James chapter 1. James 1. We haven't abandoned
our Isaiah study entirely. I promise we'll get back to it.
Just taking a break. James 1, 19. This is a passage, at least part
of this, I refer to quite a bit. when I'm preaching because it's very foundational to the gospel. James 119, Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the Word,
and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be
a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man
beholding his natural face in a glass, For he beholdeth himself,
and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Let's pray. Lord, we come tonight conscious
of the fact that we need your presence and your
spirit to teach us. We're so weak and feeble, Lord,
in our thoughts and so unstable, Lord, that our minds
will drift off on the most foolish things be occupied with the petty
concerns of this world unless you reign them in. We know the importance, Lord,
by your grace of the things of God, and yet our flesh is so
weak. Teach us tonight, Lord, and may
Christ be exalted in all, in his precious name. Amen. Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, and slow to wrath. Now I reckon why James would
be telling us here to open our ears and shut our mouths. I believe there are two reasons
why this is such a prominent exhortation in the Word of God.
First of all, it's because we're just the opposite of that. We're
swift to speak and slow to hear. Paul said in Roman 3.19 that the law of God was given
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world acknowledge
their guilt before God. So these gospel exhortations
are given here that we might acknowledge our natural tendencies,
our shortcomings, we might know ourselves, and seek God's grace to overcome
what we are by nature. If the law ever shows us our
guilt before God, Then we'll seek our righteousness in Christ
alone. And if we take these warnings,
these exhortations to heart, we desire to seek and seek to
honor Him. And we know that it will require
His grace. We're just not this way by nature. Shutting up is a very difficult
thing to do. You know from James chapter 3,
a familiar passage of scripture, the tongue. how dangerous and evil it is. James 3, 2 through 8. And so, listening. Listening is a rare thing. It's unusual for somebody to
be willing to listen. Usually we think we already know
everything. We see that even in natural things. It's hard
to teach anybody anything. And we're the same way. Luke
8 18 the Lord said take heed how you hear how you hear And then in the very next verse
it says that his a Group of people came and told him his mother
and brethren wanted to see him And he said in verse 21 just
a few verses down from that. He said take heed how you hear
and then he answered those ones who said your mother and brother
he said these are my mother and my brethren which hear the word
of God remember what comes next Luke 8 21 my mother and my brethren
are these which hear the word of God and do it and do it so that's what James
is talking about he's beginning we're getting to that part but
It starts here by hushing and listening. You can't do what
you don't know. And you're not going to know
it without listening. And in order to listen, you've
got to shut up. Now, the second thing here, why
is he exhorting us this? Because he just got through saying
in the context here, if you look up a little ways, He just said
that sinners are begotten again by the word of truth. And so
it's important that we hear it. And God's thoughts are not our
thoughts. His ways are not our ways. So
when we hear it, we're reluctant to really hear it. So he said,
open your ears and shut your mouth. Quit trying to reason
about the things of God and just receive them. Quit arguing about
it. When the law comes, it's designed
by God in the purpose of God to shut us up. And so this is something that
we still learn. Our Lord said in John 6.63, it's
the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing, And
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life. The words of eternal life. Thou
hast the words of eternal life. The words, as newborn babes desire
the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. First
Peter 2.2. Why this warning about anger here? It seems almost out
of place, doesn't it? Until you understand the context
and think about Why people don't hear? Why people are slow to
hear the Word of God and they're quick to say something, but slow
to hear? Why? Because what God says makes
them mad. That's why. You ever seen somebody
get mad? I have. You don't have to go back far,
I imagine, in your own experience to remember when the Word of
God didn't really sit well with you. Our natural reaction to the Gospel
is anger. We still get mad when we don't
get to be God, when we don't get any glory. Think about this
with me. You may not have ever read the
Word of God on the page and maybe heard the gospel preached in
a while and gotten mad about it. But still, as believers,
when the truth that's written in this book is actually imposed
upon you, that can be another story, even
now. Think about it. You may agree
wholeheartedly with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. What
I preached this morning about Christ just saving whom he will,
when he will, You may say, amen, I agree with that. He does as
he pleases in the armies of heaven, among the inhabitants of the
earth, none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what doest thou?
But when he actually does as he pleases in your life, and it doesn't please you, it
pleased him, or he wouldn't have done it. But it doesn't always
please us. Though we agree with his sovereignty,
but when he actually imposes his sovereignty upon us, and
he takes us in a direction we don't want to go, perhaps. Or
takes something we wanted to keep. We're still susceptible to this,
don't we? Be ye not angry. I think I've told you this before,
I had somebody grit their teeth at me one time and say, why did
your God kill my child? And I honestly don't have any
idea of what I said to them. But I know this, it would devastate
me if one of my children died. I sympathized with them. But
the simple truth of the matter is God killed that person's child
because he wanted to. He gave life and He took it.
And it's the wages of sin that's death. And you can't blame anybody
else's sin. There wouldn't be any death if
it wasn't for your sin. So don't blame God. Don't get mad at God. Don't be
angry. Don't reject the one that's your
only hope. You see, kiss the son lest he be angry. We don't
know what anger is until we see him angry. We just think we can
get mad. That's just puny. That's like
an ant shaking its fist at me. Look at verse 20. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Never. I've thought about this
now. There's a lot of ways in which
the Word of God is delivered, it's received, it's applied,
it's done. That's kind of the central message
of this passage is to be a doer of it. So the Word of God in
all these ways, never is anger appropriate in any of that. Not in the delivery of it, not
in the receiving of it, Not in the application of it. Not in
the living of it. Never is anger. Now anger is
not always evil. Our Lord got angry and threw
some folks out of his temple one day and there wasn't obviously
any sin in that. But it's a lot easier for us
to get angry for the wrong reasons. And the word of God should never
be delivered in anger. It's easier for a preacher, you
know, to preach down to people. or to feel like he needs to be
somehow the heavy hand of God and speak
in wrath about things. No, this is one sinner speaking
to a bunch of other sinners. We're all equally, we're in the
same position. And preachers aren't the only
ones that get mad either. I've told you this I think before
too, I had a man tell me one time, and I tell you this, for
every time Somebody actually said this to me. There are probably
a hundred that were thinking it. He got red in the face. I was just telling him about
how he has mercy on whom he with. He said, I don't want anything
to do with a God like that. Got red in the face. Got mad
and stomped away. I was just telling him the truth
about God. Don't get mad at God's Word.
Don't get mad. Don't get mad at those that won't
hear it. That's easy to do too. Instead of, you know, debate and argue with
those, maybe you have relatives that are willing to talk a little
bit about the Bible. And they just don't know anything
and the things that they say are offensive, they're blasphemous.
Don't get mad about it. It hasn't been long that you
were like that. We wouldn't hear either not that
long ago. We had some real stupid ideas about God too, not long
ago. We're to do so with compassion,
considering ourselves. We wouldn't get mad at a blind
man for not being able to see. And that's what it is. If the Lord opened my eyes, he
might just open theirs too. And so you see, Never really
is anger an appropriate part of it this thing of hearing receiving
Hushing your mouth and hearing from God And listen to this too
and remember the context verse 21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the
engrafted word Which is able to save your souls Now if I just
said out of the blue, if I just said, you know, filthiness and
superfluity of naughtiness, you'd probably think of something that
James is not talking about here. You got to keep it in the context.
It's just simply everything that's opposed to the engrafted word. Anything that's opposed to that,
anything that's contrary to that. It's filthy, it's vile, it's
a lie, it's blasphemy. It's evil. To receive rightly the Word of
God, the truth of His grace and His mercy in Christ, to receive
His gospel of Christ and Him crucified, you've got to lay
apart things first. You see that? Lay apart all of
your thoughts. They're not God's thoughts. God
doesn't do things the way we do. He doesn't do them for the
reasons that we do. We've got to lay aside what we
think, what we feel, what we estimate to be correct. We can't hold on to what we naturally
think and also embrace the word. You see the picture here, you're
laying hold of something, receive, but before that happens you've
got to lay apart something. And it's just simply everything
we think that's contrary to Him. And receive it with meekness.
That's the opposite of anger. With meekness, submit to God
in what He says. Look at James 4. Verse seven, submit yourselves
therefore to God. Resist the devil and he'll flee
from you. Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. Cleanse
your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Receive with meekness,
with submission. We've got to lay apart our own
pride and submit. We've got to lay aside our own
reasoning and acknowledge the truth of what He says. The word
engrafted here in this context, receive with meekness the engrafted
word, it means implanted by others instruction. Implanted. Receive that with meekness and
that will take grace now. You know as well as I do, it's
hard to teach anybody anything on any level, especially with
regard to the things of God. But we're to desire to pray for
this. And it's important, why? Because the word is able to save
your soul. That's the means whereby God
saves sinners. Paul said to Timothy, you've
known from your youth the holy scriptures which are able to
make you wise unto salvation. Submit, submit. That's the receiving with meekness
there, is to bow to his will, bow to his word, bow to his way,
bow to his truth. Submit to his sovereignty. I'd say just about everybody
in here probably, as I said, at least agrees that God has
the right and the ability to do as He pleases. But again,
when you experience Him doing that in your life, submit to
it. Be a doer of that. I'm a hearer of sovereignty.
That sounds pretty good. I like to hear about God's sovereignty.
Be a doer of it. Actually submit to it. That's
something I'm still learning. Submit to his estimation of us
by nature. When he calls you a dog, it's
because you're a dog. When he says you're stupid, like
when Brother Moose preached the other day, that word there, when
the Lord said to them on the road to Emmaus, oh fools and
slow of heart, Slow of heart means stupid. That'd be hard to take from anybody
else, but can we take that from Him? Can we take that? Can we submit? Receive with meekness
the truth of God about me. I'm a fool. And it don't matter
how smart I get in the things of this world or in the things
of God, I'm still going to be a fool. I'm always going to be
a fool. I just pray and thank God that
I'm His fool. Submit to His electing grace
in Christ. He saves whom He will. There's going to be some that
we think, boy, I wish God would save them. And He may not. You
see, there again, When we hear God elects sinners to salvation,
he chooses one and leaves another. Oh, amen. Until one of the one
he leaves is somebody that you would die for. Receive it, submit it, receive
it meekly. And we don't know for sure, but
ever really for sure. But even if you have no reason
to believe, if one of your loved ones dies shaking their fist
in God's face, it's harder to say amen, isn't
it? It's harder to say amen to that. You've prayed for them maybe
for 20 years and they die hating God. God saves whom He pleases. Amen. Amen. Submit to His effectual redemption
of all of His elect, what we call limited atonement. And I
say that one, but not because I think that there's maybe anybody
here that rejects the truth of God's effectual redemption through
the blood of His Son. But this is the most offensive
truth of all to this world. Can we submit to that? What grace,
what grace. He laid down his life for his
sheep. And because he did, they shall
never perish, he said. Submit to the truth of irresistible
grace. We saw that this morning, didn't
we? Follow me. Sinners live when he says live
and not until. And He may not ever say it. When He says, come, they come.
When He says, be not faithless, we'll have faith. We pray for those that we love
and our heart goes out to them. We don't want to be angry at
them for being blind and we'd do anything for them. But God does as he will. Where to receive it? Look at
verse 22 and here's the, I think the pivotal kind of, I think this is key. This is
the one that I refer to a lot when I'm preaching because Here's
the thing, if I preach to you the truth of Christ and his sovereign
grace and power, his prerogative to give life to whom he will,
the power of his precious blood to save everybody he shed it
to save, I preach the gospel, the simple gospel to you, and
you go out of here agreeing with it, but all you ever do about
it is agree with it, we've wasted our time. We wasted our time. If it's just a head knowledge
and assent to the truth of the scripture. James says it's worthless. Paul said it's worthless. If I understand all mysteries
and even have all faith, I believe. I believe the truth and yet I
have not love. And remember what he says about
love. What is love? Well, here's what it does do
and here's what it doesn't do. It's about doing, isn't it? Love's
not a feeling. It's about doing. Love is defined
in what it does. And if I don't have that, And that goes along with what
we've been saying. I may agree with the truth of
God's sovereignty, but when I experience Him doing as He pleases in my
life, I may not love it much. It's worthless knowledge. Sounding
brass and a tinkling cymbal. Be doers of the word and not
hearers only, deceiving your own self. So you see the progression
of thought here. Shut it. Listen, hear. Why? Because that's how God saves
sinners. The engrafted word is able to
save your souls. That's why. So receive it with
meekness. Receive it submitting to his
will. And here's the next step. You
see the seamless flow of the context here. This is pretty
clear and it's very important. James has just emphasized the
importance of hearing in verse 19. and hearing the right way
in verse 21. Meekly laying aside all of our
natural enmity against God and what he says and humbly receiving,
bowing to, believing his word. God's thoughts are not our thoughts.
Let's go with his. How about that? Let's go with
his. That takes grace, doesn't it? We're still learning that. The
reason he emphasized that is because he had just said that
God saves sinners that way. He births them, verse 18, with
the word of truth. Now having established the importance
of that, of hearing and how that it's the means whereby God saves
the very souls of sinners, he says this, don't just hear it
though. But, don't just hear it. Don't
just agree with it. Don't be a hearer only. Now he's
not contradicting himself. He didn't say be a doer, not
a hearer. He didn't say that. He's not
superseding one truth with another. He's layering truth upon truth. He said here, hearing is vital. Hearing is important. He didn't
say be doers and not hearers. He said be doers and not hearers
only. Big difference. Big difference. How are you going to be a doer
of the word if you haven't heard it? And we know from Romans chapter
10 how that happens. You can't call on him whom you
haven't believed on and you can't believe on him of whom you've
not heard and you can't hear without a preacher and you're
not going to hear. Nobody's going to preach unless God sends them.
Somebody's not just going to jump up and decide to preach
the truth of God. That's that's God's calling.
That's God's purpose. That's God's gift. He said, I
will give you men after my own heart. And that's what he does. Not hearers only, so be sure
and don't miss that. He didn't say if it's convenient
to hear, but be swift to hear. But don't only hear without doing
it. If God's word, if the gospel
does not affect your actions, you have deceived yourself. That's
what he's saying. You've deceived yourself. If we say, Amen, God is sovereign,
and then we complain every time he does something that we don't
like, you might just be deceived. You might have just fooled yourself
into thinking you believe in the sovereignty of God. Does
that make sense? This is why James is giving this
warning here, so that if you are deceiving yourself tonight, if you're deceiving yourself.
May God reveal that to us, that we might seek His grace, seek His instruction,
seek to hear from Him. And listen, here's a beautiful
illustration, pretty simple, clear illustration of the problem
with hearing only. and not doing. Look at verse
23. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is
like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For
he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth
what manner of man he was. Now I would venture to say that
everybody in this room at one time today, one time or another,
has looked into a mirror. Probably so. Anybody didn't look
in the mirror at all today? How come? How come? You've already looked
into the mirror. You may do it before you go to
bed. You probably again today before it's over. Why would you
look again? Why would you bother? You've already looked. Is it
because you just can't resist looking at yourself? You know
that old song, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in
every way. You just got to see yourself, you know. And it's not just because you
forget what you look like. That's not what he's saying.
He's saying you do. But you don't look in the mirror just to remember
what you look like, do you? And why do you need to hear the
gospel over and over and over again? We do forget. And that's
a good reason to keep hearing. No question about that. How terrible
it is that we forget so easily. But I don't believe that's what
James is teaching here. You don't just look in the mirror
to remember what you look like. Why would you look in the mirror?
I reckon people looked in mirrors back in James' day for the same
reason people do now. Because there are things that
need some attention. There are things that need to
be done. And that's the word here. Be
a doer. Be a doer. There are things that
need to be done. Here's what James is talking
about. If you're a hero only or you're like a man or woman
who looks and sees and something needs to be done. Your hair needs
to be fixed, you know. Your beard needs to be trimmed.
Believe it or not, I do trim it. You know how you can tell that
because it hasn't taken over the world yet. Be thankful that
I do trim it. There's things that need to be
done. Maybe your face, you've been working all day. You got something
dirt on your face. You need to wash your face or something.
But a hearer only looks in the mirror and just walks away and
forgets about it. If he can't see it, it must not be true.
It must not be there. Out of sight, out of mind. And if you look and maybe you
do something about it, you're still going to have to come back
and look again, aren't you? Because it ain't going to stay
that way. It's not going to stay that way. You remember the Fonz?
He had his comb, you know, and he'd get ready, and he'd be like,
oh, no, nothing. I'm beautiful. I don't need to
do anything about it. But we can't all be the Fonz. There's
some things that need to be done. And next time you look, there's
more things that are going to need to be done. The same principle
of seeing a need and doing nothing about it It's warned about through
all the scripture. Remember those four lepers. Listen
to 2nd Kings chapter 7 verse 3. There were four lepers, leprous
men at the entering in of the gate and they said one to another,
why sit we here until we die? If we say we will enter into
the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die
there. And if we sit here, we die also.
Now therefore come, let us fall into the host of the Syrians.
If they save us alive, we shall live. And if they kill us, we
shall but die. We're going to die anyway. And
they rose up in the twilight to go unto the camp of the Syrians.
And when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of
Syria, behold, there was nobody there. Because of the war, the
city was abandoned and everything they needed, all the food and
everything they needed, a place to stay. Those four lepers lived
like kings for a while. Instead of sitting there and
dying. They said, what have we got to
lose? James continues this teaching
in chapter 2 verse 14. What does it profit my brethren
though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith
save him? Here's what that's like. To say
I believe God, but that doesn't affect who you are and what you
do. It's like this, if a brother
or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you
say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding
you give them not those things which are needful to the body,
what doth it profit? Do you really care? You're just
talking. Even so, faith, if it hath not
works, is dead, being alone. And this is what religion accuses
our Lord of. He wants to save you, but he
doesn't actually do anything about it. You remember when Isaiah
said that your gods are just like you? They have eyes and
they can't see. You're the same way. This world's
Jesus is just like them in that. He talks a big game, but he don't
do anything about it. They're the same way. They talk
about religion. They say, seeing how I love Jesus.
They don't love anybody but themselves, and they prove it in everything
that they do. Their God is just like them. He loves everybody,
but what has he done about it? He's waiting in the corner for
you to decide something? Your God is just like you. Worthless. Now this is not about being a
doer of the Word. It's not about doing something
to save yourself. It's just God using His gospel
command to give life to a dead sinner and He causes that dead
sinner to come forth God commands action of those who can do nothing. You think about this. He said
to them, without me, you can do nothing. And then what did
he say? Go do it. Go do it. Go do it. Do what I've
commanded you. He said, stretch forth thy hand.
What are you going to do? I know you can't, but He said
do it. This is being a doer of the Word.
It's by His grace and power. It's by His grace and power.
It's not in order to be saved. It's because He saved you. It's not in order for Him to
bless you. It's because He's already blessed you or you wouldn't
be able to do it. We couldn't worship Him. We couldn't
love Him. We couldn't believe on Him. We couldn't follow him. We couldn't serve him. We couldn't
obey him without his power and grace. And he said to her, what
are you going to do when he says stretch forth your hand? Say,
I can't. And when he says be full of good
work, remember now to maintain good works, what are you going
to say? I can't. I know a lot of people that are
so doctrinally bowed up that that's what they would say. We
can't do anything. Well, God said do something.
Is that your answer to Him? I can't? I can't do good works? I don't recommend that. I recommend
we get about the business of doing what He said. And pray
for His grace that we might not fall on our face before we even
get started. Because we will. Without him,
we still can do absolutely nothing. But what he says do, his mom
said what? Whatever he tells you to do,
do it. That's good advice. That's good
advice. Rise and take up your bed and
walk. Lord bid me come to thee on the water. And what did he
say? Come. Come on. A man can't walk on
water. Of course he can't. But Christ
said come. And he's going to get all the
glory in it. He's going to get all the glory in it. But are
you just going to sit there thinking about the impossibility of it?
Are you going to sit there and reason and think about the science
and convince yourself how a man can't possibly walk on water?
There's no use me doing anything. The Lord said come. Are you going to come up with
excuses or are you going to climb down out of the ship and get
to walking? Most people are hearers of the
word. Well, I'll say this, most people
are not even that. Most people will not hear the
word. Most people in this world are not even going to hear it.
They will not hear it. They'll say this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? I'm not going
to listen to that. And then there's another group
of people that will hear it and never do anything about it. They'll hear it with their ear,
but the Lord will never give them faith to believe. And that's the key now. Faith
works by love. Not by law, but faith works.
It works by love. And some, some are going to hear
and two things are going to happen. They're going to want to do something
about it. And then they're going to do
something about it. Philippians 2.12, Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, as you have always obeyed, you've always
been doers, Not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For
it is God which worketh in you both to will, what did I say?
You're going to want to, aren't you? You're going to want to.
You're going to want to honor him. You're going to want to
serve him. You're going to want to worship him. You're going
to want to believe. Everything that you do, you're
going to want to do it by faith. It's God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You're going to
do it by faith. You're going to do what you do
by faith. A believer doesn't just hear only and walk away
and forget it. That's that's like looking in
a mirror. As spiritually speaking, we shouldn't do much mirror looking. Here's what a believer does.
Verse 25. I'll try to be quick. But whoso
looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this
man shall be blessed in his deed." The man that looks in the mirror
now, what's he going to see? He's going to see what needs
to be done. You're not ever going to be happy with it, are you?
Unless you're the Fonz. You're not going to be happy
with what you see. And I tell you, every time you look in the
mirror your whole life, you're going to be less happy. Because
you're not getting any prettier. There's going to be more that
needs to be done tomorrow than there was today. And that's all
you're going to see when you look in the mirror, is what needs
to be done. But when you look into the perfect,
finished law of liberty, you know what that is? What is the
finished law? That's the same word now when
the Lord said from the cross, it is finished. When you look
at the finished work of Christ, That's where the believer needs
to be looking. Don't look in the mirror. You're not going
to see anything but just what needs to be done that it's never
going to be done. Look into the face of the Son
of God and see the perfect, see the accomplished law, see the
finished work of freedom. What did Paul say to the Galatians?
Quit, do it. Who told you Who put you back
under the bondage of the law? Quit looking in the mirror. Look
to Christ and be free. Be free. This is not the law of Moses.
The perfect law of liberty is not the law of Moses. That law
is nothing but bondage for us. Galatians 4.22, you know the
story of the two, the bond woman and the free woman. And they
each had a son. And they couldn't live together.
The son of the free woman could not live with the son of the
bond woman. The son of the free woman, he
was by promise. And the son of the bond woman
was born after the flesh. He was born by the reasoning
of men. God's just not gonna be able
to, it's impossible. I know God said it, but it's
just, that's impossible. We're gonna have to do something.
Oh, that's a mistake. Everything we do is evil. We're gonna have to look to what
he did. We're gonna have to look to him as our righteousness.
And Paul said those things are an allegory. They're the two
covenants, the one from Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage. But the new covenant, it's the
new covenant that frees us in which we are set free. The Son
sets us free and we're free indeed because he meets the obligations
of that new covenant. His people are free. He said, this cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Because of that blood, my sins
are washed away and I'm spotless and without blemish before God.
That was the point of the first covenant. Do this, don't do that. Do this, don't do that. And you'll
be with perfect before God and have the blessing of God. We're
not going to get there. We can't meet that standard.
Everything we do is against God. We're to forget about keeping
God's law or doing some great work for God. That's not the
doing here in our text. To be a doer of the word is to
look into the finished law of liberty, not the bondage of the
law of Moses. Men by nature, they want to do
some great work to be saved. Some great work, naming the leper.
His servant was wise, wasn't he? He said if the prophet would
have given you some great thing to do, to be cleansed, you would
have done it. But since all he said was just
go wash. Go wash. That's not what you
wanted to do. That's not what you expected.
That's not your way, but it's God's way. The simplicity that's
in Christ is is offensive and despised by men. People want
to do some great work to be saved, but the great work has already
been done. People don't want to look into
the finished law, they want to look back to the law that they're
under, that they are obligated to keep. The believer simply hears, he
shuts his mouth, he hears, He trusts and obeys and submits
to God's word by the grace of God. And that law, the law of
Moses, gendereth to bondage, it said there in Galatians where
we just read. Gendereth to bondage, and what
we need is freedom. You have not kept God's law,
you're not keeping God's law, and you're never going to keep
God's law in the flesh, in yourself, by the deeds of the law. No flesh
shall ever be justified. Our acceptance with God is Christ.
Our holiness is Christ. Our righteousness is Christ. There is a finished work. And that's where we look. Not
in the mirror at ourselves. That's the forgetful hearer.
Don't forget and catch yourself thinking that you need to do
something to please God. If God's not already perfectly
pleased with you in Christ, He's not ever going to be pleased
with you. Remember that. Look into the
finished, perfect work, whereby sinners are made free from the
bondage of the law. Perfect law of liberty. That
word law there is anything established. That's the standard of God. The
word perfect means finished, same word as delivered from Calvary. And then that third word is freedom.
Anyone who looks to Christ instead of in the mirror, you look in
the mirror, you're just going to see flaws. And you're going to forget them.
You're not even going to remember them. But when you take a spiritual
look into the perfect law of liberty, you know, when you look into
the finished law, When you see the perfect work accomplished,
you realize that what you do has nothing to do with that.
You can't ever have anything to do with that. But bless God
there's somebody that did. Look to Him. Come to Him. Hear
Him. Believe on Him. Submit to His
Word. Submit to His truth. What we do now, what do we do
when the gospel, when we hear the gospel? Well, the gospel
we know is a command, don't we? It's not the command of the law,
it's not the commandments of God from Sinai. But listen, Romans
10, 16, they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said,
Lord who hath believed, I report, obeying the gospel. It's not
the same thing as obeying the law. It's really just the opposite. The law says do and live. The
gospel says believe on him who did and live. Look into the finished law. Look
to Christ. Look to Christ. Romans 617, God
be thanked that you were the servants of sin that you have
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
to you. What was the doctrine that was
delivered to you? This is the work of God that
you believe on my son. Come to Christ by faith. Offer
Christ as your sin offering. As your righteousness, worship
God by Christ, through Christ. The same thing, it's always been
that way. Sinners have never been saved
any other way. By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain. By faith in who? Christ. He offered
a slain lamb. By the precious blood of Christ,
he was justified before God, just like we are. The leper in Matthew 5 came to
Christ and said, Lord, if you will, you can. That's what you
need to do. That's what the gospels taught
you. To acknowledge that he can do what you cannot do. He has
done what you will never do. What must I do to be saved? Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. What shall we do that we might
work the works of God? Believe on him whom the Father
sent. Believe. Is that all we do as
believers, Chris? Is that all we do? Well, we are
called believers. That is our name. But is that all we do? Well,
no. We do other things, but here's... Don't miss this. We do everything that we do because
we believe. Without faith, it's impossible
to do anything to please God. If you sing something, do it
by faith. Do it by faith. That will dictate what you sing. That will dictate the way you
sing it. That will dictate why you sing it. Faith has everything
to do with it, doesn't it? That's all of it. What you sing,
The way you sing it, why you sing it, and that's true of everything
you do. By faith in Christ, that's what
drives us. That's what dictates our actions. If you teach, teach by faith. Whatsoever you do, do it for
His glory, believing that He's worthy of that glory. Believing
that he is all your righteousness before God and knowing that whatever
it is you're doing has nothing to do with your righteousness
before God. That's part of doing what you do by faith is believing
that the fact that you're doing it has nothing to do with your
righteousness. Believe. And there again, I know you can't
do that. But the Son of God has commanded
it. Be not faithless, but believe him. The Son of God says stretch forth
your hand. Are you going to argue that you're
incapable of doing that? Will you tell him that you were
born with a withered hand and you've tried many times to stretch
it forth and you've never been able to do it? Don't you think
he knows that? He deliberately commanded you to do what you
never possibly ever could do. It is of faith that it might be
by grace. He'll have to make you willing
and able. He's going to get all the glory.
Now stretch forth your hand. That's a picture of doing things,
isn't it? Of doing something. How am I
going to do anything? Stretch forth your hand. The one who commands it is the
one who is able to give you faith to obey it. May God give us grace
to be doers and not hearers only. I want to be a hearer, but not
a hearer only. May he teach us. Let's pray.