Do The Word
Notes
Transcript
In the life of the Christian, have a lot of transparency that comes with following Christ. We need to think of our lives as storefronts. Those beautiful downtown stores that have the big windows that you can see in. You may have done it as a kid or even as an adult, but you will walk by and see something in a store and want to have whatever it is. This should be our lives to the world around us. People should be able to look into our metaphorical window and be able to see what is going on.
I love steaks. If I want a wonderful steak that is just perfectly cooked and I don’t want to be the one to cook it, I will want to go to a good steakhouse. So if I do this, and go into the restaurant and open the menu, I better see a good ribeye. If I go to a steakhouse and want to order a steak and they don’t have a steak on the menu, then they do not need to call themselves a steakhouse.
The same is true for people who profess to be Christians. The need to live out what they believe. What happens sometimes, and what seemingly happened even in the time of James, is that some people profess to be Christians, yet they do not obey God’s words. And we will cover that in our text today.
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
In verse 19, James gives 3 instructions. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Quick to hear - This means to “hurry up and listen”. How many times do we have conversations with people and when we say something, they weren’t paying attention. This is very frustrating, even when it is something that isn’t important. But God’s word is one of the most important things that we can listen to. Imagine how God feels when he is speaking and we don’t listen.
Slow to speak - Most of the time we are slow to hear and quick to speak. But scripture tells us the opposite. Be quick to hear and slow to speak. This is because God’s word is more important than our words. It most definitely is not a theological statement but I have heard it said that we have 2 ears and one mouth because we need to listen twice as much as we speak.
Slow to anger - Anger can be a problem. These three things are not separate. But they combine together to describe a certain type of person. In your time in church(this is where Christians gather), can you think of someone who did not want to listen to God’s word, spoke without thinking, then they get angry, then someone else gets angry. Next thing you know, there is a “new church” starting down the road. Half the people left “Hope Baptist Church” and now we have “New Hope Baptist Church”.
We need to keep these things in check. When the people of a church are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, this will bring unity to the body. And James tells us why we should want to do the things that he says in verse 19. James 1:20 “for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” We need to be people who seek to have the righteousness of God in our lives. Anger does not produce the righteousness of God.
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
He instructs to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness. When he says “put away”, he literally means to rid yourself. This is the idea of taking off a garment. This is the same word that is used in Colossians 3:8 “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” If we are followers of Christ, then we must be active in removing all filthiness and wickedness from our lives. Now let’s put this all together. In the context of what James is saying, if we are not quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, then this is filthiness and wicked for the believer. Therefore, we must remove this from our lives. And why and how do we do this?
We do this by receiving with meekness the implanted word. If we need to receive it, then it means that we don’t have it to begin with. I love what R. Kent Hughes says about this.
God’s Word was not native to our hearts, but it has been implanted in us. However, if we have been unhearing, our tongues out of control, building up anger and moral filth, the Word has not been flourishing as it was meant to do. But it will again prosper if, having cast out the sin, we “humbly accept the word planted” in us.
We need God’s word in us. We need to cleanse ourselves from all unrighteousness. This word being implanted in us is how we know that we are saved. And now we come to the 2nd part of what James is saying in this section. The first part is that we need to hear God’s word. Now we see that there is another element that is necessary in the life of the Christian.
James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
This is where people can get caught up. There are times we like to hear God’s word, but when it comes time to do it, we don’t like it so much. And what happens when we live like this? James tells us that we are deceiving ourselves. Just the other day, I was talking to someone who is trying to live two different lives. When they are around the people at their church, they put on this face on to make people think that they are living their life for God. But then when they are outside of the church, you would not be able to tell that they even love God. We call these part time Christians. We are told that we are not only to hear God’s word but to do it.
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. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
What James is describing is someone who doesn’t care, someone who forgets. They look in a mirror and they look away and they forget even what they look like. You may think this is impossible to do. But lets put that into the perspective of the Christian. Let’s be honest, have you ever listened to a sermon or read a passage and then 30 minutes later, just forgot what God’s word was saying. Yea, it has happened to all of us.
But what James is saying is that this person is deceiving themselves. It isn’t the mirror that is deceiving but the person. Same with God’s word. God’s word is not confusing for us, the problem is usually us. It may be that we have not come to a maturity in Christ that we see what God is telling us. But sometimes, we read something and forget it because we don’t want to obey it. We need to be people who want to live righteous lives. We want to be people who do God’s word and not just hear it only.
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.
We want to be the people that see what God’s word says and do it. And what does it take to be this person? Perseverance. We have all heard the adage that practice makes perfect. I don’t like that. I would rather is be that practice makes progress. But here is one for the life of the Christian. Perseverance leads to godliness. We must continue to obey more, to love God more. And when we do this, we become people who display the love of God to others.
James puts in somewhat of an implication in this verse. That if you are a hearer only, then you will forget. But if you are a doer, you will remember God’s word. This is why we preach repentance each and every Sunday. We want to see peoples lives changed. If you are a hearer only, your life is not changed. You must be a doer of God’s word for you life to change.
We have ways to measure this. The biggest way that we measure someones faith is through actions. We will cover that more in Chapter 2, but we can tell when someones heart changes by a change in their actions. James begins to describe this.
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.
This is a hard place to be in. This is like the person I was talking about earlier that is trying to live two different lives. They think they are religious, but then their mouth says differently. They are deceiving their heart and James says that this persons religion is worthless. I do not want my religion to be worthless. Religion is not a bad word that some churches have tried to make it out to be. In fact, we see what good religion is supposed to look like.
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.
Sacrificial care. Who of us can be better at doing this? I know that I can. I want to paint a picture of what has happened in our world when it comes to this. At some point in history, and it was well intentioned, the government wanted to help out people in need. This became successful and it continued to grown. We have a very large welfare system in our country. And like I said, I believed that it probably begin with good intentions. But what happened along the way is the church saw everything that the government was doing and decided that they no longer needed to help out with this. As we have been going through Acts, we have seen the care that the early church gave the congregation. And not just the pastor, but the whole church. Where have we gone wrong. We need to care for the needy.
But not only that, religion that is pure and undefiled before God is one that keeps the person unstained from the world. There is a separation between the people of the world and the people of God. We are not supposed to talk alike, act alike, believe the same, even look the same. The goal of the Christian is not to win a popularity contest. The goal of a Christian needs to be living a righteous and Godly life.