James 1:21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Imagine of you will that evangelism was this easy… You encounter a lost soul and say to them, “Put away all the really bad stuff you do and humbly receive the Word of God to save you from hell and give you everlasting life,” and they come faithfully to the Lord. As you and I know, it is not that easy. Not only is it not that easy to reach the lost, but it can be a challenge to do the same in our own lives. In this verse in James he begins with a “therefore.”
The therefore is there to tells us that because of something else, we are to put away our filthiness and wickedness. Because we are His firstfruits and our lives should reflect the righteousness of God, we are to be different than the rest of the world. Being a Christian isn’t simply saying a “sinners prayer” and then living the same way you were before you said it. It is about a transformed life, renewing of ones mind to be conformed into the image of Christ. Often we forget that we are a new creation created to do good works to bring glory to the Father, and in order to do that we need to put off certain behaviors in our life and put on the righteousness of Christ.
James addresses two things we are to put off. Rampant wickedness and filthiness. When I think of filthiness in this context, I think of things in our life that dishonor God. Paul writes in Romans 1:
Rom 1:24-32 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, (25) because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (26) For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; (27) and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (28) And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (29) They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, (31) foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (32) Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
When we become a new creation in Christ, we are to strive for righteousness through the power of the Holy Spirit. There should be no filthiness…
The second thing he says to put off, or to give up in our lives, is rampant wickedness. Now you and I would think that this would be something like murder or hate crimes or even person to person violence. Rampant wickedness must be something that the “bad” people do! Jeremiah says it like this the 17th chapter, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The human heart is desperately wicked.
Without the common grace of God for all men and women, it literally frightens me what would happen in our culture if we were left to ourselves. The Psalmist writes, “Psa 14:1-3 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. (2) The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. (3) They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
The Bible tells us that not one of us has any good in us apart from Christ. But thankfully there is a solution. When we humble ourselves and receive the word of God, we will be saved. Receiving the word isn’t simply for the salvation that gives us eternity in heaven, it is also the the power that gives us the ability to be able to put off filthiness and wickedness. By nature we are children of wrath, but God, through the gospel of Christ, has implanted the word into our heart. He has grafted the new nature with the old in order to produce good fruit. When we strive to become the righteousness of God we tap into the implanted word written on the hearts of men and are given His power to put off the things of the flesh.
Prayer
Lord, I come to you in humility and ask that you allow your word to penetrate my heart today. Help me to put off filthiness and wickedness and seek wholeheartedly after you. Amen