Let's turn in our Bibles to James
chapter 4. This past week, It came to my
attention that we as a church qualify this past year for certain
tax that I was not aware of and I was receiving conflicting reports
from different people about it and from accountants even. And
so I was trying to get more, do some more research on it to
see if we indeed were to pay this tax and it seemed like a
really, really redundant law to me and uncalled for, totally
uncalled for. And that's why I was having difficulty
thinking that this is something we needed to do. But I did find out it is a law
and Chris had brought this to my attention. And I laid there
at night thinking about it and this passage, this verse kept
coming to my mind. And then I called my pastor and
I talked to him about it and he quoted this verse. And so
I thought I need to preach from this verse. So real to me this
week, I want to preach from this. James 4, 17. To him that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sin. To him that knoweth to do
good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Now this applies to
everyone. This is true of every person,
believer or unbeliever. But for God's elect, Christ uses
this principle to bring us to Christ and to lead us all our
days. Another similar principle we
find in the Scripture is, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. It's impossible to do that which
you know is not good and to do it in faith. It's impossible
to do that when you try to do something that's wrong. You cannot
do it in faith. Now, we certainly can justify
ourselves. We're masters at that. We always
self-justify why we're doing this. We could condemn somebody
for the same thing and turn right around and justify our own selves
for doing the exact same thing. But if we're His, the Spirit
of God is going to prick our conscience and not allow us to
do it without some terrible, terrible pain. The only way to
go on in something that is at odds with the Spirit of God is
to suffer from it. He's going to convict you. Scripture
says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed
unto the day of redemption. And the Spirit of God always
wins. He's not going to lose one of His people. And so we
want to save ourselves much pain. Don't try to suppress that conviction. Bow to it. So the believer knows
the best thing is to do that which is good. Now first of all,
any time that we speak of a believer doing good, we have to begin
with a reminder that in our flesh dwells no good thing. Go with
me to Romans 7.18. In our flesh dwells no good thing. If we're going to talk about
doing good, we have to remember this. In our flesh dwells no
good thing. Now look at Romans 7.18. This
is Paul speaking as a believer. I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
that's in the new man, but to perform that which is good I
find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that
I would not, it's no more I that do it. He's saying the real me
is the new man. So it's no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me, in my flesh. I find in a law
that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight
in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."
Now he's talking here about what happens any time the Spirit of
God allows us to try to handle things on our own. You're going
to always sin. You know what's good, you're
willing to do what's good, but if the Spirit of God doesn't
overcome your flesh, you're going to always do what's wrong. That's
what he's talking about here. And he says, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God, with the inward man, but with
the flesh the law of sin. This tells us several things.
about ourselves. Number one, no one can expect
to be saved by good works. Nobody can expect to be saved
by good works. Even a believer has sin mixed
with everything he does. Evil is present with us all the
time because of our flesh. To imagine otherwise is self-righteous
works. That's self-righteousness. So
before we're filled with pride and before we're filled with
self-righteousness because we've done what's right. If we do what's
right before we get puffed up and become self-righteous that
we did what's right and maybe somebody else didn't do what's
right. Before that happens we need to remember sin is mixed
with everything I do. In my flesh dwells no good thing.
My only righteousness, my only holiness It's Christ my Lord. And two, it tells us there are
lots of things that the believer knows is good that he does not
do, and it's sin. That's what we learn from Romans
7. There's a lot of things that the believer knows is good, but
he doesn't do it, and it's sin when he doesn't do it. We hate
our sin. Paul said, sin is what I would
not. That's what I do not want to do it. And so we don't make
excuse for our sin. That's not what Paul's doing
and we don't do that. We're just being honest that
we do sin. But thankfully, Scripture says
if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If
any man sins, He said, that means when you do sin, we have an advocate
with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous and
He is the propitiation for our sins. So that's the good news. But then thirdly what this tells
us is that when a believer does that which is good, it's only
by the grace of God. Christ is the one who delivers
us from the body of this death even when it comes to just doing
that which is good. If I do anything that's right,
anything that's good, Christ worked it. And whatever I do
that's sin, that's of my flesh. That's true of me and you who
believe. Therefore we have no room to boast. Scripture says,
It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His
good pleasure. Hebrews 13.20 says, The God of
peace is He who makes His child in every good work to do His
will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight
through Jesus Christ, now listen to this, to whom be glory forever
and ever. We don't have any room to glory
in anything we do that's right. It was worked by the Lord. He
gets the glory. That's why Christ speaks of the
believer doing good. It's because He works it in His
people. He said, make the tree good and
its fruit will be good. Christ is the only one through
the Spirit of God who can make God's elect good by creating
us anew in His righteousness and His holiness and then by
working in us and bringing forth good fruit. He's the only one
that can do that. Secondly, now back to our text in James chapter
4 verse 17, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and
doeth it not, to him it is sin. When it comes to doing good,
we need to remember that our gospel is concerning the righteousness
of God. Righteousness It's another way
of saying God does good. He only does good. And that's
our gospel. That's how we're saved. And the very reason God sent
His Son into this world is to manifest that God is righteous.
It's to manifest God only does that which is just and right. That's all He does. In Exodus
34, 6, when the Lord passed by Moses and showed him His glory,
The Scripture says He proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. God shows
His righteousness. He shows His goodness to His
people one place, in the cleft of the rock, in Christ Jesus
our Lord. That's where He shows us His
goodness. The righteousness of God, Paul
said, is manifest by the faith of Jesus Christ. That's by His faithfulness. And
it's unto all and upon all them that believe. The only place
you're going to see God's righteousness is in Christ. And the only ones
who are going to see that righteousness are those who believe. The only
ones. The reason that we declare in
the Scriptures, according to the Scriptures, the reason we
preach, He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin. The reason we declare that and
leave it as the Scripture says. He made him sin. The reason we
don't try to explain that away is because God only does that
which is righteous. Listen to this. Proverbs 17,
5 says, He that justifieth the wicked. He that justifieth the
wicked. A wicked man comes before a judge
and he justifies him and lets him go. He that justifieth the
wicked and he that condemneth the just. A just man comes, it's
innocent, and the judge condemns him. He that justifieth the wicked
and he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination
to the Lord. It takes the grace of God working
in your heart to make us bow to that and not explain it away,
especially as it applies to Christ. These things also belong to the
wise. It's not good to have respective
persons in judgment. Does God have a respective persons
in judgment? No way. When He made His Son
sin for us, God is so righteous in judgment God is so much no
respecter of persons in judgment. He spared not His only Son. He
had to make Him sin to pour out wrath on Him. And when He made
Him sin, He didn't respect the fact that that was His Son. He's
that just of a judge. He poured out judgment on Him. The Lord is known by the judgment
which He executes. How else are we going to know
the Lord in saving us if He does that which is wrong? How are
we going to know His righteousness? That's an impossibility. If God
doesn't do what is absolutely, strictly just in the way He saves
us, we'd never know God is righteous. And we could never expect God
to do anything that was strictly righteous to us. But because
we see that Christ had to be made sin, God had to pour wrath
out on Him when He was made sin. And seeing that God did so, now
we have this assurance, brethren. This is the assurance of the
believer. Because Christ has justified us, that same justice
that would not spare His Son, that made Him sin for us, that
same justice now demands that God send the gospel to each one
of His redeemed people and call us to faith in Christ. That's
His promise to us. My people shall know My name,
the Lord said. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am He that doth speak. Behold, it is I. You know
what the very next word is? How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publishes salvation,
that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. He promised to save
us. He did it. Scripture says He
shall not fail till He has set judgment in the earth. That means
He had to establish judgment for us on the cross and He did
that. And it means He's going to establish
judgment in the heart of His people by regenerating us, sending
the gospel, regenerating us and bringing us to faith in Christ.
And He shall not fail. God's righteousness assures every
believer, brethren, that our God is the just judge of heaven
and earth and that He will always do right by us in our everyday
life. He's on His throne judging what's
right for His people in everything that's going on in this world
right now. Doesn't that give you assurance? Everything He's
doing, and He's working the good and the evil together, and everything
He's working together is for the good of His people. Every
bit of it. That gives me such assurance.
He shall not lose one for whom Christ died because Christ satisfied
justice. It wouldn't be just in God's
righteous. He'll create each one anew because
it's righteous to do so. He'll never leave us nor forsake
us because it's righteous to do so. And the salvation of God's
saints is secure in Christ because it's righteous. Aren't you glad
God is righteous? Aren't you glad He only does
that which is good? So see, when we hear our gospel
preached, we learn the importance of doing good. We learn, we see
in our Redeemer the importance of doing that which we know is
good. And we see, brethren, it's all
our salvation. Righteousness is all our salvation.
The Lord, our righteousness. who only did good. And therefore
to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is
sin. Now let's talk about a few ways that this principle applies
to us. Now first it applies to us in
the context of James 4. Look back at verse 13. Go to
now, you that say, today or tomorrow we'll go into such a city and
continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas
you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your
life? It's even a vapor that appears for a little time, then
vanishes away. You ought to say, if the Lord
will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice
in your boastings, and all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore
to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is
sin. Christ has given every believer
a new will to submit to God's will. We don't go around boasting
in our will now and saying, well, what about our free will? Your
will's never free. It's always either in bondage
to sin and Satan or you're the servant, you're the slave of
Christ, the willing bond servant of Christ. Your will's never
free. And so we're the servants of
Christ, willing bond servants. We've been brought like that
servant who served and at the end of his service he said, I
love my master, I want to continue to serve him. And he brings him
to the door post and he puts an awl through his ear, he marks
him. Christ has marked us, given us a new heart, a new spirit,
faith in Christ, a love for the Gospel, a love for His people.
He's marked us and made us willing to submit to His will. And so,
anytime that we're going to do anything, rather than boasting
that we're going to do it, we say, if the Lord will, if the
Lord will. And if we know that's good and
we don't do it, it's sin. That's sin. So, then secondly,
if I know, and this is where it applied to me this week in
the story I told you at the very beginning. If I know the law
of the land, if I know what the law of the land says, And I know
what Christ says is good. And yet I told one of you that
we're going to ignore it. We're going to ignore the law
of the land. Just not going to do it. Then not only am I disobeying
God, I also lose my witness with you. This is so of our witness with
men in the world too. How could I stand in the pulpit
and preach the righteousness of God. Preach the very righteousness
of God that God only does that which is abundantly good. And then know to do good and
just totally ignore it and tell you we're going to ignore it.
I wouldn't have any credibility with you whatsoever. And that's
true with men in this world. It's for the sake of our witness.
It's for the sake of the gospel of Christ. It's for the sake
of Christ. That Scripture tells us that the Word do everything,
that the Word of God be not blasphemed. This is our motive. It's not
law. If you have a love for the Word
of God, it's to do it so the Word of God won't be blasphemed.
Titus 2.7 says, In all things show thyself a pattern of good
works, and doctrines show uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech
that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part,
man who is an unbeliever, may be ashamed, having no evil thing
to say of you." You know, men who want to depart from the gospel
or who want to reject the gospel, they always want to find something
in the believer to accuse you of to justify themselves before
men for not staying under the gospel. It's always going to
be your fault. They're going to find something
in you that makes it your fault. that for the whole time Christ
walked this earth, the Pharisees constantly tried to entangle
Him in His words so that they could point to Him and go, that's
why we don't believe on Him, and justify themselves before
men. That's the whole point of what
they were trying to do. And so this text tells us, do
not give them anything to accuse you by. If a man won't hear the
gospel, if he departs from the gospel, you want it to be because
he just left the gospel. Not because of you. Not because
of you. Ever follow that which is good
both among yourselves and to all men. Adorn the doctrine of
God our Savior in all things. That's Titus 2.10. And then thirdly,
consider this, and this is so important. Consider the unbeliever
in Christ. Lamentations 3.26 says this,
it is good, it is good that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord. That means it's good for
a man to believe on Christ. Whenever the rich young ruler
came to the Lord Jesus and said, what good thing must I do that
I might have eternal life? Christ told him, forsake everything
and follow me. The good thing is believing on
Christ. The good thing is casting all
our care on Christ and trusting Christ to do everything necessary
to save us from our sin. That's the good thing, brethren.
Now, if I know to do good and I do it not, it's sin. Those who have never heard the
gospel If they don't believe on Christ,
it's still sin if they never heard the gospel because they
have the light of nature. That's what Romans 2 tells us.
You know when Paul over there told Timothy, he told about all
the wickedness that he had done. And he said, but I received mercy
because I did it in ignorance. He's not saying that he received
mercy because he was ignorant of the gospel. He is not saying
that being ignorant is an excuse. He is saying that I had to be
saved by mercy because in everything I was doing it was all ignorance. I had to be saved by mercy. You
see, he is not justifying the fact that he was ignorant of
the gospel. There is no one that is ignorant of the gospel. We
have the light of nature to tell you that God is and that he must
be bowed to. I was talking to a lady this
week at the store while walking up buying some turkey at the
deli and she walked up next to me and we started talking and
we were talking about this cooler being out and she said, she said,
well I think it probably has something to do with the weather.
She said, the weather is no respecter of persons. And I said, I think
it's the God behind the weather that's no respect to persons.
And I don't know anything about this woman. I don't know if she's
a religious woman or not. But just, that's an example.
Just seeing the weather, you understand that somebody is bigger
than you. Even if you get it wrong about
who it is, you still understand that. There's no excuse whatsoever. But it's especially sinful for
those who have heard the gospel to willfully reject it. Them
that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to them it is sin. And
it's especially sinful for a person who's heard the gospel and never
believed on Christ. Go to Hebrews 10. You see, unbelief. Everybody always wants to know
what's the unpardonable sin that John was talking about. It's
unbelief. It's willfully rejecting Christ
after that you've heard it. Making yourself the enemy of
Christ after that you've heard the gospel. Here's why it's unpardonable. Hebrews 10.26, For if we sin
willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the
truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. If we reject
Christ after we've heard Christ is the only way of salvation,
if we reject Him, that's sinning willfully. To willfully reject
Christ, there's no more sacrifice. Christ is the only sacrifice
for sin. So, in closing, I urge you, brethren,
who have never believed on Christ, I urge you with the words of
Isaiah. He said, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call
ye upon Him while He's near. Seeking Him while He may be found
means put forth some effort. Pick up the Bible and study it.
Go home and look these things up I've been telling you. Get
the notes and study them and look this up. I'll send the notes
to everybody that wants them. You just tell me, send them to
you on your email list and I'll send you the notes after I preach
them. And you can study them. They have the scriptures in them.
You can make it easy on you. But put forth some effort. If
you do that, I'm not saying you're going to be saved by your effort.
I'm saying if you do that, it'll be because God gave you the grace
to do it. That's what you'll find out. But I'm saying where
you are, not knowing what's going on, what God's doing, pick up
your Bible and read it. Seek ye the Lord while He may
be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake
his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him
return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and
to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Everybody that has ever come
to Him truly seeking mercy, found mercy. That's so. And then for
you who do believe on Christ, always do that which you know
to be good. Do that which you know to be
good. As we saw, if you do it, you have no room to glory. Christ
worked it in you. But always do that which you
know to be good. The Apostle Peter said this.
Let's go there. 1 Peter 3. We'll look at this and we'll
be done. 1 Peter 3. Look at verse 15. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. That means have Him always in
the first of your thoughts constantly. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that
asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness
and fear, having a good conscience that whereas as they speak evil
of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse
your good conduct in Christ. You see that? That's everything
we've been talking about right there. This is why you want to
do it. So that someday, maybe, somebody
will ask you, why is doing the right thing so important to you?
Oh boy, somebody ask me that question. They better have about
30 minutes or 40 minutes to get the answer because I'm going
to preach Christ to them. That's why we want to do good. All right,
brethren. Let's stand together. Our gracious Lord, we thank You
that in everything that You do for Your people, You're always
showing us that which is right. In Christ on the cross, in Christ
in our heart, in Christ's instruction to us in Your Word, make us,
Lord, to do what's right. Make us to love that which is
good. Lord, make us to see that when
we do sin, when we do turn from that which is right, it's always
our flesh. And make us to see, Lord, that
the reason it's so hurtful and so painful to us is because it's
against our Father who's so gracious and our Redeemer who gave so
much for us. Lord, You're our constraint.
You're our constraint to obey. Make us now do so. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen.