“Love and Lawbreaking”
(James 2:8-13)
Series: Living the Faith (James)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
•I invite you to take your Bibles and join me in the Book of James, chapter 2 (page 812; YouVersion Bible app).
We are preaching our way consecutively through the Book of James, verse-by-verse, and we pick up this morning in a passage where James is writing to Christians about the sin of showing favoritism. To show favoritism is to show partiality to some people at the exclusion of other people. We wrongly favor one person over another person based upon our perception of their value, worth, or what we can get out of a relationship with them.
So we wrongly show partiality if we favor those who are dressed well over those who are not. We show partiality if we favor those who are popular over those who are unpopular. We show partiality if we favor those who are educated over those who are uneducated, those who have over those who have not, those who are rich over those who are poor, those whose live on the right side of town, those who drive a certain kind of vehicle, those who go to a certain kind of school, those who talk a certain kind of way, those whose skin we believe to be the right color. Partiality, favoritism, takes on many forms.
Last time we were together we studied the first seven verses of chapter 2, learning that favoritism is incompatible with the Christian faith—verse 1—“My brethren (Christians in general; both male and female), do not hold your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ…with partiality.”
And then James shows how favoritism can creep into the church in verses 2-4, giving this illustration about a man with gold on his fingers and shimmering clothing entering into the church and the ushers are helping him find a really nice seat for the worship service. Meanwhile a poor man in shabby clothes is shunned and told to stand in the back or some other place. Partiality is show to the rich person, favoring the one who has over the one who has not. And James points out who wrong this is, this favoritism is sin, this showing favor to the rich person, because of what we think we may get out of this relationship all the while ignoring a poor man who is also created in God’s image.
So James continues his teaching on the sin of favoritism, the sin of showing partiality in verses 8 and following.
•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
•Pray.
Introduction:
Jesus says there is a way that others will know unmistakably know that we are Christians. He says in John 13:35, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And that love for one another is a love that extends to all others, our neighbors, and even our enemies. He says, “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…for if you love [only] those who love you, what reward do you have, or what good is that (Matthew 5:43-47)?”
By this all will know that you are My disciples: love.
You take a man who is sick. He has something wrong on the inside, a bad heart, a virus, a disease of some kind. What is wrong on the inside shows on the outside. His breathing is erratic, his color is bad, his body is weak. And others look at him and say, “You don’t look so good.” But he gets what is wrong on the inside fixed. He has surgery, he receives treatment. The procedure is completed and he is better on the inside and so it shows on the outside. His breathing is normal, his body is strong, his color is good. Others say, “You look good.” When we are healthy on the inside it shows on the outside.
And we enter into this world dead in trespasses and sin. We have a heart condition. Our hearts are evil. Our hearts are hard and stony. And we need to get what’s wrong on the inside fixed. God performs a procedure. The Bible says in Ezekiel 36 that God takes out our heart of stone and replaces it with a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that is not hardened and calloused, but a heart that is soft and responsive to the will and way of God.
And once we are fixed on the inside, it shows on the outside. We live differently now. We look differently. We love differently. By this all will know that you are My disciples, that you have love for one another. Love. If we are different on the inside, it will show on the outside. And the way it shows most is through our love.
You’re a follower of Christ? Here then, in verse 8 and following are instructions for how we are to live our lives this week in Henderson or wherever we find ourselves. Three ways we are to live our lives. First, we must:
Love Others without Partiality (8-9)
Look again at verse 8.
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
James teaches in verse 8 that it is good when you obey the royal law found in the Scriptures, the royal law being: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The word, “Royal” there means that which “belongs to the king,” or the law of the kingdom (cf. verse 5). We serve our Lord, our King, Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to love, to love our neighbor as ourselves. And James is quoting from the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18.
Remember that Jesus was once asked about the greatest commandment. Matthew 22 says that a certain Pharisee approached Jesus and asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40). Love for God and love for neighbor.
And there’s that other Pharisee who wanted to justify himself so he asks Jesus to expand upon his teaching, namely this business of loving our neighbors. He’s like, “And who is my neighbor?” And Jesus answers by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, teaching, in essence, that our neighbor is anyone with whom we come in contact. Our neighbor is anyone.
If I can quote from a childhood TV program I grew up with: “These are the people in your neighborhood…they’re the people that you meet; when you’re walking down the street; they’re the people that you meet each day.”
Remember that Jesus says, “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…for if you love [only] those who love you, what reward do you have, or what good is that (Matthew 5:43-47)?”
If you are Christian, if you have been changed on the inside, then it will show on the outside. You will love others. You will love even your enemies. You will love all people, including lost people, unsaved people, unchurched people.
Our Sunday evening worship services are focusing on loving the lost and taking advantage of everyday opportunities to speak a good word to others about Jesus, talking with others, praying for others, everyday evangelism.
Last Sunday evening we learned a simple three-point prayer we’ve been encouraged to pray at the beginning of every day:
“Lord, give me an opportunity to share my faith today.
Enable me to recognize this opportunity when it comes.
When it happens, give me the courage to proceed.”
That’s a simple prayer we all can pray at the beginning of every day. It’s listed there in the bulletin for you to copy down elsewhere or to commit to memory. It’s a good prayer and it reminds us of the importance of living out this Christian faith. James says in verse 8, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well.”
Let’s take a moment right now to pray for the lost people you know by name. Just bow your heads and close your eyes and ask God to bring to your mind a lost friend, lost family member, co-worker, neighbor. Those of you keeping a current personal prospect list will have someone on your hearts. Just ask God to bring to mind a particular person and pray for that person right now.
“Lord, give me an opportunity to share my faith today.
Enable me to recognize this opportunity when it comes.
When it happens, give me the courage to proceed.”
In verse 9 James reminds us that if we show partiality, or favoritism, he says in verse 9:
9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
We touched on that verse a bit last week. Make no mistake: to show partiality or to show favoritism, to be kind to one person and shun the other person is to sin. We are to love others without partiality.
Number two, we must:
II. Obey the Law in its Entirety (10-11)
The Old Testament law is a cohesive unit. The law all hang together. The law is not to be partitioned into some laws we like and some laws we hate, some that we keep and some we ignore. James teaches that Christians are to obey the law in its entirety. Verse 10:
10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
Now, just a quick but important word of clarification here. Remember that James is writing to Christians. We’ve said more than once that this letter is not about how to become a Christian, but how to behave as Christians. He is writing to those who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So James is not teaching here that the way we are saved is by keeping the Old Testament Law, like keeping the 10 Commandments.
Many people think that that’s what the Bible teaches. Many people wrongly think that Christianity is merely a set of principles to live by. So we are forever clarifying that Christianity is not so much a set of principles to live by as it is a person to live for. Christianity is not a set of principles to live by, but a person to live for, the person of Christ. We live for Jesus.
And so the primary function of the Old Testament law for unbelievers is to convict unbelievers of their inability to keep the law.
See, the Bible is a mirror. It shows you what you are so you can do what it says. Because you can’t really do what it says until first you see what you are. So the Old Testament law, we read it as unbelievers and if we’re honest we’re like, “Well, I lie all the time; I hate; I envy; I lust; I fight; I think bad thoughts; I say bad things, man! I am doomed! If I have to keep these laws perfectly like my Christian friend has told me—perfection is God’s standard well, then I am doomed!”
And that’s the right response. We look into the Bible and we see our selves, we see our sin, and then we see our Savior. So the primary function of the law is to show us our inability to keep it consistently and perfectly. We’re not saved by keeping the Old Testament law, like keeping the 10 Commandments. No on is justified, no one is saved, by keeping the law because we cannot do it.
We are saved by grace through faith in Christ. Jesus lived for us and died for us. He kept the law perfectly and thus fulfilled the law on our behalf. He died, taking our punishment for breaking the law, and He rose from the dead so we could be declared righteous by faith in Him.
If we are saved because we have placed our faith in Christ, then the law is lived out not to gain our justification, but to grow in our sanctification. Christians live the law not in an effort to get saved. Christians live the moral law because they are saved.
James is writing to Christians. And he is teaching that Christians are to obey the Old Testament law, the moral law, in its entirety. That is to say, Christians may not pick and choose which laws they like and obey them, but ignore the laws the don’t like.
William Barclay writes that, “The Jew was very apt to regard the law as a series of detached injunctions. To keep one was to gain credit; to break one was to incur debt. A man could add up the ones he kept and subtract the ones he broke and so emerge with a credit or a debit balance.”
This is also how the average American views the Bible. Keep some of the biblical commands and gain credit; break some of the biblical command and incur a debt. And hopefully, to quote my friendly waitress from last week, “If there is a god, hopefully he’ll see that I did my best and will give me a pass.”
But the reason no one is saved by keeping the law is precisely because it is a cohesive unit and we must obey it in its entirety—and no person does that consistently and perfectly. To break one command is to break all the law.
The law is a cohesive unit. It is an interdependent whole.
You take a test in school and there are 100 questions worth one point each and you miss 5, you get a 95%. That’s an A, right? But imagine if you took that test and there are 100 questions worth one point each and you miss only one, just one question and you get a big fat zero! An F! You say, but I got 99 right, I only missed one. The teacher says, “Doesn’t matter, zero. F.”—That’s God’s law.
If you’re hoping to keep the Old Testament law as a means of earning salvation, you need to know that God does not grade on a curve. You’ve got to keep the whole law in its entirety. Breaking any one of them is to break all of them. Verse 11:
11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
You’re late getting to the airport and you rush through check-in and rush through security and you’re running to the gate so you can catch your plane; you get to the gate and you may be three minutes late or thirty minutes late, but either way once they close the gate, you’re not getting on that plane. It doesn’t matter how “close” you got, you’re not getting on the plane.
And if you are not a Christian, it doesn’t matter how closely you tried to follow the 10 Commandments, it doesn’t matter how close you got, you’re not going to be saved by keeping the law, because no one keeps the law consistently and perfectly—nobody but Jesus. That’s why He’s the only way in.
That’s usually why we often say, “Sin is sin.” And if we say that we should be careful to note that we mean “sin is sin” to an unbeliever who is trying to get into heaven by keeping the law. In that sense, “sin is sin,” one sin will keep you out of heaven. It doesn’t matter if it’s a so-called “Big” sin or a so-called “Little” sin. Just one will keep you out of heaven.
At the same time, however, we Christians should know that not all sins are equally heinous, equally ugly, or equally reprehensible. A man may be fired from a job for lying to a co-worker or for killing a co-worker, but which offense would you rather to explain at the next job interview?
Would you rather your daughter be found guilty of driving too fast or for robbing a bank? To say, “Sin is sin” is to fail to account for degrees of wickedness as well as degrees of punishment or consequences.
Some sins are more or less heinous, but all are equally deadly in terms of a lost person’s hope of gaining some sense of favor before God, doing good works in the hopes of becoming more “savable.”
The law is a cohesive unit. It is an interdependent whole. It is to be obeyed in its entirety. So the Christian lives the law not in order to gain justification, but to grow in sanctification. And James reminds Christians that they aren’t to sort of “cherry pick” which commands they like and which they don’t like.
So you can’t say, “Well, I know murder is bad and I’m not going to murder someone,” but you are guilty of committing adultery when you lust in your heart so you’re a lawbreaker. Or—more to James’ point—you say, “Well, adultery and murder—I’ve never broken those laws and I don’t intend to”—and yet you show favoritism by being kind to rich people and shunning poor people. You have become a lawbreaker.
We must obey the law in its entirety. Do not show favoritism to anyone. Thirdly, and finally, we must:
III. Live with a view to Eternity (12-13)
James reminds Christians that there’s a judgment to come. Verse 12:
12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
Every Christian will be judged one day, judged by the One True God.
2 Corinthians 5:10, for example; Paul says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”—(see also 1 Corinthians 3:12-15; 1 Peter 1:17).
Christians will one day stand before the Lord at the judgment. Christians will not be judged as to their justification. Christians are not in danger of facing condemnation, but they will be judged concerning their sanctification. In other words, Christians will not be condemned at the judgment, but their actions will be judged.
So the true Christian will never hear Jesus saying, “Depart from Me, I never knew you,” but he will be judged on the basis of what he has said and what he has done. “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.”
We Christians will give an account for every word spoken (cf Matthew 12:36) for every deed done, whether good or bad. And we will receive either reward for what we have done well, or loss of reward for what we have done poorly.
James says, “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty,” the law that brings freedom, freedom from the penalty of sin. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty,” verse 13 now:
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
That phrase “Mercy triumphs over judgment” means that Christians who show mercy, Christians who are merciful towards others will be vindicated at the judgment. In other words, it will go well with them. They will be vindicated, exonerated, because they have shown love for others; they did not show favoritism or partiality. At the judgment, their love for others is taken into account and it pays.
It’s kind of like the way many of you are preparing to file your taxes. The IRS allows deductions for charitable giving. If you have given to an organization that serves others, then the IRS gives you credit for that. So Tony Evans says:
What the government will do with your charity, God will do at the judgment seat of Christ. You and I owe God a whole bunch. We owe God not only for our salvation, but we owe Him for mercy, forgiveness, and love. There will be a payday, but on that day, God will allow for charitable deductions. Our love for others serves as a deduction on the bill that we owe God. No matter how much we owe, when He looks at the charitable contributions in our lives, the things we have given because of His love in time, talent, and resources, He gives us credit.
On the other hand, first part of verse 13, “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.”
If as Christians, we have shown no mercy to others, then we can expect God to judge us the same way, “for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.”
This is the point of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Or Paul’s point in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
Our tendency is to argue, “But they don’t deserve it!” But that’s the whole point of mercy. Mercy is your not getting what you really deserve.
When I get pulled over for driving over the speed limit, I deserve a speeding ticket. I’m guilty. I may try to justify my actions and tell the officer about all the problems in my life and so on, but the truth is I deserve a speeding ticket. I broke the law. Now if the officer decides not to give me a ticket, then that officer has shown me—what?—mercy. Mercy. Not getting what you really deserve.
•Please stand for prayer.
Conclusion:
Remember the unmerciful servant? Jesus teaches in Matthew 18 about the servant who fails to show mercy to others. He says:
23 The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
28 “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
So will our heavenly Father treat us if we fail to love our neighbor, to show mercy, if we fail to treat all people without partiality.
•Let’s pray.
Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.
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