Look and Don't Forget

Date: May 7, 2017

Message: Look and Don’t Forget

Text: James 1:19-27

Introduction

Your understanding of you shapes how you live. Don’t forget who you are.

James is an amazing letter. I think it is unfortunate that this wonderful teaching is used as a counterbalance to the grace of the gospel. I can think of countless times in my life where verses from James have been used as a “yes, but.” Yes, the gospel is true, but you have to work. Yes, salvation is by grace alone, but after salvation you have duties. Yes, faith alone, but you need to make sure that your faith works. “Paul emphasizes faith, and James emphasizes works. They’re both needed.” So the argument goes.

But reading James in context leads us away from the balancing act, away from thinking that the amazing grace of the gospel needs some grounding and balance in progressive self-improvement. Reading James in context leads us to think, “Yes, and this is how.” So yes, faith alone, and this is how faith in Jesus plays out in life on earth.

1. How are we saved? (vv. 19-21)

Receiving the implanted word

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Reason have 2 ears and one mouth. Kid, always want to talk. But listen.

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

No righteousness of our own. Our own, we are filthy, wicked, so be quiet and receive. This is the gospel.

Received – a gift, no merit

Implanted – not done by us at all.

You know what you have, on your own? Filthyness and rampant wickedness. I love that. You and I kind of say… well… I don’t know that I’m THAT bad. But James has no such compunction. Yep, that bad. Your striving… filthy rags. Stop it.

All of your work, all of your striving, all of your anger at injustice and slights and unfairness… none of it produces good.

Stop. And receive.

And we pause. And we agree. This is salvation. This is how we are saved, right?

We are saved by the word, given. By Jesus, received.

Grace. But.. hear my but! … it doesn’t end there, does it? We receive… and now… how are we to ACT. What are we to DO? Ha! This is, of course, the issue.

1. How might we be deceived in what we do? (vv. 22-24)

Forgetting what the law reveals

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Don’t just hear. Do. What a great statement.

Jesus Christ died for you. Oh, great. What’s for dinner?

Isn’t that the criticism that we resonate with? It seems like so many people say O, Yes, Bible… and don’t actually do any of it.

Great problem is that you might HEAR the word but not DO the word.

With this concept, much angst has been instilled into many hearts.

Are you only a hearer? Are you “DOING”? Don’t be deceived.

We need to answer this question… from James… how might we be deceived?

Am I DOING the word?

23 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. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

Hearing the Word and not Doing the word is an issue of forgetting, James says.

See, the problem can be, says James, that we don’t carry through the truth.

It is like looking in a mirror, says James.

You look in the mirror, you see yourself. You see clearly. Beard, glasses, nose, eyes. You do actually see yourself. The mirror reflects who you are. You see yourself.

James says, that’s hearing the word. The word reveals the truth, you see it.

But hearing and not doing is FORGETTING what you saw.

Like you look in the mirror, you turn away… uh… what was the picture again? after you turn away from the mirror, you can FORGET.

The issue of your Christian life is that you are prone to forgetting.

It isn’t that I miss the 5, 10, 100 commands that I was supposed to do. It is that I forget who I am. I forget what I look like. I forget what the PICTURE WAS.

Understand what it is James is getting at. The word is what we receive. We hear this amazing grace. We hear the gospel. I hear that I receive the gift, that it is implanted like I’m dirt and it is life. And then… when I’m not looking directly at this amazing gospel, this true word, this Savior of mine… I forget.

I don’t want to forget. I want to DO life in light of the gospel.

How do I do that? How do you do that?

This is really important. It is about how you are going to live, every day. What is going to be your practical help to not just hear the gospel, but do the gospel.

So here’s the question. And James’ answer.

1. How can we be blessed in what we do? (vv.25-27)

Persevering in holding to the gospel

25 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.

Here we need to stop. And I want to give you two possible interpretations. They are at odds. One cannot be true. One is not true. Yet it may very well be the one you have lived under. I say that because I lived under it. Wrongly. For years.

Option one is to drop the context. You’ve heard the context with me. The context is that our problem is that we look into the truth, like looking at ourselves in a mirror, but then we forget it.

So some people drop that, and say… hearing was hearing that you are a sinner, and need Jesus, and repenting, and conversion, and faith alone. But now… to do the word, James says, is to do the law.

Option 1: doing the word is finding the imperatives and getting them done. Progressive self-improvement to IMPROVE myself. In essence, it makes this analogy into improving the image in the mirror. It is empowered self—improvement.

Option 2: doing the word is living out of remembering the gospel. What you see in the mirror is what you hear in the WORD, implanted: the reality of Christ and his saving you even while you are a sinner. Your inability. His ability.

Option 1 makes no sense in this context. But that’s how it is taught.

Do you see why that’s a problem here? I mean, is that what you heard? Is that the word you received? That you must keep this law?

USB translator’s handbook, alternate translation, really helpful:

But whoever studies the perfect teaching that frees people from sin and death, and keeps on doing this, God will bless him in everything he does. He is a person who does not simply listen but puts the teaching into practice.

See, the issue is what is the law of liberty, and what’s our response to it, and do we stop responding?

Law = Law of God, Torah, given to Moses, affirmed by Jesus in statements like “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” Do this and live.

So what is James getting at? Realize that he is presenting this perfect law of liberty as a mirror. It reveals… me. Me. In all my imperfection. The perfection that God requires is a standard that points out to me the depth of my personal blemishes, imperfections, inabilities. My own failure glares at me, reflected by this law of liberty. Even after conversion.

Never get angry at my brother? Never have a lustful thought? Never do anything for my own gain? Always rejoice? Never worry? I think I fail at all of them. Even as a believer in Jesus.

So how is this liberating? In what way is this mirror revealing my inability the “law of liberty”? Because I see no hope in me. I died to the law. The law condemns me, and it is right. I am condemnation-worthy. The pathway that I trod for so long, the pathway of self-improvement and self-worth under the law has been closed… forever. Look hard, James says, and never forget.

The law again reminds me that my freedom is in Jesus. The law of liberty points to the freedom that I have found in the person and work of Jesus. It is freeing because the bonds of trying to attain and perfect and complete the standards of God, on my own and in my power, are broken forever.

The law of liberty squelches every impulse that I have to again get on the ladder, again climb the treadmill, again be the judge, again find my identity and worth in how I am doing. Because I look hard at this law which frees me, and I lose my confidence in me. I am pushed again to my only hope, Jesus.

And what we discovered in Jesus’ teaching, in this implanted word, is that OUR RIGHT RESPONSE TO THAT LAW IS TO FALL TO OUR KNEES.

We don’t keep it. We admire. We aspire. WE love. But we aren’t actually able.

And so the Gospel response to law is… throwing ourselves on Jesus.

See, the law is a teacher to push us to Christ. Christ is our freedom.

Do you begin to see? The goal of our existence used to be… keep the law.

But the Gospel is… Jesus died. So in order to be FREE we had to die to the law. We had to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus. The Law speaks liberty, the law is the way to freedom not by our keeping of it but by Jesus keeping it for us… and our death to ourselves, our life in him.

How is the law the law that frees us? It frees us by killing us.

We all agree this is true in conversion.

We repent of our sin, our imperfection, and we trust in Jesus, what he has done.

This is looking at the mirror, right, this is what we all heard?

And then.. foolishly… some of us are deceived. Instead of DOING according to that PICTURE in the mirror, we leave the mirror.

We start to think of ourselves as good. Righteous. Better.

We start to think of law as something we accomplish. Progressively improving. We start to urge other people to persevere in doing the law, instead of urging them to persevere in the truth that the law reveals about them and about us… that we have no hope in our selves.

The law doesn’t free you… it is the law of liberty because it cuts off the dead-end hope that we continue to cherish… that hope that WE will be the victor, WE will be the hero, WE will attain to perfection.

And no one, never, keeps the perfect law.

So… there’s another way. James’ way. Paul’s way. They are the same.

James is saying… look at yourself in the mirror. Let the perfect law, the law of liberty, be the mirror. Never forget.

Never forget what? What you received. That you are NOT righteous in yourself. That the picture that the law makes of YOU is an UGLY picture. All the way through.

It is like looking at the picture of you… presented by Jesus… and you are incredibly loved, incredibly valued… but butt-ugly in sin.

And we look, we not, we are amazed at the love of Christ, we are … truly… humbled.

Humility. Marker of the Christian. Personally seeing that you are nothing. Marveling that Jesus loves you still. And so… you aren’t about great ethical codes and shiny outsides and moral gestures. You are about valuing the least and the little and the lost. I mean, that’s where James goes, right?

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 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.

Don’t live life to gain favor; live life because you already have favor in Christ.

Conclusion

Do the Gospel. You will be blessed. That means never forget who you are – totally broken. Everyone you meet is the same, broken.

And at the same time, free because of what Jesus has done.

Ex: parenting

Parent. I see my child get angry and upset at her sister, wrongly. I don’t urge her on to greater perfection – like “Oh, child. You can do so much better. You need to persevere at being a better person.”

No. Instead… I can say – I see you. Broken. I’m broken too. We so want to be better, but we have only one hope. Jesus who died for us. Do you know he paid for that anger. Let’s cry and repent and then laugh and rejoice.

I can spend time with the least and the little and the lost. I don’t have to maximize my leverage to go forward in life. I can live knowing that I am nothing, and Jesus, the great savior of the lost, he has me, and uses me, and loves me. Forever.

Persevere in that. By looking into the mirror of the perfect law, and realizing HOW you are free.

Rejoice with me. Let’s pray.

• Why is it important that salvation is received, that the word is implanted?
• What does the law of liberty reveal about you? Why is that freeing?
• What does it look like to forget what the law reveals? Where do we drift to?
• What exactly is ‘pure religion’? How is this related to the gospel?