Well, I ask you to turn in your Bibles to the book of James, the book of James. I typically preach in the evening service, and so we're working our way through that book. If you're using the Pew Bible in front of you, the book of James can be found on page 1199, 1199. We come to the last section this morning of the first chapter of the book of James. We're going to be considering this morning from verses 19 to 27. But I'm going to begin my reading for context back at verse 12 of chapter 1. So we'll begin our reading at verse 12. We'll read all the way through to verse 27. James chapter 1, beginning our reading at verse 12. blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which god has promised to those who love him let no one say when he is tempted i am being tempted by god for god cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change of his will he has brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures know this my beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger for the anger of man does not produce a righteousness of god therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves 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 for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like 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 if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart this person religion is worthless 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 well we're back in james this morning and as i have stated a number of times this is a very practical book it's so practical that I think it's easy for us at times to misread this book to misread passages of this book what James says often seems so straightforward and practical that we could read what he says as something of individual proverbial statements now yes there certainly is a link between the book of james and the old testament wisdom literature that should be clearly acknowledged and appreciated we'll see that as we move throughout this book but that doesn't mean that we should fall for the temptation to read various passages of this book and to rip them out of their context and take them as as i said individual proverbial statements could be tempting to do that with the text before us this morning our text is verses 19 through 27 but we began reading at verse 12 for context right but strictly speaking our text this morning begins at verse 19 and what does verse 19 say know this my beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger that could be a great proverbial statement, right? Let me repeat that again. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. What is James saying here? Well, if we fall to the temptation to take this text out of context, then it would be easy to say, well, James is telling each of us to be slow to speak, quick to hear, slow to anger. That seems quite clear, quite straightforward, doesn't it? In fact, a proverb like that would be great for our politicians and our political pundits to apply to their lives and their discussions. But it's not only politicians and pundits who need to be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger we too can appreciate the application of a proverb like that in fact i remember the first time that this verse was quoted to me in that very manner i was having a argument with my younger brother one of the many arguments that we had and just as i was about to cut him off he quoted this text to me now i was a new young christian and so not only did the text itself kind of catch me off guard but the fact that my younger brother quoted this to me i didn't even know he knew scripture be slow to speak quick to listen he said to me and the effect that he intended was accomplished stopped me verbally in my tracks made me reconsider now applying this text in that way indeed seems very straightforward very practical but sadly it's not exactly what james intends for this text to mean well if that's not what James intends what does he intend or how does he intend this text to be taken well I think looking into the context a little bit what will help us to understand exactly how James is using these passages here it's also important I think that we cover some context here because I typically preach in the evening service and so maybe you don't often have the opportunity to be in the evening service and so maybe you don't know where we've been in this book. So let me remind you, James begins this book by speaking of trials. If you look back at the beginning of chapter one, he says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds. And why would James say count it all joy? He says that because God intends to use the trials in our lives to sanctify us to make us more like christ the discussion on trials then leads james to talk about wisdom because what do we need in the midst of trials but wisdom and so he says if you lack wisdom ask for wisdom from above and the lord will provide it for you that then leads to a brief discussion on the respective trials that the rich faced as well as the poor and with all trials the blessings that come to those who remain steadfast under trials the crown of life and that leads to what is a very practical question that many may face while under trial and that is the question of god tempting us see if god is sovereign if he's in control of all things then can a person who is in the midst of a trial ask the question god is tempting me is god tempting me here? That's a realistic question, isn't it? It's a practical question. Given the trial that the person is facing, is God tempting me? And James says, no, God is not tempting you because God cannot be tempted, nor does he tempt anyone. And that leads to James talking about the character of God, the goodness of God, that he only gives that which is perfect and good and what is the best thing that god has given to his people new life through his word as he says in verse 18 notice with me of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures And that brings us to our text, where not just a practical matter is raised, but the very practical matter of the outworking, the working of the word of God and the lives of God's people. You see, as I said, trials in life so easily tempt us to mistakenly question God and his goodness to us. However much we may have other times acknowledged and recognized His goodness to us, we are so inclined at times, it's so easy in the midst of trials to say, is God really as good as He is? As He described Himself to be. Is He in control? Is He good? Is He loving and caring and compassionate? Because if He is, why am I in this difficult mess? I'm sure that's something that maybe we've all asked at a time, or at least been tempted to ask. Trials tempt us to ask questions like that. Now, at the same time, I'm sure we know people who have gone through trials in their lives, and in the midst of those trials, they not only don't ask those questions, at least maybe not out loud, But those people seem to flourish in their trials. Their faith seems to hold fast to the Lord and His promises. And their faith seems to grow in the midst of those trials. Their faith seems to be strengthened through those trials. You may know that I recently had the privilege to speak at the RYS convention a few weeks ago this summer. And in preparation for my lessons at the convention, I did some research in the life and ministry of the missionary Jim Elliott. Maybe you know the name and the story of Jim Elliott. I love a quote that I took from his journal, which is, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. It's a beautiful quote. If you know the story of Jim and the other men that intended on being missionaries in the Amazon Basin to the indigenous people, you know that it was not God's will for them to minister to those men and women. It was God's will for the wives of Jim Elliott and his friends to come in and be a light among those indigenous people. But those ladies would be a light to those people only after enduring the trial of their husbands being brutally killed at the very hands of the indigenous people that they set out to bring the gospel to. How did they do it? How did they do it? What was it about those ladies that enabled their faith to be so anchored in the Lord that they would go back into that jungle and pursue the very people who killed their husbands? Well, the answer that James gives to us here in the text is the effect of the implanted Word of God. It's God's Word that makes all the difference in the life of the Christian. It's God's Word that enables the Christian to persevere in the face of the worst kinds of trials. It's the Word of God that produces in the life of the Christian faith that endures. And that's why James' discussion of trials leads him to bring up the great need of God's word. And so James brings up two things here in regards to God's word. He says, first, hear the word. Hear the word. And second, do the word. Do the word. And what we'll see is the practicing and hearing of the word that James speaks of here leads to a kind of genuine religion over against the kind of worthless religion that he speaks of later on in this passage. Hearing and doing leads to genuine Christianity and faith. You remember if you've heard me work through this series that James is interested in genuine faith. He's interested in producing in the life of his Christian audience mature and authentic faith. James is interested in genuine religion, not worthless religion, not the worthless religion of those who don't care to hear God's word, don't care to follow God's word, don't care to abide in his word. James knows that genuine religion, genuine faith is only produced by the word of God. And so he mentions in verse 18 that faith is granted by that very word, the word of truth. And then he follows up in verse 19 by saying faith is grown, cultivated, strengthened as one continues to receive that very implanted word. And that's why James begins here by saying in verse 19, Know this, my beloved brothers, let everyone be quick to hear. Quick to hear God's word in the midst of their trials and difficulties. Slow to speak. Slow to condemn God. Slow to question God in the midst of their difficulties. Slow to anger. Why? Because the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. See, James realizes the significance of God's word for the life of faith. He realizes that the word of God is the sustenance for the Christian. The word is living and active, as the book of Hebrews says. It's food for our souls, since man does not live by bread and water alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Do we fully realize this, brothers and sisters? Do we fully realize the significance of God's Word for our faith? We started this service today with a call to worship. Notice that call came from Isaiah 55. Beautiful text. Beautiful reminder that it presents to us. Let me read it to you again. Come. Come, everyone who thirsts. Come, buy and eat. Why spend your money on that which is not bread and you labor for that which does not satisfy? And then the prophet says, Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live. Isaiah 55 speaks of the sustenance of God's word to his people. Incline your ear that your soul may live. It links God's Word with the spiritual nourishment that His people need. It's God's Word that provides us with the much needed nourishment and sustenance that we need for our Christian lives. See, brothers and sisters, the Word of the Lord is that by which the Lord shapes and forms us, builds us up in Christ. I think this gets at a particular issue in regards to God's Word for us. Expectation. Have we lost a kind of faith-filled expectation in regards to God's Word? I think at times we have. I think at times we've lost the expectation or faith in the supernatural power of God's Word to work in us and in our hearts. I think we fail today to expect much from God's Word. We don't take God's Word as serious as we should. Remember the story of the faith of the centurion, don't you? As found in Matthew 8. Great story. Great display of faith and expectation. Remember the man comes to Jesus and he says, Lord, my servant is paralyzed and suffering. And he asks Jesus to heal him. And Jesus says, I will come and heal him. But the text tells us that the centurion replied to Jesus by saying, Lord, I am unworthy to have you come to my home. The centurion was a man who was familiar with his sin and therefore acknowledged, knew that he was unworthy of Jesus Christ. So that unworthy centurion says, Just say the word, Lord, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I say go and one goes. And to another come and he comes. And to my servant do this and he does it. When Jesus hears the centurion say this to him, the text says Jesus marveled at the man. He marveled at the faith of this man. He marveled at the expectation that this man had at the words of Jesus. D.A. Carson says the centurion knew that when he spoke, his words came with a certain power and authority, the authority of Rome. So that when he spoke to his soldiers or servants, it was as if Rome was speaking. In a like manner, the centurion knew when Jesus spoke, That he spoke with the power and authority of heaven itself. The centurion had great faith. Faith in Christ. Faith in his word. Do we have that kind of faith today? Do we have that kind of faith in God's word? Do we have that kind of expectation in the power of God's word? Do we genuinely believe that God's word is active and living? sharper than a double-edged sword? Do we genuinely believe that God's Word is able to change our lives? See, there are two things in all of Scripture described as breathed out by God, exhaled by God. The first is man. God breathed into the dust of the earth and He gave life to man. The second thing is scripture itself. God breathed. God exhaled. All scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and training and righteousness so that the man of God may be competent or fully equipped for every good work. You see, when we realize what the Word of God is, God breathed, active, living, powerful, then I think we will all the more seek it out. We'll seek to sit under it. We'll seek to listen to it. We'll be quick to incline our ears to it. Quick to listen to it. Slow to speak. Slow to anger. See, it is the Word of God that grants spiritual life, and it is that same Word that grants strength to our faith, builds our faith, so that even when we face various trials, because we've been quick to listen to God's Word, to meditate upon it, to hide it in our hearts, when we're tempted in the midst of trials to question God, Instead, we'll confess with the psalmist. I lift my eyes up to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let my foot be moved. He will keep me. He who does not slumber nor sleep. The Lord is my keeper. The Lord is the shade on my right hand. The sun will not strike me by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep me from all evil. The Lord will keep my life. Brothers and sisters, be quick to listen. Slow to speak. Slow to anger. And do that by, as James says in verse 21, by receiving with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. I think this today can be one of the hardest things for us to do. We don't live in a day and age where it's easy to sit under God's word and to make it a priority in our lives. There are so many other competing media and voices for us. There's television. And given the political season that is upon us, maybe today for many of us we're more familiar with Fox News and the catechism of the political right than we are of God's Word. But let me encourage you, brothers and sisters, turn off the television. Turn off those political points of view. And spend some time in God's Word. Allow God's Word to address you and your heart and what you face, even in this political season. then there's also the internet cell phones social media all which compete for our attention in the past social media was thought to be a problem for their youth but today i think it's just as much a problem for us adults as it is for the youth we can spend so much time on such things social media is not going to give us any kind of perspective on the trials that we face in fact social media can make those trials seem all the worse then there's podcasts radio programs talk shows movies a whole host of other media and voices turn those things off brothers and sisters maybe not forever but for a moment be quick to listen quick to sit under god's word and allow it to address us james now having encouraged his listeners to be quick to hear the word follows up with another command not only be hearers he says but also doers see we must first put ourselves under the word of god to know it and allow it to get into us but once we do that there's another step to be taken we must actually do what it says we must follow it we must apply it to our lives we must allow it to be a guiding lamp in life just as psalm 119 says your lord your word oh lord is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path psalm 119 speaks of putting the word of god into practice applying it to our lives applying the word so that it directs the way that we live and however difficult it may be today to sit and listen to god's word it's even more difficult to follow it to do what it says james here is speaking of obedience christian remember james is a practical book one of the primary aims that he aims for here is real genuine authentic christianity and real genuine authentic christianity is displayed through the way the christian lives james is not interested in those who can simply quote scripture chapter and verse he's not interested in those who can engage in a theological discussion or answer some theological question. James, the brother of Jesus, would have been familiar with that kind of religiosity in his life. He would have known it from the Jews that surrounded him. He would have known it from the religious leaders around him. If you recall, the Jews of his day knew the Old Testament scriptures. They had large portions of it memorized. But in all of their memorization, they miss the most critical point of all of Scripture. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. And so when the Messiah comes onto the scene, they hear Him, they listen to Him, they follow Him. But they don't abide in His Word, do they? And now as those who have heard the Word of Christ so wonderfully preached and proclaimed to us, The wonderful good news of Jesus living, dying for the sake of His people. Earning salvation, redemption, reconciliation, the forgiveness of sins through His work and life. Are we, by faith, willing to follow Christ's words? Willing to abide in His word? You see, today, as always, the temptation to easy beliefism is real. we're part of christian families we go to christian schools or send our children to christian schools maybe we homeschool our children we're part of co-ops and so forth we pray before our meals we engage in theological discussions we consider ourselves christians and yet we may not be genuinely authentically following christ and his word we may not be striving to be obedient in every area of life to those who are living this kind of double way james says you're deceiving yourself in verse 22 he says you may think that your religiosity is worth something but in reality it's worthless it's part of worthless religion and to impress this upon his listeners he draws up an illustration he says to those who live this way you're like a man who looks intently at your natural face in a mirror and then you go away and you forget what you look like you forget who you are but brothers and sisters we are christians genuine christians we don't forget who we are we don't deceive ourselves ourselves we remember that we are new creations in jesus christ we've been bought with the price of the blood of jesus christ we no longer belong to ourselves our lives are no longer ours they've been purchased so that we might live for the one who died for us that's who we are see as christians we have every reason to be a people of obedience christ's work christ's work we have every reason as james says in verse 25 to look into the perfect law the law of liberty and persevere be not only a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts now this doesn't mean that christians won't at times at various times struggle with sin we may sin is powerful sin is tempting it can easily ensnare us but the genuine Christian, after falling, gets right back up every time, acknowledges that sin, and continues to strive for obedience. We have every reason to do that, brothers and sisters. Christ Himself, Christ living and dying for us, gives us reason to pursue obedience, To no longer live for ourselves, but for Him. And you know what the beautiful thing about belonging to Jesus Christ is. Belonging to Christ means that the law is transformed for us as Christians. In Christ, the law is no longer a taskmaster telling us to do something that we cannot do. The law becomes, as James says here, the law of liberty, the law of freedom. In Christ, we are free and enabled now to delight in God's law. This took me quite some time to realize as a Christian. It took me some time to realize that there is great joy in obedience. There's joy in Christian obedience. I recall prior to being a Christian, I hated the law. I wanted to live for myself. I didn't want anyone or anything to tell me otherwise. I wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. But through Christ, by the Spirit, God gave me a desire. A desire to delight in the law. A desire to delight in obedience. It's beautiful when we live according to the law and we do what's right. Even in the most difficult, tempting situations, we strive, we trust by faith in Christ, we look to Him as our delight, and we abide in His Word. And it brings us joy. Because we know it brings Him joy when we are obedient to Him. Now, we certainly can't do that perfectly, can we? But as our catechism says, we can have small beginnings of the obedience that God requires of us. And that happens as we keep one eye or one ear in Scripture and the other eye and other ear towards doing what the Scriptures call us to do. Since, as I said, when we do what Christ has commanded us, there is great joy because the law is good the law is a reflection of our good gracious wonderful righteous God and like all genuine children we want to be just like him now at this point in our text James goes on to speak about genuine religion in some practical terms he says if anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue but he deceives him his heart this person's religion is worthless there is a worthless kind of religion brothers and sisters religion that is pure and undefiled before god the father however james says is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world i titled this sermon this morning worthless religion has taken from what James says right here in verses 26 and 27. Now today the term religion almost always has a negative connotation to it. When you speak to someone about Christ, they may respond, I'm more spiritual than I am religious. And then even Christians at times may say something like, Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. Religion today has come to be referred to as all the empty formal practices of institutional religion. But you see in the text here before us, James makes a distinction, doesn't he? A distinction between genuine religion and worthless religion. Worthless religion is the religion of a person who is quick to speak, slow to hear, quick to anger. It's religion expressed through forgetting the true child of God, that the true child of God was purchased by Jesus Christ through His blood, through His life and death. And so, the man of worthless religion continues to live for himself. James here contrasts that worthless religion with genuine religion, which is quick, quick to hear God's Word. In the midst of trials and difficulties. Slow to speak, slow to anger, slow to judge God. But they allow God's word to abide in their hearts. And they do so much that that word produces fruit in their lives. They find themselves following that word. Living according to it. Abiding in it. Yes, brothers and sisters, there is indeed worthless religion today. But that is not who we are. We're not of the sorts that practice worthless religion. We are of the household of God who sit under His preached Word. We take that Word serious. We know that it is active and powerful, sharper than a double-edged sword, that it is able to change our lives in every way. And so we abide in it. We trust in it. We entrust ourselves and our lives to it and we walk according to it. Pursue God's Word, brothers and sisters, and allow it to produce wonderful fruit in your lives. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for the wonderful gift of Your Word to us. Indeed, a gift, Lord, that we at various times don't take as serious as we should. Forgive us, Lord, for that. Forgive us for taking your word for granted. Father, we pray that even the word that we heard this morning, Lord, that you would use it to well up in our hearts great faith, great praise of you and Jesus Christ and the work that you've done for us in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We pray this in his name. Amen.