James Part 4 - The Word That Makes Us Whole

Gavin Wright re-commences the series on James, with chapter 1v19-27.

This sermon is from Sunday 12th April 2026.

Transcript

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I'm going to read then from the book of James and from verse nineteen. 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. 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 is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For 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. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. A religion that is pure and undefiled before God's the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. We praise God for his word, which is able to save our souls. Friends, probably the most famous clothing slogan in the world is Nike's, I think. What is it? Just do it. Just do it. The message is clear, right? It's aspirational. If you want the thing that you're aiming for, if you want to win, if you want to do great things, if you want to succeed, what is the answer? Just do it. Just do it. Buying the trainers alone isn't enough. You need to actually do something once you're wearing them. Just do it. And that really, in a nutshell, is James's message for us this morning in our passage. Now, if you remember back a few weeks to the first part of chapter one, James has been setting up the idea that that is that to some extent all of us, every Christian, this side of glory, is double-minded. We have split personalities, divided hearts and loyalties. And James has been talking about how God desires for us that we become whole, whole in our love for Him, undivided in our loyalties, single-minded, mature, like Jesus. And we've read of the circumstances that God gives us, that he often uses trials to work on our hearts to grow our steadfastness. But now he says to us, as for you, you want that life, you want to be whole, you want to love God with all of your heart, you want to be more like Jesus. Just do it. Just do it. And the it that James is talking about is God's word. That is the center of our passage today. Without God's words, we can't change. And we know that we need God's help for God's word to change us. But James actually, in this passage, just really helpfully strips away unnecessary layers of complexity. And he says, yes, you need God to work in your hearts, but as for you, just do it. Here is God's word. Just do it. And in some ways, friends, it's not more complex than that. As saved and spirit-filled people, you will find wholeness by doing God's word. That's where James is taking us today. But before you do God's word, here's our first point of two, really, this morning. Before you do God's word, you need to receive God's word. It's there in the first verse of our passage, verse 19. Know this, James says, my beloved brothers, that every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. And now, sort of out of context, that could mean almost anything. It sounds sort of like good general wisdom, doesn't it? You've got two ears and one mouth, so use them in those proportions, that sort of thing. I was told that quite a lot as a child. And there is value in that. But look at what James is actually talking about. The previous verse, if you look back to verse 18, of his own will, we're talking about God here, 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, the word of truth. It is the word of truth that brought you forth if you are a Christian person today, trusting the Lord Jesus. It gave you life. The word of truth is the reason you have life and hope and forgiveness. It is the reason you know God, it is the word of truth that made you what you are, and it is the word of truth that you need to keep hearing. So, verse 19, the instruction to be slow to speak and quick to hear, it is about not moving on from God's word. It is about listening more to what God says than to what you think. If you want to be whole, you need to hear God's word. Christian friends, hear God's word as it says to you that you need to hear God's word and you need to keep hearing it. You can't change without it. At least not for the better. So imagine this. You're a 12-year-old and you're miserable because you love chess, but you've never won a chess match in your life. And one day you're sitting miserably in chess club, another rainy lunchtime at school, and Gary Kasparov, one for the kids, Gary Kasparov, the greatest chess grandmaster of all time, comes in and he walks over to you. He speaks to you, he quietly whispers in your ear a little tip. Well, you follow his advice. And at lunchtime, you win a chess match for the first time in your life. And you're related. The chess journey has begun. And as you walk out of chess club at the end of lunchtime, Gary Kasparov gives you his telephone number. And he says, I want you, he says, I want you to be the best. I want to coach you to play like me. So give me a call. Now, imagine that you are now 40 years old, and you haven't won a chess match for 20 years. You have tried your hardest to figure it out, you've turned the board backwards and upside down, you've played yourself countless times, trying to work out every possible strategy. You've tried mental exercises, you've tried dressing like Gary Kasparov, and even using his accent, but you haven't got better at chess. And Gary Kasparov's number has been sitting up there, gathering dust on the shelf, untouched that whole time. Now imagine you're 60. And you're wondering what could have been. Now imagine that you're 80. And you wonder why you never picked up the phone and you wish you'd done things differently, but now it is too late. You started with Gary Kasparov. Why didn't you keep listening to him? You start with the word Christian brother and sister. It gives you life. But if you want to grow to be more like Jesus, you need to keep listening to him. And that means, friends, that you need your Bibles open. If Instagram or or WhatsApp are the first thing that you look up in the morning, you look up in the morning, and you don't have time to listen to God in his words. If those things take up your mind in your time, in your thinking, you need to delete them. Be quick to listen to God. And you need to be where the word is taught. Be at church. And for whom church was a four-mile walk on a Sunday, there and four miles back. And yet he only missed a Sunday service three times in his life, once because he had a stroke, probably, once because the ice was too dangerous and he couldn't walk in it. Once because although he tried to go, the snow drifts were too high and he couldn't make his way through and he had to turn back and go home. Why was church so important to this man? Why did he get there? Come hell or high water? Because he wanted to listen to God. He wanted to know and love his Savior more. He wanted to be more like him. He pursued wholeness. Friend, what is it that stops you from opening your Bibles? What is it that discourages you from coming to church on a Sunday? Be quick, friends, to listen to God's word and to receive it as well. Verse 21, just jump down there. Receive with meekness, James says, the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And James really is talking about our attitude to God's word. It is not enough to simply hear God's word, like it's a sort of magic spell, and when the sounds of it come out of someone's mouth, it magically changes something. We're talking to receive it. We need to receive it with meekness. And James talks about the implanted words. And I guess he is sort of describing what it is like to be good soil, if you remember that parable of Jesus's, for the word of God to be planted in. God gives us something which, well, when it's in you, it saves your soul. Like an implanted pacemaker saves your life, or uh Iron Man's uh electromagnetic device in his chest saved his life. It's implanted in you, becomes part of you. And in those verses, there's a comparison, those first three verses. There's speaking and anger and rampant wickedness. This is all stuff that is coming out of you. But then there's God's word which is put in you. And we're told to receive it. Less output, be it words or actions, and actually work on what is coming in. Meekly receive God's word. What is it, friends, that feeds your soul? Is it God's words? Or Netflix? Only one of those will save you. There is an attitude, isn't there, of meekness? Knowing that you need it. Asking for God's help to love it, to be changed by it. If you want to be whole, friends, you need to start by receiving God's word. Then, of course, I'm sure you didn't miss the point. We must also do God's word. That is our second point. Number one, receive God's word. Number two, do God's word. Verse 22, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. You can't just listen to God's word and believe it. James says you need to do it as well. And man, it is such a simple thing. But if you have been a Christian for more than five minutes, you know how easy it is to listen to a sermon, and then as you walk out the door to say thank you, Pastor, lovely sermon, and go home and do absolutely nothing about what God has been saying to you. I know what that's like. If you've been a Christian more than five minutes, you know what it's like to open your Bible on your own at home and understand that you've got to forgive your enemy, and then you go out and get road rage. What it's like to open your Bible and see Jesus telling his followers to serve other people like he did, but then desperately hoping when the WhatsApp message comes through that someone else will volunteer to help the person that you don't want to help or do the task that you don't want to do. I know what that's like. But that's double-mindedness, isn't it? I believe with all of my heart that I owe God my everything. And then I act like he doesn't exist. This is where God wants us to grow today. A whole Christianity or true religion, as James is going to talk about in a minute, doesn't just hear, it does. It acts on what it hears. And James gives us this brilliant illustration, verse 23, to help us understand the ridiculousness of this double-mindedness when we hear God's word and don't do it. Look at what he says. 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, for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. So, friends, why do you look in a mirror? It's because you want to know what you look like. Ninety per cent of us probably looked in a mirror before we came out this morning. I'm not going to name and shame the 10%. And when you looked in the mirror this morning, and you saw the toothpaste on your cheek, and you saw the patch of stubble that you missed when you were shaving, you see the unpopped zit, you see the baby sick on your shoulder. You saw those things. What did you do? You acted, you washed it off, you shaved off that last bit, you popped it, you changed your top. What a bizarre thing to look in the mirror and see those things and then just walk off and forget about it as if you'd never looked in the mirror. And that's, James says, that is what it's like when you hear God's words and you don't do it. God's word is a mirror that reveals to us what we are really like, and it shows us what God is really like and what he really loves. And it calls us to do something about the disparity between those two things. What is the point in looking in a mirror and forgetting what you've seen? Or what is the point of looking into God's word and not doing anything about it? To be spiritually whole, we need to both receive God's word and do it. Of course, we need God's work. We need God to work in our hearts. But obeying his word is one way that he helps us do that. And James describes the words that we are to obey in verse 25 as the perfect law. The law of liberty. Do you see that there, verse 25? And that's really important because we think sometimes in our more double-minded moments that God's law is a drag, that it's a never-ending to-do list that's going to spoil my fun and make me sad and trap me in a religious prison. But James says, friends, perhaps you don't understand. When you look at God's word, when you look at his law, when you look at that mirror, you look at God, you see Him. What God's law reveals, it is good, it is perfect, it is a reflection of God's own character. And we are invited somehow, beautifully, into that perfection to become whole like our Savior through the receiving and the doing of God's words to become more and more like Him who made us and loved us and saved us at the cost of his life. And James calls it the law of liberty. It doesn't tie you up, it sets you free. I suspect if we feel restricted by God's word, that is on us. I have a three-year-old, and I'm sure he feels restricted when we are walking down the high street, and I tell him not to run off, to stay where I can see him, to look before he crosses the road. And I'm sure in the short term, if I sat down in Weatherspoons and said, Son, I'm just gonna have a pint, go out and play for 20 minutes, then come back and we'll walk home. That'd be a feeling of liberation in the short term. And what feels restrictive in the short term, when understood properly, is actually life-giving, isn't it? And it's not just life, but it's life lived in relationship with and under the care of a father who loves him and who will do anything for him. Whereas what feels free in the short term is actually abandonment, and it is dangerous and maybe even deadly. God's law reflects God's character, and in the living out of it, in the doing, God shows us how actually to flourish, how to be free, how to be who we were made to be. So, friends, don't give up on it, he says, verse 25. Persevere. I think he's talking again about moving from the hearing to the doing. Don't give up, don't stop at the pain barrier of doing God's words. Persevere, keep going. Being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts. He will be blessed in his doing. Do God's word and find that it is a gift, not a life sentence. So don't be double-minded hearing the word and not doing it, but be whole, hearing the word and doing it. That's what James is telling us today. And just before we finish, I just want to give us a couple of minutes on some outboxes for that. Because James, even in these verses, uh, gives us a few concrete examples of what it looks like to do God's word. These are obviously things that his first hearers are struggling with, where he's going to be telling them, you need to move from hearing to doing. Because you're stuck. Persevere. Don't walk away from the mirror. Don't forget what you look like. Change. And let me just ask the question as we look at these last few things. Are you doing God's word, friends? Are you doing God's word? Three things. First of all, number one, put on meekness, verse 25, and humbly seek God's help to change. It's sort of reminiscent of other bits of the Bible, isn't it? Like Ephesians 4, where you put off your old self and you put on your Your new self, your new life. It is attitude turned into action. It is recognizing that there are things that don't belong to the wholehearted Christian. And you work to throw those things in the bin. And in meekness, in humility, you work to submit yourself to God's instruction. Perhaps just as an example, I mean this could be a billion things. But let's say you know that you harbour bitterness. As you look into the Word of God, you see that you are bitter, you are resentful, you hold things against people, you have grudges, you're angry, and you can't let go of it. It will take work to take that off. Where's my sentence? To learn to love and serve those towards whom you feel better. It will mean putting on humility. And actually part of that humility will be meekly understanding, friends, that you have caused God far more offense than has been caused to you. And yet he has loved you, he has forgiven you, even to the cost of Jesus giving up his life that he might redeem you from your failings. So look into the word of God, look into the law of God, see it perfectly, perfectly lived out in the Lord Jesus. See the character of God there. Then humbly ask for God's help to change. Stuff like this takes prayer and it takes perseverance. Change doesn't usually happen overnight, but persevere. Keep going until the job is done. Put off sin and replace it with humble obedience. Secondly, more specifically, control your tongue. This is something that James will come back to, but we don't need to wait until chapter three to start doing something about it. Words are obviously a big sin issue for James's first readers. Quicker to speak than to humbly listen to God's word. Speaking, maybe thinking that you are wise, perhaps righteously angry, perhaps, as if people ought to start listening to you, perhaps. But James warns them, verse 20, that the production of words doesn't equate to righteousness. In fact, words can do a great deal of damage. Verse 26. Show a person's religion or their Christianity, their trust in Jesus to be useless, worthless, unappealing, and empty. Instead again, we really actually what we do here is we come to humility. Think of Jesus, who bridled his tongue, who spoke little and wisely in the face of his oppressors, in the face of those who, even in their folly, were putting him to death. Think of the compassion and the gentleness with which he spoke to those who needed help. If you're going to do God's word and not just hear it, you need to control your tongue, friends. You need to rein in what will hurt and manipulate and degrade and destroy, including what we say with our fingers on our phones. Do God's word, control your tongue. And thirdly, lastly, if you want to do God's word, then James says we must care for the afflicted. True religion visits orphans and widows in their affliction, verse 27. Nobody more whole is there than the Lord Jesus. And there was nobody who had more time, more energy or love for the needy and broken. Nobody who more sought out the abandoned and the suffering and met them in their need. Even friends, if you look at those around this room, and then you look at yourself, seeking out you in your sin, and rather than despising you, serving you, meeting you in your deepest need, that he might rescue you from sin and death. He sought out the afflicted. And here is the call for the Christian person to do likewise, to meet the orphan and the widow in their affliction, to visit them. And we have different capacities for meeting people's different needs. I get that. Perhaps it's food, perhaps it's a lift, perhaps it's money, perhaps it's company. But I tell you what, it is always the gospel. It is always the word of truth which gives life. And you have that. If you have nothing else to offer, you have Jesus. Friends, if we are to do God's word, not just hear it, we need to not just think of ourselves, but to seek out to care for those in need. Are you doing God's word? Are you caring for the afflicted? Are you putting off sin and putting on meekness? Are you controlling your tongue? Are you doing God's word, Christian friend, or are you only hearing it? Are you double-minded? Or are you growing in wholeheartedness? I'm going to pray for us. Our Father God. Please again forgive our double-mindedness. Forgive us for the countless times we have looked in your word and then just carried on as if we'd never read it. And Lord, I ask that you would grant us the humility to grow, to be changed by it, to keep coming back to the well that gives life. Lord, please make us more like Jesus. Please help us to take his word seriously. Please help us to love it. Please help us to see the beauty in it as we see the beauty of the one who most perfectly lived it. Father, please help us to be doers of the word, not hearers only. Amen. Amen. I'm going to invite the bands to come back up. We're going to sing our last song, O great God of highest heaven, which really is a prayer. We're singing, God, occupy my heart, own it all, reign supreme, conquer every rebel power. Let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy well, your holy war. Understand what you're singing as you sing this. You're saying, God, change me, please. If you don't want God to change you, perhaps this is a good song to listen to. To listen to Christian people as we long for God to shape our hearts and our lives that we might be more like his son. Maybe listen to it and see the goodness of God's law, what it is like to be made more like Jesus, the blessing in that. So as the music starts, please do uh stand as Abel.