Respect the persons you commit
sin and are convinced of the law as the transgressors. For
whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit
adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery,
yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So
speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of
liberty. For he shall have judgment without
mercy that has showed no mercy. And mercy rejoiceth against judgment. Let's pray. Our Father, thank you for the ability and
desire to be here tonight. Open Your Word to us tonight.
Give us understanding. Lord, this book is a closed book
unless You reveal the truth to our hearts. Help us tonight to
truly worship You in spirit and truth, to give unto You the glory
that's due unto Your name. Help us, Father, to grow in grace
and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to grow in love
to Thee and to one another. Help us to walk in a manner that's
pleasing in Thy sight. Forgive us our sins for Christ's
sake. In His name we pray, and amen. The title of the message
is The Royal Law of Liberty or of Love. We know this. We know that God's
law is good. There's nothing wrong with God's
law. When Christ came into this world in the flesh, He kept that
law. We're not as attached to it as
the Jews were. They had a ceremonial law, the
Levitical laws and all those things. And they made much of
God's law. They made much of it. And I tell
you what, God does too. God does too. And our Lord, when
He came into this world, He kept God's law perfectly. He fulfilled
every, listen, He fulfilled every jot and till. That's every period,
every little comma. Not the least thing, what you
and I would consider the least thing of the law, He didn't let
it go. He would not let it go. He said,
until all be fulfilled. Not one jot or tittle will pass
from the law until every bit of it is fulfilled. And he did
that. He did that and he did it for us. I want to say seal it, pause. That means pause and think of
that. That he kept that law, not for
himself. He knew no sin. But he kept that
law perfectly for us. The scripture says that he magnified
the law and made it honorable. Our Lord lived on this earth
for 33 years. And for the most part, we know
very little about his life for those 33 years. We know very
little. We know mostly about the last
three years. When he preached, when he healed,
he died, and rose again. Those are the three years that
we know the most about his redemptive years, what we call redemption. But we do know this, for those
silent years, those years that we really don't know anything
about, we don't read anything about except when he was 12 years
old, he was disputing with the doctors there in the temple.
But for those silent years, Christ was obeying the law. He was obeying
the law. He obeyed his parents perfectly.
Can you imagine having a child like that? That he perfectly
obeyed everything they told him to do. The law of the home. We read in Ephesians, children
obey your parents. He did. He did. I can't imagine Joseph and Mary
how they handled this growing up, him growing up, having such
a perfect child in their home. He obeyed the civil laws and
all the ceremonial laws. He obeyed every law perfectly,
absolutely perfectly. He loved his neighbor as himself. He did that. And he loved God
with all his heart. And all those years of obedience
is our righteousness. That's our righteousness. From
the time he came into this world, every stage of his life growing
up, he's obeying the law. And that's our righteousness.
And now, now we have a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness
of the scribes and the Pharisees, which the Lord said we must have.
And we do have. We have a righteousness that's
without blemish, without spot or blemish. We have one. And
we are now free from the curse of the law. I don't have to fear
it. You don't have to fear it if
you believe. If you believe the gospel, we do not have to fear
God's law. We do not have to fear being
examined by God's law because it's satisfying. We are not under
it for acceptance in any way, shape or form. No way. The law is not my rule
of life. A man said to my brother last
week, he said the Ten Commandments is our rule of life. No it isn't. No it isn't. Christ is our rule of life. He's
that rule of life. But we are under this, listen
now, we are under the law of liberty. of love, of love. Now listen, God is love, Christ
is God, therefore Christ is my rule of life. He's our rule of
life. The love that governs me, the
love that governs you, is that love that's shed abroad in your
heart by the Holy Spirit. That's what governs your actions.
The Apostle Paul said, the love of Christ constrains me. That's
what constrains me. It's the love of Christ. And
that's a strong love. That's a strong love, I'll show
you here in a minute. Now verse eight, if you fulfill the royal
law, the reason it's called the royal law is because it is the
king's law. It's the law of the king. And
if you fulfill, if you do the royal law according to the scriptures,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. You do well. Love is the pinnacle
of the law of God's kingdom. Love comes from the heart. It
comes from the heart, which is something that's in me. It's the work of God in me. It
comes out of that new man. It comes out of that new birth.
It comes out of that new heart that God said he'll give. Listen to this scripture in Romans
5, 5. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad. Isn't it? God doesn't give it to us in
a stingy way. He said it's shed abroad like
light. It's shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. It governs all our actions. Whatever is in our hearts is
who we are. Listen to Proverbs 23. In verse
6 and 7, eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye,
neither desire thou his dainty means. For as he thinketh in
his heart, so is he. So is he. We are what we are
in our hearts, not what we say we are. We can say a lot of things,
but that doesn't make it something. I can say I'm six feet tall.
It'll never make me six feet taller. That ain't gonna happen. We can say it's what's in our
hearts. It's what I am. It's what I am. We usually speak above our experience,
don't we? We usually do. Turn over to Romans
chapter 6. In Romans chapter 6, look at
verse 16. Let me get a drink here. In verse, I believe it's 16. Yes. Know
ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey,
his servants you are to whom ye obey? whether of sin unto
death or of obedience unto righteousness. But think, but God be thanked,
that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being
then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness." This matter that James has been
dealing with here, this matter of favoritism, and he's been
speaking about, brings us to the point of examination. It
makes me, and I've been studying this for days, and it makes me
want to examine what's really in my heart. There's an old song that goes,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart. We sing that 13th
Street several times. That's what I want to know. I
want to know, is this love, this love of the king, this love of
Christ, this royal love, is this shed abroad of my heart? Is God's
love really in me? I want to know this. I want to
know. Well, let's look at this perfect
law for a little bit, the perfect law of liberty or perfect law
of love. When we think of law, We do not think of liberty, do
we? We don't think of liberty. Not law. We think of bondage. Bondage. We think of do or die. It's do or die. We think of the
Ten Commandments, with all that lightning and thunder going on
when God was giving that law. We think of the Levitical law
of the ceremonies and all those laws that they had to keep. All of that's been fulfilled
by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not under that law. And
that's not the law that we're talking about. We're talking
about a law of love that sets men free and enables us to serve
the Lord Jesus Christ freely. Freely. This law of love stands. It stands not for us to find
acceptance, but to walk by it. to walk by. It's the strongest
law we can have. Listen to this, in the psalm
of Solomon, verse chapter eight. Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death. It's strong as death. You know,
you take a parent that loves their child, they would give
their life for that child. Because they loved them. You'd give your life for your
children. And my grandchildren, I got two
grandchildren. I'd give my life. I believe I would give my life
for those two grandchildren. Because I love them. I love them. And our Lord proved his love
to us. He proved his love when he came
into this world. And he laid down his life. He
experienced death. He experienced what it was to
be made sin. He experienced what it was to
be forsaken of God. I'll never know that. You will
never know that, you who believe the gospel. You'll never know
what it is to be forsaken of God. You'll never know what hell
is, what torment is, because Christ has taken it. And He did
it because He loved you. Not because He had to, Not because
he, well this is my creation so I gotta do something about
it. No. No. He genuinely loves you. That just goes beyond understanding. The love of God goes way beyond
understanding. Listen to Galatians 5.13. For
brethren, you have been called unto liberty In Christ we have
liberty. In Christ we've been set free
from the law. Only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love. By love, serve one another. Serve one another. We are commanded to love one
another and in love to serve one another. I want you to turn
over to 1 John. In 1 John, let's go to chapter,
we're going to look at a few verses here. Chapter 3. John chapter 3. Look in verse
23. And this is His commandment,
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ,
that's the law of faith. Listen, let me tell you something.
A commandment is a law. If God gives it, it's a law.
A law is a commandment. And He says here, He says here,
if this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name
of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. Love one another. As He gave us commandment. Look
in 1 John chapter 4. Turn over there. Look in verse 7 and 8. I want
you to see this in the Word of God, because God has promised
to bless His Word, not my comments on it, but He has promised to
bless His Word. That's why we need to make much
of the Word of God. You know, I can say that everybody I've
ever talked to, everyone that I've talked to that has believed
the gospel, every one of them has a scripture that they can
point to that God used in bringing them to Christ. Every one of
you, I bet every one of you has a scripture that the Lord used.
Not a comment that a preacher made, but the scripture. We are
begotten again with the word of truth. And that's why I want
to make much of the word of God here. Look at verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another
For love is of God, it's a mark of sonship. It's a real mark
of sonship. And everyone that loveth is born
of God. It's a mark of the new birth.
A genuine mark of the new birth is love. You love one another
and you know God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. God is love and it's impossible
to know Him because love is His nature. It's the nature of God. Then look at verse 10. Herein
is love. Not that we love God. You know, I feel ashamed for me to talk
about my love to God. It falls so far short. of what it ought to be. I know
that in this life I'll never love God with all my heart, soul,
mind. I'll never do that. I wouldn't
have thought I could do it. But I know that there's so much
sin in me that it just won't happen. Not in this life. Not
in this life. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. Let's not brag about that. Let's
not boast about that. But here's what we need to do.
to boast in, but that He loved us. He loved us. And He proved it. God proved His love to us by sending His own Son to be
the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, if He so loved us, We ought also
to love one another. We ought also to love. If God
loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son, that He'd
be the propitiation for our sins, how much more ought we to love
one another? How much more? No man, it says, has seen God
at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us. Or that God, here's what they
say, God lives in us. God lives in us. You know, David
was gonna build God a house. He wanted to build God a house.
And the Lord said, the heaven of heavens can't contain me.
And yet, he says, he dwelleth. This is amazing. This is just,
this is, beyond comprehending that God dwells in us. I'm looking
at, you believe the gospel? I'm looking at a people in whom
God dwells. God lives in you. Beyond our comprehension, I know,
but we have his word on it. We have his word on it. And his
love is perfected. It is brought to maturity in
us. Look over in 1 John chapter 5. Look in verse 3. For this is the love of God that
we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. They're not grievous. It is not
hard to submit to someone you love. Is it? It's not hard to
submit to somebody you love. It's not hard to serve someone
you love. I love my master. I love my master. I don't want
to leave. I don't want to go. I want to stay. I love my master. You love your master. Christ is our master. I love
my master. We are commanded to love one
another as Christ loved the church. It says he gave himself for it. Now what kind of love is of God? What kind of love is of God?
We know it's family love. We know it's fraternal love.
I know that. But the love of God is sacrificial love. Look over in Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 2. It's chapter 5 verse 2. I'll start with verse 1. Be ye
therefore followers of God and dear children and walk in love
as Christ also has loved us and hath given himself for us an
offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savior."
It's sacrificial love. Over here, let me go back to
1 John 3.16. 1 John 3.16. I want to read this to you. Perceive we the love of God,
because He laid down His life for us. He didn't just say, I
love you. The scripture says, love not
in word only, but in deed and in truth. Hereby perceive we, understand
we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. And
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It's sacrificial
love. And then it's love that's long-suffering.
The Scripture says that God is long-suffering to us-ward, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Look what He put up with in us. You have your life, I have my
life that I've lived. The life you've lived. And I
can look back and I can see the long-suffering of God putting
up with my rebellion, I ought to be dead. I mean, I can
think of a couple times in my past I ought to be dead, and
I'm not. My best friend that I went to
school with was killed in a car wreck at 19, years of age, drunk,
slammed right into a tanker. I should have been with him that
night. We ran around together all the time, but that night
I wasn't with him. We ran together everywhere. I ought to be dead. The Lord took
that young man out and here I stand. Here I stand. Long suffering. Long suffering. And kind is not rude. The love
of God that she had brought in the heart, it'll make you kind. Not rude. It thinks the best of others.
Our natural tendency is to bring down others in order to lift
ourselves up. That's our natural tendency.
I know that. But cut somebody else down in
order to lift ourself up. But the love of God is the opposite.
We lift up the brothers. We lift up one another. And that's
genuine. We don't just open a book and
say, how am I supposed to act here? That's real. That comes
from the heart. And then genuine love that's
of God hides a matter. It hides a matter. Turn over
to Proverbs 17. Proverbs chapter 17. Look in verse 9. He that covereth a transgression
seeks love. He seeks love. He covers a transgression, this,
this, this. He doesn't go say, did you know
what So-and-so did? Did you hear about So-and-so? No, the one that covers that
transgression, he doesn't repeat it. He seeks love. But he that repeats a matter
separates very friends or close friends. The loveliness of God hides a
matter. I'm so thankful. I can tell you, I am so thankful
that the Lord doesn't put me on this screen right here. Aren't you? Aren't you? I know you're glad He doesn't. He hides our sins. He's put them
away. They're gone. He doesn't bring
them up. He doesn't bring them up. Because
He loves us. Because He loves us. Guess why? This love that's of God is enduring.
It'll grow. It grows and it grows. It says over there in 1 Corinthians
13, it bears all things, believes all things, it thinks the best,
hopeth all things, it endures all things, it endures all insults. James said in another place here
in his epistle, he says, in all things we offend. Now you're
gonna offend somebody, and I'm gonna offend somebody, in everything
we offend. But love bears that. Love bears it, it bears with
it. It endures it. He didn't mean that. Well, if
he did, you still get over it, don't you? You still get over
it. Even if you didn't mean it, you
get over it. It says in John 13.1, now before
the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was
come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father.
Having loved His own, which were in the world, He loved them unto
the end. Unto the end. He didn't say,
this is too much. This is too much. The road's
too rough. He never flinched. He never flinched. His love never diminished. It
never grew cold. Like at the church at Ephesus,
the Lord said, you've left your first love. But He never does
that. Our Lord never does that. His
love to us never, never diminishes. The law of love sets us free
to serve God and one another from the heart. I mean from the
heart. To serve, to genuinely enjoy
doing things for one another. To seek the good of one another. Now if we show favoritism, as
James is talking about here, if we show favoritism, we break
this law of love, does that mean I'm lost? Does that mean I'm lost? If I am a genuine believer, here's
what's gonna happen. If I genuinely believe God, the
love of God is shared abroad in my heart. And I do this, and
it can happen. We can do this. You just let
somebody walk in and see how much of that's still in. You
just let a poor man and a rich man walk in and see how much
of that's still in us. It's sickening. It's sickening. But if I am a genuine believer,
God will chasten me. Chasten me. And sometimes the
chastening hand of God can be very severe. The sword never
left David's house. It never left his house. When
he committed adultery and then had her husband killed, Nathan
said, Thou shalt not die. The Lord has put away thy sin,
but the sword will never leave your house. The chastening sometimes
can be very severe. I'll show you this in the scriptures,
1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Okay, let's look in verse, start
out looking in verse 20 through 22. This church had some problems. They came together, some of them
started bringing, the ones who were wealthy, they'd bring food
and they'd eat. Really, they'd sit there and
eat by themselves. And the poor person would come and he wouldn't
have anything to eat. And then some of them would get
him drunk. When you come together, verse 20, when you come together,
therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper,
for in eating, everyone takes before others. You know, it's
just like you go ahead of each other, you're just pushing each
other out of the way. For in eating, everyone taketh
before other his own supper. And one is hungry and another
is drunken. This is the church. Well, if
you'd have walked in that church, you'd have never believed it
was the Lord's church. But His church is made up of
sinners saved by grace. And He is, His love is long-suffering. Long-suffering. What have you not, verse 22,
what have you not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye
the church of God, and shame them that have not the poor?
You're shaming them because they don't have anything. What shall
I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I
praise you not. Not at all. Then look at verse
30. Because of this conduct, because of the way they were
carried on, listen, for this cause many are weak, sickly. They didn't realize why
they were sick. They didn't realize what the
weakness was from. And many sleep, die, because
of this. Because of this thing that was
going on in this church, God chastened that church sorely,
sorely. And many are weak, and many are
sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves,
if we would really stand in front of that mirror that James speaks
of, And if we look at that perfect law of liberty and see ourselves
as God sees us, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. We should not be judged. But
when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not
be condemned with the world. You know, when my boys were growing
up, my two sons, I spanked them. I gave them a whip. That's what I gave them. I gave
them a whip. Like my dad gave me one when
I was out of line. But I didn't whip the neighbor's
kids. I didn't whip them when they were out of line. But I did my sons. God says here
that he chastens his own to be not judged with the world. He
disciplines His own. Now the world's got a different
judgment coming. It's not chasing Him. It's not chasing Him. It's
gonna be judgment. Real judgment. It's gonna be
damnation. Now back to James. Back to James. Chapter 2, verse 12. So speak
ye and so do. Let you walk Your walk and your
talk be the same, let it be consistent. As they that shall be judged
by what? The law of liberty, the law of love. God will deal with us, and here's
what I say, God will deal with us as we deal with others. This
is the law of the kingdom. In Matthew 6.14, listen to this,
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. What he's saying here is this,
if you don't forgive others their trespasses, if I can't forgive
you a trespass, there's no sense in me asking God to forgive me
my sins. Forgive and be forgiven. Don't
forgive and you won't be forgiven even though you call God your
father. But I do believe he's speaking
here to believers. He's speaking here to believers. Here's the principle of it. If
you want forgiveness, you forgive. Turn over to Matthew chapter
six. Turn over to Matthew chapter
six. In the Lord's prayer, he says
here in verse 12. In verse 12 of this, this is
the disciples' prayer. They said, teach us to pray,
so he's teaching them to pray. And here's one of the things
he says in his prayer. And forgive us our debts. Doesn't end there, does it? He
didn't just say, Lord, forgive me my sins. And here's the weight of it.
As we forgive our debtors. Lord, forgive me my sins as I
have forgiven others. On the same measuring stick. Forgive us our sins as we forgive
others. The royal law of liberty is this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. And if you do that, he says,
you'll do well. Because you'll forgive. You'll forgive. And you'll seek the best for
your brothers and sisters. You'll look after them like family.
You'll take care of them. You'll pray for them. You'll
pray for them. You'll seek their best. And you'll think the best
of them. You'll think the best of one another. You will. And you'll forgive one another.
You'll forgive one another however many times you offend one another. Peter said this. He said, Lord,
in Matthew 18, how many times shall I forgive my brother? Doesn't
that sound like us? He's like, give me a number here
so after that number's done, I can take care of this matter.
But tell me how many times I've got to forgive my brother for
offending me. And the Lord says 70 times 7,
and He gives a definite number for an indefinite number. But here's the gauge. Here's
the gauge. As many times, as many times as you desire God
to forgive you, that's how many times you forget your brother.
That's the law of the kingdom. I desire God to forgive me every
time I ask. And here's the thing. If I ask
God to forgive me of my sins, because we got many of them,
we'll fall in our thoughts. We fall many times. And I'm carrying
a grudge against a brother He said, don't even ask. Don't even
call on me until you get that matter taken care of. That's
the law of the kingdom. That's the king's law. That's
the royal law of love. For he shall have judgment without
mercy that has showed no mercy. Now the person who really, truly
never shows mercy, he's never had it. He's never had it. Turn
over to Matthew 18. This is a good example here in
Matthew 18. In verse 23, Therefore is the kingdom of heaven
likened to a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
When he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which
owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not
to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and
his children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord,
have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of
that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him
the debt, that huge debt that he owed. But the same servant
went out, found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred
pence, nothing, nothing compared to what he owed. And he laid
hands on him and took him by the throat saying, pay me that
thou owest. His fellow servants fell down
at his feet and besought him saying, have patience with me
and I'll pay thee all. Same thing he did, and he would
not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the
debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were
very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was
done. Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto
him, O thou wicked servant, You wicked servant, I forgave thee
all that dead because thou desiredst me, because you asked me to.
Should not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant,
even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was angry, wroth,
and delivered him to the tormentors, that he should pay all that was
due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly
father do also to you, If you from your hearts forgive not
everyone, his brother, their trespasses." That's His Word. This is God's Word. These are
His commandments. He's teaching us here this, the
merciful show mercy. And those who will not show mercy,
they've never tasted it. They've never tasted it. No matter
what we say, what we claim, And he said, I'll deal with that.
I'll deal with that, sir. He says here, for he shall have
judgment without mercy. That's just a horrible thought.
There shall be no mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment.
Mercy triumphs over judgment. Brethren, I want mercy. I want
mercy and I want God to enable me to show mercy. I want God
to give me a heart to love the brethren with, to
be kind, to be forgiving, and to show mercy, just like our
Heavenly Father, just like Him. I know that we far, far short
of this, but we consider God's love to us in Christ. And I'm sure glad salvation's
all a grace. We'd never make it, would we? We'd never make
it. God help us to love one another
and forgive one another and to walk even as our Lord walked. That's the royal law of the kingdom. It's a law of love.