“I’m Offended...”

What is it about our tribe that we need to make sure it is clear that we are right and everyone else is wrong?  What I mean by “our tribe” is Bible believing, church going, evangelicals who say that we agree with Jesus on everything that He said being right and true.  Just so that there is no misunderstanding about what I mean by the word “our,” I want to be clear that I am including myself in my question about “our tribe.”

 

Let me begin by acknowledging and confessing some things that I know to be true about myself. I have some very strong convictions about some things.  I hold to certain convictions that I hold to that if my heart and mind are left unchecked, I can come off sounding like an arrogant, know-it-all jerk.  There are certain convictions that are good for all people and there are convictions that are good for you.  When it comes to convictions, I believe there are three categories every person has:

1. There are convictions that I have that I believe we need to have.
2. There are convictions that I have that I believe you should
3. There are convictions that I have that I believe are good for me to have.   

 

Convictions that are of “primary” importance are convictions that are so important that to reject those convictions or ignore them is detrimental to biblical orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice).  Some examples of “primary convictions” include: The origin of the universe, the inerrancy of the Bible as Holy Scripture, the person and work of Jesus Christ (his virgin birth, his suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection), the second coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and the teaching that God is One and yet three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) while existing as one God (aka the Trinity). 

 

Secondary issues I hold with an open hand because being wrong on such things does not affect my faith and salvation, nor do they have eternal consequences.  Some secondary issues are really important, and you should hold to some level of conviction regarding them. Secondary convictions may be over topics and matters the Bible does address such as the timing of Jesus’ second coming, leadership roles for men and women in the church, and even the age of the universe. 

 

Then there are those convictions we have that come out of a third category primarily related to issues of conscience that the Bible is not as clear about.  In Paul’s day it was over the use and consumption of discounted meat that came from animals sacrificed to idols.  I heard a quote referenced by Tara Leigh Cobble that I really like and believe to be great advice: “Don’t shout where scripture whispers and don’t whisper where scripture shouts.” 

 

This sermon is not about secondary or tertiary level convictions, but it is about what God primarily wants for your life.  What is it that God wants for your life?  We are told in the verses leading up to James 1:19. Here are some of the verses that clue us into what God wants for your life:

God wants your faith to endure: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (Jas. 1:2–4)

 

God wants you to live wisely: “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (Jas. 1:5)

 

God wants you to walk humbly: “Now the brother or sister of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; but the rich person is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.” (Jas. 1:9–10)

 

God wants you to pursue Him in holiness: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” (Jas. 1:12)

 

Listen to What God Wants to Teach You (vv. 19-21)

What does it mean to be offended?  Based on the English dictionary, to be offended is to be insulted, hurt, or upset.  If I understand the Christian life and how it is that God brings change in our lives, it seems to me that for God to accomplish what He needs to in my life, He must insult my assumptions, wound my ego, and upset the trajectory of my life.  Jesus said, “And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed” (John 3:19-20).  Jesus said that for a person to be “born again” light must invade and overcome spiritual darkness; for that to happen, God must insult, hurt, and upset a person’s life so that they can go from spiritual death to spiritual life!   

 

In James 1:18, we are told: “In the exercise of His will He gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” The word of truth includes the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is also all of God’s written Word. We know this because of the way verses 22-27 describe how God uses His word to change and shape the lives of His people.  Spiritual life and new birth cannot happen apart from the good news of Jesus Christ; in Romans 1:16, Paul wrote of the gospel: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  What is the gospel?  It is this: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

 

What James states in verse 19 is primarily how it is that God uses His word in the lives of His people to live and finish well.  Why does God want this for your life?  Well, again, in verse 18, God used His word (the gospel) so that we can become born again, “so that we would be a kind of a first fruits among His creatures” (v. 18).  Here is the thing about first fruits: The Israelites were commanded to give God the first fruits of their crops which was the best of their crops.  If you are a Christian, you are God’s first fruits, which means you are of great value to Him, and what He wants for you is to thrive as His child!  How one thrives as a child of God begins with James 1:19!  Be “quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger...”

 

What does it mean to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger”?  Be quick to listen to what God has to say... period. Be slow to speak your mind... because God has already spoken.  Because God has spoken, and your opinions and perspective do not carry the same weight... be slow to anger by swallowing your pride.  What He has said is what ultimately matters!

 

What God wants for you is so much more than the time you have remaining with your vapor-like mortal life; this is why James wrote four chapters later: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away” (Jas. 4:13–14). What does He want for you?  Salvation, for you to stand in His wisdom, for you to walk in Christ’s humility, for His word and the Spirit to produce holiness in you! 

 

God uses His word to form and shape His people through the power of His Holy Spirit.  To listen to His word intently will mean that you must let God’s word challenge your assumptions about who He is, how you live your life, and the world you live in.  This is why we must be both slow to speak and slow to anger.  What does that mean?  Well, if you do not like what God’s word says because of what you would like God’s word to say, you must yield your life, heart, and soul to it.  When the word of God confronts you, when it challenges your assumptions, and when it calls you to action, your best course of action is to yield knowing that God wants to accomplish His good will in and through your life for your joy and His glory.  This is how you address, “...all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness” in your life.  This will not happen in your life if you are passive about His word.

 

Learn to Apply What God Wants for You (vv. 22-24)

How can you become “quick to hear”?  How do you become “slow to speak”?  You do so by apply God’s word to your life.  You do so by humbly yielding to the authority of God’s word over your life (v. 21).  You do so by becoming a “doer” of the word, and not just a “hearer” of the word.  Now you may be asking: “But I thought James 1:19 just told us to be quick to listen to God’s word?”  James does say that, for that is where we must begin, but listening to the word of God does us no good if we are not going to do what it says by applying it to our lives. 

 

Being quick to listen to God’s word is both important and necessary, but to listen to it only is like the person, “...who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” Mirrors are good, but looking into a mirror in the morning will not fix your hair, brush your teeth, or fix whatever needs fixing before you head out the door in the morning.  The point of a mirror is to show you what you need to do.  When you read your Bible, it is telling you what to do, but if your response to reading it is only to read it, then you are like the fool who agrees with what the mirror reveals but does nothing about what he sees. 

 

To be quick to listen is to be slow to speak because you are more concerned about doing something about what you heard from God’s word!  This is why James does not end with verse 24, but continues to verses 25-27,

But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (Jas. 1:25–27)

 

One pastor said of James’ epistle: “He doesn’t want to know the words you heard on Sunday unless they resulted in action on Monday. If anyone thinks he is religious, his Christianity must be practical (1:26). Vertical worship must have horizontal expression. Your faith must be seen in your conversation, your compassion, and your conduct.”^[1] 

 

What is the word of God?  The word of God is, “living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).  What is the word of God?  The word of God is, “inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

 

So, dear Christian, what are you going to do with what you have heard?  What are going to do with the word of God every time you hear it?  God wants to use it along with the power of His Holy Spirit for your endurance, to grow you in living your life wisely, to humble you for the purpose of forming in you a Christ-like character, and to move you towards the kind of holiness He saved you for and is calling you towards. 

 

Conclusion

Now, listen carefully.  You should care deeply about the primary things the Bible addresses and you should care about what others believe about such things like who God is, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the inspiration and authority of God’s word, and what the Bible says about why Jesus came and what it means to follow Him.  We should and must care about all that the Bible teaches and we should care about whether people have heard about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

We should care enough about what the word of God says that we desire and are willing to humble ourselves for the purpose of yielding our lives to what it says.  We should care about being doers of God’s holy word in all that we say and do.  But... and this is a big “BUT”... When it comes to matters of conscience concerning what you think about third tiered matters that rightly have pricked your conscience, but the Spirit of God has not done the same in my life... what matters is what God has said about it, not so much what Keith Miller or anyone else has said about it. 

Now in saying that, it is good and charitable to listen more and talk less when we are discussing matters of conscience.  What I mean is that instead of assuming the worst about a person’s convictions it would be good to listen to why and how that person has arrived with his/her convictions.  It is also wise and charitable to recognize some of your convictions are good for you, but the Spirit of God may not have moved in a similar way in your brother/sister in Christ who loves the same Jesus as you do.  Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean that person is against you. 

 

Permit me to share with you two sets of God’s word that ought to guide every conversation you have about your convictions or the convictions of another brother or sister in Christ:

“Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:4–7)

 

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit as well. Let’s not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.” (Gal. 5:22–26)

 

At the end of the day, who cares what you think about Donald Trump, what you think of Joe Biden, what you think about this thing or that thing.  What you think about who said what or what network is better than the other network.  At the end of the day your opinions are just that... opinions.  What matters is what has God said about it and what you are going to do with what He has said. 

 

In closing, let me share something with you that God said that you really should apply to your second and third tier convictions before you feel the desire or need to share those convictions with others:

“Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, free of hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:13–18)

 

^[1] Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2019), 1340.