Transcription downloaded from https://sermon-library.fbcmustang.org/sermons/103642/rightly-receiving-the-word/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang. Thank you for joining us.!

[0:11] Yet not I, but through Christ in me. Thank you for singing. You may be seated.

[0:23] Thank you for listening.

[0:53] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:05] I was afraid he was going to do that. Go ahead and take this. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:17] Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[1:29] Okay. Okay. Bye. Hey. All right.

[1:50] Apparently this side was done visiting. This side is still going, so we'll just wait and see how long it takes. Once you're finished visiting, you can take a seat and open to Psalm 119.

[2:04] Psalm 119. Once Benjamin and Mary are seated, we will continue. Psalm 119, beginning in verse 9.

[2:25] It says, How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you.

[2:35] Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord.

[2:46] Teach me your statutes. With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.

[2:58] I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes.

[3:08] I will not forget your word. Let's pray together. Our Father, again, we just are so thankful for this Lord's Day that you've blessed us with.

[3:19] And that we've been able to gather together this morning and some even this afternoon. And that now here we end our day gathered together in this room. We are thankful for Joey and his time of preparation.

[3:33] And we just pray again that you'd give him clarity of thought and speech. And then be with each of us that we would be those who rightly receive your word. And again, our desire is that we would be doers of your word and not merely hearers only.

[3:49] And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey everyone. Made it. Thank you.

[4:01] Thank you. My critics are like, oh, he shows up when he preaches. Okay. I see. But I did tell on myself already.

[4:12] I texted Michael and John this morning. They weren't here and explained what happened. And Michael was like, well, just go in all bloodied up to second service and be like, I got beat up and came to church anyway. And I decided getting beat up was more embarrassing than forgetting.

[4:25] So I just stuck with the truth. But it's good to be with you here tonight. We'll be in James 1, as the bulletin says. But before we get there, a few weeks ago, my wife and a few other ladies from our church went to a conference down in Dallas.

[4:41] It was a very helpful conference. They enjoyed it. And in a moment of maybe a lack of discernment, she left me at home with all three kids for that weekend. And we all survived because she left me a beautiful list of bedtimes and snacks and a reminder to change diapers and the whole nine yards.

[5:01] It was very helpful. And she came home. We were all alive. Everyone had eaten. Everything ended well. I cut some corners to be sure, but everything ended well.

[5:11] Everyone stayed alive. But imagine with me an alternative scenario in which she came back and no one had eaten. No diapers had been changed. No one slept. The house was a wreck.

[5:23] Nothing had been done. She would say, why didn't you read my list? And again, hypothetical scenario.

[5:33] I did a good job. But hypothetically, if I said, your list. I love your list. I read it every day. I thought through it. I memorized my favorite portions.

[5:44] And so did the kids. We actually set them to song and sang them together. We memorized. It was so well written. I printed it out, made a copy, circled all the verbs, and outlined all the clauses.

[5:56] So well written. I love your list. And she would say, if you love my list, why didn't you follow it? Why didn't you do it?

[6:07] Why didn't you follow through on it? And that's an easy connection to make. Again, that was purely hypothetical. It's an easy conclusion for us to reach in that example. But so many times we fail to see that connection in our spiritual lives.

[6:23] So many times we fail to make that connection when it comes to the Bible and our lives. And on the lips of Jesus himself in John 14, 21, he says, whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

[6:39] And so many people will claim to love Jesus. And a few of them will actually obey him. So many people, thousands and thousands of people flocked to Jesus to listen to him.

[6:52] But very few actually followed him. And our title tonight is Rightly Receiving the Word. You can open with me to James chapter 1. We'll be in verses 19 through 25.

[7:11] I trust you're somewhat familiar with the book of James already. But just as some introduction, James is a book that's highly, highly practical. It's in our face applicationally, giving us very raw and earthy applications to our spiritual lives.

[7:30] As we read through it, James is really kind of a New Testament wisdom literature. It reads a lot like the book of Proverbs. It reads a lot like Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

[7:43] Very practical commands. Very short, pithy statements. But because of that, it's notoriously difficult to outline. It flows so seamlessly from thought to thought and from topic to topic.

[7:56] It's challenging to get our arms around shorter sections of this book. But we will indefinitely come to what's the thesis statement of this book tonight in verse 22. Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

[8:09] Our passage tonight is about how we, as God's people, should respond to his word. And James is concerned that his people not only hear the word, not only love the word, but that they would actually obey the word.

[8:27] That they would receive the word and obey the word. And so I'll read our passage for us tonight. James 1, starting in verse 19. Know this, my beloved brothers.

[8:39] 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.

[8:57] 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 is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

[9:10] For he looks at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

[9:26] I want to pray for us before we begin our time in the word. Our Father, we are those who profess to love Christ. We are those who profess to follow your Son and to love his words.

[9:37] His words are wonderful. Where else can we go apart from him because he has the words of life? That's our confession. I pray that our lives would reflect that faith.

[9:51] I pray that our actions would be in line with what we confess to be true. And I pray now that you would help us to understand your word that's been implanted in us and help us to live it out through the Spirit's power.

[10:04] And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we'll cover this passage in two points this evening. The first one is meek reception. And secondly, obedient action.

[10:16] We see that rightly receiving the word consists primarily of two responses. This meek reception and this obedient action. So firstly, meek reception.

[10:28] Meek reception in verses 19 through 21. He begins this section by saying, Know this, or knowing this, my beloved brothers. And though James has many very difficult and direct things to say to his readers, it's coming from a place of profound love and deep affection.

[10:49] And a lot of us want to choose between the two. A lot of us like the directness. A lot of us like the difficulty of confrontation, but lack the love. Others of us tend to default to loving without the difficulty of confrontation.

[11:05] James, in what he says in this letter, has a divine sense of both. This difficulty of confrontation, but rooted in love for the saints.

[11:18] He says, let every person be. And he lists out three things. And I think based on the context of what comes before this, and the majority of what this section consists of, I think all of these commands that he gives revolve around the believer's relationship to the word.

[11:38] He says, if you look at verse 18, Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. In this first section, he'll mention the implanted word, and he talks about doers versus hearers of the word.

[11:52] So I think all three of these things have to do primarily with a believer's relationship to the word of God. The first thing he says is to be quick to hear. He commands them to hurry up and listen to the word of God.

[12:06] We as God's people need to be speedy to listen to him. We must be quick to be attentive to what he says in his word. And this is fitting that we would show up as listeners, as students.

[12:19] In any field of knowledge, the ones who are learning are those who are listening. Learners are listeners. So when you show up to a college class, the professor, the expert, is the one doing the majority of the speaking.

[12:35] Because you are there to learn from him. No one learns by talking. So James says, be quick to hear. Stop everything you're doing and listen.

[12:48] Your time in the word, whether it's at church or individually, is not a time for grocery lists or Instagram. It's a time to put everything away and pay attention. Be quick to hear.

[13:01] What does it mean to hear? Well, my dear wife was trained as an educator, and she was a teacher before we had kids. But she still likes to give me pop quizzes sometimes.

[13:15] And she'll tell me something, and I will hear her, but I'm watching a football game or something, and I'll hear the word she says, and she'll say, did you hear me? Did you hear what I said? I'll say, yeah, yeah, I heard you.

[13:28] What did I say? Touchdown. I did not listen to her.

[13:40] I heard the words she said, but did not listen to them. And this hearing in the Bible is kind of what we would call listening. This hearing that leads to obedience.

[13:53] And the Old Testament is full of references to hearing. Most fundamentally, Deuteronomy 6.4, Hear, O Israel. Yahweh our God. Yahweh is one.

[14:04] The purpose of that is not just to hear, not just to decipher syllables, but to believe this and to live accordingly. That's what hearing means in the Bible, wherever it's found, to be quick to hear.

[14:20] Secondly, slow to speak. Slow to speak. It's fitting that this flows out of being quick to hear because you cannot listen when you are speaking.

[14:31] So it's a call to quiet listening. And in our church, typically, there's not a lot of people talking while someone else is preaching or teaching, but you also aren't listening if you're primarily thinking about your responses.

[14:47] This is true in conversation. This is where many conversations go off the rails. People are talking past each other because they're only thinking about what they're going to say next. They're only thinking about how they will respond.

[14:59] And if we're not careful, that can be true of us listening to the word or reading the word. We're physically present with open Bibles. We're hearing someone's voice, but we're a thousand miles away with background noise of thoughts going wherever our minds take us.

[15:17] We need to be slow to speak, whether that's physically speaking in a conversation or even internally. We need to silence that while we're hearing or reading the word.

[15:30] And slow to anger is the third thing he mentions there in verse 19. We would literally probably call this long fuse, someone who's not quick to fly off the handle, slow to become angry, slow to become hot or frustrated by something.

[15:47] And it seems a bit strange in this context. We're talking about the word of God, talking about hearing the word, talking about speaking and not being loud when we're hearing the word or reading the word.

[15:59] What does anger have to do with anything in this context? Well, again, I think it primarily refers to the believer's reception of God's word. And our almost natural reaction to confrontation is to be defensive.

[16:15] Our immediate response to someone calling us out or calling us on something is to be angry or defensive.

[16:27] And James is saying, when God's word is being taught, when you're reading God's word, hurry up and listen. Don't talk back and don't become angry. Don't defend yourself when the Bible calls you out, when the Bible confronts you in your sin.

[16:42] And be slow to anger. And ultimately, this anger is against God if we're frustrated with his word, but it so often presents itself as the one speaking to you, whether that's in an individual conversation or someone teaching your Sunday school class.

[16:58] Who is he to talk about that? What does he know to confront me in this situation? That's anger. Be slow to anger.

[17:09] And many times, our response to God's word can be anger. The Bible confronts us in our sin and it does not hold back.

[17:20] Let's receive that with meekness. Let's receive that with gentleness and not be quick to defend ourselves. And now he gives an explanation for anger in particular in verse 20.

[17:33] For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James' argument is that human anger does not produce righteous actions that God requires.

[17:49] Human anger does not produce righteousness. Now, this doesn't mean that it's always wrong to be angry. Jesus was angry. But if we're honest, the bulk of the time that we're upset or frustrated or angry, it's not righteous.

[18:01] It's sinful. And so, James' call to be slow to anger is rooted in this fact that our anger does not produce righteousness that God requires in ourselves or in other people.

[18:15] And so, when you think about raising your kids, they can do things that make us angry. Our anger does not produce their holiness. And even in the life of our church, helping our church grow, not numerically, but spiritually, our anger with people is not for their good or ours.

[18:38] Oh, well, that's just how they are. That's a response of anger to certain people. That does not produce God's righteousness in your life or in theirs.

[18:50] Our anger does not ever produce practical, lived-out righteousness. Sometimes our anger reflects the righteousness of God, but our anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

[19:02] It never makes someone else or ourselves righteous as God requires. Verse 21, therefore, in light of this, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.

[19:16] This is prep work for receiving the word. Put these things away essentially so that we can receive the word properly. Sin will clog up our ears from being able to hear God's word.

[19:30] And interestingly, the word for filth, the filthiness here is very similar to the word used for earwax in the ancient world. Kind of a weird picture, but our sin, our uncleanness, prevents us from rightly hearing God's word in order to obey it.

[19:44] And so put this away. Put away filthiness. Put away rampant or overflowing wickedness. These things can not only prevent us from hearing the word rightly, it can even affect our appetite for the word itself.

[19:58] And where do these things come from? Well, he mentions meekness in the next phrase. And so he sets in contrast meekness with this filthiness or rampant wickedness.

[20:09] These things come from a lack of humility or what we would call pride. We need to get rid of anything that will cloud our eyes from seeing God's glory on the pages of Scripture.

[20:21] Some of those things will be sinful that we need to repent of. Some of those things will be an uncleanness that we need to be cleansed of. Some of those things will not be sinful in themselves, but are just weights that we need to get rid of and throw aside so that we can run with greater efficiency in our understanding of the word.

[20:42] And receive with meekness the implanted word. Why does he describe it as the implanted word?

[20:53] And if it's implanted, why do we need to receive it? If it's already inside of us, why is it spoken of as though it's external to us that we need to receive it?

[21:05] Well, there's a lot of new covenant connotations here. One of the primary promises of the new covenant found in the Old Testament in places like Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 say where God speaks to Israel and says, I will make a new covenant with them, not like the covenant I made with your fathers.

[21:24] I will put my law within them. I will write my word on their hearts. And here James calls this the implanted word.

[21:36] the word that has caused us to obey from the heart, the word that has changed us from the inside out. And you think about Jesus' parable of the sower, some of the seed fell into good soil.

[21:48] It was implanted there and produced fruit. The word meekness is essentially a synonym with humility. It's a gentleness or a teachableness.

[21:58] It's the opposite of anger found at the end of verse 19. This looks like applying the word to yourself before trying to apply it to others.

[22:09] This gentle teachableness before the word of God. And with how practical the book of James is, we might expect him here to launch into a reading plan. If you need to read this many chapters a day or here's how you read your Bible, here's how you receive the implanted word, but he doesn't give us a reading plan.

[22:26] He's giving us a reading attitude. Whatever your intake of the word looks like, receive it with meekness. Receive it with this teachable spirit that's slow to speak, that's quick to listen, that's slow to become angry.

[22:41] Receive it with meekness. And if you have this attitude, your reading will be productive. Your taking in of the word of God, your reception of the word of God will be effective.

[22:56] If you don't have this attitude when you're approaching the Bible, it doesn't matter how many pages you turn, it will not produce the same kind of fruit in your life because you won't be receiving it rightly.

[23:10] And if you're a believer, part of how we demonstrate our faith is through humbly receiving the word of God. And it says, which is able to save your souls.

[23:24] Salvation here is viewed from its future aspect. So the word of God is said to have saved us in the past tense like verse 18 describes. The word of God is said to be saving us currently as it sanctifies us from sin.

[23:39] And salvation is also spoken of in the future sense of saving us from the future wrath of God. This word not only brought you forth from the womb, not only sustains you in the moment, but it will deliver you in the last day.

[23:55] So how do we know if someone's receiving the word with meekness? How do we know if we are receiving the word with this kind of heart attitude? What does this look like in someone's life?

[24:07] Is this all there is to rightly receiving the word? Well, James goes on and says that the word of God not only gives us life, but demands that we obey it.

[24:20] And so we see secondly, obedient action. Obedient action. And we see this in verses 22 through 25. James shows us that the result of rightly receiving the word is obedience.

[24:36] Obedience is the external proof the word is being received internally. And according to the New Testament, salvation doesn't just lead to a momentary feeling, it leads to long-term obedience, long-term life change.

[24:51] change. And like so many of the Bible's wisdom teachings, James illustrates this point with two opposing examples. You read through Proverbs, there's always, almost always, a binary effect to the teaching.

[25:05] It's wisdom and folly. There's light and there's darkness. There's righteousness and there's wickedness. And here, there is someone who only hears the word and there's someone who does the word.

[25:16] There's a hearer who forgets. There's a doer who acts in this section. And James speaks negatively of those who only hear the word. Now, hearing the word is good, but if it stops there, we've failed as students of the word.

[25:32] As students of God's word, our job is not complete until we've obeyed. The hermeneutical process is not over until we live it out in our lives.

[25:44] Verse 22, he says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. And this is really the thesis statement of the book of James.

[25:58] James repeatedly comes back to this idea that the person who doesn't live out their faith doesn't have a living faith. They have a dead faith. And he says that those who only hear the word deceive themselves.

[26:17] If we were talking about math, we would call this a miscalculation. It's someone who thinks they're saved, someone who loves God's word, but fails to live it out, fails to ever obey it.

[26:29] And what's horrifying about this is that these are people who are inside the church. These are not outsiders. These are not people who are on the fringe. These are people who every week are listening to the word of God, are taking in the word of God.

[26:43] These people are plugged in. These people would listen to teaching and probably agree with the teaching and they would close their Bibles without thinking through how it applies to them and without ever living it out.

[26:57] These are people like Judas and Demas who for so long walked with Jesus and would probably say that was a great sermon, Jesus. That was a great lesson, Jesus.

[27:09] They really needed to hear that. That was such good teaching, Jesus. They would fail to live in accordance with it. They would fail to apply it to their lives.

[27:24] And those who consistently disobey the word without repentance show that they are not believers according to James. So do not merely hear God's word, internalize it, meditate on it, obey it.

[27:39] And like Jeff read earlier from Psalm 119, I've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. The best way to internalize or meditate on God's word is to memorize it.

[27:51] And so many people will say, I can't memorize scripture, I can't do it like I used to, but I'm sure we've all got the soundtrack of our favorite bands memorized. Memorizing scripture can be difficult, but we've internalized the stats of our favorite football team, which unfortunately for me is the Cowboys, the Oklahoma State ones, and the Dallas ones too.

[28:15] We know these things because they're important to us. The Cowboys are 0-4 in the Big 12 since like the first time ever. It's brutal. But we value these things and so it's easy to internalize them.

[28:27] It's difficult for us to memorize scripture, but I'm sure we have friends' phone numbers from childhood somewhere stored in our minds that we can quickly recall. It's because we valued those things and put them into use.

[28:41] And when it comes to scripture, do we value God's word enough to internalize it? We internalize what we value so what we remember is typically a reflection of what we love.

[28:52] Do you love God's word and do you obey God's word? And he gives a picture in verses 23 and 24 of a mirror.

[29:03] For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

[29:23] I'm sure there have been times where all of us have listened to a sermon or read our Bibles and walked away and not been able to recall anything. That's kind of what James is getting at here except this is constantly happening to these people.

[29:36] They're constantly exposed to God's word and it just leaves them. It never sinks in. It never does anything in their lives. Going back to the parable of the soils, Satan will snatch it away from their hearts.

[29:49] It never implants. It never sticks. The difference between a faithful follower who rightly receives the word and the one who doesn't is the one who doesn't is forgetful.

[30:05] Forgets what he has seen. The one who only hears the word is the same one who forgets it. And the Old Testament is also full of commands to remember the Lord your God.

[30:22] Remember what he spoke to you. And a forgetfulness of God's word, a failure to rightly receive God's word is the forgetfulness of God himself. And so what's up with this mirror?

[30:38] It's tricky to nail down exactly what James is talking about because it's tough for us to imagine someone looking in the mirror and then forgetting what they've seen. But James' point ultimately is that those who hear and forget the word receive no more benefit than someone who only looks into the mirror.

[30:57] So we take our students to Falls Creek every summer and we all look super rough in the mornings in the guy's cabin at least. Like everyone just looks rough. Like we can admit that.

[31:08] We smell horrible, look rough. But all of us also look into the mirror in the mornings. Some for too long. Every hair is in place because they're about to meet their wife at the IC stand.

[31:19] They're before the mirror for 20 minutes. They skip breakfast because they want their look to be perfect. Others walk in, see the same kind of badness in the mirror that everyone else does, and go to breakfast.

[31:37] Regardless of motives, who is rightly using the mirror? The first guys. The guys that are trying to be pickup artists. The mirror is not an end in itself.

[31:48] The mirror is intended to show us what's wrong with us so that we can make changes. And the purpose of God's word is not merely to expose sin, it does that certainly, but to expose sin to the point of repentance, to bring about change in our lives.

[32:05] And so the person that just looks at the mirror, sees what's wrong with him and walks away, receives no more benefit than if the mirror wasn't there at all. And another error you can make is making the mirror an end of itself.

[32:18] Wow, this is a really nice mirror. Look at this. This is clean. Like whoever had duty yesterday, cleaned it well, and walking away and not making necessary changes. That's like one who looks into the word, hears the word, and forgets it.

[32:33] And in verse 25, he contrasts that. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres.

[32:47] this word for looks into is the idea of stooping to examine something. It's the same phrase used in John 20 to describe John and Peter stooping into the tomb to look at it, ducking below the short doorway to get into the tomb.

[33:03] This person has taken the message to heart. This person stops what he's doing and dives in, pays close attention to what he's seeing and hearing. And he calls the Bible here the perfect law, the law of liberty.

[33:18] And he's still talking about the word here. So why the change? Why not just refer to it as the word? I think he's changing intentionally to the word law here to demonstrate that the Bible makes demands of our lives.

[33:31] The Bible demands obedience. The Bible commands conformity to its standards. And it's called the law of liberty. It's the law that sets us free. It's not burdensome. It's not enslaving, but it does demand our obedience.

[33:45] It demands our entire lives. And the one who stoops to look into this law of liberty and perseveres in it, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he'll be blessed in his doing.

[34:01] Perseverance is the opposite of forgetfulness. The person who hears and forgets is contrasted with the person who hears and faithfully obeys day after day.

[34:13] And we remember Jesus' statements in Matthew 10, Matthew 24, the one who endures to the end will be saved. The one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

[34:25] Not being someone who hears and forgets, but being someone who applies the word and acts on it. And he uses a very similar word in verse 12 of chapter 1, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.

[34:49] Who perseveres in this law of liberty will be blessed in his doing. The truly blessed life is an obedient life. The truly blessed life is one that meditates on God's word and lives accordingly.

[35:04] And so we have not rightly received the word unless it leads us to obedience. Jeff referenced this earlier, but I'd invite you to turn with me to the book of Matthew chapter 7.

[35:16] James is highly similar to Jesus' teaching throughout the Sermon on the Mount.

[35:40] They were related to each other. You can see the influence. but in Matthew chapter 7 verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father.

[35:56] There's a difference between saying and doing. In verse 24, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

[36:10] It withstands the storm that comes against it. Contrast that with verse 26. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

[36:23] It does not withstand the storm. Jesus taught this same reality. Many people will claim Jesus. Many people will claim to love his word, and a few will obey it.

[36:38] But look at the people's response in verse 28. When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.

[36:51] Jesus was confronting their worldview on many levels, and they were there for it. They loved it. But as time went on, they proved to only be amused spectators.

[37:06] They recognized very quickly that following this man would be costly, and they were not willing to pay the price. They recognized that obeying what he said was far different from just being amused by his teaching or impressed by his teaching.

[37:20] They were fair-weather followers when they realized that faithfulness would cost them their lives. And they walked away. And if your spiritual life consists of an unbroken pattern of constantly hearing God's word and not acting on it, your life will end in hell.

[37:43] James is saying that you are not saved. You have not been changed by this word if your life is constantly marked by this forgetfulness of the word.

[37:54] There are very dire consequences to this. We must ensure that we are applying the word to ourselves and obeying it. Our obedience in this life will never be perfect.

[38:06] We will always be dealing with sin. We're always going to have to try to put our sin to death every single day we're on this earth, but we should be obedient. We must put our sins away and humbly return to rightly receiving the word.

[38:22] And so many times our obedience will look like confessing our disobedience. So many times our faithfulness and perseverance in the word will be coming back to Christ and asking for forgiveness once again.

[38:35] Confessing our sins and begging for his blood to continue to be sufficient to cover our wretchedness and our filthiness and our rampant wickedness. And in 1 John 1.9 it's said that if we confess our sins, if we're obedient to confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[39:01] We look to him as our hope of righteousness. Our anger does not produce righteousness. The word of God, both written and made flesh, produces righteousness in us through his death and resurrection.

[39:12] as we look to him as an example, he was quick to listen to the voice of his father. He was slow to speak.

[39:26] Though he was reviled, he did not revile in return. And though he was beaten and bruised, he was slow to anger because he did not threaten, but continued to entrust himself to him who judges justly.

[39:44] And he himself bore our sins in his body on that tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Will you receive this word?

[39:57] Will you obey him? He alone produces the righteousness of God through his death and intercession for us. And following his commands is not burdensome to us.

[40:09] It's the law of liberty, as James says. And so, persevere in obedience. Continue to be faithful even when it's painful, even when it hurts, even when life is difficult.

[40:24] And as Galatians 6, 9 says, do not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So I'd encourage you to rightly receive the word. We need to sit under the teaching of the word and the evidence of that is through obedience.

[40:42] Our Father, we praise you as the source of righteousness. Of your will, you brought us forth through the word of truth, your Son. Father, I pray we'd be recipients of your word, rightly.

[40:58] We wouldn't be those hearers who forget. We would take it to heart and seek to live it out. And we confess our dependence on you.

[41:10] We confess our dependence on the Spirit to empower us to put our sin to death. And Father, help remind us of our dependence on one another. We cannot see our blind spots.

[41:22] We need help. Father, help us to, in love, correct one another. in love, apply the word to our own hearts before we seek to apply it to others, but still help each other to follow your Son, Jesus.

[41:36] I pray he'd sustain us. We long to see him. Help us to fight sin. Help us go to war against sin until we see Jesus as he is.

[41:48] And we will be like him, perfectly holy, perfectly righteous. and we will love your word eternally. It's in his name we pray.

[42:00] Amen. Thank you guys for being here. You're dismissed. Thank you.

[42:29] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[42:40] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[43:20] Thank you.

[43:50] Thank you.

[44:20] Thank you.

[44:50] Thank you.

[45:20] Thank you.