Fracture
Part 4- “Don’t Make Me Pull This Car Over”
Pastor Ryan Akers
James 1:19-27- explanation of title…There is a ton of good stuff in this scripture and what I want to do this morning instead of giving you point 1, point 2, point 3 is I want to unpackage it little by little so that we can get a full understanding of what James is trying to teach us. To maybe make it easier for your note taking I want to split this scripture into 2 sections. James is speaking here on the nature of true religion. What does true religion look like? There are all sorts of thoughts and opinions out there as to what a true Christian looks like and acts like. Is it about works or is it about faith or is it about faith and works?
Is it about how you look? Is it about how you talk? Is it about where you go to church? What is it that God wants from us specifically as his followers? What does a righteous life look like to God? That is exactly what James begins to answer in these 9 verses and goes into greater depth on in later chapters. But I want to unpack these 9 verses into 2 sections. These sections will be the 1. The Goal of True Religion, 2. The Acid Test of True Religion.
Let’s look at the goal of true religion according to James.
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
The goal of true religion is that all who have faith in Christ would live out the righteous life that God desires according to His word. When God gives salvation there is a natural shifting in our entire beings. We are no longer to live like the world lives. We are no longer to love as the world loves. We are no longer to act as the world acts in any way, shape or form but now we are to desire to live according to God’s perfect law. Salvation awakens in us a longing to no longer live as the world lives or to live for me but to now live for God and in such a way that would bring glory to God and only God. Because to glorify myself is to glorify a sinner who without God is nothing. So James says to reach this goal of the right life that pleases God right off the bat we can literally practice 3 things. Quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. All three actions are a direct contrast to how we have previously lived our lives before Christ entered us.
Careless words and careless emotions cause great destruction in anyone’s life. When Christ came into my life it is now my desire to learn what it means and to practice in my life every day the idea of being quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. A person who is quick to listen is one who not only listens to someone but they are also intently working to understand them. You cannot divorce the listening from the understanding. They go hand in hand. Just look at any marriage. How many times have you listened to your spouse but never understood what they were saying? My wife tells me all the time that I have “selective hearing”. Meaning I may have listened to her talk but I didn’t hear what she said.
Any premarital counseling I do one of the first major components we discuss, that time has proven will help create an atmosphere of success in the marriage, is the art of communication. Any good marriage, any good friendship, any good relations between governments of other countries have people who are both listening and hearing. Most problems I see in marriage are not financial. It is the problem of two people who are too stubborn to take the time to not only listen but to understand what the other person is trying to say. One person said it this way, “The fact that God gave us two ears and only one mouth means that we ought to listen twice as much as we talk!” Unknown
There are countless numbers of people who pay psychologist crazy amounts of money, why? Because they want someone to listen to them. I would say 8 out of 10 times people come to speak to me they are not necessarily looking for an answer to their problem as much as they are looking for someone to talk to who they know is intently listening and understanding them. The church is to be the place where everyone can be heard and understood. Then he says we need to be slow to speak. We need to not be so quick to react to what is being said. Humans are just naturally reactive instead of reflective. We tend to be much quicker to defend our position, opinions and decisions rather than be reflective and give constructive criticism a chance. (Best advice I received on being reflective instead of reactive, 3 day strategy). Words have the power to build up or to destroy. They can encourage or they can insult. Christians more than anyone should have an understanding of what it means to pick our words carefully. To be more reflective than reactive.
Finally he says we need to be slow to become angry. Some translations will use the word “wrath.” Anger is a basic human emotion that all of us experience. Wrath suggests a vengeful retribution. James suggests that wrath even if it seems warranted should be slowed in our lives. Anger and wrath only lead to destruction of ourselves and those we take our anger and wrath out on. It is no wonder that anger is considered one of the seven deadliest sins as it causes great destruction to anyone that crosses its path. Anger and wrath do nothing to produce in us the life of righteousness that God desires. Anger will not bring about the Kingdom we claim we are looking for. Anger cannot produce the fruit of God in us and because of that, anger should have no place in our lives. God wants us in right relationships with Him and others. Vertical and horizontal. But anger steals that possibility because anger causes us to lose control to the point where we are no longer controlled by God but we are controlled by fear and passion and our circumstances.
Wrath and Judgment are for God to give not us. There is a great danger in how Christians are reacting to the world’s sin. Where so-called “Christians” blow up abortion clinics and kill doctors in the name of Jesus. Where we angrily protest against homosexuals. Where they are killed and protested against as fags in the name of Christ. Granted Jesus himself showed anger when he turned over the tables in the temple, but you have to understand the context of why he did that. Its because they were defiling the temple and stealing from the poor. His example of anger does not give us the right to blow up abortion clinics and beat up homosexuals in the name of Jesus.
Instead we are to make our lives a practice of being quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Verse 21 says, “So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.” James 1:21 In order for us to learn how to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry we need to rid ourselves first of all the filth and evil in our lives. We need to focus on living pure lives free from anything that leads to sin. Anything in us that leads to immoral and destructive behaviors is not true religion and it needs to be cut completely out of our lives. In turn we need to replace this immoral living with the word of God that is now planted in us. It is God’s word that saves. It is the Word that brings us close to God and keeps us close to him. It is implanted because God Himself put it there. This is salvation. The Word is Christ, now implanted in us. Where evil is God cannot dwell so it must be cut out and replaced with the righteousness of Christ. And we in turn are to believe and accept the responsibility to help this Word grow in us.
One author says it this way. “The work of the Word is begun by God and sustained by God, but all who have been given this “imperishable seed” are responsible for both allowing the seed to grow unhindered and for living in ways that promote its flourishing into full flower.” I know Christ now lives in me and I am justified. I am forgiven but each and everyday I must work to allow God’s Word to grow in me, change me, my thoughts, my actions, I must work to overcome the temptations of sin and I must rely completely on God and his power to help me accomplish this. It’s a powerful partnership between God and humans.
We can’t do it without God and God doesn’t leave us hanging and guessing how now we are to live when we believe in Christ. This moves us to the second part of this text, which is the acid test of true religion. The goal of true religion is that God desires for us to live a righteous life that brings him glory. The acid test that that relationship is being achieved will come out of our lives in two ways. 1. Are we living out the commands of God and 2. Are we caring for the needy? 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
Right off the bat James gives us an insistence that you cannot just listen, you must do. You can’t just listen to what God says and call yourself a believer, but the true believer is the one who listens to the word and then puts it into daily practice in their lives. They meditate on God’s precepts day and night. Oh, the joys of those who do not
follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. Psalm 1:1-3
Now James does something really great here with his statement on hearing and doing. This would have really spoken to Jews of his time. The Hebrew word for hearing is “Shema”. Shema refers back to the Old Testament passage found in Deut. 6:4-5 which says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” Every Jew knew of the Shema. To the Jews, Shema, implied that if action did not proceed what had been spoken then it was evidence that the words were never heard in the first place. To hear someone say you need to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength meant that your hearing was evidenced by living out according to what had been spoken. James is trying to tell us you cannot separate hearing and doing. If you listen but never do then you are living a lie and do not understand what true religion is.
James is speaking on a frustration of his day but as Ecclesiastes says, “there is nothing new under the sun.” This same problem takes place today. Where millions of people listen to God’s Word and to His commands but how many are actually living them out? I love this quote about hearing and doing. It says, “The life-giving Word has to be obeyed to remain life-giving.” People can say, “God isn’t helping me. He feels far away.” And I will say, “Are you living for him or for you? Do you look at him as a genie that grants request only when you need him or do you rejoice in his word? Do you meditate on his teachings day and night?” Jesus said that you would know his true disciples by their fruit. The fruit that comes out of his believers only comes because they not only listen to the teachings of Christ but they live them out in their lives. He illustrates the point of hearing and doing by saying that a person who hears but does not act is like a man who looks in the mirror and then immediately forgets what he looks like. If you go to a mirror which probably everyone in this room did this morning. Well, maybe some of you forgot. If you look at yourself to make sure you look okay but then immediately forget the details of what you just saw then the purpose of looking in the mirror has been made obsolete. Because even after looking you already forgot what you looked like. The mirror was useless.
The question then becomes why did they forget? Well its not the mirror’s fault but it is the person looking in the mirror who is at fault because they didn’t commit what they saw to memory. So just like you can listen to someone without hearing them you can just as easily see something without ever really seeing it. This is the great danger of not being in the Word. We need to do what we hear. We need to act on what we see. And this is much easier said than done because the laws that we see in God’s word are impossible to obey perfectly. And man, when faced with truth of their depravity and sinfulness, tend to favor ignoring Truth rather than embracing it. If I choose to listen and act then I must admit my weaknesses and my sin and I must seek forgiveness before I can act on what I see and hear in a God honoring righteous way.
I cannot DOOOO until I recognize and admit that without Christ I can DOOOOO nothing. It is the Spirit in me that allows good to come out of my life. It’s very humbling. But a true disciple of Christ doesn’t just come to church and listen to a nice message. They take the truths from the scripture and literally apply them to their life not to look holy but to glorify God with their life. Verse 25 says that the man who not only hears but also does is the one who will be blessed in what he does. This is the promise of true religion: blessing comes by way of obedience to God’s commands. What is the blessing? It’s the fruit, peace, patience gentleness, faith, joy and many other wonderful things that may seem so far off at this point in your life.
If we desire at all to persevere successfully in the faith then we need to allow the law of God to capture our lives to the point where our responses are a reflection of that law. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome I John 5:3. The grace of God in salvation does not mean we are free to live out how we want. But God’s grace is designed to bring us closer to Him and to His will for our lives. The law of God is not there to suffocate our freedom’s, the law is designed to truly liberate us from the suffocation of sin by revealing to us that we are sinner’s and that awakening in us by the Holy Spirit then leads us to salvation through faith in Christ which in turns leads to joy and freedom. The grace of God and the commandments of God are what bring freedom to us. One pastor says it this way, “The way of joy is the way of continuing in the faith. The way of continuing in the faith is the way of living in accordance with God’s will. God’s will is revealed to us in His commandments. True religion is the way of obedience.”
The acid test of true religion is to check how you are doing in relying on God to obey His commandments. Are they burdensome to you? Are you trying to fulfill them yourself by the works you do? Then you are failing the test. But if you are in right relationship with God then the natural fruit from your faith is good works and the fulfilling of God commands. Not perfect in practice but with purity in intention to see them fully completed in your life. A life of obedience to Christ is a sacrificing and humbling life. It is the life that says daily, “I cannot do this by my own strength or might or ability or talents but only by God’s grace can I be anything worthy in His sight.” How are you doing in allowing God to do a work in you to see his law lived out in your life?
The second part of this test is not only to examine yourself to see if you have a desire to glorify God by obeying his commands but has your faith in Christ brought a fresh or new desire to take care of the needy?
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:26-27 James is saying that to claim to be religious, to go around proclaiming Christ as your savior yet you cannot even do something as simple as controlling your speech is deception and is not true religion. James brings out the idea that true religion is seen in the person who takes care of the widows and the orphans. Basically the needs of the hurting in society. He does this because true religion involves the vertical relationship we have with God and the horizontal relationship we have with others. The natural fruit that comes with our vertical relationship with Christ is a desire to help with the practical needs of people. He specifically points out widows and orphans because all through the Old Testament we see references about widows and orphans being taken care of. It is something that the Jewish community would have understood. He is trying to get the point across that a religion with no heart for other people is no religion at all. The early church was made up of the poor. The religious elite persecuted the poor. James is attacking the religious elite saying that their religion is a false one because God’s Word is filled with scripture that proves that caring for the needy is a fundamental practice of the Christian faith. It is clearly commanded by God but was not being practiced by the religious elite. James is calling them out saying their religion was false.
To proclaim yourself as a believer but to not have a heart of compassion for the lost, for the hurting, for the needy in society shows that you are not only living against God’s law but that you may have never really known Christ as savior to begin with. Caring for the needy has been and must continue to be a fundamental practice of the Christian Faith. And that is the acid test of true religion. Are we allowing God to grow in us by living for him and obeying his commands and do we have a drive, a passion to take care of the needy? A British missionary said it like this, “Your theology, plain and simple, is what you do when the talking stops and the action starts.” And another says, “If they(needy) do not know us then it is likely that Jesus doesn’t know us either.” As I have already said the test is not only that horizontal relationship with mankind and helping the needy but it is also the test of our vertical relationship with Christ. A paradox of the Christian faith is learning how to help those in need yet keep us from being polluted by the world. How can we be in the world but not of the world?
That is why both vertical and horizontal relationships must work together. The result of our vertical relationship is a desire to help those in our horizontal relationship and when we stay focused in our relationship with God and work to follow his commandments each day it keeps us from falling into the trap of sin as we are trying to help others. My prayer for you today is that you will take some time to examine yourself this morning. Examine the attitude you are bringing to the table before the throne. Examine the life you are living today. Is your life one that God would look at and say awesome! “You are doing it. You are not perfect, yes you sin but you are surrendering to me each day. You have a desire to grow, you have a hunger for my commands, and you are itching to help others. You want the world to know about the saving grace of Jesus and you will proclaim that any way I want you to.”
Maybe you have backslid a little this morning. You have sinned. You have fallen into the trap of anger, you are consumed by it. You have fallen into the trap of spiritual apathy. You are feeling sorry for yourself. You are living exactly the opposite way God desires for you. I would say to you repent. Come back to God. Seek his forgiveness and begin to dive into his promises that are only found in his Word. Let the Word of God consume your life to where your natural reactions to life’s circumstances will be his commands coming out of you. Instead of anger you show peace. Instead of impatience you show gentleness. Instead of greed you show generosity, instead of jealousy you show empathy. It is not by what we do that ever sees this to completion but it is only by our total surrender to God and His grace. The path of life we walk with Christ is not one of rules and restraints. On the contrary it is the one of true freedom. I was bound to a prison of sin until Christ freed me from my chains. His grace has set me free from the guilt I carried around. The guilt that I was not good enough. The guilt that my works just weren’t cutting it. The guilt of feeling like a failure. The more I tried to be good the more I failed. But when Christ entered me I was liberated. I no longer had to do it on my own. I was free from my guilt and forgiven of my sins because of what Christ did on the cross. Now I live my life with joy knowing that each day I get to wake up and live for him by fulfilling his calling on my life of obeying his commands and helping the needy see his love through my actions. It’s awesome. It’s a life I wouldn’t trade for anything this world has to offer. I hope you feel the same way.
