James Part 5 - The Church Filled With Mercy

Gavin Wright continues the teaching series on James, with chapter 1v26 - 2v13.

This sermon was preached on Sunday 19th April 2026

Transcript

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Our Father in heaven, we do ask that this morning in the reading and preaching, in the receiving and doing of your words, that your name would be hallowed. Lord, teach us of your love and help us to love like you. Amen. Amen. Well, we're going to read from James chapter 1, verse 26, which is the last couple of verses where we left off last week, down to chapter 2, verse 13. Let me 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. 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 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, or 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 were 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 honourable name by which you were called? If you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbour as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are 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. Friends, our passage today is about love. It is about love. And it's probably worth asking, what do you love? And the answer, if you're anything like me, is that I love the things that make me feel good, the things that benefit me. I think the children are listening out for these because they're going to draw one of them in the box. Here are some things that I love. I love football because it's exciting. I love buttered toast because it's delicious. I love stamps because sorting things out into neat little piles makes me very relaxed. I love music because it moves me. I love Jeeves and Worcester books because they make me laugh. But I don't love stuff that brings no obvious benefit to my life. Those are the things I love. But now it's worth asking the question, whom do you love? And I wonder if we're being honest, if the answer is kind of similar. I love those who benefit me in some way. So far in James, do you remember we've discovered the big aim of what James is trying to get at, right? He's writing to Christian people who, chapter 1, verse 8, are double-minded, that is, our loves and our loyalties are split, that we are not whole-hearted in our devotion to God. And that describes every Christian, this side of glory, to some extent or another. We are not what we should be, we are not what we want to be, we are not what we will be one day. And James is encouraging Christian people, and when I say encouraging, you know, read that rightly, I should be clear. James isn't afraid to give us a kick up the back side when we need it, but he's encouraging us. Chapter 1, verse 4, to move towards this idea of perfection, completeness. It's wholeness, really. It's wholehearted devotion to God and the things of God. It is giving ourselves completely to him. It is being whole, like he is whole, as he has given himself completely to us. It's being like Jesus. And God works in us towards that end through various kinds of trials we saw, which sharpen and shape us. And particularly last week, we saw that he moves us towards wholeness through his word, which we are to receive with meekness, and we are to do. Not just to hear it, but to do it. And today's passage is all about love. And if we bear in mind what we saw last week, it is about doing God's word. It is about loving as God's word directs us, not just assenting to the idea of love. And at the heart of these verses, uh, where are they trying to get at? What in us here is double-minded that needs to be challenged and changed? And I think it is this. We love God, and we do. I think we ought to be able to rightly say that at the end of verse 5, speaking of those who love God. We love God, but we don't love like God. We love him, but we don't love like him. Two big points for us today. Two questions really to ask. Here's the first. How has God loved us? How has God loved us? Everything in God's call for us to love other people is rooted in the fact that we have been loved first, Christian people. We can't avoid that. So 1 John chapter 4. We love because he first loved us. We love because he first loved us. Love comes from him, not from us. We cannot love truly, we cannot love wholly if we don't know what it is to be loved by God and how we have been loved by God. So, how has God loved us? In our passage, we zoom in right down to verse 5. And I think verse 5 is the heartbeat of all that is going on here. And you know that because James says, listen at the beginning of verse 5. He doesn't want us not to listen to the rest of it, but here, concentrate. This is the key, this is the important bit. Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who were poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him. Friends, if you want to see how God loves, then look in this verse at whom he chooses. Look at who God chooses. Has not God chosen those, James writes, who are poor in the world? We are talking about those God has chosen to be his own, chosen to be in his family, chosen to be heirs of his kingdom. If you were king or queen, imagine this for a second. How would you go about choosing an heir? How would you appoint the heir of your kingdom? It's interesting seeing that playing out in different places around the world. In North Korea, the way that Kim Jong-un seems to have anointed his 13-year-old daughter to be his successor. He's got a number of options, people that have been discussed in the past, but he seems to consider her the brightest, the best, the most loyal that is key to him. Or take the apprentice. If you're Alan Sugar, how do you decide who becomes business partners with you? Who receives a chunk of your empire? Well, it is the person who is competent and creative and good at leading a team and trustworthy and who's good at making money, right? Everything in the way that the world works, when a ruler chooses an heir, he or she chooses the best. Dramatic noise to my left. Who does God choose? Friends, verse 5. He chooses those who are poor in the world. Put this in everyday terms. Imagine the classic football match at lunchtime at school, right? And all the players are lined up on the wall. Don't know if you've ever been there. And the two captains are choosing who's going to be on their team. And the captain who is choosing as the world chooses chooses the top striker, the unnecessarily muscly defender, the goalkeeper with a two-foot handspan. He chooses winners. But the captain who chooses as God chooses chooses the striker whose shoelaces have broken, the defender who's scared of physical contact, the hobbit-sized goalkeeper. He chooses losers. He chooses the poor option. And he invites them onto the team that will win in glory. That is love. And we need to realize that that is how God has chosen us. Friends, you're not the muscle defender or the striker with golden boots. We are the poor of the world. God's habit is to choose the poor and the weak, the needy and the helpless. Think of Jesus back in the Beatitudes. What does he say back there? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God not only chooses to love the weak and the needy, the sinner who knows that they need his help, but he chooses them to share all that he has with them. He gives them the keys of heaven. He makes them rich in faith and the heirs of his kingdom. And we need to know that this morning because we will not love wholly ourselves if we do not understand how we have been loved. It is a Bible theme that we find over and over and over again. Let me take you to a couple of places where we see it in the Bible. Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 7, God is trying to help his people Israel understand just why they are his. And he says, I did not set my love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because I loved you. And kept the oath which I swore to your forefathers. In other words, the reason that you are mine, God says to his people, lies in me, not in you. I didn't look at you and count you worthy. I looked at you and I loved you just because I loved you, and therefore I made you my own, and we are to treat others, friends, with that same kind of mercy. How about Jesus, New Testament? He quotes Isaiah 61 when he's on his own when he's on in his own hometown synagogue in Nazareth. You remember what he says to them, what he reads? He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he appointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind to set free those who were oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And he says, Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus came choosing and loving the poor and the weak and the needy, those desperate of situation and desperate of heart. This is how God loves, and this is whom God loves. 1 Corinthians 1. Consider your calling, brethren. There were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, so that he says, No one can boast who is Christ apart from boasting in the Lord. And friends, we cannot stand at the foot of the cross and look up at our crucified Saviour and say, You died for me because you saw something special in me. You died for me because you know I'm good deep down. You died for me because I have something to offer you. You died for me because you know my presence in your kingdom will benefit you. No, friends. All we can do is stand at the foot of the cross and look up at our crucified Savior and say, You died for me even though I am not special, even though I am not good, and even though sin runs like a poisoned vein right down to the core of my being, you died for me even though I have nothing to offer you. And with tears and with joy, how can we say anything but you died for me because you love me? Brothers and sisters, the grace of God means that he chose you and that he died for you. If you love him today, and he saved you, and he made you an heir of all that is his because he looks on the poor and the needy and the unlovely, and he loves them. He loves you. How do you love? If that is how God loves, how do you love? There are two commands in this passage. The first we've seen already in verse five, listen. Listen to how God loves you. The second is verse one, show no partiality. Hope you can see the link between the two. If we are to be whole in our love and not double-minded, then we need to love like God loves. Loving impartially, loving generously, loving the unlovely, loving those who have nothing obvious to offer us. We looked last week at the end of chapter one, didn't we? And already we start to see the kind of religion that is pure and undefiled before God. It is love. And it is for the orphan and the widow to love the heartbroken, to love the defenseless, to love those who have suffered the grief and the loss of love that they once had. Don't we seek out happy people and put together people? Don't we seek out people we can lean on? But God says, love those who need someone to lean on. Verses 2 to 5. Well, they paint the picture, don't they? They expose our hearts for what they are so often like. So you get the picture, I think. A rich man wearing gold and fine clothes comes into church, and a poor man in shabby clothes comes in too. And the rich man is given the best seat, and the poor man is given the worst. Sorry, there aren't enough seats to use. Sit at the back. And I don't know if James meant that to sound absurd, but let's be real, actually. For hundreds of years in this country, the wealthy were able to pay for the best seats at church. If you gave enough money, you could have your own family pew at the front, your own key to lock the doors at the ends of the pew. And the commoners had to sit behind even if you didn't turn up. Now, two things to take from that. First, seating at the front is a privilege. People used to pay for this. Come on why are there empty seats down here? This is the best seat than the house. But more seriously, this is a it's a real issue. It's a real problem. And stuff like this happens in churches. Put it today, put it in our terms, it's not hard, is it, to imagine a well-dressed man or woman arriving at Emmanuel. The kind of place we are, the kind of people who live in Brentwood, right? Articulate, funny, good job so they can help pay for the church building. Obviously, you've got some skills that we can utilize in our music team or where our children's work. It might be slightly harder to imagine the homeless man or woman shuffling in behind them, dirty and unkempt, smelly, terrible at having a conversation, no obvious gifts. Be honest with yourself. We are a welcoming church, right? It is one of the best things about Emmanuel. It really is. But who would you welcome? And who does God call you to welcome? Impartiality. It isn't a call to hate lovely people, but it is a call to pursue the unlovely. To welcome, love, serve those that the world turns its back on. Verse 6 says that if we don't do that, actually we dishonour that poor man who is just like us, made in God's image. Who? This is how it works itself out, doesn't it? Who do you talk to after church? Who do you invite rounds to eat at your house? Who do you honour and dishonour? There's nothing wrong with being friends with easy people. But if we love easy people more than we love hard people, then we are double-minded and perhaps we've forgotten how God has loved us. Bible explorers and discoverers, can I just who's looking at me, Bible explorers and discoverers? Penny, Tally, Rory, thank you, lots of people. We've got some hands over there. Great. Now listen up. Perhaps next time you guys go out to the playground and you see someone who is on their own or you see someone who is sad, what do you think? This is a question for you. What do you think Jesus would love you to do? What do you reckon? John, what do you reckon Jesus would love you to do? Ask if they're okay. Lovely, thank you. Let someone else reckon. What would you think Jesus would love you to do? It's okay if no one else says anything. Oh Rory. Help them. Yeah. Speak to them, find out if they're okay. Help them. Invite them to play with your game, right? To look after the children that no one else is looking after. Jesus would love it if you did that. Youth group. I'm not going to ask you a question. But I'm so grateful for you guys. And some of you genuinely are really good at welcoming and trying to love people who are new or isolated, even though it can be really awkward. It can be really awkward. But can I encourage you please to keep working at that? To look outside your comfort zones in your friendship groups and work out who needs to be loved. In grown-ups, that applies to you as well. When we become partial, verse four, when we prefer the lovely over the lovely, the unlovely, we are judging, we are told. We're making judgments and we judge with evil thoughts. We make a distinction between those who just aren't worth it and those who We're going to make our lives happier and better and easier and richer. Forgetting, perhaps, there's slight irony in verse 6 and 7, that actually it's generally the rich, the powerful, the well connected that cause trouble for the church and bring dishonour to God's name, not the poor. Honour those, God is saying, who are like the poor that God shares his honour with, instead of chasing after those who take away from his honour. Remember the generosity of how God has loved us and love like that. And I just want to bring us back for the last few minutes to God's word. Remember, we are to be doers of God's word, not hearers only, right? Well, impartial love, James goes on to tell us very clearly, is an issue of God's word. It is an issue of his law. So verse 8, it reminds us that God's word says, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. And James says essentially, look, if you're doing it, brilliant. But before you pat yourself on the back, you need to understand that God's law comes as a whole thing. And James says that if you're going to keep the law, you've got to keep the whole law. So if you break a bit of the law, you have broken the whole thing. So he gives an example, verse 11. You can't murder someone but protest innocence by saying that I haven't committed adultery. God's law is a package. Are you a lawbreaker or not? Are you guilty or not? It's a bit like my body, right? I'm wearing this silly boot on my leg because I sprained and fractured my ankle playing football. But because I've dumb my ankle in, my whole body has become useless. Tomorrow night, I can't just send my right leg out onto the football pitch to score a worldie. You break one bit, you break it all. And so with God's law. Verse 9. If you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. You can't keep the rest of the law, the easy bits like not killing someone. You can't keep that and not love the weak and the poor and the unlovely. If you judge partially, it's not a small deal. It's not a little sin that doesn't matter. You've broken God's law. You are guilty. And with that guilt in mind, just as we finish, I want us to think about judgment. The problem, James has already told us, verse 4, is that they have been judging with evil minds. They've been judging wrongly, separating those that they'll love and those that they won't. But verse 12 reminds us that we too are to be judged under the law of liberty. And so James says we must act and speak as those who are going to be judged. And I don't think James is just saying, look, you're going to be judged, so you better do the right thing or you're in trouble. I think he's saying that when the rich and the poor man come into church, you've got to decide who to speak to, who to make a beeline for. But similarly, when Jesus returns and you walk into God's presence, God is the one on the door. And you're trying to walk into his house. And when you stand before God the judge, what are you going to offer him? What have you got to benefit him? Are you going to bring a tatty copy of the Ten Commandments, a tatty copy of God's law that you've tried to keep but actually have broken? You've got nothing to offer him. So what do you need on that day? Verse 12 and 13. What do you need on that day? Mercy. I need his mercy. Verse 13 says, For judgment is without mercy to one who is shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. So do we want mercy from God? He loves to give it. But if we want his mercy, we have to ask how much mercy do we show the person who needs it from us? How much love, how much time, how much care do we have for the person who has nothing to give us? Nothing to offer us, nothing to benefit us. If we expect to receive mercy, we need to be the kind of people who are in the habit of showing mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment, he says. James says, What do you want, right? What do you want? Mercy or judgment? Judgment deals with you according to your worth, according to the benefits you can bring, according to the real state of your heart and your track record in keeping the law, but you are guilty. So what do you want? Judgment or mercy? And because of our guilt, the only thing that can triumph over judgment is mercy. I want mercy. I need mercy. My hope is not in my worth, but in God's mercy shown to me through Jesus. So friends, love like He loves. Show mercy like He shows mercy instead of judging according to our worldly metrics of worth. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Let me pray for us. We are deeply grateful again for how we have been loved, though we are so undeserving of it. Lord, we love you. And we are sorry that we do not love like you. As we see day by day, more and more how you have loved us. The more we see that the desperation of our situation, the plight of our situation, the sin in our hearts, the uh unworthiness as we come to you. Help us see how we are loved, and Lord, please change us so that we love like you. Help us to be impartial. Help us to love the unlovely, to give ourselves for the broken, to seek out the needy, to serve those who need someone to lean on. Please teach us that mercy triumphs over judgment, Lord. Amen.