Know the Word - Do the Word

Do you remember a time at school, maybe, where a teacher gave you a task to do? I'd remember one in particular in woodwork or metalwork. When a teacher would teach you how to use a lathe or how to do some soldering, and the good teachers would teach you all the important facts very succinctly, very to the point. This is how you do it. Don't touch the soldering iron at the end.

It's really, really hot. You're gonna burn your hand. This is how you hold the piece of wire, the solder. This is how you hold the soldering iron, etcetera, etcetera. And then once they've told you the points very succinctly, they let you do it.

And they allowed you to sort of mess around and make maybe a few mistakes and drill a few extra holes accidentally or, you know, ruin the piece of wood that you were turning, but they let you do it immediately after they told you how. The not so good teachers, the tech teachers that weren't great, used to drone on and on and on about what this machine is and when it was invented and how long it's been around and the most famous woodturner in the world and blah blah blah blah blah. And by the time you actually got to use it, everything was out of your head and you made a huge mess of it. You had no idea what to do. You had completely forgotten.

The good teachers taught you what you had to do and then immediately made you do it. So their teaching was implanted in you effectively. Well, God says that His word is His teaching. It's His teaching to us as Christians and that our life works the same way. Not only are you to know His word, He says you are to do His word.

It's like riding a bike with two pedals. Have you ever had that happen to you where one pedal falls off and you try and go with just the one or try and lift up the other one and push with it? It doesn't work. You'll fall over. God's word says that you are to know the word and do the word. Know the word, do the word.

Know the word, do the word. The apostle James writes about this very specifically and that's what we're going to look at this morning. Know the word and do the word. Let's turn together to James 1 and we're going to read from verse 19 to 27. James 1:19.

And feel free to keep your Bible open because we will be working through it in a bit of detail. So if you want to make notes or highlights or whatever, feel free. James 1:19. My brothers, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life 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 but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and then after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that 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. So far, reading. James, the apostle, who you may or may not know, was the little brother of Jesus, begins by saying this: my dear brothers, my dear sisters, take note of this. Listen up, guys.

I've got something important that you need to understand. Up until now, James had been writing to the church all over the world, Christians all over the world in a time of suffering. He was writing to a context of people who were undergoing trial and persecution for their faith. They were doing it tough. Verse 2 in his opening remarks in James 1, he says this: consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

James is writing to a church that's doing it tough. And so in the midst of patiently waiting on God in their suffering, James says, listen up. Now that I've told you to endure, now that I've told you to wait on God, listen to this. Verse 19, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

So 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. Interesting, right? In the midst of suffering, in the midst of going through some very tough stuff, in the midst of families being broken up because one of them has become a Christian and the other one is not, in the midst of people losing their jobs for their faith.

In the midst of all of this, you are not only to wait on God to deliver you, but you are called to be obedient to Him. To live according to the law of grace that Jesus gave us. In the midst of suffering, not only are you to be patient and enduring it, but you are to be obedient to God. Why does James move from teaching on suffering to teaching about spiritual and personal holiness? The answer is because our hearts in the midst of suffering often look for excuses to be disobedient to God.

Our hearts often look for excuses to sin when we are suffering. A few months ago, a high profile Presbyterian pastor, you may have heard the story, in The States was asked to step down from his church. Big, big news in The States, especially. He was asked to step down from the church because he had been involved in an extramarital affair. Now the sad thing is he said that this happened as a result of discovering that his wife had been cheating on him.

And she was gonna file for divorce. And he says in the midst of this, in the midst of the pain, of the rejection, of a broken heart, he decided to pursue the very same thing. He excused his sin because of what he was suffering. Suffering can be an excuse to sin and James, in the midst of this, lists five things, five things, five weaknesses of the human heart that may give rise to this, that may be a way of doing this. Keep an ear out because some of these things might be familiar to us.

It may sound familiar to us. It definitely did for me. Firstly, he says and he identifies it and I'm gonna sort of wrap it in a bit of, I don't know, a bit of clothing. He identifies the hypocrite. He identifies the hypocrite.

He says, be quick to listen and slow to speak. And we know the hypocrite though, don't we? The hypocrite does the opposite of this. They are quick to speak and slow to act. An easy opinion is offered, a strong position is taken, but when push comes to shove, their memory seems to fail and the hypocrite cannot live up to their own standards.

The hypocrite is often bitter hearted and perhaps even deeply ashamed of their own issues. And so it's easier to hide these issues behind a loud voice. James says, be slow to speak and be quick to listen. Be slow to speak, be quick to listen. And if we understand this correctly, it is quick to listen especially to the word of God.

Then James identifies the bad listener. This sounds like really bad Batman nemeses: the compromiser, the bad listener, the hypocrite. This is almost the flip side of the hypocrite. Instead of being too quick to speak, they are too quick to ignore.

They are not quick to listen. In fact, when the truth of God is communicated to them, they make sure they get distracted very soon. When that spotlight of God's truth is on them, they shrink back. They look the other way. They know it's on them.

They don't like it and therefore they'll do anything to not do anything about it. Then we have the short fuse. This is someone that is prone to anger and this can so easily be excused, can't it? In tough times, the person who will rage against other people for causing them pain. They can justify hurting others because they are hurting.

Some of us may be asking what is wrong with anger? Why is getting mad really that bad? James writes, a man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. It's the bitterness. Bitterness.

It's the vindictiveness. Vindictiveness. It's the impatient coldness of anger that does not represent a godly life. We can say, well, the Bible says that God was angry Himself. I mean, Jesus went and overthrew tables, and He drove people with a whip from the temple courts.

Jesus got angry. Yes. He did, but not like you. In fact, one of the most quoted scripture passages in the New Testament from the Old Testament, the most quoted passages in scripture, is Exodus 34:6. The Lord, the Lord, the great and gracious, compassionate God who is slow to anger, abounding in love.

Most quoted passage in scripture is about a God who is slow to anger and abounding in love. So James says, be slow to become angry. Let the word of God soothe that angry heart. Let Him overcome the bitterness. Fourth, James says and identifies the compromiser.

At verse 21, he says, get rid of all moral filth in your life. Get rid of all moral filth in your life. The compromiser is really good at identifying some things that they are pretty strong on, that they can resist, that they can, you know, have a soapbox about, sin that they absolutely reject, but then there's an aspect of their life. There's an area in their life where they willingly enter into another sin. They can't stand homosexuality, but they sleep with their boyfriend.

They hate when people blaspheme God but they abuse their wife who is created in the image of that God. They hate the drug addicted neighbours down the road but they get easily drunk at work parties, at social club events. It's a compromiser who segments their life into worse sins and better sins. They have a split personality. And James says, get rid of what?

All moral filth. The word of God does not change, friends. The word of God stays the same yesterday, today, and forever. So what God said then is just as true now. Don't compromise.

And then number five, James says, watch out for the know it all. James encourages us to humbly accept the word of God. This is the person who doesn't believe that they don't need to be taught anything. They know all there is to know about God. They know all there is about the word of God.

These can be very good pastors, maybe. These can be elders, but this can be anyone really. The know it all. They know everything there is. With their pride, they quote scripture.

They can overcome people's arguments with big words or right sounding theology. And instead of accepting humbly the training of God's word, the discipline and the encouragement of His word, their pride puffs them up. And in their puffed up state, they look more impressive than they are. They don't realise how vulnerable to sin they are. They don't realise how on the cusp of great disaster they are.

Instead of thinking you know it all, James says, humbly hear, humbly hear, not just listen, hear the word of God and accept it. Do you recognise yourself in this? Maybe for some of us it's definitely one, maybe the short fuse, maybe the hypocrite, the compromiser, maybe we're a little bit of all of them. How do we overcome this? How do we change this in our lives?

James says we are to accept the word planted in you. Planted in you because it can save you. It's planted in us. How many here are gardeners? We've got a few.

I called John Campus here this week and I reached him as he was picking some beans from his veggie patch and he described them to me and they sounded absolutely delicious. I was very jealous. God, the Bible says, is like a gardener. He plants His word in us. He waters that word and it grows in us.

It is powerful. It is effective. It is life changing. Perhaps we were at school at one time, in biology or science class, given a seed to take home and to put in a cup, put a bit of soil in there, water it, put it on our windowsill, and we observed as the seed germinated and the power of it and the magnificence of this thing happening, growing from a dead boring looking seed to life. Psalm 1 talks about the man who plants himself in the word, who has the word planted in him.

It says that he is like a tree planted by the water, who has its fruit come out in season, whose leaves will never wither. It will never die. This is the man. This is the woman planted in the word of God. Blessed is that man, it says.

So James transitions from this in verse 22 to telling Christians, friends, be careful. You may know that the word is good. You may know a lot about this word, but you don't do it. He says, now this is what false religion is. It is marked by self deception.

You deceive yourself and you are forgetful. It is like someone who comes, wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom mirror and looks at themselves and well, that's a very attractive figure in the mirror there. We may marvel at the beauty. Some of us may cry when we see ourselves in the morning, especially. And once looking at the features, walks away and completely forgets what colour our eyes are, forgets the freckles on our face, forgets where our nose fits onto our face.

This is the person marked by false Christianity. James tackles rampant Christian forgetfulness and self deception of the word of God, showing an area in your life where you may be prone to study the word by yourself and reflect on it and yet do nothing about it. It is forgetfulness, he says. It is like a husband or a wife knowing lots about their spouse. They know my husband loves a caramel slice with his coffee in the morning.

He loves waking up on his birthday to receiving fishing gear. He loves spending time in the shed, and yet I never give any of that to him. How illogical is that? It is good to know things but it's bad when you don't do anything about it. James says know the word and do the word.

Know the word, do the word. Know the word, do the word. James calls it a very dangerous self deception, this idea of understanding theology and understanding the story of salvation and understanding the grace of God, and yet it doesn't do anything for you. Yet you don't do anything with that. There's a hidden pitfall in all of that and self deception is so hard to diagnose by yourself, friends.

It is so hard to diagnose by yourself. That's self deception. Therefore, you have to be in a community. You have to be in a church as a Christian. You don't know.

You live with blinkers on to the areas of compromise or hypocrisy or anger. You don't realise these things. You need Christians in your life to identify this, Christians in your life to work with the word of God to say, friend, I see this in you. Friend, be encouraged by this. Live your life in this way.

James says, the one who looks intently into the perfect law, however, and to the word of God, however, that gives freedom, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. Again, he is quoting someone here. He's quoting someone. Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, who doesn't stand in the way of the sinner, who doesn't sit in the seat of the mockers, but meditates on the law of the Lord both day and night. Blessed is the one who knows the word of God, who has it a part of him, who does the word of God.

A person who sees himself truly in the word of God will act according to what they've seen in the word of God. James then wraps up this passage by highlighting the incongruence of knowing the word and not doing it. He gives us some examples in closing. He says in verse 26, if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Wow.

His religion is worthless. His Christianity is fake. It is nothing. Religion that God our Father accepts, accepts, he says, as pure and faultless is this: not to know your catechisms perfectly, although that is good.

Not to understand how to lead a Bible study because that is good too. It is to do this: to look after orphans, to look after the widows in their distress, to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. That is the religion. That is the Christianity that God says is valuable and is pure. You wanna be a Christian?

How do you talk? How do you communicate? How do you discuss? You want to call yourself a Christian? How do you show mercy?

How do you work with the broken, with the suffering people? This is rubber hits the road kind of stuff. This is the challenging part and James, you don't wanna read on a bad day because you'll feel like a worm. But he says this is what it is. This is what Christianity is.

Rubber hits the road sort of stuff. It's too easy, he says, to say I'm a Christian or I'm sorry, I'm a bad Christian or I'm not a perfect Christian and to simply leave it there. That is a religion that is worthless, James says. It amounts to nothing, nothing, and there might be some very important question marks about how you understand the gospel if you have that attitude. It's not simply good enough to know that God is a father to the fatherless and that He is a husband to the widows.

He calls people to have that heart as well. So in summary, James says, keep yourself pure. He says in verse 26-27, keep yourself from being polluted by this world. Perhaps you realised this morning, as you look into this mirror of God's word, as you reflect on that, if you look down on yourself, you realise this morning, I am polluted. I'm not clean.

I'm not untouched by this world. My clothes are dirty. My hands are grimy. I am tainted and I'm not worthy of being called a Christ follower because I'm so far behind Him. Who am I to be called a son or a daughter of the living God?

I wanna wrap up this morning by taking you to a weird place in scripture in Zechariah 3. This blew my mind this week and I hope it does the same to you this morning. Zechariah 3, and I'll put it up on the screen actually. Zechariah was an Old Testament prophet who spoke many, many years before Christ of a time to come for the people of Israel.

And this is what he writes in his third chapter. Then God showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan at his right side there to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?

Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, take off his filthy clothes. Take off his filthy clothes. Then he said to Joshua, see, I have taken away your sin and I will put rich garments on you. Do you know the variant for the name Joshua here is Yeshua?

Who recognises that name? Jesus. This is a prophecy that the one who would come, the one who would come before and stand at the judgment seat of God with the filth of His people on Him. And Satan was there saying of you, this is what they've done. He's a hypocrite.

He's a compromiser. He's the one with anger issues. You are filthy. You are dirty. You don't deserve God.

And in dying, Jesus Christ took that sin and it was punished on Him in His body, in His flesh, the way that it should have been for us. But three days later, God said, take off that clothes. I clothe you with garments of righteousness and praise. And the Bible says to us, put on the garments of righteousness. Friend, you may realise this morning that we are very far from being unpolluted by this world.

And then we all live in some way or another at odds with the word of God, that we have short memories, that we read and see a reflection of ourself and recognise things in our life. And we close that Bible and we return to our life. God is telling us this morning to know His word and to obey it. To know His word, to obey His word because in John 15, Jesus said, the word has cleansed you as well. Obey the word because the word has already cleansed you, friends.

So let's do it. Let's pray. Pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you as your followers and your children so deeply aware of our shortcomings. But Father, it is not enough to simply be aware of this.

It is not enough to look into that mirror and recognise our pimples and our freckles and our blemishes, Father. It is not enough to know this. We repent of it as well. And Father, this morning, we come to offer you our lives again. Lord, we make commitments and we make changes from this day forward.

We will love and know your word more. We will set aside regular time for it, even in our busy schedules. We will worship you with others. We will celebrate you in the congregation, in the assembly. Father, it is not worth exchanging anything for you.

Who exchanges gold for dross? Thank you, Lord, that not only are we given the law of freedom, but we are also cleansed by this word. We are also set free radically by this. And Father, I pray that this may be a reality for us, that this may be our comfort this morning as well. Where there is change needed, Father, let there be change.

Spirit, convict us and do not let go of us until that is changed in us. Give us the power to do it. Give us a sanctifying work of your Spirit in our hearts to do it and to change it forever. But Father, let us also rest in the fact that we have a God who loves us and that that love is better than life. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you for this. Amen.