James 1: 19-27 Hearing & Doing

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Music.

James' purpose in writing this letter was, and we're going to put it up again,

the purpose of the book of James is to correct the false belief that a person

can have faith without a change of behavior and to give practical instruction

regarding the Christian life.

That's the overall theme of the book of James.

It's an incredibly powerful, practical

book of the Bible with so so much application for our lives today.

And I would say that there's probably no greater issue with churches today that

are filled up with people who believe and they claim to be Christians,

yet their life has never changed because people fail.

They hear it. They may or may not receive it, but they fail to put Christianity

and the relationship with the Lord in action.

Into action. And so we're going to dive into that today.

And we dove into the big idea. We're giving you a big idea each week.

Last week, the big idea was this. The testing of our faith through trials,

adversity, suffering produces in us a steadfast spirit and endurance.

Endurance and endurance is an invaluable characteristic of those who follow Christ.

The more you come into endurance, the more trials you have, the more endurance you get.

And we looked at this affliction produces endurance.

Affliction produces endurance. Endurance. Endurance produces proven character.

Proven character produces hope. And it's the hope that we have in Jesus Christ,

which allows us to have joy.

See, it's hard to have joy just living life.

We have to make a continual daily choice in our mind and in our spirit that in spite of what we face,

in spite of what losses we walk through, what physical things we walk through,

what challenges we walk through, that we will choose joy.

And that joy is because of our hope.

And our hope is because of the things that we go through.

We know that Jesus Christ is real and alive and wants to do life with us.

This week, I listened to a pastor preaching from the book of Acts when Paul

and Silas were arrested.

You might remember this if you grew up in Sunday school or you grew up listening

to preaching once in a while, maybe Bible school.

Paul and Silas were arrested for speaking the good news of the gospel.

They were flogged and they were beaten just short of death.

Death there was blood running down

their necks and their face and their backs and

the back of their legs from this incredible beating

that they had taken you remember that the jailer took them both into the inner

prison most likely a dungeon and you can just remember you can just picture

this dungeon filled with rats and human feces and dark and smelling it like

misery beyond what you you can compare anything to.

Unbelievable, awful situation. You think your situation's bad?

Look at their situation. It'll make you feel better about your situation.

But at the midnight hour, while they're sitting there with their feet and their hands

chained in stocks, they began to sing hymns and praises and spiritual songs at the midnight hour.

Regardless of what you go through, because of the hope that we have in Jesus

Christ, there can be joy in the midnight hour.

Whatever you're going through, wherever you find yourself today, you can have joy.

This morning, it's not my goal, and it never is, to step on anybody's toes or

to hurt anyone's feelings.

My goal today and every Sunday is to faithfully bring the Word of God. That's it.

To faithfully put it out before you and allow you to choose to respond.

And so before we jump into today's passage, would you go with me to the Lord in prayer?

And let's just give this morning to him. I'm praying for you.

Lord, we come to you. And I just ask that as we dive into your word,

that it would illuminate us, that it would, that it would speak to us.

We know it's your holy inspired God-breathed word.

And this is what you've placed on our hearts to share today in my heart to share

that you want to share this with your people.

And some of the people are here and they come in and they carry incredible loads

that only they know about.

They carry incredible pain that no one else knows about.

I pray that today that you would lift their burdens, that you would give them joy.

As we dive into James and what you said here, Father, I pray that you would

would help us to hear your words, and not just hear, but to receive them, to let them take,

root, to be planted in our hearts and our lives, and then that you would give

us the power, Holy Spirit, to obey them.

God, we love you. Would you please do something that only you can do in our

hearts and lives, and we give you the glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

This morning, if you have your Bible with you, and I want to encourage you again

to always bring your Bible, bring a notebook, bring whatever you have,

but we want to dive and we want to look at the Word of God.

If you don't have a Bible, if you're here and you'd like a Bible,

we have lots of free Bibles.

You can just go back to the Welcome Center, take one, it's yours, write your name in it.

But join me this morning in reading from the Word of God. We're going to read

James James chapter 1, 19 and 27.

James 1 · chapter mention

And before we do, I want to give you today's big idea.

Okay, we're giving you a big idea every week. This week, here it is.

Believers are to hear, to receive, and obey the word.

Say that with me. Believers are to hear, receive, and what?

Obey the word of God. because the person who both listens and responds is blessed.

You see, too many Christians will hear the Word of God, maybe will receive it,

and then some of us will choose to obey it.

And then we wonder why our life isn't blessed, and we wonder why we're not living

to our full capacity that God has for us.

And so let's read it, let's hear it, let's receive it from the Lord, and then let's obey it.

James 1, 19 through 27.

My dear brothers and sisters, understand this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

For human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness.

I should get a tattoo of that one. Verse 21.

Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent.

Humbly receive, there it is, we've heard it, but now let's humbly receive the

implanted word, which is able to what?

Save your souls. That sounds pretty important to me.

Verse 22, so be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves,

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.

For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he is.

But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, what is that?

That's the word of God, who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and

perseveres or endures in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer who works,

I would circle that, this person will be blessed in what he does.

Verse 26, if anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue,

his religion is useless, and he deceives himself.

For pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this.

To look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Unstained from the world. That's the expectation that God puts on us.

And so here we we have in James verse 19. We're going to walk through this whole passage verse by verse.

In verse 19, James is addressing his hearers and his dear brothers and sisters.

Other translations might say beloved brothers and sisters.

You might think it could just be received as dear church family that I love.

James was a good pastor and he deeply cared about his congregation.

He cared about them so much that he didn't try to tickle their ears with the

message of maybe other churches or other religions or other philosophies,

but he cared enough to love them with the blunt truth.

And he begins with this punch in the mouth, with this encouragement to be quick

to listen, to be slow to speak and slow to anger.

He could have said that right there and it would have covered like,

okay, I'm good. I'll work on this for the next five years.

Like that's, that hits me square in the face.

Those are things that I myself need to work on.

You ever have a parent or a teacher say, hey, God gave you two ears and one mouth. Am I alone?

Okay, no, I got, I don't know why to this day.

I have no reason why, but I used to hear that a lot from my teachers. Thank you.

Jen's not in here to defend herself, but I think that her and I got the same

messages written in our report card that says, great, great kid, really likes to talk.

Yes. What they're saying is,

hey, Jeff, you should probably try listening more than you talk, right?

It's wisdom. It's biblical wisdom. them.

So James says, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

And then he tells us why we should attempt to not get angry so fast.

And I've mentioned this over the past few weeks a few times,

because this is something that I'm trying so desperately hard to implement into my own heart.

And I've heard it from the Lord, and I've received it, and now I'm trying to

put it into action. But isn't it the third part that is so hard for us?

Like, I hear the truth, and I'm like, yeah, amen. Yeah.

I received that, Lord. I receive it. I receive it. And I'm working on it.

It's that third part that always gets me. But this is what James says.

Verse 20, human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness.

I tell you this over and over again. When I'm up here preaching and I'm bringing

the word of God, I am preaching into the mirror. I'm preaching right back at me.

Man, if you could read my journal lately. Woo!

Telling you, this has been an issue that I've struggled with my entire life.

And I've been feeling, what is it? Pride cometh before the fall, right?

I've been feeling like, oh, I told my wife last week, man, I'm doing so good.

I don't get angry anymore at the kids.

I don't, I'm not yelling. I'm like, for the last month and a half, I've been great.

Great i'm good my journal's

like man jeff you are doing so great you're phenomenal what an incredible example

for your children and then i'm writing about this and i'm i'm literally studying

this passage and what happens to me this week boom volcano jeff all over the kids,

because of my righteous indignation they deserve it god you're gonna use my No, he doesn't.

He says, no, you may, in your heart, you can excuse that anger.

Hey, I'm just getting on to them because I want them to do this.

I'm just getting on to them because I want them to do. No, that's not how we get people to obey.

James says it never accomplishes God's righteousness.

Man, if we could just learn that, maybe our anger problems would be completely done.

What I realized, and what I want you to see here, number one on your notes,

is that my anger will never accomplish God's righteousness.

But isn't that the first tool in our toolbox that we go for?

When we don't, when our spouse isn't doing what we want, when our kids don't

do what we want, when somebody doesn't do what we want, when we feel like we've

been offended or we feel like they stepped on our toes.

Man, we go right to the, we open up our toolbox and we grab a,

you know, a big thing of anger and we throw at them.

We throw anger and we spew it all over.

And James is going to talk more about our words later in the book and about this particular sin.

But when anger leads to sin, it does not produce the righteousness of God.

And I would say it also ruins relationships. It poisons, it brings bitterness

and poison into our relationships.

It also ruins our testimony. How many of you got angry at your kids outside?

Get your butt inside right now.

Hey, how's it going? Just heading to church. You should come with us.

It's been life-changing.

Right? How many blown witnesses and testimonies have been blown because we blow up at people?

James 1.21, we continue, says, therefore, and remember, anytime we see that

word, it's a transitional phrase, right? We ask ourselves, what is it therefore?

And so, we know that James is talking about what's coming up is based upon the

fact that anger doesn't produce God's righteousness.

So, he says, therefore, because it doesn't produce God's righteousness,

rid yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent,

meaning it's everywhere.

It's never been more true. Evil is everywhere you look.

It's everywhere. So he says, rid yourselves of it. Get rid of all moral filth. Say all.

All. All means all, and that's all means. It means all.

Rid yourself of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent.

And then he says, humbly receive the implanted word.

We receive that word humbly, because if we're not humble.

If we're not humble, the soil of our heart, it's got like permafrost.

You ever watch like gold diggers and the gold, whatever, that Alaska gold?

It's like the topsoil is just frozen.

And so the word of God gets planted, but it's not going to seek in.

It's not going to get through the top layer because our heart is so hardened.

You have to be humble in order to receive the word of God. You have to be humble,

and it's able to save your soul.

James says the precursor for us to humbly receive the Word of God is to rid

ourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent.

In your notes there, the next point is, I must rid myself of all moral filth

and evil for the Word of God to be implanted in my life.

If we're all about the gospel here at Generations Church,

and we want to dig into the Word of God, and we want to disciple people,

and we want to mentor people, and we want souls to be saved and to grow,

we have to have a spirit, an attitude of humility.

You don't go to God's Word with an agenda.

You go to it and just say, God, speak to me through your Holy Spirit.

Cleanse me and let me humbly receive the Word of God.

See, the goal isn't just to hear it.

Anyone can come to church and hear it. the goal

is to have the word of God take root in our lives and to be planted deep so

that our lives are flourishing and so that people see the fruits of the Holy

Spirit growing up and so that we can make a difference in people's lives.

We can glorify God with everything that we do.

You know, oftentimes I hear someone complain that their life just isn't changing

and they're not getting anywhere. They're stuck.

They can't get victory. But when I look at their life, it isn't that they don't

come to church or they don't hear the word of God.

The problem is that it's not taking root in their lives.

And if it doesn't take root in their lives, it will never lead to action.

So we have to rid ourselves, we have to rid ourselves.

Pastor John Piper said this, we cannot easily overstate how profoundly powerful

and important the Word of God is for our lives.

If the Word of God does not rank with your most cherished possessions,

you need to do a reality check on your life.

Nothing apart from God Himself is more important and powerful than his word.

I want you to love God's word.

I want to hide it in my heart so that I don't sin against him.

I want you to hide it in your heart so you don't sin against him.

See, there is a direct correlation between cleansing ourselves from sin and

the Holy Spirit changing our lives through the implanted word of God. Do you hear me, church?

There's a direct correlation between cleansing ourselves from sin and the Holy

Spirit changing us through the word of God.

If our lives are full of sin, there's no room for the Holy Spirit to change us.

And so James says, cleanse yourself.

Part of cleansing yourself is confessing it, right? We have to confess it to him.

We have to rid ourselves of it. We gotta get rid of it.

And as you begin to live a life in obedience to the word of God, guess what?

The Holy Spirit will come in and will begin to change your life and make you

more and more and more and more and more into the image of his son,

Jesus, of God's son, Jesus.

Let me encourage you, make confession of sin a daily part of your prayer and

devotional life, because it's an absolute necessity in the life of the believer.

James continues punching at us, He says in verse 22, but be doers of the word

and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves,

saying, hey, it's time to put your actions where your mouth is.

It's time. For far too long, churches have been about, and not every church,

but churches have made the mistake of being hearers only. I just want knowledge.

I just want knowledge. I just want knowledge. I just want knowledge.

And so we ended up in society with a lot of churches with a lot of knowledge,

but no action to follow it or minimal action.

And when Jen and I planted Generations Church a year and a half ago,

we said, we want to come together.

We want to be church that's a family, family inside, family out.

We want to join arms, link arms with other churches.

We don't want to sit soaking sour is what we used to say. We don't want to sit soaking sour.

We want to hear the word. We want to receive it. And then we're going to act upon it.

This morning, you need to know that you and I, we are called to action. We're called to action.

So many Christians are spectators. They sit in the stands of the church and they aren't in the game.

Maybe they got hurt on the field and they, did they just quit?

I don't know. But James says, it's time for us to get out of the stands and get into the game.

Get off the sidelines, get into the game.

They used to say that 20% of the church does about 80% of the work.

I'm going to just tell you right now, I can attest to this and I could probably look it up.

In our stats in a year and a half, it's way lower than that.

It's probably about 10% of the people here do 80 or 90% of the work.

It's time to get in the game, guys.

And if you're here and you're active and you're serving and you're putting it

to action, I want to applaud you.

You're doing a great job. Keep going.

Keep going. You're making a difference. Lives are being changed.

Keep going. Don't quit.

But if you're a specter, James says, you're missing your calling.

You know, each one of you has a calling on your life.

Each one of you has a divine calling upon your life. Psalm 139 says,

I created you. I've numbered your days.

I've got a purpose for you.

And if you're missing putting your faith into action, James says,

you're failing to accomplish and experience all that God has for your life.

I want to tell you something. I'm not up here saying, hey, you need to come

to church more because there's only 60 people coming.

No, I could say that. I'm saying invite because people are going to hell.

You see the difference? It's not what I want from you guys.

It's what I want for you. I want you to discover your purpose.

It's on the back of Michael's shirt right there. Michael, stand up.

And by the way, this is Michael, and it's his 60th birthday today. That's right.

60 years old. That's my oldest son right there. All right?

Why do we have that on the back of your shirts? because we want you to walk

with God's blessing on your life.

And we know that God has more for you if you'll just hear and receive.

Let it be implanted in your heart and then live out your divine destiny that God has for you.

I'm gonna jump down to verse 23.

It says, 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 for he looks at himself goes away and immediately forgets what kind

of person he was 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,

say works works this person will be blessed in what he does see now here's where

some Some religions get it messed up.

They see works and they think, oh, I can earn my way to salvation.

I just had a conversation with a young person on Wednesday night,

and I had the opportunity to lead him to the Lord in my office after Jen's kids, and it was awesome.

My little guy, Easton, was there with me.

I asked him, I said, if I have a free gift for you, Michael,

I got you a birthday gift.

If I hand you that gift, what do you have to do to take it? You just take it, right?

This little guy answered, I have to earn it. That's what's so amazing about

grace is it's a free gift of God, lest anyone should boast.

It's a free gift so that I can't take any glory, story, right?

It's about God sending Jesus to die for us and us saying, thank you,

Jesus, for paying the penalty of my sin.

I broke your law and I deserve death.

But because you came, I get to go to heaven. I get to live forever. I get to enjoy life.

I have a divine purpose and destiny. Listen, obedience always brings about a blessed life.

Obedience. You want to be blessed blessed—and I'm not saying blessed with money,

cars, riches, glory, all that stuff.

Do you know that some of the—one of the greatest blessings that we pray on our

kids, if you will love God and you'll obey Him, guess what happens?

You'll be protected from the consequence of sin.

I want my my kids to not have to live in such a way that they are living the

consequence because of sin.

It's painful. So we're always saying, hey, obedience brings blessing.

Sometimes blessing, sometimes the greatest blessing is not living a life full

of painful consequence.

Again, guys, this isn't, I'm not wanting stuff from you. It's what I want for you.

Over and over and over in scripture, we see that obedience to God's word gives

us protection and safety and blessings.

And I want God's blessings on each one of you. I want God's protection on each one of you.

But it won't come until we rid ourselves of all the filth.

It won't come until we rid ourselves of the evil that is so prevalent around

us and we receive the word of God, which can change and can save your very soul.

We put God's word into action into our lives. Two verses left.

James 1 verse 26 and 27. If anyone thinks he is religious without out controlling his tongue.

James 1:26

His religion is useless, and he deceives himself.

Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this, to look after orphans

and widows in their distress.

And sometimes we stop there and say, well, that's all we're required to do.

Now, that's part of it. And that's an important part that we want to push into

more and more and more as we grow.

We want to look after other people. We want to take care of orphans and children,

and widows, and people in their distress.

We try hard to do that. That's why we do our Saturday serves.

That's why we do the Backpack Initiative.

But then it says this, it's also to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Unstained from the world. If you haven't noticed so far in the book of James,

humility, it's a pretty big deal in life.

It's a pretty thing in the life of a Christian, especially.

And after addressing and telling us to take action, James says,

Hey, if you think you're religious, but you can't control your mouth.

Your religion, it's useless. I'm not saying you don't get mad and blow up and say stuff sometimes.

I mean, yeah, we all, we all shouldn't do that. Right. But on a daily basis,

what's your mouth look like?

Do they feel torn down or do they feel built up?

Guys, again, kettle, talking to myself.

These are issues I'm daily wrestling with and daily trying to be better at.

What is the spiritual temperature of your speech and your communication with others on a daily basis?

And then James closes out this chapter, chapter one, with pure undefiled religion.

He says it again. When it comes to please God, you have to put your faith into action.

Listen, nobody cares if you tell them you're a Christian.

Nobody cares. What they want to see is a life lived out in the way you treat people.

James says, show me you're a Christian with the way you live.

Show me you're a Christian with the way you serve.

Show me a Christian by stepping Stepping away from the stained,

nasty, filthy culture that is today.

And live submitted to Christ and his plan and his ways. Why?

Why? Because you'll be blessed. You'll be blessed.

Believers are to hear the word of God.

Believers are to receive the word of God. and believers are to obey the word of God.

Music.

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