It seems a long time since we were last looking at the book of James, so its probably best that we quickly recap the first 18 verses.

Nearly a month ago we saw from verses 1 to 12 that even trials are good for us because they are able to lead us to maturity. For those who are struggling with trials, James never promises that things would become better, because they may not. Rather, his hope is that he would become better, and therefore more able to deal with the trials he was facing.

Then in verses 12 through 18, James looked at When trials become temptations, because he knows that although even trials are good for us, sometimes trials don’t build us up, trials drag us down. So, in verses 12 and 13, he said that Steadfastness in trials brings life. We saw that God sends us trials, in order that we might stand up to the test, and become stronger. But he also told us in verses 14 and 15, that Succumbing to temptations brings death. He reminded us that we should blame the government, the media, or even the devil for our own failings, because “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed”. Although there is much in the world that is unhelpful, our biggest problem is not the world, but our own hearts. And if we succumb to those temptations, James, says, then death is the inevitable result. So how is the Christian to survive? Thankfully, James gave us the answer to that question too, in verses 16 through 18. There  he told us that Security in trials is brought by God. In other words, he not only told us that God does not tempt us he tests us, he also insisted he gives us the means to be able to pass those tests. That’s why James said in verse 17 that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

So having dealt now with the general principles, James is able to move on to things a bit more specific, and in the verses that we’re going to look at today, verses 19-27. In it James takes the same principle, and then applies it in two different ways. In verses 19 and 20 James tells us about Living in the World, and in verses 21 to 25 he tells about Living under the Word, before tying the two threads together in verses 26 to 27, which we’ll call Living out the Word.

As we’ve said, James takes one principle, and applies it to each of these three situations. The principle is very simple: words and actions are inseparable. It’s actually a very important principle for James. That’s why chapter two is all about our actions, and chapter three is all about our words.

These verses that we’re studying today then, act as an introduction to those chapters. In the first section, verses 19-20 he shows us that our actions are often moulded by our words. In verses 21 to 25 he shows us that if we’re genuinely converted, then God’s word must also mould our actions. And in verses 26 to 27, he completes the circle and shows that our words and our actions are actually one at the same thing, and can’t be separated at all.

Sounds complicated? It won’t be once we get to the end! Just remember the one principle (words and actions are inseparable), and the three sections: Living in the World, (verses 19 to 20), Living under the Word (verses 21 to 25), and Living out the Word (verses 26 to 27).

Firstly then,

Living in the world (vv 19‑20)

As we’ve said, James has one principle which he applies in three slightly different ways. The principle is that words and actions cannot be separated, and in this first section he’s showing us how that can be seen in the way that we live in the world.

Let me read verses 19 and 20 to you:

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

So what is James saying in verses 19 and 20? Firstly, that we should be eager to listen to others.

Remember, James’ mind has just been thinking through trials and temptations, and James knows that in the midst of trials, a listening ear can be a huge advantage. Women, it has to be said, are rather better at mastering this than men. If I was to ask you: “who do you know that is a good listener?”, most of you would think of more women than men. And if you are a woman, it’s quite probable that you won’t be able to think of any men at all! But although it’s quite true that God made men and women to be different, that is no excuse for us men. Every Christian, James says, is to be an eager listener.

But that’s not all. We’re also to be slow to speak. Again, this is a message that every one of us needs to be reminded of. We all have a tendency – some more than others – to be fond of the sound of our own voice. But that is not a virtue, says James. I really like the book of Proverbs, for it’s down to earth practical wisdom. There’s no political correctness, Proverbs just says it as it is. And Proverbs 17:28 says, “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.” How very true.

But we must remember, of course, that James does not want us all to be completely silent. He does want us to speak, but he wants us to do so with more careful consideration than often we manage. Again, when we’re going through trials, most Christians tend to make one of two mistakes. Either we shoot our mouths off with barely a thought and make everything twice as bad, or we clam up and don’t say anything to anyone, and let the situation slowly get worse and worse. Both extremes are wrong. We should speak, James say, but we do so with care.

Thirdly then, he tells us that we must be slow to wrath, to anger. Again, it’s crucial to notice that James does not tell us never to become angry. Sometimes it’s right both to be angry, and to express that anger. But when that is the right thing to do, we must always do it in a measured way. A Christian must not lose his temper. That is exactly the model we have from God – on no less than nine separate occasions, we are told in the Old Testament that God is “slow to anger”. And in Galatians chapter 5, Paul us that we are to be just the same. He lists nine things which he says are part of the fruit of the Spirit. It should not surprise us that no less than three of them have to do with this very issue: peace, longsuffering and self-control. Nor should it surprise us that Paul puts “outbursts of wrath” in the corresponding list of “works of the flesh”, with a reminder that “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Now to some, that may seem an impossible task, but we must remember what James has already told us in verse 5. It is the wise, according to Proverbs, who hold their tongue, and James has already told us that “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” That’s the message to every one of us who finds applying verse 19 very difficult.

But we must apply it, because James wants us to understand why this is so important, as he tell us in verse 20. The translation in the New King James Bibles we use here in church is accurate, but difficult to understand. The NIV is much clearer. It says, “man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires”. James is telling us that getting angry won’t make us any holier, it won’t make us more like Jesus Christ.

There is of course a place for righteous anger. But the tragedy is that most of the time when our tempers flare up it’s over the trivial: the person who left the toilet seat up – again, the traffic lights that change to red just before we get there, the referee who loses our team the match. And meanwhile every single day billions of people enjoy the glorious gift of life, and never stop for a moment to give God any glory. Every single day, in the UK alone, 550 babies are killed in our hospitals. And around the world 473 Christians are martyred for their faith, every single day. And we get angry about traffic lights?

So, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. That is how words and actions are inseparable, when we’re living in the world.

James now moves on, and applies the very same point – that words and actions are inseparable – to a slightly different situation, because now, secondly, James wants us to consider…

Living Under the Word (vv 21-25)

Verse 22 should be enough to convince us of James’ main point – that words and actions are inseparable. Let me read the verse from the NIV, which is unmistakably powerful: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

Unlike the previous verses, James is not concerned here about words which we may speak to our friends. His concern is about God’s word.

We’ll return to verse 22 shortly, but let’s start at verse 21, which is equally powerful. “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

Here, James takes up a metaphor which is common throughout the New Testament. It’s an easy picture to visualise, isn’t it? James is calling us to lay aside, or take off all filthiness and excessive wickedness, as we might take off a filthy robe.

But remember that James is talking about Christians, about people like you and I. This description of filthiness and overflow of wickedness is not reserved for Adolf Hitler, Myra Hindley or Robert Mugabe. James is talking about us.

I wonder whether we really understand the sinfulness of sin? Whether we really see ourselves as James clearly saw himself.

But whilst Paul would often follow-up a command like this with a similar one to “put on” righteous acts, James doesn’t do that. If James were to do that, it would be a great challenge, wouldn’t it, and one worthy of the New Testament.

But James wants to do something else. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little exhausted already. I’ve been challenged time and time again, even in this first chapter. I’m really not sure I can survive too many more challenges.

So I’m very glad that James doesn’t urge me simply to “put on” some clean clothes. Instead – look at the end of verse 21 – he tells me of something that I already have – the word. I know I already have it, because it’s implanted. It’s not something that I have to put on, it’s already there.

And James tells me not simply that it’s there, but that it’s powerful. How powerful is it? Verse 21 tells us. It’s so powerful, it’s able to save your souls.

Are you troubled, by the way, that James talks here of salvation as occurring in the future? You needn’t be. The Bible often talks about salvation happening in the past, continuing in the present, and being consummated in the future. Christ has finished his work on the cross, and our sins have been paid for. In that sense we are saved. But God has not yet finished his work of brining us into the image of Christ, and he has not even begun his work of giving us our glorious resurrection bodies. In that sense, our salvation – though absolutely certain, and absolutely real today – is still future.

So if you’ve been challenged by what James has said so far, then you need to understand the enormity of verse 21. Our filthiness and excessive wickedness are truly dreadful. But thanks to the transforming work of the gospel – the word – those things are now external. In other words, what was once part of our nature – sinfulness – it is now possible, through the transforming work of the gospel, to take off, much as one would take off a robe or cloak.

All of us, at different times, have needed to take tablets to combat a medical problem. Every time, those tablets come with instructions. The instructions always tell us when to take the tablets, but they often tell us how to take them too. Some tablets have to be taken on an empty stomach. Others, have to be taken with meals. Some have to be combined with other tablets in order to be effective. Most can’t be taken with alcohol, some can’t be taken with fizzy drinks.

The point is, that the way we take a tablet can render it almost ineffective, and that is what James is saying here. The word is implanted in us, but the way that we receive it is crucial if it is to be effective, and it must be received with meekness, he says.

You know I like to give you at least one Greek word each week. This week your word is prauteis. That’s the word translated here as ‘meekness’. I looked it up in a Greek dictionary, and it had one of the best definitions I’ve ever read of a biblical word. This is what it said: “the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance”. Did you get that? “The quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance”.

Alcohol or food may render a tablet virtually ineffective. James says that self-importance will render the gospel virtually ineffective. That’s why we’ve headed this section Living under the Word. It simply means that we’re to be humble, to be meek. We’re to understand that the Word rules us, we don’t rule the word.

Do you ever find yourself searching the Bible to find a verse to justify what you’ve already decided to do? Then you’re not living under the word. Do you ever find yourself reading a passage of Scripture, or listening to a sermon, then trying to explain it away so you won’t have to do what it says? Then you’re not living under the word.

No, someone who is living under the word will bring their life, and their actions to the Bible. They’ll measure what they do, by what the Bible says, and where the Bible contradicts their practice, they’ll change their practice. If we’re really to combat sin in our lives, this is where we must start, in meekness and humility, under the word.

In other words, James is saying that the only way of receiving the word, is to let the word change the way that we live. That’s why he says what he does in verses 22 to 25, and he uses some a great illustration to make his point. Imagine, James says, a man who looks in a mirror, then goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Perhaps some of you don’t need to imagine! I would think that in the days before electric razors and Gillette Sensor, most of you men here have cut yourself shaving. And how many of you have noticed the cut in the mirror, so stuck on a bit of tissue paper to try and stem the bleeding? And how many of you, have immediately forgotten how foolish you look with a piece of tissue paper stuck to your face, and have gone to work with the tissue paper still attached!

We’re not to be like that, says James. Where the Word of God exposes us, we need to act. We can’t merely hear the word, but never act. Actions must always accompany God’s word.

And that, James says is where blessing comes, verse 25. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that listening to sermons will be a blessing. Well, if you only listen, you’ll not be blessed. It is acting on sermons, it is living under the word where blessings come.

So, James has told us about Living in the World in verses 19 and 20, and now he has told us about Living Under the Word in verses 21 to 25. Now, in verses 26 to 27 he’s about to tie these two things together. We call this section:

Living Out the Word (vv 26‑27)

James rounds of this section by bringing together the two situations he has already dealt with. In the first, he was principally concerned with our words, and we conducted ourselves in the world. In the second, he was principally concerned with God’s word, and how we put ourselves under the word.

Now these two things are brought together – our life in the world, and our ‘religious’ life. Let’s read those two verses again:

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Now I don’t know how you would define religion, particularly the Christian religion. I think I would be inclined to define it in terms of what we believe. There’s nothing necessary wrong with that, but James deliberately sets that aside, to ensure his true point is really hammered home.

Do you remember the one principle that has been running through these verses? It’s that words and actions are inseparable. So James really drives his point home by taking something which almost all of us would define in words – religion – and defining it instead in terms of actions.

In so doing, he’s absolutely in-step with the rest of the Bible. Some people like to say that James disagreed with Paul. They’re talking absolute nonsense. James is deliberately going out of his way to make exactly the same point that Paul does on so many occasions that how we behave demonstrates what we believe.

So James draws out three key areas of our lives that will help us to define whether our ‘religion’ our faith, is really genuine. He looks at our control of the tongue, our concern for the helpless, and our separation from the world.

These are clearly areas in which the Bible has a lot to say, so James’ challenge is absolutely in line with Jesus who said that “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. It’s absolutely in line with the words of the apostle John: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” And it’s absolutely in line with what God himself says through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 1, beginning at verse 15:

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

It’s a sign of how much we have forgotten these truths that James’ words appear to be so unusual. They’re not! His message is absolutely consistent with the whole of the Bible.

And in these two verses, James calls us to three things. To bridle our tongue, to care for the most needy, and to keep ourselves pure. Let’s look at each of them in turn.

When I was in the Boy Scouts, we once went on a trek on some horses. It was an excellent afternoon, and we’d been taught to guide our horses using the bridle and bit, to ensure they went exactly where we wanted them to go. But it was a hot day, and after two hours my horse decided to stop for a drink in a little stream, just 500 yards short of the stables. He was clearly in need of this drink, but the problem was that he couldn’t lower his head down to the stream because I was holding on to the reins.

Well, I felt he deserved his drink, and he certainly looked as though he needed it, so I let go of the reins and let him drink his fill. He appreciated it, I think, but when he looked up he saw that all the other horses had drawn away whilst he was drinking. Clearly he wanted to catch up, so he set off after them – not at a trot, but at a gallop! Well perhaps it was a canter, but remember, I’m not holding onto the reins, so it certainly felt like a gallop! And he so enjoyed the gallop that he didn’t stop when he got to the other horses, but kept on going past them, and galloped all the way back to the stables, with me clinging on to the saddle for dear life!

The point was that this horse, who had been so co-operative and well behaved for the whole journey, suddenly became out of control simply because I’d let go of the bridle.

James says our tongues can be just like that horse – out of control. He’ll return to this in much more detail in chapter 3, but James is saying that if we’re not willing to control what we say, we lose the right to call ourselves Christians. Our faith, which boasts of the life-changing work of God the Holy Spirit in our lives, is useless, James says, if the words that we speak are not under our control.

The second aspect that James considers is our care for the less fortunate. Again, it’s a subject he will return to, and we’ll be able to spend more time looking at it there. I thought there was an ancient proverb that demonstrated what James was trying to say, but when I looked it up, it was actually a quote from Harry Potter – though I’m sure J K Rowling based it on a more ancient source! But in Book 4, Dumbledore says to Harry: “If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

That’s James’ point. It is easy to be kind to those who are like us, and who are able to reciprocate. Many will do it. But the Christian is called to love everyone, regardless of what they are able to offer in return. In the days in which James wrote, widows and orphans were at the very bottom of the social scale, and completely dependent on others to provide for their needs. The true measure of your faith and mine, is not in how we treat our friends, nor our bank manager. It’s true measure is seen in how we treat those who will never be able to treat us well.

Finally, the third aspect which James deals with is our holiness. We are, he says, to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. We are to have clean hearts. Yes, it may be necessary to take off all wickedness, verse 21, but it is far better to never allow the wickedness that so pervades this world to ever get onto our lives at all.

Now it’s time to draw this to a close. To do so, we really need to understand the challenge of James here. If we see that James’ point is that we must try harder to do better, then we’ve entirely misunderstood what he is trying to say.

Remember where James has come from. Remember that verse 17 has told us that every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. Remember verse 18 where James told us that God brought us forth. Remember verse 21 which told us that God had planted his word, the gospel inside us, and that it is able to save us.

So James’ desire is that we examine ourselves to see whether these things are really true. It is likely that there are people here this morning who consider themselves Christians, but are – as James puts it in verse 22 – merely deceiving themselves. You come to church, you sing them hymns, you perhaps even read the Bible and pray. But ultimately, you’re not a doer of the word. You know that your actions and not in line with God’s word. You know really that if your life was to be examined, your hypocrisy would be exposed. Deep down, you know, or at least you suspect, that you’re faking it.

You cannot wriggle out from the implications of this by explaining James away. It’s no good to say that the standards he lays down are too high, and are unattainable. It will not help you at all to point out that even people who are sure they are Christians struggle with these things.

What James is really driving us to is to ask ourselves a vital question. Do you know the power of God working in your life? It is absolutely true that all Christians continue to struggle with these things. But what marks a true Christian from a Christian who is faking it, is not whether they try to be good, it is not whether they try to be obedient to God.

What marks out a true Christian from a Christian who is faking it is whether there really is an implanted word in our hearts that is unquestionably changing us into a better, a more Christ-like person. If the impulse for you to change comes from your own mind, or from things that are only external, its very likely that you’re a Christian that’s faking it.

What James makes clear is that the desire to control our mouths, our hands and our hearts does not come from ourselves, and does not come from outside. It comes from God the Father working in us and through us. It is the implanted word that is the source of this desire for holiness.

So if you know little of what this means, then it is a sign that your greatest need is not to try harder to do better. Your greatest need is to have your sins forgiven, and the Spirit of God to live inside you and change you from within.

God says through Jeremiah that “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people”, and through Ezekiel he says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

That’s what James is talking about. A transformed life, brought about by the Spirit of God.

Do you know what it is to have a new heart, and a new spirit? That’s the start of the Christian life, and there is no other way.

Shall we pray?