Doing The Word James 1:19-27

Adapted from a Tim Bond sermonhttp://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/doing-the-word-tim-bond-sermon-on-bible-influence-48605.asp

At the age of 33, Erik Weihenmayer is a phenomenal athlete who loves to skydive, snow ski and climb mountains. Mountain climbing is his specialty. Among mountain climbers there is a goal to join the elite by

climbing the Seven Summits. The 7 Summits are the highest peaks on each of

the continents. Erik is one of 275 (http://7summits.com/info/7stats/) mountaineers in all history who have

accomplished this feat.

In 1995 he scaled Mt. McKinley, in 1996 El Capitan, in 1998 Mt Kilamanjaro. In 1999 he

climbed Argentina’s Aconcauga. January 2000 Antarctica’s Vinson Massif. On May 25, 2001 he reached the summit of Mount

Everest, a peak that 90% of those who begin to climb never finish. Since 1953, 165

people have died trying to climb Everest, but Erik made it.

In June 2002 Europe’s Mt. Elbrus, September, 2002 Australia’s Kosciuszko. On August 20, 2008, he stood on top of Carstensz Pyramid, the tallest peak in

Austral-Asia/ Oceania. Now these are extremely significant feats,

but you don’t know the half of it.

Weihenmayer suffers from a degenerative eye disease, and when he was 13 he

became totally blind. All of his climbs have been without the benefit of his eyesight.

Weihenmayer is a blind mountain-climber!

I Google the 7 Summits & it seems Erik is the only blind mountaineer to ever climb the

7 Summits.

Now you have to ask yourself, “How is that possible? How can a guy who can’t see

climb the highest peaks in the world?” If you ask him, he’ll tell you. He has learned to

listen well.- He listens as a bell tied to the back of the climber in front of him shows him which way to go.

- He listens to his climbing partners who shout back to him, "Death fall two feet to your right!" so he knows what direction not to go.- He listens to the sound of his pick jabbing the ice, so he knows whether his footing will be secure or not.

For Erik Weihenmayer, being a good listener is a matter of life and death.

(source: www.touchthetop.com)

The truth is, according to James, the same is true for every one of us too. Listening, I mean really hearing, is the only way any of us are able to follow the pathway that God has opened up for us. My hope is for each

of us to become better listeners, even straining to hear what God has to say to us and willingly deciding to follow His direction.

James 1:19 NET Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be

quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. 20 For human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. 21 So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome

the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be sure you

live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.

23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a

mirror. 24 For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort

of person he was. 25 But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out he

will be blessed in what he does.

26 If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is

this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained

by the world.Did you hear what James is saying to us? He is challenging us to take faith in Christ

seriously enough that it changes our behavior.

James is addressing Christian people. He is saying that we have to be willing to listen to what God says to us and then modify our

behavior to conform our will to God’s Will. In order to do that, we have to do 3 things,

HEAR GOD’S WORD, ACCEPT GOD’S WORD, and then

DO GOD’S WORD. It’s really as simple as that. Having said it, we could

conclude the message and be the first ones to the buffet this morning.

HEAR THE WORD

However, since we have some more time let’s consider those in a little more detail.

James might have easily pointed out here that it wasn’t by accident that God gave us 2 ears and only 1 mouth. He expects us to spend more time listening than speaking. But it’s hard, isn’t it. We believe that what

we have is so important that it is just begging to be said. It is just our nature.

While the late Justice Brewer was judge in a minor court he was presiding at the trial of a wife's suit for separation and alimony. The

defendant acknowledged that he hadn't spoken to his wife in five years, and Judge

Brewer put in a question."What explanation have you," he asked

severely, "for not speaking to your wife in five years?"

"Your Honor," replied the husband, "I didn't like to interrupt the lady."

I’m sure you worked very hard to help your kids learn not to interrupt when someone

else is speaking. And it was a slow process. You & your spouse would be carrying on a

conversation in the car and all of the sudden you couldn’t hear each other

because of questions or comments being hurled from the back seat. That really is

frustrating isn’t it?

When James wrote verse 19 he wasn’t just talking about our willingness to speak and not listen to others. He was talking about our willingness to speak and not listen to

God. You can’t miss it from the context. 19 Understand this, my dear brothers and

sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

20 For human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness. 21 So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome

the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls.

The only “message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls” is the

Word of God. Remember James is writing to fellow Christians.

He is speaking of the Gospel, the Good News from His Word planted in them when

they were taught to accept Christ & the salvation He offers.

Don’t miss his point. We need to be more interested in hearing what God has to say

to us than telling Him what we think!We need to hear the Word of God.

It seems people are much more interested in talking to God than listening to Him. Statistics bear that out. According to

George Barna, a Christian pollster, in a given week about 37% of Americans will

read their Bible, but 85% will pray. (barna.org)It sounds to me that we are quick to speak, but slow to listen to what God has to say.

“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 to keep it within proper

bounds.” (See Benson. So Valerius Maximus, vii. 2.)

Don’t get me wrong! God desires our prayers. Paul was inspired to write much about our need to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 NET constantly pray, Colossians 4:2 NET Be devoted to prayer, keeping alert in it with

thanksgiving.

Ephesians 6:17 NET And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit,

and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the

saints.Following the context of the previous verse,

prayer "in the Spirit" is prayer within the sphere of the Word of God. It is not possible to read into this phrase a

charismatic utterance.

Our prayers and requests are to flow out of our alert minds and concern for other

believers. We are to apply the Word of God actively "at all times" and in all manners of requests, but always within the revealed

Word of God. (CBC) Can you see how listening to The Word of God is a

prerequisite and primary component of our conversation with God?

The more we listen to Him through The Word of God the more we learn about Him

& His desires for us.

Because of our gained knowledge of Him our prayers will be more effective. That

knowledge gives us a better frame work on how to pray & what to pray about.

Which conversations are better, more profitable & satisfying? The ones you carry

on with someone you barely know or a deep, heartfelt conversation with someone

you know intimately?

Have you noticed that people are very respectful not to interrupt when someone is praying? If you are chatting and someone begins to pray aloud, if you are like most people, you will stop talking until they say

“amen.”Have you also noticed that people are

nowhere near as respectful when the Word of God is being read? People will continue to chat just like someone was reading from

the newspaper.

So what is more important for us to respect, when people talk to God or when God

speaks to us? We need to make ourselves available to

God’s Word!We need to hear it by reading it for

ourselves, hearing it preached and hearing it taught. Solomon wrote The one who gives

an answer before he listens — that is his folly and his shame. Proverbs 18:13 NET

We need to be listening for the Word of God like Erik Weihenmayer listens for those

bells, the warnings from his fellow climbers, and the sound of that pick in the ice. We need to be listening as if our life depends

on it, because it does!

James goes on to say that it’s not enough just to hear the Word. You have to move

beyond hearing to…

Accept The WordThere was a Bible with a very insightful

inscription in the front cover. It said, “This book will keep you from sin; Sin will keep you from this book.” It’s true isn’t it? The

more we allow sin to control our lives, the less we are willing to expose ourselves to God’s Word because we don’t want to be

chastened.

We don’t want to be convicted. It’s not pleasant to be confronted with the fact that we are not living up to our potential, so we avoid the subject all together and find ways

to miss worship, to bypass Bible reading and to be busy when Bible study is going

on. It is by an act of the will that we choose not to accept the Word of God into our life.

But on the other hand, it is by an act of the will that we position ourselves to accept

God’s Word into our life. 21 So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome

the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls. Notice that James says we must get rid of some things before

God’s Word will grow and flourish in our heart. We have to rid ourselves of “filth and

evil excess.”

The KJV has a great phrase here, “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” What James is saying here is that our heart is like a garden, and the things that we plant

within it are the kind of fruit that we will bear. You don’t plant potatoes and reap

corn. One of the absolute axioms of life is that you reap what you sow, and if you want to reap godliness you will never do it if you

are sowing ungodliness.

Let me ask you, what habits are you sowing in your heart? Do you lie regularly, or are you conscientiously honest? Do you lean

more toward greed or generosity? Have you trained your mind to meditate on God’s

Word, or are you more apt to stew over the wrong that someone has done you? Is something draining you of your spiritual vitality so that you can’t imagine what it would feel like to be in a vital, growing

relationship with God?

James says, “Make a choice to rid your life of that filthy weed and allow God’s Word to

grow and prosper in your life.”That is so easy to say, but so hard to do.

Let me give you a tip on how to do it. If you are really serious about this, find someone you trust and make yourself accountable to them. Say, “Look, I’ve got this problem and it is destroying my vitality. Will you keep me honest on this? Check with me about this.”

We all know we will have to answer to God about our lives some day, but if you know

that this week you will have to look someone in the eye and answer for what you’ve done, it will keep you from sin and get you into the book more. Now James

dives into the conclusion of his discussion by urging us to do more than just hear

God’s Word. He even challenges us to go beyond simply accepting God’s Word. In the

words of Nike’s old ad campaign, he says “JUST DO IT!

Do The WordJames is very insightful. He is an elder in

the church in Jerusalem. He no doubt sees people coming to worship who hear the

word, and even accept the word, but who continue to live the way they want. Notice what he says in verse 22 But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.

There is no value in just listening to the Word. Don’t think there is some value in simply accepting the Word as true. You

must act upon it.Several years back, the annual convention of The American Heart Association met in

Atlanta. That year 300,000 doctors, nurses, and researchers gathered to discuss,

among other things, the importance a low fat diet plays in keeping our hearts healthy.

Some smart-aleck researcher did some checking around and found that during meal times, those people consumed fat-filled fast food—such as bacon cheeseburgers and fries—at about the same rate as people

from other conventions. When one cardiologist was asked whether or not his

partaking in high fat meals set a bad example, he replied, "Not me, because I

took my name tag off." (Boston Globe [11-10-93] as quoted in

PreachingToday.com)

Isn’t it amazing how we can disconnect our behavior from our knowledge? We can hear

something, even accept it as true, and never let it change our behavior. That’s

humorous to me when we are talking about doctors and researchers. It’s disheartening

and incredibly damaging when we are talking about our ability to hear and accept

the Word of God and yet live lives of disobedience.

Let God’s Word change you!

You see, there are a lot of Christians who mark their Bibles, but there are all too few who let their Bible mark them. It is so easy to hear a Word from God and say “Yeah, I hear that, and I accept that as true,” and that is the end of it. But to let God’s Word

dwell in you, and grow within you, and swell within you until it motivates you to do

something, that is a challenge.

James says that we become motivated to change by looking into the mirror of God’s Word. 23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in

a mirror. 24 For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what

sort of person he was.

25 But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there,

and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out — he will be blessed in

what he does.Men and women look in the mirror for

different reasons. For men it is usually to shave, then inspect the razor damage.

Women look at the mirror to fix their hair and find ways to perk up their face with

powder and stuff. I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong! But every once in a while

there is a time when you check yourself out in the mirror and you really see yourself.

Maybe it is the appearance of a new worry line, or a sag where your flesh used to be

firm.

When that happens it can profoundly affect you. You look in the mirror a little differently. That reflection makes you think about who you are, what you have become, how you have used your years on this earth. That kind of introspection is all too uncommon. James says it should come when you look

at God’s Word.

Now there are two ways of looking into the mirror of God’s Word. Sometimes, in a very superficial way, we read a chapter and are proud of our accomplishment. We move

from the listening to the talking phase of our conversation with God and pray. When we

do that we are glancing in the mirror. But it should be more than that.

When we read God’s Word, it is the time for God and us to consider who He is and who

we are. You don’t do that in a glance. It takes some inspection, some pondering. We need to listen to God’s Word as if our

life depends on it, because it does.Notice again what James says will happen

if we do that.

25 But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there,

and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out he will be blessed in what he does. We don’t go beyond the

surface because we don’t want to see the imperfection. But God says, “Keep looking, intently! I will bless you and remold you into

who I want you to be!”

Listen to Jesus words.The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal

myself to him." John 14:21 NETIsn’t James getting the same point across? Jesus said, “my commandments” James “the perfect law of liberty” Jesus “obeys

them” James “lives it out”

Jesus “The one who loves me” James “fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener” Jesus “will be loved by my

Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him” James “he will be blessed in

what he does”Is there any doubt the words James wrote were heavenly inspired? God wants us to

obey, live…out His commandments, perfect law of liberty, message, The Word of God.

An amazing thing happens when we look intently into the mirror of God’s Word, when

we hear the Word, accept the Word, and then choose to do the Word. A

transformation occurs. In the book of Exodus there is an account of

when Moses was able to enter into the presence of God. It says that his

countenance was changed, you might say he glowed from experiencing the presence

of God.

When he came back among the people he wore a veil to hide the glow because God’s people feared the powerful glory of God.

In Paul’s 2nd letter to the saints in Corinth he reminds us of that occurrence and then He essentially tells us that if we are hearing,

accepting and doing the will of God, a supernatural transformation occurs in our

lives.

2 Corinthians 3:18 NET And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the

Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit. So when you look in the mirror today, is

what you see more like the Lord than what you would have seen 2 years ago? If you

are really listening to God’s Word it is.

Just in case you don’t know what life looks like when God transforms you, James

points it out. 26 If someone thinks he is religious yet

does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is

this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained

by the world.

When you let God’s Word affect you, when you not only hear it and accept it, but you

determine to do it, it will cause you to seek purity in your own life and it will drive you to find ways to help others, especially those

who can’t help themselves.You see, the more like God you become,

the less self absorbed you will be. The more you listen to Him as if your life depends on it, the more you will be captivated by God and motivated by the needs of others to

help.

That is when you are most like God, when you are loving others so much that you

can’t help but help them when they can’t help themselves.

Thank God He is like that, because we need His help. Our life does depend on His mercy and grace. When we were separated from Him by our sin, helpless in our state of

death, God reached out and spoke.

“The Word became Flesh” the apostle John wrote, “and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

How foolish we would be to not listen to the one who came to direct us from this life into the next one. He called us to follow, then He gave His life away on our behalf. Now that’s

what He calls us to do on His behalf.