NOTE:
This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.
› Engagement
Margaret Thatcher once said:
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
I think she’s only partially correct. It’s not just the fact that the Good Samaritan had money; it was he was willing to do with his money that makes him memorable.
As we continue our journey through the book of James this morning, we’re going to see that
If I want to be more like Jesus good intentions are not enough
› Tension
I’m pretty sure that most of you joining us here this morning came with good intentions. You genuinely want to worship God. You want to know what His Word says and you really do want to apply what you’ll learn here today. But the real test of whether you’ve actually worshiped today will come over the next days and weeks when you either turn those good intentions into action or you fail to do so.
› Truth
Today’s message is the third in our Faith Works series as we work our way through the book of James. So far in the first chapter we’ve looked at James’ very practical instruction regarding how to handle the trials in our lives and how to triumph over temptation. And we’ll need to remember that context as we close out that chapter this morning. Go ahead and follow along as I read beginning in verse 19:
James 1:19–27 ESV
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 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.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 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.
26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.
27 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.
Perhaps the biggest danger with this passage is that we will take all or part of it and divorce it from the surrounding context and draw some conclusions that might even be correct, but which aren’t really what James is trying to teach here.
Let me illustrate. Take a look at verse 19 again. Now if you were just to read that verse on its own, what would you say would be the main idea? It’s probably one that you’ve heard before. [Wait for answers]
That’s right, we’ve all heard the adage that we should listen twice as much as we talk because God gave us only one mouth and two ears. And that’s not necessarily bad advice and it’s a principle that we do find elsewhere in the Bible. However that is not the point James is trying to get across here.
Let’s see if we can see what he is trying to teach by taking a look at the context. I’m going to just read several verses in this chapter and see if you can identify the common theme. Let’s begin by going back to the last verse of the passage we looked at last week:
James 1:18 ESV
18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
James 1:21 ESV
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
James 1:22 ESV
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:23 ESV
23 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.
James 1:25 ESV
25 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.
What’s the common theme? That’s right, it’s the Word of God, which James also calls “the law”, which would have been a term familiar to his fellow Jewish Christians.
So as we look at this passage, we need to keep in mind that all he is writing here has to do with how we handle the Bible.
James’ entire letter follows a consistent structure in which he gives a main command and then he supports that main idea with further commands. That structure is a little more difficult to discern in our English translations than it is in the underlying Greek, but it is still possible to see.
So far in chapter 1 we’ve encountered two of those “main commands”
• “count it all joy” (verse 2). James then follows up with a number of other commands that provided us with some very practical teaching on how to do that.
• “Do not be deceived...” (verse 16). Last week we looked at the other commands in that section that we can use to make sure we aren’t deceived by temptation.
Here’s the main command in this section:
“…receive...the implanted word...” As you can see that command has some modifiers that help us to understand how to do that and we’ll look at those in a moment. But that’s the main idea in this section.
Since this is the main command, let’s dig a little deeper into the meaning of the verb translated “receive”. In the New Testament there are two main Greek verbs that are translated receive. We already saw one of those words in verse 7 when James said the double-minded man will not receive anything from God and again in verse 12 referring to receiving the crown of life. That is the Greek word lambano:
“receive” (vs. 7, 12) =
“lambano”
“to take” or “to obtain for oneself”.
But in verse 21 James use a different Greek word – dechomai
“receive” (v. 21) =
“dechomai” =
“to receive favorably” or “to welcome”
This understanding is critical to making a proper application of this passage in our lives. When James writes here of the implanted word, I have little doubt that he was thinking of Jesus’ parable of the soils where Jesus compares the Word of God to seed that has been planted in the hearts of men. In the case of James’ readers, we saw last week in verse 18, that word had already been implanted into their lives which resulted in them becoming God’s firstfruits. That is also true for all of us who have committed our lives to Jesus based on what we have learned from God’s Word. But the implanting of His Word does not automatically result in us maturing and becoming more like Jesus. We have to welcome it into our lives and then do something with that Word before it can transform our lives and bear fruit.
That is why we said earlier that...
If I want to be more like Jesus good intentions are not enough
› Application
HOW TO LET THE BIBLE TURN GOOD INTENTIONS INTO ACTION
• Be eager
This is where the command to be quick to hear comes into play. The word that is translated “hear” is a word that means more than just having something go in one ear and out the other. It means to listen for the purpose of applying what one hears.
In James’s day, people didn’t have their own copies of the Bible so they primarily learned God’s Word by listening to those who read and taught the Scriptures. Obviously today we can still take in God’s Word in that manner, but we also have the advantage of having the written Word available so that we can read and study it on our own.
The overall principle is that we need to be eager to put ourselves under the teaching of the Scriptures, whether that is on our own or done in a corporate setting. The fact is that we can’t become doers of the Word until we first know what is contained there. So the first step in welcoming God’s Word is to grasp every opportunity to read, hear and study it.
• Be humble
This principle is really the heart of this passage so I’m going to spend a little more time here.
Let’s start with the command to be “slow to speak” in verse 19. As we’ve already seen, this command is not a general command to not talk too much, but it applies to how we hand God’s Word. It seems that James is making a point that he will reinforce later when we get to chapter 3:
James 3:1 ESV
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
As a pastor who regularly teaches God’s Word, I can tell you that is a very sobering warning. I know that God is going to hold me accountable for how I handle His Word. And one of the things I try really hard not to do is to get up here and ask you to apply God’s Word in a manner that I’m not willing to do in my own life. Obviously, I often fall short of doing that perfectly in my own life, but that is certainly my heart’s desire.
James is warning here about those who would be quick to go out and speak the Word of God without first evaluating how well they are applying it in their own lives. Jesus certainly condemned the religious leaders of His day for doing exactly that:
Matthew 23:1–4 ESV
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat,
3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
Let’s deal next with the command to be “slow to anger”. Once again, we need to keep in mind that the command applies to how we handle the Word of God. The word translated “anger” here describes a deep resentment as opposed to a quick temper. James is warning here against those who would develop a deep seated resentment of the Bible because it exposes their wrong thoughts and ungodly lifestyle.
Throughout history and throughout the Bible we see that when God’s truth is proclaimed there are those who get angry and rebel against that truth. And the messengers of that truth often experience the brunt of that anger. We certainly see that in the life of Jesus where that kind of anger led to His crucifixion. And we also see it in the lives of the men who proclaimed God’s Word in both the Old and New Testaments.
Fortunately, there haven’t been a lot of them, but throughout the time I’ve been a pastor, I’ve witnessed some people who have left the church because the preaching of God’s Word got a little too personal and a little too close for comfort because of how it exposed some areas of their lives which were out of line with the clear teaching of Scripture.
As we continue on we come to our command to receive, or welcome, the implanted word. And there is an adverbial phrase attached to that command that describes how we are to do that. We are to welcome God’s Word with “meekness”.
Meekness is the opposite of the anger we just looked at in verse 19. Unfortunately in English that word often leads us to think of weakness, but genuine meekness is certainly not weakness. In fact, it actually portrays strength – but strength that is under control. It was used in Greek literature to describe a horse that someone had broken and who was trained to submit to a bridle.
When it comes to God’s Word, meekness describes someone who willingly places himself under the authority of the Scriptures and submits to the teaching he finds there. That person is willing to accept the truth of Scripture even when it condemns and hurts and then he attempts to do whatever it takes to conform his life to what he finds there.
I’m convinced that this is the point where most of us struggle most. Unfortunately, many aren’t willing to submit their lives to the Scriptures because of pride. Although we might not come right out and say it, what we are really thinking is that we know best how to live our own lives and that we really don’t need God’s help. So we tend to pick and choose which parts of the Bible we’ll obey and apply in our lives. But if we really want to welcome God’s Word in our lives we must approach the Bible with the attitude that we are willing to submit to the truth we find there regardless of how painful that might be. That’s meekness.
• Be teachable
We’ll talk more about the illustration of the man looking in the mirror in a moment. But there is one aspect that I want to focus on first. In verse 23, the man who is a hearer but not a doer is described as looking intently at his natural face in the mirror.
But in verse 25 we see the doer. He also looks at God’s Word, but the word for “looks” is not the same verb that James used in verse 23. The word in verse 25 literally means “to stoop over.” It pictures someone who takes time to examine something with care and precision. This man approaches God with a deep desire to have God’s Word reveal what he is really like so that he can do something about it.
A teachable spirit means that I approach the Bible with great humility, that I take the time and effort to look into it deeply so that it can reveal what I am really like in God’s eyes and that I am committed to doing what I find there regardless of the cost. It means that when necessary I am willing to let go of some of my preconceived ideas about what the Bible is teaching and be willing to accept new ideas that I might not have considered before. Listen, it’s obviously a good thing to hang on to our convictions, but not to the extent that we aren’t willing to change some of our beliefs when we are confronted by the truth of God’s Word which show them to be wrong.
While I have always strived to preach the Bible as accurately as I can based on my understanding after diligent study, from time to time I have looked back on some of my sermons from years ago and was surprised at what I taught back then. To my knowledge, I’ve never preached anything contrary to the truth of the gospel, but there are certainly some areas where I’ve changed some of my ideas after further study and also as I’ve listened carefully to others who might have different ideas. I think that is a healthy way to approach God’s Word.
• Be cleansed
When we have a guest coming over to our house and we want to welcome them properly into our home, what do we usually do? We clean up the house, right? If we want to welcome God’s Word into our life, we have to first clean up our spiritual house.
There are two places that address this idea in our passage. The first place is in the first part of verse 21.
James 1:21 (ESV)
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness...
The word translated ‘filthiness” is a really interesting word. It comes from a medical term that described wax in the ear, which is really apropos here since the filthiness of our sin is like spiritual ear wax that keeps us from hearing the Word of God. Once again James uses Hebrew parallelism to emphasize the seriousness of our sin when he also writes of rampant wickedness. The word translated “wickedness” describes an overall attitude of hatefulness and malice.
The second place we see this idea expressed is at the end of verse 27:
James 1:27 (ESV)
...and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
This is really the same idea that Jesus expressed when He prayed that His disciples would be “in the world but not of the world”. But because we live in a world that has been corrupted by sin, none of us can do that perfectly.
Our sin hinders our ability to hear the Word of God, so we need to use a spiritual Q-tip to remove that hindrance. And the only spiritual Q-tip that will remove that obstruction is confession and repentance. As the Bible reveals sin in my life, I confess it - that means I agree with God that it is sin and not just a mistake or a shortcoming. Then I repent - I make a U-turn and take steps so that sin won’t become a lifestyle.
• Be a doer
In the book of James, there are only two places where James writes that we are blessed. We saw the first in verse 12, where we were promised that we would be blessed if we remain steadfast under trials. The second place is in today’s passage in verse 25, where James promises that we will be blessed in our “doing”.
This is why we have said today that...
If I want to be more like Jesus good intentions are not enough
In this passage, James compares the Bible to a mirror. This morning when I got out of the shower, I looked at my face and saw the stubble and decided that I should probably shave before I came to church today. But had I failed to actually follow through and do that, looking in the mirror would have been a waste of time.
The same thing is true with God’s Word. If you do everything else we’ve talked about this morning to welcome the Bible into your life, but you don’t do anything about what it reveals about your life, then you’ve really wasted your time. You might have a little bit more knowledge, but that knowledge alone won’t make you any more like Jesus.
› Action
That is why every week, we end our messages with a call to apply what you’ve learned in some concrete way in your life. And obviously today is no different. So here’s what we’re going to do to close. I’m going to ask everyone to do three things:
• First pray, and ask God to reveal how He wants you to apply this passage in your life.
• Second, read through this passage again, maybe even a couple of times.
• Third, write down one specific action that you can take this week to apply this passage in your life.
I’ll give you some time to do that and then I’ll close with prayer.
[Prayer]
