Amen. So quick review, quick review. James wrote the book with the theme of what? Maturity. Maturity. And I was thinking this morning that the idea of maturity is a relative term, especially when a young person says, I feel like I've been mature lately. And so also, so how does, we've looked at, with the theme maturity, how does a, when we started chapter one, how does a mature person handle what? Trials, good. Trials. And then we looked at four different ways. How does a mature person handle trials? First of all, he counts it as joy. It's a reconciling term. Also, he knows God is working it for his good. And we know that the adversary seeks to make things evil, but God always does it for good. And what does he then do? I should have gave you a little bit more. He lets God, or he allows God to have that perfect work. And then ultimately, then while he's in that trial, he then asks for wisdom. And so we got three out of four, or rather four out of five. It's not too bad. And what we looked at was verse 12. We looked at a transition. The more that I've actually been studying James, I really thought James was just more of a simple book, but the more that I'm studying it, the more I'm finding James uses some really neat connections. He has some really great connection points. And it seems like every week I'm like, I found this new connection point. And I think that it's really more of his norm rather than just a one or two time thing. We saw the transition, looking back and then looking forward, we read blessed is the man which I came across it again this week. James uses that phrase three times, blessed. talking about being blessed in the book of James, because we're going to see it again this morning. Now, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test of time, he will receive the crown of life, which God promised to those that love him. And so then in the next one, we find James, because he's writing with maturity, first, how does a mature person handle trials? And then we see in verse 12 through 18, how does the mature person handle Starts with a T also. Temptation. How does he handle temptation? And we looked at this the last two weeks. How does he handle temptation? One of the things when we are, desire in and of itself is not a bad thing because we realize that God has created us with desires and we have to ask ourself a question. Is this desire inside or outside God's? Will for me. We know that there is God's sovereign will in terms of, you know, that he brings all of history to a fulfillment in Christ. And we also know that there are known wills where God says, it is my will that you do this. And so looking at this, And if you had listened last week, encourage me. Not nearly every lesson, when I study it, convicts me or challenges me as much as last week's. And if you were not here last week, I would encourage you to go back and to listen to it. And verses 13 through 15, two weeks ago, we looked, when we are dealing with temptation, when we're dealing with this desire, one of the first things we need to ask ourself is, is this within God's will for me? And so inside of that is we need to consider the origin and the outcome of Sent, thank you, all right. And this is where he talks about when lust has conceived and brings forth death. But last week, specifically, when we were dealing with temptation, I encourage you to consider what? consider the goodness of God. This was something that challenged me so, so deeply last week when I was studying this. So often when we're dealing with temptation, we take God's goodness for granted, so very often. And I thought of Joseph when he said, how can I do this great sin against God? When we think about his goodness, when we think about his grace, when we think about everything he has done for us, we think about salvation that we have through him. We think about family, life, health. Just the fact that we just breathed another breath is His grace. And when we have all of that goodness, we are tempted to take God's goodness for granted. And we read in Romans 6, 1, that should we continue when sin and grace may abound, and we read Paul says, God forbid, God forbid. And right in between that, he tells us to not be deceived, to not be deceived. And such an interesting word. Does anybody remember what that word means? We're talking about being deceived. What was it? The hint is a planet. It's right there. The word we saw last week, it is the same word the Greeks used to describe planets, and the literal Greek word means wanderer. And when we are deceived, we wonder from God's goodness. When we are deceived, we wonder from the truth of God's word. Literally, he says we are drawn away from our own lust and enticed. And again, we see verse 12 looks backward about trials and temptations, but then it also looks forward to sinful temptations. Then we get to verse 16, and it looks back and looks forward also, in which he says, don't be deceived. Don't be deceived by sin. And looking forward, don't be deceived by overlooking God's goodness to you when dealing with sinful temptation. And so super awesome stuff. And so the logic we looked at last week is that God is good. We saw several verses and you could just do a Google search and you could see scores and scores of verses. And because of that, God does not change. And the logic that James is using is God is good in both trials and temptations. That because God is immutable, he does not change his character and nature is good. He does not change. And so we get to our next section, get to our next section. And I did not put verse 26 and 27 on here. And so my goal is to finish out the chapter today. When we look at verses 19 through 25, James says, 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. In and of itself, that could preach. In and of itself, right there, those simple truths we could just stay on. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving yourself. We find that word again. It's not the same Greek word, but same concept. Don't be misled, don't be deceived. 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. He immediately 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, we find again, this person will also be blessed in his deed." I've mentioned a couple times, James is often referred to as the blank of the New Testament. the Proverbs of the New Testament. And if we're not careful, we kind of apply that same logic to here. The book of Proverbs, about the first third of Proverbs, about chapter 1 through chapter 10, is slightly narrative in its context, where you can find how the connections build with each other. But then the last two-thirds of Proverbs are nomic sayings, G-N-O-M-I-C, nomic. They're short, sayings. And if you read chapter 11, chapter 15, chapter 20, a lot of times these truths are just kind of self-contained. A lot of times they're not necessarily like chapter 1 or chapter 2 where they're kind of built in a narrative. And if you do read a proverb a day, for example, great idea, especially for young people, is to read it through this month and list every verse that has to do with friendship. And then the next month you take idea of money and what does Proverbs say about money. And you almost can do like a topical because not a lot of the chapters really connect the narrative together. So when we're looking at this, we can say, well, since it's the Proverbs of the New Testament, we can just take verses 19 and 20, and we can talk about being slow to speak, being quick to hear. And if we're not careful, we overlook what James is talking about. Remember, James is writing with narrative in mind. He is writing in sections, and he is writing with In other words, if we handle the book of James in these verses like we would handle some of these isolated verses in Proverbs, we would do a disservice to what he's talking about. Because when we're looking at verse 19 and 20, what would be our immediate thought? What are some things that we see automatically that we should and should not do? What does it speak to? Good truth, but... Listening, don't be angry. And in and of itself, those are great, which ironically, he actually comes back and talks about all those things. In chapter three, he talks about our tongue, he talks about our speech. In chapter four, I believe he talks about anger. And once again, interesting, James is making these connections all over his book, going back, going forward, interesting writing style. But when we're reading this section, he's not talking about, although we could study in isolation, but it's not true to the text of what he's doing. He's not talking about just being slow to speak. He is not talking about anger. What is he talking about here? Because if we study it that way, we lose the focus of what he's trying to accomplish. What is he really talking about? Because he's building a case as he's the word. Notice how many times he says it. He talks about the implanted word. He talks about being doers of the word and not hearers only. And then, for if anyone is a hero of the word and not a doer, and then later in verse 24-25, he talks about looking to the perfect law, the law of liberty. What he is doing is he is giving us, starting off, he's giving people a disclaimer. Before you read this section, I'm gonna give you a disclaimer before you read it. Look at verse 19 and 20 again. 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. What do you see that James is trying to start off, before he talks about the word, before he talks about reading the word, doing the word, what do you think he's trying to do when he opens this way? Think about our sinful bent. What is our natural sinful bent when we read? He's like, hey, before you get angry, listen, I got some stuff for you. Defensively, defensively. Sorry, frog in your throat. We read ourselves into it and we get defensive, or we ignore that doesn't apply to me. And what I forget is he's saying this because he wants the ratchets just to grow in me. My immediate response is, well, you know, or, oh, he can't be talking about me. And then what he's actually saying is, this is to you. I want you to be familiar with this. Oh, this is all good. This is everything that we're going to be talking about. Awesome stuff. So first of all, he starts off and says, how should a mature believer handle trials? Then he goes on and says, how should a mature believer handle sinful temptation? And then he says, how should the mature believer handle God's word? How should they respond to God's word? So I kind of wrote maybe what James might've been trying to say as a disclaimer. I'm about to tell you how a mature person should respond to God's word. You will read some things that you probably won't like. Because when he gets to chapter three, it stings. Okay? So you're probably going to read something that you don't like. You will read some things that you won't like, and you're going to face the temptation to speak your own opinion. When you get, well, I don't really like that. I don't think that applies to me. Before you hear the entire matter, you will want to interject your thoughts and opinions. And he says, you know, you might get a little angry and you might get a little bit offended when I'm about to, what I'm about to tell you. So I think this is James's disclaimer as he's building further into this in Proverbs. Yes, but there are a lot of connection points to Proverbs. Because Proverbs 18, 13 says, a fool answers before he hears the whole matter. I can't tell you how many times my dad would tell me that verse. I would ask a question, and then before he would be able to give me the answer, I just started all over again. My dad's like, well, do you want to hear the answer? Do you want to hear the answer? Well, a fool is one who answers before he actually hears the whole matter. In Proverbs 19.10, whoever restrains his lips is prudent. The Bible says in Proverbs that even a fool is counted wise when he keeps his mouth shut. We can see in Ecclesiastes 5.2, be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word, because in a multitude of words, there's sin. And for those of us who talk for a living, I have a greater propensity to say something stupid. because I talk all the time. And so a wise man is one who restrains his words. A wise man is one who has listened. A wise woman is one who waits to hear the whole matter before they interject their thoughts or opinions. And we see being slow to anger, which we've already talked about anger in the past, but we're gonna have to look at it again when we look at what James is talking about in chapter four. He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. So automatically, James is starting off and says, I need you guys to listen. Before you say something, before you get angry, I need for you to listen to the whole matter of what we're going to talk about. Not only here, but I mean, in the rest of his book. And I would say that first of all is when we're talking about hearing the word, we need to prepare our hearts. We need to prepare our hearts. If you look in verse number 21, he says, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, which is odd because he's talking to people who call themselves believers. And we would say, well, I mean, 1 John clearly says that if someone makes a lifestyle of sinning, they need to be very cautious about saying that they're a believer. And he's talking to believers and say, for you to hear the word, for you to receive the word, you have to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word you may have engrafted there in your text, which is able to save your souls. And we think of this idea of put away, he's not saying, I want you to put it, go down to American Storage and rent a storage unit. And I want you to put it in there to where, He says, I want you to purge it. I want you to trash it. I want you to incinerate it. I want you to get rid of it. Part of our challenge is that we don't see things as God sees them. If anything, we take God's view and try to bring it down to us. We do that with God's holiness. We try to superimpose what we think is holy onto a holy God instead of seeing things from his perspective, which is actually the technical definition for discernment. to be able to see things as they truly are. And our struggle sometimes is we don't see rampant wickedness as wrong. We live in a world that's desensitized. Children of Israel living in Egypt for 400 years, they struggled understanding what was really right and what was really wrong. Paul uses the idea of being exceeding sinful. May our sin be exceeding sinful. The Greek word is hyperbole, an extreme exaggeration to make a point. Do we truly see the sin in our life as rampant wickedness before a holy God? David, in Psalm 139, I spoke on this during in-service, he says, search me, O God, and know my heart, because David says, I know my heart is deceitful. I know my heart is hiding from me sin that I think is not sin. And David says, search me and try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any grievous way in me, which I thought grievous is interesting because New Testament, Paul tells us to not grieve the Holy Spirit. And Psalm 51, I think it's Psalm 38, I could be wrong. Psalm 38, Psalm 32, David is, if you read that passage, it literally describes the feeling of conviction, where Nathan confronts him and says, you are the man. We talked about arrows sticking fast in him, the emotional anguish that he's feeling with his conviction. And then Psalm 51 is the penitent Psalm where he goes before God. And he confesses his sin. Both those chapters dovetail so well together. And Davis says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, your covenant loyalty. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgression. And he asked God, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. And as I was thinking about this, I got the text yesterday about we're 24 hours from observing the Lord's Supper. Prepare your hearts. You know, as we sit there and we partake in the Lord's Supper, my mind always goes to these verses, Lord, is there something in me that displeases you, that grieves you? Because I don't want my heart to have anything that grieves you, especially when I'm observing the Lord's Supper. And before we are able to partake of God's word, we should be asking, is there any rampant wickedness in me? Is there any filthiness? And not by my standard, but by God's standards. And I thought immediately of Matthew 13 and Luke 8, the parable of the sower, which typically we think about in terms of those who are lost. As God's Holy Spirit is throwing the seeds of the gospel, there's four different kinds of seeds. Some of those seeds fall on hard ground, okay? Then we have those that are thrown on I didn't write it down. The stony ground, then we have the thorns that choke them, and then we have those that fall on good ground. As God's word is being sown this morning, whether at 830 or here in a little bit, how much have I cultivated my heart to hear the word this morning? But really, we realize that God's word being spoken to us on a Sunday should supplement our walk during the week. It's not the pastor's job or the teacher's job to grow me, it's my job. And then they encourage me and they digest the word through hours of study, and they give me something to help me in my growth during the week. But only if my heart is not filled with rampant wickedness. And is my heart this morning ready to hear God's word? Is my heart this morning, or is there sin in my life that's grieving God's spirit? And even though I realize there's a different analogy in that parable, is my heart like that stony ground? Is my heart like the thorny soil? We have that regenerated heart that should desire the things of God, this divine nature, divine impulses, but the more I eat junk food of this world, the more it chokes the spiritual life out of me, and I'm not hungry when I show up to church. I can't get anything in church. Well, it might have to do with something with the hours and hours and hours of mindless things we've done in the week, or the video that we watched, or the songs we've been listening to. No different than on a Thanksgiving morning, you ate the whole bag of Thanksgiving candy, and then someone shows up with a honey-baked ham and says, here you go. And you're like, well, I'm not hungry. Well, the reason so often that we come to church and we think, well, the pastor doesn't have any power, the music is dry. Well, I need to look inwardly first and ask, is my heart ready this morning to hear the word? Have I prayed that God would prepare my heart? Is my life pure and clean? I need to look inwardly first. Preparing our heart, and then preparing, and we looked at Ephesians where he talked about putting on and putting off, and I would encourage you to go back and to read that. Putting off that old nature. We grow what we feed. What have you fed this week? I mean, have you made an intentional point this week to read God's word on your own? Asking God to search your heart, asking God's spirit, Psalm 119, Lord, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things out of your law. Have you prayed that or something similar? Have you personally walked with the Lord this week? Have you read his word? Have you asked God to search you? Have you asked God to give you something to help you grow this week? Not expecting other people, but Lord, I need to be fed myself this morning. Because what you feed grows. Psalm 66, 18, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. If I cherish iniquity in my heart, God says, I'm not listening to you. The God of the universe who says, call on me and I'll answer you and show you great mighty things. He said, if you actively live in sin, I'm not even gonna listen. I'm not even gonna pick up the phone. I'm not even gonna read the text message. Psalm 66, 18, if I cherish iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So we have response, so we have, when we talk about receiving the word, am I preparing my mindset to, am I preparing my heart set? But then we also have responding to the word. So you're listening to the word, you're reading the word, great, awesome. James says, what are you doing with it? He goes one step further, verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only. And he says it again, you're deceiving yourself. You are misleading yourself if you think that simply by opening your Bible, then you're being spiritual. You might say, well, at least I'm opening my Bible. Good, awesome, great. Do something with it. Not just receive the word, but respond to the word. And the thing is here is James notes that a mature person goes one step further, a mature believer goes one step further and does something with what he hears. And James comes back to this in chapter 4 verse 17, I believe, and he says, to him who knows what to do and doesn't do it, it's sin. We are responsible to do something with what we read, and we are responsible to do something with what we hear. Because otherwise, he says, you are deceiving yourself. And I thought it interesting, a doer describes an occupation. Contrast with me for a moment the difference between a hobby and an occupation. And apply that to here. You get paid for one. Well, you get paid for one. All right. Hobby is something that you do when you have spare time that brings a little bit of joy that you don't usually. Yes. And I love, I forget who it was that says, a leisure is something that you do when you feel like it. How often is that us? I'm not really feeling it today. Loving my neighbor? I'm not really feeling it. Being gracious and kind and forgiving? I'm not really feeling it today. See, and that goes back to, okay, and probably I'm the only one that does this, but sometimes I just have to have that self-talk and say, Clarissa, just shut up and do what you're supposed to do. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself that. I can make all these excuses. I can say, but, but, but. I can say they were wrong. But you know what, if I am growing in Christ and I am portraying myself to be a Christian, sometimes I just need the discipline to say, shut up and do what God needs you to do. And I find daily, I have to pray, Lord, crucify my flesh. Yes. I need you to renew. I know I have a regenerated heart, but I have that old man inside of me, that sinful flesh. And Lord, I need for you to put a guard over my mouth. I need for you to renew in me today the desires that I'm supposed to do. Because I have such a natural tendency to default to things that are menial, for my time to be consumed by things that have no eternal impact. And next thing you know, I've just, I've starved myself spiritually. Folks, daily, daily, daily, am I receiving the word and am I responding to it? And a question, when we balance hearing something, then doing it, what do we call this as a parent to our kids? Obedience, and the opposite being disobedience. I worded that a little complexly. A defining characteristic of a believer is one who obeys. It's defining characteristic. And I was looking at, you know, I could list a lot of different verses, and I listed a couple references for you. Scripture repeatedly points out that the importance of not only hearing the word, but actively doing it. A couple of these verses in Luke 6, 46, Jesus is just like, can you hear the frustration in his voice? He says, why do you keep calling me Lord, Lord, and you don't do the things that I say? I feel like, why do you call me dad, dad, and don't do the things that I say? First Peter 1, 14, I saw this this morning, as obedient children, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. And in 1 John 5, which by the way, 1 John over and over again, he gives us, he says, actually, this is an indicator of actually being a child of God. Because we could even say that a mature person is one who obeys. John actually says, In John 5.3, 1 John 5.3 says, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and that his commandments are not burdensome. Last night we had a laundry party in our living room, you know, just folding, folding, folding. Our kids were like, ugh, again. And we're like, hey, you have no idea. You have no idea how much work goes on and you have no idea about it. But how often do we hear the preacher and we're like, ugh. Again. Oh, he's talking about that again. You know, a key indicator of a mature believer is that we don't find his commands burdensome. This doesn't mean we don't struggle with them, but at the same time, Lord, because I love you, because you've been good to me, I want to do what pleases you. Doesn't mean I do it perfectly, but at the same time, I have a desire to do it. And John says that an indicator of a believer is one who does not make a lifestyle of sinning. Is my life characterized by sin? If so, well, there's a danger in that. But we can even say, well, I'm saved. You know, I'm a believer. I read the word, I try. Well, good. Well, good. But then we have this. Well, I see the Bible talks about, fill in the blank, but I feel, you know, or I think, that's a good one. We live in this post-mortem world where we can prove science, we can prove history, but we can't prove morality. Postmodern, we take everything that's modern, okay, and we put everything, we can prove math, we can prove science, we can prove history, ethics and morality, well, that's postmodern, we can't prove that. Well, despite the fact you can do research studies and see the effects of many of these creation norms not being followed. I was reading Judges 17 yesterday, and it's so confounding, like the logic is just so illogical. A man named Micah gets money, like 1,100 pieces of silver, and goes to his mom and says, I've gotten your silver back. She says, that's awesome. I want you to take this money and make an idol. And then they ask the Lord's blessing on the idol that they're making. Then they set up the idol in their house and they hire a priest for their house. And twice in Judges 17, they're wanting the Lord to bless them. And it dawned on me yesterday, you could be sincere about what you're doing and be sincerely wrong. You could be sincere about what you're, because if you read it, they were sincere. They put money into it. They hired a priest to be a priest in their house. But wait a minute, the first command in the 10 commandments is thou No other gods before me. And the second one is like unto it that you will not create any graven image. Well, wait a minute. In their heart, they were sincere. Well, folks, just because we're sincere about something does not mean that we're sincerely right. We can be sincerely wrong. And we live in a world that very much does this. So what is the danger in a professing believer who does not do? What does the world see? hypocrisy. We see it in the Pharisees. They were masters of those who knew but did not do. And we've got to be careful because not only does this affect me, it affects others and what they think of Christ. And I love a quote I saw from Martin Luther this week, the world does not need a definition of religion as much as it needs a demonstration. And Thinking also on this thought of Samuel this week as he talked to King Saul where he says to obey is better than sacrifice. To obey the Lord is more important than doing what you think is sincerely right. And we have truth. The world has no lack of professing Christians who say but do not do. None whatsoever. And then we see responding through reflection. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at the natural face in a mirror, but when he looks at himself and goes away at once, he forgets what he was like. Why do we not like looking in the mirror? We know what we're going to see. Yes. Hebrews 4.12 says, for the word of God is living and active, and it is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the hearts. Do you know why we don't want to read our Bible on Monday morning? Because we know it's gonna show us. We know it's gonna cut us. We know that it's going to convict us. And so it's better that we just don't look. It's better that we do not reflect on what we read. We look in God's word, in the mirror of God's word, and it cuts us to the bone. It shows us our flaws, our inadequacy, and it quite honestly reveals what we don't want to see in ourself. So it's easier for us to not look or to reflect. But see, it goes even beyond our outward appearance and actions because it is even a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our own heart. He's not just concerned about our outward appearance. He's concerned about our heart. What does our heart show us? And our natural tendency is to listen to something and do nothing about it. At least that's mine. Our natural tendency is to acknowledge the mirror and there on Sundays, but not to look at it. Our natural bent is to pick up our Bible, but not allow it to reflect on our heart. And I'm gonna leave this with you as our last thing. And I'm gonna kind of hand off the last two slides to Darren, because they kind of dovetail into beginning of chapter two. Spurgeon says this, this is so encouraging. They thought they were considerably better for being hearers, much to be commended and sure to get a blessing, because I'm a hearer. They would not have been happy if they had not heard the word on Sunday, and they look with disgust upon their neighbors who make nothing of Sabbath. They're not even going to church. At least we went to church. They themselves are very superior people because they are regular church goers and chapel goers. They having a sitting and a hymn book and a Bible would be very uneasy. I'm sorry, is that not a good deal to be sitting in church to have a hymn book and a Bible? If they stayed away from a place of worship for a month, they would surely be very uneasy. But though they do not believe that going to a place of worship will save them, it quiets their conscience and they feel themselves more at ease. or perhaps the deceit, he says later, runs in another line, you foster the idea that the stern truths to which you hear do not apply to you. Sinners, yes, certainly, the preacher addresses sinners and may they get good out of it. I hope my spouse heard that. Hope my kid heard that. I hope, you know, him across the aisle, I know he needed that. But you are not a sinner. at least not in a special sense. So as to need looking after repentance, most people ought to repent, but you do not see any reason why you should repent. Looking to Christ for salvation, excellent doctrine you say, excellent doctrine. But somehow you do not look to him for salvation. Here is the scriptural verdict upon this opinion of yours, deceiving yourselves. And with that blessing, With that blessing, there is a strong assumption, first of all, in this text that people are even hearing the word. And by the way, there are varying degrees of listening. I'm listening. I'm listening. No, you're not. I'm multitasking. Or we could be looking but not really listening. Or we could be listening with no intent to listen. We could listen, yes, I could listen, I could store it in my memory but have no desire to change anything that I'm hearing about. To what degree am I even hearing the word? Am I hearing, am I receiving the word? Not just on Sunday, but throughout the week. Am I preparing my heart throughout the week? Am I preparing my mind throughout the week? And then am I responding to the word? And if you look at verse 26 and 27, it affects my speech. Darren, it affects the way that I treat other people. specifically widows and orphans. Darren's gonna pick this up chapter two next week. Folks, are we receiving the word and are we responding to the word because a mature believer does? Sam.