James 1:21-27

Now, without naming it, the apostle James provides the meaning for the Feast of Unleavened Bread here. He does not go into the normal symbols of Unleavened Bread. But what he talks about is being delivered by God to live a clean life, to live a certain way of life that is going to please God. We could say, throwing the symbols of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in here, that we have been delivered by God to live an unleavened life before God in imitation of the life of Christ. And we learned this through eating the flesh of the Son of God, as He put it in John 6. You know, He talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

That is why I emphasized the "logos" there. Because Jesus Christ is the implanted Word. Did He not say that He would come and live in us? I mean, that is implantation if you ask me, but there is also the implantation of the revealed Word, the Bible, the instructions of God. And in both ways, by having Jesus Christ in us and by having the revealed Word of God guiding us, we have the tools with the Holy Spirit to live the life of Christ and to have the mind of Christ.

So we have been cleansed through the blood of Christ and now with that cleansing, we have to move forward toward the Kingdom. We have to start walking. We have to be a doer, as James put it. We cannot just sit on the revelation and think that it is going to change us. That is not how it works. We cannot just accept the Holy Spirit and then sit on the couch spiritually and do nothing. That is not how it works. James tells us here, we have got to do. We have got to act. We have got to live the unleavened life.

Like I said, we have to move forward toward the Promised Land, that is, the Kingdom of God, always growing in righteousness. Never lay down the oars, always surge forward. And we do this through gaining knowledge and understanding and wisdom through the Word of God. There is always more that we can understand. We are never going to exhaust the Word of God.

Now, I do want to mention here before we leave James that he says that our religion, our work, the Christian life is two-pronged. The first is in terms of, we think of them as good works, helping others in their need. He talks about the orphans and the widows. Those are just examples of helping others. It could be many other things. Those are just a good way of using shorthand for what we need to do, helping others. The second one is living righteously even in a world of sin. He says, "to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

So, there are two ways that we go about living or worshipping in this life. The first is being full of agape love, helping others in their need, and then the second is more inward, that we do our best to avoid the contamination of this world's sins. Because we have come out of this world, we are still too close to this world, we have to live in this world, work in this world, communicate with people in this world. We cannot help it. We cannot go to the top of a mountain or do like the monks or anything like that. We have to live in this world so our job is to keep us unspotted from the world, even while living in it. Being able to say no. Being a witness for God by doing what is right, even under the pressures of this world to make us do wrong.

James 1:25-27

What He is saying here is that we should have a heart that is tender. Go out and take care of the widow, the young, the elderly and have a heart that loves them. "This is what I want from you," God is saying. It is not complicated.

He is not asking you to climb a mountain you cannot climb. He says to be a decent person and show love to others. Then He gives you a big order, especially at this time: keep unspotted from the world. What do you allow in your house? What do you do while you are away? You know what that means: it means to come out of the world!