Quit Kidding Yourself

Last time I was up here, we talked about the book of James and how James just cuts through the pride, ego, and feelings on truth to the core of the believer. He was telling us “It is time to grow up.” For James, it is all about truth and growth. To grow, we must “quit kidding ourselves.”

There are true believers who are fooling themselves concerning their walk with Christ. They claim to be spiritual. That’s cool, demons are spiritual too. I am not judging anybodies salvation here, I am sharing what the Word of God tells us. It is a mark of Christian maturity when we can make an honest assessment and admit our needs and our shortcomings, and seek help in those areas. It is the immature believer who believes there is no more learning or increase in their walk with Jesus. In doing so, they shut the Word of God out and do not allow Holy Spirit to work in them.

As we walk through the next few verses, we will see that James is talking about self-deception. If a Christian sins through the deception of Satan, that is one thing. If it is because we are deceiving ourselves, that is a far more serious matter. If we are deceiving ourselves, we are going to fail at overcoming temptation because we have already given in to it. We need to quit kidding ourselves. Lets look at:

James 1:19 NLT

19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

This verse fundamentally changed my life. James makes this statement in a careful and methodological way. He begins with “Understand this.” He is not saying “Hey ya’ll, can you hear me, hey there can I have your attention please.” No, James is saying Hey You, believer, follower of Jesus Christ, pay close attention.” Then he gives a very specific order of actions we are to follow with others and with the Word of God.

Quick to Listen

Slow to Speak

Slow to get Angry

Step one: Are you ready? SHUT-UP AND LISTEN! That is what James is saying. Practice actively listening to other people. You may think you know what is in someone else heart and mind, you do not. You do not know what their experiences are, what life looks like through their lenses, or even what is going on in their life at times. We certainly do not have the authority to dictate another person’s story for them. It is their story of their life, of their walk. Now, lets look at this in terms of our Christian walk.

We must be ever ready and prepared to receive the Word of God. We must have the right heart to receive His Word. James says the Word is to be engrafted in our hearts. Jesus described four different kinds of hearts. Every believer has been in or falls into one of these categories:

The hard heart. The person with a hard heart does not understand the Word nor do they want to receive the word. They will not bear fruit. How many of us have had a hardened heart toward God and the Word? I have. I have not always been a believer. There was a time I did not want to hear anything about God’s Word. If you have a hardened heart this morning, I beg you, let today be the day you ask our Savior into your heart. If you are a believer, keep planting and watering those seeds.

The shallow heart. I pictured someone diving head-first into the shallow end of the pool. You may be in the water, but it aint looking good. The person with a shallow heart may be emotional about their walk, but have no depth to their faith. Their faith shifts and drifts. They straddle the fence between the world and God. The Word can not take root because they do not allow God to continually shape them, to prune them. They do not spend enough time with God.

The crowded heart. The person with a crowded heart lacks repentance and allow sin to crowd out the Word of God. This has taken down a lot of believers. If we refuse to repent, to turn away from sin then we are, by virtue, welcoming sin into our lives rather than fleeing from it, we are only fooling ourselves. Instead of allowing Holy Spirit to fill us we allow sin to control us.

Then there is the fruitful heart. The person with a fruitful heart receives the Word and allows the Word to take root. It may take time for fruit to grow and to bloom, but this produces the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. This person allows God to continually prune them, to shape them, and to use them.

What kind of fruit is being produced in your life this morning? Is your heart hardened? Is your heart shallow? Is you heart too crowded for His Word? Do people see you and see Jesus? James implies that if another person can not distinguish you or me from a non-believer, we are kidding ourselves about our walk and may need to go to the foot of the cross.

Step 2. How about being slow to speak? YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET THE FIRST WORD OR THE LAST WORD! As a matter of fact, sometimes we may have no words. It is okay to not have anything to add to a conversation. Sometimes we are called to just be there, be present, and listen. So many forget that we have two ears and one mouth. We need to listen more than we speak. We are not to sit with arms folded across our chests, puffed up, waiting for our chance to argue or looking for a reason to argue. It is the same with the Word of God.

Too many times we will argue with the Word of God. Maybe not out loud, but in our hearts and minds. Our ideas about right and wrong are of little consequence when we put our ideas up against the Word of God. We must be willing to dig into His Word. If we twist scripture or leave parts out to make us feel better about ourselves or to justify our behaviors and words, we are kidding ourselves.

Think about this for a moment. The Spirit hit me with this one day when I was trying to justify my bad behavior using scripture, you know, looking for loopholes. If we are altering the Word of God in order to put ourselves in a good light before others, we are in fact modifying His Word to fit the world. Who is the prince of the power of the air? So, this begs the question: Who are we twisting the Word of God for? Look what the Apostle Peter tells us

2 Peter 1:20 NKJV

20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,

It is God’s Word, He holds the eternal copyright on it, and we do not get to change the eternal Word for a temporal benefit.

Step three, slow to wrath or anger. When we speak about anger, I often hear believers try to lay claim to the same righteous indignation Jesus had when he cleared the temple. “Jesus got angry, so I can too!” First of all, Jesus did not get angry, he had righteous indignation. James is instructing us to be slow to assume the mantle of righteous indignation, because in so doing we implicitly claim to speak for God. James goes on to tell us:

James 1:20 NLT

20 Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

If you are doing so, please stop comparing your finite, unrighteous wrath to the wrath of God, who is perfect and Holy. I have yet to meet a human being who’s anger is expressed in an altruistic and truly righteous way. The truth is that anger and wrath disturb and distract the person experiencing it and it disturbs and distracts the people around that individual. It causes a ripple effect that can have devastating consequences.

In modern psychology, anger is sometimes referred to as a secondary emotion. The reason for that is that anger is usually precipitated by one of three things: fear, physical/emotional pain, or high stress levels. Some people live in a perpetual state of anger or hurt. It becomes their comfort zone.

Now, as far as our walk with God, if we are angry, how can we focus our thoughts and spirit on God’s Word? if we are focused on being angry, it makes it difficult to focus on Him. God’s Word will bring us to a place where we no longer want to be angry or lash out and he will heal the hurt in our lives. James tells us how to do it!

James 1:21 NLT

21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

The Greek word for “filthiness” (ruparia) is taken from the Greek word rupos. The word is sometimes used to refer to wax in the ear. The picture is descriptive and gross: a person with wax in the ear cannot hear the Word of God, not clearly. We must keep our spiritual ears clean or we will be deaf to the Word of God. James also gives the illustration of wearing dirty clothes, and not cleaning them. We have to remove those old dirty garments we cloth ourselves in and let our LORD and SAVIOR cleanse us! James is saying that we cant walk around dirty and stinking and wonder why we stink! We know why! We MUST prepare our hearts and minds for an encounter with the living God.

People may have prayed for you before you believed, planted seeds, watered those seeds, but it was the WORD of GOD that smacked you silly. See, it is not you, it is not me, it is not anybody else who changes hearts and saves souls. It is the Living Word of God, the Gospel message, it is Jesus Christ. When we humbly accept His word and allow him to reach in and write His Word on our hearts, that is what gives us power. Then Holy Spirit can do His work within us! Here is the final verse we will look at this morning.

James 1:22 NLT

22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

There are self professed Christians around the world who sit week after week under the Word of God, they learn the Word, some know far more than I know. They have the mistaken idea that hearing a good sermon or Bible study, or showing up to church on Sunday is what makes them grow and get’s them God’s blessing. This is what I call the passive Christian. The hearing and learning is important, but the doing is the most important part. The doing is when the heart change comes and where the blessings come from.

“Too many Christians mark their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them!” - Unknown

Jesus Christ is THE WORD. The active believer hears the Word and is determined to put it into practice. The Word of God is called the PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY. The person who does and lives the Word of God, who lives for and through Jesus, is freed from all of the things that enslave our souls. We experience true love, true joy, and true peace. We can live in assurance, in confidence, having victory over temptation, choosing life over death, living with purpose and meaning.

Worship Team/Alter Call

I am not asking you to answer me, this is between you and God. Where are you this morning? Are you kidding yourself? Are there things within you that you have refused to let go of this morning? Bring it to Jesus, ask Him to cleanse you and fill you with His joy, His peace, and His love. God bless you.