Speaker 1: Come under the Lord Jesus. You can come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Have your sins forgiven. Do whatever you want. It's not the way it works in the word.
We come to Jesus. We lay our lives down to him. That whatever he says, we have to do.
Speaker 2: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Life Tabernacle Church podcast. It's an honor to be with you today. This podcast serves as our church's weekly sermon archive. Tune in each week to hear what God is speaking in our community.
Be sure to follow and share with a friend. We hope you enjoy today's message.
Speaker 1: Past few weeks, we've been in the book of the letter of James. And for the past five weeks, we've just been digging in the first chapter. This is gonna be a long book that's gonna go through October. And so for the last five weeks, we've really just been trying to get through chapter one, and we've seen topics of trials, the topic of perseverance, the topic of obtaining wisdom, taking pride in your humble circumstances, are just a few of the things that we've discussed so far. And last week, God's word encouraged us to keep our eyes on the prize.
Look at your neighbor and say, eyes on the prize. Did y'all keep your eyes on the prize this week? I did, but at moments, I've took my eyes off the prize. And that's at the end of the day, that's the game. We wanna keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, but you're gonna get distracted.
You're gonna get discouraged. The question is how quickly can you fix your eyes back on Jesus on the cross? So last week, we learned to keep our eyes on the prize, to be person to persevere, to not be dragged away by the world and its sin. And so, today, we enter verses 19 through 27, this is it. This is like the climax so far of the book.
And this is really gonna be James' main statement in the book. This is James' thesis statement, if you will. If we don't get what we get today, then we're not gonna get the rest of the book. It's not gonna make sense, it's not going to matter. Today is where we're gonna get the real meat of the story because in chapters two through five, which you'll start digging in here in a couple weeks, James is going to give us 12 different teachings on how to be doers of the word and not just hearers of the word.
But before he gives us those topics, he has to lay out why it's important for us to be doers of the word and not only hearers. So if you have your Bibles, we'll be in James one nineteen through 27. When you're there, say, I'm there. I'm there. My friends, listen closely.
This is the word of the Lord. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word and does not do it is like one who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently and continues in it let me restart verse 25. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Those who consider themselves religious and do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and the religion is worthless.
Religion that our God, our father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. My friends, this is the word of the Lord this morning. Can we just pray over the word? Very simply. Lord, we thank you for your word.
Help us to understand and do what the word says. Lord, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
I wanna ask you a question this morning. By a show of hands, when you were in school growing up or maybe still now, which which of you all enjoyed math class? The engineer in the room says yes. Which of you all enjoy history class? Alright.
There's more hands there. As you may know already, I'm not a math guy. And so thankful God brought me into the vocation I'm in, if you will. But one thing I've always been really good at is history. All my friends had to study for history when we would have our SOLs, our standard of learning test at the end of the year.
All my friends are frantically trying, oh, I'm trying to remember, you know, remember all this stuff, Virginia history and all this war and that war. And I'm like, what's your big problem? I it's all in here for me. This is easy. And any time I would take a history test on SOLs, I don't know if you know the scale, this was like the only time I ever got like perfect scores.
I would get hundreds on the history test, and I didn't even have to try. It just came naturally for me. And with that, I've always have a fa I've always had a fascination with history. I think history is really important to understand because if you know where you've been, and we understand how we got there in the past, that can help us go forward in the future. All of us wanna make progress forward, but if we don't look back to the past to obtain wisdom, we could be making the same mistakes.
And growing up, it's probably because my father enjoyed watching watching old war movies. I I I was fascinated with anything war wise. World War one, World War two, the American Revolution. But the war that I was most interested in as a kid was the Civil War, which sounds really weird because it was a very actually dark time of human history, of our country's history as we just celebrated two hundred and fifty years. You know, within those two hundred and fifty years, we had a full out civil war between the North and the South that was very bloody.
And our state has a lot of history from the civil war. If you drive around and just look at, you know, signs on the side of the road, it will say, you know, historic civil war trail. And up the road, not far away in Appomattox is where the union I meant the South seceded to the Union and the Civil War was over. But with that said, I was studying for my sermon this week. There was a story that I found from the Civil War that I wanted to share with you this morning that really I think paints a good picture.
So there was this general named George And Abraham Lincoln, you know, the big tall guy with the beard with the top hat, you know, that guy. Lincoln put General George McClellan in in the command of the Union Army and gave him every resource he asked for. He gave him men, he gave him supplies, he gave him time. And McClellan was brilliant. Like, he was a brilliant organizer.
He was a good trainer of troops and constantly telegraphed Lincoln with plans and promises and reasons why he was about to move on the Confederate army. Can you say about to move? That's important for the story. The problem was he always talked to Abraham Lincoln about the things he was about to do, but he rarely ever did anything. Lincoln grew so exasperated with the endless preparation without action that he is said to equip something to the effect of this.
He said, if general McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a while. That's pretty funny coming from someone like Abraham Lincoln. Right? Eventually, Lincoln relieved him of his command. The whole arc of his story is a picture of someone who has every intention, every resource, every plan, but who never actually pulls the trigger.
All hearing, all talking, no doing. You probably have a friend in your life who's always fixing to do something. But they've been fixing to do something for a long time. Right? I'm fixing.
I gotta lose some weight this year. I'm fixing to do it. You told me that ten years ago. What's going on, bud? Right?
You know what I'm talking about. So this story really just paints what James is trying to communicate in verses 19 through 27. James has been building towards this, and now we're finally here. This is the word from James. To be doers of the word and not only hearers.
Look at your neighbor and say, doers of the word. James begins making his argument for us to be doers of the word in verse 19. So look back at verse 19 with me as I reread it to you. My dear brothers and sisters Let's pause there. Like in the original language, this would be my beloved.
So like we read this and it kinda feels dry. This is a very honorable title. You know, kinda like how you read in the scriptures, Jesus calls his mom woman once, and you're like, that is so rude. Why would you call your mom woman? It was actually more like, ma'am.
So James, in the same way, he's saying, dearly beloved, in a very calm, pastoral, loving way, but with some firmness. He says, dear brothers and sisters, the beloved of Christ, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Now, if I'm honest, and if you're honest, you have had some point in your life where you have said something you regret.
You're in a conversation with someone, you're in an argument with someone, someone's you're not even having a conversation with this person. You're sitting at a red light. Right? And you're sitting behind the person, and the person's in front of you, not paying attention on their phone. And you begin talking to them through the car as if they can hear you.
Right? You quickly, instead of you being calm, not getting angry and relaxing, you begin to not listen well, and you begin to over talk, and you begin to become angry very quickly. We have all experienced times in our lives where we have not been slow to anger, we have not been slow to speak, and we have not been quick to listen. Usually, it's the opposite. We're slow to listen.
We're quick to become we're quick to say something and we're quick to become angry. And James is giving us the reverse. He's saying, hey, in order for you to be genuine doers of the word, you first need to quiet down, stop talking, stop getting angry, and listen to the word of the Lord. That's what he's setting up for us. Hey, be quiet, listen.
We need to be good hearers before we can do what's next. So as I've been saying through the past few weeks and today, James is all about being doers of the word. Right? But in order for my child, Semi or Marcella or the boys when they grow up, in order for them to do what I've said, they first need to be good listeners. Right?
They need to be good hearers of the word. You can't be a good doer of the word if you're not a good hearer of the word. The things don't go well together. We first have to be good hearers. The problem is, in our culture, in our time, we have lots of people who are bad hearers of the word.
And that is for a lot of reasons. Some of us, when it comes to reading God's word, it doesn't make sense to us. So we don't read God's word, and we don't hear God speaking to us through the word. Some of us feel too busy in our life. Well, I can't just fit the word in.
I don't know when I don't want it to read. I'm too busy or it doesn't make sense. And we give a whole huge a whole host of excuses why we're not good hearers of the Word in our culture because of these devices right here, our electronic devices. We've become we have the attention span of like squirrels. And you get on Facebook for, know, twenty minutes and you realize you watched a 100 videos that you don't know what's about.
And then when you sit down to do something really meaningful, like listening to God's word, you can't pay attention because your attention span's gone. Or when you sit down and hear to hear me speak, or you turn on the television to hear your favorite TV preacher, you have a hard time paying attention because your attention span's gone. And we honestly have lost the art of being good hearers of the word. There's a pastor I really enjoy in New York City. He's named pastor John Tyson, and he calls the pulpit like the last place in society where we get to sit quietly and to pay attention to something for thirty, forty five minutes or an hour if we're long winded.
The pulpit being able to hear a sermon is one of the last places in our culture where we can truly practice the art of hearing. And so let hear that today. Hear that very clearly. In orders for us to be good doers of the word, we first must be good hearers of the word. And if you wanna be a good hearer of the word, then you need to do what James says.
You need to be quick to listen to God, Stop talking. Now and and the Bible, mind you, is full of people talking to God. If you open up the Psalms, it's just people talking and praying to God. But sometimes you don't need to talk to him. Sometimes you just need to listen to him.
We do a lot of talking to him, but we don't always sit to just listen. We wanna tell him our problems, but we don't wanna hear what he might have to say about our problems. So the first exhortation is to just really, in in God's way, he's saying, hey, you need to be quiet and listen. Relax. Stop getting angry.
And he's probably told them to stop getting angry because this group of people he's writing to, that's probably what they were doing. Remember, they're persecuted Christians. They are followers of Jesus, and they are being financially persecuted just because they're Christians. And I can imagine that's making them angry. And they're wanting to quickly spout back off to these people who are persecuting them.
And James is like, no, no, no, no, no. That's you getting angry at them is going to produce nothing. It's not going to produce the righteousness which God desires. It's not gonna produce what Jesus wants to do in you. You need to slow down.
Just listen well. Stop talking. That's what verses 19 through 21 are really about. That's why James starts off the passage in this way, in a very nice way. He's telling us to pipe down, to humble ourselves, and to prepare our hearts to actually submit to the lordship of Jesus, not just the idea of lordship to Jesus.
He goes on with his main idea in James one twenty two through 25. You can frame this on your wall. You can get a tattoo of it if you're a tattoo person. Herman, if you want a tattoo, I get you one of these if you like those. Okay?
Not you? Not your thing? Alright. Sounds good. James one twenty two through 25.
Listen closely. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, but does not does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.
He is now at his main point of this entire letter. This is it. Notice, when he moves to this question, this section, he doesn't say anything about us talking. Remember, in verses 19 through 21, we close our mouths and we open our ears. Listening ears on.
And he moves directly from us hearing to now doing. Because if we've humbled ourselves, if we've closed our mouths and our ears are open, receptive to God's word, to hearing the word of God who is Christ, then we are ready to do what he's about to ask us to do. And since Jesus is the word of God incarnate, do you remember in John chapter one verse one, in the beginning was the what? Word. Good.
Jesus is the word of God who took on flesh and dwelt among us. And so, if he's telling us, don't just be hearers of the word, but be doers of the word. He's not talking just about the black letters and the red letters in this book. He's ultimately talking about the word of God, which we are listening to and sitting at his feet, and that is Jesus the Christ who was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth. It is Jesus who is the Word that we are to submit ourselves to.
He is the word of God incarnate. And the proper response is to listen and to obey Jesus and whatever he says. If we want to be good hearers of the word, that means we just need to listen to Jesus. This this book is really God communicating to us. Jesus is the word.
And if we want to become wise Christians who persevere to the end, we have to do that by listening and obeying the words of Jesus even unto death. What does Jesus say? Matthew twenty eight nineteen and twenty. Go therefore in all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I've commanded, lo with you, and lo I'm with you always till the end of the age. Teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you.
My friends, we live in America where we have a president, and we have senators, and we have representatives and politicians and whatnot. And so the whole idea of a king or a dictator, if you will, or or some noble figures kinda lost our minds. Kinda just drifted out of our mind. It's kinda why we celebrated two hundred and fifty years of America's history. We got away from the crown.
Right? But when the bible talks about Jesus being our lord, that word lord means like lord, master. I I think the word is kurios, if I remember correctly. And Jesus being our Lord is not a suggestion. We've preached a really cheap gospel that says, hey, you can come under the Lord Jesus.
You can come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Have your sins forgiven. Do whatever you want. It's not the way it works in the word. We come to Jesus.
We lay our lives down to him. That whatever he says, we have to do. He says, those who put into practice these words I give you, those who practice such things will endure to the end, will be saved. And so, mind you, is it okay to, you know, for like a deathbed confession, someone comes to know Jesus and they they they they give their heart to Jesus right there, then they die. Does that mean, you know, they didn't have time to obey the words of Jesus?
No. They obeyed the word of Jesus and came to know him. They're saved. Praise God. But for those of us who are still alive, we don't have an option.
If Jesus really is our Lord and Master, we can't just kinda follow him. Either we follow him or we don't. There's not an in between. And there's lots of warnings, and that's why he says what he's about to say right here about deception. So look back at verse 23.
He begins to give this analogy. And he says, anyone who listens to the word but does not do it is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror. How many of you this morning looked in a mirror when you're getting ready? When I was doing my hair this morning, I was looking, was like, wow, I'm a look good today. It's gonna be crazy.
Woah. Right? We all look in the mirror when we get ready. Right? And so this reminds me, my my my daughters had this cute snow white dress.
I didn't wanna put it on this morning because that'd be weird. But they have this cute Snow White dress and that they run around and they play princess in the house. And they have a little Snow White book, and you might know the story of Snow White. It's kinda weird to be honest with you, but the story of Snow White, part of the what makes the tension of the story so good is the evil queen in the story. Right?
And she says something to the effect of mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all? And the mirror is like, oh, you're so beautiful. But Snow White's better. Right?
Every day, the evil queen looks into the mirror and she has to ask who's the fairest of them all. And she goes on the next day forgetting, oh, who's the fairest? I thought it was me. I gotta go look again. And I gotta go look again.
And I gotta go look again. When you look in a mirror, my friends, you walk away and you're like, you know what? I don't remember what I look like. I gotta look back in the mirror. Did my hair look good?
Nope. I gotta go back. Wait. Did I do it right? No.
No. No. Oh, did my makeup right? You gotta keep looking in the mirror to see what you look like, to see your reflection. And and and some of you all might struggle with your body image.
You might not think you're beautiful or wonderful. But for the most part, when you look in the mirror, you say, wow. What's up, good looking? You look good this morning. Woah.
Almost none of us look in the mirror and say how awful that thing is. We look in the mirror and we see a good, perfect, beautiful person in our own eyes. That's the problem. When we just look at ourselves and we just compare ourselves to ourself, we're pretty good. Well, I'm not as bad as Joe Schmo down the street.
I'm not as bad in so and so. I didn't sin like them. I'm fine. I just look at myself and smile. What the bible calls that's calling yourself it's deceiving yourself.
James is really concerned that there are brothers and sisters in Christ, that there are believers who think they are genuine followers of Jesus, who love Jesus and are gonna enjoy eternity with him. But they've deceived themselves because all they do is just hear the word and they don't do nothing. And that's what he says to person like Damir is. You think you're oh, I go to church. Oh, I look good.
But you're still nasty. Right? Well, I you know, I read my bible this week, but you won't forgive somebody. So that's why he says, you look in a mirror. But, he says in verse 25, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.
James doesn't want us to be deceived. So he says, if you don't wanna be deceived, instead, you need to look into the perfect law that gives freedom. My friends, when you look into the perfect law that gives freedom, which is the word of God, which is Jesus who is the word of God, when you look into his face, you see beauty. You see perfection. You see holiness.
And when Jesus looks upon you in his own Jesus way, he begins to point out to you the things that don't look like him. Because you look in the word, and the word's reflecting you. And you look at Jesus, and you say, you know what? Man, I I I get angry at people. I don't see Jesus doing it like that.
Jesus is on the cross, and what does he say? Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do? That's what we're supposed to be seeing in our mirror when people treat us like that. We're supposed to be able to offer that type of forgiveness. When we look at the word, when we look at Jesus and you see Jesus and he's completely not worried.
And you're like, well, I'm worried. I'm worried about these things in my life. I'm worried about my money. I'm worried about what I'm gonna wear. I'm worried about what I'm gonna drive.
Jesus literally said in Matthew, do not worry about those things. And so when we look at that, when we look at the word and it doesn't pair up, it brings conviction, but it also brings freedom. And that's what James is saying. If we just look at ourselves and we just assume that we're okay, we're deceiving ourselves. I'm okay.
No. No. No. It is when we look to Christ and then do what he says, we are able to abide in the perfect law that brings freedom. And he says, right at the verse 25, they will be blessed what they do.
Last week, I told you, I wanna be blessed. You wanna be blessed? James is saying, you have to be doers of the word. That means you literally have to just do what this says instead of just thinking you're doing what it says because you heard it. It's not the same thing.
And if we were to look at Jesus and his teachings, which he gave and his apostles gave, and we continue with in them, not forgetting what we've heard, doing what the word actually tells us to do, we're gonna be blessed. That's what James wants for us. That's what Jesus wants for us. That's what I want for us, that we would be the type of people who do not deceive themselves into thinking that we're religious or that we're spiritual or that we're just saved because you've been around the church a long time or you've been around the word of God for a long time, that we would actually prove ourselves to be genuine followers of Christ by the way in which we obey the words of Jesus by being doers of the word. I told you the very first week that you had to be careful when you began reading this book about toddling with the idea of workspace salvation.
Remember, we are saved by our faith in what Jesus has done and in his lordship. We repent, we put our faith in Jesus, that's how we're saved. But everything after that has to be obedience. Remember what James called himself in verse one? He said, James, a follower?
No. No. No. A a a a, you know, a subscriber. No.
He says, a servant, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. And I love how he pulls this together. If you look back at verse 21, I love this picture. He plans of us being doers of the word.
Right at the end of verse 21, he says, humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Raise your hand if you got a green thumb in here. You got a green thumb. I know you do. Right?
He's talking about planting something. And if you're good at planting something, if you take a seed and you put it in good soil, and you get plenty of sunlight, and you get plenty of water, and the things are right, and the deer don't eat your, you know, plants, what happens after a while is that seed that was planted in the ground begins to grow. And you get tomatoes, or cucumbers, or blueberries. Right? It begins to grow.
And what he's saying about us is if we, by doing the word, that seed that's in us, that's planted in us, is being watered properly, has had enough sunlight, and is growing properly, and is going to be fruitful. That's what Jesus says he wants to do for us. He he wants us to be fruitful, that we would bear much fruit. And if you wanna bear much fruit, if you wanna look like Jesus and be like him, then we have to actually do what the word of God says. My friends, listen to me with my whole heart.
Listen to your whole heart. Our culture cannot put up with any more Christians who are just hearers and not doers. The church won't last. Not only won't it last, the Lord will strip it. Look, I don't know what's gonna happen in the days to come in our nation and this world, but the the Scriptures I read, my friends, it only gets worse until he comes back.
Right? And if you wanna persevere to the end, as James wants us to do, he wants us to persevere so that we receive a reward, then we have to be more focused on doing what the word of God says instead of just hearing about the word of God. I love what Dallas Willard said. I've read this quote to you before. I think it's really important and powerful to for you to hear it again.
Dallas Willard once said, the greatest issue facing the world today with all of its heartbreaking needs is whether those who by profession or culture are identified as Christians will become disciples, students, practitioners, apprentices, I'll add doers of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the kingdom of the heavens into every corner of human existence. What we need now more than ever, brother Lewis, is not more churches with more resources, not more churches with more programs, not more churches with this or that. We need churches, brothers and sisters of Christ who simply just do what the word of God says. Nothing makes us more frustrated than a hypocrite. I don't know about you.
Someone who says one thing and does another, you're like, you're playing. You're a liar. You're a hypocrite. We don't need that anymore. We wanna see not only our church, we get a view that oh, this is just this is our church.
We just play a we play a role in the big church. If we want to see the church of God take over this culture, the church of God take over the world, if you will, then we must be doers of the Word. Now, James waits no longer. He's told you, stop talking, listen to the Word, be doers of the Word, stop deceiving yourself, look intently to the word and do what it says. And then he goes right into verse 26.
He he pulls no punches, he goes right into it. Look at verse 26. He's now giving you some practical ways to be doers of the word. It says in James one twenty six, those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and the religion is worthless. He's bringing up our mouths again.
Look at your neighbor and say, your mouth. Now, in a few weeks in chapter three, we're gonna have a whole other sermon dedicated to the mouth. Because our mouths are one of the biggest issues of all of our lives. Whether it's this mouth out here or this mouth in here, our mouths get us in trouble. My dad told me growing up, son, you talk too much.
Stop talking. I get in trouble and I should have just been spanked once, but because I'm talking back to my dad, running my mouth to my dad, guess what? I got three or four. Maybe five. Right?
Right. He says, look, if you think you're religious, yet you run your mouth, your religion is worthless. That's a strong word from James. If you keep running your mouth, but you think you're offering genuine worship, you're playing yourself. I think we need to listen and pay attention to that.
Our mouths are directly tied to our spiritual maturity. I can almost immediately know how mature someone else is in Christ by just the way they talk. Give me five minutes with somebody the way they talk, I can begin to judge. Now obviously, we're not perfect judges. We're not Jesus.
But when you begin to evaluate someone's words, they reveal what's in their heart pretty quickly. Our mouths tell us the whole story. How you talk reveals your heart. And if we want to become like Christ, if we want to love others as he's done, then we need to get a grip on our mouths. It's tough.
Sometimes I talk too much. Even this past week, can I tell you an honest story? This past week, my wife posted some cute pictures of my family and I on Facebook from fourth of July. You might have saw it. My kids are really cute.
Any picture that is cute. Right? Posted this cute picture of all of us. It looked awesome. And I was looking through the comments what I shouldn't have done, and some lady that I don't even know put a really weird comment on there.
And the comment basically to effective says, hey, you need to listen to what the doctor recommends. That's what I said. That's what I said, sister. I was like, hold up. Everybody's like so sweet, so cute, blessed, love your family, yada yada yada.
You should do what the doctor recommends. And I'm sitting there immediately, I'm getting angry. Immediately, I'm like, oh. She's making fun of how many kids we got. Because she's sitting there like, oh, they don't know how that happens.
I I we know how it happens. Okay? We know how kids are made. And you're making a a statement on Facebook downplaying how special children are. And I'm getting frustrated real quick.
And this lady says she's a Christian. I'm like, hey, there's enough abortion in the world. There's enough babies being killed. Like, we don't need any more comments like this. So I immediately start I'm like, oh.
I'm like, ma'am, I don't know what you meant by this. But let me tell you this. I love my kids. I love my wife. We're gonna have more kids.
And my wife's like, hold up, Dallas. Hold up. Maybe she didn't mean it like that. I'm like, what do mean she didn't mean it like that? That's exactly what it means.
She's like, Dallas, I'm just telling you, you need to relax. And if you're gonna say something, message her privately. And I'm like, but I wanna do it publicly. I wanna embarrass her. I wanna set her straight.
She's like, if you're gonna do it, because I posted the picture, you message her privately. So being a good husband, I said, yes, ma'am. So I calmed down. I relaxed. I messaged this random lady.
I said, ma'am, you know, hi, my name's Dallas. I saw your post on, you know, the comment. What what did you mean by that? And she commented back quickly. And I thought she was gonna tell us stop having kids.
What she said was, I was actually supposed to put this on my niece's post who's being really sick and has having a hard time, and I meant for her, she needs to listen to the doctor so that she gets better. And then she said, thank you so much for not getting mad at me. I got angry quick. I was not listening. I was gonna be quick to speak, but then the word, through my wife, Jesus pricked my heart through my wife, and I was able to keep a tight rein on my tongue.
Because if your pastor's on there blasting this lady, that doesn't look good, does it? What's wrong with you old lady? You know. So I've had to do this this week. And my friends, it's not easy.
It's not easy keeping a tight rein on our mouths. But I don't wanna deceive myself. I don't wanna think I'm religious. That's what he says in verse 26. He goes on in verse 27.
Not only do we need to get a grip on our mouths, we need to get a grip on our love and our compassion. Jesus I meant James says, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress. Let's pause there. Right here in verse 27, you see where the word, it says religion? Look at your neighbor and say religion.
Now when you hear religion, you probably think of world religions. Right? Think of Christianity, think of Islam, Buddhism, you name it. You think of religions. That's not what the word probably means.
The word probably could be better translated as worship. So worship, we get worship right. Worship's not only what we do here with praise. This is a Praise is a form of worship. Worship's what we do with our whole lives.
And he's saying, worship that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress. It seems very clear throughout all the Scriptures that James is suggesting that we're not just being hearers of the word, we're gonna be doers of the word. If we wanna be doers of the word, our pure and faultless worship we can offer to him is to take care of orphans and widows. Right? When you see a kid in foster care or a kid who doesn't have her mom and dad, it tugs at your heart.
Right? If there's someone who's a genuine widow, and what the Bible describes someone as a genuine widow is a purse a lady who's lost her husband and who doesn't have any kids to take care of her. Now, there's still a widow if you have kids, but what he's specifically saying, because there's an expectation the family was gonna take care of the widow. But what he's saying to these brothers and sisters, hey, if there's a real genuine widow among you, and she's telling you, hey, I don't have any food, I don't have any money, I don't have anywhere to live, and you're like, know what? I'll pray for you sister.
God bless you. See you later. See, that's not genuine. If there's a genuine orphan, because in the early Roman culture, if you were an orphan, if you were a child, or you were a widow, you are pretty much on your own being thrown to the wolves. And part of the reason why Christianity was so appealing, was so counterintuitive to the culture is because Christians took notice of minority groups.
They took care of those who were less than. They took care of the marginalized. It's not just saying that you care about those who are needy, it's actually caring for them. And this has been an area I've struggled with. Like I say I care about orphans and widows, and it's not just orphan and widows.
There's a lot of other topics like this that that that could correlate. But like I find myself talking more about it than actually doing something about it. Actually giving some money to a cause. Or actually trying to go check on someone who's a widow. Right?
I have a hard time with this. And so as I read this in the commentary that was preparing for the sermon, this really helped me understand what he's trying to say. This quote says, one test of pure religion or pure worship, therefore, is the degree to which we extend aid to the helpless in our world, whether they're widows, orphans, immigrants trying to adjust to a new life, impoverished minority, world dwellers, the disabled, or even the homeless. My friends, a lot of us here are probably conservatives the way you vote. Don't know that for sure.
I didn't ask for your vote or you know, history. A lot of us are conservatives. And sometimes conservatives don't always take care of marginalized groups the best. We talk about it, but then we don't do much about it. Then some people who are more liberal, they're all about it.
And then they're like both sides have some issues. Right? The point for us, apart from politics, get that out, for brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to be extending aid to those who are needy in our culture. That's the point. That's a test of true religion or true worship.
How do you take care of those who can't help themselves? That's the test. And if that wasn't enough, the very last phrase in verse 26, right towards the end of verse 27, he says this. He says, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. He groups us in with true worship to the Father, and he calls this spotless.
The word polluted provides beautiful imagery. You go outside. When I lived in Dallas Fort Worth, I could go outside one day and I knew when the pollution was thick. There was just this thick cloud of smog over the city. It was actually even worse when I went to the nation of Nepal where the biggest mountains in the world are Mount Everest, those type of mountains.
We flew into the city in Nepal, and I was like, Randy, I cannot wait to see these big beautiful mountains, and they're snow capped. They're in the skies. They're beautiful. The problem was as soon as we land them, like, Randy, where's the mountains? Where'd they go?
He's like, well, we can't see them because the pollution's so bad. You couldn't see these mountains that reach up almost 40,000 feet in the air because the pollution was so bad. In the same way, he's he telling us true worship to God is keeping ourselves from being polluted by the things of the world. We're be if if we want what he means is if we're polluting ourselves, that means we're practicing sin, whatever it is, and what we are polluting what has been made clean. We are profaning what has been made whole.
We who have been washed by the blood are putting back on the filthy rags which we left for Christ. Look, we've all made mistakes in life. We've all sinned. But when we come to know Jesus, we can no longer continue practicing the sin. You're gonna mess up.
Sure. But it's the practice that continues to pollute yourself. And He's like, stop it. Stop practicing sin. Stop polluting yourself.
Stop making what is clean dirty again. That's what he says true worship is. And as you'll see over the next few weeks as we dig into verse chapters two through five, these three topics of the mouth of true worship, true faith are gonna come up over and over again. Keaton, would you go ahead and come and worship team, y'all and come on up as we conclude this. We need to end our verse today in verse 21.
Go back to verse 21, if you can. This is tough. This is the proper response we need. If we miss this today, you're gonna miss it all. Are you ready?
Verse 21 says this again. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you. You see that word humbly? Look at your neighbor and say humble. Last week at our service, Sister Dreama and Sister Marissa, my mama, had a little tag team, gifts of the spirit.
Sister Dreama gave a word or a message in tongues last week, which is a spiritual gift that the spirit gives. She didn't ask me to do this, and she's uncomfortable. Thank you though. She had a message in tongues that was uncomfortable for her to give, but she gave it anyway. And I realized immediately, this is from God.
Sister Drema prays in tongues. I've heard her pray in tongues. There was something different about the message you were giving. At the same time, my mother's in her seat very nervous. And I was sitting there in my chair, and I had this sense.
I said, I think my mother might have the interpretation for this. And so after communion, I sent my daughter over to mom. I said, mom, I need you to come see me. I said, did you have the interpretation for that? And she's like, yeah, I did.
I'm just nervous. I said, that's okay. Come on up. And so I don't know if you were able to hear what she said last week, but what she basically said was to effect of this, was God was communicating through Dreama the word to humble ourselves. Don't you love how God works?
I didn't plan this. I've had this James series planned. I planned on doing this text on this day a long time ago. And what the Word says here in verse 21, says to humbly accept the word planted in you. It is an invitation to humble ourselves, bring ourselves back to the foot of Jesus to be doers of the word.
He's telling us to get rid of the old way of life, ridding yourselves of the old filthy rags, and wants us to humbly come back to the foot of the cross, to the word of God who was made incarnate, to call back, to come back to Jesus himself. And so look, today, I don't know where you're at in your heart. You might be here sick of me saying be doers of the Word, be doers of the Word. One of the reasons why I'm so passionate about what the Word of God says here is I spent years of my life being a hearer of the word and not a doer of the word. A lot of y'all saw me grow up, and I was a good church kid.
I was I real I was great. I had fun. Enjoyed being here. I was a I was a good participant. When I was in high school, was a different person, because I was just a hearer of the word.
I didn't actually do what it says. I knew what it said, but I didn't do it. And I finally came to a point in my life watching children worship God in the state of California, and I remembered right there. I need to humbly submit to the word of God. And from then, my friends, from that point on about ten years ago, my life's never been the same.
It's never been the same because I chose that day even though I wasn't gonna do it perfectly, I'm gonna be a doer of the word. I don't mind if I make a mistake, but I'm gonna keep moving forward in the power of the Spirit. I'm sick of just playing the game, talking about being Christian. I actually wanna be one. And that's the invitation for us today and for what James is trying to give us.
So if you're able to stand, I want you to stand with me as we have a time of reflection and prayer. If you call yourself a Christian, then I'm calling you today to humbly submit yourself to what the Word of the Lord has said. I'm asking you to recognize where you've got it wrong and come back to the understanding that you are to do whatever Jesus and His teachings say. And whether you're struggling with loving someone, you're struggling with your mouth, struggling with your heart with judging or condemning others, you're struggling with trusting in your wealth and riches, struggling to endure hardship, if you realize that you've been deceiving yourself for some time and you're ready to stop just hearing the Word and start doing it, I wanna invite you to come to these altars and pray. Stop deceiving yourself.
Stop playing games. Humbly submit yourself back to Jesus. Do not be like General George McClellan. I'm about to do it. Pastor Dallas, I'll do it in a little bit.
I'm a I'm about to be a doer of the Word. No. In the words of the famous company called Nike, just do it. Stop playing the game. If you want to see this church overflowing, do it.
If you want to see all the evil and sin turned up in this city, just do it. If you want to see the gospel go forth in all the nations, just do it. Let's not play the game anymore. Let's actually get in the game. So this morning, want to invite you to just come, have a time of repentance.
Come pray at the altars or in your seat. The worship team will lead us in worship behind it. Don't just be a hearer of the Word, but do something today. Even if it's a little step, take a step today. Don't leave here and say that was a good word or that sucked.
Don't just be a hearer, do what the word says today.