Sermon Tone Analysis

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message.

The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Margaret Thatcher once said:

No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.

I think she’s only partially correct.

It’s not just the fact that the Good Samaritan had money; it was he was willing to do with his money that makes him memorable.

As we continue our journey through the book of James this morning, we’re going to see that

If I want to be more like Jesus good intentions are not enough

Tension

I’m pretty sure that most of you joining us here this morning came with good intentions.

You genuinely want to worship God.

You want to know what His Word says and you really do want to apply what you’ll learn here today.

But the real test of whether you’ve actually worshiped today will come over the next days and weeks when you either turn those good intentions into action or you fail to do so.

Truth

Today’s message is the third in our Faith Works series as we work our way through the book of James.

So far in the first chapter we’ve looked at James’ very practical instruction regarding how to handle the trials in our lives and how to triumph over temptation.

And we’ll need to remember that context as we close out that chapter this morning.

Go ahead and follow along as I read beginning in verse 19:

Perhaps the biggest danger with this passage is that we will take all or part of it and divorce it from the surrounding context and draw some conclusions that might even be correct, but which aren’t really what James is trying to teach here.

Let me illustrate.

Take a look at verse 19 again.

Now if you were just to read that verse on its own, what would you say would be the main idea?

It’s probably one that you’ve heard before.

[Wait for answers]

That’s right, we’ve all heard the adage that we should listen twice as much as we talk because God gave us only one mouth and two ears.

And that’s not necessarily bad advice and it’s a principle that we do find elsewhere in the Bible.

However that is not the point James is trying to get across here.

Let’s see if we can see what he is trying to teach by taking a look at the context.

I’m going to just read several verses in this chapter and see if you can identify the common theme.

Let’s begin by going back to the last verse of the passage we looked at last week:

What’s the common theme?

That’s right, it’s the Word of God, which James also calls “the law”, which would have been a term familiar to his fellow Jewish Christians.

So as we look at this passage, we need to keep in mind that all he is writing here has to do with how we handle the Bible.

James’ entire letter follows a consistent structure in which he gives a main command and then he supports that main idea with further commands.

That structure is a little more difficult to discern in our English translations than it is in the underlying Greek, but it is still possible to see.

So far in chapter 1 we’ve encountered two of those “main commands”

“count it all joy” (verse 2).

James then follows up with a number of other commands that provided us with some very practical teaching on how to do that.

“Do not be deceived...” (verse 16).

Last week we looked at the other commands in that section that we can use to make sure we aren’t deceived by temptation.

Here’s the main command in this section:

“…receive...the implanted word...” As you can see that command has some modifiers that help us to understand how to do and we’ll look at those in a moment.

But that’s the main idea in this section.

Since this is the main command, let’s dig a little deeper into the meaning of the verb translated “receive”.

In the New Testament there are at two main Greek verbs that are translated receive.

We already saw one of those words in verse 7 when James said the double-minded man will not receive anything from God and again in verse 12 referring to receiving the crown of life.

That is the Greek word lambano:

“receive” (vs.

7, 12) =

“lambano”

“to take” or “to obtain for oneself”.

But in verse 21 James use a different Greek word - dechomai

“receive” (v.

21) =

“dechomai” =

“to receive favorably” or “to welcome”

This understanding is critical to making a proper application of this passage in our lives.

When James writes here of the implanted word, I have little doubt that he was thinking of Jesus’ parable of the soils where Jesus compares the Word of God to seed that has been planted in the hearts of men.

In the case of James’ readers, we saw last week in verse 18, that word had already been implanted into their lives which resulted in them becoming God’s firstfruits.

That is also true for all of us who have committed our lives to Jesus based on what we have learned from God’s Word.

But the implanting of His Word does not automatically result in us maturing and becoming more like Jesus.

We have to welcome it into our lives and then do something with that Word before it can transform our lives and bear fruit.

That is why we said earlier that...

If I want to be more like Jesus good intentions are not enough

Application

HOW TO LET THE BIBLE TURN GOOD INTENTIONS INTO ACTION

Be eager

This is where the command to be quick to hear comes into play.

The word that is translated “hear” is a word that means more than just having something go in one ear and out the other.

It means to listen for the purpose of applying what one hears.

In James’s day, people didn’t have their own copies of the Bible so they primarily learned God’s Word by listening to those who read and taught the Scriptures.

Obviously today we can still take in God’s Word in that manner, but we also have the advantage of having the written Word available so that we can read and study it on our own.

The overall principle is that we need to be eager to put ourselves under the teaching of the Scriptures, whether that is on our own or done in a corporate setting.

The fact is that we can’t become doers of the Word until we first know what is contained there.

So the first step in welcoming God’s Word is to grasp every opportunity to read, hear and study it.

Be humble

This principle is really the heart of this passage so I’m going to spend a little more time here.

Let’s start with the command to be “slow to speak” in verse 19.

As we’ve already seen, this command is not a general command to not talk too much, but it applies to how we hand God’s Word.

It seems that James is making a point that he will reinforce later when we get to chapter 3:

As a pastor who regularly teaches God’s Word, I can tell you that is a very sobering warning.

I know that God is going to hold me accountable for how I handle His Word.

And one of the things I try really hard not to do is to get up here and ask you to apply God’s Word in a manner that I’m not willing to do in my own life.

Obviously, I often fall short of doing that perfectly in my own life, but that is certainly my heart’s desire.

James is warning here about those who would be quick to go out and speak the Word of God without first evaluating how well they are applying it in their own lives.

Jesus certainly condemned the religious leaders of His day for doing exactly that:

Let’s deal next with the command to be “slow to anger”.

Once again, we need to keep in mind that the command applies to how we handle the Word of God. .

The word translated “anger” here describes a deep resentment as opposed to a quick temper.

James is warning here against those who would develop a deep seated resentment of the Bible because it exposes their wrong thoughts and ungodly lifestyle.

Throughout history and throughout the Bible we see that when God’s truth is proclaimed there are those who get angry and rebel against that truth.

And the messengers of that truth often experience the brunt of that anger.

We certainly see that in the life of Jesus where that kind of anger led to His crucifixion.

And we also see it in the lives of the men who proclaimed God’s Word in both the Old and New Testaments.

Fortunately, there haven’t been a lot of them, but throughout the time I’ve been a pastor, I’ve witnessed some people who have left the church because the preaching of God’s Word got a little too personal and a little too close for comfort because of how it exposed some areas of their lives which were out of line with the clear teaching of Scripture.

As we continue on we come to our command to receive, or welcome, the implanted word.

And there is an adverbial phrase attached to that command that describes how we are to do that.

We are to welcome God’s Word with “meekness”.

Meekness is the opposite of the anger we just looked at in verse 19.