David Platt Messages
David Platt Messages is a podcast that highlights sermons from teacher, author, and pastor David Platt.
David Platt Messages
CROSS CON25 Conference Message
In this message from James 1:19–25, David Platt challenges us to not merely listen to God’s Word but to obey it—immediately.
While obedience doesn’t earn God’s favor, it is a mark of those who truly belong to Jesus. This is where true freedom is found—in hearing and obeying the Word of God. This message was given at a breakout session of CrossCon 2025.
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You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. If you have a Bible and I hope that you or somebody around you does you can look on with. Let me invite you to open with me to James, chapter 1. 1. James, chapter 1, is where we're going to be primarily in our time in the Word this morning. I want to start by doing a simple relaxing exercise together. So, on the count of three, I am going to invite you just to take a deep breath, like a nice relaxing, calming breath. In and out Sound good. So just a very intentional. What does it look like? To just stop? Who doesn't want just to stop and take a moment and just breathe in and breathe out? So let's do it together. So three, two, one, breathe in and out. It's pretty simple and pretty awesome at the same time. So let me explain to you what just happened.
Speaker 1:In that breath, you just took into your body about 25 sextillion molecules of air. Sextillion that's 25 with 21 zeros behind it. That's more molecules that just pass through your nose than all the grains of sand on all the world's beaches. Those air molecules were made up of many different elements, one of which is oxygen. It's about 20% of the molecules you just breathed in. Side note thankfully you breathed in clean air. If it had been filled with smoke, for example, your body would have immediately rejected it, but thankfully it wasn't and the oxygen you needed came into your body. And here's how it got in you. So your brain sent a message to your diaphragm and ribs telling them to contract, increasing the size of your rib cage, enabling your lungs to expand, which then allowed air to rush in. That air went down your trachea into your lungs, where it came into contact with hundreds of millions of miniature balloon-like projections called alveoli. They have alveolar walls. That then brought those oxygen molecules in touch with red blood cells inside you, which comprise the transportation system for oxygen in your body. You have about 20 trillion of those red blood cells. Your body is churning out about 2.5 million of them a second. Each of those red blood cells contains about 270 million oxygen-binding molecules of hemoglobin, and these red blood cells picked up the oxygen molecules that came in, carried them through your cardiovascular network, this massive collection of blood vessels that reaches every single cell in your body. If you laid out those blood vessels in a straight line, end to end. They would wrap around the entire world multiple times. And where did those blood cells get the energy to get that oxygen throughout your body? From your heart, which pumps an average of about 100,000 times a day. In that one breath you took, your heart was the powerhouse that took the oxygen you inhaled and got it to every part of your body that needs it.
Speaker 1:All of that happened in a breath, so let's take one more together, now that you know what's going on Breathe in and out. It's pretty awesome, and all the more so when you realize that happens about 20,000 times a day without you even thinking about it. And just to point out the obvious, it doesn't happen. If it doesn't happen, even for just a few minutes, you won't make it throughout the day. The reason I share all of this is because, as important as oxygen is to your body and I trust you know how important it is I want to propose to you in the next few minutes that the book I'm holding in my hand is infinitely more important to your life, and I'm concerned that you don't realize how important this is. I'm going to propose to you that this book has power to bring life to every part of you in ways that oxygen could never do. And this book has power to sustain you amidst everything you will face in life, more than oxygen could ever do, and ultimately, one day when your body loses the ability to take in one more breath and it will happen unless Jesus returns before that, for any one of us, at any moment, it could happen this book has power to keep your life going beyond that breath. So I want to show you this, starting in James 1, verse 16. And I want to encourage you to circle with me and I'll do it up here on the screen every time you see the Word of God mentioned. So here we go, james 1, 16.
Speaker 1:Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change Of his own will. He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, 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. With meekness, the implanted Word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. He looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was 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 his doing so. You count them up One, two, three, four, five, six times times.
Speaker 1:These verses talk about God's Word or God's law. And do you see what God's Word does More than oxygen? Look back at verse 18. God's Word brings us forth. The language here is literally. It brings us to life. And then, in verse 21, this word is able to save your soul. Like, are you getting this? The same God who created your body and your heart and your lungs and your blood cells and your blood vessels, and the same God who provides the oxygen for you to breathe. This God has spoken through. Make the connection with last night, his Spirit, this Word to you and me, and it has power to give you life at every moment, forever, which makes this Word infinitely more important to you than oxygen is to your body. And I mentioned I'm concerned that many of us, maybe most of us, are not getting the life we need from it and, as a result, we are weak and frail in every facet of our lives, not just spiritually, but mentally and emotionally and relationally, and emotionally and relationally, even physically in some ways.
Speaker 1:Did you know that just a couple of centuries ago, it would have been common for an ordinary Christian not a pastor or a church leader, just an everyday Christian to rise before dawn for extended time in private prayer and meditation on God's Word. That would then be followed by family prayer and meditation on God in the morning, to be followed by time set aside in the middle of the day for personal or corporate, with the church prayer and Scripture meditation, to be followed by evening family prayer and meditation on God's Word before personal prayer and meditation on God's Word before going to sleep. This used to be normal for a Christian collective hours throughout a day in prayer and meditation on God's Word, but not for us. We almost can't fathom this Amidst everything going on in our lives, right? I mean, how is this possible, from the moment we rise to the moment we go to bed, to moments throughout the day, to always be looking at God's Word? We can't imagine. Well, wait a minute. Can we imagine having something we look at in the morning and right before we go to bed and collective hours of our day in between? Apparently we can.
Speaker 1:It's been, and you can find different statistics that's been said even in different ways at this conference. Did you know? Average American spends five hours and 24 minutes a day on their mobile device, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed and everywhere in between we check our phones an average of 96 times a day, or once every 10 minutes. So the problem is apparently not that we're not able to breathe this word in. The problem is we're breathing in the air of the world instead all day long, and we're disciplining ourselves to do so, to always be looking, scrolling, typing, reading, sending, listening, watching. To use the illustration from earlier, we're breathing in smoke all day long and you can see it in the quality of our lives Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, relationally, some ways physically. In these few minutes in this breakout session.
Speaker 1:My hope and my prayer is that you might hear God calling you right where you're sitting right now to make a radical change in your life, to reorient your entire life, instead of it being around the smoke of this world, it being around the life you can find in this world, and my aim in that is so that you might live. So the title of this breakout is Hearing, without Doing, the Danger of Our Information Age. Let's just be honest. We're not lacking for information. We have information from the world available to us at our fingertips and we're breathing it in all day long. The purpose of this breakout is not to dive into all the negative effects of that in our lives. I trust you know those statistics or those realities about increases in anxiety, depression, distractions, decreases in productivity, feelings of constant comparison with others, lack of sleep, lack of overall health and, statistically, a majority of you in this room actually believe you should spend less time on that device, but you can't seem to do so, and the purpose of this breakout is to help you see there is a better way, there is a way for you to live, to experience a totally different life, and I just want to give you three practical encouragements to revolve your life around this book. So we're going to hit them quick, even though we have a lot to cover, even though it's not 50 points, but these three are heavy.
Speaker 1:So one receive God's Word humbly and wholeheartedly. Receive God's Word humbly and wholeheartedly. So, verse 19,. Let every person be quick to hear. The language is let every person hurry up and listen and slow to speak and slow to anger. All these are pictures, postures of humility, and there's actually some discussion about whether James is talking generally about all of life. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, or, specifically, when we approach God's Word and based on the whole Bible, we know it's ultimately both. God instructs us to live like this all the time in our relationships with others be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. If that's the case with others, how much more so should that be in our relationship with God, our communication with God? Quick to hear what God has to say. God, I want to listen to you all day long. I want to listen to what you have to say. This is why James says receive with meekness the implanted Word which is able to save your souls. That word implanted is so good because for all those who've been brought to life by this word, who've been born again by the power of this word, god's word is now planted inside of us.
Speaker 1:Let me show you two quick places in the Old Testament. If you want to turn in your Bible, you can. It'll be up here on the screen. First is Jeremiah 31. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to underline it. This is a very important passage in the Old Testament. Jeremiah is speaking to God's people about their struggles to obey God's law, and God gives them a promise of what's going to happen in the New Testament the new covenant through Jesus, jeremiah 31, verse 31,.
Speaker 1:The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel, the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them out by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. God says I'm going to put my law on their hearts. It won't just be outside of them, it will be written on their hearts, living inside of them.
Speaker 1:And then one more place we looked at actually last night Ezekiel 36, another passage that would be good to underline in your Bible Verse 24,. God says I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the countries, bring you into the land. I will sprinkle clean water on you. You should be clean from all your uncleannesses, from all your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart, a new spirit. We talked about this last night. I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from you and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in these statutes that are in you, to be careful to obey these rules that are in you, and you'll dwell in the land that I gave your fathers. You'll be my people. I'll be your God. You see the language here. God's promising that in the new covenant. This is talking about us in Jesus. God's given us a new heart, with His Holy Spirit living inside of us and His Spirit in us enables us to live according to the Word that he's put in our hearts. And all of this so that we would experience the joy and the beauty of relationship with God. Walking with God, knowing God, loving God, experiencing the love of God, living in God. Walking with God, knowing God, loving God, experiencing the love of God, living in God, in relationship with Him.
Speaker 1:I've used the illustration before about when my wife and I started dating. This was before texting or, yeah, a number of different ways we used to communicate through these things called letters, and it was like on a piece of something called paper and we would take a pen or a pencil and she'd start writing me letters. And I'd never received a letter from a girl before until she sent me one. And I remember the first one. It was like dear David. And I just look at it and I'm like David, dear, that's a good start, I think she likes me.
Speaker 1:And then I'd be like she'd start saying this or that I'm praying for you, and I'd be like, huh, I wonder what she means by that. Like I'm praying for you, like I pray for anybody, or like when I pray for my future husband, I pray for you. Like what does she mean? Then she put a smiley face. I'd be like, why the smiley face right there, like she's smiling at me right now? Does it go with the sentence before, with after? And you'd be like, well, you were obsessed. And yes, that's the point. I was totally obsessed, I was in love how much more so with the Word of God to us.
Speaker 1:Like, what is this saying? Like, receive it wholeheartedly. Like this is God speaking to me. I'm in relationship with Him. This is what God's made you for to walk with God and experience life and love, relationship with Him as he speaks to you and you read His Word. Do not settle for breathing in smoke all day long and starving your heart from what you most need and what your heart is made to most want the Word of God and the Spirit of God pumping through your entire being. Receive God's Word humbly, wholeheartedly. Second, remember God's Word intentionally and continually. So we're going to talk in just a moment about this clear command to do the Word.
Speaker 1:But look with me at the illustration James uses in this passage about a guy who looks at himself in a mirror and walks away and totally forgets what he looks like, like who gets up in the morning, stands in front of a mirror, then walks away and thinks I wonder what I look like. That's absurd. Keep in mind, in that day they didn't have mirrors made of glass like we do. They would have been made of metal, which means you spend all this time polishing it and then you look at yourself and totally forget what you look like. He's saying don't do that with God's Word. But it's possible, right For any one of us to open God's Word to read it and a few hours later totally forget what you've read. Honestly, we can forget within a couple minutes. But look at the contrast here. But the one who looks into the perfect law the language is so good that language is basically intentionally look into, like stoop down and look at it closely, just like when I'm talking about a love letter from my wife or when I want it to be a love letter from my future wife. I'm just looking at every single word.
Speaker 1:James is saying do that with God's word, don't just read through it to check off a box. Like what are you doing? This is the Word of God. Like stop, gaze on it from every angle. One translation of this word look is to look with penetrating absorption. I love that picture and persevere in that Like. Keep doing that. Don't be content with a little devotional word from God for the day. No, like. Look at it and keep looking at it, like all day long, so you don't forget it, so you remember it. Let it lodge in your mind and your heart so that it's always before you. You know what that's like with your phone. It's always near you, you're always looking at it. Do that. Well, what would it look like to spend your life doing that with the Word of God and just think about this practically.
Speaker 1:So this clear call from God not to forget to remember His Word. What's the best way to remember God's Word? It's not a hard question. Memorize it, like. Hide it in your heart, memorize, say it over and over again until it's a part of you. That's the best way to remember God's Word.
Speaker 1:And I've mentioned before. I know people say I just don't memorize very well, and I know different people have different, we memorize differently and people have different capacities to memorize. At the same time, if I told you that between now and tomorrow, at this time, I'd give you a thousand dollars for every verse you can memorize, I think you'd figure it out I mean, with maybe a rare exception in this room like Jesus wept boom $1,000. Like, just kind of start, do a search shortest verses. You'd figure out how to memorize a good bit between now and tomorrow. So I guess the question is what's more valuable to you, money or the Word of God? What do you want more? That's really the question. So I just, I want to encourage you memorize.
Speaker 1:Do you have an intentional plan for memorizing verses, paragraphs, chapters, books of the Bible? That this would be common among followers of Jesus? Of course it is. This is the Word of God. It's what we want to remember intentionally and continue. We want to persevere in this.
Speaker 1:If we're not intentional in this way, we're used to. That's part of the whole point. We're used to taking in information and then forgetting it. We must be intentional with God's Word, to not just hear it. I mean, any one of us could even just go to a sermon. Hear a sermon on a Sunday, go to a Bible study, read our Bible in the morning and by the time we get to bed that night, we've forgotten most of it. It's the way our minds work unless we keep looking at God's Word. I use this. We use these two acrostics in our church family all the time. They're a part of my personal time with the Lord. I'm just going to mention them. I did mention this at a breakout last year, so I'm just going to hit them real quick. But for I don't assume everybody was a part of that breakout last year, so I'm just going to put them on the screen here and if they serve you well, then it will have been worth it.
Speaker 1:So maps is the first one. This is what to do when you sit down with God's Word. M stands for meditate and memorize. That's the word we see in the Bible. Not just read the Bible, but meditate on this Word, really soak it in, look at it, everything we're talking about and memorize it. What can you memorize from what you've just read today? And then A apply.
Speaker 1:So meditate, memorize. You're asking all kinds of questions what is this here? What does this mean? What is God saying in this text? And then, okay, now and we're going to talk about this more in a minute how do I act on this? So how does what I just read affect my thought, my thoughts, my desires, my actions, my words, my relationships, my interactions? How does this word apply to my life, and then to pray through it. To pray through God's word, and this is where the next acrostic comes in P-R-A-Y. So just to pause there in maps, pray.
Speaker 1:So how does this, what you just read, lead you to praise God? So just, yeah, get on your knees, get on your face and just praise God for his word, for his truth, for what you've just read. To repent how has the Holy Spirit convicted you of sin and what you've just read? And so to spend time in repentance. Is there anything in what I've just read that is exposing sin in my heart that I need to confess before God and turn from? And then to ask, to ask God for help to put God's Word into practice. So to ask God for strength, for wisdom, for peace, for whatever you've read in that passage, to pray according to it. Ask for it in your own life, ask for it in others' lives. And then why To yield? To say, god, help me to walk in your Word. I want to do your Word, which we're about to talk about more in a second. So that's praise, repent, ask and yield. Come back to meditate, memorize, apply, pray through the Word.
Speaker 1:And then the S is to share, to intentionally think through how you can encourage someone else with what you've heard from God's Word during the day, because, guaranteed, this will lodge more in your mind and your heart when you speak it to others. When you keep it to yourself, then one, you're missing out on the blessing of encouraging God's Word with others, but you're also missing out on the blessing of that Word soaking into you. Sometimes people will say well, I mean, I can't encourage somebody else for the Word, I don't feel like I know the Word well enough. Well, the person who's encouraging someone else is the person who spent the time knowing the Word, like who knows this passage and this talk better than anybody in this room. Well, right now I do, because I've spent the time diving into this text and this talk. So if you're going to encourage others with the word, it actually forces you to think through how can I encourage them with the word.
Speaker 1:So, to think intentionally in the beginning of your day who can I encourage with this word today? Who can I send a text to? Who can I steward this device for? To spread this word? To encourage another brother or sister in Christ, or to encourage somebody who maybe doesn't know Christ? So, meditate, memorize, apply, pray, share Just ways to remember God's Word intentionally and continually. All right, receive God's Word humbly, wholeheartedly, remember God's Word intentionally and continually and then obey God's word immediately and gladly.
Speaker 1:So we're used to receiving, receiving, receiving information and not doing anything with it, just kind of moving on. I mean it is the breakout title. I was given the danger of our information age and I just thought, yeah, how dangerous it is Even just to look at news headlines on your phone and see news of war or just evil tragedy and then just flip to something else on our phone. We aren't even affected by it. So James says you are deceiving yourself if all you do is hear the Word. Just let that soak in for a minute. It's possible to read your Bible every day and to go to church and hear a good biblical teaching every Sunday and be completely deceived. It's possible, it's dangerously possible, to come in here, listen to the Word of God, maybe even think, man, I needed that, and then walk away totally unchanged. It's possible to do that every single day with this book, every single gathering like this with this book, which is why James 1, 22 says what it does.
Speaker 1:Maybe the entire theme book of the verse of James Be doers of this word, not hearers only. Then he gets to verse 25, and he says the one who looks at God's Word intently, remember into the perfect law the law. A doer who acts, he will be what. Blessed in his doing, he'll be happy as he does it. Jesus says the exact same thing. Listen to his language Matthew 7, 21.
Speaker 1:Not everyone who says to me, lord, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, lord, lord, do we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in your name? Do many mighty works in your name? I will declare to them I never knew you. Depart from me, you, workers of lawlessness. You're catching what he's saying here. Many people, many, not some, not a couple, like many, will stand before Jesus and hear him say one day I never even knew you, away from me, people who called Jesus Lord but did not obey the will of God. And this is not Jesus or James saying we need to work to earn our salvation, but this is Jesus and James saying those who truly know Jesus obey Jesus. And then listen to what Jesus says right after this Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.
Speaker 1:What's the difference between those who withstand the storms of life and those who cave when the storms of life come? The difference is whether you hear and do the Word of God. So how are you doing? Because I actually believe there's a sense in which Satan would delight in you hearing this talk, all kinds of teaching at a conference like this, and reading the Bible and going to church, maybe even deciding, okay, yes, okay, this book, I hear it's important, and just receiving all of this and then not doing anything with it. Because what happens is your heart gets used to hearing and not doing and he knows you're set up to fail to fall in a great way you don't want. Well, just pause, before I say it, make the connection.
Speaker 1:We live in a culture that is training us to hear and just move on. And God is saying right now in His Word don't do that with my Word. I hear it. Soak it in humbly, wholeheartedly. Remember it intentionally, continually, and then do it immediately and gladly, gladly. Why? Because remember, this is the law of liberty, it's the word that brings you to life, that brings pulsating life to every part of your body. You'll be blessed and you're doing. It's the same word that's used in psalm, chapter one. Blessed is the man, the woman, who walks not in the council of wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.
Speaker 1:Listen to verse 3. Do you want this to be true of your life? Like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in season and its leaf does not wither, and all that that he or she does, he or she prospers. Do you want that to be your life? Do you want blessing, happiness? My assumption is every one. So meditate day and night, soak it in, receive it humbly, wholeheartedly, remember it intentionally, purposefully, all day long. Figure out a way, whatever works for you to remember it, memorize it and then obey it. Do it immediately and gladly, and you will find your spiritual, emotional, your relational, your mental, your physical state affected by this word.
Speaker 1:Not saying life will now be easy, but that's kind of the point. The storms of life will still be coming, but you will be able to stand, and not just stand but to live blessed. So here's what I want to do. I know we're going to have some Q&A in just a second, but the last thing I want to do is just kind of okay, let's move on to the next thing. I missed the whole point, so I want to give you, before we do Q&A, I'm just going to give you like two or three minutes and I want you to identify two, one, two, threeical steps God's calling you to take to reorient your life around receiving, remembering and obeying His Word. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt. For more resources from David Platt, we invite you to visit radicalnet.