Sunday message · Gospel Faith Works, James series
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Message Summary
In the third week of Gospel Faith Works, Pastor Phillip Santillan reads James 1:19–26 and draws out the thread running through its call to obedience: words matter. Most scholars agree that James, Jesus’ younger brother, largely paraphrases Jesus’ teaching. In Matthew 5, Jesus says that not only murder but anger and insults toward a brother or sister bring judgment, and James repeats it: be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
Phil describes three familiar types: the me monster, who always has something to say; the bad listener, busy planning a reply instead of listening and constantly offended because others supposedly make no sense; and the rage monster, who turns little things into big ones in an instant. Some Christians excuse anger because God gets angry, but Phil suggests God’s anger is nothing like ours, and anger is not his defining character; one of the verses other biblical writers quote most describes the Lord as merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Gospel faith looks like good listening and self-control.
James speaks strongly about words because Jesus did. In Matthew 15:18–19, Jesus says our words come from the heart, and in Matthew 12 he teaches that a tree is known by its fruit, that the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart, and that we will give account for every careless word. When we say we did not mean it, the words still came from a heart not yet fully submitted to Christ. So we ask the Lord to change our hearts so he can change our words.
Words can also deceive us into a worthless faith, so James says not merely to listen to the word but to do what it says (verse 22). Phil pictures his kids’ morning to-do list: no child would praise the handwriting and memorize it without doing it. Yet some are so consumed with learning God’s word that they trade a relationship with God for empty religion. The believers Phil knows whose faith visibly works never complain that people do not know the Bible; they ask how people can know God is alive, and they are marked by peace, joy and humility. Others pride themselves on being biblical while their lives fall apart, building, as Jesus warned in Matthew 7, a house on sand.
Phil’s first suggestion is to reacquaint ourselves with Jesus. The perfect law that sets us free is the gospel, echoing Jesus’ words in John 8 that those who abide in his word will know the truth, and the truth will set them free. “We love Paul. We forget about Jesus whom Paul served,” he says. Jesus summed up the law as loving God with all our heart, soul and mind and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–40). Phil offers Psalm 19:14 as a prayer for the week and suggests asking God to help us listen and speak with love, so that gospel faith works in our lives.
