The Journey of Obedience
Notes
Transcript
Introduction - Setting the Stage (v. 19)
Introduction - Setting the Stage (v. 19)
Does anyone like being told what to do?
Have you guys ever been wanting to get some chores done and the second you are getting ready to go and do some dishes or fold the laundry, your mom or dad comes in and tells you to do it? What do you do. All of the sudden, you do not want to do it anymore.
You do not want to listen to them anymore.
Listening has always been hard to me and it is something that I am growing in, but getting married… I learned that I have to listen quite a bit.
When you get married there are things that you do not know about a person, things that you will only find out from living with them.
Examples:
Putting your cups the wrong way, when they are clean do you face them up or face them down.
How you do the laundry, do you sort the colors or do you just throw everything in the machines.
Do you set one alarm or do you set 50 alarms?
All of the things that can cause some tension when you first get married.
But when Mikaela tells me to do something most of the time I say yes ma'am and do them. I hear her out, then go into action.
Just like hearing your parents tell you to go take out the trash, or clean your room. Sometimes it is hard to take what we hear and put it into action.
I do not always want to do the things that Mikaela tells me to. Sometimes she doesn’t want to do the things that I tell her to do.
But we have to know that the Word of God is something that we always have to take action on. James talks about this same thing, not just here in this passage, but he will get to it again.
We cannot just hear God’s Word. We have to take action.
To recap the book of James we have seen some things that mark a believer as mature.
When they face trials they receive them as pure joy.
They are able to fight temptation and lean into God’s perfection.
Be doers of the word.
We cannot just hear the word. It is not enough. Action is required.
Before I dive in. I want to put a disclaimer out here.
Christian’s are saved by grace through faith.
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
not from works, so that no one can boast.
This verse is fundamental to our faith. Nothing we can do can save us.
Only Jesus and Jesus alone can save us.
But Jesus should change us.
Our Christian walk lights a fire in us to want to go out and serve him.
Our faith leads to us going out and being the hands and feet of Christ.
It leads to actions.
But to be doers of the word, we have to be all in.
We have a journey of obedience that we have to obey. That we have to follow to be able to fully be all in. To see this action come out of us.
My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,
This first verse sets the stage for us, the three things that we need to do are be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
We have to be obedient to these things.
All of these things are not common in the world today. They are hard to go and do.
We have to come to Christ and rid ourselves of our past.
Slow to Anger (vv. 20-21)
Slow to Anger (vv. 20-21)
We have to be slow to anger.
for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.
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.
Illustration: The Superbowl is coming up and the number one thing that is being talked about right now is the refs.
Imagine this situation, game is on the line, there is a minute left on the clock. It is 3rd and long, the team on defense has hope that they are going to get the stop and win the game. The quarterback takes a hit, but the flag is thrown.
It is a questionable or contraversal call.
The fans yell and scream and erupt like a volcano. They say things they should not say to a TV that cannot hear them.
Out of frustation they become angry because they thought that they were going to win, but this call ruined everything.
What good does that do though?
What does you yelling at the TV do?
It is not going to change the outcome or make the ref change their minds.
Often times, we are quick to become angry. Guys I fall into this category as well.
This is hard.
This is what verse 20 is saying though!!
What is anger going to do for the Kingdom of God?
It doesn’t accomplish much.
Anger does a man more hurt than that which made him angry.
John Ploughman’s Pictures, Page 37
Charles Spurgeon
Anger does more bad than good.
Has anyone ever been so mad that their gut reaction is “man I want to read my Bible,” or “man that guy who just cut me off made me so angry that I want to share the Gospel.”
No anger does not lead to that!
Anger usually leads to us getting in our feelings, going to far, and saying something that we should not.
Anger is a slippery slope that can lead to us falling into sin.
I want to take a step back though and say James does not say never be angry.
He gives a warning to be slow to anger.
Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger
Anger in itself does not cause sin.
We are to be slow to anger, knowing the most of the time, anger does not result in Godliness.
But we are to rid ourselves off all of our filth.
All of the things that cause us to want to get angry.
Anything evil.
Anything that does not represent God.
This is what we are called to take off.
For them, this would have made them think of taking off a piece of a garment. It is the same word that they would have used.
So think about stripping off muddy clothes after a long day at work. Or after a car drove by and splashed that muddy puddle all over you.
We have to take off things that are ungodly and put on the things that are God.
We are called to come to the Word not the world.
Why do I say this?
It goes on to say that we have to receive the implanted word.
So we take off the filth, and we put on Godliness.
James tells us that we have to receive the Word of God that is planted in our hearts.
“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.
God said that he will write his word on his believers hearts.
This is what James is referencing, and we have to humbly accept it.
We have to make it our identity.
Just like the theme of the winter retreat.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
God has given us as believers a new heart. He was written his words on our heart.
And this word is strong enough to save.
The Gospel message is the only thing that can save you.
But we have to not only listen to the message, we have to have some action.
Quick to listen (vv. 22-25)
Quick to listen (vv. 22-25)
Now, we are back to listening.
Verse 19 said we have to be quick to listen, but we also have to have some action.
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
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.
For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was.
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.
Guys, we cannot be stagnate.
Does anyone know what the largest spectator sport in America is?
It is the church.
So many people come to church and hear the message. They know all of the things, but the never take them and live them out.
People know they are supposed to be reading their Bibles, but they do not do it.
They know they should pray.
They know they should fast.
They know they should share the gospel.
But they do not do it.
Why?
Do they not know the weight of what the Gospel means? That people are going to hell, that this is for eternity.
Or do they not know how? And they are scared to share their faith because it is scary. They have never been taught how to read the Bible or pray.
If it is they don’t see the weight or it is not important, then that is a problem.
Because we are called to be doers of the Word.
You can be trained on how, but you cannot be trained on the desire of your heart.
Faith is alive and active, so we must be doers.
So what does the text say about this?
A person who is a hearer and not a doer is like someone who looks in a mirror and forgets what he looks like.
What does this even mean?
What this is saying is that the person looks at themselves, sees their life and does nothing about it.
The person goes and looks into the mirror, sees the giant pimple on their forehead, it is big enough that some might even say it is a mountain. It is beyond ready to pop, and you just walk by.
Or you are having a bad hair day. I looks like you just woke up from hibernation, you were out playing the night before, knots all over your hair, mud on your face, and you walk past the mirror.
In both of these cases you take a long look in the mirror and go oh well, nothing is wrong with my appearance.
You say it is “out of sight and out of mind.”
But James says, how dumb is it that you had something on your face and did nothing about it.
This is what the passage says about the person who only hears the word.
They do and hear a message, then walk out like nothing happened.
There was no change, they are not going to act on it.
They participate in being a spectator to Christianity.
They forget what they look like, they still have the pimple, they still have mud.
James says that what is really dumb, you hear the Words of God, still no change is happening. You are not taking action.
Why, why go to church if it is not changing you. If you are not going to be active in your faith.
If you are not being active in your faith, you need to examine yourself and see how much you care about your faith.
Then there are the people whose eyes are opened to the gospel.
The one who looks into the prefect law of freedom.
This is the person who sees what the Gospel is.
The Gospel is this perfect law. Jesus has no flaws. He is perfect.
In him, there is freedom.
There is freedom from sin.
We are no longer in slaved to sin, we are one of his.
The person who lives in light of the Gospel and knows what it really means, they are going to find action. They will live for Christ.
Once you’ve really seen the Lord, you’re obsessed with what you’ve seen.
We see the truth of Jesus.
Our eyes are opened.
We only care about living for him.
Every thing we do, every action is in line with his word.
Because we know that we are hell bound sinners, we deserve an eternity in hell forever and Jesus saved us.
So because of that, I will have actions that show that.
Listening is not enough, our faith should cause action.
This is why on Sunday we memorized some scripture.
We have to take scripture and use it.
To fight temptation.
To share the Gospel.
To live a Christian life.
We have to know God’s word and put it into action.
Slow to speak (v. 26)
Slow to speak (v. 26)
Lastly, we have to be slow to speak.
If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.
Words are a powerful thing.
We have to be able to control what we say.
Looking at someone and how they talk says a lot about them.
When you heart changes, you want to be careful about how you talk.
Controlled speech is often times a display of a changed heart.
Our speech is a reflection of our conscious.
It is a representation of what we truly believe.
This is why we have to be able to control the things that we say.
Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
Jesus even taught this!
That what we speak comes out from what we believe in our hearts.
This is why James says that we have to be able to control our words.
That is we cannot our religion is useless.
If Jesus Christ is not controlling all of me, the chances are very good that He is not controlling any of me.
A. W. Tozer
Y’all it is easy to put on a fake face.
It is easy to go to church and do all of the churchy things.
But from day to day. You have to be able to control you words.
As Christians we do not just try to be good and perfect children of God on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.
We have to be representing Christ by who we are all week long.
Every minute of our lives.
To be able to do this we have to be able to control our speech.
Conclusion
Then James ends with verse 27.
James 1:27 “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.”
James is saying that we have to be pure.
We have to get rid of our old selves, get rid of our anger.
We have to put on Godliness, watch our language, be slow to anger, be slow to speak.
We have to follow this Journey of obedience, the journey of being quick to listen, slow to become angry, and slow to speak.
Then we have to look after people in need.
We have to be able to serve sacrificially.
Clothe ourselves in God’s Word.
Serve others for his name sake.
