that you would minister to them and that you would bless them. We pray that your Holy Spirit would be in us and among us as we seek your face today in this time of congregational worship. And for this very, very important chapter of scripture that we're about to read, Lord, we pray that you hold our minds captive to the word of God. We pray that your Holy Spirit would penetrate the deepest levels of our heart and soul. with this word, and that he might illumine our minds to understand what it says, and then empower our wills to do what it says. In the name of Christ the King we pray, amen. Our scripture lesson today is the second chapter of James, the first 13 verses. So let us stand out of reverence for the reading of the word of God. James 2, 1 through 13. Pay attention to every word. My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, And that also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes. And you pay special attention to the one who's wearing the fine clothes and say, you sit here in a good place. And you say to the poor man, you stand over here or sit down by my footstool. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme that fair name by which you have been called? If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're 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 and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, do not commit adultery, Also said, do not commit murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but you do commit murder, you've become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. You may be seated. This is the key chapter in the book of James, the entire chapter. We're only going to look at the first 13 verses this morning. And I want you to notice how James summarizes the heart of the gospel, the heart of the church, the heart of the Bible, the heart of Christianity, in about eight English words in the first verse. It says in English, my brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. Now what are the eight words in that sentence I'm talking about? Your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ summarizes the heart and soul of the Christian faith. And that's important for us to understand because James is giving us a lot of laws here. James is giving us a lot of commands. He's telling us and exhorting us to do a lot of things. But then when he goes to summarizing the heart of the Christian faith, he doesn't speak about laws. He speaks about our Lord Jesus Christ who is glorious. Now let's look at each one of those words and make sure you understand them. If you don't understand those words, whatever else you understand in Christianity, you don't understand the heart of it. Faith. Our faith. Whose faith? Christians' faith. What does the word faith mean? Well, it doesn't mean what a lot of people think, and I had it reminded to me this week in a commercial. For most people today, the basis of faith is ignorance. I saw a commercial, I've used it as an illustration many times and now the bad guys are using it as truth. There's this woman that is standing on the edge of darkness, sheer darkness, and she's trying to decide whether or not to jump into that darkness to buy whatever's on the other side, if there is an other side. And so there's dramatic music and finally, The woman takes the leap of faith, leaps into the dark, and lo and behold, there's solid ground. She doesn't fall into the abyss. There's some place to stand. The product is worth buying. Well, that's not what faith is. You've had preachers and teachers throughout the years refer to faith as a leap in the dark. that you stand there in the light. You don't know what's in the future. You don't know what's out there. You don't know if there's a God. So just take a leap of faith. Just jump out there and hope that somebody's out there to catch you. Faith that is that kind of ignorance is not saving faith. Faith is based on knowledge. There's three elements of true faith. Write this down. There's three elements of true faith. The first is knowledge. Faith is not ignorant. Faith knows things. And this knowledge that faith knows, it gets from the Bible. It believes things, not because some man told them. It believes what's written in the Bible. It knows facts in the Bible. Faith knows doctrines in the Bible. Faith knows the experience of people in the Bible. and so that our faith rests upon our knowledge of the Word of God. If your faith is ignorant of the Word of God, you don't have faith. Secondly, faith includes consent, agreement. That is, you agree with the knowledge that you have acquired for the Bible. It's not something you question. You've learned things from God's Word, and you are convinced those things are true. and you agree with him. You read in the Bible that God is one in three and you agree with that. You read in the Bible that Jesus is God and man and you agree with it. You read in the Bible that men are sinners and the only way of salvation is in Jesus Christ and you consent to that. You agree with that. You don't argue with it. But then there's a third element of faith without which faith isn't faith. Because you see, Satan has faith. It says in the scriptures, the devils believe and tremble. The devils know the facts of the Bible are true. They know the doctrines of the Bible are true. But they hate those facts. They hate those doctrines. So faith must include a third element if it's going to be real faith. And that element is trust. You trust Christ to be to you what you know Him to be and what you're convinced He is. You rest your life, your future, everything about your life and your destiny on Jesus Christ. You trust in Him alone for salvation. That's the heart and soul of our church, of our Christian lives and of Christianity. The Greek doesn't say what the English says. The Greek does not say the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. If it did, it'd be good. That's a true statement. Paul calls Jesus the Lord of glory. You remember what John said about him in the first chapter, 14th verse, that the Son became flesh, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Glory is of the only begotten Son of the Father. But now here's what it says in Greek, and this is even greater than those two verses as far as I'm concerned. And this is what makes this chapter so glorious. It says, your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, comma, the glory. Here James calls Jesus the glory. He doesn't call him the glorious one, which is true. He doesn't say he's the Lord of glory, which is true. He just simply says that our faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus means Savior, Christ means Messiah, Lord means God and King, and He is the glory. Now why would he say something like that? It sounds sort of awkward. You'd see the title of the sermon, The Effects of Faith in the Glory. There's no typo there. That title is chosen on purpose. Our faith is in Jesus Christ, the glory. Remember, James was Jewish. Remember, he grew up with Jesus. He was the half brother of Jesus. And James, being Jewish, knew what the Shekinah was. The Shekinah was that magnificent, bright, fiery pillar. that led the children of Israel through the wilderness. And that bright glory cloud, that bright pillar of fire was the manifestation of all of the perfections of God. That's what the word glory means. The manifestation of all the perfections of God. And here Jesus is called the glory. That that fiery pillar was just a symbol and a token of the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of God in human flesh. In His life He manifests everything God is. So here you have a statement. Eight verses in English. Eight words in English. Nine or ten words in Greek. you have the heart of everything we believe. The laws, the exhortations in the book of James mean nothing unless we believe that heart principle. That Jesus is our Lord, the Christ, and the glory. Now what's interesting is, James is intensely practical. And he's not setting forth some academic lesson on the person and work of Christ. He's giving you the basis for a command he's going to give you, which is what the Bible always does. The Bible doesn't start with imperatives. It starts with indicatives that before it commands us to do something, it tells us something that is true on which that exhortation or that command or that admonition is built. So he says in the first verse, he's very practical, through the whole book, he says in that first verse, here is why you should not hold your faith with an attitude of personal favoritism. Because our Lord Jesus Christ is the glory, brethren. Now the next few verses are about partiality, being partial. Show having favorites being partial towards people because of the way they look Or becomes because of something they possess You're partial toward he's talking to people here. You're partial towards these rich guys not because they come because they're godly or because they're good character, but because they're rich and So when they come to church, you want them to sit in the best seat in the house. So everybody can be impressed. Your church has rich guys. I was privileged many years ago to preach to 3,000 Zulus in Southern Africa. Zulus are a massive black, is a massive black tribe. And in this big auditorium that would hold three or so thousand people, Everybody sat on folding chairs, except for one. There was one chair in the middle of the front row that nobody could sit in but the king of the Zulus, King Goodwill Zwetilini. And that's what he's talking about here. When people come to church, just because somebody is a king, somebody is a powerful man, somebody has a success, doesn't mean you honor him for all those things and you put him in prominent places, just like if a poor person comes into your house or into your church. You don't say, well, it's good to have you sit in the back. You don't have a tie on. You don't have any shoes on. So it's good to have you at church, but sit back there in the back. or nobody can see you. We don't want people to think we're a church of poor people. So that's what the Bible means here by favoritism, by showing partiality. Look at how it says it. It's very picturesque. It says, do not allow your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the glory, to be in an environment of favoritism. Personal favoritism, partiality. If a man comes into your assembly, stop. The word assembly here, there are several Greek words for church in the New Testament. The most common word is the word ecclesia. This isn't that word. I'll pronounce it and see if you know any English words that this sounds like. Synagogue, synagogue. He says, if anybody comes into your synagogue, that was one of the names for the church in the first century. The word synagogue is made up of two words, to lead together, to bring together, for fellowship, for worship, for religious instruction. And it could also be used for the place where the church gathered. Now that's important. because you have people today who have scruples that are higher than God's. When he says, well, don't ever call a building a church. A church isn't a building. Oh, yes it is. They came into the synagogue, the Christian synagogue, the church. They had seats in that synagogue. So the primary meaning of church is, of course, the body of Christ. but you don't have to feel guilty about calling the place where the church meets also a church. So here he says, when people come into your church with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes. Now it doesn't say with a gold ring, it says gold fingered. When somebody comes into your church that's gold fingered. That is, he's got a gold ring on every finger of both hands. He wants you to know he is a man of immense wealth. And not only that, but this man that comes into the building, a visitor, has fine clothes. That means he could have been a politician, because the politician wore these fine linen clothes, white with gold trim. But however, This was a very wealthy man that came into that, visited the church that day. And it just so happened that the same day there was a poor man that came into the church with dirty clothes. And he said, if you pay special attention and give first place to the one wearing fine clothes, simply because he has fine clothes, and you say, sit over here in the front where everybody can see you, and you say to the poor man, Welcome to the church, but you sit there in the back. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? You know how partiality is so evil? A distinguishing between people because of the way they look or because of what they have. Two reasons in the first verse. Your church is brethren. You don't make distinctions like that among brethren, among brothers and sisters in Christ. You don't let social and ethnic and financial distinctions between each other make any difference at all in the way you relate to each other. In the early days of Chalcedon, 48 years ago, in the early days of Chalcedon, there was a couple that came to church that I was hoping would come to church. He was a hard-working middle-class man, and they had some children, and they were godly people, and you know them, some of them. And so when they showed up that Sunday, I was very happy, so I knelt down and I started playing with the little baby and making it laugh and all those things. And then the head elder's wife, very successful family. The head elder's wife came to me and said, Joe, quit playing with this family, with this little baby. Don't spend so much time with this family. We don't care about them. I have been trying to get this millionaire at church Sunday. I want you to come over and meet him. Now, I mean, that's as blatant as you can get, but that really happened. The important thing was what the man had, what he looked like, not the character of the heart. And so showing partiality makes distinctions in the church God doesn't make in a family of brothers and sisters. Secondly, partiality is evil in that it detracts from the glory. There's only one man here in this room with glory, and he is the glory. There's no glorious man in this church. There's no glorious woman. You don't say, oh, you're such a great guy. Come over here and sit by me. I want you to introduce you to people. There's only one glorious person in a worship service. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And when you show glory and partiality and favoritism to other people, to the exclusion of people that aren't as wealthy or as not as well off, You are detracting from the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now, not all partiality is evil. It's not an absolute statement. You're partial to Christians, I trust. You distinguish between truth and evil, and I presume you're partial toward truth. So there's some things we are supposed to be partial about, but this partiality is something different. You can go to hell for this kind of partiality. Now let's apply it to our culture. When you allow somebody's external appearance to determine what you think of him, and how successful and important that guy is. You are sinning against the glory. That means that racism of any kind is a damnable thing. When you say, Mr. Black Man, Mr. Poor Black Man, it's good to have you, we love everybody the same, sit in the back. Mr. Rich white man, it's particularly good to have you sit in the front. Or when you say Mr. Black man, sit in the front. We believe white people are oppressive to all black people. So you sit in the front. We're gonna give you a higher position because you're black. Mr. White man, you oppress all black people. You sit back there in the back and you can go home if you want to. So the whole basis of the Black Lives Matter movement is that you judge people on the basis of the color of their skin. If you're white, you're oppressive. If you're black, you're the victim who should recover everything the white people have taken from you. So Mr. Black person, we're gonna honor you and the church above all the other white people, because all these other white people are sitting just because they're white. Mr. White man, sit in the back. So you see, there's not only white supremacy in this country, there's black supremacy. There's not only white racism in this country, there's black racism. And all forms of racism are contradicting what we believe is Christ the Lord and the glory. We glorify no man to the exclusion of others. We don't say because of the color of your skin you are supreme or you are inferior and you and I must not be afraid to stand up and say these things. We must not be afraid to say these things. You will offend. But a lot of people have been offended in the history of the Christian church by truth. So when you're talking about racism, tell them, it's hard to define racism. You say, no, John two defines it. Racism is showing partiality to a person because of the color of his skin. And it may not be allowed in the Christian church. Well, let's see what else it says here. It says, and you pay special attention, verse three, you pay special attention to the one who's wearing the fine clothes. And you say, you sit in a good place. And when you say to the poor man, you stand over here and sit down by the footstool. Have you not made distinctions the Lord of glory has not made among yourselves? You become judges. Instead of allowing your standard of judgment to be God himself and his word, you've made your own preferences to be the standard. And you have evil motives. Because when you say, Mr. Rich Man, come up here so everybody can see you, or Mr. Poor Black Man, come up here and let everybody see you, that's what you call virtue signaling. That's what you say, see how great we are? We've got a rich guy in the church. See how compassionate and un-racist we are? We've got a black man in the church. The whole issue is not about the rich man or the poor man. The whole issue is about me. See how great I am by the people I judge according to their external conditions. Now there's nothing wrong with judging if you do it right. There is no verse in the Bible that says don't judge. There is a verse, a couple verses, that say only judge somebody by the same standards that you're willing to be judged by. And of course, those standards are the law of God. So it is important. You can't escape it if you're a Christian. Nobody can escape judging people. You're not supposed to try to escape it if you're a Christian. We are all to judge each other in the light of the law of God. That's the only standard of righteousness. If we judge by any other standard, We're putting ourselves in God's place. So when you make these distinctions between the rich and the poor, and the black and the white in the church, and you prefer one to the exclusion of the other, number one, you're making distinctions among yourselves God doesn't make. In Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek. And secondly, you're becoming a judge. You're putting yourself in God's place with all these evil motives of exalting yourself. Verse 5. Listen now, my beloved brethren. Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? First of all, there you go with the reformed faith again. You can't escape it. Did not God choose the poor of this world? Who are the heirs of the promises of God? Who are the heirs of the kingdom of God? Those whom God chose before the beginning of time are those who are heirs of the kingdom and all the promises of God. And so he's jumping on these Christians, and he said, how can you show preferences like this, particularly to this rich guy? Now, this rich guy was probably rich because he was in cahoots with the state. He was probably in cahoots with the Caesar, somebody great in place of political power, like it is today. And James is saying to this person, why are you particularly showing favoritism to this man that's rich because of his monopolies the state gave him? When God chose the poor and not many people like this. Now, let me just explain some things. God did not choose all poor people. There'll be a lot of poor people in hell There'll be a lot of poverty stricken people in hell That life was miserable here Their life will be more miserable there When you hear preachers say God is for poor people No God is for his poor people There are some poor people that do not belong to God. But before the beginning of time, God did choose many poor and disadvantaged people to be His children. In fact, one of the verses in the Bible that I live by is Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians. Not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the weak and the lowly. and the unimportant in the eyes of this world to confound and confuse the high and the mighty. Have you ever noticed that in the history of the church most Christians have been poor? Have you noticed in the history of the church most Christians have not been middle class? So James is telling them Don't discriminate against poor people because they're poor. Because God has chosen many, many poor people to be heirs of the promises of God. And on the other hand, it's not sinful to be rich. God makes people rich. Read sometimes Proverbs 3. where it says God makes rich those people many times, not always, but many times those who are faithful to him. So throughout the history of the church, there have not been many rich people to be saved. There were some. Abraham was extremely rich. Solomon was richer. And we can go through the Bible and find out that some of the greatest Christians in the Bible were rich people. Not many, but some, and praise the Lord there were some, because it takes a lot of money to conquer the world for Jesus. Praise the Lord for poor people that are saved. Pray the Lord for poor people that God has chosen to eternal life. They're the ones that God's gonna use, the humble and the lowly and the insignificant in the eyes of the world. God's gonna use them to transform this whole world with the gospel. Praise the Lord for those rich people that God has chosen, that they can finance this conquest of the world. So he says to them, brethren, your distinctions, your discriminations are unbiblical. They're detrimental to yourself. Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? He's saying to them, when you discriminate in this way, not according to character, but according to outward look, you're being detrimental to the church. You're chasing away the poor person. Because these rich people, that you're showing favoritism with were the oppressors of those poor people, made them their slaves, put them in lowly places in Roman society. They oppressed these people. Slavery in Rome was a terrible thing. So you're doing injustice to the church. You're running away the very people that God says He's going to use to conquer the world. So racism, partiality is disobedient to God and detrimental to the church. Seven, do they not, that is these rich people, do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? Here you putting these rich people simply because they're rich. These black people simply because they're black. They're white people just simply because they're white. Don't you know that they're the ones that blaspheme the fair name by which you were called? That they've been in opposition to the gospel. They've used their businesses, their finances, their wealth, their power. to advance themselves and not for the advancement of the gospel. They blaspheme the fair name by which you were called. What's he talking about? I think he's talking about baptism. Don't you know they have blasphemed the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit into which you were baptized when you joined the church? He's trying to impress them with how evil this thing of partiality is. Verse 8, if, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. Now he's saying this idea of racism, partiality, discrimination, showing favoritism because of the outward things about a person. It is a direct disobedience to the law of God. You can't love your neighbors yourself and show partiality based upon what a man has or his external conditions. Now it's interesting that James has a great love for the law of God. You remember we saw the other day in chapter one, he talks about the law as the perfect law of liberty. That the law of God in the Bible is the only perfect system of ethics and justice in the world. And it is a law of liberty. It's only when you live within the boundary of God's law that you're a free man or a free woman. And now he calls the law of God the law of the king. The king's law. And who's the king, you think? The glory. The man that puts all these other rich men in his shadow. He said, you're disobeying the king's law. The greatest king in the world. The king of kings and lord of lords. That every man, both rich and poor and black and white, should bow down before them with their face in the dust. In submission before this king. And you dare disobey the king's law, the royal law that says love your neighbors yourself. Well, it's not just talking about that quote in the New Testament. You remember when Jesus was asked, what's the greatest law of all the laws? And he said, well, the great one is to love your Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And the second is like unto it. to love your neighbors yourself on these two laws hang all the law of the prophets you know what Jesus was doing there he was quoting the book of Leviticus Jesus did not make up the law on that day to love your neighbors yourself he's quoting the book of Leviticus it's a quote directly out of the Old Testament so is the king's law just the Old Testament just the New Testament? Is James saying now you're disobeying Christ's law in the New Testament? No. He's saying you're disobeying the royal law of the king wherever that law is expressed in both Old Testament and both New Testament. What is it to love your neighbors yourself? Does it mean like a lot of people today think it means that you must love yourself in order to love other people? No. In Timothy it says that in the last days perilous times will come when men will be lovers of themselves. John Calvin explained it like this. He said to love your neighbors yourself is to turn yourself inside out with reference to your neighbor. And that is that same energy, that same devotion, that same sacrifice, that you have for your own well-being and your own happiness. Turn yourself inside out and now show those various attributes to those who are in need. So James is being tough on these people. You've broken the law of the king, verse 9, but if you show partiality, You are committing sin and convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles or sins, in one point he has become guilty of all." Now what is that saying? Is that saying that all sin is the same? Whether it's abortion, whether it's homosexuality, whether it's robbery, whatever it is, all sin is equally heinous. No. Some sins are far more heinous and more wicked than others. And what makes some sins more wicked than other sins? Well, turn to the Westminster Larger Catechism. Go to question 150 and 151. And it will tell you. That's the longest answer to any questions in the entire Westminster Confession of Faith. The longest answer is what makes some sins more wicked than other sins. So, question 150, 151. So what is he saying here? He's saying if you're guilty of breaking one sin, You're guilty of them all. Verse 11, for Hugh said, do not commit adultery. Also said, do not commit murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Well, let's say you have a horse and that horse is in your pasture and it's a big pasture and has a fence around it. When that horse jumps the fence, it doesn't matter whether it's on the north side or the south side or the west side or the east side of that pasture. He's outside the fence. He's outside the circle of safety. And James is saying that the law of God is not just a group of unrelated ethical principles. He's saying the law of God is one because God is one. And so when you break one law, you're putting yourself outside the fence. You're putting yourself out there in the wilderness of danger. You're not within the circle of safety. You're safe if you're in the fence. But you break the law of God, You don't repent of it, even if you keep all these, but you don't break that, but you don't keep that one. You've jumped the fence. I wonder what happens to people that jump the fence. So he says, that's you, you may be let do it, get everything right. But if you're a racist, You're outside the fence. If you show partiality to somebody just because he's rich on a higher level than you are socially, economically, educationally, financially, if you show preferences and favoritism and show deference to the rich man and look down your nose at the poor man, you've jumped over the fence. and you're in this realm of danger. You're no longer under the sovereign God's royal law. You're in rebellion to it. Verse 12, so speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. So we got the perfect law of liberty, We got the law, royal law, and we've got the law of liberty. That it's only when you're in the fence that you're free. When you're outside the fence, you're a slave to your own desires, your own preferences, and your own likes and dislikes. You're a slave to sin, you're a slave to Satan. It's only when you're in obedience to the law of liberty for the sake of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory. that you're free. And as long as you're a racist, you're not free. White racism, black racism. Thirteen. What a verse for Why should we judge and be judged only by the law of liberty? 13, for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Let me tell you what one commentator said. Summarized this way, an unmerciful person will be judged mercilessly by the God of love. That's something to keep in mind. That if you live your life as showing partiality to people because of what they are, the color of their skin, and you're unmerciful to those who need mercy, God will judge you unmercifully. When you stand before God on judgment day and there's no repentance in your life, and you have been a person who's been dedicated to partiality, the most important thing in your life, what a man looks like, what he's made of himself, and you show deference to him as over against the poor guy or show deference to the poor guy because you don't like wealthy guys. On judgment day, you will stand before God and God will judge you in all of his wrath and fury with no mercy. But he is the God of love. So how do you get that in the picture? Notice the last sentence, verse 13. For judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Memorize that. Mercy triumphs over judgment. There's coming a day in history and at the end of history when God will judge without mercy all those who have treated other people without mercy. But when judgment comes after the wicked, to destroy the wicked, and then it turns its sights on the chosen of God, God says, back off. No judgment is going to keep me from having mercy on those who belong to me. Now how do you know you belong to God? The next verse, which we're not preaching on today, What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warm to be filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. That's why he wrote these 13 verses. He says, the only people that are going to experience the mercy of God on Judgment Day. Everybody else will be treated without mercy. But mercy will triumph over judgment in the lives of all the elect of God. How do you know you are one of the elect of God? You have faith in Jesus, the glory. How do you know you have faith in Jesus, the glory? That faith proves itself in a life of works. Faith without works is dead. It proves itself in a life of obedience and compassion and holiness without partiality. So if your faith is real, you stand before God on judgment day, judgment isn't going to touch you. Mercy will save you. If you have faith, that shows itself in works, which works God demands of you. But if you're a racist, black or white, and you don't repent of that racism, you're outside the pasture. And those outside the pasture will not receive mercy. Let's pray. We do praise you, Father, for your mercy revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do thank you for showing us mercy and saving us from our sins, disobedience, our jumping across fences, our racism, our partiality. We thank you that none of those things are unpardonable sins. And we thank you that they have been forgiven. And you will remember them against us no more. Because the death and resurrection of the glory which someday will engulf us throughout all eternity. Amen. Let us stand and confess our faith in the living God by reciting the Apostles' Creed together. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the sick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a great preacher in the late middle 20th century. Very great. One of the greatest preachers in terms of gifts that ever lived. He developed cancer. And when it became terminal, it became very hard. It was a long time dying. He was in bed for a long time, suffering cancer. Cancer was raging through his whole body. He was unconscious a lot of the time and came to every now and then. And every time he became conscious, he saw his wife sitting there in the chair by him on the bed, beside the bed, praying for him. Praying that God would heal him. Praying that God wouldn't let this great preacher die. And then one time, Right toward the end, Martin Lloyd-Jones came to and looked at his sweet wife praying for him. And he said, quit praying for me. Quit hindering me from entering the glory. That's what happens when you die. And this meal is a celebration of that fact. Because when you die, what's going to happen to you is what happens here when we take the Lord's Supper symbolically. You got a bunch of paupers. You got a bunch of dirty, sinful paupers sitting at the dinner table of the greatest king in the world. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this awesome privilege of being able to commune in table fellowship.