The Rest of the Story
"And now you know the rest of the story."
It was the signature line of radio personality Paul Harvey. He was a powerful storyteller who would take the details of history, a famous figure, or an interesting biography and engage his listening audience with a gripping tale.
The story would often share unknown facts and lesser-known circumstances, and the big reveal at the end was what made the whole thing "click," if you will. With the revelation finally given, Mr. Harvey would sign off in that immediately recognizable voice: "And now you know the rest of the story."
It was not always this way, but most often there was an undercurrent of moral truth. A big takeaway about our daily lives, how to be a better person, or how to live by a character that is honorable and impactful to the world around us.
His program became incredibly popular because of the mystery and power of the story.
The story is something that is compelling to all of us. Think of it now: in recent years, like never before, we have been returning to the story. Popular media continues to highlight the lives and testimonies of others, and even the fictional stories of TV, movies, and yes, even books, have a powerful impact on the hearts, minds, and lives of people.
It is storytelling that has been the foundation of culture, development, and history for thousands of years. It is the ancient way that history, character, and communities were built. Stories shared at family gatherings. Grandparents telling grandchildren how the family came to be around the holiday table. It is known most often as oral tradition, and throughout all of history it has been the story, the narrative, that has made generations.
A narrative carries a revelation.
Narrative is the literary term for story. It is the form, structure, and tools of storytelling that communicate not only the details of what happened, but "the moral of the story." In the life of a believer, that moral is what we would call revelation.
As we walk in our Christian lives, we are desperate for revelation. We are seeking to know God more and to make Him known. To understand the depths of His Word and the riches of His wisdom.
But the truth of the narrative also reveals the weakness of our own lives.
If the narrative is so powerful to communicate revelation, it suddenly highlights a lack in us. We struggle to recognize our own lives and the changes that may be needed.
Man's goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?
Proverbs 20:24
Solomon's Paradox
Solomon pens these words in the Proverbs to highlight something he himself had to grapple with: our inability, quite often, to recognize our own situation.
Too Close to See
Simply put, how many of you have given excellent advice to a friend only to realize afterward, "Man, if I would do that in my situation, that would be pretty good too. Why haven't I thought about that until now?"
It is a truth of our lives. We are often bound up by the emotional ties to our circumstances. We are "too close" to our own lives to evaluate them with the objectiveness and depth of wise consideration that we so easily give to someone else's situation.
This is what has been deemed Solomon's Paradox.
"We are too close to our own lives to see them clearly, so God tells us a story that lets us finally see ourselves."
Remember Before It Is Too Late
In both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the wisest man who ever lived writes with sorrow about a life that gathered and gained tons of wisdom but never used it for himself. He cries aloud to his son to listen to the voice of wisdom, warning that "of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."
Then, as the Bible names him, the Preacher writes these words:
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
Ecclesiastes 12:1
Remember the Lord before it is too late. Remember while you can still do something about it.
Solomon goes on to describe the decaying body of old age settling in on him, and I believe he wrote it with tears and weeping, pleading with all who would hear: remember. Remember God before it is too late.
He concludes with the reminder that the whole purpose of it all is to "fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."
Solomon cries out to all who would listen: don't fall into my trap of never hearing the rest of the story. Don't just be wise. Create the distance needed to apply that wisdom to your life.
Don’t fall into the paradox but allow the power of the anointed parable, the Word of God, to bring revelation that is actionable.
The Story That Does Surgery
This is what James is declaring to us in his letter. Look into the perfect law of liberty and let it be a reflection, a mirror of your own life, that brings the revelation you need to obey God, keep His commands, and live faithfully for His Kingdom.
It is the story of Scripture that does this for us.
We cannot understand our own way, but when the Spirit of the Lord begins to move on us and we begin to read this living Word, something happens. Revelation begins to come. The story comes alive and begins to do surgery on us, transforming us into the image of God.
We are changed by the revelation of Scripture.
It is no accident that so much of our Bible is narrative. It is meant to be read with thousands of years of history between their day and ours, and that distance reveals the proclivity of our own lives to sin and to fall prey to idols.
The stories of Israel complaining in the midst of God's provision highlight our own tendency to be unhappy with our season of life. "God, why did You put me in this job with a terrible boss? Why don't I make better money? Why do I have to do something I don't enjoy?" All the while we miss that we are God's chosen son, God's chosen daughter, ordained and appointed for this time and this place to do the work of the Kingdom of God right where we are.
It is the power of the story that begins to change our lives. We must approach the Word with a desire for understanding and revelation through prayer so that we can keep God's ways.
It is the paradox and the parable.
Our lives are conflicted by our inability to apply God's given wisdom to our own situation. But the parable, the parable brings the revelation we need to act on God's Word for our lives.
David's Parable
David is the perfect example. We find it multiple times throughout his life: David unable to recognize his own flaws or failures, and the prophets bringing the Word of the Lord to reveal the error of his ways.
The Prophet and the Story
The most recognizable moment comes after his sin with Bathsheba. Nathan the prophet comes with the Word of the Lord in his mouth, and he begins to tell David a story.
The narrative. The parable.
A rich man with many flocks takes the one little lamb of a poor man to feed his guest. David's immediate outrage speaks to his value system. He knows exactly what is right. But the paradox of his own mind kept him from seeing that he had violated the very thing he claims to believe.
And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.
2 Samuel 12:7
The Parable Brings Revelation
It is the paradox and the parable. The parable brought the revelation of his ways, and David immediately repents and writes Psalm 51, the most quoted prayer of repentance in history.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10
The parable, the Word of the Lord, brought the revelation for his life.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what the Law of the Lord does for us today. It is the power of God's Word unto repentance and freedom.
The Power of the Perfect Law
James tells us the power of the parable, of God's Word.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
James 1:25
It is the Law of Liberty. The law which frees us.
Obedience to the law of God is liberty from sin, shame, guilt, and anger. The perfect Law of Liberty delivers us from our poor character and bad attitudes. It delivers us from bitterness and resentment by establishing forgiveness in our lives.
It provides the roadmap and the revelation to part, or repent, of our sinful, fleshly ways to adopt a life after the Spirit. To obey and walk after God’s laws and commands.
It is the Law of the Lord. This Book, these words, most of which are story. The rest of the story that frees us from the sinful nature of our flesh so we can walk after the Spirit.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
And we do not read it alone. The same Spirit who inspired the story is the One who opens it to us.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.
John 16:13
The Passion: Doers of the Word
James goes on to establish where the parable, the revelation, really begins to take place: when we put the Word into action in our lives. That is where we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
James 1:22-24
The forgetful hearer looks in the mirror and walks away unchanged. He saw it. He just never did anything about it. That is Solomon's Paradox all over again: wisdom gathered, wisdom never applied.
The doer looks into the perfect law of liberty, and he continues there. He lets the story read him. He lets the Spirit say, "Thou art the man," and instead of defending himself, he repents and obeys.
Pure Religion
James does not leave the doing vague, either.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James 1:27
The revelation of the Word always leads somewhere. It bridles our tongue. It moves our hands toward the hurting. It keeps us unspotted from the world. Revelation that never becomes obedience is just information, and James calls that kind of religion vain.
Now You Know the Rest of the Story
My admonition to you today is to stop walking away from the mirror.
When you read the Word, do not just read it as history about someone else. Ask the Spirit to show you where you are in the story. Are you Israel complaining in the wilderness? Are you the rich man taking what isn't yours? Are you Solomon, wise for everyone but yourself?
Then, when the revelation comes, do something with it. Repent quickly like David did. Obey the Word. Let the perfect law of liberty set you free from sin, shame, guilt, anger, and bitterness.
We are all too close to our own lives to see them clearly. That is the paradox. But God, in His mercy, has given us the parable. His Word creates the distance we cannot create for ourselves and brings the revelation we need to build a life that looks like Jesus.
And now you know the rest of the story.
Let's build together.