James | Doer Of The Word (June 2nd, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

And as we continue uh in worship and making much of Jesus Christ, I would invite you to grab your Bibles and uh get them open to James uh chapter one.

And uh I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, all right, my I you know I went through a phase, uh rather lengthy phase as a kid where my favorite toy ever uh was G.I.

Joe.

All right, here's some laughter.

I can't tell if that's mocking or I'm with you on that laughter.

I don't know.

Yeah, we got a thumbs up over there.

If you're like a child of the 80s, right?

Or uh or a parent of one, uh, you remember the whole G.I.

Joe thing, and I remember that you were like the coolest kid ever if you had specifically one of those G.I.

Joes with the Kung Fu grip, right?

Right?

We have we have a picture of this, we have this up here.

You guys, you remember this.

Right?

Now, these are amazing.

These are these are actually kind of hard to find.

I never had one of these, but um what made these so amazing, really, and and honestly, you ready for this?

This is really all it did.

It did this with its hands.

Right?

But when we were kids and obviously, you know, easily entertained, okay, we you know, we thought that G.I.

Joe with the kung fu grip was like the best, right?

It was the greatest thing ever.

Now why?

Why did we think that?

Well, not just because it was bigger than your average G.I.

Joe, you know, action figure, but we liked it because it wasn't just this, you know, kind of motionless, lifeless object.

It could, it could grab onto stuff, like it could grab onto, you know, weapons and you could let go of things.

You could you could grab onto a rope and swing him, he could grapple with bad guys, you know, all of that kind of stuff that we did as young boys when we played with them.

Meaning, we love this thing, we meaning because because it actually did something.

Right?

It it performed an action.

That's what that's what made it so great.

You know, our passage today tells us that we are to be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Right?

It says that we're to be doers who act.

Really, it's to say that Christ's followers, or as Christ's followers, we obey God and his word.

We obey him.

Now, obedience by nature is an action.

It's something we do, it's compliance or conformity to uh to a command or a rule or a law.

Okay, so when we you and I, when we obey God's word, that's us.

Think about the the G.I.

Joe, that's us doing something, right?

That's us performing an action, you know, in accordance with what God has told us to do.

As Christians, we're not to be these lifeless, motionless bystanders throughout life and in our relationship with God.

We're not supposed to just do nothing.

Okay, we're we're not hearers of the word only, it says.

We're we're doers, right?

We we act, we obey.

Meaning that we we grow in holiness, we obey God's command in that.

We we take the mission that God has given us to make disciples, and we actually go and and do it.

And so you and I today, as we dive into this passage of scripture that talks about these things, we have an opportunity here this morning to really look at our own lives here and really assess our own personal obedience.

Right?

How have we been doing with this?

How is your obedience?

Is it like, is it fired up, right?

Is it passionate?

Like I want to follow the Lord, it's it's driven by by love and joy to, of course I want to follow him, of course I want to obey.

Or is your obedience, has it become something that's grown, you know, kind of stale and and dry.

And maybe on the outside you're you're doing a bunch of things, and and optically it looks like it's all there, but your heart's a million miles away.

Perhaps you've even gone further the other way, where it's it's disobedience, and there's things that you know you're to do to live a holy life and to glorify Jesus Christ above all, but you're just you're straight up not doing it.

And so let's all of us here take this this morning as we work through the scriptures here to invite the Lord to examine our hearts in these things, that we would be followers of Jesus Christ that obey him and obey the scriptures.

So we're gonna dive in here, but why don't we join me?

Why don't you join me first as we pray, Lord?

We come before you right now and and realize, first of all, just our gratitude for how Jesus Christ was the one who obeyed perfectly in our place.

Lord, through his work on the cross, uh, we have been brought near, Lord.

We have found forgiveness, we have found new life, we have found righteousness.

It's it's from him.

And so, Lord, I pray that that would be the soil with which our obedience grows day by day.

Lord, I pray that you would you would stir up in your church here this morning, Lord, a passion and a desire to follow you, to live holy lives, to obey your every command, Lord, as that can be a difficult task, as it uh requires uh so much from us, Lord.

I pray that you would be gracious as you are.

I pray that you would inspire us to follow you here today, Lord.

I pray that you would stop people dead in their tracks that are running in the opposite direction of you, Lord.

I pray that you would you would lead us to repentance.

And so, God, encourage us in your word.

Lord, with enjoy we pray these things.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, here's the first thing this morning being a doer who acts mean that I means that I obey God's word.

Right?

That's really it right there.

Pretty simple.

And so here's the first thing accepting its standards, I'm compelled to put my filthy ways behind me.

Now, why don't you take a look at verse 19 here of James chapter one, as I read this first little paragraph here, it says, Know this, my brothers, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and 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.

Now, right there in uh in verse 19, we see uh three areas that naturally you and I tend to do the complete opposite, right?

That's what comes natural to us in terms of our behavior.

It says right there that we should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

All right, so when our relationships, think about our relationships here as a church, when they start to go sideways, because again, keep in mind that James is writing this to churches, right?

When our relationships here go sideways, or or even think about your marriage or in your parenting, your relationship with your kids and and just your friendships and all of that, it's when they when they struggle, it's typically because these three areas are leaking serious oil.

Right?

We're often slow to hear, right?

We're not quick to hear, meaning we we don't really care to you know to truly listen and and understand when when when people are talking to us and sharing something with us.

You ever kind of get into a contentious argument with your spouse?

No, never, of course.

Right?

But when you do that, oftentimes you're not like, tell me more.

Right?

You're you're trying you're waiting for them to finish, and and the whole time you're you're coming up with your offensive.

Right?

What am I gonna say to shut him or her down?

What am I gonna say to prove my point?

Right?

We're not very we're not very quick to hear, we're slow.

We're often also, second thing, uh quick to speak, aren't we?

Right?

Quick to push back when we have that disagreement with somebody.

Very quick to you know, give our two cents, and here's my opinion, and oh yeah, here's the truth, here's the reality of things.

It's it's objections, it's it's criticism.

We are we are quick to speak, and it's often the wrong way.

It's with the wrong heart attitude, sometimes even just the wrong thing, because we've got so much pride in all of that.

We're also quick to anger, not slow to anger.

You know, or we don't like how you know someone might be, you know, pointing out or confronting our sin and our brokenness, even when they're doing that in a in a gracious and gentle manner, you know, instinctively, because our flesh is is strong.

We don't we don't like that, right?

And our and our ego is getting bruised in that moment, and we don't like to be called up, and so we have called out, we have that that anger that kind of naturally is there, and we have that instinctive to just kind of lash out in all of that and get quick to anger.

Now, understand this that word for anger there in this instance doesn't actually refer to like, you know, blow-ups and and outbursts and snapping and throwing stuff, though, you know, there's you know, that happens too sometimes, but really uh this case it refers to, as MacArthur puts it, this inner deep resentment that smolders.

Okay, that's what this anger means here.

So it's the kind of anger where it may not actually be all that visible to other people, right?

People may not see it, they may not sense it, maybe our closest loved ones do, but but listen, that's you know, sometimes that's even more dangerous because it can go unnoticed for so long, right?

It can go unchecked.

Maybe we don't even notice it, we're kind of blind to it, other people don't see it uh either.

But of course, we know that the Lord sees it.

God sees it, he knows, and and ultimately this anger, I mean, it always has an impact on us.

Sometimes we get fooled into thinking, well, I'm not, I'm not flipping out, I'm not losing my mind, and so therefore it's somehow you know more healthy or okay or or fine even.

No, that this anger always has an impact on our on our hearts and our posture before the Lord, and and it ultimately has an impact on a relationship with with people.

It says here that this anger of man, okay, so pretty clear, it's talking about sinful anger, not righteous anger, as the scriptures do talk about elsewhere, but this anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

You know, another way of putting that here is that sinful anger does not produce the righteous life that God desires of us.

It doesn't accomplish what is right in God's eyes.

And then from that, James goes on here, take a look at verse 21.

He says, Therefore, because of that, what I just said, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness, again, you know, in humility and submissiveness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Okay, this is where James, he really kind of like opens up the hood of what obedience really looks like, and he kind of like invites us to gather around and peer into this here and understand.

When he says, receive with meekness the implanted word, it's to say, accept it, right?

Accept the implanted word of God.

Now, just last week in verse 18, we looked at how James had referred to how that we are brought forth by the word of truth, right?

Meaning that we were saved, we were justified, we were regenerated by the gospel.

Right?

That that the word uh that the word here in our verse has been implanted in us means something similar, like to what we read in Jeremiah chapter 31, where you know God says that he will write his law on the hearts of his people.

Jeremiah 31 · chapter mention

Okay, God's law, God's word is his truth, his standard, okay, is something that he actually implants.

Like he it's like he knits it or weaves it right into the fabric of our hearts, right, to help us govern our thoughts and our and our attitudes and our actions.

Okay, so let me kind of reframe this a little bit here for us.

James has just given us uh you know a list of you know attitudes and and and behaviors that you know we need to address and keep an eye on in terms of our relationships with each other, and then just kind of in general, you know, the the sin and filthiness and that wickedness that needs to be stripped away, right?

These are these are commands to be obeyed.

Okay, you and I, we we do that fundamentally by first off receiving or accepting the implanted word.

Okay, when when you and I accept that God's word contains truth, right?

It contains a standard of right and wrong that is authoritative over our lives.

When we welcome that, when we affirm that standard as right and and good for us to submit ourselves to it, and we do that, then what happens is we will be compelled to put our filthy ways behind us.

Where you'll have your eyes opened to the you know, with the incongruity of of your sin in light of God's holy word, the Bible's standards, and think, man, I gotta do something about that.

Right?

This this rebellion that's that that wells up in me, the evil desire of my heart, the way that I think and the way that I act and the way that I respond, this doesn't line up with scriptures.

This is this isn't right and good for me as a Christ follower to act and behave and think this way.

Right?

I've I've got to do something about this.

I you know, I I I have to, I must live my life in full obedience to the word.

You'll feel you'll be compelled.

The Holy Spirit, his word will do that in you.

So listen, as you consider the orientation of your heart towards the standard of God's word here today, is it something that you've embraced yourself?

Is it something that you have have accepted as the authority over your life?

You know, when you read there that you're to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, how does that strike you?

How do you respond to that?

Are you like, I love the Lord, so of course don't want to do this?

Or do you chafe against that?

Do you stiffen your neck?

Do you I don't I don't want to be told what to do?

I I I want to be God of my life.

How dare you tell me how I should live, how I should respond?

Now, some commentators have noted here that when verse 19 says that we should be, you know, quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, it's not just referring to how we conduct ourselves in terms of our relationships with each other, but in context of this greater passage here, it's about how we actually respond to God's word.

Right?

How we do that?

Are you quick to hear it?

Like, do you do you long for it?

Do you long to be seated under it, to read it, to pour, to pour into it, to know what God has to say to you and and and for your life?

Where you're intentionally listening to it, you're you're receiving and applying and and and seeking to obey what it says whenever you study it, whenever you hear someone share it with you.

Are you slow to speak when it comes to God's word?

Meaning that you you kind of humbly and and carefully and and and quietly just kind of consider what it's saying to you, and instead of again rushing to objections.

And yeah, but and what about this, and what about what I want?

Are you quick to speak?

Are you rebellious in that way?

Are you slow to anger, meaning that you don't have uh you know a quick temper or that deep burning resentment towards the Lord and towards his word when you're confronted with sin as you open up the scriptures and read it, or as someone you know points that out to you.

You know, you're not like smoldering in that stubborn pride there when the Bible calls you out.

Those who obey the scriptures from the heart are doers of the word.

Right?

We we do it.

There are we're those who've experienced what the end of verse 21 reveals when it says there, take a look, that this word is able to save your souls.

This isn't talking about justification, it's pointing actually to the to the sanctifying, ongoing work of the scriptures in our lives, even further ahead to our to our glorification when we will meet the Lord in glory forever and be fully 100% glorified and redeemed.

Right?

God's word transforms us, it it sanctifies our hearts on the deepest levels, right down, you know, separating joint and marrow and you know, all of that.

Where it starts to compel us to live our lives in agreement with what it says.

Meaning that you and I, you and I can face that that garbage, right?

That filth, that nonsense, it's that's in our hearts that wants to come out.

You know, I've I've talked with a lot of believers, and I've even sensed this in my own life at times that you know, facing your own sin, that's like a that's a scary thing.

Right?

Like it'd be much easier for me to just you know kind of tuck that under a carpet somewhere and pretend it's not there.

Right?

It's it's it's messy, it's it's kind of freaky, and I don't know what the Lord is gonna do with this.

And can I trust Him to be gentle with me?

And does He really want to redeem this area?

Listen, if that scares you a little bit, or if you feel like your sin is too big of a mountain or just way too murky or messy to face, remember that ultimately as a Christian, you have no reason to fear.

You can face it head on.

Why?

Because Christ has saved you.

Right?

He's invited you into his family.

Your sins have been forgiven.

You don't have to worry about, like, well, if I face that that sin in all of that, then what you know, if I admit that that problem that's in my life, then you know, what if the Lord rejects me?

He's not going to.

Not if you're truly a Christ follower.

You you have his love 100%, and because he loves you, he wants to wants you to face that.

He wants to work that out in you, he wants to heal you and make you new.

Listen, if you're sitting here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, stop trying to fix the problems that have arisen in your life and that you sense are within you even on your own.

You can't fix that.

Christ went to the cross to fix it for you, that you would be forgiven.

That through his Holy Spirit, he would transform you.

Would you receive him as Lord today?

It involves admitting your sinfulness, admitting all of that.

That's all that's all rebellion against the God who created you.

And you can't fix it, you can't do anything about it.

God knows that.

That's why he sent Christ to pay the penalty for your sins on the cross.

Talk to somebody today.

If you still have questions about, come talk to one of us.

We would love to walk you through that and pray with you.

Being a doer who acts means that I obey God's word.

Here's the second thing.

Internalizing its message, conviction now drives me towards action.

Verse 22, take a look.

It says this, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

All right, so that's where we see it here.

We we don't just listen, we don't just hear, we obey, right?

We we act upon what we've heard.

I think this presents a serious challenge, a strong challenge to you and I as Christ followers, in the sense that sometimes, I think maybe you're a little bit like me, maybe, it's you know, we kind of fall into the trap of putting most of our eggs in the hearers-only basket.

Right?

Have you ever done that where we like to listen to sermons from all of our favorite preachers, you know, and we read all their books and we subscribe to all of their podcasts, and we've attended all of their conferences, and you know, we we kind of feel pretty good about that.

You know, look how much I listen and look how much I read and all these conferences I go to, all of that.

We can be deceived into thinking that that listening to or hearing all the right sermons and preachers is as far as I need to take this.

Let me stop and just kind of consider here the amount of sermons we've heard or books that we've read over the last year alone, let alone our across our whole lives.

I mean, have have fun trying to quantify how much that means you need to obey now.

Right?

That's that's a lot.

Okay, because we're responsible for all of it.

God have mercy.

On us in this and give us grace to apply these things and to and to become doers of the word and not hearers only.

Now, verse 23, take a look.

It says, 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 at once forgets what he was like.

Okay, what this is getting at here is that it would be ludicrous for us to imagine somebody, I mean, picture this.

Picture somebody peering like intensely into a mirror, observing themselves, looking at their face and and the structure of it and and the features and you know all of that, only to like go away and two seconds later be like, man, like what color is my hair again?

Like I know that's easy for me, but like what color are my eyes?

Do I do I have a beard or not?

Like, do I wear glass?

I can't remember.

Right?

We can't imagine that.

It would be crazy to think of somebody doing that kind of thing.

There's not they're not things that you forget.

You know, verse 25, this is all building towards something.

Bear with me here.

It says, but 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.

Now, when it says there that the one who looks, okay, what it does is that carries the meaning and the force of stooping down to investigate further.

All right, I was on a walk with my daughter just yesterday, and you know, we're walking down the sidewalk, and and she's like, dad, dad, dad, and she calls me back and she was like right down.

I'm not gonna do this because I'll probably rip my pants, but like right down into a full squat there, because there was uh it was like a snail.

She's like, look at the, you know, look at the color of it, and you know, look at the slime.

And I mean, I was just glad I hadn't stepped on it when I walked by, but that that's what this is getting at here, stooping down to investigate so that so that we would understand or look intently to borrow that phrase from verse 23 there, the man who looks intently in the mirror.

Okay, so this is this is not a casual glance, but rather a deep dive into truly understanding and mastery.

Okay, when a person looks in that way into the perfect law, it says, which is the Bible.

You know, if you have an ESV study Bible, the way that they put it there is uh the law, the Old Testament law, uh, as interpreted and fulfilled in Christ.

Okay, so when you see that those words there, perfect law, it's referring to the the Old Testament, the the the Mosaic law, as you and I now see it and understand it through the lens of Jesus Christ and the gospel.

Okay?

So it says when you look into this, look intently into the perfect law, the law of liberty, okay, freedom, we're supposed to be set free from our sin and our bondage and our brokenness.

When you look into that, the perfect, the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres.

Okay, if you have the NIV translation, it says, continues in it, okay, meaning like we stick with it, we persevere, we're we're we're stooping down to investigate and internalize.

I think that's a really key word there.

Internalize it and apply God's word so that it has a transformative effect on my life.

Okay?

Keep going, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Okay, so you put all of this together here, and it's essentially saying that it would be crazy for someone to look carefully at themselves in a mirror, only to walk away and immediately forget what he looks like.

But that's exactly what hearer-only type people do with God's word.

Right?

That that's what we do.

You know, hey, what did what did I what did the pastor just say?

Like, what was that message about?

What you know, what what book of the Bible am I reading again in my quiet time?

I I can't really remember.

Right?

It's because we give it such a servicey glance so much of the time, or we're we're hearing, but it kind of goes in one ear and out the other.

And as we think about that, and what was it again?

It's like, ah, who cares?

Like, I got other more important things to do.

My my phone is beckoning, I must invest time into that instead.

It says, but the one who looks into, looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, is that person is the one who chews carefully on the text, right?

The one who thinks deeply about it, is prayerful as you're as you're reading, as you're listening, even right now, as you're listening to the word of God preached, you're prayerfully like, Lord, how can I apply this into my life?

What are the actions?

What's the response required uh from me this week?

That that's the person who's persevering, right?

Who's who's working to understand and internalize the Bible's message.

When we do that, that it turns us into men and women of conviction, right?

Where we are driven to respond to God's word, driven to action.

We're doers of the word it says, who obey what we've heard.

Right?

That's the person who will be blessed in his doing.

So, hey, if you're kind of sensing here this morning that, you know, man, I'm just not really a person who's driven by biblical convictions.

I feel kind of rudderless about that.

I kind of flip-flop, and you know, I hear some person say this, and that sounds good to me.

I read the scriptures, that sounds good to me.

And then I hear somebody else's opinion, and that sounds good to me.

But I don't I don't have biblical convictions in this, and I'm and I'm not internalizing the scriptures, which means that I tend to hear more than do.

Okay, then I think obviously it comes back to again ensuring that the Bible is central and you know the major priority of my life on a daily basis.

Means we got to get into it.

Right?

So I would just kind of put the question in front of you what are you gonna do this week to get moving in that direction?

Right?

Well, what's something that you can do?

Something that needs to change so that you can maybe just get into God's word.

Maybe you haven't been reading it or don't ever read it.

What's something that you can do to kind of work to understand and internalize or to look into the perfect law and persevere in it?

I'll give you a couple of just real practical examples.

Maybe one or more of these will kind of strike a chord for you.

Maybe I think a lot of us, it's just kind of comes down to like getting up 30 minutes earlier in our day.

Right?

If you're like, no, I I can't do that, I don't know how to help you.

Right?

Getting up 30 minutes earlier and just kind of spending that time getting into God's Word is that that's doable.

Maybe that's for you.

You just you just need to do that, you need just to prioritize that, you need to commit to that.

Maybe for you it's that you need to sketch out like a basic kind of reading plan.

You're like, I don't know where to read, and you're like, Numbers, never read that before.

Right?

And maybe that's maybe that's you.

And you need to kind of think through like, how am I gonna kind of understand the scriptures and kind of learn it maybe even systematically?

And I'm gonna start reading in the gospel, I'm gonna start reading Matthew's gospel, and hey, Proverbs has 31 Proverbs in it.

I'm gonna read one a day, starting, you know, beginning of June, which is now.

Work through that.

Then in July, I'm gonna start back over and add that to my reading, right?

There's a million different ways that you can read the scriptures, all kinds of different plans.

There's yearly reading plans, there's all kinds of ways.

Maybe for you it's memorizing a passage.

Maybe you're you're you're kind of you know dull to the joy of reading the word, and so you need to like memorize a passage that's all about getting fired up about the word.

Read it, you know, memorizing something in Psalm 119 and take a passage and focus on that, and and as you learn it, be praying that into your soul, Lord, give me a uh a drive and give me a fire for this, Lord.

I I need this.

Perhaps it's that you need to purchase some study tools to just kind of supplement your reading of the scriptures, it never replaces it.

We've talked about you know getting like an ESV study bible or getting a commentary, and I know some in here they they like to know what I'm gonna be preaching and what's the preaching calendar all about and what's our next book.

And so, you know, for James, they go out and they you know, order on Amazon or Christianbook.com or whatever, a James commentary.

I'm gonna track that, I'm gonna study that uh along the way as we go on on Sundays.

Maybe you want to purchase or or even borrow a Bible study tool to help you and to learn and understand.

Maybe for you, you're like, I've I've tried so many times to do this on my own.

I just need to get accountable.

I need to talk to somebody who can kind of help me think this through, and someone who can, you know, in some ways, in a in a gentle and in a right way, kind of hold my feet to the fire on this.

Right?

You like you said you were gonna read, and you're not doing it.

So how can we work together?

I need someone to pray for me, and we need accountability in this, I think.

I would also say this before moving on, be realistic about this.

Right?

Some of you are like, you know, based on what I'm hearing today, I'm gonna like enroll in full-time seminary on top of my career, and I'm gonna drop a thousand bucks on, you know, logos Bible software and learn Greek.

And hey, listen, if the Lord calls you to that, go nuts, right?

That's great.

But I think sometimes what we do is we we've we've tried this before.

We tried to like bite off more than we can chew.

Our plan needs to be realistic.

Now, I think most of us don't go that direction.

Most of us go in the other direction.

We're not doing enough.

But maybe it's because you've tried to bite off more than you can chew, and you've tried these unrealistic plans.

I'm gonna read four hours a day.

Okay, Martin Luther.

For you can take start with like 15 minutes, right?

Like I said, half an hour.

Start there and and get going.

But listen, let's get into the word of God this week, church.

Let's do this.

Learn to internalize it, think about it, meditate on it, and then watch as just holy conviction starts to well up in you and and lead you towards obedience.

Being a doer of who acts means that I obey God's word.

Third thing, last thing.

Rejecting its ritualization, my religious duties become genuine.

Take a look at verse 26 here as we read, finish off this section.

Verse 26 and 27 says this if anyone thinks that 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.

Church, as I was I was kind of reading this over and studying this this week, I just grew more and more grateful that these verses are in the Bible.

Because they highlight for us a very common ditch that we all tend to kind of fall into.

Right?

A ditch that we can often stumble around in for years without even noticing it.

See, in our in our well-intentioned desire to obey the God who saved us from sin and death, and and as people who we know, we've heard this passage preached before, we know that we're to be doers and and not hearers only.

We know that we're supposed to obey, right?

And because, though, that we get we get so caught up in optics and externals and outward behaviors and and duties to the neglect of what's actually going on in our hearts in terms of our desires and our motives that are driving those things.

Again, because our our natural bent is towards all of that, what can happen, all right, is that we can very easily turn the Christian life into something God never intended it to be.

From something awesome and life-giving and exciting and heart-transforming and love-driven into something ultra ritualistic and cold and mechanical and legalistic and boring.

Is that you?

Is that where you're at here today?

Is that is that what your obedience to the Lord and his word has become?

You and I, we must learn to reject the different ways that we shrink and reduce Christianity and obedience down to nothing more than religious ritualization.

You know, where we're where we attend church just because it's Sunday, here we go again.

You know, it's it's what we've always done.

My parents modeled this, and they didn't care, and neither do I, and neither do my kids.

But we're going anyways, right?

You see how we do that?

You know, where we where we pray before meals, but it's like a plug-and-play prayer, right?

Right, there's there's there's zero actual gratitude to God given.

Right?

There's zero, like, guys, let's really stop and like think about this as a family, how amazing it is that we have food on our plates.

Most of the world doesn't have this.

Can we can we just pause for a second here and and and praise him for the way that he has provided this bounty for us?

Your kids are like, it's craft dinner.

I'm thankful for craft dinner.

Right?

You see how we do that?

It's like we know exactly what dad's gonna say, the same worn-out, tired, meaningless prayer.

You know, or we all know how to, you know, kind of talk a good theological and doctrinal game.

And, you know, we've had people kind of you know pump our tires about how we, you know, we seem to have a good handle on the scriptures, and we love the affirmation that comes from all of that, but listen, behind closed doors, we're not living any of it.

We have little desire to do so.

Listen, the more you and I cultivate this type of cold, dead religion in our lives, the colder and more dead we become towards the Lord.

Right?

The colder and more dead we become towards loving him, loving others and obeying him.

Right?

Or our obedience just becomes more wooden and and and void of real meaning and desire and heart and and and value, right?

It becomes worthless.

That's the word that he uses here.

Are you in that religious ditch today?

Listen, as we receive and as we accept the standard of God's implanted word that he is knitting to our souls, right?

As we look into the perfect law and and we internalize its message, right?

Then and only then will our religious duty and works and action become genuine.

Right?

The word of God transforms us.

Only then will our obedience become the kind that God wants and is looking for from us.

And James, in in these verses, he he gives us three examples of what this right kind of religion, this pure and undefiled religion, looks like.

He says that we learn to bridle our tongues and be careful of what we say.

Now, chapter three, uh, we're gonna have a whole sermon on that.

So prepare for conviction there, all of us.

And I don't want to steal the thunder too much from all of that.

We're gonna get into that whole topic, but it says that we're to bridle our tongues.

Pure and undefiled religion looks like that.

It also means visiting widows and orphans and their afflictions.

Remember, we we desire and we want to, and we're compelled and driven to care for the marginalized and care for the needy, care for those who are who are suffering.

We have like a, you know, watching out for other people type mentality as the church.

Right?

Genuine religion flows from a heart that loves God and loves the people whom God loves.

It also loves to make sure that we are last things as keeping ourselves unstained from the world.

All the world's worked, values, and all of the idols that is continually just shoving on to your plate and and trying to get you to devote your life to.

Listen, you and I, we gotta keep a constant, watchful eye on our lives so that our faith doesn't become this worthless kind of ritualistic religion.

And we learn to work all of this out.

Listen, listen, we learn to work it all out through the power of the gospel.

Right?

That's it.

That's the gospel that transforms our hearts, our motives, and our desires.

You know, and that's why we remind ourselves continually of what Christ has done for us.

That's why we sing these songs that point to the finished work of the cross.

We we sing songs that point to the empty tomb.

We think through what Jesus has done to earn our salvation for us.

Right?

That our that our religious duties, the things that we do in obedience, that isn't to try and get to God to be impressed with us.

That isn't to try and get God to love us or try and somehow get him to look away from others and give us some attention.

That's that's not what that is.

He already loves us, he already approves us, he's proven it through the cross.

Right?

And we go over the gospel and we think it through and we pray it through and read it constantly because it teaches us that Jesus brings us close to God.

And he's already done that, right, through his perfect sacrifice, through his finished work.

When we understand that, all of our obedience, all of our religious duty and our service to him simply becomes a response of gratitude.

Christ, this is what you have done?

You hung there for me?

Well, why wouldn't I want to give my life to you?

Yeah, but it's hard.

It's gonna require some real churning and grinding through the difficulty of your flesh.

Yeah, it's worth it because of what Christ did for me.

It's worth it because of what he has promised to me.

So listen, as you sense yourself wobbling towards the ditch of mechanical and ritualistic obedience, or as you try to crawl out from that ditch, because you've been floundering in it for way too long, but listen, teach your heart to delight in the completed work of Jesus Christ.

Think about that, that was for me.

Like, look what he did.

It was on it was on my behalf.

Like that, that is a savior worth of winning.