When Annie and I were on our way to the OM ship, Logos, we spent several weeks with one of the teams in England. During that time we ended up staying with an American family, in the top floor of their home. I got the impression that they weren’t happy living in England, and maybe they resented having someone else in their home. Anyway, it was clear from the moment we arrived that they didn’t want us there. They hardly spoke to us unless they had to, and one day while we were climbing the stairs, one of their young sons said, “you know, my dad doesn’t want you here; he really doesn’t.” I don’t know what this little boy overheard from his parents, but we already knew how they felt. They were hostile to the idea of us being there. It was an inhospitable environment, and we couldn’t wait to leave.
Our hearts are often like that. Rather than welcoming God into our lives, we resent His intrusion. We don’t really want Him there, at least not all the time, and we cultivate habits that create an unwelcome, inhospitable environment. We want Him to comfort us when we’re sad. We’re happy for Him to come and make us feel good, peaceful and happy. But when He comes to us through His Word, confronting us with His absolute lordship over every area of our lives, He often doesn’t find a welcome reception.
Why does God’s Word often bear so little fruit in our lives? I believe part of the problem is that we don’t create a hospitable environment for it. Our hearts are too full of other things, things that fill up all the space so that there’s no room for God’s Word. One writer puts it this way: “We know from daily experience that it is not enough to hear a biblical reading in order to automatically derive spiritual fruit from it. It is not the material sound of the syllables that is life-giving. The hearer must understand with an enlightened faith the meaning of the message God is conveying. The soul’s doors must be opened to the One who makes himself lovingly available in his Word.... The discussion is similar to that usually had concerning the eucharistic bread. Received without preparation, without faith and love, the Bread of Life is no longer lifegiving. God’s saving initiative is frustrated. God stops in front of doors that are shut” (Mariano Magrassi, Praying the Bible, p. 5). God stops in front of doors that are shut. When the environment of our hearts is inhospitable, God’s Word doesn’t bear fruit in our lives.
The thing is that there was really plenty of room for us in that house in England. The top floor wasn’t being used, so we weren’t taking any space away from the family. And we didn’t have to enter their living space; we went down a hallway and up the stairs, and most of the time we didn’t see them at all. But it felt crowded there, like there wasn’t enough room. The inhospitable atmosphere made the house shrink. When we were there we felt closed in, claustrophobic. The same thing is true in the atmosphere of our hearts. The things we fill our hearts with, which create an inhospitable environment for God’s Word, take up space by shrinking our hearts. It’s just the opposite of what God does. He enlarges our hearts, so that there is room for Him and for everything else He calls us to embrace. But when we allow other things to crowd Him out, our hearts shrink. Our inner environment says to God, “we really don’t want you here.”
That’s part of what is going on in these verses in James. James wants us to receive God’s Word, as he says at the end of the passage, but in order to do that we need to recognize, and repent of, those things that prevent us from welcoming God’s Word. The first thing he mentions is in verse 19: the careless use of the tongue, especially the careless use of the tongue in anger. “You must understand this, my beloved;” he’s putting some emphasis on this, because he wants them to listen carefully and take his words seriously. This comes across clearly in The Message: “Post this at all the intersections, dear friends”.
He wants them to take it seriously, and he’s afraid they won’t. Our words seem like such small things. It’s easy to minimize the significance of our speech. I’m sure you've all heard this saying that kids often say to one another: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Everyone seems to know this isn’t really true. Our words are significant, and they can have a major effect on our spiritual life by creating an environment that is inhospitable to the Word of God.
Our words are significant because they often have a very profound effect on those who are listening. But, also, speaking raises things to a different level. We may be harboring anger and resentment in our hearts for awhile, but once we express it in speech it becomes more tangible and real. We become committed to it in a way that we weren’t before we spoke. We’re familiar with this idea on the positive side. Why isn’t it enough to simply believe the gospel in our hearts? Why is it necessary to confess our allegiance to Jesus Christ? Because until we speak about it, there’s something indefinite and unreal about our faith. It’s all inside our heads. Speaking, taking ownership of it in our speech, commits us at a different level. That’s what Paul is talking about in Romans 10: “With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: ‘God has set everything right between him and me!’” (Romans 10:10, The Message). And the same thing is true on the negative side. When we speak carelessly in anger, we’ve brought things to a different level. We’ve committed ourselves.
Is James saying, “never be angry”? No. Anger is part of our natural response to situations, and sometimes anger is a justified response. It’s part of the way God has made us. We see Jesus, in the gospels, becoming angry. It’s what we do with our anger that is important. Rather than immediately lashing out in anger, James tells us to slow down. Rather than reacting right away, as we’re tempted to do, he tells us, “slow down; step back.” Here it is in The Message: “Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.” 1) Be quick to listen. Often we don’t know the whole story, and we react prematurely. James is saying, “slow down; listen; take in all the information.” 2) Be slow to speak. We tend to reverse these two things; we’re slow to listen and quick to speak. James is saying: “don’t be hasty; take some time before you respond.” And then, 3) Be slow to become angry. We can’t control our emotional responses. But we can take ourselves in hand, so that our initial response of anger doesn’t get away from us. We do that, with God’s help, by following these steps James has given us: “lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.”
He says one additional thing about anger, in verse 20: “for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” The capacity for anger is part of being made in God’s image. Anger, in itself, is not sinful. But we are sinners, and it’s very difficult for us to hold onto anger for any length of time without ending up in sin. That’s why Paul gives this advice in Ephesians: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (4:26). Anger is a dangerous emotion, and if we don’t handle it carefully it will lead us into sin. It may be justified initially, but it is very easily and quickly corrupted. “God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger” (The Message).
James’ main concern is not anger, but the careless use of the tongue. But it’s often in anger that we use our tongues carelessly. When we reverse the order James has given, when our habit is to speak carelessly out of a resentful, bitter spirit, we create an environment that is inhospitable to God’s Word. God’s Word calls us to repentance, and we respond: “but I was in the right! I have every reason to be angry!” It may be true that the other person is more in the wrong than we are. We may be 95% in the right. The other person may be 95% wrong and unwilling to repent. But God calls us to repent of our own sin, and when we refuse to do so we harden our hearts to His Word; we shut His Word out of our hearts.
The second thing James mentions that will create an inhospitable environment for God’s Word is in verse 21: sinful habits, things we do that are contrary to God’s will: “Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness.” Or, as it reads in The Message: “So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.” If we’re holding onto evil habits, refusing to let go of them, our hearts will be hostile to God’s Word. The same idea comes across clearly in John’s gospel: “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (3:19-21). “All who do evil hate the light.” They don’t want the light of God’s Word invading the privacy of their hearts. They don’t want God intruding.
Persistent disobedience drives us away from God’s Word. Several years ago I met with a man who had left his wife and was living with another woman. He had been part of another church in town, but when he left his wife he came to our church and tried to start over there. He very enthusiastically entered into the programs of the church and tried to assure everyone that he was following God’s direction. When I confronted him about what he was doing, he told me that he had prayed about it and was sure he was dong the right thing. He had felt miserable before he left his wife, and how he felt happy. At first, he came to church every Sunday. Then he started slacking off little by little until eventually he stopped coming altogether. People were very gracious to him; he didn’t leave because no one ever talked to him. He left because he couldn’t survive in an environment where the Word of God was being preached regularly, and the pastor of that church faithfully preaches the Word each Sunday. His persistent disobedience drove him away from God’s Word. James doesn’t want that to happen to us, so he tells us, “get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent” (NIV).
We clear the way for welcoming God’s Word into our hearts by following James’ instructions in verses 19-21a. That’s the negative side. He gives us one additional thing at the end of verse 21: “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” Receive God’s Word in meekness and humility. If you read the story of Israel in the Old Testament, you’ll come across the words “stiff-necked” again and again. Over and over again, God tells them that they are a stiff-necked people. They persistently refused to bow before His lordship over their lives. The insisted on going their own way, rather than submitting to God’s way. They were stubborn, stiff-necked. Meekness is just the opposite. When we receive God’s Word with meekness, we receive it as people who are under God’s authority and are willing to submit to His sovereign will.
Meekness is very similar to humility. If we’ve been humbled before God, if we’ve seen our spiritual poverty and come to Him with empty hands, we’ll be meek in our attitude toward others. We won’t be proud, and self-protective. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has a good description of meekness: “Meekness is essentially a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others. It is therefore two things. It is my attitude towards myself; and it is an expression of that in my relationship to others” (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p. 72). And, most important of all, it’s an expression of that in our relationship with God. We see the truth about ourselves; we acknowledge our absolute poverty before God; and we bow before His authority, knowing that we owe Him our souls, our lives, and our all. We welcome God’s Word with meekness, welcoming it into our hearts as those who have every intention of ordering our lives in obedience to it. That’s the positive side: “welcome with meekness the implanted word.”
Those people in England didn’t intend to do us any harm. I really don’t think they had any personal animosity toward us at all. I suspect they were going through some kind of a crisis as a family, and having us there under the same roof made things more difficult. In the long run, it was a very minor thing. But our response to God’s Word is not minor. That Word is the Word “which can save you,” James says at the end of verse 21. When we cultivate an inhospitable atmosphere in our hearts, we’re endangering the welfare of our souls. God’s Word is the Word that saves us. We’re desperately in need of that Word. We can’t afford to do anything but welcome it. Put away those things that make it impossible for you to live with His Word: beware of how you make use of the gift of speech, and beware of persisting in sin and refusing to repent. Continue in repentance and in crying out to God for mercy. But don’t stop with this negative step. The whole point of the negative is to make room for what James says at the end of verse 21: “In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life” (The Message). God’s landscaping takes time; He doesn’t set everything in place all at once. The question is, which direction are you headed? Are you welcoming God’s Word into your heart, repenting when He convicts you of sin? Or are you hardening your heart, because you don’t like the things He’s saying to you? If you continue moving in the direction you’re going now, where will you be in ten years? Is your heart a place where God’s Word is welcome? “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”
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