“The Word Planted in Us” James 1:19-27

There is so much anger in our world today. Have you noticed? We seem to have become overly sensitive to even the least slight or the thoughtless word. To be sure, sometimes we need to speak up. But all to often what we choose to do is get angry. Someone does something we don’t like, we unfriend them in a number of ways. We segregate ourselves apart from those who don’t think like we do or speak like we do or act like we do or look like we do or . . . on and on it goes. And it just gets worse with each passing day.

What’s the solution? How can we stop the madness? The answer is in the Word of God.

Central Truth: The Word planted in us guides us to pure and faultless religion.

The implanted Word:

• Steers us away from the wrong (19-21)

The letter from James is a wonderful collection of advice and warnings that go to the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Martin Luther struggled with it, in part because of 2:14-26, where James talks about faith and works. The message James gives is very good at cutting through all the noise and speaking directly to the heart of the matter.

In these verses, James warns us against anger. He speaks to the matter first by telling us we need to talk less and listen more. Then he talks about purging out system of moral filth and evil prevalent in our world.

I write opinion pieces in the Waco Trib every now and then. I’ve written fewer recently, but I find it interesting that people will take out of the column things that really don’t address what I was addressing in the column. I find that true in conversations as well.

The point being that we often hear what we want to hear and fail to really listen to what’s being said. When we hear what we want to hear or see what we want to see, we can misunderstand and misinterpret what is trying to be conveyed and, sometimes, we can get angry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten in trouble at home for saying something that I consider to be perfectly innocent but the tone of my voice, unknown to me, sounds accusatory or condescending or something else offensive. The words are lost, and anger flares.

So, because communication has broken down, we get angry. And anger is counter-productive to walking with Christ. Read the Gospels, and it quickly becomes apparent that in only one verse of all four Gospels does it say that Jesus got angry. And His anger isn’t when He cleared the Temple. It’s when He was going to heal a man on the Sabbath. He got mad at the Pharisees who failed to see the need before them and only focused on the letter of the Law.

So how do we keep from getting angry? James suggests that we take the time to learn how to listen to people instead of jumping to conclusions. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. And learn to control our tempers. Listening is a skill that needs to be honed. It is hearing every word that is being said (and sometimes being unsaid but implied), then responding to what is said. Too often, we hear a catch phrase and that triggers something in us and we begin to think about what we’re going to say instead of hearing what’s being said. We need to take time to listen and, when needed, ask questions to clarify if the message isn’t clear to us.

And we need to work on our emotions. The funny thing about emotions is that we all too often credit everyone and everything else for being in control of our emotions. “He made so mad.” “That got me so frustrated.” “She’s made me so happy.” In each one of these instances, we attribute our emotion on the other person, not on our choices. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be under someone else’s control. If a person says something and I get angry or take offense, it is my choice to do so. It is my choice to be happy, to be sad, to be any other emotion that I may feel. Once we begin to realize our emotions are ours to control, then we can take responsibility for them and learn how to bring them under our control.

James tells us that “anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Nowhere in the Bible is there talk about “righteous anger.” Only God is aware of all things and knows all sides of the story. The Bible does speak about God’s anger burning, but when the Bible speaks about someone else getting mad, it usually results in bad things happening. When Jesus got mad at the Pharisees, His response was to heal the man in need of healing. He channeled His anger into what needed to be done.

When you or I get angry, we lash out, we lose control. That’s one of the ways we describe anger. “When he did that, I lost it.”

James’ answer to overcoming anger is to purge ourselves of the things in and around us that are clearly not from God—get rid of all moral filth and the prevalent evil. Notice, please, that the burden of deciding what to do with the moral filth and evil is placed on us. As children of God, we have to decide what we will allow into our lives. Again, it is taking control, and the best way for the Christian to take control is to surrender control to the Father by humbly accepting the word planted in us, which can save us.

When we do this, we find ourselves steered away from the wrong.

• Must be put into practice (22-25)

How do we get rid of all this moral filth and evil? We do it by putting God’s word into practice.

Jesus stressed the need to hear and obey. He liked the person who hears only as a fool. The person who hears and does the word are promised that the Son and Father would abide with us. Paul speaks repeatedly about putting the word into practice.

James compares it to a person who looks in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like. I grew up around mirrors. My dad was in the glass business and we had mirrors all over the house. Most of us spend our time in the bathroom before the mirror getting ready for the day. We comb our hair, brush our teeth, put on our makeup for those of us who wear it, and just look ourselves over to make sure we look presentable before we head outside. But when we walk away, we can’t see what we look like again. We may not forget what we look like, but I know from experience that a bad weather day—windy, rainy—can mess up a perfectly good mirror look. Hair that was perfectly combed and sprayed or gelled to perfection can look completely different when we come in from the wind or rain.

Or we stop somewhere to get a bite to eat first. We arrive at our destination not realizing we have a spot of food on our face or on our clothes. No mirrors, no vision. The foolish person is the one who looks at the mirror, then walks away and doesn’t do checkups throughout the day.

By contrast, the person who does look intently at the word planted in us and continues to do so is blessed. The best way to learn is to take what is taught and put it into practice. In education, there are theories and practices. A good teacher expresses the theory, then lets his or her student put it into practice. That’s why our math teachers had us do our classwork during math after she taught us what we need to learn that day. It’s why the English teacher would have us parse sentences after telling us what we had learned that day. And so it goes. When we do it, and learn to do it right, then it becomes embedded in us and becomes second nature. The doer of the word is someone who is blessed.

• Steers us to religion that the Father accepts (26-27)

The next step in James’ lesson is that when we become doers of the word and not hearers only, then we learn what is the religion that the Father accepts as pure and faultless.

James is quick to let us know that someone who says stuff that are hurtful or wrong or just plain lies and then says, “I just can’t help myself” is not practicing such a religion. Again, the issue is the matter of control. “I just can’t help myself” is the equivalent of Flip Wilson’s “The Devil made me do it.” The devil doesn’t make us do anything; he can only suggest (cf. 1:13-15). My tongue is exactly that—my tongue. It’s my responsibility and I have to take control, just as I have to take control of my emotions.

And it’s not like James is saying it’s not a good thing—he says the person who can’t control his or her tongue has a worthless religion. It is not a faith that is controlled by the Spirit, but by the passions of the moral filth and prevalent evil. There can be no part of that in the child of God.

Instead, the religion that James wants us to practice is one that ministers to the needs of orphans and widows and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. In other words, we are to be the champions of the weak and powerless. We are to be the protectors of those who are most vulnerable and most easily the prey of those who would take advantage of them. We are called upon to stand up for them, to care for them, to nurture and support them. Does it take time and effort? Sometimes, yes. But it is what God expects.

And the last phrase of the verse takes us back to the ridding ourselves of filth and evil. We cannot be where God wants us if we are allowing ourselves to be overcome or indulging in evil and filth.

Something interesting to me happened when I was putting the bulletins together this weekend. I went on line to find the artwork below our prayer list. I was looking for something that spoke to the idea present in this passage. One of the pieces of art that came up was a quote from 2 Corinthians 10:5. “What does it say,” you ask. It says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Isn’t that amazing? “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Think of what that means. Let’s suppose some random thought creeps into my mind—something that I know is not from God. What am I going to do with this thought. Well, I can do nothing. I can mull it over and try to set it aside or shoo it away. But the Bible says I can also take that random thought and put it in its proper place—as a captive of Christ. That thought is then worked on by His Spirit to bring that thought into obedience of Christ.

So, driving down the road, and someone pulls out in front of me, causing me to greatly slow down and wait for them. The thought that comes to mind is something like, “What kind of idiot is in such a hurry that they can’t wait a few more seconds for me to pass before they pull out?” Is that a thought from the Father, inspired by the Spirit, consistent with Christlikeness? No, it isn’t. There’s that anger coming up. Instead, as soon as that thought crosses my mind, I take it captive. “Father, I just called someone an idiot for doing something that really didn’t inconvenience me, but I let it get the better of me. I ask Your forgiveness and place that thought under your control. Take that thought and make it obedient to You. And bless the driver in front of me. I don’t know what’s going through their mind, but I ask that You let them arrive at their destination safely and without incident.” Taking it captive. And that keeps me from beint polluted by the world.

Conclusion

It’s not easy living in this world. There are all sorts of things that can affect us if we let them. But James reminds us that we are to be affected not by the world, but by the world that is planted in us. We are to let that word take seed and transform us into someone that is walking in obedience to Him. We do this by taking control of our lives and giving our lives to Him. We do this by becoming both hearers and doers of the word. And we do it by ministering to those who are in need of ministry, and by resisting the moral filth and prevalent evil. We become unpolluted children of Christ.

But it’s our choice. So what will you choose today?