James 1:19-27

Cody Westcott

James 2022 • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

James 1:19–27

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You must understand, my beloved brothers and sisters. Now all people must be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. Because the anger of humans does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, setting aside all uncleanness and abundance of evil, you must receive the implanted word able to save your souls.

Now, be doers of the word and not only hearers, deceiving yourselves. Because if someone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, they are like a person looking over their face in a mirror. For they look themselves over and leave and then immediately forget what they looked like. Now, someone who stoops over to look into the perfect law of liberty and keeps at it becomes not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of works. This person is blessed in all their doing.

If someone who thinks they are religious does not hold their tongue, but deceives their heart, this is useless religion! Pure and undefiled religion before God the father is this: looking after orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself spotless from the world.

The Word Inside

Anger as a test

Driving illustration

Anger brings out what word is inside you

Our word, or God’s word?

It’s not as if God is never angry

Jesus certainly gets angry

God gets angry

It’s a question of what rules us: the word or the passions?

So, again, James presents us with a choice: our word or God’s word?

The aim is the righteousness of God

Human Anger does not produce Godly righteousness

What is “righteousness”?

The Gospel as a planted seed

Parable of the sower

two wolves Native American illustration

B- A Gospel Mirror

To hear the word is not the same as to receive the word (δεχομαι)

Again, parable of the sower

The word must take root in our hearts and be nurtured to grow and bear fruit

Thus, be doers and not hearers only

Hearing the gospel leads us to action. But how?

Gospel as a mirror

Do we put the mirror down, or continue looking?

“Law of Liberty”

The New Revised Standard Version Individual Retribution

27 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28 And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD. 29 In those days they shall no longer say:

“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

30 But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

The gospel pokes, prods, corrects, and disciplines us

The word of God is challenging, intentionally so

God’s word should confront us, just as our image in a mirror!

We must look, persevere, and then become

C- The Word Outside

So looking into the gospel, truly receiving the implanted Word in us, is transformative

That which is inside is what shows up outside

If we nurture the implanted word, then the works of Christ will sprout up in our lives.

If we nurture the implanted word, we will bear fruits

True religion then, is becoming like Christ

If we sing songs, put on vestments, take communion, etc. but do not do as Jesus did, our religion is worthless

If the words coming from our lips are ours and not Christs’, our religion is worthless

Two signs we are doing this:

Action: caring for the needy

Reaction: unaffected by the temptations of the world (i.e., we do not allow the passions to take control).