Sermon - Don’t Just Hear it - Do it: "Kingdom Wisdom " Series

Sermon Outline
Focus: Real Kingdom wisdom is not merely hearing God’s Word, but humbly receiving
it and faithfully living it out.

I. What Clouds the Windshield?
        Speaking before listening
        Anger before understanding
        Pride before humility

II. What Cleans the Windshield?
        A teachable spirit
        Meekness and humility
        The implanted Word

III. What Do We Do Once We Can See?
        Be doers, not hearers
        Follow, don’t just admire
        Live your faith out loud

Conclusion: The Road Ahead
        Listen humbly
        Follow faithfully
        Trust Christ completely

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For your anger does not produce God's righteousness. You know, I find it incredibly interesting that James ties listening and speaking together. I think James is reminding us that listening and speaking are mutually exclusive effects. In other words, it's really hard to listen when you're the one who's speaking at that time.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome to the Church of the Wake Weekly Service Podcast. We're so glad you've joined us, and we're honored to heart. Today, after Robbie Scott is our new sermon series, Kingdom Wisdom. It's the book of Jesus, written by the half brother of Jesus. Today's message is titled, Don't Just Hear It, Do It. Real Kingdom Wisdom is not merely hearing God's word, but humbly receiving it and faithfully living it out. And now, here's Pastor Robbie. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Now, last week we launched into our newest sermon series focused on our year-long theme here at Church or Lakes, which is the kingdom of God. And so to help do that, we're studying a new book of the Bible, the book of James. And this is a whole entire book about how to live not with earthly wisdom, but with kingdom wisdom. I want to be clear, we're studying the book of James and we're finding wisdom in the words that our Lord gives us. And there's a big difference, I think, from the earthly wisdom that we hear from like the farmer's almanac or from AI, and then the wisdom that our God gives us from the kingdom of heaven. All right. And James is a great book to study kingdom wisdom with because he's an intensely practical teacher of scripture. He really focuses on the how we are to live out our faith. Now, I don't want you to mishear me. I'm not saying that the why we should have faith is not important. That's not it at all. Paul writes a ton about the why we should have faith. However, there is something different from talking the talk to going to walk the walk. And here's the whole entire premise of our series. All right. Real kingdom wisdom is living your faith out loud. Let me say it again. Real kingdom wisdom is going to show us that we need to live our faith out loud. All right. Real faith isn't something that just stays in your head. Instead, real faith shapes your ways, your words, and dare I say, your wisdoms. And today's focus, we're going to be diving back into the first chapter of James. It's going to be picking up just a few verses where we uh left off from last week. We'll be starting in verse 19, going to 27. Friends, hear the words of God through the half-brother of Jesus, James. James writes, You must understand this, my beloved. Let everyone it doesn't say some or a few or a handful. No, it says, everyone, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For your anger does not produce God's righteousness. Therefore, rid yourself of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, for they look at themselves and on going away immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, which is the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget, but doers who act, they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to take care of the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Friends, this is the word of God for the people of God. Will you pray with me this morning? Oh Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts, may they be found holy and acceptable in your sight, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Well, this past week, my ten-year-old son pointed out to me that there might be something wrong with the car. And that's not something any parent wants to hear. But he interestingly pointed out to me by saying, Hey, Dad, something's wrong with the car. I think it's crying. And which I wasn't exactly sure what he meant. I thought, well, maybe a hose is leaking. Maybe I got an oil drip. Maybe it's the condensation coming off of the air conditioner because all of a sudden it's a million degrees outside with 100% humility, uh humidity. Uh, we're gonna talk about humility if you didn't know that already. But in my car happened to be crying tears of mud from copious mixture of wiper fluid and dust. And I was grateful that he only pointed out the dirty mess of my vehicle to me and was surprised he hadn't started writing his name in it or writing the infamous wash me, you know, all these things my kids have victimized me previously. Now, all right, don't get me wrong. Plenty of wiper fluid in the summer is a great problem to have in Ohio. Amen. But here's the overarching illustration we're gonna use throughout the whole entire sermon today. I want you to remember and ask yourself the question: how well can you see out of your windshield? How well can you see out into the world? Now, of course, I'm not talking about the windshield out in the parking lot. I mean the metaphor uh metaphorical windshield of our lives that you see the whole entire world through, the lens that you see everything through. If you could use your imagination with me this morning, how many of us are going on one long road trip? All right, and I want you to imagine that this summer your life is one big long road trip. We've all been there. That drive down to Disney that's endless, or how about that drive to the beach, maybe down the Myrtle Beach, or maybe you're more like my cup of tea and a drive down to the Smokies, okay? All right, if you could use your imagination and think of life as one long drive. How well can you see out of your windshield on one of those long trips? Maybe great at first, right? But as the journey gets deeper and deeper, your vision gets obscured by a whole myriad of issues, doesn't it? Does your windshield get like mine, in which it's so dirty, it's just begging for windshield wiper fluid? Maybe your windshield has one of those spider webs of cracks that goes through it from a rock that kicked up from the person in front of you that you never saw coming? Or how about how about my high school self? Is the interior of your windshield so fogged up from parking outside the night before that all you can see is yourself in the darkness of night? Well, James tells us that there's a lot that dirties the windshield in which we see out into the world. As we go through these verses together this morning, I want you to look for deep kingdom wisdom because he's gonna bestow upon us some. And sometimes he does that most effectively through warning signs, okay? God, through James, warns us of anger, he warns us of vanity, he warns us of trials and tribulations, he warns us of sin, he warns us of the dangers found in living in a world without a kingdom mindset, without kingdom wisdom. But he's also very clear that no matter how messed up your windshield may get, there is a solution to seeing out into the world more clearly. But first, first, can we talk about the dirt that accumulates on our windshields? James writes this: he says, Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For your anger does not produce God's righteousness. You know, I find it incredibly interesting that James ties listening and speaking together. I think James is reminding us that listening and speaking are mutually exclusive events. In other words, it's really hard to listen when you're the one who's speaking at that time, isn't it? And that includes oftentimes when we like to craft a response to another person in our head while they're still speaking. Don't we just shut off our ears if we're being honest and we start thinking about what we're gonna say next instead of rather honing in on what is actually being said? I think what James is saying here in these scriptures, first and foremost, is that wise kingdom speaking only comes after careful kingdom listening. It's not the other way around. However, oftentimes our emotions get in the way of things. Emotions like anger, these things, they well up within us and cause uh our attention span to just go kaput. And we just stop listening, don't we? It's like communicating with walkie-talkies. How many of you ever played with walkie-talkies before, right? How many have you ever battled with the talk button at the same time with? You know, if two people using walkie-talkies both press the talk button, nobody can hear anything, right? In Proverbs, uh a great book of scripture that is all about the wisdoms of our faith. It says this in chapter 18, verse 13. It says, if one gives answer before hearing, it is folly and shame. It's almost as if James is trying to tell us here in the opening chapter of his letter that listening is way more important than we give it credit. And it's something, friends, that I like to point out this morning. Listening requires two things humility and meekness. All right, because listening requires, real listening requires that we admit that we don't have all the answers, and that you're willing to listen and learn from that. It's a two-parter equation, all right. I believe that real listening requires a teachable spirit. So much so that I have this phrase when I was a young engineer, um, my dad taught me this phrase. He says, It is good and really important as an engineer to say, I don't know, when you don't know. But if you say the words, I do not know, then you better open up your ears and listen and learn, or somebody's gonna get hurt. That's the reality of our lives, isn't it? If there's times in our lives in which we are not willing to admit that I don't know, and then in fact not listen and learn, what are we doing? I I was fortunate enough to learn that a little bit, you know, around the age of 25, which my parents would tell you was 20 years too late. Uh but I believe that real listening requires not only humility and meekness, because there is a difference between the two. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with it. Humility is an inward behavior, and meekness is an external behavior. All right. Let's read through James together real quick and see which one he uses. James focuses on this and he says, Welcome with meekness, the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. While these words are humility and meekness are often used interchangeably when we read scripture. Once again, I cannot strongly issue this enough. They are different. Humility is the internal saying of I don't know to yourself. And then meekness is saying that you're going to listen and learn. Do you see how they go hand in hand here when we're looking not only at scripture, but when we're listening to other people and when we're trying to become more and more like Christ, right? Oftentimes I think what clouds our windshield is our inability to either be humble enough to admit that we don't know everything, or not enough to have the meekness to listen after we say we don't know everything. It's like driving a vehicle with a frosted-up windshield. How many of you been there? It gets awfully cold in the winter here in Ohio if you park outside. And if any of you were like me when I was in high school, oftentimes the only way to clear off that frost is to pull out the scraper, or if you forgot your scraper at home, you breathe on the windshield and then you use your hoodie sleeve, right? Only speaking from firsthand experience. Friends, I'll tell you what. As I've gotten a little bit older, I've really begun to notice how much I really don't know. I know that I don't know everything. In fact, I tell my kids all the time that I don't have all the answers. I don't try and fake it. I'm not gonna try and trick anyone to thinking that I have all the answers to life. But I tell you what, we do have someone that we all know that has the answers to life. You have to be first willing to humbly admit that you don't know the answers, and which your reaction then should be how to externally show that. Maybe perhaps it's to ask questions of the person that's sitting next to you. Maybe it's it's to go to the Lord in prayer, the one who does have all the answers, and ask him questions. Friends, I want you to hear this. Asking God questions doesn't mean that you don't have faith. In fact, oftentimes it's questions that we ask our Lord that push us further in to a faith that is stronger and more mature with our Lord. But friends, we have to first be willing to admit humbly that we don't have all the answers, and to not be afraid to ask questions. That is a teachable spirit. That is how we're told to listen from James. And he goes on even further than that. James in that same sentence says that the implanted word has the power to save your soul. And he doesn't stop there. James continues on immediately. He says that one of the great butts of our Bible, all right? He says, but, but be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any of our hearers are the words and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror. For they look at themselves and on going away immediately forget what they look like. This is James's call to action. If you pay attention to nothing else in the whole entire book of James, here it is, friends. James chapter one, right here. He is saying, do not just hear the good news of Jesus Christ, live it out. If any of you got Nikes on, right now, I want you to think of their infamous slogan. What is their slogan? It's just a simple cliche phrase, but let's be real. It is hard to live that out. Just do it. And before we go even further into James, I'd like to point out that James knew his half-brother Jesus pretty well, and Jesus echoed this sentiment in a very famous section of scripture in Mark chapter 10. Will you follow along with one of my favorite stories of scripture about a rich man and Jesus? All right. It goes like this it says, as Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. And you know the commandments. You shall not murder, shall not commit adultery, shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother. He said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these for my youth. Jesus looked at him, loved him. Those words loved him. They should be underlined, they should be circled, they should be highlighted in your scriptures, but I digress. And he said, Jesus said, You lack one thing. Go sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When the rich man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving. For he had many, many, many, many possessions. Look, the fr the rich man had a had a front row seat to Jesus, right? And unlike some of us, I give him some credit this morning. He was humbly willing to admit that he didn't have all the answers. Humility. And then he externally asked the question, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Up to this point, man, A plus for effort, dude. I love it. He's doing everything right. Until out of the great love that Jesus has for him, what does he do? He challenges them. He says, Go, leave everything behind and follow me. Do you notice how Jesus says action verbs there? He says, Go, come, follow. And James says it similar earlier here. He says, be doers of the word. Those who look into the perfect law of the law of liberty and persevere, being not hearers who forget, but doers who act. They will be blessed in their doing. Just do it. Just do it. And here's the thing, friends, you know, so many times in the journey of life when our windshield gets fogged up, when it gets cracked from a stone, when it gets covered in dirt and mud or what have you, you know, it doesn't matter how clean your windshield is, even if you could see out of it, perfectly crystal clear. If you choose not to follow the road signs, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna crash. You're gonna crash. If you refuse to follow the road signs, refuse to follow the curves, you're gonna crash. And Jesus once, and he's saying to us in the here and the now, in the heat of this moment, he's saying, not just here, he's saying, go. He's saying, come and follow me. Jesus doesn't want you to be a bystander, a fan, and only a hearer of his good word. That's why, friends, I love the stories that are in our scripture. Because oftentimes when we start to dive into the stories of Jesus Christ, we find out how we're supposed to act. We find out how we're supposed to follow the narrow path so that we don't run into the guardrails, right? Every time that we read scripture, friends, it's like a road sign that's blaring out, telling us, don't go this way, turn around. There's a Y in the road up ahead, make sure you go this way, so on and so forth. Friends, I would be even more so bold to say today that you don't even have to do it in your own power to follow the road signs. I believe that our God gives us an amazing spirit out of his great love. Once again, the rich man, he loved him. He loved him so much that he gave him the instructions and the power through the Holy Spirit to follow the narrow path. But we have to be willing to be doers and not just hearers. That's why. We've been building up to this point in 2026 at Church of Lakes. That's why we started in the Sermon on the Mount. We started there because we wanted to show all the countercultural ways that Jesus calls us to act. You know, things like love your enemies, or how about this? Let go of all your anxieties, consider the lilies of the field, as Jesus says. How about the golden rule? Do unto others as what would be done unto you. We learned all that at the beginning of the year, and then we built on that. And we says, what does it matter if you're not willing to surrender to the king, the one who's giving you these great characteristics of his life, the values of his life to follow. And then we pushed you even farther. We said, You are not just citizens of earth, you are citizens of heaven, and you aren't just meant to live here, you're meant to live there. And if you live there, then guess what? You have a wisdom that is above whatever is found here, which is awfully shallow and is awfully, awfully disappointing. But you know where the whole story starts? It all starts because Jesus first loved, first loved us. In his great love, he went to the cross, friends. He went there so that you could finally see more clearly out of the windshield of life. Friends, if this morning you feel like your windshield needs copious amount of windshield wiper fluid, join in me. Allow Jesus to wash it clean. How about this? How many times have you gotten a stone kicked up and there's a spider web? Maybe that stone is a sin that came out of nowhere. Maybe it's the loss of a job, maybe it's the loss of a loved one. I don't know. Use whatever illustration works for you. But it's awfully hard to see out of that spider web, ain't it? Let Jesus repair the windshield. How about this, friends? What about on those frosty mornings where you feel all alone and you're anxious and you don't know what to do? How about you let Jesus certainly clean off the windshield because he's got a scraper that's going to work a lot more effectively than my crummy one in my car right now? Well, Heavenly Father, as we go out the doors of this church, help us to remind us that we aren't just hearers of your holy word, but we're meant to just do it. We are to love others as you have called us to love, which means that we are to carry our own crosses. We're to sacrifice our own goals, our own lives for that of others as your son Jesus Christ and is always empowered through the Holy Spirit. Lord, I just pray as we go out to our homes, our schools, our communities, our workplaces, that you empower us to do everything in your holy name. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Go and peace present.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

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