SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church family.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we will be out of James 2 today.
SPEAKER_00: And thank you, uh Tyler and Alexis for reading that and praying.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks to uh thanks to the folks that are serving in kids' ministry right now, discipling our kids.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for everyone who served during the first hour.
SPEAKER_00: And thanks to you guys for being here and for us to worship together.
SPEAKER_00: Um so we are in James 2.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in this passage, James is writing to believers who had a problem with prejudice in their community, a problem with treating people differently based on society standards.
SPEAKER_00: As we read through this, I hope that we'll see uh the problem that they had in that we see our own hearts and our own sinful condition, and I hope that we see our savior and the beauty of the gospel in that as well.
SPEAKER_00: The challenge in the South, if uh if you've if this okay, if this was youth group, we would start raising hands.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna make you guys do that.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of folks in here, you've grown up around church, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you grew up in church, maybe you're growing up right now, like maybe maybe to the kids in the room.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of us have grown up in church, and if not in church, around church.
SPEAKER_00: Like we have an idea what's going on in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this passage is something that we're super familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe James is somewhere you've spent a lot of time.
SPEAKER_00: The challenge as we read scripture is to hear it with fresh ears and open hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to pray that we can all do that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for today.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for gathering us, and we thank you for gathering us around your word.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would move, that you would move in our hearts, that you would help us to understand your word, that you would help us to be changed by your word.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's read that passage again.
SPEAKER_00: James 2.
SPEAKER_00: This time we're gonna go straight one through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so James is writing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
SPEAKER_00: For if a man wearing a gold ring and 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 the fine clothing and say, You sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions amongst yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, my beloved brothers.
SPEAKER_00: 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?
SPEAKER_00: But you have dishonored the poor man.
SPEAKER_00: Are not the rich ones who oppress, are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court, and are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
SPEAKER_00: If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well.
SPEAKER_00: But if you show partiality, you're committing sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder.
SPEAKER_00: And if you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you've become a transgressor of the law.
SPEAKER_00: So speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
SPEAKER_00: For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy triumphs over judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're jumping into chapter two in James.
SPEAKER_00: We've been we've been speaking through James and on Sunday mornings, but it's important to remember that the chapters, and I know this isn't new information, but you know, hang, I I teach a lot of like preschoolers, you know, so okay, hang with me.
SPEAKER_00: The big numbers and the small numbers, the chapters and the verses, right?
SPEAKER_00: These were added much later.
SPEAKER_00: Like James, when he wrote this letter, he didn't include chapter two and the verse numbers.
SPEAKER_00: Like these are added later, so we can we can reference the same scriptures together.
SPEAKER_00: So why that's important for us this morning is when we start verse one of James, chapter two, James is mid-thought.
SPEAKER_00: Like this ties back to the end of chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: So before we start, let's look back there and see what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So uh James uh twenty-six and twenty-seven.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
SPEAKER_00: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we have a break there.
SPEAKER_00: For James, he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: He's just writing the next paragraph.
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of chapter one, James's headspace, he's talking about religion.
SPEAKER_00: Another word we could use for religion here, this could have been translated worship, that same idea about bridling our tongue.
SPEAKER_00: True worship loves the vulnerable, widows and orphans in this society.
SPEAKER_00: I really couldn't take care of themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Like they needed help.
SPEAKER_00: So true worship takes care of the vulnerable, and true worship seeks to be free of the sinfulness of the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: So from that thought, he leads directly into what we're talking about in chapter two here.
SPEAKER_00: This gives us an idea of his headspace.
SPEAKER_00: So, three points today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the sin, the standard, and the savior.
SPEAKER_00: So, first the sin, the sin that James is describing in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, remember, this was a different culture.
SPEAKER_00: Even here in the South, even the United States and our world, in different cultures, things are interpreted differently, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like there's some communities uh here in America that uh children use first names for adults, you know, and that shows familiarity, that shows friendliness.
SPEAKER_00: Here in Mississippi, if Elliot runs in the room and starts calling you by your first name adults, that's probably interpreted differently, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here that like that's a lack of respect.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the same everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we just got back from summer camp.
SPEAKER_00: I wore uh, if you see me this afternoon at uh students, like I wear a lot of baseball caps, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like if you see me tonight, I'm wearing a baseball cap.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, all week, I've got a baseball cap on.
SPEAKER_00: If I was wearing a baseball cap right now, that would be interpreted differently, right?
SPEAKER_00: As a lack of respect.
SPEAKER_00: So these people in the first section of James 2, we can't assume that the people James is describing are the, we can't assume that our cultural context and theirs is the same.
SPEAKER_00: So there's two people in the first part of James that he's describing here.
SPEAKER_00: The first one, it says uh in verse 2, if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and then the second person, a poor man in shabby clothing, also comes in.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so let's talk about this first person.
SPEAKER_00: He says it says uh a man in fine clothing and a gold ring.
SPEAKER_00: Uh again, if this was youth, we'd start raising hands.
SPEAKER_00: But I assume a lot of us have uh wedding rings in here.
SPEAKER_00: Mine's not made of gold, many are.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of people in here that probably have a gold ring on, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what James is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So in the time that James was written, your average, you know, Christian or Jewish person, they probably don't have a gold ring.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's nice stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Wealthy people often did have a gold ring.
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you've seen a signet ring before that you like put a seal, like you know, they would close a letter and put wax on it and put that and that shows, you know, who did it or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Like a wealthy person might have one of those.
SPEAKER_00: But what James is describing is something even beyond that.
SPEAKER_00: If we go back towards the original language, it says it's not just a gold ring, it's more like gold fingered, is more literal of a translation.
SPEAKER_00: So we're not talking about one gold ring, we're talking about like blinged out, right?
SPEAKER_00: So in this time period, uh, people would wear uh jewelry like that to signify their their position in society, their worth.
SPEAKER_00: There's an extra biblical source that said that sometimes people would even wear like six rings per finger to show, like, oh, you got one ring.
SPEAKER_00: I got like a billion over here.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm super great, right?
SPEAKER_00: Back in the original language, too, where it talks about his fine clothes, like that word, that that fine word means uh shining.
SPEAKER_00: So like his clothes are super clean and super nice.
SPEAKER_00: So this guy has walked in and he's like all he's all blinked out.
SPEAKER_00: He's got like you know, rings on every finger, he's got the nicest suit you've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other person, so that's person A, the other person, person B, says that his clothes are shabby.
SPEAKER_00: That word shabby, it could be interpreted filthy, dirty.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we've got a person that's like really nicely dressed, they're conveying their importance by the way they're dressed, by the way they're carrying themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got another person who's dressed in dirty clothes, you know, and looks maybe, maybe unhoused, that's that's walking in.
SPEAKER_00: So the difference that James is describing here about how they're treated.
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, one more before we move on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in verse 2 it says, comes into your assembly.
SPEAKER_00: That it's a that word assembly is unique here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh every other place in the New Testament, that Greek word is used, it's it's translated synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: So now remember, James is writing to believers.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing to Christians, but he's writing to Christians from a Jewish background.
SPEAKER_00: So he's conveying to them someone who walks into your Christian gathering, but that to them is just like a temple gathering, like a gathering to worship God.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we've set the stage.
SPEAKER_00: Uh whether this really happened is debated, like whether this was a real thing that James is addressing, or he's just using a real problem to the believers that he's addressing.
SPEAKER_00: So we've got two people.
SPEAKER_00: We've got one person who's dressed fine.
SPEAKER_00: They have uh fine is in like a, they're dressed really nicely.
SPEAKER_00: They're conveying their importance by the way they they're dressed, and you have another person who's not dressed nice at all, who maybe doesn't smell great, right?
SPEAKER_00: The person who's dressed finely, they say, Oh, come to the front row, sir, please.
SPEAKER_00: Like have the seat of honor.
SPEAKER_00: And the other person, they say, Maybe it's best if you stand in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Or it says, sit at my feet, that would be what a servant does.
SPEAKER_00: So saying, person that obviously you're an honorable person, obviously you're an important person, we're gonna give you the place of honor.
SPEAKER_00: Other person, maybe you can stay out of the way while we worship.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what James is describing here.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 4, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: James is revealing that their outward actions are revealing their inward hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: They're acting this way outwardly because inwardly they have a wrong belief about the people that are there.
SPEAKER_00: The believers that he's writing to, what he's describing in a way, stick with me, in a way, it kind of makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: If someone were to walk in, um, I don't know, like the governor or something, walks in, like someone that we all recognize as an important person, it makes sense that we would say, oh, please come in.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want a cup of coffee?
SPEAKER_00: Let me get you a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00: You want something to eat?
SPEAKER_00: Here, you sit up front, like we're so glad that you're here today.
SPEAKER_00: James is saying that the problem is that we're not treating everyone that way.
SPEAKER_00: We're only treating the ones or the believers that he's writing to.
SPEAKER_00: They're only treating people that have societal importance that way.
SPEAKER_00: Let's imagine that uh an influencer or a celebrity walks in like today to visit, you know, Dwayne The Rock Johnson walks in.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's favorite celebrity, hands down, The Rock.
SPEAKER_00: He walks in the back door and he's come to worship with us today.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we would be naturally a little okay, maybe confused.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how is it that you've arrived here specifically?
SPEAKER_00: We have some questions, but but we're glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe as we bring him to uh whatever the the seat of of uh distinction is in here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's our front row.
SPEAKER_00: Our front row is not well well set on.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the back row here.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, but as we give him the seat of distinction and we treat him like it's a big deal that he's here, maybe part of us is hoping that we'll see him later.
SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you're at a nice restaurant this week, and because The Rock is visiting Madison, Mississippi in this scenario, maybe you're at a nice restaurant this week and you see him, and he goes, like, oh, and he gives you he gives you the eye, you know, he gives you the wink.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I know you, like we worship together.
SPEAKER_00: Like that would make you feel good, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the people in James' time, somebody walks in and they're a person of distinction, you're like, Well, I mean, I want to treat this guy nice because think of what he can do for our community.
SPEAKER_00: Think of what he can do for me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe later I need a job.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this guy, you know, works at the bank and I need a loan.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Like this person, we're gonna treat them well because of what we can get from that.
SPEAKER_00: Now the other person in shabby clothes, like, well, what do they have to offer us so they can stand in the back?
SPEAKER_00: That's the situation that James is addressing.
SPEAKER_00: In verse five, it says, 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?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: It would be easy to misinterpret what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that your bank account is a tie, is tied to your standing with God at all.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the word he used for assembly, like synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about a Christian gathering that these people come into.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an assumption of faith.
SPEAKER_00: There's an assumption that these are brothers in Christ who have come in, family in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that this person in shabby clothes is special because of the amount of zeros in their bank account.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that God has chosen this person in this in this hypothetical scenario.
SPEAKER_00: God has chosen this person who's of low stature.
SPEAKER_00: He's given them great faith.
SPEAKER_00: So even though they don't have great wealth now, imagine the inheritance waiting for them.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's the idea that James is giving them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse six, it says, but uh but you have dishonored the poor man.
SPEAKER_00: Are not the rich ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're just setting the stage here of what James is talking about, working through that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I mean, hopefully this week nobody's dragged you into court.
SPEAKER_00: So we're we're trying to catch up with where James is.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that this rich person also, just like he's not saying that the poor person has a special station with God because of where he is in society.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the same thing for the rich person.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying the rich person is automatically bad because of who they are.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what James is doing is drawing their eyes to the society around them.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, if you're dragged into court, believer, in this first century church, if someone is oppressing you because of your low station in society, isn't that the rich?
SPEAKER_00: That's what James is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying when they drag you into court and it comes out that you're a believer, don't they dishonor God by mocking him in this situation?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so James is not affirming that our relationship with God is tied to our socioeconomic status or where how much money we have or where we are in life.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he means.
SPEAKER_00: James is saying that these worldly standards don't make sense in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of the church walls, there's some logic into treating people this way.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that Jesus is calling us to something different.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 6.20, so we know uh Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 6, some people call that the Sermon on the Plain, has a lot of parallels.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke 6.20, Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: James here is calling directly on the teaching that he heard from Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that these people, regardless of how much money they have and how fine clothes they have and how many rings they have on their fingers, like we are together in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so that's the problem, the sin that's being addressed.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about point two, God's holy standard.
SPEAKER_00: Verse eight.
SPEAKER_00: If you really fulfill the law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well.
SPEAKER_00: But if you show partiality, you're committing sin, and you're convicted by the law as transgressors.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder.
SPEAKER_00: And if you do not commit adultery but do murder, you've become a transgressor of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first thing to note here in verse 8, James calls it the royal law.
SPEAKER_00: So not just the law, the royal law.
SPEAKER_00: This uh this word royal, it doesn't just mean coming from the king, it means belonging to the king.
SPEAKER_00: So James is conveying to his audience this law has special importance.
SPEAKER_00: This law is significant.
SPEAKER_00: And what law is he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's turn together to Matthew 22 and hear from Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 22, we're gonna read verses 34 through 40.
SPEAKER_00: So this law that James is referring to, this law that they're that they're potentially breaking, it comes from Jesus in Matthew 22.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 34, he says, or Matthew says, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced, he is Jesus, had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
SPEAKER_00: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, or he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: On these two commands depend all the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So back in the Gospels in Matthew, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, these two Jewish groups that Jesus is often talking to when we see him talking in the Gospels, the Pharisees have to gather together and uh let's figure out how to trick Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's ask him, what's the best law?
SPEAKER_00: Because anyone he says, we can say, uh-uh-uh, remember this law.
SPEAKER_00: Because remember in the Old Testament, there's tons of rules that the people needed to follow, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the Pharisee comes up, the Pharisees were very law-focused, remember?
SPEAKER_00: And they ask Jesus, what's the most important law?
SPEAKER_00: And he responds, You love your love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives them a bonus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So, and he goes on to say, On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what does Jesus mean by on these two commandments depend all the law and prophets?
SPEAKER_00: That all of the works of the prophets, all of the laws in the Old Testament, they depend on these two things.
SPEAKER_00: If you could perfectly do these two things, you would perfectly fulfill the entire law of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus lived a perfect life because Jesus perfectly did these two things.
SPEAKER_00: He loved God with everything he had, he loved God perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: God is of infinite worth, and Jesus gave him infinite worship.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one who could have done that.
SPEAKER_00: He loved God infinitely, and he loved his neighbor as himself.
SPEAKER_00: So if you fulfill those two things, you're covered.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: So James is hearkening back in James 2, he's calling that the royal law.
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, if that's the royal law, and that's the law coming from the king, then who's the king?
SPEAKER_00: I told you you didn't have to raise your hands, but we'll do some call and response.
SPEAKER_00: Like, so who's the king?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, look back to uh verse one.
SPEAKER_00: It says, My brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
SPEAKER_00: He's pointing towards the kingship of Jesus and saying, from the king, okay, we have the kingdom of heaven that we're citizens of as believers, and that king is King Jesus, and from that king comes this law.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that that's important.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in the United States, we have different laws from different levels of government, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we have uh maybe you have, you know, you live in a neighborhood with an HOA, and HOA has rules, and then in the city of Madison we have laws, and then in the state, or in the county we have laws, in the state we have laws, and then the federal government has to obey this federal law because it seems to conflict with what my HOA president says I should do.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: That would be insane, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, you obey the federal law, they will put you in jail.
SPEAKER_00: Like, life pro tip, don't break federal laws.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not gonna work out for you, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, here in the kingdom of heaven, James is pointing out that this law we're talking about, love your neighbor as yourself, it's coming directly from the king.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is important.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say about it?
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, hey, if you love your neighbor as yourself, good job.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we all agree, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: You love your neighbor as yourself as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The problem in the Passage is as I read it, I feel this progression of dread.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So he says, if you obey that law, great.
SPEAKER_00: We all agree, that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and you're convicted by the law as a transgressor.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you love your neighbor as yourself, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: If you show partiality, you're not loving your neighbor as yourself, and that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We maybe, we maybe think that we're safe from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a temptation to read uh verses one through seven and go, got it.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody walks in in shabby clothes, don't treat them different.
SPEAKER_00: Like, all right, who's next?
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: But like let's camp for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I only know of a uh a couple of occasions that uh a person has come in who's homeless to worship with us.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful that in our church that wasn't an issue.
SPEAKER_00: In our church, many of you probably didn't know that happened because we didn't treat them any differently.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I praise God for that.
SPEAKER_00: That that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not something we run into regularly, right?
SPEAKER_00: What other ways do we uh does society divide people?
SPEAKER_00: Society divides people by how much money they have, certainly.
SPEAKER_00: Society divides people by race, society divides people by who you voted for.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, that's a big one.
SPEAKER_00: Who you voted for.
SPEAKER_00: So what James is saying here is if we show partiality based on any way society would divide us, we're not loving our neighbor as ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anything that makes me feel like I'm better than you, if there's anything that makes me feel like you're less than me, if there's anything that makes me feel like we should be separate in the body of Christ, then we're not loving our neighbor as ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And James says that that's okay, if you if you love your neighbors yourself, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: If you show any partiality, any otherness to anyone, well, that that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: But not just sin.
SPEAKER_00: Verse nine should kind of stop us in our tracks.
SPEAKER_00: Verse nine says, it's not just sin.
SPEAKER_00: We're convicted by the law as transgressors.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, imagine a um uh property line, okay?
SPEAKER_00: A line between you and your neighbor's house.
SPEAKER_00: And in this situation, you and your neighbor really don't get along.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's imaginary.
SPEAKER_00: Go with me.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this property line.
SPEAKER_00: If you step on the neighbor's side, that's trespassing, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a trespass.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a maybe you're mowing your grass and you step in a hole and you're kind of like, ah, like I fall over and I land on my neighbor's side.
SPEAKER_00: That was unintentional, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like that was trespassing, that was a trespass, but I didn't mean to.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of stumbled over there.
SPEAKER_00: Transgressing is different.
SPEAKER_00: Transgressing is on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Transgressing is I know that there's this line and I'm choosing to step over it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a whoopsie, it's like a it's an on-purpose.
SPEAKER_00: So James is saying, if you're not loving your neighbor as yourself, if you're showing any partiality to anyone, good or bad, that's an intentional sin.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, like, we could just stop there.
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus, who died on the cross for us, Jesus who lived that perfect life and loved his neighbors perfectly, loved himself, or well, himself, God, yeah, but loved God perfectly, Jesus who committed no sin, who died when he died, he took my sinful life onto himself and took his life of righteousness and gave it to me, then I would intentionally sin against him.
SPEAKER_00: That should stop us in our tracks.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not saying there's not forgiveness for that.
SPEAKER_00: Of course there is.
SPEAKER_00: There's forgiveness for transgression, 100%.
SPEAKER_00: But it's but James is saying this is serious.
SPEAKER_00: Like you're sinning on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: So we were talking about this progression James has here.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, if you keep the law, if you love your neighbor perfectly as yourself, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: We all agree.
SPEAKER_00: But if you show any partiality, that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, and that's intentional sin.
SPEAKER_00: In that next verse, verse 10, James says, and if you don't keep any of the law, you're actually breaking the whole law.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's an all or nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If you've broken one law, you're a breaker of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 says, For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you love your neighbor, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: If you show any partiality, you're not loving your neighbor, and that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: And that sin is intentional.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's one sin, you've broken the whole law, and he starts talking about adultery and murder that are really serious.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you see what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: James is showing us that this thing that seems so simple.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I just, you know, someone, someone within the body of Christ, someone within our Christian congregation, I didn't treat them well.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel like a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: James is saying it's a huge deal.
SPEAKER_00: He starts talking about murder, that we all agree is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that James's audience is Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: When he starts talking about adultery and murder, that's not by accident.
SPEAKER_00: These people would remember that in the Old Testament the punishment for that is death.
SPEAKER_00: Because they've broken the law.
SPEAKER_00: James is saying that it's it's serious.
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 19, 15 says, You shall do no injustice in court, you shall be not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 117.
SPEAKER_00: So, Deuteronomy 117, we're talking about the beginning of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not be partial in judgment, you shall hear the small and the great alike.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's.
SPEAKER_00: James 127, we just read, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: Like, God has always intended this.
SPEAKER_00: From the beginning, God has always intended that we not differentiate between people based on what society says.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3 11.
SPEAKER_00: Here, so within the faith in the kingdom of God, here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, that would have been somebody who didn't speak Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Scythian, those are the barbarians that live down by the sea, the hillbilliest of hillbillies.
SPEAKER_00: Slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.
SPEAKER_00: So in Colossians, it's talking about all these things that society would separate us, Greek or Jew, slave or free.
SPEAKER_00: Slave or free, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: That's a big one.
SPEAKER_00: That in the body of Christ, in the kingdom of God, those things don't divide us.
SPEAKER_00: We have Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is all in all.
SPEAKER_00: One more, Galatians 3.28.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this same Paul's this same, uh, there's neither Jew nor Greek, this theme again.
SPEAKER_00: There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free.
SPEAKER_00: There's neither male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Think of what, if we were sorting people, what more fundamental thing could we divide people on than male and female?
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not saying that these things no longer exist.
SPEAKER_00: They certainly do.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not saying that there's no longer Greeks and Jews, there's no longer slave and free, there's no longer male and free male and female.
SPEAKER_00: All those things still exist.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying that our identity in Christ supersedes anything that could divide us.
SPEAKER_00: So anything that could divide us, our unity in Christ is more important than that.
SPEAKER_00: Our unity in Christ bonds us together in such a special way that there's nothing that could divide us.
SPEAKER_00: Caring for the vulnerable was always God's plan for his people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we ended the sermon here, um, I would go home and I would tremble.
SPEAKER_00: Because James has just explained to me, and we've pulled some other verses to help elaborate on that, that if we treat people differently for any reason that society would tell us to treat people differently, then we are a sinner who has broken the entire law and we are in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the next point.
SPEAKER_00: Our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: So speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop right there for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Under the law of liberty.
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys like when you drive around, do you like think about things and turn things over in your head?
SPEAKER_00: I do that.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: No, I see a lot of no's.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you do that in the shower or something.
SPEAKER_00: You have time that you're like not doing anything, and your brain just turns over stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Like I drive around, okay, I'm a weirdo.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I drive around and I think about like the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's strange, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we're citizens of a kingdom, and that kingdom is not something we can see, and that kingdom started with Christ and it ends at the judgment, and it includes everyone who's ever had faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a different idea, right?
SPEAKER_00: The law of liberty is something that we should pour over sometime.
SPEAKER_00: What a strange sentiment.
SPEAKER_00: So if we say the law of liberty, what would be what would be another word for liberty?
SPEAKER_00: Freedom?
SPEAKER_00: For sure, okay?
SPEAKER_00: What's a law?
SPEAKER_00: What is a law?
SPEAKER_00: It's a rule, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like something you have to do.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so James here is using this phrase, the law of liberty, the rules, the things you have to do of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Like imagine, uh, imagine it's the first day of school.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry if that's alarming to some of our kids in the room, but imagine it's the first day of school, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like it hasn't been that long ago.
SPEAKER_00: We all remember what that's like.
SPEAKER_00: You're sitting in a classroom, you're looking at the board in the front, you're trying to think about what this what this class is gonna be like, what my teacher's gonna be like.
SPEAKER_00: In the corner of the board, I say board because it was chalk when I was growing up, and now it's like technology.
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't even know what you call that.
SPEAKER_00: But in the corner of the board, like there might be a list of rules, like classroom expectations, the things that you can do that are gonna get you sent to the principal's office, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Like, imagine you're sitting in that classroom and you're trying to figure out what this is gonna be like, and you look at the list of rules, and they all just say, you're free.
SPEAKER_00: There's you know, 12 rules.
SPEAKER_00: You're free, you're free, you're free, you're free.
SPEAKER_00: That would that's odd, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's an odd image.
SPEAKER_00: So when we when someone's free, we think about them being free from something often.
SPEAKER_00: Like if I say you're free, I mean you're released.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're free.
SPEAKER_00: If a person, a prisoner is released from prison, they're free uh from their cell, their cell, like their jail cells, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Evidently that's a word I can't say.
SPEAKER_00: Fun fact.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're free from chains.
SPEAKER_00: I got that one.
SPEAKER_00: They're free from restrictions, like they didn't have choices on their life.
SPEAKER_00: When they're free, they're free from those things.
SPEAKER_00: But that prisoner, he's not just free from, he's free to something as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's two sides to the same coin.
SPEAKER_00: That prisoner, he's free from his cell, ah, his cell, but he's free to go home, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's free from chains, he's free from restrictions, but he's free to work.
SPEAKER_00: He's free to love his family and spend life with them.
SPEAKER_00: He's free, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like he's free from something, but he's free to something.
SPEAKER_00: So this law of liberty, this freedom that we have, we're free from something and we're free to something.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy for us to think about that we're free from sin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's something we talk about a lot in church, and we are.
SPEAKER_00: We're free from sin.
SPEAKER_00: But we're also free to love our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: James in the royal law here, he's this law of liberty.
SPEAKER_00: We're free from the restrictions from the law that we could not uphold ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're free from all of the burden of living a perfect life that I pro tip, we can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Like we can't.
SPEAKER_00: But we're free to not just anything.
SPEAKER_00: We're not free to.
SPEAKER_00: If you said to a classroom of students, the class rule is you're free, like it's gonna be pandemonium, like they're gonna be setting fires and pulling bookshelves over, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, because why not?
SPEAKER_00: We're free.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what James is saying.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying you're free to pandemonium, he's saying you're free to actually love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: You're free to actually love God in a way that you could not before because God Himself will enable you to do so.
SPEAKER_00: The last verse, for judgment is without mercy to the to the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to leave before we talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, James is, you know, we talked about James is not saying that the poor person has a special standing with God just because they're poor.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the faith that God gave them.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying here that if uh if you are a believer who in some instances don't show mercy, when you see God on the day of judgment, there'll be no jud there'll be condemnation free.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's so many double negatives there, but you you got what I mean, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that a believer who has episodes of unmercy faces God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: And he's also not saying someone who doesn't believe in God, someone who doesn't trust Jesus and follow Jesus, if they show lots of mercy, well, that's good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not the point.
SPEAKER_00: The way this is presented, it's almost like do you guys know Proverbs?
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, the book of Proverbs, like wise sayings.
SPEAKER_00: Like James is throwing these out, like these wise sayings that these people would have already heard.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe these are Jewish, I mean it's kind of lost, but maybe these are Jewish proverbs that this congregation would have heard.
SPEAKER_00: Like he said it, and they're like, oh, you know.
SPEAKER_00: A proverb, I tried to think of proverbs and I realized how country I am.
SPEAKER_00: So, like uh trying to think of a proverb all I had was a blind chicken pecks corn every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Another proverb might be uh don't put all of your eggs in one basket, right?
SPEAKER_00: A proverb might be there's no time like the present, the squeaky wheel gets the wheat grease.
SPEAKER_00: Like, a squeaky wheel gets the grease is not literally talking about a wheel in grease.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is, but it's talking about, you know, well, if you need something, like speak up, make noise, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening here with this, James is using here with these Jewish believers.
SPEAKER_00: He he's calling on these phrases they're familiar with to illustrate the point that he's already making.
SPEAKER_00: But it's no coincidence that the proverbs James pulls from are about mercy.
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking this whole time about people showing partiality, people othering people in the body of believers.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in this last verse, James is appealing to their mercy because he's also know, he knows that the people who are reading this letter, some of them are the people in shabby clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Like some of them are the people that have been wronged in the congregation of believers, and he's reminding them be merciful.
SPEAKER_00: Like Christ has shown us such great mercy, such great mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It's our job to extend that same mercy to others.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the sin in the church, we've talked about God's holy standard, we've talked about uh the gospel, the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: James wants us to know that all sin is sin.
SPEAKER_00: And breaking any law is breaking the whole law.
SPEAKER_00: Failing to love God perfectly, failing to love each other perfectly, that's as good as murder.
SPEAKER_00: That breaks the whole law.
SPEAKER_00: But through the law of liberty, Jesus has given us another way.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us a way to be saved because we can't justify ourselves with our good works.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us a way to live unburdened, a way to joyfully lay down our lives to Him as the King is the Lord, instead of being slaves to our own desires.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us a way to be citizens in his eternal kingdom instead of wasting our lives building kingdoms for our own.
SPEAKER_00: Look back at verse one.
SPEAKER_00: What does James call the people in the first two words?
SPEAKER_00: What does he call the people he's writing to?
SPEAKER_00: He calls them brothers.
SPEAKER_00: In verse five, again, he says, My beloved brothers.
SPEAKER_00: The reason, the reason that we don't have partiality, we shouldn't show partiality, the reason that we don't have divisions inside of the congregation of believers is because Christ has changed our relationships with each other fundamentally.
SPEAKER_00: He's changed who we are, he's made us family in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And he's made his family in a way that nothing can divide.
SPEAKER_00: As we um, I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna head into a time of consideration.
SPEAKER_00: Um as we spend time in that time of consideration, I challenge you as we reread this, as we go back to the psalm, as we read something else, as we pray, uh, examine yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Because yes, maybe our congregation doesn't struggle with uh if someone came in in shabby clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we would, I don't know, but maybe we wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: There's certainly other ways.
SPEAKER_00: There's certainly other ways that we other each other, that we put ourselves into groups that I think that I'm elevated above you or I think you're less than me.
SPEAKER_00: We need to examine ourselves to find that, and we need to take that to God.
SPEAKER_00: In this time of consideration, maybe um, maybe you have this sin.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's other sin in your life that you need to talk to God about that you haven't yet.
SPEAKER_00: Like this, this now is the time.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray and then we'll we'll consider.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for being good.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for loving us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for making us a family bound together in faith in a way that uh in a way that nothing else in the world works.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for your kingdom, and we thank you for inviting us to be citizens there.
SPEAKER_00: Citizens that uh obey your rule, that obey your weather, God.
SPEAKER_00: I pray in this moment, in this time, that you would bring to our hearts and bring to our minds the areas of our lives where we don't do that well, and that you would, Holy Spirit, lead us to take those to you, God, for forgiveness and for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: So in Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.