Keith Battle - I Pledge Allegiance to the Word - Part 2

All right, I’m doing part two now of my «I Pledge Allegiance to the Word.» Amen. Please stand with me if you physically can. I pledge allegiance to the Word. We need a wrap on that. I pledge allegiance to the Word; I dedicate my life to it. I give it its proper priority in my life. Amen. While everybody’s making resolutions to prioritize their health, wealth, and finances, come on now, God, your Word—I want your Word to take priority in my life so that I would take it seriously. I wouldn’t just treat it like a regular piece of literature or someone’s opinion, but it would get the kind of reverence in my life that I would align my life with it—your Word. Amen.

Today, I would like to read from James chapter 1 for our passage. It starts in verse 21, where we will focus today. I don’t know why I keep looking at that. It says, «So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives and humbly accept the Word God has planted in your hearts.» You see, we looked at that parable last week in chapter 4. God has planted His Word in our hearts, and He continues to do it. God wants to plant His Word in our hearts, but notice the environment where it works best: where you humbly accept the Word and where the environment is clean. Get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives—make the space clean so that the Word of God can come in.

My friend Marvin Adams used to tell me that when he first got saved he read the Bible; man, he was in love with the Bible. He said, «I’d be smoking a cigarette and the ashes would fall on the Bible.» I was like, «You know God met you right there, man, but I would suggest that you put the smoke down just until you finish. Amen?» Set the environment where His Word is welcome, and one of those things is to be humble. When you’re proud, you can’t receive the Word because you feel like you’ve got this—like, «You don’t tell me nothing!» You feel like you have the answers. If someone preaches a nice little sermon, people sometimes don’t respect what you’ve got; they call it little. «Yeah, I heard your little sermon. A nice little church you have over there.» «Yeah, I saw your little car.» «Yeah, I saw your little house you just closed on.» You’ve got to notice that with people: They always minimize what you worked hard for. It tells you something about them.

So, the Word must be revered because look at the power it has—the power to save your soul. Yes, sir! So verse 22 says, «But don’t just listen to the Word; be sure to do what it says. Otherwise, you’re only fooling yourselves.» Verse 23 says, «For if you listen to the Word and don’t obey—watch this—you listen, but you don’t obey. It’s like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.» That is very interesting; I’m going to come back to that. Everybody say «glancing.»

Now go down to verse 25. It says, «But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.» You may be seated.

Watch this—I want to talk today from the subject «Paying Attention to the Word.» The Bible says when you look carefully into the Word, that’s the opposite of glancing at it or glancing at yourself in the mirror. What I thought was so deep is that God says that not listening carefully or not looking carefully is like glancing at yourself in the mirror and forgetting what you look like. If you forget what you look like, you’re not going to do anything about it—you won’t see the flaws or the things that need to be fixed. This is what’s so profound: What God is saying is that when you look into My Word, what you should see is yourself.

Good, good—because when you don’t, that means you just glanced at it. What does that mean, Pastor? You shouldn’t just see Moses, Joshua, Mary, and Martha; you should see yourself. You have to gaze at it and glean from it to see yourself in it. Otherwise, you might say, «Oh yeah, man, David was wow.» If you only see the biblical characters and not yourself, you just glanced. If you only look at the Bible and think of someone else who needs it—"She needs this,» or «He really needs this"—then you’re glancing. Right?

Somebody say, «This, Lord, show me me.» I know it’s a funny prayer, but it’s a deep one: «Lord, show me me.» The next time you’re in an argument or looking down on someone, say, «Lord, show me me and help me to see this differently.» Amen.

Now, in part one, we talked about how the devil is in opposition. He opposes our allegiance to the Word by trying to snatch the Word from us, or he’ll try to attack the Word we’re believing God for, or he’ll try to distract us from the Word.