Do you want to be blessed in what you do? God wants you to be, so what is the requirement?
How to Guarantee that You will be Blessed in What You Do
James 1:21-25
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to James 1:21-25. As we are turning there, I want to briefly explain an area of God's work. It is the area, whereby God bestows grace upon His people in His New Covenant. God gives us Christ as the living Word Himself, and God also gives us the living word that Christ speaks to us and shares with us for living out as Biblical revelation. These are two very important things that are welded together in an unbreakable partnership; God gives us Christ the Word, and God gives us the words of Christ. Thinking about this, we recognize two things:
1) When the Word, which is Christ, is in us by His Spirit, His righteousness is imputed to us, 1 Corinthians 1:30.
2) When the word of God, in His law, His precepts, and His decrees, is implanted within us, His righteousness is imparted to us.
This is how we have imputed righteousness in Christ, and this is how we have imparted righteousness in the form of revelation in how to live out the righteousness of Christ. As we think about imparted righteousness, one area we think of is the general heading of the impartation of the gospel. The Gospel, (the good news), is typically recognized to be the word implanted that is meant to save our souls in eternal spiritual salvation. The Gospel, as the good news, is also more. In other words, God's good news is comprehensive. The good news, as the word implanted, is the word that also saves us (who are already spiritually saved) from foolish living; it saves us from sinful thinking, and it saves us from the futility of the Gentile mind, Ephesians 4:17. The gospel saves us Christians from all of these things each and every day. Paul explains both aspects of the good news in Romans. In Romans 10 and 15, Paul says that the gospel he preaches brings eternal spiritual salvation to people. In Romans 16:25, Paul says that the gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ strengthens those who are already saved. In both instances of the usage of the gospel, the word implanted, as the gospel, is a certain work of the law of Christ, which is the Law of the King of kings and Lord of lords, which is also called the Royal Law. All of these things that I am talking about have to do with our James passage we are going to learn from this morning. Keeping these things in mind, we read, starting in verse 19 to verse 27,
"19 This you know, my beloved brothers: But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 because the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. 22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." James 1:21-25
Let us prepare our hearts to receive edification from the sacred preaching of God's word in this sermon titled,
"How to Guarantee that You will be Blessed in What You Do"
[prayer]
Looking back a bit in James, we recognize that James quickly hits upon the unholy areas of life that can taint us Christians. The areas have to do with filthiness, wickedness, and unrighteousness. In verse 14, James says that when we are tempted, we are drawn away by our own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to that wayward child who is in opposition to God's precepts. The child is sin. All sin is transgression of the Law of Christ, which is the Law of the King of kings and Lord of lords, which is the Royal Law, which is proclaimed in the word of truth, as itself, words of truth. Later on, James is going to repeat this law as,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," James 2:8
Sin, as a child, is James' metaphor, because what James means is that you are the one who is sinning when you sin. We are the ones who are not showing a certain aspect of love for God by transgressing this love law, and we are the ones who are not showing love for our neighbor when we involve our neighbor in any activity that is sin. Then when the production of sin is accomplished, it brings forth the cursed kind of end, which isn't goodness, blessing, and life. It brings forth death. James contrasts this cursed activity with the holiness of God. Our holy God births us in our regeneration by the word of truth. James says,
"18 In the exercise of His determination, He gave us birth by the word of truth," James 1:18
God makes us born again. He brings us forth as His own fruit of salvation. So, with what we are as new creations, in mind, we need to practice various things that reflect what being a fruit unto the Lord actually is. We need to be quick to hear God's words of truth, slow to speak our own words, and slow to anger, because the anger of man does not put away all filthiness and what remains of wickedness. Man's anger does not achieve the righteousness of God. What James is describing and exhorting, brings us directly into verse 21, which is our passage;
"21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls."
This morning we want to know how to guarantee that we will be blessed in what we do. As we work through the guarantee, there are some things to recognize about verse 21 that will keep us from making a mistake when interpreting it. One is recognizing who James is talking to. We also need to understanding what the implanted word is. We also need to understand the usage of the phrase "able to save your souls," in its proper light.
As a first consideration, we must remember that James is talking to Christians. He just said that God birthed His audience by His word in verse 18. This means that they are already saved. Later James says,
"1 My brothers, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism." James 2:1
His audience has faith like James has faith in the same Lord Jesus Christ. They are Christians. They are saved. In 5:7 James writes,
"7 Therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord."
Brothers who are waiting for the coming of Christ, are saved people. So, what we see is that James is writing to people who already have their souls saved in the respect of eternal spiritual salvation according to God's imparted word of truth. So this leaves us with needing to understanding the phrase, where James is saying,
"in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls."
This is important, because if we think that James is telling saved people who have been spiritually birthed by the Lord through the word (meaning born again) to all of a sudden, receive that same word again, which is able to save them spiritually in rebirth, so that they will be saved by being born again, again, then we have a problem of an interpretation of weird redundancy, and seeming confusion on the part of James. But, there really isn't a problem. The way James is wording this makes sense when we recognize that the word that is implanted is the imparted word of God, and we know that the word of God is comprised of many categories. The word of God is the gospel, which means good news. The word of God is God's precepts. The word of God is the royal law, which is the law of love. The word of God is the whole canon of Scripture as the Bible. The word of God is His revelation to us. The word of God is the word of truth as James has been saying. Keeping this in mind, we know that all Christians are already eternally spiritually saved by the word of truth, and we also know that all Christians must also live out their saved lives according to the word of truth. Further, the word is already implanted, which means in one sense it has been received. So, James must mean that the word implanted must be received in another sense. Let's look at the sentence again, because there is more,
"in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls."
The next two words that James uses here that we need to think about to avoid confusion, are save, and souls. Save and soul are from Greek words that have various meanings. It is important for us to recognize that their various meanings are not exclusively meant for attaining eternal spiritual salvation. Typically we English speaking Christians associate the word save in the Bible with one kind of salvation--spiritual. When a Christian today asks someone,
Are you saved?
it is assumed that they are talking about spiritual salvation. If someone who is evangelizing says,
Do you want to be saved?
We know that what they are talking about is eternal spiritual salvation. But there is more. To see what James is talking about, we must recognize that the Greek word that James uses for save here is sozo. We find this word used in Hebrews in such a way as to demonstrate how James is using it, where we read that Jesus,
"In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save [sozo in the Gk.] Him from death," Hebrews 5:7
In this passage we see how being saved does not have to do with eternal spiritual salvation. Save is simply a word that has to do with being saved from anything, like for example physical death. James has this same thing in mind where He is exhorting Christians to live according to the word of truth that is able to save them. This leaves us thinking about that other word that James uses. It is the word soul. Once we realize that this is also a word that does not need to be necessarily thought of as some spiritual kind of thing that is saved, then we will have a fuller picture of where James is coming from. The word that James uses here is psuche in the Greek. In Scripture, this word is often used of the whole being that is alive, (or a life, or the life) rather than one mystical aspect of the being. This is the meaning that is meant in Mark 3:4. When Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, we read, where both save, sozo, and soul psuche are used together,
"4 And He said to them, 'Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a soul or to kill?' But they kept silent." Mark 3:4
The soul-psuche as the life, can be either killed, or, saved-sozo. Here, for Jesus to save a soul is to bring physical healing. We find more examples of psuche-soul being used of someone as a whole being who is alive. In Romans 13:1 we see,
"1 Every person ["person" here is soul-psuche] is to be in subjection to the governing authorities ..." Romans 13:1
In 1 Corinthians 15:45, we find the word used this way,
"So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being' [soul-psuche] ..." 1 Corinthians 15:45
In Acts 3:23 we read Luke recording Peter using it this way,
"And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people [soul-psuche]." Acts 3:23
Peter uses the word the same way,
"... God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, [psuche-souls] were brought safely through the water." 1 Peter 3:20
Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane,
"My soul [soul-psuche] is deeply grieved, to the point of death;" Matthew 26:38 Mark 14:34
Jesus was not saying that His soul was deeply grieved to the point of spiritual death. Jesus was talking about his life being deeply grieved to the point of death. The physical symptoms of this were that He sweat blood, and needed to be strengthened, Luke 22:42-44. The remedy was that an angel came down and strengthened Him. We read of the same type of language being used in Revelation,
"The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living soul [psuche] in the sea died" Revelation 16:3
In Revelation 18:13, it is actually translated as,
"... human lives." Revelation 18:13
So, when we see that the word, save has a general rescuing meaning, and the word, soul has a living being meaning, we see that what James says starts to make more sense to us. Rather than telling Christians to become Christians, James is continuing with the same contextual flow, with the same kinds of points, with the same essential emphasis of urging the saints toward acting out God's standards of Christian conduct within their spiritual salvation. This is what guarantees your blessing, by the way. James is urging us to be doers of the comprehensive word of truth that is already implanted in us, and not merely hearers of the word alone. This is why the overall theme of James can be stated as I've said many times before,
Belief Backed By Believer's Behavior
But I will restate it this way,
Belief Backed By Believer's Behavior Brings Blessing
(There are 7 b's there by the way for those of you who are counting.) So, James is essentially saying this:
My Christian brothers and sisters, the word of truth is planted in you, (James 1:18), so you need to receive what you already have. In other words, take up what is already planted in you as your ongoing task for producing fruits of Christianity.
In a word, this is called godliness--and it brings blessing. You need to be quick to listen to God's words, but slow to talk, and slow to get angry, James 1:19. It's godliness--it is blessing. Human anger does not achieve the righteousness of God, James 1:20. Lay aside all filthiness and any remnant that remains of wickedness, James 1:21, because after all, you are saved lights of the Father of lights. It's godliness--it is blessing. You are a special kind of His fruits. You need to do the word that is planted in you, rather than just be a hearer who stores up seed, James 1:21. It's godliness--its blessing. Instead of the life cycle of sin where you chase after lust, and then it conceives, and births sin, which ends in death, here the life cycle is of the effectual doer, of the word that is planted within, who reaps the harvest of being blessed in what he does, verse 25. It's urging toward godliness and blessing. And so this is the point, and what this means is that this is God's word in speaking to us here this morning, which brings us to the next point. It has to do with whether I am proving myself to be a doer of God's word rather than a mere hearer deluding, and cursing myself. It has to do with what James says next,
"22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves [ESV--yourselves]. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was." James 1:22-24
What James says right here is the great key for attaining the guaranteed blessing that God promises to us. What I want us to notice is that there is something strongly important about this immediate point that pushes us to get really serious about God's gift of the Bible to us. James is making some very plain statements about God's revelation that are not very welcome in our postmodern society. The point is that all the discipleship in the world isn't going to matter if you don't live what you learn.
But think for a moment with me about so much of how our dialogue and sharing of ideas is in our culture today. Whenever you talk to someone about moral decisions, or about decisions of character as a matter of suggested theory, where you are just kind of sharing ideas, but not taking a solid stand in being dogmatic about truth, they will usually welcome such a conversation--not all the time, but most of the time. As long as you say that it's your view, but you are not really stating that it is the solid word of truth, everything is okay. Everything is okay, because it is safe. Everything is fine and they are listening to you and they are filtering what you say, and so the conversation is protected in a sense. You might say something like for example,
You know, it seems to me, according to my observations, like the first woman came from the rib of the first man,
Or
It occurs to me that we probably evolved from monkeys,
Or you might say,
It is my view that we need to count it all joy when we encounter various trials in this world, because it seems that the testing of our faith concerning the spiritual realm produces endurance while we exist in this temporal realm.
These are opinions right? So, as the person is listening to you, they might be thinking,
Well, this is just another opinion. Big deal. I have my opinions that I come up with. He has his opinions that he comes up with, so if I like something, I'll take it. If I don't like it, then I'll leave it.
The person who is thinking this way considers what he is doing to be a blessing of free thought. But, let's think about this for a moment. You might be discussing something else. You might say that it is your opinion that homosexuality is not natural, and so because of your observation, you say it isn't natural, and so you conclude that people shouldn't be homosexuals. But, again, you have simply stated an opinion. What I mean, is that you've made your own observations about nature and so you've come up with your own royal law standard of right and wrong. But, the very fact that men and women in nature are homosexuals demonstrates that your opinion about nature is just an opinion. You might be able to find someone who agrees with you based upon the same idea, but you might also be able to find someone who disagrees based upon their own ideas. So, let's think about this-- If you say that these are only your opinions, then people will listen to you and filter out what they think makes sense and what they think doesn't make sense. Basically, it's philosophical cherry picking. They'll develop their own word of truth based upon their own ideas of truth. You just happen to be another talking head giving input into the so-called great dialogue of ideas. The conversation is seemingly safe because there is no standard for who is right or who is wrong other than the talker and the hearer. The hearer can listen and everything is okay as long as everything seems to be a simple sharing of ideas, and is safe.
But things change when someone else is brought into the conversation. Something changes when someone else's words enter into the arena. I'm not simply talking about another person who is sharing their ideas about what is right and what is wrong in some foggy dialogue. I am talking about God, the Creator of all things, and I am talking about His word which is always the word of truth. God isn't a cherry picker. God invents, produces, grows, and defines what the cherries are. When God says that homosexuality, for instance, in Romans 1, is not natural, but is unnatural, then it doesn't matter if someone is philosophically musing about whether it is natural, or not; wrong, or not, or whatever. God says it is unnatural, and further God says it is an abomination in Leviticus 18. God says that the first man was created by Him from dust. God says that the man was a man and not a monkey. God says that we all came from that first man. It is the truth, whether one likes it or not. And so the reason why things change in the world of presenting views of what is right and what is wrong is because God is always right. Further, when we quote God's word in a conversation, we are saying that what we are quoting is right. Even if we misinterpret it, we are still recognizing that the actual truth in the text we are quoting is right. And so what happens is that in our culture today, even among Christians, when we go from sharing our own ideas, over to sharing something that is meant to be unarguable, we have just done something that people in our contemporary culture hate, or they will smugly despise it in dismissal. But this whole practice is worse for professed Christians who share this same attribute with the unsaved. What I mean is that a carnal Christian can hear the word of God over and over again, and as long as their relationship to what they do with the word of God is unchallenged, and is left to the comfortable side of hearing, then they want to act like all is okay. They think they are safe. They can hear the word of truth, and they can listen to what they want to hear, and they can take it in if they want to take it in, or they can kind of ignore other aspects, if that is what they want to do. After all, they are hearing the word, and in our contemporary culture, hearing the word is just fine until someone tells us that we need to be doing more than merely hearing it. So, here's the problem folks; instead of being blessed in what they do--what happens?--they curse themselves!
This reminds me of a minister friend of mine being called upon by some post modern Christians a few weeks ago. They are of the emergent, emerging, post modern church movement virus that is tainting the body of Christ today. They wanted this minister to help rescue a young woman from an undesirable living situation. She is part of what is called a Punk church. Yes, there really is a Punk culture, so called, church in San Antonio. Of course they are all posers who have no idea what culture they are glorifying with this silly sales tactic meant to make Christianity attractive to people who call themselves punks. Anyway, instead of leading this young girl, who is a new Christian by the way, out of the danger of that whole sub culture of cool that finds its roots in radical skepticism and cynicism, that whole, so called relevant debacle of a dysfunctional church, was enabling this young girl, who wants to remain a punk, to remain endangered in the trappings of her previous punk lifestyle. The minister friend of mine, in good will, went down and tried to help the girl get onto the right track in life based upon pure biblical propositional truth. But here is the irony. The Christian who called the minister for help in rescuing the new convert, happened to like, want, and desire, everything about his actions and intervention, but she did not like it when my minister friend started quoting Scripture. The minister shared with me how he noticed that the Christian who was supposed to be the one helping out the punk girl, reacted when my friend went to the word of God. Her reaction was that she rolled her eyes in a kind of contempt that reflects a subtle kind of contempt for God's word. I can not tell you how many times I have seen this same reaction myself. You talk to someone about philosophies about what to do, and everything is just a sharing of humanistic strategies--you know--take it or leave it. But when you start to explain what God's word says, you get an immediate rolling of the eyes in contempt for the practice that God demands from us. Folks, what we really need to be doing is what God wants us to do, and what God wants us to do, is clear and unarguable no matter how much your eyes roll around. God wants us to be hearers, and then be doers of the word, which is the word of truth. Herein lies another problem, which is one of the most profound problems of the church today. Certainly, it is bad when a Christian rolls their eyes at another Christian in apparent disgust when the word of God is used as the standard, but I am talking about something else. It is not even so much that there are whole church movements that are opposed to Biblical preaching, though such mavericks exist, and they are a problem too, and it is not so much that there are unqualified teachers of the word out there, though they do exist, and they are also a problem, and it is not that we do not have volumes upon volumes of teaching materials, or hundreds of different study Bibles, or dozens of Bibles readily available to the average Christian; because we do. The problem that I am talking about is that we are not hearing the word of truth in such a way as to prove ourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude ourselves. By the way, this is not new. In fact the oldness of this malady is what James is attacking with pinpoint accuracy in His own generation. Think about how it works--the analogy is that you don't get the blessing when you go to the word like, like for example, going up to a mirror and looking at your face there, where you are standing there in the light examining each detail. In the same way, you hear the word of God, and you listen to what God is saying, and your mind, and soul is there in the light of Gods' truth--you are listening, and you are examining each detail of the knowledge of God as you behold His face in His word as He shines the light of the truth of His glory into your heart;
"6 For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6
But, then like the metaphor, you walk away from the mirror after the attentive inspection of your own image has been completed, meaning in like manner, you walk away from the hearing of God's word after the attentive inspection of His manifest image of perfection and truth, in revelation has been made to your heart, and amazingly, after you have looked and have gone away, the remembrance of what kind of person you were dissipates away into the murky realm of forgetfulness. In the same way, when you go from the study, the listening, the exploring, the intense hungering curiosity, and seeking after the truths of God's word, then if you are not a doer of all of that, but merely a hearer, the remembrance of what all God had spoken to you also amazingly dissipates away into the murky realm of forgetfulness. You have immediately forgotten the truth God had spoken to you. This is a horrible tragedy in our day, where God's word is not looked upon as the treasure of communication that God intends it to be for blessing you in what you do. It is our instruction. It is our life. It is the truth, and it is the law. It is our marching orders in the battle that exposes the lies, deception, and sin of the world, while at the same time the word also instructs us in how to battle the lies, deception, and sin in the world. The Bible is the truth that offends and curses those who are mere hearers, and yet it is life and blessing to those who are its doers. The Bible exposes the lies, deception, and sin that is in our own hearts. So it offends stubborn self sufficiency, and then when we are humbled, it revives us with the words of life.
Yes, we need to be doing the Bible. Do the Bible and live. We need to hear it; we need to look into our lives and identify where we don't line up with it, and then we must act upon it. Dr. Jay Adams, the Reformed minister and scholar, says of this passage in his book, A Thirst for Wholeness, How To Gain Wisdom from the book of James, p. 98), that when someone is simply a hearer and not a doer of God's word in respect to what God 's word is exposing in his life,
The consequence of this is that he dulls his conscience. Doing this again and again, after hearing the Word and reading God's will in the Scriptures, eventually makes it possible for him to convince himself that he is all right after all. Thus, the inner process of deceiving oneself takes place. He builds from himself a very different picture of his life than others have. And especially, a very different picture of his heart than God has. Dr. Adams
Folks, instead of looking at God's word as if we are looking at our natural disappearing image in a mirror, we must look intently at God's supernatural enduring word, and keep our eyes on it so that we will not get distracted by the seductive philosophies that linger all around us. This leads us to what James says next,
"25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." James 1:25
What does James mean by perfect law, the law of liberty? We all realize that are not under the Old Covenant Law of Moses. We are under the New Covenant, so we need to know what this means. First, we know that God's law in any covenant is perfect. We read in Psalms 19:7,
"7 The law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple." Psalm 19:7
The Law as the testimony of God, makes simple people into wise people, which is blessing. It is always perfect. In the New Covenant sense, the same is true of God's Law, yet with fulfillment in the Newer and Better covenant in perfect Christ. Knowing this, James explains what he means by the perfect Law for us Christians, which is the Law of liberty. Paul speaks of why the New Covenant Law is the law of liberty in 2 Corinthians,
"14 ... until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 But to this day whenever Moses [The Old Covenant Law] is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16 but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Corinthians 3:14-17
The New Covenant Law is closely related to the Spirit of the Lord being in Christians as temples of the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord ministers through the law of liberty. It is vitally important for us to be familiarized with the details about what this Law is. In a few more verses, in the next chapter James calls it the Royal Law according to the Scripture, as the law of liberty according to the word of truth;
"5 ... heirs of the kingdom He promised to those who love Him ... 8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law [An analogy of the Old Covenant Mosaic Law] and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
The reason James associates the royal law with Scripture is because the Law is revealed to us as God's word. James goes on,
11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not commit murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."
Meaning that the Law of Liberty is the same way. When you don't love your neighbor as yourself in one point, then you don't love your neighbor as yourself, and that is the big point. So we see that the perfect Law, which is the Law of liberty in the New Covenant of James 1:25, is the royal Law of the kingdom that we have inherited as those who love Christ our King. Simply stated, it is the Law of love. Highlighting this principle in James' point of his flow of thought, showing unrighteous favoritism is to break the New Covenant Messianic kingdom law of love. This makes sense as we remember what all Christ taught in His pre-cross ministry. We remember what Jesus taught in Matthew 22:36-40, where we read about the big basics of the Old Covenant Law that were to be revealed as the essential ingredients of the New Covenant Law,
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus taught it to His students shortly before He was betrayed by Judas. There He changed it from loving as yourself, to loving as He loved His students;
"34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34
Later, the same author of the gospel of John repeats the royal law as the foundation of His epistle of 1 John. He calls it the commandment, and He calls it the word,
"7 Loved ones, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; ...
[It is the royal law of love that Christ taught in the inauguration of the New Covenant from the beginning. John goes on,]
... the old commandment is the word which you have heard. [Like James says, it is the word of truth]" 1 John 2:7
John sums up the royal law very nicely in its two statutes,
"This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us." 1 John 3:23
This is the law by which we are all judged for blessing in this life. This is the foundational word of truth that God wants us to live by for blessing in this life. This is why James says later,
"11 Do not speak against [ESV--evil against] one another, brothers, He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor? ' James 4:11-12
To speak evil against a brother or sister in Christ is to speak against the word of truth by speaking against the royal law of love of the kingdom of Christ.
As we wrap up this morning, James succinctly lays out the steps that are required for the blessing. James lays it out like this:
1)
"25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, ..." James 1:25
The Greek verb translated as looking intently is parakypto. It's a word that "denotes penetrating absorption" (TDNT, 5:815). This is the same word that is used to describe John's act of stooping and peering into the tomb of Jesus in penetrating absorption, John 20:5. So, rather than quickly hearing the word and then being a forgetter reaping the curse, we are to be effectual doers who are to be penetratingly absorbed with the royal law. We should be making every life goal and action based upon tunnel vision love of God, and love for our neighbor. This is not legalism. This is Lordship, and yes it is expected from us. What we are effectual hearers of, and what we are effectual doers of, and what we are to be intentionally looking at, is our essential orders from our Master. Paul, the greatest preacher against legalism that God has ever raised up says plainly that he is,
"... not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ," I Corinthians 9:21
So the first step that is required for the blessing is for us to be looking intently with penetrating absorption at the perfect law of liberty as our constant standard, and guide.
The second step has to do with not just being one who stares seriously fixed upon the glory of this law, but also being one who,
2)
"... abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." James 1:25
All of the canon of New Covenant Scripture gives us our marching orders for fulfilling the perfect law of liberty of loving God and loving our neighbor. God has blessed us with 27 books that tell us what to do and how to do it in various ways. A lot of people ask me how this fleshes out according to New Covenant Theology. I say that the Royal Law has the two statutes, the rest of the canon explains various ways of practically doing those two statutes. The main point is that we have a duty to be an effectual doer, where we abide in God's word. A reformed Baptist theologian of the 19th century made this pertinent observation;
Duty without doctrine is a tree without roots--Doctrine without duty is a tree without fruits. AH Strong
We want both because we need both. We can not operate properly in our duty to abide in the word of God in respect to the perfect law of liberty, without the proper doctrine there to do it. By the same token, we must abide in the doctrine that is there as a matter of our duty. Abiding means you don't just think about it. You don't just hear the command, the precept, and the exhortation, and then think about it as a neat golden rule that sounds nice. Abiding by the perfect law of liberty means you do it. Again,
Duty without doctrine is a tree without roots--Doctrine without duty is a tree without fruits.
You can think about loving someone all day long, but until you do it, nothing is happening. We can even learn of great ways, and examples of how to love God and love our neighbor, but unless we do it, what does all our learning really mean? Merely thinking about something, and knowing about something is not to be confused with abiding in it. To love, is to meet a brother or sister in Christ and then find out that there is some particular doctrinal thing that they believe that is not quite the way you see it, and it is not direct heresy that is going to destroy the faith, or undermine someone's salvation, and instead of despising that person in your heart, and pushing them aside, you stay with them. You give yourself for them in bearing their burdens. But abiding in love goes further. It goes to when that same brother or sister despises you for taking a different view than they do. What do you do now? You love them by staying with them and by giving yourself for them in bearing their burdens. To love is to do this with your spouse, or child, or to your parent who hurt you. To abide in love is to always seek the best for that imperfect spouse. To abide in love is to always respect that imperfect parent. To abide in love is to always be committed to that child who is wayward, like the prodigal's son. To abide there is to dwell there. To abide in love may mean to confront sin. When done in love, confronting sin has the greater good of the person who is sinning in mind. It is to approach that person understanding that the only reason why you can approach the throne of grace is because Christ approached the cross of sacrifice for you. He was executed for you. He rose from the dead for His own glory, and with you in mind. We should approach people when they are in sin, and confront them in their sin, because we love them and want to see them reflect the glory of the Father of lights in repentance of sin. To abide in love is to give to meet the needs of others. To abide in love is to care about others the way God says to care about others in His word. These are the kinds of things that we do that guarantee that we will be blessed in what we do. I urge you, my brothers and sisters to seek to live love by living the word of God. Do this and you are guaranteed to be blessed in what you do.
