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The Sin of Knowing and Not Doing (James 4:17) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. So I want you to think about
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  your day so far. Just, you know, run a quick
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  mental scan of the past 24 hours.
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  Oh, this is always a dangerous exercise, right?
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  But think about it, you haven't stolen anything from your
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  workplace. Today, hopefully not.
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  Yeah, hopefully not. You haven't lied to your spouse
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  or your kids. You haven't committed any
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  scandalous acts of violence against your neighbor.
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  Kept your hands to yourself. Exactly.
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  You haven't defrauded anyone. Yeah.
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  And you look at that track record and, well, you feel
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  pretty good about yourself, right?
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  Oh for sure. I mean, we all do this.
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  We constantly evaluate our moral standing and we tend to operate
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  with a very specific and quite convenient type of scorecard.
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  A very forgiving scorecard. Yeah, we build an entire
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  architecture of self justification on a foundation of
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  absence. Like we evaluate our goodness
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  almost entirely by the bad things we have not done.
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  Right. We congratulate ourselves for
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  the empty spaces on the page. You know, the places where a
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  transgression could have been but but we avoided it.
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  Yes, we define holiness as just a successful avoidance of
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  trouble. Well, today on this deep dive,
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  we are taking a massive theological hammer to that
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  specific scorecard. And it is a heavy hammer.
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  It really is. We are conducting an extensive
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  verse by verse examination of a single, honestly devastating
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  sentence found in the New Testament.
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  It's James chapter 4, verse 17. Yeah, and we are pulling
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  material today from 2 incredibly thorough theological texts.
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  One is called the sin of knowing and not doing, and the other is
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  the tragedy of inaction. And the jarring reality we're
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  going to confront together, The real mission of this deep dive
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  is this question What about the good things you knew to do?
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  The specific righteous actions that were staring you right in
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  the face, but you consciously chose to leave undone.
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  Yeah, that is the precise question that just shatters all
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  of our comfortable illusions. It really does.
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  So what's the game plan for how we're going to break this down?
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  Well, the premise of our conversation today is to walk
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  through a very deliberate, systematic progression to
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  understand why this specific verse in James is so devastating
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  to human pride. OK, I like it.
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  Where do we start? We will begin by looking at the
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  specific audience James was addressing in the 1st century.
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  We need to see who these scattered early Christians were,
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  you know, what they were doing with their lives and why they
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  were guilty of this specific type of inaction.
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  Makes sense. Context is king.
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  Always, and from there we will analyze the precise Greek
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  terminology James chose to use, because the vocabulary of this
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  verse leaves absolutely no room for evasion.
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  I'm looking forward to that. Part Yeah, it's fascinating.
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  Then we will look at how the Westminster Shorter Catechism
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  defines the very nature of sin, placing omission right at the
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  forefront of the discussion. Which is going to surprise a lot
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  of people. I think so.
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  And finally, we will see how this single verse dismantles all
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  of our self righteousness. It leaves us with no other
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  refuge but to look directly to the perfect, active obedience of
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  Jesus Christ. So the text forces a total re
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  evaluation of how we understand our standing before a holy God.
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  That's the goal. OK, before we even get into the
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  1st century context of who James was writing to, I think we need
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  to clearly define the core theological problem that the
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  sources present. Right, getting our definition
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  straight. Yeah, and the core problem is
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  humanity's false definition of holiness.
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  The text point out a massive flaw in human nature.
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  Which is that we measure righteousness by the evils we
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  managed to avoid. Exactly.
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  I mean, we look at the 10 commandments for instance, and
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  we focus so heavily on the Thou shalt Nots.
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  Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
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  Thou shalt not steal, no. And because we haven't done
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  those things today, we think we are in the clear.
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  We think we're doing great, right?
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  But James 4.17 comes in and declares the biblical holiness
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  is not just sitting still and keeping your hands to yourself.
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  No, it's the active, relentless pursuit of righteousness.
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  It is doing the good you know you ought to do.
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  It is, and to really grasp the absolute weight of this, I know
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  the sources look at how reformed theology defines sin.
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  They do, yeah. They bring in the Westminster
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  Shorter Catechism, specifically Question 14.
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  Oh, I love the catechism. It's so good for those familiar
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  with it, you know the brilliance of its brevity.
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  The question simply asks what is sin?
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  And the answer. The answer provided by the
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  Westminster to lines is sin is any want of conformity unto or
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  transgression of the law of God. OK, let's pause and look at this
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  specific sequence of those words.
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  Yeah, notice what comes first. The framers of the Catechism
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  deliberately placed want of conformity, which is the
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  theological term for omission before transgression.
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  And transgression is the term for Commission actively breaking
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  a rule. Right, failing to conform to the
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  positive commands of God is listed first that.
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  Feels intentional. Highly intentional, the texts
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  argue that this want of conformity is equal in guilt,
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  equal in its rebellion, and equal in its offense against a
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  holy God as actively breaking his prohibitions.
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  Is wild to think about. We tend to think of sin as a
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  line we step over. Yes, but the Catechism points
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  out that sin is also a failure to step up to the line God has
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  drawn. I want to push back on that a
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  bit, or at least press into that concept because this is a really
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  tough pill for the human ego to swallow.
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  Oh, absolutely. It's completely counterintuitive
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  to how we operate. Right.
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  So does this mean that sitting quietly, just kind of keeping
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  your head down, staying out of trouble, and minding your own
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  business is actually a moral negative rather than a neutral
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  middle ground? According to the text, yes.
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  It makes me think of it makes me think of taking a standardized
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  test back in school like you were taking the SA TS.
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  You come across a really difficult math question and you
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  decide to just leave the answer blank.
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  Because you don't want to get penalized for guessing wrong.
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  Exactly, but you don't get partial credit for avoiding
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  writing down the wrong answer. A blank space on the scantron is
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  still a 0. That's a great way to look.
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  At it, it's still counts against your final score.
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  Is that the mechanism we are talking about here?
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  That a blank space in our moral life, a moment where we just do
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  nothing, is actually a zero that counts against.
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  Us. That is a highly accurate way to
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  visualize it. Yes, the blank space is a zero
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  in the eyes of God's holy law. There is absolutely no such
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  thing as a neutral, inactive middle ground.
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  You are either actively conforming to the character of
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  God, or you are failing to conform.
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  There's no sitting on the fence. None.
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  And the sources contrast this Reformed view with other
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  historical perspectives to show just how radical this biblical
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  definition actually is. OK, what kind of historical
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  perspectives? For instance, historical Roman
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  Catholic theology often constructed a really complex
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  hierarchy of sins. Right, mortal and venial sins.
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  Exactly within that system, they categorized many sins of
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  omission as mere venial faults. Meaning they aren't that.
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  Big of a deal. Basically, these were considered
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  minor infractions that do not fundamentally rupture a state of
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  grace or, you know, separate a person from God.
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  It created a system where inaction was seen as a lesser
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  category of failure. Interesting, and I imagine
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  secular philosophy handles it similarly.
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  Oh, absolutely. When you look at liberal
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  theology and modern secular philosophy, they tend to view
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  inaction as a perfectly acceptable, completely harmless
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  middle ground. Like the whole do no harm thing.
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  Yes, the secular moral framework is essentially the do no harm
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  principle. They promote A morality where as
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  long as you are not actively harming someone, as long as
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  you're not interfering with someone else's autonomy, you are
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  considered a good person. Right, I'm not hurting anybody,
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  so leave me alone. Exactly.
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  But the texts we are analyzing state categorically that this
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  inaction is not harmless. It is calculated treason against
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  God. Treason.
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  That is a strong. Word.
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  It is a deliberate refusal to execute the revealed will of the
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  sovereign King when the king gives a command.
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  Ignoring it is not neutrality, it is rebellion.
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  That reframing completely destroys the idea of the good
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  person who just stays out of the way.
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  It shatters it entirely. So this naturally raises the
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  question about the historical context.
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  Who is James actually speaking to you that required such a
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  blunt theological hammer? Yeah, like look at the
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  historical setting to see who who was guilty of this specific
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  type of inaction. The sources point out that
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  James, the half brother of Jesus, often known in church
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  history as James the Jest, wrote this letter very early on.
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  Right around AD 45 to 49, it's widely considered one of the
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  earliest New Testament writings. And he was writing to Jewish
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  Christians who were scattered across the Mediterranean in the
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  Diaspora. Yes, these were people who
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  possessed the Torah, they had the writings of the prophets,
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  and they had the ethical teachings of Christ passed down
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  to them. So they weren't ignorant.
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  They possessed massive theological advantages over the
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  surrounding Pagan cultures. Huge advantages.
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  They were not wandering in the dark.
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  They had the blinding light of divine revelation.
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  And that covenantal privilege has to be a massive factor in
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  understanding the severity of James's tone.
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  Oh, absolutely, to whom much is given, much is required.
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  These early Jewish Christians were existing in a highly Mobile
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  World, the Pax Romana. The peace of Rome allowed for
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  extensive, relatively safe travel across the Mediterranean
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  basin. So they were moving around a
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  lot. Very much so.
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  As a result, many of these believers were engaging in
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  lucrative mercantile trade. They were businessmen, merchants
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  and entrepreneurs. Hustlers, basically.
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  Yeah, 1st century hustlers. They were mapping out complex
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  business strategies, deciding which coastal cities to travel
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  to, calculating their anticipated profit margins, and
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  functioning in their daily lives as what the sources call
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  practical atheists. Practical atheists.
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  That is a fascinating phrase. It's a crucial term for this
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  discussion. They acknowledged God
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  theologically. I mean, they would have
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  confessed Orthodox monotheism in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
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  They knew the theology of God's sovereignty.
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  Right. But they operated their daily
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  itineraries, their commerce, and their material lives with total
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  autonomy. They lived as if God had
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  absolutely no say over their schedules or their bank
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  accounts. You know, the similarity between
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  these 1st century merchants and modern professionals is almost
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  frightening. It hits very close to home.
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  We do the exact same thing today.
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  We open our calendar apps, we plot out our next five years, we
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  chart our career trajectories, we manage our investment
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  portfolios, and we do it all assuming we are in complete
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  control of the timeline. We act like we own tomorrow.
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  We really do. But wait, I need to push back on
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  this on behalf of the listener. Go for it.
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  Because the source material also notes that the book of Proverbs
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  constantly praises diligence. It does.
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  Proverbs praises the and for storing up food for the winter.
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  It mocks the sluggard who refuses to plan.
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  And really, the entire New Testament assumes that ordinary
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  work, commerce, and providing for your family is a basic
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  Christian duty. Yes, if a man won't work, he
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  won't eat. Right.
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  So the sheer act of making a business plan, the act of buying
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  and selling is not the sin, right?
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  What is the actual crossing the line moment for these scattered
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  believers? That's a vital distinction,
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  yeah. Where does diligence become
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  disobedience? Commerce, planning and diligence
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  are not inherently sinful at all.
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  In fact, they are mandated by God.
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  OK, So what went wrong? The crossing the line moment as
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  detailed in the texts, is the spirit of arrogant self
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  determination behind the planning.
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  It's the attitude. Yes, the failure is making these
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  plans without public practical submission to the decree and
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  Providence of God. James is targeting the
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  presumption of the human heart. He's going after their pride.
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  Exactly, He tells them they knew they should say, If the Lord
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  wills, we will live and do this or that.
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  They knew the theology of divine Providence.
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  They knew it perfectly, but they chose to operate autonomously.
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  They presumed upon tomorrow as if they held the deed to it.
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  So the good that they admitted this specific righteous action
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  they left undone, was the humble, conscious verbal
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  dependence on their Creator. That's it.
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  They substituted intellectual orthodoxy for active, submissive
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  obedience in their daily affairs.
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  They thought knowing about God's sovereignty was enough, while
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  living as if they were sovereign over their own lives.
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  Precisely that makes perfect sense of the rebuke.
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  They had the right theology in their heads, but it never made
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  it down to their calendars. So recognizing the specific
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  arrogance of these merchants leads us directly into how James
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  structures his argument in the surrounding text, doesn't it?
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  Yes, the literary context is everything here.
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  Verse 17 is not just a random proverb dropped out of the sky.
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  Right, it's not just a standalone fortune cookie.
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  No, it is a highly strategic conclusion to a very specific
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  argument. Let's look at that context.
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  James, 4.13 through 16, features that direct, biting rebuke of
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  the merchants. He says come now, you who say
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  today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and
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  spend a year there and trade and make a profit.
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  And then verse 17 begins with a very crucial Greek conjunction.
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  Oh, lay some Greek on us. The word is UN which translates
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  to therefore or so OK. So it connects the thought.
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  It acts as a theological hinge for the entire passage.
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  It connects everything he just said to the devastating
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  conclusion. That single conjunction carries
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  massive interpretive weight then.
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  It does. It links the universal maxima,
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  verse 17 back to the specific context of the presumptuous
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  planners. The literary progression James
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  uses is masterful. Walk us through that
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  progression. First, he exposes their
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  arrogance by quoting their own business plans back to them.
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  Kind of holding up a mirror. Exactly.
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  Second, he dismantles their assumed control by telling them
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  they are ignorant of tomorrow and that their lives are merely
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  a vapor. A mist that appears for a little
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  time and then vanishes. Right.
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  Third, he supplies the proper speech of reverent dependence,
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  instructing them that they should say if the Lord wills.
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  So he gives them the correction. He does, and then comes the
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  hinge. Therefore, because He has just
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  instructed them, because they now possess the explicit
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  knowledge of the right thing to do, their failure to do it
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  becomes a culpable offense. Wow, he corners them logically.
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  He completely traps them. The flow of the argument moves
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  seamlessly from arrogant plans to creatually ignorance, to
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  humble submission, and finally to the guilt of neglected
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  obedience. And we cannot ignore what comes
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  immediately after this hinge because honestly, it gets
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  incredibly dark. It takes a very sharp turn.
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  The sources highlight that Chapter 5 opens with a
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  terrifying denunciation of rich oppressors, like James shifts
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  from talking about merchants making plans to wealthy land
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  owners who are actively defrauding their workers.
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  Holding back wages, living in luxury while the righteous
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  suffer and die. Yeah, so verse 17 is really the
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  bridge between chapter 4 and chapter 5.
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  It shows a terrifying trajectory.
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  It does. The passive omission of God's
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  lordship in your daily planning in chapter 4 inevitably leads to
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  the active Commission of horrific sin against your fellow
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  man in chapter 5. That trajectory is vital to
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  understand. James is demonstrating the
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  progressive nature of human rebellion.
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  It always starts quietly. It's not usually a massive jump
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  off a Cliff right away. No, it starts with a simple,
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  seemingly harmless failure to acknowledge God's sovereignty
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  over your calendar. You just leave God out of the
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  equation for a day. Just one day.
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  But that passive omission hardens the heart.
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  It breeds a subtle autonomy that eventually ripens into active,
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  aggressive transgression. Because when you stop viewing
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  God as the sovereign over your schedule, you eventually stop
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  viewing God as the sovereign over your ethics.
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  That's exactly the point the texts make.
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  They warn us that isolating verse 17 from this literary
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  context turns it into a generalized bumper sticker moral
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  proverb. Right.
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  Like just do good things. Yeah, but when you read it in
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  its proper place, as the bridge between arrogant planning and
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  act of oppression, it becomes a devastating indictment of
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  spiritual autonomy. It shows that omission is the
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  soil where Commission grows. Omission is the soil where
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  Commission grows that is heavy. To fully grasp why James calls
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  this such a damnable offense, we need to look at the precise
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  words he chose to. Write Let's do that.
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  Let's look at the anatomy of omission through the Greek
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  exegesis provided in our sources.
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  The text is structured as a conditional sentence utilizing
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  specific Greek participles that are designed to corner the
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  hypocrite. Like we said, he builds an
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  inescapable linguistic trap. He really does.
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  The syntax of this verse is brilliant.
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  The text begins with the Greek word I doty translated as
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  Whoever knows. OK, I doty.
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  This is a perfect tense participle, and the perfect
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  tense in Greek is highly significant for understanding
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  the psychology of the sin. Why is that?
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  What does the perfect tense mean here?
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  It does not describe a fleeting thought you know, a passing
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  realization or a quick snapshot of knowledge.
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  It indicates an action completed in the past with ongoing settled
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  results in the present. Oh interesting, so it's locked
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  in. Think of it like learning to
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  ride a bicycle or learning a language.
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  You don't just know it for a second and then forget it.
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  It becomes a settled reality in your brain.
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  Right, you can't unlearn how to ride a bike.
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  Exactly. The person James is addressing
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  has fully internalized the truth.
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  Their failure is not cognitive. They cannot plead ignorance on
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  the day of judgment. They absolutely cannot.
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  Their failure is entirely volitional.
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  They know the right course of action.
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  That knowledge is firmly established and resting in their
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  minds, and yet they choose to suppress it.
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  That makes it so much worse. And what exactly is it that they
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  know? Well, the word used for good is
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  calon. OK, I love this part.
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  The sources draw a fascinating contrast here that completely
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  shifted how I view this verse. It's a beautiful distinction.
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  Because James could have used the word agathon, right?
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  Which just refers to basic utilitarian moral goodness.
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  Right. Just standard good versus bad
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  or? He could have used decayon,
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  which means righteous or just in a strict legal sense, but he
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  chose Kaylan. He did.
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  And this word means that which is beautiful, excellent, noble,
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  and aesthetically perfect. It is the highest possible ideal
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  of virtue. It's not just the right thing to
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  do, it is the beautiful thing to do, yes.
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  That choice of vocabulary elevates the entire discussion
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  from a legal courtroom to a grand masterpiece.
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  It means the will of God is not an arbitrary, burdensome set of
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  rules designed to restrict human joy.
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  Right, it's not God just trying to ruin our fun.
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  Far from it. The commands of God are the most
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  beautiful, excellent path a human being can walk.
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  God's law reflects God's character, and God's character
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  is the definition of beauty. Thinking of God's commands as
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  kalon changes everything about how we approach obedience.
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  How so? How do you visualize it?
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  Well, it's not about viewing the law as an annoying set of chores
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  you have to check off a list before you can go out and play.
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  It's not about avoiding getting in trouble with a strict
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  headmaster. It's more like, it's more like
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  being invited to participate in a flawless, sweeping Symphony.
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  Oh, I like that analogy. Yeah, think about it.
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  God is the composer and the conductor.
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  The sheet music is His law. Refusing to play your instrument
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  or refusing to come in when the conductor points to your section
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  isn't just breaking a sterile rule.
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  No, you're ruining the song. You are.
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  It is a desecration of beauty. You are ruining the harmony of
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  the music. You are introducing dissonance
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  into a masterpiece. That Symphony analogy captures
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  the essence of Kalon perfectly. To fail to do the kalon is a
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  spurning of divine excellence. It's looking at the masterpiece
• 19:44
  God is orchestrating and deciding your silence is
• 19:47
  preferable to his harmony. And that brings us to the action
• 19:50
  itself. Or will rather the lack?
• 19:52
  Thereof the actual omission part.
• 19:54
  Right, the text says and fails to do it.
• 19:56
  The word for doing is kuyunty. Kuyunty OK.
• 19:59
  And this is in the present tense.
• 20:01
  In Greek, the present tense indicates a continuous,
• 20:03
  habitual, ongoing action. So.
• 20:05
  It's not a one off mistake. No, James is not addressing a
• 20:09
  single momentary lapse in judgement where someone got
• 20:13
  distracted and forgot to do a good deed.
• 20:15
  He is targeting A habitual lifestyle of passive rebellion.
• 20:19
  Wow. It is a continuous settled
• 20:21
  failure to execute the beautiful good.
• 20:24
  Which leads to the final crushing verdict of the verse.
• 20:28
  The word used for sin here is homarchia.
• 20:31
  Yes, Hamarchia. The continuous failure to do the
• 20:34
  beautiful good is homarchia. Now.
• 20:36
  This is the most common New Testament word for sin, and we
• 20:39
  often hear that it's root meaning is an archery term right
• 20:41
  to miss the mark. That's the classic Sunday school
• 20:44
  definition. Yeah, but as the texts explain,
• 20:47
  missing God's mark is not an innocent mistake where you just
• 20:49
  didn't pull the bowstring back far enough where the wind cut
• 20:52
  your air. Missing this mark is cosmic
• 20:54
  treason. There is that word again.
• 20:57
  The sources point out that James could have used a word like
• 20:59
  parabasis, which specifically means to step over a line or
• 21:03
  actively break a negative command.
• 21:05
  But he didn't. He didn't.
• 21:07
  By utilizing the broader, more encompassing term hamartia,
• 21:11
  James establishes the absolute theological principle that sin
• 21:15
  encompasses far more than active transgression.
• 21:18
  It's the fundamental failure to hit the mark of God's perfection
• 21:22
  in every single area of life. This completely destroys the
• 21:25
  idea that believers are somehow free from the moral imperatives
• 21:30
  of God's law once they are saved.
• 21:32
  The whole antinomian. Idea Grace does not make
• 21:35
  obedience optional. Chase demands conformity to the
• 21:38
  Kalon. Now, if failing to do the
• 21:41
  beautiful good is a continuous sin, I can imagine you, the
• 21:45
  listener, might be feeling a bit paralyzed right now.
• 21:47
  I wouldn't blame them because. I know I'm feeling the weight of
• 21:50
  it. We had to address the boundaries
• 21:51
  of this command or else we will be crushed under the
• 21:54
  psychological weight of it. We definitely need some guard
• 21:56
  reels here. Yeah, our sources pull out three
• 21:58
  main pillars from the text to help us handle this the
• 22:01
  prerequisite of knowledge, the tragedy of inaction, and the
• 22:04
  verdict of heaven. Let's take.
• 22:05
  Those 1 by 1. That first point, the
• 22:08
  prerequisite of knowledge, is crucial because God holds people
• 22:11
  accountable for the light they actually possess.
• 22:14
  This goes back to the great the perfect participle idote
• 22:18
  protects us from endless guilt over things we didn't know.
• 22:22
  Right. This point is pastoral as well
• 22:24
  as theological. It confronts the false
• 22:26
  assumption of the sluggard who thinks ignorance is bliss, while
• 22:30
  simultaneously protecting the tender conscience of the
• 22:32
  believer who wants to please God but feels overwhelmed by the
• 22:37
  suffering in the world. That's a vital balance to
• 22:39
  strike. It is because I have to ask a
• 22:41
  pastoral question here based on this text.
• 22:43
  Lay it on me. Does this first demand
• 22:45
  omniscience and omnipresence from us?
• 22:47
  Like, am I committing a sin right now, at this very second
• 22:51
  because I am not simultaneously feeding the poor in another
• 22:53
  country, evangelizing my neighbor across the street,
• 22:57
  visiting the prisoners downtown, and praying for the persecuted
• 23:00
  church in another hemisphere, all while sitting here recording
• 23:03
  this conversation? That is a recipe for a nervous
• 23:06
  breakdown. Right.
• 23:08
  Is the law of God demanding infinite capacity from a finite
• 23:12
  creature? Because if it is, we are all in
• 23:14
  a state of perpetual, unavoidable sin every second of
• 23:18
  the day, just by virtue of being in one place at one time.
• 23:21
  The source texts explicitly relieve this perfectionistic
• 23:24
  anxiety. The verse does not command
• 23:27
  creatures to be infinite. OK, good.
• 23:29
  That's a relief. God knows our frame.
• 23:31
  You remember that we are dust. The issue at hand in James 4 is
• 23:35
  known duty. Known Judy.
• 23:37
  Yes, it targets the person who has a clear moral duty right in
• 23:41
  front of them. A specific opportunity for
• 23:43
  reconciliation with an estranged family member you know, or a
• 23:47
  specific moment to show mercy to a Co worker in distress.
• 23:50
  Specific conversation where the truth of the gospel needs to be
• 23:53
  spoken. Exactly.
• 23:54
  And that person consciously, deliberately walks away.
• 23:57
  It is not about the millions of things you cannot possibly do
• 24:00
  because you are finite. It's about the one thing you
• 24:02
  know you ought to do today. The thing God has placed
• 24:05
  squarely in your path, but you invent a spiritual sounding
• 24:08
  excuse to delay doing it. And that leads to the second
• 24:11
  pillar, the tragedy of inaction. This one stinks a bit.
• 24:14
  It does. The sources note that modern
• 24:17
  churches are absolutely drowning in theological knowledge, yet we
• 24:21
  are starving for practical holiness.
• 24:23
  We have endless resources. We have study Bibles, infinite
• 24:27
  audio series, massive theological libraries and
• 24:30
  comprehensive commentaries. We know the right thing to do
• 24:32
  better than any generation in history.
• 24:34
  We really do. But the tragedy is the
• 24:36
  calculated in action. It is the quiet compromise of
• 24:40
  the coward who decides that remaining silent is much safer
• 24:44
  than stepping out of obedience and risking their reputation.
• 24:47
  This raises a critical point about the Reformed doctrine of
• 24:50
  total depravity. Let's talk about total
• 24:52
  depravity. Total depravity does not mean
• 24:54
  humans are as bad as they could possibly be.
• 24:56
  People often misunderstand that. Right.
• 24:58
  It doesn't mean everyone is basically Hitler.
• 25:00
  No, it means that every faculty of the human person, the mind,
• 25:04
  the emotions and the will is corrupted by sin.
• 25:07
  It's a total spread of the infection.
• 25:08
  Exactly. Our nature is so thoroughly
• 25:11
  compromised that even when our minds clearly apprehend the
• 25:14
  good, even when when we see the kalon and recognize its beauty,
• 25:18
  our wills are often paralyzed. Paralyzed by what?
• 25:22
  By lethargy, fear of man, or love of the world.
• 25:25
  The intellect says go, but the corrupted will says stay.
• 25:30
  We convince ourselves that preserving our comfort or
• 25:33
  maintaining A pristine reputation is more valuable than
• 25:37
  executing the will of God. We delay obedience, we tell
• 25:40
  ourselves. We will reconcile tomorrow, or
• 25:42
  we will speak the truth when the cultural climate is more
• 25:45
  convenient. But as James previously
• 25:47
  established with the arrogant merchants, tomorrow does not
• 25:50
  belong to us. Delayed obedience is frequently
• 25:53
  just disguised disobedience. Wow.
• 25:56
  Yes, delayed obedience is disguised disobedience.
• 25:59
  So what does this all mean for us?
• 26:01
  Where does this leave the listener?
• 26:03
  By this point, anyone listening should feel the absolute
• 26:05
  crushing weight of a law. If they are paying attention,
• 26:08
  they should. Every single person has known to
• 26:10
  do good and failed. We have all walked past the
• 26:13
  specific duty right in front of us.
• 26:15
  Our scorecard is covered in blank spaces that, as we've
• 26:18
  established, are actually zeros. A lot of zeros.
• 26:20
  We need a theological solution and we need it desperately,
• 26:23
  because if this deep dive stops here, we are left with 0 hope.
• 26:27
  We're just left in despair. Right.
• 26:29
  The sources are clear that James 4.1 said exposes a massive human
• 26:34
  inability. The strictness of this text must
• 26:37
  drive us directly to the act of obedience of Jesus Christ.
• 26:40
  If we stop at the condemnation of the law, we are left with
• 26:43
  nothing but terror. The law provides a mirror.
• 26:45
  It shows us our exact spiritual condition.
• 26:48
  But a mirror cannot wash your face.
• 26:50
  That's a great saying. A mirror cannot wash your face
• 26:53
  it. Cannot provide salvation.
• 26:54
  The demands of James 4.1 SEM require flawless, continuous
• 26:59
  execution of the beautiful good from the moment of birth to the
• 27:01
  moment of death. And only one man in the history
• 27:04
  of the cosmos has ever achieved that, the God man, Jesus Christ.
• 27:08
  This is where Reformed theology shines, by drawing a crucial
• 27:11
  distinction between Christ's passive obedience and his active
• 27:15
  obedience. Let's break those terms down,
• 27:17
  because understanding the difference between passive and
• 27:20
  active obedience is the key to resting in the Gospel rather
• 27:23
  than panicking over our omissions.
• 27:24
  Passive obedience refers to Christ's suffering and death on
• 27:27
  the cross. The word passive here comes from
• 27:29
  the Latin passio, meaning suffering.
• 27:31
  By willingly submitting to the crucifixion, He paid the penalty
• 27:35
  for our sins. He absorbed the wrath of God and
• 27:38
  washed away our guilt, including the massive accumulation of
• 27:42
  guilt from our daily omissions. So he took the punishment for
• 27:45
  every blank space on our scorecard.
• 27:47
  He did, but active obedience refers to Christ's flawless,
• 27:51
  lifelong execution of every single good thing demanded by
• 27:56
  the Father. From his birth to his death.
• 27:57
  Yes, he perfectly fulfilled the positive commands of the moral
• 28:01
  law. He always knew the Kalon, the
• 28:03
  beautiful good, and he never once failed to perform his will,
• 28:07
  was never paralyzed by fear or lethargy.
• 28:10
  I want to visualize this. Let's move away from standard
• 28:13
  theological metaphors and think about an incredibly high stakes,
• 28:16
  perilous mountain climbing expedition.
• 28:18
  OK, I'm with you. Imagine the summit of Mount
• 28:21
  Everest represent the absolute perfection of God's law, the
• 28:24
  flawless execution of the Kalon. We are all supposed to reach the
• 28:28
  summit. But we haven't, no.
• 28:30
  Because of our sin, not only have we failed to climb, we've
• 28:33
  actually fallen into a massive, freezing, inescapable crevasse
• 28:37
  at the very bottom of the mountain.
• 28:38
  We're trapped. We are trapped, freezing to
• 28:41
  death, crushed by the weight of our own failures and emissions.
• 28:45
  Now passive obedience is the rescue team rappelling down into
• 28:48
  the dark, pulling us out of the crevasse and saving us from
• 28:52
  imminent death. We are no longer going to die in
• 28:55
  the pit. The debt is paid.
• 28:56
  But here is the problem. Pulling us out of the pit
• 28:59
  doesn't put us at the summit. Right, you're just back at the
• 29:02
  start. Exactly.
• 29:03
  We are just sitting at base camp freezing and unqualified.
• 29:06
  Active obedience is Jesus Christ scaling the sheer Cliff face of
• 29:10
  the mountain Florida State. I see.
• 29:12
  He never misses a handhold. He never takes a wrong step.
• 29:16
  He Braves the absolute worst conditions, reaches the very
• 29:19
  peak, plants the flag, and then legally and officially transfers
• 29:22
  the record of his flawless ascent to our names.
• 29:25
  So when the world looks at the record book, it says we climbed
• 29:28
  the mountain, Yes. That's the imputation of
• 29:31
  righteousness. That mountaineering analogy is
• 29:33
  brilliant for illustrating the doctrine of imputation.
• 29:36
  The imputation of Christ's act of righteousness is our only
• 29:39
  hope of standing before. God, because we certainly didn't
• 29:41
  climb it ourselves. No, we didn't.
• 29:43
  The sources list magnificent, concrete examples of Christ
• 29:47
  fulfilling the demands of James 4.17 during his earthly
• 29:51
  ministry. We'll.
• 29:51
  Share some of those. When Christ saw the multitudes
• 29:54
  hungry and harassed, he did not omit compassion.
• 29:57
  He fed them and taught them. He actively did the good.
• 30:00
  Yes, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when facing the
• 30:03
  unimaginable agony of the impending cross, he possessed
• 30:06
  perfect knowledge of the Father's will.
• 30:08
  The horror of what was coming was entirely clear to him.
• 30:11
  And yet he did it. He did it.
• 30:14
  He did not say tomorrow. He did not look for a loophole.
• 30:16
  He said not my will, but yours be done.
• 30:19
  He Florida State, executed the most difficult known duty in the
• 30:23
  history of the world. Praise God for that.
• 30:25
  Therefore, when the Father looks at the elect, he does not see
• 30:29
  our thousands of daily omissions.
• 30:30
  He does not see our cowardice. He sees Christ's perfect,
• 30:34
  unblemished record of fulfilling the beautiful good.
• 30:37
  The summit is credited to us. The summit is credited to us.
• 30:40
  And because Christ has completely fulfilled the law on
• 30:42
  our behalf, believers are free to actually obey it out of
• 30:46
  gratitude. The paralyzing pressure to earn
• 30:49
  salvation is gone. That's the beauty of grace.
• 30:51
  It brings us to what the Reformers call the third use of
• 30:54
  the law, using the law not as a condition for salvation, but as
• 30:59
  a faithful guide for Christian living.
• 31:01
  Now we can actually look at James 4.17, not be crushed by
• 31:05
  it. Right, let's bring this
• 31:06
  application into the 21st century.
• 31:08
  The sources call for genuine repentance regarding our
• 31:11
  specific modern omissions. Delaying obedience until our
• 31:15
  lives feel settled or until the cultural temperature cools down
• 31:19
  is a sin because, as James said just a few verses earlier, life
• 31:23
  is a vapor. We don't have time to wait for
• 31:25
  optimal conditions. We vehemently reject the
• 31:27
  pragmatism and quietism of our current age.
• 31:30
  To find those terms for us pragmatism and quietism.
• 31:33
  Pragmatism tells us to only do the good that yields immediate
• 31:36
  visible results. Like if it doesn't work, don't
• 31:39
  do it. OK, and quietism?
• 31:41
  Quietism tells us to retreat entirely and just maintain
• 31:44
  personal piety while the world burns.
• 31:46
  Just hide in a bunker. Exactly.
• 31:48
  The sources provide very specific modern applications to
• 31:51
  jolt the reader awake. Sitting next to a lost Co worker
• 31:57
  in an office or a family member at Thanksgiving and remaining
• 32:01
  entirely silent about the gospel simply out of fear of not being
• 32:05
  considered culturally acceptable, That is a stark
• 32:09
  failure to do the known good. It is choosing personal comfort
• 32:13
  over the eternal state of a neighbor.
• 32:15
  That's exactly what it is. It's fascinating how the authors
• 32:18
  of these texts apply this very sharply to our current cultural
• 32:22
  moment. They point out specific areas
• 32:25
  where they believe the Church is remaining silent out of
• 32:27
  cowardice. Yeah, they do get very specific.
• 32:29
  For instance, they argue that failing to defend biblical
• 32:32
  definitions of marriage and gender in the public square, or
• 32:35
  staying quiet when ideologies like critical race theory or
• 32:38
  liberal theology into the church are clear sins of omission.
• 32:41
  Yes, the source material explicitly calls those things
• 32:45
  out. And just to be clear for the
• 32:46
  listener, we are just imparting the examples provided by the
• 32:48
  authors of these texts. We aren't necessarily endorsing
• 32:51
  these specific political or cultural viewpoints ourselves
• 32:54
  right now, but rather reporting how the authors apply James, 4,
• 32:58
  points 17, to modern issues. Exactly.
• 33:01
  We're conveying their application.
• 33:03
  They frame it as knowing the truth but hiding it to keep the
• 33:06
  peace. The point they're driving home
• 33:08
  is that hiding your light under a basket to avoid conflict is
• 33:12
  precisely what James is condemning.
• 33:14
  So the core principle they are drawing out there is that truth
• 33:17
  known must become truth proclaimed and lived.
• 33:21
  An orthodox mind paired with a silent tongue is a tragedy.
• 33:25
  Well said. So the inevitable question
• 33:27
  arises for the believer who feels the conviction of this
• 33:30
  text. How do we actually overcome this
• 33:33
  spiritual lethargy? That's the $1,000,000 question.
• 33:36
  Do we just need to grit our teeth, try harder, set earlier
• 33:39
  alarms and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?
• 33:42
  Or are we supposed to look inward, empty our minds, and
• 33:44
  wait for some special mystical feeling before we act?
• 33:47
  Because I know my own heart and relying on my own willpower
• 33:50
  usually lasts about 3 days before I am back to scrolling on
• 33:52
  my phone and ignoring my responsibilities.
• 33:54
  Same here, it fades so fast. The sources vehemently reject
• 33:58
  mysticism and emotionalism. We do not need to wait for a
• 34:01
  private impression, a shiver down our spine, or a secret
• 34:04
  revelation to obey clear commands already printed in
• 34:07
  Scripture. We already have the orders.
• 34:09
  We do. The solution provided by formed
• 34:12
  Theology is a steadfast, disciplined reliance on the
• 34:15
  ordinary means of grace. Let's unpack the ordinary means
• 34:19
  of grace, because that can sound like abstract theological jargon
• 34:22
  to someone who hasn't grown up hearing it.
• 34:24
  Sure. It refers to the basic everyday
• 34:27
  instruments God uses to strengthen the faith of His
• 34:29
  people. What's the first one?
• 34:31
  First, it means sitting consistently under rigorous
• 34:34
  expository preaching of the Word.
• 34:36
  This is how God continually illuminates our minds and
• 34:39
  corrects our false scorecards. OK, getting into the word,
• 34:42
  what's the? Second.
• 34:43
  Second. It means partaking in the Lord's
• 34:45
  Supper by faith. This isn't an empty ritual.
• 34:48
  It is spiritual nourishment for the soul, bringing to mind the
• 34:51
  active and passive obedience we just discussed.
• 34:54
  It's fuel for the journey, yes. And 3rd, it requires fervent,
• 34:58
  continuous prayer, specifically asking the Holy Spirit to apply
• 35:03
  the accomplished work of Christ to our stubborn, lethargic
• 35:06
  rails. We have to ask for the strength
• 35:08
  to do it. We do not overcome inaction by
• 35:10
  seeking extraordinary signs in the sky.
• 35:13
  We overcome it by faithfully engaging with the ordinary means
• 35:16
  God has already instituted to conform us to the image of His
• 35:19
  Son. So to recap this massive
• 35:22
  conversation. Let's pull it all together.
• 35:24
  The law of God, specifically James 4.1 teen, functions as a
• 35:28
  devastating mirror. It shows us our complete failure
• 35:31
  to do the known good. It proves that our blank spaces
• 35:34
  are actually 0. Right.
• 35:35
  And that our inaction is a calculated rebellion against a
• 35:38
  sovereign king. But that very mirror forces us
• 35:41
  to stop looking at ourselves and to run as fast as we can to the
• 35:44
  cross. Where we find our substitute.
• 35:46
  Yes, where we find that Jesus Christ perfectly scaled the
• 35:48
  mountain on our behalf. He executed the beautiful, good
• 35:51
  Florida State, and His active obedience covers our massive
• 35:54
  deficit. And because we are secure in
• 35:57
  that grace, because our record is clean and our summit is
• 35:59
  guaranteed, we are completely free to step out, rely on the
• 36:03
  ordinary means of grace, and start obeying today.
• 36:06
  The good is known. The time to obey is now.
• 36:10
  We must rise from forgiven needs to do the next known good.
• 36:15
  I want to leave you with a final idea to chew on, something to
• 36:17
  take with you as you look at your schedule for the coming
• 36:19
  week. Think about a day you usually
• 36:21
  consider boring or completely uneventful.
• 36:25
  Standard Tuesday. Yeah, a day where nothing bad
• 36:27
  happens. You don't get into any
• 36:28
  arguments, but nothing particularly noteworthy happens
• 36:31
  either. If sin includes the good we
• 36:33
  omit, then an uneventful day isn't morally neutral at all.
• 36:37
  It might actually be the loudest, most intense
• 36:39
  battleground of your faith. When you realize that inaction
• 36:42
  is a choice, it completely reshaes how you look at the emty
• 36:45
  spaces on your calendar tomorrow.