Look At Yourself! James 1:19-27

This sermon was delivered in a small country church in Colorado, where I was privileged to meet some more of God's household and share common experiences. It reminded me of the Evangelical Free Church where my first time as an elder and really serving the sheep happened.

I was a child of the 60s and 70s, and I remembered the songs of my youth when looking at the text of James 1:22-25. I was trying to come up with a title to the sermon after working thought the diagramming, outlining, and homiletical work. The thought struck me about an album I had as a teenager by the band Uriah Heep. The cover song was called "Look at yourself." It was a toss up between this and the Who's, "Can you see the real me?" In fact I am listening to the media player on my computer. The whole exegetical idea was that believers who hear and obey the word save their souls.

Introduction

James wrote the letter somewhere around A.D. 45 or 46 which would make this probably the earliest New Testament book other than Galatians. The purpose of this potent letter is to exhort the early believers to Christian maturity and holiness of life. This letter deals more with the practice of the Christian faith than with its precepts. James told his readers how to achieve spiritual maturity through the word applied to their lives.

The readers (who were believers and predominately Jewish) where apparently having trouble with obedience to the word (specifically the command of/Law of Christ to love others) who were loosing control of their tongue and becoming angry with fellow believers among other things we see in this letter. (1:19)

Ineffectual learning is always condemned in Scripture. That is, the Word of God doesn’t frown upon knowledge itself, but upon dormant, unapplied knowledge. Likewise, James is not impressed when people merely listen to a message; he is encouraged when he notices someone’s life changed by a message. That’s why James calls for applied knowledge. Any other knowledge is merely academic and unfruitful.

Question: Do you apply the knowledge you have?

The measure of your spirituality does not rest in what you know alone, but in whether you apply that knowledge or not. It’s not intelligence alone, but applied intelligence.

Question: Are you guilty of unapplied knowledge of Scripture?

If so, your problem isn’t an overabundance of knowledge, but a deficiency of application. James knew this and encourages us to live consistent with what we’ve learned, and he offers some tests to determine if we’re doing so.

James knew well the wisdom sections of the Old Testament; remember in those days all they had was the Old Testament to teach from:

Even a fool who remains silent is considered wise, and the one who holds his tongue is deemed discerning.
Proverbs 17:28 (NET)

When words abound, transgression is inevitable, but the one who restrains his words is wise.
Proverbs 10:19 (NET)

The one who denounces his neighbor lacks wisdom, but the one who has discernment keeps silent. The one who goes about slandering others reveals secrets, but the one who is trustworthy conceals a matter.
Proverbs 11:12-13 (NET)

The one who guards his words guards his life, but whoever is talkative will come to ruin.
Proverbs 13:3 (NET)

Do not be rash with your mouth or hasty in your heart to bring up a matter before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth! Therefore, let your words be few. Just as dreams come when there are many cares, so the rash vow of a fool occurs when there are many words.
Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 (NET)

His readers would be very familiar with these passages. He was also familiar with the concepts that Paul wrote about the believers reward or loss of reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ (1 Corinthians 5:10)

Also, James was pointing out that the anger resulting from the loss of control does not produce practical righteousness. In other words it stunts their spiritual growth (sanctification) (1:20)

Receiving the Word

When believers understand that the word of God is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit use to regenerate them; they also need to understand that this same word taken in and acted upon will save their physical (souls) lives from temporal judgment. (1:21)

The need to be receptive to the Word of God is tied to the larger "Gospel" message that God will preserve the believers life now as well has give him or her reward in the life to come. This is different that the promised eternal life at the resurrection. (1:21a)

What does it mean to "receive the word"? - James thought is that it is to be obeyed to preserve physical life and subsequently to receive reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ. How is James using the term "soul" here? (1:21b)

The reason James readers should obey the word is so they can "lay aside" sinful behavior and live in purity. (1:21c)

Hearing and Not Doing (1:22-24)

James’s statement about observing one’s natural face in a mirror is one of a kind in the New Testament. The mirror is the word of God that James refers to in verse 22. But what does the reference to our natural face, in verse 23, mean?

Zane Hodges make some very insightful thoughts on this,

The Greek of this phrase has often perplexed the interpreters of James. The words translated as "natural" by the KJV, NKJV, and NASB have seemed problematic to many. The NIV completely ignores these two words and simply has “like a man who looks at his face in a mirror,” while the Jerusalem Bible paraphrases with “looking at your own features in a mirror.” The Greek word is the same one from which we derive our word “genesis,” it can signify ideas like “beginning”, “origin,” “descent”, or even “existence.” The latest scholarship observes this meaning in both secular and biblical Greek. It also happens to be the meaning that best fits this context. So we could say that a more accurate translation would be the following: “he is like a man observing the face of his birth (=the face he was born with) in a mirror.”

I prefer this translation, but what does this mean to us in this context spiritually?

There is a story told of a a gentleman in California had two daughters in their early teens. One was fair and attractive of features; the other was rather plain.

One day as they were getting ready for school the better- looking girl peered into the mirror beside the face of her unfavored sister. The latter complained to her father that this was done as a reflection on her lack of looks. Instead of growing angry or taking sides, the father called both girls to himself and gave them this excellent advice:

“I want both of you to look in the mirror every day. You who are favored of feature that you may be reminded never to dishonor the beauty of your face by the ugliness of your actions, and you who lack beauty that you may hide your lack of it by the superior attractiveness of your virtue and beautiful conduct.”

Note that James 1:23 follows another important statement about “birth.” In 1:17 James states that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the father of lights.” He immediately reminds his readers of the supremely perfect gift they had all received from their heavenly FATHER (vs. 18). James is referring to the gift of spiritual “birth”.

Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures (NKJV)

Peter likewise states that we were…

…born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.
1 Peter 1:23 (NKJV)

Peter and James declare that our new birth is by means of God’s Word. Notice, that the Father has “brought us forth” using “the word of truth.” People are saved at the very moment that they believe any of the promises God makes in His Word about giving eternal life to the believer in Jesus. We all know John 3:16,

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

...5:24,...
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

...and 6:47 …
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.

…and there are many others. The word is also the instrument by which the Holy Spirit transforms us more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Paul spoke of this mirror as well,

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18

There are 2 observations we can make about this mirror, first, the Word of God must be received in faith in order for God to “bring us forth” (that is, to regenerate us), and second the word must also be received in faith for God to transform us.

James went on from a reference to our new birth (1:18) to a the role of God’s Word in Christian living (1:21-25). But this process of receiving biblical instruction must be followed by an obedient response. We are “to be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving” ourselves. (1:22)

Christians have deceived themselves into thinking that mere exposure to God’s Word will be effective for Christian living. They may think, for example, that hearing a good sermon or listening to edifying teaching on T.V. or the internet will make them grow spiritually. But this is a delusion. The effect of the Word is only truly realized when it is put into practice. I could preach another sermon on just this alone, but that is for another day.

For now, however, notice that a mere hearer of the word is like a person who forgets what he sees in his mirror. He forgets the face of his birth!

Question: What is the face of our birth?

Based on what we have seen in the James 1, the face of our birth represents what we inwardly by virtue of having been born from above. A new “person” lives inside the same old physical house (the body), and we can see this ‘person” in the mirror of God’s word. Hearing God’s word correctly taught or preached, or to read it with spiritual illumination and understanding, means that we have seen what we truly are by the grace of God. But as we have already seen from Paul, it also involves seeing the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But it also shows where we are not like him. That is the process we need to understand that James is talking about here in the passage in front of us. This process begins with a radical transformation within us. This is the 2nd birth that Jesus spoke about with Nicodemus in John 3.

Remember this! If you take nothing else away today, take this: From the moment of regeneration on, we have a sinless inner nature.

Believers are often not aware of this. We know only too well that we have a great deal of sin in our lives. It does not seem likely to us that we have a basically sinless inner nature. We are painfully aware of the defilement of sin in our inward experience.

We can say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). But if “Christ lives in” us, then that life can only be sinless.

Turning for a moment to 1 John 5, I want you to see that John agrees as well with James and Paul. If we have eternal life we have Christ, because “He who has the Son has life” (1 John 5:12). In fact, He Himself is “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). To those who possess eternal life, John can also say, “we know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18)

Paul’s personal struggle with his sinful physical body led him to a twofold understanding of himself. At the end of Romans 7 he is able to conclude,

“So then, with the mind I myself [that is his true inward self] serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:25)

However before he made this statement - look at verse 24,

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

In these verses, Paul’s word for “serve” is a strong one that means “to serve as a slave.” Paul is telling us here that his “inner man” is a slave to “the law of God,” but his physical body is enslaved to “the law of sin.” From Paul’s perspective, his inward nature could produce only obedience. But this was hindered and blocked by the dominance of the flesh or old nature in his physical body. Paul cried out to be released, several scholars have looked at this phrase and concluded that Paul was using a very specific metaphor here…

Chained To The Dead

The Romans sometimes compelled a captive to be joined face to face with a dead body, and to bear it about until the horrible effluvia destroyed the life of the living victim. Virgil describes this cruel punishment:

“The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;
Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.”

Paul goes on to teach in Romans 8 that our body the one we are dragging around is “dead” and incapable of expressing the life of God that is within us. Only the resurrecting power of the indwelling Holy Spirit can overcome this deadness.

The New Testament teaches that when we are born again God imparts to us a spiritual nature that responds only to His word and will. This inward nature has a moral likeness to God’s sinless Son. Inwardly, therefore, we have a “spiritual face” that is like the face of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It follows from this that contemplating the Lord Jesus in God’s Word shows us what we ourselves are like at the deepest level of our being. In God’s Word we both His face and our own!

I think that James is writing to warn believers about the consequences of a dead, inactive faith both personally and corporately and to stir them to growth and true spiritual maturity. We all can identify with times where we weren't doing much other than sitting in the pew soaking in the word and not living it out and loving others…

The Law that Produces Freedom

We ought to observe carefully what we are, by the grace of God, in our innermost self. We should carry that recollection with us in everyday life. What differentiates between forgetful and obedient hearing?

Zane Hodges make an excellent summary of this,

Fundamentally, obedient hearing springs from the moral and spiritual beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ deeply impacting us. A Christian can rejoice at the realization that such inward beauty is his by new birth. He can be inspired to express this beauty through obedience. But, or course, this “captivation” of the heart by the “beauty of Jesus” is the work of God’s Holy Spirit through God’s Word. However, a moment’s reflection will show that obedient hearing cannot be the result of an enormous burden of guilt or an intolerable load of obligation. If such responsiveness does not arise from our innermost self as a deeply felt desire, it remains a work of the flesh. The spirit of the legalist is far removed from what we are talking about here.

That is why James goes on to say this:

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.
James 1:25 (NKJV)

Watch this, James now refers to God’s Word as “the perfect law of liberty.” So far from being a burden the law of liberty frees us to be what we truly are by virtue of our birth from above (see again 1:18). When Christian living becomes a burden which we must “grind out,” we have forgotten what we truly are. Life in Christ is true liberty!

This is the very thing Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. In contrast to the Law of Moses, Paul is saying, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit is an expression of true freedom.

The Apostle John says essentially the same thing. He maintains that obedient Christians not only,

...keep His commandments,” but also find that “His commandments are not burdensome...
1 John 5:3

The late Apologist and Theologian Francis Schaffer said that he hated this passages because he could not reconcile it in his experience. Too bad that he missed this secret of living a abundant life!

We have all heard preaching that left us feeling bad or convicted. Hopefully, we have heard God’s Word taught or preached in such a way that we intensely desired to obey it. In the former, the preaching did not show us the marvelous freedom of God’s “perfect law of liberty.” In the latter, we sensed the tremendous freedom that comes by acting in accordance with what we really are as a people born from above.

But even in this latter case, we need the help of God’s Spirit to act on what we have heard and thus to become what we already are in our inner being. Otherwise we become forgetful hearers, who do not relate their daily life to their true identity in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

We can see as we wrap this up that God’s Word offers us a “double reflection.”

On the one hand God's word shows us the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But on the other hand, that same word shows us “the face of our spiritual birth.” These two reflections are in harmony. Jesus Christ Himself is the Eternal Life that we already have within us, and when that live is lived it is Jesus Christ living in me (Galatians 2:20). The mirror of God’s word transforming us through the ministry of God’s Spirit. It is the increasing expression in word and deed of what we have become by the miracle of new birth.

This is one of the secrets of the Christian life: It is our coming to be in experience what we already are in our innermost being! Some may be asking the question, "How do we know that this is taking place?" Or someone might be wondering, "What is the application?" James tells us in verses 26 and 27…take them home and meditate on what James is saying to us now in the 21st century…