The Hearing Test

Reading out of Matthew 13, verses 1 through 23, the Holy Scriptures say:

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such a large crowd gathered around him, and he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying:

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Matthew 13:1–23

Well, with the time change here, the sun is at a really weird angle. And if I keep looking around, it’s because I think an angel has shown up or something. So, all right, will you pray with me and for me as we begin this morning.

Father, I just thank you for the text we’re about to look at. We ask that you would work through the preaching of your word, and that it would bless us, and that it would bring glory to you. Help us, Father, not just to hear, but to listen. Not just to see, but to perceive the truth of your word. Father, we need your Spirit to do this. So we ask that you would work amongst us. And we’ll praise you for it. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

As a society, this is no secret: we are really, really bad at listening. We’ve grown up in a culture that tells us everybody’s ideas, everybody’s opinion matters, and that what we say is truly unique and adds something to the conversation, no matter what you know about the topic. This is kind of the culture we live in. And it tells us that every single one of us is a unique and special snowflake who has something extremely important to add. That’s how we view things. All right? It’s a participation trophy culture. And on top of that, we’re already naturally born bad listeners. We’re not good at it. And we’re raised in a culture that doesn’t teach us the art of listening.

Don’t believe me? All right, well, James is all about tests. So let’s do a few of our own quickly to show this. Let’s try a few. John worked at a butcher shop. His height was 5’6”. His waist was 36 inches. He worked 10 hours a day and earned $20 an hour. What did John weigh? Now, don’t shout these out, because this is like Wheel of Fortune. You can’t give the answer. John was a butcher. He weighed meat. Yeah? See? You are bad listeners.

Give you another one here. If an electric train is traveling at a speed of 70 miles an hour in a south direction and the wind blows 15 miles an hour in a northern direction, some of you are listening intently now, and a person drives parallel to the train at 60 miles an hour in a northern direction, in what direction will he see the smoke blow? It’s an electric train. There’s no smoke. Yeah, I gotcha.

All right, last one. Horsing around here a little bit. A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four haystacks in another field. How many haystacks would he have if he combined them in one field? One. He combined them in one field. This reminds me of those horrible test questions we had in high school that were just awful. But the point is, we are bad listeners. Every single one of us is an extremely poor listener. And it’s not just the men in the room, though it’s probably true us men are worse at listening than our superior women counterparts, but we are bad listeners.

I like how Stephen Covey put it, the guy who wrote the famous book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He said this: “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” Oops. How often are we guilty of that? When somebody is talking and we think we understand exactly what they’re saying in the point, and it’s like, will you stop talking? Because what I have to say is very profound. We may not think that directly in our heads, but our behavior shows that.

Here’s what the Bible says about this. In Proverbs 18:13, it says, “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is folly.” That’s foolishness and shame. The Bible knows the importance of being a good listener. Because if you aren’t a good listener, that also means you’re not a humble person. Right? You don’t care enough about others because you’re so prideful. You think that you have all the answers and everyone around you should just listen to your sage-like wisdom. It’s not direct thoughts we have, but our behavior shows that that’s how we view things.

Proverbs 12:15 warns us against this, saying, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” Another one: “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” And finally, Proverbs 18:2: “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”

Well, it is absolutely true what these proverbs tell us: that we need to be better listeners. In our passage this morning, though it sounds like general proverbial sayings like this, it’s actually calling us to something even more, a greater kind of wisdom, a greater kind of listening. James is calling us to not simply just be an employer who values their employees’ input. He’s calling us to be something more than a parent who is simply good at trying to empathize and understand their children’s frustrations and situation. James is calling us to something else. What is he calling us to? Let’s read our passage first before we answer that question.

Open your Bibles with me to James chapter 1, and we’re going to begin in verse 19, and we’re going to go through verse 21. That’s our text this morning. I’ll give you a moment to get there. Beginning in verse 19, it reads:

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

James 1:19–21

Meekness, that’s humility. What is James telling us here? He’s telling us how to be a good listener. He’s telling us how to pass another one of the tests that we find in this book, the hearing test.

So far in the book of James, he’s been telling us what real faith looks like. He’s telling us how real faith responds to tests. Passing those tests doesn’t give you real faith. It doesn’t earn you real faith. It’s an indicator of whether or not your faith is genuine to begin with. The first test we looked at when we began this series was the test of suffering. A true believer will face suffering. In fact, every person is going to face suffering. But for the believer, it doesn’t destroy their confidence in God. When they face suffering, you know how they respond? Like Job. How did Job respond when he went through the worst kind of suffering we can imagine? He trusted God. He praised God. Why? Because Job put his trust in God, and his trust in God was not dependent upon what God gave him, but it was upon who God is. And that is how true believers respond to suffering.

The next test we looked at was the test of temptation. And we saw how real faith passes this test, not by blaming our circumstances, not justifying our sin because, well, you did this and that made me so mad. Well, you did this, the church did this, and blah blah, you know, all these excuses, or even blaming God is another one. That’s actually what we’re doing when we blame our excuses or blame our circumstances. We’re blaming God. And so James says, no, you don’t get to blame anyone but yourself. Because where sin comes from, and we saw this last week, sin targets your desires. Those desires are good things. Those are not bad. Your desires are God-given. However, sin targets them and tempts us to fulfill our desires in a way we ought not to. Okay? That’s how temptation works. And the person with real faith will not chase the fleeting, sinful, quick fulfillment of their desires. They will follow God and fulfill them how God intends.

Now, in the text we just read, we’re talking about the hearing test. And it’s based upon four checks, and we’re going to look at those in a moment. And you know, some of the commentators, they see, and actually, this is what I thought at first, too, but they see verses 19 through 21 as being proverbial sayings, kind of like the book of Proverbs, some of those passages that we just looked at. But after looking at the text this week, I don’t think that’s what James is doing. I don’t think he’s talking about just general bits of wisdom that just came to his mind halfway through a passage that’s just kind of ADHD right there, boom. Oh, by the way, we need to have wisdom. Here’s some cool information for you. I don’t think he’s doing that.

I think what James is telling us is that real faith’s hearing test isn’t based upon how well we listen to others, in like a general way, but it’s telling us, or it’s an indicator of how well we listen and respond to the word of God. Did you catch that? It’s not, the test of hearing isn’t based upon how well we listen to others. It’s based upon how well we listen to the word of God. That’s what James is talking about.

Well, why do I think that? Because that’s the context. Verses 19 through 20, look at 18 and look at 21. These verses before and after it, that’s the focus. It’s talking about how our good Father, who is the Father of lights, gives out every perfect gift. And in 18, it includes what? The word of truth. That’s God’s Word. That’s what he’s talking about. And not only that, in verse 22, James says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” It’s not talking about general wisdom. He’s talking about being a doer of the word of God. And so our passage this morning is sandwiched right between two verses that are talking about God’s word. I don’t think it’s just some random comment about wisdom. I think he’s talking about taking God’s word and having a receptive, listening attitude towards that.

So, how do we pass the hearing test? Four ways:

1. We must be eager.
2. We must be hesitant.
3. We must be receptive.
4. We must be open.

1. Eager to Hear God’s Word (v. 19)

In order to pass the hearing test, let’s look at the first one. We must be eager to hear God’s word. “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear.” In Matthew 13, verse 9, you remember what Jesus says? He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Well, we all have ears then. What’s he talking about? Who has the ears to hear that Jesus is mentioning? Well, James tells us it’s all those who have received the word of God. They have the ears to hear. Remember the text we just had read for us talks about they will hear and not listen, they will see and not perceive, those kinds of things. They’re not going to understand. Okay? That’s the kind of thing that’s being talked about here.

How then can a person receive the word of God implanted into their hearts? Look at verse 18. How is that implanted into our hearts? “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth.” Of God’s own will is how this happens. God wills it. That’s how it comes about. Romans 10:17 says this: “So faith comes from” what? Hearing. And hearing from where? Through the word of God. It’s not ourselves, but God’s word that transforms us into the new creation that James is speaking of. By his will is how that happens. Not our will, so that no one can boast. I don’t work myself into this will. I receive it by grace through faith.

Peter puts it like this. He says, “You have been born again, not, look at this, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” God’s word is a seed that He plants in us by His own will, which grows up into real faith. But not only is God’s Word the seed of our faith, as we’re going to see, God’s Word is the power that grows our faith. It’s not like He says, “Hey, here’s your faith, take this, and now you got to make this thing grow.” No, God is the one doing this through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God.

If a baby is going to grow, it must drink what? Milk. If a cow is going to grow, it must eat grass or hay, whatever. Grass is better. If a Christian is going to grow, they must eat the Word of God. That’s your spiritual food. That’s how we grow. This is why Peter tells us to be nourished by the pure milk of the Word. Are you tracking with me here? What we’re talking about? God’s Word is your food, it’s your spiritual nourishment. It’s what makes us grow up strong. And if we don’t eat it regularly, what’s the inverse of that? What’s going to happen? We’re going to waste away. We’re going to be spiritually weak. God’s Word is the power to not only save us, but to grow us into strong and healthy Christians who walk like Jesus, who talk like Jesus, and who act like Jesus.

So here’s the first part of this test. Do you desire God’s word? Are you eager for it? Do you crave it? Do you have to teach a baby to desire milk? You know, when they’re born, they come out, and it’s like, all right, now listen, you really need to drink this. You’re not going to like it. Do you need to drink? No. Do you have to teach a cow to eat grass? No. Do you have to teach a Christian to desire God’s word? Show me the person who does not desire God’s word, and I will show you a person who does not have God’s word implanted in their hearts. That’s a serious statement. When we are born again to new life, we desire spiritual things. Imperfectly, but we desire spiritual things. We crave the word of God. We hunger for the word of God. Real faith, then, as James is telling us, is a faith that is eager for God’s word. It craves it. It desires it. It longs for it.

As a new creature in Christ, here’s the next thought that comes to my mind. Are there ever times then where we’re not eager for God’s word? If I have those times, does that mean I’m just not a Christian and I better go back to square one? Not necessarily, but there absolutely are times where we are not craving God’s word as we ought. There are times where the two natures within us, our old nature and our new nature, are battling it out, and the old nature starts to win. We start walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit. There are times where we will have dry seasons. There are times of spiritual famine. But then, if this is the case, how can we make any use of this spiritual hearing test? Because after all, it could just be a time of famine. It could just be a dry time.

I think of two ways in which we can still make use of the hearing test. The first one’s this: whenever we disobey God’s word, whenever we drift, when our hearts begin to be prone to wandering and we start wandering, we don’t simply sit in that sin. We are not satisfied in the long haul in that sin because that sin isn’t truly our deepest hunger. We have another nature which is starving, which is thirsty, which wants God’s word. And when we are in that sin for a while, we look back and we’re like, this is really stupid. I am hungry. I am starving. And then your desire flares up like somebody who just broke a seven-day water fast. That’s how it works for those who truly have real faith.

The second way I think of that we can still make use of the hearing test despite having dry seasons is that those dry seasons lead us to realize how spiritually thirsty we are. So even when we look at the world’s spiritual junk, that stuff looks like trash. Yeah, we desire it on one hand, but it’s like living off of Twinkies. It’s not feeding our soul. And so the question we have to ask ourselves is: do you desire the word of God? When you go through the spiritual famine, when you are thirsting like that, does it make you desire God’s Word? Do you then look at the stuff you’ve been feeding on and realize it’s like trying to live off of cardboard? It doesn’t work. You can’t do it.

In our scripture reading today, we read about four types of soils. We saw how Jesus said, “Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.” Do you hear God’s word? Are you drawn to the word of God? Do you read it regularly? Or when you do read it, is it a chore? Is it something that’s a task, a burden that you must lift, though it is extremely heavy to you? Is it like having to eat the rest of your vegetables or something else that’s gross? Like tater-tot hot dish. Sorry. It’s an inside joke, kind of here.

If reading God’s word is nothing more than a checkbox you mark off on your spiritual inventory list, then you’re like those Jesus spoke of when he quoted the prophet Isaiah, when he said:

You will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

Matthew 13:14–15

Which soil are you? Have you received the implanted word of God? Is it changing your desires? Not perfectly. Not completely. You’re still battling your old nature, but is it changing your desires? Is it nourishing your soul and building up your faith, which is absolutely real? Do you look forward to Sundays and hearing God’s word preached in the gathering of his people? Is it something that excites you? Or do you walk away wondering why those around you seem to have been filled, fed, and satisfied from the feast of God’s word, but you remain indifferent and largely unchanged by it? Only those who are eager for the word of God will pass the hearing test. Not because they made their faith real, but because their faith is real. That’s a magnificent, huge difference.

2. Hesitant to Speak the Word of God (v. 19)

To pass the hearing test, we must be eager to hear the word of God, but secondly, we must be hesitant to speak the word of God. Look at verse 19. “Let every person be quick to hear.” That was our first point. Now the second point. And what? “Slow to speak.” I did not expect this point to be in this text even a little bit. So I’m still kind of shocked that this is here. But this is absolutely brilliant, what God’s word is telling us when we understand this. So bear with me here.

On one hand, we are quick to listen to God’s word, but on the other hand, we are absolutely slow to speak on behalf of God. Look with me at what James writes only two chapters later, in chapter 3, verse 1. He says this:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James 3:1

In agreement, here’s what the author of Hebrews says:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Hebrews 13:17

You see what James is saying? What the author of Hebrews is saying? Is this idea popular in our culture? No. Not even a tiny, tiny bit. Our culture hates this idea. Look at the way many small group Bible studies function. There’s no teacher. They don’t want a teacher who proclaims God’s truth with authority after much study and prayer. What do they want instead? A good facilitator to do what? To get people talking. Oops. In our culture, those are viewed as the absolute best Bible studies. Not where one person or two people or three people labor and pour into God’s word and come and say, you know what? I’ve studied this in depth, and I believe this is what God’s word says. And then those people, being Bereans, examine it and look at it and then discuss it together. It’s all about talking and getting everyone’s opinion. About people being real with one another, about sharing their experiences. When the reality is, aren’t we making many of us teachers who ought not to be teachers if we are not careful with this?

I don’t know about you, but this was pretty convicting for me. I have a Thursday night Bible study that we have, and it’s a great thing. But at the same time, how many times have I or us shown up to one of these things? Maybe having read the text once, totally unprepared, not at all understanding what’s in the text, and we read it over once quickly and we say, you know what, I think here’s what God says here. You know, I’ve been thinking about this for about 30 seconds. I’m pretty sure this is what the text says. “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

I like how one guy put it when he said, we have two ears and one mouth. So we should listen more than we speak. This is serious stuff, church. Very serious stuff. I didn’t expect this text to go here, so I’m still bewildered by it. But this is very serious and important stuff for us. You don’t have to be an official, delegated, designated teacher to be a teacher, right? No. We can’t hide behind that and say, you know what, I’m not really a teacher. If you speak on behalf of God’s word and say, thus saith the Lord, you are teaching. You may not be in a position of teaching, but you are teaching. And what you say matters. And what you say, if you’re not sure it’s God’s word, you better not say it.

Now, listen, it’s not that we are to completely avoid teaching and sit around at our Bible studies and say, you know what, none of us are teachers. Let’s just go home. Okay? That’s not what we’re talking about. It’s not that we’re against sharing our struggles or our testimonies. Those are great things. I’ve sat with people this week and they shared their testimony of how God saved them. And it’s a beautiful and remarkable thing. We’re not against sharing. That’s not the idea that we’re against. Nor is it the idea that we should neglect our spiritual, God-given gift to teach if we have it. What is the idea? Not that we should never speak, but that we are hesitant to teach, not unwilling to teach. We are hesitant to say, thus declares the Lord, if we aren’t sure the Lord hath said it.

Why is this a big deal? Well, is it a big deal? Yes, it is. We have many warnings against it. Why is this a big deal? We are ambassadors of the king. Do you know what happened in the old days when an ambassador would get up and say things the king hadn’t said? Was the king like, ah, you know, whatever. I’m cool with it. No. It caused wars, caused all sorts of problems. It was a very serious thing. And so, if we are not positive God has said it, we ought not to say it. We ought not to speculate. I mean, there’s warnings in the scripture about how we aren’t just to go into endless genealogies and argue all these fine details of God’s word just to argue them because be quiet. Only say what God hath said.

This is why one of the requirements for church leadership is not to be a recent convert. It’s very clear. 1 Timothy 5:22 also says, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands,” okay? They would lay on hands as a form of signifying the leadership or the teaching or whatever that was being, that that person was going to be doing. He says, don’t do it. Don’t do it because the danger is that they might become puffed up and they might teach something they ought not to have taught. There’s two warnings for it.

You know, one of the fastest ways I can think of causing division in a church is not listening to James 1 or a passage this morning and having many, many teachers. Many people who have this idea that because they’ve read through the book once, they’re qualified to teach on it. I can’t think of a faster way to cause division. Getting a whole bunch of unqualified teachers, whether appointed or self-appointed, because you can be somebody who’s teaching as a self-appointed teacher. Just going around spouting off whatever they think God’s word says. Which, as we’ll see later, when we get to it, that’s exactly the situation that was happening in the book of James. A bunch of believers running around, causing divisions, spouting off what they thought God said.

Show me a church body that is slow to hear, that is quick to speak, and I will show you a divided body with factions, with rivalries, and theological camps that major on the minors who are ready to go to war with each other over anything and everything. Stop being so many teachers, James says, and start being what? Listeners. Start being listeners. You know, Christianity has, I’ve heard it’s hundreds of thousands of denominations. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but we have a lot of denominations within Christianity. Do you think any of that might have something to do with neglecting the truths we’re seeing this morning? I think so. I think so. Can you imagine how much less division we would have if Christians took this seriously? If everyone stopped thinking they were the theological experts in the room? That their opinion was just as valuable as the next person’s? Because we need to be serious about this. It’s not. There’s one opinion that matters, and that’s God’s opinion. And He has given us teachers who are to labor over God’s word, to take it seriously, and to only speak what He has spoken. If we were slow to speak God’s word like we ought, how much more unity would we have? Not to avoid speaking it, but to be slow to speak.

When I was in seminary, we had a ministry called Ministry-Minded Men, where we would rotate preachers once a month, and then afterwards we’d meet together to rip each other apart. No, actually, it wasn’t like that. It was pretty upbuilding. It was a good time where we would give each other feedback, positive encouragement, things that could have been done better, things like that. And when I first started preaching, I was an extremely nervous train wreck. I remember when I was a kid, when I would have to play trumpet for offertory, I would literally, like, my body would start shaking. I wasn’t even on the stage. I was over on the side, sitting there in front of the piano, playing trumpet. I would just physically start shaking.

And so, one time after preaching, I was pretty nervous, not that nervous, but I was pretty nervous. And so, I asked my pastor whether he still gets nervous or not when he’s preaching. And I think I’ll always remember what he told me. He said, “You know, I don’t get physically nervous anymore. I don’t shake. I don’t get that fear of being in front of the crowd feeling anymore. But in another way, I absolutely get nervous when I stand up before God’s people and speak.” It’s a very different kind of nervous. It’s a nervousness of standing before God’s people, before the congregation, on the Lord’s day, and saying, “Thus saith the Lord.” He described it as a weightiness, as a fear of misrepresenting God, which led him to a great reluctance. It’s another word for hesitancy, okay? With a great reluctance to jumping into the pulpit all willy-nilly and just kind of winging it. Just saying whatever he thought the passage says as it came to his mind. A passage that he was not prepared for.

Now, like my pastor, I don’t get physically nervous standing before the church. Not really. Maybe if I have to do announcements a tiny bit, but if I get up to preach, I don’t get physically nervous anymore. I’m used to it. But I have found that the weight of preaching that Craig described to me is absolutely real. It’s a real thing. And the lesson I learned from him is this: if I ever lose sight of the weightiness of the task, of the incredible responsibility of standing before you and declaring what God says, I mustn’t do it. I dare not do it. I dare not stand up and speak on behalf of God and just spout out whatever I think a text says that I have not touched. “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

3. Receptive to All of God’s Word (v. 19–20)

To pass the hearing test, then, we must be eager to hear God’s word, hesitant, not unwilling, hesitant to speak God’s word, and third, receptive to all of God’s word.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

James 1:19–20

Church, we must be receptive to God’s word. And that means being receptive in two ways: being receptive in our thinking and being receptive in our behavior. Those are the two ways we have to do this then. Which means that even if you have a tattoo on your back that says God helps those who help themselves, or a tattoo that says God will never give you more than you can handle, when somebody shows you from scripture that those are what theologians call hot garbage, okay, you get that tattoo removed. You stop thinking that way. Even if it’s your favorite little saying in the world, when you’re shown from scripture that it’s not accurate, you let it go. You say, oh, whoops. Yeah, I will change my thinking immediately because this is what God’s word says.

You don’t get all angry about it. You don’t start making excuses for it. You don’t double down and get resentful towards the truth or start trying to, you know, reshift and focus on another text to try to make it say something in the text that you’re avoiding. You don’t ignore the context of Scripture like that. Instead, you begin to shape your understanding of God by God’s Word instead of shaping God’s Word by your understanding. I’m going to say that again. You begin to shape your understanding of God by God’s Word instead of shaping God’s Word by your understanding. If we do that, if we shape God’s Word by our understanding, that’s making a golden calf. That’s making a God in our image.

Are you hostile? Maybe even close-minded towards receiving the full word of God? To receive it fully, to receive it completely and entirely, no matter what it says? Are you receptive to it, even if it convicts, even if it conflicts with your personal beliefs or your personal lifestyle? Now you might respond to that and say, well, yes, Pastor, of course. Of course, I will absolutely follow and believe whatever God says. Surely I’ll do that. Are you sure? As we said before, the book of James is about tests. So let’s do maybe just a couple more here.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1:1–5

You believe that? Do you believe that the God of the universe spoke creation into existence? That after the God of lights made all the lights of creation, he called the light day and the darkness night? That there was an evening and a morning the first day? You believe that? Teens, question for you. Try that in your science class. And tell me how much you are mocked.

Let’s try one more. 1 Timothy 2:12 through 14.

I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet.

And verse 13 is the reason for it.

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

And verse 14 is the second reason for it.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and she became a transgressor.

1 Timothy 2:12–14

Now, just in case you’re thinking that this is a cultural argument, it’s not. Paul doesn’t allow us to think that way. Look at his reasons. He grounds it in creation, which is pre-sin. He grounds it in the fall, which is post-sin. We have two reasons for that. It’s not something that Paul is just talking about that applies only to the culture of his day. Come on now, preacher. You don’t seriously believe that. That’s got to be cultural. It’s 2020. Get on the right side of history. You know, I don’t think I will. Why? Not because I’m a sexist. Not because I think men are superior to women, because it’s probably the other way around. All right? Not because I’m not quite woke enough, but because God’s word is God’s word.

If I’m honest, I’d change this verse in a heartbeat if it was up to me. I would absolutely change it in a heartbeat because it doesn’t mesh with the culture I grew up in. But I’m not going to do that. I can’t get on the right side of history because to do so, in our culture’s view, to get on the right side of history, to do so would be to get on the wrong side of God’s word. To do so would ignore James’ warning not to be slow to anger. “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” I get it. All right? I get it. What we’re talking about here is absolutely not going to win friends and influence people. All right? You will not find this stuff in a church growth strategy guide. It’s not there. All right? We’ll say, hide from these verses. Hide from these truths. Don’t emphasize on them. But as Paul said, we don’t hide from God’s word. We don’t try to quickly flip over when we get to a passage that conflicts with our culture. We preach the truth of God’s word because, as Paul said in Romans chapter 1, we are not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

So again, I ask you: how about you? Are you ashamed of God’s word? Even if it’s just a few parts, does it make you embarrassed? Because our culture will tell you, it should make you absolutely blush. They will tell you that your biblical views of creation are moronic. They will tell you that love is love and that your biblical views on men and women, sex, and marriage are hateful and bigoted. They’ll tell you you’re on the wrong side of history if you believe this stuff, if you hold to it. So are you willing to grasp onto God’s word regardless of the cultural and social fallout that you will receive? Are you willing to look another person in the eye, even if it’s a Christian, and lovingly tell them that what they are doing is contrary to God’s word? Which is sin. You willing to do that? Even if it means losing a friendship, this is incredibly relevant stuff right now.

I don’t know who here follows what’s going on in Christianity, but it’s almost day after day some big name preacher, some big name writer within Christianity walks away from the faith. And if they don’t walk away from the faith, they get up and they denounce some of the stuff we’re looking at. You ever heard of the red letter only version people? Right? That’s a big movement. They only read the red letters in the Bible. They cut out the stuff that conflicts with culture because they are ashamed of God’s word. Are you ashamed of God’s Word? If so, listen to James. Be quick to listen to God’s Word, slow to speak God’s Word, and slow to be angered by God’s Word.

4. Open to Receive God’s Word (v. 21)

To pass the hearing test, we must be eager to hear God’s word, hesitant to speak God’s word, receptive to all of God’s word, and fourth, open to receive God’s word.

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

James 1:21

I remember when I was a kid, there was a kid that we played backyard football with, and I remember there was a time where he all of a sudden couldn’t hear anything we were telling him. It was like he was 99 years old and just his hearing aids didn’t work. All right? He was like almost deaf. And so he went into the doctor’s office. It’s kind of gross, but what I found out was they had to shoot water into his ears to get wax out of his ears because it had built up so much, he couldn’t hear nothing. All right? This is exactly the picture James is talking about here for us. When he says, to get rid of all filthiness and rampant wickedness.

Yes, God’s word comes to us freely and completely, not by our works, not by our will, but by the will of God. That’s true. James just said that. However, we have to rely on it. We have to keep the lines clear so we can hear it fully and be nourished by it. Sin gunks up the lines. Sin adds noise, which prevents us from hearing God’s word as we should.

The power of God’s word saves us. It is saving us, and it will one day fully save us. What do I mean by that? I mean this. First, the power of God’s word saves us from the penalty of sin. When God planted His Word in us, before His eyes, we were fully and completely righteous. Even though we still sin today, we are fully righteous in God’s eyes because our sin has been paid for by the blood of Jesus. But the power of God’s Word doesn’t stop there. The power of God’s Word goes on to begin saving us from the power of sin. All right? We still have two natures. We still battle sin, okay? And so God’s Word doesn’t stop after saving us, after justifying us. It begins to deliver us from the power of sin. It begins to shape us, to transform us into the image of Jesus. It begins giving us victory over sin’s power in our life.

The third thing that it does, the power of God’s Word saves us from the presence of sin. And hopefully that’s very soon. Because one day, it’s going to finish its work. It’ll be done. We will stand completely glorified, holy before a holy God, completely Christ-like. We will be perfect before Him. We will be blameless before Him. We will be just as righteous in His eyes as Jesus is. Understand how remarkable that is? That sinners who deserve His wrath can stand before a holy God?

So I ask you this morning: have you received the implanted word that can save your souls? Are you eager to hear God’s Word? Are you like Mary, who the scriptures say sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to all that he spoke? She was eager. Are you hesitant to speak God’s word without giving it the proper attention that it deserves? Are you receptive to all that God’s word says, even the icky parts that conflict with our culture? Are you open to receiving God’s word? Is your life pure? Are the lines open? Is it unclogged? Are you receiving it without sin, without the things that so easily entangle us and prevent us from being nourished on God’s word as we ought? Are you passing the hearing test? If not, receive God’s word with meekness and humility, for it is able to save your souls. And all God’s people said. Amen.

Pray with me. Father, I thank you for this text. It is challenging, Lord. It’s sandpaper on some sensitive areas. So, Father, we ask that we would not run from the truth of your word, but that we would embrace it. That we would not embrace the lies of culture and the way we were raised in our environment and our own thinking, but that we would follow your thinking. That we would be shaped by your word and not shape you by ours. Help us, Father, to be people that are about the book, that always are asking and looking and examining your word and being Bereans of your Word. Help us to love your word.

Father, help us to be free from sin. If there’s anyone here, Father, who is caught up in sin, who’s entangled by it, and doesn’t know how to get out, I just pray that they would come and talk to me or another Christian here for help, for discipleship, for encouragement, and for prayer. And Father, I pray for if there’s a person in this room who doesn’t know you, who has not had your word implanted in their heart, that today would be the day of salvation for them. Whether it’s there in their seat, God, that they would turn to you in faith or to come talk to somebody to be prayed with. We’ll praise you for it either way. And so we just ask, Lord, that your Spirit would be working. That we wouldn’t just be hearers of the word, but that we, as we will see next week, will be doers of the word. And that we do this for your glory and for our good. And we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.