James 2:8-13 | Mercy

It is great to be with you today. If I haven't had a chance to meet you, my name is Ryan. I have the joy and privilege of being one of the pastors here at Arrow Heights. I would invite you to open your Bibles to James, chapter 2, verses 8 through 13, where we will be today. If you do not own a Bible, there should be one on the pew back in front of you.

Feel free to take that as our gift to you. We want everyone to be equipped with God's Word. Now, I don't know about you, but only a little over a chapter into this letter, my toes hurt. James has been stepping all over them for the past several months. He's certainly shown himself to be, as one scholar described, a moral theologian, not moralistic.

As if James is just trying to get us to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and try harder to be better people. Now, James speaks directly to the moral application of theology in the life of the believer — that because of who Christ is and what he has done, it matters who we are and what we do. Thus, James's letter is joyful in its exaltation of Christ, but also very practical, very direct in its admonitions to its readers. And though it may be heavy at times, James is actually doing us an immense favor by stepping on our toes, calling us to invasive self-evaluation in light of the gospel. Because he's asking us to consider whether or not our lives, our words and our deeds and our actions truly line up with what we say we believe.

Because if we claim to be surrendered to God by His grace through faith, to have received the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross in our place, and that God the Spirit does indeed dwell and guide us according to His perfect Word, then our lives should reflect those realities. We should be living proof, both to ourselves and to the watching world around us, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is real and that it is effective.

Now, what does this look like — this resurrected life in Christ? Well, James told us first it looks like not only hearing or reading God's Word, but also doing it, applying it, walking according to God's expressed will and way. He told us this applies even to the words we do or do not speak, the way that we listen to others, and the way we respond to that which makes us angry. Last week James said it looks like not showing partiality to people who may be impressive by the world's standards but, by God's standards, are just as in need of the gospel as anyone else. James has lined up example after example of what it looks like to show that we have been given new life in Christ.

But let me ask, do his examples thus far seem kind of light? I mean, not really light-light, because as I said, I've got some heavily bruised toes. But do his examples almost seem second-tier?

Because when we think of sin and rebellion against God, we think of big sins, right? We think of murder, robbing banks, rooting for the Texas Longhorns.

We think of outright rebellion against the sovereign God of the universe. When we do so, we usually don't think of things like listening poorly or over-speaking or being a bit too influenced by someone's looks. I mean, are those things really that big of a deal? Would God really judge us — even harshly — for such little sins?

Well, we need to be careful. Because as we listen to that voice subtly questioning the prudence of God's Word or the strictness of God's authority, we can begin to slide into a mindset that is just as dangerous today as it was when it first came from the serpent's mouth in Genesis — Genesis chapter 3.

Did God really say? Surely he won't — we know better what is really right and wrong. Shouldn't we be the judges?

You see, the standard of sin and judgment in society and many religions today goes something like this. One: God's Word contains a series of detached commands, those thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots. And some of them are really important, but some of them we can kind of nuance. Two: for those commands that we keep, we receive credit, and for those we don't, we incur debt. How much credit or debt we receive is based on how important or big the command is.

And three: in the end, as long as our credits outweigh our debts, we are fine with God and we'll go to heaven when we die. Four: even if our debt does outweigh our credit, by nature of His love and our worth, God will probably let us in anyway — unless what we did was really, really bad.

That, generally, in various forms, is the standard of sin and judgment in our world today.

But is that God's standard of sin and judgment? Is that the true standard by which we all will be judged?

Let's read James chapter 2, beginning in verse 8.

"If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor 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 guilty of 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 have 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."

So what James shows us in these brief verses is simply this: that there's no such thing as big or small sins. Matthew 5:48, Jesus said, "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

That is God's eternal standard, and the one by which we will all be judged. I think that's one reason, to this point in his letter, James has focused on even those seemingly insignificant practices that we allow into our lives that are contrary to the will and way and word of God. James is saying that sin, no matter what kind, is not merely an excusable lack of effort, or a momentary slip, or a pet struggle that's okay to have as long as we put it back in the cage when we're done playing with it. No — James says to unrepentantly entertain any sin is a treacherous attack on God's character, a decisive breach of God's law, and blatant rebellion against our Creator.

Sin in any form is treason against the one true King.

What James wants us to see here is that even what we consider to be small sins have infinite consequences, and thus require an infinite solution. Look at verse 8. He says, "If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well." Now, this Scripture comes from Leviticus 19:18, in which God says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."

Jesus reiterates this command to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:19. He also references this verse when asked which is the greatest commandment in the Old Testament law by a Jewish religious leader. Matthew 22:37 says, "And Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'"

So what Jesus says, and James references here, is that all of God's expressed will and way for His people, though having many applications, can be summed up in two: one, love God with everything you are, and two, love others with everything you have.

And James refers to this passage of Scripture quite loftily as the royal law. Now, why does James refer to it as the royal law? Well, simply because it is the law of the Kingdom, and the King gave us this command. So James says, if you fulfill this royal law, you are doing well.

Say, "Okay, well, good."

But notice, James says fulfill — not put a few marks on the ledger, score a few points on the goal, not "hey, just do your best, as long as people aren't jerks and you're in a good mood." James says the standard is complete, perfect fulfillment of this command.

And again, if you completely fulfill it, that's great — you're doing well. Because you, who claim to be a follower of Christ, in whom the Spirit of God dwells, are acting according to the very character of the triune God. The problem is, none of us are doing that in full, nor can we. Though raised to new life in Christ, we are all plagued by our sin nature, which pulls us away from God and His kingdom and toward ourselves and ours. None of us can completely fulfill God's royal law, not even in the smallest of ways, such as, James says, showing partiality — verse 9.

"But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." Now, this is why James, to this point, has only dwelt on small, everyday sins with which even the best of us are all too familiar. Because even in doing something like showing partiality or favoritism — even in that — James says you have committed sin against God. You have broken His law. You are convicted by that law, and are therefore a guilty transgressor. You have not lived up to the standard of God who created you in His image, because God, by His nature and character, is impartial, whereas you have been partial.

Therefore, you have rebelled against God's will and His way. You have rejected your design as His image-bearer, and you have set yourself against God and His kingdom in favor of yourself and yours. Now this is especially true for those who claim to be Christians, because even in a small sin like partiality, you have taken the Lord's name, by which you are called Christian, in vain — breaking the third commandment. You are not following the one you claim to follow. You are misleading those who believe you represent Christ.

And James says, as a result, you have sinned. You are guilty. You are a transgressor — verse 10. "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."

Look, I get it — that's a lot. We may say, "Okay, come on. Do we really deserve eternal separation from God just because we do one small, tiny little thing against God's Word that really doesn't even hurt anybody?"

Doesn't that seem harsh or over the top?

Well, James says the answer is that God is right to hold us to this standard. Because when we willingly, habitually, unrepentantly sin against God in whatever way, we not only violate God's rules, but we reject God — God's person, His position, and His authority — claiming to be the author of a higher and better law, and, in essence, trying to set ourselves on God's throne.

And such treason cannot and will not be tolerated by a just, holy, even loving God.

Verse 11: "For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." So James takes us broader in his assertion that committing any sin is the same as committing all sin. By going to those big sins, he says, okay, well, logically you can't say, "Sure, I commit the occasional murder, but I'm not an adulterer, so I'm not a sinner or transgressor of the law." Right?

I mean, such an assertion is laughable. It's ludicrous. Clearly, if you've sinned in one way, you are a sinner, regardless of what other ways you have not sinned. So by the same measure, James says, you can't say, "Sure, I engage in partiality, but I'm not a murderer, so I'm not a sinner or transgressor of the law." Right?

What James is showing us is that in the end, it's not about how or how much we have sinned, but whom we have sinned against.

He's illuminating the reality that all of God's commandments are united by one common value, and that is that God gave them. Therefore, when we respond to any of God's commands, we are not simply responding to the weight or impact of assumed consequences. We are responding to the person, authority, and worth of the Lawgiver. And the Bible says we have all sinned against the Lawgiver and are thus transgressors, rebels, deserving every judgment and penalty that such persons are due, judged under the law of our works.

Verse 12: "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." Now, wait a second — because James has just thundered this resounding verdict of guilty, guilty from the eternal courtroom of God, who gave us the Old Testament law of condemnation. How then can he call us to live, speak, and act according to a different law — the law of liberty, or freedom?

And this, church, is where the life-changing, soul-reorienting good news of the gospel comes in. Because as James knows, and as God's Word attests, there will be a day when every single one of us will stand before the open books of heaven and will be judged for what we have done. Revelation 20:12 says, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And books were opened, then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done."

God's Word says that every one of our words or deeds is recorded, and one day will be read from the books of heaven. And the books of deeds, as they were, all will come to light, all will be exposed. God's books of deeds will show no partiality, but will simply reveal the truth of our works.

And there, in that moment, our sins — great and small — will condemn us.

Yet God's Word says our final judgment will not come from the books of deeds. It will come from that other book that was opened — what is called in Revelation 21:27 the Lamb's Book of Life. This is the book Revelation 13:8 says was written from the foundation of the world as a record of those who are in Christ Jesus — those who are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, those whose sins are covered by the blood of Christ, those whose penalty is paid by the atonement of Christ, those who, on that judgment day and every day before, when God looks upon them, the person and the works He sees is Christ's. God's Word says their names are not written in that book based on anything they have or have not done, but simply by the grace of God. And when the books of deeds scream guilty, indebted, condemned, the blood of Christ screams forgiven, paid, and free.

When the book of deeds shuts the sinner out, the Book of Life opens its arms and calls the child of God by name, rather than condemnation in the court of heaven. Those who receive Christ's atoning work on their behalf will have freedom and liberty in Christ.

Freedom from the penalty of sin, freedom from the power of sin, and one day freedom even from the presence of sin. This freedom in Christ is the greater law of liberty to which James refers — that we are no longer enslaved by our sin nature, but we are now united with God in Christ, able to walk in resurrected life by the power of God the Spirit. Just as Nathan read there from Romans 8: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh."

"And for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." So, in light of this unimaginable, unmerited mercy from God, James gives this celebratory conclusion. He says simply: mercy triumphs over judgment.

Let me read that again. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Hear that today, you who are drawn down by your sins, who feel unworthy of God's love, you who recognize the judgment you deserve, yet seek a hope for rescue.

Know this. Know that the mercy of God is available to you today, if you would only come to Him empty, lay down your rebellion, surrender to His way, and receive the sacrificial payment of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross in your place.

Yes, in sin you deserve judgment, but in Christ you will receive mercy.

Now, if you know that you have been mercifully purchased by the blood of Christ, rescued and redeemed from judgment, adopted as God's daughter or son, and are no longer bound to the kingdom of self and evil which formerly controlled you, James has this simple and direct instruction.

He says: live like it.

James knows that our responsibility to be living gospel proof is not simply a call to obey a list of rules, but to live according to the overwhelming reality of our relationship with God through Christ — to live and act as those who have been set free from sin, to speak truth in love as those who have been loved in truth by God.

God has not called us just to be His servants, but to be His ambassadors, His representatives in Christ. We belong to Him for His glory.

John 15 — as Jesus said to His disciples: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit."

Let's pray.

God, we come before You completely unworthy that our God would come — God the Son — and walk this earth as one of us. He would lay His own life down, a life of infinite worth, for the infinite cost that we had accrued for our sin. But God, today we remember, and today we celebrate. Today we give You thanks.

We thank You for salvation in Christ. We thank You for our unity in the Spirit.

We pray, God, that in all that we do, we would seek to honor and glorify You for who You are and for what You have done. Help us to do that rightly. It's in Your name that I pray, Jesus. Amen.