WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.820 Our scripture this morning is James chapter 1 verses 18 through 25. 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:11.880 ! It should be printed in your bulletin, but also we will have that on the screen. 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:16.359 James chapter 1 verses 18 through 25. 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:49.380 Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:56.620 word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving 00:00:56.620 --> 00:01:03.359 yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:09.599 at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he 00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:16.759 was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no 00:01:16.759 --> 00:01:24.140 hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. This is the word of the Lord. 00:01:26.899 --> 00:01:34.060 All right, let's pray. Lord, we know that without the help of the Holy Spirit, we cannot be right 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:40.840 readers. We cannot hear your word as you intend. We can't receive it properly. And so we ask today, 00:01:40.980 --> 00:01:45.500 no matter where we are in our lives, that you would open our hearts to hear the word of truth. 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:52.340 We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. And so we are in week three of looking at the epistle of James, 00:01:52.780 --> 00:01:59.760 and in week one we talked about what the nature of a disciple is. So a disciple is a person who 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:06.340 follows Jesus and then longs to become like Jesus, more and more Christ-like, and then will go where 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:12.780 he tells you to go, do what he tells you to do. And along that path of being a disciple, we learn that 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:18.640 we're not exempt. James tells us we're not exempt from suffering. So suffering meets us on ordinary 00:02:18.640 --> 00:02:25.520 roads, and Christian or not, we will meet suffering. But for the disciple, you can do this cognitive 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:32.160 reframe where you count it all joy. You put suffering in the ledger of joy, not because it feels good, 00:02:32.219 --> 00:02:38.620 but because God says that he can use it to change you, to grow you. Grace grows best in winter. And 00:02:38.620 --> 00:02:44.320 then in week two, we looked at really the anatomy of sin, so what's going on underneath in the bottom 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:51.879 of our hearts. And James says in 13 to 15 that we've got this great problem that he points out is the 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:58.879 epithumia, deep desires, epic desires underneath, really underneath at the lowest layer of the soul. 00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:05.240 And it's that we want power, comfort, security, and approval more than we want God in our lives. 00:03:05.859 --> 00:03:12.079 And so we have these deep desires, and they see opportunity called temptation, and they grasp hold, 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:19.139 and it gives birth to sin and death in our lives. And so we're in that cycle, constant cycle we're trapped 00:03:19.139 --> 00:03:26.939 in. Now today, today we learn in verse 18 especially, God, how do you break through that cycle? 00:03:28.239 --> 00:03:36.079 And we learn that God breaks the cycle of sin in our lives. He cancels sin. And then the question 00:03:36.079 --> 00:03:42.379 becomes, if that's true, if you're a follower of Jesus and that's happened for you, you might ask, 00:03:42.379 --> 00:03:49.400 I ask, why have I not grown more since then? So if it's God who breaks that power in my life, 00:03:49.819 --> 00:03:55.199 why am I not changed further than I feel like I have been? I've been struggling with the same things 00:03:55.199 --> 00:04:01.359 decade after decade. And He breaks the power of sin, and then we have the power of canceled sin 00:04:01.359 --> 00:04:07.740 still reverberating in our lives. What do we do about it? How does He work in us? That's what this 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:13.219 passage is about. So how really change occurs in us. So let's look first at verse 18, the turning point. 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:20.639 And then after that, 19 to 25, we'll see three ways to break the cycle of sin in your life. So first, 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:26.660 verse 18 is the turning point. Now, what's the turning point? He says in verse 18, 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:32.639 of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth. What's the turning point? The answer is, 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:39.979 it's the new birth. And you won't see it exactly on the surface of the text at first, but if you look 00:04:39.979 --> 00:04:46.199 back, if you think back to last week, verse 14, He says that the human heart, we give birth to sin 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:53.560 and death. And He uses a birth metaphor. And then here in verse 18, then He says, it says that of God's 00:04:53.560 --> 00:05:00.659 will He brought us forth. And that word brought us forth is translated in other places even in the Bible 00:05:00.660 --> 00:05:08.920 as childbirth. It could also be translated as He puts a seed into your soul that then sprouts from 00:05:08.920 --> 00:05:15.780 the garden, a new plant. He's talking there about being born again, about the new birth. How do you 00:05:15.780 --> 00:05:22.340 break the cycle of cancel sin? It says, of His own will. It's God's initiative to enter into people's 00:05:22.340 --> 00:05:28.940 lives and to break the cycle of sin by giving them a new birth. And so this is exactly, remember James' 00:05:28.939 --> 00:05:36.339 teaching, Jesus' teaching. And so John chapter 3, Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born again. 00:05:36.759 --> 00:05:43.100 Exactly what He's talking about here. Or in 1 Peter 1, Peter says, by God's will we are born again. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:51.800 Same language, same idea here in the word He brought us forth. And that means that it's, how do we deal 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:58.560 with verses 13 to 15, that cycle of deep idolatrous desire that's always producing sin in our lives? 00:05:58.660 --> 00:06:04.439 Well, the first thing is God has to enter your life and He has to break you. He has to give you a new 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:10.100 heart. He has, you have to be born again from the inside out. He has to come, you need help from, 00:06:10.259 --> 00:06:16.420 you need help from the outside. And He tells us how He does that. He says, by the word of truth. 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:23.300 And so there, the word of truth is the, what is it? It's the gospel being spoken. And it's the Bible 00:06:23.300 --> 00:06:29.540 for us, where the gospel is kept and held for all ages for us to hear. And He's, look, He's saying 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:35.480 something incredibly profound that we might take as so commonplace that we forget how significant it is. 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:42.240 But He's saying that the Bible, the word of truth is not mere information. It is what the Holy Spirit 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:48.800 actually takes, puts into your soul, and then uses to create entirely new life in you. 00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:55.560 He has an amazingly high view of the power of the word, the word of truth, when the Holy Spirit is 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:03.660 wielding it. Now, a couple things to say about that. One, sometimes there's a narrative, there is a 00:07:03.660 --> 00:07:09.540 narrative, I think, in contemporary culture, 20th and 21st century culture, that says, you know, 00:07:09.540 --> 00:07:17.460 there are born-again Christians, and then there are other types of Christians. There's normal 00:07:17.460 --> 00:07:22.500 Christians, and then there's born-again Christians. And the born-again Christians are the extreme ones 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:30.420 that you got to watch out for. But He's teaching the new birth here. And in every book of the New 00:07:30.420 --> 00:07:37.620 Testament, the new birth is the beginning of the Christian life. There's no such thing as a born-again 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:42.379 Christian and a different type of Christian. There's just born-again Christians, or not Christian 00:07:42.379 --> 00:07:48.399 at all. God has to come into your life from the outside and give you a new heart and reshape your 00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:56.439 identity by the word. But then I just want to point out again how big of a view James has for the power 00:07:56.439 --> 00:08:03.819 of the word in a way that in our humdrum life, day after day, we forget, we don't remember. That's why 00:08:03.819 --> 00:08:09.060 we come to church to be reminded of how big His view of the word is. And He says, you can look for the, 00:08:09.819 --> 00:08:16.060 look, you can say today, am I born again? Well, one of the evidences of that is in that word, He says, 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:23.240 of you become a first fruit. That's in verse 18. You're born again by the word of truth, and then God 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:27.639 makes you into a first fruit. That's language from the Old Testament, where the first fruit, the first 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:34.980 fruit was the very first crop at the harvest time. And the first fruit, the first crop was dedicated to 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:39.199 God, given to God. And so what is it saying? It's saying you know that you've got the new birth in 00:08:39.199 --> 00:08:48.480 your life. When? When you say, I am now dedicated to God. My life is not my own anymore. And I know that 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:53.759 even though I'm struggling with the cycle of sin in my life, I want my desires to be given over to Him. 00:08:53.759 --> 00:09:00.100 I want my behaviors to be given over to Him. That's an evidence that you say, I am not my own. I've been 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:06.399 bought with a price. I'm a first fruit of God. So He enters our life, and He breaks that power, and we 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:11.659 realize that our life is not our own anymore. Now, the rest of the sermon, verse 19 to 25. 00:09:12.819 --> 00:09:18.500 In verse 19 to 25, the question then becomes, okay, if you're a disciple of Jesus today, you've 00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:23.720 experienced new birth, and you say, but why haven't I changed more? If I've been given 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:30.220 a new heart by the Word of Truth, and a new seed has been planted, and it is growing, and the promise 00:09:30.220 --> 00:09:37.100 here is that it will grow, why am I still battling the same sins? Why have I not grown further than I'd 00:09:37.100 --> 00:09:40.279 like to? And I think one of the ways you can think about it is through the lens of addiction. 00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:47.500 13 to 15 really is talking about the addiction we have to idols, the addiction we have to sins. But, 00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:52.660 you know, if you are an addict, or if you've walked alongside those struggling with addictions of 00:09:52.659 --> 00:09:59.179 various kinds, what happens? First, there's a trigger. There's a trigger of some kind that draws 00:09:59.179 --> 00:10:04.439 you in towards the thing that you crave, and then the craving grows, and then you reach out, and there's 00:10:04.439 --> 00:10:11.579 use. You use a substance and abuse it, and then you feel shame. And then you say, I don't want this 00:10:11.579 --> 00:10:18.139 anymore. I need help. But then the trigger happens, and the craving reoccurs, and it's a constant cycle of 00:10:18.139 --> 00:10:24.460 oftentimes of relapse. And in the same way, you need help from the outside. You need that addiction 00:10:24.460 --> 00:10:32.299 broken. Verse 18 says, God comes in and gives you, He breaks the power of sin. He does. He cancels the 00:10:32.299 --> 00:10:41.500 debt of sin. But then you know that as addicts to idols, we relapse. It takes years and years for us to 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:47.039 grow out of that addiction into freedom. Another way to say it is this. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:55.279 preacher of London, he talked once about, if you think about the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 00:10:55.279 --> 00:11:02.379 in the United States. It's the 250th year of the U.S., and so I've been re-watching the Civil War 00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:12.539 documentary, Ken Burns, so good. And in 1863, Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. 00:11:12.539 --> 00:11:19.740 And on that day, he announces legally that all the black slaves in America are freed. 00:11:20.939 --> 00:11:24.939 But you can imagine, if you were a black man in the southern U.S. in my home state of Mississippi, 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:31.379 that the day after the Emancipation Proclamation, and you walk into town in that Mississippi Delta 00:11:31.379 --> 00:11:41.360 community, do you feel free? You know, today you legally are free. God has broken the power 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:48.379 and canceled the debt, but he walks into town that day, and because of things outside of him, 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:53.039 threats on the outside, but because of patterns and habits inside of him, he doesn't feel free. 00:11:53.180 --> 00:11:58.259 What does he have to do? He has to take years to learn freedom. And in the same way, that's what's 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:03.600 going on in the Christian life. And so, 19 to 25, how do you break the cycle? Number one, 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:10.019 in verses 19 to 21, he tells us, first, that we've got to put things away. We've got to take things 00:12:10.019 --> 00:12:14.360 off. We've got to… another way to say that positively is he's telling us to cultivate new 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:22.820 habits. So, the main idea in this little section is what we do every day really does change who we are. 00:12:23.960 --> 00:12:29.080 What we choose to do day in and day out in the little moments really matters so much for who we're 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:34.620 becoming. So, the more we're choosing to sin and reenter that cycle of addiction to idols, 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:41.540 the more we're growing in vices, even as believers, yes. And the more that we're putting off those vices, 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:47.879 those cycles of addiction to idolatry, the more we're becoming like Christ. And so, what we do every 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:53.780 day really does matter. One percent difference every day in the way we choose to be like Jesus 00:12:53.779 --> 00:13:01.539 matters so much in the long run for who we've become in life. And, you know, our culture knows this. 00:13:02.659 --> 00:13:09.139 It's a $10 billion industry, something like that, of the habit industry. James Clear, 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:15.559 his famous book, Atomic Habits, is still, I think, flying off the shelves everywhere. And James Clear's 00:13:15.559 --> 00:13:21.639 thesis is pretty simple. It's that when you choose new habits in your life, small ones, 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:26.799 they compound over time. And then eventually, you actually want the things that you're trying to learn to want. 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:32.220 But it takes a long time. It's small, compounding habits. Now, there's a better James, the epistle, 00:13:33.460 --> 00:13:40.340 this James. And the Bible said that, has been saying that for centuries. But what the Bible does, 00:13:40.399 --> 00:13:46.539 what the gospel does, unlike what atomic habits can do, is the real truth is that you've got to have a new heart 00:13:46.539 --> 00:13:52.599 as the basis of that practice. And once you get the new birth, then James is telling you now, 00:13:52.699 --> 00:13:57.959 now it's time to take things off first. And what does he say to take off here in the passage? He says, 00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:05.620 take away this. It doesn't sound like that at first, but he says, be quick to hear, slow to speak, 00:14:05.620 --> 00:14:16.919 and slow to anger. In verse 19. Now, that's a take something away command. How so? Because he's 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:22.379 saying when the gospel gets a hold of your heart, and when you experience the new birth, being quick 00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:30.019 to hear, slow to speak, means you're becoming a person who can say, I know that there is no longer 00:14:30.019 --> 00:14:38.100 a primacy to my opinions. So, it's taking away pride and the need to actually assert an opinion, 00:14:38.759 --> 00:14:44.799 and instead being slow to speak, quick to listen. Why? Because the gospel is doing that work in your 00:14:44.799 --> 00:14:49.500 life that says, I know I'm not my own anymore. I know that I have to be reshaped by something 00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:56.159 outside of me more. So, I've said this the past couple weeks, but when you're reading through James, 00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:01.799 it feels like he's getting to a new topic every paragraph, but he's not right here. Instead, 00:15:01.899 --> 00:15:07.980 when he says, quick to listen, slow to speak, what's he talking about? Quick to listen to what? 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.139 And in the previous verse, he said, you're being changed by the word of truth. What's he talking 00:15:13.139 --> 00:15:19.179 about? He's not just generically saying, stop talking so much in conversation. That is an application. 00:15:19.179 --> 00:15:25.199 But what's he talking about? He's saying, be quick to listen to the word and slow to speak. 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:29.899 So, in other words, when you become a believer, what do you put away? You put away your own opinions. 00:15:30.699 --> 00:15:35.899 You put away your need to assert yourself, and you say, I want to be more shaped by listening to the 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:41.319 Bible than by anything else in my life. And you know that, you know, there are things you come to 00:15:41.319 --> 00:15:46.819 the Bible at times, and you say, boy, I don't know what to do with this. I struggle with some of the 00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:50.960 things that I'm learning about here in the Bible. And that's when he comes and says, but take on the 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:57.240 humility that says, slow to assert my opinion, quick to receive the word, quick to receive what 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:02.940 God let me be shaped more by that than by anything else. And then he says, therefore, you can become 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:09.379 slow to anger. And really, that's just an application of that practice, because the more we're being shaped 00:16:09.379 --> 00:16:15.420 by the word, typically what happens is our anger tends to be quelled. It goes down. The word that he uses 00:16:15.419 --> 00:16:21.979 here for anger is a very particular word, not always the most common for anger in Greek, but it's a word 00:16:21.979 --> 00:16:28.679 that has this kind of metaphor built into it of fruit growing and growing and growing and not being 00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:35.339 picked to where it's so ready to be plucked that the juices are bursting out the sides. It's the same. 00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:40.620 That's a nice thing to think about, but this isn't actually a nice image. The better way to say it may be 00:16:40.620 --> 00:16:47.299 that the word he uses for anger is like a balloon being overinflated, and the tiniest little touch is 00:16:47.299 --> 00:16:54.639 going to pop it. He's saying, you know, you're becoming a doer of the word when you're far less 00:16:54.639 --> 00:17:01.419 reactive and far more responsive. So reactivity means that when that person says something that 00:17:01.419 --> 00:17:06.980 sounds to me so idiotic, I can't wait to tell them what they should be thinking. 00:17:08.119 --> 00:17:13.839 That's reactivity. That's anger swelling. But every time when you're being shaped by the word and 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:19.480 saying, I know that my pride is quick to react, and instead I want to become a wise, responsive person 00:17:19.480 --> 00:17:25.819 shaped by God's word, then you're not about to be poked and blow up. Instead, you're slow. It doesn't 00:17:25.819 --> 00:17:33.480 look, it doesn't say never angry, right? It says slow to anger. So there are right and good times to 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:39.799 be angry. Jesus was. But the difference in a person shaped by the word is that you're slow to anger, 00:17:39.919 --> 00:17:45.700 knowing exactly what to get angry at in the right ways. He says, you know, the anger of humanity when 00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:52.619 we burst never produces the righteousness of God. That means never produces the justice of God in a 00:17:52.619 --> 00:17:58.139 situation. You're not bringing about justice in reactivity. Now, all he's doing here is saying, 00:17:58.479 --> 00:18:03.739 these are evidences of new birth in your life. This is what it means to be putting on the word 00:18:03.739 --> 00:18:09.159 and taking things off. And so you can see how he really says that at the end of this section. 00:18:10.019 --> 00:18:16.199 He says down in verse 21, therefore put away, there it is, put off. Now it's just everything, 00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:20.979 all your sins, filthiness, rampant wickedness, and instead receive with humility, meekness, 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:27.220 the implanted word. So he's saying receive the word constantly with humility so that you can be 00:18:27.220 --> 00:18:34.779 focusing on putting off the constant cycles of sin in your life, whether they be sins of speech or 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:43.240 sins of anger or anything else. The word put away, take something off there, is a word for taking off 00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:53.980 muddy clothing. A couple years ago, my sister and brother-in-law were here, and I'm not sure if I 00:18:53.980 --> 00:19:01.099 convinced him or he convinced me, but I'll say he convinced me to, in the middle of winter, late 00:19:01.099 --> 00:19:08.620 December, just before Christmas, to go on a long run. And I'm not a runner. And he wanted to cap it off 00:19:08.619 --> 00:19:17.519 by hiking Arthur's seat at the end. And it was a, it was a bad decision. And we went out, we ran farther 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:24.439 than I'm able to run. And it started raining very shortly in, and it was late December. And it was the 00:19:24.439 --> 00:19:28.319 only time in my life I've ever been genuinely, I mean genuinely concerned about frostbite. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:35.759 And we, the whole, the whole way we knew we should quit. This is not intelligent. And we looked at each 00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:44.460 other and not, neither of us would, you know, because of pride. And we did, we did it. And when 00:19:44.460 --> 00:19:51.240 we got back, I'll never forget, it's, I've never felt so ready to take off, to take off, right? When you 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:57.639 come from a run and your shoes got wet and they're, the squish is happening every time you push and you're 00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:04.160 soaked and you're muddy, you cannot get that off fast enough to try to get something warm back onto 00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:09.740 your body, right? That's what's being used here. You know that you're walking in a place of the new 00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:15.540 birth is working, and you're, the seed, the word implanted is growing when you are really desiring to 00:20:15.540 --> 00:20:24.340 strip off rampant sin, cycles of sin in your life. Now, the second way to break the cycle of sin of three 00:20:24.339 --> 00:20:30.399 is, then he says, not only take things off, but then put on, all right? So, the Bible never, never, 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:36.879 never, the gospel never leaves you by just saying, stop it. And so, you could stop right there and think 00:20:36.879 --> 00:20:43.379 I'm saying, stop it. Be better. But the Bible never does that. It does say, work on taking off the cycle 00:20:43.379 --> 00:20:49.859 of sin in your life, but then it says, how? By receiving the implanted word. So, then it says, 00:20:49.859 --> 00:20:56.379 receive the implanted word so that you can be a doer of that word, not simply a hearer. And what 00:20:56.379 --> 00:21:00.159 is he telling us that? He's saying you don't just need mortification, to put it in theological terms, 00:21:00.379 --> 00:21:06.279 you need nourishment. Mortification, taking off is not enough. You're never actually going to take off 00:21:06.279 --> 00:21:12.779 unless you put in. You need nourishment to actually work on that. And so, there's a chorus line throughout 00:21:12.779 --> 00:21:18.839 this passage. Verse 18, you're born again by the word of truth. Just notice how often the word 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:25.539 shows up here. Born again by the word of truth. Verse 21, receive the implanted word. And then 00:21:25.539 --> 00:21:32.299 verse 22, be a doer of the word. So, the real line throughout the whole is the word, the word, the word. 00:21:32.379 --> 00:21:37.459 The word has the power to change you. The word has the power to break the cycle of sin. I can't 00:21:37.459 --> 00:21:42.819 reiterate it enough how big of a view James has for what the Bible can do in your life. 00:21:42.819 --> 00:21:47.200 The first question is, are you receiving the word regularly? 00:21:49.679 --> 00:21:54.779 You come on Sundays and receive the word, and then the calling invitation is throughout the week, 00:21:54.839 --> 00:21:59.240 receive the implanted word. Why does he say it like that? Because he's saying the word has already been 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:04.059 implanted by the Spirit. You've been given a new heart through the word, through the gospel, 00:22:04.299 --> 00:22:11.019 but you've got to also receive the implanted word over and over and over again to receive the cycle of 00:22:11.019 --> 00:22:17.160 change in your life. Now, here's another way to say that. What he's saying to us is the gospel that 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:24.039 saves you, that gives you new birth, is the same gospel that changes you. So, what is the word of 00:22:24.039 --> 00:22:29.119 truth here? He's really talking about the gospel, and he's saying you never graduate from the gospel. 00:22:29.240 --> 00:22:35.139 The gospel that gives you new birth is the gospel that changes you throughout your life. He's calling on 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:41.320 us to preach the gospel to ourselves every single day, to re-receive the implanted word over and over 00:22:41.320 --> 00:22:49.240 and over again. And he's talking about the Bible, yes, but you know that in Luke 24, Jesus sits down 00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:56.320 with the disciples, and he says to them that the Torah, the five books of Moses, the writings, all the 00:22:56.320 --> 00:23:02.140 psalms and the wisdom literature, and the prophets, he says, are all about him. And then we know that the 00:23:02.140 --> 00:23:07.140 rest of the New Testament is all about him. And so, the Old Testament is the gospel concealed. The New 00:23:07.140 --> 00:23:13.940 Testament is the gospel revealed. The whole Bible is gospel. And so, he's saying, actually, re-receive 00:23:13.940 --> 00:23:18.740 the Bible every day by re-receiving the gospel every single day over and over and over again. That's how 00:23:18.740 --> 00:23:25.980 you become a doer of the word. So, willpower is not the point. No, not willpower, but receiving nourishment 00:23:25.980 --> 00:23:32.039 and being changed. Being changed by the gospel every single day is the point of becoming a doer, 00:23:32.099 --> 00:23:37.099 not just a hearer, but somebody who does the word. It means you're training your heart to live out of 00:23:37.099 --> 00:23:42.539 new habits, to live out of gospel proclamation every day. Let me give you an example to make that 00:23:42.539 --> 00:23:49.380 more clear. It requires taking the word every day, preaching the gospel to yourself, and using the 00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:55.019 gospel to specifically address the sin issues in your life. So, let me do that with anger. What's the 00:23:55.019 --> 00:24:02.240 difference in… He doesn't say, become a doer of the rules. He says, become a doer of the word. 00:24:03.099 --> 00:24:07.259 Don't just let the rules abide in your heart. Let the gospel abide in your heart. That's what he means. 00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:13.700 What's the difference? Take anger. Moralism says… If you struggle with anger, what does moralism say? 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:20.740 Moralism says, be nicer. Count to ten. Count backwards from a hundred when that person's saying that thing to 00:24:20.740 --> 00:24:26.319 you again, right? Try harder. The gospel… What does the gospel say when you have the habit of the gospel 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.299 in your heart shaping you? The gospel says something like, 00:24:31.299 --> 00:24:38.920 God was angry at my sin, but He poured out His anger upon Jesus Christ for me. 00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:49.099 God was angry at my sin, but He was so patient with me by destroying His Son in my place. 00:24:49.099 --> 00:24:56.399 And you say, so today, I want to put away my anger. Today, I want to put away my impatience and trade 00:24:56.399 --> 00:25:00.599 it for it. See, that's living out of the gospel, not out of the rules. Living out of the gospel, 00:25:00.699 --> 00:25:04.939 not out of moralism. That's what it means to become a doer of the word. That's what he's 00:25:04.939 --> 00:25:11.079 talking about here. Lastly, break the cycle. Then he says… Now, he gets more specific here at the very 00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:18.000 end as we finish, and he says, breaking the cycle means seeing the law of liberty, looking at the law of 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.799 liberty. Now, again, it sounds like we're talking about something different, but we're not here. 00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:29.119 He ends this section by giving us a warning, and the warning is through this metaphor. He says, 00:25:29.279 --> 00:25:37.039 don't be deceived. A person who is not becoming a doer of the word is like a man who looks in a mirror, 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:44.900 gazes at his face very intently, walks away, and forgets what he looks like. Now, if you're a first 00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:51.220 century person, Greco-Roman person, that's pretty easy to do because most people never looked at a 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:56.160 mirror in the first century. So, if you're poor, you don't have a mirror. You look at a lake to see 00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:00.880 what you look like, and of course, if the lake is moving at all, you can't see what you look… So, 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:05.600 most people didn't know what they looked like. And if you did have the money to see a mirror, 00:26:06.080 --> 00:26:12.600 they were not good mirrors like we have. They were, you know, full of flaws and things. You couldn't 00:26:12.599 --> 00:26:17.279 really see. You had to look through scratches and all sorts of problems. So, it's far easier for a 00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:21.339 first century person to get this than us. It'd be very difficult for you to forget what you look like 00:26:21.339 --> 00:26:26.000 today. There's mirrors everywhere. What is he talking about, though? He's talking about here 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:33.719 a metaphor, illustration for two ways to receive the word, okay? So, stick with this idea for a moment 00:26:33.719 --> 00:26:38.119 because it has depths to it, but it's freeing. 00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:45.259 There's one way to receive the word, to come back to the word day in and day out, and it's like a man 00:26:45.259 --> 00:26:49.459 looking at a mirror, walking away, forgetting what he looks like. And what is that way of coming to the 00:26:49.459 --> 00:26:55.979 word? It works like this. You come to the word, and you read the Sermon on the Mount, and it says, 00:26:56.179 --> 00:27:02.619 be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And it says, if you look at a woman with lust or a man 00:27:02.619 --> 00:27:08.639 with lust, you've already committed adultery in your heart. Or if you get angry at the wrong person 00:27:08.639 --> 00:27:13.959 unjustly, in the wrong way, you've committed murder in your heart. Or if you looked at your neighbor and 00:27:13.959 --> 00:27:19.500 you said, I wish I had their life, I wish I had their stuff, you've committed envy, covetousness in your 00:27:19.500 --> 00:27:25.659 heart. That's the first way you come to the word. You look at it, and you say, oh, wow, this is a mirror, 00:27:25.660 --> 00:27:33.840 and it's showing me my ugliness. I read about lust, adultery. I read about murder. I read about being 00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:40.100 perfect, and I say, I see, like the picture of Dorian Gray. I see my ugliness. The word becomes a mirror 00:27:40.100 --> 00:27:46.740 that shows us the depths of our sin, and we see our natural face, who we really are. The man looks in the 00:27:46.740 --> 00:27:50.960 mirror, and he sees conviction. That's what it's talking about, conviction of sin. You may come here 00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:55.640 week by week and say, at the end of the sermon, maybe every once in a while, I do actually feel 00:27:55.660 --> 00:28:01.040 conviction of sin. I do actually feel that I've got an idol of approval or comfort or security that I 00:28:01.040 --> 00:28:06.580 love far more than God. And then you walk away, and 15 minutes after tea and coffee, what happens? 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:13.600 You forget what you looked like. You forget that you need to change. You forget the conviction of 00:28:13.600 --> 00:28:17.620 sin that you had in your life. It's not there anymore, and you just live day in and day out and 00:28:17.620 --> 00:28:23.100 never focus on actually mortifying the sins in your life. That's the man who, the natural man who 00:28:23.099 --> 00:28:27.959 sees his face in the mirror, walks away, forgets the conviction of sin that the word brought to him. 00:28:28.159 --> 00:28:32.519 So he says, therefore, you've got to come back to the word again and see it in a second way. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:38.179 And that second way is what he calls the law of liberty in this passage. And what is that way? 00:28:39.179 --> 00:28:44.459 It's that when you come to the passage, you come to the Bible over and over again a second time. 00:28:45.019 --> 00:28:47.959 You could do it like this. You look at the Sermon on the Mount again, and it says, 00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:52.759 you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And what do you do? Now it's not just 00:28:52.759 --> 00:29:00.900 conviction. What do you say? He was perfect for me. You come back to the command about lust, and you 00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:07.220 say, I'm convicted of that. But then you look through the text, not just as a mirror, but as a 00:29:07.220 --> 00:29:15.539 window. And you see him, and you say, he came and obeyed every law on my behalf and still was crushed 00:29:15.539 --> 00:29:20.819 for me. You see, when you come back a second time to look for the law of liberty, it means that you're 00:29:20.819 --> 00:29:26.920 coming to see that no longer is the word just conviction. It's also a window to see that Jesus 00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:32.879 Christ obeyed the law at every point for me and was still crushed by it on my behalf. Therefore, 00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:41.139 now when I come to the law, it's no longer condemning. It's now liberty. You see, but because he took 00:29:41.140 --> 00:29:46.620 every bit of it for me and obeyed every bit of it for me, now the law of the Bible, the Sermon on the 00:29:46.620 --> 00:29:53.620 Mount, the rules of James that he's telling me, it's not condemnation. It now is a place of liberty for me. 00:29:54.160 --> 00:30:00.320 In other words, he's saying, when you see that the word is a window to the Christ who died and rose 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:09.059 again for you, you can look at the advice, take off your sins, be perfect, and you can say, that doesn't 00:30:09.059 --> 00:30:16.539 crush me anymore. It frees me. It unleashes me. It means that because I don't owe debt to God anymore, 00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:21.939 Jesus paid my debt. Now the law is just there to change my life and grow me, make me more and more 00:30:21.939 --> 00:30:26.939 human, you know, more and more like Jesus, more and more like who I was made to be. It becomes the law 00:30:26.940 --> 00:30:32.220 of liberty, you see. Now that's, I'll finish with this word, that is totally countercultural to our 00:30:32.220 --> 00:30:41.880 moment where freedom, liberty, law, our moment, the 21st century, never wants to put law together with 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:49.420 liberty, with freedom. No, law constrains, law hymns you in. Freedom instead in the 21st century is the 00:30:49.420 --> 00:30:54.860 maximization of choice. It's that you want to be able to do what you want as much as you want with no 00:30:54.859 --> 00:31:00.519 constraints. But the Bible and every other wisdom that's ever been comes and says, no, no, no, true 00:31:00.519 --> 00:31:06.399 freedom is what? It's the law that sets you. It's to know that you're bounded, you're becoming who 00:31:06.399 --> 00:31:12.039 you're supposed to be. The new birth sets you free, breaking the cycle of sin over and over, 00:31:12.439 --> 00:31:18.399 looking at the Bible and saying, I'm no longer condemned, I'm free to obey, creates a new person 00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:27.440 that truly is free. Imagine a fish, and you go to that fish and you say, fish, that's how I talk to 00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:35.200 fish, fish. The fish, the culture has shown me that anybody can be anything they want to be, 00:31:35.860 --> 00:31:40.540 and I want you to experience real freedom. And you take that fish and you take it out of the water and 00:31:40.540 --> 00:31:44.560 you say, there's, everybody in your life has been telling you you're constrained by your culture. 00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:48.500 You know, you're constrained by the rules around you, and you take that fish and you say, I'm going 00:31:48.500 --> 00:31:55.839 to set you free. You take it out of the water, you put it on the land. And is that fish free? No, that 00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:03.799 fish has been imprisoned by death. And in the same way, we are imprisoned by maximization of choice. We are 00:32:03.799 --> 00:32:09.200 imprisoned by the proliferation of choice when we have idols in our heart, but when we see Christ, 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:14.480 the true law of liberty, we're set free. No longer any condemnation. Now we can obey, 00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:20.119 we can grow, we can become like Him. We can do it on the ground of justification. That's the freedom 00:32:20.119 --> 00:32:27.639 of being a disciple. Let us pray. Father, we ask that You would set us free today. We need freedom 00:32:27.639 --> 00:32:33.519 from our idols, our sins. We need new birth, and we need the third use of the law. We need 00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:38.240 to see that the Sermon on the Mount has now become for us no longer condemnation, 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:45.660 but victory and freedom and a way to grow into joy forevermore. So, teach us that as we sing. 00:32:46.019 --> 00:32:47.620 We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.