James 1:19-25
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 8 viewsNotes
Transcript
My dearly loved brothers, understand this: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and evil, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you. 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 a man looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man 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 one who does good works —this person will be blessed in what he does.
James continues to introduce themes that will be re-occurring and unpacked in more detail throughout this letter.
James is going to keep circling back over and over to themes of faith and works, rich and poor, controlling the tongue, and listening to God.
Another theme that he keeps coming back to is his love for the people he’s writing to.
And he begins our text for today by reminding them that he dearly loves them.
This is how pastors should talk to people.
Particularly when they are about to say something difficult.
James is about to talk to them about their anger and their inability to listen well.
Have you ever corrected an angry person?
It can be like grabbing a dog by the ears.
But for James this is something he must do,
because as we will see this has to do with the status of their souls.
James employs a wise pastoral principle of reminding his spiritual children that he loves them in the midst of their discipline.
This is a critical thing for all parents to learn as well.
(Love and discipline story)
Anger and the Christian
Anger and the Christian
How do you think about anger?
Is it something that you’re allowed to do? Be angry?
When we look at the way Christianity has taken form in the UK and America in particular, the last 100 years or so has been a progressive watering down ultimately of God’s attributes in a way that makes anger something bad.
As if Christianity should take its queues from Buddhism and be all about not being affected by the world.
But we are affected by the world!
We are not spirits with flesh suits on.
We are human beings which are body and soul made in the image of God.
In response to this soft, limp-wristed approach to the human life we have seen a course correction towards uncovering a biblical theology of anger.
There is such a thing as godly anger.
26 Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,
But even the next verse comes crashing in with a warning.
26 Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and don’t give the Devil an opportunity.
There is a link between anger, many words, and an inability to receive God’s word.
The Bible has much to say about the danger of anger.
And James doesn’t just have anger in view here.
He is also concerned with too many words, and an inability to listen.
If you are angry, you are likely not listening.
There is a time for anger, but if this is our factory setting we will never grow.
20 for human anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.
USE THE PSALMS AS AN APPROPRIATE OUTLET FOR ANGER
The necessity of confession
The necessity of confession
James expects a ridding of moral filth. It’s not an option.
And remember, James is speaking to Christians here.
Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles Chapter 1
since he addresses the faithful, he shews that we are never wholly cleansed from them in this life, but that they are continually sprouting up, and therefore he requires that care should be constantly taken to eradicate them. As the word of God is especially a holy thing, to be fitted to receive it, we must put off the filthy things by which we have been polluted.
When we don’t confess our sins to God, we display a hardness of heart that is not hospitable to the word of God.
Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles Chapter 1
Hence it is, that so few profit in the school of God, because hardly one in a hundred renounces the stubbornness of his own spirit, and gently submits to God; but almost all are conceited and refractory. But if we desire to be the living plantation of God, we must subdue our proud hearts and be humble, and labour to become like lambs, so as to suffer ourselves to be ruled and guided by our Shepherd.
When you mad, you ain’t listening.
If you are unwilling to have the continual work of repentance done in your life, than your life will become like a garden that no one has ever tended to.
The things that you had hoped will grow will die, and the thorny weeds of sin will take over.
The implanted word of God saves
The implanted word of God saves
“Which is able to save you”
The “implanted word” is something that saves you.
But the implanted word is something active. It is received while we are dead, but it bonds to us in a way that should generate life. James will make it clear later in the letter that a faith without works is a dead faith.
17 In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.
We must remember Eph 2:8-9
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.
How do we harmonize these things?
Are they opposed to each other?
One way to do it is to consider the parable that Jesus tells about a sower.
1 Again He began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around Him. So He got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was on the shore facing the sea. 2 He taught them many things in parables, and in His teaching He said to them: 3 “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. 4 As he sowed, this occurred: Some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it sprang up right away, since it didn’t have deep soil. 6 When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it didn’t have a root, it withered. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce a crop. 8 Still others fell on good ground and produced a crop that increased 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.” 9 Then He said, “Anyone who has ears to hear should listen!”
explanation
13 Then He said to them: “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any of the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones along the path where the word is sown: when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root in themselves; they are short-lived. When pressure or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately stumble. 18 Others are sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the worries of this age, the seduction of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 But the ones sown on good ground are those who hear the word, welcome it, and produce a crop: 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.”
True Theology
True Theology
When I was a kid growing up in church I was taught the phrase “sit, soak, sour”
The hearer of the word who is filled with moral filth and evil will not be a doer of the word.
Confession is essential part of liturgy and daily practice.
But so is action.
True theology must lead to true religion.
27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Our theological tradition prides itself on protecting doctrinal integrity.
And that is good.
It is essential.
In a relativistic world that wants to water down scripture and escape its truth claims, we need men and women who are dogmatically committed to protecting truth.
But the church of God is not a library.
It is an embassy of a kingdom that is taking over the world.
And the weapon that this embassy equips its citizens with is the Word of God,
The Sword of the Spirit.
An embassy of the kingdom of God is a forward command post in a cosmic war.
If all we ever did was TALK about theology that would be like a forward command post that just gives people relaxing massages.
You walk in expecting to be equipped and you find a beauty salon, in the middle of a battlefield.
How absurd.
James says that to set up the church like that would be like this:
23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
The Mirror
The Mirror
3 uses of the law:
God’s perfect law of freedom:
Curb
Guide
Mirror
If we only look into ourselves we will have insufficient knowledge and we will stumble in the darkness.
Only the Word of God tells us a true estimation of ourselves,
When God’s law is used rightly, with the knowledge of Christ illuminating it and fulfilling it,
we find freedom.
Freedom from sin and freedom to obey.
Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles Chapter 1
As long as the law is preached by the external voice of man, and not inscribed by the finger and Spirit of God on the heart, it is but a dead letter, and as it were a lifeless thing. It is, then, no wonder that the law is deemed imperfect, and that it is the law of bondage; for as Paul teaches in
This is only possible in Christ Jesus loved ones…
This letter is going to get even more challenging.
Pastor James the brother of Jesus is going to be speaking strong words against the sin of favoritism, about our tongues, about our unwillingness to obey.
These words will go in one ear and out the other without Christ in us.
Without the help of the Holy Spirit our hearts remain stony.
We need help. We need God to give us ears to hear.
6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, 11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
God has given you His word.
It’s like rain on dry ground.
He has placed you in His church.
He has adopted you into his family,
grafted you into the family tree.
Jesus is the word of God which was sent to accomplish God’s purposes.
And God’s purpose is for you to be saved.
For you to live a new life of light, and to leave behind the darkness.
test
