TRANSLATING ‘THE WORD’ INTO ‘THE WALK’ – James 1:22-25

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on September 9, 2012 under 2012 |

Preached Sunday, September 9, 2012 from James 1:22-25

Theme: True blessing comes to those who not only hear God’s word but also do what it says.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

Over the past several months, we’ve been hearing from the book of Philippians. And there’s much that has been good for us to hear. But I have felt led this morning to turn to a passage that tells us how to do something about what we have been hearing. And so, I ask that you turn with me to the first chapter of the New Testament book of James.

James was a pastor. And he wrote with a pastor’s heart to the people under his care. In James 1:21, he wrote to God’s people and told them about the attitude with which they were to hear God’s word. He told them;

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21)

That, of course, is what we seek to do in the ministry of our in our church. We love God’s word; and we seek to read from it, study it, and hear it together. We hope that, by God’s grace, we humble and meek enough to receive it in holiness.

But just hearing it—just “receiving” it—will not, by itself, lead to any benefit from it. James goes on to write these important words:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does (James 1:22-25).

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I’d like to share with you a little about why this passage has jumped out to me this week.

As some of you may have heard, I received a voice-mail message from my father last Wednesday—letting me know he was in the hospital out in the Tri-Cities area of Washington because of a ruptured hernia. He had just recently suffered a heart-attack; and I wasn’t sure how serious his situation was. Each time I called him to find out, he said that he had to go—that another doctor was coming in to talk with him. He told me that he’d call later; but I kept waiting and never got a call. I also checked with my brother; but he didn’t get a call either.

Finally, later in the evening, I called the hospital; but Patient Information couldn’t find him. I was getting a bit worried. Finally, they said that they did find him. They said he hadn’t been moved into his room yet, because he was still in the operation recovery area. He had surgery! And so, I was even more worried. I called my brother, and told him that I didn’t think it would be a good idea to make the trip there until I knew a little more about what was happening; and he agreed. So; thinking that I would probably need to head out in the morning, I went to bed a little early.

And laying there in bed—that’s when the worrying really kicked in. I worried about my father. I worried about the trip. I worried about going away and leaving my wife at home alone—who herself is not well. I worried about my son who I needed to help get to the airport for a trip to Denmark a few days later. I worried about making sure things were taken care of at church in case I had to be with my father for an extended time. I just laid there and worried.

And then—I’m sure it was the Holy Spirit—I remembered what I preached on last Sunday. I suppose that being a preacher puts me at an advantage. I’m usually able to recall the main points of the previous Sunday’s sermon. And so; realizing that I was having a real worry-fest; I thought through last Sunday’s message from Philippians. You remember it don’t you? Paul wrote;

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).

And so; I went through that passage point-by-point, and sought to do what it said. First of all, I was worrying; and I remembered that it said, “Be anxious for nothing”. So, I repented. It literally says, “In not one thing worry.” I was worrying about many things. And so, I apologized to the heavenly Father for worrying about the situations at hand; and thanked Him that His word gives me permission to cease from worry.

But I also knew that the passage from last week didn’t just tell me what to stop doing; but also told me what to do instead. And so, I sought to ‘make my requests known to God’. I was concerned about my father’s condition, my ability to get out to care for him if needed, my concern that Marilyn would be well-taken-care-of, that Wyatt could get to the airport for his flight without any problems, and that everything here at church would be in good hands. And I sought to do this in the way that God’s word said. First, I sought to trust God “in everything”—all the details of the things that I was concerned about. Then, I came “with prayer”; which I interpret to refer to the attitude of reverent trust in which I bring my prayers to God—that I recognize Him as my all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful Father who causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. Then, I came “with supplication”—that is, I prayed specifically about the things that I was concerned for, and told him exactly what I wanted. And finally, I came “with thanksgiving”. I thanked Him that He knew about all these things, that He heard my prayers about them, that all things were under His perfect control, and that He would do what is best.

And the promise of His word proved true; “. . . and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” After carefully following those steps, I closed my eyes in the confident that everything was in my heavenly Father’s control, and slept through the night. I woke up in the morning, called the hospital and found out how my father was, got things all situated for my wife’s needs while I was gone, and got to the hospital later that afternoon in time to be with my dad as he was released and follow him on his drive home. We spent a nice time together, had dinner, and I got home later that evening—weary from the journey, but satisfied that God had heard my prayers.

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Now; I hope you understand my reason for telling you that story. It’s certainly not to impress you with a display of how I obeyed God’s word. Rather, I tell it to illustrate how all the things we’re learning from Philippians—or from anywhere else in the Scriptures—will not do us any good unless we put them into practice. We must not only be hearers of God’s word, but also doers of it. Only the “doers” of His word are blessed by the hearing.

Some time ago, I ran across an interesting quote from a famous motivational speaker. I think we should always be discerning when it comes to “success” and “self-help” literature. Sometimes the advice such literature gives is good; and sometimes it isn’t. But I was impressed with what this very famous leader in that movement had to say. He said that, statistically, less than 10% of people who buy and read or listen to “success” material actually follow through on what it says. He said, “The main problem most people have is that they know what do to, but they don’t do what they know.”

And I believe that, as professing Christians, we often have the very same problem. We know—in abundance!—what it is that God wants us to do. We listen to sermons, and go to Bible studies, and read the Scripture, or listen to tapes, or watch DVDs, and hear over and over what God’s word tells us to do. But at those times when we most need to—at the times when God’s word most needs to be put into action—we fail to do what it says. We are, all too often, “hearers” but not “doers”. And being a “hearer” only will not lead to God’s blessing in our lives.

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So, let’s look a little closer at what Pastor James tells us about putting God’s word into practice as a regular habit of life. First, notice that he tells us that;

1. WE ARE TO BE ACTIVE ‘DOERS’ OF GOD’S WORD, AND NOT MERELY PASSIVE ‘HEARERS’ (v. 22a).

He writes, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only . . .” (v. 22a). I always think it’s helpful to read the Bible with an eye to the “commands”. And this is a command—an imperative. We are commanded to be “doers” of God’s word and not merely “hearers”.

Have you ever thought about how often the Lord Jesus Himself commanded His disciples to be “doers” of what He said? Think, for example of what He said at the end of His famous Sermon on The Mount. Even unbelieving people love to hear portions of that great sermon. But when it was done, Jesus made it clear that it wasn’t something to merely be “heard”. He said;

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:24-27).

Do you see? Both groups “heard”. But the “wise man” was the one who not only heard what Jesus said but also put what He said into action. There are a lot of people today who say that they love Jesus and call themselves Christians—people who love to call Him “Lord”; and yet, even He Himself said, ““But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

Or take the story told to us in Luke 11:27:

And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” (Luke 11:27).

Doesn’t that sound spiritual? Right in the middle of Jesus’ teaching, she stood up and shouted out this blessing. What a very pious and spiritual thing for this woman to say! Many people, I’m sure, would have said “Amen!” to that.

But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (v. 28).

What good are all the pious and religious-sounding things we might say about the Lord Jesus if we don’t do what He says?

Or think about what Jesus told the disciples on the night before He went to the cross. The thirteenth chapter of John’s Gospel tells us that He completely astonished the disciples by rising up after supper and washing their feet. Then we’re told;

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” (John 13:12-16).

What an amazing truth! What a remarkable word of instruction! But knowing about it wasn’t enough. Notice how Jesus then told them;

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (v. 17).

That’s the imperative that James gives to us in this morning’s passage. Be a doer of God’s word—not just a hearer! Put it into action. And it’s important to note that it’s an imperative that’s put in what’s called the “present tense”. That means that it’s a command that we are to continually practice as a regular habit of life. We are to always be “doers”, and not just “hearers”.

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Now; there’s a great danger that comes from being a “hearer only” and not a “doer”. James goes on to show that

2. MERE ‘HEARERS’ ARE SELF-DECEIVED (v. 22b-24).

James wrote that we are to be “doers” of God’s word, “and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (v. 22b). People who only “hear” God’s word but who do not “do” what it says, are fooling themselves. They think that they are receiving a benefit from ‘hearing’, when—in fact—they are robbing themselves of the blessing of God.

Now; how might we deceive ourselves by hearing only? One way is by being “sentimental” about hearing God’s word. God’s word is, often, beautiful to hear. (I know of a few passages that aren’t so beautiful to hear; but people don’t always hang around to hear those!) But people often ‘feel good’ about hearing God’s word—even if they have no intention of doing what it says. Sometimes, they love hearing it for what it says that someone else should do—but not so much for what it says they should do.

This was what the people of Israel were doing back in the days of the prophet Ezekiel. God once told the prophet;

“As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, ‘Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them. And when this comes to pass—surely it will come—then they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 33:30-33).

Very often, people come to hear beautiful and encouraging words from the Bible. And they especially love it if it’s from a good speaker. It sounds ‘pretty’—like someone playing skillfully on a musical instrument. But they are deceiving themselves if they only hear and do not obey.

Another way people can deceive themselves is by being “prideful” in the way they hear it. They hear lots of great preaching, and accumulate lots of Bible knowledge. They are ‘aficionados’ of great Bible teaching—and are able to compare and critique one preacher against another. They become loaded with ‘knowledge’. But they don’t do anything with it.

That was what was happening in the ancient church of Corinth. The professing Christians there were becoming proud of all the “teachers” that they knew and celebrated. They were boasting in their ‘knowledge’. They were identifying themselves as under ‘this teacher’ or ‘that teacher’—and were becoming divisive and factious as a result. Paul wrote;

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile” (1 Corinthians 3:18-20).

If we’re becoming “proud” of the knowledge we’re accumulating, then we’re probably not putting it into action. Nothing will show you how self-deceived you are in your boasted ‘Bible knowledge’ quite like trying to obey it!

A third way I think that we might deceive ourselves as mere hearers of the word is by “justifying” the sin that we hear about in it. We can hear what God says, but figure out a way of thinking that it doesn’t apply to us. We think that we’re walking in fellowship with God simply because we hear His word—even though we’re not putting away from ourselves the sins that it condemns.

The apostle John, in the first chapter of his first letter, wrote;

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).

Look at how Pastor James puts this whole matter of ‘self-deception’. He wrote;

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was (James 1:23-24).

Have you ever thought about how many times in the course of a day you look in a mirror? Why do you look into it? Isn’t it to get information? Aren’t you checking to see how things are, and if there’s anything that needs a little fixing-up? But if you’re not going to do anything about it, and then immediately walk away and forget about what you saw, why even bother to look at all? It seems ridiculous to do such a thing. (We may even know a few folks walking around that—from the looks of them—that seems to be their practice.) But that’s what so many of us do with the Bible. We look into it—we hear it show us the things that are wrong with us; we study the things that it tells us to do—but we then walk away and forget everything it says, because we didn’t put it into action. I would never go so far as to say that it would have been better if we had never bothered to look in the Scriptures at all. But if we look but do nothing about what we see, we are mere “hearers” and not “doers”—thus “deceiving” ourselves.

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And this leads us to a final point. James tells us that . . .

3. THE BLESSING OF ‘HEARING’ GOD’S WORD ONLY COMES THROUGH ‘DOING’ WHAT IT SAYS (v. 25).

James says, “But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (v. 25)

This is true, first, because of how the true “doer” looks into the word. They way they “look” into it is strategic. First, they look intently. The word that James uses is the same word that the apostle John used to describe the way that he looked into the tomb of Jesus on the day of His resurrection. We’re told that John “stopping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes laying there . . .” (John 20:5). And that’s how a true “doer” looks into God’s word. He or she is not merely passing time when reading God’s word. A ‘doer’ “looks into” it in order to perceive what it says.

Second, they not only look into it but “continues in it”. You know how, sometimes, we might read God’s word and see something that it says; and say to ourselves, “Well; that’s interesting. I should look a little more deeply into that sometime”—and then, go on to something else? A true “doer” doesn’t do that. He or she lingers at the word, and remains with it long enough for what it says to have the chance to sink-in deeply and change their inner-being.

Finally, they do not become “forgetful” hearers, but doers “of the work”. They make immediate plans to put what God’s word says into action. Dr. John Mitchell—the founder of the Bible college that I attended—was a man who was a walking encyclopedia of Bible verses. We were all constantly amazed at how many verses of Scripture he knew by heart. We once asked him how he went about memorizing; and we were surprised to learn that he never consciously set about to “memorize” Scripture. He said that when God laid something on his heart from the Bible, he simply put it into practice; and in doing what it said, he ended up memorizing it. It had settled into his memory because he had first made it an active part of his life. No wonder the “hearing” resulted in a blessing in his life!

Another reason it’s true that the “doer” is blessed is because of the nature of the word itself. James calls the Scriptures “the perfect law of liberty”. When we look into the word of God in the way that a careful “doer” would look into it, we are looking into something that is “perfect” because it is from God Himself; and is a complete revelation from Him. It tells us all that we need to know.

But it is also a “law of liberty” because it sets us free in Christ. It shows us the truth about ourselves, and drives us to the Savior. As Paul wrote in Galatians 2:22-24;

But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:22-24).

Once we come to Christ for justification, we are set free. The Bible not only shows us our sin so that we learn to come to Christ to be made right with God; but also to continue to trust in Him for our full acceptance in God’s sight. It truly is the “law of liberty”.

No wonder those who are “doers” are the ones who are blessed!

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As I was driving home the other day from my trip out to see my father, I was listening to old Dr. J. Vernon McGee. (I got all his radio recordings a few years ago; and I love listening to him so much I’m afraid that I might start accidentally talking like him if I’m not careful.) He was talking about different translations of the Bible. They all have their faults of course; and some people get quite discouraged about that. They feel that we can never create a Bible translation that is good enough.

But Dr. McGee said that he believed a very good translation of the Bible can be created—an excellent one in fact. What’s more, its one that you and I can be involved in creating. It’s when we translate the Bible into action—and make it our habit to do what it says.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s make it our practice to be “doers” of God’s word, and not merely “hearers”. It’s the “doers” who are blessed!