Be a doer of the word

We are continuing our series this morning The Heart Matters

This 6 week series leading up to to Easter Sunday will encourage you to examine your heart, your motivations, and your loves as you walk in repentance toward Resurrection Sunday. This season reminds us that we are all broken and in need of a Savior who has overcome sin and death.

This morning we will be in James 1:13-25. So if you have your bible go ahead and turn there. If not you can follow along on the screen in a few moments.

We will be answering the question what it means to be a doer of the word ?

Before we look at today verses I have a question for you.

Have you let sin creep into your life?

With the Holy Spirit guiding us, we are often convicted or impressed upon by the need to ask forgiveness and to change our ways when it comes to the obvious sin issues. If we steal something or lie to our partner, we know that it is wrong. When we choose pornography over intimacy in our relationships or anger over understanding when dealing with our children, our conscience is impacted immediately.

However, there are certain areas of our lives where sin is able to creep in almost undetected—places like our motives, our prioritizing of other things above God, and the ways we relegate loving our neighbor to the back burner of our lives. This season provides an opportunity to slow down and make time to listen to what God may need to tell us. Knowing that repentance should be a consistent part of the believer’s life, we will focus our attention on some of these sneaky sin issues and how Scripture addresses them.

The Book of James gets right to the point very quickly. I guess you could say straightforward practical book. In the first 12 verse James tackles some big concepts.

1-4- Remaining steadfast when trails come

5-8- asking God for wisdom and overcoming doubt

9-12- being humble whatever your circumstances are

When we get into what we are look at today. James 1:13-25. There is a lot going on in this passage. So we will be breaking it down into some important trues that we can learn.

James 1:13–15 CSB

13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

God cannot and will not tempt you!

How many of you have heard someone say.. Well I guess God is tempting me to see if I sin or not. There are some that say this when they are face temptation or when sin is all ready in their life. You see God does not tempt anyone. Nor does he try to make us stump and fall. You see that is what the devil is good at. The devil does not want us to have a relationship with God.

The devil uses our desire to draw us away from God. This desire will also lead us to sin and the death because the price of sin is death.

We do not have to let our desire destroy us. There is away out. God has provide away out. You he does not go any were he is away there. Just waiting of us to repeat and turn back to him

James 1:19–21 CSB

19 My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, 20 for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

You must give up your desires

you must be willing to die to yourselves. How many time have you got yourselves in trouble by say the wrong thing or by getting anger when you didn’t have to?

I would say we have all been in that position before and will be again. We have to be willing to remove all the negative stuff and instead humble ourselves and implanted the word of God on our soul.

So that bring us to the question I start out with this morning

What does it mean to be a doer of the word?

James 1:22–25 CSB

22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

Be a doer of the word

When I was growing up there was this comerical that always played on the tv for Verizon with a guy named Paul. Who was always asking the person on the other end of the phone, “Can you hear me now?”

the Verizon guy who switched to Sprint (talk about double-minded!)

Video!!

Be a doer of the word

our desires can create a bad connection with God and others. The same word used for “desire” in our passage is also the word used in Ephesians 4:22, when we are told to put off our old self, which is in the past, along with our “deceitful desires”

Until we switch carriers—trading in our flesh desires for the Spirit—and repent of the way we foster and feed those desires and ill motives. Most of the time we do not know what has influenced us and why we are so far away for God. We have become a slave to our sin. This is why it is important to meditate on God’s Word and to take time to listen to him as he reveals the motives of our hearts.

These fleshy motives can go undetected, but evaluating your checkbook register, social media presence, and current relationships can give you a glimpse into where your motives stand. When we spend our money to indulge ourselves and engage our relationships online or otherwise to be the most right or most powerful, we lose sight.

To do that means setting aside our fleshly desires, flushing out our wrong motives, owning our responsibility instead of blaming others or God for our actions, and living a life of repentance.

You must die yourself and live by faith

The believer can live a life that is motivated by their faith instead of their failures. Repentance plays a vital role in keeping our selfishness in check.

Take time to pray a prayer of repentance for the way we have followed our own desires and been motivated by our own sinfulness instead of living in faith and obedience to God’s will in our lives. Invite God to search our hearts and reveal any wrong motives.