Becoming A Person of the Word in a Culture of Competing Messages

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Restoring the Savor of Our Salt Series       Message # 14

We want to be talking today about becoming a person of the Word of God in a culture of competing messages. We have been working on this issue that our lives are either shaped by our faith in Christ and the Word of God, or our lives are shaped by the culture around us. We are either doing the hard work of climbing out of the culture’s mold and the intentional work of climbing into the Word of God, or else we are just drifting and allowing our lives to be shaped by whatever is happening in the culture.

I want to think today about a passage in James chapter 1. We’re going to be reading from verses 19 to 27, and thinking then especially about verses 21-27, as we consider the question: How will I become a person of the Word of God when I live in a culture of so many competing messages.

James chapter 1, and we’ll start in verse 19. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20  For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21  Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25  But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26  If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

We live in a culture with so many competing messages that the message has become one great, giant white noise collage that means almost nothing. We are bombarded by so much we have lost our ability to take meaning out of all the bombardment. The decibels are going up and the meaning is going down.

At the risk of having you think that I am a Neil Diamond fan, for I certainly am not, I want to quote a line from one of his songs. He said about 30 years ago, “Everybody’s talking at me, but I don’t hear a word they’re saying.”

The decibels are going up and the meaning is going down. We are bombarded by so many messages, we can hardly keep track of them. Here are the kinds of vehicles that are used to hit us with these messages. Billboards, magazines, music, video games, newscasts, the internet, advertising, movie, television, novels, art, pornography, and plays.

All of those things are competing for our attention. All of those things are trying to say something to us. Here are some of the things they have been saying to us in recent years. Get into relationships by brushing with a certain toothpaste. Be the envy of your block by owning a certain make of automobile. Lose weight now by watching this aerobic video. Build your retirement portfolio by investing with this company. Never worry again about your heating bills by installing this brand of siding. Reduce your monthly expenses by transferring to our low-interest credit card. Never miss a sales call again by carrying this cellular phone. Making your shopping easy with one stop. You deserve a break today. An interesting one I observed recently on the back of a cereal box: Claim the Life You Deserve. I’m thinking, no thank you. I’d much prefer mercy if it’s available, over what I deserve! Then there is, Have it your way. Just do it. Got milk?

The messages are bombarding us. It has become a giant collage of white noise. The decibels are going up and the meaning is going down. We can hardly any more ferret out any meaning from the incredible number of messages that are coming to us. And in the midst of an incredible number of messages, the real fear is we might miss the really important message. Something really important might come through and we wouldn’t hear it, or we would hear it and ignore it. We would hear it and say, I’m not going to do that.

In 1876 a young man by the name of General George Custer got a command, and his command was, he was supposed to go to southeast Montana and scout the area for the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, but not to engage them in battle. So Custer went to southeast Montana. He found the Sioux and the Cheyenne Indians, and rather than waiting for General Reno and General Banteen who were coming two days later, for some reason he attacked the Indians. You know the story well. Custer is an infamous person in our history. He lost his life. Two hundred and sixty-one soldiers fighting with him lost their lives. General Custer has become the poster boy for stupidity, because he disobeyed a command that came to him. You see, when Reno got there and Banteen got there, they were going to take these three groups of soldiers and they were going to attack the Indians from three different sides. They had a great strategy. But General Custer ignored a command, and that command cost him his life and his reputation.

God is giving to us a number of commands that could cost us more than our lives and more than our reputation. They could cost us our eternity. Besides costing our eternity, they could cost us incredible joy in the meantime.

I want to ask you to think about this key command the Lord is giving to us by thinking about James 1:21-27. We want to think about this question, Am I missing the key command in the collage of white noise? As the decibels go up, have I missed the key issue? Is the main message missing me?

James chapter 1, verse 21 again please. “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

The first message the Word of God has for us today is that the Word of God only takes root in my life if I receive it with humility. The Word of God only helps me if I am a person who approaches that Book with humility. The Word of God is only implanted if I am humble. If I am arrogant it will not help me.

Arrogant people are folks who consider themselves to be superior to others. They are people who think, I have no faults, I have no sins. Why would I need a Book like this?  They are people who say to themselves, I have all the resources I need to make life work. Surely I don’t need any help. That is the kind of person that is not helped by the Word of God because they never submit their lives to the God of the Word. They never allow it to shape them. Therefore, God is very faithfully working to cultivate arrogance out of us. I am convinced that God is a farmer who is cultivating arrogance out of us, Who wants us to be people who experience the blessings of the Word of God and so, in order to get arrogance out of us, He helps us with things like trials, setbacks, failures, ambushes, and struggles and illnesses and discouragements. He wants to cultivate out of us any kind of arrogance that says, I don’t need God and I don’t need the Word of God.

Therefore, when I experience these kinds of things, I need to myself, It’s a terrific blessing to me! It’s a huge blessing to have God getting the arrogance out of my life through these vehicles so that I can benefit from submitting to the Word of God.

Verse 21 said I can experience salvation by submitting my life to the Word of God. And there is a second incredible blessing that comes to me. Honestly, experiencing salvation is a great blessing! It’s the greatest blessing I can think about. But a second incredible blessing that comes to me, verses 22-27, when I hear the Word of God it introduces blessing into my life, but only if I hear it intently and do it effectively.

How do you get blessing from the Word of God? A very key issue—verse 22. The foundational command is that I need to be a person who obeys the Word of God. He said in verse 22, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

If I want a life that is blessed, I need to do the Word of God. The Bible doesn’t help me if it is gathering dust on my shelf. The Bible does not help me if it sits on my dashboard from Sunday to Sunday so that when I get to church on Sunday I can grab it and it’s right there. My Bible does not help me if it is lying under a stack of letters on my nightstand. There is no blessing in my life by having a Bible on my nightstand.

The Word of God helps me when I am a person who is doing what He has asked me to do. And the application is very simple and clear, and that is, I need to stop making excuses for disobedience. I need to stop rationalizing about why I don’t read God’s Book. I need to stop being ignorant about what God told me to do.

The New Testament contains 800 commands. Eight hundred things that God expects me to do. If I want to have a life full of blessing, I need to find out what they are, and begin to do them. Allow God to bless my life as I begin to do those things.

The second issue, verses 22-24. James says that there is great self-delusion and terrific folly in merely hearing the Word of God, but not doing it. I am deluded and I am foolish. Verse 22b, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”

A number of years ago there was a sitcom called Happy Days. Happy Days began every evening that it ran with this main actor named Alfred Ponzarelli. The Ponz would be coming out of his apartment, there was a full-length mirror on his door. He would come up to that full-length mirror, get his comb out of his pocket, and he was just ready to comb this gorgeous hair that he had and before he did it, he said, Heeeyy. He put his comb in his pocket and said, You can’t improve on perfection.  Why would I comb this any more? And he goes off to whatever he’s going to do that day.

I want you to contrast that scene with this scene. You’ve gotten up at 5:00 in the morning because you have some very early appointment. You were sleeping very hard and you need to go look in the mirror. And you get to the mirror and you realize, I was sleeping so hard I’ve been drooling down my chin. My hair is a tangled jungle that’s going nineteen directions. I have huge bags under my eyes. I have two days’ growth of beard on my face. I’m pale from lack of sleep. I look like a mess! And when you see that in the mirror, you head off to the shower and to the comb and to the razor to try to make something out of your face. You see, for Alfred Ponzarelli, the mirror was an instrument of reinforcement. For me at 5:00 o’clock in the morning, it’s an instrument of correction.

He was looking at it to say, Heeyy, you can’t improve on this. I am looking at it to say, Uhhhh! How can I improve on this?

As you think about the Word of God, the key question is, Is the Word of God for you an instrument of reinforcement, or an instrument of correction? The Word of God for us, according to 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17, is an instrument of correction.

2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

In other words, the Word of God needs to be a mirror for me so that I can look into the mirror and understand how to correct my life. I can understand what needs to be changed in my life.

Third issue, verse 25. God’s blessing rests on my activity when I look intently at the Word of God and when I do it effectively. Verse 25. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

God is saying to me, I need to be a person who looks intently into the Word of God by faithful, careful, systematic, personal study of the Word of God. And after I’ve done faithful, careful, systematic, personal study of the Word of God, then I respond to what I learn by doing it. If I want my life to be blessed, that’s the route I need to take to be a person who is blessed by the Word of God.

Listen to Hosea 4:6. People in the Old Testament had this same problem of ignoring the Word of God. God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

Every believer is personally responsible for personal, careful, systematic study of the Word of God. It is not enough to come on Sunday morning and say, I got a sermon, the preacher’s worked up a sermon, I’m going to listen to that. I’m OK. It is not enough to go to some special services once in a while and say, Hey, I got a good dose now. I’m off and running. I’m ready to go.

As a believer in Jesus Christ I am personally responsible to study the Word of God.

There is one more powerful statement in verse 25 I want to ask you to think about. He called the Word of God the Perfect Law of Liberty. The perfect law of liberty. In other words, the Word of God is not bondage to me. It is so tempting for me to look at the Word of God and think, what a straightjacket. Look at all the fun God is destroying. Look at all the things I can’t do. Look at all the bondage God introduces into my life by telling me to do these 800 things. But the reality is, God is saying to us, this is not bondage; this is liberty. If you do these 800 things, you won’t be in bondage. You’ll be absolutely free.

John chapter 8, verse 31. “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Obedience leads to freedom. Disobeying this Book leads to incredible bondage.

I want to give you a little quiz today and ask you to think about this. Use your Bible if you’d like. If I am involved in adultery, is the end result freedom or bondage? If I am involved in evangelism, is the end result freedom or bondage? If I am involved in lying, is the end result freedom or bondage? Involved in forgiving others—does it lead to freedom or to bondage? Involved in envy—does it lead to freedom or does it lead to bondage? Involved in discipleship, involved in gossip, involved in giving gifts, involved in dishonesty—does it lead to freedom or does it lead to bondage?

God’s message is, when I am responding to this Book, when I am obeying this Book, I become free. He wants me to be a person who is looking intently into it and be a person who is obeying it effectively in my life.

Fourth and finally, verses 26 and 27, James gives to us three examples of what it would look like. These are not exhaustive examples, but these are three ways that my life will look different if I am really responding to the Word of God.

Example A, verse 26. Really obeying the Word of God means that I will bridle my tongue. “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.”

If you have a huge horse that you want to control, you put a bit in his mouth and use a bridle. You can control him, you can direct him, you can take this huge, powerful animal that you could never personally manhandle and make it go where you want it to go. God’s message to us is that I need to put a bridle or a bit on my own tongue, this small but powerful thing, and make it do and make it say what it needs to say.

For example, to make it be an instrument of grace—Proverbs 3:3-4. An instrument of truth—Ephesians 4:15. An instrument of building other people up—Ephesians 4:29. An instrument that does not tear other people down—4:29. An instrument that does not bring discouragement in the lives of other people—Ephesians 4:29.

He says I want you to control this little thing and be very careful that you are not battering and discouraging people. You want to know if you are really responding to the Word of God? Simply ask yourself the question, Am I a person who controls my tongue?

Probably the key question is, how do you do that? How do you be a person who is controlling your tongue? If you are like me, my tongue is about three times faster than my mind. My tongue is about nine times faster than my compassion. My tongue is about 130 times faster than my plain, common sense. How do you control your tongue? The answer is in James chapter 3. It’s a very simple answer. I’m not going to give it to you—I’m trying to exhort you and encourage you to personal Bible study, so you’ll have to go look there yourself!

James chapter 3—there is a very clear answer to how to control your tongue. Very straightforward. Very encouraging. My encouragement is to say to you, look into the Word of God yourself in James 3 and find out, look into the mirror of the perfect law of liberty and say to yourself, what do I need to do to be a person who controls my tongue?

Example B. Verse 27, of a person who is really responding to the Word of God, really obeying the Word of God means that I must help needy orphans and widows and others. Verse 27. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

He is saying to us, if I want to be a person who claims to have genuine religion, who is really responding to the Word of God, I need to be making personal sacrifices to help people in need. Making personal sacrifices to help people who are struggling.

The text says, visit the fatherless and widows in their distress. That does not mean go find a widow, sit down and drink her tea and eat her cookies and leave. That means that we do something about their distress. If they have a financial need or a physical need or an emotional need, a spiritual need, I minister to them in whatever ways I can.

The application is, we need to be people who are helping struggling people, who are making sacrifices for people who struggle.

If you don’t know a widow or an orphan with a genuine need, there are a lot of other people in that category. There are plenty such people. There are lots of folks who need encouragement, who need to see that we are responding to the Word of God.

Final Example, end of verse 27. Really obeying the Word of God means that I resist the temptation to the unclean, worldly activities. There is a whole kingdom out there that is controlled by Satan. It hates God intensely. It is tempting us to live in violation of God’s character. It is pulling us down and in every way discouraging us. God is saying to us, if I dive into those activities, they will be characterized by evil and they will stain my life. Galatians 5:19. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

When I dive into the activities characterized by the world, I am number one, staining my life, and I am number two, introducing great discouragement into my own heart.

There was a famous football coach who coached for Michigan State. His name was Duffy Daughtery. He said, when you throw a forward pass, three things can happen, and two of them are bad.

When you dive into the activities of the world, hundreds of things can happen, and they are all bad!

We talked last time about God’s indictment of sin was the fact that the pleasures are so short-lived. If you want to invest there, He said there is pleasure, but it’s only going to last a minute. Today’s indictment is to say, you can invest there if you want, but it puts an incredible stain on your life.

Ever get ready for a long trip and get in the car, or worse yet, on an airplane, or a bus, and have your child spill about 40 ounces of some drink in your lap? You are facing two to nine hours of travel and you’re so sticky you can hardly stand it! That’s the kind of stain that comes to us when we are involved in the activities of the world. Our soul is spotted, it is stained. It is cleanable. God can help us with it, but the reality is, I experience that kind of stain and it is terrifically discouraging to me.

God’s message to me is, if I want to be a person whose life is blessed by the Word of God, I need to look into it intently. Personal study of the Word of God. And I need to do it effectively. I need to be a person who says, I know what God said to do, and I am willing to do it. I am willing to respond to the things He said for me to do.

God is calling me to be a person who responds to the Word of God rather than simply hears the Word of God.

I wonder if anybody would be willing to try a little double-dog dare this week, a challenge for the week. The challenge is this: I challenge you to get up for the next seven days and never use a mirror! Just go wherever you’re going—if you’re going to work or shopping or to a meeting or whatever—wherever you’re going, just get up and go. Don’t look.

With the exception of a few infants and a few younger boys here, I suspect no one is going to take me upon that! No one would be willing to say, yes, for the next week I will not use a mirror. It would result in incredible embarrassment to you and the people around you.

Here is the key question for us: are we planning to go through this entire week without looking into the mirror of the Word of God? Are we saying to ourselves, there is no way I would do without a physical mirror, there is no way I would go to work, or go out shopping without fixing my face. But I would be willing to spend a whole week without looking intently into the perfect law of liberty of God.

My encouragement to you today is to say, if you don’t look into the mirror of the Word of God, you’re going to end up with far worse than embarrassment! God is calling each one of us to be people who are given to systematic, faithful, personal study of the Word of God. If I don’t look in the mirror, I never am able to adjust my life.

—PRAYER—