Atlanta Bible Baptist Church

Pastor Ray P. Smith: If you have your copy of the scriptures or a device that contains them, if it's a cell phone, then I would appreciate you doing two things. One, turning to the passage, and second, putting your cell phone on mute. Like I say, I don't mind if you get a call from Jesus, but if it's not Him, hang up.

This morning, we just want to look at a couple of verses here. In fact, I'll just reread the last couple of verses in this section, verses 12 and 13, that says, "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy." Isn't that a great statement? Mercy triumphs over judgment.

I want us to consider that truth this morning. Father, thank You so much again. Thank You for Your goodnesses. Thank You for Your mercies. I thank You for allowing us to get up, get out, get in, get under the hearing of Your word. Thank You for allowing us to gather together with one another as members of Your forever family.

We sit at Your feet, Father, and ask that You might be pleased to speak to our heart, allow Your word to penetrate and strengthen us in grace to receive with meekness that word. As always, we ask to bind up the mouth and the hands of the evil one. That only heaven's splendor will be revealed and only the word of God will be spoken and honored in this moment. We'll pledge, as always, to give You the praise and the honor and the thanksgiving, because we ask all of these things in Jesus's matchless name and for His sake. Amen.

John Bunyan, back in the 1600s, wrote a number of allegories. Probably the most prominent of them is "Pilgrim's Progress," but he did write another one called "The Holy War." If you have read that, then, of course, you were struck by the simplicity of it. In "The Holy War," Bunyan talks about this city called Mansoul. In the city, which initially belonged, it was under the tutelage of this king called Shaddai, right? That's obviously God.

What happens in the story is Diabolos, the evil one, he comes in and he has those who betray the city of Mansoul over to him. Diabolos then begins to make changes. He sacks those who lead. The mayor of the city, Understanding, is removed, and even the recorder, Conscience, is put down. The mayor was Understanding; the recorder was Conscience. They're removed and replaced with his own little denizens.

Of course, the story revolves around this Emmanuel, who comes to fight against Diabolos and retake the city. He uses, or Diabolos, there are two gates. There's the Eye-gate and the Ear-gate. Of course, these are the two areas that Emmanuel will come to assault. In one particular scene, as Emmanuel is moving to assault the Ear-gate, then Diabolos, he places someone there to guard that entrance.

The person that he places there is an old guy called Prejudice. Prejudice has with him 60 men who are called deaf men. It's an interesting thing, because the deaf men, they don't take in what anybody says, so they're un-moved from their assignment. The thing that I believe Bunyan is trying to say to us is that when you have prejudice and when people are hearing words of prejudice, then they tune out everything else.

It doesn't matter what you say to them, their hearts are hardened and unchanged as a result of the things that they have heard. It's a very clever way for him to say that Satan uses prejudice to shut down, to dampen, to stamp out the hearing of the gospel. That was not just true in the 1600s, that's very true today. It's one of those things that really harms the testimony of the people who belong to God.

Last week, as we began to talk about this section, we talked about the problem with partiality. Partiality is just a very kind way of saying prejudice and favoritism. I gave you an outline for the first 13 verses, and as is my way, I alliterate each of the points, except that I had this epic fail when it came to verses eight through 11.

Last week, we talked about verses one through seven, and we talked about the principle and the picture and then the paradox. This morning, all we want to do is cover these last six verses and talk about this violation and the preeminence then of mercy. As we walk through this, just a quick recap, a couple of pictures. Number one, the principle is that partiality is incompatible with faith. Why? Because God doesn't show partiality. We looked at various verses that talked about that.

Then in verses two through four, we looked at this picture. This picture of there's the one guy in the shining armor, the shining picture, he's all decked out, and then you have the guys dressed, he's all ratchet and looking unappealing, and how there was the tendency to favor the person who looks really immaculate and to disdain the one who doesn't. Then, of course, we looked at the paradox. Now, that is a paradox, because I don't know why the words "the paradox" are no longer up there on that particular slide, but there were words "the paradox" up there in those particular verses, verses five through seven.

That's what we talked about last week, and this morning, we want to continue looking at these verses. Let's hit right on into this. Verses eight through 11 talk about the violation. Here's what James says. If you look at verses eight and nine there, he says, "If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scriptures," that word "fulfilling" is a very interesting word. It's a very strategic word, because the word there literally means if you're doing.

He's talking about you have a code in your heart that determines how you act, right? You're fulfilling, you're doing, you're carrying out the royal law, because you've got that code inside. The code says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." He says, "That's how I roll." But then he says, "You're doing well, but if you show partiality," that long word is a compound word. It means to receive or to take and then the first part it means appearance.

What you're taking, the appearance into consideration, the idea is there's a disconnect between the code that you claim to have in your heart that you live by, that dictates what you do, and yet at the same time, you're making assessments on the basis of appearance. What's in your heart on the inside doesn't match what you're using to assess on the outside is the point that James is making. He says if that's what you're doing, you're committing sin and you're convicted by the law as transgressors.

Partiality violates the royal law. James calls this the royal law. Why? Well, let me give you three reasons. Number one, because the law is given by the King, and the King is royal. The God who created you is the one who gave you the law, that royal law. Secondly, it's really important because the royal law summarizes relationships.

In fact, Jesus said that it's second only to loving God, and we'll look at that as well. Let me give you a couple of verses in case you say I made this up. Leviticus 19:18 says, "You shall not take vengeance. Don't be paying people back." People had that t-shirt: "I don't get mad. I get even." Well, that's sin. It's wrong. He said, "Don't take vengeance, don't bear a grudge against the sons of your people, but you love your neighbor as yourself," because I am the boss.

When he says, "I am the Lord," I call the shots, and it's what I say. Do it because I said so. You say, "Well, that's cold-blooded." Well, that is when You're God, when You're the creator, when You're the boss, You can call the shots. He says, "Love your neighbor, because that's what I want."

Matthew 22, the religious leaders, they were trying to trap Jesus, and He would always shut them down. One of them, a lawyer, stood up to ask a question, but he was testing him. He says, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? You've got the Ten Words, which is the greatest?" He says to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

In verse 40, he says, "On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets." When we say "law and the prophets," it's talking about the entire Old Testament. All of the writings of God up to that point, they point to those two things: loving God and loving your neighbor. When you look at the Ten Commandments, it's really simple. The Ten Commandments are not a statement of what you're doing wrong. The Ten Commandments are a statement of what love looks like.

The first four talk about worshipping God. This is what loving God looks like. You don't put any other gods before Him, you don't make any graven images, any likeness of Him, then you keep the Sabbath, a time to focus on Him and His goodness. It's all about how to worship God. But the next six are all about how to treat people. You start with honoring the most important people, your parents. It says, "Honor your father and your mother."

Then he talks about what? He says, "Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, don't covet." That's how to treat people. So, it's really a statement. What does love look like? Loving God looks like this, the first four. Loving people looks like that, the next six. It's all about walking in love. Of course, the scriptures say that you walk in love like God. You say, "Well, I'm not God." No, but here's the thing. You're an imitator of God.

In fact, how many times? Probably there aren't three weeks out of the month that I don't mention Ephesians 5:1, "Be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love." That's what it says. You ought to imitate God. In fact, God has put His spirit in you, if you know Christ as savior and Lord, and the spirit in you produces fruit. What's the first one? The first one is love. The spirit will produce love in you. You don't have to try to dredge it up. He'll produce it in you. You've just got to get out of the way.

Sometimes you're like this, you don't want to let the love flow because you don't like that person, because you're walking in partiality, you're walking in sin. It's interesting when you think about what God has done. You know, when you review what happened in the book of Exodus, God sent 70 people down into Egypt and He turned them into two, three million people, and then He allowed them to be subjugated, He allowed them to be enslaved under the hand of the Egyptians.

Then what He did is He sent a deliverer, Moses, to bring them up and out. Of course, He says to Moses before He sends him, "This will be the sign that I've sent you. They're going to worship God at this mountain." See, God already had in mind before He ever sent Moses to Egypt, He said, "Listen, you're going to bring the people out so they can meet with me here, and they will become my people."

When you look at what God does, you look at His ways, this is how He operates. First, God takes people who are in bondage spiritually, and by the blood of Christ, He breaks them free. He sets them free from the ravages of sin, from the penalty of sin, the bondage to sin. He sets them free, and then He gives them His laws so that they could walk in obedience to Him. We're set free from enslavement so that we can now serve Him by keeping His law.

For us, that means that the things that God has called us to do, they're not optional things. They are requirements, not for salvation, but because He's saved us. He sets us free that we might walk under His rule. Why? So that people around us can see what it looks like to walk under His rule. The law of love governs everything that we do. So, you have to treat people the way that God wants you to treat people because you represent God. If you don't, you're making God look bad.

So, I'll give you three thoughts here. Number one, partiality breaks the royal law, because the law says love your neighbor. Love your neighbor, not love your neighbor if. It says love your neighbor, period. Secondly, favoritism is not a small flaw. "It's just some people I don't like, and some people I just can't love that person." That's not true. If you've got Christ's love in you, you can love that person. The truth of the matter is you choose not to because you're walking in partiality, favoritism, prejudice.

It's not just a small flaw; it's sin, and the law convicts us of it. The law says you're wrong because you're not walking in love. Then, of course, we can't honor Christ while dishonoring the people He died for. That doesn't make sense. That's hypocritical. Well, anyway, I don't want to beat you up with that, so let's just move along to the next point.

Look at verses 10 and 11. He says, "For whoever keeps the whole law and stumbles in one point, he is guilty of all of it." Because the one who said, "Don't commit adultery," is the same one that said, "Don't steal or murder." Now, if you don't commit adultery, but you murder, you become a transgressor of the law. You're like that guy in that song that says, "I shot the sheriff, but I didn't shoot the deputy." Oh, you're okay then. No, you're not. You committed a crime.

It's one unit. Now, those of you who are younger may not be able to relate to this, but back in the day, we used to keep a pitcher in the refrigerator, a water pitcher. The water pitcher was there because on the hot days like we have in Atlanta, you would fill up that bad boy and you'd put it in the refrigerator so that when people came in, they could pour themselves a glass of nice cold water. Now, you know what happened. People would pour out, pour out, pour out, and then they would get down to the very bottom, and then they would just leave that little bit in there. Don't raise your hand if you did that. But you know some people that did, right?

Instead of taking it and filling it back up again so everybody could have cold water, they just said, "I don't want to be responsible." But anyway, that's not where I want to go. I remember on my day to wash the dishes, there was seven of us and we each had a day to wash the dishes. I remember my day to wash the dishes, and I had the glass pitcher, but my mom had made lemonade, so you can't just put water in, you've got to wash it out. So, I put that glass pitcher into the sink, but I put it down too hard and I heard "crack." I lifted it up and the water decided it didn't feel like staying in that pitcher anymore.

Now, I didn't say to myself, "Oh, you know, most of this is really good. I mean, the handle still looks nice, the rim is still all ornate and everything, it's all good." We didn't keep that pitcher. Why? Because that pitcher wasn't any good. You say, "Oh, but most of it was good." No. How many pitchers? One pitcher. And that one crack, it didn't just affect most of the pitcher, it affected the whole pitcher, because the pitcher was one unit. God says, "You know what? My law is one unit, and when you break one part of it, you've broken the unit."

That's kind of a serious thing. I can't say, "Well, I keep most of it." God is not a "most of it" guy. He says do it. In fact, a couple of points there. Number one, to stumble on one point is to be guilty of breaking the whole law, because the same God who forbids adultery and murder also forbids partiality. So, if you treat people in a partial way, James says you're guilty of the entire law. You can't say, "Well, I've never committed adultery, I've never stolen anything that I got caught doing." You can't run down the list and excuse yourself because it's just one list, and if you break any part of it, and that includes partiality because partiality goes against the law that says love your neighbor as yourself. James is really trying to rock with this point here.

Breaking one commandment makes us guilty before God, not because every sin has identical consequences. They don't. Being able to hit somebody is not the same as murdering somebody in terms of the consequences, but every sin is rebellion against the lawgiver, all of it. God hates sin because God is righteous.

There's this one account in the Old Testament where God says, "Keep the Sabbath, no work on the Sabbath." So everybody would stay home on Saturday. It was one brother, I guess on Saturday, apparently he didn't have enough sticks. He was out picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Of course, somebody saw him, called five-o. Moses says, "Lock him up, let's see what the judge says." So they put him in custody, and the lawgiver says to Moses, "Take him out and stone him to death." You're like, "What? Stone him? Moses, come on boy, he's just picking up sticks."

Now, if you think the issue was picking up sticks, you've got the whole thing wrong. The issue was not picking up sticks. The issue was the decision that says, "I know what God said, but you know what? I don't care what God says. I need me some sticks, and my needs supersede what He says." Once you decide that my needs supersede what He says, you aren't going to stop with picking up sticks. You're going to pick up everything else, you're going to continue to do it because you've already put yourself above the law of God. God says, "Uh-huh, stone him. I want everybody to know that what I say goes." That was the issue.

Aren't you glad that God doesn't do the same thing today? Some of us would not be here. God deals with us not on the basis of each individual law that we break, but He deals with us according to His grace. Grace is giving us what we don't deserve, not because God is soft on sin, but because God has already made provision to cover and take away the sin. That's just the point of verse 13 when it says, "Mercy triumphs over judgment."

So when we talk about the preeminence of mercy, look at verses 12 and 13. He says, "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty." Now underline "speak" and "act" because what comes out of the mouth and what's carried out by the feet and the hands. We said before, those of you that are visiting, we always say that every person has three tongues. Three tongues. You have one in your mouth and two in your shoes, and all three need to be going in the same direction. That's integrity. All three going in the same direction. If my mouth is wagging that way, but my shoes, my feet are walking this way, I don't have integrity. I've lied and sinned against God.

He says, "So speak and so act" that the two line up together so that you're not being hypocritical. Now my beloved is not here today, and she has asked me repeatedly not to use her in illustrations, but since she's not here today, I know some of you say, "I can't wait till she gets back, I'm going to tell her exactly what you said." Hmm. That's all right. I'll buy a gift, she'll be all right.

Anyway, sometimes, if you've been married more than a minute, you know how it goes. Your wife might do something that to you makes less than no sense. So you say something like, "Why did you do that?" And see, the spiritual thing would be for her to say, "You know, honey, you're right. That doesn't make any sense. I should not have done that." Au contraire. No, what she does, she says, "Well, you can't talk. You've done this and this and this and this." And she'll have a whole litany of things that I've done, and then she'll say, "The pot calling the kettle black."

Really? Maybe that's foreign to you, maybe you've never done that, ladies. Maybe you won't admit that your wife has ever done that to you, guys, but it happens. What I've learned is that when she does something that makes less than no sense to me, I go in my mind, okay, I go back about two years, have I done anything? And if I come across something, I'm like, okay, I can't say anything. I just let it go. It's not a hill to die on.

James is saying, listen, the speech and the actions, they need to line up together, or else you need to stop talking. In fact, what you need to do is you need to work on the action. You need to make sure that your walk and your talk are in sync. He says, "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law." See, God is the one who sees. Practicing the presence of God means I walk around with a conscious awareness that God is watching, and He's weighing, and He's recording every word, every thought, every action.

Because I know that He sees it, I'm not going to answer to you. I'm not going to answer to you. I'm going to answer to Him. And when I stand before Him, the only thing I want to hear is "well done." I don't want to hear "we won't talk about it." I don't want that. Well, we won't have to worry about that because of grace, but I mean, James says, listen, you need to think about the fact that God sees all that you do, and "judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no judgment."

You say, "Well, God is going to do a beat down on me?" That's not what he's saying. In fact, I'll prove it. On your own time, look up Matthew 18, verses 21 to 35. Jesus tells a story about this man, he came before the king and the scripture says he owed a hundred thousand talents. Now, a talent was an amount of money that was equivalent to what a worker could earn in 15 years. And this guy owed a hundred thousand talents. There was no way, I don't know how he got a loan that big, but he owed a whole boatload of money. There's no way he could pay for that in a hundred lifetimes.

The king says, "Okay, just put him in prison, sell him, sell his wife, sell his kids." "No, no, no, forgive me, give me patience, I'll pay, I'll pay every cent." Right. And the king had mercy and he wiped the whole debt clean. Brother bounced out happy, came across another homeboy that owed him a hundred denarii. Now, a denarius is the amount that a worker could earn in a day. It's like a hundred days worth, it's like a third of income for the year this brother owed him. That's not a little bit. However, compared to what he owed, it was less than nothing.

But now he says to the guy, "Pay me!" And the guy says, "Oh, please, please give me time, I'll pay." The exact same words he told the king, almost verbatim. But now this guy, he's like, "I know when I told that to the king, I knew I wasn't going to pay that much. He ain't going to pay me my money. I'm not going to get it. Lock him up!" See, he forgets about mercy, because he knows how I gained the king, and he's trying to gain me. I'm not falling for the gain. I want my money.

But mercy says look at what you received. How could you be so heartless as to hold that over him? Why couldn't you say, "You know, normally I would lock you up or have you locked up or sold or whatever, but man, the king just did me a solid. I can't do that to you." That would have been the right thing to do, but that's not what he did. Because it's not what he did, then he had the guy locked up, and the people that saw him do that told the king, and the king called him back in and called him a miserable, sorry, wicked man, and then he locked him up.

Then Jesus said, "That's what's going to happen to you if you don't forgive from the heart." That would shock them because they know their hearts, and they know that in their hearts there's no way they're going to be able to generate that kind of forgiveness. Neither can you and I. Why would God require us to meet a standard He knows we can't meet? It's over our heads. Of course, it's over our heads. Why? Because the only way that the standard gets met is through Jesus.

See, when you realize how far short you fall, you see how important the mercy of God is. You run to Him and you say, "I can't believe that You forgive me for all of that. You are so merciful. I am a wretch, I'm undone, I don't deserve any of Your goodnesses." It's true, but Christ died for you anyway. God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him won't perish but have everlasting life.

It's a free offer. There's nothing I can do to earn it, there's nothing you would ever do to deserve it, but God gives it to you freely. Once you've been touched by the mercy of God, you know, it's really not that hard to extend mercy to other people if you've been really touched by the mercy of God. I would say that that's a litmus test. You can always tell if somebody's really experienced the mercy of God; just look at how they treat other people.

Let's wrap this up. What does God want me to know and feel and do? Let me give you three quick points. Number one, favoritism is a subtle but it's a dangerous sin. It might seem small, but it attacks the very heart of the gospel, because the gospel is all about the forgiveness of God which we don't deserve. If I say I've received the forgiveness of God and I refuse to act as the law of God calls me to, then there's something wrong with that picture.

The second one I think is one of the most important: the church should be the one community where worldly distinctions disappear, because Christ has made us one. There's no big I, little you. I'm not bigger, better, bolder than you. God has designed us differently, but He has put us together and He has wrapped us in His mercy and His compassion, and His grace fills our hearts so that we extend grace to each other, so that our coming together is always for the better. Because we have something really good to give each other, we can share in love and build up one another, because we've all been touched by the grace of God. That's why the church always needs to come together, because we can build each other up. That doesn't happen when you're out there sitting in front of your TV in your pajamas watching on Zoom. It happens when you're together in the midst of the people.

The third point says when mercy rules our hearts, favoritism loses its power. There are no deaf men around me, there's no Mr. Prejudice standing over me, I'm walking in forgiveness and I'm free to love you because God has so loved me. I'm free to be merciful to you because God has been so merciful to me. I'm free to be kind to you because God has been so kind to me. It's all about what He's done in my life, not about what you've done to me in life. Mercy rules my heart. I leave you with this one last thought: a church captivated by God's mercy will treat every person with dignity, sincere love, and Christ-like compassion. If the love of Christ has touched my heart, has infused my mind, has filled my spirit, if the love of Christ is ruling and reigning in my heart, it'll show in my attitude and actions toward you and toward others around me.

Lord help us. May You strengthen us to walk in that love. And as a church to manifest that love. We want to be like a man I read about, Charles Feeney. This 66-year-old businessman from New Jersey, Forbes mentioned that he was one of the 400 richest Americans back in the '90s. But then something happened in '97. There was a mystery that baffled people for a long time. They found that someone was giving away millions of dollars. The recipients didn't know why the gifts came, they didn't know how to ask for more, but still the money just kind of drizzled in, it drizzled into universities, to hospitals, to service groups, not just in that city, but around the world.

Someone was sending cashier's checks to meet all of these needs in all of these places. It turns out that it was Charles Feeney. They discovered that Charles Feeney was no longer one of the 400 richest men in the world. In fact, as it turned out, Feeney gave away $4 billion in all, and that amounted to 99% of all of the money that he had. He was just giving it away. He was known as a shabby dresser, he flew coach, he wore a little cheap watch, he didn't even own a house or a car. He was giving it all away. Why would he do that? He had been so touched by the love and the mercy and the forgiveness of God that he saw himself as a steward of the things entrusted to him by God. He looked around at the people that God loved, and he decided, "I'm going to be an instrument of the love of God to the people around me." What a great example. I believe that that example is the one that God would have you and I imitate.

Father, thank You again for this day. Thank You for Your word. Thank You for Your love for us. Father, we ask that Your word would penetrate our hearts. We're warned that partiality is sin, but only because it militates against Your love. And we're called to walk in love, we're to represent the interests of our King and walk in love. We need Your strength, we need Your grace, Your wisdom, Your wherewithal to do it.

Thank You that You've given us Your spirit, You've given us Your word, You've given us a roadmap, and You show us how to walk in love. Father, we ask for the willingness. Make us willing to be made willing to walk in love and not in partiality. Having been touched by Your forgiveness, may we extend forgiveness and love to others.

And then finally, Father, I pray if there's anyone here today under the sound of my voice who has not as yet made a decision to surrender their life to Jesus Christ, the all-lovely one who gave His life for them, they're still walking in selfishness and self-centered living, heaping up judgment. May today be the day that they decide to come to Him, be set free from the ravages of sin and learn to walk in Your love. We just commit that to You. We ask all of these things in Jesus's name and for His sake. Amen.