Illus: An unknown person wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. The complainer said, "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall what the menu was for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be dead today."
The preaching of God’s Word is essential. Why is the preaching of God’s Word essential today? Because we live in a society where we believe that the problems we face in our lives each day can be solved by:
• Protests on the streets
• Boycotts of businesses
• Meaningless peace treaties
• Labor unions etc.
But you will notice, these are not solutions; these are only POSTPONEMENTS. Many times before the ink dries on the peace treaties or agreements that men sign, the problem is repeating itself. It is only when God’s Word is preached that mankind has instructions in how to solve their problems.
One of the great responsibilities that every minister has is to follow the instructions the apostle Paul gave to Timothy, and that was simply “PREACH THE WORD!”
But if you will remember, I told you I wanted to talk to you about the two most important responsibilities in the church.
One is the preaching of God’s Word, and the other one is equally important and that is the receiving of God’s Word.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT THAT YOU RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD?
Illus: It can be best explained by saying that you can be around nutritious food constantly and starve to death. We have to do more than EXPOSE ourselves to good nutritious food, there has to be a time that we RECEIVE IT.
When you come to church, it does you no good until you say, “God I receive your Word and I will obey it!” Verse 22 clearly states, “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
Just hearing the Word of God is not all God requires. It is one thing to HEAR THE WORD OF GOD, and it is quite another to RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD!
Illus: The late Dr. J. Vernon McGee talks about the different kinds of translations that continue to come out each year. He said what the church is in need of is a "Doer's Translation."
James makes that clear to us in chapter one, verse 21. "...RECEIVE with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."
There are two meanings for the word that is translated "RECEIVE," in our text.
(1) IT MEANS TO REACH OUT AND GRASP SOMETHING.
If I am standing before a table filled with food and I reach out and grasp something, I am RECEIVING it. But, that is NOT the way it is used in this text.
(2) IT MEANS TO WELCOME
That is, we should always be ready to RECEIVE the Word of God into our hearts and make it a part of our lives.
We can see that so clearly in verse 21 where it speaks of the "ENGRAFTED WORD."
Illus: Farmers will take two separate branches, scrape the bark off and tie them tightly together and it won't be long before the two will become one.
This is exactly what the Word of God does for Christians.
Let me show you three WAYS WE SHOULD WELCOME THE WORD OF GOD INTO OUR LIVES.
I. WELCOME THE WORD WITH REPENTANCE
One thing Christians should always keep in mind is that we CANNOT welcome the Word of God into our lives UNTIL we are willing TO LET HIM CLEAN OUR "SPIRITUAL HOUSES."
Illus: A pastor was invited to supper by one of his members. Because the family recognized he was a "man of God," the wife spent the whole day cleaning and getting things ready to RECEIVE him into their home. As she was cleaning she saw that …
• SOME THINGS in her home WERE OUT OF PLACE
• SOME THINGS should not have been there to begin with
So, before she RECEIVED HIM, she was willing to GET RID OF SOME THINGS and PUT OTHER THINGS IN THEIR PROPER PLACES.
This is how we welcome the Word of God. We recognize that if the Holy Word of God is going to ABIDE IN OUR HEARTS, we have to be willing to lay aside some things that are not pleasing to the Lord. WE ARE SHOWN THAT IN VERSE 21 IN TWO WAYS:
Look at these words in verse 21; "Wherefore lay apart ALL filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness..."
The word translated "filthiness" is the Greek word, "ruparia" which is taken from the Greek word “Rupos”. The word is sometime used to mean, "wax in the ears." Before we can receive the Word of God, we have to be willing to get all that "spiritual wax" out of our ears.
Illus: A man went to the doctor because he was having some hearing problems. The doctor began to probe into his ear with a device and soon he said, "I see the problem." He placed a towel on the man's shoulder and began to irrigate his ear. Soon some of the vilest material you could imagine began to wash out of his ear. When the doctor was finished the man was amazed at how well he could hear.
Many folks cannot RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD into their hearts because they have so much spiritual "garbage" in their lives that the Word of God cannot penetrate their hearts.
You cannot welcome the Word of God UNTIL you are willing to get your "spiritual" ears clean.
When you have “spiritual wax” in your ears and you are not willing to let the Lord remove sin in your life, the Word of God can serve no purpose in your life but to condemn you.
We have to be willing to get rid of all the filth in our lives in order to RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD.
Look at verse 21 again, especially the words; "superfluity of naughtiness..." which means, "That which remains."
This is referring to the fact that when we accepted Christ we all had things that were hung over from our past life of sin, and we need to be rid of those things. For example,
Illus: When the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead, what happened in his life is a perfect picture of us when the Lord saved us.
• His DEATH is a picture of us being dead in trespasses and sin.
• His RESURRECTION is a picture of the new life that God gives us once we come to know Christ as our Savior.
Now imagine with me, that great event. The Lord Jesus, THE WORD IN FLESH, spoke and said, "Lazarus, come forth." Suddenly he WHO HAD BEEN DEAD WAS MADE ALIVE.
• But what's this! He is still in the tomb.
• He is bound in the grave clothes that are wrapped around him. He has LIFE, but NO LIBERTY.
Jesus commanded, "Loose him, and let him go." LAZARUS WAS ALIVE AND FREE!
HE NEEDED TO BE FREED FROM THOSE GRAVE CLOTHES.
Are you one of those who have been "raised" by God spiritually, but who has not gotten rid of the "grave clothes" from before you were saved? You need to get rid of them. REPENT of your sins AND welcome the Word of God into your heart!
WE SHOULD WELCOME THE WORD WITH REPENTANCE and -
II. WELCOME THE WORD WITH READINESS
Look at verse 21 again. Look at the word, "meekness." This word means, "Ready to BE TEACHABLE."
"Meekness" means humbling yourself to be taught. Before you can be taught anything, you first have to humble yourselves and admit there are some things you do not know.
Illus: There are people that cannot be taught anything because they think they already know everything.
When a person is willing to humble himself, he becomes teachable.
Illus: We all have enjoyed watching cowboy movies. Sometimes in those movies there will be scenes where there is a wild horse. A cowboy hops on the horse and for a few minutes that horse does everything he can to eject that rider from his back. He kicks and jumps all over the corral. Finally the horse decides that all that kicking is ridiculous and he settles down and receives the rider calmly. When the horse is broken, he has been made "meek." Another way of saying it is - the horse has become TEACHABLE!
Illus: A man who had been deep in sin came to know Christ as His Savior. After he was saved he told the preacher, "I had been thinking about giving my life to Christ for some time." Once he did, immediately everyone who knew him could tell a big difference in his life. Why? He HEARD THE WORD and HE RECEIVED THE WORD and allowed the Word of God to teach him how to live his life.
We should WELCOME THE WORD WITH REPENTANCE, WITH READINESS and -
III. WELCOME THE WORD WITH RESPONSIVENESS
The Bible is different than any other book on this earth.
Illus: A math book, science book, or a history book might inform us, but the Word of God does more than just INFORM US, it places DEMANDS ON US. From cover to cover, it tells us:
• How we should talk
• How we should treat each other
• How we should dress
• What we should drink
• How we should raise our children
• How we should worship
• How we should work
The Word of God tells us everything we need to know about how to live.
James says that if we do not respond to the Word of God, we are DECEIVING OURSELVES. We are fooling ourselves. No one likes to be fooled! In fact, we get very angry when we are fooled.
Illus: Remember in 1994, a young woman in Union, S. C., claimed a man took her car and drove off with her two children. The whole city saw the tears of this mother crying for her children, and they searched everywhere for this man. Later they found out that no one had stolen her car. She had strapped her children into their car seats and had driven the car into a lake and drowned them. The whole city that had been so compassionate, and had sought to help her, were now angry with her. Why? They realized she had played them for fools.
No one wants to be made a fool of. Did you know that JESUS CALLED SOME FOOLS?
Look in Matt. 7:26, where we read, "And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand."
Illus: Every week there are people who go to a Bible-preaching church. They have heard the Word of God preached so much...
• They can quote portions of it
• They can tell others what it says about certain things
Still God says they are playing the part of a fool because they do not have any intention of ever RESPONDING TO THE WORD OF GOD THEMSELVES.
The most foolish man on earth is the man or woman who will hear what God’s Word says and then walk away from the truth of God’s Word.
Look at James 1:23. The words, "natural face." mean the face we were born with. What about it?
Illus: Suppose you woke up one morning and you had dirt all over your face and your hair is a mess. You look in the mirror and then go to work. As you go to work, you still have dirt all over your face and your hair is still a mess. But you fix the situation by PRETENDING that everything is great! After you left your house, you forgot what you saw. Did you really fix the situation? No! You just fooled yourself.
Some of you will hear God's Word and leave here thinking you have solved your problems by never confronting them with the Word of God and doing what God has commanded you to do.
Some people allow the precious Word of God to go in their ears but not into their HEARTS. James says that is the way many listen to God's Word.
His precious Word reveals a man’s awful condition, and James says he leaves and go home and, verse 24, "...forgetteth what manner of man he was."
We need to hear God's Word, and RESPOND TO IT BY OBEYING IT. Verse 25 tells us how to respond to God's Word. It says, "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."
The word "looketh," in verse 25 is in contrast to the word "beholdeth" in verse 24.
• The word "beholdeth" means: "A CASUAL GLANCE."
• The word "Looketh" means: "A CAREFUL GAZE."
Illus: This same word is used in the New Testament when that disciple came to the tomb in John 20:5, looking to see if Jesus had risen from the dead. This was not a casual glance. He was searching to see if it was true!
We have a lot of Christians who "casually glance" at God's Word every now and then.
Then there are those who "SEARCH" the scriptures. They are LOOKING into God's Word to see how they can please the Lord that day! They carefully examine the Word and apply it to their lives. They are serious about serving God, and they WELCOME THE WORD OF GOD INTO THEIR LIFE.
Look what James says about a Christian who WELCOMES THE WORD OF GOD as the Bible teaches he should.
Look at verse 25, "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."
Conclusion:
Notice in verse 25, God's Word is referred to as the "...perfect law of liberty...." When you and I live in sin we are not "free." We are in the bondage of sin.
There is no one on this earth any more in bondage than the man who is living in sin. But faith in God's Word will set a man free from that bondage.
I. WELCOME THE WORD WITH REPENTANCE
II. WELCOME THE WORD WITH READINESS
III. WELCOME THE WORD WITH RESPONSIVENESS
