Don't Just Hear, Do the Word (James 1:19-27)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Over the years I have spent time as a substitute teacher to supplement my income while serving in Pastoral Ministry. One day while substitute teaching, I was paired with another teacher for one class. And he had an assignment to give to the students. The title of the assignment was Follow Directions. For the assignment, there were 22 directions. The first (1), Read everything carefully before doing anything. The 2nd (2), put your name in the upper right-hand corner of this page. (3) circle the word NAME in sentence 2. Dropping down to the twelfth (12), on the back of this paper, multiply 703 by 66. The fifteenth (15), If you have followed directions carefully to this point, call out, “I have.” The nineteenth (19), if you are the first person to reach this point, LOUDLY, call out, I AM THE FIRST PERSON TO REACH THIS POINT, AND I AM THE LEADER IN FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS. The twenty-second (22), Now that you have finished reading everything, do sentences 1 and 2! Keep busy so that others will continue to read without disturbance from you. Do not make any sign to give a clue to your having completed the assigned task.
Now, how many of those kids do you think followed the directions by reading everything carefully before doing anything? I think two of a class of 40 actually did. And while we laugh at this, how many of us follow directions any better? How many of us are quick to speak and quick to anger without ever listening and hearing instructions? How many of us fail to actually listen to our neighbor? That’s what we are going to be considering this morning as we open back up to the book of James again this morning. We will be in James 1:19-27, which you can find in the Pew Bible in front of you in the front row on page #1199. Whether you are a member or regular attender or it is your first time here, whether you are young or old, you would be helped to take out a copy of God’s word and follow along with me as I read, and then keep the Bible open as we track back through it this morning. So, let us hear from the word of the LORD from James 1:19-27, found on page #1199 in the Red Pew Bibles.
Main Idea: If we are to be spiritually whole, then we must hear and obey God’s word.
Hear the Word
Obey the Word
Hear the Word
Hear the Word
Verse 19….
This call to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, like many phrases found in the book of James are memorable phrases. They are chalked full of wisdom, much like that of the Proverbs. In fact, James here is likely pulling from Proverbial wisdom as he points us towards what it means to be spiritually whole.
Proverbs 17:27-28
Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
The wise person isn’t quick to speak, but is slow to speak. Certain camps of worldly wisdom today tell us to speak our minds. But the wise and godly person, the one seeking to be spiritually whole doesn’t speak their mind and all that floods it. No, they are slow to speak, restraining their words, ensuring they are speaking from a cool and wise spirit to speak good and right words. Words that build up, admonish and rebuke with both truth and gentleness, words that correct, but with the aim to always redeem the person in which we are speaking with.
But this is not the natural bent of our hearts that are still tainted by the effects of sin. We are so tempted towards wanting to speak without listening. We are tempted towards being quick to anger instead of being slow. And this is not living in the righteousness that is ours in Christ. Verse 20…
Not all anger is sin, but most of the time the anger of man is sinful. The reason for this is that our anger is filled with all kinds of filthiness and wickedness. Our anger comes when we do not get our own way, when things do not go the way we think they should, and so anger spews out of us. And in the case here of verse 19, often our anger comes because we are too busy speaking to actually listen attentively to what is being said. We would much rather be heard instead of listening. My own heart was convicted of this, just this morning. How I’m too quick to speak instead of listening to my daughters in the midst of trying to move them through bed-time and bath routines. And in the midst of that I’m too quick to anger in those moments.
Brothers and sisters, do you see the sin lurking within each of our hearts here? How are we to be spiritually whole? How are we to allow the testing of our faith to be made perfect and complete if we just carry on as normal? We must be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger if we are to pursue spiritual wholeness in Christ! And we do this as we put away the evil within and humble ourselves to the word of God. Verse 21…
For us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, then we must put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness that does not produce the righteousness of God. They are not to be among us. We are not to wear anger, we are to be self-controlled in this. And this comes from us humbling ourselves and receiving the implanted word.
Here James picks back up the word that he was first talking about in verse 18, the word of truth that he brought us forth by. It is the same word here, but being illustrated in a different way. This word is the message of the LORD, his word. It is summed up in the phrase the message or word of the gospel. The word gospel can be further broken down as good news. And it is this good news that causes us to gather here this morning as the body of Christ. It is this good news that causes us as Christians to want to talk a lot about Jesus. It is this good news that is able to save our very souls.
For the good news is that a holy and righteous God has made a way for us who have previously been living in filth and rampant wickedness to still draw near to him. And that is through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus has come to rescue us from the consequences of our sin by his sacrificial death on a wooden cross. In his dying, he paid the punishment for our sin. In his being buried, we saw that he truly died, but in his rising from the grave on the third day, we saw that Jesus truly defeated the curse of sin and death. Therefore all who will humble themselves, receive this word of truth and allow it to grow in them will be saved.
The implanted word is nothing more here than an agricultural analogy. It paints the picture of the word being sown and bearing roots in our hearts, much like Mark 4:1-20 which we looked at two weeks ago. In this analogy it is a reminder that while we are to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger with one another, we are to also implement this when it comes to the LORD and his word.
Now, you might be thinking I surely am quick to hear when God speaks. But if we are not careful, we often hinder God’s word from planting in our hearts, because we actually aren’t quick to hear God’s word.
Listen to these words written by Kent Hughes in his commentary,
“Bible reading, the primary source of God’s Word, is in jeopardy, for not only do people have trouble concentrating, but films and videos are the primary way many learn. The written page is too tame to hold their attention. Devotions, likewise, suffer. The devotional prayer of the modern man is, ‘Lord, speak to me! You have sixty seconds.’ There is no place in the busy secular desolation to hear God say, ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10).”
Does this describe us? Certainly it does at times for all of us. But do you see how we are in danger of being slow to hear the word of the LORD? Yet, we are quick to speak. We are quick to ask the LORD for direction. We are quick to air our complaints to the LORD. We are quick to wonder why the LORD seems silent. By all means we must remember that we can go to God and ask him for wisdom, knowing that he gives generously as we saw in James 1:5 just last week. But at the same time, brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to be quick to hear and slower to speak, for many of the directions we wonder about, God has spoken to us in the pages of the Bible. Therefore let us be quick to sit down with the word of truth, the Bible and hear from God.
When it comes to the Bible, whether sitting down to read it privately or here corporately, that is as a gathered body of believers, we have the opportunity to hear from the one who spoke all of creation into existence. We have the opportunity to receive the gift of knowing the voice of our creator. We have the opportunity to hear from the voice of the one who has pursued after us to woo us to himself. This should drive us to desire and want to be quick to hear his voice. But in order to do that, we must be slow to speak, slow to anger so that we properly hear him. For the sin of our own hearts will not allow us to hear rightly if we do not put it away. Therefore, let us be quick to hear the voice of the LORD which is able to save and continue to save our souls. And to borrow a phrase from Robby Gallaty, a pastor in Middle Tennessee, “we want to be a people of the word until the word gets into us.” This getting the word into us is where we now turn with our second point.
Do the Word
Do the Word
It is not enough to just hear the word with our ears. For if we only hear and the word fails to be implanted into our hearts, minds, the depths of our souls and grow, then we have not truly heard and believed the word. We have not received it with meekness to allow it to shape us, to transform us. And therefore our thinking that we have heard the word is nothing more than a deception. Verse 22….
This is where the book of James can get a bit confusing and hard. Martin Luther who began the Protestant Reformation thought the book of James to be a strawy epistle. He despised it with its great emphasis on works. But I disagree with Luther, though James can be a hard letter. For Luther, he despised James in thinking works were taught by James as necessary for salvation. But even here in James 1:19-27, we must see what Luther missed, works are necessary, but not for salvation. Works are necessary evidence of our salvation. For if we look carefully, we see that it is by the word of truth we are to be brought forth, we are to hear the word, to receive it with meekness, that is humility. And while works are now being mentioned in verse 22, it is not to earn salvation, but in light of salvation, in light of hearing and receiving the word of truth.
For is this not the point of James here in verses 23-24, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
Like a mirror reveals our outer appearance, a true and right hearing of the word reveals our inner appearance. Therefore, to just be a hearer of the word without it implanting and working itself out in our works, we have forgotten what the word has revealed about ourselves. And if we fail to remember what the word has revealed about our inner nature, then we fail to remember our need to be changed. Our inner self chokes out the word as we remain in our sin.
Friends, there are likely some of you in a group of this size who have heard the word and heard it often. You can possibly even quote portions of the word, but that word has done nothing more than go in one ear and out the other. For that word is nothing more than knowledge for you. It is not being obeyed and lived out by you. It is not enough to know that we are to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness if we are not actually doing it. It is not enough to know that the anger of man fails to produce the righteousness of God while we remain filled with anger allowing it to fester inside us. It is not enough to know that we are to be quick to hear and slow to speak if we are constantly failing to listen to others while wanting to insert our own thoughts and opinions. Especially thoughts and opinions that aren’t rooted in Scripture as we try to justify our sin. Friend if this is you, hear what James says here in verse 26….
Friend, he is talking about you here if you fail to bridle your tongue and listen. Your religion is worthless, it is not of value. Because though you hear the word, you don’t act upon the word, showing that you fail to actually believe the word. You fail to believe it is actually true. Friend, you need to hear this warning this morning. But my prayer for you is that it does not harden your heart, but that it softens it. My prayer is that in hearing this warning this morning that you will be brought to your knees in repentance. That you will listen carefully and humble your heart and receive God’s word and allow it to implant in your heart, moving you to actually believe the word of truth and allow it to grow within you and produce true fruit. That you may come to a true and pure faith. A faith that works to make you spiritually whole in Christ.
A faith where the word gets into you and works its way out of you in all you do. Those who hear the word, who receive the word, and who do the word are those who store the word in their hearts, who meditate on the word, and apply the word to how they live their lives. The word so gets into them, that it begins to change their thinking, their attitudes, their interactions. The word in truly hearing it in a profitable manner changes the way we live our lives. It changes us from being self-loving to pursuing to love God and others more.
Verse 27….
This is the picture of a pure religion, a faith that is undefiled and pleasing to the Father, the LORD our God. A faith that is focused on others. In his commentary, John Calvin puts it like this, “Let him who would be deemed religious, prove himself to be such by self-denial and by mercy and benevolence towards his neighbours.”
The example here by James of living for others is given in the care for the most vulnerable of society, orphans and widows. For while the ESV here uses visit, we should know here that the phrase visit is that idea of looking after, caring for. It is not just the idea of social visits and making sure they are not lonely. It is not less than that, but it is more. This would have been especially important in a society where retirement plans and social security were not an option. Orphans and widows would have no financial provision if they were not cared for. So, part of carrying out a pure faith was caring for these most vulnerable. And even today, our faith should be pure in caring for those more vulnerable than us, ensuring they are cared and provided for. This means as a church, Land O’ Lakes Bible Church, we want to be a people known for our acts of love in caring for the most vulnerable around us. This means us as a church being involved in foster care and adoption. Whether that is financially continuing to support organizations like New Dawn Pregnancy Center or even further, some of us are becoming foster parents and adopting children.
Still other living involves caring for widows in making sure they are cared for. Whether that be making sure they are checked on regularly, to changing a light bulb, or whatever other means they need help with.
When we do these and others like them, this is a pure religion lived out! For our religion isn’t in name only, but is the receiving of God’s word in meekness and its transforming work within us.
Land O Lakes Bible Church, may the LORD help us to be people who receive the word in meekness and see it worked out in our doing. Let’s pray….
