Are you listening?

Be a doer

Pretty much everybody in our culture spends some time every day in front of a mirror. We may like what we see, or we may not like what we see, but the mirror does nothing but reflect what is in front of it. Mirrors are made to reflect perfectly what is in front of it. That is what they are designed to do! In the past, mirrors didn’t always reflect perfectly. Some cultures have used polished metal or stone, neither of which are as effective as the modern day mirror.

Things in nature also reflect.

We’ve all undoubtedly seen pictures like this, where there are reflections in the water of what is beyond the water. One reflector that we see nearly every night is the moon. We know that the Moon has no light of its own - the light of the Moon is the reflection of the Sun.

This is a scene from our balcony early in our week of vacation in Myrtle Beach last week. Pictures don’t ever do justice to the beautiful Moon on nights like that. As the Moon reflects the Sun - we are called and given the responsibility to reflect the Son of God. We are not perfect, and we never will be. Our lives are full of scars, but we can still reflect the Son!

Over these next few weeks we will be looking in to the New Testament book of James, where we will dig in to some practical directions of how we can do just that - “Reflecting the Son.”

James, although it has been looked at with some skepticism over the years, is a great, practical source for understanding what it means to be a christian. There have been some throughout history that have tried to rid the Bible of the book of James because they have seen it as contrary to Paul’s claims of salvation by grace alone through faith. James is more interested in the day to day working out of our faith. He uses a practical approach and straightforward method of approaching the subject of living out our faith in a world desperate for God. James doesn’t spend a lot of time discussing doctrine, though the book is full of doctrinal concepts. Instead, James tells believers how we are to respond to various people and situations and in doing so truly reflect Christ into our world.

Many of the early letters that are in our Bible were written not to one particular congregation, but to a region of churches. James was written to congregations that were dispersed throughout the known world. He says in 1:1 that he is writing to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.”

The church had been dispersed following the stoning of Stephen that is reported to us in Acts chapter 7. Acts 8 begins by telling us that

Acts 8:1 “1 “That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.”

As James writes to these scattered early Christians, he scores a direct hit to a common problem in churches both then and now. There were those in the churches that James was writing to that considered themselves to be more spiritually mature than others. They asserted this so-called maturity and attempted to seek positions of authority, social prominence, and power within the church.

Let’s start by looking together at James 1:17-27 from the NIV.

James 1:17–27 NIV

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. 19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Every good and perfect gift comes from God.

Our “good deeds” and the good deeds done by others are never of their own doing, even if the person doing the good deed doesn’t acknowledge it.

The old story is told about the woman who was going hungry, but didn’t have the money to buy any food. She was praying one day that God would provide her needs. Her neighbor, who happened to be an atheist heard her praying and decided that he would prove to her that her prayers were meaningless, so he went to the grocery store and purchased some groceries and left them on her front porch, rang the bell and hid around the corner of the house. The woman came to the door and discovered the groceries that were left there and immediately began to praise God for the wonderful gift. At this, the neighbor jumped out from around the corner and told the woman that God had not done anything, it had, in fact, been him that provided the groceries. The woman immediately prayed: : “Dear God thank you for providing my food, and using the devil to provide them.”

Every good and perfect gift comes from God the Father, including His gift of salvation - but He did not give us this gift to hoard for ourselves or so that we could hold ourselves up as some sort of example for others to follow. He gave us this gift so that we would be able to reflect Christ to a world in desperate need of Him.

Let everyone be quick to listen, Slow to speak, slow to anger.

Every believer—not just some, not just the most holy among us—every believer must be quick to listen. It is said that God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason!

We tend not to be very good listeners. We listen with the idea of what we will say in response instead of to hear the other person. We can throw a wrench in middle of communication, and we often do, by not listening before we speak!

Slow to speak - again, the idea is that we listen carefully, so that when we do speak - there is depth of meaning.

Slow to anger—here is a message that the church and the world needs to hear. Our anger, James says: does not produce God’s righteousness, so we are to be slow to anger. I have had people try to explain away bad tempers before by telling me that it is just the way they are. But in Christ, we don’t have to remain the way we are!

One goal for every believer ought to be to learn to slow down and to select a right response rather than reacting to what people say and do. If we react we will lash out in anger or hurt. If we respond we get to select the right words and tone for the situation.

Jesus demonstrated this careful response to those who brought to him the woman caught in adultery. He even stooped down to write in the dirt as he composed a righteous response to these people who were acting disgracefully. We don’t know what it was that He wrote, but we do know that his response was not harsh or sinful, in fact, it was exactly what was needed for the specific situation.

James says that we are to rid ourselves of the evil that would destroy us. He equates the moral filth and evil that is prevalent to the garbage. If you don’t take out the garbage, it won’t be long until there is a horrible smell. The smell will eventually lead to disease and ruin - even death. It is one of the great dangers people face following a flood. The waters themselves are dangerous, but the devastation of the water is often small compared to the devastation left by the garbage after the flood waters have receded. James says we are to take out the garbage - get rid of all the stuff that would destroy us!

Don’t just listen—DO!

From his book, Improving your Serve by Charles Swindoll we have this excellent illustration.

Swindoll says: Let’s pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I’m the owner and I’m interested in expanding overseas.

To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until the new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family in the move to Europe for six to eight months, and I leave you in charge of my busy organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you direction and instructions.

I leave and you stay. Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations.

Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival I drive down to the office. I am stunned! Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken.

I walk into the receptionist’s room and she is doing her nails, chewing gum, and listening to her favorite disco station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing, the carpet hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned.

I ask about your whereabouts and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells, “I think he’s down there.” Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager.

I ask you to step into my office (which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas).

“What in the world is going on, man?”…“What do ya’ mean…?”…“Well, look at this place! Didn’t you get any of my letters?”…Letters?

Oh, yeah—sure, got every one of them. As a matter of fact … we have had letter study every Friday night since you left. We have even divided all the personnel into small groups and discussed many of the things you wrote. Some of those things were really interesting.

You’ll be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two! Great stuff in those letters!”

“Okay, okay—you got my letters, you studied them and meditated on them, discussed and even memorized them. BUT WHAT DID YOU DO ABOUT THEM?”

“Do? Uh—we didn’t do anything about them.” (Chuck Swindoll from his book Improving Your Serve; pp. 170-171)

If a person who claims to be a follower of Christ does not control the tongue that person is fooling themselves. In fact, James says that a person who does not keep a tight rein on their tongue is deceiving themselves and their religion is worthless! Earlier in the chapter James told his readers to be slow to speak, now he reminds them of the importance of keeping their tongue in check. We are called to keep a tight rein on our tongue. The rein on the horse is not used to just STOP the horse, but to control the horse and lead it in the right direction. We have a responsibility to stop our tongues before they say wrong things and leading our tongues to say the right things.

There are more scriptures dealing with sins of the tongue than dealing with sexual immorality. This is how important our speech is. Yet, some of these people felt as if they could say anything and get away with it. James tells us that our worship is worthless if we haven’t made some effort to curb our tongue and properly direct our communication. We cannot ignore the hurt we have caused others with our tongues and expect God to honor our worship.

Finally, James makes it clear that it is not enough just to talk about doing good - we are to DO good! He talks about looking after the orphans and the widows, but our responsibility doesn’t end there. It is hard to turn on the news today without seeing some people group that is in need. We have seen the devastation of earthquakes and hurricanes and fires, and we have witnessed the ravages of war and terrorist acts even in just the past few weeks. If we are to reflect the Son, we cannot just be observers of all that we are seeing. We must be doers of the word. We don’t want to be one that looks in a mirror but forgets what we look like. We are to be the ones that do something about it! We cannot begin to solve all of the worlds problems - some of us have problems of our own that we need to solve, but we can be involved in the efforts that God has put into place to help those in need. You can give to Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. If you mark your gift as such and place it in the offering, that gift will be sent to those who are working to help in dire circumstances. I am thankful for a denomination that is concerned for the poor and the homeless, and the victims of human trafficking, and the victims of senseless wars and the victims of hurricanes and flooding and fires. We can give to organizations that are doing good! We can also collect items for Crisis care kits. I know that we just provided some of these, but the need is great, and we need to do more. That is what James would describe as religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless. Be a Doer!