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One of my all-time favorite stories is about a man in Kansas City just a few hours south of where I am from, Omaha, Nebraska. His face was injured in an explosion. He was a brand new Christian, so he wanted to learn more about the Bible and wanted to read it, but could not because he obviously could not see.
He was blinded by that. And in a book by Robert Sumner called The Wonders of the Word of God, it talks about this man whose face was badly disfigured, who could not see, and he remembered a story about a lady in England who was blind, but she could read her Bible in Braille with her lips.
And so he would bring the Bible to his lips and tried to read, and to his dismay and chagrin, his lips were also damaged by the explosion, and he could not read. He stuck out his tongue and began to move his tongue over the small bumps of the Braille Bible and began to realize he could read the Bible with his tongue.
And when Robert Sumner wrote the book Wonders of the Word of God, the man who had his face disfigured had read through the Bible an entire four times. But if it ended there and he only had read the Bible, that would not be enough.
If he only read the Bible for intellectual pursuits, for knowledge that did not go beyond his mind, it would have all been wasted. It's almost hard for me to say because I so love the story. You know, there's one thing worse than not listening or hearing or reading the Bible, and that's hearing the Bible and listening to it preached, but not doing it.
And if you'll turn your Bibles to James chapter 1, I want to talk about this topic today about hearing the Word of God and how it must lead to obedience. And by the way, on a side note, I believe that man who had his face blown off practically not only read the Bible, but did it.
But if he only read it and did not do it, James would have a message for him, and about once a year or every two years, I like to deliver a message similar to this to our own congregation because earlier this week, I was being transformed even by these words myself.
I need this message and so do we all, that the Bible hearing is not enough. Hearing is important, but we need the response of obedience. And that's exactly what James chapter 1 verse 22 says, become yourselves, but become yourselves doers of the Word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
True or false? The Bible talks a lot about listening to the Word of God. Hearing, of course it does. But almost every time it's with the end that we listen and then we do. Deuteronomy 4 .1 says, and now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform in order that you may live and go in and take position of the land which the Lord, the God of our fathers, is giving you.
28 times in the New American Standard, hear the Word of the Lord. 331 times I found the word listen. I want you to listen so you can learn and then do. Are these words familiar to you in the Bible? Incline your ear, give heed to, pay attention to today if you hear his voice.
Revelation chapter 2 and 3, to each of the seven churches that he has an ending there, Jesus does and he says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Mark 4 .9, Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
And my question to you this morning is, what is your response to the Word of God when it is taught? How do you respond? I could not believe in the last week or so we've learned that our website, 53 ,000 sermons have been downloaded in the last year from our website.
99 .99 of those James White sermons, but they're still being downloaded. We are such a rich, blessed congregation, from women's ministries to the tapes and the books and we can turn on the radio anytime we want and hear godly preaching.
We can just get an MP3 to our own liking and listen and listen and listen. Matter of fact, I've even bragged before, sadly, that I've heard 2 ,500 messages by John MacArthur before. Is it good to listen to the Word of God?
Is it good to get MP3s? Is it good to download? Is it nice to hear things, to learn about God? The answer is absolutely yes, but if it stops there, it is worse than not hearing at all. John Stott said, when you hear preaching, you are hearing the sinner's plight under the judgment of God, the saving action of God through the death and resurrection of Christ and the summons to repent and believe.
How could you treat such things with cold indifference? By nature, the Word of God is proclaimed or when you read it even, God demands a response. There's revelation. God reveals himself in his mind, his thoughts, his attitudes, his emotions, and then he expects us to respond.
We always learn so that we might obey. How would you like to be starving on some desert island and be taken into some big buffet? And there's the buffet laid out for you, 300 different kinds of food. I don't know what kind of buffets are around here.
In the Midwest, they were golden buffets. All the... I hope here no one is employed by golden buffet. A golden buffet, there are about 19 ,000 different SKUs of food and they're all about as bland tasting as the other, but you get to eat as much as you want.
Can you imagine, you take the person in from the desert island, you sit that person down before the feast and they just look at it, they just smell it. A man perishing with hunger and he has food in his hands, but he doesn't eat it.
It's like a man or a woman who hears the Word of God and then doesn't do it. And we live in a culture today where people take notes in their Bibles, they listen to the sermons, they come on Sunday night, they mark the Bibles, and that's in the good church.
The bad church is you don't even need to bring your Bibles, do you? Just up on some video and the latest message is up there. You don't need your Bibles, you don't have notes, you don't need anything.
And we are going to be compelled by James today that when we hear the Word of God, we must respond with obedience. Now, who was James? Many different theories, but I believe it's easy to see that the book of James is written by Jesus' half-brother, named Jacob, or we call him James.
And if you look at James 1 .1, just to set the book up, James, a bond-servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, grace are greetings. And this is one of those books in the Bible that if you would have read this or looked for it in your Bible before 1539 and I said, turn to the first chapter of the book of James, you wouldn't have found it here.
You would have found it tucked way, way in the back. It's already in the back. It would have even been farther in the back with Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation because people weren't sure it's even a biblical book.
But here, James is writing to a people who are hurting, people who are dispersed abroad. This is most likely a sermon. And so you could read this 104 short verses with 52 commands. It's basically a pastor preaching.
James is preaching to his church. And what we'll look at today is really the theme of the book. If you want to know all the book and the whole theme in one key verse, it's verse 22, prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
And there will only be two responses to the Bible preached, the Bible read, the Bible listened to, and that will be either obey or just listen. Back in the old days, some Jewish people, they used to say to themselves, if I just listen to the Torah, I think that will be fine.
And for us, I love it when people are here on Sunday morning. I love it when people here on Sunday night, but something needs to be more than it needs to be more than just listen to it, need to be obeyed.
And let's just pick up the context here. We'll look at this morning at verses 22, 23, 24, and 25. I'll read verses 23 and following. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks on his natural face in the mirror.
For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
Bow with me, please, and let's go to the Lord. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this text. We are thankful, Lord, that we somehow, in our own minds, could think that if we did obey you, then you would have grace upon us and forgive us.
But Lord, protect us from that even as we start. This is not earning salvation. This is for the Christians. This is for people who might be deluded in thinking somehow that there's a disconnect between what we learn and what we do.
And Lord, we would just ask that you'd have mercy upon us. We'd ask that we would be better doers today by Christ's power through the resurrection at Calvary. In Jesus' name, amen. All kinds of action going on today, isn't there?
This is really going to be a test to see how well you can listen. Now, we've said often before from this pulpit that when you listen to a sermon, it's like worship. But I want to push it a little farther today, and it's not just listening to the sermon as worship, but what do you do with the sermon after you leave?
We are all creatures of habit, and here's what I do. I come to the church, and then I leave, and then I come on Sunday night, and then I leave, and I come on Sunday morning again and leave. And here's what happens to my life, especially in the study.
I learn this much in my study throughout the week, and then I do this much. Sunday night, I've studied, and I'm going to learn, and I'm going to do. And all of a sudden, that gulf between what I know and what I do becomes huge.
And what saves us, first of all, is we are not unjustified because we don't live up to what we know. But we don't want to act this way. We want to act in a way where we're striving by the grace of God to learn something and then walk out that door saying, God, my attitude is one of submission.
I'll obey. I learned a hard truth. I'll confirm it to see if it's true when I get home because I don't know if I exactly agreed with the pastor. But if it's true, Lord, turn my heart in such a way where I want to obey so I can give you the glory.
So you might have a people who are changed, and as Dave says, a peculiar people, a people who listen and then obey because the entire world we live in is a culture of take it or leave it. Listen. It's okay.
You can audit a class. You don't really have to do it. You can get involved to some degree, but it's no big deal. If it's okay for you, it's fine. But if it's not, that's okay too. And when you read the Bible, it's not like reading any other book.
I love to read war books. I could just read the Band of Brothers by Ambrose over and over and over. But there's nothing in that book that reaches out to me and having Ambrose, dead though he speaks, grab me by the collar and say, you must enlist now.
How about cookbooks? Do you ever read a cookbook? I was looking at my mom's old cookbook back in Nebraska, and I kind of felt bad because it was the page there for Toll House cookies, and it had kind of all the grease on that particular page where I would set my cookies down when I was 12 baking cookies.
I had to let my sister have that cookbook because she was the lady after all, and I still wanted that cookbook. You can probably even smell on that page, Toll House cookies. But there's nothing in that cookbook that just wants to grab me and shout out saying, thou shall obey and make these cookies.
I've been getting into bicycling the last couple of months, and I love reading Bicycling Magazine. You ride with the president. He gives you these special little socks. Just things like that I've been learning.
Things that last for eternity, I know, red, white, and blue socks from the president. But there's nothing in that Bike Magazine that commands me, that makes me stand at attention to say, what you learn on this Bike Magazine regarding miles per hour, regarding repairs, regarding physical conditioning, you must do it.
And then we come to the book of all books, the Word of God, where he reveals himself, and then he says, what you know must be responded with by obedience. Now, to show you the verse, let's go to the imperative.
And basically, the outline today is, we'll see the imperative in 122, and then two illustrations, a bad illustration of what not to do, or actually a good illustration of what not to do, it's bad in that sense.
And then a good illustration. So let's look at the command first, and then we'll see the illustrations. The command is simply found in verse 122, but prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
And that first word you see, if you're reading a New American Standard, I don't believe the NIV has it there, but it's very, very important, but, and it ties in the context to the Word of God earlier, found in verses 18 and following, and let me read those verses to show you what we're working with.
In the exercise of his will, James 118, he brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among his creatures. This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, the context is the word, slow to speak, context is the word, and slow to anger, context is hearing the Word of God.
For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God, therefore, putting aside all filthiness, I believe that's King James 4, superfluity of naughtiness, and all that remains of wickedness, is it true?
Yes. In humility receive, there it is again, the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. And so receiving the Word of God is put at a premium, but then he says, in addition, be doers of that very word that you have heard.
And literally the best way, NAS doesn't translate it very well either, it is, but become doers of the Word of God. It's an imperative. Keep on becoming, or I adjure you to become this way. And sadly, other translations say this, don't merely listen to the Word and deceive yourselves, do what it says.
If there's the Word of God, then do it. What's the difference between be a doer of the Word of God and do the Word of God? One is, I'm just obedient, do the Word of God. If I'm a doer of the Word of God, it is personal, it is a characterization, it is a style of living, it is who I am.
And you look at that person and you say, oh, he just respected his father, he did the Word of God. Oh, that young man from when he was 10 years old to when he's 35, he still honors and respects his father.
He is a doer of God's Word, it's a word of characterization, it's entire personality. His whole person, he does the Word of God. He doesn't say do the Word, you see there in your text, he says be doers of the Word.
It is not sufficient to receive the Word, one must obey. This is almost kind of like job, this is MO, this is what is your life like, it's the main business of your life. And you could ask yourself the question, I can't fool God, but let's just talk about other people.
When other people look at me, they'll look at me and say, yes, he struggles, yes, she's not perfect, but she, by characterization, by a lifestyle, by a pattern, is a doer of God's Word. That's what James is after.
Real Christians, James says, are doers of the Word of God. The entire book of James is put in this kind of category. We will test you to see if you're really a Christian, and this is a good test. How do you respond to trials?
How do you respond to temptations? And here, Christians respond to the Word of God Christianly. They respond with obedience. They respond that Jesus isn't just Savior, Jesus is Lord, and if he's the Lord, then what servant in all of the universe, when told by a master to do something, would just go, what servant in the world would be told by a master, I want you to have this done by such and such a time, and you say, well, afterwards, I didn't really do it, but the way you explained it sure was neat and novel, and I was paying attention while you were talking.
I personally don't like high-pressure salespeople, do you? Buy it today or else the sale goes off. That's my kind of spidey instinct, is to just go, forget that then, I don't need it. Yet, when I read the Word of God, certainly to have the power within us to help obey is there, but these are just raw verses that just put the pressure on to say, so you've learned about God, you say you're a Christian, prove it.
Prove you're a Christian by your obedience, not earn your salvation. How about this? One writer said, we have forgotten that a leather-bound Bible needs some shoe leather to go with it. Josephus, the unbelieving Jewish historian of the first century, even knew, quote, for you ought not only to read the Law of Moses, but rather to practice what they command you.
Oswald Chambers said, one step forward in obedience is worth years of study about it. It's one of the good ways you can tell if you're maturing. Say, I'm a new Christian, I don't know if I'm growing. Do you desire to learn something and then to do it?
Do you see a pattern of your life and you look back and you say, I see my ups and downs. By the way, your Christian growth should be like California real estate. I bought here, I sold here, but it's still, the illustration works.
And now it's like this. The general trend is up. It's the lifestyle. It doesn't mean we are sinlessly perfect, but it just means we want to obey God. The sheep know the Master's voice and when they hear that voice, they want to obey.
Got this new dog at the house and so I'm trying to teach the dog, you know, the simple things to start. Sit, stay, jump through the fire hoop. Just the simple ones to start. I even require obedience out of my dog and certainly we're not dogs.
We have been made in the likeness and image of God and it is not gaining salvation to obey because there's only one person's obedience who's ever gained salvation and that person is Christ Jesus. His obedience combined with his death on Calvary and the resurrection has granted obedience to an infinite amount of people, to all those who would ever believe.
True or false, we are saved by works. True. The works of Christ Jesus and no one else. We are not saved by our own works. Jesus perfectly obeyed his father. He perfectly, even as a man when he was younger, learning and growing in wisdom and strength and he perfectly heard the word of God and he did it.
So there is pressure in a sense to try to do this, yet God is there helping us. Part of the help is even telling us what he expects. And look at the opposite of being a doer, found in verse 22, prove yourselves doers of the word, make it your lifestyle to listen to something and then to obey.
And not merely hearers who delude themselves. Hearing is important but it is the means to an end and that end is obedience. This word hearers only could be where we get the word audit. You don't have to do any of the homework, you don't have to do any of the assignments, you don't have to do any of the work, you just listen and that's all you need to do.
Not hearers only, literally the text says. How about this? How would you apply this verse to this comment? I want to come to church but I don't care to get involved. I want to come to church and sing and hear the sermons but I don't want to serve anyone in the church.
How would you respond to that person? Here's how I would respond. That's a delusion. That is a delusion to think and all your ministries don't have to be under this roof by the way, you can be serving the Lord and serving the body outside this building.
But the text is very clear here. The word of God says to serve and get involved and we just listen. It's a delusion. Do you see the word delude? It is an ongoing delusion and it is a delusion of by themselves.
It's middle. It means you delude yourself, you reason in a fallacious way that somehow this is acceptable. God must be so pleased today, I came and heard preaching. God must be at heaven just going, way to go, they came on Sunday night.
Somehow we expect almost attaboys for attending church service and I'm glad we're supposed to attend, aren't we? Yes, and it would be wrong not to attend. Matter of fact, you could say, pastor, even my attending is showing that I'm trying to obey God because we are not to forsake the assembly.
So that's a good part, but just to hear the word isn't enough. At the worst case scenario, people come and hear the word of God and then they're never even saved, they're not even a Christian. And the old Puritan Manton said, Uriah carried letters to Joab and he thought the contents were for his honor and performance in the army.
But it was but the message of his own destruction. We hear many sermons and need to come and urge this to God, but out of those sermons will God condemn us? What must it be like for those who are sitting here who aren't Christians but come week after week after week?
And I want to encourage you to obey God's word, to believe the first time. Man went on to say, like beast in Noah's Ark, they went in unclean and came out unclean, referring to an unbeliever who would just never obey.
I don't know what you think about Satan, but Satan doesn't have to get involved in this kind of person's life. The great deceiver, the great liar, the great tempter, the great orchestrator of the blinding of the minds of people, he doesn't have to get involved in an unbeliever's life who doesn't obey, why?
Why deceive someone who's already deluded? He's got to run around in the Mormon system or the Islamic system or someplace big. He can just let those people just be on their own. I know he has captivated them to do his will, but for the most part, he doesn't have to even bother with them because they are deceived, deluded, hoodwinked, and any other synonym I could come up with, cheat, mislead, con, fooled, tricked, duped, pulled wool over their eyes.
And it's subtle because we live in a culture where you don't have to go to church anymore. It's a great error. The actual word deceive means to cheat or deceive by false reasoning. And I like what this guy said, the growing number of sermon sippers who flip from one doctrinal dessert to another like helpless hummingbirds are deceiving themselves.
See the little hummingbird? Sunday morning, Sunday night, daily devotions, daily bread, John DeBriene, all good things. I'll never forget as long as I lived, as long as I will live, John DeBriene came here, it was 1997, and he stood right up here and he was teaching us on a Saturday.
And he said, when I had a heart attack, I fell over, I thought I was dying. And he said, one thing came to my mind, and it was a song about death, heaven, and the surety of my salvation. You remember what he said?
Were you there, Charlie? He said, I wasn't singing, shine, Jesus, shine. I was singing, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. What does that have to do with the sermon?
Nothing but I'm losing you, so I'm trying to get you engaged again. I can see, do not be hearers only, but pastor, I'm doing it in my mind. You know, I've said many times, it's a sin to make the Bible boring when you preach, and you shouldn't fall asleep, but I should do everything I can to try to keep you awake.
It's an exciting thing to look at the word of God, even when it's piercing, even when it's kind of that magnifying glass. I had one in the shop last night, and I was looking at it, and you know, if you take a sun, S-U-N, that thing we saw about 11 days ago, and you could just focus all that sunlight and those sunbeams down to that one little spot, and if you put it on your hand, boy, it gets hot, doesn't it?
You could even probably burn little ants or something if you were insane enough when you were a kid back in Nebraska in 1965. You could probably do that, but sometimes you get put underneath that, and it's like the word of God here, James, the whole book, is focused down into 122 and just piercing our hearts and our consciences, saying, okay, what excuse do we have of this church?
And by the way, this is not a I'm after you message. This is, please keep up the good work kind of message. Here's preventative maintenance, if you will, but we have so many gifts. We have gifted teachers.
We have gifted books. We have a library. We have videos. We have MP3s. We have discipleship relationships. We have preaching from the pulpit, preaching back in the nursery, everything we've got, and so the question for us is, before we grow big and fat and sassy, is to make sure we do God's Word.
Some people count nickels and noses to say, oh, is our church growing? I wonder if we counted not how many people were in here by just sitting, but how many people are in here and saying, I fall short, but I don't like it when I do, and I know the power of the resurrected Christ is able to help me obey, and I know I can't do it on my own, but I can walk according to the Spirit's will and work, and I want to obey what I've learned.
That's what we're after. Hearing only is no better than outright rejection, according to James. Andrew Murray said, what a terrible delusion to be content with, to delight in hearing the Word and yet not do it, and how prevalent the side of the multitudes of Christians listening to the Word of God most regularly and earnestly, and yet not doing it.
The mind delights in having a truth presented clearly. The imagination is gratified by its illustration. The feelings are stirred by its application. To an active mind, knowledge gives pleasure. A person may study some branch of science, say electricity, for the enjoyment the knowledge gives him, without the least intention of applying it practically.
So people go to church and enjoy the preaching, and yet do not do what God asks. Why don't you turn to Mark chapter 10, if you would please, and let me show you an example that's before our eyes that would discuss delusion and spiritual miscalculation.
What will happen to this kind of person who hears the Word and then walks away not doing? I think it's good to see an illustration here where Satan doesn't even need to step in the, put a foot in the ring, because this person's already knocked out.
Mark 10, 17, you know the passage, the rich young ruler. But I'll read it again, and my point will be, he hears Jesus' words, yet he walks away, and he will be deluded to do that. Mark 10, 17, and as he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him.
Boy, this is going to, when's that ever happened to you in evangelism? I'm ready to close the deal already. There's been no one in my entire life who's run up to me and knelt down before me saying I'm ready to receive the gospel.
I'm certainly not Christ, but they haven't even been enthusiastic about it. That's not really the way I wanted to say that. Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now don't beg on the guy for saying, what do I do?
He wants to know, because he's not saying, you know, I'm a works righteousness person. And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. By the way, 2PS is rich young ruler.
You're a sinner, and we need to deal with your sin first. And by the way, I'm God. No one else is good except God, and I'm God. So you're a sinner standing before God. You know the commandments. Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up. So of course, Jesus, with his x-ray vision, knows that the problem is his heart, and how he covets, and how he idolizes those things, and how he wants all the treasure and materialism, and he's not rich towards God.
And so Jesus said, looking at him, Jesus didn't feel a love, according to Mark. He loved him and said to him, one thing you lack, go and sell all you possess, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.
Prove yourself to be a doer of the word, not merely a hearer only who deceives himself. But at these words, he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owed, owned much property. He heard, but he didn't do.
He was deceived. He hears the word of God and doesn't do it. I hear another one. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.
And he will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? And I will declare to them, I never knew you.
Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. It's nothing new from Jesus to Moses. Listen to Jesus again in Luke 11. I'll just read it. While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed.
Verse 28, Jesus said, on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it or observe it. How about Moses? If you are not careful to observe all the words of the law which are written in this book, Deuteronomy 28, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord your God will, in a sense, judge you.
How about my favorite verse that we forget the second half of, favorite in this context, Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but all things revealed to belong to us and our children forever, that we may...
We always like to use the first part when we ask the question that, you know, was Adam born without a belly button or something? Well, the secret things belong to the Lord. In answer, God could have made him with a belly button or he didn't have to have one.
It doesn't matter. What's the second part of Deuteronomy 29? That we may follow all the words of this law. There are secret things, but the ones that God has revealed, we are to be people characterized by obedience.
The conclusion, what book does this come from? When all has been heard is to fear God and to keep his commandments. Deuteronomy, no, Ecclesiastes. How many people have heard of A .W. Tozer? Christian and Missionary Alliance man, he's prophetic almost.
Probably 50 years ago, he wrote this, there is an evil which I have seen under the sun. It is the glaring disparity between theology and practice among professing Christians. So wide is the gulf that separates theory from practice in the church, that an inquiring stranger who chances upon both would scarcely dream that there was any relation between them.
It appears that too many professing Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but they were not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right. So the divorce between theory and practice becomes permanent in fact.
Tozer goes on to say, it's make believe, it's dress up, we have a box at home, a big bin and it's got the dress up clothes. That's what obedience, that's what hearing only is without obedience. Let's go back to James and see the two illustrations.
James is a great preacher and he gives two illustrations. And one is a negative one, the other is positive. Two illustrations so we can see it better because we can say to ourselves, God by your grace, I don't want to be like that one and I want to be like that one.
Here's the self to see first of all. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, so far that's good. I want to say it's good to hear the word of God. And not a doer, he is like a man. What kind of language is that?
Bible Institute students like. Similarly good. He's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Once he's looked at himself, gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.
This is not what this passage is saying. The guy comes over and he looks in the mirror, he kind of goes like that, says everything's good and walks away. No problem. That's not the illustration. Here's the illustration.
If you take a look at the text, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Mirrors back in those days weren't made of glass. They were made of some kind of metal. Copper would be a good one if you were poor and you would have to rub that thing and mold it and put it in such a way and fashion it in such a manner that it would take a long time for you to look at yourself to see if you've got an eyelash out of whack.
If you were really rich, maybe gold or silver or something that was a little bit better. But it wasn't a great mirror. So what I'm trying to say is you'd have to look and look and look and just try to see what's going on and it would take a long time for you to look.
And by the way, James is not naive. He's preaching this to his congregation. And here's the way he says this. There is someone, I'm assuming the existence of an unnamed individual in this congregation who does that.
But if, it's conditional, meaning that it's true, there is someone here that does this. And look what he does. He looks, he forgets and goes away. Or looks and goes away and forgets. That word looks is very interesting.
It means to pay careful consideration. It means to stare. It means to fix your attention. This is the kind of person that gets up in the morning and they got the cowlick going on and they've got everything else rearranged, unarranged.
You know what I've told you cosmetics means, remember? The cosmos means to arrange and cosmetics means to put things on your face, to arrange it. And so they know they need the arranging and they stare and they look and they say, oh yeah, I've got the hair here and there's that hair coming out of my ear over there.
It's funny where the hair doesn't grow now and where the hair does grow when you get older. Strange. My daughter went and said to me the other day, dad, what's that hair growing on your nose? I don't know.
I wish I knew. You gotta be pretty bad when you're 45 and you shave your nose. You know, I put the cream on in the morning wherever I wanna have that shaved and you know, you have to just put a little up there just for good measure sake.
What am I gonna do if I nick my nose? It means to contemplate. It's used of a translation back in Genesis where the woman stared at the tree. This is take a picture, it lasts longer kind of look. It is not a casual glance.
He is staring, he is involved. She is looking not with a hastiness, not with a careless look. She is looking so much of this that if she doesn't respond to her unordered face that she will be blamed. It's not like, well, I just didn't see it.
Now we've all had that happen before. You just have something on your face and you forget to look in the mirror. I mean, for years I was in sales and I would get out of a car which was kind of my office and I would eat in there and do expense reports in there.
And so I'd always have to check and I'd look at the side of the window of the car next to me to check that my tie was there and just double check. But we've all left something. This thing that's left on our face, this spiritual blemish is not because we didn't see it.
See, because if we tie it into this person has heard and heard and heard the word of God, but didn't do anything. This particular illustration, they look, they see, they observe, they contemplate, they size themselves up, they see all their disheveled face and they just go, I don't care, I'm walking away.
And if you look at the text, it says once he's looked at himself, gone away, he is immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. And the original Greek is, he never returns for a second look. He goes away and goes away and goes away and never ever looks back.
He just goes off. And immediately at once he forgets. Story is told of a native African queen. She saw herself for the first time in a mirror. She did not like what she saw and she dashed the mirror on the ground.
She didn't like the picture it represented. And so for people to come to the word of God and they see themselves as it were in the mirror of the word of God. And they realize that we have blemishes and we realize that we don't measure up and we realize we wanna live a godly life to please the Lord after all that he's done for us.
What we don't wanna do is just say, you know, that's kind of painful. And so we take the Bible or the mirror and just throw it down and say, I can't deal with it. We want the word to get under our skin.
We don't want to be out of sight, out of mind. One commentator said the look of the mirror while combing one hair may be temporarily absorbing. It normally bears no practical results when one engages in the business of the day, it's useless.
And if we're to be doers of the word of God, we look into the word of God and the Bible says, here's the way we act towards this person. Here's what we do here. Here's how we act to God. And then we wanna say, well, we've looked and we've studied and we've taken notes and we've been to Greek class and we've been to IBS and we've looked at Elizabeth Elliot books.
And so God, we want to do it even though it's going to be hurtful and painful because we would have to realize our own state. Look at the positive portrayal though. Here's the good news. And by the way, I am thrilled that I get to be a pastor of the majority of the people in our church that are this kind of people.
James 1 25. The bad illustration was found in verses 23 and 24. Here's a good illustration of the doer. The doer versus the deceiver. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, different word for the word of God and abides by it, not having become a forgetful here, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
It's like night and day. It's like up and down. This is a complete contrast. Now I find it interesting that this word here looks, do you think it's the same as the last look in verse 23 and 24? Do you think this is a different word for look?
The first one is like look and stare. This one, what do you think it is? This word is to bend down and to stoop and look at something with that kind of intensity. The first one is this kind of look. I'm just going to look and stare.
This one is you get down on your hands and knees and stoop. When they went running to the tomb, what did they do? They were bending over to try to look in there to see if Jesus was in there. That's the same word.
First Peter chapter one, verse 12. Do angels know all the details about salvation? They might intellectually know, but they've never experienced salvation before because there's no salvation for angels.
And this is the kind of stooping that the angels do when they long to see what salvation is. This is to bend, to stoop. I don't know about you, but as I get older, if I get down on my seat and get down on the floor in the morning to put my socks and shoes on, I'm like the guy who said, I look around for something else to do because it takes me a long time to get down there.
While I'm down there, I might as well do something else. He bent over and looked at the stripes of the linen lying there, but did not go in. John did that. This is the kind of word that we translate look, but it's really the plumber's sink look word.
Where if you're gonna go examine the sink at someone's house, I defy you to try to see where the leak is without stooping down and looking at it. Luke 24, 12, Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb, bending over, looking, same word.
Mary stood outside the tomb crying as she wept. She bent over to look at the tomb. It's one thing to look, it's another thing to bend over and you're just really going for it. I like the old people in Europe who were called the merrow men, and they were called the merrow men for several reasons, but one was because they wanted to suck the merrow out of the word of God.
You just have to suck that bone hard to get the good stuff out. George Duncan said, God does not reveal the deep things to a casual Christian who drops in for a chat. With X-ray, CT, MRI vision, you just stare and look, and what does the passage say?
He looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom. We were slaves to sin, and now we have freedom from sin, and then he does something else, he continues to do it. He abides, he's so gripped with what he sees, he has to do it.
It's such a perfect law, it's so complete and full, and it so gets us rid of sin and the law and free from all defects. We have to do something about it. That's the attitude of this blessed person. And do you notice the blessing?
Not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed after he does what the word says. That what the passage says? Blessed is a man, happy is a man who obeys. Cain did the wrong thing, his countenance fell.
If you do the right thing, God will bless you afterwards. Is that all true? Yes, but this particular case, that's not the point. You are blessed in what you do. You hear the word of God, you say, I'm going to do it.
The blessing doesn't come after you do it, although there may be some good feelings. The blessing comes while you are doing it. What do you think the word blessed means? Here's how we translate blessed, and we'll get to this in Sermon on the Mountain in the next couple of weeks.
Happy, you're happy. I just think that's kind of corny. Happy, happy peppy people, you know, we're off to Chuck E. Cheese. You know, it's like the parents going, I can't believe I said yes to take the kid to Chuck E. Cheese, and the whole time, I'm just going to hate that place.
Kids love it, but you know, I'm just happy. You know, sometimes it's hard for me to smile, so I think, you know, apple cheeks. Make your cheeks apples. You know, the husband that finally realized, I have to say no to myself and serve my spouse, or the wife that says, you know, I have to submit to him, or the employer that says, I'm going to have to treat that boss like he's Christ while he's doing it.
I don't necessarily think that person, man or woman, is going to be going around, I'm happy. Maybe, sometimes people say, well, that means blessed. Okay, that's an okay word, but you know what it mainly means?
It means approved. God approves that kind of behavior, and if you think of blessing, that's fine, but I want you to tie the word blessing to approval. Since God has approved that, there's a blessing in knowing that you're obeying God, and God gets great joy in seeing his people walk in his word.
We're approved. Now, if you have not read Pilgrim's Progress, you need to read that book. It is so rich, it is so good, and you'll see in black and white before you what happens to those who hear the word and don't do it, and what happens to those who hear the word and do it.
In the book Pilgrim's Progress, talking about the wonderful glass, which the shepherds of the delectable mountains showed to Christiana and Mercy, talking about this idea that the word of God is like glass.
It's like a mirror. To use 2 Corinthians 3 .18, talk of James 1. Now, the glass Bunyan said was one of a thousand. It would present a man one way with his own features exactly. So if you look at a mirror, it shows you who you are.
But here's how the word of God is a better mirror. It would present a man one way with his own features exactly. And turn it but another, it would show the one, a very face and similitude of the Prince of Pilgrims himself.
So you'll look into the word of God and you see two things. Look at me. I can't believe I'm that way. Paul saying in Romans 7, Oh, wretched man that I am. And then he turns the mirror over two verses later in 8 .1 and says, but there's no condemnation found in Christ Jesus because I fall short, I don't do.
But here's the one that did do. Pilgrim is right. Ross said this, the man who continues looking into the mirror of God's word sees in it things far more wonderful than his own face. He sees not only his filthy garments, not only the spots and stains on his life, he sees in it Christ, the Christ of the thorn crown brow, the Christ of the cross, his savior, whose blood cleanses him from all sins.
And you look into the word of God and you think, I don't do, but I see the one who did in my place. Let me just give you a few takeaways. Takeaway number one, your obedience even today will be a good test for your maturity.
How do you know if you're maturing? How do you know if you're growing? Do you walk away from here saying, God, I want to start obeying what I hear from the Bible today. Number two, this gives a different take to the response of the sermon.
As you've heard me quote before, I love the pastor who was told, that's a nice sermon pastor. And he said right back to the person in love, then what are you gonna do about it? My ego is big enough so you can never, you have my permission now, you never ever again have to tell me that's a good sermon.
If God is pleased, great. But I don't need to hear that was a good sermon. I want to hear it, sadly too often. I want to preach well. I want to be homiletically accurate, but it doesn't matter if it's a good sermon or not.
It matters if it is a biblical sermon and that's all that matters. And I'm a nobody and I have just been gifted by God to teach. And so you could just say, thanks for being biblical. You could say you got a blemish on your face.
What's that sunspot or whatever you want to say. Three, don't be content to hear a sermon and say it was a good sermon or it moved me because I've learned something new. I've learned something new. Oh, I've never heard of that before.
I've never known that Jesus lived a perfect life and he died a perfect death and he gets my sin and I get his righteousness and there's a great exchange. I thought I just got forgiveness. Well, it needs to move beyond that.
In that particular case, it could move to praise. Fourthly, pray that God would give you the opportunity to obey. Talk with your family afterwards would be a good idea. What did we learn today? How could we live it out?
And lastly, this should not prevent you from desiring to know God's word. We are to be like newborn babes, desiring the pure milk of the word that we might grow. We do grow, but God expects us to hear and obey.
I love Chuck Swindoll and he's just such a good writer. And here's what he says in Living Above the Level of Mediocrity. Imagine, if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad.
So he says to you and the other trusted employees, look, I'm going to leave. And while I'm gone, I want you to pay close attention to business. You manage things while I'm away. I'll write to you regularly.
When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now on until I return from this trip. Everyone agrees. Finally, he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company, immediately discovers everything's in a mess.
Weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows broken across the front of the access building. The gal at the front desk is dozing, loud music roaring from several offices. Two or three people engage in horseplay in the back room.
Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation, he calls everyone together and says with a frown, what happened? Didn't you get my letters? You say, oh sure, yeah, we got all your letters.
We even bound them in a book. Some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have letter study every Sunday. You know, those are really great letters. I think the president would then ask, well, then what did you do about my instructions?
And no doubt, the employees would respond, do? Well, nothing, but we read every one. May God help us to be doers of the word of God. Let's pray. Lord, what a blessing it is to be reminded again that we are your people and that you are our master.
And Lord, we want to please you. And Lord, as a son or a daughter, doesn't gain merit or favor in regard to their parents by obedience. The parents are pleased. And Lord, in a similar fashion, we know you're pleased because your people hear and obey.
And so Lord, now as we sing trust and obey, make that our prayer to you. Lord, we have so many things we don't know how to pray about them, but we're thankful that your son is standing, interceding for us, living to make intercession.
Lord, we know the spirit prays for things that we don't know how to pray, he does. But Lord, we don't have to pray about this. We know you want us to obey, but we'd ask that you would enable us to do that through your spirit's power, in Jesus' name, amen.