Clean Out Your Ears and Get to Work

Introduction

Who here honestly enjoys going to see the doctor? Like not as in you tolerate it or you don’t really care about it, but you’re on the edge of your seat the whole ride to the doctors office because you cannot wait to go and see this man or woman and hear them tell you some potentially serious news. Does that excite anyone? Most people would honestly answer and say that no, it doesn’t. There are some situations, though, where going to see the doctor can be a huge blessing because problems can often be solved in various ways. Years ago there was an older man whose hearing had gotten progressively worse and he finally caved in when his family tried for the billionth time for him to get hearing aids. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to get him fitted for some brand new hearing aids that finally allowed him to hear perfectly… in fact, he was able to hear a little too good! A month later he went back to the doctor. The doctor said with a smile, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again." The old man replied, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to their conversations. I've changed my will three times!"

We know that our hearing isn’t always the best as humans. We don’t listen to things that we should listen to and sometimes we listen to the wrong voices and wrong people around us. There are situations where we multi-task and kind of listen to others while doing something different but usually whenever we do this we miss something along the way. We miss a word or we miss the way in which the word was said and that can cause problems down the road. Think of the problems that not listening carefully to the Bible has in our lives. Whenever you fail to listen carefully to a parent, friend, teacher, or spouse it will probably come back to bite you a little bit. Maybe you lose a few points on an exam. Maybe you don’t pick up everything you were supposed to at the grocery store. Maybe you forget to do something that you were supposed to do… but those temporary things usually don’t result in super serious consequences. Failing to listen to God’s Word, on the other hand, carries with it eternal consequences. We must be people who listen carefully to God’s Word. James has shared with us so far in this opening chapter that we serve a speaking God who brings dead people to life through His powerful Word of truth (verse 18). Today, James will press that point even further as we conclude chapter 1 with a call for us to listen closely to God’s Word and to make sure that we are following it obediently in our lives.

Tonight, we need to clean our our ears and we need to get to work doing the things that God has called us to do. Let’s look at what God wants us to do tonight.

James 1:19–27 CSB

19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, 20 for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Saving Faith Requires Active Listening (19-21)

As we get started looking at this passage and as we look at our 2 main points here, we have to be careful to make sure that we don’t equate our work as the thing that saves us. You and I can listen to a million sermons from the best pastors, we can listen to the most amazing testimonies, we can hear reports of the countless miracles that God still does around the world and in our community, but if it’s up to us, we’ll fall short. We cannot save ourselves and we can’t conjure up enough faith based on our power to be savable. Salvation isn’t 99% God and 1% us, if so we’ll all get a 99% on that test and come up 1% short. Look with me at Ephesians 2:8-9 to reinforce this truth before we dig into James’ point

Ephesians 2:8–9 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

This is God’s gift… not ours. Not our works. Not our action. We cannot save ourselves because we’re dead in our sins and trespasses. Faith doesn’t come by listening and walking an aisle. Faith comes from the Holy Spirit helping us realize that we’re all in desperate need for a life-giving Savior. Whenever that happens, we don’t just stop listening and kick up our feet and call it good. We’re called to repent whenever we come under conviction of our sins and salvation isn’t the end of the road, it’s where the rubber really meets the road. If we have faith in Christ, we are required to listen to Christ.

Look at these opening 3 verses in our text. Specifically in verse 19. James addresses these people as brothers and sisters - this is in reference to Christians, not non-Christians, which is incredibly important for what follows. To these Christians, he says to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Now, why is it important for us to realize that this is addressed to Christians? Look at these commands: quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger… are those natural things as humans? Absolutely not! We look at our world and we see people who never listen, are always talking, and they’re like the anger person from the Pixar film Inside Out and they’re ready to explode at a moment’s notice! This is the world that we live in and it’s all because of our sin. Do you remember what we learned last week in verse 14? In this life we have trials and God gives us those tests and trials but God never tempts us to sin… that comes from inside of us

James 1:14 CSB

14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire.

James shares to his Christian audience that they are going to face temptations and to not be deceived by their own sinful nature in the midst of the trials. Instead, his call is to look to God and remember what God has done for them. He gave them eternal life as verse 18 shares. In the middle of their suffering and adversity and difficulty, James’ message is to do what? Complain? Act out? Get mad? No… be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. These 3 things go hand in hand. Whenever we are slow to listen, we are often quick to speak, and when we are quick to speak sometimes we say what we shouldn’t say and anger follows quickly behind! This leads to problems for ourselves and for those around us, especially within the local church - and this is the context that James was writing to. What is he trying to get at here? Some argue that his main point is to provide Biblical counseling advice. James 1:19 is wonderful advice to give to a Christian struggling with something or to a couple that is having difficulty communicating clearly because, after all, how many mouths do we have? How many ears? What’s the logical takeaway from that data? We should listen more than we speak. That is a true statement. It is also true that James doesn’t say that we should never get angry, he just says that we should be slow to anger. Because of this, some look at this verse as a great point to make in counseling or discipleship conversations because there is a fundamental problem that many people have with anger. They get angry all the time over little things and if we’re open enough we’d admit that we’ve been there before! We lose our temper at times over silly things unlike Jesus who got angry several times for a Biblical reason. There’s a lot of good wisdom in this opening verse but we can’t misunderstand James’ overall point. He’s not a Christian counselor giving anger management advice or Christian marriage counseling - James is giving Christians of every generation, age, and relationship status the same call: respond to God’s Word properly.

As we’ve heard God’s Word, we must respond to it and responding to God’s implanted Word as verse 21 puts it, requires us to grow in our spiritual understanding of what God wants from us. This requires us to know God’s Word and to listen to His Spirit in this life. So many people have heard the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ but it hasn’t changed them. They might’ve even heard Psalm 34 which we sang about tonight

Psalm 34:8 CSB

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!

They’ve heard about it, but they haven’t tasted. The Word has been spoken to them, but possibly they were too busy being angry or talking that they didn’t truly hear it. Do you know anyone like that? Our responsibility as we talked about this morning is to believe in the Word and share the truth of Scripture with them. People heard Jesus Himself preach and they still rejected His message - so it’s not as though everyone who hears the Word will respond, but some will! Some will be forgiven of their sinful past through the Gospel message being proclaimed and that is the message that we share and we pray that they would humbly receive it.

Maybe you’re like the person in James’ audience who has experienced this new birth through the Word of Truth that has been implanted in you but maybe there is a genuine temptation to run towards anger all the time instead of listening to God’s Word first or to speak when you need to be silent. What we all need is to listen more to God’s Word. David Platt shared this before, “Like the blood that flows to our hearts, we need God’s Word.” Our hearts need blood and our souls need God’s Word! God’s Word is living and active and effective and powerful and we must listen to it carefully because it changes lives as we listen to it and as we do something with it, which James transitions to in verse 22

Saving Faith Requires Action (22-27)

Verse 22 is one of the main verses in the entire book of James as it encapsulates a core truth he gets across in a variety of ways. If the only evidence of our faith is that we have heard the good news or come to church or listened well but we haven’t done anything… there’s been no change… there’s been no fruit, then we have deceived ourselves. Think about a sponge here. What does a sponge do whenever it’s on the shelf? Literally nothing productive other than take up valuable space. It doesn’t look good, it’s an eye sore, it’s usually ugly, sometimes it smells. A sponge has one purpose and it’s not to sit on the shelf and collect dust. That same ugly sponge that doesn’t do anything good on the shelf, can be a lifesaver whenever there’s a spill in the kitchen, though! Whenever you have a toddler, you’re accustom to messes being a part of your daily routine and you just adapt and learn how to clean them up as quick as possible. Say that Gabriel spills a cup or empties an apple juice box in the kitchen and Lindsey asks me to grab a towel to help clean it up and I tell her that I heard what she said but I’m not going to do anything about it. That’s going to lead to some serious problems, right? I heard what was needed. I knew where to go. I knew what to do… but unless I grab the towel or the sponge to clean up the mess, I haven’t helped solve the problem. That sponge is just taking up valuable space if we don’t use it whenever we need it. The sponge soaks up what is around it. Our brain is kind of like a sponge and we’ll absorb what we put inside of it and what we use it for. What are we putting into our brains?

We talked this morning about the power within Scripture as it is living, active, and sharper than a sword. We know that Jesus Christ saves sinners and that He alone provides us with what we all desperately need. But, just like in Hebrews 4, so many people have heard that message and they haven’t done anything with it. They have the Bible in their home, maybe even on their nightstand, but it’s never used. So many come to church and they’ll hear from God’s Word, but sadly for many, it won’t lead to anything in their life. What we need is to not only have the Word and to hear the Word, but we need to absorb the Word - just like the sponge absorbs what is around it. We need to absorb the Word and allow the Word to change what we do and how we live!

If we hear the Word but the Word doesn’t change us, we demonstrate that we don’t really know the Word in the first place because God’s Word leads to a radically different life in the lives of His people. Look with me in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14-16 as we find this

Matthew 5:14–16 CSB

14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

What are we supposed to do? Jesus, the light of the world according to John 8:12, gives us light through His power. If you have been saved, you have this light inside of you and you are to let that light shine so that others see the light and glorify God! So the question is this: How do people see our light? James 1:22 contains the answer. By doing what the Word instructs us to do and not just being a hearer of it. Listening to the Word matters. Church matters. Bible study matters. But doing what the Word commands matters as well because it demonstrates that you genuinely have heard the Word.

James uses a picture here of a listener of the Word as one who sees his image in a mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like. We know that we all forget things in life, but hopefully we don’t look at a mirror and 5 seconds later forget who we are or what we have on! Mirrors are helpful and they save us embarrassment more often than not. There have been times where I’ve had a tie crooked or have had a Gabriel mark somewhere on my clothes and the mirror helps me see myself and what I need to do in order to get cleaned up. This is exactly what God’s Word does too in our lives. God’s Word is like a mirror and it shines into our lives so that we see ourselves more clear than ever before - the Bible truly does read us and it reveals who we are and Whose we are. The Bible challenges, convicts, and comforts us the more that we read it and it unearths for the first time our heart. Whenever this happens, we are changed because of its power.

There have been many stories about the power of God’s Word in this regard. People who begin to read the Bible in order to discredit it or disprove it only to find themselves exposed and convicted like never before as they see their sinfulness and God’s holiness and righteousness. Many have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ simply because they have opened up a copy of God’s Word and read about how they are required to repent of their sins and trust fully in God as Lord and Savior. If we read in Scripture that we are sinners in need of a Savior and we don’t do anything about it, if we forget it, we’re up a creek without a paddle. That mirror does us no good… but if we read in Scripture that we are hopelessly lost and dead in our sins and trespasses but God through His providence and grace has made 1 way for us to be declared righteous and that is through the cross of Jesus Christ, we’d better do what God’s Word commands and not just listen to it and call it good.

As we do what the Word says and as we act, God’s Word states that we will be blessed in what we do. This isn’t a future blessing, this is a present blessing. This is a promise. This doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, sadly. They think that true freedom is doing whatever we want to do… Biblical freedom is obeying God’s Word and experiencing true freedom. What many in our world do not fully understand is that in this life, yes, we have freedom… but that freedom is tainted by sin. James 1:14 reigns true here - we have evil desires and we use our freedom to sin because we are slaves to sin. But whenever we trust in Christ as Lord… Whenever we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, whenever God’s Word changes us from the inside out and we do what the Word says, we are blessed because we are no longer a slave to sin but a child of God. This means that we have responsibilities but these responsibilities aren’t just things that are written down somewhere. These responsibilities are written on our heart

Jeremiah 31:33 CSB

33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Whenever you become a Christian, as we talked about this morning, you are given a new heart and on that new heart of flesh comes the Holy Spirit who helps you follow God’s instruction and teaching. See, if we claim to follow Jesus and if we know the right answers, but our fruit isn’t Christlike there’s a fundamental problem that we have to solve. James shares that this type of religion is useless and deceptive. So many churchgoers believe the following sentence: God loves me as I am (true as Romans 5:8 tells us that God proves His love for us as Christ died for us while we were still sinners. not after we suddenly became perfect) and that God loves me regardless of what I do. The first part is true as we cannot deserve God’s love, He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us. This is good news… but the a gospel that doesn’t change you and convict you from your sins is a false gospel. The true Gospel confronts sin and forces us to change. Jesus shares to come to Him as you are but He loves you and I too much to leave us as we were… He promises to change us. This means that there are things that we must do and things that we must stop doing because they go against His Word.

1 John 2:4 CSB

4 The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Genuine saving faith in Jesus must lead to action for Jesus. So what are those actions? James gives us 2 here at the end of our text and these serve as our application points

Application

We Display a Changed Heart By Choosing Our Words Wisely

The tongue is a common theme throughout James and we know that our words have the ability to build up or tear down. If we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, we must be slow to speak… whenever you’re slow to speak, you can do a better job of thinking through what you’re about to say and you can choose your words wisely. This is not what we see in our world today - we see a culture that is bent on destruction and people, even churchgoers, often use their words to tear one another down largely because they speak quickly and doubly so whenever they are angry. How can we guard against this? James 1:19. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. We stand out in our world simply by choosing our words carefully and controlling our tongue.

We Display a Changed Heart By Compassionately Helping Those with Little Wealth

James’ audience likely was extremely poor and we’ll tackle that divide in the weeks to come between poor and wealthy. In James’ day there was no governmental program set up to help those with needs like there is today… there was simply the church. Throughout church history, Christians helped those in need unlike any other group in human history. Whether it be through food, clothing, or housing, Christians stepped up. Christians have founded the majority of adoption agencies, homeless shelters, and food pantries historically. Why? Because of the wealth that has been given to us through Jesus Christ. Because we have been blessed by God in order to bless those in need. Instead of storing up wealth on earth, James reminds his audience to remember to keep their eyes on Jesus and use what they have to help those in need - even though many in this church had severe needs that we don’t often have. We display a changed heart by compassionately helping those with little wealth. There are secular organizations that do this too, but we are uniquely gifted and equipped to meet the spiritual needs of these people in a way that no other group can. As we give and assist with physical needs, God often opens up doors to minister to spiritual needs.

In the week to come, ask God to help you clean out your ears and make sure that you are working not to save yourself as that’s an impossibility, but working and doing what His Word instructs us to go and do for His glory and the good of those around us.