James: Faith Without Mercy is Dead

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 Open your Bibles, if you haven’t already, to James chapter 2. We’re going to continue in our series on the book of James. And James 2 is a fun one.

Every time I read James 2, I laugh, because it reminds me of the day I tried to duel with my dad. I was, uh, actually attending here at junior high, and, um, my life kind of got shaken up, shooken up a lot, because when I was 12, we… I left the Gilbert school system and got dumber by going to Queen Creek. But anyways, we went to Queen Creek because we were planning a church.

And so, uh, I literally had no friends. And I don’t mean this, like, sarcastically, but, like, my only friend was my Bible. And so I would read it between class. I would hurry up and get my math stuff done. to read my Bible, and, uh, I was that kid that loved people making fun of me for reading my Bible, because the Bible says, hey, like, rejoice when they persecute you, and in my mind that was persecution.

Anyways, there’s context here. And so, I was reading my Bible, loved it, and I remember, so specifically, I decided to go to James, and I read James 2, and I thought, now this is my life verse. You see, I am a middle child. Any other middle children here in the room? Yes. And so, here, let me encourage you. We are…

The PB& J within the sandwich, you know, there’s nothing without the middle. We’re the meat, we’re the turkey, they’re just the buns, you know what I’m saying? Like, we are the flavor. But, um, being a middle child is often difficult. You’re overlooked, you’re underappreciated. And my middle child, Selah, she’s like, It’s the hardest to be middle, and I’m like, I think it is, yes.

Like, so we just kind of, you know, she, my wife is a middle child too, so we just all cry together. But for some reason, with my young teenage brain, I set up a meeting with my mom and dad, specifically my dad, I was feeling a certain type of way because I read James chapter 2, verse 1. Read this, it says, My brothers and sisters, I think I remember saying my mother and father, I remember just kind of changing this up.

Do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. And then I shut the Bible. You guys know teenage boys. This is the worst, right? Like, feel the anger. I, I already do. I said, Mom, Dad, today is the day of repentance for you have shown favoritism to the sisters and not to me.

And for legal reasons, I’m not sure I can tell you how that went down afterwards. Uh, let’s just say I will never use the Bible as a weapon against them again, and I never bought him another belt a day in my life. Um, that’s a very true story. In all seriousness, James 2 is easy to misuse and very easy to misunderstand.

And so the hope here is that as we read this text, as we submit our minds and bodies and spirits to James chapter 2, that we would actually see, for all of us, this is a call to repentance. We’re in a culture where favoritism runs rampant, both in how we approach others, but also how we expect others to approach us.

And I pray today, I do a much better job presenting James 2 than I did to my mom and dad. Now just a few reminders, James is the half brother of who? Jesus, that’s when the answer, it’s always Jesus. Yes, Jesus. And so he was initially a mocker. Pastor Caleb did a wonderful job opening up the series. He didn’t like Jesus.

It kind of makes sense. My brother claiming to be the savior of the world, but then when he encountered the resurrected Jesus, everything changed and he became a stalwart. He became a huge. Magnificent leader in the early church and wrote this beautiful letter that we’re still learning from 2, 000 years later He’s writing to persecuted Jews specifically.

And so there’s a lot of Hebrew Metaphors and understandings that maybe you and I if we’re not really well acquainted with our Old Testament We’ll miss some of this and so it’s our job to kind of point those things out But martyred for their faith But again what I love about James, he’s a very practical leader A very practical thinker.

You have Paul. He writes in beautiful ways, and really, a lot of times in Paul’s letters, he’s writing so that you can know the gospel of Jesus Christ. James writes so that you can show the gospel of Jesus Christ. He cares deeply about rooting out any hypocrisy within the church. I heard one person say, James is a mixture of Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount.

If they mix together, what you have is the book of James and with wisdom, it only works if you work. All this stuff sounds great, but until you do the thing it says to do, it will have no effect in your life, which is exactly what we looked at last week. If you remember, the scripture is a mirror and we’re called to do the scriptures.

In Proverbs 15, 32, it says anyone who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever listens to correction. Acquires good sense. My prayer as I’ve been studying this all week is that you and I would recognize where is the correction for me? Where is the correction for you? And how can we respond to it?

So the title of today’s message is faith without mercy is dead Faith without mercy is dead. Let’s invite the Father to be with us. Holy Spirit Father Son and Holy Spirit. Thank you for your kindness Thank you for your mercy God, as we approach your holy text, may it shape us and form us the same way it has formed your church for the last 2, 000 years.

God, this is a passage that we can easily begin to point fingers with. And so now we just humble our hearts and our minds and we ask you, where do I need to turn? In what way do I need to repent? And God, may we find freedom on the other side of that repentance. May we find fullness on the other side of brokenness.

In Jesus name I pray. Everybody says. Amen. Amen. Most commentators define James 2, 1 through 13 is simply the sin of favoritism. Maybe your translation, we preach from the CSB here, your translation may say partiality. Now, the literal word partiality, uh, means without respect to the face. And so when he says, do not show favoritism, he says, don’t judge a book by its cover.

Don’t look at the face and then make a judgment according to who you see. It’s actually fascinating throughout ancient tribes, as I was studying this, a lot of tribes, the way that judges would judge people is the people would have to come present their case but not show their face. They’d have to put something over their head so that they can bring just the pure evidence.

Now, especially back then, everybody knew everybody, right? And so, it would have been, it’s a lot harder today, if you and I go to a judge, we probably don’t know him. But in tribes, everybody knew everyone, and so there would always be pressure on the judges. If they knew your face, if they knew your last name, They might judge differently, and so to make sure they weren’t having that kind of partiality, you would judge someone without even knowing their name or without even knowing your face.

This is kind of the same energy James is bringing here to the text. He’s saying when people enter into the gathering, do not think about their face. Do not think about all of these things that might make you favorite. Because that is not what we do as the king, as the people of God, James is arguing this as people of God.

We don’t favor anyone over another. We show favor, we show grace and kindness and we give people the benefit of the doubt. But we don’t allow favor with one person because of their pedigree, their last name over. I hope that makes sense. We’re going to make more sense by looking at this verses one through four.

My brothers and sisters do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith and our glorious Lord, Jesus Christ. Remember again, James is the half brother of Jesus. It’s phenomenal that he calls him the glorious Lord. Jesus Christ. I like to compliment my sisters, but not that much, you know. And so this shows the humility and shows that he really knows Jesus is God.

Verse 2. For if someone comes into your meeting, so think church. Think of this moment right now. You’re gathering space. The word is synagogue, right? When it comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring, as I was saying this, the gold ring aren’t just the little ones we have now. It almost cover your whole finger.

It was very obvious. It was a status symbol. A lot of us today think we’re just all about status because of the social media and we’re always flex those things. As humans, we’ve always stressed status. We always find ways to show people we’re better than others. That’s why we buy brands. That’s why we buy certain cars is to show communicate something about you.

So wearing a gold ring, And dressed in fine clothes and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in. Let me say, I rejoice when both of these type of people come into the church. Amen? The enemy here isn’t the rich person. What’s wrong is how we treat one over another. Verse 3. If you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, sit here in a good place, and yet you say to the poor person, stand over there.

Or sit here on the floor by my footstool, haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? The temptation to favor one over the other, especially when they’re rich, is real and happens all the time. There was a pastor who, uh, there was a couple who approached him and said, Hey, our dog passed away.

We want you to do the funeral. He said, I’m sorry, I don’t really see that in the text. I don’t, you know, I don’t eulogize dogs. And so tell them I can’t do the funeral. He came back a few more times and kept saying, No, I only, you know, officiate funerals for people, not dogs. Now, if it’s a cat, I’ll be there to help you dig the hole or whatever, right?

So, um, and so he said, you know, the dog. And so finally the message came back one more time and said, Pastor, you don’t understand. We’re going to give you a million dollars to buy a new church property if you bury our dog. And the pastor said, Oh, a saved dog. You should have started with that. If it’s a saved dog, I can bath, I can not baptize.

I can have the funeral. Of course, this is all a joke, but it really shows it is very obvious. It’s very easy for us to begin to favor people over another. Now my parents weren’t showing favorites as I grow older. I realize, you know, it’s okay. I did not have a damaged childhood, but sadly the church shows favorites all the time.

Here’s a few ways that we can be tempted, and this isn’t just leadership, by the way. This is everyone in the church. Wealth is the obvious one we see here in the text. You begin to learn people who are wealthy, and you think, Well, I need bills to pay, I need this, I want to drive in their car, so I’m going to be a little nicer to them and ignore someone else.

Or even appearance. Right? The way some people appear, like, has a way of making you drawn to them over someone else. This can be not only how they dress, but maybe even, sadly, according to their skin color. Right? Or with that, accents. I’m not going to lie, here’s what I have to repent of. If you come in here with a British accent, I’m going to be around you a little longer than normal.

I just love the British accent. You know what I’m saying? You come with a Southern accent. That’s fine. I’m just kidding. My mom, my whole family’s from the South. I used to love the accent, and now it’s all about the Brits. I think it’s wonderful. But, you can even have accents. I remember in college, a pastor used to come and preach during chapel, and he was Irish.

Everybody listened. It was just, I don’t even know what he’s saying, but we were listening, right? I kept thinking, Lord, give me a better accent, like I have, like the Arizona one, which means we don’t have one really, right? Or we can have by age. This one’s huge in the church, right? We often talk about what kind of church it is, and I don’t like to go there because they’re too old.

Or I can’t go there because I don’t fit in because everybody’s too young. We also show favorites with just accolades. Uh, Easter Sunday here. I tried to keep it cool, but we had an NFL player in the house and I was like how cool and he’s on the Buffalo Bills, so I wanted to ask him the story because, you know, remember the, the guy who like almost passed away on the field, like he was there and so I just wanted to hear about the story of him coming back and all this great stuff and I thought, okay, no, we need to be excited about the single mom who’s here from Easter and we need to write like, sure, shake your hand, sign the autograph, but everybody deserves honor.

We Right? And we can’t be so excited the NFL player came in the room and ignore the broken and hurting who are in here as well. And let me just say, if you’ve been hurt by the sin of favoritism on behalf of our leadership in any way, shape, or form, let us just apologize. Let us know in ways you felt that way, and we are more than happy to repent.

Because the reality is this favoritism is antithetical to the way of Jesus. It’s how the world operates always. But it’s not how the kingdom of God operates. Because as saints in the kingdom, there’s only two categories of people. Those who are dead in their sin, and those who are alive in Christ. That’s how we categorize you.

Okay? You’re in one or the other. And here, write this down. If you’re a believer, we show you favor because Christ lives in you. You have the Holy Spirit within you. Paul says, Christ lives in me the hope of glory. So when we encounter you, we want to give all of you so much favor because Christ is in you.

And to the unbeliever in the room, we show you favor because we know and believe that Christ died for you. Christ treasures you and values you and longs for you to come into the kingdom. And so there are no other categories. And even with both categories, we celebrate those in the kingdom because Christ lives in you.

But we also celebrate and love and care for and favor those out of the kingdom because Christ died for them. Amen? So there are no, we are all at equal footing at the feet of the cross. So. It has nothing to do with your success, your finances, your education, whether you went to Harvard or not, right? As a people of God, we are grateful for those ahead of us in life in different ways, and we’re gracious to those who are behind us in life in different ways.

Because we all know we, it’s all level at the feet of the cross. Now, explicit in this text is a warning to the church. Do not favor the rich. Do not favor the high and mighty. But implicit in this text is a warning to the church. Do not be the rich person who is so rich in spirit, which is negative, by the way, that you assume you are the exception to the rule, that you assume the red carpet is going to be rolled out when you enter through the door.

You know you are a rich person if you’re often offended. Because you expect everyone to bow down to your ways and your thoughts. Here is how you can really tell if you’re rich in spirit, which again is not a good thing, is you expect the highest rewards with the lowest responsibilities. I’m a fourth generation pastor.

I’ve seen this often where people Come and say I’m not going to serve the church, but I’m clearly the highest giver here So there’s no reason I need to serve the church and I should have all the decisions. You should come through me I was at a church growing up and literally we can tell if the you know Everybody thought the pastor was up there the leader No the leader was on the third row and we would look to his face and see if he was happy with the sermon everybody was Happy if he was sad, everybody was sad because he controlled the budget He had millions of dollars and if he wanted to tip anything in his favor, it typically would go his way Here’s a few indicators, though.

Again, this is a hard text. James is difficult, but it brings life when we submit ourselves to it. Are you maybe the rich person? Here are some ways to figure it out. You are a rich person, which Jesus rebukes, if you come to church to be served and not to serve. What about this? You don’t seek out community, but you expect community to come to you.

Often, those who are rich, they will not even break a sweat to feel welcomed, but they will argue if they don’t, and they feel offended if you didn’t go way out of your way to feel welcomed. It’s typical, again, for a rich person to leave a gathering offended. Also, this is sad, but if you are rich in spirit, to contrast Jesus poor in spirit and the Beatitudes.

Your pastor is great as long as he offers reassurance, but the moment he offers you rebuke, you’re out the door. Why? Because rich people, in every other area of life, nobody tells rich people what to do. They tell people what to do because they have wealth. And people do whatever the rich person says because they want a piece of that pie.

And so one of the hard jobs about being a pastor and being in the kingdom, sometimes, is to tell somebody Who may be floating 30 percent of your church budget. This is wrong. This is a sin. And I hope you are restored, but if you leave, you leave. We can’t favor. We have to honor the poor widow just as much as the rich millionaire.

So James, though, then shifts from verse to first five, and he gives three arguments. So the idea of the what is don’t show favoritism, don’t show partiality in the gathering, but also in life in general. But now he gives three reasons why it’s sinful and wrong. He’ll say, one, it contradicts how God regards the poor.

God chooses poor people. That’s who he lifts up. Number two, it makes no sense because the rich are the ones persecuting believers. It’s often the rich who are making your life more miserable. Why are you still trying to submit to them and make them happy? They’re just going to keep making you even more miserable, bring you into court, and use their finances to get their way.

And then he’ll say, it also because it violates the number one law of loving your neighbor as yourself. So let’s look at that. Verse five. It says, Listen, my dear brothers and sisters, Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith? And heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.

Think of Saul versus David. The people wanted Saul and he led to corruption. The God chose David who they don’t even know. They’re like, Oh, you want David? My son, that’s out in the shepherd that he’s not the right one. God chooses the poor to be lifted up verse six. Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court?

Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you? Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. In Matthew 22, somebody asked Jesus, what is the greatest of all commands? He says, number one, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And number two, love your neighbor as yourself. There are 613 commands in the Old Testament. Jesus says you will have, you will fulfill all of it if you just follow those two. Love God and love your neighbor. Those are the two categories. And he, and James calls it the royal law. Verse, uh, where am I now?

Verse 9 is interesting. If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin. So this isn’t just a bad practice. He’s saying it is sinful. It actually goes against God, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the entire law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking it all. This is where a lot of people get the, man, all sin is equal.

Now, not all sin is equal. Can I say that? Some sin has more severe consequences than others, like here on earth. But when you say all sin is equal, it’s saying if you break one, You’ve broken them all. Does that, right? If you’ve broken one, you’re guilty, like the rest of us. That’s what people mean when they say that.

That’s what they should mean. Verse 11. Now he gives an example. For he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you’re a lawbreaker. So he’s making it very obvious, taking it back in a huge way, saying yeah, you may be the guy that says don’t commit adultery, but if you commit a murder, you’re still broken the law.

He’s saying don’t pick your favorite sins and, and, and, and favorite commands and avoid others. Favoritism is on the list. When you show favoritism, you have committed a sin, just as if you had committed adultery. Write this down. When you pick and choose what to follow, you have a faith that’s fake and hollow.

James here is after the opposite of hypocrisy. He wants you to truly show the gospel. And he’s saying there’s some of us in the room, maybe, who think sexual morality is completely repulsive, and God should judge such acts. But you ignore the poor. In your mind, that’s just a fact of life. I don’t need to care for the poor.

I have enough things going on. But Jesus says, you don’t feed the poor. You’re not feeding me. You don’t care for the least of these. That means you don’t care for me. Just because it’s not high on our list doesn’t mean it’s not high on God’s. And so James is taking this really seriously, and I think so because he saw his half brother take this super seriously.

If you can, open your Bibles to Mark chapter 10. If you were here last month for our Formed by Simplicity series, this will be familiar to you. We’re talking again about the rich young ruler. In fact, there’s several accounts, uh, Matthew, Mark, and Luke talk about the rich young ruler. We decided last month to look at Mark 10.

We’re gonna do that again today. I want us to compare and contrast how Jesus treats the rich and how he treats the poor and how we’re supposed to do so accordingly. Verse 17. I’d love to hear the pages turn of Mark chapter 10, says the following. As he, being Jesus, was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Why do you call me good? Jesus asked him. No one is good except God alone. I’m going to be leaving out some context commentary because I’ve already done that last month. If you weren’t here, check out Gospel Simplicity on the podcast. Now, verse 19. You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Notice how he throws that in there. Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, Teacher, I have kept all of these from my youth. I’ve always done these things, he’s saying. Looking at him and hear me, Jesus loved him. So Jesus is about to be really up front to the rich.

A misinterpretation of James 2 is thinking, hate the rich. No, no, no. Jesus loves the rich. We’re called to love the rich as well. But we need to love them where they’re at and give them what they need to hear. And not show favoritism. So look at this. He says, Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, You lack one thing.

Go sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving because he had many possessions. So Jesus loves this man, but he won’t cut corners for this man. This man has an idol. And Jesus is calling it out.

He’s probably used to everyone not mentioning the obvious thing about him. Because he’s rich and they want favor as well. What this man is doing, this rich man comes to Jesus and he’s essentially asking, What else do I need to achieve? I’ve done great in life. I’ve succeeded in so many ways. Give me one more test to pass and I’ll pass it.

This is what the rich in spirit do. They’ve convinced themselves that they’re great. And they deserve to skip the line, they don’t have to do as much because look how awesome they are. And Jesus though meets them where he’s at and gives them not what he wants, but what he needs. And for too long, rich people don’t have people to confront them, to give them what they need.

They just always get what they want. And that’s how this church, that’s how the kingdom of God is different. We’re not going to give you what you, what you want. We’re going to give you what you need. The problem for the rich and successful is often they have too much to prove. They have way too much to possess.

And they have way too much to protect. And because of that, this proving, this possessing, and this protecting, they can never surrender. They can never just give to God and say, God, my whole life is yours. Jesus loves this rich man, but he doesn’t favor. He doesn’t show favoritism to the rich man. But what does he do with the poor?

Stay in Mark 10, flip over a little bit to verse 46. I love this. This is actually the lines between here are all about power, prestige, possessions. Jesus is teaching about how we’re supposed to operate with these things. So you have the rich man, a bunch of good principles about power and how we need to avoid it.

And now verse 46 is another illustration because he’s talking to another person, but this person now is poor. Verse 46, They came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples, and a large crowd, Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. So we had a rich young ruler, and now a blind beggar.

Can it get any more polar opposite? When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, because he could only hear, he can’t see, he began to cry out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me! Look at this next line. Many warned him to keep quiet. What does that mean? He’s annoying. He’s not a high value man. He’s not allowed to talk.

Quit being annoying. Just hush. This rich young ruler can talk, but not you. But all the more, he was crying out, Have mercy on me, son of David. This guy had nothing to prove, nothing to protect, and nothing to possess. You can tell me all you want about me and how I shouldn’t be doing this, but I desperately need his mercy.

So even if you tell me to shut up, I’m going to say it even louder, because I’m broken and I’m desperate. Jesus stopped and said, Call him. So they called the blind man and said to him, Have courage. Get up. He’s calling for you. So he threw off his coat, jumped up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus answered him, What do you want me to do for you?

Rabbi, the blind man, said to him, I want to see. Jesus said to him, Go, your faith has saved you. And immediately he could see, and I love this, and began to follow Jesus on the road. Notice the difference. This time, Jesus, instead of telling what this man should do, he just asked a simple question. What can I do for you?

See the flip? Why the difference? Jesus knew this poor man was also poor in spirit, and his heart was ready for the grace of God. So instead of having to go through this hard thing, you need to surrender this, you need to be broken here. No, his heart is already empty. It’s already open and it’s ready for mercy.

And so I want us to see the contrast here. And this is why James is saying, don’t favor the rich because in many ways, the rich won’t change if you keep favoring them and the poor are ready for a blessing and you’re going to miss out on blessing them if you avoid them. Write it down. It says, the rich ruler asks, what else do I need to achieve?

And the blind beggar asks, do you have any mercy I can receive? This is the heart of the gospel. Notice it’s actually the rich man who is really poor. And it’s this blind beggar who can really see. That’s how the kingdom works. Don’t judge a book by its cover. This rich man who looks like he’s got it going on and we gotta roll the red carpet out, is dying inside.

The one on the side of the road, just asking for any kind of mercy, is so rich in faith you don’t even know. This is the gospel. The cross of Jesus Christ isn’t for the rich, it’s for the repentant. The cross of Jesus Christ isn’t for the fool. It’s for the, the empty, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Forgiveness is not based on merit, it’s fully based on mercy. That’s why we need to go back to James 2 as we end verses 12 and 13. Verse 12, speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy. To the one who has not shown mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.

James is warning us like a really loving father. I think he’s actually asking us a really hard question. Are you actually saved? I

think he’s asking the question, do you want to know if you’re the ruler or if you’re the beggar? How do you know? Do you extend mercy? Who are we as the people of God if it’s not simply we are people who are desperate to receive the mercy of God? That’s why we’re here. We can’t achieve it. We can’t earn it.

And yet some of us, we have… Gone to the Bible in such a way where we assume it’s something to be earned. We assume the church is a place where we’re all supposed to bend over backwards for you so that you feel just comfortable and in the perfect environment. And yet the blind beggar doesn’t have that kind of spirit.

The kind of spirit that is, is the rich young ruler. So I think what, as we look at this, especially the last two verses, I think what we have here is an invitation and a warning. And that’s how I want to end today. First of all, it’s the invitation. Mercy is received, not achieved.

Exalting yourself is exhausting yourself. Because you’re never enough. You can never do enough. You can never be enough. Freedom is found in the surrender. Freedom, joy, forgiveness is found in saying nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Son of David, have mercy. On me, Tim Keller, one of my favorite authors and pastors who recently passed away.

He likes to contrast this religious, moralistic person versus the broken person. And he has this quote so helpfully says a merely religious person who believes God will favor him because of his morality and respectability. Is that not the rich young ruler? I’ve done it all and I am ruling over all. It says, will ordinarily have contempt for the outcasts.

I worked hard to get where I am and so can anybody else. That is the language of the moralist heart. I am only where I am by the sheer and unmerited mercy of God. I am completely equal with all other people. That is the language of the Christian heart. A sensitive social conscience. And a life poured out in deeds of mercy to the needy is the inevitable sign of a person who has grasped the doctrine of God’s grace.

So I want to ask you, why does God favor you?

God favors me because He just gave me His grace and His mercy. There was nothing in my hands, but He accepted me into His loving arms. If your answer is anything other than that, Our invitation today is to repent. As you reflect and think about, maybe you have had that moment, you have believed in Jesus in the past, but you have viewed the church as a place to get served, you have thought, oh, I need the red carpet rolled out for me.

Somewhere along the way, you have forgotten the narrative of the gospel. We are all equal at the feet of the cross. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. I bring no other argument, I bring no other plea, but that Jesus died and He died for me. And that’s where the warning is. There’s a huge warning we cannot skip over.

The warning is the one who doesn’t show mercy won’t be shown mercy.

Think about your life. I want us to reflect and think about that. Um, have you shown mercy to your neighbor?

Like we talked about last week, have you shown mercy to the person in this community that has offended you? Have you shown mercy to your pastor?

Have you shown mercy to your kids? Your parents for what, how they messed you up in childhood. Have you shown mercy to them? Jesus shares that parable where he talks about the man who owed like 10 million dollars. And he was thrown into jail, and he goes to the person he owed and said, Just have mercy on me.

What I’ve done is wrong. Will you forgive me? And in his grace, this owner says, You know what? You don’t owe me 10 million anymore. Get him and his family out of jail. We’re all good. And he says, this man, he takes this mercy, this, Oh, my debt is now free. And now he goes to all the people who owe him and says, you owe me 10 bucks.

Give me that money or you’re in jail. You owe me 50 bucks. Give me that money or you’re going into jail. And Jesus is like, how does this story work? Does that make sense? And everyone says, why? That doesn’t make any sense. He was forgiven 10 million. Of course he will forgive 10. And he says, exactly. If you have received the gospel and have seen how much Christ has forgiven you, redeemed you, washed over you, of course, everybody who has wronged you, your first step is mercy because you don’t even know how much mercy was already shown to me.

And those are the questions. I actually invite you now just to close your eyes and just have a moment with the Holy Spirit. I’m just going to ask a couple questions.

Ask the Lord, have you received the mercy of God, or are you still trying to achieve it?

Ask the Lord, who do I need to show mercy to?

Ask God for the power to show mercy to that person.

Father God, we just really want to be people of the book. I love the heart of James because I think it really reflects the heart of this church. We want to not just be hearers. We want to be doers. We don’t want to be hypocrites, God. We, we want to make a difference in our life and life’s around us.

God, give us a moment here where we can just be honest with you. God, give us a name. Give us many names. Release our heart from keeping score. Release the burden God of being angry with a brother or sister.

God help us release the need to favor certain people to hope that maybe we’ll get something out of it. God help us see. All people are loved by you, and all people are at equal standing at the foot of the cross.