Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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*Date: May 7, 2017*
*Message: Look and Don’t Forget*
*Text: James 1:19-27*
*Introduction*
Your understanding of you shapes how you live.
Don’t forget who you are.
James is an amazing letter.
I think it is unfortunate that this wonderful teaching is used as a counterbalance to the grace of the gospel.
I can think of countless times in my life where verses from James have been used as a “yes, but.”
Yes, the gospel is true, but you have to work.
Yes, salvation is by grace alone, but after salvation you have duties.
Yes, faith alone, but you need to make sure that your faith works.
“Paul emphasizes faith, and James emphasizes works.
They’re both needed.”
So the argument goes.
But reading James in context leads us away from the balancing act, away from thinking that the amazing grace of the gospel needs some grounding and balance in progressive self-improvement.
Reading James in context leads us to think, “Yes, and this is how.”
So yes, faith alone, and this is how faith in Jesus plays out in life on earth.
#. *How are we saved?
(vv.
19-21)*
/Receiving the implanted word/
*19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.*
Reason have 2 ears and one mouth.
Kid, always want to talk.
But listen.
* 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
*
No righteousness of our own.
Our own, we are filthy, wicked, so be quiet and receive.
This is the gospel.
Received – a gift, no merit
Implanted – not done by us at all.
You know what you have, on your own?
Filthyness and rampant wickedness.
I love that.
You and I kind of say… well… I don’t know that I’m THAT bad.
But James has no such compunction.
Yep, that bad.
Your striving… filthy rags.
Stop it.
All of your work, all of your striving, all of your anger at injustice and slights and unfairness… none of it produces good.
Stop.
And receive.
And we pause.
And we agree.
This is salvation.
This is how we are saved, right?
We are saved by the word, given.
By Jesus, received.
Grace.
But.. hear my but! … it doesn’t end there, does it?
We receive… and now… how are we to ACT.
What are we to DO? Ha!
This is, of course, the issue.
#. *How might we be deceived in what we do?
(vv.
22-24)*
/Forgetting what the law reveals/
*22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
*
Don’t just hear.
Do.
What a great statement.
Jesus Christ died for you.
Oh, great.
What’s for dinner?
Isn’t that the criticism that we resonate with?
It seems like so many people say O, Yes, Bible… and don’t actually do any of it.
Great problem is that you might HEAR the word but not DO the word.
With this concept, much angst has been instilled into many hearts.
Are you only a hearer?
Are you “DOING”?
Don’t be deceived.
We need to answer this question… from James… how might we be deceived?
Am I DOING the word?
*23 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.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
*
Hearing the Word and not Doing the word is an issue of forgetting, James says.
See, the problem can be, says James, that we don’t carry through the truth.
It is like looking in a mirror, says James.
You look in the mirror, you see yourself.
You see clearly.
Beard, glasses, nose, eyes.
You do actually see yourself.
The mirror reflects who you are.
You see yourself.
James says, that’s hearing the word.
The word reveals the truth, you see it.
But hearing and not doing is FORGETTING what you saw.
Like you look in the mirror, you turn away… uh… what was the picture again?
after you turn away from the mirror, you can FORGET.
The issue of your Christian life is that you are prone to forgetting.
It isn’t that I miss the 5, 10, 100 commands that I was supposed to do.
It is that I forget who I am.
I forget what I look like.
I forget what the PICTURE WAS.
Understand what it is James is getting at.
The word is what we receive.
We hear this amazing grace.
We hear the gospel.
I hear that I receive the gift, that it is implanted like I’m dirt and it is life.
And then… when I’m not looking directly at this amazing gospel, this true word, this Savior of mine… I forget.
I don’t want to forget.
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