Chico Alliance Church
Pastor David Welch
“Perceive and Practice the Implanted Truth”
This is our twelfth outing in front of God’s faith-exposing mirror. James’ letter provides pointed instruction evaluating the true nature of our faith. It resembles a mirror that exposes the depths of our soul and any flaws in our faith. Anyone can claim faith. To truly live by faith is another matter. James issues over fifty instructions (commands) regarding faith accompanied by divine insights to motivate the implementation of that instruction into our life. One of the key factors that tests our faith is trials and temptations. Trials quickly reveal lapses of faith and expose unhealthy attitudes yet also serve to strengthen and develop our faith. James’ mirror exposes the reality of faith by showing us how true faith responds to trials.
I. Faith’s response to trials 1:2-18
TRUE FAITH…
A. Considers it all Joy knowing trials produce endurance.
B. Continues enduring knowing endurance produces maturity
C. Confidently asks God for wisdom knowing He will give it.
D. Focuses on your spiritual riches. (Instruction #4)
E. Considers how God rewards endurance 1:12
F. Doesn’t blame God but our self for temptations 1:13-18
TRUE FAITH…
G. Receives and practices the implanted word of truth. 1:18-27
1. God’s truth is the foundation of new birth. 1:18
God’s word is also the source of maturity and growth after birth. Seed sprouts and grows into a productive plant in properly prepared ground.
2. Prepare to receive the implanted truth 19-21a
Jesus taught His disciples the importance of sowing the truth in good soil.
The hard heart suppresses the truth
The shallow heart abandons the truth
The distracted sinful heart chokes the truth
The humble receptive heart embraces the truth
Scripture identifies numerous heart problems that hinder growth. Proud heart, selfish heart, foolish heart, rebellious heart, unbelieving heart, bitter heart, wandering heart. James called his readers to address those heart issues to effectively receive the life transforming implanted word of truth.
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. James 1:19-21
Let every person continually be…
1. Quick or ready to hear as opposed to a reluctance to hear. (hard heart)
2. Slow to speak. You are not hearing if you are talking.
3. Slow to anger
He urged them to cultivate a soft, receptive, honest, good heart.
He urged them to do the necessary weeding before planting.
He urged them to put away, lay aside, cast off, put off all “filthiness” or dirt.
He urged them to put away all wickedness.
Only when we humble ourselves before God and honestly address the condition of our heart will we eagerly allow God to implant the truth in our heart which is continually able to transform us.
3. Receive the implanted the truth 1:21b
receive with meekness the implanted word being able to save your souls.
God desires to implant the life-saving word in our heart. Too often we fight the truth; especially when it runs contrary to our unmanaged fleshly desires. James urges us to accept, receive, take to ourselves the implanted word in our well-prepared soil. God implants His transforming truth in our receptive heart as we open it to Him.
Implantation of God’s truth in the heart is essential but James goes beyond the implantation of the word in the heart to the practice of the word in the life. Don’t just HEAR the word, DO it. When God implants the word in a humble, honest, weeded receptive heart, it bears fruit.
God intends every truth revealed in His word to bear fruit. God implants His word to spiritually equip us.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Beyond these general results, specific truth yields particular fruit. What is the fruit of 1 Corinthians 13?
What is the fruit of John 3:16? Every Scripture serves to produce a specific result. Fruit comes as one hears, receives, embraces and implements the implanted truth.
4. Perceive and Practice the implanted truth 22-27
a. Instruction to hear and obey the word
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James called for a continuous action. Continually be doers of the word. Doers comes from a word meaning poet. Be poets of the word. One who performs or practices. We should consider obedience to God’s ways a way of life. James assumes the need to first hear the word of God.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? Romans 10:14
Hearing is not enough. It is only the first step. Hearing precedes believing which then inspires behaving. Those failing to practice the word’s instruction only deceive themselves. Everyone else knows they ignore living by the truth they espouse. Paul commended the Thessalonians who demonstrated the reality of their faith by action.
And you became imitators of us (action) and of the Lord, for you received (hearing) the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example (action) to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7
James describes the one who never moves beyond the hearing stage.
b. Description of the deceived forgetful hearer
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.
Many demonstrate a willingness to regularly explore the word. They look at it, understand it and even feel convicted by it. The term translated “look intently” expresses the idea to think carefully, contemplate, consider fully. Conviction by the truth is not equal to obedience to the truth leading to transformation. It precedes transformation.
I sometimes leave a and encounter with the word deeply convicted about something in my life. That constitutes only a part of the necessary action. I must embrace it and purpose to do something about it and then implement it. Conviction is not enough. Failure to apply the truth can actually harden the heart to deeper exploration and eventual transformation.
Many Christians willingly read their Bible, listen to sermons, watch and listen to Christian media, get excited about new information but never experience true transformation. God did not record His truth just for information but transformation.
This “hearer only” in James’ illustration, looked at the truth for a moment and then turned aside to something else. The perfect tense use of “goes away” indicates a specific turning away at some point and failure to return to the truth which exposed the obvious problem. He turned away with no intention of ever doing anything about what he saw. We must avoid only perceiving truth without practicing it. Before long, we forget what God’s mirror brought to our attention. The term means “to lose out of our mind, to neglect, forget.” I call this individual the deceived forgetful hearer.
The deception is that hearing only somehow serves to make us spiritual enough. “Well I had my devotions today.” “I read through the Bible last year.” Is there evidence of life change from your interaction with the Bible?
James continued the mirror gazing image. He described the one who both hears and obeys the word of truth.
c. Description of the enlightened blessed doer
But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and having remained there, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
Like the hearer, the doer also looks at the word but instead of going away, remains there. Notice the glaring contrast between “going away” from the mirror and “remaining”. He remains and wrestles with the truth of what he sees and formulates a plan to obey what he heard. Interesting how James characterized the word of God here.
He called it “the perfect law of liberty.”
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
Great misunderstanding and misperception surround our view of law. We treat it like a dirty word. We disdainfully pit law and grace against each other. The law is not something to be avoided but embraced.
God’s law reflects God’s holy character. God issued His commands for our benefit.
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? Deut 10:12-13
He created us to operate according to holiness. The Bible continually equates the Law with “the ways of God”.
The law informs us concerning the “ways of God.” The Law drives us to Christ. Failure to function according to God’s ways brings bondage, misery and death. James refers to Scripture as “the perfect law of liberty.”
We think freedom means we are free do whatever we want without consequence. That is the Biblical definition of foolishness. Biblical freedom offers the power to do what we OUGHT and avoid the negative consequences of sin. God’s grace does not negate the temporal consequences of sin. Paul properly understood and embraced the law of God.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. Romans 7:14-16
I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Romans 7:21-23
The core of the issue lies in the inability of anyone to perfectly follow God’s ways. We error when we frustrate the grace of God by the proud but futile attempt to gain God’s approval through trying to keep the law. The issue is not law verses grace but law-keeping for approval verses the realization that we can’t keep it and can only experience relationship with God because of His mercy and grace which He pours out on those who believe in Him.
Because of Jesus, we no longer face condemnation for our failure to keep the law.
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 live not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4
Living according the Spirit enables us not to fulfill the desires of our sinful flesh.
An unfenced school yard on a busy street limits freedom and generates fear. A fenced school yard provides boundaries that enable the children to freely play and explore the yard without fear. A string-restrained kite enables it to freely soar to great heights. f the string breaks, the kite now becomes subject to gravity and crashes to the ground. God imbeds new longings for His ways in the heart of every born-again believer. The unredeemed heart continually rebels against God’s ways. The old flesh defiantly resists God’s will.
The New Covenant promised God’s laws inscribed softened hearts.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:33-34
O that we had an attitude toward God’s law expressed in Psalm 119.
Walk in it. Observe it. Keep it diligently. Treasure it. Rejoice in it. Meditate on it. Regard it. Don’t forget it. Long for it. Incline your heart to it. Trust in it. Wait for it. Keep it continually. Seek it. Do not turn aside from it. Hasten to obey it. Give thanks for it. Never forget it. Love it. Incline your heart to perform it. Fear it. Love it more than gold. Esteem it right. Pant for it. Anticipate it. Stand in awe of it. Sing of it. Love it exceedingly.
James described one who not only longed to hear God’s word but to do it. James also reveals the promised reward for such a motivated follower. The dedicated doer will be blessed in his doing. The implanted word saves and blesses. Psalm 1 describes blessing of the one who meditates and delights in the ways of God rather than the ways of men..
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Psa 1:3
James later comments on the one who only hears but does not obey.
Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. James 4:17
Jesus commissioned His followers to “teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.”
The call to obedience is not limited to the Old Testament.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to live the same way He lived. 1 John 2:3-6
I fully embrace the truth of God’s grace, His unconditional love, forgiveness, and the necessity of living by faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. God saves us by grace and hearing with faith, not by law-keeping. God reconciled us to Himself through the work of Jesus, not our works. We grow by grace and hearing with faith, not by law-keeping. That does not negate the obligation to live according to God’s ways.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" Romans 8:12-15
I think many have lost a passion to live in obedience to His ways. We think because we live under grace, obedience is optional. For the one who lives by grace, obedience is optimal! Have we lost the urgency of being both hearers and doers of the law of liberty?
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105
I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end. Psalm 119:112
Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. Psalm 119:129
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. Psalm 119:92-93
I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:8
Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! 112:1
Jesus declared…
“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Luke 11:28
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. John 13:17
Conviction or good intention is not enough. We often evaluate ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Thinking is NOT equal to doing. We don’t get blessing for trying but doing.
The one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and remains, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. James 1:25
James urged his readers to stand in front of God’s mirror. He even suggested a few flaws to beware of. He suggested three characteristics of the fruitful hearer.
A bridled tongue.
A compassion heart that ministers to others.
A life unstained by the world.
Today, what does the mirror expose about my attitude toward obedience? Is my first response to what I read, “Is this true of my life?” My second response is, “What do I need to do to make it so?”
