Paul Tripp: God has graced you with the ability to read and hear His Word to see yourself in His wisdom. But it's very easy to forget what you've seen. It's very easy to walk away unchanged. It's very easy to think that you are okay when you're not okay.

Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministries. Join us as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Now, here's Paul Tripp.

Paul Tripp: Well it just doesn't make any sense. Yet we do it again and again. Not as if everything in our life makes sense because I guess we often do a lot of things that don't make sense.

If you did this in any other area, people would simply think that you were crazy. It's a massive contradiction. There's a way in which it is the height of inconsistency. It probably is exactly what the Bible is talking about when it talks about hypocrisy. Yet many sincere and believing people do it. They not only do it once in a while, they not only do it weekly, some of them actually do it every day, and they don't even know it.

There's a way in which it's very natural. There's a way in which it's very easy to do. In fact, our instincts are so strong in that direction that you have to fight within yourself not to do it. We all think that we don't do it, and we all tend to think everyone else does. We all sort of know it's wrong. We all know that our response should be very different than it is. We all know it violates everything we say about whom we are, what we need, and what we have been called to.

Yet, having said all of this, we simply continue to do it again and again. And the fact that we do it says something very important about our hearts. You do it. You do do it probably more than you think. And the fact that you do it has had a very important impact on your life. You and I do it Sunday after Sunday. You and I do it again and again when we've been exposed to the Bible. We do it over and over, and over again, and it simply never does us any good.

Music: "When You Gonna Wake Up" by Bob Dylan

God don't make promises that He don't keep
You got some big dreams, baby
But in order to dream you gotta still be asleep
When you gonna wake up, when you gonna wake up
When you gonna wake up strengthen the things that remain?

Kate Crowley: This is Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp. Today, Paul talks about the importance of repentance and faith from the series, "What's So Important About the Bible Anyway?"

You can learn more about this ministry when you log onto paultrippministries.org. And be sure you check out Paul's latest blog. You can also look up other resources designed to help you discover the incredible grace that God provides. That's paultrippministries.org. Right now, here's Paul Tripp with more Right Here, Right Now.

The Thing We Consistently Do

Paul Tripp: Have I gotten your interest yet? Are you dying to know what in the world I'm talking about? Are you wondering what this thing is that we consistently do even though it contradicts who we say we are and what we say we believe? Let me take you to a passage and read it for you.

Now I read this passage a few programs ago, but it defines and explains this thing that I'm talking about very, very well.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror. And after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22-25)

Now, notice the warning that James gives here. He says, "Don't merely listen to the Word and deceive yourselves." Now you have to ask, "How is merely listening to the Word an act of self-deception? How is it that when I only listen to the Word I end up deceiving myself?"

Here's the delusion that James is talking about. When I listen to the Word of God and do not do anything about what I've heard, and I fail to make concrete commitments, and with God's help, apply it to my life, here's what I'm actually doing: I'm deceiving myself into thinking that I am following God because I've held the Bible in my hands or because I've been somewhere where the Word of God is being preached. I tell myself that I'm okay because I've been in a situation where I've listened to the Bible.

But there's not something mystical about the words of the Bible. I don't demonstrate that I'm a serious follower of the Lord simply because I put myself in the place where the Bible can be heard. True faith just is simply not demonstrated by the fact that I've heard the Word of God. True faith is actually demonstrated by what I do after I've heard it.

Then James presents us, having said that, with a physical example that really does say it all. He says the Word of God is like a mirror. Now think about the logic of this. When you look at a mirror, the mirror shows you yourself as you actually are. But the only real reason for looking in a mirror is so that, after you've looked in the mirror, you can remember the mirror's message and do something afterwards about what you've seen in the mirror.

But that's the sad thing. You and I do the very thing that James warns us against again and again. You listen to a sermon. You can even tell the pastor at the door of the church that you learned so much from what he said, and in two days, it's made no impact whatsoever on your life.

You can read a portion of the Bible in the morning and say a quick prayer and very rapidly forget what you have read as you go about your day. We do it again and again. We have a shocking, distant, and personally passive response to the Word of God again and again, and each time we do this, we deceive ourselves. What do you do after you have been exposed to the Word of God?

Music: "Light Of The Sun" by Audio Adrenaline

It only took a moment
To turn my life around
The sky was cracked wide open
It tore these four walls down
It was the light of the sun
(Light of the sun)
(Light of the sun)
(Light of the sun)

James 1: The Mirror of the Word

Paul Tripp: When James talks about looking into the mirror of the Word and doing something about what we see, and the blessing of not forgetting, he is talking about the fundamental way God wants us to respond to the Bible.

The Bible has been given to change you. The Bible has been given to you by God to radically transform your heart and radically rearrange your life. The Bible has been given to rescue and restore you. The Bible has been given to pull you out of those narrow confines of your own little self-defined world and liberate you, to deliver the hugeness of the Kingdom of God.

The Bible is given to give you new goals, new thoughts, new motivations, and new values. The Bible has been given to give you a deeper and more expansive meaning of the purpose of life than you've ever had before. The Bible has been given to destroy your self-interest. The Bible has been given to dismantle your timidity. The Bible is given to transform you into one who loves and serves instead of one who demands to be served and hates to serve. The Bible is given to change you into one who lives for God and lives for others.

So God calls you to this commitment as you listen to the Bible. He calls you to an ongoing lifestyle of repentance and faith. That's the life that He calls you to as you face the stunning message of the Word of God. This life of repentance and faith is the only proper attitude and only proper response to God's Word. It's the only way to properly respond to the Bible. This life of repentance and faith doesn't keep me distant and doesn't keep me passive; it's the exact opposite. It's a personally active, humble response to the message of God's Word.

Now this life of faith has four steps to it, and I want to characterize these four steps with the use of four words. I think these are words that you can easily remember: Consideration, confession, commitment, and change.

What is consideration? Consideration is my willingness, as I have heard the Word of God or read the Word of God, to stop, look, and listen; to examine myself. I'm asking the question, what is it that God wants me to see through this passage of Scripture that I am not now seeing, and how can these truths that I've just been exposed to help me to see it? What does God want me to see about myself, about my attitudes, my actions, my relationships, my finances, about all the myriad of issues of life, about my thoughts and motives and desires? What does God want me to see that I'm not now seeing, and how can this passage help me to see it?

Second - confession. Where is God calling me to admit responsibility for what I say, for what I do, for the choices I make, for the decisions I make, for the actions that I take? Where is God calling me to admit responsibility and to make confession to God and the appropriate people?

You see, this is a call away from excusing, from blame shifting, from rationalization, self-justification, self-atonement, to say, "Yes, this passage reveals wrong inside of me. I take responsibility for that wrong, and I come in humble confession to God, and I will make humble confession to the people in my life who have been touched by this thing." Consideration leads to confession.

Confession, then, leads to commitment. I'm asking this question, "Where are there new commitments that need to be made in my life?" Commitments to new ways of thinking, commitments to new ways of desiring, commitments to new ways of acting, commitments to new ways of speaking. Where are those new commitments that God is calling me to? What must I no longer do, and what must I begin to do in the place of those things that I must no longer do?

Consideration leads to confession; confession leads to commitment; and then a fourth word: change.' Here's the question, "How do I now need to apply those new commitments to the practical, concrete situations and relationships of my everyday life?" Where is God calling me to follow through to perseverance, to actual change in the things that I'm doing and in the place that I'm doing them?

Consideration - what does God want me to see that I haven't been seeing? Confession - where does God call me to own responsibility for what He has taught me in his Word and make confession to Him and to others? Commitment - where is God calling me to a brand-new way of living? And then change - where do those new commitments need to be applied to the situations and relationships of my everyday life?

These four words really do define repentance: Consideration, confession, commitment, and change. Because what is repentance? Repentance is a radical change in my heart that leads to a radical change in the direction of my life. And what does this have to do with faith? This has everything to do with faith. I do all of this believing that there is grace for all the changes to which I am being called. I do believe that, as I consider, as I confess, as I commit, and as I begin the hard work of change, that God will never call me to anything without giving me the wherewithal to do it.

(Music Interlude)

Paul Tripp: I may have shared this with you before, but I've just got to do it again. I was a very angry man. The problem was I didn't think of myself as being angry. I had heard sermon after sermon on anger. I heard so many sermons on anger that it made me angry. I read passages from the Bible about anger. But here's what I would do: I would quickly forget what I had heard. But God put me in a situation where I could not refuse to look into the mirror. I could not walk away. I could not forget.

I had been on a ministry training weekend with my brother, Tedd. And the Word of God had been applied to everyday life in that weekend. On the way home, Tedd said, "You know, Paul, we probably ought to apply this to our everyday individual lives." And he said, "Why don't you start?"

I couldn't jump out of the car; we were going 65 miles an hour. And what Tedd did is he began to ask very simple questions, but questions that applied the Word of God with specificity to my life, particularly to my marriage. I couldn't believe what I saw as Tedd did that. For the first time, I think I accurately saw myself in the mirror of the Word of God, and I did not like what I saw.

I had been an angry guy, and as my wife Luella would try to approach me about my anger, questions about my love for her, I would, I would wrap my robes of righteousness around me, and I would tell her what a great guy I was. I'm a pretty domestic guy, I don't mind doing things around the house, and so I would tell her how good she had it. And I would tell her that basically her problem was discontent, and I'd pray for her.

One time I got on a roll, and I said to her, "Why, 95% of the ladies in our church would love to be married to a man like me!" She quickly informed me that she was in the 5%.

I couldn't wait to get home that evening. I couldn't wait to talk to Luella. I went in the house, and I said, "I know that you've been trying to talk to me for years about my responses to you, and I think tonight for the first time, I am, I ready to listen." We sat down and talked. I'll never forget what happened. She told me that she loved me. She burst into tears, and she talked for two hours. And in those two hours, God began the process (it didn't happen overnight) where he rearranged the heart of this man.

What happened? I was put in a place where I could not forget what I'd seen. I was put in the place by my brother, Tedd, where I had to look intently into the perfect mirror of the Word of God. And as that happened, God began a process of radically changing my heart; and as He radically changed my heart, He radically changed my life.

Music: "Renew Me" by Avalon

Why am I such a dusty window
For Your light to shine through?
Why am I just a tiny star
In a sky already blue?
Why do I offer everything
With my heart closed like a fist?
I want to love You better than this
Why do I live like I'm in chains
When You have set me free?
And why do I have to break your heart
Before I fall to my knees?
I know it's time to pray for change
Give all I have to give
I want to love You better than this
So renew me, remake me
Undo me, unbreak me
Come into the empty spaces
Of my broken places
And consume me, complete me
Pursue me, redeem me
Let Your Holy Spirit living through me
Renew me
My life bending to Your will
Seeking You until I'm more and more like You
So renew me, Lord
Come into the empty spaces
Of my broken places
And consume me, complete me
Pursue me, redeem me
Let Your Holy Spirit living through me
Renew me
Renew me, Lord
Renew me, Lord
I need You to renew me

Have You Done Something About What You Have Seen?

Paul Tripp: So what about you? Do you think that you're okay because you've looked into the mirror? Have you forgotten to do something about what you've seen?

The fact that you're hearing the Word of God, the fact that you have been gifted with the opportunity to look in God's mirror is a sure sign of God's love and grace in your life. God has graced you with the ability to read and hear His Word, to see yourself in His wisdom.

But it's very easy to forget what you've seen. It's very easy to walk away unchanged. It's very easy to think that you are okay when you're not okay.

And so I would ask you this final question after all these programs on the Word of God - "Is God's Word changing you?" Are you responding to the Word of God with that ongoing lifestyle of repentance and faith: consideration, confession, commitment, and change?

Are there places where you are forgetting who you are? Do you really see change in your life? What does God call you to? He calls you to live in His grand Biblical story. Live with an attitude of consideration, live with an attitude of confession, live with an attitude of commitment, live with the hopeful attitude of change. The Word of God has power to transform you - it really does. It really can transform you, right here, right now.

Kate Crowley: Paul Tripp and the transforming power of the Word of God here on Right Here, Right Now. And you can pick up your own copy of Paul's book, War Of Words. It provides an in depth look at how you can win the war of words and share God's words of grace with others. Once again, that's Paul's important book, War Of Words. Just request a copy when you visit paultrippministries.org. That's Paul T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

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By the way, you can catch Paul at Sovereign Grace Church in Gilbert, Arizona today and tomorrow. Just go online for more details.

Next time, more words of grace from Paul Tripp. That's on Monday. I'm Kate Crowley. And for all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries, remember, in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here, right now. Have a great weekend.