On Sunday, October 11, we studied James 1:22–27 together, practicing careful observation of the text and considering what it means to be doers of the Word.

I’m sorry for the poor audio quality of this recording. The transcript below marks speech that could not be recovered reliably as [inaudible]. Timestamps link to the corresponding part of the video.

Opening the Word and Praying

[The recording begins partway through the instructions.]

When we start observations, we’re going to look for some things. But what do we do before [inaudible, 00:09], before we start reading the text? What should we do?

We’re doing something together. This is an activity. It might feel like school. It might feel like homework, that we have a piece of paper and a pencil. It is not. What we’re doing is we are opening up God’s very Word. His Holy Spirit loves to use his Word to reveal who he is and who we are. We need him, and we need his help as we open his Word so that his Holy Spirit would have an effect in our lives through reading his Word.

So let’s pray. I’m going to pray, but you guys make sure that as I pray, you’re hearing my words, and you’re saying them to God in your heart as I pray, okay?

God, we are going to open your Word. We recognize that these words are special. These words are powerful. These are your very breathed-out words, and they are useful.

God, I pray that you would use them in our lives, that first you would help us to understand. There’s lots of words here. For some people, this many words might be hard to understand. God, so I do pray that you would help us understand. Help us to pay attention for the next fifty minutes or so.

God, I pray that you would make us not only understand what James was saying, but that we would believe it, and that we would obey the command that you have for us. And that it wouldn’t be to earn your righteousness or to earn your favor, but it would be because we trust you and we love you. God, help us today. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Reading and Making Observations

There’s nothing magical about this process, but I’m just going to show you what I do when I read the Bible. I’m going to open up a passage and say, “I want to teach this,” or maybe I’m just reading it for myself and I want to understand it.

The first thing we do is read it a lot of times and look for things like repeated words, or main ideas, or especially commands. Maybe contrasts, when two things are compared, two things are contrasted, and connecting words like “and,” and “for,” and “then,” and “therefore.”

There’s other things you could look for, but I’m going to read the passage. There are two different versions. One side is the English Standard Version, and the other side is the Legacy Standard. These are two very good translations of the Greek New Testament. They’re helping you understand what the author wrote in Greek.

So there’s going to be some differences in these words. Those differences are helpful to see, helpful to compare, and one is not better than the other. You can follow along in the ESV while I read.

I’m going to read it out loud, and as you read, if you see any of these things, mark them on your page. Underline, highlight, take notes. Have your own little system. Then after I do that, you’re going to do it on your own, silently, and then you’ll do it again as a group. So we’re going to have read this whole passage at least three times together.

Not mindlessly. Sometimes, if you ever listen to church, or maybe as your parents read, or as you read, and your mind is somewhere else, if you have your pen in your hand and you’re looking for these things, your brain isn’t going to be somewhere else. I want your brain engaged. So I’m going to read, and then you guys are looking, and then we’ll have you read individually and then read together.

James 1:22–27

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, he is like a man who looks intensely at his natural face in the mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is a worthless religion. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Read Again and Ask Questions

So now I want everybody, on your own, to read the passage again for understanding, looking for things, just things in the text. Also, if you have any questions, if you’re like, “I don’t know what that means,” or, “What did you mean by this?” or, “Is there a connection here?” just write down every question that you can think of.

Read this on your own, and then the groups will read it.

[Individual reading and observation.]

Observe the Passage Together

Now, in your groups, I want you to pick a reader, or maybe go one verse at a time.

But in your group, you’re not just reading. As you see any of these things, I want you to stop each other and say, “Hey, that’s a repeated word,” or, “That’s a main idea,” or, “That’s a command,” or, “Look at that conjunction word.” So we’re working together as a group to help find this. You guys can read the passage out loud and work together as a group, a verse at a time.

[Small-group discussion; overlapping speech is inaudible.]

Group discussion: “Doers and hearers?” “They’re like parallel.” “Parallel.” “Yeah, there’s an effect there, right?” [inaudible, 09:32–09:43]

Group discussion: “What else?” “Are there any commands?” “This is repeated, right?” “Anything else for that one?” “It’s kind of explaining it.” [inaudible, 10:00–12:14]

Keep Looking and Asking Questions

This is an example of if you start asking questions of the text, and you start looking, there’s nothing magical about these questions. There’s a lot more that, if you learn to study the Bible, you know to ask and you learn to see.

But you can spend a long time looking at a passage, just like that student. He thought after about five minutes he’d seen everything there was about that fish, but he went home and he thought about it. He thought about it for days. The more he thought, the more he saw.

And I promise you, you could spend days looking at this text, and you’ll start to, especially in light of how this passage sits in the whole book, how the different paragraphs and sentences relate, and you’ll keep seeing new things. Even better, once you start asking, “What does this tell me about God?” or, “How should this affect me?” you’ll never exhaust the riches of one paragraph in the Bible.

And I promise you, you understand this now. You’ve probably read this before. I preached on it a few weeks ago, and you probably know the passage now better than you ever have in your life. So it’s actually worth it to just ask questions of the text.

Finding the Command

How many imperatives? “Imperative” is just a word that means “command.” How many imperatives are there in the passage? See if you know the answer already off the top of your head without looking. Does anybody know it without looking?

I see some answers. Now look down and see if you’re right. Skim the text. How many commands do you think there are? I see some ones. I see two. I see six. I see three. It looks like one, two, three. All right, let’s see if we can find them.

Is there one in the first sentence? What is it?

Student: Be doers.

So when you see a command, make that really big. In my Bible, I make it green. Green is my command color. You can make it whatever you want. You can triple underline. I would recommend, when you read the Bible, make something for every time you see a command. Do that to it.

“Be doers.” Are there any others? What do we think some others are? Jeremiah, what do you think?

Student: To visit.

“To visit” is not a command. It’s an infinitive, but it’s describing what pure and godly religion is, right? Pure and godly religion is to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and what else?

Yeah, this is good. So we can just say, “All right, cool. I thought that was a command.” It’s still something you should do. So it feels like a command, because you obviously want to have religion that would please the Lord, [inaudible, 16:03] God, right? Religion that’s good before God.

This is okay. There’s no wrong answer. I mean, there’s wrong answers, but asking a question and even getting it wrong helps us understand, because [inaudible, 16:17]. Visiting orphans and widows is something that a doer of the Word should do. So the way that this relates, we say, “Be doers.” One of the ways to be a doer is orphans and widows. We’ll discover more of what that is.

And then somebody else said, “To keep oneself unstained by the world.” So we’re going to have one and two ways. What do those things describe? One and two?

Student: Pure and undefiled religion.

Pure and undefiled religion. Don’t feel scared to, on your paper, draw all the arrows to this. There is only one command here, which tells you that’s the main point. Likely, when there’s one command, it’s the main point. Everything else is supporting that.

And if anybody has their Bible, the other command in the passage is the verse right before it. Look and see what that other command is. “Receive the word,” and then, “Be doers.” Or what does the Legacy say? A different word?

Student: Become doers.

So that could be a question. “Become doers.” We’re just making observations. We’re just looking at the text here. But the main point is: be a doer of the Word. Receive the Word from God, the implanted Word which is able to save your souls, and as a result, be a doer.

Repeated Words and Contrasts

All right, let’s look for the other repeated words. What are some of the repeated words? I’ll just have you guys call them out, and we’ll find them. What’s a repeated word this group had that’s over and over in the text?

Students: Doers.

Doers. All right, where is it? We have one. Where else is there a doer?

Student: Not a doer.

“Not a doer.” Yeah, so somebody’s a [inaudible, 18:12] and not a doer. So there’s a contrast here, right? What should we use for contrast? Let’s do an arrow with a line. An arrow with a line, and it is a contrast. You want to do an equal sign with a line in it? There we go. They’re not equal.

All right, is there any other “doers” here?

Student: Yes.

Is that your contrasting sign? Actually, yes. What’s it contrasting with?

Student: Hearer who forgets.

“Hearer who forgets.” So we have “hearer who forgets” and “a doer who acts.” That’s repeated. Those two things are contrasted. Do we have any other doers here?

Student: Doing.

“Doing.” Good job. So “doing,” this is the main point. When you start looking, you see the author saying the same thing over and over and over again. When you hear a sermon, [inaudible, 19:35] says the same thing over and over again. I need to pay attention to that.

So out of all of this, you want to be a doer and not a what?

Student: Hearer.

That’s another repeated word. How many times is “hearer” in here?

Students: Three.

Three. You get three?

Hearing and Doing

So just a quick question: is hearing bad? Why? Every single time he uses it, hearing seems to be sort of associated with the negative, right? Is hearing negative?

Student: No. It’s singling it out as only hearing, but not acting.

That’s good. So we’re starting to move from observation over to interpretation. The danger here is hearing without doing.

Question: can you be a doer without hearing in this passage?

Students: No. Yes.

I want you to think about it. Discuss that together. I want you to look at the passage. Don’t answer it with your mind. Look down. Can you be a doer without hearing, from this passage?

[Small-group discussion; overlapping speech is inaudible.]

Student: “I know. I’m a little bit torn because at the beginning he said, ‘You have to do it.’”

[Small-group discussion; overlapping speech is inaudible.]

Can You Be a Doer Without Hearing?

Mary, what do you think? Can you be a doer without hearing from this passage?

Student: “No.”

Why?

Student: “[inaudible, 23:12]. It says, ‘Not hearers only.’”

Good. “Not hearers only.” Anybody else have any other clues besides that? Because it’s saying the problem is hearing only, not hearing. So that would give us a hint that hearing isn’t bad. And actually, remember the verse just before: “Receive the word.” How do you receive the word? You hear it, or you read it. You see it. Was there another?

Yeah, so there could be a hearer and a doer who wouldn’t fit in that group, right? Is that what you’re saying? There’s somebody who hears and doesn’t do, and that person is like this thing. Then there could be a person who hears and does do, and that person is different. On that point, where’s the description of the person who hears and doesn’t do?

Student: “He is like [inaudible, 24:26]. He looks at himself and goes away at once and forgets [inaudible, 24:32].”

All right, so that’s that person. There’s a description of the one who is a hearer and not a doer. He’s like a person who looks at his face in the mirror and goes away and forgets.

The Contrast Between the Hearer and the Doer

But there’s a different person, right? There’s a contrast here. Did anybody circle the word “but”? Good job. Whenever you see things like “but,” “however,” “therefore,” those need to be circled. This is a big one. There’s a contrast here.

There’s another person described. There’s one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts. That’s the contrast person, that whole phrase.

There’s one who looks into the perfect law of liberty, perseveres. He’s not the hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts. This is the contrast person. Did that person hear the word? And how do you know?

Student: “He didn’t forget what he heard.”

He didn’t forget what he heard. And there’s another word here, another repeated word. Do you see the word “looks”? How many times is “looks” in here? There’s a man who looks intently. One, two, three.

Oh shoot, you see how he’s lining all that up? You’re starting to pay attention to details [inaudible, 26:25]. He’s repeating words like “doer,” “hearer,” “looking” over and over and over again. “Look” is now like hearing, right? Looking is the same thing as hearing. When we hear God’s word, it’s like looking at something.

And there’s two choices. When you look in a mirror and you see what’s there, you have two options. You can act on what you see or go away and pretend like it wasn’t there.

What Good Does the Mirror Do?

Does anyone remember the illustration I used when I preached on this almost a month ago? If somebody looks in the mirror and they see something, what did they see in the illustration?

Student: “Wait, I might be wrong. Are you going to mock me if I’m wrong?”

Yes.

Student: “Is it like [inaudible, 27:22]? If a person looks in a mirror and sees a booger in their nose, but doesn’t [inaudible, 27:34], and just goes off [inaudible, 27:38].”

Yeah. That’s the illustration, right? Because what are you looking in a mirror to see?

Student: “If there’s a booger in your nose.”

If you see there’s a booger hanging out your nose, and you didn’t do anything about it, did the mirror do you any good?

Students: “No.”

No. That’s like what you do and I do if we open up God’s word in the morning and we read it. Maybe we don’t look intently. Have you ever just walked by a mirror to check it and then keep walking? It could be easy to miss a booger there.

This is saying this person looked intently. This guy stared at the face. He’s looking to see if there’s any shaving cream on. [inaudible, 28:21]. You’re like, “Is there any zits on my face? Is there a booger hanging out my nose?” And you look, and [inaudible, 28:29], and you go away? That’s what he’s describing this as.

We’ve seen these contrasts. What’s the one who looks contrasted with? The one who looks and acts, what’s that person contrasted with? [inaudible, 28:51].

Worthless Religion and Pure Religion

Are there any repetitions, main ideas, contrasts still here?

Student: “Religion is repeated.”

Where is it? There’s one, “religious.” Where else? “Religion.”

Student: “There’s a worthless religion, and then there’s a religion that’s pure.”

“World” is down there: “Keep themselves unstained from the world.” Are there any other repeated words?

That might help, because when you see a repeated word, you’re like, “All right, that’s one of the things.” It’s not the only sign you need to pay attention to. That’s a good one. Anything else?

Okay, yeah. You’re making an observation that this is “before God the Father,” versus, you could say, “Why did he not say…?” This is a good question. “What about God the Son or God the Holy Spirit? Is that a big deal?” We can write a question there and just make the observation that God is defined as the Father. That could be a purpose.

“Unstained” seems very similar to “undefiled,” very similar to “pure,” right? What is the definition of “pure”?

Student: “Unstained, undiluted, unblemished.”

Yes. This is a very repeated concept, which might tell us that there’s a kind of religion that is stained, is not pure. What kind is that?

Student: “One that looks like the world.”

One that’s not different.

Bridling the Tongue

Student: “He says, ‘Does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart.’ It’s just contrasting.”

That is actually a really good observation. There’s a verb and a body part. You’re doing something to a body part. [inaudible, 31:54]. What is a bridle?

Student: “Something that [inaudible, 32:01].”

What’s a bridle?

[inaudible]

That’s totally perfect. That’s exactly right. He said that a bridle is something you put in the horse’s mouth, and you can control the horse with it. You can steer it one way or the other with this.

“The tongue is a fire.”

Actually, where is that?

Student: “I think that’s in James 2.”

No, it’s not James 2, but you’re really close. James chapter 3. If somebody looks, that’s the other use of this term “bridle” in the New Testament.

That’s the helpful thing: where else does the Bible talk about bridling? What it says there is that if somebody can bridle their tongue, they can control their whole body. The tongue is a very hard thing to control. [inaudible, 33:11] fire. And it’s a very small thing that, when you steer it, controls a big ship or a big horse.

The point was “bridle the tongue” contrasted with “deceive the heart.” Do you guys see that? What else?

Student: “It’s a similar thing with deception. There are different forms of deception in the beginning of what you’re talking about and right there.”

“Deceive,” and you have “deceiving.” Who’s deceiving? Are we deceiving our parents?

Student: “No, you’re deceiving yourselves.”

Maybe. You’re deceiving yourselves in the passage. Does anybody have any other thoughts? Where else does the Bible talk about deceiving themselves? Does anybody know?

Student: “Was it John? Or 1 John?”

1 John. Yeah. If anyone says they have fellowship with God while they walk in darkness, they deceive themselves, and the truth [inaudible, 34:23]. Right?

Whom Are You Trying to Please?

You can deceive yourself by thinking you’re religious. What do religious people do with the Bible?

Students: “They read it. They memorize it. They study it.”

You can think you’re religious and deceive yourself. Who do you not deceive? That’s who sees it. What’s the religion before? Who does the religion matter [to]?

Student: “God.”

Before God. This is who we need to actually have in mind: not our parents, not our pastor, not our discussion leader, not our friends, not ourselves. We can deceive all of them. We don’t deceive God. That’s who really matters.

Student: “You could also be like, ‘I’m better than everyone.’ [inaudible, 35:15] ‘I want the attention’ [inaudible, 35:20]. You [inaudible] do something wrong, and you do it [inaudible] to get attention.”

Yeah. You can do something to impress somebody else or because you’re worried about somebody else’s opinion. That’s called fear of man, peer pressure. The one who you actually want to please [inaudible, 35:41] says it over and over again. The mark of a Christian is you ask, “What would please the Lord?” And then you do that.

This is where you read God’s word to find what would please God. Who is he, and what would please him? Say that you looked intently at that. You understand what would please the Lord. Then you go away, and you do what would please your friends. What kind of person is that?

A hearer only, not a doer, who deceives themselves. You just looked intently at God’s word. You found out what would please God. Then you went and did something else. Don’t do that. Don’t be that thing. That’s not why you open up God’s word.

Can you know what would please God without reading his words?

Students: “No.”

No. You absolutely cannot. What I want you to ask all of the time, a phrase that needs to be on your mind when you’re trying to say, “What should I do with my life? What should I do in a situation?” and you’re trying to make a decision, the question that needs to be on your mind is: “What does the Bible say?”

Really simple. That would solve so many problems in this world, in your life. So often you might think, “What do I want?” or “What do I think?” or “What do my friends want?” or “What do my friends think?” But the most important question isn’t that. It’s, “What does God want? What would please the Lord?” And the only way to know that is from his word, which is why you have to look at God’s word to know the answer.

“Word.” All right, good. There’s “word” a lot of times. “Word” is repeated. Yeah, “of the word,” “of the word,” that prepositional phrase “of the word.” Is there any other words here? There’s something that has “word,” “law.” God’s word is often called the law, the perfect law. Here it’s called “the law of liberty.” That might be a question: “Why is it called that?” That’s what I would do if I was reading this. I’m just saying, “Why is it called ‘law of liberty’?”

Pure and Undefiled Religion

Student: “I’m just wondering why it says specifically, ‘pure and [inaudible, 38:30].’”

There’s a question. Why would that be? That’s a really good question. What do you think? Does anybody have any thoughts? The question is, why would [inaudible, 38:47] pure and undefiled religion [inaudible], visit orphans and widows? Then what’s the other one? Keep yourself unstained from the world. Are there any thoughts?

What’s [inaudible, 39:00] from James in particular that might help us answer?

Participant: “I wasn’t particularly thinking from James, but just acts of love to those who are, like it says, in distress, in their afflictions [inaudible, 39:13]. Just people in need, to meet their needs.”

Yeah, this is love. If you visit somebody, orphans and widows, they are people in great need. Do they have a lot of money?

Participant: “I’d say maybe it’s broad, maybe not specifically.”

So you think it’s a metaphor? You think it’s broad? Anytime we look at what God’s word says and say it might not mean exactly that, we better have a really compelling reason to think that. But that is a good thought.

So if I’m not visiting orphans and widows, am I not pleasing God? You could build a religion around that. But this is the definition. This is the mark.

[inaudible]

That’s a really good point. You don’t get anything in return. Orphans and widows can’t pay you back much.

Participant: “There’s a spot, I don’t know if it’s in James or not, but it says, ‘Weep with those who weep.’ Maybe that’s part of that.”

That’s not in James. But that is a really good thought, because what is love? Weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice. You get your life close in contact with them, and you actually feel their pain. You suffer with them, especially when they’re other Christians. You’ll actually see later on in James chapter 5, at the end, we should come alongside those who are weak and in distress and suffer with them.

Participant: “I think there was a problem in the book of James, because in chapter 2 he addresses this partiality, with honoring people who are rich and ignoring people who are poor. Then in James 5, he warns the rich not to hope in their riches. So I think just contextually, in that culture at that time, orphans and widows were the neediest, the poorest, who couldn’t give you anything. That church was trying to elevate the people that could give them things in return, which is still going on today. It’s just a different context.”

We know that that’s the answer here because it’s the next verse. “My brothers, don’t hold your faith with partiality,” or something. I don’t have it exactly memorized, but that’s chapter 2, verse 1. Don’t be partial in your faith. If somebody comes to your church and they’re rich, do you show them a position of honor? [inaudible, 41:52] poor, and you don’t show them honor? What are you? You become judges with sinful motives. What are you actually doing in that way?

Loving Others and Living in Holiness

You’re trying to get for yourself and not actually love. That’s a stained religion. It’s like the world. That’s somebody who looks in God’s Word, and you see, who did Jesus come for? He was born to die. [inaudible, 42:15] He gave His life as a ransom. You could look at God’s Word and say, you know who God was? God is somebody who loved those while they were still His enemies, and He died for them.

Love your enemies. Love those who can’t give you anything in return. That’s the kind of religion that God blesses. That’s somebody who you know, “I’m a doer of the Word, not a hearer.” Because if you’re going to somebody, you’re not doing this so that anybody else sees. You’re doing it in the quiet, in the middle of the night, when nobody else knows. You’re not saying, “Hey, look at me. Look how religious I am.” You’re going to them because you really love them, and God sees it.

So there’s love, and then there’s keeping oneself unstained. There’s a holiness. Anyone remember what holiness means?

“Set apart.” Separate from the world. When God saves you, He sets you apart. So there’s a love for others and a set-apartness. And that matches with what God says the summary of His law is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” And what’s the second command? The first is love the Lord your God. What’s the second most important?

“Love your neighbor.” Do you see this? Love your neighbor. Not the ones like [inaudible, 43:50]. This is the good Samaritan, who loved the guy who was not like him, the one who couldn’t give him anything in return. And you love the Lord. If you love the Lord, you’re not going to love the world. You’re going to love God, not the world, and you’ll be different from the world.

Jesus says the entire law is summed up in loving God, loving your neighbor. You see that right here.

What I want you to see is, just sitting here, observing things that have been there all along, you probably didn’t see all those things on the first pass. I certainly didn’t. I’m starting to see things together, studying, talking about it out loud. Sit there with a friend and do this with a passage. Sit there with your cat and do this with a passage. Just talk. Talk out loud. Use a pencil. Mark up your text.

[inaudible, 44:57–45:04]

We don’t love only the rich. We love all of our neighbors.

What We Learn About God

That was the interpretation, observation meandering over into interpretation. Now I want to have one last question of interpretation: What do you learn about God in this passage? This is something you want to ask every time. It’s not always obvious. What do we learn about God from this passage? Circle up in a group and talk about that for a couple minutes. I want to hear what you guys [inaudible, 45:53].

[Small-group discussion; overlapping speech is inaudible, 46:00.]

God Cares for His People and Calls Them to Obedience

This question is one of the most important of the Bible study: What do we learn about who God is when we see a text? Obviously, there’s lots of things we need to know, but is there anything we learn about who God is and what pleases Him from this text?

[inaudible, 50:42–50:48]

Right. God is actually kind. He’s protecting us from deceiving ourselves and thinking we’re Christians when we’re not. He’s kind and gracious and gives us a measure of how we can know. And He doesn’t want us to be deceiving ourselves. Is that sort of what you’re saying? What else?

He uses His people to care for orphans and widows. That actually reveals that God values care for those in need. “God must not care about me because I’m in a really hard spot.” And God actually cares more than you can even know about the most needy. Orphans and widows, He actually raises up the church, Christians, gives them His Word, gives us a new heart to love those in need, and puts us in the world to provide care for those in distress. We ought to look for those in distress and love them.

Especially, it says elsewhere in the Bible in Galatians [inaudible, 52:02]:

Let us not grow weary of doing good. [inaudible, 52:08–52:10] if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do good to everyone, especially the household of faith.

So especially orphans and widows within the church. God really wants us to care for those. We see elsewhere in Scripture, God cares for these [inaudible, 52:25].

Participant: Going off that, we were saying that we need to actually do works, not just listen. [inaudible, 52:44] They’re very important, and we need to be set apart by those. As Christians, we can obey God, all those commandments, and be blessings to others.

Can I summarize that? What I think you’re saying is, you have to be a Christian. You’re not saved because you have works. But everyone who has this true religion, everybody who’s really a Christian, that’s shorthand for this true religion. If you have a religion that’s valid before God, you will have works.

He’ll get to that in the next chapter. He’ll say, if you say you have faith, but you don’t have works, that faith can’t save you. Let’s just say the same thing. If you say you trust God, if you study His Word, you say, “I’m religious,” and you hear it but you don’t do it, you’re deceiving yourself. You have to have works tied to your faith.

Participant: He’s pure, obviously, because if He needs pure and undefiled religion, then He has to be super pure.

I don’t know that this passage teaches us that God’s pure, but we know that clearly from elsewhere in Scripture. But God wants, God demands among those who want to follow Him, He demands a religion that’s pure and undefiled like Him. Set apart, unstained, holy, not like the world. But that’s good. That’s a connection. God is holy, and He wants followers who are [inaudible, 54:23].

I have some others that I have. God evaluates our devotion by His standard. So God evaluates, and it’s not just by His standard that He judges. God desires His people’s moral purity. What about this? God’s Word is authoritative [inaudible, 54:45]. God’s Word is perfect. You might hear the word “law” and think it’s constrained. God’s Word is perfect and actually gives us freedom. We learn [inaudible, 55:03] freedom from sin.

Jesus, that’s actually good. Jesus is the best doer. Jesus looked at God’s Word, knew God’s Word, and He did it. And who did Jesus care for? Orphans and widows and us. And He was definitely [inaudible, 55:22] the world.

Participant: I’m just looking at how, when he’s talking about people who don’t have a good perspective on what their own self is, they’re deceiving themselves. So what that’s implying is that God’s evaluation of man is accurate, and when people have an inaccurate view, it’s because they’re deceiving themselves and not because the Word is faulty.

That’s really good. If God says you’re wrong, and your assessment disagrees with God, you’re wrong. God’s standard is right.

Participant: This is kind of circular and obvious, but He’s the Father. God is our Father.

Those are the best observations. Yeah, you can learn something about the nature of [inaudible, 56:14]. God the Father is the Father. God is triune. [inaudible, 56:23]

Participant: I think the implication also is that His Word is clear. He expects that when you hear His Word, it’s clear enough to obey. It’s not like some ambiguous, “How do I obey this?” So there’s an implied expectation that it’s clear.

It’s something you can do. You can look at it, and there’s obedience, and there’s disobedience. God’s Word is clear.

Responding to What We Have Learned

We read God’s Word, we do observation, interpretation, and what’s the last one? Application. So often you want to jump straight to application and not spend the time. You see, application is sort of natural now. You guys now understand this passage a lot better than we did when we came in.

I’m going to email these questions to your parents and you guys, if you’re on the email list. I want you to take your papers that are marked up. You can flip it over and mark up the other side. What kind of person does God say is blessed, from Psalm 1? The one who delights in the law of the Lord and does what? [inaudible, 57:36]

I hope now, because you have this, and you’re starting to think about it. In the middle of the night, you’re like, “Wait, was there another repeated word? Or wait, is there a connection here? What else was this saying?” You’ll grab your paper, you’ll open your Bible, and you’ll look at it. And tomorrow you’ll be thinking about this.

I want you to think about how might students your age mistake hearing God’s Word for obeying it, deceive themselves?

James describes religion that pleases God:

1. Faith in the gospel that produces obedience. I want you to figure out why I said that.
2. Practical love for others.
3. Personal holiness.

This is what religion that pleases God looks like. What I want you to do is write down one or two specific ways that your life needs to change in light of this passage. It might mean that you need faith. It might mean that you actually need to be looking for practical ways to love others, or your personal holiness, because your faith [inaudible, 58:40]. Don’t say those things generally, but look for specific ways that you need to be affected by this passage.

So I’ll email these to your parents. I’d love for you to spend time talking to them about what you learned. And more than anything, I want you to walk away and say, “I can do this.” You can open up the Bible, get a pencil, get a pen, your Bible open, mark it up, ask questions, make observations. And then when you have questions you can’t answer, go to your parents or to me or your discussion group leader for help.

Closing Prayer

God, thank You so much for the clarity of Your Word. Thank You for giving us minds, the ability to read, that we have Your Word in our language and understand it. God, I pray that this wouldn’t just be an exercise, that we wouldn’t be hearers of this passage that we looked intently at for an hour and go away and deceive ourselves or be unaffected. God, I pray that You would bear fruit in our lives from the study we’ve just done. We love You. Help us. In Jesus’ name, amen.