The very first vow or promise for church membership is, do you believe the Scriptures are the Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and life? And the response is, yes, I believe that. I believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God and the only infallible rule for faith, that is what I believe, and for life. That is how I live, how I apply the truth of what I learn from God's Word to my daily life. The Bible is still considered the book of books, and I came across, I guess you would call it a horror story. of Bible quizzes given to students, high school and college students. And I'm not picking on students, okay? I want you to understand that because I think this extends far away, far broader and far above and beyond just students. But here are some of the astounding answers that were received in these quizzes concerning the Bible. Did you know, for example, that Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers? Did you know that Jezebel was Ahab's donkey? Did you know that the four horsemen in Revelation appeared on the Acropolis? Did you know that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luther, and John? Did you know that Eve was created from an apple? Did you know that Jesus was baptized by Moses? And did you know that Golgotha was the name of the giant who killed the apostle David? Those are just a few for starters, okay? And like I said, I'm not making fun of high school college age students. These were obviously mistakes and demonstrated a lack of knowledge just of basic Bible names and events on the part of these students. A teacher in commenting on these responses wrote, if this were not so pathetic, it would be hilarious. It's amazing how illiterate we are concerning the word of God. And as I say, we have the scriptures in hardback and paperback and cloth and leather and versions and paraphrases far too numerous to count. Yet as the years go by, one generation after another demonstrates a decreasing knowledge of even the basic facts, the basic facts of the Bible. On a much more positive note, Charles Colson in his excellent book, Loving God, wrote the following. more widely read, more frequently attacked than any other book in history. Generations of intellectuals have attempted to discredit it. Dictators of every age have outlawed it and executed those who read it. Yet soldiers carry it into battle, believing it more powerful than their weapons. Fragments of it smuggled into solitary prison cells have transformed ruthless killers into gentle saints. Pieced together, scraps of scripture have converted whole villages of pagan Indians. Yearly, the Bible outsells every bestseller—hundreds of millions of copies published every year, portions translated in more than 1,800 languages and even carried to the moon. Literary classics endure the centuries. Philosophers mold the thoughts of generations unborn. Modern media shapes current culture, yet nothing has affected the rise and fall of civilization, the character of cultures, the structure of governments, and the lives of the inhabitants of this planet as profoundly as the words of the Bible, God's own word. We're reminded in the first part of chapter 1 of James that Our position as Christians in this life is one of conflict. It's a process of temptation that's never-ending, and yet we need also to be reminded that God never permits those trials and temptations into our lives without making provision for victory, without teaching us important lessons through those trials and temptations. And then James goes on in the passage this morning to show us that the Word of God not only is able to save us, by the work of His Spirit, but it's also the key to growth in our daily Christian lives. Yes, life is difficult. Yes, life is filled with trials and temptations, hard battles, but it is not hopeless. It is not fruitless. The Word of God, then, and our response to that Word is the key. So we want to look this morning and to focus particularly on the Word of God, God's own Word through which He reveals so much of Himself. and through which he teaches us how we are to respond to him through the reading and the application of that word. So the first command or exhortation in our passage this morning is, hear the word. Verses 19 to 21, as we read there from James 1, we're encouraged to hear the word of God. In other words, develop an attentive heart. The issue that's addressed in these verses is how we move on from our new birth to our new life in Christ? How are the resources that God makes available to us received? How's the power of God made available to us to enable us to successfully engage the enemy? And the answer here is be quick to hear. Be quick to hear what? Look back at verse 18. Be quick to hear what God speaks to us, what he reveals to us out of his word. We're quick, we're to be quick to hear the scriptures, the word that gives us life. And by hearing this word, we're stimulated into action. Therefore, we need to be attentive. We need to be quick to hear the Word of God. Notice some of the things that James does not say here about hearing the Word of God. He doesn't give us a plan for daily devotions. He doesn't tell us how often we're to read our Bibles. He doesn't provide Bible study methods or helps. We have a lot of those available and they're helpful. James doesn't go into that detail. Instead, he goes much deeper since there's little value in methods if we haven't first developed an attentive heart. an attentive heart to God's Word. So it's possible to read the words without actually hearing them. God is even more concerned about attitudes, our attitudes towards His Word than our actions. His desire is that we develop an attentive heart even before we open our Bibles and every time we open our Bibles or hear His Word read and proclaimed. Three qualities essential for to develop an attentive heart. The first is an alert ear. You often heard the fact that we've been given two ears, one mouth, and perhaps that's a reminder that we need to listen more than we speak. If we listen to many so-called conversations between nations, between married couples, between young people or between parents and young people, between children, oftentimes they can be described as dialogues of the deaf. Dialogues of the deaf. We're not listening to one another. And generally speaking, we're not very good listeners. In our conversations with others today, this past week, did we really hear what others have been trying to communicate to us, what others have said? We need to work on the skill of active listening in order to understand the meaning behind the words. An alert listening ear, then, is the first essential ingredient in developing an attentive heart in relation to others, but most importantly, certainly in our response to God's word. Second quality for developing an attentive heart is a calm spirit. Let everyone be slow to anger, James tells us here, directed by the Holy Spirit. An angry spirit is never an attentive one. In fact, the ear is never more closed than when we're angry, and we allow that anger to take over. When anger comes in, listening flies out. We need to learn to develop a calm spirit, and the Scriptures say much more about this important ingredient, of course. The third essential quality for developing an attentive heart is making sure that we have a clean heart, and we find that particularly in verse 21 of our passage this morning. Verse 21, let me read that again. James 1.21 says, Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness in humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. The word filthiness here comes from The Greek medical term that's used to refer to wax buildup in the ears, some of us have that problem, and that results in hearing problems, as I have. Filthiness in any form in our lives plugs up our hearing. If we come to God's Word with unconfessed sin, for example, we cannot hear and receive what God intends for us. And we're told also in Psalm 66, He won't hear us either. He won't hear our prayers if we regard sin in our hearts. The words are used here to refer to anything that devalues or soils our lives. This means that we need to take time in our busy lives for confession, unloading the burden of guilt and sin that so easily creeps into our lives. In order for the Word of God to fall on fertile ground, there must be preparation. We need to develop attentive hearts. In a real sense, we need to undergo heart surgery, if you will, spiritually speaking, in preparation for encountering the Word of God. Perhaps one reason why our worship is unsatisfying at times, why we don't get much out of our worship service, whether it be family worship or public worship, we need attentive hearts, and that requires preparation. An alert ear, we need a calm spirit, and we need clean hearts. The second response to God's word that will contribute greatly to our skill in receiving it, that is we need to develop a teachable heart. The last part of verse 21 says, in humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. We're able to respond to God's word by receiving it. And again, there are necessary qualities that enable us to have teachable hearts so that we can receive all that God intends from his word. And the first is an attitude of humility. In humility, receive the word. It's a very special ingredient needed by the soil here, a rooting hormone, if you will, called gentleness or humility or weakness, whatever your particular translation says. Describe someone who subjects himself quietly and without resistance. It's that temper of spirit in which we accept God's dealings with us as good without disputing, as James goes on to say. It's being able to discuss issues, even difficult issues. without losing one's temper or becoming overly defensive. Humility is the spirit that says yes to what the Word of God teaches and commands. It's described by Calvin as the mind disposed to learn. The mind disposed to learn. Humility is the major ingredient then of a teachable heart. Is this what God sees when he looks into your heart and to my heart this morning? a teachable heart, one that's open and wants to receive His Word with all humility. Along with this attitude of humility, one must also take a specific action, and that is receive. Receive the Word in humility. The word receive here is used in the New Testament for hospitality, interestingly enough, welcoming strangers into one's home. In this vein, we're encouraged to welcome God's truth. into our hearts and lives. Proverbs 10.8 says, the wise of heart will receive or welcome commands. Receive commands. David knew the wisdom of welcoming truth into his life when he wrote, as we sang it a while ago, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. So in times of pressure, Our tendency is to become angry, resentful, to make hasty decisions because of that anger. Or we become discouraged and hopeless, on the other hand. But God's word is able to slow us down, calm our emotions, clear our perspective, and give us renewed hope. With all this in mind, then, we need to develop a teachable heart. Welcome God's word into your heart. Whether it's personal reading of his word, whether it's in family worship, whether it's in our corporate worship, as his word is read and proclaimed to us, welcome God's word into your heart. Then there's a third response to God's word, and this is probably the most critical, the most crucial of all. And James spends more time on this in verses 22 through 27. But prove yourselves doers of the word, not merely hearers who delude themselves. We approach God's Word then with an attentive heart, we receive it with a teachable heart, and now, finally, we must do God's Word with an obedient heart. As I said, perhaps the most familiar section of James for many of us, and includes the helpful illustration in which James compares the Word of God to a mirror. He says, just as a mirror, when we look into it, tells us what we look like physically, the Word of God When we look into it, it shows us what kind of a person we really are on the inside, that is, spiritually. The meaning is very clear, I think. Once we've taken a look at ourselves, we have a choice. We can either deceive ourselves, walk away from that mirror and say, hey, I'm okay just as I am. I don't need to change anything. Nothing needs to be changed in me. In doing that, we deceive ourselves. If we make that mistake of thinking we've responded correctly to God's Word by just hearing it and receiving it, the real question to be asked and answered is, am I applying what I've heard and received from God's Word? Am I obeying the Word of God? Has my mind and life been changed by what I've heard and received of the Word of God? I think that Scripture memorization is a good thing. It's something that many of us have grown up with. We still emphasize that with our children through the Sabbath school program, memorizing the Word of God. It's memorized for the purpose, however, of obedience, not simply head knowledge. Children and youth are encouraged to memorize Scripture and sometimes with the promise of prizes. And, you know, that can be a good thing or not. There needs to be much more emphasis on the understanding of the verses that are memorized, on obeying them, saying, what is God asking me and commanding me to do in his word here, in this portion of his word that I'm memorizing, that I'm laying up in my heart? The psalmist said, I lay up God's word in my heart so that I might not sin against him, against you. Kind of subtle and certainly not intentional sometimes, but we're deceived sometimes into equating knowledge, that is just facts, with spiritual maturity. The purpose of scripture is to make us spiritually mature, not just to make us smart, that is, storing up a lot of facts in our heads. This quote again from Swindoll, I think maybe I have some other connection perhaps, share this illustration with you. But I think it well illustrates what James is talking about here. This is from Charles Swindoll's book, Improving Your Serve. He talks here about a, let's pretend, a hypothetical situation where the boss goes away, the executive of the company goes away, he leaves an assistant in the company in charge while he's gone. And while he's gone, quite a few months pass by and he sends a lot of letters, a lot of memos to the staff saying, I want you to remember this, I want you to be aware of this and so forth. And so finally, he comes back and he comes to his assistant there and says, what in the world is going on? Well, what do you mean? Well, look at this place. Didn't you get any of my letters? Oh, yeah, I got your letters. We got every single one of them. As a matter of fact, We have had letter study every Friday night since you left, okay? We've even divided all the personnel into small groups. We've had small group discussions about all those things that you wrote to us in your letters. And some of those things are really interesting. And you'll be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and even whole paragraphs of your letters. And one or two memorized an entire letter or two. That's great stuff. Great stuff that was in those letters. But the boss says, OK, OK, you got my letters. You studied them. You even meditated on them, memorized them. But what did you do? What did you do about what I sent in those letters? I think this is kind of what James is communicating to us about our response to the word of God. One of our greatest concerns as Christians should be that we are not deceived as he writes here. We're a privileged body of believers. We live in a privileged age and in a culture, a land where we have so many opportunities for spiritual growth, including feeding on the Word of God. But as we go from one sermon series to another, one Bible study to another, one Christian TV or radio program to another, do we take time to apply what we are hearing and learning? Don't be deceived, James is saying here. We must develop an obedient heart. We must become doers of that word and not deluding ourselves by just receiving and hearing and receiving it. Verse 25 of our passage says, this man will be blessed in what he does. Not in what he memorizes, not in what he remembers, but in what he does. Happiness, wholeness in our lives comes from obedience. not knowledge. Jesus reinforced that truth in John 13, 17 when he said, If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. You're not blessed simply in the knowledge of them, but you're blessed if you do them. This section of James appropriately closes with three marks of an obedient heart. and in so doing gives us a description of a truly religious person. Religious here means to be worshipful. I shared with Steve Garrow for his junior high, his middle school class, a little booklet that I've come to really love. It's entitled how to be a Christian without being religious. That sounds like impossible, right? But it depends on your definition of religious or religion. And religion, according to this author of this little book, who says, you can be a Christian without being religious. Religion being our attempts, our human attempts to reach up to and worship and serve God. That's not the way our God works. No, he reaches down, he reveals himself to us. And this is the thing that makes our Christian faith, our Christian religion, if you will, distinctive from all other so-called religions of the world. But here, the word religious means to be worshipful. If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not broaden his tongue but deceives his own heart, then this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Religion here means to be worshipful. If we are truly worshipful Christians, worshipping our God in spirit and in truth as He desires to be worshipped, our worship is simply a response to what God reveals to us about Himself. When the truth is revealed to us, as it is in God's word, we're to respond with obedience. So these are the marks of a truly religious person, a true worshiper, one who worships God in spirit and in truth. The first of those is a controlled tongue. If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, this man's religion is worthless. James goes on to talk about this particular problem in more detail in Chapter 3, but for now, an obedient person does not verbally lash out at God or man or circumstances, especially when we're under pressure. The tongue is an index of our spiritual maturity. If you want to know where a person is spiritually, watch him or her under stress and observe particularly what they say. The second mark of a true worshiper is a compassion for those in need. And James particularly points out orphans and widows, orphans and widows in their distress. A truly religious person that is going to visit orphans and widows, meaning here not just visit them, say, hi, how are you doing today, but to visit them with the intention of helping, assisting, providing, helping provide for their particular needs. Why would he particularly point out orphans and widows? I think it's because visiting people like this, even helping orphans and widows, is something that nobody or people very seldom at least notice and appreciate. You don't get recognition as the outstanding Christian of the year for this kind of activity. When we see that God's in control of circumstances and we can rest in his care, we're more free to think of the needs of others and to demonstrate that concern in a quiet, unnoticed acts of mercy and compassion. Third Mark is striving to be pure, that is, keep oneself unstained by the world. Keep oneself unstained by the world, the very last part of verse 27 here. The world here is, of course, the system of values and laws and goals that are made without any reference whatsoever to Almighty God. The world here represents anything and everything that's at odds with the lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. And when we fail to do this, when we fail to demonstrate this mark of the true worshiper, there's really no discernible difference from the lifestyle of an unbeliever. This is not true of the obedient person who is unstained by the humanistic values and philosophies of this world. I want to close with a quote from a preacher and author of a previous generation, A. W. Tozer, his name was, and I think really brings out, stark contrast, the importance of what we're saying here. He wrote, there's an evil which in his effect on the Christian religion may be more destructive than communism, Romanism, and liberalism combined. It's the glaring disparity between theology and practice among professing Christians. So wide is this gulf between theory and practice in the church that an inquiring stranger who chances upon both would scarcely dream that there was any relation between the two. An intelligent observer of our human scene who heard the Sunday morning message and later watched the Sunday afternoon conduct of those who heard it might conclude they had been examining two distinct and contrary religions. It appears to me that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right. So the divorce between theory and practice becomes permanent, in fact. Truth sits forsaken and grieves till her professed followers come home for a brief visit, but she sees them depart again when the bills become due. Pretty powerful words, I think, from a very godly man of another generation, one who taught and preached and wrote the truth of God's word. I want to close with this encouragement. Let's commit ourselves anew to developing attentive hearts, that is, hearing God's Word, and developing teachable hearts in receiving the Word of God, but most importantly developing obedient hearts, obeying God's Word as true worshipers, those who are saved by His grace and those who continue to be sanctified by the Word of His truth and by the work of His Holy Spirit. Join with me in prayer, please. Gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we come to you confessing our sins and faults, certainly. As we think about our approach to your Word, how often we fail to even hear and receive, that is, welcome your Word into our hearts and minds, let alone moving on and in greater depth being obedient to that Word that is so clear and that is so unmistakable. Thank you, Father, for the clear teachings and principles of your word. Forgive us for our failures, our frequent failures, to receive that word and to obey it. Father, we do ask that you will make us doers, doers of your word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. We pray, Father, that you'd help us to apply those truths and those practices, that practice, to our own personal reading of your word, our family worship focused on your word, our times of worship together as a body of your people, also our times in small groups of reading and studying and seeking to apply your word. Help us, Father, in all of these circumstances and opportunities to be doers of that word and not deceiving ourselves by being hearers only. Forgive us when we do that. Equip us and enable us, Father, to become more obedient. And may we be able to sing truly with this psalmist of how I love your law, your word. It's my study all the day. And more than that, it's also the basis of not only my faith, but also of how I live my life before you and before others. Hear us as we pray and as we confess in Jesus' name. Amen.