You're not listening to me
William Yates
James • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Ever had someone tell you the title of today’s sermon. They often yell it. You’re not listening to me. Sadly it seems like I have had many people tell me that. It’s usually when we disagree and they say it but what they are really meaning is not what they are saying. Often they are saying, “You’re not listening to me, but what they really mean is
You are not obeying me.
You are not obeying me.
You are not agreeing with me.
You are not agreeing with me.
I once had a co-worker, who kept trying to tell me to do something. Kept talking and saying, you’re not listening to me. So I went into my skills, my communication tool box and I repeated back to her what she said before I said anything.
By the way, this is a great skill to learn to make sure you listen to people.
So she would say, “I keep doing all the work on thursday and then on friday it’s messed up.”
I would say, “I heard you say you keep doing all the work on thursday and then on Friday it’s messed up. ...” and then I would add to it.
Each time she said something I would do that. It took her about 4 minutes and then she stopped the conversation and said, “why do you keep doing that.” I said because you said I’m not listening. I’m listening but I’m not going to do what you want.
Because often in life there are people above us, over us, teaching us, helping us, whatever and they want us to not just listen but do it.
I get to be a teacher again tomorrow. School starts back up for us. Many of us have been students of teachers who gave us instructions on what we are supposed to do for that and immediatey after spending fifteen minutes explaining everything, the students are told to go do it. What do students immediately do?
Hands shoot up, teacher what are we doing.
Then the teacher looks like this. (Robert Downey Jr. Meme)
But I know a secret about teachers. Don’t let teachers fool you they can be the worst at listening and then doing what they learn at staff meetings
This is what teachers look like at staff meetings meme
But sometimes it’s not a meeting and its not a math class. It is vital for how we live our lives.
I remember one older man my sophmore year of college who told me and my girlfriend that we should never go into debt and save a portion of every check.
Yeah, I heard him. I listened but I didn’t do it.
I should’ve done it.
Today’s scripture is a reminder that we are not playing. God is not just saying nice things. God is not a way to feel better. Worship is not something to help us keep going. It is life. Love is not a slogan. It isn’t a political theme, it is the definition of how we are to treat others, including our enemies. Jesus says that and what God says that’s what really matters
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.
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.
There is so much here but church is not a book club. This is the verse that gets to the truth of it.
A book club is where people read a book, get together and talk about how they feel, what they see and hear, what they learn. They are nice. Good stuff with the right books. Even Maximized Manhood could be called a book club. It’s cool and helpful.
But when you come to the Bible, when you hear these words, these are instructive for understanding how to love God and how to love others. This is what life is about.
So when we meditate on these words, when we pray these words, we need to be ready to be changed by God. We need to be ready for some meddlin’ in our lives.
Speaking of changing the first words of our Bible verses today are
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.
Therefore, ridding yourselves.
Therefore is an important English word which means with everything I just said, do this.
Like when your doctor says I looked at your blood work. This cholesterol level means this and it affects your blood vessels and your heart. It does this and this. The doctor really talks and talks and shows you all that medical learning they did.
And then they say, THEREFORE go to the pharmacy and start taking this medication. All the stuff the doctor said before is why you’re getting the medication.
Now, don’t do what I do, when you start treating your doctor like a charlie brown adult. “Wha wha wha”
And never do that to the Bible.
When James says THEREFORE or in some English Bibles it will say So, we need to remember what the Bible said before this because what comes next is all a reaction to what came before.
It’s easy for everyone here to do because I preached on what came before this “Therefore” just last week.
What was the main point of last week’s sermon. The main character trait.
Tell the person to your right, to your left.
ANGER!
It was all about ANGER, I’m so ANGRY you would forget that last week’s sermon was about human anger doesn’t bring about God’s righteousness.
I’m kidding, about being angry not about the fact that it was about
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
Then James went into the “Therefore”
The word that means we need to do something and what something should we do,
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.
Some English translations say “get rid of” or something like that, why do Bibles say different things because English is totally changing, all the time, remember when 6, 7 was just two numbers? Those of you who have kids or listen to popular music know that those numbers are so big right now. Others of you might now a time when you a kid would know what a disk drive is or a video game cartridge. And I bet you used to think a cloud was only in the skies about 15 years ago not something with your computer. Language constantly changes, so how we translate from an old word in a different language and understand it today, well our words keep changing.
I have a great study book on the Greek language in the Bible and it said this word here,
Ah-po-tee-thee-me which our English translation says is get rid of, is like taking off clothing. Like imagine your walking in and your clothes are soaked. Like wet jeans. I love the feeling of getting rid of wet jeans from my body, wet socks off of my body, because those clothes wet just make me feel miserable.
When I take those wet jeans off I am ridding myself of them.
Now, the direction from James is to rid yourself of moral and evil that is so present. Remember this is what we do because we became slow to anger. It is what we do because we know that human anger doesn’t produce God rightness.
Because we need to be slow to anger. Quick to listen, because our anger doesn’t produce God’s righteousness and because it doesn’t produce God’s righteousness we should get rid of all moral filth and evil.
Take it off, remove it like the wet clingy uncomfortable jeans of moral filth and evil.
You know when I take off cold wet jeans I like to get into a nice warm shower.
The verse goes on and says receive the implanted word. The “implanted word” now that’s a weird phrase and really deep.
First, man I’m really nerdy here, but stay with me, the word for receive is an aorist imperative verb in Greek. Stay with me because I believe, your like, what are you talking about? But you know how we have like past, present, future verbs, and then there are all kinds of different verb forms and nobody cares about that stuff except for your seventh grade English teacher? Well, that kind of stuff really matters when translating languages. And this part of the Bible was written in Greek so when it comes into English we do our best to understand it and write verbs in the way it is meant but sometimes, taking a really deep look gives a good understanding of the meaning.
When the writer writes what we translate as receive the implanted word when it is in aorist imperative, that verb form means that this action, this verb, only happens once. Once it is done it is completed. Imagine a building collapse. It will only collapse once. It is done.
Now imagine something way more positive, when a person receives the implanted word it is finished. It is completed.
Receive the implanted word, not in anger. Receive the implanted word because there is no moral filth, no evil in it.
What is the implanted word? Well the other time the word, word is used is in John 1.
In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
That “word” is the Christ, the son of God, when God becomes a person, He is Jesus who came as a Savior of the world from their sins. All who believe that He is God and declare that they will follow Him only, they declare Him as Lord, will receive Him and He will be their God and they will be his people and they are forgiven from their sins. We who accept this, we have received the implanted word.
Jeremiah the prophet said over 500 years before Jesus
“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
We receive the implanted word. The covenant, the instructions.
This is why, since we are new we can take off those old wet jeans of moral filth and receive this implanted word, the Holy Spirit becomes one of us and guides us into truth.
Now some of you might be saying, Bill I still get furious. I get angry. I am addicted to some things that are wrong. I know they are wrong.
There are a couple ways to go with this:
First, if I told you that someone on a tv show, movie, in a book was going around saying “get rid of all moral filth” I think you and I can agree that person in the story is probably the bad guy. Part of that is because Hollywood loves to sell stuff and somebody saying get rid of moral filth is bad to them because they make money on moral filth. However, they are also right about it being the bad guy because in my own conversations I have gotten angry, I have heard and seen people get so angry, so outraged at things that other people do, immoral things: pick your bad things - theft, fighting, drug use, sexual displays, whatever it is I have seen the response be total anger. Ever read the comments section on a video of a crime or an arrest on a local facebook group.
Yet isn’t the “Therefore” in this Bible verse after 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.
The anger doesn’t make people right. It is the wrong way to get rid of moral filth and evil.
The wrong way to get rid of evil is with anger.
The wrong way to get rid of evil is with anger.
Tell that to the person next to you.
I get it, I want to rage on wrong, because that is the sin example in our culture. It is where we followers of Jesus copy this world, but as I said in last week’s sermon what we learn about God in the book of James is that He is strong enough to bring right to the wrong.
Remember that Moses was not let into the promised land because he did not have faith that God would bring about justice.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!”
We don’t need to make the same sin. We can trust that God can demonstrate His holiness. God can show his righteousness. God can right the wrong.
Our roll, our way - is to be slow to speak, slow to anger, and actually taking off all the moral problems, removing the sin and claiming that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.
Because the implanted word of God, The Holy Spirit has the power to save our souls.
So what do we do know, Read along with me.
So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.
Remember when I began this sermon about people saying your not listening to me.
We are told here in verse 23. Don’t just listen, do what God tells us to do.
This week I had an embarrassing visit with my doctor. It went something like this,
The doctor said, “So I sent you to do blood work about a year ago, did you come back in after that.”
I answered, “No.
The doctor kept going, I sent you for a referral to another office.
They didn’t call.
As we talked about last time, if they don’t get a hold of you after 10 days you can call us here at the office.
Did you call us back?
No.
It kept going on, it seems that the doctor is no help to me because I don’t do what she tells me to do.
I wonder if I need a different doctor.
or Maybe what would happen if I do what she says?
Do we need to read more Bible or do what it says?
Some of you say, that I actually named the problem for you. Reading, when it comes to reading the Bible.
The Bible is tough reading. It doesn’t come easy and for some just the act of reading is hard enough.
My brothers and sisters, God knows if you aren’t a good reader. But did\ you listen to what the verse said,
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
See the underlined word. Even in the original language it is about listening. Reading the Bible is very, very new. Most people for most of history couldn’t read the Bible. Even Jesus would have read the scrolls only at the synagogue. None of the disciples would have had a copy of the Bible that they carried. It would have been too heavy and too expensive! That’s right, Jesus didn’t even own a Bible. Stop the guilt about reading the Bible.
Now if you can read, please read the Bible. If you want to grow in your comprehension, your understanding, your remembering of the Bible, than read it repeatedly. But also know that if reading is hard or even if eye sight is bad, listen to the Bible. Listening to the Bible gives you the same experience that the disciples would have had, that King David might have had.
Moses read the 10 commandments but the people listened!
The most important thing though is not just to hear it but to obey it! To actually do what it says, and again this sometimes isn’t simple. But I want to remind you of what Mark Twain the famous American author said about feeling guilty for the way he lived,
“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
When he said bother, he meant the stuff he knew he needed to do, the way he needed to live rightly, but wasn’t doing. Its the stuff you do understand that you can focus on and then lets do Bible study together and learn more.
Even when we study the Bible, we can get so excited by what we learned, by the fact that we are being disciplined and working hard on our faith, that we can immediately fail. Because this isn’t a book report and its not going to the gym 30 times in 30 days.
It is obeying what God says through the Bible,
For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
In a world of fake videos, people from all over the world trying to confuse us and use us. When people make money on anger and fear, it can be scary.
But what is happening in the world today isn’t new.
God is still the same God. He used those who wanted to control others through anger and fear to save us from our sins. At the same time of political games in Rome, Jerusalem, Egypt and other places, God used a little group of people who loved Him and saw him resurrected after he used the politics of the times, those regular people, learned to love each other, learned to love their enemies, learned to trust God with growing in morals and being patient with each other. They treated others differently and God changed the world.
Today you don’t need to solve all the problems in the world. You don’t need to solve all the problems in your own world. You don’t need to criticize everyone or get angry. You need to live and do what God wants you to do, what you heard him say, you will obey in how you treat others, how you love others and how live every minute of the day.
