Embracing the Royal Law: Love Without Favoritism

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"i invite you to turn to james in chapter 2 at verse 8. if you really keep the royal law found in scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing right but if you show favoritism you sin and are convicted by the law as law breakers for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." [00:00:59]

"and for us to open our bibles this morning and look at this particular section of scripture is once again to be confronted by something that we find pretty close to home in if we're honest a little closer than we would be prepared perhaps to admit because while all of us without exception would be unwilling to endorse the practice of discrimination, none of us are able to deny the presence of discrimination the presence of partiality." [00:03:15]

"james i think without question must have had in mind the story that jesus told of a good samaritan but on one occasion a man came up to jesus and he asked him what he had to do to receive eternal life and jesus said well how do you read the bible what do you know about the law and he gave back to him the law love the lord your god with all your heart and your mind and your strength and love your neighbor as yourself." [00:04:47]

"and it is this royal law found in scripture which bears all of the testimony to the kingly rule of jesus love your neighbor as yourself jesus said is a summary of the second table of the ten commandments some of us grew up in churches where the ten commandments were recited every sunday not a bad practice it takes time but it's purposeful others of us grew up in churches where the ten commandments appeared before us on the wall." [00:07:56]

"love is the ruling principle at the core of god's moral demands a ruling principle which is then worked out in our everyday lives it would be one thing if the call to love was a call to some emotional experience whereby we went away in a corner and tried to engender it but it is not that if you keep the royal law found in scripture love your neighbor as yourself you do right." [00:09:18]

"to love your neighbor as yourself says james is to do the right thing to do the right thing is to love your neighbor as yourself it's not a question of feelings it's a question of doing what is right we often think of that completely upside down don't we a topsy-turvy way of thinking and yet we're helped when we come to the marriage service because in the marriage service there's no question about how anybody's feeling." [00:10:00]

"love is revealed in obedience and obedience expresses itself in love now when we move into anything that talks about the law some christians immediately get very fidgety because they have grown up with a misunderstanding of the place of the law in the christian life and they have completely set it aside by using a particular phrase which is a biblical phrase we are not under law we are under grace." [00:11:00]

"the abiding rule of god's law is whereby we find the basis for determining what we're doing and that is not legalism that is not legalism legalism is an approach to the law whereby we use it as a mechanism for putting ourselves in a right standing with god we know that we cannot do that legalism says graham gold's worthy is a subtle thing those who do not place the same emphasis on the law will be branded as antinomian." [00:12:37]

"if we want to know how we're to love our neighbor then we must ask a prior question how do we love ourselves never it is to be hoped with an emotional thrill rarely as a matter of fact with much sense of satisfaction mostly with pretty wholesale disapproval often with complete loathing but always with concern care and attention when we catch sight of our faces in the mirror first thing in the morning." [00:14:07]

"everything conspires today to define love primarily in emotional terms scripturally love is to be defined in caring terms for the love that is owed to our neighbor is the love we expend on ourselves so that love is not the victim of our emotions but the servant of our wills see what he's saying if and it's a pretty big if if you keep the royal law found in scripture and love your neighbor as yourself you are doing right." [00:15:08]

"the fact of our breaking god's law is significant and serious because god's law is an expression of his character and his nature the reason we have the law of god is because it says to us if you're like verbally what god is ontologically god does not reveal himself to the people in the old testament let me just show you this if you want in in deuteronomy 4 in deuteronomy chapter 4 when god reveals himself." [00:19:30]

"he revealed himself and what he said and what he says is expressive of his character and of his nature therefore if i look at the law of god and say i don't have to deal with this one what i'm saying is that the number one that my love for god is deficient but also at the same time that there are aspects of god's nature which actually don't matter and that cannot be to say that one of the commands has less of an impact on me than another." [00:21:11]

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