The Action of the Word

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning, Father. Listen. All right. Sounds like you guys have a big week ahead of you, and that is exciting. VBS is coming up, and I know you guys are looking forward to that, looking forward to all of the kids that you're going to have here. Our church, Huland Street, had our VBS last week, and that was a lot of fun. My wife and I volunteered and were able to help out. We did have an instance though where the last night of VBS, the air conditioning, in fact, the entire power at the whole church went out that evening. And so we were kind of scrambling. We were worried and wondering, what are we gonna do? Are we gonna cancel VBS on the last night? But God was faithful. We had generators and we were able to at least have the lights on and some industrial fans. So no air conditioning, but the kids came and they loved it. And I just wanna encourage you with that as well

that no matter what happens, again, all of the work that you're putting in on the back end, stuff that the kids will probably never realize how many hours went into just being able to produce and have this event. You know, they're not going to recognize or maybe be as thankful or that kind of thing, but they are going to appreciate it. And like Drew said, they are going to be introduced to Jesus during this time. You know, I've been a youth minister before and for a number of years and just growing up and seeing teenagers whose lives were impacted as children at VBS. And not only that, but the excitement of these teenagers to serve, just like you guys have teenagers and youth in your congregation that love to serve at VBS. So take this opportunity, use it to, again, to display the gospel to kids and to people, families that are coming into a church that might not

be here on a Sunday morning, but who want and who need to be introduced to Jesus. You guys have that opportunity this week, and that's an amazing thing. So I'm looking forward to it. I know my wife and I will be praying for you guys this week and praying at least at the power stays on the entire time. So today we are going to be in James chapter one. We're going, the message title is the action of the word. We're following the focus this summer on the word of God. In the first week, Drew preached on Jesus as the person of the word. He left you with the application of let Jesus get your attention, find Jesus in every aspect of the Bible and ask Jesus to give you more blazing eternal life, right? And then last week we talked about the power of the word, kind of an obvious message where the word has power and because it has power, it influences and changes us

as we interact with it. But I think what I did was a disservice to you guys last week because in my application, I said that we need to read the word, We need to hear the word and we need to study the word. But we're taking that one step further today. It's almost like I left you at the edge of your seats last week, I brought you to the top of the mountain and just kind of waved goodbye. Because there's one more step that we need to take, one more thing, one more responsibility that we have to have as we interact with God's word. And that's to do it. And that's what we're going to see in James chapter one today is that we do the word of God. Allow me to illustrate with this story. You see, when I was a youth minister, I worked at an Indonesian church, and it was a great opportunity because we met on Saturday evenings. I was the youth pastor at this Indonesian church

where the children or the teenagers were English speaking and their parents had come from Indonesia. So they spoke Indonesian and maybe not so much with English. And so for me to come in as, again, an American, a seminary student to teach them, they appreciated having that aspect of it. But the services were kind of blended. We would sing half the songs in Indonesian, half the songs in English. The pastor sometimes would preach in Indonesian. And so that was an experience for me, was just being introduced to the Indonesian language, which is actually written using the English alphabet because of British and that kind of colonialism. So you could phonetically read it by looking at the words, but again, it's just like any other foreign language, words all have different meanings. So I say all of that to say that our pastor, and my boss, Pastor Ronnie, was a jolly fellow.

He could surprise you sometimes and just put you in awkward situations, kind of make you be on your toes. So one day, he comes to me after the end of service on a Saturday evening and he says, Brother, I want you to learn Indonesian. If you're going to be the youth minister at this church, I think it's important that you show an appreciation for the culture and language of our church. And I said, Pastor Ronnie, I agree. I think you're right. I think it would be important for me to learn Indonesian. And so he set before me a test and he said, this time next week, I want you to know the days of the week in Indonesian. And I said, okay, that's fair. Seven words, I think I can do that. And I left that Saturday evening, and like 20 minutes later, I completely forgot that I was supposed to be learning the days of the week in Indonesian. Until the next Saturday afternoon,

I parked about an hour before service I get there, and I remember Pastor Ronnie parked with his van, and I thought to myself, oh shoot, I was supposed to have learned the days of the week in Indonesian. And so I quickly turned on my phone, I looked at Google, and I really quickly memorized all seven words. And then I ran up to Pastor Ronnie. I was about five minutes behind him as he entered the church and I said, Pastor Ronnie, I did it. I memorized the days of the week in Indonesian and I quickly kind of spouted him off, right? And then like 20 seconds later, I forgot. So it's like you memorize for a test and then you quickly share the answer and then it's like, okay, check, done. Don't have to worry about it. Until a little bit later, that service, as Pastor Ronnie gets up, much like Drew does, he got up and he does the announcements and I'm sitting there and we're waiting to be dismissed as a youth group to go back

and to have our teaching time and Pastor Ronnie says, brethren I want to share with you some good news. Our youth minister, Steve Herring, is learning Indonesian and this week he has learned the days of the week in Indonesian and And I knew what was coming. He said, brother, come on up here. I had no, I mean, Sabat was Saturday, and that was like the only thing I knew. He had me come up and he said, now I want you to tell everybody, much like this situation right here where I am standing in front of you and everybody else knows the days of the week in Indonesian, but I did not. And so in a moment of brilliance, I said, all right, everybody, let's say them together. And fortunately, my youth group, I think they knew exactly what was going on. They were probably louder than everybody else. They definitely drowned me out because I was saying them like one second after everybody

else did. And so I was able to get through that. But I share that story with you to illustrate the example of there's a difference right between knowing something and being able to act on that knowledge and doing it. And that's what we're gonna see today in James chapter 1. I mean, you and I can say that we know the Scriptures, that we love the Scriptures, that we hear the Scriptures, and we've studied them. But if it doesn't influence our action, if it doesn't change the way that we live our lives, then we're deceiving ourselves. That's what James says. So today we're turning to James chapter 1. We're gonna be starting in verse 19. But before we do, let me just let me step back and And just think about James for a second, right? James was the younger brother of Jesus. My wife and I were talking about this passage this week and Christi asked me, what do you think it would be like

to grow up in that household with Jesus as your older brother, right? Like Mary comes and says, now James, Jesus has washed the dishes. He's made his bed. He's vacuumed the house and he's dusted. Can you please at least pick up your room? Or, you know, again, just Jesus was never somebody that James could blame, like when he was in trouble. Like Jesus would have never broken the lamp. He would have never, you know, left the door unlocked or done anything wrong. And so I can't imagine what it was like for James growing up with literally the perfect older brother. But what do we see in James chapter one? How does he introduce himself? He says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He recognized that his brother was the Lord of all creation. And I think we see what's beautiful about the Book of James, and we know from the life of James as he goes on

and he leads the church in Jerusalem, he has a prominent role in the Book of Acts helping the early church get off the ground. James really did internalize the teachings of Jesus and probably no more so than in the Sermon on the Mount. We're gonna see a couple of references and illustrations. I don't have time to go through them all today, but the book of James has about 15 allusions to the Sermon on the Mount, which I just think is great. This sermon that Jesus preached, obviously his most well-known message, James takes that and over and over and over again, continues to reference it in this letter that we're going to read. And we will look at one of the most important references by the end of this message. But the other thing that James does, and James, the epistle of James is known for, It's called the Proverbs of the New Testament. It's full of wisdom, full of practical application,

and just small terse statements that communicate a lot of truth. And we're gonna see that today because I think the verse that we look at might be one of, if not the most important verse in the entire epistle of James. But before we get there, let's start in verse 19. We read, this you know my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Quick, slow, slow, kind of sounds like a dance step, right? It sounds like it'd be lifted from the book of Proverbs. What is James saying? He's giving practical advice to Christians to this congregation on how to live their life. He's saying you must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. It's almost like there's a progression there. Like one logically follows the other. Like pearls of wisdom that are strung together and fit interconnectedly. Quick to hear. And we know, we've heard it before, right?

We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. But also, I mean, one thing that I kinda realized this week going through some commentaries and stuff is that one scholar had the imagery of, think about where our ears are, right? They're like prominently displayed, especially like mine. you know, satellite dishes on the side of your face, okay, they're not covered at all. But where's your tongue? Your tongue is like hemmed in, there's like a double gate between the lips and the teeth, and the tongue's like behind that, right? I wonder if God created us, you know, this image to show that, hey, we should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and then that leads to us being slow to becoming angry. Because sometimes, and I think we've all done it before, right, where we've said something that we wish we could immediately take back, man, if I had just waited five more seconds and thought about that, then I wouldn't have said it.

How many times? And that's what James is telling us here. Then slow to anger, because the next verse says, For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. There's a disconnect. The anger of man does not equal the righteousness of God. And I think sometimes we like to talk, we like to hear ourselves talk or think that we're saying the right thing in order to bring about the righteousness of God, when in reality, we're really just kind of building ourselves up, right? We're saying something in such a way that we think we're right. We think that what we say, we're dispensing truth. We're communicating God's wrath or truth onto somebody else. And in reality, that's not the righteousness of God. We need to be quick to hear that person, and slow to speak to them, quick to hear where they're coming from, to be others centered instead of self-centered.

And I think being others centered leads to having a righteousness of God. If you look back at the Gospels, and Jesus' teachings, one of the things that I love about what Jesus did is that he was always asking questions. Think about that in the Gospels. Jesus was God, right? He kinda knew everything. But he was always asking people, like, what do you think the greatest commandment is? What do you think about this verse or this saying in the Old Testament? Jesus was always asking questions because he was listening to people and then he would speak, then he would speak into their lives. Kind of a cool example. And so then we get to the next verse in verse again, 20 and 21. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness and humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. So when you kind of get out of your own way, right?

When you remove the anger of man and you put aside the filthiness and the remains of wickedness, it's humility. So when you, the gardening image that exists here, it's almost like you till the field, you clean it out of the impurities. And what's left is a fertile soil. Kind of hearkening back, right, to the parable of the soils in Matthew 13. James is referencing that perhaps. fertile soil, the word is received and it's implanted. And that word, James tells us, has power, power to save our souls. And what I love about this is the responsibility that we have, it isn't as, it's not as large as maybe we would perhaps think at first. What do we have to do in response to the free gift of God? We receive it, right? We don't have to, you know, in our own effort, kind of build up some kind of like resume that would make God worthy of accepting us. No, it's just we receive what God is already ready

to freely give and dispense to us. We freely receive the word of God because the word of God in and of itself, just like we talked last week, it has power. When it is received in humility, it doesn't leave us the same. It doesn't, you know, not affect us. The word of God changes us. And so James makes this point, but then in verse 22, he goes one step further. He says in verse 22, and I love the language here, he says, but prove, but prove yourselves, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who so deceive themselves. So that's what we wanna talk about today. That's what we want to focus on. What does it mean to be a doer of the word? Because this is very important. This is almost like the entire crux of the epistle of James. If we don't get this first right, then everything that follows just has a potential to not impact us, to not have power in our lives.

But prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. So James is saying that the word going to be freely implanted in you, it's going to have an effect. You just have to allow it to have that effect. Because I think that, you know, some of us think, hey, we're here on Sunday morning, right? We're better than those guys or the ones that are sleeping in, right? We check the box. We made it to church on time. We're here. We are hearing the word. But our job's not done yet. The responsibility is not over once we walk out those doors because then you're just a hearer of the word. So what does it mean to take it one step further to be a doer? One commentary quote I read this week said, you know, if we heard a sermon every single day preached by an angel from heaven, that would not be enough to get us into heaven. We can't merely hear the word. We have to respond. We have to do something with it.

And now, before we get into this idea of, you know, works and the action that is required from responding to the Word, I just want to step back and kind of contextualize this a little bit because we're not talking about works leading to salvation. We're talking about you, Christian, having been saved by the grace that God freely gives us. This is now the responsibility that we have in response to the gospel and us living out our faith. What do I mean? Well, see, Martin Luther has a, how should you say, the doctrine of saved by faith alone, right? The doctrine of the Reformation, that we are saved by faith alone. And Martin Luther got really upset with people who would kind of misquote James to him. And so he called James an epistle full of straw. Remember, I quoted Martin Luther last week about him spending three hours in Scripture instead of two hours when he had busy days.

But Martin Luther, and again, that quote taken out of context, he called it an epistle of straw not because he didn't think that the book of James had value, but because people were taking it out of context. And they were turning to James chapter two verse 24, where it said, you are not saved by faith alone. Faith alone doesn't save us. And so that kind of contradicted Martin Luther who said, we are justified by faith alone. People would turn to Paul in chapter 3 where Paul says, you're justified by faith alone. But that seems to contradict what James says, right? And in fact, it goes one step further. We read that both James and Paul, Paul in Romans 3 and 4, James in chapter 2, they quote the same verse. They quote Genesis chapter 15.6, where it says, Abraham was justified by faith and it was credited to him as righteousness. So what do we do with this apparent contradiction?

I bring it up not because it's specifically within our chapter, but because I think it informs the way in which we have to understand justification by faith. Because James and Paul are not contradicting each other. There is no contradiction in Scripture. In fact, they're dealing with two sides of the same argument. So one image I like to see or like to just paint for you is to imagine James and Paul standing back to back. two sides of the same coin. And Paul is looking at people before salvation who have not been justified by faith. And he's saying, in order to be saved, you have to believe in Jesus Christ in the completed work on the cross. He's talking to people who aren't Christians yet. James though, is standing on the other side of salvation. And he's looking at people who are Christians and he's saying, you say that you have faith. Show me by your works, the actions that come after

salvation. And not only are they both referencing Genesis 15:6, but when Paul does it, he's talking about Abraham believing God's promise in his life, that he would have a son, that he would be the father of many nations. What James is doing when he's referencing Genesis 15:6 is he's saying Abraham believed God because he took his son Isaac, he obeyed God when God said, I need you, I want you to sacrifice your son. He was showing, he was demonstrating his faith. It was put into action by taking Isaac to the mountain. He was believing, you know, what God was telling him to do. Could you imagine if Abraham had said, I think I'll just go down to Egypt instead. Or, you know, Isaac and I are pretty good. I think we're just going to vacation here by these palm trees, right? Like if he had disobeyed God, if his action didn't line up with his belief, then you would say, well, there is no belief.

And that's what James says when he says, faith without works is dead. He's talking about works on the other side of salvation, about actions that demonstrate and display an active and living and vibrant faith. You see, Paul is talking about the roots of justification. James is talking about the fruits of justification. And so again, I want to clarify that we're not talking about workspace salvation. You are not saved by anything you do other than believing in the completed work of Jesus on the cross and in his resurrection in the gospel. That message doesn't change and we're not adding anything to it. But what does that belief look like? It's accompanied by action. That's what James tells us. So we have the reference there in James again, chapter two talking about Abraham and how he's talking about Abraham's actions after believing in God, after quote-unquote becoming saved and just living out what that

promise looked like in his life. But James also offers us another example, and this is a beautiful picture, probably the closest to a parable that we get in the Epistles. James gives us his own example of what does it look like to be a doer of the word. In verse 23 he says, but if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Now the original language here communicates that this isn't just like a passing glance. This is someone who stares intently at his face. Okay, so have that image in mind because in verse 24 then James goes on to write, but once he has looked at himself and gone away he has immediately forgotten what kind of person that he was. Kind of a funny little story that James includes as an example to illustrate his point here. I mean, who does that, right? If you look at your face in a mirror, and then if you were shown a line-up of like five people,

I think every single one of us would be able to point and say, yeah, that's my face, right? I just saw it. That's what I look like. I know this. Okay? So what is James really trying to say here? Because not only that, but it's somebody who stares intently at a mirror. It's almost like a ridiculous example that somebody who would look at their face in a mirror and then immediately forget what they look like. What James is talking about here is not just somebody who forgets, but somebody who doesn't take action on what they see. It's not so much someone who is forgetting what they look like, but someone who is neglecting what they look like. Imagine you look at your face in the mirror and you have some chocolate pudding there on your cheek. Then you think, well, I need to wash this off. You turn on the water, and as soon as the water hits your hands, you immediately forget

at why you turned on the water, and you don't wash the chocolate pudding off of your face. You are a here, but not a doer. And I don't know if you guys have ever done this, but I am the world's worst at remembering to lock doors. Okay, so there have been times where Christie and I have left the house, drove down the street and ask ourselves, did we lock the door? And we turn around and go back. And it's so bad, I do this at work a lot, where I have to lock the office warehouse when I leave. I have the key in my hand, I put it in, I click, and then by the time I get back to the car, I'm like, did I lock the door? And I'll go back to the door and just pull it just to remember that yes, I locked it. Now I tell you, every single time I've ever done that, I have never forgotten to lock the door. But every single time I get into the car, I always have to ask myself, did I lock the door?

And so I think that that kind of illustrates, again, what James is talking about in this verse. Are there situations in our lives in which we hear the word but yet we turn around and we immediately do the opposite. We immediately say something that doesn't line up with what we believe, right? Or we live our life, we act in such a way that doesn't line up with the truth that is revealed to us in scripture. And I think, yeah, we're all kinda guilty of that. It's neglect versus forgetfulness. He's not talking about, again, just not remembering, but not allowing that memory to lead us to action. I mean, you think about it in the Old Testament. Why is Israel always setting up stones and remembering and keeping days and having all of these laws? Is it because, like, they were, you know, the world's most forgetful people? No, it's because they were quick. Just like all of us as humans, we're quick to forget, to, we neglect the truths that

that should be implanted in our heart, that should change the way in which we live our lives and inform our actions. Why do we celebrate the Lord's Supper? Is it because we forget what bread and juice tastes like? No, it's because we remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Jesus wants us to remember so that we don't neglect. And what does James say then in verse 25? He says, but the one who looks intently at the perfect law. Because again, I don't want to separate hearing and doing as if these two things are opposed to each other or that hearing isn't important. James goes on and he makes sure to emphasize in verse 25 that it is very important that we hear the law. Not only that we hear it, but in verse 25 he says, but the one who looks intently, okay? So that we study it, that verbiage there, it's the same verbiage that 1 Peter, chapter five, believe uses the angels want to to look intently into matters of salvation that

for humanity or in in John chapter 21 when Mary and John go into the tomb they look intently into the tomb it's like they study the tomb to see that Jesus wasn't there so it's not a passing glance we don't take you know just a minute to read a couple of verses in Scripture it's a an intense looking at the perfect law, the law of liberty, that's the word of God. I love how James describes it here, the perfect law of liberty, it's a law that gives freedom and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. I use the illustration, have any of you ever made chocolate milk at home? Right, if you've had kids, of course you have. you have. You get the big thing of Hershey's syrup and you have a glass of milk and what do you do? You pour the syrup in the milk and if you really want it to make, you know, chocolate milk, you pour

a lot of syrup in and for the same thing for us as Christians to pour the syrup in, it's like if we're that glass of milk, we can keep pouring and pouring in, you know, the word of God. We can listen to it, we can hear it, we can study it, but in order to turn that syrup and milk into chocolate milk, you have to stir it up, right? Otherwise it just sits at the bottom and it's not chocolate milk, it's milk with syrup at the bottom. You have to stir it up. In the same way, the illustration is that we have to put God's word into practice. Me, you know, giving a message, Drew preaching on Sunday morning, that doesn't end the responsibility that you have as Christians. When you walk out that door, you can't think, I have checked all of the boxes. I've done everything that I needed to do today to accomplish my task or my job as a Christian. No, in fact, your responsibility

is just starting because our task is to really just hold up a mirror and to say, this is God's word and then allow it to have its power over you and over your lives. You see, if you were to say that, you know, I'm a master carpenter, but you have never touched a block of wood in your life. It doesn't matter how many times and how loud you shout that you're a master carpenter. If you can't put that verbiage, that statement into practice, nobody's going to believe you. Nobody's going to take seriously what you're saying. If you say, I'm a loving father or I am a faithful wife, and yet your actions don't line up with your words, it It doesn't matter what you've said, right? That our lives, our actions, the things that we do inform and communicate what we believe.

Our lives are defined by the actions that we take. It's how we prove to an unbelieving world what we believe. It's how we show them what we know to be true internally. Our faith must inform and affect every aspect of our Christian lives. Otherwise, we're just ineffectual hearers. We don't wanna be like that. We wanna be faithful doers who God blesses. We are blessed by our actions, by the way in which we live our lives. Not only a blessing to us, but a blessing to others. God wants us to do that, to again, be effectual doers, to live our lives with action, to show an unbelieving world. Not, again, not what we separate ourselves from. I think so many times the Christian religion, we're defined by what we separate ourselves from. We don't do that. We don't go here. We don't behave in this way. But as Christians, we also need to be defined by what we commit ourselves to.

By sacrificing our time to come in to love 180 kids who do not know the gospel. By coming on a Thursday evening to a work day to paint and create some pictures that kids may look at and not appreciate, but yet it contributes to the furtherance of the gospel. We live our lives in such a way to demonstrate the belief that we have inside. We show an unbelieving world the gospel. We show them that Jesus is alive and that the words that he spoke to us in scripture have power and they communicate truth because they influence and direct the ways which we live.

Let's pray. Father God, we come before you and Lord, we know that our jobs aren't done. Our tasks are not complete. Our responsibility is not finished when we walk out of these doors. Lord, that you call us to be doers of the word, to put what we believe into practice and the way in which we live our lives. God, that we don't merely want to say that we hear and that we believe, but we want to prove our belief by the way in which we interact with others. God, we thank you so much again for the example of James for the challenge that we receive and the again just the the spurring on knowing that or the That we don't do it alone That we're not just asked to to have within us this power But that you give it to us already that you implant your word in us That you have surrounded us with a community of believers to encourage us to spur us on and to challenge us

God that your word is faithful and it is true and we love you for it. We love you for your son Jesus Christ, our ultimate example, not only did he listen and ask questions but he demonstrated by the cross and by his resurrection that he is Lord of creation, that he has power over death and that he can influence our lives and just draw us closer to you. So we pray that now in Christ Jesus name. Amen. For some of you, for some.

And oh, the joy that floods my soul Something happened And now I know He touched me and made me whole Since I met this place and saved your soul Since he cleansed me, evil never seems to raise him I was shattered by eternity, Lord He touched me, oh he touched me And oh, the joy, but my soul, something happened And now I know he touched me and made me whole Something happened And now I know he touched me and made me whole