James 1:19-27 January 19, 2003
Doers of the Word
Introduction – The evangelical world of books and conferences, even long sermons
We can spend so much time reading, learning and celebrating the word that we have no time to actually apply it!
I hope that things are changing, but the debate about the inspiration and authority of the Bible was so prevalent in the last century that while I was growing us it seemed that the task of the evangelical Christian was to demand Biblical teaching, and then to listen to it.
But, we stand here today, and statistics tell us that divorce rates are just as high amongst Born-again Christians as they are among the rest of the population. Other studies show that our moral standards are not much higher than the rest of the world.
In many ways we have become hearers of the word and not doers. We are like the man who knows all the teams, all the players, all the plays and strategies, but hasn’t picked up a football in decades.
We are in danger of becoming faith spectators rather than faith filled people.
Nicky Gumbal clip from Why and How to Read the Bible Alpha video – car manual (Nicky jokes about reading, memorising, having study groups about the Nissan manual, but never driving the car.)
Be Doers of the Word
Knowing the Word is not enough
The mirror – we can look into a mirror and recognize that we have a dirty face, or that we need a hair cut, a shave, or the makeup is running, but the mirror is not much good to us if we don’t actually do something about it. People might come up to us and say, “you know that you’ve got a blotch of mud on your cheek?” And we can say, “yeah, I saw it in the mirror.” The knowledge is pretty useless unless we act on it!
The house Luke 6:46-49 (NLT)
46"So why do you call me `Lord,’ when you won’t obey me? 47I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then obeys me. 48It is like a person who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it is well built. 49But anyone who listens and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will crumble into a heap of ruins."
We often talk about developing a good theological base in our Christian lives – a foundation of belief. Don’t get me wrong, belief is very important – right belief leads to right action and wrong belief leads to wrong action. Jesus is talking about a foundation of actions – to hear and obey.
I can read every book on hockey basics, hockey rules, hockey strategy, hockey heroes and history. I can build a good base of Hockey knowledge, but if I don’t put that knowledge into practice, if I don’t actually strap on a pair of skates, when the big game comes, I’m going to get knocked on my keester!
The great commission
Matthew 28:18-20
18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Christianity was never meant to be theoretical, or a spectator sport, Jesus is constantly reminding us that it is not just right belief that saves us but right action.
Saying the sinners prayer does nothing if it doesn’t change your life.
Doing vs Being
There has been an important teaching around that reminds us that God doesn’t love us for what we do, but for who we are. It also reminds us that we need to find our self-worth/salvation in who we are, not in what you do. Through the renewal, there has been a wonderful outpouring of the Father’s love for us.
The truth is we can never do enough good to please God – his standards are very high and we could never come close to reaching them under our own steam. That is why we need Jesus – by his death on the cross, he makes up more than enough for our disobedience and inability to measure up.
The way we please God is by putting our faith and trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross. We are saved by our relationship with Jesus.
The danger is to see that we are saved by grace through faith and think that we can go on living any old way that we like. In that case why even listen to the Bible, because you are just going to do what you want!
Paul writes to the Philippians in 2:12-13
“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”
What Paul & James are saying here is, “God has saved you, now act like it!”
Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
For Example…
Control your tongue (19,20,26)
In Chapter three, James says this about the tongue:
“A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything-or destroy it!
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A care- less or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue-it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear straw- berries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?” (The Message)
The tongue can get us into all sorts of trouble, through outbursts of anger, malicious talk, gossip, braging, breaking confidence, foul language.
There are times when whatever is in our heads just escapes through our mouths –there is no filter to ask “Is what I’m about to say helpful or harmful to the situation? Does it build up or destroy? Is it arrogant, or humble? Even to ask how will this be received by those listening to a good habit.
James deals particularly with anger in verse 20. And there are times that we might think that the only way to get things done is to get mad and let someone have it. If we tear a strip off them, that should knock them into shape, but James says that our anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. It may fix the problem in our eyes, but it won’t in God’s eyes.
You can also translate the word righteousness as justice. There are some of us who are concerned with social justice who may think that our anger can be a great tool to bring about the change that is needed, but verse 20 tells us that our anger does not bring about God’s justice!
James says in 3:18 “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.”
One of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control – especially of the tongue. If you have trouble controlling your tongue, you may think about taking up the spiritual discipline of silence – of spending days without communicating with your mouth – it may serve to give you that holy control. – Don Fitchet’s experience at L’bri
Care for widows & Orphans (27a)
27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
I cannot stress how strongly the Bible says this – to be a servant of God is to be a servant of the poor. James says that this is the kind of religion that God accepts, In Matthew 25:35 Jesus makes feeding the hungry giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned as a requirement to entering heaven!
This is how John says it in his letter 1John 3:16-18
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Tomorrow is Rev. Martin Luther King jr. Day in USA. This is what he said on the subject.
"A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man’s social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal.
It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself. This means, at bottom, that the Christian gospel is a two-way road. On the one hand, it seeks to change the souls of men and thereby unite them with God; on the other hand, it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so that the soul will have a chance after it is changed. Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion. Such a religion is the kind the Marxists like to see - an opiate of the people."
- Martin Luther King, jr.
Widows and orphans
When James wrote this the economic structure was extremely male oriented, so that if a woman’s husband died, she was often left destitute, with very little ability to care for herself. Orphans we in similar situations.
Today in Canada, Women often experience poverty not just at the death of her husband, but at the leaving of her mate. Often times the picture of poverty that comes to our minds is the single homeless male on the street. The reality is that the true picture of poverty is the woman who has to choose between paying the rent or feeding the kids.
Ways to “visit the widows and orphans”
Get involved with agencies in Toronto – Yonge Street Mission – Janice Paquette actually works with elderly people, many of whom are widows, many abandoned by their families and society.
The Sharing Place – local food bank – need food, volunteers & members for the board.
Parkdale Neighbourhood Church – Street Church in Parkdale
Away from T.O.
Chicago Trip
Day Care in Kosovo
Gustaffsons
World Vision
Help the people you know who are in need.
Be Pure (21, 27b)
21Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
I remember reading a book by Viv Grigg about his work among the shanty town dwellers around Manila, Philippines. He made the observation that many people who worked among the poor, while they called themselves Christian, their personal morality was terrible. They used profanity, were sexually loose and cared little for morality. We can get this way when we put to strong of an emphasis on any one area of God’s command.
We can be appalled by the sexual content on the media, but not give a second thought to how the working poor cannot afford to be properly represented if they go to court. – but injustice in the courts is an affront to God in the scripture. On the other hand we can be appalled that millions die in Africa of starvation and diseases that we can easily afford to treat, but not give a second thought about the language that comes out of our mouth.
In the Bible, the English words righteousness and justice are not two different words – they are the same word.
The God of righteousness is also the God of Justice. The God of compassion for the poor is also the God of passion for purity.
This is what Peter says to us:
1 Peter 4
1Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. 5But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
Conclusion:
The Bible is probably the most bought, and least read book in the world. And the reality is most of us do not obey half of what we know from the scripture.
Karl Wallinger sang this great line in the ’80s it was a take off on Jesus prayer from the cross: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," except he sang “Father forgive them for they do not what they know.”
- from “Hawaiian Island World” by World Party on “Private Revolution”
We need to do what we know.
I often get ask by people looking for a church, “Are you a Bible-believing Church?
I would like to answer, “Yes, and we are trying to be a “Bible–doing” church!”
Read the scriptures, listen to preachers, read books, listen to tapes, but do not just fill your head with knowledge – put it into practice!
