Turn with me to James and the first chapter, Of His own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Know
this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant witness wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
this, my beloved brothers: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
this, my beloved brothers: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
this, my beloved brothers: Thus far, the reading of God's own word, let's pray, Father. We thank you for this your word.
this, my beloved brothers: so bless in this hour as we give to you our worship. Give to us grace to attend your word, to implant it deeply and to go forth, to bear its fruit. For it's in Christ's name we ask it and to His glory. Amen. You may be seated please.
this, my beloved brothers: Several times this morning, reference has been made to the Bible, and you all knew exactly what to reach for. Now, there may have been someone confused and got the hymn book, but Bible simply means book. If you're taking any foreign language, you recognize that the Spanish, French, whatever languages are being taught these days, Bible means book, and for God's people through the centuries, this has been the book, and Christians have been called The people of the book. It's been treasured, and that's why we often refer to it as the Holy Bible. It's set apart. It's different. It has a whole different realm to itself from any other literature that there is. It is not a new thing.
this, my beloved brothers: God's people were always known as the people of the Book throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament, when Paul preached Berea, he writes back praise about how they were noble because they checked his sermons out by looking in the book to see if he was being faithful to what God had spoken. There it is God's very word. In fact, there was a cartoon I saw several months ago of Moses sitting in a bookstore signing, autographing copies and commandments, and he's saying to one of the customers, okay, right? All I did was take the dictation.
this, my beloved brothers: Right now, do you want the autograph or not? God spoke it.
this, my beloved brothers: God kept it, sometimes, apart from, in a sense, the mental involvement of the writer. The Lord said to me, write this other times through the writer, as you see in the Psalms, proclaiming God's word, and they are also the words of the psalmist saying it, but God is speaking through the word. We say with Paul's words to Timothy, All Scripture is inspired of God. That's exhaled of God. It comes into being because the Lord God breathed it. It is the very Word of God, and nothing else is one of the cries of the Reformation. Sola scriptura, only the written word of God. He's given us a great, firm anchor there that you can say, what saith the Lord. And there it is. What does God say to me? Well, there it is. It's not simply theologically a great foundational stone. It's not theologically simply that precious thing, but very personally, how are you saved?
this, my beloved brothers: How did you come to Christ?
this, my beloved brothers: Because the message of the word came to you either by its proclamation, by its reading, by a friend, conveying it. It was, as James says in the verses we read earlier, of his own will, he begot us through the word of truth. And you look back and say, it was God's message to me that drew me to himself. It was God saying there was hope for a sinner like me. It was God's mercy, and that's why Isaiah, in the passage we read of God's forgiveness, finishes up with the verses that almost seem disconnect. Come before the Lord repent. He says, return to Him and He will forgive, and he will abundantly pardon. And then he says, Now, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts. I can't imagine how God could forgive me. I can't imagine how God would receive someone like me.
this, my beloved brothers: And so God says, through Isaiah, my thoughts are above your thoughts. And so we read them, and it's what God has said to us. It's his direction to us.
this, my beloved brothers: And there are those times, I'm sure you've experienced them yourself. You're reading through a passage that you've read before, and you stop and say, Wait a minute, when did he put that in there? Because the Holy Spirit has pricked your heart to see something you've passed by repeatedly before, and God has made it foundational to your life. In times of comfort, the need of comfort, you go to Scripture. In times of confusion, you go to scripture God has made it precious in that way, giving us their directions, giving us their hope, declaring again the mercies of God we were are smitten with some realization of our iniquity and our corruption, our twistedness.
this, my beloved brothers: God says, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Come drink of the water of life. Let him come. Drink freely. He'll come to me. I will, in no wise cast out. It's the word of God that has that preciousness there, and that's why, in verse 22 our text starts out kind of in a surprising fashion, because the previous verses that we looked at last week, he's talking about needing to listen to the word being quick to hear it, not to jump on it and get mad or run away with our own thoughts or respond before we've list finished listening to God, but to hear the Word of God now he says in verse 22 but Don't just be listening to it. That's kind of surprising. I would have expected to see something so if you're not listening to God's word and go from there. But what he says is, don't just be listening to it. He's not directing this warning and this instruction to those who are taking the Word of God lightly.
this, my beloved brothers: He's not taking his instruction here to those who are ignoring it. Is he discouraging us from prizing the scriptures or something that we don't really need to be swift to hear and receive with meekness, and now he's talking about how we're doing and going and doing.
this, my beloved brothers: What's he talking about. He's talking about not just being listeners.
this, my beloved brothers: Back in Ezekiel, 33 prophet Ezekiel, had been warning God's people again and again. Early part of the chapter, he talks about how God is going to send disease. God is going to send destruction. There are going to be swords throughout the city.
this, my beloved brothers: Blood is going to be there.
this, my beloved brothers: You're all going to be slaughtered. And in verse 30, he says to Ezekiel, now you, Son of man, your people, talk to God.
this, my beloved brothers: Other about you by the walls and the doors of the houses, and say to one another, each to his brother, come and hear what is the word that comes from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people. And they hear what you say, but they will not do it for lustful mouths. In their walk, in their mouths, they act. Their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you're to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. And when it comes and come it will, then they'll know that a prophet has been among them.
this, my beloved brothers: Had a classmate from Australia, and he said there was a real danger involved, because he said he could plant a church and there'd be 200 people come every week just to hear his accent.
this, my beloved brothers: It's a terrible thing, but there is that desire to hear just simply for the beauty of the word and the language that is there as it comes forth from God. It was an actor in the 1700s David Garrick, very famous actor of that time, who went to hear Whitefield preach. Garrick was not a Christian. He made no bones about it, but he said, Oh, I'd give a fortune to be able to speak like he speaks. I want to listen how he speaks and listen to it like he was an Actor in a Play, as Ezekiel had said. And you have a danger here, a danger which is a blessing, but it's a danger. You have a pastor, the other Dan, who proclaims God's word, proclaims it clearly, goes to the depths of God's word, makes it clear, makes it plain, and does so in a way that is pleasant to listen to, that's not as common as you might hope.
this, my beloved brothers: I still recall a number of years ago, we had a visitor preach for us, and I had a hard time keeping up with what he was saying. I had an idea where he was coming from, but afterwards, I was walking by and two of our members were talking, and one of them said to the other boy, that must have been deep, because I couldn't understand a thing. He said, Well, you got a pastor teaches you deep things, but they're clear. He lays out the word of God. He does so in a way that is not going to make you fall asleep or sit there and stare at your watch every three seconds and say, when's it going to be over? So there's a temptation and a proclivity there to just kind of sit back and enjoy it and only listen to it, not a danger involved. If you weren't preaching God's word, you might as well ignore it. If you can't understand it, might as well ignore it. There's a warning here for those who only listen. And the word James uses here is the listener is to be an auditor. An auditor is, if you're familiar in colleges and high schools, sometimes you have auditing a class. It means you just sit in it and you listen.
this, my beloved brothers: You don't have to do it. You got no assignments, you got no test.
this, my beloved brothers: You're just sitting into the class and listening and picking up what you can pick up, but there's no accountability. Well, James says, Don't be auditing the Word of God. Don't be there thinking there's no accountability. And somehow you have become virtuous by having it fall on your ears and by paying a measure of attention to it. Satan knows Scriptures. He quoted them to Jesus, twisted them out of context. Satan knows scriptures as Jane goes on another chapter and says, Even the demons know God and fear Him, knowing it is not enough auditing what the Word of God has said, the demons know there's a God, and they shudder, but they simply hear what he has said about it. Well, the nature of God's word is that it's not for auditing, and God has given as his choice means of redemption, the use of the word falling on our ears, nothing else can be likened to being so feeble, so foolish. It's just as silly as if Martha and Mary had stood. Outside the tomb of Lazarus and said, Lazarus, come forth. The preaching of the Word is that powerless, except that God has chosen to bless it. So it's Christ who says, come forth. And speaking a word to dead hearts brings life. But there's no credit to anyone except God. And God has put the word there, and we listen to it, and he says, Now, don't be deceiving yourself. Don't lead yourself astray by faulty reasoning. That's the word he uses. Don't think wrongly. Well, it's a word of truth. It's a word of grace. Here's what God says. I'm there listening to his word, so I've got to be saved.
this, my beloved brothers: No, he says, Look at what God's Word does. What it really is.
this, my beloved brothers: That which you're hearing is a word of action that requires a response. And that's why he says, You hear it, but you know also, then have an implanted word bear its fruit in your behavior. He says, First, it's a mirror. He turns to one use immediately that it's like the word of God, because it shows you our true nature. It shows you literally, the face of your birth. That's the face you were born with, not the face you wish you had, not the face you had photoshopped to make it very different, not the face that you would like to go under the knife for plastic surgery. Be something else, but what you really are, how you actually look and other people see what you are, not what you think of yourself, but what is actually there, and what happens when you see who is really there? When you look inside with that mirror, you've got to see your depravity. You see not only your wickedness, but you see your corruption. You see the evil that is there. You see the twisted thinking and desires that are there that you so regret and wish they weren't there. And one of the longings for heaven is, I'll be changed.
this, my beloved brothers: I won't be like that anymore.
this, my beloved brothers: It's God who, in his word, says, but this is how you are now.
this, my beloved brothers: This is the way you are in your life. Verse 14, he'll go on to contrast this of how we are, not like God first created us, reflecting his character. He says, Now this is who you are, and you know the difference between right and wrong. You are described by the Holy Spirit in these ways. When you read Isaiah and he says, all of our righteousness is as filthy rags.
this, my beloved brothers: You don't get in a huff. Say that's an understatement. There was a protest number of years ago about the hymn book that said, would he devote that Sacred Head for such a worm as I and some people said, Oh, don't compare yourself to a worm.
this, my beloved brothers: That's awful. And some of the response was, you're right. Worm is a compliment compared to what I really am. You look at God's law, love him entirely. Obey him entirely. Reflect the nature of Christ in everything you do.
this, my beloved brothers: 724, obedient. Full of prayer, giving forth good things to all around about you. Hardly anybody could get sick in Israel during Christ's ministry, he's going around healing everybody, demons cast out, going to the crowd, just all around him all the time, and he still showed mercy. He's going to heal Jairus daughter, and someone in the crowd lady comes up and tags him because she wants him to heal her, if I can just touch his robe. And he stops. Say, who did that go lady, your faith has made you whole. He stops to minister to her. Not impatient.
this, my beloved brothers: You see Christ in the company of prostitutes, Pharisees, thieves, political. Zealots and never, not only a word of disobedience to God, never a thought of disobedience to God. And you say, I ain't like that. I should be, but I'm not like that. And we the sin that's there, and we see ourselves in that word as God sees us. We fall short, as Paul says in Romans, fall short of the glory of God. Doesn't mean we're not as glorious as God. It means we don't have the glory we were created to have.
this, my beloved brothers: You were made to be in His image and look at yourself in that mirror. We don't want to look in the mirror. We try to hide it from ourselves and from others.
this, my beloved brothers: Still remember a number of years ago in Uganda, look in the newspaper they have, it's kind of a small town newspaper to be the capital city, but they had an article in there about a service at a local Evangelical Church, and the pastor had been speaking and condemning a particular sin, and a visitor stood up and says, You quit talking about me. Pastor said, I beg your pardon. He said, You're talking all about me. You're describing my life. Somebody's been spying on me, and you're talking all about me. The pastor said, Sir, I have no idea who you are. I haven't been spying you. If anything, it's the Holy Spirit bringing these things out. And he says, I don't want a Holy Spirit that spies on me.
this, my beloved brothers: Well, that's what God sees when he spies on you. All of that involved, it's ugly, and you look at the law, and what is it that it shows us about the law?
this, my beloved brothers: Well, he says it's a law of liberty. It's the law of freedom. And only is it a mirror, it shows what you are.
this, my beloved brothers: It's a standard that says, here's what liberty is about. If you weren't enslaved to your corruption, here's how you would be. This is how you're liberated in Christ. This is why Christ's perfect life and death are necessary, and this is what they are, that the curse was laid on him, and you were made free in him. You are made free from the consequences of that law, you are made free from doing the law in order to be saved. You're not required that now for your salvation, it's been paid in full, and he says it shows you, then what life free from sin is.
this, my beloved brothers: What does it mean to be freed of that corruption and the vileness. What's it like? What's it like to obey God, free from fear of guilt, fear of punishment and doubt, freed from the commandments of men? If I obey His law from the heart, I'm doing His will. I don't have to ask what God will for my life. A friend, some of you probably know Alan. Alan, Strange was teaching a Sunday school class, and he says, we ask, What's God's will for my life? What's God want me? What's my will for God's life? And he starts quoting from Fiddler on the Roof. Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? I'll tell you what God's will for your life is. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make graven images and just went that's God's will for your life. You know what God's will for your life is. He tells you what it is, and the only thing he restricts is sin. That's why the Puritans would say that the weight of the law is like the weight of wings on a bird that enabled him to fly. He only prohibits sin, not pleasure, not joy, not happiness, not prosperity, not friends, not fun, only sin is forbidden. What does it require when you look in that mirror of God's word, you see what I do wrong. You see what He requires. Well, what is it? Moses said in Deuteronomy 10 and now Israel, what does the Lord God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his way. Ways to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and keep the commandments and statues of the Lord which I'm commanding today for your good. Micah laments Israel rejecting God and His law. He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love, kindness, walk humbly with your God. What's it run cross? It runs across our own selfishness, our own corruptions. It runs across our being, our own God, and to love Him all the more in all the entirety. And you see these mural shows us, this is what God now says. This is what you're supposed to be now. This is not something you simply aspire to, but now you know what God said, and you're supposed to be doing it. God's grace gives you not only forgiveness of sin, but cleansing from sin. No, it's not legality, outwardly doing. It isn't virtuous. The Heart response provoking to do what he has said is what God requires, not a puppet, not a straw man, not an invitation, not to gain merit, not to have people like us, not to try to get stuff, but because we are delivered, we want to live holy lives. When was the law given to Israel after they were delivered, after they came out of Egypt? When did they come out of Egypt? After the Passover, a lamb was slain and the blood was applied. God is saying to them, I am glory to God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now, because you are free, because you are saved, here's how you live, as my people, and the way that I live, simple, isn't it? And to hear it and ignore it is to despise him. Is to make it optional so that you can be yourself. You look in the mirror and you get up and you walk away and you ignore how you really are, much less how God has said you are to be. See, that's the first sin he mentions. Here is that sin of omission.
this, my beloved brothers: He who forgets, he looks at himself and at once, forgets what he was like. It didn't mean he lacks a mental data. I mean, I look in the mirror, I see what I really look like, but then I try to ignore it. Cover what I can with a beard, but just try to ignore it. He says, you forget what it showed you. It's kind of like if you're a gas gage on the car is faulty, and you know it well. You know it's there. You see what it says, but you're not gonna pay any attention to it. He says, who sees the law and then just ignores it? Is one who has bent over and looked intently. Now we hang mirrors on the wall, and the culture James is writing to usually, mirrors were laid on a table, and so to look carefully in the mirror, you are bent over intently, looking down into that mirror. And he says, You carefully examined that mirror you looked at yourself in there.
this, my beloved brothers: You great scrutiny. You saw what was wrong, what needed to be changed, and then you went on without it. It's a symptom of no mental ill interest, learning of who you are, and learning of Christ is a foundation to piety, but it's not identical with it, and you simply don't do it's called a sin of omission. There are sins of commission. That is when we do what God said not to do. This is a sin of omission.
this, my beloved brothers: Go clean your room. You don't clean it. That's a disobedience of omission. So what is it like?
this, my beloved brothers: Well, let's take it back to its foundation year, to the Word of God. I don't. Like looking in mirrors. You know, one of the nastiest parts is going to the doctor's office, step up on the scale, sir. I don't want to step on that scale. I know. Okay, trust me, I know you don't want to look in the mirrors. So what happens? There's an infrequency and a growing infrequency and being exposed to the word. I don't want to see what it looked like in that mirror, so I turned it to face the wall. I will skip church this morning. I don't want to hear that again. Oh, yeah, I should be reading my Bible daily, sins of omission that are an avoidance. That's why, when pastors and elders come to visit, if you have been absent, overly, without great reason, they're not concerned so much that pew space wasn't occupied. They want to know what's going on in your heart, that you don't want to hear the word what is taking place, that you have not the desire to get up, to get dressed and to come and expose yourself to God's word when at least five days a week, you get up and you get dressed and you expose yourself to the workplace or the classroom. It's concern for the heart. There's a sin of omission that's involved there, forgetting it, letting it go, and yet the answers to your problems are only found in that book. He says, let that IMPLANTED WORD bear its fruit, receive with meekness, the implanted word. How does that IMPLANTED WORD to be nurtured and implanted? Well, I mentioned scales at a doctor's office, so let's use it medically. Medical analogy first is apply generously. Apply it generously.
this, my beloved brothers: You looked in the mirror intently. You've seen what is there. You see what God says about, apply it to yourself.
this, my beloved brothers: That sinner he talks about, that's me, that doubter he talks about, that's me, that sluggard that's so slow to obey. That's me. Apply it to yourself. Don't go looking for specks in your neighbor's eye. In the mirror you see the two by fours in your own eye. You are the sinner in need of grace. You are the corrupt one who needs correction. You are the one whose life and heart need to get straightened out. You are the one needing God's grace, you plead with Him for forgiveness, and you see there what God said He made man to be creator in his own image, honoring him by reflecting his glory. Apply that to yourself. Plead with the Lord. Make me more like you. O Lord. Help me to guard my tongue so that my words are wholesome like your words are wholesome and My words are utterly truthful, and up building like yours are up building and truthful. Give me patience with this other person like you. Have patience with me. Apply it generously to yourself, that you might be what God has said you are to be. And secondly, be sure you use it as directed.
this, my beloved brothers: It's not how to become a Christian, it's not how to be saved.
this, my beloved brothers: It's applied to you as one who is already saved. It's not a platform for becoming a leveling up and becoming a super Christian. God says, here is what you are to be, because you are my child because I have delivered you out of Egypt, because I have redeemed you, because I have done all this marvelous mercy. We're all familiar with Romans, 12, one and two. It begins with, therefore, all the Gospel story, up to that coming up to God's climax in history of how he's redeeming his people. And the unfruitful branches are cut off, and fruitful branches are grasped on, and God's purpose will go forward to his glory.
this, my beloved brothers: And he says, Now, therefore.
this, my beloved brothers: Her, because you are delivered live this way. Some of us act as though, oh, I didn't read my Bible today. God's not going to love me anymore. No, act as I've got to do this or God's really going to cut me out. No, you do this because God has loved you, because God has delivered you, because you have been forgiven, because you are the first fruits of the harvest of grace, because God is at work in you, because God is transforming you. You do it as a new creature, saying this word implanted in me, this is a life it will bring forth.
this, my beloved brothers: See, the Christian life is an activist life. Call to monastic contemplation. But onward, obedience, walking in the ways of the Lord and serving Him.
this, my beloved brothers: Apply it generously. Apply as directed. And finally, do not discontinue. You ever see that on your medicines, your antibiotics and other stuff, Use as directed, do not discontinue until the doctor says to when does the Lord say to discontinue when you're with him? It's a lifetime prescription. You're always being reformed by that word. One of the cries of the Reformation was sola scriptura, only scripture. Another was Ecclesia reformada reform Amanda est the church reformed is always reforming as a church.
this, my beloved brothers: We're always wanting to reshape ourselves as God has said we're to be shaped. Where does God say we're to do? How as a church are we to behave? What do we do in our worship? How do we work in our lives? How do we interact?
this, my beloved brothers: We want to reshape according to words of God as a church and ourselves. Keep applying it.
this, my beloved brothers: Now, if I were to tell you, someday you can be perfect like me, you would immediately understand that is tongue in cheek. Well, someday I will be perfect when the great physician takes me home. But until then, here is my word. Use it as my child to know my will and don't quit. Had a dear friend elder many years ago, at the time, he was in his 70s. I wasn't obviously, and he would talk and say about this sanctification.
this, my beloved brothers: You know, I thought sometimes it would get easier. It doesn't. It doesn't lifelong application of that word, no, you haven't learned it all yet. No, you don't know everything God says no, you haven't changed your life as much as you need to change it. So don't just listen.
this, my beloved brothers: Don't just listen when the Lord speaks, the proper response is, Hear, O Lord, Your servant listens and obeys. Is your obedience going to be perfect? No?
this, my beloved brothers: Are you going to need to repent of the things you did trying to obey? Yeah, as a advisor told Martin Luther, who kept confessing all of his sins, said, Luther, go and sin, boldly. Go and serve God, knowing you're going to fall on your face. No, you're not going to be perfect. Go on and try go on and seek His face. Walk in that direction.
this, my beloved brothers: Here's what God says. Let it bear its fruit. Let's pray Almighty God, we thank You for Your word that you tell us clearly and plainly that what you require of us, that you tell us emphatically and repeatedly that your son has met all of your demands and that we are your children, forgiven, washed, cleansed and, and give you honor in Christ's name we ask, Amen.