Well, let's turn once again to the letter of James. James chapter 2, and we're reading from the first verse. My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, here's a good seat for you, but say to the poor man, you stand there or sit on the floor by my feet, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? but you've insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, love your neighbour as yourself, you're doing right. But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. Because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Imagine the scene in a court of law. The evidence clearly shows the accused is guilty of breaking and entering as a burglar. And having summed up all the evidence, the judge goes on to consider how many other crimes the accused has not committed. how many other burglaries there have been in which he was not at all involved, and many other crimes with which he's had no association whatsoever. And the judge draws the conclusion that in the light of all the things that he has not done, it would be unreasonable to label this man a lawbreaker. And so he discharges him. We wouldn't think that was an example of justice. That what he had done could be disregarded because of all the other things that he hasn't done. And James, in the portion we're looking at, exposes the use of that kind of excuse even among Christians, for all that they haven't done well, surely what they have done then can be overlooked. So I want to turn today to the next section of James 2. We're looking at verses 8 to 13, keeping God's law, keeping God's law. We think first of all of the command of the king, Command of the King. James begins with a commendation of obedience to God's law. He talks about keeping the royal law found in Scripture. And immediately, we see something very important for Christians. It shows us at once that the law of God has a role in Christian living. that it has a place in the life of the Lord's people. James refers to the royal law, that the law of the king that comes with his absolute authority. We have royal law that comes with the stamp of the monarch's authority ultimately. And so here, as we think of God's law, it's coming with his own authority. It's a law that comes not to be debated or questioned. Do we keep it? Do we not? Does it matter to us? Does it not? It is the law of God to be obeyed. Now, to many Christians, that is quite a strange thought, that Christians need to be thinking about God's law. The attitude of many is, well, you're saved by grace, not by keeping the law, and therefore, as a Christian, you're finished with the law. You don't need to think about it anymore. Surely, some Christians would think, once you're a Christian, you live by love for the Lord. And so, you don't need to go back to the law. It's not Old Testament. We're New Testament Christians. And so, in their thinking and their outlook on discipleship, they see no place for God's law. And that's a profoundly mistaken approach. It produces all kinds of poisonous fruit in the lives of professing Christians. the royal law found in Scripture, or according to the Scriptures. There, when we open the pages of this book, is the place where God's law is revealed. And what is God's law? How are we to think of it? Well, it's God's fatherly instruction for his children. When we read the expression, God's law, You probably tend to think in terms of statutes and commandments in the Old Testament, maybe legislation that we might come across today that often needs experts just to understand the words that are used. And certainly God's law at times has that form of statutes and commands. But the biblical idea of the law of God The Torah is the word that's used and applied to the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible. It's a father speaking to his children. It's a father giving direction. The book of Proverbs, for example, is often cast in that form, a father speaking to his son. My son, do this, avoid that, and so forth. And that's true for all of Scripture. When we think of the royal law, we're not just thinking of parts of books or one or two books of the Bible, but we're thinking of the whole of God's revealed will. We're thinking of the whole of Scripture, not just the parts that have the appearance of legal documents. The royal law is the whole of God's Word for his people. It's the Father's instruction for his family to guide and direct them. And as James understands, the law still has a vital place for the Lord's people. God's law certainly exposes sin to lead us to Christ, and often, in the process of conversion, God's law will be playing a vital part. The law is given to show sin and lead us to Christ. God's law also, in societies that know it, can provide also a restraint on sin. That was the case in our own society and past generation. It's rapidly disappearing. There was a time the fact that the Bible forbade certain things and commanded other things had an effect on society as a whole, on people who weren't necessarily converted. So it exercised a restraint on sin. But there's also what some of the reformers like Calvin referred to as the third use of the law. And that use is the law as a guide for life for the people of God. And so in Romans 7, 22, we hear the apostle Paul writing, in my inner being, I delight in God's law. Many Christians would be mystified at that thought, that the delight in God's law, they've finished with it. But we haven't. Third use of the law, it is vitally important for us. The law is a guide for life. And that's why we find often, particularly in the Psalms, expressions such as the one we sang in Psalm 119, oh, how I love your law. Again, Christians would be amazed to think of loving the law, but we should. If God's grace is in our hearts, we will love God's law, and we show our love for the Lord by our obedience. That's what John writes about, 1 John 5 and verse 3. This is love for God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. God's law, when we're Christians, doesn't stand over us condemning us. It does that when we're not converted. It tells us we are lost sinners. It stands as a judge that condemns. But now, for the Christian, the law comes as our Father, the King, addressing us, guiding us, showing us the path that we are to walk. That's the royal law that James is referring to. And the heart of God's law actually is love. And to many, there's a tension between law and love. If you love the Lord, do you need to worry about obeying his law? And the Bible says, yes. James says, yes. Here is the royal law summed up, love your neighbour as yourself. Commandment that goes right back to Leviticus 19 and verse 18. And Jesus gives this as one of the two great commandments summing up the law in debate with the scribes and Pharisees, Matthew 22, 39. Then perhaps we hesitate because when Jesus summed up the law, doesn't he say it's love the Lord your God and then love your neighbor as yourself? Is there something Different about James's grasp of the law, his idea here, he only mentions love your neighbor as yourself as something missing. But no, it isn't. Because the Bible shows us, in fact, a proper love for our neighbors. actually indicates the reality of love for the Lord, love for God. And so the one command can sum up God's law. Paul himself does that in Galatians 5.14. The entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. This is the heart of what God requires. A love for neighbor that flows out of love for God himself. And so love for God, love for neighbor are not two totally separate commands. They are essentially the same thing. And so here's a summing up of the royal law. Love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, love for God, Our obedience, rather, to God isn't to be a cold, unfeeling keeping of the rules. You can keep rules, you can keep laws without any emotional input. Most of the laws of the land we keep, we don't keep because we love the laws. It doesn't stir our hearts with delight to think of keeping the law. But our keeping of God's law is something that should engage our hearts A wholehearted, loving response to God's grace and God's mercy. So, love for God and obedience to God's law are not two different things. They go together inextricably. We're not called to keep God's rules with our teeth gritted reluctantly and resentfully. It should delight us. Note the relevance of this. to the warnings we've already looked at in verses 1 to 7, but showing favoritism. And James comes back to that in verse 9. If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. To show favoritism is a practical denial of the law of love. True Christian love treats each person as of equal value. Favoritism is a blatant breaking of the royal law, refusing to be like our Father. And that, in the end, is what we're seeking, likeness to our Father. And we'll do that by obeying His direction, His law for us. And the reality of breaking God's law is spelled out. The reality of our sinfulness If we break God's law, we are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. And the word that's used there is an interesting word. It's the idea of stepping over a boundary. You come to the limits that God has set, and you step over. That's the word that is used for lawbreakers. God has set the limits, and to break that law of love is a serious matter. If we are heirs of God's kingdom, as verse 5 describes us. Then we will love and we'll honour the royal law. If you're a Christian, you're to delight in the law of God. It's not something alien. And it's not something standing over you to condemn you. It's your father addressing you as to how you ought to live. Your father's a king. That's a royal law. but it is your Father, the King, who is directing you in love. The command of the King. If you grasped the place the law still has for you as a Christian, it's not something to put away and forget about. It's the Father, the Royal Father, addressing your need and directing your paths. The command of the King. Secondly, James goes on as he thinks of the subject further to think of the unity of the law, the unity of the law. Verses 10 and 11 drive home James's point. Some might try to claim, but look, if I love rich people, Well, surely that's partly obeying God's law, isn't it? If you're to love your neighbor, well, if you love your rich neighbor, well, you've done part of it at least. It can't be too bad, can it? I've kept part of the law. Yes, there's the bit about loving the poor neighbor that I'm not doing, but at least I'm going partway. But James is showing us that keeping One part of the law isn't an excuse for transgressing another part. Lord Jesus put his finger on that feeling of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. Scribes and Pharisees were scrupulous in tithing spices and herbs down to the very last detail, but they neglected justice and mercy. And Jesus says to them in Matthew 23, in verse 23, you should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. They ought to be doing both. The perfect obedience to one commandment doesn't compensate for disobedience to another. That's why we can't redeem ourselves. You might keep part of God's Word very faithfully, but that doesn't make up for your failures and your breaking of God's law. And so that is vitally important to take to heart. The law of God, you see, is really more like a pane of glass than a pile of stones. That might seem odd to us. What do we mean by that? Well, simply, if you have a pile of stones, You could take one off the top, and the pile will still be there. It'll be a bit lower, a bit smaller, but it'll still be there. And people seem to think of God's laws like that. Well, you might break one command, but all the rest are there. But it's really like a pane of glass, because once it's cracked, it's cracked. Might be a small crack in one corner. Might be a huge crack in the middle. But it's broken. It is a cracked pane of glass. And that's how it is with the law of God. One act of disobedience constitutes a person a lawbreaker. Whoever keeps the whole law, James says, yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. You've become a lawbreaker. Now, James is not saying that you're guilty of all sorts of sins you didn't actually commit. That is not what he's saying. He's not saying, well, if you have stolen, but you're also guilty of murder and coveting and all kinds of other sins. He's not saying that. That's not the point. The point is that if you break God's law, you've broken it. It's a broken law. The pain is cracked. It is not intact any longer. He gives the example of, well, You haven't committed, say, the sin of adultery. You've committed murder, but you're still a breaker of God's law. And we need to take that to heart and remember that. We can so easily console ourselves by thinking, well, I haven't done this and this and this. We talk to people, of course, who will say that. I haven't done these terrible things. So I'm not really a bad person. And they could list. All kinds of sins that they haven't committed, at least so they believe. But of course, they have broken God's law in some other way. And that's the point James is driving home. That it may not be any of these sins that everybody realizes are sinful, but it may be an invisible sin like covetousness or envy. And breaking God's law is breaking God's law. God's law is a seamless unity. It's not just a collection of random rules that you can tick off. Well, I've kept that one, and I've kept that one, and I've kept that one. So I'm not too bad. James says you've got to clear that mistaken thinking out of your mind and remember that the law of God is a seamless unity. God's law depicts what holiness looks like. It's a transcription into the terms of our earthly living of the holiness of God. That's really what God's law is. It's not simply a random collection of requirements that God thought up to impose upon us. That's what His holiness looks like, translated into terms of our life here in this world. That is what holiness is, and that's what the law is all about. So when we disobey God's law, in whatever way it may be, we're dishonoring our Father. We are, at that point, denying the family bond. We're not listening to our Father. Our obedience to God is to be an expression of love, love for him and love for the whole of his law. Caleb's a very interesting comment. He says, God will not be given obedience with exceptions attached. That's the point that you can't come to God and say, well, Lord, I'll keep all of these There are one or two things that I have trouble with, but I'll keep all of these, and I hope you'll be satisfied with that. Now, you wouldn't, of course, openly ever dare to say that, but perhaps in corners of our hearts and minds, that's how we think. You find yourself tempted to say, well, Lord, look, I haven't done this, and I haven't done that, and I haven't done something else. I'm not too bad. You can't be too displeased with me. If the pain is cracked, it's cracked. At whatever point, you've broken it. And so, you stand as a lawbreaker before God. And His grace is your only hope. Praise the Lord. His grace is our hope. Because otherwise, we would be lost. and we wouldn't continue in the Christian life for a moment. So we do have the command of the King. It is the royal law that addresses us as the children of the Lord. There's the unity of the law that we can't console ourselves by all that we haven't done in breaking God's law as some kind of excuse and get out for the ways in which we have broken it. And of course, often, Christians will tend to emphasize the sins that are no attraction for them. And they can be very hard on particular sins, knowing full well that that's not my temptation. But the areas perhaps where we might struggle, perhaps there's less attention given. And James won't let us off the hook. He drives home the lesson again in the end of our passage, because thirdly, he speaks of the prospect of the judgment. The prospect of the judgment. We can't be faithful to a biblical description of the Christian faith and the Christian life if we omit to mention the reality of judgment. That's a note that is absent from much preaching today, the idea that there is a judgment to be faced. Well, after all, that's not something people want to hear. That will put them off. And often in evangelism, the note of judgment is absent. But it isn't from the preaching of the apostles. It isn't from the Scriptures. And James turns to the fact of judgment in verses 12 and 13. because a sobering reminder that our obedience will be tested by the lawgiver, by the judge. Remember what Paul says in Athens, Acts 17, 31, God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. The life we are called to live as God's children is one of holiness and word and deed. Speak and act, James says, as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged. Remember your accountability as God's people. Our life is to be a unity. Words and actions in harmony. God's law addresses all of life. There's nothing outside His concern and His evaluation. We need to take the reality of judgment into account. It is the law, as James says, that gives freedom. It's the law of liberty. It's the area within which we live freely as children of God. And if we are within the boundaries of God's law, we're free. We're the only free people in the face of the earth if we are living within the boundaries of the law of God, outside Those limits is slavery to sin. And for those who are God's children, to step outside the limits brings misery. It brings chastening. A warning particularly that James gives about being merciful. Are we merciful people? Because James says, judgment will be without mercy anyone who has not been merciful. Showing mercy is a test of our love for the Lord, our reflection of His likeness. He is a merciful God. But if we don't have a living faith in our hearts, if we haven't experienced God's grace changing us and making us new people, we will not be merciful. We will not reflect God's likeness. And so the prospect of judgment is a fearful thing. Perhaps that makes us anxious, we think, but we know our failures. And if we're to stand in judgment because of our failures, what hope is there for us? We're doomed. Then James reminds us, mercy triumphs over judgment. There's no way we can avoid condemnation if it's purely an evaluation of our obedience. We've all failed. There's not a single exception here today. We've all failed. And if we were to stand in judgment on the basis of our obedience, we would be lost. Yet God is merciful. He's shown us mercy in the Lord Jesus. He's forgiven the sins of those who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christ who's taken our sin and our guilt and borne it on the cross in our place. There's mercy. There's the mercy of God to utterly undeserving sinners like you and like me. Mercy triumphs over judgment. And that's our only hope when we will stand before the Lord, because we will. Paul tells us we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, every one of us. What is your hope for that day? Is it a list of the things you didn't do and the commandments you didn't break and you hope it's enough? The idea of judgment is like scales, where you put the bad on one side and the good on the other, and you hope the good is weightier than the bad. That's a non-biblical idea. We stand before God as sinners. In Christ, we can stand as forgiven sinners, as those who've received mercy, and that mercy will triumph over judgment. And that's our hope, and that's our only hope, and it's the only hope we need as we face the prospect of that Judgment Day. Are you resting in the mercy of God? Is that your hope today? Not trusting in how much obedience you've managed to render, hoping that the disobedience will be overlooked If you're disobedient, the glass is cracked, the law is broken. What you deserve is judgment. But if you're resting in Christ and trusting in Him, there's mercy. Mercy that will enable you to be a merciful person and to show what God is like to a watching world. Do you have that hope? Have you received the mercy of God and Christ? Do you have peace with God through Him? And is He shaping you, making you more like Him in this world? May the Lord stir us to a joyful, willing obedience to His commandments and a trust in His mercy on our sins and our failures.