James | The Royal Law (June 9th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, we'll grab a copy of God's Word, your copy, and uh turn it to uh James, uh James chapter two.

Uh the first 13 verses is where we're gonna be uh here this morning.

Now, uh you familiar with uh the concept of self-care?

But to be honest, I know this is kind of my issue, but I I I've always been a little bit uncomfortable with that term because for me, uh it's always kind of felt like just a slightly more palatable way of saying, you know, be more selfish.

You know, just pamper yourself, you know, be be more narcissistic and self-indulgent.

Okay, and it kind of feels like that's like the last thing that our world needs more of.

You know, people focus more on themselves.

But listen, listen, I know that that's not exactly uh what it is, right?

That's not what actual self-care is.

I I feel like I've kind of slowly been like warming up to it and learning that really self-care comes down to uh just taking care of yourself, right?

Taking care of yourself.

It covers things like uh you know, making sure that you get a good night's sleep, right?

I think that's pretty important.

It's things like eating properly and learning how to maintain a healthy, you know, work and family life balance.

And you know, we're all kind of trying to figure out uh how to do that.

It's it's things like you know making sure that you get away, using up your vacation time and not just you know burning the midnight oil at work.

It's you know, things like quality time in God's Word, right?

I I need I need that for myself.

That that is important for me, that I would spend time with the Lord, that I would be learning how to grow in prayer and developing a vibrant prayer life.

If I push that aside, I don't do very well, right?

It's it's things like you know making sure that church attendance is a priority.

I'm consistent about that.

I'm not you know missing weeks or or months uh at a time, that I'm engaging in covenant community here.

I'm I'm I'm building into relationships and allowing other people to pour into me as well.

All of these things, and far more than this, encompass you know, aspects of self-care.

And while any of those things are areas that you know can get out of whack for us at times, and we let them slide, I think we all have that you know general instinct hardwired into us by God that taking care of ourselves, self-care, uh, it's important.

Right?

It's it's it's valuable, it's it's actually necessary for our overall well-being.

Now I mention that because when the Bible says uh something, it's a verse we're gonna look at here today, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself, okay, as yourself, that's really what it's getting at.

Right?

We we naturally, we inherently love ourselves, right, in a in a kind of a self-care type way.

Right?

You and I, I'm sure, most of us anyways, uh, took a shower this morning, right, so that we wouldn't stink and and kind of gross people out.

Right?

We drink water so that we don't get you know dehydrated and get a headache.

We you know, we put on sunscreen before we go to the beach so we don't we don't burn.

Right?

Paul kind of gets at you know this type of idea in Ephesians chapter 5, when he says this, he's talking about marriage, he says, in the same way, husbands shall love their wives as their own bodies.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Okay, he who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Alright, so when James here in our verses, when he says, Love your neighbor in the way that you love and you care for yourself, it's showing us something about how you and I we should orient ourselves towards you know other people.

We're to take care of their needs, we're to we're to watch out for them, we're to make sure that they're okay, show them compassion and show them love, and show them the same kind of devotion that we would kind of naturally give ourselves.

Okay, so if love is who God is, and and that is his orientation towards us, and you know, if we're his people, if you and I are Christians, then it will become the orientation of our hearts and our lives and our focus towards our neighbors.

Of course, as we grow in grace, that is.

And so we want to pray.

Actually, I'm gonna read this first, and so we're uh we understand here what this is saying, and then I'm gonna pray.

So join me, we're starting in verse 1 of James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

Here's what it says says, My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

For if a man wearing a gold ring in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears fine clothing and say, You sit here in a good place, well, you say to the poor man, you stand over there, or sit down at my feet.

Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?

But you have dishonored the poor man.

Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court?

Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the 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.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for 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've become a transgressor of the law.

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.

Lord, as we uh look at this text and and really look at what the core of life is to be all about as your church, Father, I pray that we would not miss this.

Father, I pray that we would be a church that is so captivated by your love towards us, and then spurred on from that to love each other well.

Lord, it is so easy to become a church body who just kind of comes in here, hears a message, sings a couple songs, and then peace out, we're out of here.

Lord, I pray that that would not be our heart at all.

I pray that we would watch out for people.

I pray that we would have a even a special eye towards those who are in need.

Lord, I pray that we would desire to take care of those needs and and show the love of Christ in that way, Lord, and and and not just to ourselves and for ourselves, but as you say, they will know uh we are Christians by our love.

I pray that the the unbelieving world would look at at Harvest New Market here and say, wow, I there's something different there.

There's something unique, there's something special.

And Lord, I pray that they would be drawn into fellowship with you as a result of what you are doing in us through love.

And so, God, help us in these things, Lord.

I pray that we you would take our kind of selfish bent and attitude and turn that outwards, get us looking at others.

Lord, this is the gospel.

This is what you call us to.

So, Lord, help us, have mercy on us.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, our passage this morning introduces us to this idea of fulfilling the royal law.

Okay, now we'll we'll unpack that as as we get to it, but here's what it really comes down to.

Okay, fulfilling the royal law is to love others as I love myself.

Right?

That's really it.

So here's the first thing.

So I will resist that urge to discriminate based on superficial criteria.

Okay, take a look at verse one here as we see that kind of unfold here and what was going on in these churches.

This is what James says.

He says, My brothers show no partiality.

Now, I don't know when the last time it was that you used that word, but uh it pretty much means uh favoritism, right?

Uh don't show favoritism as as you hold the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

Now, now, partiality, uh, it literally means receiving the face.

All right, so so it's to judge based on what we receive or what we see at face value, okay, or external appearances.

Okay, so it's totally the idea of judging a book by its cover.

And so, as you can gather here, as you read this, partiality, this kind of favoritism, it has no place whatsoever in the community of faith, right?

In the church, uh, you know, in the lives of Christians.

Now, in the original language, in the Greek, there, this this command to show no partiality, it's in the plural.

Okay, simply meaning that there are there are multiple ways that you and I tend to show partiality.

And we'll get to some of those in a second here, but take a look at verse 2.

James gives us an example of the type of partiality, favoritism, discrimination, really, that Christ's followers should have no part of at all.

Yet apparently this is the exact kind of thing that was going on in these churches that he's writing to.

Here's what he says, verse two.

He says, For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, so, you know, a rich guy, if he comes into your assembly, if he comes into your meeting, you're gathering, you know, they were probably meeting, you know, in in house churches, you know, there's a there's a few of them gathered together in in homes.

If if one of, you know, if if uh if a man in five clothing comes into your assembling, assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing, meaning if you pay special attention to that person, you know, you kind of you you you look at them with with favor and say, you know, here, sit, sit in a good place, he says.

Or well, you say to the poor man, take a hike.

Well, literally he says, stand over there, right?

Or sit down at my feet.

Okay, it means treating them with disdain and contempt.

Right?

He says, if you do this, have you not made distinctions?

You know, we a more common word today would be discrimination, right?

Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers.

You can tell James just loves this church.

He wants to see them do well.

He says, has not God chosen, meaning chosen to save, has he not chosen to save those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which is promised to those who love them?

Now you see that word poor there, right?

That word is best understood here as James uses it as carrying like a dual meaning.

He doesn't just mean it in one way.

When James mentions those who are poor in the world, he's clearly, you know, on one hand, referring to those that lack material goods, right?

They lack the things of this world.

You remember we talked about this two weeks ago.

He's writing to Christians who had been scattered, right?

Kind of scattered throughout the land.

And it talks about the dispersion in in uh chapter one, verse one.

And this was because of persecution, right?

And they were, they were being, they were hated because of their faith, and so they would have had to leave their homes and leave their careers and you know, maybe even leave loved ones and friends and what they knew and what was comfortable and go like start a new life.

As you can imagine, that would have been very hard, very taxing financially.

And so many of the people that James is writing to here don't have a lot of money.

They were poor in that sense.

But again, like I said, there's there's a like a dual meaning at play here, and we see it when he says that God chooses those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith.

Right?

Faith, and like heirs of of the kingdom, the kingdom of God there.

Now, that that can't mean, right, that God only chooses poor people to get saved.

Right?

It can't mean that.

Like clearly there are examples in the scriptures alone of uh you know wealthy people who uh came to faith in Christ, right?

Lots of them.

Rather, he seems to be getting at what Jesus himself taught in the Beatitudes.

You might remember in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So blessed are those who are, you know, who have humbled themselves, who have seen their sin and their pride and their spiritual poverty for what it is, and responded to God in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Blessed are those people.

These are the are those whom God has chosen and who are truly rich.

They're rich in faith and and heirs of the kingdom.

I really like how Douglas Mu kind of helps us understand what James is getting at here with this dual sense of the word poor, and we're gonna have this on the screen for you.

There it is.

This is what he said.

He says, God, the New Testament suggests, delights especially to shower his grace on those whom the world has discarded.

So in many cases, like the materially poor and destitute, and on those who are most keenly aware of their own inadequacy, right?

So that's the spiritually poor and destitute, those who've humbled themselves.

James calls the church to embody a similar ethic of special concern for the poor and the helpless.

Love that.

That's to be our heart, towards other people, to have our eyes open and watching for those in need.

Now, here's the problem, though.

The churches that James is writing to were doing like the exact opposite of that.

Right?

They weren't doing it all.

Verse 6, take a look.

It says, but you have dishonored, you have insulted the poor man.

Okay, so while God honors the poor, the church had been dishonoring them.

And then James just, you know, he punches his point home by highlighting how what they're doing.

Like it doesn't even make sense, right?

It's not even even logical.

He says, are not the rich the ones who oppress you?

And the ones who drag you into court?

Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

They blaspheme Christ.

And so he's like, listen, the rich are the ones who treat you terribly.

Right?

They're the ones that that tax you and drag you into court and try and you know suck your wealth from you.

They're exploiting you, they're taking advantage of you.

So he's like, why all this overatten, you know, this fawning over them.

Okay, now to be clear here, this isn't to say, James isn't saying, you know, the rich treat you badly, so so treat them badly.

Right?

Get like get them good.

Right?

He's not saying this, he's not saying love the poor and hate the rich.

You guys need to flip it around.

He's not saying that.

He's simply telling them not to give the rich like special attention at the expense of the poor.

That's what he's saying.

Don't treat the rich person just because they have money or because of you know some perceived benefit or attention they might give you and you might receive.

That's painfully superficial.

Right?

To look at somebody and act that way.

That's not how God's kingdom, he says.

That's not how God's kingdom operates.

Christians are are not to discriminate, we're not to, we're not to play favorites in this kind of way.

Oh, but we do, don't we?

Right, we do.

You know, I think if we're like savagely honest with ourselves, I think we all kind of have that, or most of us anyways, have that fleshly urge within us to judge and discriminate and kind of pick and choose who it is that we want to love, who we want to care for, and who we won't.

Right?

We all show partiality.

Right?

I kind of wonder like how many of us today alone, you know, have sized up one another, right?

Based on, again, like superficial criteria like these churches were doing.

Right?

And remember the the command to show no partiality.

Remember I said that that was in the plural, right?

So there are various ways uh that we do that uh as Christians and as the church.

Here's a couple of ways.

You know, one is that we this is maybe this is obvious and kind of low-lying fruit, but we we show partiality in terms of you know people's appearance, right?

In in terms of you know, something like clothing.

Right?

And we see you know how a person dresses, and you know, I think men and women do this, but ladies, have you done that when you came in here today?

Right?

Sometimes I've washed and I've I've I've caught somebody's eye in different group settings and stuff like that, and and you know, somebody walks in and it's the immediate like the up down, right?

You're you're gauging.

What you know, what's that person's style?

And oh, she chose to wear that, did she?

Interesting.

You know, and and you you you wouldn't say it, but you but you're you're collecting this data and you're creating a profile on that person.

And and this is a person that I would I would like.

This is a person that that threatens me.

And you're and you're judging the person and deciding that they are they're beneath you based on something as dumb as their hairstyle or their clothing, or or in some cases, they're you know, they're out of my league, they're they're above me, and I'm I'm below them, and I can never be like that.

And we judge kind of coming at it from both angles.

Have you done that today?

No hands raised.

How else do we judge?

Well, this one's maybe even more sensitive.

How about based on ethnicity and race?

Right?

This is kind of huge these days, and you know, a lot of talk in culture and in the world about this, and in church culture as well.

And you know, I don't know if you've noticed, I'm sure you have, but you know, as something like the cost of living just gets ridiculous in the GTA, you know, people are moving further and further north.

Right?

And and and where, you know, Newmarket and I used to live in Barrie as well, and and you the further north you go, like let's just be honest, the whiter it gets.

Right?

It really is.

But that but that's changing, and it's and it's been changing for for a while.

And and even in the town that that I live in in Mount Albert, right?

And I I live kind of in like the core section.

It's it's it's not the new section anymore, and it it's pretty, it's pretty white.

Okay, but it but in the new areas, you know, we we'll go for a walk, and it's it's definitely not, and don't pretend that you don't notice that kind of stuff.

Oh, I don't see color.

Yeah, right.

You do.

But listen, what's your attitude about that?

Well, it's it's 2019, Pastor.

Like, I I don't I don't have attitudes in any negative sense.

I don't treat people badly based on uh their different culture or on their different look or on how they live and all of that.

It's out there more than you think.

It really is.

Just talk amongst yourselves, right?

And and and and ask people how how they've been received and how you know talk to them, ask them questions.

I've heard from multiple people.

I I I've seen, I, I, I've heard you know people make comments that are like, that's so inappropriate.

And there's a laugh about it.

It's like I I listen, I don't want to go so far the other way as well, right?

Where we're like so hyper PC and we're all snowflakes, right?

And we're all just like hyper sensitive and it's you know, outrage mob mafia about all that.

I don't think we need to go all there either, but are we discriminating?

Against those that may look a little bit different than us, or do we appreciate them?

Do we love them?

Do we understand that the body of Christ is made up of every tribe, tongue, and nation?

We discriminate based on that.

We discriminate based on age and gender.

Right?

Men treating women terribly.

Women treating men terribly.

We've got, you know, older folks looking down on younger folks.

We've got younger folks looking down on older folks, right?

And on and on it goes.

We we show partiality in that way.

We show partiality towards different personalities.

Right?

Like the extroverted person just has like no time for the introverted person.

Like I don't understand why you wouldn't want to just, you know, have a conversation with me.

And you're looking, well, maybe you're like over the top about it.

But but the introverted person is, well, the same thing.

I don't have time for the person who like is outgoing and just let me be.

And so we we kind of look down on each other in this in these ways, and we show partiality.

We want to hang out with people that are just like us and act like us and behave like us and think like us.

We show partiality towards people with different giftings and talents and abilities and skill sets, and because that person is gifted by God in that way, I raise them too high, or I look down on them.

Listen, we discriminate against people who discriminate.

I remember being like, you know, kind of pricked in my conscience about this.

I grew up, you know, it with more of a way more of a legalistic bent to me.

You know, where I used to, you know, go to church, I used to do all of these things, but it wasn't because I loved Christ, it was because I guess that's what good Christians do.

I did it because I thought that impressed God.

And so when the Lord started to kind of unearth those bad attitudes and started to show me the power of the gospel and how much Christ loves me, and now that I see how much Christ loves me, I want to love him and I want to obey him, and I started to get kind of bitter towards this sort of legalistic bent that I'd had before, and and even the maybe the culture that I was in that kind of allowed that to fester and grow.

And so I started to be really hard.

I think this is still kind of dying in me.

Be patient with me, church, but I was like really hard on Pharisees.

And then I read a quote by Tim Keller, and it was something along the lines of if you're a Pharisee towards Pharisees, you're still a Pharisee.

Remember thinking, man, like I am just discriminating against them.

Right?

Like it's it's not great.

Right?

All of this, there's just a few examples, right?

But all of this is it's so antithetical to the command to love others.

It's incompatible with the gospel.

It's literally the opposite of every single thing that God stands for and is working to build in you and and and in myself and in our church.

Right?

So if you sense that you've got some of you know the strains of these attitudes and and these behaviors in yourself, don't just be like, I don't have those.

Really?

Like, think about it.

Where are the different ways that this kind of comes out, or it's in you, it's lurking in the corners of your heart somewhere.

Listen, recognize them for what they are.

They're sinful.

They don't compute with who God is and what he's called you to and us to as the church, and bring them to him.

God, this isn't right in me, and I can't just change this.

Would you forgive me?

Would you transform me?

Go back to the gospel again, tune your heart according to it and praise him for the fact that he doesn't treat you like that.

Thank you, God, that you have been gracious to me and been merciful to me.

And when I was an enemy, you you welcomed me in and saved me from my sin.

Right?

Think about that, spend some time in that, and then get love in your neighbor, man.

Right?

Look at the people that are different than you and in need and and try and figure out how get to know them.

Remember when Christians used to like they just like being together?

We used to like go to Swish Chalet and stuff.

We used to hang out.

And now we we don't, we're too busy.

Right?

Love them.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Here's the second thing.

Fulfilling the royal law is to love others as I love myself.

So I will realize that loving well is the heart of every single command.

Verse 8.

Verse 8 says this: for if, or it says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And then what James does, he actually quotes from Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, where we first see that command.

Leviticus 19:18

He says, if you do this, you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

Now, the best way to understand what he's saying here is to remember that he's teaching us about how Christians and churches should operate in the kingdom of God.

Remember how in verse 5 he said that we're we're heirs of the kingdom.

So he's teaching us how this all works.

We're to operate by fulfilling the royal law.

Literally, that that means the law belonging to the king, right?

It's royal, it's to King Jesus.

Now you remember, right, when when Jesus was asked at one point in the Gospels there, you know, what's the most important law?

What's the most important command?

You remember in Matthew 22 how he answers that?

He says, You shall love, right?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He quotes from Leviticus 19.

And then he says, On these two commands depend all the law and the prophets.

Okay, so Jesus right there, and now James are stating that the very heartbeat of the law, okay, which keep in mind Jesus fulfilled on our behalf, if you're a Christ follower.

That's amazing.

Right?

The very heartbeat of the law is to love.

Right?

That's that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna love God and love others.

Now, of course, our passage you know minds down on the others' part, right?

So every single command, every every rule, every precept, every every decree and mandate that you and I read about in the Bible is about love at its very heart, at its foundation, at its core.

Take the Ten Commandments, you know, as an example here.

Right?

Each one of them addresses the command to love either God or neighbor.

Okay, what's the what's the first command?

First commandment is have no other gods before me.

Right?

So that's the command to love God.

Don't have any other idols.

Don't don't don't chase after all of those things in your heart and with your life.

Now, of course, we all do that.

We don't we don't love God very well, right?

We we don't.

How about the how about the tenth commandment?

The tenth commandment is you know, thou shalt not covet, right?

Covet your neighbor's wife or his donkey or his oxen, and you know, things like that.

That's that's a command to to love your neighbor, right?

Love love people.

Okay, so another way of kind of paraphrasing verse 8 here in James 2 is you know, if if you fulfill the royal law, okay, the law belonging to King Jesus, the law of the kingdom of God to which we belong, okay, by obeying the heart of it, which is to love your neighbor as yourself, then you're doing well.

Right?

You're living in line with God's will.

Okay, but then here's what he says in verse 9.

It says, but if you show partiality, which is of course the kind of the specific sin he's addressing here, we've been talking about that.

That's favoritism.

If you show this, you're you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

I think that's clear enough.

We disobey God in this way, we're transgressors.

And he says this for for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it, or accountable for all of it.

What that's getting at here is, and you might want to kind of jot this down, what he's getting at is what's known as the indivisible unity of the law.

Okay, the indivisible unity of the law.

Meaning that while there are 613 individual commands in the Old Testament, go ahead and count them up on your own time.

Okay, while there are 613 individual laws, they all function as one kind of cohesive, united whole.

Okay, that's the that they're indivisible, really.

Like the common and binding theme of all of them is, again, love.

Right?

So, really, to fail at at any one of God's commands is to be to be guilty of breaking them all.

Right, because they all share that that one common essence, love.

Now, here he gives an example of what he means in verse 11.

He says, For for he who said, Do not commit adultery, sexual sin, also said, Do not murder.

If you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you've become a transgressor of the law as a whole.

Because they're both about love.

Right?

You've you've you've blown it in the love thing, love department.

See, see, what's what's so common for us as Christians and as churches and and all of that is to just kind of look at God's commandments as a bunch of you know, individual, you know, somewhat unrelated series of commands, you know, where you know we do we do kind of well at some and you know, not so well at others.

And you know, while that's kind of true on a certain level, what James is telling us here is that bottom line, our failure to love others as we love ourselves isn't just like one of you know the many commands, and and that if we don't get it right, that's okay.

At least we're obeying a bunch of others, you know, pretty well.

He's saying that loving others is literally what the entire law, what the entire kingdom is about.

That's it.

He's like to fail at this command is to violate the heart of every single command.

To miss this is to miss everything that you and I are to be about as the church.

Do you see here how how James he's he's like he's opening our eyes to what the true standard is for doing well and functioning properly in God's kingdom?

Right?

Well, while it should be so clear by now that partiality and this favoritism and this discrimination is outright sinful, right?

It's gross misconduct for believers and churches, right?

This should really, I think, cause you and I to assess all of our obedience, right, in light of the heart of the royal law, which is to love.

Right?

Think about all of your obedience.

When when I obey God's commands, right, am I am I just kind of going through the motions here?

Or or am I actually embracing the heart of this command, which is to love people well, you know, as I love myself.

So think about it.

When you serve, you know, in our church, right?

So you know, many of you have come here today, and you know, earlier in the week, you you've you you know you click accept in planning center, and you know, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna welcome people at the door, or work at guest reception, or you know, infocenter, or do some ushering, or you know, serve and harvest kids, you know, whatever it might be like crucial, important things in our church.

As you're thinking about coming to do that, and and that's the obedience to serve and be involved, right, in the church, or or as you know, think about this week and and and and driving to small group and getting ready and going there with your spouse, maybe, or or or maybe as you think about, you know, have you you're connecting with somebody, you're trying to just go out for coffee with them, and you're trying to find out more about their life and and see if you can be a blessing, you know, to them, or as you sense that needs are kind of piling up around you, and you talk to somebody and they're really struggling in a certain area, and you're thinking through like maybe I can meet that need.

Listen, in all those examples, do you do those things just to kind of like check a box?

Well, God tells me to do it, so I'll punch my card and I'm gonna go do it.

Do you do it for self-centered reasons?

You know, look at me like I'm observing.

Look at me, I'm I'm at a small group and I've got some pretty sweet answers people in here.

Right?

I'm hanging out with people because I like how people pump my tires when I give them advice.

Right?

See how it can be self-centered on the outside, it looks like we're doing all the right stuff, but the heart is a little or a lot warped in those things.

Do you do it like that?

Or because God has given you a new heart, right?

And you have this desire to fulfill the royal law and and actually love people well, right?

Because that's what the kingdom of God is about, and it's what you've been called to as one who's received God's grace and been saved from your sin.

As you think about these things for yourself, invite the Lord to purify your motives in those things.

Because none of us, I mean, none of us do those things perfectly, right?

If anyone's like, yeah, man, I crushed that all week.

I did everything that you said, better than you said, right?

That's where it's like, yeah, probably not.

Right?

Invite the Lord to purify those motives because we all do these things for the wrong reasons at times, but we want to we want to fulfill the royal law, we want to understand God's love for us, and then care to show that love for other people as he builds his church.

We want to love well, we want to love effectively and fulfill the very heart of the royal law.

Final thing here fulfilling the royal law is to love others as I love myself, so I will recognize the mercy that God has shown me and start acting likewise.

Here's a verse 12 has to say, last two verses.

It says, 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.

All right, what these verses and and many others in the scriptures tell us clearly is that we're all headed for judgment.

Right?

People don't like to talk about that, feel kind of or very uncomfortable about that.

But everyone, everyone will stand before God someday and be judged by a righteous, holy, and pure, good judge for what we have done in this life.

Now, listen, if you're a Christian and you're taking stock of how you acted and behaved this week and you're like sweating bullets about that, listen, this isn't to be a burdensome thing for us.

It's actually amazing.

You'll be judged in light of what Christ accomplished for you on the cross.

How amazing is that?

Right?

Your sin is paid for in full.

Your faith is in him and in his finished work on your behalf.

And so God is gonna judge you through the filter of Christ.

How great is that, right?

That's what that's what he's gonna do.

And so, Christians, mercifully, right, we we have nothing really to worry about.

Now, that being said, okay, it doesn't mean that your salvation suggests that you and I are somehow off the hook in regards to ongoing obedience in this life.

Right?

We're to obey the Lord.

It says here that Christians will be judged under the law of liberty.

Okay, that's important.

Or as the NIV puts it, the law that gives freedom.

Okay, where you and I, we now obey God from the place of uh of recognizing that we've been liberated, we've been set free by Jesus, and and now have the joy and and and the privilege, the honor of, in this case, showing mercy towards others as God has shown it to us.

Right?

That's pretty sweet.

That's a great thing.

Now, these verses, they they really like look back to you know what we just talked about last week and how we're to be doers of the word, we're to be obedient.

And so what does it say in verse 12?

It says, speak and act, right?

Do, right, as those who have been set free to obey God, right, by lovingly extending Christ-like mercy to those in need.

We've received mercy, we've received copious amounts of it from the Lord, which compels you and I to do likewise to others.

Listen, if we refuse to show mercy, if you and I continue to show partiality and that and that favoritism, and and we continue to harden our hearts and and discriminate against people that are different than us and love, choose to love some but but not others based on often the lamest criteria ever.

If we continue to do that, we refuse to show this kind of mercy and continue in it, what does it suggest?

It suggests that we're not really saved.

Right?

Because saved people change.

Right?

Saved people are are made new, we we bear fruit, we we do good works, right?

We're gonna actually get into that more next week in the passage in chapter three.

Right?

And if we're not truly saved, then the judgment that we face will not be fine, it will not be pleasant at all.

We will be judged without mercy.

If you are someone here who's pretty slow to show mercy towards others in your speaking, right, in your words, and in your actions, the way you conduct yourself, do you use the words from the text there?

Are you like that?

Or are you, for example, quick to judge and show that partiality?

Do you tend to just kind of instinctively in your heart think the worst of people?

And and they they they meant that to hurt me.

And and they they have the wrong mentality and attitude in that, and you're judging in that way.

When you see someone who's in need and you can tell, does your heart like leap for like we gotta care for this person?

Are you kind of like maybe someone else will get to it?

Maybe you don't even think about that.

Who cares?

Are you a merciless person is really what I'm getting at here?

If so, listen, listen, you're on shaky ground when it comes to what that final judgment is going to look like for you.

Because if you're not transforming it, if you're not changing it, if the heart of Christ is not being grown in you, and that and that it's coming out of you through through legitimate, heartfelt works where you want to honor Christ and love people, you know, what confidence can you have in your salvation?

Salvation isn't like a magic pill, like a special prayer that you pray when you're seven and then you know shift it into neutral and just coast until you know the end of your life and the Lord just you know opens up the pearly gates and brings you in.

The Bible doesn't teach a shred of that.

The Bible teaches you know, people get saved, difficult, broken, hurting, miserable, wicked people.

Like us, right?

Get saved, and then God just like and then sets them off on course to do his work as transformed people.

So many of you here, you have that as that that's your testimony, right?

You're so you're so different now than you used to be.

Christians.

And strong churches are those who have changed in the area of showing mercy, right?

Exhibiting that mercy that triumphs over judgment.

We're those who recognize, you know, again, that mercy we've received by God and we start acting likewise, right, in every way possible towards people.

Which again ends up just being evidence of God's work of salvation in us.

And one of the main ways that we fulfill the royal law to love.

Listen, as we head from here today, we kind of go about our business and kind of do our thing this week.

I really encourage you and challenge you to think about these things.

Right?

Search kind of your heart and take stock of your attitude and think deeply about how you can implement these things in your relationships.

Think about how you can implement this mentality and this showing mercy and this exhibition of love in the lives of each other here.

Right?

Don't be the, can I just, as a pastor, talk to you?

Don't be the, well, the church needs to be better at this guy.

Okay?

You're the church, you need to be better at that.

Okay?

I know that I need to be better.

Most people here know that we need to be better.

We know that we're not real strong in certain areas and we have lots of need to grow.

So get to work doing it yourself.

Invite the Lord to search your motives and your desires here.

Pray for yourself.

Pray for us.

Pray for us as a church.

Pray for our church staff.

We would continue to grow together into this.

I mean, it's unique, isn't it?

With the church.

There's nothing like it.

Nothing else out there that the world offers is quite like the church.

So pray that the Lord would grow us into that unique and biblical community of people who love wealth.