James 1:19-25

Hello, I am Anthony Garcia.

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James 1, and uh we're gonna look in verse number 19 here in just a moment.

Um, but I've enjoyed this study in James.

We have uh one more message here after this.

So next Sunday we'll be in James once again, and then we're gonna jump back to Genesis uh chapter number six, and so looking forward to that.

But I've enjoyed James, and as we are looking at the book of James, we understand that he's talked about now trials and tribulations that we all face, and then he's talked about the fact that we all face temptation in this life, and it's because of our own heart desires.

But then in verse number 17 and verse number 18, he pointed us to that every good, every perfect, every wonderful gift, it comes from God Himself.

The greatest gift of all, verse number 18, of his own will beget he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

The new birth is the greatest gift of all from the Lord.

And I want us to, as we as we get into these next verses here, I want us to remember verses 17 and 18.

Because if we lose verses 17 and 18, then we can drift into a self-dependence concerning these next verses, or we can drift into a despair concerning these next verses.

So keep in your mind verse 17 and 18, and we're gonna read here in just a moment.

But have you ever teased someone, or maybe you've been the one teased, of having selective hearing?

Ever tease someone, had someone tease you, like man, you just have selective hearing.

You hear what you want to hear.

Now, I always just thought that that was just like a phrase that we used, right?

There's actually been, I've read a few different articles, that there's actually a study on this being done of selective hearing.

And it's not necessarily an auditory deficiency, it's actually a cognitive thing where sometimes when we're so fixed on one thing, we can kind of tune out the other thing.

We're so fixed on uh maybe uh the TV or something, right?

And then someone says something to you and your brain doesn't process it because your auditory is so fixated on what's in front of you.

One article is this selective hearing is not synonymous with hearing loss or impairment.

Instead, it's a cognitive function that involves the brain's active filtering of auditory input.

The phenomenon is uh particularly evident in situations where there's an abundance of competing sounds, such as crowded social gatherings, busy streets, or noisy work environments.

I don't know all the studies that they've done concerning uh this, so I'm not giving you an excuse if you've been accused of having selective hearing, but apparently there is some uh uh sort of studies that are being done.

What I'm afraid though is sometimes what we have is sometimes we have selective hearing when it comes to the word of God, but sometimes what we have is we have selective obedience, we have selective doing, we have times where we hear the word of God, but we don't live out the word of God.

And what James urges us in this text is to consider this.

True acceptance of the word is not merely hearing it.

It's not merely reading it, it's not just listening to and saying, wow, that was a that was a helpful message, or that was a helpful truth.

Or man, I I read this the other day.

True acceptance of the word is not merely hearing it.

True acceptance of the word is living it out by faith.

I want us to see that here this morning.

Can I invite you to stand one more time together if you're able to?

And we're gonna read the text this morning in uh uh chapter number one.

Read with me in verse number 19, but have in your minds verse 17 and 18, okay?

James writes, he says, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.

Verse number twenty-two.

Can you read this verse with me together?

Ready one, two, three, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his natural face in the glass, for he beholdeth himself, he sees himself, and he goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Let's pray together this morning.

And as I pray out loud, would you ask the Lord to speak to your hearts today?

Ask him to give us ears of faith, that we would take his word and that we would apply it to our hearts.

Let's pray together.

Lord, I thank you for this day.

Again, I thank you for your goodness to us.

Lord, I'm a weak individual, I'm a weak preacher in need of your help this morning.

God, this is your flock.

These are your people, Lord.

And God, uh the the the meal that we need this morning is is from your word.

Holy Spirit, we need you to work in our hearts personally, to convict us of truth, to convince us of how our lives are to change and to be different.

And God, and not to do it in our own self-effort, Lord, but to look to the good and perfect gifts that you've given to us, to look to the new birth.

So I pray that this morning you would take your word.

You would take the message that's been prepared, and that you would feed our hearts, you would feed our souls.

Oh Lord, I am convicted by this message, God.

I'm convicted by your word.

Lord, I pray that you'd help me to grow.

I need your grace, Lord.

I don't want to be complacent.

I don't want to just hear your word and and and not do anything about it.

Lord, I want to grow in your grace.

God, I pray that you would give us a heart that desires to please you in everything we do and everything we think and everything we say.

Oh, Lord, we need your help this morning.

I pray that if there's one here today that doesn't know you as their savior, that today would be their day of salvation.

That they would place their trust in you.

God, give us grace.

Give us help, Lord.

Pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for standing.

You may be seated.

We are not being obedient to God simply by going up to church and hearing a message.

Or simply by reading the word, perhaps, in our personal devotions, or by listening to a word online, whatever it might be, sometimes what we do is we mistake hearing the word as enough.

I've heard you, Lord.

I know the story, but what God calls us to is to true life change.

Don't share with me all the scriptures you've heard.

Show me what scriptures you're living.

Don't share with me what scriptures you might have heard.

If you've grown up in church, you may have heard a lot.

I'm thankful that I grew up uh for the most part in church.

I'm thankful that at seven years old I started to hear the gospel and started to learn different Bible stories and started to have different Bible trivia knowledge, right?

To win the game and to win the candy.

I'm thankful that I heard those things, but it would not be enough for me to just hear the word of God and not practically daily live out the word of God.

We must, in our minds though, remember verse 17 and 18.

These are vitally important because I don't want us to fall into despair this morning thinking that we can't have life change.

And I've tried before and I've done it before, and I know I'm supposed to be different, and I know I'm not supposed to commit that sin, and I know that's not the attitude that a Christian's supposed to have, but there's just no hope.

I'm not able to change.

Sometimes we can fall into despair, other times we fall into self-dependence, and we change, as the Pharisees did, uh uh what God's actually looking for.

And we say, Well, I don't do that and I do this, and I don't do that and I do this, and so I must be a pretty good Christian.

I must be doing pretty well.

I must be really, and what that leads us to is this self-dependence, this self-pride, this self-focus to where when I I do this and I don't do that, and it's just morals and behavioral change.

But what God gives to us is that there can be real life change.

We are called to actually live out the truth, but it's from the backdrop of every good and perfect gift.

It comes from above.

The gift of eternal life, real transformation comes from knowing Jesus as your Savior.

It comes from this new birth.

Even the Pharisee Nicodemus says he came to Jesus.

Jesus told him, Ye must be born again.

The new birth.

The greatest gift that we can experience from God is the new birth from the word of truth.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is, he is, he is a new creature.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things are become new.

This is the reality that Jesus says is true about you.

If you've put your trust in Jesus, you are a new creature.

Now, if you're like me, I don't always wake up feeling like a new creature.

I don't always live in alignment with this new identity, with this new reality.

But God does not call us to live based off of our feelings, he calls us to live based off of faith concerning what the word of God says.

The truth that he has imparted to you.

The Bible tells you that when you put your trust in Jesus Christ, that you when you said, Man, I'm a sinner, I deserve to go to hell, but Jesus, you died for me.

I believe on you.

Jesus, would you please save me from my sin and save me from hell when you called on Jesus to be your savior?

The Bible says that you were born again.

There is now new life.

That you were crucified with Christ and you were risen from the dead with him, and he calls you a new creature.

You might not feel like it's true.

Some days you do.

Yeah, you feel like a good Christian, right?

Some days you feel like a good Christian, other days you don't feel like it.

What do you do in those days?

We were, you were born again.

You have new life.

You were adopted, you are saved, you are now the child of God.

We're no longer enemies, but we have this new life in us.

And because you're saved, if you know Jesus, okay, if you don't know Jesus, then you don't have this new life yet.

And I don't expect you to live a different way because you don't know Jesus Christ.

But if you know Jesus, the expectation that God places on our lives is that we would be different.

We would live a holy, separated unto him type of life.

Because if you are saved, if you are born again, the expectation that God places on us is that we would live pure, we would live patiently, we would live holy.

Titus 2 says it this way, verse 11 through 12, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, God's grace teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly.

We should live righteously, we should live godly, not in the future, in this present world.

This is the expectation that God puts on a Christian.

First Peter 1, 13 through 16.

Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, not living according to the lust that you lived before, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, and that says every area of life.

Because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy.

So the Bible calls Christians to holiness, but it's not it's not rooted in us, it's not rooted in just behavior, it's not rooted in just man, I'm gonna change my morals here.

It's rooted in the new birth.

Time and time again, what the Bible does is it points you to the new life that you have in Jesus, it points you to the sacrifice that Jesus did for you to save you not just from the penalty of sin, but to save you from the power of sin.

Imagine with me you were bankrupt.

No money to your name, you didn't have a dime anymore, you don't have anything.

And someone comes along to you, a friend, and they say, Hey, I want you to live this lavish lifestyle, right?

And then they say, Let's go buy this new car, and let's go buy this new house, and let's go to these restaurants, and let's do this and let's do that.

Your reality would dictate to you, I don't got money for that.

I I can't do that.

I I'm not able to.

But say this friend came to you, and though you were bankrupt, though you didn't have anything, they actually put an account in your name.

An account full of wealth.

And now they come to you and they say, Hey, let's go and do this, that, and the other.

There's an account that is credited to you, that is in your name, that you have the card for.

Now you could, in turn, go and buy whatever it is that you had need of, right?

Whatever it is, now it's a little bit different, right?

Because you have this great account that is now in your name.

Forgive the illustration.

Don't get caught up in all the things, right?

All the materialism.

Take it with me spiritually, because this is what Jesus has done for you.

You were spiritually bankrupt.

You had no ability in and of yourself to say no to sin and to live a different life.

But what Jesus has done is he has come to you when you got saved, and he says, There's an account, it's in your name, you have access, you can now live the life that you were meant to live.

You can have victory over your sin.

You don't have to give in to those things anymore.

When you were born again, when you got saved, Jesus put you on his spiritual account.

You're not borrowing from your own spiritual riches because you have none.

You had to recognize that when you came to Jesus, that you had nothing to offer, you had nothing to put on the table.

He rescued you.

And so when he calls you to live a pure and holy life, when he says, Hey, Anthony, that's not supposed to be a part of your conversation anymore.

Your conversation is actually supposed to be gentle, it's actually supposed to be meek, it's actually supposed to be much like how Jesus lived.

And I can look and I can say, Noah, I'm bankrupt.

I can't do it.

There's no way I can change in that.

What Jesus points me to is the truth within his word that I'm not spiritually bankrupt anymore.

I have access to the Son of God, I have access to the power of the Holy Spirit, I have access to the word of God to live in godliness.

So when James comes here and he says that we are to have a new life, he comes to us not with our own moral, behavioral type of change that we have to have, lest we despair, lest we get self-dependent and think, oh, I'm I'm doing pretty good at this Christian thing.

No, it's on the backdrop of the fact that there's a new birth.

Galatians 2.20 says, I am crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless I live yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

And so James says here, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, float a wrath.

Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, float a wrath.

Be ready to listen.

Slow to respond.

Slow to anger.

I tend to live the opposite.

I'm slow to hear.

I've already made up my mind, and so I'm quick to speak, and I'm unfortunately at times quick to anger.

I hate to say it.

I hate to say it, but the Lord convicted me with this passage of scripture that I get things wrong a lot.

Parents, how many of you have ever accidentally punished the wrong kid for something, right?

Ever done that before?

No, just me.

Uh there's times where, man, you you you you you see something, you hear something, you don't know the whole story, and and what are we?

We're slow to listen.

No, no, no, no.

I know what you did.

We're quick to respond, and we're quick to anger.

Oh man.

Have you ever misinterpreted a situation?

And something went on at work, something went down in the family and the neighborhood, whatever it was, and you misinterpreted the situation, and you already had your mind decided.

You didn't hear the situation, you were quick to respond to it, and you were quick to anger and to be frustrated about it, and to be mad about it, and don't they know?

And you're ready to fight.

I've been there.

It's in these situations that we reveal how much we lack godliness, and we need Christ to change us.

This can happen in the home with the ones that we love most.

Unfortunately, we have these devices now, and uh, we have far too much access to something called social media.

And have you ever been rage-baited before?

You see something that goes against what your view is politically, or you see someone post something and you read into it, or whatever it is, right?

And now I'm uh I'm not gonna listen to the argument.

I see something, I have a response for it, and then I'm upset.

And now I'm gonna type out and make sure that they hear from me.

We do that.

We do that in the home, we do that online, we do that in all sorts of different places.

I worked at El Pollo Loco for a time when I was in Bible college.

And I worked in the drive-thru.

And unfortunately, I couldn't always hear what people were ordering.

I don't think it was, uh I think it was just the device, and sometimes it was noisy in there, and I couldn't hear.

And there were times where I had to ask, like, can you repeat that to me one more time?

And then I can remember a few different times where people were quick to wrath, right?

You got my order, right?

Angry, right?

Just mad, just upset.

Natural reaction that we have, isn't it?

And so what James writes is he writes that no, this isn't the life, this isn't the way of godliness.

That actually the opposite is that we are to live as patient individuals.

We're more apt to listen and hear the matter before we make our judgment.

We're not just quick to, oh, I already know what their motives are, I already know what's going on in their heart, I already know this, and we're ready to spew out, and we're ready to get upset, and we're ready to be angry.

Proverbs 14, 17 says, He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly, and a man of wicked devices is hated.

Proverbs 14, 29 says, He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

The Christian life is one that is to be patient, and ho, how often we live as impatient people.

With those that we love most, with those that we barely even know at all, with those that we encounter throughout this life.

But the Christian life is one of patience, and it is only possible through Jesus because Jesus was one who was always patient and slow to wrath.

He was always patient and appropriate.

James speaks of a patient life, but he also speaks of a pure life.

He goes on to say in verse number 21: wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness.

This is spiritual filth.

And this is overabundant evil or sinfulness.

Superfluity of naughtiness is overabundant evil or sinfulness.

And so we're called to lay apart those behaviors which are filthy in God's eyes.

Those evil, sinful desires and actions that we once gave into are to be laid apart and gotten rid of.

In the room, I won't ask you to raise your hands.

But we have probably some savers and some throwawayers.

All right.

We have some that they say, man, I we can use that.

Let's save it, let's store it, let's put it away.

That's my memory box from when I was three years old and I don't actually remember it, but I gotta keep it, all right?

And we save and we save and we save.

And there's some of us that are throwawayers.

We don't need that.

Get rid of it.

Call the boat trash.

Let's get it.

Get it out of here, right?

And sometimes what happens is they marry each other, okay?

And I will say, I think I'm I I think originally I was kind of more saver.

When we moved from our first uh apartment to uh uh a rental house, we had in the garage these different cabinets that we're able to store stuff in, and I had some uh different things that I had saved in like a suitcase, and I had some uh uh Bible college class notes and these different things that were put away in that cabinet.

I won't say who did it, but Anderson and the kids weren't born yet, okay?

Someone took that stuff one day and I was looking, I was like, hey, babe, do you know where my class notes are?

I need my class notes for, I think I was looking for my Dr.

Shetler class notes for philosophy of youth.

Do you know where those notes are?

Oh, were those in this?

Yeah, I got rid of that.

What?

You got rid of that?

There's some stuff that now we save, and there's some stuff that we're more likely to say, hey, let's let's get that to someone who needs it, let's get rid of it, let's get it out.

I think I'm kind of, she's kind of convinced me I'm now more on the throwaway side.

There's some stuff that we might try to save.

I tell you what, not when I entered Parsonage B over here.

When we're getting ready to get it remodeled, and there was some things that were left there.

When I went in there, there was nothing really that I was like, oh yeah, let's save that, and let's save that, and we can use the.

Do you remember going in there, Brother Phillip?

And uh Jordan went in there with me, and we looked in there.

We're like, no, we're getting rid of all of it, right?

We get the dumpster here.

Uh let's get rid of it.

Let's get it out.

There's nothing that's worth saving.

Pretty much everything needed to go.

We needed to clean it out.

That's how we have to look at our sinful habits.

Our sinful habits that we struggle with, they can't be something that, oh, you know what, I'm just gonna put it in the closet, put it in the storage for a little bit, and I and I and I know I'm not really supposed to do that as a Christian right now.

So on Sunday I'm gonna put it away, but the rest of the week I might go back to it.

No, my friend, what James tells us is to put it apart, lay it apart.

The verbiage here is to get rid of it.

All filthiness, the moral filth that we carry, the moral sin that we know is against God, that the Holy Spirit convicts us about, the sinful behaviors and attitudes that we have, we are to get rid of them.

To leave them.

And so here, what God calls us to, he calls us to patience and he calls us to purity.

A godly life is one of patience and purity.

So we're sitting here this morning and we're like, man, I know this is true.

I know there's things I struggle, I know I'm not supposed to have that in my life.

What on earth do I do though?

Continue with me.

He says to lay those things apart, and he says to receive with meekness the engrafted or the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

How do I live a godly life?

How do I live a life that's pleasing to the Lord?

Well, we know that I need to be patient, I need to be pure, but how do I do that?

It comes by receiving the word of God.

We must be humbly, meekly receptive to the word of God in our lives because the word of God it saves fully, it saves completely.

Often, when we speak of salvation, when we think of the saving of our souls, we think of it in the area of justification.

But understand that salvation, it has three parts to it.

There is justification, that's the moment you trusted on Jesus as your Savior, and in that moment, He saved you from the penalty of sin.

You are no longer on your way to hell.

Praise God, you have a relationship with Him.

Heaven is your home.

That moment of justification is beautiful, is wonderful, and you trusted Jesus alone for that.

The Bible says you are saved, you're born again.

But then salvation also has this aspect of sanctification.

So saved, justification, saved sanctification.

This is us becoming more like Jesus: holy, patient, pure.

This is Jesus saving us from the power of sin.

So we don't have to give in to that old master anymore.

We have a new master, and he's cleaning me up, and he's changing me, and he's showing me truth.

Then we're gonna have this future aspect.

I can't wait for this aspect, glorification, where he's gonna save us from the very presence of sin.

The temptations that you struggled with this last week, they're no longer gonna be there.

This failing body, physical body that we have, you're no longer gonna struggle with it.

The temptations that this life brings before you time and time again, no longer a possibility.

Glorification, he's gonna save you from the very presence of sin.

The word of God, though, to receive it with meekness, it is able to save your souls.

It is able to save you justification by hearing the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Now I'm saved, I'm on my way to heaven.

But the word of God is able to save you sanctification, to grow you, to be holy, to be what you're not naturally.

And I'm thankful that God is saving me, He is sanctifying me because I'm not a perfect husband, I'm not a perfect father, I'm not a perfect Christian.

I fail time and time again.

But what Jesus is committed to, what he is doing is he is saving my soul, he is sanctifying me and making me to become more like him.

But what's my part in it?

What's my part, my part in it is that I have to meekly, humbly receive the word of God again and again.

So when Jesus says, when He when I'm studying the Word of God and it says, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, and the Holy Spirit says, Anthony, that is you.

You need to grow in that.

Then I need to humbly and meekly say, Lord, I receive it.

Help me to live it out.

I know I'm wrong, I know I've sinned.

Help me, Lord.

See, receiving it with meekness, with humility is even in the aspect of what Pastor Austin gave us in Proverbs 3.

It's no longer leaning on our own understanding, but it's admitting, it's confessing, it's agreeing with God to say, God, you're right, I'm wrong.

God, I'm not excusing it.

You're right, I'm wrong.

I'm going to trust you, I'm going to allow you to work in my heart.

And so you receive the word with meekness.

Ephesians 2 10 says, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

God is committed to your sanctification, that you would walk in the good works that he has prepared for you.

So because you've been saved, because you've been saved, justified, you can be saved, sanctified, you can live out this new life.

But you have to accept the word with meekness.

Receive the word with meekness.

I'm thankful that you're here this morning because what you're doing this morning is you're doing part one of the equation.

You're receiving the word of God, hopefully with years of faith.

Hopefully, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in you and convict you and agree with him.

Okay, Lord, that's what you say.

That's where I'm at.

Okay, so this is part one.

True acceptance of the word, though, is not just hearing it.

When you've truly accepted the word, it means that you are living it out by faith.

Because then here's what James says Receive with make this the engrafted word, verse 22, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Sometimes we can be a hearer of the word, and we're not living it out.

And what God says is that we actually deceive ourselves into thinking I'm living godly.

I showed up to church, I read my Bible this week, I meditated on that verse, and I listened to that sermon online and and and I thought about it and we check it off.

Man, I'm a good Christian because I listened, I feel, I went to the Bible study.

I went and I heard the message of God.

And what I'm not trying to do, I'm not trying to discourage you from being under the word of God and studying the word of God.

But what I want us to see in the text is that that is just step one of the equation.

That is just step one to hear it, to receive it, to allow the word of God to be in your life.

But you have to live it out.

One commentator, he says, the true purpose of Bible study is for the whole person, the souls to be changed in every area of our lives.

So if you're accessing the word of God, you're hearing the word of God, but the word of God is not changing you, then you are deceiving yourself into believing that you've done all you've needed to do.

And I'm afraid that there's so many Christians in America that this is our extent of Christianity, that we show up to church, we hear the word of God preached, we maybe even read the word of God throughout the week, but you do not allow the word of God to work in your heart and to be lived out through your life.

And James says you're deceiving yourself.

You have to be a doer of the word, you've got to live it out in your life, not just a hearer.

I don't think we often intend to do this.

It's a deception.

We don't often do it and intend to live that way, but it's a deception.

Then he gives us this illustration, though.

For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.

For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

The picture is of a man that would look into a mirror.

He sees, he briefly, right?

You go, you look into the mirror, and you leave.

Maybe you've done this before where you had to get somewhere quick, and you didn't get a chance to look in the mirror and freshen up and everything, and you get to that uh uh uh uh uh party, you get to that occasion, and five of your enemies they don't tell you anything about the thing stuck in your teeth, right?

But then that one true friend, they finally, hey, that's other than your teeth.

The one true friend, right?

He gives us this illustration of a man who he looks in the mirror briefly, right?

He looks quick.

Now I understand their mirrors weren't like how our mirrors are today, right?

They were there's probably uh uh like a piece of bronze.

And so if you were to uh uh uh get doctored up, right, you'd have to look with intention to make sure that you were good to go out the house.

But the picture is that he says that that man, he goes and he looks in the mirror and he doesn't change anything.

Though there's some hair that needs to be worked on, though there's some uh something on his face, right, that needs to be cleaned off and he just goes his way.

He sees and he goes.

That's what it's like when we hear the word of God.

Oh, that's that's a good point.

Oh man, that that message and oh, those verses were so good.

We hear the word of God, but oh, that was for so-and-so.

We hear the word of God and we're, oh man, I want more Bible study, more Bible knowledge, more this, more that, more that.

How are you living it out though?

How are we living it out day to day?

We don't want to just look in the mirror and then go away without any change having been done.

And so when we look to the word of God, we look with intention to see and to ask the Lord, Lord, would you change my heart today?

Lord, as I as I study your word, as I approach my devotions this morning, man, I know there's something that you're gonna speak to me about.

Lord, as I ready my heart for church this Sunday, uh-uh, I'm ready to go and I'm ready to hear from you because I know I'm gonna need to grow in some way.

And I don't want to just be a hearer of the word, but Lord, I want to live your word out.

Takes intention to look into it, to hear it, to understand truth, but then to apply it to our lives.

And this is what verse 25 says.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, you look, this idea of look here is with intention.

I mean, you're ready, you're looking into the word of God, and you continue therein.

He being not a forgetful hearer, you're not one that just hears and then forgets and doesn't do anything about it, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

It's not just a glance into the word of God.

I've got my verse of the day, and I'm I'm good to go.

It's looking into the word of God and careful study and careful meditation and careful consideration.

Lord, how does apply to me?

Step one is looking into the word of God, but step two is living out the word of God.

I'm gonna be honest, even as a preacher, it's easy to become a forgetful hearer.

You preach a message on Sunday, and then the next week, if someone asks you, what did you preach that Sunday?

Oh, I preached on, oh let me let me look back at my notes here, right?

It's easy to preach something and then forget about it.

It's easy to receive something and then forget about it and not live it out in the day-to-day week.

And then we deceive ourselves into thinking that we're growing.

Or it'll be frustrating and why we're not growing.

And it's because we only have one part of the equation.

It's the hearing.

We need the second part of the equation, the living out.

Now let us let me draw us as we close back to verse 17 and 18.

Get your heart back on verse 17 and 18.

Every good and perfect gift, it comes from above, it comes from God.

Verse number 18, of his own will beget he us.

With the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

We are only saved by his grace.

We couldn't beget ourselves.

We needed God to give us new life.

We needed God to save us, to rescue us.

If you only take the doing of the word of God, well then you're gonna you're gonna just get into despair of like, man, I can't do it.

I know he says not to do this, and I know he says to do that, but I tried this week and I just can't do it.

I keep coming up short, I keep failing.

So you'll be in despair to self-destruct.

You might quit altogether.

Man, this Christian stuff is just not, man.

I don't even know what to do here.

And so you'll get in despair there.

Or unfortunately, the other side of things, sometimes what happens is you start to have some exterior behavior type changes, and then you start to kind of, oh man, I'm doing pretty good.

And I'm doing better than that person over there.

And when say it out loud, but you start to get this self-dependence.

Both are destructive.

So you have to remember, and this is with the pattern that Paul gives in Colossians, this is the pattern he gives in Ephesians.

He points us to salvation in Jesus Christ.

Because you're saved, if you know Jesus, you can change, not by your own power, you can do the word of God, you can live out the word of God.

So when he says we're to be patient, when he says we're to be pure, you can live that out, not in your own strength, but in the new birth, in Jesus' strength.

So as we go to prayer right now, go to prayer.

Yes, we might need some confession, some repentance, but go to prayer looking to Jesus, who is the one that can give you strength to have victory and to actually live out the word of God.

He calls us to be doers and not hearers only, but he doesn't call us to be doers in our own strength.

We must rely on the Holy Spirit who now lives within us.

And as he gives us, this is wonderful, as he gives us that step of faith that we need to take, that step of obedience that we need to take, we sometimes are afraid to take that step, right?

Because we think it has to be done in our own strength.

Well, it doesn't have to be done in your own strength.

He walks, he walks along with you, right?

Jet now, he's like, man, he's like running around.

I guess we hopefully he's fast.

We named him properly, Jet, right?

And so he's like running around now.

But when he first started, right, with all my kids, when they first start and they're trying to stand up on their own, why do I just like, hey, shove, come on, go, go walk, right?

I just shove them.

No, I hold them, right, by the hands.

I'm holding them right there.

I'm walking along with them, right?

Uh-uh, uh, I'm holding them along.

We think sometimes it feels so big to us because, like, oh, it's a step that I have to take all on my own in my own power.

No, my friend, Jesus gives us the strength to live out the word.

So if you're feeling if you're feeling crushed by it, like, man, it just seems like impossible to live this way, you might be looking to yourself.

Don't look to yourself for strength.

Look to Jesus.

If he commands it, he's gonna give you the strength and the enablement that you need to live it out.

And sometimes we're slow learners.

Sometimes I need God's, I've read this, I don't know how many times I've read James, and yet God had to come to me again and say, Anthony, you need to grow in that.

What does he do?

Does he boom, figure it out, Anthony?

You're a pastor now, you shouldn't already know how to do this.

No, he comes alongside me again.

He says, We're gonna walk through this together.

I'm gonna give you strength.

I'm gonna help you live this truth out because I'm so committed to changing you from the inside out.

And so we can look to Jesus, yes, with confession, Lord.

I haven't been living, I haven't been living patient, I haven't been living pure, but we can look to Jesus and we can call on him, Lord, give me the strength that I need to live it out this way.

Help me, Lord, not just to forget what I heard this week and to dismiss it, but help me to live it out.

Can we go to him in prayer this morning?

Why don't you just take a minute right there on your seats and go to the Lord in prayer this morning?

I hope this message was a blessing to you.

If you are in the Phoenix area, we would love to have you come in for a visit.

We're located on Indian School and 23rd Avenue.

If we can be a help to you in any other way, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

I would love to answer any questions that you had about the sermon, or maybe a question that you have about eternal life and a relationship with God.

We're here to serve you and to point you to Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for watching this message.