Opening: What is one thing in your life that you know you
should do, but you have a really hard time doing it? Balance the checkbook?
Lose weight? Make a difficult phone call? What keeps you from doing what you
probably know is the right thing to do?
Scripture: We begin a new series tomorrow. Read James1:19-27.
Insights:
- Wow. James really hits his readers hard. These are very difficult:
- Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.
- Get rid of filth and evil.
- Humbly accept God’s word and do what it says.
- Control your tongue.
- Care for those in need.
- Don’t let the world corrupt you.
- James uses the vivid word pictures in verse 21:
- He tells his readers to get rid of filth and evil. The word he uses for “get rid of” is the word used for stripping off one’s clothes. He tells them to get rid of all defilement as you would strip off filthy clothes or as a snake sloughs off its skin.
- The word we translate “filth” is ruparia; and it can be used for the filth which soils clothes or soils the body. But it has one very interesting connection. It is a derivative of rupos and, when rupos is used in a medical sense, it means wax in the ear. It is possible that it still retains that meaning here, that James is telling us to get rid of everything which would stop our ears to the true word of God. When wax gathers in the ear, it can make a person deaf; and our sins can make us deaf to God.
- The word for “evil” is perisseia. James thinks of evil as tangled undergrowth or a cancerous growth which must be cut away.
- James talks more about the tongue in chapter 3, verses 1-12.
Life Questions:
- Of the 6 things James tells us to do, which is the hardest for you? Is there one that if you really prayed about it, you might find God wants you to work on that one too?
Prayer Focus: For tomorrow’s worship celebration and that we
be more than simple hearers – we will be doers!
Tomorrow’s Message Title: “God, You Want Me To Do What?”
Message Series: “Sent”
