Patrick Sanders | Do Something | James 1:21-22

good morning southeastern it's an honor to be able to lead this time of worship together as we get to open up what i describe as this beautiful love letter that god has provided for us i'd be remiss if i didn't take an opportunity to thank dr aiken for what he's done here at southeastern his leadership that he's provided in in making the school what it is where we can all study and grow in god's word together and i also don't want to miss the opportunity to thank dr milioni and all he's done for me just being an amazing influence opening up his heart opening up his home and and shaping me to know who the lord is to know him better if you have your bibles with you this morning i want to encourage you to open them up turn them on or even scroll down to the book of james we're going to be in james chapter 1 verses 21 and 22 this morning now james is unique in that he can claim a title that no other biblical author can name claim to he's able to call jesus not only his lord and savior but he's also able to call jesus his big brother see james was the half-brother of jesus and i don't know what it was like growing up with the son of god in your household but i know i just had three older brothers and they were each far from that this became very apparent when they were at both the age and the weight where they could sit on me for whatever reason they wanted to i called it a form of cruel and unusual punishment they called it a hobby now whether or not jesus did that to james i don't know but what we do know is they spent a lot of time together and that becomes very apparent when you read through these short five chapters in james as you see jesus's teachings and his sayings riddled all throughout this book so it would be natural with the time that james spent with jesus that that would just overflow in his writing what else we see that's unique to james is that james is the brother that we all need see james had this spiritual gift of telling it like it is which is why in these five chapters we see over 50 imperatives where james commands us to do something and this morning i want to look at one of those imperatives this command to do something now i originally titled this sermon james 1 21-22 because it felt adequate but i know for some of you that's not going to be sufficient so if you're taking notes you can write do something at the top james commands us to do something a few weeks ago i got the opportunity and the joy to come on staff at open door as the high school youth director this is something i had wanted to do for quite some time so of course i jumped at that opportunity something that i was most excited about was not only worshiping with the students on sundays and and watching them grow in the faith and shepherding them through that process but really just living life with these students to meet them where they're at to go to their sporting events to to just live life and love on them so i was itching for every opportunity that i could do that with and so when one of my students approached me that first week and asked if i would work out with him the following morning of course i said yes i was so excited i didn't even ask any follow-up questions in southeastern hear me clearly no matter what opportunity presents itself always ask follow-up questions remember how nice it might seem because had i asked these important follow-up questions i wouldn't have found myself at his house the following day in his basement with six other students at 5 30 in the morning for those who aren't aware because you're a normal human being and you're asleep at 5 30 in the morning the sun's not even awake at 5 30 in the morning yet there we were and we were doing what you would imagine a normal human being would do at 5 30 in the morning prepared to work out we were just staring at the weights as if expecting them to move themselves it was almost as if we had this mutual agreement that we were going to have a small moment of silence where we could just question the poor life decisions we had made that led us to that very point and so in what felt like moments was actually probably seconds and finally the moment of silence was broken by the student that organized all this mass chaos and he said a very profound and true statement he said boys we've got to do something you know he was right we had showed up that morning with the goal and the purpose to do something and that something was to work out we could have spent that hour discussing technique what it looked like to properly lift weights and and how one technique is bad for you and how one technique is good for you and we could have even gone over what we wanted to work out was it going to be a chest and back day of buys and tries or were we going to be crazy and actually do legs we could even gone over how much weight we wanted to lift and and how many reps we were going to do and how many sets and all this would have been justifiable we could have done that and we could have you know made this argument so if anyone asked us why we chose to work out the way we did we could have told them very confidently why we chose to do that but the reality of the situation was we were there to work out and if we had done anything less than that it's almost as if we had done nothing at all and in a very similar situation that's what james is getting at here in chapter 1 verses 21 and 22 when he commands us to do something he says that we're to be doers of this word and not hearers only that we're not just to study this beautiful love letter that god has given us and just take it in and and selfishly keep it for ourselves but we're to go out and do something about it what i want to argue from this short passage this morning is that we are commanded to be doers of this word which has sacrificially saved our souls we are commanded to be doers of this word because it has and because it is sacrificially saving our souls let me read the passage for you this morning james chapter 1 21-22 he writes this therefore putting aside all filthiness in all that remains of wickedness and humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves james opens in a very beautiful way in one sense where he's adding this image he's giving us this picture in our mind now he does that by providing these two adjectives filthiness and wickedness now we know both of these are to mean the sin that we have in our lives which is why james is saying that we are to rid ourselves of these things that we are to let go of the tight grass that we have on these sins that so control our lives and to get rid of them in light of something far better but notice how he is describing who we are he's describing us as someone who is filthy and wicked it's very interesting that he chose to use those two adjectives the first one filthiness in particular see figuratively speaking filthiness could could refer to the state of someone's heart but properly used it was used to describe something that was tangible see you would be able to look at something and say oh yeah that's filthy or that's polluted or if there were dirt on the counter you would say yeah that's not supposed to be there that's dirty but yet we see james is using this to describe something that which cannot be seen the state of our hearts almost as if he's saying if you could see the heart if you could see the content of your natural self you are not near as beautiful as you might think but that you are filthy we are covered in this sin that we so love and desire and that's why we need to rid ourselves of these things now james doesn't stop just there but he actually continues in this imagery he then follows it up saying that we need to rid ourselves of all that remains of wickedness as well many scholars agree that this word is actually stronger than the first word of filthiness because wickedness would be used to describe someone's moral character you would use wickedness to describe someone that was a theft someone that stole someone who broke the law and in this honor shame society that's one of the worst things that you could be referred to but yet here james is saying we are filthy and wicked if you have the pleasure of studying with us this morning in the king james version you might notice that wickedness is nowhere to be found instead he uses a much better adjective naughtiness whether you like it or not the idea remains the same we're sinful and if we could see the state of our natural hearts they are dirty they're covered in sin and the problem is we hold on to it so tightly this wasn't a new revelation james wasn't the first person to recognize this and to call us out in one sense really he's echoing his older half-brother jesus who in reference to the heart said in mark chapter 7 verse 21 he said for from within out of the heart of men perceive evil thoughts fornications thefts murders adulteries deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit sensuality envy slander pride and foolishness all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man this isn't a new revelation james is just saying the same thing in a different manner david knew this very well which is why in psalm 51 after david had sinned with bathsheba he cried out created me a clean heart oh god and that's something that we have to recognize and that's something that we need to cry out this morning recognizing the filthiness and the wickedness of our hearts to cry out create and me a clean heart oh god james was not only a half brother to jesus but he was the brother that all of us need as well because notice when he tells it like it is he doesn't just leave us with the fact that we are filthy and wicked but he gives us a better way see he says that we need to rid ourselves of these things that we need to let go of our grasp of the sins so that we can receive this word from god this word which has been implanted in us and what we need to realize this morning is we cannot receive the word that has been implanted if we don't first empty our hands of the sins that we're clinging on to we can't receive god's grace and god's word with clenched fist unless we first open our hands and rid ourselves of these things it reminds me of the monkey and the coconut story they say one of the best ways to capture a monkey is to take a coconut and cut a small hole in the top you want it to be just big enough where his hand can fit into it and then inside the coconut you would put things that the monkey would desire such as fruit the monkey seeing this would reach in the coconut grasp onto the fruit but then creating the fist he's no longer able to get his hand out of the coconut see the monkey finds that when he grabs that which he desires he has trapped himself and in order to be free the only thing the monkey can do is to let go of that which he craves the most and in the same sense if we want to receive this word of god which so powerfully can save our souls we have to let go of that which we crave the most this filthy wicked sin in our lives james continues the second half of the verse reads like this he says in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls now i've spent a lot of time studying this passage in this verse specifically and what i've noticed in my studies is it's actually best understood if you read it from the end back to the beginning and so that's exactly what i want to do with you this morning i want to start with this word implanted and see what james means when he says that see this is unique because we don't see this word implanted anywhere else throughout all of scripture now we see the idea of the word being implanted in us especially in the writings of paul and his epistles but this is the first and only time that we see this word specifically used and here james is using it so what does he mean what does james mean when he says we are to humbly receive this word that is implanted well to be implanted means that this word has been placed in us and done purposefully so it was no accident that the word was implanted but it was actually a thought out action i want you to think about it like a farmer who is trying to grow a crop he's going to take care of the soil and till it up and make sure it's ready and then he's going to go and individually plant the seed in the ground and in the same way god has implanted his word in us now what we have to realize is james was very specific though in using this word implanted it was by no accident that he did that see what james didn't want to do is he didn't want to entertain the idea even for a second that we had done something good enough or worthy enough to receive such a gift as god's word he wanted to shoot that idea down immediately and i don't know if you remember but he just finished calling us someone who was filthy and wicked which as true as those adjectives are or not words i'm going to put on my resume anytime soon so what he's saying is we're not we're not good enough to receive this word we are sinful human beings with such a tight grip on our sin that we can't even open our hands to receive this gracious beautiful gift which for the record has the power to save our souls what james is doing is he's not chalking us up to think highly of ourselves instead he's chalking us up to think highly of god he wants us to think less of us and to think far more of him and what i want to plead with you this morning is to realize that this word had to be implanted in us because we were dead in our sins and we had no room in our hearts to receive this word without that that we were too defiled too corrupt we had too tight of a grasp on our sins in order to receive it and we see this in scripture jesus when talking to the jews in john 8 verse 37 he said you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you see these jews that jesus that were going to put jesus on trial they knew jesus very well and they would have known their bibles very well but yet they remain ignorant to this word because it was not in them word wasn't implanted in them continuing to work backwards in this verse the way i think it's best understood we see that in humility we're to receive this word now the question becomes what exactly is this word the irony is as hard as i might try to describe what this word is my words would never be good enough or sufficient enough to describe how great this word actually is it was isaac wimberly the poet who said if there are words for him i don't have them for my brain has reached a point where it can't even form a thought that can adequately describe the greatness of my god see as hard as i try i would never be able to adequately describe how great how beautiful this word jesus is how powerful this gospel really is so i'm not going to punt on this one i'm not going to miss an opportunity to talk about how great this word is but what i'm going to do is i'm going to use the word as my words in order to describe this word i'm going to do so by quoting john chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 when about this word he said in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god he was in the beginning with god and then if we slide down to verse 14 in that chapter he says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory glory as of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth this word is powerful and i don't think you need me to tell you that this word is beyond anything we could ever imagine which is why james declares it to have the ability to save our souls remember in genesis 1 it was with words that god spoke that everything came to be and remember in hebrews the author describes the word as something that was sharper than any double-edged sword this word is powerful and here in james this word is described as having the ability to save our souls this word is powerful it's beyond anything that we could ever comprehend we will never be able to adequately describe how great this word is or how much we need this word this word is powerful it was this word jesus who was seated beside the father in heaven constantly begin being perfectly praised perfectly worshiped until he came down to earth to dwell with us so that we might kill him so that we might then live see he died so that we could live that's how powerful this word is and what we begin to realize is we can have anything we could ever desire we could have anything we would ever want all the money all the fame all the accolades we have the title the prestige the family anything we want but if we don't have this word then in one sense we have nothing of value but at the same time if we have this word if we have received this word and it's implanted in us then we have everything we would ever need in this word and this word alone so james says that we are to humbly receive this word which has been implanted in us the last stop on working our way back to the front of this verse is this word humility or this word of a gentle spirit back in my prime when i was in my best state i played high school tennis you can hold the applause it's not meant to be super impressive but that was pretty good and so when i had the ability to play at the next level at the college level of course i accepted that opportunity i was excited about this and i should have asked follow-up questions but once again a common theme in my life i chose not to and i just did and i realized overnight that in high school i played against a lot of boys but in college i played against men and these men traveled from all over the world just so that they could prove they were better than me and oftentimes they were right and i wasn't ashamed to tell them to put it in perspective it was my junior year and we went on a road trip and and we were on the bus it was the men's team the women's team and the coaching staff and one of my teammates made the observation that said patrick you're the only american on this trip and i looked around and sure enough they were right not only was i the only american i was one of two people that spoke english as a first language see my roommate was from belgium my doubles partner was from france my team captain was from spain one of my best friends was from pakistan and my coach was from trinidad that was one of the things that i loved most about college tennis was well i was in one sense robbed of going overseas and going on missions because of tournament and training at the same time the lord brought the nations to me it was a really cool atmosphere now the other thing that i liked about tennis the more technical thing was the format in which college tennis was played see what attracts a lot of people to the sport is the fact that it's an individual sport you win or you lose depending upon how well you played that day not on your team but college kind of integrated the best of both worlds where i played my matches by myself but winning or losing was dependent upon the team see we would play nine matches in whichever school won the majority whichever school won five they were declared the champions without going into too much detail i was able to play two matches both singles and doubles and there were a few occasions where i would lose my first match and then i would turn around and play doubles in and on few occasions i would lose that match as well see i had been defeated i had lost both i did nothing to contribute to my team i felt like a failure in and in one sense rightfully so but on a couple of rare occasions despite me losing both of my matches my team might still prevail we would still win five of the nine matches and if you watched me when we clinched that fifth match when we went from being losers to winners even though i had lost both of mine i celebrated with the best of them it looked like i had won both of mine because as a team we had one we could consider ourselves champions we were victors and we celebrated it and the energy and the adrenaline would carry over into the locker room and we would still celebrate and then we would put on our jumpsuits we would gather our equipment and we would go back to the bus and when we were on the bus that's when the energy began to die down see we would begin our journey back to campus the adrenaline would start to leave the sun would be setting and you could feel the rumble from the bus as you sat in your seats and it always happened that that was when i began to reflect on what i had done that day and i came to the realization that even though we were champions even though i could call myself a victor and rightfully so i did nothing to earn that title i didn't contribute anything to my team winning that match in fact in one sense i had done more for the other team than i had done for my team but in spite of what i had done i could still declare the title champion because of something that someone else did for me and in a similar sense that's exactly what we see here i could receive the title of victor but i had to do so in a state of humility recognizing that it wasn't anything i had done and james is saying the same thing that we are to humbly receive this word which has been implanted in us that we need to humbly come before the lord and recognize that our sin is great but that his love is far greater we can accept this title of victor but we must do so in a state of humility because had it been up to us we would have never chosen it for ourselves we would have clung to this filthy and wicked state but because of god's grace he provided something for us that was far better so with this in mind the fact that we now understand the state of our natural hearts and that god has implanted this word in us which we are to receive with humility now we can turn to verse 22 in which james says this but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves james has been spending his entire time working up to this one argument the fact that we are to be doers of this word that we're to live it out not just be hearers that hear the word and and take it in and not do anything about it but that we are called to be doers of this word now you might ask patrick if this is the main point that you're trying to drive home that we're to be doers of this world that we've been graciously gifted with then why do we spend so much time in verse 21 why would we spend so much time going over that instead of verse 22 and the reason is this if we don't understand the weight and the power behind the words in verse 21 the fact that we are wicked and filthy the fact that god did this great thing for us and implanting his word in us and we don't understand the power behind that we'll never realize the application we'll never see the importance of being a doer of this word and not a hearer only unless we first recognize the importance of what james said in verse 21. so here in 22 he commands us being that friend that we all need he tells us like it is that we are to do something we're to do something about this word now what we know is james was writing to these jewish christians and they were under this interpretation that to go to the temple and just to receive the word was sufficient that all they had to do was know and then they could come home and live their normal lives then go back once a week and get their fill again and what we see today is this is a theme that has carried over this belief that all you have to do is here and that's sufficient james is saying no that's not true we have to do we must be doers of this word now southeastern i want you to hear me and hear what james is saying very clearly what he is not saying is that we must do something in order to receive the salvation in order to receive this gift that's not what he's saying at all in fact he's saying the exact opposite of that that we are sinful we deserve none of this but what he's saying instead is because we have been gifted this because we were once dead in our sins someone who paul describes as a dead man walking and because we have received this radical grace and now we're alive in christ because this has happened shouldn't there be some evidence of that in our lives shouldn't someone be able to look and say they were dead and now they're different they're alive they live the word they just don't take it in and selfishly keep it to themselves but they do something about it there has clearly been a an evidence a change in their life and now they live it out if we were once dead and now we're made alive shouldn't there be some evidence of that in our lives not just a little bit but a lot shouldn't we be a radically different person if we came to this realization that we were damned for hell but now we can worship god perfectly in heaven for an eternity shouldn't that radically change us like stir something up in us to cause us to want to be doers and not just people that come and get their fill and not do anything about it that's what james is saying we have to live this word because it sacrificially saved our souls we rightfully deserve to be in jesus place we rightfully deserve to die to our sin but jesus did that for us which is why we're told to take up our cross and bear it daily and to follow him to be a doer of this word which we have graciously received that's what james is getting at that's why he's saying weird to live it out in this form of application i thought it we would be best if instead of me saying what this looks like to use the scriptures to describe what it looks like to be a doer versus a here and so have seven different parallels between a doer and a hear and the first one comes straight from james see hearers of the word are deluded they convince themselves that they are someone they are really not yet a doer is authentic they know themselves and their convictions hearers are considered to be unjust before the lord and jesus says that himself yet doers are not only just but righteous in god's eyes hearers go to and sometimes they even enjoy the preaching at their current church but doers are faithful members at their local church and serve it well hearers know their bible and can oftentimes quote scripture with the best of them but doers embody their bible in their daily lives here's they seek comfort and are attracted to situations where truth is relative to everyone yet doers seek jesus and they know where truth can be found hearers can be easily persuaded looking first to see what others are doing while doers are grounded looking first to see what jesus has done here is just listen to this word and keep it while doers listen to this word and they put it into action doers live out this word which has radically transformed us which has brought us from death to life that's why we're to be doers of this word which has sacrificially saved our souls and that's what i hope you see from these two verses this morning not because of anything we have done not because of how good we are but actually in spite of all that because of how great god is that we can come to know him that we can be doers of his word that is my hope now here's my fear my fears that as students sometimes we believe the lie that we're in this season of life where we're called just to be hears my fears that as students we think that seminary in college is a time where we're just supposed to listen to the word we're supposed to grow in understanding and just just acknowledge and kind of soak it all in like a sponge and while that is true we're also called to be doers of it at the same time there's no season in our life when we're not called to be doers of this word because it has radically changed us now to go on missions is a great thing to enter full-time ministry is a great thing that is a blessing but to think that we're just called to be hearers now and then doers when we go that would be a lie to believe that so students while you're preparing to go do while you're preparing to go overseas while you're preparing to go into full-time ministry while you're preparing to serve the lord in whatever capacity he has laid out for you do don't wait do be doers of this word be intentional in this season of your life of the opportunities god has provided for you to do not just in your family not just in your community but also in your local church get involved do the word see we've been called to do that's our goal that's our purpose that's why we're here that's what the word of god has commanded us to do and that's why we're to go let's go and let's do but while we prepare let's be doers of the word would you pray with me father we just want to thank you for this morning god we thank you first and foremost for your grace god for your love god for the mercy that you have on us god i pray that it is apparent that we are far from you we're not even close god and i pray that we open up our hands of this sin that we're held so tightly to that we love so much god that we might let go in order that we could receive something far better and god we thank you for this word which you've sent to us god we thank you that that jesus died on the cross for us so that we might know you for our benefit only and god i pray that this word radically transforms us that it might change our lives so that we might live it and live it boldly god we love you god we praise you and we ask all these things in your son's perfect name amen you

Channel: Southeastern Seminary

Views: 2,700

Keywords: Southeastern, Baptist, Theological, Seminary, Chapel, Message, Jesus, Preaching, God, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Gospel, Danny, Great Commission, Training, Education, Southern, Boyce, SBTS, Al, Mohler, MWBTS, NOBTS, Gateway, Universtiy, ERLC, Matt, Chandler, B21, IMB, NAMB, SBC, SBC20, NCSU, ECU, UNC, Duke, Divinity, School, Platt, Greear, JD, David, Whos, Your, One, Midwestern, Akin, RDU, Conversations, That, Matter, New Orleans, Critical, Race, Theory, Orlando, Florida, Coronavirus, COVID-19

Id: HJtwJuxjy0A

Length: 34min 10sec (2050 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021