Dennis Tuuri

We return today to James chapter 1. I’ll be trying to cover verses 9 to the end of the chapter, but we’ll begin by reading the first few verses from 9 through verse 12. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

James 1:9-12. “Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For so no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass. Its flower fades and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

Let’s pray. Father, it is our great desire to love you more, to increase and mature in our love for you, Lord God, and our effectiveness for your mission and purpose in the earth. Bless us, Lord God, at the consideration of this chapter and its relationship to our day and to our personal calling to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. Okay. So your outline today has six parts—too long to have the kids write down. And so you actually have an outline today and we’ll try to cover all of it. This was an interesting week. They’re all interesting. They’re all very busy, but several things coalesced in my life in the space of about 24 hours. Literally, three things.

And you know, so some of you will not like the topic but this is my life. This is your life. This is where we’re at. The three things is, first of all, there was a forced resignation of the CEO of Mozilla, a large company co-founded by a man who became its CEO recently. And this man also developed, wrote, created—whatever it’s called—JavaScript, which is the basis for most web pages. So this sharp guy founded this company, became CEO as a corporate head recently, and then it was discovered that he had given $1,000 in 2008 to the California State Measure 8, which attempted to maintain biblical marriage—men and wife. And as a direct result of that, pressure came to bear and he was forced to resign.

Second story I heard that same day was about a woman who actually has a farm here in Oregon City, plans to open a market in Sellwood with GMO-free vegetables and stuff and meats, which was originally looked upon with great favor by the progressive community that it’s in. But then someone found out that she on Facebook had addressed the Sweet Cakes controversy and said that she was a libertarian and she thought people should be able to make their own decisions—people like Sweet Cakes—in that role as to whether they wanted to provide materials for a homosexual marriage or not. Now the community is in an uproar. They’re trying to force her out, make her not open the shop there.

The third event that happened—and now let’s just see what’s going on at these first two. What’s happening is a new orthodoxy is being enforced. We’re not talking anymore, you know, kind of equal rights or whatever it is. What we’re talking about in these stories is the growing movement now, and it is a fast one, to make what you’re doing in holding your personal opinions about homosexual marriage as it relates to the public arena—to make what this church is doing, taking a clear stand on these issues—illegal or at least subject to great social pressure. That is where we are going. This direction has been clear for a number of years and it’s now happening. If you’re in the tech field, for instance, and your views about biblical marriage become known, watch out. Okay. So this is the sort of thing that’s going on. And I know that some of the younger folks here will think I’m overreacting. I am not. These stories are now starting to pile up in the newspapers.

The third story is that, as you know, I’m on the board of Oregon Family Council, and we’re going to be promoting or circulating a petition to give people with firm religious convictions about same-sex marriage an ability to opt out of providing services for same-sex marriages so that people like Sweet Cakes and Peter here—Peter Mayhar—and others can do what they want to do and not be forced into doing things that they would find highly objectionable to their craft and art in terms of supporting. So the third thing that happened was I got an email and I found out that there’s a Willamette Week article this last week. Called—well, I won’t tell you the title of it, not that relevant—but it has a picture of Kevin Palau on it and it cites several pastors and community ministry leaders of churches we would think of as conservative in the article and it addresses Oregon Family Council’s religious freedom initiative and same-sex marriage that’ll be on the ballot and all these guys are saying it’s misguided essentially to try to fight these things and we don’t want to be known as Christians by what we’re against. We want to be known by what we’re in favor of. Okay?

I mean, if you begin to play that out in your head, I mean, if that’s really true, I think you lose the gospel because you lose conviction of sin and repentance. Now maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can push back on me in Q&A time, but I don’t think it’s anything less than that—the danger that we’re facing. And certainly, if we expect the church as a corporate entity to stand up and give its members protection from the sort of things I’ve just described, most churches will not do that and they’re going the other way now. The same churches that 10 years ago were completely in support of what we’re doing. So these are the times in which we live.

Now this letter that James wrote was written in difficult times. Very likely it’s the second book of the New Testament to be written. Matthew’s gospel begins after the martyrdom of Stephen. The great persecution happened. As the church disperses, and this dispersement, you know, happens and James’s letter is written to the 12 tribes of the diaspora of the dispersion. And now, number one—by the way, when he refers to the church, the persecuted church that’s been dispersed as the 12 tribes—we have tremendous continuity being made in the early writings of the New Testament in terms of the Christian church and the Old Testament relationship to Israel that we see there. That’s very significant for lots of reasons, but it’s not my topic today.

My topic is what do we do when things are difficult? What were these Christians going to do when they were being persecuted so badly? And of course, the persecution didn’t stop when they left Jerusalem. The apostate church in Jerusalem sent out people—rivers of wormwood, described in Revelation—sent out men to poison their doctrines to attack their churches. So the persecution is ongoing and of course the places they would settle weren’t particularly favorable either.

So what do you do when persecution is developing? Or in the case of the early church here, we’re talking about, was very active and severe. You know, I’ve made some connection between our times and theirs but it’s a very tenuous connection. Our times are beginning to see the beginnings of persecution where we’re certainly seeing the degradation of any kind of Christian set of morality in our nation and that will become, you know, pluralism is a transition point between orthodoxies and so the new orthodoxy is starting to let itself be known and it is a statist orthodoxy. Well, in any event, so we’re in transition. They weren’t in transition. They were in full-blown persecution. So I don’t want to draw too tight a relationship but we have the same questions, right? What do we do, Dennis? That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing that stuff. It doesn’t really make my gospel-oriented day all that cheerful. It makes it more difficult.

But what James’s epistle, I think, is written to do is to address their situation, but also by way of application, situations like ours, right? Situations where you don’t know what to do, where you may be tempted to think that the total answer is the ballot box or the total answer is prepping or the total answer is getting ready to fight back somehow, right? And I think those are the temptations that face the early church. What do you do when the suffering starts to happen and the persecution begins and you’re going through any kind of trial?

And as James’s epistle opened up—we dealt with this three weeks ago—the big deal in this epistle is “steady as she goes,” you know, hyper-stand, endure. That’s what the word, or the Greek word means: hyper, a lot of, and then standing. You stay in place. You firmly set yourselves under the trials because—not just because we can’t do anything about it. Far from that. He’s going to tell us through this epistle that actually that very standing and doing a few little other things that help you to stand—that’s what turns the tide ultimately.

Our God’s ways are not our ways. And the ways to get out of the situation we’re in don’t quite look like we would think they would look. And today’s in the first chapter. He’ll draw out some big topics that he’ll talk about for another four chapters and we’ll deal with those quickly as we go through chapter 1. But the idea is that the whole point of this epistle is to tell people how the kingdom will come. How the kingdom will come.

Jesus said, “Disciple the nations.” Then he left and then the persecution began. And then martyrdom was part of it. And then wives and children were imprisoned, right, by people like Saul, Paul. All I mean bad things happen. What do we do? What are we going to do? How do we make the kingdom effective? How do we manifest the kingdom? How does it work? And we ask the same thing today in a period of declension from a Christian nation into a time increasingly of a new orthodoxy of statism that brooks no rivals to statist policy. Right? That’s what we see in the newspapers every day.

Now, back in 1981, I attended a conference in Seattle—the first Reconstruction conference of the Pacific Northwest—and the name of the conference was “How the Christian Will Reconquer the World.” Now to you, okay, you’ve been hearing this stuff for 30 years. To me, I thought number one, I didn’t know we were supposed to reconquer the world. I didn’t know that Christians were going to win, that the kingdom of Christ will become manifest. And number two, I shouldn’t expect to go to a conference that was going to tell me how to do it. But okay, it was a tremendous conference, changed my life and really led to this church.

Now, that’s kind of what James is doing, I think, here: “How the Christian will conquer the world, how the kingdom of Christ will make itself manifest in his time and by his means.” So I kind of think that’s what’s going on here. And as I say, I think that initial thing we dealt with three weeks ago is that matter: the way to do that is to endure trials because in those very trials you’re becoming completed, mature, perfect—not in the sinless perfection sense—and as a result of that also the impact you have in the culture will also have that kind of thing going on to it.

Okay. So let’s deal with today’s text and all we’re going to do is walk through the text. I’ve outlined it in six points and to a certain extent, if you’re taking notes, those first four are sort of like credenda stuff—things it’s important to believe. And the last two are kind of like agenda stuff—what you’re supposed to do practically. Right now there are things to do in the first four. So it’s not real tight, but it’s sort of like that: he wants us to understand some things, and then he wants us on the basis of that to be exhorted to do some things. And all of this toward the end of enduring trials in a godly way that will actually bring victory in the context of the manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Now I’ve called the sermon today “Singularity of Purpose” because the verse just before this—R.J. Rushdoony, in his commentary on this section of James, begins with verse 8, which most people would want to include with the first verses 2 through 8. It has to do with wisdom and asking for wisdom and “Don’t ask with doubt.” That means doubting the character of God to be a giver to you, by the way. And by the way, wisdom—what is wisdom all about? Solomon wanted wisdom so he could rule. And so immediately in the opening verses when James says, “Endure trials, hyper-stand under them. And if you lack wisdom, ask for it,” he’s drawing a connection between how we will rule in the context of an apostate or persecuting culture, how that will come to pass, right? And it’s based on wisdom and wisdom is related to this enduring persecution or trials, at least of various sorts.

And then that section about asking for wisdom ends with verse 8. It says if you doubt—if you doubt the character of God, his goodness, and his means to his ends—it says in verse 8, “if you do that, you’re a double-minded man, unstable in all your ways.” So singularity of purpose. What will keep you from enduring, hyper-standing? That’ll keep you from attaining wisdom and the ability to rule in a servant ruler sense in cultural ways. What will keep you from that is a lack of singularity of purpose—to be double-minded.

And by the end of this first chapter, we’ll be warned against worldliness. And we’ll talk about that then. But I think the idea is that’s the problem. We can be double-minded, being worldly, and we’ll talk about what that means at the end of the sermon. But then, you know, also trying to serve God in the world. You can’t serve God and mammon, right? You can’t serve God and whatever the world system is particularly advocating in this day and age.

So the point is you need a singularity of purpose to endure and to have the wisdom to rule and effect and make manifest increasingly the rule of Jesus Christ. Okay, so that’s kind of the idea. So you need singularity of purpose first of all in spite of circumstances, right? In spite of circumstances.

That’s the next thing he talks about in verse 9. “Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation.” The lowly brother glories in his exaltation. The rich man—who seems exalted, right—in his humiliation. Okay? And so whatever circumstance you see shouldn’t keep you from a singularity of purpose. It goes on to say because, and then it addresses the rich man: “because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For so no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass. The flower fades. The beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.”

Okay, we should have sung—we sang it a couple weeks ago—that fuguing tune, “The Day Is Past and Gone”—because that’s what he reminds us of in terms of a motivation to have singularity of purpose regardless of your circumstances. He reminds us of death and how death is soon coming for all of us. And the rich man has to realize that.

Now, this is a difficult verse. I’m still not sure what it means. So now you can turn me off for a few seconds. Commentators also are divided. What is the rich man here? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Is he a brother? Does the language read that the brother thing—the brother who is poor—relate to the brother that’s rich or not? Hard to tell. And commentators are all over the map on it. And particularly in chapters 2 through 5, the rich will be addressed a number of times and it won’t be good for them. The rich are those who blaspheme Christ. Okay? The rich are those that don’t pay their laborers. The rich are those who are called to howl, you know, and repent and all that stuff. But is that necessarily what the rich means here? I don’t know.

First of all, we should understand that rich and poor are not necessarily simple economic terms. I think in a few weeks we’re going to start the “When Helping Hurts” video series in an adult Sunday school class. Not sure who’s going to lead it yet, but that’s one of the big things in that class: what do we mean by poor? And what poor people mean by poor is usually pretty different than what rich people think they need or people with money think poor is. We see it as an economic condition. They see it in more psychological terms. So rich and poor doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not just related to money.

Okay, these are states. And in the context of, you know, the old guard maintaining Judaism, rejecting Jesus Christ, and the new guard, the Christian church, that’s the continuation of Israel, 12 tribes, but obedient to Christ—in terms of that, the new guard is poor, right? They’re in a humbled state. And the old guard is exalted. They have the power and the wealth. They actually literally had the wealth, but I think it means more than that.

And so, but whenever we get into a circumstance in which we’re on the bottom and somebody else appears to be on the top, I think we can apply the basic truth of this text. And it means a couple of things within the church. It means that if you’re a person who’s on the top—whether it’s prestige, actual money, whatever it is—you know, you have to remember that whatever you have is going to—you’re losing that as soon as you die. You can’t take it with you, as they say, right?

Now, at the end, he’ll tell us to do something we can take with us, which is good deeds for other people. And hopefully, that’s how you’ve made your wealth. But the wealth, you know, you don’t want to grasp under that. And so what he’s calling for here, if we’re talking about people in the context of the church, is he’s calling for that kind of equality thing, right? Where, you know, even economically there’s sharing of the rich with the poor, but more importantly, there’s one community. And regardless of our circumstances, if you’re poor, don’t whine about your poverty. Don’t whine about the position you’re in culture or in the—you’re not in the in-group. Whatever it is, don’t whine about that. Recognize you’re exalted in Jesus Christ. Recognize you’re exalted.

And if you’re in a position of influence, power, money, don’t boast in that because recognize your humiliation. All that goes away when you die. Okay? And what you want to do, we all come together as the body of Christ at this table. So there’s a—we can look at that way and it’s important to see things. And what it’s telling us generally is: in spite of your circumstances, don’t let your riches reduce your singularity of purpose in serving Christ. And don’t let your poverty lead you to whine, complain, become a statist, get in the welfare line, whatever it is, and draw you away from singularity of purpose to Jesus Christ.

So in spite of our circumstances, our singularity of purpose is to Christ. And one final comment here. What’s your net worth? Right? I don’t figure mine out because it’s so depressing. Maybe some of you do. I’m glad you do. I’m glad if you’re doing well with your net worth. But see, we think of things economically. We think of net worth. And I know that’s the way the term is used. That’s perfectly fine. But I’m just saying, don’t get confused in thinking that your worth is related to your net worth—how much money and assets you’ve accumulated, you know, etc.

The point of this is to see your net worth as a Christian apart from your circumstances—to see your net worth in the degree to which you can have singularity of purpose in serving the Lord Jesus Christ. So again the context for this is: what’s going to win? What’s going to win the day in the culture wars? We could say in the religious wars? We could say? And what wins the war? The singularity of purpose in serving Christ and not being double-minded. And one way we avoid being double-minded is getting a correct understanding of our net worth as individuals and other people’s net worth, right?

If you’ve got a good-sized net worth, you’re going to tend to want to—this culture will teach you to evaluate others based on their net worth. And James will talk about this very directly in a little in the coming chapters: where how we treat rich and poor in the church service itself, where they sit, what attention we pay to them, etc. When people walk in the door, do you assess net worth somehow either based on status, what you like or don’t like, financial well-being, and then assign a net worth that’s lower value than who they are in Christ.

You see, that’s what we’re being warned against here. Singularity of purpose in spite of our circumstances or the circumstances of others and we need to believe that is the point. That’s kind of a credenda item. It’s something we need to believe.

Secondly, we need to believe that this singularity of purpose leads to blessing when we don’t let our circumstances divert us from a wholehearted service of Christ because that’s what happens in verse 12. “Blessed is the man singular who endures temptation.” Same word, right? This is what he said earlier: you know, “brothers, count it all joy. You’re supposed to endure temptation. You’re supposed to endure when trials happen to you.” So he’s saying the same thing here. There’s little bookends here. And so what he says now is that if you endure temptation—if you hyper-stand under a trial, no matter what the trial might be—if you endure it, and by endure it means hyper-standing in the right way, not thinking worldly about your response to things, but with singularity of focus serving Christ.

Okay? If you endure temptation, you’re blessed. Who individually are blessed? “Blessed is the man who endures temptation. When he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.” Okay. So what we’re supposed to believe is there’s a reward for all of this. There’s something good that’s going to happen. It’s blessing to you. And if not in this life, then in the next.

This word “crown of life” is repeated in Revelation to talk about those who stand firm to death—they’ll receive the crown of life. And the word crown, by the way, is Stephanos—which is Steven. And Steven is a man who endured persecution, trials to the end and he is that crown, right? That’s what his name actually means. He’s an example to us and of course ultimately next week we’re going to think about the Passion of our Savior and ultimately Jesus Christ is the one who endures, hyper-stands, does what he’s supposed to do, doesn’t, you know, take up the sword, encourages Peter not to do that, etc., etc., etc. We’ll think about these things next week during Passion Week. And he is ultimately the man. And because we’re linked up with him, he tells us with that singularity of purpose we’re to do it in spite of our circumstances. And we’re to do it knowing that blessing is the result.

So, you know, it’s good. We’ve been doing these Beatitudes. And this is a Beatitude, right? “Blessed is the man.” So this is not a prayer. We hope you’ll be blessed. This is not some kind of wishful thinking. This is not a maybe sort of thing. That’s like these blessings here. “Blessed is the man who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. He’ll be filled.” What’s righteousness? The rightness of the world, the promises of God to reverse the causes or the effects of the fall. And we hunger and thirst for justice. We hunger and thirst for a land that gives God his glory. We hunger and thirst for the great reversal—when we’re on the bottom, God’s name is—instead of being on the top. And we’re told that if we hunger and thirst for that, we’re blessed. And we’re blessed as we hunger and thirst to endure whatever trials we’re going to have to endure between now and then as God works this thing out. His ways are not our ways. So we’re to hyper-stand and that brings blessing and benediction.

Third, we need singularity of purpose by avoiding deception, by not counting our circumstances, by understanding we’re blessed, and by avoiding the deceiver—not by name, but by avoiding deception. And here we have verses 13 and following.

“Let no one say when he is tempted, now, important here: he, you know, he’s just said to endure trials. And some translations may have the same word temptations, but really it’s different. When he says here, “Let no one say when he is tempted”—okay, temptation here means to evil. Something’s tempting you to evil. And actually it’s a different word in this verse than the last verse, but sometimes the same words are used, but the context says whether we’re talking about a trial, God may try your faith, but God is not tempting you to do evil. You see the distinction?

Okay? And this text tells us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted of Christ. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. So now you’ve got problems and you’re saying, well, the problems are—I’m being tempted by God to sin.” No, you’re not. He says that’s not what God is doing. He may be trying you and maturing you. He is never tempting you to sin.

But each one is—what does tempt us then? Well, maybe the devil made me do it, right? No, he leaves out the devil here too, actually. Although there’s kind of reference to the deceiver. But the fruit of the devil is this deception that we’re involved with. Let me read what it says.

“Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

We’re doing it to ourselves. Okay, there’s another translation of this verse. Let me read a couple more translations. “Rather, each person is tempted by his own evil desire by which he is dragged off and enticed.” Another one: “But each one is tempted by his own lust, being drawn out by them and allured with bait.”

So that’s kind of the idea. So it places the temptation in our evil desires, in our improper desires. “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin when it is fullgrown brings forth death.”

So this whole process begins with—the great problem at the beginning of it—are evil desires. Evil desires drive these actions. They give birth to sin, actual transgressions. Sin gives birth to death. And now we’re not helping the situation when we take our own desires to do something about it, to take matters into our own hands, when our desires drive us—we’re actually going to give birth to death. So don’t do that. Okay? Remember the deception.

And the deception is that somehow we think we, apart from God’s means, can take care of problems. On the contrary, he says, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow or turning. Of his own will he begot—he brought us forth rather—by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”

Okay. So couple of things here. One, it contrasts the sort of birth that happens through our evil desires to the will of God. Born again—not by the will of man, but by the will of God. Right? John 1. By the will of God, he has brought us forth as the first fruits of his creatures. So there’s two births going on. Focus on God, singularity of purpose in serving God, understanding what he’s doing in time and place. He’s making us the first fruits of his creation.

First fruits was the festival when the first things that bloomed would be brought before God, right? The first wheat, sheaves, etc. Jesus is the first fruits. The Bible tells us he’s the first of mankind to enter into heaven and he brings mankind with him. The first church, the first churches were first fruits. Particular individuals are referred to as first fruits in a region. Now he’s saying that part of what we’re to believe is that what we’re going through—we also are part of his first fruits. We want the whole creation to manifest the glory of God. We want the world put to rights. We want the righteousness of God, right? That’s what we want. That’s what we hunger and thirst for.

And what he’s telling us is don’t believe the deception that you can get that by entering into your own desires. Don’t follow your own evil desires. Follow instead God himself and his good gifts. Don’t doubt his goodness. What’s he giving to us? He’s the father of what? Lights. That’s us, right? We are lights. And we think of that as, you know, this little light of mine. But remember that lights in the Bible—you know, sun, moon, and stars. Sun and moon, they’re rulers. So again, he’s telling them here that if you take matters into your own hands, if you’re prompted by your evil desires to not endure temptation correctly with singleness of purpose, you’re not—you’re going to—your light’s going to be put out.

Okay? But if you endure patiently, regardless of circumstances, right? Knowing that blessing is coming, right? And don’t give into the deception that God is doing bad things with you. Then he says you’ll be the you’ll be the recipient of God’s gifts. He’s the Father of lights. He’s bringing you forward, birthing you. He’s birthed you as first fruits of his whole creation. Believe that the world is actually being put to rights in the proper way in God—God’s way. So this is part of the credenda stuff. Again, you’re to believe—not the deception that God is not in favor of us, that our lives are meaningless, that we’ve got to take things into our own hands, we have to handle the trials in life in a way that we think is right as opposed to being steadfastly enduring the way God says to do it.

When we do those things, we move away from the very thing we desire: the rightness of the world being brought into fact. That’s something to believe that proper standing and not giving in to sinful desires.

Now, very importantly, you know, what we have here is kind of a psychology of sin, right? So you’ve got sin in your life, I’ve got sin in my life. I just did a ritual, by the way. Did you notice that I reached for my glasses? They weren’t there. We are that—is not a diversion. That’s to the point because we’re creatures that do liturgical actions and those liturgical actions drive desires.

You know, if you’ve smoked and quit smoking, you know, one of the hardest times to avoid smoking, I quit smoking at the grace of God—used to smoke a pack or two a day. But one of the ways, one of the times it was the most difficult not to have a cigarette was after dinner because there’s a ritual to the thing, right? You do this pattern and maybe there’s other stuff going on with the chemicals and I don’t know, but there’s a pattern you do. And that pattern reinforces a desire for something you really don’t want to do because you don’t have the cigarette. The cigarette has you. You don’t have control over the thing. The thing has control over you. That’s not good with anything you do, right? Whether good or bad or whatever it is—if it’s whatever, you don’t want to be controlled by it.

The point is that if we’re going to attack sins in our life, if we’re going to bring back the sin stones and you’re going to have little red stones in your pocket for the next couple of weeks trying to get rid of a particular sin in your life, attack the desire side, the action. If you don’t attack desires and you leave these desires in place and the liturgies that drive those desires in place, you’re going to have a real hard time controlling your actions. That’s what it says. Your actions are brought forth by desires that you have and those desires. Desire is not a bad thing, but when it’s sinful desires, it brings forth sin.

So to attack sin—well, to do that effectively—this is telling us you want to attack sinful desires. And one of the ways to attack sinful desires is to change patterns, to change liturgies, to change the actions you do that make associations with things. Okay? And what you’re supposed to do is to have good desires. We’re talking about singularity of purpose and following Christ. We’re supposed to desire the kingdom, right? And so we want to build liturgies into our lives that reinforce desires and loves to affect kingdom work. That’s why you’re here today. You’re here liturgically one day out of seven. You set it aside every Sunday that you’re not sick or something. You get together and you do this liturgy. And the liturgy trains you to desire the kingdom and to put off improper desires.

A lot more can be said about that. Think about it though. The key to getting rid of sinful actions is killing sinful desires. And I think one of the keys to that is the liturgical actions we go through.

Okay. The fourth thing we’re supposed to believe—before we get to what we do—is found in verse 19. And that is we’re to have singularity of purpose which will produce the desired righteousness of God. Okay. Verse 19.

“So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not achieve or produce the righteousness of God.”

Now, what he’s saying here is you have desires, right, to not listen to other people. You know what’s going on. To be swift to speak and slow to hear. And you have a desire to sinful wrath. Wrath isn’t a bad thing, but usually, a lot of times when we engage in sinful wrath. And he’s saying, put off that stuff. Why?

We’re supposed to believe that the wrath of man in response to the difficult settings we have, the trials, the persecution in their case and the increasing persecution, or just the denial of righteousness in the public sphere today—those things are trials to us and those trials have a tendency to produce ungodly wrath. And we want to take matters into our own hands. And when we do that, it will not achieve the righteousness of God. It won’t achieve God setting the world to rights.

The righteousness of God is justice and it’s God’s fulfillment of his covenant blessings and his covenant promises rather. And that was to roll back the effects of the curse, to transform the fallen world. So how do we do that? That’s the question we’ve been talking about all morning so far. How do we do it? What do we do when things aren’t right. And he says, well, you’ve got to understand that the way you go about doing things will not affect the righteousness of God. And the implication clearly is that if we endure trials properly with a singularity of purpose in spite of our circumstances, right, believing that blessing is coming as a result of that, and don’t fall into the deception of thinking that God’s not for us so we’re going to have to take care of it ourselves—when we fall into those things, we don’t affect the righteousness of God.

But the righteousness of God will be affected as we endure—as we hyper-stand under trials and temptations. So really he’s telling us that the key to affecting what we want—the world put to rights—is what he started with: a singularity of purpose that drives us to stay under the trials and not to seek, you know, ungodly means of alleviating the problems.

Okay? Okay. So that’s what we’re to believe. And then he has some things for us to do. We’re supposed to do the perfect law of liberty. Okay? So that’s kind of, you know, things we’re to believe and things we’re not supposed to do. But then in verse 21, he gets to the stuff that we are supposed to do.

“Therefore, lay aside filthiness and overflow of wickedness. I think he means ungodly means to affect deliverance from problems. Lay aside filthiness and overflow wickedness. Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to deliver or save your souls.”

He doesn’t—there’s an eternal aspect. But what he’s talking about is deliverance in the present as well. Again, how do we change things? How do we move the equation forward? How do we disciple the nations? And what he says is lay aside unlawful unbiblical desires of things that will produce wrath and anger in you and instead receive the implanted word. Okay, that’s what’s going to do it.

“But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, that is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he is. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work—this one will be blessed in what he does.”

Blessed again. So this lines up with the benediction earlier. And it tells us that we’re blessed if we with singularity and purpose endure trials. And that’s what it said in the benediction earlier in the chapter, right? “Blessed is the one who endures temptation.” And now it tells us that we’re blessed if we were doers of the perfect law of liberty—if we do what the scriptures say, if we take the word of God and with singularity of purpose look for its application to our particular decisions of our lives and use the word to guide and direct us and to do what it says. That’s how we’re blessed. That’s how we endure temptations. That’s how we endure trials. Okay? That’s how ultimately the righteousness of God is affected.

We have to be those that stare intently at the word of God, the perfect law of liberty. Now, two things there. One, he’s saying that the law brings freedom. Remember, he’s talking to the 12 tribes of Israel. He’s drawing connection, right, with the whole of the Bible with laws in the Old Testament, too. So number one, don’t throw away a study of the Old Testament law. Increase in it. But two, he refers to the perfect law of liberty. This word “perfect” is used five times in this epistle. We read it earlier, right? That you know we’ll be perfect men. You know it’s perfect—doesn’t mean without spot or without any kind of sinfulness. In the case of the word it is, but perfect means the particular word means brought to its end or its conclusion. Mature is another way to say it. Fully mature. And if we endure temptations we’ll become fully mature. Okay. And God’s word has become fully mature. How? By the coming of Jesus Christ.

He’s talking not just about the Old Testament law, but he’s talking about what we just recited that he had written before him—Matthew’s gospel with the Beatitudes in it. The perfect law of liberty is found there. That’s the mature development of the whole of the Old Testament come to completion and maturity in Jesus Christ. And so that’s why we’ve been doing that: we’ve been staring intently, studying, reciting liturgically the Beatitudes, the mature law of God that brings liberty to our lives. And that’s what we’re supposed to do. Okay?

And if we do that, blessing happens. Okay? So that’s what the agenda side of it is. Believing these things, singularity of purpose and serving Christ is found by looking at his word. It must be our greatest treasure because it’s the word of Christ, right? It’s God-breathed. It’s God speaking to us through his law. And then finally, there are particular things we’re supposed to do.

He goes on to say about three particular things in verses 26 and 27.

“If anyone among you thinks he is religious—religious is a good thing. I’m so tired of hearing this word used the way it is. If we redefine religion as trying to attain salvation by works, okay, religion’s bad. But that’s not what the word means. The word means to be tied together in community. And it means a particular set of actions that we engage with that are really practical worship. In any event, here’s how to be good at religion.

“If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.”

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

They use “religion” three times, right, at least in the translation of the New King James. So it’s not religious in a proper way to not bridle your tongue. It’s that religion is useless if you don’t do that. Good religion is visiting—which doesn’t mean just hang out with them. It means deliver them. To deliver widows and orphans in their distress. And many of you went, some of you went to the loving banquet last night. That’s what you’re supposed to do. When you deliver the widows and orphans in their distress, you’re actually doing this very thing that James says will bring about the writing of the world, the righteousness of God, true religion, and bridling your tongue.

We’ll see these. These are themes that he’s opening up in this first chapter. Bridling the tongue. The tongue is going to be very important. It doesn’t say to close your mouth. You’re to be slow to speak, but you’re supposed to speak. You’re supposed to speak, but you’re supposed to have your tongue bridled under the direction of God and his word. One of the problems in our culture is Christians don’t want to talk at all. This chapter is not helping you if that’s what you think. It doesn’t say if you have any speech, it’s wrong. It says if you don’t bridle your tongue, use it properly under the control of Jesus Christ.

There’s an apologetics conference in Canada. I wish I could go to it. Put on by Christian Governance. I love the title of it. It says “Talk Your Walk.” You know, that’s kind of where we’re at now. We used to need “Walk Your Talk,” right? But now we need “Talk Your Walk.” You may be walking right, but you’re not talking to anybody about it. So speech is important, but it’s got to be bridled, brought under control, right?

And then to deliver those who need help. And I don’t think it’s just talking about widows and orphans. Again, it’s kind of like the poor rich thing, right? To deliver people who are oppressed, including, you know, the homosexual community—that they do not have liberty. They are bound by certain desires that are unlawful, ungodly desires. And those desires eat them up and give birth to a death culture. Now, that’s just the way it is. And if we love them, we don’t want to see them in those kind of bounds of unrighteousness and death. It’s not liberty. It is slavery.

When a political movement is known by what happens in the bedroom, you know, this is an odd thing. This is a very odd thing. And it’s because these desires have burst forth onto the scene as the, you know, the articulation point for a particular political movement. And if we have any love for people, we’re going to try to convince them: hey, we got bad desires, too. Okay? Or desires that the word of God says aren’t proper and we have to—we have to not give in to those but establish new desires. So we’re supposed to deliver the widow and the fatherless. We’re supposed to deliver those who are in a place of vulnerability.

And then finally to keep oneself unspotted from the world. And now if you’ve understood what I’ve tried to do here and say—that we’re trying to figure out: how do we reconquer the world? How do we endure the trials and temptations we’re going through? How is the early church to see, make sense of it all? Jesus is gone. They’re being killed. Their wives and children are being imprisoned. What do we do? What do we do now to take care of this problem?

And James says, “There’s some things you’ve got to believe. And then if you want to know what to do, here’s what you do. You use your speech in a wise manner” because speech carries the word of God. When we bring the word of God into our speech, use your speech in a wise manner. Or, two, do good works. Help people out. Serve people. Serve those who are in a defenseless position. And then third, he says don’t give in to the temptations of worldliness.

Now, this isn’t talking about, you know, I don’t go, you know, I don’t eat or what is it, smoke—I don’t chew, and I don’t go with the girls that do. It’s not movies, whatever it is. The worldliness here, I think, is the improper way to respond to the temptations and the trials that we’re involved with. You got a trial in your life. Forget the culture now. Just you. You got a great trial you’re going through. God says you need to know some things about that trial. You need to serve him with singularity of purpose and hyper-stand in the midst of that trial. You have to know that you’re going to be blessed as you do that. That things will change. And then you’ve got to attend to being simply obedient to the word of God in three particular ways: being careful with your speech—you know, you’re liable to curse God when things go bad, right? So be careful with your speech. Keep doing good works, helping others—rather than focus on your own problem, right?—helping other people to the degree you can. And then don’t fall into the temptation to cut things short in an ungodly way.

Now, I think that’s what’s going on. The worldliness here is what the world says to do to change the world. And James is saying, “You have every good instinct and desire to see the righteousness of God in the world. Here’s how you do it. You suffer trials and tribulations. You do that with singularity of purpose and serving Christ. And you do the simple things of being careful with your speech, serving other people instead of focused in on your own problems, and avoiding the temptation to respond as the world does.”

And that is the way the Christian will reconquer the world.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for the new creation. And thank you for the strange way you developed it in time. Thank you for this particular epistle. Lord God, bless us as we think about these things in terms of our culture and society. And then bless us also in our individual lives in our response to our trials. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.