You are my hiding place and my shield. And I hope in your word we lift up Refuge Church to you this morning that would also be equipped to spread the gospel and grow. Please be with Michael and Caleb and Allen and other leaders there as they work to build that fellowship of believers and accomplish your goals for them as a church in our neighboring community. Last but not least, please be with our pastor as he brings the message you have for us today. Help his words be clear so that your word would be heard.

Help us as a church to give you our utmost attention. For the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is the most worthy of much more than a fraction of the day you have given us. In Jesus name we pray this Amen.

After all that's happened in this service so far, my sermon's got a lot to live up to. May God help me on that. Find James Chapter one in your Bibles and as you find it, hear a special plea from me. Please come to church Wednesday night to hear from one of our missionaries and overseers named Pastor Richard McConney. I have been where he ministers in Katali and in Kenya and to say that the Lord is using Richard in ways that I don't see him using American pastors would be an understatement.

You need to hear this man, you need to be under his teaching and you need to be encouraged. We're gonna sing some praise and worship. We're gonna be in rows like this and not our normal tables on Wednesday night it's gonna be different. Be here at 6:30 and hear what God's doing around the world with our missions dollars. And it's gonna be amazing.

So there's my plug for that and do me a great summer blessing and be here Wednesday night. This is part seven of an eight part series this summer called Tried and True Faith Under Fire. It's verse by verse through James Chapter one. Typically I'm going to be preaching exegetical sermons and finding the meaning of the text, pulling it out of the text and telling you how to apply it to your life. And that's what we've been doing this summer in James.

Got one more of these messages next week and then we're going to go in a different direction. But we'll pick up in James Chapter two in October. And so we're going to, we'll keep doing that periodically until we have all the book of James taught through verse by verse. Today our text is James chapter 1, verses 21 through 24. Listening or living is the title of the message and our text reads this way.

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Brothers and sisters, the Word of the Lord, let's pray together.

Father, help me to say this with accuracy and with clarity. And I pray that this congregation would have ears to hear and a heart to understand. Do your work by your truth, the Scriptures, in Jesus name, Lord. Amen. Let me ask you something that might sting a little as we consider the question.

Are you living what you're listening to? When was the last time a Bible verse changed your Tuesday? I don't mean not just moved you on Sunday. Lots of inspiration and emotions happen in this room. And I don't mean not just a verse that made you nod in agreement or made you highlight it in your Bible.

I mean, when was the last time it changed your life? The kind that shifted your priorities and redirected your choices. The kind of impact that the Scriptures make that would have made you slower to speak and quicker to forgive and more grounded and more stable in all the chaos. I think you've figured out by now that James is the kind of pastor who refuses to allow you to sit comfortably in your row during the sermon. He wants us to face the uncomfortable gap between taking notes in church and taking action in life.

Basically, James is done theoretical Christianity, and he has a tough question for all of us. Are you listening or are you living? Because he's not impressed with how many sermons we've heard, he wants to know what those messages have done to our mouths and what those messages have done to our money and what those messages have done to our Tuesday mornings. And so we've got four verses, and I'm going to give you a list of four today. In the list of four, James gives us first two instructions and then two warnings.

So in this list of four, you're going to get two instructions and two warnings. If you're ready, say yes. All right, here's the first instruction that James gives us. He says, clear out the clutter, James 1:21. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness.

Hey, can we be honest for a moment? Aren't our lives already full? I mean, they're full of school drop offs and work emails and trips to the ballpark and Costco runs. And they're all so full of guilt that we don't do enough for our children. And at our church we're so When James says lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, he's not just wagging a finger at us to make us feel bad.

He's really inviting us to breathe again. He's saying, did you know that you're carrying things that are crowding out what God's trying to grow in you?

It's like trying to plant a vegetable garden in a junkyard. You got to clear the space before anything good can take root. So you clear out the clutter. That's why Hebrews 12:1 the writer says, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin so there are weights that are non sinful and there are things that are sinful and that all of it's got to be moved because these things easily ensnare us.

Friends, isn't it true that before God will renovate our lives, we have to hand him the keys and ask him to take out the trash for you? Note takers.

Sin tolerated is truth excluded.

That's another way to say clear out the clutter. Sin tolerated is truth excluded. Think about it. Will God's Word take root in soil that's already been claimed by compromise?

If we keep giving personal sin a seat at our tables, we should not be surprised when truth gets up and walks out the door. Sin tolerated is truth excluded. So James says, clear out the clutter. That's instruction number one. Here is instruction number two.

James says to the church and let the Word take root.

After saying lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness. In verse 21, James follows that with and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your soul. He says, let the word take root.

Would it be okay if I told you today that the Word of God is not meant to be a guest in your life? It's supposed to move in and unpack and start rearranging the furniture. James calls it the implanted word, meaning God's scriptures are not supposed to be cosmetic in your life. It's not wallpaper, it's not paint, it's seed in the soil. It it's implanted.

It's supposed to get in you.

And not only is it supposed to get in you, it must be humbly received and genuinely rooted before it takes root and before it bears fruit. Because he says Receive the implanted word with meekness. Listen. It's not supposed to be easy every Sunday to listen to sermons that preach God's word and just feel affirmed about everything you do in your life. It's supposed to be a check on your conscience.

At some point it steps on our toes. At some point it says, hey, I'm giving you a look at yourself. You haven't looked this way in a while. This kind of humility is not passive, it's powerful. And it turns the Bible from being a book on your shelf to being a GPS in your chest.

By the way, that's what happened in the 1800s to a man named David Livingston. Let me tell you that story. David Livingston grew up poor in Scotland. He was working 14 hour days at the cotton mill as a young boy just to help his family survive. That would broke all the child labor laws we have today.

But even with worn, callous, worn hands and tired eyes, somehow young David Livingston found time to to prop open his Bible and study it every night by candlelight. And the word gripped him early and it never let go. Later, while David Livingston was studying at the university, he was studying medicine and theology at the same time at the University of Glasgow, he started hearing whispers and rumors about the spiritual darkness and the physical suffering on the dark continent of Africa. Now remember, this is in the 1800s. At first this young man brushed off those feelings because he had dreams of living the good life in the UK and becoming a doctor and settling down and having a family and healing people that looked like him and lived like him and sounded like him.

But God's word for some reason kept interrupting David Livingston one verse in particular echoed in his soul like a drumbeat he just could not silence. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15. That was the verse. David Livingston tried to shake it, he tried to out reason it.

But scripture play background music. It's like Blair, it plays lead guitar. And eventually David Livingston hit his knees and he prayed a simple prayer that would shape the rest of his life. Here's that prayer that he send me anywhere, only go with me, Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.

And with that Dr. David Livingston surrendered to the call. And he didn't just feel this call, he obeyed. You want to know how I know that? Because he went and boarded a ship and sailed for Africa. That's how I know.

He didn't know what waited for him there. He only knew who had sent him. And it was God. And you may ask, well if this was Such a God breathed. God led Trip.

Was it easy for him?

He was a doctor, and he spent a lot of time battling his own diseases. He buried his wife on African soil. It was estimated that he traveled 29,000 miles by foot or by canoe, preaching Christ and doing what no one had ever done before that we know of, mapping the interior of the African continent. He opened doors for missionaries where there hadn't been any doors. And it all started with one thing.

The implanted word humbly received. You see, friends, God's word doesn't demand that you know every step on the next journey.

It just demands that you take the next obedience step. And when you receive it with meekness, like our verses say, you'll be amazed at where God takes you.

So here's the question that comes from that. Is the soil of your heart soft or stubborn?

In other words, if you only tolerate scripture, kind of like that nasty medicine when you were a kid that your mom promised would make you feel better if you can just choke it down. If you only tolerate scripture, will it help you?

No. It transforms those who welcome it.

That's why Jesus says at the end of his parable of the four different soils in Luke 8:15, the seed in the good soil are those who hear the word with a noble and good heart. Keep it and bear fruit with patience. Let the word take root. Those are the two instructions. We okay with those yes or no?

The two warnings get worse. They're more offensive. Number three on our list is our first warning. Nodding is not obeying. Nodding is not obeying.

Because famous verse in the Bible, James 1:22 says, but be doers of the word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves.

You know, there's a real danger in getting good at saying Amen, but not living. Yes, Lord James says that when we do that, we deceive ourselves. Now, I can neither confirm or deny that this has happened to me recently. But it's like downloading a fitness app on your phone, reading every article in it, watching all the videos in it, but not doing a single push up. Can't confirm or deny that.

See, you may feel like you're making progress, but you're not. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 7:24, Whoever hears these words of mine and does them, everybody say and does them.

It's like a wise man who built his house on a rock, and rocks don't crack when the storms roll in.

Hearing without obeying is building your house on sand. Which means that no amount of Sunday sermons will save a Collapsing foundation and we lay the smack down here. Amen. We teach the Bible here. I'm not the only one.

To hear the word, but not to do it is to lie to yourself.

By the way, do you know where James got this material from?

He got it from his older brother. Let me prove this to you. The Lord Jesus was James older brother. They had the same mother, Mary. Jesus was teaching one day in a packed house and standing room only people outside the doors.

They could no longer get anybody else in. It was just a press of people. When someone interrupted Jesus Message in Luke 8. 20 they said, hey, your mother and brothers are standing outside waiting to see you.

Now I want you to pause for a second and I want to remind you this was an honor shame culture. And in an honor shame culture, family means everything. You get your identity, you get your credibility, you get your place in the community and it's all tied to your group. And some of Jesus group's outside the door. Mom and brothers.

Everyone in that room expected Jesus to stop preaching and to make space in the front row for his family. Even if that meant others had to give up their seats and leave the room and miss the sermon. This is what everyone expected. And James, our guy standing right there outside the door, fully expecting to receive a VIP pass into the standing room only sermon. But I, I think you know this already.

Jesus didn't box himself in to cultural norms and regional expectations. And in this moment, he breaks the script.

It's amazing. Jesus looked around the room and here's what he said in Luke 8. 21. My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.

That had to sting mama and brothers, didn't it? But I want you to know it wasn't rude. It was redefining. Jesus was drawing a new family definition and it's one not based on blood ties, one based on faith and obedience. How do you know that, Pastor?

Because Jesus said that in Luke 8. 21. And then we have three back to back Bible stories of things Jesus did in the rest of Luke 8. The very next Bible story after Jesus says, my family are those who hear the word of God and do it. Jesus speaks to the waves and the wind and they obey him and they stop their force.

He commands the the next Bible story, he commands a legion of demons and they flee from him obeying his word. And the next Bible story after that, in Luke 8, he tells a dead girl to rise and she does. And that's how the chapter ends. What just happened in the chapter Creation Obeys, demons obey, Death obeys. But we delay and demand more clarity.

Say, I need to hear more on this matter. I need to talk to my wife or my husband. I'm not sure I should do what Jesus says. Hey, what does it say when the storms listen better than we do?

Hey, here's what makes it even more remarkable. At that time, James did not yet have saving faith. He was an unbeliever. You want to know how I know? John chapter 7, verse 5.

Even his brothers did not believe in him. What was happening there in John 7? See, James wasn't just outside the house physically. He was outside Jesus house spiritually. And I want you to think about that.

Because he spent his formative years to physically in proximity close to Jesus, and yet he was miles away from faith. He shared the same roof, but not the same heart. And in John 7, this bitterness of unbelief just comes spilling out of his brothers. In John 7, Jesus is avoiding going into Judea, where Jerusalem is, because if he does, his life's in danger. They're sworn to kill him there.

So he's kind of easing around because it's not yet his time. Well, his brothers, including James, basically mock him for this. They say, why don't you go show off in Jerusalem if you're really that special.

That wasn't encouragement by the way, that was sarcasm because they didn't believe. Even his brothers did not believe in him. So I want you to connect this dot. When James eventually writes, be doers of the word and not hearers only. He is not throwing stones at disobedient Christians.

He's saying, I want to share my testimony. I want to tell you how I got from not obeying to obeying. I want to confess my former darkness that I lived in. And I lived in it across the room from Jesus. He's saying, I remember when Jesus drew that line in the sand when he said that true family obeys.

I remember that because I was on the wrong side of the door that day. But now I get it. Obedience is what proves your in the house friends. That's why James in our text isn't interested in fans. He's not interested in listeners.

He's not interested in note takers. He's pleading with us to live the word because he knows what it's like to hear Jesus voice and ignore it. And he's not calling us to something that he hasn't lived already. He's calling us out of the same dead end street that he once walked down. So let me say to you, if you're close to church, if you're close to truth, if you're close to Jesus, but you still haven't responded.

James says, don't wait like I did. He's saying, move now. It's not rebellion that's killing us. It's reluctance. What do you mean?

Well, we nod at the Word and we highlight the verses and we retweet and repost our pastors. But obeying, that's where the gap shows.

Let me ask you this. Do you think Jesus is impressed by how many verses we've memorized if none of them have mastered us?

He is not forming a fan club. He's forming a family. And the ones who belong to him are those who hear his Word and do it. May God make this congregation and an obedient one.

The great devotional writer Oswald Chambers wrote the second. You deliberately refuse to obey. You tell God he need not speak to you again. On that matter, do you wish I haven't given you that quote?

You're not a disciple because you fill in the blanks. You're a disciple when the Word starts filling in the cracks.

Nodding is not obeying. One final warning and we're done. James says, glancing is not changing.

James 1:23, 24. He's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Is God's word a mirror? Yes.

But it's not a mirror to admire ourselves. It's a mirror to adjust ourselves. It's meant to correct, not reflect.

And by the way, looking without changing is spiritual amnesia. When I was rehearsing this sermon, I said, looking without listening is spiritual magnesia. And I was like, isn't that, like, it helps you go the potty or whatever. So I prayed this morning, lord, don't let me have that twist of a tongue. And then I realized, that's a good joke.

Spiritual amnesia. John Newton had every reason to move on from his past because his past was stained with some really bad sin. He was a former slave trader turned pastor activist. And you know him best as the guy who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. An abolitionist of slavery, his story could have been all triumph.

He could have just told all the highlights how God saved him and he worked to get rid of the slave trade. But Newton never let himself forget. He said, I remember two things. That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great savior.

You see, for John Newton, scripture wasn't a glance in the mirror. It was a Long, honest look every day, and a look not to wallow in shame in the past, but to stay anchored in grace. In other words, when that man opened his Bible, it didn't just tell him who God was, it reminded him who he was and who he was becoming.

John Newton didn't walk away from the word and forget. He carried it with him into his preaching, into his activism, and even into his worship and friends. That's what it means to live like someone who's looked deeply into the mirror of truth. You know what Jesus said about truth in John 17:17? He prayed to the Father about us and to us sanctify them by the truth.

And your word is truth. Sanctify means to make holy. If you want to live a more holy life, if you want to look more and more like Jesus, the truth will sanctify you. Jesus has prayed this prayer for you. You will be the answer to that prayer when you look into the Scriptures and it becomes something that's moved into your life.

The Apostle Paul echoed the same thing when he said in 2nd Corinthians 3:18, beholding as. As in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. We are being transformed into the same image.

You know, looking at Scripture without obeying it is like reading a diagnosis chart from your doctor and then saying, well, now I know what's wrong with me. That's all I needed. And then refusing the treatment. We know we need to do the treatment after what we know is God's word. A selfie filter to make you look prettier?

No, it's a spotlight to show you the real you, not the staged curated you.

Glancing is not changing. So here's the challenge as I close today. Please don't put your things up yet. I know the. I know there's something inside every human that says, oh, I need to just close my Bible right now.

Just wait for a second.

So far, this whole section in James is pulling back the curtain on a massive blind spot. You know what it is? It's confusing spiritual interest with spiritual impact. You need more than just to be interested in the things of God. You need to remember, receive them so that they impact you.

You might feel moved on Sunday, but that's not evidence. You might feel the conviction of the spirit in this room, but so far it hasn't lasted for you. You might even be inspired by the sermon. That's not the question. The question is, are you?

Look, I don't want you to leave this message feeling great. I don't want you to leave this message feeling badly. I do want you to leave it with a fresh direction for your life. The word of God that brought you new life wants to take you to new maturity. The word that saved you now calls you.

And it doesn't just want your attention, it demands your allegiance. So I'll ask you again. Are you listening to the word or are you living it now? For prayer ministry today, we'll pray for people after the service. If you're ready to go from hearing to doing, then I'm going to say come forward for prayer again.

If any of these three fit your heart today, number one, you would say, pastor, after hearing that, I think I need a clean heart. That means you've been carrying clutter, compromise, secret sin, distractions in your life. It's time to lay them down and make room for God to move. Number two, Pastor, I've been nodding but not obeying. You're stirred each week, but you're stuck in some of the same patterns.

Come and let us pray for you to ask God to take the next faithful step. And in number three, Pastor, I've been forgetting who I am. Been looking in the mirror of the Word, been walking away. You see the truth in the Word, but you lose it in the world. Come and let us pray that God would re anchor your identity in who he says you are.

Well, that's it. Do you receive that word today? Let's stand together. Prayer team. You come forward again if you're going to pray for people afterwards.

Prayer ministry Sunday just goes a little bit longer than normal, but I don't think it's like, look, I've given Jesus so much. He's not worthy of five more minutes. Do you agree with me on that?

What's the one thing you can do to make your pastor a happy man this week on Wednesday night at 6:30? Couldn't hear you. All right, Jesus, you heard them.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the gathering of the saints. God bless this precious church. To walk in grace and obey your word this week in Jesus name. And everybody said, see you Wednesday.