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Nate Roten / James 1:19–27
Main Idea
God’s word is living and active, and so should we.
[opening story] Parable of the talents. Why would I reward you when you did nothing with what I gave you?
Passage
James 1:19–27 CSB
My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
I – Whole Body Involvement
Over the past few weeks, James has encouraged us to discern the true nature of our difficult circumstances. Trials are tests divinely gifted to us to build our spiritual endurance and become fully mature Christians. If temptation is involved, we must also discern the origin. It isn’t from God. It comes from within our hearts and minds. God is a giver of good gifts and never changes.
Until now, the advice has been discerning wisdom. Today, James provides practical wisdom for godly living so that we can know what to do when we are in the thick of it. He does so by showing how a person’s entire body is involved in living out their faith.
• Ears
• Eyes
• Brain
• Tongue
• Hands
II – Be 3
The first section of practical wisdom is a command to be three things:
1. Be quick to listen. God gave us two ears and one mouth. The absence of NT letters means gospel teaching was oral, so listening was crucial! Even worldly wisdom sees the value in listening first and more frequently to gather all the information. How much more should we, the possessors of God’s wisdom in scripture, do the same?
2. Slow to speak – Not only do we have one mouth, but the tongue is also caged in by two rows of teeth, acting as guardrails to keep it in its lane. In the context of being in a difficult trial, what tends to come out of our mouths are complaints, pointing fingers at others as the reason for our pain, or making wrong assessments about what is happening to us. Undoubtedly, James was thinking back to some of Solomon’s proverbs (Prov. 10:19; 15:1; 17:28) about this very issue.
Proverbs 17:28 CSB
Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent— discerning, when he seals his lips.
3. Slow to Anger – Human anger is a terrible carrier for God’s righteousness. It’s not a very good light to those in darkness. Sinful anger is not so much as a flashlight as it is a house fire. Though anger isn’t a sin, we tend to sin abundantly when angry, and it only produces emotional wounds and division. Rarely does our human anger pour out with genuine righteous indignation. And, because James is telling us to be slow to speak and slow to anger, we can see the link between the two. The more I talk before listening and discerning, the more prone I am to mounting anger. That will not help you pass the test. We must keep our anger in check like Proverbs 29:11 suggests:
Proverbs 29:11 CSB
A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise person holds it in check.
As a preview, in chapter three, James will describe what godly wisdom entails, and spoiler alert: anger isn’t on the list.
James 3:17 CSB
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense.
So, our first bit of practical advice is to open our ears more and keep a check on our mouths so that we use our brains more.
III – Receive
Next, we are told to receive the implanted word. It’s no coincidence that this is placed centrally between the two commands to ‘be.’ The word must be central to all things.
This is gardening language, and like any good gardener, you must prepare your garden first by weeding out the bad stuff before planting the seed.
In this little metaphor, our entire spiritual lives are the garden. Notice how James has already addressed everyone as brothers and sisters. This means he speaks to Christians who have already received Christ as Lord. So, he isn’t talking about salvation when he speaks about ridding yourself of all prevalent moral filth and evil and humbly receiving the implanted word. You already possess faith in Jesus. On that level, the word has already been implanted and is taking root. Remember the context. James instructs the infant church on how to live out their faith amid persecution and under pagan rule. This is a call to understand the nature of your trial and pass the test. That means you need to grow in a specific way, which means you need to aggressively gut out the weeds and humbly receive the implanted word in that particular area. The weeds steal vital nutrients from the plant. Gut that junk out because it is draining your spiritual walk. Then, that seed can grow in clean, unhindered soil as you tend to it throughout your lifetime. And when the subsequent trial comes, you learn about the weeds in another area of your spiritual life and how the word can also be planted there. So, this isn’t a one-time ordeal. It is the nature of how we grow and mature in our faith.
And the word progressively planted in every area of your life will produce an enduring faith, which is the definition of an active, saving faith. It’s the nature of the word that has been implanted in us. The gospel has the power to save, not the work we do as a result.
Romans 10:17 CSB
So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.
IV – Be Doers
Here is where the rubber really meets the road. The tense of this verb literally means to keep on being doers. It’s not just a one-time command.
We must be good listeners and hear the word first, but afterward, we must do what it says.
The blessings from obedience will only come to the doers, not the hearers.
Luke 11:28 NIV
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
We must also realize the point Jesus was trying to convey when discussing a builder building on two different foundations inMatt 7:24-29. Many times, we focus on the descriptions of the foundations, and rightly so. We want to build our houses on the immovable rock of Christ, not the shifting sands of the world, but don’t forget that the story’s primary focus is the wise builder. We are the builders, and the wisdom of the builder that compels him to build on the rock instead of the sand comes from hearing Jesus’ words and acting on them.
James drives this point home with a different illustration. If you engage the ears but not the hands, you are like a forgetful mirror-gazer.
Mirror
What’s it for?
1. Take an honest assessment of your current condition. Is your tie on straight? Is your makeup on correctly? Do you have broccoli in your teeth? How absurd would it be if you looked in the mirror before a big interview for a job, noticing the dog hair all over your blazer, the bit of broccoli in your teeth, and the wide coffee stain down your pant leg… and then doing nothing about it! Do you think you would get the job looking like that? I doubt it, but you definitely wouldn’t if they knew you saw all that in the mirror and failed to get yourself in order!
2. a recognition of who you are. Many people speak confident words to themselves. You look at your posture. You rehearse a speech and analyze your demeanor. You practice in front of a mirror so that you can get a preview of how you are presenting yourself to the world. You do that assumably to remember those things about yourself so that when you shake hands with the interviewer or step on stage, you remember who and what you are presenting to them. How silly would it be to spend all that time recognizing things about yourself and immediately forget it when you walk away and revert to your old postures and mannerisms? What was all that effort for?
It seems ridiculous when you put it like that, but it is precisely James’ point. If you engage your ears and eyes but fail to let that information engage your hands, you are like this silly, non-sensical mirror-gazer who thinks they are something or somebody they aren’t.
So, what do we do about it? How do we avoid being like that joker?
We gaze into God’s mirror. The silly person was gazing into a real mirror, but we look intently into the perfect law of freedom… which is God’s word that was implanted and humbly received. It is not just the Old Testament law that reveals sin yet is powerless to save. The Old Testament laws are a mirror that shows you how dirty you are, but it doesn’t have arms to reach out and make you clean. But, in Christ, we are sons and daughters of the new covenant that has made us a new creation, washed us clean of the stains of our sinful past, and set us free from the darkness we once lived in! Whom the Son has freed, he is free indeed!
The word ‘look’ is an intentional search for meaning. It’s the same discerning look that Peter and Mary Magdalene gave when they looked into the empty tomb. Do you think they walked away forgetting the last three years or the last two days and what that empty tomb meant for their future?
We cannot give the scriptures a passing glance and expect any meaningful result. Glancing at God’s word occasionally doesn’t produce strong, enduring, active faith.
Looking into it with discerning eyes that desire meaning will take the information provided to the eyes and ears and affect the hands.
- That shows you have faith that has actually saved, not a faith that is a mere shadow of the real thing.
- That shows an active faith, not a dead faith.
- That shows a persevering faith, not a frail faith that yields to hard times and difficult circumstances.
Do you want to persevere through trials so that you are a resilient, mature Christian who lacks nothing? Let the truths of the word of God that come into your brain through your eyes and ears take root in your heart and affect your hands. Be quick and intentional to take it in the word of truth. Be slow to speak your angry opinions. Continue in the word and let it fill you. Let it reveal the weeds, and be resolute to rid yourself of it. Let God’s word reveal who you are in Christ and the freedom He has given you, and live out your faith in the knowledge of what you have been freed from and who God has created you to be.
V – What Real Religion is
James doesn’t pull any punches here. He circles back and addresses the tongue, saying if you believe you are a Christian but haven’t learned to control that tiny little instrument that is caged behind your teeth, then you have been living a lie. You are self-deceived. You think that you are something that you are not.
Part of my testimony is that I lived a lie for a long time. I thought I received Christ when I was seven because I repeated a prayer someone told me to say. But it wasn’t until I was a freshman in college that I realized my current condition. I finally looked into God’s mirror and saw myself for who I really was. I could look at two distinct friend groups (one Christian and one not) and see my dual nature. I could speak the christian-eze with one group and be as crass and crude as I wanted with the other. I was a silly mirror-gazer. I didn’t have God’s word implanted in my heart, and I certainly didn’t have my tongue under control. In a very real and sobering sense, my faith was worthless. And the harsh reality that James wants us to wrestle with is that your faith is also worthless if you don’t get your tongue under control or if your faith is just about taking a good game. Especially for his first-century audience, he was saying that if you have an uncaged tongue that doesn’t connect to your hands, the faith in the God of Israel is just as worthless as other pagan religions around you who worship false gods. That is a heavy blow!
Do you want to know what authentic Christianity is all about… what a pure and living faith looks like?
A pure and living faith is:
1. Lived for God the Father. The purpose behind our actions is to love God by obeying Him.
2. Focused on the needs of others, especially the most vulnerable among us (widows and orphans). This is action-oriented living.
3. Keep weeding the garden. Now that God has cleansed you from your sinful past, be intentional to keep yourself undefiled moving forward. Stay in the word and let it have its effect on you.
Takeaway
Today, James has given us a bunch of practical ways to live out our faith, but if I can boil this all down for us in a single takeaway for us, it would be this:
If the word of God is living and active, and we are spending time in it, we should be living and active as well.
Questions to Consider
- How can you actively weed out ‘moral filth’ in your own life to make room for the Word of God?
- Can you think of a recent situation where you were quick to speak or react out of anger, and how might you approach such scenarios differently after hearing this message?
- What does James mean by stating that faith without works is worthless, and how can that be applied in your everyday actions?
- In what practical ways can you show genuine care for others, specifically those who might be vulnerable or in need?
- Why is controlling one’s tongue considered a vital sign of true faith?