, not the exhaustion of judgment.

We need the relief of mercy, not the exhaustion of judgment.

I read this week theologian Alec Motyer.

He helped me think this through as I read this about verse 13.

If we fail to find shelter under divine mercy, then the law takes its absolutely just and equitable course.

We get what we deserve.

But the presence of a merciful spirit assures us that we can sue for and shelter under mercy.

See, the good news in this passage is this the lawgiver in verse 11 is also the rescuer of mercy in verse 13.

And we need mercy.

Remember I played golf a few weeks ago, talked about it, had on my golf attire.

So I go play this beautiful course, and I'm wearing, I have one golf shirt from like really one great course from Bahill in Florida.

So I'll put that shirt on.

I'm there, I got my hat on, you know, I got my golf uniform on.

I am status signaling to everybody.

I've been somewhere else, I can be here.

One big problem.

I'm not great at golf.

It's kind of a big problem.

We show up at a nice golf course, right?

First hole goes by, it goes okay.

Like I get through it, okay.

I'm thinking, okay, all right, all right, well, we'll we're gonna be okay.

We're gonna make second hole, great.

It goes fantastic.

Third hole, I step up, get my three wood, brimming with confidence.

I probably swing harder than I should.

Like always, always do that.

And it takes off.

And I mean, if you've just even played golf at all, you know that the point one seconds where it's just it's straight, and you're thinking, yet, man, yes, yes, yes.

And then it it starts, it starts like this.

It started to the right.

It's like, no, no, you know, it started over, and this is all woods, it's all woods over there.

And I'm a man of the cloth.

So I begin to pray.

I don't cuss a lot on the golf course, but I'm praying.

I'm trying to use pastoral privileges if I get them.

I don't know, and I'm like, Lord, have mercy.

Have mercy, because I confess I've never taken a golf lesson in my life.

I don't hit enough golf balls.

There's no reason it should be in the fair way at all, based on anything of my past or my present.

So I just need mercy in this situation, you know, have mercy.

And then we hear it.

We hear it.

And only bad golfers know this sound.

It's the only sound of hope in this situation.

And bad golfers, you know the sound.

Because the ball hits a tree.

Good golfers, you don't know this thrill of hope that shoots through us as bad golfers as we think, maybe.

Like, yeah, maybe it bounced down into a bush, but maybe it bounced out right in the middle of the fairway.

Well, it was just over the crest of a hill, so it couldn't see.

So we start walking down the fairway and praying, Lord, have mercy, have mercy.

Like, like, please, like, I want to impress people.

I need to impress people.

I'm a people pleaser, I know God, but have mercy on me anyways in the situation.

We get right up over the crest of that hill and look down, and it is sitting, he is rich in mercy.

Won't he do it?

He did it, it's right in the middle, right in the middle.

Beautiful.

Okay.

Golf game.

Real life.

You know, like uh relationships, parenting, finance, uh work, study, dating, friends, loneliness, loss, anxiety, fear.

Actually loving people.

You tried this?

Actually loving people.

I keep ending up at the like at a dead end, right?

Where you're playing, you're just praying like, Lord, Lord, have mercy.

Like I need, I need mercy to triumph over judgment.

The law on its own is not enough.

I I need God's mercy.

Paul Tripp writes this.

It's a bit of a read, it's good for us, so hang with me.

Our natural tendency is to view ourselves as rich and other people as poor.

The spiritual reality is that we are both impoverished, total depravity, and the unearnable mercy of God levels the playing field.

None of us has the spiritual upper hand.

In the mirror of God's word, all of us look the same and need the same.

As you extend mercy to others, you will begin to see how selfish, impatient, unforgiving, and inconsistent you can be.

Living a merciful life will show you how much your own heart still needs the mercy of the Redeemer.

Being a merciful person will drive you to the end of yourself and the grace of your merciful Savior.

Now, in verse 12 and 13, James says, Mercy triumphs over judgment under the law of liberty.

See, judgment is always exhausting.

Who's in, who's out, you up, you down, pass, fail, cool, not cool.

And then you always turn to yourself, Am I okay?

Am I not okay?

Am I in?

Am I out?

See, we need mercy to triumph over judgment.

That term law of liberty in verse 12.

It's an interesting phrase that James uses here.

For James, it says this phrase of saying, for the whole of scriptures, this is God's way of being and the way of life for us.

Yet at the same time, James is not always super clear.

Don't always explain himself fully.

It's a little annoying when you read James.

But if we compare it with the rest of the New Testament, James is inside of the New Testament.

That's a gift.

We don't have to isolate James.

It's inside the New Testament.

New Testament's inside of the entire scriptures.

And so say we just take James and we think back to like what we just studied in Titus, a Pauline letter.

Well, there we can figure out, looking at this, that well, we're freed from the law as to be freed to live on the path of godliness in grace.

So we are freed from having to justify ourselves, using partiality, trying to suck life and status from other people.

We're freed from that.

Because we're already fully righteous, fully worthy, fully loved, fully welcomed.

We're enough by our status in him.

Now this changes everything else.

We can now love people who are like us, and we can love people who aren't like us.

Do you remember the scene in Les Miz?

Maybe you saw the musical or movie.

Maybe, maybe you read the book.

That'd be impressive.

That could be a status signal right there.

Valjean, you remember him?

Here's a picture from the movie.

Valjean, at the end of himself, he steals some expensive candlesticks from the bishop.

And the law is having its way.

Valjean is imprisoned.

Rightfully, the law is having its way.

Valjean's imprisoned.

Then the bishop shows up.

The bishop is the symbol of mercy and love.

Unconditioned, unearned, not conditioned upon anything of Valjean's track record, and the bishop shows up into Valjean's mess, an imprisonment.

And the bishop gives him the candlesticks, frees him from jail.

And grace has its way.

Valjean is softened by mercy.

He goes to the chapel, he cries out.

Here's what Valjean says.

Yet why did I allow that man to touch my soul and teach me love?

He treated me like any other.

He gave me his trust.

He called me brother.

My life he claims for God above.

Can such things be?

For I had come to hate the world, this world that always hated me.

Instead, he offers me my freedom.

I feel my shame inside me like a knife.

He told me that I have a soul.

How does he know?

What spirit comes to move my life?

Is there another way to go?

See, grace and mercy changes the very core of who Valjean is.

His entire life changes because of mercy.

Because mercy triumphs over judgment.

And the good news is we're not sent by God to go live mercifully.

Like God starts us out and off you go, and now go perform for me.

No, God walks with us.

He grows us in the gospel.

So he calls us towards something, and in his rescue of mercy, he relieves us and he empowers us.

He's melting away the self-reliance, the self-justification that's inside of us by his satisfying love.

So the thing that we're called to do, unconditional love, is actually the thing that rescues us and changes us.

Because we have it in Christ.

Unconditional love to us while we never earned it.

We are the receivers.

We are the ones who need mercy over judgment.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy to us.

Unearned and not conditioned upon our performance.

And it fuels our partiality.

And would you free us from this?

Would you make us so secure in your love for us?

Our identity is your beloved.

Because of Jesus' work for us, your love for us, not based on our work for you, but your work for us.

And you can never love us anymore because you love us like you love your son Jesus.

And would this be true in the core of who we are, in our hearts and our minds and our souls?

And would this free us to love you and to love people?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.