James 1:21

You are not saved by doing good works, but He who saves you through His Word calls you to do good works.  You are not saved by refraining from sin in your life, but He who saves you through His Word calls you to refrain from sin in your life.  “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you” (James 1:21 NIV).  Christ gave his life to save us from sin, and he rose from the dead to give us new lives.  We Christians are stewards of the salvation he won for us.

“Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you” (James 1:21 NIV).  You and I live in a world full of moral filth.  In fact, our world is so full of moral filth and our hearts are so full of sin that we get desensitized.  What God calls moral filth we come up with some other name for.  Instead of talking about lies we talk about fibs.  Instead of talking about sexual immorality we talk about indiscretions.  Instead of talking about gluttony we talk about over-eating.  Instead of talking about gossip and false witness we talk about “sharing the local news.”  We redefine morality so that “moral filth” means the terrible deeds other people do, and we imagine that we have somehow let ourselves off the hook.  To be evil it’s got to be big and bad.  Anything less—meaning anything I do—is not moral filth.  Anything less—meaning anything I do—is not sin.  It’s just mess-ups.  I have messed up, but God understands mess-ups, even though he is terribly angry about moral filth, about evil, and about sin.  Since God understands mess-ups, God’s okay with me.

Hogwash.  You and I may try to redefine morality, but God will have none of it.  Sin is sin is sin.  Your fib is still a lie.  Your indiscretion with someone you’re not married to is still sexual immorality.  Your overeating is still gluttony.  Your sharing the local news is still gossip.  Your mess-ups are still sin, and so they are evil and they are morally filthy.  You see, it’s not the size of the sin that condemns you in God’s eyes.  Sins that are small humanly speaking are as bad in God’s eyes as sins that are big humanly speaking.  Why?  Because those sins are only horrible symptoms of the real problem.  The real problem is the sinful heart from which the sins flow.  It’s the sinful nature that begets these deeds.  It’s what we call “original sin”—the fact that you cannot on your own power please God or love him, and so apart from Christ you stand under God’s judgment and condemnation.  Big sin, small sin, it’s all the same spiritually:  it is the thoughts and feelings you have, the words you say, the behaviors you do that go against God’s word and therefore go against God.  They show what you really are:  a sinner.

You see, trying to redefine morality by renaming your little sins is nothing more than a ploy to get God to accept you based on how good you are.  It’s like we think, “Well, if I can just convince God that I haven’t sinned, then he’ll be okay with me.”  Problem is, we may be able to deceive ourselves, but God will not be deceived.  He sees the moral filth in our lives—fibs, indiscretions, overeating, talking about people—and he sees the evil hearts we have.  That, after all, is why he sent his Son, our Savior Jesus.  “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” Jesus said.  “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17 NIV).  Jesus gave his life as if he himself were full of moral filth and filled with evil.  He gave his life in our place, so that we who are full of moral filth and filled with evil are now declared innocent.  He rose from the dead, and he is sitting at the right hand of God, and he now gives us his word in preaching and the liturgy, in hymns and Bible study, in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and this word which he has planted in our hearts saves those who believe, because this word creates faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  This word declares you innocent, although you are guilty.  It declares you holy, although you are full of moral filth.  It declares you good, although you are filled with evil.  This word bespeaks you righteous, and when you believe this word, God sees you as innocent and holy and good.  You are not saved when you act like you’re not a sinner; in fact, that is pride that condemns you.  You are saved through believing that you are a sinner whom Christ died to save.  You are saved through God’s good and gracious word.  He says it, and his word moves you to believe it, and so you are saved.

Listen to that again, because it is fabulous news.  You do not have to meet some quota of good works in order for God to accept you.  You do not have to reach some specified level of holiness in order to be saved.  You do not have to achieve a certain degree of righteousness in order to have God’s favor.  Having God’s favor does not depend on what you do.  You stand in God’s favor when you believe that his Son, our Savior Jesus, died and rose from the dead in order rescue you from your sins.  What is more, you don’t have to worry about whether you really believe or whether you believe enough, because God’s word creates the faith that saves you.  As James wrote, God “chose to give us birth through the word of truth” (James 1:18 NIV).  The word of truth gives you the new birth of faith in our Savior Jesus, and faith is enough to save you.  God has done it all, quite apart from your quota of good works and level of holiness and degree of righteousness.  God has saved you as a gift, by grace for the sake of his Son Jesus.  Salvation is yours.  God is showing you his favor—smiling at you.  He accepts you because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

What, then, shall we say about our sin?  Just what the word of truth says:  Jesus Christ died and rose to rescue us from our sin.  If you choose to embrace your sins, then you are rejecting your Savior.  If you choose to continue in “moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent” (James 1:21 NIV), then you are merely listening to the word and not also doing it, and you are deceiving yourself about your faith.  In other words, we who have been saved are to be stewards of the salvation which Jesus Christ won for us.  It is a wondrous gift, a good and perfect gift, as James writes, and stewardship is nothing more than joyfully claiming the gifts God has given us for the lives he has given us.

What am I saying?  Repentance is a necessary part of salvation.  Without repentance, you are not saved.  And what is repentance?  It is claiming God’s gracious gift of forgiveness in Christ in order to be rescued from your sins.  It is the beggar’s hand that lets go of the moldy, dry piece of bread dug out of a garbage can in order to eat a grand banquet laid out by the King and his Son.  It is the heart that says goodbye to the evil master who wants to enslave it in order to receive the good and gracious God who wants to set it free.  Why would you keep serving the old, evil master if it means running from our good and gracious God?  Why would you hold on to that old, moldy piece of bread when a rich banquet is laid out for you?  Why would you keep on living in the sins that condemn you when God has rescued you from them through his Son Jesus?  “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says,” writes James (James 1:22 NIV).  Repentance is not simply a matter of the heart.  It bears fruit—Jesus said, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8 NIV).  Just as the sinful heart produces sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, all manner of moral filth and evil, so also the repentant heart produces the fruits of faith.  It struggles against sin instead of giving in to sin.  It takes its sin to Jesus each day with a prayer for to be forgiven and to do what is right.  In other words, brothers and sisters, it does the word.  Repentance is not what saves you, because refraining from sin is not what saves you.  But God gives you faith through his word, which saves you, and faith begets repentance, and repentance resists sin.  Faith without repentance is no faith at all.  Faith without the fruits of repentance is a kind of shifting shadow, a listening without the doing, and so it deceives itself into believing God won’t care that it is choosing its own sin over our Savior.  But God does care.  God has chosen you, and through his Son Jesus Christ he has saved you, and through the word of truth he has given you new birth and saved you.  He calls you to be a steward of the salvation he has given you.

This is a difficult teaching.  We want our “what if’s” and our “yes, but’s,” but God won’t hear them.  And in the end, that is good.  If you and I had our way, we would go back to “Well, God, it’s good enough if I do this, isn’t it?”  We’d go back to, “That’s not really sin, it’s just a little mess up.”  We’d go back to, “What I do isn’t evil.”  And by clinging on to our sin like a beggar who won’t let go of his moldy, old piece of bread, we would miss out on our Savior.  Thank God that he won’t hear our excuses and our “what if’s” and our “yes, but’s.”  Instead, he sent his Son Jesus to die and to rise from the dead in order to rescue you from your sin.  Our risen Savior sends his word in the power of the Holy Spirit to work faith in your heart so that you are born again into the glorious salvation which Christ prepared for you through his death and resurrection.  You have been cleansed, and you have been declared righteous, and you have been made holy.  The banquet table has been set for you, and your Savior has set you free.  God has given you new life in Christ, and he has given you salvation to claim with joy and thanksgiving.  You are a steward of this wondrous salvation.  Salvation is yours, brothers and sisters, because our God has given it to you in Christ.

David Loy is the Pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Bolivar, Missouri.