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Restoration Ministry

Restoration 2003: From Eden to Eternity

Ralph Henderson

An Issue of the Heart

Let Every Man Be Swift To Hear

It's good to be with you here again this morning on our last Sabbath together.

And you know, as we have gone through this entire series, I hope that there are a couple of very valuable points that you have recognized.

Number 1, that we need to maintain our focus on Jesus Christ.

Number 2, that when we maintain our focus on Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that by beholding we become changed.

And as we behold Jesus Christ, and as our characters are formed into His likeness, then we will begin to reflect Him to those around us.

And many souls will be brought to the Kingdom because of our lives.

And that's my prayer for each 1 of us today.

And I'd like for you to turn with me again, if you will, to James chapter 1 and let's look again at our Scripture today.

We're wanting to look at this chapter and this few verses and to understand how these verses can relate to all that we've been talking about these past 2 and a half weeks.

James chapter 1 and we want again look at verses 19 through 21.

James says, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." Now I want you to keep that in mind, but I'm going to take you back a few years, quite a few years when I was first attending Pacific Union College.

My goal there was to become a physical education teacher.

But there was 1 slight problem that I had when I first started going to Pacific Union College and that was that I wanted to play really more than study.

Now there's probably no 1 here that's like that.

You've all possibly gotten past that stage.

But when I first got there, That was kind of what was going on in my life.

I needed to get a job so I could have, you know, money for the essentials that I would need.

And so I went into this community work service office that they had.

And they had jobs available for college students So I went in and I I sat down and I began talking with this lady I said I'm looking for some work something that you know I can fit into my schedule She said I have the perfect job for you She said this will fit into almost anyone's schedule, and she said it's at the bakery I said oh, okay bakery that sounds okay, and and she said now the job is 4 hours a day, but you'll be able to work that into your schedule.

And she said, well, you start at 4 in the morning.

That's not morning, that's the middle of the night.

I said, what other jobs do you have there?

And there was another place that she said that would perhaps fit my schedule or my needs better.

She said there's like a community services office.

And people in the community who have work for different individuals, she said you can go over there and work 2 hours for this person or 3 or 4 for this person, and they generally pay you quite well.

So I thought, okay, this is good, this is good.

So I went over, and this 1 lady needed a hillside to be cleared of some weeds and debris and things I thought piece of cake I Went over and I found out that the the weeds that were on the side of the hill were poison oak and so after after I did my job and cleared the whole side of the hill with poison oak, I began noticing just a few days later that I was itching.

And after my entire body was almost covered with poison oak, I decided that that perhaps wasn't the thing for me.

And so then I moved on and then the last job that I had was I worked at a nursery and I don't know how many of you've ever done production work But production work assembly line work is very boring And you're doing the same thing over and over again, and I went into this nursery thinking that well This couldn't possibly be something like that But in reality it was this nursery was the nursery that supplied all of the vineyards With their little baby vines when they first started But I learned what grafting was all about.

I took the base vine that was supposed to be a stronger breed.

You know, they were always trying to produce better grapes, stronger vines that would produce more, and so they would graft different vines together.

And my job was to take this vine that had been cut down the middle, and then there was another vine that would be centered in between those 2, and it had to be placed just right or the graft wouldn't take.

So it was quite a tedious thing to make sure that it went right down in there and then you would staple the 2 outer sections of the bottom vine together.

And you know, as I was looking at this text, I began to think about that last statement there in verse 21.

Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

You see, in order for you and I to be saved into the Kingdom of Heaven, I think we have to discover that there is something that has to take place within us.

There is something that has to go on inside of our hearts.

You see in verse 21, James says that we are to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity.

Now I don't know about you, but when I first read that word superfluity, I wondered what in the world does that word mean?

Superfluity means an excess, an oversupply, and then I like this part, something unnecessary.

Now isn't it wonderful to know that God is wanting you to eliminate from your life something that's unnecessary.

So it's not something that you will miss if you give it up.

It's not something that will cause you any loss if it's forgotten.

It's something that's totally unnecessary in your life.

And God says to lay aside, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.

You see, God is calling us to give up something.

In order for you and I to obtain eternal salvation, yes, it is going to cost something.

We are going to have to give up the world." And he goes on and he says, "...and receive with meekness the engrafted word." God wants for Jesus and us to be grafted together.

He wants for us to be as 1 as Peter spoke about last night.

But I want us to take a little deeper look at these verses this morning and I want us to go back up now to verse 19.

And I want you to just think about verse 19 as we just read it and realize this, that if there were no Bible, if this was the only text in scripture that God had given man, what a different place the home, the church, and the world would be if we simply followed this 1 verse.

James says, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

You know, there were some statistics that I heard years ago, and I don't remember the exact numbers, but whenever there is a group of any size that has come together for a church service of any kind.

There are statistics that say that that morning a certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

But a certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

A certain portion of those people lashed out at someone that morning.

A certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

A certain portion of those people just before they got out of that car, they had a terrible argument or discussion And then immediately as soon as the doors were closed, the church face was put on and they came in.

A certain portion of those people came in hurting because someone else was thoughtless and careless in the way they expressed themselves.

So this morning as we sit here, I don't know who you are, but I know that you do.

And I know that each 1 of us battles, each 1 of us, no matter what our walk of life, no matter how high we have attained on that spiritual ladder, we battle with the issue of self.

And so now we look at today and we see that Paul is giving us some keys to how we can be more like Jesus.

And the first 1 that he says is, let every man be swift to hear.

You see, I think that we would recognize that life is built on relationships.

And an important part of those relationships is obviously communication.

In fact, some relationships are broken or made by communication alone.

So when we think of these things, we recognize that communication obviously takes 2 things, listening and speaking.

But there is a saying that says that God gave us 2 ears and He gave us 1 mouth so maybe we should listen twice as much as we talk.

In fact, a story is told that a young man once came to Socrates and he was going to learn how to give a sermon.

He was going to learn the power of oratory.

And as he came and he was introduced to Socrates, almost immediately after the introduction he began talking incessantly.

Finally after some time, Socrates immediately stuck his hand over the young man's mouth and said, Young man, I'm going to have to charge you twice as much.

And he said, because first I'm going to have to teach you how to hold your tongue, and then I'm going to have to teach you how to use it.

Listening is a very important aspect of our relationships with each other, But it's even more important in our relationship with God.

You see, in order for us to be good listeners for 1 another, we must be a good listener to God.

In the world in which we live Today, there are so many distractions the devil uses to try and draw us away so that we don't have time to listen to God.

But I want you to understand that we must practice the art of listening to God as He speaks.

You see, we live in a world where Christianity seems to be a powerless, a powerless form of godliness.

People claim to be Christians, yet there is no power in their lives.

And we ask ourselves the question, what is missing?

Could the fact be that we don't take the time to listen to God?

We have not learned the art of listening for what our Savior wants to say to us.

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Series

Restoration 2003: From Eden to Eternity

Let Every Man Be Swift To Hear

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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Prepare for the Unexpected

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Plenary

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Morning Devotional: It's War Time

It’s Wartime - Part 6: The Perfect Battle

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ECYC 2012: Plenary Sessions

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