Take your bible and turn to the book of James. We are studying a letter that James wrote to God’s people to encourage them to have a living saving faith. He writes this letter to show them what a true believer really is. We need to obey content of this letter – the church needs to obey this letter -- our country needs this letter – we have lost and we do not know what a true believer in Jesus Christ really is. Someone says are you a Christian? It used to be one would respond – “well yes, I am an American” – now – we respond or think – “well yes, I am not a Muslim or a Hindu” and the politically tolerant response would be….. “we all believe in the same God – we just use different names.”
We have seen in the first part of this chapter that James says that the first test of a true believer is how they respond to trials in their life. We are to consider it joy when trials come to our life because we know that God is sovereign – He is in control and a true believer should be able to embrace a trial as a friend. Those trials will produce endurance in their life and through the trial the believer will be mature and complete and not lacking in anything. Secondly, we saw last week, that a true believer responds rightly and understands temptation in their life. Temptation is a test and there is no temptation in your life that God does not give you a way of escape so that you may stand up under it.
Today we are going to see how a true believer is to receive the Word of God and then next week we are going see how James says that a true believer must react or respond to the Word of God. Please stand as we read James chapter one. John Terry… LET US PRAY
We read verse 18---- but the week before I did not address it. Verse 18 is a connecting verse to what James says in verse 19. Look what it says, (vs.18) “He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created.” That is a verse packed full of doctrine to which I could teach hours about. God chose to give spiritual birth to those whom He chose. God did the choosing – man does not choose God --- the bible does not teach that. God chooses those who are His children. When we begin to believe that man chooses God ---- we are attempting to take the sovereignty of God away from Him. We make God manageable by man. God chooses man and James writes that He did it through the Word of Truth. He did it through the Gospel. He did it through the Word of God. I do not see any other way to read and apply verse 18 ---- if you do, please let me know…… God reveals Himself through the Word of God. That is one part of special revelation.
John 20:31 “But these things (the scriptures – the Word of Truth - the 66 books of the bible) have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Why does God give spiritual birth through the Word of Truth? James says that He did it so that those that He chose would be the first fruit of all that He created. God’s children --- the ones He chose ---- are the crowning jewel of all that He created. Regardless of what you think or hear or read, nature is not the first fruit of all God created. God’s children are the first fruit of God’s creation. Unbelievers are the second fruit and then comes the rest of creation. When a true disciple of Jesus Christ hears the Word of God – there is a response to it. When a person has saving faith and has been given spiritual birth – there is a response in their heart. There is a desire and a drawing to obey what they hear.
Write it in on your outline: ONE OF THE MOST RELIABLE EVIDENCES OF GENUINE SALVATION IS A HUNGER FOR THE WORD OF GOD.
David wrote in Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God.” A person who is truly related to Christ through saving faith responds gladly to the Word of God and a person who has no interest in hearing and obeying the Word of God…. gives evidence that the truly do not belong to Christ…………It is the inner desire of a real believer to know and obey God’s Word and it is the natural desire of an unbeliever to disregard God’s Word – they are apathetic to it and they see no reason to obey it. One young man came here recently and I explained the Word of Truth to him twice and Brady went through the Word of Truth with him and he had no response to the Word of Truth 3x--- he did not obey it and he no longer comes ---- he came for other reasons --- not for the Word of Truth. Jesus said in John 15:7 “ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciple.” Spiritual fruit bearing is proof to you and to God’s people that you are a disciple of Christ. --------- back to chapter 1:18
So – the rest of chapter 1 falls under the statement in verse 18 “He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth” -------- since that is true – James is saying that if a believer is going to experience a living faith they must know how to receive God’s Word in their life and a believer must now how to…. react to God’s Word. Today we are going to examine how a believer receives God’s Word and next week we will examine how a believer reacts to God’s Word.
Receive God’s Word
1. Receive God’s Word with submission in your life. (vs.19-20) “My dear 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.” James makes the transition from verse 18... saying that since God has given the believer spiritual birth from the Word of Truth that believer in Christ is to continually seek to submit themselves to the Word of God in their life. Paul said this to Timothy: Look on your outline:
2 Timothy 3:16 - 17 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Bible has not only been given to man for his salvation but the bible has been given to man for life --- to teach him how to live successfully for God here on this earth. James says “take note of this” or “you know” and then he tells us three ways how we are to demonstrate and live out that submission to the Word of Truth – look at verse 19 ----
A. Be quick to hear. If a believer is going to experience the abundant Christian life, James says that they must take every opportunity to increase their exposure to the Word of God. They must make and take every opportunity to read God’s Word and to hear it preached and taught. I remember as an 18 year old baby Christian wanting to read the Word of God --- I had been given a bible when I was 12 years old at my confirmation but I remembered putting it on the shelf and saying this is foolishness but at the age of 18 when real saving faith happened in my life I got hungry to read the bible and I was told to read a Proverb a day. After 31 days of doing that I kept doing it. Be quick to hear God’s Word. When you are troubled you turn to God’s Word for comfort and care ---- and when you need wisdom you turn to God’s Word for guidance and when you need standards for purity and righteousness you turn to God’s Word and when you are tempted you turn to God’s Word so that you may stand up under that temptation…………… Do you really hear God’s Word?
Outline: Jesus said in Mark 4:23 “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” “Consider carefully what you hear.” We are quick to open our mouths but slow to hearing. Everyone likes to hear themselves talk but few of us enjoy listening. There is a reason that God gave us one mouth and two ears. How can you be quick to hear God’s Word? Ask God to help you. Examine your life. Do you listen to music on the radio and never to preaching? You can hear sound preaching regularly on KNIS. Some of you know what I am talking about – you order preaching CD’s and have learned to listen to podcast off the web. That is being quick to hear. Let me give you some tips that could help you to hear preaching at Silver Hills.
Bring your own bible and pen. Some of you never do. I think we will stop providing a pen someday. The fill in the blanks helps you to pay attention and remember what you heard. I would prefer not to do them. Go to the bathroom and get a drink before 10:30. In 14 years, I have never been able to figure out why someone gets up when I am speaking and if we kept on singing, they would stay put. Satan does everything to keep a believer from hearing God’s Word. Some of you youth need to sit by your parents so you do not get distracted. Ask God to give you ears to hear.
B. Be slow to speak. You cannot listen while you are talking and you cannot listen while your mind is on other things. What are you going to do this afternoon? What you going have for lunch? What do you have to do this week and you are making your list as I am preaching????? You cannot hear God’s Word when your mind is on other thoughts and ideas. You have to struggle to listen to God’s Word preached. I sit and read God’s Word every morning and I have noticed several times I have read chapter after chapter and when I was done -- I had no idea what I read and I heard nothing from God. The idea here that James is saying about speaking…. when it comes time to speak……. If you have heard God’s Word …. Be careful when you speak it… When you do…..does it edify and encourage those who hear it and does it honor God. You who aim to be a teacher in the body of Christ……. Look what James says on your outline:
James 3:1 “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach shall be judged more strictly.” Be quick to hear – be slow to speak
C. Be slow to anger. Everybody wants to be slow to anger – you have people in your life that you wish were slow to anger. No one is exempt from anger. Every believer deals with anger. Anger even causes physical illness in our lives. When James wrote this he was talking about anger that is kept inside. He was talking about anger that only you and God know about…… It is the kind of anger that just simmers in you and smolders in you. No one else knows about it. James is referring to anger that a believer has within them and when they hear the Word of God – and a truth is spoken or given to them – it displeases them because it confronts them….. It conflicts with a personal belief or a standard of behavior in their life. Some of you have been angry at something I have said in preaching. I know that it is true. When this anger happens in a believer they want their own opinions and views to be heard and followed and when they are not they rebel. We have seen this happen over the years in our church family. This has happened throughout the history of the church – believers resenting God’s truth and the messenger who brought it ---- we see this happening more and more – especially in our country. James obviously knew this was happening in the churches he was writing to. Outline.
James 4:1 - 2 1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. “ Receive God’s Word with submission in your life --- if that is happening it will be shown in your life when you are quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to become angry. You cannot believe that you are submissive to God’s Word and you are not growing in those qualities.
2. Receive God’s Word with purity in your life. (vs. 21a.) “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent…” You cannot hear God’s Word when there is moral filth and wickedness in your life. Sounds strange that someone might be in church on a Sunday thinking they are listening to God’s Word and on Saturday they were smoking dope or fornicating.
When we think of moral filth that is what comes to our mind. I know that has happened here. But there is more to it. Paul says to believers at Colossians 3:8 -10 “But now you must rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” --
It is possible as a believer to come to church again and again and hear the Word of God and yet a person does nothing to deal with the impurities in their life………….. “Progress in your spiritual life cannot occur unless you see sin for what it is”. When we do not deal with sin in our lives ---- when we do not confess it and repent of it ----- it corrupts us and it reduces your hunger for the Word of God and it clouds your understanding of the Word of God. If we are going to receive the Word of God in our lives then we have to attack the darkness in our lives --- I was encouraged when I saw from the back those up front praying about temptations in their lives last week. Purity and Submission……
3. Receive God’s Word with humility in your life. (vs. 21b) “and humbly accept the Word planted in you which can save you.” Some translations use the word humbly, some use the word gentleness and some use the word meekness to communicate what James actually wrote. He wrote the Greek work prautes. It is a word that is almost untranslatable from Greek to English. Aristole said that it was somewhere between excessive anger and excessive anger less ness. It means a temperament of the soul in which everything is in the right proportions. Greek scholar William Barclay says that a one word summary of what James meant is having a truly teachable spirit.
So --- to rewrite it you would say “with a truly teachable spirit accept the Word planted in you which can save you.” How do you know if you have a teachable spirit?
Teachable Spirit
* A teachable spirit is docile and easily controlled, and therefore, it is humble enough to learn. Do you think others would say that about you? Do you have a docile spirit or do you have a proud and cocky spirit? Do you know it all and you have no time to learn and sit and observe others? Last week a 50 year old man sat in a Sunday School and learned how to teach kids from a 20 something year old. That is what James is talking about.
* A teachable spirit is without resentment and anger, and is therefore, able to face the truth, even when it hurts and judges. We are to teach one another in the family of God. We are to speak to each other and encourage each other and many many times when we are to do that we have to speak the truth and the truth many times hurts……………… A teachable spirit does not become offended and bitter when another believer points something out to you. 3rdly
* A teachable spirit is not blinded by its own prejudices but it has clear eyes to the truth. When the truth is spoken to you – it might hurt you but you know it is the truth and you are not blind to it.
* A teachable spirit is not seduced by laziness but it is self controlled so that it can learn willingly and accept the discipline of learning. It takes time to learn. You have to be available. It takes effort and it takes doing something over and over again.
Notice what James writes – in humility – with a teachable spirit – receive the Word implanted, which is able to save your soul. There it is again in verse 21--- receive the Word implanted and look back at verse 18 “He chose to give us birth through the Word of Truth”. When you have a submissive spirit - you are facing up to and dealing with the sin in your life and you have a teachable spirit – James says our souls are being saved as we receive the Word of God.
Time and time again in the Word of God the believer is likened to soil and the gospel or the Word of Truth is like a seed. My daughter brought back these seeds from Japan. I did not plant them but I plan to in March. I am going to use good soil and I am going to start them in my greenhouse and it is going to require that I attend to them almost every day. I am going to have water them – again and again and everyone of you know that all throughout the summer and up to the fall I am going to have to water and fertilize them……. God plants His Word in you and gives you new birth it is He who causes it to grow. We have a choice to receive the Word of God again and again and again in our lives. Would you receive the Word of God with a submissive spirit and would you receive the Word of God with a pure heart and would you receive the Word of God with a humble teachable spirit.
It is impossible for you to taste of the abundant life and experience real saving faith as a child of God without receiving the Word of God again and again and again in your life.
Let us pray: RICK STILL WELL
