Hear the Word and Do What It Says

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. I'm Rob Knold, as Dave said, and I'm an elder here at Recast.

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And it's a privilege this morning to fill in for Don Vilsack, our pastor, and I'll be preaching the

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Word of God. And I say a privilege with a real intentional reason.

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There's something about preaching God's Word, I think that's a privilege and an honor. And I just want to talk about the

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Word of God for a second. I believe that this Bible that we have really is the

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Word of God. And do you believe that? It is an amazing reality that the creator of the universe, who created you and me and everything around us, put down words in a book and preserved that for us, so that we can read about him and learn about him and what he wants from us.

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So it is a privilege to preach. I'm amazed that when Scripture is written thousands of years ago to different cultures and people, and then it's translated into today's languages and we read it,

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I'm amazed at how it can just hit me between the eyes. Isn't that true for us? Sometimes we read a passage and it comes alive.

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And that is the power of God working through his Word. And so I'm excited about that this morning. I'm excited that I can share my heart from God's Word.

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We're gathered here to worship. And I just want to say a quick word of introduction on worship. We usually share an introduction to the sermon and then go into a time of worship.

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And we are gathered here to worship. That's the primary reason. There's lots of good reasons to come to church. The most important being worship.

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And what is worship? It's simply giving praise and recognition to God, the one who deserves our everything.

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He is the reason we're here. Despite the fact that we've sinned, he, through his eternal plan, entered our sinful world.

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And he paid the price for what we've done. He has set us free from sin. That is a glorious truth.

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And we're gathered on Sundays really to remember him, to praise him through song, to praise him through the preaching and the hearing of God's Word, and just to be reminded of the truth that he has for us.

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So today, what are we going to do? We're going to be jumping into the book of James. We're going to take a break from Samuel.

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Don has been teaching progressively through the book of 1 Samuel, which has been fantastic.

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Today, we're going to take a little break from that and dig into the book of James. James was written by James.

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Surprising. But you might say, well, which James? There's several James in the New Testament.

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And most scholars agree that the James that wrote the book of James is the brother of Jesus.

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I don't know if you knew that. It's not James the apostle. It was James, the brother of Jesus. And by the way, this is little brother.

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Think about this, okay? James grows up in a house with Jesus as a little brother of Jesus.

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How would you like to have that older brother example growing up? You know, like the, why can't you be like your brother?

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You know, I mean, that must have been a little bit rough. I don't know what the sibling dynamics were exactly, but he grew up in the home with Jesus.

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So he knew him very well. And it's also very interesting in the New Testament. It tells us that Jesus' brothers, including

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James, did not believe he was the Messiah. So during his earthly ministry, they didn't believe.

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And yet when Jesus resurrected from the dead, James is specifically listed as one of the people that Jesus appeared to.

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He appeared to his brother in a resurrected body. Can you imagine that? Seeing your brother resurrected from the dead.

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That might change some things for you. And so James did believe. And not only that, but he became a leader in the early church.

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He is listed in Acts 12, 15, 21. In Galatians, it talks about James, who is the leader of the early church in Jerusalem.

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And this is the James who wrote this book. You know, James is also a type of text in the

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Bible. And I just want to explain different types of literature in the Bible. Maybe you're aware of the different literary forms.

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If you're an English major, you could probably educate me on this. But there's books of wisdom.

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There's historical narrative. There's just all types of literature in the Bible. The book of James specifically is a letter.

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It's an epistle. It's written to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. And so, of course, it is a letter.

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But it's also, more than that, it's a book of wisdom. Think of it similar to the book of Proverbs.

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Proverbs has a number of sayings and wisdom to give to us to consider.

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And James is similar to that in the New Testament. It has a great deal of wisdom on a variety of topics.

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So as you read through the book of James, you'll notice these topics coming out. Suffering, sin, the rich and the poor, and how should we relate to each other?

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Wisdom, how do we get it? These are topics that are so relevant to our lives. Again, thinking about when this was written versus where we live today, how can it be 2 ,000 years later?

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And all these topics are just incredibly relevant to our lives. We need wisdom and we need these things to grow in our

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Christian walk. So I'm just excited to bring this book of James to you this morning. I'm gonna give you a little bit of context and then we'll read the passage together that we'll be covering this morning and then we'll come into a time of worship and song.

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So James starts off chapter one with an interesting statement. He says we should be joyful in trials.

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He says we should take joy in trials and it just seems almost to not make common sense.

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And yet it's true. We need trials, as painful as they are, to develop perseverance. As Christians, we need to grow.

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And so the way to persevere is to experience trial and the way to grow in maturity is to persevere through those trials.

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A friend of mine just recently shared a quote with me and I want to share it with you today. I thought it was very appropriate to this text.

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It says, when I was young, I used to encounter pain and I would pray to the

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Lord, Lord, make it stop. And then I got a little bit older and my prayers shifted and I started praying,

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Lord, make it count. Don't waste this pain in my life, Lord. Help me to learn from it.

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But in this early part of James, and again, I'm just summarizing the first 18 verses here of James chapter one,

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James goes on to warn us. He says, don't blame God for temptation. God does not tempt us.

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But rather, temptation comes from where? It comes from our own simple nature. It comes from the world around us and it certainly comes from Satan.

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So don't blame God for temptation. So then how does sin happen? Well, it happens when we give in to that temptation.

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So if we're tempted and we sin, that is the downward road that leads to death.

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And James says that very clearly in this first part of chapter one. That is contrasted with the good news and that is that God holds out the word of life to us and he offers us life through the word of truth.

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And who is that? That's Jesus. So James is really offering us two paths.

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He says temptation leads to sin, leads to death. And then he offers this alternative. God, the giver of every good gift who holds out the word of truth so that we can have life.

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So that leads us now to our passage. It's James chapter one, verses 19 to 27. So I just encourage you to turn there now.

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For those with a Bible app, you can just navigate there on your device. For those old schoolers, there's a hard copy

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Bible maybe in your hands or there's one in the seat in front of you. You're welcome to turn to that. James chapter one.

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We're gonna be looking at verses 19 to 27. James chapter one, verses 19 to 27.

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I'm gonna be reading in the English Standard Version. Know this, my beloved brothers.

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Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

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For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

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But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

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For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

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For he looks at himself and he goes away and at once forgets what he looks like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in what he does.

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If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

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Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word which is a light, which is a guide to us,

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God, and it just reveals who you are, Lord. It reveals what you desire for us.

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Lord, I'm humbled as I come to it. I'm convicted as I read it. God, I just thank you for the power that exists inside in your word, your word of truth.

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And Father, as we come to worship right now, Lord, I pray you would enter this place.

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Lord, we know that you're here with us as we gather in your presence and Father, we just ask that you would guide our own hearts to think about you, to realize how great you are and to just express that in gratitude to you through worship this morning.

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So God, I just pray that our worship this morning would be a sweet sound in your ear and that we would just lift up our voices and our hearts as one body of believers this morning.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate the prayer and the worship team.

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Appreciate your service this morning. Have you ever been in a noisy, crowded room and had to get people's attention, try to somehow get everybody to look at you?

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Have you ever had that experience? You know, some people just have a natural talent for that. I think they just walk into a room and everybody just kind of looks at them and hushes.

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That's not how I am. I don't have that gift. You know, at weddings, they'll tink on the glass, right, to get everybody's attention.

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Some people have that two -finger whistle. They can just make it really loud and everybody just turns around and looks.

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I think Haley Hogeboom has that gift, by the way. Doesn't she do a great job with announcements? She gets everybody's attention. I appreciate her.

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And it's funny because I just really like the fact that there's a song right before I come up because everybody's kind of paying attention to Dave.

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So that's always helpful. But when I was a freshman in college, I was at the Naval Academy and there was an interesting way that they had of getting your attention.

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And it was a one -word command that they gave. This was my squad leader. I don't know if every squad leader is like this, but my squad leader used this one word and it was kind of strange.

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It was eyeballs. The squad leader would just say eyeballs. And every single one of us knew we had to turn our eyes and look at the squad leader like our life depended on it, like right away.

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And it was very effective because if we didn't, we knew there was gonna be some negative consequences.

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But it was interesting because I learned that it was good for me to look at my squad leader when she said eyeballs.

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And in the same way, I'm tying that into the text this morning. James chapter one, verse 19. We're starting out right there.

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And again, I'd encourage you to have your Bibles open as we go through this. I'm gonna be preaching right through that text. And I would love for you to just look at the words that are written.

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That's God's words to us this morning. But right there at the beginning of verse 19, in the

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ESV, it says, know this. And I think that can be interpreted as listen up or pay attention or eyeballs.

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So James is saying, check this out. And so let's see what he has to say. He says, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

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When I was a young kid, there was a saying I heard. God gave you two ears and one mouth.

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So think about the ratio there. Maybe you should listen twice as much as you talk, right? I think that's kind of a clever saying.

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And yet that's not exactly what James is saying here. James is saying, be quick to listen.

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It has to do with speed. And so another way to say this would be your immediate action ought to be listen.

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Listen first, listen right away. Listen before you talk. Does that make sense?

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So that's what James is instructing his readers to do. If you want to be a good listener, it does take work.

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It takes effort. It's not a natural thing. And so you do need to work at it. You need to try paying attention and listening.

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The next thing he says is slow to speak. This is kind of the opposite of what comes natural, again, for many of us.

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We let the words fly. We just speak without thinking, don't we? And often we regret the words we just said, don't we?

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I'm sure you've been there. I know I have. And it's interesting to me that our culture that we live in really commends people who are quick with their words.

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You know, if you can get that jab in or have a quick comeback or a snide comment, it's almost glorified.

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It's like, hey, this is really good. But no, James says be slow to speak.

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And just a few verses down, I want to tie into this verse 26. You'll see where he says, basically, if you can't control your tongue, your religion is worthless.

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Another way to say that is, if what you believe doesn't change what comes out of your mouth, then maybe there's something wrong with what you believe.

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Like, that's, ooh, that's pretty heavy. James is throwing that at us. And later on in chapter three, he says more about the tongue.

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He says, you know, as humans, we've accomplished great things. Isn't that a nice picture of a tongue?

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We've accomplished great things. We've tamed wild animals and we've bridled horses and we can steer great ships with a rudder.

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But he says, we still can't control the muscle in our mouth, our own tongue. What's up with that?

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It is kind of crazy when you think about the fact that we still can't control our own tongue, even today.

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You know, I want to just pause here for a moment and ask, is God convicting you in the area of speech?

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If so, I would encourage you to pray. Humbly ask God to help you in that area.

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It says in Galatians that the Holy Spirit gives us self -control.

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That's specifically named as one of the fruits of the Spirit. And when you have the Spirit of God in you, the result is self -control.

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You can ask God to give you self -control in the area of speech. And then I want to just encourage you with a verse.

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It's Ephesians 4 .29. And I don't know if you have written down verses and maybe posted them around your house.

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We had this on our mirror for a while. And I like the NIV version. This is

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ESV up here. But it says, basically, let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

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We should be saying things, words, that build each other up, that encourage others. You know,

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I hope that this verse encourages you in your battle against sin. And I would encourage, we're going to talk more about Scripture and how it can help us in the battle against sin.

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Finally, the third thing in his command here in verse 19 is, be slow to anger.

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So I was watching an NBA game recently, and I saw a guy score a basket. And you know when you do something good, you usually smile or some positive thing, right?

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But no, it was a scowl. It was just this angry, tough guy, warrior look as he's running down the court, not too far off there.

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And isn't it strange how we glorify anger? Like somehow this is a good thing. I'm angry. James says, no, we should be slow to anger.

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And he gives us a reason. He tells us why we should be slow to anger. He says, man's anger does not bring about the righteous life of God that God desires.

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So I think it's an important point right here to ask the question, is anger sin?

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Is anger sin? I think the answer is no, not necessarily. We just heard last week,

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I wanna give the example from Don's sermon last week. For those who were here, he was preaching from Samuel 11. And he said that in Samuel 11, we read the account where the

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Holy Spirit came upon Saul and filled him with what? Filled him with anger. What?

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How can that possibly be? He fills him with anger, and then he proceeds to rally the entire nation of Israel to the cause to defeat

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Ramoth Gilead in that passage. So God uses that anger. And then I wanna give you another example of anger.

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That may be interesting to think about Jesus in the temple with the money changers. Do you remember that passage?

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So there were people exchanging money, essentially making money off of other people in God's house, and Jesus was incensed.

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And he was angry, no doubt about it. But I think in both of those cases, we're talking about a righteous anger.

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And that is different than man's anger. So I wanna hold those two in contrast there.

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So I wanna ask you the question, when you're angry, which one is it? Is it righteous anger or man's anger?

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I think we need to ask ourselves that question as we evaluate our own lives. Another way to think about it is, is what results from your anger?

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If in your anger, you sin, if it leads to outbursts, verbal abuse, violence, harming others, hurting relationships, if that's the result of anger,

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I don't think we have any doubt of what kind of anger that is. So I would encourage you and challenge you to consider your own life and what kind of anger you have.

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Again, James is cautioning his readers here, be slow to anger. Now in verse 21,

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James expands and says much more broadly, he says, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.

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In the NIV, it says, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent. Moral filth is kind of like wearing dirty clothes.

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You know, I think it's an example of moral filth. It's a picture used in the Bible in different places. And if you've ever had dirty clothes on, it's not fun and it's not as comfortable as it should be.

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And you're filthy and God is saying, take those filthy clothes off and put on robes of righteousness.

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That's essentially what this passage is saying. So what constitutes moral filth and wickedness?

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We don't have to look around very far, do we today? I mean, just turn on your

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TV. I mean, there's all kinds of vulgarity and violence glorified.

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There's pornography and lust that triggers. There's selfishness, putting our own needs above those around us, wanting everyone else to serve us.

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There's the pride of life, bragging, boasting. It seems so common today everywhere you look.

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We know this stuff exists in the world. We know this is around us, correct? The question is, why does that also describe the church?

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James is writing to the church. He's writing to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations. At the time in the early church, there was persecution in Jerusalem and believers had scattered to the known world at that time around the

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Mediterranean. And James is writing to those people. Perhaps he even knew some of them personally and he's writing and he's telling the church and he's now telling the church today, don't look like the world around you.

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Stop doing the sinful things that you know are wrong. Bottom line is the church should look different from the world.

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Dave mentioned that earlier during worship. So how about you? Let's just focus internally for a second.

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Do people notice that you're different? Do you stand out from the world around you, from your neighbors, from your coworkers in a good way, in a godly way?

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Is there a sin that God's convicting you of today? I don't know your life and I don't know your heart. I just encourage you to reflect and allow the

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Holy Spirit to guide you. If there's a sin that you're convicted of, there's one thing to do.

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Turn from it, get rid of it. You know,

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I think back on the example of Joseph with Potiphar's wife. When it comes to temptation, what do you do?

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You flee, you run away from it. Run away from it as fast as you can. I think so often instead of running away from it, toy with it.

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We want to know how close can I get without crossing the line? Can I just get a little closer?

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Is it okay to watch this program but not that one? And what's wrong with this? And we just kind of push it, don't we?

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Push it closer and closer, we get to the line. No, we should be running away from sin. So repenting of sin means turning from it.

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And I want to point out also another example of how to deal with sin. It's Romans 8 verse 13.

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It says, basically, I'll paraphrase. Get rid of your sin. It says, kill your sin, kill it.

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You can remember the introduction. I mentioned the downward progression of sin in earlier part of James chapter one.

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James says, temptation leads to sin and sin leads to death. If we don't get rid of sin, it can kill you.

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It will kill you. That's what James is telling us. Ultimately, that is what sin leads to by definition. And so I think that it's not too much to say that we're in a life and death struggle.

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That's how serious sin is. We need to kill it in our life. That means get rid of the sin out of our life before it kills us.

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I want to move forward now and continue this phrase.

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It says, well, before we do that, I just had a thought and I can't move on before saying this.

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In our battle against sin, we're not alone. Praise God. We've got brothers and sisters in Christ who are there to encourage us and help us.

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I mean, that's why we gather. One of the reasons we gather is a body of believers, a local gathering. I mean, you can download a podcast and listen to it, but it's the relationships you have with other believers that can be so encouraging in your walk with God.

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I would just encourage you right now to find a brother or sister in Christ that you can share your burdens with, that you can be honest with about a real struggle and allow them to speak

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God's truth to you, be willing to be vulnerable and allow them to encourage you and hold you accountable in your battle against sin.

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I also want to say that the passage goes on to give us some great advice. So what am I talking about?

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So it says, and I'm still in verse 21 here, verse 21, if I can find it in my own notes, it says, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the word, the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

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So we're supposed to receive humbly the word which can save us.

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This is really important. As we battle sin, we have some key guidance here.

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It explains, basically, that we should receive the word which can save our souls.

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First thing I notice here is the attitude, is the posture of coming to God humbly. When we approach God, there's just no room for haughtiness or pride.

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We are the sinners. He is the creator. He is the almighty God. And he's given us his word.

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And we should come to it humbly, meekly. But what

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I get so excited about here is I think this is key in our battle against sin.

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You know, the Bible is the word of God. It's powerful. I think of Hebrews, the description of the

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Bible is as a sword, double -edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and attitudes.

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And Paul describes the Bible as the sword of the spirit. It's part of the battle gear of a spiritual warrior.

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Are you gonna do battle? You need to take up God's word. You need to take it up. What does that mean?

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It means to read it, obviously. It means to study it. Study it deeply. Really think about what it means to make sure you grasp it properly.

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To ponder it. To repeat it to yourself. Memorizing is a great thing to do because you can repeat it to yourself anytime, anywhere.

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It's right there in your mind. You can write it on a three -by -five card. One more example

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I wanted to give you of Scripture and its power against temptation. Think about Jesus in the gospels, in his battle against temptation.

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Do you remember how that went? So Satan leads him out into the desert and he's tempted 40 days.

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And the three temptations that are listed, every single time Jesus brings out Scripture, Old Testament Scripture.

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And he just nails Satan with that. Hammers him. If Jesus, who is the

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Son of God, used Scripture to fight off Satan, why in the world wouldn't we?

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Can you think of any reason? And now I'm just convicted because I have to be honest. When I struggle against sin,

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I have not done that. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Why wouldn't I pull it out? I even know verses. I could turn to and I don't do it in the moment of temptation.

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Brothers and sisters, we should be doing that. We should be doing that in our battle against sin. So I just encourage you again, find a verse that applies to maybe a particular sin or simple pattern that you're struggling with in your life.

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Memorize it, write it down, commit to memory and use it in the moment of temptation. Verse 22 moves on to say, don't just listen and forget what the

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Word says and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

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There are so many people. So there's so many people who read the Bible, who many attend church, and then they go out and they do whatever they want.

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They're deceiving themselves. They may think they're Christians. They may go to church.

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They may know some things in the Bible. They may even know some lingo and fit in well.

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They even may think that they're, they may really think they're Christians. Okay, this is possible to genuinely think you're a

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Christian. But I need to tell you this morning, the only true faith in God, in belief in what

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Jesus has done for you on the cross will save you. Only the cross can pay for the penalty for sin and only belief in Jesus is the penalty for sin.

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And there's a path to that, salvation. And once saved, it leads to a transformed life, a transformed life.

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This is not optional. Salvation leads to a transformed life.

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You know, Jesus said, you'll know a tree by its fruit. This is, this is not, you can't believe and then not be changed.

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Salvation leads to a transformed life. Galatians 2 .20, Paul is writing to the

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Galatians and he has a good way of saying this. He says, I've been crucified with Christ.

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Think about that. It is no longer I who live, but it's

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Christ literally living in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the

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Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Christ living in you, living by faith, doing everything out of gratefulness for what

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Christ did for you. That is the Christian life. And that's what it looks like to be transformed by the word.

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So James is saying very clearly here that when we hear the word, we should do what it says.

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And I just wanna bring up another example from scripture about Jesus. And here's Jesus very much aligned with his younger brother

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James on this topic. He says in John 14 .21, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

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Do you love God? Do you love God this morning? I think we all would nod and say yes.

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Then Jesus says, do what the Bible says, do what he says. That's our way of demonstrating our love for God.

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James verses 23 and 24, James goes on here to give a kind of a comical illustration.

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I honestly think this is a little bit humorous. He says, it's like looking in a mirror and seeing your face clearly and then completely forgetting about what you just saw.

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And I think about, this is, I'm adding a little bit to the example here, but bear with me for a second.

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Let's just say you look in the mirror and you see a big piece of food hanging out of your tooth, right? I'm sure we've never, nobody's ever experienced that.

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So let's say you look in the mirror and you see this food hanging out of your tooth and then you immediately turn and walk out into the crowded room or lunch meeting or whatever it has, you have you and whatever you're doing and you're smiling and you don't do anything about the big thing hanging out of your tooth.

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How smart is that? How much value was looking in the mirror? Absolutely zero value.

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And besides, it's awkward for everybody in the room watching you and everybody's trying to figure out, okay, who's gonna tell this guy he's got this big piece of dinner hanging out of his tooth?

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So when you look in the mirror, you need to act on that knowledge, right? Otherwise, the looking in the mirror is a waste.

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In the same way, when we look at the word, we need to do what it says.

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Verse 25 affirms the person who hears and remembers and does what

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God's perfect law says. It says that person will be blessed. So we should do the law, yes?

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What law? What are we talking about here? Why is James talking about following the law? I'm confused. Are we talking about the speed limit?

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Don't speed or the federal laws? You know, there's like 50 ,000 laws on the books.

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I don't know. I can't even read them all. How do I know? So no, we're not talking about all those laws. Yes, we should obey authority.

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Romans 13, Paul says that we should obey the authority God's placed over us. That's not wrong to obey authority.

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But that's not what James is talking about here. So let's think about that for a second. James is talking back to the

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Jewish law, the Mosaic law. So a quick history lesson here.

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The law was given to Moses. Exodus 20 is the 10 commandments. Those were given.

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And then the law built off of those. There was all kinds of law given.

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And basically, if you read Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which is great reading, by the way,

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I just totally encourage you to do that. You'll learn all about the dietary laws and the social laws and the property laws, the sacrificial system, and just so many laws.

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So these were all given. And then to top that, Jewish leaders, Scribes and Pharisees through the ages, added even more rules and requirements on top of those laws.

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So to be honest, it became very, very overwhelming. Very overwhelming. But I wanna remember and go back to the beginning that the law that God gave

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Moses was good. And Paul says in Romans that the law had a purpose.

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It was given to point out sin. That's the purpose of the law. But the problem with the law is that it's only an external indicator.

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It's an external indicator that tells you when you've done right or wrong, but it has no power to change the heart.

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No power to change the heart. And that's the weakness of a rule or a law. Praise God for Jesus Christ and his, and the spirit of God that can enable us to change.

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That changes, literally changes our hearts, changes our desires. So I wanna touch on Jesus as well.

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What did he have to say about the law? I just wanna point out that he said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

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Matthew 5, 17. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus took Old Testament law, and he gets right to the heart of the matter.

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Do you remember this passage on the Sermon on the Mount? Very convicting. He says, you have heard it said, thou shalt not murder.

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But I say to you, if anyone is angry with his brother, he's already guilty of sin.

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Or you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, if anyone looks at a woman lustfully, he's committed adultery already in his heart.

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So Jesus takes the law, and then he just ups the ante. He just takes it way up. He says, you shouldn't even sin in your thoughts or your intentions.

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That's how high Jesus takes the standard, okay? So it's a very high standard. And then he says, you can summarize the entire law, all of the

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Old Testament law and the prophets, with two things. And you've probably heard these things, right? Love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

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He says, all of the law and the prophets are summarized in those two. So when we love

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God and love others, we are fulfilling the law. In fact, we're doing more.

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We're going above and beyond. We're doing more than fulfilling the law. Does that make sense? So it is good to obey the law, but the law has no power to change you.

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So verse 26, I mentioned this verse earlier, and it brings us back to the tongue.

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It says a couple of things. First of all, I want to say, it says, James says, if we consider our religion, if we consider ourselves religious and yet don't keep a tight rein on our tongue, we are deceiving ourselves, and our religion is worthless.

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None of us can control our own tongues. At least I haven't done that perfectly.

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So we're all deceiving ourselves. We're all struggling in this area. And then verse 27 goes on to say that pure religion, pure religion is taking care of orphans and widows and keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world.

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True religion. So orphans and widows represented the helpless and the poor in that society.

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Those who are in need. In the first century, there was no welfare system.

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There were no orphanages. There were no social workers. And I think being an orphan in that day and age meant being in a very hard condition, right?

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Being left out on the street. No one to take care of you. Being a widow meant no income, no protection.

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You know, when we have similar people in our society today, people who have similar circumstances, the helpless and the needy, that's what

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James is talking about. And he's saying that pure and undefiled religion means putting what we believe into action.

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James is always driving that back to action. Loving our neighbor is the way Jesus describes, for example, in the story of the

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Good Samaritan, when the religious leaders walk on by, but this foreigner, this stranger, binds up the wounds of this guy who's practically bleeding to death.

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And he takes care of him. And he cares for him at his own expense. That's loving our neighbor.

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You know, and Jesus also says in Matthew 25, that if you clothe and if you feed the least of these, then you're doing it for me.

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James also says that true religion means not being stained or polluted by the world.

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It's so difficult to live in the world and not be of the world, to not be affected by the world around us.

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I've really been thinking a lot about this this past week. You know, there's a history of the church and we have monks and they certainly separated themselves from the world, right?

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And they hid behind walls and I imagine they still struggle with some issues.

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But they kept themselves from the world, but that's not what God tells us to do. He says, no, I want you to be salt and light in the world, yet somehow not be stained by the world.

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This is a very difficult and very high calling that God's placed on all believers.

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I think about the example of Jesus again. He was in heaven,

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God existing from all time, from eternity past, and he came into this sinful world.

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He entered the mess that is us, basically. You know, you think about Jesus' life in the gospels.

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What did he do? He hung out with the tax collectors and the sinners and the adulterers.

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He associated with all those people. He didn't separate himself. He wasn't like a monk, so to speak.

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He was living in the thick of it with people, and yet he was without sin.

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I believe he's calling you and I to the same thing, to live in this world, to live in the middle of a dark world and to reach out with the light of God and not become contaminated with sin.

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I think this is a noble calling and that the challenge is in how to do it.

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And it drives, again, back to the earlier part of this passage where he says, get rid of all moral filth and humbly accept

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God's word planted in you, listening intently, remembering

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God's word, and then doing God's word. Bottom line, we need to be people.

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We need to be people of the book. So in conclusion,

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I really want to wrap up with a couple of things, but application from this passage, there are so many things that we can take away.

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Just to list a few, we should listen first. We should be slow to anger.

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We should control our tongues. We should hear and do what the word says.

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We should humbly accept the word of God and we should take care of those needs around us that we see, that God draws to our attention.

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And my hope and prayer this morning, by the way, is that whatever God is putting on your mind, however he's pricking your conscience, that you would just take a note of that.

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That is probably the most important application that you can take away because I believe it's not my words or wisdom or anything that I'm saying, but it's the word of God that is powerful and effective and can change you.

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It will change you if you're a believer. But I do want to just point out a couple of things that stood out to me as I wrap up this passage.

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And my first point is this, humbly accept the word of God into your life.

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You know, listen to it, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it. By the way, I have a phone app where I can, the

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Bible app, I'm sure many of you have it and there's many other apps. You can just listen to scripture. What a beautiful thing.

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At least I literally like to do that on the way to work sometimes while I'm shaving in the morning. You can listen to it whenever you want.

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What a beautiful thing. And technology is good. It can be used for good or evil. Let's use it for good.

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There's a great thing to do. But do more than listen to it. You need to make sure you understand it correctly and then we need to apply it.

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And that's really my second point. Second point, do what it says. I don't know how else to say it.

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It's so clear from James here. Don't just hear the word, do it. And I'm reminded of Don's preaching every

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Sunday and I'm really grateful for it. He is so committed to preaching the word of God. You've noticed that, haven't you?

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Where he preaches right through a passage and then he just marches right through the Bible. He is so faithful to bring the word every

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Sunday. But are we ignoring it?

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Are we just forgetting it or are we applying it? I think that's the question this morning. There's no possible way to obey

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God without the power of the Spirit in your life. So I want to make this point very, very clear as we wrap up the sermon today.

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Step one is believing in God. Believe in Jesus Christ. People talk about this in so many different ways.

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John 3, 16 is the example of Nicodemus asking, how can

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I be saved? And he says, you have to believe and essentially you have to enter in, and you have to be reborn.

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And Nicodemus is confused and he says, how can I enter into the mother's womb a second time? And it's not a physical rebirth, it's a spiritual rebirth.

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It's a relationship with God. You need to believe that Jesus died for your sins and that he paid the price for every single thing that you've done wrong.

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His indwelling Spirit then takes residence in your heart. As a believer, I think those of us who are

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Christians can attest to the fact that suddenly, when we go and do the same thing we used to do, suddenly we have this amazing guilt.

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Our conscience is pricked, the Spirit is moving. The Spirit is saying, no, you should not do that.

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And that's the power of the Spirit beginning to work in your life. So we cannot do it on our own. And again,

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I wanna just say, the more you try to do it on your own strength, one of two things is gonna happen.

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You're either gonna fail and grow incredibly discouraged, or you're gonna have some measure of success and grow prideful and get proud about it, okay?

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Don't do that, don't do it on your own strength. Rely on God. Pray, ask him to give you the

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Spirit and to give you the strength to do what the Word says. So as we come to communion now,

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I just want to remind you that Christ died for you and for me.

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And here at Recast, we take communion every week. And this is a practice we do intentionally because we don't wanna stray too far from the centrality of the cross of Christ.

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Jesus paid the price so that we can have a relationship with God. And he gave us this symbology the night before he was crucified.

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It says that he gave his body, the bread as a symbol of his body broken for you and me.

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And he gave us the cup as a symbol of his blood shed for you and me. And this is a beautiful picture.

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When we come to take communion, we can celebrate it. We don't have to have long sour faces and or angry looks like those

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NBA players or whatever you want. We can be joyful, it's okay to be joyful. Of course, the remembrance of what

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Christ did for us is a sobering thing. It's a heavy thing. He paid the ultimate price so we don't have to.

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So if you're a fellow believer in Christ, it doesn't matter if you're a member of the church or a regular attender or not.

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What we want is if you're a believer and this is between you and God, then come and join the table and take part in this.

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Dave's gonna come and lead a song of worship in a minute. And then we just take communion at our own pace here at Recast.

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But on the other hand, if you're not sure that you're in, if you're not sure that Jesus is your savior, if you're still searching, that's totally fine.

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We don't wanna press anyone into doing this. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you just yet. That's okay.

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I would encourage you, by the way, to come and find me after the service. I'd love to talk to you about how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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But if you do believe, then we just encourage you to come and take the elements as we hear this song.

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So let's pray now. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for your word today.

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I thank you that we can be challenged by it every time we read it, that your spirit can move in our hearts to convict us of sin and to bring about a change,

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God. And I thank you that by your spirit, you enable us to live a new life, to be transformed, to be a new creature in Christ.

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And Father, we cannot do it on our own. We just readily admit that right now. And we just ask for your power to transform us.

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And Father, as we take these elements and we think about what Jesus did for us, this is the amazing sacrifice that you made,

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God, so that we could be in right relationship with you, so that we can approach you to approach your throne.

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And I just thank you, Father, for what you did 2 ,000 years ago. Thank you for dying for me.