Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Getting a proper perspective can help change our attitude.

A cowboy out west was driving down a dirt road with his dog riding in back of the pickup truck and his faithful horse in the trailer behind.

He failed to negotiate a curve and had a terrible accident.

Sometime later a state trooper came upon the scene.

An animal lover, he saw the horse first.

Realizing the terminal nature of its injuries, he drew his service revolver and put the animal out of it’s misery.

He walked around the accident and found the dog, also hurt critically.

He couldn’t bear to hear it whine in pain, so he ended the dog’s suffering as well.

Next he tried to locate the cowboy who had suffered multiple fractures when he was thrown out of his pickup.

As the officer broke through the weeds he saw him.

The cop asked, "Hey are you okay?"

The cowboy took one look at the smoking revolver in the trooper’s hand and quickly replied, "Never felt better!"

Getting a proper perceptive can change our attitude and behavior.

The perspective of our text today should help us gain the understanding that we all need God’s mercy.

I titled the sermon this morning a royal pain because James speaks to us in this passage about the pain of a believer acting as an unbeliever:

James has been calling his readers, who were facing persecution, to live out the Word of God.

Persecution has a way of causing us to be obsessed with persecution and to forget our other responsibilities.

Christians are still called to live out the Word of God even when they are in the midst of difficulties.

We must live as Christians despite circumstance of life.

Some of James’s readers were failing concerning the respect.

They were failing in the area of Christian love by treating some in an unfair way.

As we saw a couple weeks back, wealthy church visitors were being greeted with the best accommodations in the first generation church, while the poor visitors were regarded as an inconvenience and treated as shuch.

As James pointed out in verse 6, the whole ordeal was really hypocrisy.

James’s readers were suffering persecution because it was the rich of their society that were playing favorites against these messianic Jews, and now they themselves were doing the very same thing when they came together corporately for worship.

In our passage today, James continues with this issue of partiality/favoritism.

He does so by calling the attention of his readers to three things.

I. Partiality violates God’s law (vv.

8–11)

James reminds his readers of God’s command: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (v.

8).

You might recall that this command is a reference to when YHWH spoke to Israel at the beginning of the Hebrew people forming as a unified nation ().

What is really interesting here is that James refers to this law as ‘royal’.

This “royal law” (Gk: nomos) is referred to by several names (; ).

It obviously points back to the Ten Commandments (cf.

v. 11) but reaches into the inaugurated New Age of Jesus’ teachings, a new way of treating God and our covenant partners (cf.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in ).

“royal law” This (; ).

It obviously points back to the Ten Commandments (cf.

v. 11) but reaches into the inaugurated New Age of Jesus’ teachings, a new way of treating God and our covenant partners (cf.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in ).

Some commentators think that it is the royal law because it is the one supreme law above all the other laws—the summation of the entirety of God’s laws.

We know that God is love (1Jn4) and God’s laws reflects His character.

Jesus himself taught that all the commandments of God can be summarized in terms of loving God and our fellow-man

We are, therefore, on the right theologically speaking when we call God’s command to love ‘the supreme law’.

Others think that James was emphasizing something else about YHWH when he used the term ‘the royal law’, specifically, the nature of the one who gave this law.

God is the sovereign ruler of this entire universe—the King and, therefore, LORD of all.

His laws are to be taken seriously by all and obeyed fully by all.

Both interpretations are possible and in keeping with Scripture, and, in the end, it doesn’t matter which we embrace since both interpretations are supported by good portions of the Bible.

The critical take away is whether the original readers were keeping this law.

They likely thought that they were until James’s accusation of partiality was railed at them.

And this is likely the reason why James uses the word ‘really’ (Gk: mentoi).

He really is saying in verse 8, ‘If you ‘really’ fulfil the royal law, you would be showing love to the poor.’

This is the reason why James uses the word ‘really’.

He essentially says, ‘If you really fulfil the royal law, you must show love to the poor.’

The law demanded no less!

Okay James, I hear ya! but what do you mean by ‘fulfil’?

What does it mean to fulfil the law?

The verb fulfil (Gk: tele-o) can also be translated ‘keep’ ‘accomplish’ or ‘perfected’

So, since the readers were not keeping YHWH’s law, James is warning them about the danger of partial, selective obedience.

This is essentially what Jesus was exposing about the Pharisees: obedience in some things.

Selective obedience fails to see the foundational unity of YHWH’s character and the unity of the law.

If we refrain from committing adultery but commit murder, we are guilty of breaking the law!

Curtis Vaughan says it like this: ‘To break one link in a chain is to break the chain.’

By the way, James is showing us here why we are sinners.

The law is part of that mirror fro verse 23 of chapter 1.

It tells us what God wants us to do and not to do.

Any failure is sin, and any sin makes us transgressors and disqualifies us from standing acceptably in God’s presence.

But what about the other NT scriptures?

What about the ones that say, “we are not under the law but under grace,” and “we are dead to the law?” Was James not familiar with the Apostle Paul?

According to , James was indeed familiar with Pauline theology at least by the Jerusalem council time but probably even earlier than that.

So is James suggesting that every Christian is under the law?

Maybe James needs a good dose of

At the surface, James seems to be contradicting this, but further consideration shows that he is not reversing Paul’s words.

Roll up your sleeves, because this gets deep!

First, YHWH did not give us his laws so that we can be saved through keeping them.

If that were the case, no one would/could be saved!

God gave his laws to show us how very far short we fall of His righteous requirements and, therefore, how desperately we need the Lord Jesus as our Savior.

Second, the purpose of God’s law is to convict unbelievers ‘as transgressors’ (v.

9) so we sinners might flee to Christ.

Also here we can note here that transgressions are worse than “general sins.”

what do I mean?

The difference between a transgression and a sin is: a sin is when you offend YHWH whether you know it or whether you mean to.

A transgression is when you undeniably know the law and you still decide to willfully go against it.

So, yes, a transgression is indeed a sin, however, it’s a sin that is specifically & willfully against God.

If you don’t believe me, just look up all the references to transgression in the Bible and you’ll easily see that distinction.

Third, although we are not technically under the Mosaic law, parts of the Mosaic law survived through the law of Jesus that was instituted with the “New Covenant” why? how?

YHWH is immutable—He never changes so naturally, even if by Him revealing more and more causes His governing us humans to change, His very nature never changes and, therefore, the parts of the Mosaic Covenant that reflect His nature would not change, even in the New Covenant--despite Jesus even changing the priesthood which is spoken about in the book of Hebrews.

All this to say, all unbelievers are still convicted under the Mosaic law because they never accepted Christ’s priesthood.

But for us believers, when we sin we are guilty of breaking the law of Jesus, similar to the unbelievers, but maybe worse since we are transgressors, This is “A Royal Pain” except the radical difference is that we believers receive God’s mercy!

That’s good news!

you should start smiling now!

That brings us to our second point this morning:

II.

Partiality will be judged (v.

12)

And it’s not just partiality--all our sins will be judged!

Wherever we turn in the Bible, we find prophecy of a Judgement Day that is coming.

The authors of the Bible lived with constant and keen awareness of the reality of that day, and, to live well, we must do the same.

James calls on his readers to live with that same awareness.

He tells them to speak and act with judgement in mind.

Kent Hughes writes, ‘ “Speak” and “act” are present active imperatives: keep on speaking and keep on acting in the reality of the coming judgement.’

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