James 2026

In our new series in the book of James.

So if you'd like to turn to James chapter one, and Rory's gonna be preaching from verses 16 to 27, but we're gonna have the the whole chapter read before he comes and does that. So James one, James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double minded and unstable in all they do. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position, but the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wildflower for the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant. Its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.

In the same way the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard that doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. This is God's word to us this evening. Rory's gonna come and preach for us now.

Alright. Good evening, everybody. My name is Rory. For those of you who've not met me, I'm one of the members of staff here at Cornerstone and it's great to come again to this amazing book. And so let's pray as we begin.

Father, we thank you so much for your words. We thank you for how it confronts us and convicts us. And so we pray, father, that you will do this again for us this evening. We're gonna hear some challenging things, and, we're gonna have to hold up the mirror to ourselves. And so we pray, father, that you'll help us to look intently into that mirror that we may see ourselves, that we may see the Lord Jesus, and we may see how we can live lives that are holy and pleasing to you.

And so we do ask for your help this evening. In Jesus' name. Amen. I'm sure you'd all agree with me that, we are confronted with all sorts of messages all the time. I was actually looking it up.

I don't know how true this is, but apparently you you face around four to 6,000 adverts a day, although there's, I don't know how you can measure that. But we're confronted with all sorts of messages and on some messages, some pieces of information or advice are more important than others. But I wanna start by asking you, what type of listener are you? What type of listener are you? As many of you know, I work part time at school.

I've done youth work for many years, and I've been confronted with all sorts of listeners, all different types. The most common one is the sort of glazed over look. I call it the Lawsy look because sometimes you'll find yourself looking at Lawsy and he's gone off into a completely different world. We have we have that type of listener. You you sometimes have the listener who who's sort of leaning forward and nodding all the time.

They look like they're listening, and then you ask them what they found interesting after you realize that they weren't listening at all. You have the one that always, I'm a bit like that, the lights go off. We've also all different types of listeners, aren't there? And what type of a listener are you? You know, are you the type of listener who, given a medical diagnosis, you act upon it?

Or are you kind of the person who ignores it? Like for instance, when I got told that I need a root canal, it took me fifteen years to actually do something about it. I did something about it though in the end. Sorry. Who's saying, leave me alone.

Or maybe you're, you know, you've gotta build a piece of IKEA furniture or you're cooking a meal and you have the recipe or the instructions. What type of listener are you to those things? Are you the person that goes, well, I'm more of a free spirit and I'll just make it however I want. Or actually the classic bloke who has instructions and then discarded instructions and builds it themselves to no success. There's all types of listeners, aren't there?

What type of listener are you? I mean, is something that Jesus really cares about. In his Sermon of the Mount, which there's a lot of parallels as Tom told us the first week, when we looked at James. He tells a parable about two foundations, about men that build their houses on two foundations, their lives on two foundation. One builds his house on the sand and the other one builds it on the rock.

And it stands for those who listen to God's word and put it into practice. Similarly, he tells a story about a sower who goes around and scatters his seeds and there's four different types of hearts that might receive the word of God. There's the hard heart, the rocky path that the birds come and the devil comes and snatches away the word of God. There's the one that isn't able to put its roots down, and so when the sun burns down, it withers away. There's the one growing up with the thorns and it's choked out.

And then there's a good soil. Jesus cares about what type of listener you are. And like Jesus, James cares what type of listener you are. We've just started this chapter. We've done our first, two proper sermons in James.

And James has begun by talking about how we're gonna face circumstances. We're gonna face trials of all different types. And Pete was helpfully showing us last week that you may be confronted with whatever circumstance, it might be riches, it might be poverty, it might be that tricky work colleague, it might be that career opportunity. And you always have an option, a route to go down. Am I gonna go down the route of testing where my perseverance can be proven genuine and that I have faith and cling to God?

Or can I go down the other path where I'm tempted to go into evil desires and doubting Gods? And so we come to verse 16, and in view of that, James says, Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. He doesn't want you to be deceived. It's a term that he's actually gonna say three times in this chapter. He doesn't want people to think, Oh, God's tempting me.

That God's somehow responsible for me when I go down the route of temptation, that it's his fault. No, he wants you to see that God is a good God. Look with me at verse 17. Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. If you're tempted to think ill of God, James wants you to remember that God is a perfect and good God.

That God has no I mean, everywhere we look, there's shadows, isn't there? There's all shadows wherever we look. Even I look on this lectin and this lamp's causing a shadow, but with God, that there's no shadow. He is beautifully bright and light, full of purity and only purity. And He only gives good gifts.

Not a shadow in Him, good and perfect gifts. And how do we know that ultimately? How do we know he's good and he's perfect? Well, verse 18 gives us the greatest show of this. Verse 18, he chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.

That's how we know he's a good and perfect father because he views us when we were sinful, when we were weak, when we were needy, when we were away from Him and He said, I will give you new life. I I will born you again, if that's the right term. I'll give you birth through my word of truth. That's really important. The word of truth, the word of truth that promises that Jesus is the savior of the world, that Jesus himself is the word of truth.

And that if we trust in him, we can have new birth into the family of God. He wants you to know that. And so in the light of that, in the light of the fact that you've been born again through the word of truth, the word of truth, what type of listener will you be? How will you listen? I've got three points and there's three points, but you'll see that there's sort of, you'll see all three things in all three points.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Here's my three points. Number one, quick to listen. Number two, active listening.

Number three, reflective listening. Look with me at verse 19 to 21. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you.

And so here we come to the first point, quick to listen. Quick to listen. Look again at verse 19. These words are so cutting. Look at them.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Now isn't that so counter our world? Isn't that so the opposite to what we experience here? Surely the the the message of the world would be everyone should be slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.

That's what our world is like, isn't it? You know, there's always a clamoring to speak and be heard. You should listen to me. You might know people like this. You might be like this yourself.

You find yourself talking a lot and not really listening to anybody. It's very easy to fly off the handle because I've been wronged. I can bite the head off that loved one or that colleague or that friend, or I can bite the head off that person that I disagree with. The word anger is this kind of swelling up. It's this sudden outburst.

Isn't that our world? Isn't it so easy to turn to violence? Well, you might not actually be violent, but we can think some pretty violent thoughts. Isn't it easier just to take to text or to email or to voice note or to social media and say negative things and to cancel people? That's what our world is like, isn't it?

Here's a quote from a theologian. He says, the great talker is rarely a great listener, and never is the ear more firmly closed than when anger takes over. Can't we all resonate with that? As I waffle on and then realize I'm not really listening to anybody. I just don't laugh at that.

I know I waffle sometimes. And we know that anger, don't we? You know when you get really enraged, somebody's annoyed you, and your ears are boiling hot and throbbing with blood that you can't hear a word that they're saying. You're gonna destroy them. And so James comes and says, everyone should be quick to listen.

The word is is swift. It's actually the only time it's used in the New Testament. It's a it's a spiritual reflex. It's so natural that your reflexes not to fly off the hand on it, oh, let me just listen to that. There's such wisdom here, isn't there?

You know, you're in a you're in a discussion that looks like it might be turning into some sort of argument or you're in some sort of conflict with somebody, is it better just to take a breath and to listen? But more importantly, and this is what I think this is getting at, is that we listen to the word of God. It's that we listen to the word of truth in the moment. So there you are confronted with your trial, your circumstance. There you are confronted with a difficult relationship or you're confronted with the area of riches or poverty as we talked about last week.

Are you gonna be quick to listen to the word of God in that area of your life? To listen and to apply. Quick to listen. Slow to speak and slow to become angry. I'm sure you've all heard that, that classic.

I sometimes say it to my students in school, especially if they're being really dim because they're talking when I'm talking. Like, they keep on asking questions while I'm explaining something to them. You know, parents surely should resonate with this. And I say to them, God gave you two ears, one mouth, follow the ratio, right? Listen, can't hush the gums for just a moment, be quick to listen and be slow to speak.

Now that doesn't mean we're not to speak at all, but we must be measured. It's an unhurried moving forward. It's weighing up of the information of what's going on. It's a weighing up as I'm quick to listen to the word of God and I try and apply it here so that I'm able with restraint to speak. And so this discipline of being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger will be hugely helpful.

It will guard us against impulsive speech. You know, when you just, you said something too quickly, and you're like, why did you speak Rory? Just wait, let the filter kick in at some point, please. It guards against that impulse speech. It guards against that, it diffuses that uncontrolled anger.

It matures us as communities to be marked with love and wisdom. And most importantly, it reflects who God is. The Lord, the Lord, the most compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love. It reflects the Lord Jesus Christ who listened to the word of God and listened to it when it was difficult and when he was confronted in the Garden Of Gethsemane and he knew it was gonna be so hard, this trial, he listened to the word of God and said, not my will, but yours be done. And so, verse 19, we should be slow to speak and slow to become angry.

And why do we want to be slow to become angry? Well, verse twenty twenty, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. We always, we always wanna justify our anger, don't we? Like it's right. Because because listen, I've always been wronged and I'm right to be angry that you don't know how that person spoke to me.

You don't know how that person looked at me. And God says, your human anger doesn't fit with me. It doesn't produce righteousness. Often anger, let's all face it, our anger usually is to destroy the person that's wronged us, right? It's like, how dare you?

I want to absolutely destroy you. And we invent ways to do so, whether it's verbally or physically. God says it doesn't fit. It doesn't produce godly living. It doesn't produce right living.

See, is I think there is a righteous anger. God God has a righteous anger. Remember, he is slow to anger. I think the difference between our anger and God's anger and when we get anger right is when we're when we're angry, we just wanna win and we wanna destroy. Human anger took Jesus to a cross and murdered him, but godly anger is an anger that seeks to restore and to correct.

You think about the parent who is angry with the young person. It's never to destroy them, isn't it? I know young people, it feels hard sometimes when they're angry at you, but it's because they love you and they wanna restore you. But human anger has no place for the person of God. And so in light of verse 19 to 20, James says, therefore, verse 21, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

I love the King James version of this. I wanna show you the King James version. It's so good. Look at this. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to say, so that's great, isn't it?

Wherefore, I might start saying that. The superfluity of naughtiness. I could have started saying that to young people. You are how do you superfluist? What's the word?

Thank you. I knew that. Thanks, Anne. Yes. That's you.

Okay. The idea is that you have these sewed garments and you now are gonna take them off. It was old, they were soiled, they were tainted, really what James is now doing is he's getting a garden imagery in place here. Now, I'm not the greatest gardener. If you come to my house and you see my garden, you'll see why.

Dhrusha just digs up my garden now and then, and then leaves it for a bit. It grows up again. Nothing good can grow there because weeds always grow. So to produce, I believe anyway, I'm on very shaky ground here right now, to produce a good environment for plants to grow well and to flourish, we need to remove the weeds. That's what this word is, these words are conjuring up there.

They're removing the weeds. They're rejecting the superfluidity of naughtiness. That weed needs to go. And therefore, once we've got rid of all that stuff, we can now receive with meekness, with humility. And what is it that we can receive and humbly accept the words planted in you, which can save you?

This is an engrafting word. It's the word of God has been engrafted into our hearts. And that's what salvation is. In verse 18, when you were born again, the word of God was engrafted in you. The word of truth was engrafted, but for it to be able to grow, the heart needs to have the weeds of evilness and wickedness and flying off the handle and speaking too quickly, that needs to be removed so that I can enjoy the benefits of being or having the word of God engrafted into my heart.

And so I continue to draw from the word of truth so that I may produce for him. See, if we adopt verse 19, if we adopt that attitude, then we will stop the word of truth being choked out by self assertive, self righteous anger. So how do you respond? Here's the trials. Here's the circumstances.

How are you responding in these areas? Where do you need to be quick to listen? Where do you need to not reach for the mobile device and fire off that angry worded message? Why do I need to say no? I need to be quick to listen.

I need to remember that I am a forgiven child of God. I need to remember that I've been loved beyond measure, and so I must give love. I must remember that I am one who didn't deserve the grace of God upon my life, and so therefore I must act towards other people that lifts them up and doesn't tear them down. Where do you need to be quick to listen? Slow to speak and slow to anger.

And maybe as we've gone through this, your heart has been revealed a little bit and you've realized, look, I I can identify with this the quick to anger and the quick to speak and I've not listened. I've never trusted in the word of God. Well, maybe today you can see verse 18 and realize that God can give you new birth through the word of truth. And so we must be quick to listen. But what do we do with the message that we're quick to listen to?

Well, second point, active listening. Look down with me at verse 22 to 25. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Verse 22 is so helpful. Do not merely listen to the word of God. It's very easy to intellectually agree with something that's been said. Some of you probably doing that right now, you're all nodding your head.

Oh yeah, that's really good. I agree with you, Rory. That's so good. You got me nodding like a crazy person. Yeah.

It's easy to agree, but actually you may be intellectually agreeing, but you're deceiving yourself. That word deceive yourself, the second time it's been used in this passage, that use there is only used twice in the New Testament. The first time that it's used is in Colossians chapter two, where Paul is warning people against false people, false teachers with their false ideas. It sounds all clever, but it could deceive people to take them away from trusting in the word of truth. But the second time is this time.

And it's not outside. It's not false teachers. It's that you could trick yourself. You can deceive yourself. And it's that you could be there and you could listen and you could say, oh yeah, actually, yeah, I agree with that.

And, but I'm only gonna apply it to other people. I bet some people are like that. We're all like that, I've just done it to you. That person really needed to hear that, sermon, didn't they? Yeah, that would've been really helpful if they heard that.

If only they were in the room, that would've really solved all their issues. And here I am saying, I agree with this, and that person really needed to hear it, but what about your own heart, Rory? Or the person who, yeah, oh, no, I really do need to make a change. I've heard that mess. I've heard that right.

Monday, I'll make a change. Monday comes, the change does not occur. They hear the sermon next week, Monday, I'll make the change. Monday comes, the change does not occur. I'll make the change next week.

Does not occur. That's what we're like sometimes, isn't it? We hear the word of God, we nod, we approve of it. I mean, about school, you see this with all sorts of people. There you are, you tell them why they're doing this thing wrong.

They nod their head. Yeah, you're right. You're right, sir. And then you go away, they do the next bit of essay writing or homework or whatever it is, and you think, Have you really listened? You've not put it into practice.

And that's what we're like with the word of God, isn't it? We're there, we go, Yes, that is really, I really agree with that. And then no change. And James says, don't merely listen to the words and so deceive yourself. No.

Do what it says. Don't just be a hearer. Don't be like the man who built his hand upon a house upon the sand who who did hear the word of God, who has the word of God, doesn't listen to it and builds on a shaky foundation. No, do what it says. The word do is like the word for poet or performer.

It's that they know the words and they then deliver the poem. You have to do, you have to perform, you have to actually take the word and act upon it. And so he gives us this great illustration, does he? He gives us two people. So person one, verse 23 to 24, anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

Isn't that a great image? Here you are. I'm sure you're all used to mirrors. You get up in the morning, you do your morning ritual, you stand in front of the mirror, you think I need to probably just do a little bit more of work on I don't know who does this. Yeah, Just me.

Or you look at your face, you see it, you're, yeah, yeah, okay. Right? And the picture is, okay, there's loads of things that needs to be dealt with. You know, I probably should sort out me barn it. Okay?

And then you've looked at it, great. And what does the person then do? He's seen all the issues, he leaves, and he completely forgets everything that he's just seen. Oh yes, I've seen my issues. Oh yes, I've seen what what needs to be worked on.

But as he walks out the room, he's completely forgotten what he looks like. He thinks he looks like someone completely different. It's great, isn't it? That's what it's like if you come to the word of God, which is like a mirror, and you come to the word of God and you see yourself in the pages and you see the Lord Jesus and how glorious he is, you see, wow, gosh, I need to really work on that area of my life. And you shut it and you go, I'll make that change tomorrow or Monday, and it never occurs.

Look at this quote. It says this. James uses this verb of being deceived to show the false security lurking in the heart. A listener who nods at scripture but postpones obedience performs a mental sleight of hand on his own soul, congratulating himself for piety he has not practiced. Unlike with the false teachers in Colossians, the threat is not outside rhetoric, speech, but it is inside rationalization.

The remedy is immediate obedience that mirrors the implanted words. It's a great quote. There we are. We've heard the word of God. We know we agree with it, but we do a little quick trick.

You know, those sleight of hands, you got the cups with the p underneath it, and quickly sleight of hands, and it's gone. And we do that to our own souls. We know that we should have to make some sort of change, but we rationalize and we fail to be doers of God's words. That's person one. And then we have person two.

And person two, like person one, also gets up in the morning, he's brushing his teeth, and he's looking in the mirror. But you see how different person two is. Verse 25, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. See how different person two is? Here she is.

She's there looking in the mirror and she's looking intently. The word intently is this kind of the word actually means you kind of lean over to sorry, Tamara. You lean over to really look and to investigate. In those days, ancient mirrors, they didn't give you like a really, really clear picture of yourself. So you had these mirrors and you kind of had to look in all sorts of different angles to see what the actual picture was.

And so you have to think of this, you have to look intently at what's going on. And this person, there they are, they're looking in the mirror and they're looking at all the angles to make sure that they understand what they're like. The word investigate, it's like the people at the tomb investigating the resurrection, making sure the resurrection happened. To bend down and have a look, is he really risen from the dead? And as you look at the word of God, is that what I'm like?

Is that Christ? And what is it that they're looking intently in? What is the mirror? Well, it's the perfect law that gives freedom. That word perfect's used like four times in this passage.

Don't know if you noticed. To be honest, our translation doesn't help. In verse four, it says, Let perseverance finish its work. Do you see that in verse four? Well, word is let perseverance be perfect.

And then it says, so that you may be mature, which is the word actually perfect again, so that you may be perfect and complete. So the idea is that there is something going on within us that will make us perfect as we face trials. And then we saw, didn't we, in verse 17, every good and perfect gift is from God. So the way that we're gonna become perfect as Christians, made perfect, is by God's perfect gift. And what is God's perfect gift?

It is the words of truth, is the perfect law in verse 25. It's the perfect law that gives freedom. You think a law that gives freedom? Does law really make us free? Yes, it does.

Because the perfect law reveals to us how we're meant to live for God in this world. The perfect law reveals to us the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and just how glorious He is. And so you think, brilliant, the perfect law, it showed me Jesus. It shows me my flaws. It shows me how I can rely on Him and apply the scriptures to my life so that I'm more and more perfect.

And so we can say with the Psalmist that your law is perfect, But it's not just a one and done for this for this for James, is it? It's not just, okay. Now I've looked. It's the person, if you notice at the end, who continues in it. It's not a one and done.

It's somebody that keeps on looking intently. It's someone that keeps on wanting to see Jesus. It's someone who keeps on wanting to walk the path of sanctification and grafted into the word of truth so that they may receive the benefits of the gospel. Now take up the image of the gardener again. My granddad was a keen gardener, so I put him to shame.

And I remember having a conversation, I mean, a weird conversation to have, with my granddad about gardening and what are the most important tools for a gardener to have? Do you know what tool he said was the most important for gardening? Yes, A good. Yeah, a hoe. Think what?

That is the most important one. He said a good shovel was good as well, but a hoe. Why is a hoe so important? Because it's with the hoe that you keep on getting rid of those little oh, sorry, thought I got so angry at weeds. Those little annoying weeds that can grow and become bigger weeds.

And so you have to keep on hoeing up the soil so that it's in good environment so that everything else can grow well. And so we continuously look at the word of God so that we can get the gospel how out and hoe the soil of our hearts so that we may look to live perfect lives. And lastly, unlike person one who goes away and forgets, he doesn't forget this person. But they go and they do. They put it into action.

They're like them wise man who built his house upon the rock, and he hears the message of forgiveness and he puts on forgiveness. And the result, that person will be blessed in what they do. So where are you with this? Deceived by yourself? Hearing the word of God but no action?

Or are you gonna be somebody who listens and looks intently at the word of God, hears the word of God, and then puts it into practice? And if you do that, you'll be blessed. You'll know what it is to live for the Lord. You'll know what it is to have the Lord smile upon you as you live a righteous life for him. But what will this look like?

So we've got active listening, but what does it look like? And so here's the third point, reflective listening. Verse 26 to 27. Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves. See that again, deceiving again.

And their religion is worthless. Gosh. Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Here's another word that early James uses in the New Testament, and that word is religion. And we think, oh gosh, religion?

Like, I don't know when it happened, but evangelical Christians wince at the word religion. They're like, gosh, works? No, we don't want that. We believe in grace. But James uses it three times in this passage.

He's thinking, no, I'll use it. But what he's getting at is the, it's working out if the internal should reflect in the external. Religion is the action, it's the living out of what you believe. And he uses that word in particular because that would have been associated with trying to live out some sort of religion. So some sort of ceremonial ritual, whatever it was.

And here he says, look, I want you to think about the outworking of what is going on internally. I said, that's why he uses this word religion. And in our religion, we're gonna see true religion versus false religion. In our religion, we should be reflective of God. He starts in that verse 26 there with people who think they're reflective, those who consider themselves, they look at themselves and they think, yeah, I'm a religious kind of guy.

They consider themselves religious. The problem with these people, you'll notice, is that they do not keep a tight rein on their tongues and so deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. A tight rein, the word bridle, you know, you put it in a horse's mouth for those who've ever ridden horses or watched equestrian on the Olympics. Yeah. You put the bridle in the mouth so that you can control where the horse goes.

And James is saying, look, if you're if you're there saying, oh, I'm a religious person. I do all the outward acts of a of a religious person, but you you have no control of your of your tongue. Your religion is absolutely meaningless. It has no purpose. It has no profit.

It's vain because your tongue is actually betraying you. There's a disconnect between your profession and your practice. It's a hypocrisy. This is kind of this double minded stuff, isn't it? It always seems like this double minded stuff going on.

There you are, a great religious, but you're doing great things for God. There you are. You're preaching, you're preaching forgiveness. You're nodding along to forgiveness in the sermon and you get into your car and someone cuts you up and you think you and you realize that your tongue has betrayed your religion because you start to, you know, give them what's good for. Maybe inwardly or outwardly.

There you are, you're nodding along to the fact that you should be a lover, that you should be someone who is humble. And then someone saddles up to you and starts to talk negatively about someone else that you know and you join in with that gossip and your tongue has betrayed your religion. There's a disconnect between profession and practice. And the child of God, again in verse 18, born into the family of holiness has a bridled tongue. It is a tongue that is an external like you think about the horse, right?

The horse has the bridle, it's outside of them in the mouth, controlling them where they go, not nastily, but a continuous intentional pressure to go where you need them to go. Well, that's what the word of God should be for us. The word of God is the external force that controls the tongue inside and continuously and puts intentional pressure on so that we can be directed to a life of holiness, a tongue of holiness. It's amazing, isn't it? In Isaiah six, when Isaiah is confronted with a holy God, the holy, holy God, the holy, holy, holy gods.

And what does he say? Woe to me. I am a man of unclean lips for it is the tongue that reveals our character. And so if we're children of God bought into the family of a holy God, bought to be holy people, then we will have true religion and true religion is one that has a bridal tongue. It's convicting stuff, right?

Because who here has used their tongue always for good? Who here in the last week has only ever used it for good and never said anything negative or never said anything hateful or never said anything that tears people down. But true religion has a bridle tongue. And true religion, verse 27, that God our father accepts as pure and faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. True religion, listening in true religion is reflective of God.

And so God is slow to anger and is self controlled in his speech. The Lord Jesus was self controlled in his speech, so we should be self controlled in our speech. But our God is also one who cares for the needy and for the distressed, for the orphan and the widow who may be demanding towards us, but God has always cared for those people in the Old Testament. And in the book of Acts, they were so, so keen to look after weak and vulnerable people, something that Paul talks about in Galatians. I mean, look, verse 18, he chose to give us birth through the word of truth.

He chose to give us birth. We were dead in our sins. We were orphans, really. We were weak and we were needy and we were helpless. And God looked at you and thought, I'll give you a new birth.

And so that's what God's like. And if we're listening to that God, then we should be like that. Looking after the weak and the needy, meeting their needs, praying for them, giving them the salve of the gospel to one another. But not only are they looking after the needy, they're not polluted by the world. I wonder when people look at you, your non Christian acquaintances, do they see somebody who's different?

Do they see somebody who's very, very distinct from you? Or do they see somebody who's just like them? Well, if we're gonna be truly holy people that are listening to the holy word of God, the word of truth, then we should be different in some measure, shouldn't we? We don't love the things that they love. We don't preach the things that they preach.

We don't act in the way that they act. We don't speak in the way that they speak. So if we're gonna be true listeners, we will be holy in this world. See, listeners of the word of God reflect the God of the word. True listeners of the word of God reflect the God of the word.

And so Jesus says in his sermon on the mount, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. When Peter takes up the similar thing from the old testament, it says, be holy because your God is holy. And so how about you? What type of listener are you? Where do you need to repent?

I think we all probably need to repent in some measure, don't we? Where do we realize that actually I've been slow to listen and I've been quick to speak and quick to anger. I need to make sure I am quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. Where are you deceiving your own heart? Say, yeah, I'm okay.

Or, oh, yeah, I'll make that change. You're never doing it. And as you do that, are you reflecting the God of the Bible, the holy God, the great father who through the word of truth gave you birth? What type of listener will you be? Well, take a moment, think through those things, and then Ollie and Tom will bring us back together.

Before we take the Lord's supper together, let's continue to take that moment to reflect on what we've heard. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Maybe there is a, an angry root in our hearts that is spoiling our relationships and spoiling our mood and clouding our joy. Perhaps it's a root of anger that we are quick to justify, but it is not producing the righteousness that God desires. Slow to speak, to anger, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

And then how about our listening? We've been encouraged to be active listeners. Are we active listeners? Been encouraged to be reflective listeners. Are we reflective listeners?

Before we come to the Lord's supper, let's have a few minutes. Father, this is another section of James, which is so deeply challenging. And, it has indeed been like looking at the mirror this evening and seeing that very often we are not those who are quick to listen. We we are quick to air our own grievances and to air our own opinions. And the more we speak, the angrier we become sometimes.

It's as if our speaking actually makes us angry. And, we're sorry we're sorry for that. We we pray that you would help us not to be full of human anger, which does not produce any righteousness at all. Help us to be those who are slow to speak so that we can listen, not only to others, that we can listen to your word, which is implanted in us and which can save us. We pray that you'd help us to be those active listeners who not just listen and intellectually nod and agree, but actually take away the word and by your grace and spirit put it to work in our lives.

Help us to be those reflective listeners too. We thank you for the promise in James that when we come near to God, he comes near to us. And so we come near to you in repentance, confessing our sin. We about to take the bread and the juice, reminds us of the Lord Jesus. Thank you that he died for self deceivers.

Thank you that he died for the double minded. Thank you that he died for the angry and the quick to speak. All those sins, we thank you that he knew and he took upon himself. And what a what a shock given how perfect he was. We can't ever imagine the Lord Jesus Christ going to the synagogue and reading the scriptures, applying them to others, and then leaving and not putting them into practice himself.

Thank you that he is that perfect whole God man, and thank you that he can save us. We thank you for the cross, our savior, and for the blood that you shed for us to forgive us, to cleanse us, to purify us, and help us, we pray, to to come back to him tonight in faith. And we ask all of this in Jesus name. Amen.