The Fruitful Garden

to this first chapter. It is
gardening season. I hope you already know that.
If you don’t, you’re already behind. Because a productive
garden, as you probably already discovered, does not just happen. It takes preparation. It takes
care and effort and thought Sometimes money. My wife is convinced that
the vegetables that come from my backyard are among the most
expensive in all the world. As we prepare for gardening,
the soil has to be prepared. The seed that you’re going to
use has to be secured. There has to be a plan. There
has to be care even once the plants begin to sprout, watering
and weeding and mulching. And then begins a lengthy season
of defense. Defense against disease, defense
against bugs, defense against pests. I’ve had many years where
I’ve had to defend my garden against vermin, rodents, I quit growing corn several years
ago because the only people that got well, the only creatures
that got corn were the raccoons. And now this year, I discovered
that I have rabbits to contend with. Gardening takes great effort. With regards to the soil, I learned
some things along the way that benefited me. that in soil there
is a texture to soil. Who knew, right? It’s the size
and the shape of the particles and the things that are in the
dirt. We think of it as just dirt. In fact, there are actually
four different things that comprise, make up, Soil there is organic
matter dead plants even weeds Go into the ground and they begin
to decay and those Make up a portion of what we call dirt There are
organisms there are living insects and dead insects worms and the
like there is air Did you know that part of your dirt is about
25%? oxygen And then there’s water. And all
of those things together is what we call dirt. And there are various
kinds of dirt. You probably already know this.
There’s clay. If you live in Colorado, you
already know that there’s clay. There’s loam, which is the best. And that really is the goal of
the gardener, is to produce a nice, loose loam for his garden. That’s where I am. I’m in the
midst of preparation. A good garden doesn’t just happen. It takes effort. And even the
wisest man that ever lived, Solomon, seems to articulate that, that
gardens take time. When he says at the outset of
Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that there is an appointed time for everything,
a time for every event under heaven, He includes in that lengthy
list the time to plant and time to uproot what is planted. Gardening
takes effort. And if we’re going to have a
fruitful garden, if we’re going to have a garden that produces,
that’s going to take a great variety of effort. That is essentially
what James tells us in verse 21. is that our lives, very much
like a garden, are going to take effort if we are going to be
fruitful in our own lives. If we are going to pursue and
lay hold of a life of sanctification, practical righteousness, it’s
going to take effort, just like a garden. It’s going to take
effort on our part if we are going to be fruitful
consider verse 21 this morning James chapter 1 verse 21 therefore
putting aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness
in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save
your souls the simple passage but it is dynamic in its richness
because it does liken the Christian life to a garden. It likens the
Christian life to a fruitful garden. Peter, it’s interesting, uses
the same admonition. with a little bit different illustration
and if you would keep your finger in James 1 flip over just a few
pages to 1st Peter chapter 2. First Peter, it almost echoes
what James says, and Peter either liked the illustration that James
used and decided to modify it just a bit for his own purpose,
or the Holy Spirit so impressed both of these men that even though
the point is the same, the illustration varied. in 1st Peter chapter
2 we have a just a very pleasant little verse 1st Peter chapter
2 look at verse 1 therefore putting aside same exact word same exact
image that Peter or that James used putting aside all malice
and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn
babes long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may
grow in respect to salvation if you have tasted the kindness
of the Lord. Now in Peter’s illustration,
Peter uses that same word, putting aside, we’ll come back to that
word in a minute, like old dirty garments set those aside, set
aside the deeds of darkness, those things that are endemic
to the fallen evil world, the world of the devil and sin, put
aside those things, cast them aside, and having done that,
like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word. We
looked at this passage several weeks ago in our diligent Bible
study training. That’s an imperative. Peter is
telling them to long for the Word. He’s telling them to eagerly
desire the Word of God. But he essentially says the same
thing that James does. You can’t even do that until
you have begun the process of eradicating sin from your life,
putting aside all malice and guile and envy and hypocrisy
and slander. then you will long for the pure
milk of the word. And that desire is a strong desire. It’s a passionate desire. It’s
the quivering of a baby as it reaches for the bottle. It’s
an intense yearning. And oftentimes in scripture it’s
used of just a heartfelt, wholesome desire to see friends or family,
loved ones. But here Peter likens that desire
To an infant’s desire for milk for its basic food James Uses the same point Peter
is basically arguing that look if you’re going to desire if
you’re going to grow in sanctification if you’re going to continue the
process if you’re going to have a fruitful garden and in your
Christian life. You’ve got to begin by eradicating
and taking an aggressive approach to those sins in your life. Otherwise,
you’re not going to desire God’s Word. The two go hand in hand. And even though it’s the same
illustration, there’s a little bit different illustration that
James uses. Peter uses the illustration of
a little baby. That if the little baby desires
to grow, That little baby Christian must be serious about sin and
must be hungry for the word of God. James uses the same illustration,
or the same point rather, but a different illustration. For
James, it’s the picture of a garden. It’s a picture of a garden in
which the seed is planted in good and wholesome soil, in which
that seed begins to germinate, take root, grows, flourishes,
is absent of any disease or pest, and ends up producing wholesome fruit. Look, if you
would, at James again, James chapter one, verse 21. where
the simple sentence, for those of you who have been considering
diligent Bible study, the simple sentence is where we start, and
the simple sentence here is, therefore, receive the word implanted. Receiving the word is crucial. And even if you’re gardening,
it is absolutely crucial of the timing of the planting of the
seed the depth of the planting of the seed, how plentifully
those seeds are spread, that they easily, when they germinate,
can begin to choke one another out if they’re crowded. And so
planting the seed is crucial, and how you plant, and where
you plant. But that’s the illustration that
James uses. But the whole thing starts with
that word therefore. James is building on the argument
that he’s already advanced. That which we found in verse
20 where we were dealing with our mouth and our ears. Be quick to hear, be slow to
speak, be slow to anger. And so James is building upon
that argument that we had in verse 20 that for a Christian
to be angry with God, for a Christian to be venomously angry towards
another Christian, or anyone for that matter, is wrong. And so James says, if we’re going
to grow, if we’re going to deal with that, if our sanctification,
God’s process of making us more and more Christ-like, if that
is going to be effective in our lives, then we need to receive the word
implanted. Wrath, as we saw last week, that
venting of deep-seated anger from within. If that isn’t dealt
with, it only leads to more trouble and trials. And so James is urging
us to deal with that portion of our sinful existence. And
in order to do that, we’ve got to receive the Word. We’ve got
to impart the Word deep into our hearts. That wrath, as we saw last Lord’s
Day, deeply troubling to our life, deeply troubling to our
relationships, even our relationship with God. And so when James here
says, receive the word, this isn’t talking about our initial
salvation. That was what was in view several
weeks ago. where God has done the work of
regeneration. What’s in view here is our sanctification. And receiving the word is an
ongoing process. It’s not just that initial process
of accepting Christ or appropriating the word in some particular.
It’s an ongoing action in the life of the Christian. We are
to receive the word of God on a regular if not a daily basis
moment by moment as we come into trials as we come into situations
we are to be feeding on and appropriating God’s Word deep in our hearts
James is passionate about this topic no no less than he is in throughout this epistle as he
refers to these his Christian brothers those of the faith. He appeals to them to receive
into their very souls on a regular basis to cultivate, to appropriate,
to keep on receiving God’s Word. One faithful commentator put
it this way, it is the word used of the noble Bereans who received
the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every
day to see if what Paul said was true. This is the This is
the Christian that not only reads the Word, but takes the Word
and applies it to his own heart. And so James is telling his readers
that they needed to go beyond just sitting in the pew and listening,
or perhaps listening to some recording of a message, or just
even a casual reading of the Word. Those things are all appropriate. But it needs to go beyond that.
We need to take the Word of God and we need to apply it to our
own heart and life. There needs to be a response.
There needs to be a responsibility that the Christian takes with
the Word in putting it to use in his own heart and life. This is the working mechanism. If a Christian is to grow, the
seed has to be planted. The seed has to be taken deep
into the heart. There’s an obvious reference
here. I was a little nervous on Wednesday because we were
all over this in Ephesians and people began sharing. and talking
about various things in Ephesians 3 Paul is talking about how we
are rooted and grounded in our Christian faith and that led
to all kinds of discussions about seeds and plants and gardens
and Matthew 13 and the parable of the sower It’s all there. This illustration
is rich throughout scripture, and James in passing from this
idea from regeneration to a reconsideration of the seed that is an ongoing
means of generation in the Christian’s life. And he says we’ve got to
get rid of some things, but we’ve got to grow. We’ve got to plant
the seed in good soil. We’ve got to cultivate it. It’s
got to produce. Not only the parable of the soil
tells us that great theme, but Paul likewise in writing to the
Corinthians, remember? Paul uses the same imagery. I
planted, Apollos watered. God was causing the growth. He
uses the same imagery. Well, that kind of growth would
include a willingness to learn from anybody who can teach us.
Another brother in Christ And without all this wrangling and
dispute, and so we receive the word of God into our understanding,
into our hearts, we apprehend the truth, we take it in, we
appropriate it, we put it to use. The word is implanted. We just need to give it free
and open access to our lives in order to flourish. Even that
word implanted, it’s, It’s a technical word here. It’s described as,
it’s a seed that’s not just lying on the surface, but it’s been
intentionally planted into our hearts. We tend to take things
secondhand. We tend to take far too much
secondhand instead of getting into the word and deciding what
is appropriate and how to apply it to our own lives. This particular
reference He makes this seed implanted into the soil, into
the heart of the believer. It’s God bringing the truth to
our knowledge and to our usefulness and the seed welcomed into the
ground, received gladly and appropriated as such. You have this illustration. and
it’s a rich illustration and it’s Christ that gave the illustration
and so if you would turn to Matthew 13 and I would even suggest to you
that most Most seed is never really received into the soil
appropriately. Even if you plant carefully,
some of it gets washed away. Some of it was bad seed to begin
with. I’ve told you before, if you’re
going to do a garden, buy good seed. Don’t waste your time on
the discount racks. Buy good seed. Some of that seed
is totally worthless even by the time you plant it. Other
seed gets gobbled up by birds and critters. Other plants, no
sooner do they sprout, are wiped out by pests and disease. Jesus told essentially the same
illustration. Look at verse 1. That day Jesus went out and was
sitting by the sea. A large crowd gathered to him.
So he got into a boat and sat down. The whole crowd was standing
on the beach. And he spoke many things to them
in parables. saying, Behold, the sower went
out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road,
and the birds came and ate them up. Here’s the first scenario.
And back in that day, the sower would probably have a bag of
seed at his side, would reach in and grab a handful, and cast
it liberally across the sky. As such, that seed would drift
with the wind, and some would be implanted into the soil. But in this particular case,
some of the seed landed on the road, the footpaths. He’s not
talking about concrete or asphalt here. He’s talking about just
hard packed clay where the seed landed and could not penetrate
the earth. But there’s other seed. Others
fell on the rocky places, verse five, where they did not have
much soil and immediately they sprang up because they had no
depth of soil. And certainly there are examples
of this. The first garden that I ever
did here in Fort Collins, I thought that there was a small rock about
the size of a football. And so I began to dig. And as I began to dig, I discovered
it wasn’t a small rock at all. In fact, the rock was about the
size of a VW. So I left it in place and piled
it over with soil. Nothing would have grown. had
it fallen on that rock. Verse 6 there is another, well
it goes on, because it had no depth of soil when the sun had
risen they were scorched because they had no root they withered
away. Anything that would have germinated on that rock even
if it could possibly germinate because the root couldn’t tap
down deep into the soil it would have withered. Verse seven, others
fell among the thorns. Thorns came up and choked them
out. It is one of the clear, that’s one of the reasons I love
to garden. It’s one of the clear illustrations of the curse in
the garden. To watch weeds. Weeds don’t ever
have to be watered. They don’t ever have to be cultivated.
It doesn’t matter what soil they’re planted in. They flourish while
my little plants languish. Others fell among the thorns. The thorns came and choked them
out. Verse 8, the fourth, others fell on the good soil and yielded
a crop, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears,
let him hear. Well, the parable, as you know,
fell on difficult ears. Even his own disciples didn’t
understand Jesus’ words. And they stammered and wondered
why he was telling these obtuse stories when they were all about,
supposed to be all about preaching the gospel. Why would he tell
this obtuse, difficult to understand, even if you thought it through
story? And Jesus explains that in the
following verses, 10 through 17. But then he very graciously
communicates the meaning of this parable. Look at verse 18, hear
then the parable of the sower, when anyone hears the word of
the kingdom and does not understand it, and that is our word, comprehend,
does not take it down, it is not received into the heart,
it isn’t appropriated. When anyone hears the word of
the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches
it away, what has been sown in his heart, this is the one on
whom seed was sown, beside the road. And so he says there are
some people that when the Word of God comes to them it’s just
like that seed bouncing along the hardened footpath and coming
to a rest just in time for a sparrow to come along and get his noon
meal. The devil does the same thing.
I had a pastor friend of mine that Wise old godly pastor that
used to say if God’s Word does not enliven It must deaden There’s
another kind of seed and soil Verse 20 the one on whom seed
was sown on the rocky places This is the man who hears the
word and immediately receives it with joy and haven’t we all
met this person? people like this enthusiastic
about the scriptures enthusiastic about the things of God yet he
has no firm root in himself but is only temporary and when affliction
or persecution arises because of the word immediately he falls
away and I have a mind to think that James in writing to those
Whom he was largely Jewish converts in and around Jerusalem in the
environs That James knew this parable. He had probably heard
it even firsthand and it’s these people more than any other That
are in James’s mind There were so many people coming to Christ
or were they in that early church that James probably saw this
happen so frequently that that in a very real sense he does
this whole parable in a single verse. Receive the word implanted. Verse 22, there’s another soil. The one on whom seed was sown
among the thorns. This is the man who hears the
word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of Well,
choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. The weeds, just other
nonsense. And that’s what always just concerns
me is just how much nonsense there is in the world. And Jesus
said that that’s the very thing that chokes out the word. Can’t compete. I’ve learned that
over the years that If I don’t weed the garden, the garden will
be destroyed by the weeds. They will take over. They will
just make ineffective anything that’s planted. Oh, but there’s a fourth. There’s
a fourth seed. There’s a fourth result because
there’s the fourth kind of soil. And that’s what Jesus is concerned
with is the quality of the soil. And that’s what James is so concerned
with, even in one verse. Verse 23. Jesus said, the one
on whom seed was sown in the good soil, this is the man, watch
what happens, who hears the word and understands it, he takes
it down into his heart, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth
some 100 fold, some 60, and some 30. In other words, it changes
his life. It does something. And that’s what James would call,
if you go back to James, that’s what James calls the rooted word. The word that isn’t on the footpath,
or isn’t on the stony ground, or isn’t among the thorns, but
it’s the seed that goes down into the good soil. That’s what
James is concerned with. So that we, like Paul would say,
will be rooted and grounded. It’s the rooted word. This is
everywhere in scripture. Deuteronomy 11.8, you shall therefore
impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul.
You shall bind them as a sign in your hand. They shall be as
frontals on your forehead. The word of God is serious business. Deuteronomy 30, the word is very
near you in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe
it. The Word of God isn’t to be treated
slightly. The Word of God isn’t to be treated
casually. Jeremiah 31.3, I will put my
law within them and on their heart I will write it. I will
be their God and they shall be my people. Acts 20, 32, Paul
writing or speaking to the Ephesian elders. When he was ready to
leave, he did them the greatest favor that any pastor could ever
do. When he said, I commend you to
God and to the word of his grace. You’re gonna be fine without
Paul. I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which
is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among
all those who are sanctified. It’s the word of God. It’s the
Word of God that believers are supposed to take deep into our
heart. It’s supposed to change our lives
and bear fruit. It’s supposed to be a fruitful
garden. And I would just ask you, what
kind of a garden are you keeping? And I’m not talking about vegetables. I’m talking about your life.
What kind of a garden are you keeping? And James in this one
little verse essentially does what Jesus does in that great
big parable. James gives us help. James gives
us a clear path to having a fruitful garden in that he teaches us
about the phases of the growing season. Stay with me. This is so simple. First of all,
the first phase of the growing season is what I would call cleanup. It is an aggressive elimination
of the destructive garden’s elements. A lot of people have gotten into
this whole thing of composting where they gather up everything,
you know, everything in the house, any refuse of the house they
throw into the compost bin. There’s one thing you want to
leave out of the compost bin and that is any Vining plant
anything that has accumulated any kind of disease Because as
soon as you put that into your compost bin you just turned it
into a giant Petri dish Where it’s going to begin to generate
that disease and multiply that disease So that as soon as you
incorporate that into the soil you just infected your entire
garden James says it so simply Just as did Peter. Putting aside. Get rid of it. Get rid of those
diseased plants. Get rid of those things. This
word was used of putting off a garment. Just exactly as Peter
used it. To strip, as in speaking of clothing. And we see the same word used.
Acts 7.58, remember Saul’s persecution of Stephen. When they had driven
him out of the city they began stoning him and the witnesses
laid aside their robes. Same word. At the feet of a young
man named Saul. Paul uses this word. Paul loves
this word. Paul in Romans 13.12 urges believers
very similarly. Lay aside the deeds of darkness. Get rid of it. Don’t put it in
the compost bin. Don’t mull it over. Don’t hang
on to it. Don’t admire it. Don’t put it
in a pile to be dealt with next year. Get it as far from your
garden as you possibly can. Get sin as far away from your
life as you possibly can. Paul as Paul says that he calls
them the deeds of darkness characteristics of moral darkness he says oriented
in the kingdom of darkness and of the devil a very graphic description isn’t
it of the sinful world from which we have been called Hebrews 12 One uses the same,
let us lay aside every encumbrance. So not only these garden weeds,
which we’ll discuss more graphically in a second, but encumbrances
and deeds of darkness, all of it, the scripture writers say,
put it aside, put it completely off. Here in Hebrews 12, one,
this is prior to running the race. You can’t run the race
if you’re encumbered. Thomas Manton said here, put
it off as a rotten and filthy garment. That’s the nature of
this word. Get rid of it. They might better,
pardon me, put it off as a rotten and filthy garment that they
might be fitter to entertain the word. He basically takes
James’ words and says, look, you can’t grow as a Christian
until you’re committed to getting rid of the garden waste. Sin
must be left with an utter detestation. Grief should become contrition.
Anger should be heightened into rage and indignation. And shame
should be turned into confusion. No displeasure can be strong
enough for sin. We must learn to hate sin. And we must be committed to getting
rid of it. Ephesians 4.22. Same illustration. Lay aside the old self. Ephesians 4.25. Lay aside falsehood. Colossians 3.8. Put them all
aside. Anger, wrath, malice, slander,
abusive speech. And the passage we just read.
1 Peter 2. Putting aside all malice, deceit,
hypocrisy, envy, slander. And the illustration that James
uses is so simple. It’s garden waste. Get rid of
it. Cut away all these vines and
all this rottenness and get rid of it. Get as far from it as
you possibly can. And then he begins to list out
some of those things. Putting aside all filthiness. The interesting thing about this
word is it is an extremely rare word. We don’t believe that James
created this word, but he dug this word up from the very bottom. It’s not used anywhere else in
the New Testament. It’s not used anywhere else in
the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible. The word basically means abomination. It refers to things that are
absolutely abhorrent to God himself. And so often it pointed to things
that were nothing less than idolatrous, gross, moral pollution, unclean, impure, defiling. So James says here, get rid of
everything that is defiling, inconsistent with a Christian
testimony. moral filth, anything that could possibly hinder your
Christian life, treat it as virus-infested garden waste. Get rid of it. Not only filthiness, but James
says, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. Now this is an interesting one
here. Because the word, and King James translates it, naughtiness,
which isn’t a common, we don’t use that word in our English
language except maybe for a child, you know, doing something misbehaving. But the word, it means malice and wickedness,
moral pollution. One commentator really favored
the word prodigality, a tendency to go astray and into sin. And so the interesting fascination
with this, it isn’t even the word but the phrase that’s fascinating
here, because the word translated wickedness and naughtiness is
embedded in a clause here which includes the word excess. Now the sense that you come away
with, and the word there, excess, perissuo, it’s used throughout
the New Testament, Romans 5.17, abundance of grace, 2 Corinthians
8.2, overflowed in their liberality and their giving. But the King
James translates this here, superfluity of naughtiness. Did you get that?
Neither did I. It just talks about an excess
of wickedness, an excess of sinfulness. And there seems to at least be
the implication here in that particular translation that maybe
a certain degree of malice, a certain degree of sin was to be expected.
But what’s really wrong is an excess of sin. And that’s what
we’ve really got to be about is getting rid of the excesses
of sin. Well that would tend to almost
be absurd to think that some sin is okay but sin in its excess
should be dealt with. And so that has produced a variety
of translations and explanations. One person described it this
way, all the evil prevailing around you. I like that. That’s
good. The evil, said another, the evil
that is so prevalent. It’s not bad, but it’s not literal.
Another called it reckless dispensation. Another said, referred to it
as the enormity of vice. Overflowing of malice, said another. And one, finally one translation
called it wickedness which is abounding. Any sin is already in excess. And James says here, go find
it and root it out. We need to be aggressive about
getting rid of sin in our Christian life. One pastor said, the convert
to Christ must cleanse himself not merely of defilements arising
from words, nor merely malice manifested in speech, but all
sin contemplated, which is well called the abounding evil which
we find in our hearts. We need to be aggressive about
eliminating destructive garden elements if the garden of our
life is going to be fruitful. That’s what James says. Putting
aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness. But
there’s a second. There’s a second phase in this
growing season. And it’s interesting that James
starts, he starts at the end of the season. The garden has
been harvested and all the remains of these vines lying around on
the ground tomato plants that have suffered the frost and are
just wilted. There isn’t anything else that
we’re going to be able to take and glean from that garden at
all. All that’s left is cleanup, but
James starts with cleanup. But there’s a second phase. And
the second phase is a careful cultivation of the garden’s soil. This is what I would call amendments.
You can’t garden in Colorado unless you add amendments. Coffee
grounds, grass, leaves chopped up, sticks chopped up into fine
pieces. Whatever it is, you’ve got to
add and you’ve got to amend the soil. Otherwise, you’re not going
to grow anything because it’s hard as a rock. Even if you soften
it up, as soon as you add water, it becomes just like concrete.
Well, James says likewise, We are to amend the heart. And look
at the way he says it. Therefore, putting aside all
filthiness and all the remains of wickedness, receive the word. But he says, in humility. In
humility, receive the word. That’s the amendment. That is
the necessary ingredient. If we’re going to have a fruitful
garden, it’s got to be received in humility. This characteristic,
this character quality, if you will, speaks of an absence of
resentment. And he goes back again, he ties
back again into verse 20 into the element of anger and angry
speech. This is a meekness, meekness,
a gentleness, even in the midst of suffering, and was a distinctive
Christian character. It was a quality that the world
didn’t know anything about. One described it in these terms.
He said, humility is the opposite of wrathfulness. It’s an inner
attitude, not of spineless weakness or haughtiness. Instead of brashly
asserting themselves in anger, they need to be humble and teachable
in order to rightly receive the divine message. We need to cultivate
the soil. We need to cultivate our heart.
This is also, with the exception of this verse and one verse in
Peter’s epistle, chapter 3 verse 15, this word is a Paul word. This is a word that Paul loves. 2 Timothy 2.25, with gentleness
correcting those in opposition. An elder in the church is of
no effect if he goes around bashing those in his midst. He’s got
to come alongside them. He’s got to patiently correct
and lead and guide. This is everywhere in the scriptures,
this character quality of humility. Psalm 34.2, 37.11, 76.9. And
see, the pagan world, the heathens knew nothing of this character
quality. In fact, they thought of meekness
as a weakness. Christian lowliness of mind,
lowliness of heart, humility, meekness was mocked. So this meekness stands, as we
said, in contrast with wrath and wrathfulness, outbursts of
anger. It included what one described
as a wrathful fierceness by which men rage against the world. That’s
wrath. That’s those outbursts that you’re
just simmering below the surface, just waiting to come uncorked
at someone. Meekness also excludes a proud
stubbornness. When men are resolved to hold
their own, they just refuse to bend, refuse to even listen.
The third element there that he points to is contentious wrangling. They’re just always ready to
lash out and to mix it up with someone. And instead, James says,
if we’re going to have a fruitful garden, if our lives are going
to be like Christ, then we have to receive the word. We have
to amend the soil. We have to receive the word in
humility. We’ve got to be teachable, humble,
gracious. Thirdly, there’s a third phase
in the growing season, and it has to do with the fruitfulness
of the garden. The first phase is an aggressive
elimination of destructive garden elements, clean up, a careful
cultivation of the garden soil, amendment. This is what I would
call harvest. A joyful gathering of the garden’s
fruit. There’s just nothing better. You know, no wonder Paul says
the farmer ought to be the first to enjoy the fruit of his labor.
There’s just nothing more pleasant than to go out to your garden
after you’ve labored and watched and planted and cared to go out
and harvest something from your garden, even if it is the most
expensive tomato in all the land. Look at verse 21. There is to
be a joyful gathering of the garden’s fruit. Therefore, putting
aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness in
humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. Peter isn’t saying here, or James
rather, isn’t saying here that, look, if you will only hold to
these things, if you only be obedient in these, all these
particular areas, then you will get saved. He isn’t saying that
at all. He is pointing to the fact that
this salvation is attributed to the implanted Word, but he’s
pointing out that the Word has already been implanted. We’ve
already been regenerated. We’re already saved. God has
already done the saving. Why wouldn’t we welcome eagerly
more of God’s Word? To do more of what God’s Word
does in our lives. Idea is replete throughout the
scriptures the case is easy to build second timothy 3 15 Paul
told timothy from a childhood you have known the sacred writings
which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation
Through faith, which is in christ shouldn’t we be eager to have
more of the word shouldn’t we be eager to take the word? into
our heart and soul Shouldn’t we plant that seed deep within? Romans 1.16, I’m not ashamed
of the gospel, it’s the power of God for salvation to everyone
who believes. Faith, even as Hebrews 10.39
has it, faith to the preserving of the soul. And as Peter says
in his first chapter, that you believe in him, obtaining as
the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. What
he points to is the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it’s an ongoing
gospel. It’s cultivating Christ-likeness
in our hearts as we take in the word, and we appropriate it,
and we examine our lives in light of that, and we confess and repudiate
anything that is out of line with Christ, anything that doesn’t
look like Him, sound like Him, One faithful commentator said
as I close, the gospel of Christ is the power of God for salvation. Being his appointed instrumentality
for uniting men to Christ, obtaining forgiveness and sonship, and
the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit. If you’re saved,
you’re in the process of being sanctified, but that can’t be
done without the word. receive the word implanted, which
is able to save your souls. Let’s go before him in prayer. Our merciful King, we humble
ourselves before you and we thank you for communicating to our Lord’s
brother, James, these things and impressing upon him both
during his life and after that he would take up this great subject
of gardening as it relates to the human heart and our life
of sanctification and that in one sentence he would sew up
that great illustration that our Lord Jesus himself provided
that of the seed of the sower finding a comfortable and good
soil, a place in which to grow. Lord, grant us the grace to examine
our lives. Grant us the grace to approach
the Word, the Scriptures with all humility, eager to be taught
and corrected and led by them. Lord, we thank you for the salvation
we possess in Christ. We thank you for the Word. of
Christ that was communicated to us, the means of salvation
in him alone. Lord, because of that, if there
are any here who do not know the Lord Jesus, we pray that
you would prevail upon them, that you would bring them to
life, that they too would begin the glorious journey of cultivating
their own heart and life. with the desired production of
Christ-likeness. Lord God, we thank you and praise
you in Jesus’ name. Amen.