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Tune In, Tone Down, Lighten Up
James 1:19-20
If only we were all
'clothed' with this verse! This
is God’s plan for us.
v. 18 This speaks of the
wonderful new birth that I have experienced and every true Christian has
experienced. But there are a lot of people talking about being born again,
who have not been born again. And one of the ways that you can tell they
have not been born again is there’s been no change whatsoever in the way
they live. If you’ve had a new birth, there’s going to be some new behavior.
Just write it down, If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature, old
things are passed away, behold all things are become new. And if your
religion hasn’t changed your life, you had better change your religion
because you don’t have the Bible kind.
And so, in verse eighteen,
James speaks of the new birth. And then beginning in verse nineteen, he
speaks of the new behavior.
ill.--Some men were
standing around talking about different translations of the Bible and some
were talking about the Revised Standard Version, others talking about the
King James Version, others talking about the New English Bible. Others were
talking about the Amplified Version. One man said, I like my mother’s
translation best. And they said, oh, we didn’t know that your mother was a
scholar. How did she translate the Bible? And he said, my mother translated
the Bible into daily living. That’s the translation I think we all need -
translating what we know into practice. And so James talks about three very
pertinent areas of our behavior.
“Wherefore my beloved,
beloved, brethren, let every man be swift to hear,” that is tune in, “slow
to speak,” that is tone down, “and slow to wrath,” that is lighten up.
Be swift to hear. Tune in
to what God is saying to you. Some people don’t have their ears on. Jesus
spoke of those who had ears but they hear not.
The Bible says we are to be
swift to hear, that is, be ready to receive the things that God has for us.
Now, the Bible doesn’t teach that we’re to hear everything there is to hear.
There are some things we ought not to hear.
Mark 4:24
24
And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall
more be given.
And you don’t need to be
listening to everything that comes along. You don’t have to listen to every
scrap of gossip or let people use your ears for garbage cans. You don’t have
to listen to every philosophy that comes along in all of these things. Jesus
said, be careful what you hear.
But James says, be swift to
hear. What is James talking
about? He is saying be swift to hear others more than yourself.
And be swift to hear more than anyone else the impulses of the
Spirit. Be swift to hear the Word of God. Hear what God is speaking to you.
Are you ready to listen to God this morning? The problem with so many of us
is that we’re not listening. It is not that God is not speaking. God is
speaking. But our problem is that we don’t listen.
One way that God speaks is
through the Scriptures, through the Bible. Do you know this book? Do you
read this book? Do you study this book? Do you pray over this book? Do you
love this book? If not, why not? You claim to be a Christian. This is God’s
Word to you. You’re saying, oh, God, speak to me. Well, God will speak to
you if you will open this book and pray over it, and read it and say, oh,
Lord, incline mine ear to thy testimonies. This Bible is the Word of God as
much as though Jesus Christ Himself were standing here in the flesh speaking
to you. This book is the Word of God. Do you know it? Do you hear it? Do you
receive it? So many people read the Bible and they get nothing from it
because they’re not listening what is God saying.
Here's five little
questions to ask yourself as you open the Word:
Is there a lesson to learn?
As you read it, you read a chapter or a few verses. You say, Is there a
lesson to learn?
Number two, ask yourself
this question: Is there a blessing to enjoy? Oh, oh, dear friend, this book
is full of blessings. And you can just sit back and roll them around on your
tongue and meditate in your heart and enjoy those blessings.
Number three: Is there a
command to obey?
Number four: Is there a sin
to avoid?
Number five: Is there a new
truth to carry with me? And just as you read a passage of Scripture keep
asking yourself those questions over and over again so that the Word of God
will get off of the page and into your heart. One way that God will speak to
you is through the Scripture.
Another way that God will
speak to you is through the sermon. You see, God calls His preachers to
preach. The Bible says, how shall they hear without a preacher. And I’m not
being vain or egotistical when I tell you that I know that God has empowered
me to preach. If not, I would have no business being here and I can say with
the prophet Isaiah, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord hath
anointed me to preach. And God holds me responsible for what I preach. And
the Bible tells us to be very careful in the way we preach. "If any man
speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." It is incumbent upon me that I
be prayerfully prepared to come and stand in this sacred place. But it is
also just as incumbent upon you that when you come to church that you be
prepared to listen. And I have as much right to expect you to be prepared,
as you have to expect me to be prepared.
You know, sometimes people
can sit in church and look straight at the preacher with eyes wide open and
figure up a business deal or what they’re going to have for Sunday dinner,
or what they’re going to wear this evening, or who’s going to win the
football game and they can be figuring those things and looking straight at
you as though they’re paying attention. And, sometimes they don’t even look
at you. They close their eyes.
ill.--One man said to his
pastor, trying to impress him, “Pastor, could you give me a little prayer
that I might pray upon entering the sanctuary?” The pastor said, “May I
suggest, now I lay me down to sleep.”
You will learn something
this morning if you’ll take some notes and take an open Bible and use your
Bible in this service. You will learn some things. You ought to carry some
things away with you when you come to church. I’m not the best preacher in
the world and I’m well aware of that. I want to tell you something though.
While there are others who may be able to preach the gospel better than I,
but no one can preach a better gospel than I because there is but one. And
as I’ve said before, God will hold you responsible for what you hear this
morning. As a matter of fact, God will even hold you responsible for what
you would have heard had you listened. God speaks through the Scriptures.
And God speaks through sermon.
And God speaks through the
Spirit. Again the Bible says, concerning the Holy Spirit he that hath ears
to hear, let him hear what the Spirit sayeth to the church. That’s another
way that God speaks. And may I tell you that it is easier to hear God
speaking in the Bible and it is easier to hear God speaking from the pulpit
than it is to hear God speaking with his Spirit to our spirit. Many of have
not learned to get quiet and let God speak to us in those quiet times, those
times of meditation. The devil aims his heaviest artillery at that quiet
place where you get alone with the Lord. How many of you have a quiet time?
A time where you get alone and not say, 'listen Lord, thy servant speaketh'
but 'speak Lord, thy servant heareth.' To be quiet before the Lord.
The Bible says in quietness
and confidence, possess ye your souls, be still and know that I am God. And
the reason that God doesn’t speak to some of us is that when we come to that
time when we’re to have fellowship with God, we do all of the talking. It's
all about us, our requests and complaints.
Do you like to hold a conversation with someone who does all of the
talking?
Somebody said, an egotist
is somebody that talks about himself so much that you can’t talk about
yourself. Many of us are egotist when we come to prayer. Rather than
listening to God and being quiet. You know, that’s the reason many of us
always want some noise going on. It's the radio, the TV, or the phone.
We cannot bear to be quiet and alone with God. No wonder God has such
a problem breaking through and speaking to the spirit. I’m afraid if David
had an mp3 player we might not have had the twenty-third Psalm. Can God get
your attention?
Do you know what the word
“amuse” means? It means not to think. “A” meaning “no,” “muse” meaning “to
think.” Amuse. Most of us are amusing ourselves right out of fellowship with
God because we do not allow God to speak to us because we don’t want to stop
and think, but just be entertained all the time.
All right, so James says
that a part of our new behavior that issues out of our new birth is that we
are to tune in, tune in to God. Be swift to hear.
But, number two, not only
should we be swift to hear, we need to be slow to speak. Not only do we need
to tune in, we need to tone down. The plain unvarnished truth is that most
of us talk too much. Many things are opened by mistake but none so
frequently as the mouth. And James says, don’t talk as much as you are
accustomed to talking.
Proverbs 10:19
19 In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that
refraineth his lips is wise.
Proverbs 17:27
27 He that hath knowledge spareth his
words:
Ecclesiastes 5:3
3
... a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
It’s better to keep your
mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all
doubt. Speech may be silver, but often silence is golden. Man has two ears
and one mouth. The ears are made always to be open. The mouth is made where
it can be closed and the tongue is enclosed in a den behind ivory bars, the
teeth. We’re supposed to be listening twice as much as we’re to be speaking.
But, most of us have gone just the other route.
Jesus warned against
speaking idle words.
Matthew 12:36
36
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
This has frightened some
people because they’ve thought that they could not be talking unless they’re
talking in a serious thing. And they’re afraid to have any kind of a
conversation. They’re afraid of any humor. They’re afraid of any
lightheartedness. That’s not what this is talking about. Jesus here is not
talking against pleasant conversation, even humor. This word “idle” means
non productive, an idle word. In this same book of James, James says in
chapter two and verse twenty: “Faith without works is dead.” And that word
“dead” is the same word in the Greek as the word “idle.” Faith without works
is idle. What does that mean? It is non-productive. It doesn’t contribute
anything. It is hurtful, rather than helpful. And what Jesus is saying is,
that any word that you speak that doesn’t build up, that doesn’t edify, that
doesn’t help, but words that are non-productive words, words that are
destructive words, you’re going to have to give an account in the day of
judgment.
Certainly humor can be
productive. It can refresh. It can relax. Sometimes it can instruct and
Jesus on occasions used humor. I’m sure when Jesus spoke of those gagged at
a gnat and swallowed a camel it really broke them up in the aisles.
Someone asked Charles
Haddon Spurgeon one time, “Mr. Spurgeon, why do you use humor in your
messages?” Spurgeon said, “I tickle the oyster until he opens the shell and
then I stick the knife in.”
Humor can be used to disarm
and refresh and it can be sometimes profitable. What Jesus was talking about
when he said that, if you will read the Scripture here in this particular
chapter of Matthew, the Pharisee’s had just accused Jesus Christ of casting
out devils by the prince of devils. And it was then that Jesus gave this
warning. Jesus was not warning against a wise word spoken playfully, but he
was warning against a foolish word spoken seriously when they made this
accusation.
How much harm is done by
foolish talking? How many homes are broken? How many hearts are crushed? How
many families are divided? How many churches are split? How many souls are
lost because people have not learned to set a guard at their mouth? Watch
the words of your mouth.
One of the marks that a man
has been born again is that his tongue is now controlled. You see, when
we’re talking we can’t be listening. And so, the same Bible that says be
ready to hear says be slow to speak. You see, the two are mutually
incompatible.
A wise ole owl lived in an
oak.
The more he saw the less he
spoke.
The less he spoke, the more
he heard.
Why can’t we be like that
ole bird?
Most of us would be amazed
if we knew just how much we rattle on. Most of us would be amazed if
somebody were to follow us around with a tape recorder and tape everything
we say in entire day and then reduce it to print and make us read it back at
the end of the day.
And if all that we say in a
single day
with never a word left out
Were printed each night in
clear black and white,
would make strange reading
no doubt,
And then just suppose, err
one’s eyes he could close,
he must read the record
through,
Then wouldn’t one sigh and
wouldn’t one try
a great deal less talking
to do?
And I really think that
many a kink
would be smoothed in life’s
tangled thread
If one half that we say in
one single day
were forever left unsaid.
Psalm 141:3
3
Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
And so, what is James
saying? The marks of a new Christian are a new man, a man who has been born
again. He’s going to be swift to hear. Number two, he’s going to be slow to
speak, and number three, he is going to be slow to wrath.
Not only is he going to
tune in and tone down, he’s going to lighten up. And this is the sum total
of these other two things. When a man starts listening more and talking less
it affects his temper and he learns to control his heart because when his
thought life is controlled and his tongue is controlled, then his temper is
controlled. Thoughts, tongue, temper.
Be slow to wrath means be
slow to take offense and get angry. You should never lose your temper. As a
matter of fact, you don’t lose it, what you probably do is find it.
But, you see, the Bible
doesn’t say never be angry.
Ephesians 4:26
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your
wrath:
It is wrong when your anger
becomes sin and it easily can. Jesus got angry and Jesus was without sin.
Some people never think of Jesus Christ as ever getting angry. But Jesus did
get angry.
Mark 3:4-5
4
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
5 And when he had looked
round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their
hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched
it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
Jesus did get angry and
what made Jesus Christ angry was hard hearts in the face of human hurts and
it made Jesus Christ angry. And there’s something wrong with you if some
things don’t make you angry. But, oh, how you need to be careful, for the
Bible says, be angry and sin not. And James says, be slow to wrath because
it is so easy for you, so easy to let the line disappear between righteous
indignation and personal irritation.
Make certain these three
things are present: Number one, make certain that you're angry for the right
reason. You see, most of us get angry when our toes are stepped on, when our
rights are taken away, when somebody offends us, and somebody gets our
parking place. You will never find one angry word spoken by the Lord Jesus
Christ at any time when he was personally mistreated. Not an angry word when
they nailed him to the cross. But rather, he prayed, “Father, forgive them,
for they no not what they do. ” Most of our anger is when somebody has
wronged us. Jesus got angry when somebody else was being hurt. You make
certain that if you have anger that it’s righteous anger and that it is for
the right reason.
Number two, be certain that
you’re angry at the right thing. Now, Jesus did not get angry with
individuals. He got angry with institutions and forms and sins, but not with
individuals. He loved the individual. You see, you can be angry with the
wrong 'done,' but not with the wrong 'doer.' Most of us get angry at the
wrong doer. We get angry at people. Jesus did not. Jesus loved people. And
while Jesus was moved with anger and hard hearts and while Jesus burned
sometimes with the zeal of his Father’s business, He was kind and
compassionate and tender and though they were sinners, Jesus was the friend
of sinners.
We preach a righteous
indignation against the sins of our society, but let us never forget we are
to love the sinners and just hate the sin.
Jesus Christ became angry but his anger was for the right reasons at
the right things and then his anger was displayed in the right way.
His anger make him a part
of the solution, not a greater part of the problem. And when you lose your
temper you’re not a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem and the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. When it’s God's anger,
when it’s a righteous anger, then the righteousness of God is going to be
worked. And you’d better learn that when you raise your voice, you also had
better lift your hands to do something about the situation.
Ecclesiastes 7:9
9 Be not hasty in thy spirit to be
angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Proverbs 16:32
32 He that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
Some people think that an
anger, a temper, a violent temper is a sign of strength. Some men are
bullies in their own house. They go throwing things around, slapping the
kids around, driving like a maniac down the highway.
It's not a sign of strength. It’s a sign of babyhood. You’re like a
little baby, throwing a temper tantrum. And I’ll tell you something else
about anger. When you get angry you lose control and you open the door to
all kinds of other sins that you would not normally commit. You say things
that you ought not to say. You do things that you ought not to do.
Proverbs 29:22
22 An
angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.
Things will happen, things
will be said that you would give the world if you could take back. But, you
lose your mind, you lose your control.
Some people are actually
proud of their temper. They really are. They say, well, we’ve got red hair
in our family. Others say, you know, well, uh, it, I, I just get from my
dad. I’ve got my dad’s temper. Yea, you’re of your father, the devil. Oh,
you say, well, it just lasts a little while. Well, when a man with a
hair-trigger blazes away with a shotgun, that just lasts a little while too.
But, somebody else has to go in there and pick up the pieces. I want to tell
you, it is not weakness, it is wickedness. You want me to tell you why those
things spew out of you? Because they’re in you. If you want to see what
you’re made out of, if you want to see what you’re full of, you see what
spills out of you when you’re jostled. And if you’re full of anger, when
you’re jostled, anger will spill out. If you’re full of Jesus, Jesus will
spill out. You cannot judge a person by his actions because he can plan his
actions. You watch his 'reactions' - the things he has not planned and
you’ll know what that man is full of. And the only way, ladies and
gentlemen, to control your temper is to have a heart full of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Notice the chain here. Tune
it. Secondly, tone down. Thirdly, lighten up.
A careless word may kindle
strife. A cruel word may wreck a life.
A bitter word may hate
instill. A brutal word may smite and kill.
A gracious word may smooth
away. A joyous word may light the day.
A timely word may lessen
stress. A loving word may heal and bless.
And all of this is possible
because we have been born again. It’s all possible through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Tune in right now and listen to me. Jesus Christ did not come to
make us nice people. He came to make us new creatures. And I’m not just
giving you a lecture on manners this morning. These things that James is
talking about, these are the fruits of being born again. Have you been born
again? Have you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior? You
might as well try to control gunpowder in hell as to try to control your
temper without Jesus Christ, or to control your tongue without Jesus Christ,
or to control your thoughts without Jesus Christ. You need a new nature, you
need to be born again.
[some source material from the late great
Dr. Adrian Rogers]
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