Turn again to James chapter 1
and we'll read the latter end of the chapter. Verse 18. Of God's own will begat he us
with the word of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits
of his creatures. 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 forgeteth 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. If any among you seem to be religious,
and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart,
this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. 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 forgeteth 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. Christ's message throughout James's
epistle, as we've seen before, is to look unto me. Look unto
me. It is a message of faith. that no matter what your circumstance,
no matter what the trial, no matter what the situation, look
unto me. Don't turn to self. Don't turn
to your own strength. Don't turn to your own wisdom.
Don't turn to the law. Look unto me. It is God who begat
us. It is God who by his own will
begat us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures. By the gospel God has brought
his people to life. those who were dead in trespasses
and sins, those who were at enmity with God, those who were lost
in the darkness, those who were utterly depraved, without any
ability, without any inclination to seek God, without any ability
to live righteously before Him. Those who were lost in the darkness,
God came unto and He comes unto with His Gospel as light shining
in the darkness. And by His Spirit, He brings
us, He brings His people to life. putting faith in the heart to
look under him and to walk before him with a living faith which
continues to trust, continues to look, continues to believe
no matter what circumstance the believer is plunged into. Though
they walk through the valley of death, though they walk through
trials, though they're put in the fire, the believer with living
faith is brought by God's power to look unto Christ and to Christ
alone, resting and trusting in Him, knowing that He is their
all, their salvation. They trusted in Him at the beginning. It was He who brought them to
life by the gospel. And they are brought by faith
to look and to trust in Him throughout every step of the journey until
that day when they're taken from time into eternity, when the
old man will be taken away, when the flesh will be destroyed and
laid in the grave, and when they will be risen up with new bodies,
righteous, perfect, holy, and will behold the Lamb of God in
glory forevermore. Throughout their journey in this
world, faith is their rule, faith is their light, faith is their
guide. Christ is their all. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted word which is able to save your souls. Receive the
word, the gospel, with meekness. Because only this Word, only
the truth of the Gospel as it's found in Christ Himself, as He
delivers it, as He speaks it through His Spirit, only this
Word can save your souls. No amount of religion, no amount
of doing, no amount of your works or your righteousness can achieve
anything. It will plunge you deeper into
the grave. But receive with meekness. The
engrafted Word, the Word of God that He puts inside you, that
He speaks with power, that you hear in faith, receive with meekness
that Word which is able to save your souls. Salvation is by the
Word of God, the Gospel. By hearing it and believing it. By hearing it and believing it. Now the gospel's preached throughout
all the world. And there are many who hear with
the outward ear who never believe. You're sat here today listening
You may have sat and listened other days and heard. You may
know facts concerning Christ and his gospel. You may know
who he is. You may know he came into this
world. God made man the son of God. You may know he lived a perfect
life. You may know he went to the cross
and was crucified for sinners. You may know he was laid in the
grave. You may know he rose again. You
may know the doctrine. You may know of justification
and sanctification. You may know of righteousness.
You may even make mental assent to these things. You may even
say, I believe in God, and I believe that Christ came for sinners.
And yet, not believe. You may claim to. You may have
a form of religion, an outward faith, but as soon as trouble
comes, as soon as trials come, as soon as circumstances come
your way, your gaze turns from Christ and his gospel to the
trouble, to your own wisdom, to the aid of man, to your own
strength. just like the seed of the gospel
in the parable that is sown. And some lands in good ground
and grows up with true faith. But some lands on the wayside
in light ground and springs up and makes a profession and says,
I believe. But as soon as trouble comes,
as soon as the sun comes out, it's withered. As soon as weeds
come up, As soon as the cares of the world come upon you, your
faith, so-called, fades away. Now it's the difference between
the faith wrought of God, of His own will, begat of God by
the Spirit in the heart of man, the true faith of the seed, of
that seed which is sown in good ground, and that false faith
of man's profession, which fades away when persecution comes. When trial comes, when the cares
of the world come, that false faith of the seed sown on stony
ground and on the wayside, it's the difference between this true
faith and false, which is James' message throughout. Hence he
says, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. Don't say you believe. and yet not believe. Don't say
you're Jesus's disciple. You believe in him, you're a
Christian. And then when trouble comes,
you turn to your own strength, not to him. To be truly saved, to be a true
disciple of Christ, to be a true Christian is to be a doer of
the word, a hearer and a believer of the word. 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 forgeteth what manner of man
he was. So what does James mean here
when he goes on to speaking about being a hearer and not a doer? He's referring to hearing the
word, the gospel, and yet not truly believing. Not truly resting
in the word, not resting in the grace of God, not resting in
Christ alone. He's speaking of those who hear
of sovereign grace, who hear of the salvation of Christ, of
His grace, who may profess to believe it, but then head off
and live and act like everything depends upon them. When troubles
come, do they rest in the Lord? When trials come, Do they look
unto their Saviour in faith? When they're persecuted, do they
stand fast in the faith of the Gospel? Do they stand fast in
the liberty wherewith Christ has set them free? Or when the trials and the troubles
come upon them, do they attempt to tackle their problems in their
own strength and their own wisdom? Are they like a man who beholds
his face in a glass, who looks at the gospel and sees himself,
but then he goes away and forgets what manner of man he was? He forgets what he's heard, he
forgets what he says he believes, and lives as though he's on his
own. It is this doing of the word,
this believing the gospel of which James speaks here. Of course
many, especially the legalistic, completely
misunderstand James here. Whenever they read of doing,
they immediately think of the law and of carnal fleshly obedience
to it. To them, hearing the word is
to hear commandments, to hear the law of God, to hear precepts
and direction for them to follow. and do in the word is to go off
and keep those commandments, to obediently obey, to strive
to keep the commandments, that law, by their own strength. Oh they may say, they may profess
that they have no real strength themselves, that they need God's
help but ultimately Their walk is to look at the law, to look
at the commandments and to try to model their life accordingly
and to live accordingly. There's no faith in that obedience. There's no rest, no resting in
Christ our Sabbath. There's no trust in God alone. There's no coming to that point
in the midst of the trial and the fire where we're without
strength, where we are without ability and we say help Lord
and we look to Him alone to pluck us out, to save us. There's no
need for this sort of person to have a saviour because ultimately
all their mindset, all their thinking is about what they must
do in this situation. It's all me, me, me. And we're all like that. We're
all like that, naturally speaking. When we first come to religion,
when we first come to hear something of the truth, we're immediately
confronted with the law. and our inability to keep it,
we immediately hear of what we should be before a holy God to
be righteous. We should love God with all our
heart, soul and mind. We should love our neighbour
as ourselves. We should not kill, we should
not steal, we should not commit adultery, we should not covet.
We should keep the Sabbath day. We're immediately confronted
with the law and we say this is right and all that the Lord
has commanded we will do and we seek to keep it. We can see
the righteousness, we can see how it exposes sin, we can see
the sin in the world around us and we say oh I want to turn
from this, I want to live righteously before a holy God and we strive
to and then we find that we can't and we hear more of the gospel
and we discover that Christ came for sinners who cannot live righteously
who cannot deliver themselves from the law who cannot walk
accordingly according to righteousness and we hear that he died for
sinners to take away their sin so we make mental assent to believe
upon him we say oh we thank god that he died for our sins and
we profess to believe in him but despite the profession if
god hasn't brought us to hear his voice in the gospel If God
hasn't put faith in the heart, if it's merely in our head, we
hear the facts, we say that's right, we say that's good, then
as soon as trouble comes, though we say Christ has died for us,
though we say he washed away my sins, though we say my righteousness
is from God alone, as soon as trouble comes, we soon go off
in our own strength and our own wisdom. We can't shake in our
thinking. the idea that my walk is according
to the law. We've spent so much of our lives
trying to live a certain way that even when we hear the gospel
we think that we should be doing this. So when we come to James and
we read, Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. We think
immediately he means that we shouldn't just speak of our faith
in Christ, but we should be keeping the law also. And so the legalist
finds himself entangled once more. He can never be set free. He's never set at liberty because
he's never given to have that faith. that God-given faith that
when he was led to the gospel, the perfect law of liberty, God
opened his eyes to see that Christ in the gospel set him free. When James speaks of the perfect
law of liberty, And when James speaks of being doers of the
word and not hearers only, he is not speaking of Moses' law. He's speaking of the very same
word by which God of his own will begatty us unto life. He's speaking of the gospel. In verse 18 he wrote, Of his
own will, God's own will, begat he us with the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Verse 22, But
be ye doers of the word, the word of truth by which God begat
you. Be ye doers of the word, and
not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Believe the gospel
by which God brought you to life. He's speaking of the very same
word by which God of his own will begati us, the gospel. And to obey the gospel, to be
a doer of the word, is to believe it, to trust in it, to rest in
Christ, to trust Christ alone, to believe Christ. As Paul says
in Romans 10 concerning the Jews, Israel, they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who have
believed our report? They're zealous for the law,
but they do not keep it. They do not understand it. They
do not know that God gave them the law to condemn them. and
to bring them in guilty before a holy God, to teach them what
Paul discovered in Romans 7, that the good that I would according
to the law I cannot do, I do not do, and the evil that I would
not, that I do. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? They've not been brought
there. They've not been brought to discover
that God has delivered them from the law. They've not been brought
to the gospel and given faith to believe, to obey the gospel
by believing. They've not all obeyed the gospel
for Isaiah says, Lord who have believed our report. What is it to obey the gospel? To be a doer of the word, but
to believe our report, to believe. In 1 John, John writes, and this
is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son
Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment. To
be a doer of the word is to believe, to believe the gospel. to believe
that the gospel has set us at liberty, has set us free from
that law of Moses, the law of God which condemned us and held
us in bondage. We're delivered from it, we're
dead to it, we're set free that we might serve God in newness
of the spirit. Free. 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. Whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, and continueth therein, He being not a forgetful hearer
but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
James speaks of looking into a glass. He uses this metaphor
of those who are hearers of the word but not doers as deceiving
themselves. They are like those who hear
the word and not being a doer of the word. are like a man beholding
his natural face in a glass, for he beholds himself and goes
his way and straight away forgets what manner of man he was. He looks in a glass, he sees
himself, he discovers from that glass what manner of man he is,
but then he forgets and goes away disobediently. And so James goes on to say,
to look into the glass, the mirror of the perfect law of liberty
and continue therein. Continue therein. For in this
glass you'll discover what manner of man you are. And if you continue
therein, you will continue in liberty. So many are like this with the
word of God, with the gospel. They look into it, they look
into this glass. They look into the perfect law
of liberty. They hear it. It reveals something
of what they are by nature. It exposes their sin. And it
also points the believer to what they are in Christ. It not only reveals what we are
by nature in the flesh as sinners, but for the believer the gospel
shows us what we are in Christ. It reveals Him. It reveals Christ
in you, the hope of glory. This is its message to point
us to Christ, to continually set his face before us. That when we look into this mirror,
we no longer see our old sinful self, but looking into the perfect
law of liberty, we see what we have been set free from and we
see what we are now in Christ. This is a glass where we see
Christ and this is the manner of man that we now are. Yet though
we hear the gospel and though we look into its glass and though
we see Christ and though we discover what he has done for us in taking
away our sin, in washing us clean in his blood, in taking away
the condemnation, in delivering us from the bondage of the law,
in setting us at liberty, though we discover that we are the righteousness
of God in him, that we're perfect in Christ Jesus. So soon we turn
away from the glass and we forget what manner of man we are and
we go about no longer Obeying the word, no longer doing, no
longer believing, but turning to self, turning to our own strength. In these things, James is showing
the difference between the true believer and the false. The true will look into this
perfect law of liberty, the gospel, and they will continue therein. and they will not be a forgetful
hearer. They will be a doer of the work,
they will believe because God has given them the faith to believe. They will rest, they will trust,
and they will be blessed in their deeds. But the mere professor in Christ,
those who say they've accepted Jesus, those who have by their
own will turned unto God, in their own strength served him.
Those who rest in their own works and their own righteousness,
they look into this gospel, they look into the perfect law of
liberty, and they turn away, and they go and live with no
true faith in the heart. And when trouble comes, they
resort to their own wisdom, their own strength, their own understanding. They have no faith and there
is no rest. There's so many are like this
man who looks into the glass and forgets what manner of man
he was. There's so many are like this with the word of God, with
the gospel. They look into it, it reveals
them, it shows them their sin, it points them to Christ, it
reveals him, yet so soon they forget all that they've seen.
They forget what they've heard. And they go off and live as though
the truths of the gospel are not real. Not in terms of their
daily walk. Not in the everyday. when they're
in the meeting, when they listen, when they talk to others afterwards,
they can say oh yes I believe this and I believe that, but
the reality is not there, it's an outward form. As soon as that
faith is tried, as soon as it's put in the fire, as soon as the
trials of which James has talked earlier in chapter one come upon
them, they sink. They return to tackling life
by their own wisdom, their own strength, in their own will. But James refers to the gospel
as the perfect law of liberty. This glass shows us what manner
of men we are as believers, that in him we are perfect. When faith, true and living faith,
looks into this glass, this gospel, this perfect law of liberty,
it sees what manner of man we have been made to be, that we
are perfect in Christ. Oh yes, it shows something of
what we are by nature in the flesh. As we look to Christ,
as we hear of his death, as we hear of what he suffered for
our sins, we see ourselves crucified upon the cross with him. We see
him bearing our sins. We see him made sin for us. We
see the wretchedness of our own person. We see what pierced him. We see what slew him. We see
that he died, he hung there because of what we are by nature. And
we look at our own sin and we hate it. But in Him we see our
deliverance from it. In Him we see that God has set
us free. In Him we see that His blood
has washed us clean. In Him we see that we're delivered
from that which bound us. We're delivered from the condemnation. We're at liberty. We're delivered. We're free. Yes, we see in this
glass that it is a perfect law of liberty. This law, this principle,
is a principle of freedom. That's why James names it thus. He speaks of the gospel as a
perfect law, a perfect teaching and principle of liberty. This is what we need to be delivered,
to be set free, not to be pointed again at the law, not to be kept
under bondage, not to return to our old master, our old slave
driver, like a slave who's supposedly set free but then returns to
his own master to lead him and guide him. never truly set free
but this is a gospel this is a principle a law that sets us
at liberty it's a principle of freedom of being free in Christ
and those who are doers of this word are blessed in their deed
being at liberty truly at liberty yet as we've seen the legalist
hears and goes off to do in his own strength because he has no
liberty. He remains in bondage because
all he can hear, even when he hears the gospel, all he can
hear is the law of Moses. All he can hear is commandments. All he can hear is what he must
strive to do and keep in his own strength. He's never delivered. He's never set free. Is this
you? By nature, we're all like it.
We may hear the gospel many times. We may sit under the gospel.
But though we hear of the liberty in the gospel, we're never set
free. We've never been brought to Romans
7. We read earlier from it. Know
ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how
that the law have dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For
the woman which have an husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she
is loose from the law of her husband. So then, if while a
husband live, if she be married to another man, she shall be
called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she
is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though
she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in
The flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law, did work
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we
are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held,
that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness
of the letter. By nature we are wed to the law. It is as it were our husband We're under its rule. We're under
its authority. And except we're lawfully delivered
from it, should we have another husband, we'd be an adulteress
and break the very law that we're bound to. We must die. Or our former husband must die
to us. And the wonderful truth of the
gospel is that in Christ we have died to the law and the law has
died to us. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that ye should bring forth fruit unto God. We are delivered from
the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should
serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
We're no longer alive to the law. In Christ we've been slain,
we've died, the law found us wanted, the law condemned us
unto death, the law said the soul that sinneth it must die. And the good news of the gospel
is that Christ came for his people and he took their sins and he
went under that law. And he said, I will pay the penalty
of the law. I will be made the curse of the
law. I will die in order that they
should live again. In Christ, all his people have
died with him. Their old man has been slain. The penalty of the law has come
down upon them and they are dead. It slew them. and having slain
them it has no more to say to them. The law is answered, we're
set free, we're delivered from it. And in Christ we rise again,
married to him, wed to him. We have a new master, a new husband,
and a new law, a perfect law of liberty in Christ, the gospel. Yet how many come to the gospel
and keep returning back to the law, committing adultery to Christ
by returning to their former husband. They can't get it into
their head that that law, that husband has been slain, they're
dead to it by the body of Christ. James does not refer to doing
the works of the law of Moses. He points us to look into the
glass of the law of liberty, the gospel, which exposes our
depravity, but points us to liberty in Christ. Yet these cannot turn from going
to the glass of the law of Moses. which just condemns and keeps
them in legal bondage and under condemnation forevermore. There's
never liberty and there's never rest in such a way. Oh, never
mix law and grace. What do we hear when we hear
the gospel? We hear that we're no longer
under condemnation. We're no longer under legal bondage. We're no longer under the law.
We've been set free forever by Christ. The chains of sin and
death have been loosed. Those chains which bound us have
been broken. We've been set at liberty. The
captives have been set at liberty. They're free. God has come unto
us who were in bondage in Egypt and by His servant Christ, He's
delivered us and led us free. Set my people free. He came and
He redeemed us. He paid the price to set us free. He bought our freedom. He bought
our redemption by giving His blood. He paid the ransom price. He led His people free. Yes,
we are dead to the law by the body of Christ. We've been delivered
from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we
should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the
letter. As Paul says in Galatians, we're dead to the law that we
might live unto God. We're free. And why are we free? Because the truth of the gospel,
the perfect law of liberty, Christ has set us free. As Christ said,
the truth shall make you free. Free means free at liberty, no
longer under condemnation, no longer under bondage, no longer
striving to live and walk as we feel we should when we know
we keep on failing. It doesn't leave you bound under
the law, it sets you at liberty. Hence Paul exhorts in Galatians
5.1 to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath set us
free. We're free. What is it to look
into this glass? It's to see that we're free. We look into the perfect law
of liberty and continue therein, in the liberty wherewith God
has set us free, in the liberty of the gospel. which God of his
own will used to beget us, to bring us to life. He set us free
and we continue in this freedom. We're free. And to be a doer
of this word is to believe it, to believe that we truly are
free. We're delivered from the law,
we're at liberty. Oh what a difference there is
in this law. This perfect law of liberty. What a difference between this
law and the old law of Moses which kept us in chains, in bondage,
under condemnation. There's no liberty to go off
and to try by your effort to do or to keep that law. But to
do this law, this perfect law of liberty, to do this is to
believe, to rest in Christ, to stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath set us free. It's an easy yoke. And it's not
even a commandment to believe and to do, which is something
we strive at. It's something we can't help
doing. The believer will look into the perfect law of liberty.
He will continue therein. He will be blessed in his deed.
He can't look anywhere else. Faith will constantly turn and
look unto Christ. It cannot but, it cannot but
look unto that One who did so much to set us free. that one who suffered, that one
who was made a curse for us, that one who was placed under
the law for us, that one who was condemned in our room instead,
that one who bore our sins, that one who was made sin, though
he knew no sin, that one who was cruelly crucified in our
place, who was nailed to a cross, who was spat upon and rejected,
That one who hung drinking the cup of God's wrath in three hours
of darkness while all the world hated and rejected him. Oh when we see what it cost him
to set us free. We cannot but praise, we cannot
but look, we cannot but cry unto Him, we cannot but believe. If
you believe God, believe the Gospel, then as Christ says,
you will love one another, you will believe Him, you will trust
Him and you will love Him and you will love your brethren that
loves Him. And in so doing, you will walk
in that pure religion of which James speaks at the end of the
chapter, showing love for the brethren, for the fatherless,
for the widows, for those who believe. Love. And they love
freely, in liberty, not by constraint. They just will. They love their
brethren. They'll give their all to look
after their brethren. They'll give their all for Christ
and his glory. They'll give their all for the
fervence of their gospel. They'll give their all for this
freedom. Men on earth will fight and give
their lives in wars for freedom. The child of God will give his
all for this freedom, which lasts eternally. Because once he was
dead, Once he was under sin, once he was under the law, once
he was condemned and embonded but now he's alive, now he's
set at liberty, now he's free and he knows it. When Lazarus lay dead in the
grave and his family wept and Jesus came unto them and he wept
also and he spake unto Martha And she said, I know that all
shall rise in the resurrection at the end of the day. He comforted
her with these words before he raised Lazarus from the dead.
He said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? There's no captivity or bondage
greater than death, and there's no freedom greater than life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Has God
brought you to look? into the perfect law of liberty
and see yourself by God's work in Christ being set free. Were you once dead? Has he given
you faith to look and live? Believest thou this?