Sermon Tone Analysis

We are continuing our series Living Your Best Life.

We have been going through the book of James and gleaning practical information about how we can live our best life today as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Last week we talked about controlling our anger, and that was linked to how we receive God’s Word into our lives.

We were admonished to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger when dealing with others and when receiving teaching from God.

As a reminder, says

We are to cleanse our life from sins and receive God’s implanted Word with meekness.

We must have a teachable spirit that is eager to gain wisdom and instruction from God.

In our text this morning, James takes this thought one step further.

Not only are we to be receptive to the implanted Word of God, we also not to implement the implanted Word of God.

Not only should God’s Word not make us angry, but it should affect in us Gospel change.

James says that we should not only be hearers of God’s Word, but we should be doers of God’s Word as well.

As James is about to give more practical instruction about how to live our best life, he takes time to make sure that this is not going in one ear and out of the other.

This is really the crux of the whole book of James.

He wants us to have a practical faith.

He wants us to apply the Word of God to every aspect of our life.

In order to do that, we must hear God’s Word, but we must also implement these things into our our life.

This is something that James heard his brother Jesus say over and over again, but perhaps one instance stood out to him.

Jesus’s earthly family was trying to get to Jesus, probably to try to get Him to be quiet and come before He got killed, but Jesus referred to those that hear and do God’s word as His mother and brothers.

Perhaps at that time James was offended, but now James understood.

Hearing and doing the Word is an indication of a true relationship with Jesus.

You cannot have a healthy relationship with Jesus and remain unchanged by His Word.

God’s Word is an inexhaustible treasury of wisdom, instruction, and morality.

describes the Word as a two-edged sword that can discern the thoughts and intents in our heart.

tells us that Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

God did not gift us with his Word just so we can have inspirational stories, or so we can build up some theological knowledge, or so that we can use it as some moral code.

God has implanted His Word in us that believe so that it will change us from the inside out.

As it said in verse 18, “So that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

The Word should change us to be like the best of all God’s creation, reflecting His image in the world.

This can only happen if we implement God’s Word into our lives.

We must be hearers and doers.

This can be difficult.

Some of us may not know what it looks like to implement God’s Word into our lives to the point that it produces change in us.

This morning, we are going to to discuss this thought and learn how we can see change as a result of hearing and doing the Word consistently.

The message is titled Living your best life is Implementing God’s Word, not Ignoring God’s Word.

Transition: First, if we are going to implement God’s Word we need to act intentionally

I. Act Intentional

James 1:22

As James encourages us to be doers of the word, let’s not minimize the importance of being a good hearer of God’s Word.

The Bible says in That faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

It’s essential that Christians hear from God’s Word consistently through church and through our own personal time with God.

We just cannot stop with hearing God’s Word.

We have to be doers of God’s Word as well.

The command to be a doer in this verse is the word poietes.

It’s most often translated as doer or maker, but the same word is also translated as poet in Scripture.

A poet is one who makes literary art with words.

A real poet cannot make a poem on accident.

It takes time and effort to develop their thoughts.

They work on the their rhyme and meter so that their poem flows with the right rhythm.

They have to choose the right words to paint the picture that they want their readers to see.

It’s not just something that happens on accident, the best poems were created intentionally.

And that’s the picture that we are to get here.

See that problem that many of us have is that we hear God’s Word.

We agree with it, but we have no plan for how we intend to implement what we have learned into our lives.

When we hear God’s Word, it’s not going to just magically begin to affect change in us.

It affects change in us when we intentionally start to apply the truth of God’s Word into our life.

I believe that God’s Word always demands a response.

When God’s Word I think there is always an action that we need to change or an attitude that we need to adjust.

Sadly, I think that most of the time we don’t get much further than saying in a prayer, “God, that was good.

I needed that.

Help me to be different.”

But what is the action?

How do you plan to be different?

Or during the sermon will nod our heard, say amen or clap our heads in agreement, which I’m a preacher.

I like those things, makes it easier to preach, But still there has to be action.

It’s very good for us to say a prayer asking for forgiveness for a downfall and for help to be different, it’s good for us agree with God’s Word, but we cut our response to God’s Word short when we have no plan for how this is going to change our life.

At the end of every sermon, I try to give some type of action step that you can implement into your life to help you affect change into your life.

And I appreciate that many of you will tell me how much you enjoyed the sermon.

I’m highly critical of myself so, I need that kind of thing, it helps me keep going.

But probably the I felt after a sermon recently was a few weeks ago when I preached on stability and having wisdom, the action step I gave was to read the first 5 chapters of proverbs and do the HEAR journaling to reinforce the thoughts from that sermon.

And after the sermon Miss Kelly came to me over at the Next Steps table and asked how to do the HEAR worksheet.

That was awesome because that meant that she was leaving here with the intention to not just hear a good message that may have spoke to her heart, but to start implementing these things into her life.

And that’s how we should approach our response to God’s Word.

Yes, it should speak to our heart, but it must move to our hands and feet.

That doesn’t usually happen unless we act intentionally.

Transition: If we are going to implement and not ignore God’s Word we must act intentionally and that will help us with our second point, Avoid Deception

II.

Avoid Deception

At the end of verse 22 it says that those who are hearing God’s Word, but not doing God’s Word are deceiving themselves.

I think this is so prevalent in 2019, Memphis, TN.

Because everyone that you talk to calls themselves a Christian.

Many will say that they go to church regularly.

Some may even say that they read the Bible on their own.

Yet, there life in no way reflects what is it taught in the Scriptures.

These people are hearing God’s Word, but are deceiving themselves.

Many people try to soothe their conscience with religious activity.

They go to church to keep grandma happy or so that they will feel better.

They are cool with the parts of the Bible that talks about blessings, and being protected by God, not judging others, and forgiveness.

But if they come across something from Scripture that requires them to make a change to their lifestyle, it’s ignored.

James illustrates hearing and not doing in verses 23 and 24 saying

Interestingly enough, the people that James was writing to weren’t very familiar with what they looked like.

Mirrors were not common, and the ones that were used were made of metal so the image that they saw of themselves was a little distorted.

So many of them were not very concerned with what they looked at when they had an opportunity to look into a mirror.It never made a lasting impression.

They saw it and forgot it.

Today is a little different, one study said that the average person looks into the mirror about 8 times a day, and we get a clear reflection of what we look like because of glass.

For some of us that’s a good thing and some of us…not so much.

When we wake up and look into the mirror usually what we see is not a pretty site.

I know some of you ladies like to say, “I woke up like this” but we know that’s not true.

We look into the mirror and see what needs to be fixed before we show our face to the world.

We’ll wash our face, fix our hair, we might need to shave, or put on makeup, pluck eyebrows, whatever…We try to make ourselves presentable.

Imagine the looks that you will get if you look into that mirror, don’t change anything, and just go about your day thinking that you look good.