Called to Discipleship

Called to Discipleship ~ A Sermon on James 1:17-27

So today, we move on in our series on the Letter of James. And as you probably noticed in today’s reading, just as we heard in last week’s reading and sermon, James just jumps right into it. He doesn’t waste time on niceties. We saw that when in verse 2 he says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.” JOY… in sufferings! This is craziness! How can we be joyful when suffering breaks into our life? How can we be joyful when the going gets hard, when we need to put to death those things which get in the way of God’s plan for us? It’s crazy! Or is it?

I think that if we dive into today’s text we will see that, perhaps it isn’t as crazy as it may sound. Is it hard? Yes. But not crazy or impossible. And why is it not impossible? Because it relies upon and rests on grace. But the biblical understanding of grace is not something that comes in and turns everything into a cakewalk. It is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightfully states a “costly grace” which costs our very life as we know it and will continue to demand all from us “day by day.”[2] And it is worth remembering that he gave his life in obedience to such costly grace. They were no mere words to him.

But what does today’s text have to say? Interestingly, James starts off, by reminding us of an important as well as a comforting fact. And this is a good way to begin! How many of us have had someone say, “Hey, we’ve got to talk,” and then just jump right into a heavy, corrective, admonition? It doesn’t feel good does it? While we know that there are times we need to be corrected or redirected, in such situations it is also best if we start with a positive note. It sets our hearts at peace, we know that we are still loved or appreciated.

So way does James start with? He says: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” And he continues in the next verse, getting more specific, “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” What does this mean? Clearly, God has brought us into existence, but what James has in mind here is not merely our creation, but even more our re-creation, our regeneration in Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit upon us, thus transforming us so that we may live a life in conformity with the Kingdom of God that Christ initiated during his life.

In short, James is saying that God makes it possible for us to live holy lives. And this is a really comforting place for us to begin today. I can tell you, that I find this comforting! I find it to be a consoling truth to continuously return to as we work our way through James; for James hits us here on out, over and over again, with challenges and hard truths. But the good news is, that everything that he says rests upon this beautiful truth – EVERYTHING RESTS UPON AND IS MADE POSSIBLE BY GOD’S LOVING, PERFECT, AND SOVEREIGN GRACE. The beloved English preacher Charles Spurgeon highlighted the thankfulness that overflows in the heart that grasps this truth, when in one of his sermons he proclaimed: “The only motive God had to stir up his mercy, was his own will. To us therefore it is precious.” And why? Because “[b]efore we ever prayed, before we ever sought his face, his own will, acting spontaneously, brought to us the bounty of his lovingkindness.”[3]

But having now acknowledged and rejoiced in this truth, we must move on. For now, James tells us what this grace makes possible. But he begins with a warning. He says, “This you know, my beloved brethren.” He acknowledges that we know the above truth. But to know it is not enough. We cannot merely know the truths of the faith, they must be living realities for us! And so, he quickly follows this acknowledgment with the word “But…”. And everything that follows in our passage today is the implication of that grace. It is a grace that leads to a holy life. And holiness of life is proof of that grace – as James says later on (to paraphrase him) “Go ahead… show me this faith you boast about having without the works that ought to go along with it. I however can show proof of my faith by the works that flow forth from it!” (cf. Jas. 2:18)

I can attest from my own life how important it is for us Christians to bear our faith well before the world. Back when I was in high school, I dated a Christian girl. (I was not a Christian at this time.) And even though I was not a Christian, I knew, somehow, that I should expect her and her friends lives to look different than mine. And I grew to be deeply scandalized when they not only attempted by deception and pressure to convert me, but also showed in their own lives (particularly how they talked, often speaking about others behind their backs) a disconnect between what they professed and the impact of that profession in their lives. And it hardened my heart against Christianity for a long time. In fact, it was not until I was in my second year of college and became friends with a group of guys, who I did not even know at first were Christians, when I felt open again to Christianity because of how beautifully their lives expressed their Christian convictions. Their lives were a lived expression of God’s grace. Their lives were a greater evangelism than the apologetics that people in the past had used to attempt to argue me into Christianity.

So, what does James say that this type of grace filled life looks like? He says between vv. 19-22 that it is evident in being quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, putting away every kind of filthiness and wickedness, and being humble before and receptive of the word of God.

Okay, yeah! That is quite the list! Where are we even supposed to begin? I would recommend we begin at the end of that list. Why start there? Because it strikes at the heart of the issue. If we hold it to be true that it is in Scripture that we encounter God’s words for us, then a humble and receptive attitude to that word is the necessary prerequisite. Just as a child who has grown to love, respect, and trust their parents will receive a word of guidance from either one or both of them because they know that their parents only have their own good in mind, so to should we be before God. (And this goes back to what we noted earlier about knowing that everything in our lives as Christians rests upon God’s loving outpouring of grace upon us.) And so, we begin with Scripture and our own receptivity of it and the call, which we see in it, that God has put upon our lives. Thus we see James saying that we are a “kind of first fruits” brought to be by his will, “by the word of truth” (v. 18).

And, let’s note that receptivity does not mean that I am jumping up and down excitedly, screaming “Yeah! I am so excited to start put to death the old man!” Let’s acknowledge that it is hard work. Furthermore, I don’t think that that is what James means by joy. Such jumping up and down is more along the lines of excitement. The joy that James speaks of is of a different nature. It rests in a certain hope of God’s victory over everything that will assail us and try to destroy our love and trust in God’s love for us.[4] Furthermore, as we just saw, all of this is an out working of God’s grace and will. And so, even when the going gets hard, we know that we will be able to persevere because God wills it and has created us to do so.

This is why we start with humble reception of God’s word. And now that we are reminded of this grounding, we can move on to the cost of the grace we have been given Now we can speak of putting aside anger, moral uncleanness, and evil; instead being quick to hear, and holy. All of this James sums up, in verse 22, as being “doers of the word.” And, so as to help us not miss the point he offers an illustration.

And so, in verses 23-25 James puts before us the image of a person who looks into a mirror. This is a fascinating illustration to consider. It reminds me in some ways of C. S. Lewis’ book Till We Have Faces. In this story, Lewis also uses mirrors as a means to have the character Orual engage in self-reflection. Upon being forced to look into a mirror she sees in place of her own face, that of the demonic goddess Ungit who devours people. And so, she is brought to recognize her own cruelty. Later on, in looking into the mirror again, she comes to acknowledge the deep and horrible wrongs she has committed against others in her life to fulfill her own desires for love.

This is very much an image of the way Scripture acts as a mirror for us. I forces us to behold the lives we are leading and whether they are in accordance with God’s desires for us or not. And so, in our passage today James, using this image of a mirror essential says that there are two options, one can either forget “what kind of person they are” (v. 24) or they act in accordance with what they see. Do we remember who we are in Christ. And it makes sense to remember what we considered earlier about beginning with Scripture; here James returns to that theme, for the mirror he speaks about is Scripture, “the implanted word” (v. 21), which reveals our broken situation consisting of broken relationships, using our tongue to tear down rather than build up each other and to praise God, oppressing the poor and abandoned. In light of all of this, James asks us, do we want to be forgetful of the word we have heard and read, or as he states, “effectual doers” of what God shows us the right path to be? Such is the question that James puts before us.

But he does not leave us hanging. In our text today, we find him concluding by giving us specific, down to earth examples of what the life of one who lives in daily, humble receptivity to God’s word looks like. And so, he writes: “If anyone thinks themselves to be religious…” (v. 27) this is what their life should look like. And here is where we find the application and effect of faithfulness to God’s word. If we consider ourselves religious, lovers of God, disciples of Jesus, hearers of the sacred Scriptures, this is what our lives are to look like. And this is an important point, for we are reminded that our Christianity must not merely be an intellectual concept, but rather, that it must permeate our lives, reaching into our hearts and animating us to live out our faith. As one Anglican preacher (Canon Puckle) put it, “all vital religion has more to do with the heart than the head; and must be judged by its power over [one’s] deep-seated affections.”[5]

And so, James offers a few directives. He states first, that we are to be careful in our use of speech. This is possibly the most challenging point that James makes here. It is so easy to let our tongues slip, and speak an unkind word about or to someone. The tongue, as James says later on, can be compared to a raging fire. This applies to all of us, me included. So I ask myself, and each of you, how do we use our tongues? Do we use them to honor God and our fellow human beings? Or do we use them in ways that tear down others? It’s a challenging point for all of us to consider. And one which we would do well to examine regularly.

Furthermore, James says, that a life lived in obedience to God’s word will motivate us to

tangibly care for the downtrodden and forgotten ones of this world. He doesn’t just say, care for orphans and widows, he says visit them. In other words, get personally involved with them! This is the way of Jesus, who entered into peoples’ lives and developed caring relationships with them. James reminds us that we are not exempt from this.

And finally, James ends with the broad statement, that “pure and undefiled religion…. [is] to keep oneself unstained by the world” (v. 27). Is it broad? Yes. And I think he intends for it to be so. In speaking so broadly, he actually encompasses and draws together everything he has said thus far. He also takes his reader seriously, for while he points to particular issues that needed to be addressed, it also seems that he realizes that faithfully living in accordance with God’s word must be broadly applicable. And so, he says to us, keep yourselves unstained by the sin and brokenness of the world around you. To put this positively, using an image that Jesus spoke, “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before [all] in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14, 16). And so, just as we started this sermon, we find a deeply positive place to end.

Endnotes

[1] All Scripture quotations from the NASB.

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, R. H. Fuller, trans. (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1995), 49.

[3] C. H. Spurgeon, “‘A Kind of Firstfruits,’” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 57 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1911), 530–531.

[4] Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 1300.

[5] Joseph S. Exell, The Biblical Illustrator: James (Cincinnati; Chicago; Kansas City: Jennings & Graham, n.d.), 198.