Introduction
We saw last week that God brought us forth by the word of truth. We heard that word and came forth. We hear that word to continue forward. It is hearing God that we can make it through any trial.
Good listening is like tuning in a radio station. For good results, you can listen to only one station at a time. Trying to listen to my wife while looking over an office report is like trying to receive two radio stations at the same time. I end up with distortion and frustration. Listening requires a choice of where I place my attention. To tune into my partner, I must first choose to put away all that will divide my attention. That might mean laying down the newspaper, moving away from the dishes in the sink, putting down the book I’m reading, setting aside my projects. (Robert W. Herron, Homemade, June, 1987.)
Lay aside all distractions so you can hear the Lord and know what He desires.
We will see in this text today that good listening is what is required of us if we are to have the proper behavior in our Christian life.
Good listening will aid us in What we Are Reflecting.
Like, the righteousness of God. Do you reflect that in life during struggles and trials? Or do you reflect the worldly ways in actions and anger?
Do we reflect our passion and love of the Lord by our acting upon what we heard from the word? Or do we hear look at it and walk away to forget it and miss the blessing that comes with our faithful service?
Or do we speak a bold and big game but never do what we say? Do we have a pious and exaggerated religion or one that is pure before God?
Many believers are fooling themselves thinking they are spiritual and godly when they are not. They will say they are solid when in reality they are not. They will act as if they have everything together when they do not.
They will falter because they have not heard (applied to their life) the word, but acted, they have not committed to performing the word but have only heard (seen it but not applied it). This is those who come and hear the word once or twice but never take it up themselves and study to make it part of their life.
Then there is the one who has just enough knowledge of the word that they speak big but never give out. They all have one thing in common: they have deceived themselves and will falter in trials and tests. They will not endure because they have not internalized God’s word and His promises.
That is why this section begins with the three fold theme for the entire epistle, quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. If we listen we may very well avoid regrettable words and actions and be able to act in accordance with God’s will.
So, let us read James 1:19-27
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:19–27 ESV
The first thing we see in the text today is that we can…
Reflect God’s Righteousness by Hearing (19-21)
Listen. Don’t just sit and wait to respond, but listen. We miss so much in life because we only want to make a statement ourselves. We will sit there and only hear part of what is said and develop a response for that.
Here are some questions I found that can make us think about our listening.
How good a listener are you? 1) Since you think about four times faster than a person usually talks, do you use this time to think about other things while you’re keeping track of the conversation? 2) Do you listen primarily for facts rather than ideas when someone is speaking? 3) Do you avoid listening to things you feel will be too difficult to understand? 4) Can you tell from a person’s appearance and delivery that there won’t be anything worthwhile said? 5) When someone is talking to you do you appear to be paying attention when you’re not? 6) Do certain words and phrases prejudice you so you cannot listen objectively? 7) When listening are you distracted by outside sights and sounds?
Is this how you are? I know I land on many of these questions at times. I fail to listen well and that has caused some grief in my life.
When we listen, when we hear, we can make better decisions. This listening questionnaire is applicable to the word of God too. We need to apply this list to our study of His word so we can better apply it to our lives.
The words quick and slow mean exactly that, quick and slow. We need to be quick to listen, meaning we need to put hearing first and foremost and slowly respond and be even slower to anger.
When we don’t listen but seek to respond, we miss very important instructions. This goes back to the trials we are to take joy in. When we only want out and respond that they are terrible, we have not listened and heard the Word of God in them.
Patience is required for this too. If we do not have this, we are the opposite of this text. We are quick to speak and quick to anger and slow to listen.
This produces anger and bitterness. We become angry and complain and then condemn others because they may have it better than us. We become jealous in trials instead of seeking the growth God is giving us.
This is why James says in verse 21 to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive the word. Anger and frustration will not help us. It will hinder us. It will bring us down. It will make us to falter along the path.
Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. If we will lay aside every encumbrance of sin that clings to us, we can run the race well. We can do this because of Jesus in us. When we receive the word and it is implanted in us, we have His power to move on. We need to hear it and receive it to reflect the righteousness of God.
The word received, can save your souls. This is not necessarily about eternal salvation so much as it is about your physical life. When we receive the word and have it implanted in us, we will know how to act and we can act in that way and not receive a just punishment from our father for not behaving as we should.
We can only do this through Jesus and His word in us working well because we listened well.
Another way we can do this and reflect His righteousness is when we…
Reflect the Word through Action (22-25)
If we hear the word as this text implies we should, implanted and applied, then we will reflect it.
But we deceive ourselves when we hear it and don’t apply it and not allow it to work in us.
We are, as James says, like a man who looks at his reflection and walks away to only forget what he looks like.
When we put the heard word into action in accordance with what the word says, then, then, we are looking into the perfect law of liberty, Jesus Christ and what he has said–love God with your everything and love your neighbor as yourself, and putting that to work.
One commentator has said of this, “If the readers ever thought that mere attention to the Scriptures was enough, they were mistaken. With such a view they would be deceiving themselves. The analogy today would be the Christian who is fascinated by the exposition and study of God’s Word but who has assimilated very little of it into everyday life.” (Zane C. Hodges, Arthur L. Farstad, and Robert N. Wilkin, The Epistle of James: Proven Character through Testing (Irving, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 1994), 42–43.
We can apply the teaching we have heard from the word through Jesus working in us and for us and then through us. We are His and as His we can behave like His.
Like many of us. We will get something that is complex to put together. like a baby crib. We will read the directions and instructions and think that these are nice. Then we sit them down and walk over to the crib and commence to work.
We have left the directions behind, we have decided we can do the work alone. We have decided we know enough from that one time glance and skimming we gave the instructions.
We begin to build and get a few pieces together right and think “I have this.” Then we find a few pieces that look identical and put them on. Only to find out they are not the same but very different. We now have a lopsided crib. Nothing is lining up. We become red faced. We become grouchy and snappy. We begin to think this piece of junk does not go together. We become angry and then throw our hands up.
Finally we get the instructions and see the error of our way. We walk back over with them and put the crib together in 30 minutes.
Hearing the word is great but trying to do life without putting the word to practice is no different than working without directions.
We deceive ourselves and we cannot make it work. The trials that come sink us like the crib did. The difficulties of life knock us down like the crib did.
But, when we look deeply into the word of the Lord and take that with us and put that to work in our lives, we can make it work. Trials do not sink us, difficulties do not knock us over. We can make it through all that because of Jesus and His word and what it tells us and how it guides us.
We persevere through because we have the word implanted in us and we use it in our lives.
This blesses us because we see the Lord working in all situations. Seeing Him moving even in the mundane, difficult, normalness of life blesses us because He is present and we see this.
We can be blessed because putting the word of God to work in our lives is part of the process that helps us grow into strong faithful believers.
Our blessing is that we have our fathers approval resting upon us in all we do. We have Him and His love going with us daily. That is power to reflect Him through action. We can reflect Him and his word through action when we look long and deeply into his word and let it mold us into who He desires us to be.
We do this by acting and having solid faithful service for Him but we also…
Reflect the Word by Sharing (26-27)
Sharing what we have received from God is how we can reflect Him and His desires for us.
The one who does not bridle his tongue has a worthless religion.
This term bridle simply means to hold in check. Here we see the slow to speak aspect of what we are to do. We need to not just go and run our mouth but keep it in check.
When someone who claims to be a faithful and committed follower of Christ but cannot control their tongue, they are bringing slander to Jesus.
That person has all the right words in private and church settings but in public they cannot control the foul words that come flying out.
Much like the meme that I am sure most have seen or heard of. The cowboy is standing at the pearly gates and the gate man tells him he almost made it but his language he used while loading trucks and penning cattle cost him.
That is the tongue control that James is speaking of. If we call Christ our savior and act pious in certain settings, but in others we act like the world, we are only deceiving ourselves because the Lord Knows.
As one has stated it, “James totally dismisses the religion of any Christian person who placed no restraint on the use of his own tongue. Sanctimonious [morally superior] prayers in public or private were worth little if the person who offered them had lips filled with slander, deceit, and cursing when he talked to other people.” (Zane C. Hodges, Arthur L. Farstad, and Robert N. Wilkin, 46.)
That religion is worthless.
But the true and proper religion is that of taking the trials and tests we faced and the word we have heard and placing it into action by going to those even less fortunate and helping them.
Pure religion is to take the lessons we have learned through our tests and go to those more needy than us and help them. “Any Christian who fails to mingle with and assist those who have greater material needs than his own is in serious danger of being infected by the world’s selfishness, greed, and indifference. No amount of prayer and church attendance can compensate for the loss of compassion and involvement with the poor.” (Zane C. Hodges, Arthur L. Farstad, and Robert N. Wilkin, 47.)
We share the word we heard with those in need. But not only that, we help them in their need.
The text says we go to them in their afflictions. This is difficult circumstances. We help them and serve them because we know what tests do.
We can help others because we have felt the comfort of help through our needs. We can help them because Jesus has instilled in us compassion for others through the trials we have endured. We can serve others in need because our Lord has allowed us to experience need and the joy of help from others.
When we lose ourselves in others struggles we discover that all we have suffered was for this. We see that Jesus was with us building us in all that remodeling of the soul through trials and struggles.
We have experienced all we have for the purpose of glorifying God and serving others. Just as Jesus said we were to do.
When we do this, we also remain unstained by the world.
I love how one commentator states this section, “James, in keeping with other New Testament writers, calls Christians to be morally distinct from the world. This is the course charted for Christians by Jesus himself at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which might be summarized in this way: Blessed are those who become so different from the world that they come to be persecuted by the world; only so can they become “the light of the world” (from Mt 5:3–16).” (George M. Stulac, James, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1993), Jas 1:27.)
When we look into the perfect law of liberty in Jesus and hear the word and put the word to action in our lives, we can become the light of the world for all people.
We are to live this way because Jesus has gifted us the ability through His gift of the Holy Spirit.
Let us each go forth and trust Christ to give us what we need to live this way over the worldly way.
The world says get mad because it is not fair, Jesus says I allowed this so you will be better and brighter in the end. Go shine that Light because you can through my power Jesus says.
We are His and we can be bright and strong for others who are afflicted.
Conclusion
Think of it like this.
100 miles deep in the Earth, a layer separating our hospitable exterior from the molten core, known as the mantle, is where diamonds are made. Temperatures boiled above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and pressure exceeded 725,000 pounds per square inch.
The extreme heat and pressure combined actually modified graphite, a crystalline carbon, on the atomic level. This restructured graphite’s molecular composition from a hexagonal sheet pattern into a triangular shape, resulting in diamond.
If it was not for the heat and pressure, the diamond would not appear. It would remain graphite. It would not be here with value and glorious brilliance. It would not shine so bright and reflect light as it does.
The same is with you in the trials and tests of life. God allows them to occur so you will be a diamond in the world and reflect His light to others.
We do this by seeking him, hearing him, acting out what we have heard from him, and sharing what we have heard from Him. We reflect the Lord like the diamond reflects light.
So what are you reflecting? Are you reflecting the Lord or the world?
Know that today you can reflect the Lord if you will just seek Him and trust Him and put His word to work in your life.
