Swift to Hear, Slow to Speak, Slow to Wrath

Swift to Hear, Slow to Speak, Slow to Wrath

And when we arrive in James chapter one, let's look down together if you will in verse number 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And come with down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness. Neither shadow of turning of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. That we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. Slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of band work if not the righteousness of God.

And I want to conclude the reading there in verse number 20 this morning. To mark our Bibles to these four verses we've read from James chapter one.

Signalled as the Lord and the word of prayer. Our gracious Father we thank you. Thank you that we can call you that because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. As we said in the Sunday school hour how he has bridged the great chasm, the great divide between our unrighteousness and your righteousness. He's made paved the way. He is the way. No man come with to the father but through the sun. The sun who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and that he was made in the likeness of men took on the form of a servant. Was obedient to the death even of the cross. And we thank you that he did not remain in the grave. He is risen. Even now he's ascended and sitting at your right hand father. And we pray Father that even as we come today that we would rightly worship and that we would truly stand at all at the great benefits that have come to us and continue to come to us because of our relationship to the. Blessed now as we continue in this worship service. We pray that everything that said and done thought said and done would be for that unongory. We pray in Jesus name.

We see that our God and Father is the source. As we look at the sun and relative to our moon, the sun is the sources and of light. The moon reflects the light but the sun is the source of that light. This is a gaseous star that is burning. It's continuing to produce heat and light and gives energy, causes photosynthesis to happen. We are tilted towards the sun at this time of year and so we feel more of its heat than we do in the wintertime when we are tilted based on the axis of our earth away from it. But it is the source without the sun. We couldn't grow the things that we grow. They would not be life. There would be energy. All of the sun is needed for that. We are conscious also of course of this time of year that we need rain, don't we? We are conscious of that. So the source of all of those natural blessings, the sun and the rain. We think of all of those things that are necessary for life. God is the source of all of those things. Without Him, nothing made would be made. Nothing would exist. But He is. He is the Father as we read here of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

There is something more than the natural that is being ultimately alluded to here in this passage. We see in God our Father, a consistency, a changeableness. There is no variableness in Him. He doesn't change, she doesn't change with the wind. He doesn't flip, fly, and change on a whim. God is very unlike us in that sense. In that we do change, we change, but He does not. He is stable. There is a Him that has been written about that. He is stable, probably more than one Him, but He is stable and unchanging. And yet, as we see here in this passage, that every good gift and every perfect gift received comes from Him. It comes from above. God gives gifts in many different forms. Sometimes they come in the form of what we consider to be blessings. Sometimes they come in the form of difficulty. They come in the form of things that don't taste pleasant, don't feel good. They come in a variety of different ways, but we are reminded, of course, that we… We're not the lived by feelings. We saw this morning we lived by faith. And James, as we know, James talks about this matter of the trying of our faith, doesn't he? The trying of our faith work of patience, the let patience have a perfect work that you may be perfect, complete, entire wanting, nothing, lacking, nothing that God wants to give you. He's given us new life in Christ, but He continues to give. He continues to give. He giveeth and giveeth and giveeth again, right? He continues to give things to our lives. And so we are always in need of being in a posture of receiving the good gifts that He's giving. We cannot receive good gifts if we're proud, because God gives grace to the humble, right? There's things that the unrighteous that those who are in unbelief cannot simply cannot receive from God. First of all, because they're not His children being born again by faith in Jesus Christ, but they don't have… Their heart is not in a posture to even believe, to receive those things. They may receive the natural blessings, the sun, chimes, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, right? But they do not know the can-do, but they do not know really what this passage is talking about when it says that every… What does it say, every good gift and every perfect gift coming from above? They may know a small portion of that, but we can know more. We can know more by faith, by faith in God's Word and His salvation. Every good thing, even we may pray for good things, and those good things we pray for may come in a way that we can anticipate them coming. They may come in a timing we didn't anticipate them coming. There are many ways that God works. We've seen some examples of that, even on this recent trip. There are delays that come along. There's difficulties. We certainly realize as we ride on the roads, there's dangers that are inherent in travel. I think the Lord kept us from harm in that, but what if we had gotten in the wreck? What if that had happened? God has a purpose even in that. God has a purpose in dangers that are presented to our lives. He is a purpose in failures, not that He wants us to fail in the sense that we are living in sin. No, I'm not saying that, but even in the failure, he can take it and make it into something good if we will look to Him with it. I've been reminded of that in a conversation this past week with the brother that just mentioned how God can take. the failure is not the problem. The problem comes when we fail to look to God in the failure. The problem comes when we don't learn what He's trying to teach us in the failure. And the thing that we have fallen short in. Now we must learn. What is it Lord that you're trying to teach me through this matter?

I think of Matthew 7, if you look over there with me. We think of our Heavenly Father, Matthew 7, verse 11. It says, there in verse 11. Well, let's go back to verse 7. I think it will be helpful, destructive to remind ourselves of the context here. Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. What man is there of you? Who if his son asks bread will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent? Oh, is there a tworkle question? No, it's not. If your son asks you for a fish, you're not going to give him a snake. That's just a given. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him.

I'm sure every father here this morning would answer quickly and definitely, no, I would not give my son a serpent. No, I would not give my child a stone if he asks for bread. Have ever done that? No, I never went hungry in my parents' home. They always fed me. They always said, you know, and they said, he's like, Mike, you give him anything, you'll eat it, you know. They give me any stones. They fed me. In fact, mom would often say, you know, you sure you had enough? Well, we didn't go hungry. But how much more, how much more, as it says here, shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him. See, here's another component. If he's your father, you need to ask him for the things that he's promised to give you. They're made, we may miss out on things that God wants to give us just because we don't ask for them. Or as in another passage, another parallel passage in the gospel, it says he will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask. There is, well, if I'm a child of God, I have the Holy Spirit, but I must be filled with the Holy Spirit. I must walk in the Spirit. And so now the Father will not withhold, if we just ask. He will not withhold any good thing that to those that he has begotten again by faith. By faith in the free gift, he's caused to be born into the family of God. He's not going to withhold any good thing from those that ask in faith. We said he can't give, if we're proud, right? He can't bless us in many ways because of the pride that God gives grace to the humble, right? But the proud, he resists, the proud, he knows it far off. Let us be sure that there's no pride, only humble trusting faith that what he says he will do.

Now, we see that he back in our texts in James chapter 1, of course, every good gift, every perfect gift, as we've read, is from above and come with down from the Father of light. There's no variableness, there's no shadow of turning, there's not, you know, he's not favorable towards us at times. And at other times he's not of his own will begat he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. He begat us with the word of truth. He told us the truth about ourselves, our sinful condition. He told us the truth about our need of him, like the woman at the well said, come see a man that told me all that ever I did. It's not just the Christ. And yet he gave her the living water. He gave her the order that would from the world it would never run dry. God acted graciously toward us in begatting us with the word of truth. We didn't deserve it, but he gave us, he revealed his truth to us. And his purpose in that is that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. This is, you know, when you think about harvest, you think about first fruits. Isn't that where we get the idea from the term from the first fruits? Certainly this was very prominent in the Jewish mind, the first fruits of the harvest. We were rejoicing in some of the first fruits of things coming from our own backyards. It's a joyful thing, but the first fruits were even to be offered to the Lord. I offered to the Lord as a sacrifice of things, giving to him for the hardest. But we see that Romans 8 will talk about even the creation, I believe, they're groaning. And we'll read that the whole creation actually groans under the centers. We have the saints as a symbol, a saints represent that what Peter calls a chosen generation. He says we are a royal priesthood. We are a holy nation. We are a peculiar people that we should. It's God's purpose in us in 1 Peter 2, verse 9. He says that we should show forth the praises of him that call us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Well, part of the reason for that, of course, is symbolite, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine from short and short so that others may see what God has done. The hope is God's desire is not that any should perish, but that also come to repentance. And that they might also become part of this redeemed, the number of the redeemed. But even among the creatures, we looked at a lot of creatures this week. We saw a lot of God's creation and His creatures, and we, the floor and the Father, and ultimately God is going to redeem the creation in all the creatures. And we think about us as God's own people become a harbinger, if you will. Jesus's resurrection, Jesus's death bill and resurrection became a forerunner of a foreshadowing, of our resurrection, ultimately. But even we become first fruits if you will, the ultimate redemption of the whole creation. And it is, even now God is giving good gifts to even those that are not saved. He's blessing with many things in the creation, but it is rolling. It is travailing in pain because of sin and the effects of sin upon this planet. We saw, as we were at the ark this past week of how we were reminded, that wickedness had become great in the earth, and there are some depictions in there of just the brutality of man. And just how cruel man becomes to the creation, and murder and excess, and all of these things, and it's ultimately, when we come to the book of Revelation, we'll see that the Lord will have to destroy them that destroy the earth. He will destroy those that destroy the earth. But the redeemed, the children of God, become a first fruits, a kind of first fruits of His creatures. Look how good God is to His children. Look how good God is, not only in the sending of the sun, the brain. But the blessings of His grace that He pulls out upon His own children. Look, you know, our prayer for every family in this church, including our own, is that we would in our families, whether you have children or not, children may be grown and grown, but that we would, as a family, shine the light of Christ to a world that is lost and sin. That we would be, that would even give hope to others that they might become part of this as well. They might come to know the Lord as well. But it even encourages our hearts being born again and receiving these good gifts that God has to give to us, that ultimately we're just waiting for the redemption of this whole planet that God has given to us. This is temporary, but one day there will be a new heaven, so He'll do our, where we will dwell forever with our Father in heaven. We're four of our beloved brethren, verse 19 says, let every man, well, God is testing us here and now. God is giving good gifts to us. God is giving good gifts, but He's trying our faith in this present world, in this present time. And as we respond to Him in faith, as we've talked about as we pray and ask Him, Lord, give us these things He will not withhold. As in that mindset, my beloved brethren let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. But every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man work if not the righteousness of God. Because God is good, because every good gift comes from Him. And we know that as Paul would say, in me, that is in my flesh, you'll look no good thing. I must be careful, while being tested, the trial of my faith is ongoing, and knowing that God is good, I must be ready to receive what He has to give me. I have to be especially careful that I do not project in a fleshly sinful sort of way, my own will, and my own thinking, but I must say, Lord, let me die, will be done. Give me what I need, Lord. Let me be quick to hear what you have to say to me. Let me be slow to speak, and exert myself before I know what your will is, Lord. And let me be slow to wrath, anger, that I might not confuse what you are trying to do. I might not get in the way and become an obstacle to what your plan is in my life, or through my life in the lives of those around me, my family, my brothers and sisters in Christ, because you know what? We can certainly make a mess of things with our words. We can make a mess of things with our actions, or our inaction in many things. So we need to be swift to hear. We need to be slow to speak. We need to be slow to wrath. Why? Well, we're for. We have a good father that is giving good gifts. And if we are continuing to look to him, he will give us all the wisdom we need. He'll give us all the gifts that we are of grace that we're in need of to meet the trials that we're facing here.

I think about this statement here. Let every man be swift to hear. I know when we were going through the study of James, we talked about the word of the Greek. We get the word tachometer from a tachometer, like on a car. It's talking about the revolutions of an engine. And it's talking about, you know, fast cars or have a high torque, I guess you can say. And they're quick. They're quick. Off the line. And sometimes that's how our words are. Quick off the line, you know, and we speak before we think about it. We say things that we were regret later on because we just, it came out very quick. But we need to be slow to speak so that we're careful that the things that we do say are reflective of God's goodness and not of our own. Well, frankly, as the Lord said to even, even earthly fathers ye being evil in and of ourselves, there's no goodness in us. So let's make sure that our words are directed by heaven instead of our own heart, right? You know, follow your heart, say whatever, whatever comes out, that's, that's not the way, that's not the way we need to do it. That's not the way the Lord intends for us to live. Our natural tendency is not to be quick to say what God wants us to say, but to say what we would want to say. But every man to be swift to hear, not swift to speak, but swift to hear. We need to be quick to, quick to hear by Samuel in the tabernacle. Remember, when Samuel was hearing a voice, he thought it was Eli. He was doing the right thing. He just didn't understand. He was speaking to him. He quickly came. Yes, speak. You call me? And he kept coming and Eli would say, I didn't call you. Go back. I didn't call you. Go back. And then finally, of course, Eli recognized this must be the Lord speaking to him. He said, speak word for thy servant here. That should be our mindset. That should be our heart. Lord, I want to be swift, like the tachometer to not to speak, but to hear. But to hear. What is it that you're saying to me as I'm reading the word of God, but it may be, as I'm just going through my daily life. And circumstances arise, test, test come. And then maybe what I've been reading or what I've heard in a conversation or maybe a combination of all those things. I was reading another book and God, the Holy Spirit, weaves these things in the good plan of the Father in my life. And I hear what is it the Lord's trying to say to me. I discern. What is it the Lord's trying to get across to me in this day and this test in this trial? Well, he certainly, we certainly know he's working patience in this isn't he. But we see that there are many things that he's giving wants to give to us even through the specific tests and trials that we need to be ready to receive. And so let every man be swift, let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak. Oh, there's so much about speaking in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes isn't there. There's a lot about speaking in the tongue. James talks about the tongue. It's a very powerful thing. It's a world of iniquity. It's a consent things on fire. It's a… It needs to be bridled, right? Like a horse and rider. The only one that can bridle the tongue is the Lord himself. The only one that can… So even that's a gift, isn't it? The Lord bridle my tongue. Lord captain of this ship control this rudder so that the ship is steered in the right way. Words can steer not only my life, but can steer other people's lives. So we better be careful how we use our words because we could misdirect someone else and the things we say. You know, I'm sure we've even said well meaning things that later only realize that was probably not the best thing to have said. But even when we realize that, Lord helped me to learn from this now and say what you would have me to say in those things. Let's be slow to speak. Proverbs 10 19 says in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refrained his lips his wise. Let's look over and Ecclesiastes briefly. Chapter 5. Ecclesiastes chapter 5. And verse number 3. Because we have a good father who gives good gifts, we ought to be slow to speak swift here because the father, if we don't run ahead of him, is going to give us what we need. He's going to give us everything that we need to know and everything we need to say. Ecclesiastes 5. Three says here in verse number 3. For a dream coming through the multitude of business and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words. Multituted words, a profuse mouth full of words. Ecclesiastes 10. Look in verse 14. The multitude of words in Ecclesiastes 10. 14 says a fool also is full of words. Ecclesiastes 10. 14. A man cannot tell what shall be and what shall be after him who can tell him. But the fool always has something to say right? Just full of words, full of words, full words. But may we be careful in our speech. Sometimes we can complain quickly. Maybe we're not even saying it to anybody. But we might be saying it in the presence of God. Why me? Why now? Why this? You know, we might say, how does this always happen to me? Let's be careful to be slow to speak in those kinds of ways. Because we can miss our own. What God is trying to bring to us through the testing. Because we sin without lips against the Lord in the test. And we complain, right? We complain. Remember King David in his haste, he said, I am cut off. Well, he wasn't cut off. He thought he would die by the… Surely I would die by the hand of Saul. Well, he didn't die by the hand of Saul, did he? But we should be careful. And if we do have a complaint, we can tell the Lord what's upon our heart. But let's, even with that, lay our burdens out before the Lord and say, Lord, but I… This is heavy. This is hard. I am weary. But Lord, give me help me. Give me the grace needed. God doesn't mind when we come to Him with our cares and we cast them upon Him. And don't drag them back, but we saved Him, Lord. You know I'm weak. I need strength. I need you to help me in my thinking. Well, lay out our complaint before the Lord in that way. The Lord will help us. The Lord will give us what we need. We better be careful with our speech that we don't jump rashly to conclusions either. I know the human tendency is to just… It's the easiest thing to do to quickly jump to conclusions and say things with no… Speak before we even had time to think things through very well and pray about them. But we are told we're to be slow to wrath as well here in the text. Slow to wrath. So, I'm going to flip the here. Slow to speak. Slow to wrath. These are indications of a child that is trusting that God is going to provide. The Father is going to provide all that we need as sons and daughters. The tendency of our wrath is that it's self-centered, self-serving. Sort of anger. Getting even kind of anger, right? We tend to do that. Get even with someone else. Don't let anybody trample on me sort of wrath. They've done me wrong. Well, two wrongs don't make a right either. Just because someone else is done, you wrong does not mean that you or I have the right to just retaliate say in anger, we need to be slow to anger. God has been very long suffering and is very long suffering with us if he wasn't. We certainly wouldn't be saved. We would be condemned if he wasn't. So, as God is slow to wrath with us, we need to be slow to wrath. Remember the Prophet Johnus said, I do well with the angry. No, you don't. And we don't do well to be angry. Moses, when provoked by the people, spoke unadvisedly, we read in Psalm 106 verse 33. He spoke unadvisedly with his lips. He was angry quickly. But, and yet, he was the meek as man in the earth. They really put, they were busted really been pushing his buttons, so to speak. But, we must have ruled by God's grace over our own spirit because if we don't, we're like a city with walls that are broken down. And the devil will take advantage. The devil loves to take advantage of a city with walls that are broken down. A life that has not a defense. Our defense is the Lord. We must be slow to speak, slow to wrath, swift, swift to hear. Let all bitterness, Paul says, and anger and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. We must put those things away from us. What does the text say in verse 20? Verse 20. Back in our text, James 1, verse 20. What does it say there for the wrath of man? Worketh not the righteousness of God. Our wrath promotes our own agenda, but it does not accomplish God's righteous purposes. It does not produce the righteousness that God desires. It does not serve to glorify God. That's for sure. Our wrath serves to promote ourselves. And this is why we are to be swift to hear.

I just think this morning of how what the basis, I think we've got to see this. The basis of all of this that we're told to do and not to do is that God is good. The Father, our heavenly Father, will supply, will meet all of our needs. He is the giver of all good gifts. This is not the survival of the fittest down here. We're not living in a rat race. The Lord has saved us out of the rat race of self-promotion and being at the front of the line. No, in fact, the Lord says, get at the back of the line. The Lord says, humble yourselves, and I will exalt you. The Lord does not encourage you, nothing. Anyway, in the scriptures, to fend for ourselves. That's not what we read in the Bible. The Father will provide everything that we need because He's good. He doesn't change. We get, we understand to believe. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself. I get frustrated with other people. The God is good. The Father will never disappoint us. I'll disappoint myself. Other people will disappoint me. The God will not. He is. It is from Him that every good gift and every perfect gift comes. No variableness. You know, as your pastor at times, if I haven't already, I'm sure it disappoints you. I'm sure I will because I'm human. I'm not God, but God will never disappoint you. He is the perfect Father. He loves us more than we can possibly imagine. More than we can know. I know a small, a small aspect with my own children. What it means, the love that God puts in my heart for my children. I'm not a perfect Father. I am not perfect in every word and action towards Him. I want to be. I want to be what God would have me to be to them, but the love that He puts in my heart is a Father for them. I can't even imagine what kind of love the Father has toward us. Every good gift. Every perfect gift coming from above. Thank God for our earthly fathers. Thank God for the good things we've received from them. Though they be not perfect, though none of us are perfect as fathers, we can see a glimpse of the heavenly Father's goodness. Sometimes our earthly fathers had to say calm down. Let's approach this commonly, but how much more our heavenly Father.

Let's bring. Heavenly Father, you're so good to us. You give good gifts to your children. Help us not to charge you, rationally, with our lips. Charge you with not loving us in some way, or ever letting the thought cross our minds and the word come out of our lips, Lord, that somehow this is against us, because Lord, everything is for us. If we love you and recall according to your purpose. Help us to pray. Help us to trust you. And know that in your way and your goodwill and your good time, you will give us what is best for us. It's amazing to think on that thought. You will give us what is best for us, because your heart never wavers toward us. Your heart never is not vacillating back and forth with whims, of feelings, emotions, but you're always the same toward us. Thank you. Thank you for the open throne of grace, where we can come. We can cast all of our cares there, knowing that you care for us, knowing that you always have our best. Help us, Lord, to avail ourselves more of that privilege. Help us, Lord, to draw upon this rich source that we have in our heavenly Father. We pray these things, bless us now as we sing the final hymn. Jesus name, Amen.