Introduction: We have become in many ways, a very passive nation of people. Hotels know how passive we like to be. They have a guy who parks your car, a guy who opens the door, a guy who carries your luggage, a guy who pushes the button on the elevator, a guy who turns back your sheets, a guy who picks up your clothes to be cleaned, a guy who brings you your food, and a guy who cleans up after you when you leave. It is the ultimate in passive experiences. It’s everywhere though. We have drive-through windows at fast food restaurants, and if that is still too difficult, Dominoes delivers. Instead of going to the video rental store now you can call and order the movie you want from your phone. We have automated sidewalks in airports, cruise control in our cars, about a dozen home shopping networks on our TVs, and a myriad of video games which boast about being “interactive.” Apparently all we need to exist is a thumb and forefinger in which to dial the telephone, operate a mouse, or click the remote control. All are great modern conveniences, but they point to an attribute of human nature that is growing more and more prevalent in our society.  It has even made it into some churches in our country.

 

I receive a monthly newsletter called The Berean Call, and the cover story for March 2004 is entitled “The Seeker-Friendly Way of Doing Church” written by T.A. McMahon.  He examines the recent growth of what has been termed the “seeker-friendly” church.  Two of the largest such churches are Willow Creek Community Church pastored by Bill Hybels, and Saddleback Valley Community Church pastored by Rich Warren, who also does the Purpose Driven Church seminars.  These churches and many others around the country and world has bought into the philosophy that the church needs to be run using the latest marketing techniques in order to reach the unchurched.  As a result surveys have been done asking the unchurched what would attract them about a church and cause them to attend.  Let me quote from what Mr. McMahon says about what Willow Creek Community Church has done:

 

Just off the sanctuary is a large bookstore and an extensive eating area supplied by a food court with five different vendors.  A jumbo-tron screen allows an overflow crowd or those enjoying a meal to view the proceedings in the main sanctuary.  Mega-churches across the country have added bowling alleys, NBA regulation basketball courts with bleachers, exercise gyms and spas, locker rooms, auditoriums for concerts and dramatic productions, and Starbucks and McDonald’s franchises - all for the furtherance of the gospel.

 

This sounds like an accommodation of the flesh if you ask me.  A passive Christianity for those who are lost in their sins and on their way to Hell.

 

Are you a passive or active person? Are you a person who just watches what goes on, or do you get involved? Are you a spectator or a player? We are going to look at possibly the three most important commands James gives in the entire book; three imperatives for the Christian and his walk. Three critical areas which will help us measure whether we are a child of God, or whether we are merely a Christian in name only. Our text is James chapter 1:21-25 READ

 

I. Lay Aside the World

1. The first imperative comes up in verse 21, “Wherefore...” Stop. What must we do when we see the word “wherefore” in Scripture? We must recall what the author has just said. Always keep that in mind in your Bible reading and study. Context is one of the most important lessons in proper biblical interpretation. That is why you won’t see Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other cult which twists the meaning of the Bible ever worry about context. But we do.  So then we come to his first imperative in this section, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness...”

 

2. The words “lay apart” literally mean “to separate oneself from by laying aside”. In everyday language it usually meant the taking off of one’s clothes. In the ancient Near East there were two popular reasons to take off one’s clothes. One was because they were dirty and filthy and needed to be cleaned, just as today.  The other was because the clothes encumbered you or impeded your progress. Remember tunics and robes were the garment of the day.  In fact we know the early Olympic athletes tended to compete in races uh…shall we say, unencumbered by garments. Both of these ideas were picked up by the early church and used quite extensively to describe what the Christian is to do upon his conversion.  James uses the thought to describe the need of all Christians to strip off all filthiness and the remains of wickedness that were a part of the old life.  Four of the five letter writers in the New Testament (including James) use the phrase and thought of “putting off” the old life:

 

3. Paul says in Ephesians 4:21, 22, “If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;” and Peter says in 1 Peter 2:1,2  “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”  The author of Hebrews similarly writes in Hebrews 12:1, “...let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

4. It is a popular Christian theme, because it is a popular Christian problem. Separating ourselves from the world is a battle every Christian is involved in.   But that is the command, not only here in James 1:21, but in all these other verses as well. Do you get the idea God is trying to communicate something important with us here? The apostle John summarizes the whole situation in 1 John 2:15-17: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

 

5. James commands us as Christians to free ourselves from these worldly lusts and sins. The critical reasoning of John being, you aren’t a Christian if you don’t. Think about it for a minute as you reread that Scripture.  There is the command; Love not the world.  This is a volitionally possible command, it can be done, and it must be done. So what are you going to do with it? How are you going to respond? The second command appears in the second half of that same verse, verse 21

 

II. Accept the Word

1. First, lay aside the world, and then after you have dropped the world, you are commanded to pick up and accept the Word. In other words, drop the “L” in “world” and pick up the “word.”

 

2. Attached to this command are three other important ideas which answer three basic questions we might have. When you are a kid, you are familiar with this form of command and question conversation. Your dad commands you to mow the lawn. You say, “Which lawn?” He says, “Our lawn.” You ask, “Why?” He responds, “Because I said so.” In an attempt to further put off obeying the command, you ask, “But how?” Growing tired of your insolence, your dad responds sarcastically, “With a scissors. Go cut our yard with the lawnmower now!” James already knows we might want to slither out of or postpone the inevitable, so he answers all those questions in advance within the command.

 

3. We would ask, “What word?” James says, “The engrafted Word”,   that Word of truth I just mentioned in verse 18, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” We would then ask, “Why should we accept it?” James says again, “Which it is able to save your souls,” and in fact, has already saved you if you are a true Christian, now what better reason is there than that?” “Okay, but how should we accept it?”  Receive the engrafted Word “with meekness.”  The word “receive” has behind it the concept of welcoming.  We must be hospitable to the implanting of the Word of God into our life.  If we resist the seed of the Word it will never be able to take root. Some people have a hard rocky soil that they have cultivated and the seed of the Word is not allowed to germinate.  Others, though, have the soil of their life ready for the Word of God and welcome it into their life.  Which are you?

The Word of God is to be received with “meekness”.  This means we are to be humble when the Word of God comes knocking at the door of our life.  There is no room for a brash attitude when it comes to growing in the Lord.

 

4. James is thinking ahead of us here. As we have noted before, James surely knows human nature. He knows every trick in the book we will use to try to avoid facing the facts. Why is he so familiar with all of these things? Because as we learned in the introduction message to the book, James has been there. He had rationalized away believing in his own brother, Jesus, as the Savior. The man had stood right before him, and yet he didn’t want to see it, and didn’t want to accept it. “Don’t make the same mistake I initially made,” James might say.

 

5. Accepting the Word involves all of these things as well as accepting the Word in full. Not just the parts you like, or the parts that don’t convict you, or the parts that are easily understood, but all of God’s Word. You must replace the world’s wisdom with the Word’s wisdom; the world’s way of thinking, with God’s way of thinking; the world’s passivity with a Christian’s activity. The Christian must accept and put on the Word, and resolve himself to knowing God’s Word is the ultimate truth.

 

6. “Okay, that is fine. I understand. Put off the world, put on the Word. Good encouragement from James.” But James doesn’t end there does he? He moves on to explain through another command what it really means to lay aside the world and accept the Word, and it isn’t just an intellectually passive duty. James’ third, and perhaps the most important command, is found in verse 22.

 

III. Do the Word

1. The command here is a two-part command expressing the negative and the positive. He says, “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”  In other words, James is saying, “When I say ‘accept the Word’ I don’t mean just listen to it. I don’t mean just hear it. Listening to the Word, coming to church and listening to a sermon, or listening to a sermon on tape or hearing the Bible read are all good things, but they mean nothing, absolutely nothing, unless you DO WHAT IT SAYS.” You may say to me on the way out of the church, “Nice sermon pastor, good message, good job.” Thanks, but unless you DO WHAT THE WORD SAYS, you have wasted your time. You have neglected the most crucial part of James’ command. Just listening, and then forgetting or not letting the Word effect a change in your life, means you are displaying an attitude which is all too representative of a person who is a Christian in name only. Oh sure, I go to church. Oh sure, I know the 10 commandments and the Beatitudes. Oh sure, I love to hear a good sermon.  Oh sure, I enjoy a good Bible study. Well you know what? Who cares! It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t live it. Saying it, no more means you are a Christian than a person who hates doing all of that. He isn’t living for God and neither are you, unless you do what the Word says. My friend, if you are a perpetual listener, and not a doer, you better examine your relationship with God.

 

2. God doesn’t want just listeners. He wants doers. The Word wasn’t given to us, so we could say, “Sounds good, nice message.” The Word is meant to penetrate our hearts and lead us to action. Jesus Himself said this a number of times.  In Luke 11:28 He said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.  Jesus shared a story that we know as the wise man and foolish man story.  It is found in Matthew 7:24-27 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them,  I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

 

3. Much of the rest of this book will focus on doing what God’s Word says.  If it doesn’t lead you to action, then you haven’t received it. James says exactly this in verse 22, when he states, “Deceiving your own selves.”  The word “deceiving” is referring to the irrational reason of such a person who is trying to rationalize their inactivity toward the Word of God.   Don’t deceive yourself by thinking that coming to church and hearing the Word of God preached without removing sin in your life is going to cut it with God.  God is looking for Christians who will Do what He says.  The same goes for anyone who is here today and does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour - just being in church does not save you.  You must receive within your heart what the Word of God says about all sinners and what Christ did for all sinners on the cross.

 

3. James gives us an example of what he means in verses 23-24 READ

 

4. Many have tried to super-analyze this little metaphor, but as always the point of a parable is simple and straightforward. Have you ever looked in a mirror, and because you are so used to seeing your own face, you just look and then walk away. A few minutes later someone comes up to you and smiles and says, “Do you realize you have a smudge of dirt on your face?” You say, “What? I just looked in the mirror.” “Well you must have missed it, because it is pretty obvious.” When you return to the mirror and look a little more closely, you realize you do have a smudge on your face. Why didn’t I notice that the first time? It is because, in a sense, you have become so familiar with your own face, that you never really look at it closely any more. You just see what you expect to see, and nothing more. You don’t bother to make any adjustments or let what you just saw change your behavior in any way.

 

5. Think back to those years when you were Jr. High age. You probably rarely had this problem then. In fact, you probably spent an hour every morning, searching your face over and over again, for even the slightest hint of a pimple you may have to cover up. What you saw in the mirror each morning, greatly affected your behavior and your attitude for the day.  In Jr. High our appearance sometimes dictated our entire life, often in a negative way.  James wants us to respond to the Word the same way, we responded to our face in the mirror in Jr. High,—only in a positive way. He warns us to not just give a passing glance and think nothing more of it. Instead he instructs us in verse 25 that: READ

 

6. James again uses the compare and contrast technique. Pretty effective isn’t it? Notice the contrast he draws between the man who looks into a mirror, but it has no effect, and the man who “looketh” into the perfect law that gives freedom. The Greek word, here translated, “looks intently”, means the following, “To stoop to a thing in order to look at it; to look at with head bowed forward; to look into with the body bent; to stoop and look into; metaphorically, to look carefully into, inspect curiously: of one who would become acquainted with something.” 

 

Illustration: In 1979 I was in Puerto Rico with a singing ensemble called the International Quintet.  It was a preaching-singing group of five fellows and the Lord blessed in a number of folks being saved that summer and we were blessed much ourselves.  I remember walking back to where we were staying and finding some coins on the sidewalk.  Then a short ways later I found some more change.  From then on I had my head down looking very carefully all around me for signs of more change.  Because of this careful observation I was able to find over a $1.00 in change.  I still wonder why so much change was just lying around like that!

 

7. That is exactly the kind of intense looking this word implies. God wants us to intensely look into the Word of God; He wants us to take a very close and long look at what the Word of God says to us about the various areas of our lives that need to be cleaned up or removed completely.  For us then, it is not just the hearing; it is the doing which is the measure of our Christianity. And the reward for being a doer is a blessing. Not only an earthly blessing, but an eternal blessing as well. James lays out tough commands, but always informs us of the reward that awaits our completion of that command.

 

8. What does James say, we are to be looking intently at? He says in verse 25, “the perfect law of liberty.” At first glance, that might seem to be an oxy-moron. Isn’t a law something that restricts my freedom? I mean, when the school speed limit sign says 15 mph, isn’t that restricting my freedom to drive at a reasonable pace? When the law says my dog has to be on a leash, isn’t that restricting her freedom to run and play? How is it, then that the law gives freedom?

 

9. James is drawing upon Jesus’ teaching that He came to fulfill the law, and truly make it perfect. That new law involves Christ, covering our sin. With Christ in our lives, we are then given the grace and ability to be freed from our old sinful nature which had entangled us. We have therefore become free through Jesus Christ and His Word, which this phrase refers to in verses 18 and 22. Notice the similarity to Jesus’ teaching in John 8:31-32 says, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Paul wrote with the same thought in mind in Romans 8:2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

 

10. James puts it all together for us here, in these three incredibly important commands. Lay aside the world, accept the Word, and do the Word.

 

Conclusion: Have you taken these steps? Are you ready to put aside the things of the world? Are you ready to accept the whole Word of God? Are you ready to start doing, instead of just listening? Ask yourself right now whether or not you get up from your pew every Sunday morning, after having glanced into the mirror which is the Word, and walk out the doors never applying, really applying a thing you have heard. Don’t deceive yourselves my friends, a true Christian applies what he hears. A true Christian is a doer. A true Christian is an active seeker and a person who diligently executes and puts into practice what he knows. Is that you? Do you go to church to be a spectator of good music and preaching, or do you go to learn, apply, and serve. Does God’s Word make its way from your ears to your brain and out to your hands and feet and lips, or does it just come in one ear, whistle through the tunnel, and go out the other ear?

 

Some Christians desire the blessings of God upon their life, but they have not been willing to clean up their life and let the Word of God have first place in their life.  Don’t expect any blessings from God until the cleaning up is done, or at least has begun.

 

Lay aside the world. Accept the Word. Do the Word. A command calls for action, and so does the Word of God. So what will you do?