Surrender to His Word (21 Days of Surrender #3)

For most of my life I have been a kid magnet. I had never heard the phrase until college, when a girl I was rather interested in — and thankfully later married — used it to describe me, because children swarmed me before and after our college church. Looking back, it had always been true. I like kids, and most kids like me.

But I have noticed that your precious gifts from God can turn into holy terrors with a single word. Why?

You know exactly what I mean. You walk into their room and say something entirely innocent: “Good morning, time to wake up.” Why? Because it’s daytime. Why? Because night is over and the sun has come up. Why? Because the earth rotates. Why? Because that’s how God made it. Understand now?

Our appetite for why fades a little with age, but it never disappears. Sometimes it is genuine curiosity, like a two-year-old’s. But as we get older it often picks up an edge of cynicism. We ask why about politics and policy. About our jobs, about school, about why we are being asked to do a particular thing. We ask it in relationships.

And our inner two-year-old comes out about faith too. The church has the audacity to ask for 21 days of prayer and fasting — why would I do that? I rather like my life. I like my coffee. I like my shows. Why give any of that up for three weeks? Why pray, when sometimes I don’t think God hears me and I don’t know what to say?

And then you see today’s title — surrender to His word — and think: why would I want to do that?

Why Would I Surrender to an Ancient Book?

Some of you hesitate because when you read it, every so often you hit something uncomfortable. It pokes you. You’re missing it here. You’re off. And you don’t much like that feeling, so why invite it? You would rather carry on as you are.

Others of us wonder how something this ancient can possibly speak into modern life. The people who wrote it and first read it had an entirely different approach to sexuality, to gender, to relationships. How is this book supposed to inform me about artificial intelligence, or what smartphones are doing to us, or whether electric vehicles are genuinely the right next step?

This will not surprise you, but I do not believe the Bible is out of touch with modern life.

First, because I believe it is a supernatural book — not merely written by human authors, but written by a divine God through human authors. And God, as the creator of humanity, was able to write something that spoke to those people then and to us now.

Second, because when you actually think about it, those people struggled with their emotions. They had relationship problems. They wrestled with sex and gender. They may be enormously distant from us in culture and time — and they are not that different from us after all.

In James 1 the author gives us four reasons to surrender to God’s word.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth… Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. — James 1:16–18, 21–22 (ESV)

1. He Gave Us His Unchanging Word

James opens with “do not be deceived.” In other words: do not be like Adam and Eve, deceived into thinking God was withholding something good from them. Instead, recognize that every good and perfect gift is from God. He is a giving God. He is generous.

I know there are days that does not feel true — like when Florida gets seventy degrees and we get whatever this is. But you have air to breathe. Gravity is still working. The sun came up. If you have work, if you have people who know you and love you and care about you — even if things are genuinely rough right now, stop and look honestly and you will see God has given you good things.

There are times it feels like He is withholding something good, or has allowed something in that does not feel good or perfect at all. One of our devotional writers quoted Tim Keller earlier this month, and the gist was this: if you knew everything God knows, you would understand exactly why He gave you what He gave you — because knowing what He knows, you would have done precisely the same thing.

And one of the very best of those gifts is His word.

Now, “unchanging” is my adjective, not the text’s — so where does it come from? The rest of verse 17. These gifts come down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Yes, that refers to God creating light. But Scripture also tells us God is light. Jesus is called the light of the world. In Revelation 21 it is the glory of God that illuminates heaven — no need for a sun, because His glory shines, and the Lamb is the lamp.

And He is not a candle that flickers. Not a sun that sets. Not a star that twinkles. Not even a flashlight dimming as the batteries fade. He is constant, continual, unchanging light. Hebrews 13:8 describes Jesus as the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God is the most consistent being you will ever encounter. Think of the most even-keeled person you know — next to the character of God, they look like a roller coaster.

And if the Father of lights is unchanging in Himself, then the word He gives is unchanging too. It is not that it worked for them back then and something different applies now. The truths that pierced human hearts then pierce human hearts now.

2. He Birthed Us by His Truthful Word

Verse 18: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth.”

I teach from the ESV most weeks, because its translators leaned toward a word-for-word approach. That sometimes makes it clunkier — you will notice it in verse 25. Other translations read more smoothly because they aim at thought-for-thought, trying to capture the original authors’ meaning. There are genuine pros and cons to both; I study using thought-for-thought translations and teach from the ESV.

With that said — and take this with an enormous grain of salt, because I am not a linguist and the translators had far better reasons than I have — I think the ESV misses something small here.

The Greek word can mean “brought forth,” but it can also mean birthed. And James is soaked in birth language throughout this section. Look back at verse 15: desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. He is using the imagery of conception and reproduction deliberately — something is conceived, it grows inside you, it gives birth to sin, and that sin fully grown gives birth to death.

In fairness, the ESV is consistent: it uses the same rendering in verse 15 and verse 18, and those words are effectively interchangeable. But I think James is deliberately holding the image.

After all, his brother had this exact conversation. In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night with his questions, and Jesus tells him no one enters the kingdom unless he is born again. Nicodemus takes it literally — do I climb back into my mother’s womb? — and Jesus explains: you are born of water, meaning physically, and you must also be born of the Spirit. There is a spiritual birth.

You are birthed through God’s word. And notice what kind of word: the word of truth. Truth frees you. Truth is reliable. Truth is what you need — and it is what brings you to birth.

I like that image for another reason too. Just as a child is to obey the ones who gave them life, if God is our heavenly Father who birthed us through His word, then we surrender and obey.

3. He Implanted Us with His Saving Word

Have you ever met someone so talented it stops you — in a sport, in art, in music, in sheer intellect? And then you learn their mother and father had exactly the same gift, and something clicks. Ah. That explains it. You don’t admire them less; you simply understand. That ability was planted in them from the beginning.

That is roughly where James goes in verse 21: put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

He shifts the metaphor from the delivery room to the field. Your life is soil, and God has planted a seed in you — and that implanted word is able to save your soul.

I think the human condition knows our souls need saving. Our souls are broken and hurting, which is why people keep trying to save themselves. Through achievement. Through reputation. Through power and influence. Through money and possessions. Some of us try to patch the brokenness with escapism — entertainment, substances, addictions, relationships, sex.

James is warning us. Some of those things are good in themselves — but when they become ultimate, they turn into bad seed. And bad seed reaps a bad harvest that will slowly crush you, and possibly harm the people around you.

Instead, humbly receive the implanted word. Let God put His righteous seed in you and grow something beautiful.

And when James says “word” here, I don’t think he means only the written word. I think he means the gospel — that astonishing story of Jesus taking on human flesh, living without sin, and going to the cross in the sinner’s place. Which means this word is also salvation. This is what saves souls.

I think this word is Jesus. Spoken by the Spirit through human authors — and embodied by Christ. And if we are to be Jesus followers, we are to be like Him, letting that word be implanted in us so that we embody it too.

4. He Calls Us to Do His Life-Changing Word

Verses 22–25: be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because anyone who hears and does not do is like a man who looks intently at his face in a mirror, walks away, and immediately forgets what he looked like.

Around the turn of the century, Leanne and I were in Denver, where I was worship director for a small church plant that could only pay part-time. So I took other jobs, one of which was delivering flowers — a decent gig, driving around making people happy.

This was before mobile phones and GPS, so I mapped my route by hand each day from a paper map — and Denver was expanding so fast they reprinted the maps every six months and they were still out of date within weeks.

One day I was at the back table planning my route. Our manager was at the counter with a customer, an associate was off to my left, and our floral designer was there — a remarkable woman with a chemistry degree who made arrangements better than anything in the magazines, and who was Russian.

The customer places his order and walks out, and the instant the bell dings and the door shuts, our manager says: “That was disgusting.”

We all stop. Someone asks whether he had terrible body odour. “No,” she says. “He had a flapper.”

And our designer, in a heavy Russian accent: “What do flapper?”

It is something in your nose that flaps as you breathe. Thoroughly revolting. Our manager then looked at all of us and said: if you ever see me with a flapper and don’t tell me, and I find out you knew, you are fired.

Now imagine you are that customer. Before walking in, you sat in your car and flipped down the sun visor for a quick face check — nothing in your teeth, no obvious blemishes — and you spotted it. Oh no. I have to deal with that. I don’t want to horrify anyone. So you reach for a tissue — and as you reach, you flip the visor back up. And the moment the mirror is gone, you forget completely, get out, and walk inside.

That is exactly what we do with God’s word.

How often do we look into the mirror of Colossians 3:9 — do not lie to one another — and then arrive on a Sunday and answer “I’m good” when we are not?

How many of us look into Philippians 2:14 — do everything without complaining or arguing — and have not made it through this morning without complaining about the weather?

How many of us read Jesus in Matthew 5 telling us not even to look at another person with lust, and will not make it through today without breaking it?

Or Ephesians 4:31, which says to put away all bitterness, anger and wrath — while we still carry the bitterness of a betrayal from years ago, still seethe over our children’s behaviour this morning, still rage at the athlete whose mistake cost our team the game?

We look into the mirror of God’s word and then walk away — hearers, not doers.

He Is Not Trying to Shame You

If I were a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher on a legalism track, this is where I would start shouting and pointing and stomping: do better, be better, or God will send you to hell.

But that is not what James does. He takes the opposite route. Rather than warning us about a vengeful deity hunting for an excuse, he ends by saying that the person who does these things will be blessed in his doing. He wants what is best for us. He is not shaming us. He is freeing us.

Did you catch it in verse 25? He calls it the perfect law, the law of liberty. This is about freedom.

God does not want you shackled to your shame. He does not want you imprisoned in lies. He does not want you caged in anger or bitterness or unforgiveness. He wants to free you, because He loves you.

That is why Jesus came — not only to give you the word but to be the word. He came so you might be born spiritually. He came to implant that life-changing word in you. And that is why He now calls you to do it, because it is for your good. As you do, you receive the blessing — you begin to act like the One who embodied the word. You begin to live as Jesus lived and love as Jesus loved.

I know it is hard. Some of you have been in a pattern so long it feels permanent. But God wants you unstuck. He has given you His Holy Spirit. He has given you fellow believers. He has given you His word. He has given you Himself.

So lean into Him and into one another, and let Him change you from the inside out. Be the living sacrifice of Romans 12 — climb onto that altar and let God put to death whatever is keeping you from being who He calls you to be, and who you want to be.

It is hard. It is long. It can be slow. It is worth it.

So why should you surrender to God’s word? Because He gave you His unchanging word. Because He birthed you through His truthful word. Because He implanted you with His saving word. And because He calls you to do His life-changing word.