The Righteous Life Series

The Righteous Life

James 1:19-27

To Live a Righteous Life requires that we…

Hear the Word (v.19-20)

To really hear we need to…

Keep quiet (slow to speak)

Keep cool (slow to become angry)

Accept the word (v.21)

Do the word (v. 22-25)

Doing the word is evidenced by

Shutting your mouth (v.26)

Opening your Heart (and wallet) (v. 27a)

Keeping yourself from the polluted world (v. 27b)

Immersing yourself in the pure word (v. 21)

Well, its father’s day today and I want to start out today with a reminder of how important our role as fathers is.

Father’s day video

Intro

Slide

I’ve got a question for you dads, in fact for everyone here today.

Do you want to be known as a Righteous person?

To be Righteous is to be morally upright. This is not to be self righteous, which would be to be pridefully assured of your own righteousness, but in humility, striving to live your life in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

When we are doing that, I believe that we continually recognize how we are falling short.

So, do you want to be known as a person living a righteous life?

I think we believe that may be an easy answer to give, but I think there are many people who would struggle with that because they think that

living a righteous life is not going to be enjoyable, or that

living the righteous life is living a boring life.

Well, James tells us that living the righteous life is where the blessed life is found.

And he also gives us some practical help not only in how we can live this righteous life, but he tells us a couple of things that living the righteous life will entail.

Turn with me to James 1:19-27

Slide

We are continuing our series through the book of James today as we are continually seeking to discover how we can live a real faith in real life. Today as we look at what James tells us about living a righteous life, we are going to find it has a lot to do with our relationship with the word of God.

I want to encourage you to be bringing your Bible with you as we go through James. You can make notes in it as we study it. While this is God’s word to us, we need to remember it is not a book to be worshiped, but a field manual to be lived out.

So it is important for you to have and bring your Bibles to church so you can have a better grasp of what is written there.

Ok, so read with me in James 1, beginning in verse 17 until the end of the chapter.

James 1:19-27

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, 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.

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.

26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion 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.

Pray

In these verses we find several things related to the word of God that we need to do if we are going to live a Righteous life that is pleasing to the Lord.

The first thing that James tells us is that we need to

Hear the Word

Slide

James 1:19a - My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen…

Now this section of Scripture we are studying today is all about God’s word.

And while this advice of being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry is great advice for any relationship or occasion, I believe in the context of this passage it is really speaking in the context of the word of God.