James chapter 1 this morning, and we're going to be beginning in verse 19. Just three verses this morning, 19, 20, and 21. The message title this morning is A Heart Prepared for Planting. So you can probably tell that we're going to go in the direction of greenery this morning and agriculture. I don't know about your house, but along the south side of our house that gets a lot of sun, we have all the whole length of our house, we have irises and and lilies planted and all kinds of flowers. They're already about a foot tall. The greenery, not the flowers, haven't bloomed yet, but the greens have come up all alongside of the house. It's really good to see green stuff, isn't it? Starting to come up. I have this patch in our front yard. It's under a big maple shade tree, and it's kind of by the house. And it's this area where I've had the hardest time growing grass. And I have for years. It's been just kind of a bald spot. And I've done everything I could do. And it just, grass doesn't grow very well there. And a couple of years ago, I was trying different things. And so I thought, you know, they were calling for rain. It was in the summer. They were calling for rain. So I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go buy some grass seed. And right before it rains, I'm going to go out, and I'm going to spread the grass seed around there. And I thought, you know, I can take a shortcut here and let nature do its thing and plant the grass for me. So I just threw it on top of the dirt, and it rained. And you can probably guess how that turned out. Not very good. If the rain did anything, it kind of clumped the seeds into little clumps of seed, which made it easier for the birds to come and find it and eat it. So you're welcome, all the birds in my neighborhood. But for grass to grow like it's supposed to grow, it needs to get down into the ground, doesn't it? And not very much, not very deep, but it needs to be below the surface. And as we look at these verses this morning in James, what I'd like you to do is think of the Word of God as seed. seed that you want planted in your heart and your mind and you want it to grow and you want it to flourish and you want it to bear fruit in your life. So I'd like us to think this morning as scripture as seed. And it's not enough for the word to sit on top of the surface. Another term we might use for that is just to have head knowledge about scripture. But it needs to be internalized. It needs to get below the surface, into our hearts. And a key for us growing in Christ, as God intended for us to grow, is for the word to take root into our hearts and into our minds. And we talk a lot, kind of we have a church vision, mission statement, and part of all that is we talk about a disciple as somebody who's first of all rooted in love and their love for God. And we talk about how that involves the scripture and prayer and how we have roots in God. Well, this is kind of like, I think it's just as important, but it's kind of the opposite of that, where we want the word to be rooted in us. And I think scriptures, we'll look at here in a few minutes, scripture's clear that not only are we to be rooted in scripture, but the scripture is to be rooted in us. And I think that's something that we miss sometimes. We think we're doing what we should be doing, we're in the word, we're under the sound of the word, but is the word being rooted in us, being rooted in us? And again, scripture, There's a lot of scriptures that speak to this, and I'm just gonna mention three this morning, and they'll be on the overhead if you'd like to follow along as I read these. First of all, it's John 15, seven. This is Jesus speaking. He says, if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, in you, this is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. Galatians, I'm sorry, Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And Psalm 119.11, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And so you get the idea that God's intention is not only that the word gets, that we get into the word, but that the word gets into us. that there's an internalizing, and it just doesn't sit on the surface. It's just not a head knowledge. It's just not an awareness of the word, but it's taking root in us. It's growing down into us, into our lives, into our hearts, into our behaviors, our thoughts, and our actions. But here's the thing. Like the hard ground in my front yard, If our hearts aren't prepared to receive the seed of God's word, it won't get into us. It won't take root as God intended. And so how do we prepare our hearts to be soft, to be receptive to what God has for us? How do we do that prep work? We would know how to do that in a yard, wouldn't we? We know what we need to do, but how do we do that with our hearts? How do we make our hearts cultivated where our hearts are receptive to the seed of God's word so the seeds take root and grow and flourish in our lives? Well, with dirt, we would use probably a garden rake or a hoe or sometimes even a tiller. to prepare the soil to receive seed. But James is going to tell us this morning what's necessary for our hearts to properly be cultivated, to be prepared for planting, to take in the seed of God's word so that it can grow. And I think this is an important group of verses, three verses here for us this morning, because our hearts do tend to get hard. and unreceptive to the word unless we're intentional about preparing our hearts to receive God's word. And so we're gonna, I'm gonna read these verses all together first, and these are James' instructions on how we can prep our hearts to receive God's word, and then we're gonna break it down into five tools, if you will, that we need to be using to always be cultivating, to be preparing our hearts, breaking up the soil, the hard soil of our hearts, to prepare our hearts for God's word. And so 19 through 21 of James 1 read like this. 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." All right. First of all, number one in your notes, if you'd like to fill in some blanks this morning in your bulletin, there's some lines there. First of all, number one is we need to listen up. Paraphrase what James is saying here in the first part of verse 19 We need to listen up and that's where he says we need to be quick to listen Quick to listen there's a difference between Listening and listening You know what I mean? Know what I mean husbands and wives Have you ever listened to somebody talk but you really haven't been listening to them talk. You might even, and sometimes when we are trying to be clever, we might even say, well, I can repeat back what you said. You ever done that? But you know, you really weren't listening. You were hearing what they were saying, but you weren't really listening. And I think what God wants of us as we come to the scriptures, which is what he's talking about here, is we have this posture, we have this attitude of we're really listening. We would say we live in a culture of multitasking, don't we? We all think we're good at multitasking. We're not as good at it as we think we are. Have you ever been talking to somebody on the phone or maybe in person and they're doing five different things and it's that listening or really listening thing and you're talking and you know they're not there with you. And they could even repeat back maybe some of what you said, but they're really not leaning in and listening. And kind of what we're talking about here, another term for this is active listening. It's like we're engaging with what God is saying in his word, and it's not just, it's kind of like the hard soil in my front yard, it's not just being exposed to what's being said, It's internalizing it, and it's processing it. It's really listening. I had a friend in college. When you're in college, as you know, you kind of go through seasons where you just get slammed with papers and tests and different things all at the same time, towards the end of the semester, usually. And there's all this studying and reading to do. And you have pages and pages of notes. So I had this friend who had the bright idea of he had this tape recorder. Young people, there used to be these things called tape recorders. with cassette tapes and you would you get off of your stagecoach wagon and then you have it We had these tape recorders. And remember, you had to push play and record at the same time. And you could record yourself talking. And so what he did was he recorded himself reading pages of notes and repeating it over and over. And he had the idea of somewhere in his subconscious, if he played that while he was sleeping, his brain would pick that up, just kind of like through osmosis. It didn't work. It worked as good as me throwing the grass seed on my hard ground, which is sort of the same thing. And somewhere in his brain it might have been hearing that, but he wasn't listening to it. And I think what James is saying here is quick to listen is not just hearing the sound, not just hearing the words, but listening, really, really listening to what God is saying to us in his word. We need to have the kind of attitude we're taking in the word where there's an eagerness. That's another good word for that quick, there's an eagerness. to be exposed, not only exposed to, but to really listen to God's word. It's not just playing a tape recorder and not just the sound of it, but an eagerness to take it in. I think another word that came to mind with this idea of really listening, being quick to listen to God's word is drinking in God's word. drinking in, which reminded me of 1 Peter 2, 2, where it says, like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that you may grow up in your salvation. Have you ever been around a baby who is way overdue and it's feeding? And you put that bottle in its mouth, and it just sucks down that milk like there's no, like it's about ready to starve to death. And you go, wow, that baby was hungry. That's that crave there. That's what God want, that's what James is saying. Our attitude needs to be when it comes to preparing our hearts for scriptures, we need to approach with this eagerness where we crave. We can't wait to take it in. We're like just starving for God's word. And so some questions we might ask ourselves this morning along these lines, do you approach Sunday morning, Sunday school, worship service, just craving to hear the word taught and preached? Are you eager to just soak it in and do your daily Bible reading, study the scriptures on your own? Is there just like this, oh, I just have to, that's what that quick to listen is, just an eagerness to drink it in. And there's an important point here, I think, that I need to mention in our entertainment-oriented culture in which we live. The onus here on taking in the word is on the listener, not on the delivery. Because sometimes we, because this is the way we're trained and taught to think in our culture with entertainment, it's not on an entertaining, it's not on the delivery, it's not on if it's tickling my ears. The onus for taking in is on the listener. And so a good heart, as we think about preparing our hearts for the word, these are good questions to ask ourselves. Is that us? Am I just like craving to hear the word of God preached on? I can't wait for Sunday morning. I can't wait to hear it taught. I can't wait to have my devotions. That's what quick to listen. And this is the difference between seed that sits on the top and seed that gets into us. The word getting into us is our hearts are prepared by, we approach with an eagerness. That's what we want. That's what we're leaning into. We want that for ourselves. It's not just a surfacy thing, but it's quick to listen, ready to hear and quick to hear the Word of God. Number two, sometimes in preparation for the Word is we need to zip our lips. That's a paraphrase of what James says there in verse 19. The way he says it is, slow to speak. This is kind of like the other side of the coin of what we just talked about with quick to listen, but slow to speak is another tool that we need in preparing our hearts to receive the word. Realizing that sometimes, to put it bluntly, we need to shut it more than we need to share. when it comes to taking in the Word. And I'm not saying there's not a time for discussion and talking about the Word. I don't think that's what James is saying. But we need to be slow to that. We need to be slow. And what that means is that we're giving time for listening, for thinking, for praying, for meditating, for mulling over Scripture. It's not rushing in, and we have to share right away what we think about. We take it in, and we contemplate what God is saying. There's a place for that, and there's an important place for that. It's said that the rabbis, some rabbis used to say this. This is the reason why we have two ears and only one mouth, that we may hear more and speak less. And then they went on to say, the ears are always open, ever ready to receive instruction, but the tongue is surrounded with a double row of teeth to hedge it in and keep it under proper control. So a question for us would be, as soon as the word is taught, do we feel a need to pontificate about what we think about the passage and what we think it means and we think it says? Share our own thoughts on the matter? Maybe we need to slow down a little bit and maybe we need to spend time letting it just kind of marinate and like a spring rain that just kind of like soaks and let it just soak into our hearts and absorb what God has just revealed to us in his word. Maybe we need to be slow to speak as our hearts receive the word. Because the truth is when we talk too much, we listen too little. It's hard to do both at the same time. And what we're doing is we're often betraying our ego that we need to help. We need to inform people. We need to correct people. We need to straighten people out. Instead of letting the word straighten us out. Slowness in speaking communicates humility. and being teachable. And the bottom line is this, when you're talking, you're not listening. And when you're not listening, you're not learning. And when we rush to being verbal, we rush, and we don't let it marinate, we don't let it soak into our own hearts when we're not slow to speak, I think we're not doing the prep work. We're not approaching with, God, I want you to do this first in me. I want you to work on my heart before I try to fix everybody else. A heart prepared is a heart that's slow to speak, according to James. And then number three, we need to remain teachable. We need to remain teachable. The end of verse 19 and verse 20 is the section here we're looking at. And first of all, James says here, and the very end of verse 19, he says, slow to become angry. slow to become angry. Now, what does slow to become angry have to do with preparing our hearts to receive the word? How do those line up? Well, let me read 2 Timothy 3.16 for you. This will help. 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is God-breathed. That's the phrase we use. Another word is inspired. All scripture is inspired, which means God-breathed, and is useful for teaching. rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness. And here's where we connect the dots. When the seed of God's word hits our hearts and those areas that need rebuking and correcting, as sinners, sometimes we respond in the wrong way. We might get defensive. We might even actually become angry. Cause nobody likes the spotlight shined on their spiritual inadequacies, their spiritual imperfections. But that's exactly what the word does for us, doesn't it? As we, as we read scriptures and we, and we, and we're like, Oh man, we're reminded again of, of what scripture tells us on how God wants us to live. And even on a deeper level, it reveals to us our thoughts, and our attitudes, and our grudges, and our bitterness, or in a word, our sin, that nobody else can see. James says our response needs to be acceptance, not rejection. And that's what this slow to become angry, he's saying, don't get defensive. as the Word takes root. And that's an important part of us preparing our hearts and as we approach the Word and it takes root in us, is having the attitude is, I'm going to be receptive to this, I'm not going to reject this. As the Word steps on my toes, I'm going to take it. I'm not going to try to twist it to meet what's going on in my life right now, or my desires, or my expectations. I'm going to let Scripture twist me and change me into the image of Christ. And he says, it goes on, he says, when we get defensive and we get worked up about, or we reject what God is saying, he says, anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. And if we want to grow in righteousness and we want to grow in holiness, we need to stop fighting God and his word as it hits our hearts. And we need to be, we need to accept that. We need to be teachable. We need to be teachable what God wants to do in us. So number three is we remain teachable as we approach God's word. And number four, a heart prepared for planting means that we need to clear out the junk. The first part of verse 21, James says, therefore, and that therefore is important. We're going to look at that here in a second. But he says, therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent. If you walk out the back door of our house, there's a patio, concrete patio is poured. And then there's our garage, detached garage, oh, about 20 feet away from the house. And so there's concrete. And then around the garage, there's this little patch of dirt that kind of goes around the corner of the garage. And when we first moved in there, I thought, well, that'll be a nice little place to plant flowers or put something there, because it's kind of this island of dirt in all this concrete. So not long after we moved in, I grabbed a shovel and I went to work to prepare the soil. And I got, no kidding, I got maybe an inch or maybe two below the surface before I started hitting all these rocks and these little chunks of concrete. And what it was was just a place where they threw all the debris from building the garage or something like that. And they put a little dirt over the top to make it look nice. And the truth soon became obvious that nothing was going to grow there without a whole lot of excavation and digging all that stuff up. So it's still dirt, in case you want to know. Except for the weeds, they do a really good job growing there. I'm pulling weeds there all summer. But if all that junk's not pulled out of there, nothing's going to grow. And I think what James is saying here is for our hearts to receive the word as intended, we need to clear out the junk that we know is there, that will get in the way of that spiritual germination that God intended for the word to do in us. And so he mentions two things here, or two ways that this can look in us, this stuff that we need to clear out in verse 21. First of all, letter A. He says, therefore get rid of all moral filth. And here's where the word therefore is important. therefore links the moral filth with what he just got done teaching on. He just got done teaching on something. We're going to look at here in a second. He says, therefore, and so there's a connection, that's a link in the chain between the moral filth and what he just got done teaching about. And this is an important point that we don't want to miss. If we don't have an eagerness, a craving for God's word, if we would rather hear ourselves talk than to hear the word of God talk, If we respond defensively and with anger when the Bible steps on our toes, that's moral filth. That's the link between moral filth and what he just got done talking about. And we look at those things like, well, that's not that big a deal. Well, in the words of Scripture, that's moral filth. It's moral evil. And for our hearts to be prepared to take in the Word, we need to rid ourselves of those kind of obstacles, those kind of attitudes where we're not eager. That's moral filth to God, where we just lack that craving. James says we need to get rid of that. We need to clear out that stuff from our hearts and our lives that's going to impede the Word from taking root and growing in us. And like my little patch of dirt behind my garage there, oftentimes it's right below the surface, isn't it? It's not the kind of stuff where people would notice, hey, this is something, this is an issue in your life. We know it's there. It's right below the surface. We know how we approach the word. You know how your heart approaches the word. And what James is teaching us here is that there's not going to be any healthy growth if we allow those things to remain, that stuff to remain there. He says, therefore, get rid of all that. It's morally filthy. It's a moral evil to God. And the second thing he mentions here, letter B in your notes, he says, and the evil that is so prevalent. And I think what James does here is he's expanding this thought out to include all the other kinds of disobedience that there might be in our lives. Disobedience to God and his word. We can't expect spiritual fruitfulness if we allow moral filth and other forms of disobedience to remain disregarded in our lives, ignored in our lives. And so I think the principle being taught here is that, you know, if I'm coming to church, I'm hearing the word, I'm even having my devotions, I even listen to Christian music and I'm exposing my... But if I've got unconfessed sin, undealt with sin in my life, it's junk that's going to impede the growth, the effectiveness of the word of God in my life. And so if I have bitterness, and if I'm using my tongue to slander or gossip, or if I'm coveting, whatever that is, lust, whatever that looks like for you, if I'm allowing that to go unaddressed in my life, it's gonna stunt the growth of God's Word in my life, it taking root. Get rid of all the evil that is so prevalent. And I think the principle is similar to what's taught in Psalm 66, 18. Psalm 66, 18 says, if I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened to me. So as cherished sin, unconfessed sin, impedes my prayer life. I think it also goes the other way. It impedes the Word from doing the work in my life that God wants it to do. And so an important part, as we come to scripture, and usually, probably most of us, as we come to communion once a month, we do that kind of work, where we take care of business with God and we confess sin. I'm telling you, every time you come to the Word, you need to do that. We need to do that. When you sit down to have your devotions at home, start off with, God, here's some junk in my life that I need to confess. I need to take care of this and now use your word to change me, to grow me. Let it take root in my heart, my life. When you come to church, when you come to Sunday school, when you're under the sound of the word, we always need to, I think, be doing this cultivating work where we're confessing and we're laying aside the junk that's kind of built up in our lives over the last day, last week, or the last month. We need to clear out the junk that's in our lives. And then finally, number five, we need to be receptive. The last part of verse 21, James says, "'And humbly accept the Word planted in you, which can save you.'" The Word of God is not native to the soil of our souls. It was planted there. It was transplanted supernaturally, and God planted it. And God says, let that happen. Let that continue to happen. Humbly accept as the Word is planted in you. And there's three words here that we just kind of want to unpack a little bit. Humbly, accept, and planted in that last phrase here that I think are important to our understanding here. First of all, humbly means to be teachable. Humble enough to learn is what's being said there. Humble enough to learn. Are you teachable? Are you humble enough to learn? Man, we're proud. Man, we don't want it to look like somebody is telling us anything. Anybody has to teach us anything. Man, that is pride and that's satanic. Scripture says we need to be humble enough to learn. I can't tell you the number of times over 30 plus years of ministry where I've taught or I've preached or I sat in my office with somebody and read scripture, you know, this is what God says, and people walk out unfazed, not humble enough to learn. Or sometimes, just so they look more spiritual, sometimes I'll get this. We'll go over some scripture and I'll say, you know, this is what God says about your situation. Okay, I agree with that. Well, thank you, it's God. And there's this kind of like this pseudo humility, but it's really not. They're approving of what God said, basically. And that's not what this word looks like. Humble enough to learn means that I approach, as I'm preparing my heart, I'm approaching with humility. God, I need to be taught. As I'm listening to your word, Sunday morning in here, You're not listening to me, you're listening to God's word. And you need to approach Sunday morning worship service with, God, I want to hear from you. Get that guy in the front, get him out of the way, and I want to hear what you have to, and I want to be humble enough to learn what your word says. There's meekness involved with this concept of humility. To accept it, to humble ourselves under it, to be taught by it, not to argue with it. Humble. Second word here that we want to look at is accept. Humbly accept. And that word accept is not a passive, I'll let it happen, but again, it's that eagerness. It's like accepting a gift that you really want to receive or accepting someone into your home. It's often used as in scripture or in the Greek where you're having company over and you're ready to receive them and you're excited about them coming over. That's that idea. So the humbly accept is not, it's not acquiescing to what God wants to do to me and he's going to beat me over the head with the word. It's like open arms, like, God, I want, I want what you have for me from your word. That's what that word accept is communicating. And again, I think the word humility is part of this where we were bowing ourselves to the authority of scripture. we're crawling on our knees to the word of God and say, God, I want you to teach me. I want to accept what your word has for me. And if the soil of our hearts is hard or even hostile to the seed of the word, if there's growth at all, it's going to be stunted. And so we need to humbly accept what God has for us. And then the last word we want to look at here is planted. Planted is literally a farming term, putting a seed in the ground. That's used here as a metaphor, as the word into our hearts. Humbly accept the word planted in you. And again, let me ask you some probing questions. Do you come to church ready and anxious for the word to be planted in your heart? Do you come to Sunday school craving just to hear the Word of God and learn about the Word of God? Do you study the Bible on your own that way, planting those seeds every day? Humbly accept the Word being planted in you in a heart-prepared, is a heart that's receptive, that has the posture of being receptive to what God wants to do and what God wants to say to us, humbly. So James ends this section that we're gonna look at this morning with an interesting little phrase that I thought we'd spend just a few minutes on. When it comes to the word, at the very end of verse 21, he says, which can save you? Which can save you? Well, we know from verse 2, from verse 16, and other verses in James, that he's writing to Christians, people who are already born again. So, what does that mean? What does he mean by the word which can save you, if they're already saved? Well we need to remember, and this is a beautiful truth in scripture, we need to remember that for Christians there's kind of a triple effect when it comes to our salvation. Or there's three aspects, if you will, to our salvation. And so don't get confused, hang with me on this and I think you'll see what scripture teaches. First of all, letter A in your notes there, we have been. Past. We have been saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's a past, fixed, fact, event. 1 Corinthians 15, 2-4 speaks to this. This is Paul speaking, writing, he says, by this gospel you are saved. You are saved. If you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise you believe in vain if you don't believe this gospel. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. By that truth you have been saved. For Christians, it's a past. It's a fixed event in the past. There was a moment in your life, if you're saved, where you believed, you trusted, you received Jesus Christ as Savior, you made Him the Lord of your life, and that fact will never change. You have been saved. There's a second aspect to our salvation, letter B. For Christians, we are being saved. We are being saved, and where we have been is past, this is present. This is what's happening now in our lives. First Corinthians 118 speaks to this, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it's the power of God. Second Corinthians 2.15 says something similar, for we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved. and those who are perishing. Where the past is we have been saved. It's a fixed event. It's a done deal. It can never be undone. We are being saved is present. And I think this is the which can save you. James talks about, he's talking about right now. He's talking about sanctification that's going on in our lives right now. We are being saved. We are being sanctified. It's a progressive thing that's happening. And then finally, Scripture talks about the third aspect of our salvation, that's letter C, we will be saved. Romans 5, 9 says, since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? That's future. And so, another way of putting this that I didn't make this up, somebody else did, when it comes to sanctification, there's positionally we have been saved, progressively we are being saved, and future we'll have perfect salvation. We'll have perfection in heaven. And so it's the middle one that I think James is referring to here, which can save you, which can make a difference in your life as God works and He grows you and He progressively sanctifies you to look more and more like Jesus Christ. And so, and praise team, if you guys want to come up, we're almost done. So in other words, we're never done with the gospel. You're never done with the gospel. You're never done with the whole counsel of God's word. and the sanctifying effect that God wants it to have in your life as his child and as a follower of Jesus Christ. You're never done. We're never done as that, as it is saving us, as it is changing us progressively, we're becoming more and more sanctified. That's all through scripture. That's all through scripture. That's all through the word. And this goes back to the importance of us having hearts prepared to receive the scripture. Because if we want that to be happening as God intended it to be happening in us, we have to approach Scripture with hearts that are cultivated, where the surface is broken up and scored and scarred so that the seed of the Word can take root in us as God intended it to. And if we're not doing that, if we're not doing that, I believe we're stunting our sanctification. If we're not approaching the Word humbly, if we're not approaching with this eagerness, this craving for God's Word, our sanctification is not going to look like what it could. And so if you're frustrated in your Christian life, if you're frustrated with your growth, I wanted to be farther along, and I keep struggling with these things. Maybe we need to look at how we are approaching the Word, if we're quick to listen. If we're slow to speak, if we're slow to become angry, if we're not rejecting truth as we hear it. If we have hearts that are cultivated, prepared to receive the Word. And I think, again, the onus is on us as listeners to make sure that we're aiding our sanctification by preparing our hearts to receive the word as James says we should. If you would, let's stand, we'll sing a song.