James 1:19-27 Preparation and Application
Read verses 19-21
Looking
at v19 we see these 3 commands that are easy to recognize
A) Swift to hear / Slow to
speak / Slow to wrath
B) I think we could take
those commands and apply them to the relationships in our lives –
1) This is good advice
C) You want to communicate
more effectively w/ someone close to you – spouse
1) Boy../ / girlfriend /
close friend – pp work with
D) Good advice here: Listen
more/ talk less / don’t get mad!
Better
relationship with your wife: LM / TL/ DGM
Do you want your kids to
confide in you: LM/TL/D
Coworkers to like
you more than they do …..
Customers to like you
More friends here at Church.
Good advice, good common
sense.
But
we need to see these commands in their context!
A) Therefore Looking back
v.18 Phrase the word of truth
B)
Recap – don’t give into temptation – reasons
1) Look ahead, see
consequences to sin
2) Look around and see the
goodness of God
3) Look within – See born again by the word of truth
C) Then in V.21 Implanted
word and V.22 Doers of the word
Theme
in this section is THE WORD – GOD’S WORD – What it means to have a receptive
heart
A) So we need to understand
that these three commands have something to do with the Word
B) In Luke 8 Jesus gives a
parable about God’s word
1) Describes it has seed –
sower –going out to spread
The Primary def – Seed is
the gospel
C) 4 Soils = 4 hearts – Hard
soil = hard heart – not receptive – no penetration – birds come snatch seed
1) Stony soil - the shallow heart, which was
very emotional but had no depth, and bore no fruit;
D) Thorny soil = the crowded heart, the
distracted heart
Cares
of this world, longing for riches - crowd out the Word;
E) Soft soil = fruitful heart, which
received the Word, allowed it to take root, and produced a harvest of fruit.
He
ended the parable in Luke’s gospel – with this exhortation – Take heed HOW YOU HEAR!
Primary
application – Gospel and 4 different hearts
A) But a secondary
application: The seed is the word in General – Soil is 4 places in our hearts
B) See, we can have areas of
our heart – hard to certain things in the word
1) Some women – topic of
submission: Talbot
….. I would drink it.
C) Some titheing: Tune out –
only want my money
D) Forgiveness: Holding a
grudge
Area
of hearts: No depth-
A) Hear a message on
something – moves us emotionally – far as it goes –
B) Distracted
areas of our hearts- Hear the word
1) Stirred – Prayer life /
Service
C) We intend to pray more /
get more involved in service –
1) Distracted by life:
several months go by, those things never become a reality
D) Soft heart: God’s love /
forgiveness / the cross
E) James is sharing here –
some practical insight on how to have the right soil – thru & thru
1) AUTHENTIC
CHRISTIANITY! – Starts with how you hear- But also involves what you do!
How
to hear!
A) To be SWIFT to hear God’s
word implies an attitude of eagerness to take in the word
B)
David described this eagerness as Psalm
42:1-2
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Psalm
119:131 “I opened my mouth wide and panted, for I
longed for Your commandments.”
David
said regarding God’s commandments, “They are
more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than
honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” Psalm 19:10
C)
Peter used similar picture: “Like newborn babies,
long for the pure milk of the word.”
1)
Nursing baby – more than anything else – Looking to be fed.
D) Each
picture describes an eagerness – read and hear the word.
1) That describe your
attitude- Devos – or how about coming to Church
CHS Analogy – reading of a
will – wealthy relative
What
would be your attentiveness knowing he was going to leave you something – My
name – quiet
That
is the kind of heart the Lord wants us to have toward His word- But we don’t
always have that heart –
A) Instead of being swift to
hear – OPPOSITE – slow to hear – Why is that ?
A)Today one of the major
reasons is that we are so busy.
B)
The devotional prayer of the modern man is, “Lord, speak to me! You have sixty
seconds.”
C)
There is no place in the busy schedules to hear God say, “Be still, and know
that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Often
times our problem is, we are distracted
A) We come into the
Sanctuary and we are in our own little world – Distracted –problems / concerns
B) There is a battle: Satan
our enemy
1) Satan loves to see
families fighting – He wants to fuel the fire on Sundays - so we are not ready to receive the word
C) Family conflict –
fighting on the way to Church– get into the parking lot – PTL –
D) Result: You get here not
fully engaged even now not tracking with me – mind is somewhere else – Slow to
hear
E) Wonder why our experience
with the Lord is lacking
First
thing James wants us to grab a hold of is attitude of our hearts – swift
eagerness
A) Heart preparation is
important – awake – alert
B) Church: On time! - Recent vacation – visited a Church – I
thought I knew where it was
1) Map quest – lost, not
enough time –
C) Missed ˝ worship/ Denise
hates to be late – frustrated – I was bummed –
D) I thought – there is a
lot of pp in our Church this is their normal experience
1st
Swift to hear – 2nd Slow to speak
A)
James, following the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, says, “Slow down! Hold
your tongue!”
B)
Proverbs 17:28 says, “Even a fool, when he keeps
silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.”
Someone
long ago pointed out that “We have two ears and one
mouth, therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak.”
The
rabbis put it even better: “Men have two ears but one tongue, that they should
hear more than they speak. The ears are always open, ever ready to receive
instruction; but the tongue is surrounded with a double row of teeth to hedge
it in, and keep it within proper bounds.”
TV interviewer, Larry King, observed, “I
never learned anything while I was talking”
Our
natural tendency in respect to God’s Word is to be slow to hear and quick to
speak.
A) James day: Home churches
– less formal – more of a discussion – like home groups
B) Problem: Instead of
listening – we are thinking about what we want to say.
C) A receptive heart
controls the tongue
1)
You won’t hear from God if you’re doing all the talking!.
D) Also Not allowing our
opinions to take precedence over the word
I
think, I feel, instead of : The Bible says
E)
But in the words that Eli taught young Samuel, we all must learn to say,
“Speak, Lord for Your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:9).
3. The receptive heart controls the
emotions: “Be slow to anger.”
A) How do you respond when
the Bible steps on your toes?
B)
Maybe you’re reading it, or hearing it preached. It says something that you
don’t like, because it confronts the way you think or live.
C) Do you get angry and
defensive, thinking, “What right does
that preacher have to say that?
1)
How dare he tell me how to live!”
“An angry spirit is never a listening,
teachable spirit”
James
(1:20) gives the reason that we should be slow to anger, “for the anger of man
does not achieve the righteousness of God.”
D)
If you want to grow in righteousness, stop fighting God’s word and submit to it.
V.21 The receptive heart clears the crud
of sin: “Putting aside all filthiness.”
A)
Picture what James says in v.21 as spiritual weed and feed
B) Laying aside is the
weeding part
– dealing with those things in our lives that distance us from God
C)
We need to recognize our sin – Confess it and turn away from it That
is the weeding part
But
then he says and receive with meekness the …..
A) That is the feeding part
–
B) Meekness = Humility – God
I need to hear from you.
C) What if you do one
without the other?
1) Some pp want to weed
w/out feeding – Trying to deal with the sin in their lives but not feeding on
the word
D) That is a formula for
failure – the weeds are just going to come back if something else is not
planted
Feeding
is essential for transformation –
Romans
12:2 Mind renewed -= transformation
A) Not feeding – no
transformation
B) Weeds are popping up as
fast as we can pull them – We get frustrated and tired exhausted and there is
no fruit
C) But when we are trying to
feed without weeding – 1) Like the parable of the seed among the thorns – Seed gets Choked out
D) Both are necessary for
proper growth
E )Right soil in your heart:
Swift to hear……
Receive with meekness the
implanted word
Now
the next thing that James tells us is that Authentic Christianity isn’t just
about Heart preparation and Attitude
But it is also about LIFE
APPLICATION:
Read Verses 22-25
1988 add campaign for Nike –
challenged consumers to take Charge of their Physical fitness
James is emploring – Take
Charge of your Spiritual fitness
James
says: It is not enough to hear the Word; we must do it
A)
To merely
study the word just to fill your head with knowledge, without applying the
word, short-circuits God’s purpose in giving it.
B)
Many people have the mistaken idea that hearing a good sermon or Bible study is
what makes them grow and get God's blessing.
1)
Idea that learning = Growing.
“Too many Christians mark
their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them!”
C) James says: The word is meant to be lived out –
1) He gives an interesting
illustration of what it looks like when that is not happening
James
uses the illustration of a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror,
rushes out the door, and forgets what he saw.
A) Mirror today: Help –
Shave – Extreme makeover
B) James describes a guy or
gal –who gets up looks in the mirror – need to shave / wash face – crustys
1) Trim nose and ear hair –
make up –
C) Change
my clothes get out of my PJ’s –
1) Leaves the house without
doing any of that
D) Looks like a wreck –
ventures out
E) The mirror showed him
what needed to be taken care of – but He didn’t do it
1) Goes out, oblivious to
what he looks like
The
word of God is like a mirror that reveals to us the very thoughts and
intentions of our hearts (Heb. 4:12).
A) Shows what we look like
in comparison to Jesus
B) Exposes our selfishness / pride/. It
confronts our contempt for others and our lack of compassion.
C) Reveals greed / bitterness / lust –
1) Not a pretty Picture:
Indian
Chief’s wife – mirror – broke it, made me look so ugly
But, if we just take a quick
glance at the word once in a rare while and rush out the door, without doing
anything to address the problems that it reveals,
it won’t do us any good.
Now
when James says that the man forgets what he looks like -
A)
I think that James is not describing a man with a poor memory, but rather a man
with poor priorities.
B)
He doesn’t remember what he saw in the mirror because he doesn’t regard it as
very important.
C) The things of God – the
heart of God are not His first priority.
1)
Work – money to make / Hobbies – things to play
People
– to see
D)
He forgets what God’s word says about his sins because, really, it just isn’t
all that important compared to these other priorities in his life.
Most
parents have experienced this with their children. You ask them to clean their
room.
A) You come back in an hour,
and they’re playing, but their room hasn’t been touched.
B) You say, “I told you to clean your room,” and they reply, “I
forgot!”- Right!
1)
Didn’t really forget – just wasn’t a priority – until you threaten with a
punishment
It
starts with Priority – He looks
A) Rather than a quick
glance, the doer of the word looks intently at it.
B) The Greek word means to
stoop and look carefully at some-thing.
1)
It was used of John and Mary stooping to look carefully into the empty tomb after
the resurrection (John 20:5, 11).
C)
This was not a casual, quick look! They peered in there carefully, trying to
see if he body of Jesus was inside.
Learn to pray it in –
Response times - here – Sunday nights
D) Go away with one thing –
Action item -
Oswald Chambers "One step forward in obedience is worth years of study
about it."
The perfect law
of liberty:
This is a wonderful way to describe the word of God. In the New Covenant, God
reveals to us a law,
but it is a law
of liberty, written on our transformed hearts by the Spirit of God.
God’s
word doesn’t constrict – it liberates
James
concludes Ch.1 With 2 summary statements
V.19
Swift to hear /slow to speak / slow to wrath
26 If anyone
among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives
his own heart, this one's religion is useless.
Right heart = good fruit –
Bridle = self control
Your walk with God is useless
if it does not translate into the way you live and the way you treat others.
Many are deceived in their own heart regarding the reality of their walk with
God.
A
real walk with God shows itself in simple, practical ways. It helps the needy,
and keeps itself unstained by the world’s corruption.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is
this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself
unspotted from the world.
James gives two practical
examples of a person who applies God’s word.
He is not being
comprehensive, but is zeroing in on
two areas of pastoral
concern.
Two problem areas during the
time of the early Church – Widows and orphans!
Important today as well –
better systems – Life insurance – adoption – orphanages
Idea is – Serving – giving –
helping the needy