James 1:19-27
Amen. Turn in your copy of God’s
word to the book of James. Uh, tonight we’ll be looking
at James one 19 to 27 though. You’ll want to keep your eye
on a verse 18 as well. That was our last verse from
last week. I’ve been torn, uh, in my mind
on whether to move through James faster, slow, and I keep, finding
myself inclined to move through it quickly. Um, but that made for a long message
last week. So hopefully not tonight. Uh,
it gets, it gets late. I know some of y’all got early
days and I hate to, I hate to hear snoring while I’m preaching.
I think I heard a little last week, maybe. All right. I’m going to begin at verse 18
of chapter One, and we’ll read through verse 27. This is the
word of the living God. Of his own will, he brought us
forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures. Know this my beloved brothers,
let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of
God. Therefore, put away all filthiness
and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word,
which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and
not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of
the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently
at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes
away and does, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one
who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,
being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will
be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious
and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this
person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled
before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in
their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Amen, the word of the living
God. I’ve, over the last four or five years, been reading a
lot about how technology has messed up our brains. Maybe for
a little while longer I’ve been thinking about this. It goes
back maybe to when our kids were little. I remember when our first
child was small, every morning she would get up and, you know,
we had our morning duties and we would plunk her in front of
the TV, a Disney show or something. Something about a little underwater
exploration, I forget what it was called. But she would sit
there just mesmerized by it. Well, a month or two after this
little routine began, Mandy went off to a little parenting thing,
a little homeschooling thing. And she came back, she came back
from this and she said, we’re going to have to turn off the
TV. And I said, Oh, uh, for us or for the kids? We liked our
shows. Oh, and she said the study show
Blue Light is bad for children. You know, children shouldn’t
be looking at screens really till they’re about 10 years old.
In fact, I think people across the board say this is true. Screens
too early stunt children’s developmental growth. And so when you’re out
and about and you see a family at a restaurant and You know,
the food hadn’t come yet, and they all got a screen to entertain
them. And you see these little kids, you ought to have a twinge
of pain for them. These kids now, they don’t know
how to read. And I don’t mean they can’t look
at a word and tell what it is and tell you what it is. They
can do that. They can do that from a young age. No, they don’t
know how to read. They couldn’t sit and read a book. It would
bore them. to death. Now, fast forward to all of us
old people, I include myself, we don’t know how to read. We’re
so mesmerized by screens these days. We’ve got the thing in
our pocket that buzzes and dings and tweets and Twitters and whatever
else. But our TV stay on incessantly. I can remember as a kid, the
only time we ever turned the TV on was at night to watch the
evening news. I can remember as a kid, the
only time you watched a show was maybe on Friday night. when
it came on in primetime, or Saturday night when it came on in primetime,
but our TVs now are on incessantly, and our brains, I think, have
been changed. I think our brains have been
changed. They seek, they want, we have to have our caffeine
fixes, right? We also have to have our TV fixes.
I see some of y’all shaking your heads, because y’all are blessed
not to have a television in your home, and that’s a good thing,
but it’s a strange time to be alive. Our brains just don’t work like
they used to. Now, put that into the context of the church. The
church is a word-based ministry. Jesus ordained that the primary
way he would feed his sheep would be through the reading and the
preaching of the word. Now, somebody today after morning
worship said we’re making comment about our church service being
orderly and reverent. And they said, we’re so thankful
there’s no wall worship. And I said, what is wall worship?
That’s one I haven’t heard. And they were talking about the
screens, you know, the screens coming down with video presentations.
Do you know we’re weird here? You know that, right? Most preachers
show video clips during their sermons. That to me is weird. In fact, the other week, the
other month, when I went to the preaching conference down in South Carolina,
somebody asked the teacher, do you ever use PowerPoint? Or should
you use PowerPoint? He says, if you can’t preach,
use PowerPoint. We got a good chuckle out of everybody. Do
you ever use movie clips? He said, if you can’t preach,
use movie clips. The word is to be read and the word is to
be explained. that’s simply it. That’s why
in the design of this room there’s one pulpit and lots of pews.
Before we took out the center section for a little fellowship
space and I think we took out the back row a couple years ago
just to give a little moving room. This room had 440 seats
in it. One pulpit. One pulpit, many seats. What
is the point of our church service? It’s a ministry of the word,
back and forth, God speaks, the people respond, back and forth,
but the culmination of the worship service is the preaching of the
word. That’s why our pulpit is front and center. You look at
some churches today, they have what’s called the split chancel.
There’s a pulpit off to the side, there’s a lectern over this way
for reading and doing announcements and maybe leading singing, but
the center is the communion table. And that seems, well, a little
Roman Catholic, doesn’t it? And so we put the pulpit front
and center. The word is important. Now, all
of this to say, all of this to say, we ought to work at listening
to the word a little more. There’s a little booklet we give
to families called Parenting in the Pew. And it’s a guide
to help our families with children train their kids to be in worship.
And I think maybe we could stand to have some adults read it.
I have a bird’s eye view up here of what all goes on in the church
service. And boy, I see looking around and lots going on. Our brains can’t
handle it. It’s hard for us to sit, hard
for us to listen, because we’re TV’d up, we’re iPhone’d up, we’re
tableted up, and we just get the jitters. And so what are
some things that we ought to think about, know about, do about
this problem? Well, I think James, our passage
tonight, helps us. And he begins our passage with
an interesting call in verse 19. He says, know this, my beloved
brothers. And notice there’s a semicolon.
It’s almost like he comes over the loudspeaker. Now hear this,
now hear this. Attention, attention. Know this,
my beloved brothers. Every person, remember this is
a sermon, it’s an epistle, it’s speaking to the church, scattered
across Asia Minor. Let every person, let every Christian,
every scattered person across Asia Minor, because of persecution,
be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. I can’t help
every time I hear this passage, think of probably back in 2010
on my morning walk, I was listening to Sinclair Ferguson. I think he was preaching through
James and I would listen to it on then, that was before the
iPhone, I’d listen to it on my iPod or whatever. And he used
that little phrase, did any of your take ballroom dancing, quick,
quick, slow, quick, quick, slow. Well, he brought out the little
phrase, quick, slow, Slow, quick to hear, slow to speak, slow
to anger. That’s the Christian dance. That’s
the Christian way to live in response to God’s word. And so
he says, know this, my beloved brothers, every person ought
to be quick to hear, eager to hear. It’s why we send out our
bulletin on Wednesday, our newsletter on Wednesday. It’s so you can
mark your Bible. It’s so you can read the passages.
It’s so that you can be familiar with them. It’s why we give you
table talk and other resources. We want you quick to hear the
word. We want you not hearing the voice
of Satan, not hearing the voice of the world, not hearing the
voice of your own sinful desires. We want the word of God to be
the first thing you desire to hear. We ought to be in our seats. You know, we buy tickets to the
movie theater, and I don’t know what a movie ticket is. I don’t
really go to the movie theater, but I guess it’s 12, 15 bucks,
popcorns, you know, drink. You can drop some money going
to the movie theater. Are you going to be late to the movie?
No, you paid good money. You’re gonna be late for the
symphony. No, you paid good money. You want a good seat. But we
come easing into church. You know, we’re in and out. We’re
off to the restroom a number of times. We’re distracted when
it comes to the word. Know this, my beloved brothers,
every person ought to be quick to hear. And maybe implied in
that is we ought to do some brain training. There may be some times
where we just need to turn the TV off. Or maybe the bumper sticker
is true. Kill your TV. Have you seen that
one? If it’s so affecting our brain and maybe so affecting
our hearts that we can’t listen to the word and be quick to hear,
maybe we ought to do something about it. What does Jesus say?
I know this sounds a little radical, but I’m just trying to get you
to think. What does Jesus say? If your right hand causes you
to sin, cut it off. If your TV causes you not to
hear the word, Maybe you should shoot it or unplug it or something
of that nature. At least sell it on eBay or Craigslist
or something like that. But be quick to hear, quick to
heed. I had a teacher when I was in
college who taught Shakespeare, and I had him for several other
things, but in his little course outline that he would give us,
he would always say this, I will be responsible for 50% of your
boredom. If you’re bored in my class,
I’ll take responsibility for half. The other half is up to
you. It’s on you. What you make of my class and
what I make of my class and we put those together, we should
have a pretty good time. And that can be said of sermons. Um, you
know, I don’t, I don’t come into the pulpit all the time hitting
a home run. Uh, I don’t maybe, have my mind straight or things
going on in my life. My mind is full, my heart is
heavy. It could be I had a rough week, then I had a busy week,
something like that. And so maybe I don’t do so great.
But what happens if I don’t do so great and you don’t do so
great? None of us does so great, right? But what if you’re an
extra hardworking hearer? You can make much of a bad sermon.
You can make much of me having had a bad week. And so the passage
tells us, be quick to hear. That means shutting our mouths.
That means sometimes sitting in silence. I think of the word
that’s in many of our Psalms, the word Selah. People don’t
know what to do with that word. I think the word simply means
to put this in your pipe and smoke it, right? This is, this
is a truth that you need to ponder. That’s why I think it’s so crass
in a sense to have these little devotional books, you know, minutes
with God. Minutes with God. That’s an oxymoron,
isn’t it? I’m going to somehow grow. Now
don’t get me wrong, devotional books are helpful. Sometimes
you need something on the run and it’s food for your soul for
the day. We need more time than minutes
with God. The Psalms seem to demand it. We need to think on the things
that are said. And so we should be quick to
hear, slow to speak. I think we understand that. We
got two ears, one mouth. We need to close our mouths.
A lot of sin happens with our mouth. And that’s why it goes
on to be slow, say slow to anger. For the anger of man does not
produce the righteousness from God. Now you gotta connect. this
idea of righteousness from God that is produced by the ministry
of the word, that connects back to the standing firm under trials,
that connects back to count it all joy when you suffer trials
in many times. Everything God does, whether it’s the word or
suffering or temptations, is going to have an effect on our
growth in grace. And I think what he’s saying
here, it’s not a little diatribe or a lesson on don’t be angry,
have self-control. Don’t get mad at people, have
self-control. This is connected to the word. When you hear the
Bible read and preached, and as we like to say, the preacher’s
gone from preaching to meddling, or we like to say, I wore my
steel-toed boots to church today because the preacher stepped
on my toes. What we really mean to say is God, by his word and
spirit, convicted me of my sin. God, by his word and his spirit,
revealed to me sin in my life. God, by his word and by his ministry
today, showed me where I fall short and need to make corrections
in my life. We’ll talk a bit about that more
in a few moments, but here’s the point I think that’s being
made. When you’re quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger,
you let God’s word do its work, even if you don’t like it. Even
if it’s painful, I think of over the last couple of weeks, I’ve
done some yard work and I’ve, you know, busted some fingers.
I’ve gotten a few cuts and things and you get the peroxide out
and you pour it on there and it stings. But what do we say? No pain, no gain. It’s the same with the word doing
its work. We need to be disposed to being
eager to hear the word of God and letting God’s word do its
work. Then there’s repentance. Verse
21, verse 21, after being eager to hear the word, we need to
be quick to repent. Therefore, rid yourself of all
filthiness and rampant wickedness. That’s a small phrase, but put
away all filthiness. Rid yourself of all rampant wickedness,
take stock of your life, what’s true, what’s good, what’s beautiful,
what’s righteous, what’s pleasing to God, what’s beneficial to
my growth and grace, what’s helpful to those around me, what will
give God glory, what will help me serve my neighbor. And if
it doesn’t meet that criteria, you need to put away all filthiness.
Some of you in January, just a few weeks around the corner
will spring clean, right? It’ll be a new year and so you’ll,
Get rid of stuff, right? Goodwill loves January because
they get all the good stuff. You’ll have gotten some stuff
for Christmas and you’ll rid your house of things that you
don’t believe you need. It’s the same way in your life.
Take stock and spring clean. Look at what the word teaches.
Look at what the spirit shows you. Make a list, check it twice
and repent. Grace in, garbage out. Foolishness
out, wisdom in. That’s the idea. Receive the
word with meekness. That’s the third encouragement
from this passage. So we need to be quick to hear.
We need to rid ourselves of filthiness, but then third, we need to receive
with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
This connects back to verse 18. Of his own will, God brought
us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures. It’s the word that saves us,
but it’s also the word that carries us forward in the Christian life.
You hear the word, you respond to it, coming to faith in Jesus.
but the implanted word, it’s like a seed, an imperishable
seed. We receive it with meekness and
it’s able to save our souls. We should be teachable. We should
submit ourselves to God’s lessons, God’s words. Today, we ordained
and installed an elder and we promised that in all spiritual
matters, we would give him honor, but also we said we obey him.
And so when the officers of the church call us to faithfulness,
call us to holiness, call us to maturity, that is God’s way
from his throne of glory through the ministry of men to make sure
we’re on the straight and narrow, as we call it, to make sure we’re
on the right path, to make sure we’re living righteously. And
so as Christians, we submit ourselves to the church. We submit ourselves
to its government, its discipline, its ministry, its message. It’s
correction and it’s rebuke so that we’ll grow in grace. And
it says with meekness, with humility, we receive the implanted word,
which is able to save your souls. You think about the opposite
of meekness. You won’t take a bit. You won’t
take a bridle. You won’t take a correction and,
and you’re going to get put out in the pasture, right? You’re
gonna be sent off and have to live on your own and away from
others because you’re sort of a wild one, as we say. And so
there’s a wonderful word picture here of humility. The more and
more word we get in our lives, the more and more it works and
does wonders. Now there’s a fourth thing this
passage shows us. You find it in verses 22 to 25.
And it’s the to-do list. Be doers of the word, not hearers
only. And there’s a lot of explanation
here. I’ve told you from time to time, you ought to leave church
with a to-do list. And I don’t mean make out your grocery list
because you’re bored. Or as one frequent visitor we used to have,
he used to come with his mother and he was an attorney. He told
me, I can get at least one family settlement agreement written
up during your sermons. That’s not the kind of to-do
list I mean. We ought to be hearers of the word, and in order to
be doers of the word, maybe make a list. Read Bible more. Turn TV off. Put the iPhone in
the drawer. Give time to think on the scripture,
ponder on the scripture, pray through the scripture. Those
would be to-do lists from tonight that could be helpful. Sit under
the teaching more. whatever it may be that you believe
God is teaching you so that you can be doers of the word and
not hearers only. Now notice what it says. Hearers
only deceive themselves. They’re, as we say, delusional.
They have created in their minds a path of obedience, and it’s
no path of obedience at all. How many people sit through church
and tolerate it? Don’t raise your hands. How many
people do you think sit through church on a Sunday morning and
tolerate it? Hearers only, but not doers. And they pat themselves
on the back on the way out as they’re approaching the preacher
at the back door, they’re patting themselves on the back. Boy,
I was a good boy today, I went to church. But once they’re out
that door, free at last, free at last, right? And they forget
what they heard. They did not make a to-do list.
And it says, we deceive ourselves if that’s the case. Anyone who
is a hearer of the word and not a doer. He’s like a man who looks
intently at his natural face in the mirror. He looks at himself
and he goes away at once and forgets what he was like. I’m
getting to that point in life where I need to check my teeth. Gotta keep the hairs and the
whatever’s in check, the crumbs. Maybe some of your wives help
you with this, men. You’re not going out looking like that,
are you? And that’s not a question. That
is not a question. That’s kind of a command to go
back in the bathroom, get back in front of the mirror, and crumbs,
stray things. You know, stuff on the shoulder,
stuff on the nose. We don’t want to go into too
much detail here, but you need to look more intently in the
mirror, right? And she means there’s something
you need to do before you leave. And it’s probably to brush something
off or to pick something, to pick something, to scratch, you
know, the crusties off your face, something like that. You know
exactly what I mean, because I hear the chuckles. And that’s
what it’s like for the Christian. We need to look in the mirror.
We need to check our faces. We need to check our noses, check
our ears, check our teeth. We need to not just brush on
by, oh, all is well. I look good. You know, still
got the Tom Cruise look. I still got the Robert Redford
look. No, you need to take a longer gander at yourself and let the
word show you who you are, what you are, and where you fall short
of God’s glory. And that to-do list needs to
come out so that you can be a doer of the word and not a hearer
only. Verse 25 gives the contrast,
the one who looks into the perfect law of liberty and perseveres
being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will
be blessed. in his doing. You know, we, we
think from time to time about what it means to have a standing
before God. And tonight we read the definition
of justification from the Belgic confession. We want to stand
before the judgment seat of God. And we want to say, my righteousness
is the righteousness of Jesus. My obedience is the obedience
of Jesus. And we want to stop there and
say, that’s all I need. Right? It’s not Jesus plus something
I’ve done that creates salvation. But we need not to forget the
Christian life. We need not to forget that we have a changed
heart, a changed life, we’re new creations, and we are able,
and we love to, because of our new heart, our new disposition,
to look at the laws of God and obey them. We don’t obey them
for salvation, we obey them out of pleasing, wanting to please
God and being a witness to the watching world. And so we want
to look into the perfect law. God’s ways are perfect. He has
no laws that are crisscrossed. He doesn’t cross wires. He doesn’t
mix messages. His law is perfect. If we obey
it, there’s life. We heard that in Proverbs chapter
three in our reading earlier. It’s not only the perfect law,
it’s the law of liberty. When God forgives you and saves
you to serve him, you’re free to live a God-fearing, godly
life. And it speaks of persevering in that. Not being a hearer who
forgets, but a doer who acts. Now, again, I’m not trying to
act like I’m one of the old men, but as you get a little older,
you get a little lazier. And that’s why your wife has
to say more and more, have you looked in the mirror? Why don’t
you take another round in the restroom and make sure you’re
fixed up before you go out? But we can get a little sloppy
as we get older. We can get a little sloppy as
we get more weary and more tired. And what this passage is saying
is the older you get, the better you should look. The older you
get, the neater you should be. The older you get, the more fragrance
of Christ you should give off because we continually look in
the mirror. We continually look into the perfect law. We continually
have the freedom to live for God and serve him. We are not
just hearers, but doers. And it says we’ll be blessed
in our doing. I think others will be blessed watching. Nobody likes seeing a quitter,
right? Nobody likes seeing somebody
slacking in whatever they used to excel in. I was listening
this week to a podcast about a certain sports player who got
to a certain age and he got let go because he wasn’t meeting
the statistics he used to meet. He used to be an excellent wide
receiver. He was no longer an excellent
wide receiver. And so the team let him go. And the whole fandom
of that team was angry. You let him go. Well, he can’t
catch the ball anymore. And we don’t like to see people’s
glory fade. And we have to be careful not
to let our glory fade by getting slack in our Christian duties,
getting slack in our listening to the word, measuring ourself
by the word and doing the word. Well, the last little thing this
passage teaches us is about religion. And you see it in verses 26 and
27. If anyone thinks he’s religious, but he doesn’t bridle his tongue,
he deceives his heart. The person’s religion is worthless. Strong words. Religion that is
pure, religion that is undefiled before God the Father is this,
to visit orphans, to visit widows in their affliction, and to keep
oneself unstained from the world. Religion, everybody wants it,
right? Maybe our religion is yoga. Maybe our religion is education. Maybe our religion is our children,
our grandchildren. Maybe our religion is Roman Catholicism
or Greek Orthodoxy or whatever, but we’re religious in all sorts
of ways. But here he says pure religion. Religion that God accepts. Religion
that God is pleased with. Religion that is not worthless. It’s religion that leads to action.
And here he gives us a couple of examples. You visit orphans,
you visit widows, and you keep yourself unstained from the world. Think about this in light of
being a hearer of the word, a doer of the word, being eager to receive
the word implanted, not getting angry when the word does its
work, and on and on and on. That’s why we say we want the
word to sink into our mind, to fill up our heart and to lead
to our hands to do what God requires. Now don’t leave here tonight
and think you need to start an orphan ministry. Don’t leave
here tonight and think that you have been derelict in your duty
because you haven’t visited a widow in their affliction. What it
is saying is our religion, our faith ought to manifest itself
in our service to others. But there’s a personal side to
this as well. We keep ourself unstained from the world. We keep ourself unstained from
the world. We do what the word says to the
degree that it makes us so different from this crooked and depraved
generation. It makes us so radically incomparable to the others around
us. Not that we’re so heavenly minded,
we’re no earthly good. But what rolls off of our tongues
is true and good and beautiful and wise and encouraging. What
emanates from our living, our lifestyle, is not only pleasing
to God, strange to the world, but maybe a helpful and healthy
witness. So we began this passage tonight
with, now hear this. We want to end the passage tonight
by saying to you saying to me, by the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, now hear this, but now do this, for his glory and our
good. Let’s do pray together. Our Father,
we thank you for shining the light into our hearts, for putting
us in front of the mirror, for making us see what’s true, what’s
ugly, what’s in need of correction, what’s right, and help us not
to leave from this place, forgetting but having a to-do list. Through
grace, through faith, with a desire to please you, a to-do list of
ways that we can be doers of the word, not for salvation,
not for righteousness, not to please men or even to pat ourselves
on the back, but simply because you ask. And we owe you everything
for you have bought us with a price. So hear us and help us. And we
make our prayer in the name of Jesus. In his strong name we
pray, amen.