I Know You Heard Me, but Did You Listen?

James 1:19–27 ESV

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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 a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Can you hear me now? How many of us remember this tagline? What was its purpose? There were people talking, but communication was not clear. So often, do we not do the same thing in life? We hear talking, but we don’t truly listen.

Ever go on a trip? Do we ever ask other people for directions or suggestions?

But…how many of us don’t listen, do our own thing, and then convince ourselves that we know best and the others are mistaken?

(Okay, wives, how many of you have ever been assigned the role of navigator and then told the map was wrong?)

We kid ourselves into thinking we know better than the experts.

But on a more serious note, let’s think about it from this perspective. How many people have deceived themselves into thinking they have been saved?

Matthew 7:22–23 ESV

22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

It should make us think a little more closely of our Christian walk and compare it with scripture. Going even further, how many Christians are fooling themselves about their Christian walk. Thinking they are “spiritual”…but are not. We may be hearing God, but are we truly listening.

But being able to truly self-examine our walk with God marks the maturity of our relationship with God. We must be honest with ourselves, not fooling ourselves into believing we are right…when we are not. In everything we do, we must compare our walk with the walk of Christ. We do that through reading His Word. As we read here in James 1, we are to Receive the Word, Practice the Word, Control the Tongue, then Share the Word. All these require not only hearing, but listening and then doing.

Receiving the Word

James 1:19–21 ESV

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

To receive the Word, we are to be:

Quick to Hear - the older I get, the more I realize my hearing is not what it used to be. These past few weeks, Andrew and I have been hunting. His eyes and ears picked up on things that I missed. Hunting for over 30 years, I know where their routes are, I know what it takes, but… I can’t see or hear the same way as when I was younger. Even within the house, there are times where I can hear Allison talking, but simply do not make out what she is saying. Remember the teacher on Charlie Brown??? God calls us to be quick to hear His word. Matthew 13:9 tells us “9 He who has ears, let him hear.” While I may not know what Allison is saying, I know it is her voice, and I (sometimes annoyingly) ask her to repeat herself. WE, as Christians, should be able to recognize God’s voice and be quick to hear what He has to say. We should always tune our ear into hearing His voice. But, we must also seek to listen without interrupting. That is why we are to be:

Slow to Speak

Has anyone ever wondered why we have two ears and only one mouth? Maybe it is to listen twice as much as we speak. Too often, we want to prove ourselves and we will talk without fully knowing what it is we are talking about. Ever been around someone who will talk just to hear themselves talk until everyone else doesn’t want to hear them talk anymore and then they let them have their way SIMPLY because they don’t want to hear them anymore? Too often, we miss out on learning because we talk much more than we listen. God tells us we should be slow to speak. Too often, when God speaks, we want to argue or we want to think we know all about it. Don’t believe me? Why do we have so many denominations? So many splits among denominations? Splits among churches? Most everything is because of things that do not have any eternal significance and instead focuses on our own preferences. It usually leads us to getting upset with others, ourselves, or God. But, we are told to be:

Slow to Anger

We should not get angry at God or His Word because He calls out our insufficiency. Why is it so easy to get mad, but yet so hard to simply obey? We find that example with Peter in the Garden - he was slow to hear, swift to speak, and swift to anger - taking off the ear of one man. But we find this time of action does not do us any good. Simply because:

(Unrighteous) anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Anger is the opposite of God’s patience and understanding. If we are to be more like the image and likeness of God, then we cannot allow ourselves to be unrighteous in our anger.

Instead we should give ourselves over to God. Putting away the things that are not of Him - all filthiness (moral uncleanness) and rampant wickedness (unchecked moral wrong). Instead, we are to receive (accept as right) with meekness (gentleness, humility) the implanted Word. What is the implanted Word? It is God’s Word that has been planted into the heart of every believer. First by confessing our sins, by asking forgiveness, and by meditating on His Word, and guard against weeds.

Jeremiah 4:3 ESV

3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

Just as with a garden, there is time and effort needed to keep the weeds from overtaking it. With our spiritual life, the implanted word must also be guarded against weeds so we can increase the harvest. What weeds? Discord, disagreement, discontentment, etc.

Why is it so important? Because cultivating the Word is the only thing able to save our souls. If we do not RECEIVE and CULTIVATE the implanted Word, then we are not Practicing the Word.

Practice the Word

James 1:22–25 ESV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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 a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Look closely at this first verse - we are not to just receive the Word BUT we are to be DOERS of the Word. It’s not just enough to hear the Word, accept it, and then not DO it. Warren Wiersbe makes this comment “Many people have the mistaken idea that hearing a good sermon or Bible study is what makes them grow and get God’s blessing. It is not the hearing but the doing that brings the blessing. Too many Christians mark their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them!”

The previous verses looked at a garden and seed, while we see a mirror being used as an analogy here. We must look into the spiritual mirror and view it in light of God’s Word.

The main reason for having a mirror is what??? To examine ourselves. Make sure all our hair is in place, that we don’t have something on our face, that the makeup is applied correctly. We want to make sure that we look as good as possible. But how do we compare when we look into the mirror of God’s Word? Do we like what we see? Because THEN we see ourselves as we really are. James mentions several things people do that keeps them from truly seeing themselves in God’s mirror.

-they merely glance at themselves. They do not carefully study themselves as they read the Word. Many sincere believers read a chapter of the Bible each day, but it is only a religious exercise and they fail to profit from it personally. Their conscience would bother them if they did not have their daily reading, when actually their conscience should bother them because they read the Word carelessly.

The second mistake is that they forget what they see. If they were looking deeply enough into their hearts, what they would see would be unforgettable! We tend to smile at the “extremes” of people back in the days of the great revivals, but perhaps we could use some of that conviction.

Mistake number three is: they fail to obey what the Word tells them to do. They think that hearing is the same as doing, and it is not. We Christians enjoy substituting reading for doing, or even talking for doing. We hold endless committee meetings and conferences about topics like evangelism and church growth, and think we have made progress. While there is certainly nothing wrong with conferences and committee meetings, they are sinful if they are a substitute for service.

Instead, we should gaze intently at God’s perfect mirror, seriously and intently so we examine our hearts and lives against God’s Word. It takes time and attention. If we don’t just take a mere glance at ourselves when we head out to an important meeting, dinner, function, etc. then we should certainly not make that mistake when our eternity is at stake. But we should also never think we have arrived and humbly announce our perfection to everyone. Instead, we should learn to control our tongue.

Control the Tongue

James 1:26 ESV

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

The word translated “religion” means “the outward practice, the service of a god.” Pure religion has nothing to do with ceremonies, temples, or special days. Pure religion means practicing God’s Word and sharing it with others, through speech, service, and separation from the world.

There are many references to speech in this letter, giving the impression that the tongue was a serious problem in the assembly. It is the tongue that reveals the heart; if the heart is right, the speech will be right. A controlled tongue means a controlled body. But we should use our tongue for the right thing which is to share the Word.

Share the Word

James 1:27 ESV

27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

After we have seen ourselves and Christ in the mirror of the Word, we must see others and their needs. Words alone are no substitute for deeds of love. God does not want us to leave it up to just the pastor as a substitute for our own personal service!

Instead, we should be doers of a “pure and undefiled religion”. By doing this, we are to visit orphans and widows (and widowers) and keep ourselves unstained from the world. The world wants to see the Christian fail and start to defile him. If we are not careful, we will become conformed to this world, and the result is being condemned with the world. This does not suggest that we lose our salvation, but that we lose all we have lived for.

Conclusion