Be Transformed - James 1:19-27

Engage

Awhile ago I wanted to get healthier so I started doing couch to 5k with Jill. Now, I don’t like running unless it has a purpose like for a sport or if you are being chased by zombies, that sort of thing. In fact I never just ran unless I was made too for a sport so this was new territory for me. Obviously it started out rough but eventually I was able to run for a longer duration then I ever was able to before, even when I was playing sports all the time in high school. Unfortunately I didn’t even actually finish the program and just started to miss the workouts and stopped altogether.

I also actually really like going to the gym and weightlifting for exercise. Just like couch to 5k I was committed to that for awhile years ago. I was going regularly, doing a regimen, drinking protein shakes and the whole 9 yards and low and behold I was seeing improvements in both my strength and my health. Then I got a new job and work go in the way so I got out of routine and stopped going.

Now I am in a place where I want to get healthy again and heres the thing: I know how to. I know how to exercise, I know how to lift weights, I even know a decent amount about healthy eating which is actually the most important part of the whole equation. But, except for some eating changes recently, I am not really doing anything else. I have the knowledge and ability to do it but I am not making it a priority in my life like I should be.

Tension

This is common for most of us isn’t it? I mean we are only in February and I am sure some of you made “new years resolutions” this year and if you didn’t someone you know probably did. Now I hope that if you did you are still well into doing it but chances are, statistically, you have given up on them. Most of us aren’t inherently good at allowing our knowledge of things turn into actual results.

Often times we let what we know stay in our heads and not truly effect our lives. Sometimes it is because it seems like it would be too hard, sometimes its just a lack of desire to follow through, it can be because we doubt our ability to do what we want to do, we may let other things get in the way, we may simply not actually want to do what we know is best for us and we may even think the way we are going about whatever it is we should change is actually good enough.

Well this happens with our life as christians too doesn’t it? We read things, we hear things, often times we know we need to change something or go about our lives differently but we don’t. We simply let it sit in our minds, if we remember at all, and often times trick ourselves into thinking everything we do at this moment in time is as good as it should be or needs to be.

Well, as we continue on in the book of James, this is exactly the problem that he is going to be addressing.

Truth

James 1:19–27 ESV

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 wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 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. 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. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Quick to hear

James is a book full of practical wisdom. It is gives us so much encouragement on how to live our lives as followers of Jesus and I think one that many of us need to listen to more is to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

We live in a society that does the exact opposite right now. We are quick to speak, quick to anger, and not just slow to hear but often times unwilling to hear. People seem to want to be angry and want to be offended. Pair that with social media which gives everyone a voice and people then love to talk and feel the need for every thought and opinion they have to be out there for all to see. Everyone is entitle to their opinion but you don’t need to share all of them with the world.

As a whole, I know christians tend to be very bad at this, both communally and individually. Communally christians seem to be the last to want to hear and the first to want to speak. You do something that doesn’t agree with how I view the world? Let me tell you why you are wrong. You interpret this part of the Bible different than me? Let me put you on blast on social media so everyone knows I am right and you are wrong. I saw a shirt the other day that said “I don’t argue, I just explain why I am right”. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

Now I am not saying do not stand up for truth or express your beliefs and what the bible says but you can say the right thing the wrong way too. Often times people don’t hear us because we are unwilling to hear them. And often times this leads to human anger, often over things that are not even biblical ideas anyway, and then we alienate people from the gospel. Most of you know me and know that I don’t shy away from speaking the truth even about hard topics. If someone asks me a question about a controversial cultural topic and the scripture has something to say about it I will openly talk about how I feel. I wont hesitate to say things in front of a group like this either but I alway try to communicate it with love and understanding when, a lot of times, christians just sound angry and bitter. Don’t shy away from speaking the truth but make sure its done the right way.

So that is how christians do it corporately but what about privately? How are we often slow to listen and quick to speak in our own individual lives? You might think I just hit on it but I am looking at it the way James is looking at it in this passage, how we personally interact with the word of God. We are often too slow to hear what it is saying to us and quick to tell the bible what it should say or what I think it says. We don’t take time to listen to Jesus speak to us but we often are good at speaking to him. And this is where James is going as he talks about being “doers” of the word and not just hearers.

Be transformed

James 1:21–25 ESV

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 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. 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.

James is going right at it man. I know I have read this passage many times and thought, ouch, thats me. I often have a lot of head knowledge about the scriptures and about Jesus but am I really putting it into practice? The church tends to screw this one up really bad. Often times we view faith as a mental assent rather than a worldview and a lifestyle to be lived. James is going to double down on this in the next chapter and here he is setting the stage. Our lives as christians cannot just be defined and viewed through a mental list of facts and knowledge that the Bible gives us but actually doing the things the word says.

So what does that mean? It means we are doing what James is saying in v. 21. We are getting rid of the sin, the malice, the envy, the greed, the lust, all the filthiness and wickedness that is in our lives that we did before we knew Jesus and now we are letting the word of God change us from the inside out. We do not just hear the word but we let it be implanted deep within us so that our thoughts and actions begin to change and look like what Christ wants them to look like.

This idea of the implanted word runs deep I think. First we have the literal word made flesh, Jesus, who when we believe in him gives us salvation and promises us the Holy Spirit to live within us to help us live the life that God is intending us to live. So that is literally implanted within our souls. Then we have the scriptures given to us that, as we learn about them and read them, the Holy Spirit takes and implants deep within us to facilitate this change.

And while it talks about saving your souls it something to note that save doesn’t always mean salvation in the Bible. Like we would use it today the context dictates what it means. So James is talking to believers, who have already been saved through faith, and here he is talking about saving our souls in a way that is transforming it so that we do not have to go through the consequences of sin in our lives and the deep pain that sin causes us. Saving us from the effect of our sin here and now as we experience it not in the grand forgiveness that comes from knowing and believing in Jesus.

If we only hear the word, but do not become doers, we deceive ourselves. We are great at this. I know the right thing, I go to church, I pray, I can recite the 10 commandments, I have Philippians 4:13 tattooed on my arm I am good right? Never mind the things in your life that you know are wrong and ignore that God is trying to work out in you or the things that you have convinced yourself are ok but you really know they aren't. We deceive ourselves all the time!

Do not deceive yourselves by coming eagerly to hear the Word and then failing to do it. If it is a good thing to hear, it is a much better thing to do. If you do not hear, you cannot do, and therefore you will build nothing. But if you hear and do not do, then what you are building will be a ruin. - Augustine

James gives us this analogy of someone looking in a mirror and as soon as they leave the forget what they look like. Well Christ is that mirror for us. The word is that mirror for us. It shows us what we should look like when we gave into it but often we close our Bibles, we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit, we make Jesus just a part of our lives not the reason for our lives and we forget what we are to look like. But when we really look into the word, into the face of Jesus, and we see the beauty of the law of liberty and start to do it we see the blessings of God in our lives because we have opened up our lives for God to be able to bless it as we walk the path he has for us. God’s word is not meant to be just a list of things to do and not do, no no no, following it actually frees us from the bondage of sin and brings us into true freedom in becoming like Jesus.

Romans 8:1–4 ESV

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The perfect law of liberty, the law of the Spirit of life sets us free, it does not bind us. If we walk in it we experience the abundant life Christ died for us to have.

Be Christ to the world

And as we start to become doers and are transformed by it we can become the hands and feet of Jesus to the world.

James 1:26–27 ESV

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James started out talking in this part of his epistle talking about being quick to hear and slow to speak so he comes back to it by referencing controlling our tongues. He is going to drill down on that later so I will get into that another time. Lets focus on his ideas on pure religion. Pure religion isn’t right and wrong, pure religion isn’t head knowledge, pure religion isn’t simply reading scripture, praying, going to church and having a sticker on your laptop or care talking about Jesus or what church you go to. No, pure religion is becoming the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world and truly let Christ change us into what he wants us to be.

Matthew 25:34–40 ESV

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Jesus has called us to be his hands and feet to a hurting and dyeing world but often we think religion is something that is our own personal beliefs and we leave it in our minds and, far to often, in our churches on a Sunday morning. But what is truly following Jesus? Its serving people, helping the hurting, being close to the broken hearted, seeking justice, giving ourselves to others…In short loving our neighbor as ourself. If all we ever do is meet here on a Sunday morning and it doesn’t go out to the world around us we aren’t doing what Jesus wants us to do as followers of Christ. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

But there is more, you might often hear people quote that pure religion is taking care of the widows and the orphans, the needy, the lowly, and they stop there. That is what can be referred to as the social justice gospel. The idea that all christians are supposed to do is seek justice and mercy for those hurting. Well, yeah we are, but most people who quote this don’t include the part where James says we need to be unstained by the world as well.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, to heal the broken hearted, to touch the hurting, to free the oppressed, to liberate humanity from the clutches of sin and death. He also came to proclaim the righteousness of God and the truth of what that means for us. So if all you do is serve people but your mind and life is still like the world, you have missed the point, we are to be distinctively different in how we think and acts. Conversely, if all you do is change your own life, probably becoming self righteous, and do not help the hurting of this world you have also missed the point. True religion, true devotion to Jesus, shows up as both an transformed personal life and an outpouring of love to those around us.

Application

Here is the bottom line. If you are transformed you can transform the world. Let me say that again, If you are transformed you can transform the world. That is why we need to be doers and not just hearers. If we want to see the world around us transformed we need to let the word of God change our thoughts and actions so that we not only become the hands and feet of Jesus but we actually WANT to be the hands and feet of Jesus! Without being transformed you cannot truly bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.

And the beauty and the mystery of it is that its not all on you but rather it is you working with Jesus to make it happen.

1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

God has shown us all grace through Jesus and the gospel. The fact that Jesus was willing to come to earth, live a perfect human life, die on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins and rise from the grave to defeat sin and death for us is the beautiful saving grace of God. But his grace doesn’t stop there, it is what helps us to live out this life as he intends, we just have to work with him and not against him. Jesus is always with us, God has given us the Holy Spirit and the Word to guide us, we just have to listen and respond to what he is prompting us to do. Follow his leading and he will make you what he wants you to be.

If you are transformed you can transform the world

Inspiration

The world doesn’t need more hearers it needs more doers. The American church is full of consumerist christianity where it is all about what God can do for us but God is calling us to be the ones who do through the empowerment he gives us. If you start to actually do what the word says, the things God is prompting you to do as he speaks to you, there is no limit to what he can accomplish through you. The thing is it may not look like what the world says success is, it may not look like you envisioned it to be, but it will be bringing eternal changes to the lives of the people around you. Money, fame, jobs, possessions, they will all fade away but bringing the kingdom of God to earth echoes through eternity. If you are transformed you can transform the world

Action

Where has God been challenging you through the word and through his speaking to you? How has he been using messages from pastors or things said by other believers around you to spur you on to what he wants to accomplish in and through you? Are you working with him or without him? Take steps in the direction he is leading you because every step gets you closer to what wants for your life.