The Mature Receive Wisdom — James 1:19-27

[00:00:05] Thank you for listening to the Calvary Monterey Podcast.

[00:00:08] Please visit Calvary.com to learn more about our church.

[00:00:12] And visit Nate Holdridge.com for additional Bible teaching from our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge.

[00:00:19] Teaching today is our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge.

[00:00:24] It's been a couple of weeks since we've been in the book of James Pastor Jeff Tott.

[00:00:28] Last Sunday I haven't gotten a chance to listen to that message yet.

[00:00:32] I told him yesterday I saw him.

[00:00:34] I said, I haven't listened to your teaching yet.

[00:00:36] I need to do my heresy check and make sure you're okay.

[00:00:39] But I'm just kidding.

[00:00:40] You guys got all nervous about that.

[00:00:43] He's a great brother.

[00:00:44] It was great to have him in the pulpit after his retirement.

[00:00:47] I was over in Missouri speaking at a men's conference and then a church service for that.

[00:00:56] The church was represented at that men's conference for an old friend of mine.

[00:01:00] It was just great to be with people have asked me like, what was Missouri like?

[00:01:03] How did you like it?

[00:01:04] I loved it.

[00:01:05] The people there were so genuine, so sweet, so welcoming and very sincere.

[00:01:11] Not a lot of pretense.

[00:01:13] And so that was very refreshing.

[00:01:15] Not that there's a lot of pretense here.

[00:01:17] We're great people here in California.

[00:01:22] I love going to places like that to speak and share in part because, you know,

[00:01:27] if you're on the news a lot in different parts of the world,

[00:01:31] you might come to the conclusion that there are like no Bible believing gospel preaching Christians in California.

[00:01:38] So I just love going and freaking people out, you know, like it's great.

[00:01:43] But in our studies of James up to this point, the frame that we've taken for this book is that James has as the half brother of Jesus,

[00:01:54] he has a vision for what a mature believer looks like.

[00:02:00] This might be and probably is the first letter of the New Testament.

[00:02:06] It's written very early on in the life of the church.

[00:02:10] These believers are predominantly Jewish.

[00:02:13] He uses Jewish terminology and makes Jewish references that Gentiles would not easily relate to or readily understand.

[00:02:21] And they're dispersed and they're asking the question,

[00:02:25] how do we live the Christian life out here among the nations?

[00:02:30] How do we do this Jesus thing in cultures and customs that are foreign to us and different from us?

[00:02:39] How do we do this?

[00:02:41] We're experiencing a little bit of light persecution, probably some economic persecution.

[00:02:47] They were having trouble finding places to live rent issues, things like that.

[00:02:52] And so they're asking the question,

[00:02:53] James, how do we live the Christian life?

[00:02:56] And from Jerusalem more than likely James writes this letter that begins to be dispersed among the dispersion

[00:03:03] and they're learning how to live that mature life in Christ.

[00:03:09] Now a couple of weeks ago, we saw James give us a Frank explainer on the anatomy of sin.

[00:03:18] He said that desire when it yields to temptation conceives and then gives birth to sin and sin if left unchecked

[00:03:31] when it is full grown, it brings forth death.

[00:03:35] And it can be a little bit of a discouraging thing to think about that because we're very conscious of the desires

[00:03:41] that are often being appealed to by temptation.

[00:03:46] James though has a vision for those very desires being changed and transformed as we walked in relationship with our heavenly Father.

[00:03:57] So I told you at the beginning of this study of James that James has three themes that he repeats over and over again.

[00:04:02] Trials, wisdom and poverty slash wealth or economic status.

[00:04:08] We're going to look today at wisdom again.

[00:04:10] He's going to revisit that theme.

[00:04:12] How can I be matured?

[00:04:14] How can I be changed or transformed?

[00:04:18] For James, a major source of transformation is God's wisdom.

[00:04:24] Like I said in previously in chapter one verse five through eight, we already talked about this wisdom in verse 18.

[00:04:30] The verse right before our passage today, he alluded to God's wisdom as the word of truth.

[00:04:37] And in our passage that we just read, that Dwight read for us today, he calls the word of truth the implanted word in verse 21.

[00:04:46] And then in verse 21 and 25, he calls it the perfect law.

[00:04:50] And then he refers to God's word again as the law of liberty.

[00:04:54] So what this means is that James had this vision of the Father's wisdom, the Father's word, the Bible scripture.

[00:05:02] He had a vision of it as something that comes from a loving Father who stands ready to shape his children with his voice.

[00:05:14] In other words, James viewed the word as from God potentially liberating for God's people and able to transform our lives.

[00:05:25] In a sense, I think it's like James viewed the Father viewed God like a good dad.

[00:05:30] A good dad is there to teach his kids when they're really little how to tie their shoes.

[00:05:36] But that's not where the lessons stop.

[00:05:38] Years later he will teach his children about budgeting and finance and choosing a career path and things like that.

[00:05:48] A Father stands ready to give wisdom at the various stages of a child's life.

[00:05:55] And that's how James viewed our walk with God.

[00:05:59] We're transformed as we interact with God's wisdom.

[00:06:04] So what James wants to do is he wants to instruct us on how to receive God's wisdom.

[00:06:10] If the mature person is interacting with the Father, interacting with the Father's wisdom and it's transforming their lives,

[00:06:17] what is the process? How are they doing it?

[00:06:22] That's what this passage that we're looking at today is about.

[00:06:26] How to interact with the wisdom of God so that it can change and transform our lives.

[00:06:35] Here's the first thing I want to show you.

[00:06:36] We'll read through the passage a second time.

[00:06:39] But the first thing I want you to see is that the mature person, what do they do with God's wisdom?

[00:06:44] They hear God's wisdom.

[00:06:45] Number one, they hear God's wisdom.

[00:06:48] Let's read verse 19 to 21 together again.

[00:06:52] He says, Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

[00:06:58] For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

[00:07:02] Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

[00:07:14] Okay, what James wants here is for us to interact with God's wisdom by hearing it.

[00:07:20] And we're going to talk about that in a second.

[00:07:22] But I want you to notice first the last thing he said in that little paragraph.

[00:07:26] How does James view the wisdom of the Father?

[00:07:30] You see the title he gives it there?

[00:07:32] He calls it the implanted word.

[00:07:34] Did you see that? The implanted word.

[00:07:37] That little phrase from James that reminds me so much of the way that Jesus viewed the Word of God.

[00:07:43] You might remember that Jesus, his mega parable that he gave in places like Mark chapter four or Matthew chapter 13 was the parable of a sower who went out to sow the seed.

[00:07:56] The seed fell on four different types of soil.

[00:07:59] Only the fourth soil was good soil where the seed yielded an incredible harvest or incredible crop.

[00:08:07] And when the disciples asked the question, what does this parable mean?

[00:08:10] Jesus explained that the seed is the Word, the Word of God and the soils are various human beings, types of humans who interact with the Word either dismissing it right away, having a little bit of temporary joy about it.

[00:08:27] But then dismissing it once there's challenges and difficulties in life or receiving it with total competition where there's things running concurrently in their lives that are choking out the effectiveness of the Word.

[00:08:41] And then the fourth soil, the good soil receives the word.

[00:08:44] There's no competition.

[00:08:46] They allow it to get rooted into their lives.

[00:08:49] And what comes up is incredible fruit.

[00:08:52] Jesus said 30, 60 and 100 full.

[00:08:54] I'm not a farmer, but I've read that that is an incredible yield.

[00:08:59] All right.

[00:09:00] And so James takes that same concept from Jesus, the seed of the Word, the implanting of the Word.

[00:09:09] And that's how he describes it, the implanted Word.

[00:09:14] And James' view this Word from God can do incredible things in a person's life.

[00:09:23] It can bear incredible fruit in a person's life if they hear it well.

[00:09:30] That's why James said we must be slow to speak, slow to anger for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

[00:09:41] We've got to be quick to hear God's Word.

[00:09:43] We've got to be slow to get angry in response to God's Word, slow to be argumentative about God's Word, slow to speak back to God's Word.

[00:09:53] I think that's the concept that James is highlighting.

[00:09:56] I know that many of us, you know, like some of you got excited, but some of you married people, you got really excited when I started reading this.

[00:10:02] You're like, yeah, slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to hear.

[00:10:07] You're like, I can't wait for my spouse to hear this passage.

[00:10:11] I don't know that James is alluding as much to interpersonal relationships.

[00:10:15] That's great advice.

[00:10:16] Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

[00:10:20] But obviously in a culture like ours, there are some crazy ideas that are floating out there.

[00:10:24] Do you think James is saying, hey, be quick to hear those ideas?

[00:10:28] That's not what he's saying.

[00:10:29] He's talking about the wisdom of the Father.

[00:10:32] He's saying we've got to be tuned to the Lord, not argumentative with the Lord, like Lord, I'm doing that or Lord, I don't like that.

[00:10:41] But we need to be receptive to what his word has to say to us.

[00:10:46] There's a story in the Old Testament that I love so much that I think illustrates the kind of spirit.

[00:10:52] This is really cool what James is doing.

[00:10:54] You guys need to see this.

[00:10:55] He's thinking the Father's wisdom needs to get in our hearts.

[00:11:01] And he doesn't give us a big list of like how to study the Bible.

[00:11:05] He doesn't give us a Bible reading plan.

[00:11:07] He doesn't talk to us about how to journal.

[00:11:09] He doesn't talk to us about that stuff and all that stuff is important.

[00:11:12] James would be in that lane.

[00:11:14] He would love it, but he knows there's a heart behind all that.

[00:11:20] That's got to be there.

[00:11:21] There's a story in the Old Testament that illustrates that heart to me really well.

[00:11:26] It comes from the life of David in the early years when David was on the run because of his insane father-in-law King Saul.

[00:11:37] And he's out in the wilderness and he's just an attractive person.

[00:11:42] And so all these men who are disenchanted with Saul's rule, they come out to David in the wilderness.

[00:11:49] And some of these men become referred to as David's mighty men, these incredible warriors that God uses.

[00:11:58] They begin imitating David, the original giant killer.

[00:12:01] They learn from him.

[00:12:03] They glean from him.

[00:12:05] And he had three men who were closest to him, his three mightiest men.

[00:12:13] And there's a story in 2 Samuel which recounts a moment when David out there in the wilderness on the run fleeing for his life.

[00:12:21] He just kind of wishes for something out loud.

[00:12:27] He says, oh that I could drink from the well of my hometown in Bethlehem.

[00:12:34] He couldn't because it was under Philistine occupation at that time and it would have exposed him.

[00:12:39] It was near to Jerusalem, or nearer to where King Saul was at that time.

[00:12:44] So he couldn't go there but he was longing for it.

[00:12:48] He just wanted it.

[00:12:50] It's kind of like, I don't know if you've ever had a conversation with an American missionary who's serving overseas.

[00:12:55] You ask them, if you go visit them, you always ask them, is there anything I could bring you?

[00:12:59] Like they always want peanut butter.

[00:13:01] You know, they're like just bring peanut butter.

[00:13:03] There's no peanut butter here where I'm at.

[00:13:05] Bring me peanut butter.

[00:13:07] You know, oh that and that's kind of what David was doing.

[00:13:09] Like, oh if I could just taste that water from my hometown well.

[00:13:13] And these three guys got together and David's wish became their command.

[00:13:21] They broke through the Philistine stronghold.

[00:13:24] They went to the well.

[00:13:26] They filled up a skin with water from that well, brought it back to David.

[00:13:32] He was like incredibly moved by the gesture.

[00:13:36] So moved that he felt guilty even drinking the water.

[00:13:40] And so he took it and he poured it out on the ground as a sacrifice to God.

[00:13:44] Like a moment of worship and devotion to God.

[00:13:48] I don't know how it would have felt about that if I was one of the three mighty men.

[00:13:51] You know, like just take a sip would be fine.

[00:13:54] You know, just a little taste.

[00:13:57] Wrist my life for you, you know.

[00:14:00] But that spirit, that's what James is talking about.

[00:14:04] That heart that just says, you know, I'm coming to the word.

[00:14:07] I'm cracking open my Bible.

[00:14:09] I want to hear my father's voice.

[00:14:11] I'm just looking for like his wish.

[00:14:15] I'm looking for his dream.

[00:14:17] I'm looking for his intention.

[00:14:18] I'm looking for his heart and I want to live that out.

[00:14:23] That's what James seems to be saying when he tells us we must be quick to hear,

[00:14:28] slow to speak and slow to anger.

[00:14:31] Now there seem to be a couple of correctives that James gives that he says these these

[00:14:38] might be things that keep you from hearing the father's wisdom.

[00:14:43] It's one thing to have that heart, but he said, notice it there.

[00:14:46] He said, you need to be slow to anger because the wrath of man or the anger of man cannot

[00:14:55] produce the righteousness of God.

[00:14:57] Now a lot of you when you read the word righteousness, all you can hear is positional.

[00:15:05] I made righteous in the sight of God, righteousness.

[00:15:09] And that is a biblical version of righteousness, but righteousness also sometimes means right

[00:15:14] living in the here and now.

[00:15:16] And what James is saying is that kind of right living cannot be produced by the anger of man,

[00:15:25] especially the anger that is responding with vitriol to God's word or anger that other people

[00:15:33] aren't keeping God's word.

[00:15:35] The righteousness of God, right living before God cannot be produced in that way.

[00:15:42] And so there's times we need to deal with that issue in our heart.

[00:15:46] But then he also said, you might need to as well look at verse 21.

[00:15:50] He said, you might need to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness so that you can receive the word.

[00:15:57] In other words, sometimes we are that third soil in Jesus's parable that has competing things in our lives

[00:16:06] that are keeping us from being able to hear the word well.

[00:16:10] So sometimes we need to go into the garden of our hearts and we, James says, need to take responsibility

[00:16:18] and begin doing that weeding process.

[00:16:21] Saying these are some things in my life that are keeping me from hearing the Father's wisdom

[00:16:27] while applying it into my life.

[00:16:29] And I need to deal with those things.

[00:16:31] There's no shame in that.

[00:16:33] The shame comes when we say, I'm just going to continue on in those things.

[00:16:37] All right. So he says, you've got to put all of that away.

[00:16:40] So how about you?

[00:16:43] Are you humbly hungry for your Father's voice?

[00:16:50] You know, like I've been saying in the book of James, this to me is a description of the person,

[00:16:56] James one verse four, who is perfect and complete and lacking nothing.

[00:16:59] So there's bound to be something in our lives.

[00:17:02] So that as we think about this kind of hunger for the Lord that we would say, man, you know,

[00:17:07] I'm not quite there.

[00:17:09] I want to mature into that.

[00:17:11] I want to grow into that.

[00:17:15] But this kind of reception of God's word is so important.

[00:17:19] Christina and I, as we've raised our three daughters, we've noticed as parents,

[00:17:26] you know, as parents, you're constantly teaching.

[00:17:31] You know, for those of you that are parents and you thought that you would not need to be instructing or teaching.

[00:17:37] I hope that you've turned the corner by now.

[00:17:40] It's a you're constantly teaching.

[00:17:43] You know, Christina and I, we've we've parented our kids in the age of podcasting coming into maturity.

[00:17:49] And so we will joke with each other all the time, you know, all throughout the kids childhood.

[00:17:55] You know, one of us will begin the teaching is happening.

[00:17:59] You know that you didn't clean your dishes.

[00:18:01] You didn't take responsibility for yourself.

[00:18:03] It's time to have a teaching moment and we would always joke with each other privately like that was a really good podcast episode.

[00:18:10] You just gave to the girls right there about cleaning up their dishes or whatever it might be.

[00:18:15] And what we found is that there come these moments in a in a child's life

[00:18:23] where life circumstances, maybe disappointments, something brings them to a place of softness

[00:18:34] where they're just ready to hear whatever you have to say.

[00:18:38] It's a special moment.

[00:18:39] You can't only teach in those moments, but those moments do come.

[00:18:45] And you know like this is an opportunity that God is giving me to help my child right now in this moment.

[00:18:52] And I think that's what James is describing.

[00:18:55] He's describing that kind of softness before the father that says, I'm pliable right now.

[00:19:03] And I want you to lead my life.

[00:19:05] All right.

[00:19:05] So that's the first thing I wanted you to see from this passage.

[00:19:09] How do we how does a mature person become wise?

[00:19:13] Get the father's wisdom.

[00:19:14] They hear it.

[00:19:15] The second thing they practice it.

[00:19:18] They practice it.

[00:19:19] Let's read it in verse 22 to 25 together.

[00:19:24] He says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.

[00:19:32] For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

[00:19:42] For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

[00:19:50] 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.

[00:20:15] Okay.

[00:20:16] In this little section James is telling us, you know, it's one thing to hear the word, but we also need to practice the word.

[00:20:23] He calls it being a doer of the word and he gives another little wrinkle to how he views the word in this passage.

[00:20:32] Notice in verse 25, he refers to the word not just as the implanted word, not just as the word of truth, but he refers to it as the perfect law.

[00:20:43] And then he refers to it as the law of liberty.

[00:20:50] Now, this is interesting for us because how many of you your first reaction to the word law is a good reaction?

[00:20:58] You know, most of us we hear the word law and we're thinking I want as little of those as possible, at least as far as they govern my life.

[00:21:08] You know, I don't want restrictions.

[00:21:11] I don't want to be told how to live.

[00:21:13] I don't want to have limitations placed upon me.

[00:21:17] But notice how James refers to the law.

[00:21:19] He calls it the perfect law, the law of liberty.

[00:21:24] In other words, whatever this is James sees it as something that sets a person free.

[00:21:31] Not a person, not a thing that restricts a person but sets them free to live a truly human mature kind of life.

[00:21:38] Now I think to understand what James is getting at when he refers to this as the perfect law or the law of liberty.

[00:21:44] I think we need the book of Exodus as context and we as a church went through the book of Exodus last year.

[00:21:52] And what we discovered as we went through the book of Exodus is that we had a people group, the people of Israel, who had grown into the size of a nation inside of Egypt for over 400 years.

[00:22:09] So they've been enslaved.

[00:22:12] The slave patterns have been ingrained in their mind.

[00:22:18] The self perception of being in servitude and being under are ingrained in their mind.

[00:22:27] There's not a whole lot of waking up in the morning and saying to yourself, what am I going to do today when you're in that kind of brutal slavery?

[00:22:37] The decisions aren't there so God sets them free, brings them out into the wilderness and takes them to the mountain that Moses originally had met with God at the bush that was burning it.

[00:22:48] Not consumed.

[00:22:49] And God asks them the question.

[00:22:51] This is just a reminder for all of you who are here for Exodus and Exodus 19.

[00:22:54] God asked them the question, do you want to be your, you're my people?

[00:22:59] I've redeemed you.

[00:23:00] I bought you.

[00:23:00] You're my people.

[00:23:01] But do you want to be my kingdom of priests and a holy nation representing me to the world?

[00:23:07] And they said yes.

[00:23:09] And he said, so prepare yourselves and I will give to you my law.

[00:23:14] And they prepared themselves.

[00:23:16] They approached the mountain.

[00:23:18] Some people think that Moses went up and received the 10 commandments and then came down and verbalized them to them.

[00:23:24] And then later went up and God wrote the commandments on tablets of stone.

[00:23:29] What's clear is that he did go up later to receive them on tablets of stone, but at first God delivered them verbally.

[00:23:35] I think that God delivered them from the mountain to the congregation verbally.

[00:23:41] And they heard those 10 commandments and they said, yes, we want to live in that way.

[00:23:47] And then Moses went up the mountain and God gave him the law code.

[00:23:52] Here's how to apply this in so many different areas and facets of life there in Israel.

[00:23:58] And all of it was designed to reshape their minds.

[00:24:03] They'd been in slavery for so long.

[00:24:05] They needed to relearn how to live.

[00:24:09] How many of you can relate to that reality?

[00:24:12] I hope that you can because without Jesus, we are enslaved.

[00:24:17] Without Jesus, we're following the course and the pattern of this world.

[00:24:21] We think we're thinking for ourselves, but we're really not.

[00:24:25] But when you come into Christ, he begins to reshape and remold.

[00:24:30] And I think that's what James is talking about when he says the perfect law of liberty.

[00:24:34] He's saying through Jesus, the law has been fulfilled in Christ.

[00:24:40] And now we have the law of Christ.

[00:24:42] We have the moral code of Jesus and he is wanting to shape that and place that into our minds and hearts and brains.

[00:24:51] And so that's what we need to have adopted into our lives.

[00:24:57] So for James, he said, since it's such a blessing to do it, we must practice the word of God.

[00:25:04] He says we must be doers of the word and not hearers only.

[00:25:10] You can't do the word unless you hear it, but you can hear it without doing it.

[00:25:19] This echoes what Jesus said in Luke 11.

[00:25:22] He said, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

[00:25:27] For some of you, you might be remembering right now another illustration from Jesus

[00:25:32] at the end of his sermon on the Mount when he talked about two different responses to his word.

[00:25:39] He said there was one person, he said those who hear these words of mine and do them

[00:25:46] are like a person who built their house on the rock.

[00:25:48] The storms came and the house stood.

[00:25:51] Those who hear these words of mine and do not do them

[00:25:55] are like those who built their house on the sand.

[00:25:58] The storms came and the house crumbled.

[00:26:02] No, we need to see obedience to the Father's wisdom as something that is a blessing to our lives.

[00:26:11] This takes us back to James's concept of God as the Father of lights

[00:26:16] who gives every good and perfect gift.

[00:26:23] If acting on the Father's wisdom leads to a blessing,

[00:26:27] then what he's saying here is that inaction leads to self-deception.

[00:26:33] I think if we're honest, we have to recognize that we could be prone to this.

[00:26:39] We could really be prone to this.

[00:26:41] To hearing the word and then just not doing anything about the word.

[00:26:47] Now as a Bible teacher, I'll tell you that for me,

[00:26:51] there's a lot of theories about how to teach the Bible and all that.

[00:26:53] And one of the things I'll hear people say from time to time is,

[00:26:56] you've got to give the people lots of application.

[00:27:00] You need to send them away knowing what their action steps are for that week.

[00:27:06] And I gotta be honest with you, I don't really like that perspective

[00:27:09] because there are lots of passages in the Bible

[00:27:12] where there aren't action steps for us to do necessarily that week

[00:27:17] but are important doctrines for us to ingest and believe that week.

[00:27:23] Just truths, you know, that we need to hold on to, that shape us and form us.

[00:27:29] However, there are plenty of things in the Bible that we are called to hear

[00:27:34] and then live out.

[00:27:36] And if we're not careful, we could easily be a people who hear it without doing it

[00:27:43] and then we think that the mission is accomplished.

[00:27:46] Like I've been right where you guys are.

[00:27:48] One of my favorite things to do is to go to church.

[00:27:50] I love going to church and I've been to so many church services

[00:27:54] where God is speaking to me, I'm sensing the Spirit's voice.

[00:28:00] I'm getting that feeling like I think somebody talked to the pastor about me

[00:28:07] before this sermon.

[00:28:08] Like I've had all those moments and the temptation is to feel like

[00:28:15] I have been spoken to, mission accomplished.

[00:28:22] And to walk out with a heart that is warmed or same thing,

[00:28:26] reading the Bible for ourselves, you know, and feeling like the heart is warmed.

[00:28:31] I learned something.

[00:28:33] I feel that I've grown.

[00:28:35] And then to just walk out and go to lunch and not think about

[00:28:39] how does this need to change something in my life?

[00:28:44] What are some ways to apply the word in my life as I've interacted with it?

[00:28:50] And so we must be a people who hear the word but also practice the word.

[00:28:57] There's a devastating line in the book of Ezekiel where the people of Israel,

[00:29:02] they did not really like Ezekiel the prophet,

[00:29:04] but they were very interested in Ezekiel the prophet

[00:29:07] because he did all these wild things.

[00:29:09] And God said to Ezekiel, you know, Ezekiel, there's gonna be an interest in what you're saying,

[00:29:18] but not an action related to what you're saying.

[00:29:21] In fact, God said it this way.

[00:29:23] He said, so my people come pretending to be sincere and sit before you.

[00:29:29] They listen to your words, but they have no intention of doing what you say.

[00:29:33] You are very entertaining to them like someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice

[00:29:38] or plays fine music on an instrument.

[00:29:41] They hear what you say, but they don't act on it.

[00:29:46] He says to Ezekiel, it's like you're gonna sing a great song for them.

[00:29:50] You're an incredible soloist, but there won't be at least in the generation

[00:29:55] that Ezekiel was dealing with a response of repentance to the word of God.

[00:30:02] Now I think this is important because what is James doing?

[00:30:07] He's saying it's possible for us.

[00:30:09] I mean, the word he actually uses there is to persevere in the word.

[00:30:13] This is important because I'll tell you guys this, it's very popular in Western Christianity

[00:30:20] to have a very defeatist attitude about the possibility of obedience.

[00:30:26] The common mantra is, you know, we'll never keep it.

[00:30:31] We'll never really be able to walk in it.

[00:30:35] And I'm all for saying like we have a flesh, we won't keep it perfectly.

[00:30:39] One day we will be glorified, but to have some kind of defeatist attitude like here's God saying

[00:30:45] here's how I want you to live and then for us to say God has told us how to live

[00:30:50] and also it's impossible.

[00:30:51] I'll never be able to do it.

[00:30:52] What are you saying about God?

[00:30:55] You know, there's a story in the Gospels where they planted a man with it.

[00:31:00] The Bible describes him as having a withered hand, a non-functioning hand.

[00:31:07] And it was an obvious infirmity.

[00:31:11] They placed him in a synagogue that Jesus was going to be in on the Sabbath to see

[00:31:16] if he would heal the man on the Sabbath because their interpretation of the Sabbath law code was that

[00:31:21] you couldn't do stuff like that on the Sabbath.

[00:31:23] Jesus knew they were testing him.

[00:31:25] He called the man forward, brought him out in the midst of everyone.

[00:31:30] The man standing there, Jesus is standing there and he says to the man stretch out your hand

[00:31:35] and the man stretches out his hand.

[00:31:38] And as he stretches it out, it becomes whole.

[00:31:42] And I love it because it just was a moment where it's, I think of Jesus just kind of looking

[00:31:47] at the religious leaders like what?

[00:31:49] You know, I didn't do anything.

[00:31:51] Just told him to stretch out his hand.

[00:31:54] But I've always loved that story because to me it's emblematic of all the passages

[00:31:59] like Paul and Philippians when he says work out your salvation that you've been given.

[00:32:05] If you believed in Jesus, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

[00:32:10] You know, work it out, but it's not you who do it as a power of God that's working in you

[00:32:14] and through you who goes on to say that to me is what that story is an emblem of the command

[00:32:21] of Jesus.

[00:32:22] The man did not respond by saying, I cannot do that.

[00:32:27] That's not possible for me.

[00:32:29] You're always telling us to do things that we could never do.

[00:32:34] He doesn't say that.

[00:32:35] He says, I'm going to try and the power of Christ met him in that response.

[00:32:43] If you're a believer today, the spirit of God is inside of you.

[00:32:47] James seems to think the New Testament seems to think Jesus seems to think the Bible seems

[00:32:53] to think that we could walk in the truth of God's Word.

[00:32:58] Will we do it perfectly?

[00:32:59] No, but are we destined to just always fail and fail and fail and fail and fail?

[00:33:04] No, not that either.

[00:33:06] We can grow into Christ likeness.

[00:33:09] All right.

[00:33:10] So that's the second thing we need to practice it, which leads us to a final thing.

[00:33:15] We need to expect the word to do stuff in our lives, which I've already kind of

[00:33:19] been alluding to, but look at what James expected the word to do in verse 26 to 27.

[00:33:25] He said, if anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives

[00:33:31] his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

[00:33:34] Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans

[00:33:40] and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

[00:33:47] Okay.

[00:33:49] We don't have a lot of time to look at this passage today, but there's a word in

[00:33:53] here that might have freaked you guys out a little bit.

[00:33:55] It's the word religion.

[00:33:57] You guys see that?

[00:33:58] There's a popular Christian maxim.

[00:33:59] We say it a lot.

[00:34:00] We say it's not a religion.

[00:34:03] It's a relationship.

[00:34:05] Usually you guys can even say it out loud.

[00:34:08] It's true.

[00:34:09] What we mean by that is Christianity is not a bunch of outward, you

[00:34:15] know, ceremonies, the smells and bells and robes and all of that.

[00:34:20] That's not at the core what Christianity is at the core Christianity is a

[00:34:26] relationship with the living God Christ came.

[00:34:29] God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

[00:34:32] Christ came.

[00:34:33] He substituted himself for us on that cross and rose from the dead so

[00:34:39] that now if we believe in him, we will not perish but have life with God

[00:34:44] forever beginning right now today.

[00:34:47] We're made right with God all of that so that we can have a relationship

[00:34:54] with the Father.

[00:34:55] But James comes in here and he's using this word religion.

[00:34:58] It's not a word that's used a lot in the Bible.

[00:35:01] In fact, just in this little passage, James doubled the Bible's usage

[00:35:06] of the word religion.

[00:35:08] What does James mean?

[00:35:11] James, I think is using a different definition of what religion has

[00:35:19] evolved into in our modern thinking.

[00:35:22] He seems to be thinking of religion as the expression, the outward

[00:35:31] manifestation of a relationship with the Father.

[00:35:35] These are the things according to James that will be produced when

[00:35:40] a person is walking with God.

[00:35:44] James holds out three things.

[00:35:48] He says, you know, a person walking with God, they're going to be able

[00:35:51] to tame the tongue.

[00:35:52] We're going to look at that more in depth when we get to James

[00:35:55] chapter 3.

[00:35:56] He said, they're going to be able to bridle their tongue, their mouth.

[00:36:00] They're going to care for widows and orphans.

[00:36:03] And they are also going to live holy lives unspotted,

[00:36:09] unstained from the world in which they live.

[00:36:13] I want you to catch all of that in those two verses, verse 26

[00:36:17] and 27, because sometimes, especially here in California,

[00:36:20] you'll hear someone say, well, I'm just not into organized

[00:36:24] religion.

[00:36:25] I'm not into going to a church.

[00:36:26] I'm not into being part of a church because, and maybe

[00:36:30] they'll use the logic of James said in James 1.27 that pure

[00:36:35] and undefiled religion is this, to visit orphans and widows

[00:36:38] in their time of need.

[00:36:40] That's all I want to be about and all I want to do.

[00:36:43] The verse before it, James says also pure religion is to

[00:36:46] bridle your mouth.

[00:36:48] And then after it, he says also pure religion is to be a

[00:36:51] holy person.

[00:36:53] And then way before this, and way after this in the book

[00:36:56] of James, he'll talk about the gathering and the church

[00:36:59] and how to treat your fellow brother and sister in Christ.

[00:37:03] And then there's other stuff all throughout the rest of the

[00:37:05] New Testament.

[00:37:06] So I don't want you to read James 1.27a and say to yourself,

[00:37:10] okay, I'm going to, I don't need to read my Bible.

[00:37:12] I don't need to have a church.

[00:37:13] I don't need to have a pastor.

[00:37:15] I don't need to do any of these things because religion is

[00:37:17] this, caring for orphans and widows in their time of need.

[00:37:20] But though that's not all it is, James is saying this is

[00:37:25] a major part of an outworking of a relationship with

[00:37:30] the living God.

[00:37:32] So what does James expect?

[00:37:34] Controlled speech is one thing.

[00:37:39] Man, that's a hard one, isn't it?

[00:37:47] The way that we use our words.

[00:37:53] I'm not going to take a show of hands, but I'm sure pretty

[00:37:56] much everyone in this room, there are things that you

[00:38:00] have said to or about people that you would die for that

[00:38:07] have harmed those relationships.

[00:38:11] It's like we just, it's a hard thing.

[00:38:16] But James here, he says when someone is walking with God,

[00:38:19] this gets touched.

[00:38:21] The heart begins to be changed and transformed and what

[00:38:24] comes out of their mouth begins to improve.

[00:38:27] He also says that someone walking in the Father's

[00:38:33] wisdom will give practical care for hurting people in

[00:38:37] society and in their church.

[00:38:41] This concept of taking care of orphans and widows in

[00:38:45] their affliction, I mean in James's society that he

[00:38:48] was writing to, there was no means of support or little

[00:38:52] means of support for people who were in those

[00:38:54] categories.

[00:38:56] And so James felt the church, you guys, we need to

[00:38:59] take care of people hurting in this way.

[00:39:02] This echoes the whole Old Testament, the whole

[00:39:05] New Testament, but remember the passage we looked at

[00:39:08] in Micah a few weeks ago, Micah 6, verse 8, God has

[00:39:11] told you, oh man what is good, what the Lord requires

[00:39:14] of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to

[00:39:17] walk humbly with your God.

[00:39:20] I found that one of the responses that people

[00:39:25] make to verses like these, especially, I don't

[00:39:30] know what it is, but there's just like a response

[00:39:33] that we sometimes give of I've got to, now I

[00:39:36] need to start a ministry.

[00:39:39] I need to figure out a way to organize and like do

[00:39:42] all this stuff and start a ministry, but I want

[00:39:45] to encourage you today, like that might be

[00:39:47] something that God does in your life, I'm looking

[00:39:49] at people, I'm looking at some people in this room

[00:39:51] who have that kind of ministry, but I want to

[00:39:55] encourage you to think about just you looking

[00:39:58] for opportunities to be that kind of person.

[00:40:03] Pastor Mike who's sitting over here with his wife,

[00:40:06] Michelle, he runs our regeneration ministry on

[00:40:09] Monday night and the bridge ministries, our

[00:40:11] residential program for people coming out of

[00:40:13] life dominating sin and addiction.

[00:40:16] One of our favorite ministries here in the church

[00:40:19] and you know everybody, everyone in life has

[00:40:22] these core stories that they tell that are

[00:40:24] kind of drive them and one of Mike's is a

[00:40:27] story if you've been around him for any length

[00:40:29] of time, you've heard this story so I

[00:40:31] apologize if you've heard it 90 times already,

[00:40:34] but it's a story of these two guys that are

[00:40:37] walking down the beach having a conversation

[00:40:40] together and washed up onto the beach are

[00:40:42] thousands of starfish.

[00:40:44] And as they're walking down the beach one of

[00:40:47] them is talking, the other is listening,

[00:40:50] picking up starfish one at a time and

[00:40:52] throwing them back into the water.

[00:40:54] They're still alive but they're dying so

[00:40:56] he's throwing them back in the water so

[00:40:58] that they can live.

[00:41:00] And so the other guy stops and says, man

[00:41:03] there are thousands of starfish on this

[00:41:06] beach. You cannot begin to make a

[00:41:09] difference.

[00:41:11] And the guy just picked up another one, threw

[00:41:13] it into the water and said well I made a

[00:41:16] difference to that one.

[00:41:19] And that's been a real heartbeat of the bridge

[00:41:22] and regeneration is just you know one at

[00:41:25] a time we want to help people.

[00:41:27] But my encouragement to you is to take

[00:41:29] your philosophy into a James 1.

[00:41:31] 27 excertation.

[00:41:33] God might use you to have a big

[00:41:35] ministry and platform to some

[00:41:37] pocket of society that is hurting

[00:41:39] in the need of pressure being

[00:41:41] alleviated but he also for sure

[00:41:43] wants to just use you in individual

[00:41:45] ways to care for people who might

[00:41:47] be in that orphans, widows or I

[00:41:49] think I would broaden it to just

[00:41:51] those who are hurting in our modern

[00:41:53] world.

[00:41:55] And so the other guy says, well

[00:41:57] we are in the modern world.

[00:41:59] Okay and then the last thing that James

[00:42:01] mentioned is that the father's wisdom

[00:42:03] will produce personal godliness.

[00:42:05] He said in verse 27 they must keep

[00:42:07] oneself unstained from the

[00:42:09] world. What?

[00:42:11] A robust person, James described.

[00:42:13] I mean don't you want to meet this

[00:42:15] guy?

[00:42:17] Don't you want to be this person?

[00:42:19] Okay this is the person that is

[00:42:21] developed when they're walking

[00:42:23] with the father soaking in

[00:42:25] their own wisdom.