The Royal Law
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good Morning!
Please open your bibles with me to James chapter 2. Last week, we started with the first of a two-part sermon on the subject of Favoritism. James exhorts his readers - Jewish Christians dispersed throughout the Roman world, not to engage in favoritism or partiality while claiming Christ as your Lord and savior. He says, to boil it down as clearly and concisely as I can manage, that favoritism is incompatible with the Christian faith. As we explored the text, we saw that it was because when we show favoritism, we are creating distinctions among ourselves that do not exist because we all have the same value before Christ - and that is only the value we get from him - all of us bringing nothing of any value to the table.
We gain our value from him in two ways:
First, we attain value from God because we are made in His image. The Imagio Dei - the image of God - endowed to us in our very creation from our maker is what creates the sanctity of human life and the reason we treat human life with dignity. If we shoot an animal for whatever reason, it is not looked upon with the same general sense of disgust as it is when one person ends the life on another.
Second, we gain value through Christ’s redemption of our souls. If we believe in Christ - we have been bought with a price - the blood of Christ shed on our behalf - and that is the same blood shed on behalf of all believers - we were made in the same image and redeemed by the same blood.
God assigns some to be wealthy in earthly terms and he assigns others to be rich in faith through earthly poverty. It is not for us to judge one another, but rather for us to act according to the mission God gives his church to act with compassion, mercy and charity.
Over the course of the past couple weeks, I have been reminded of a specific speech given on this very topic - it was one of the most famous speeches ever delivered in America - It was Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech given on August 28, 1963. The central thrust of that speech is that people shouldn’t be judged by characteristics they have no control over, but rather only by the content of their character. Every single person stands on an equal footing before God and - as his children - we should not judge so wickedly as we do when we engage in favoritism and partiality.
It is not an understatement to assert that the world we live in today is unrecognizable to the world to whom Dr. King original delivered his speech. Over the last 10-15 years or so, the culture has shifted from treating people based on the content of their character to demanding people be treated with preference based on their preferences. Regardless of whatever someone identifies as, they want to be treated in a way that corresponds to their preference, regardless of the content of their character. These people would rather be treated in respect to their characteristics than their character. The Bible tells us specifically that, within the church, we cannot treat people based on their outward characteristics but must treat people with the respect that corresponds with their God-given value.
In our passage today, James talks about the Royal Law of Love. It is important to remember that James’ audience were Jews who were very familiar with the Jewish Law, very likely as it was interpreted by the Pharisees - as they were closer to the orthodox version of Judaism in their day.
In the church - in the family of God, we need to fight against our natural inclinations to engage in favoritism and strive to see all people as equals in the eyes of the Lord. What we are going to explore is thais idea that "True faith fulfills the royal law of love, extending mercy as we have received it from Christ."
This morning, we are going to explore a few of James teachings:
Fulfill the Royal Law With Love (2:8)
Confront Favoritism with Conviction (2:9-11)
Show Mercy Like You've Received Mercy (2:12-13)
Fulfill the Royal Law With Love
Fulfill the Royal Law With Love
Read with me, starting in…
8 Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.
Here, James references the Royal Law prescribed in the Scripture and quotes
18 Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
Why is this referred to as the Royal Law? According to the most reliable Greek Lexicons, the most probably explanation is that it was given by the King to his subjects. James is referencing Jesus quoting this verse in Leviticus as it is recorded for us in Matthew 22:39
35 And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him:
36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”
37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the greatest and most important command.
39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
James sets this up for us in verse 5 by telling us that we - Christians - are heirs of the kingdom - If we love Jesus, we are heirs of his kingdom - he is our king and we are his loyal, royal subjects.
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
So our king gave the royal law. He says if we keep the royal law that we do well - that it is a good thing for us to do! We should strive to keep the Royal Law by loving our neighbors as ourselves. Why would James introduce this teaching when talking about favoritism?
Could it be, perhaps, that the antidote for favoritism, partiality and judgement is loving others deeply and richly? James says, “Don’t engage in favoritism! If you are loving your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well! But if you show favoritism, you’re in sin.” I like how the CSB words it in James 2:8 - fulfill the Royal Law as prescribed in Scripture.
Brothers and Sisters - when do we seek out a prescription? When we have an ailment! What ailment could James be referring to in this passage? Favoritism! Specifically, favoritism of the rich at the expense of the poor. But if that is the ailment and he is, in a sense, giving us a prescription for the ailment of favoritism - what is the prescription? Loving our neighbor! If we love, we are mitigating the hold of favoritism in our hearts!
I love how Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century English Pastor worded this:
Love thy neighbour, for in so doing thou art following the footsteps of Christ.
Charles Spurgeon
The goal of every Christian should be to be more and more like Christ. If we confess our sins of favoritism for the rich and rejection of the poor, and engaging in loving others the way we’ve been loved by Christ, then we are fulfilling the Royal Law James talks about in 2:8. Love transforms and elevates our daily interactions, marking them with the dignity befitting children of God. We engage in loving one another instead of playing favorites and thus fulfill the second greatest commandment and bring our Lord honor. This is what Paul meant when he said in…
27 Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel,
James says that if we love our neighbors as ourselves, we fulfill the Royal Law and that we do well. It should be our goal to fulfill the Royal Law with love - and to do so, we need to rely on the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. There are people out there who are simply hard to love! But in Christ, we are given access to the Throne Room of God - to seek after him in times of need. This bears itself out, in terms of application, that when we are confronted with people in our lives that are hard to love, that we ask God for help and commit to loving those hard-to-love people with the strength and power that comes only through God via the Holy Spirit. But that requires commitment to the Lordship of Christ in your life and to the desire for true repentance! When we work with God to get favoritism out of our lives, we trust him and use the love he gives us to love those around us - no matter what they look like!! We need to have a seriousness about this - we need to..
Confront Favoritism with Conviction
Confront Favoritism with Conviction
Read with me again, starting in…
9 If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.
James is giving us what is called a juxtaposition here - whereas we could be fulfilling the Royal law by loving others as ourselves in verse 8, we are only proving ourselves to be sinners and law breakers when we engage in favoritism.
Favoritism contradicts the Royal Law, so when we do that, we are breaking the Royal Law and guilty of being lawbreakers. It doesn’t matter how well we follow the law in other places - our righteous acts and deeds come to nothing if we cannot love others according to the Royal Law - loving them as we love ourselves.
This is very similar to what Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians 13 - Please turn with me for a moment to
1 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,
5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.
This is commonly referred to as the “Love Chapter” and has been quoted with good reason at practically every wedding I’ve ever been to. It describes how love should be a part of our DNA - we should be striving to show God-given love to others because a time is coming - when we stand in Glory - where our faith will be turned into sight, our hope will be realized - all in the return of our Lord Jesus Christ - but love is the substance of our obedience to Christ - If we are obedient, it will be evidenced in the fact that we love others.
Jesus was asked about the greatest commandments and he said - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind soul and strength, and the second is like it - love your neighbor as yourself.
In our passage today, James is telling us that passing judgement on others is a violation of this very basic principle and leaves us in a horrible position as transgressors of his Royal Law. Showing favoritism to the rich and disgracing the poor goes against the very nature of God - it is not how He sees people and James is saying that it should not be how we see people either. If we are to take our calling to be like Christ, we need to develop the conviction that favoritism is wrong and confront that sin like any other sin in our lives.
What do we do with sin?
We confess it to the Lord, repent of it, and watch God purify us from it. It’s not merely a matter of speaking the words of confession, it is understanding the gravity and weight of your sin - real confession requires contrition, having a healthy sense of being broken by our own sin. If we try to teach our children anything, it is to say sorry like we actually mean it. In the case with God, when we confess our sin, he knows our hearts automatically and can judge the sincerity of our confession and repentance. There needs to be some sense of sorrow accompanied by it because we need to understand that our sin has grieved the heart of God! However, we don’t languish in our sorrow or in our guilt! We lay our sin at the foot of the cross of Jesus, dependent on his goodness and mercy to forgive us of that sin as he has promised to do and rejoice in the fact that our loving and merciful savior has extended to us grace after grace. Knowing the gravity of sin should motivate us to root it out in our lives and work on our end to cease the sinful behavior.
This can look different for a lot of people: some can separate themselves from triggers that fling them back into sinful behaviors; others try to figure out what the root cause of what exactly draws them to that particular sin and deal with it as a systemic issue - however we chose to approach it, our attitude should be that we want to be like Christ and to be holy like He is holy. With respect to our passage today, it means that we develop the conviction within us that favoritism is wrong and we …
Show Mercy Like You've Received Mercy
Show Mercy Like You've Received Mercy
Read with me again, starting in verse 12…
12 Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
This section has two parts - the exhortation and the reason.
The exhortation we receive from James here is to treat people the way the Royal Law tells us to - loving our neighbor as ourselves.
The reason portion of this section reminds us of the danger of being an unloving person - the ultimate lack of mercy that we will be shown if we are unwilling to share that same mercy with others.
It is important here, however, to define “mercy.”
Mercy is the compassionate and active expression of love that withholds judgment and extends kindness to those in need, even when they may deserve otherwise — reflecting the character of God, who forgives, restores, and acts with grace toward the undeserving.
Mercy is not just a feeling — it’s a choice to act with compassion, especially toward the weak, the poor, or the socially rejected.
Mercy is a reflection of God’s own heart — seen clearly in the gospel of Jesus, who showed mercy to sinners, the sick, the outcast, and even His enemies.
Mercy is the measure of true faith — if we’ve received mercy from God, we must show it to others. Otherwise, our religion is self-deceived and hypocritical (cf. James 1:27; Matthew 18:23–35).
Jesus teaches a valuable lesson for paying mercy forward in the parable of the unmerciful servant.
23 “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
24 When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him.
25 Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.
26 “At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’
27 Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan.
28 “That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’
29 “At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed.
31 When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened.
32 Then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.
33 Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed.
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”
Here, he is specifically addressing the need to forgive, but being merciful isn’t only forgiving someone when they’ve wronged you, but it is overlooking the “ugly” that lives in all of us.
One of my favorite musicians when I was younger, Chris Rice, had a song called “Pardon My Dust…” The chorus said this:
Why are you looking at me that way? Pointing your finger, shaking your head - how about some love along the way instead, Pardon my dust, and I’ll pardon yours…
As believers we can all acknowledge that we aren’t perfect, right? There are areas where we are very much still a work in progress - and our job is to love other people who are in the same boat - works in progress. Showing mercy to others means not letting every little nuance of imperfection they have dictate how we treat them because we are fully aware of our own battles and need for mercy too.
The author C.S. Lewis understood the need to act in accordance with the Royal Law but also had a keen understanding of the human tendency to over analyze and fail to act. He said this:
Do not waste your time bothering about whether you love your neighbor; act as if you did … When you are behaving as if you love someone, you will presently come to love him.
C. S. Lewis
There is an important connection between our attitude and our actions - our attitude can certainly influence and determine our actions, but our actions can also lead our attitudes as well. One of my pastors when I was a young worship leader - he often said, “We become by doing…” The gist was that our heart follows our actions. If we want to be a loving person, then we love… we might not feel love at first, but the more we love, the more that sense of love begins to grow inside us.
We are to treat others with the same mercy God has shown us - and that mercy means we don’t see people in terms of their wealth, status, color, profession, etc - that means we see people as people.
Conclusion
Conclusion
To see people and treat them the way God wants us to means that we see the value of each person in terms of God’s own contribution and investment into each person - we value everyone equally because we are all equally image bearers of God and are all recipients, if we do believe in Christ for our salvation and repent from our sin, we are all recipients of the same redeeming blood, shed for us so that we can be restored to God. We determine in our hearts to treat everyone as equals, regardless of their status and commit to loving our neighbors as we love ourselves - recognizing that God’s love born out in us is the antidote for our tendencies towards favoritism.
William Barclay, a New Testament Scholar and commentator said this:
True Christians love Christ and they also love their neighbours. More than that, they know that they cannot show their love to Christ in any other way than by showing their love to their neighbours.
William Barclay (New Testament Scholar)
We want to love God - that is the greatest commandment. Barclay is suggesting that the only real way to express that love to God is through the obedience to loving our neighbors as ourselves.
True faith is demonstrated through love and we are called to uphold the royal law of loving others as ourselves. True faith fulfills the royal law of love, extending mercy as we have received it from Christ. Jesus exemplified the royal law perfectly through His life and teachings, especially in His interactions with the marginalized and sinners. He embodies the mercy that James speaks of, fulfilling the law through His sacrificial love. If we want to love Christ and to be like Christ, we need to understand the importance of loving others as we love oursleves. Love shows graciousness and mercy, withholds judgment over external appearances and shoots to the core reality that we are made in His image, so everyone holds equal standing - we should treat everyone the same because Christ is the great equalizer of humanity.
For the last two weeks, we’ve been exploring this topic of favoritism through James 2:1-13, and have seen the importance of seeing people the way God does and showing love and mercy out of the abundance of our love for Christ because we have been shown mercy. The question remains, how are we to respond? Friends, I would strongly urge you to take some time to reflect on our passage from today and last week and seek the Lord - ask him to what level you have shown favoritism or relied on others showing you favoritism and ask Him to purify you from that - work with him to root that out in your lives and replace it with being a beacon to others around you for the love of Christ. Be merciful and kind to one another and encourage everyone in how you treat others to trust the God you profess.
We need to remember that an angry world is watching and they use the sinful behavior of Christians to try and excuse their own rejection of Christ. We know that they will stand condemned because of their own rejection of Christ, but let’s not give them reason to doubt Christ - let’s not allow the way we treat people within the church to be the reason they never come. Let’s honor Christ by loving one another the way we love ourselves.
Let’s pray.
