James 1:21- Two Traits That Should Continually Characterize God's People

Psalm 90,

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth,  or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long?  Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!

I thought it would be important that you be familiar with Psalm 90 before we study our text for today because Moses and James are saying many of the same things. Moses wrote this psalm as he contemplated how sin always leads to death. Interestingly, Moses considers this but he does not fall into hopelessness and despair. He looks to the Lord who is ruler over the righteous and the unrighteous (1,17). He prays to the LORD, the covenant keeping God, who alone can save us from our sins (13). By the end, in verses 16-17, Moses prays that God would make His great and glorious saving power known in every generation; so that, all that God's people do will be established by the Lord and bring Him glory. James parallels many of these same things.

Our text this morning is James 1:21 which says, “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” This morning we will begin by reviewing some of the things that James has already taught us. This is appropriate because as you can see James begins verse 21 with the conjunction, ‘Therefore’, that ties this verse with what has come before. And if we don’t review these things we may respond wrongly in a couple of ways.

• First, we may think that we can obey the two commands in this verse apart from the new birth and all of the gifts that come with it. This week I talked with someone whose addiction was ruining their life. They wanted freedom from their sin but they were not attempting to do this by responding to the Gospel. James teaches us what must be done for us so that we can put away sin and receive the Word of God that is able to save our souls.

• Secondly, even we Christians may see these two commands and be overwhelmed by them. Can I cast aside and put away my sin? Can I enjoy Bible reading and even hope to understand what I am reading?

For several weeks I have been stating the importance of James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” This verse shows the importance of having a solid hope in the promise of eternal life. Then out of that hope comes forth a steadfast faith and an enduring love that remains throughout all of life’s difficult trials. After verse 12 everything that is written after this verse is there to encourage and support a Christians hope, faith and love.

As we look past verse 12 to what comes next, we find that one of the first evidence that a Christian has a genuine hope, faith, and love for God is seen in the way that they deal with sin. A Christian should take responsibility for their sin and not blame their circumstances, others, the devil or even God for it. James writes in James 1:13-15, “Do not say, 'I am being tempted by God’, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Before someone is born again, they do not deal with sin the way James describes in James 1:13-15. A sinner's fallen nature is inclined to produce unholy passions and then act upon these passions. When this is done those sinful passions become sinful behaviors. Sinful passions and these sinful actions will eventually mature, and this always leads to death.

The fact that this process always leads to death is terrible news for all of us. Scripture teaches us that we are all born dead in our trespasses and sins. (Psalm 51:5; Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 3:9-18) James, however, goes on in the next set of verses to begin to describe how sinful people can have hope even with this terrible diagnosis.

James begins to show us that God has powerfully and decisively acted to rescue us from this sinful situation. James says in verse 16-17, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow of change.”

In these verse James begins to explain how God acts to save a sinful person from the inevitable process that will always lead to death (13-15). This sinful condition that has affected all of mankind from our birth is stopped when a sinner receives a ‘gift’ which comes down from the Father. The word ‘gift’ is mentioned twice in verse 17 and this turns out to be significant. James does not use one word to talk about this gift. No, he uses two different words to talk about these ‘gifts’. The first word for ‘gift’ emphasizes how the ‘gift’ is given. The second word that is used for ‘gift’ emphasizes the gift itself. By using these two different words James is provoking us to ask a couple questions.

• First, we ought to ask, “How are these good and perfect gifts given?”

• Secondly, we ought to ask, “What are these good and perfect gifts?”

If you read commentators, you will discover that there are many cross references which can be found in scripture that will describe some of these good and perfect gifts that God gives to His people. There are many such gifts: the kingdom (Lk. 12:32), the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13), salvation (Eph. 2:8), eternal life (1 John 5:11), etc.

We should ask, however, “What does James have in mind when he talks about these good and perfect gifts and can we see it in this context?”

James begins to answer these two questions in verses 17-18. In those verses James writes that these gifts come ‘down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.’

• “How is this gift given?”

• These are ‘gifts’ which should make us consider God’s mercy and grace. These are gifts that are given by God Himself to undeserving people. These gifts are given to poor and needy people, to people of all ages, to the rich and the poor, to men and women, etc. These gifts are not given to anyone as a wage that is owed to them but as a gift that is benevolent, merciful and gracious.

• We are told that the Father gives these gifts and they ‘come down’ to us. Every Christian has a wonderful inheritance to look forward to someday (12) but we should all be grateful that God sends from heaven these gifts that we so desperately need now. God gives His common grace to all people but He provides special graces specifically to His people. James is writing to God’s people in this letter about very special gifts that are just for them.

• These ‘gifts’ come from heaven so even if we live in a world where resources are meager this does not limit God’s ability to provide for us just what we need. Heaven experiences none of the limitations and troubles that we may experience here.

• These gifts come from the Father of lights, with whom there is not variation or shadow due to change. Therefore God gives these gifts faithfully and consistently to all generations. Because of this even Moses can pray in Psalm 90, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations...You are from everlasting to everlasting...Let Your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children too!” (90:1,4,16)

• “What are the gifts that James is thinking of as He writes this letter?”

  • James says that God brings us forth from our sinful state. This means that while we are trapped in this sinful process which always leads to death God regenerates us, gives us life, and causes us to be born again and makes us a new creation. What a gift!

  • When James says in vs. 18 that ‘we should be a kind of firstfruit of His creatures’. The verb, ‘should be’, is in the present tense which speaks of a person who is experiencing a continuing state of being a new creation. God makes us ‘to be’ a new creation in Christ Jesus. By His will the Father makes us ‘to exist in a continuing state’ as a certain kind of firstfruit among His creatures. All too often even as Christians we identify with our old nature and we really do not appreciate the fact that God has made us new and transformed us. Therefore, Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2, “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” James will speak of our response to this new life today in James 1:21 when he writes, “Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

Let me stress the significance of this transformation in another way. If we look at James 1:15 and also verse 18 we will find that there is the same Greek that is used in each of those verses.

In verse 15 James says that sin always ‘brings forth’ death. This verse speaks of the inevitable outcome of sin which is 100 percent observable and predictable. We can be confident that this process will always will happen without exception unless Someone who is outside of the power of sin will intervene.

All of us are born dead in trespasses and sins. Our sinful hearts produce sinful actions. Every sin will mature and bring forth one predictable outcome- death. We cannot change this progression or altar this process. These facts ought to make us despair of having any hope in ourselves or in anyone else. These irrefutable facts ought to make us look to the LORD who willingly saves pitiable and wretched sinners like us.

In verse 18 James uses that same word when he speaks about what God has now done to overcome that sinful process in His people. James writes, “Of His own will he ‘brought us forth’...” If you are confident that sin always brings forth death then you must be equally convinced that God brings His people out of sin and gives us a new life. What a display of God’s power it is that He brings us fourth out of our spiritual and moral deadness to life. Would you like to see evidence of that power? Paul says that we see this power on full display when we look at the resurrection of Christ (Ephesians 1:15-22)

In verse 18 we are told that God graciously and mercifully intervenes in this process by His unchangeable will. He has ‘brought us forth’ from death to life and He has powerfully intervened to change every part of this process from beginning to the end result. He changes our nature, He changes our hearts, he changes our wills, He changes our affections. He makes us a new creation.

Sin would always have a predictable outcome, death, unless someone outside of this sinful creation intervenes. Moses understood this in Psalm 90 when he contemplated sin and the death that results from it. As he does this the first thing Moses does is he prays to the Lord God who created all things and is from ‘everlasting to everlasting’. (2) Only God can save sinners and liberate all of creation from its groaning because of sin. (Romans 8:18-25)

If the outcome of being born into sin had a predictable and guaranteed outcome which resulted in death. (15) How much more confident should God’s people be in the LORD who has brought us forth from our sins into such a great salvation!

Are you beginning to appreciate the reality of this great salvation that James is discussing in these verses?

Sin reigned unto death prior to our conversion but now we have received a free gift of God’s grace and have been justified and given eternal life. (Romans 5:13-16) Paul writes in Romans 5:17, “For if because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” He says in Romans 5:21, “...as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our LORD.”

As we come to verse 19-20 we see that one of the first evidence that such a transformation has taken place in the life of a person is by how they relate to the scriptures. James writes, “Know this (the things we have previously discussed), my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Every believer should be quick to hear the Word of Truth, slow to speak against the Word of Truth, and they ought to be slow to be angry when the Word of God rebukes, corrects, reproves, and trains us. At this point, we should be asking ourselves two questions,

• “What would it look like if a person was inclined to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry with the Word of God?” (vs 20a)

• “What would it look like if a person stopped blaming God for sin (13) or being angry with God (20) and was beginning to grow and mature in the righteousness of God?” (vs.20b)

James answers these questions in verse 21 when he writes, “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” The person who is quick to hear the Word of God, slow to speak contrary to the Word of God, and who is slow to become angry when the Word reproves, rebukes, corrects, and trains in righteousness is described by James in two ways.

• First, such a person will be characterized by the ‘putting away all filthiness and rampant wickedness’.

• Secondly, such a person has ‘receives with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save their souls.’

These two phrases are inseparable, and they go together. There must be a turning away from the old nature and an embrace of our new nature in Christ Jesus. These two phrases describe a Christian’s life which is characterized by repentance and faith (Hebrews 6:1).

• James describes repentance with the words, “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness”. This is in the aorist tense which speaks of something that began in the past and continues in at the present time. Sanctification is a lifelong process.

• He describes a life of faith when he says, ‘‘receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save our soul.’ Like the previous phrase, this is also in the aorist tense which speaks of something that began in the past and continues at this time. Growing in our knowledge of the Word and in discipleship is a lifelong priority for every believer.

Instead of breaking down in detail each of these phrases I simply want to remove any doubt or fear that obedience to these things is impossible for you. Obedience to these two commands in verse 21 has been made possible for every believer because of what Christ has done for us.

We learned as we studied the Book of Hebrews that Christ has given sin its decisive blow. Jesus has put away sins once and for all. We saw this in passages like:

• Hebrews 10:10 said, “And by that will (Christ’s will) we have been sanctified (set apart from sin unto holiness and righteousness) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

• Hebrews 10:12 says, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…”.

Let me use Psalm 90 to show the importance of what Jesus has done for us so that we can put away sin and receive God’s Word. Psalm 90 was written by Moses as he contemplated sin and how because of sin our lives had become so short. For example, Moses writes, “You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’” (3) Why does God return men to the dust? Moses says in Psalm 90:7-8, “For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”

What a terrifying thought that every one of our iniquities is kept before God. Even our secret sins are examined in the light of His holy and glorious presence. Because of this Moses says, “For all our days pass away under your wrath; You bring our years to an end like a sigh...Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” (9&11)

How is Moses ever to have hope as he writes these things? Moses, more than anyone else knows the terrible effects of faithlessness in God’s Word and sin. He watched as the entire generation of people died in the wilderness. As the next generation approached the Promised Land God tested them as He had their parents, and they also failed. Moses was so frustrated by this He disobeyed God in his anger and was told he could not go into the Promised Land.

And yet, Moses did not despair of these things in hopelessness, but he prayed to the God who is from everlasting to everlasting. In this moment Moses considered the promise that God had made in Genesis 3:15 when He spoke to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Moses remembers this promise to send a Savior and he prays, “Teach us...that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!”

God fulfilled His promise when He sent His Son into the World. Jesus never sinned but He willingly went to the cross where God took every one of those sins of His elect people that were sitting there before Him and He placed them on His sinless Son.

• Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (1 Cor. 5:21)

• Isaiah writes, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all...Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him...Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the Righteous One, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and He shall bear their iniquities...He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:6,10,11,12)

Those who have repented of their sins and placed their faith in Christ alone no longer have their sins before God. Every one of a Christian's sins, transgressions and iniquities were taken away and put on Christ. The Father took every visible sin and every hidden sin and placed them upon His Son. None were forgotten to be found sometime in the future. The past, present and future sins of all of God’s people were put upon Jesus and He bore the punishment for those sins in His body. The Father’s wrath and anger were poured out upon Him unto death. Then after Jesus had finished this great work He was raised from the dead and He ascended back into heaven where He now sits before the Father, in the place where our sins used to be, and He mediates between God and man.

Because of Christ Jesus sinners are saved, wretched idolaters are redeemed, and those who were captive to sin have been delivered! Every Christian who has looked upon Christ can cast aside every weight and every sin that had so easily entangled Him. Hebrews 12:1-2, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.”

As we have considered James 1:12-21 and Psalm 90 we can pull from these texts certain applications.

• We are to observe sin and the fact that it always leads to death.

• We are to consider the seriousness of sin and take responsibility for it.

• We should not look to anything or anyone else for salvation as all of creation is in bondage to sin.

• Instead we are to look to the LORD who created all things and is outside of His creation and this sinful condition. He alone can save. Psalm 90:16, “Let Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your glorious power to their children.”

• Accept that life is full of trouble but with hope in God’s promises, faith in His Word, and love for Him we endure to the end.

• We pray for God’s wisdom as we look to Christ and consider our salvation through Him.

• We respond by applying ourselves to godly, righteous and holy living by walking by faith and receiving God’s grace. verse 17, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” By the grace of God we can cast aside sin and embrace the Word of God which is able to save our souls.