INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• I love baseball, I love everything about the game, I LOVED playing it, I love watching it, and I loved coaching it.
• Baseball is fun for both athlete and nerd alike. It takes a lot of skill to hit a round ball with a round bat when the ball is doing all kinds of crazy things.
• For the nerd, stats galore!
• There are a lot of things to like about baseball. For those who like order and rules, baseball is great. For those who like tradition baseball is full of it.
• As far as the rule lovers, there are a lot of unwritten rules like when a pitcher has a no-hitter going, you don’t try to bunt, ask former MLB player Robin Ventura about what happens when you break that one.
• The message today is not about the game of baseball, but we will weave it in with our passage today to help us better illustrate what God is sharing with us today!
• In our previous passage from last week we looked at the issue of favoritism. I am sure there were many who thought that even if they were violating that issue, that it was no big deal.
• Favoritism cannot be as bad as let us say MURDER!
• James will address another practical issue that we must be careful to guard against, the issue of picking and choosing what we will obey from God and what we will ignore.
• When we look at what God commands, which ones do we follow and which ones do we not follow? What criteria do we use for making those decisions?
• This is the crux of what we are going to deal with; can we pick and choose what we are going to obey?
• Jesus dealt with this picking and choosing issue with the Pharisees.
• SLIDE #2
• Matthew 23:23 (ESV) 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
• Let’s begin with verse 10
• SLIDE #3
• James 2:10 (ESV) 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
• One reason we cannot pick and choose what we will follow is…
• SLIDE #4
SERMON
I. One strike and you are out!
• One of the beauties about baseball is the fact that you get THREE strikes before you are out. When you go to the plate, unless you hit it before then, you will get at least THREE swings before you are out.
• This passage more or less says, “one strike and you are out”. That seems harsh. When I played baseball there were many times that I would have liked to have had five or ten strikes before I was called out.
• James says in God’s game of ball, you get ONE chance, ONE swing of the bat, if you miss, YOU’RE OUT!
• The people that James was addressing were under the impression they could obey just part of God’s law and ignore other parts, like favoritism.
• Some folks think they can be saved by just following the 10 Commandments.
• Verse 10 shows us why that is impossible as well as Galatians 3:10
• SLIDE #5
• Galatians 3:10 (ESV) 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
• The fallacy of this thinking is that if you want to be saved by the Law, you have to keep every point of it everyday of your live or you are condemned by the very law you are trying to keep. James says, “strike one, you’re out!”
• Today you need to understand that if you have broken one of God’s laws, you are a sinner who is in need of salvation.
• It is important for us to know that it only takes one sin for us to be called OUT. Unlike baseball we are offered GRACE through Jesus so that we can be called safe!
• WE need to understand the severity of picking and choosing what to follow and what not to follow, from what we would consider the most egregious to the most minor of sins will all demand the same price from us.
• Which leads us to verse 11 and another reason we cannot pick and choose what to follow and obey.
• SLIDE #6
• James 2:11 (ESV) 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
• SLIDE #7
II. All outs are the same!
• When we prioritize sin, we usually mean that mine is not as bad as yours!
• We cannot pick and choose and still make God happy.
• Back in 1999 Heisman trophy candidate, Florida State Wide receiver Peter Warwick got caught illegally buying clothing at a Dillards store for pennies on the dollar a couple of years ago.
• A firestorm of criticism from the public hit him. He lost the opportunity to win the Heisman Trophy because of his actions.
• His response, “It is not like I shot the President of something.” He did not think what he did was a big deal.
• All sins will cause the same result for us, they are ALL equally deadly.
• In the context of this letter, people were being dishonored because the people did not think favoritism was so bad.
• If we live our lives like there are degrees of sin, then our conduct will be affected.
• We get a false sense of security with God because we think that because there are worse people out there than me, I am going to be all right with God.
• We will also start looking at people through the eyes of judgment instead of love.
• We see a hint of this in verse 13 where James speaks of mercy.
• SLIDE #8
• Paul had the right attitude when he said in 1 Timothy 1:15,
• 1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV) 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
• In Luke 7:36-ff Jesus was invited to a Pharisee’s home for dinner, at the dinner a woman who was called a sinner can in and started pour perfume on Jesus feet and was wiping his feet with her hair.
• The Pharisee had said to himself that if Jesus were a prophet He would know what kind of woman this was.
• Then Jesus tells a parable of two debtors, one who had a lot of debt forgiven and the other one who had little forgiven.
• He asked Peter who was more thankful and Peter surmised the one who had much forgiven.
• Then Jesus turns it to the woman and the Pharisee in verse 47.
• SLIDE #9
• Luke 7:47 (ESV) 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
• When we understand that WE are sinners, it will affect how or if we reach out to other people.
• When we stand before God we cannot say well, our out was a swing and miss which is better than a ground out, or a pop out.
• An out is an out!
• Let’s see what we can glean from verse 12-13
• SLIDE #10
• James 2:12–13 (ESV) 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
• Ultimately we have to decide…
• SLIDE #11
III. What rules do you want applied to your game?
• We can play the game of life one of two ways. We can play the one strike and your out game or we can play under the new rules of GRACE and forgiveness offer by Jesus!
• The Law of Moses, the Old Testament, requires perfect obedience, if you stumble one time, you are done. The only chance for a person who wants to be judged by this system is perfection. We cannot do this. The Old Testament or the 10 Commandments were not designed to give salvation.
• SLIDE #12
• Romans 8:3 (ESV) 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
• James tells us that we are to speak and act as though we are going to be judged by the law of liberty. Remember that James has used this term before in 1:25.
• It is the law of liberty because it gives you freedom. You no longer have to be perfect. When you stand before God, you can tell Him that you have been purchased by the blood of Jesus and that, and that alone is your ticket to heaven!
• Our obedience to God must be a life-style, a habit. To speak and act covers all human behavior. James will later say that what we speak reflects what we think.
• Christians are to live their lives with a sense of urgency. We are to live in such a way that we are expecting the Lord to return at ANY TIME! We must be ready to give an account. We will all stand before the judgment seat.
• SLIDE #13
• Romans 14:10 (ESV) 10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;
• How do we speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law of liberty?
• James does not go into all of the specifics in this passage, but he does tell us in chapter one that we are to be a doer of the word, that we are to reach out to those in need. He tells us that we are not to show favoritism.
• We will show mercy to those around us. Look at verse 13. Like I said earlier, when we are trying to reach heaven by our own works and by minimizing our own sin and amplifying others, we will cop an attitude of judgment.
• We are to live knowing that at any moment, Jesus can return. This will affect the urgency in which we share the Gospel to other people.
• SLIDE #14
• 1 John 2:3 (ESV) 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
CONCLUSION
• Where are you this morning? Are you acting as though you will be judged by the law of liberty or are you still fighting with God and trying to make it to heaven on your own?
• How would you like to have to live a perfect life in order to make it to heaven? What a burden. Guess what, you will not make it.
• We cannot justify ourselves the way that James’ readers did by saying we are not committing the big sins, just the little ones. Sin is sin to God.
• We need to understand this so that we do not think that we are earning our salvation by our good works. We need to understand that if we break ONE of God’s laws, we stand before Him as guilty!
• If we lose the sense of how awful all sin is to God, we will start comparing other people to ourselves. That leads to judging others, it leads to looking at people with a critical eye instead of a loving eye.
• WE need to understand that the only reason we deserve to be in the presence of God is by the blood of Jesus. If we lose sight of the fact that we have been forgiven much, we will not appreciate what God did for us.
