Doers of the Word, Not Hearers Only (James 1:22-24)

Click record and then we'll pin myself. Um today is Tuesday, right? Yeah. All day. Um la last week we touched on um scripture in James. Um and I and I said I wanted to go back and then we didn't do that yesterday. So today I want to go back there, but I want to do it out of a different translation today. And I know my good friend Cornelia will appreciate this because usually I'm out of the NIV. Um, but I want to read this out of the uh the ESV today. I I absolutely like the wording that the ESV uses in this particular two verses over the NIV. And if you jump into the the Greek in this and you really dive in, it it it really does a whole lot.

But, you know, we don't we don't have an hour here. So, let me let me go let me let me cover what we need to cover. So, we've got um James chapter 1 and:es 22- 24. And so, uh let me read it. It says, "But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Verse 23 says, "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." So, let's break it down. hearer and I want to give you a college example.

Uh this word hearer in the Greek is is uh the the definition for this when they use it in the Greek is an auditor. Someone who's auditing. So so we use a college as an example. You can go and you can audit a college class. And what does that mean? That means that you didn't pay to attend. You have no responsibility of the class. No homework assignments to do. No quizzes, no tests. It's nothing. You're doing it because you enjoy it. this is what you're going to go do. And I would argue with you that that's Sunday for us. No one paid us to be there.

We didn't have to pay to be there. It's nice if you tithe, but you don't have to. Um, church doesn't require it. They don't have an admission gate coming in here. Pay them. Um, uh, you're not held accountable or responsible for anything after that. It's just not what we do. Um, can everyone hear me? Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, Katie can't can hear. Okay, good. She's I can't hear you. All right. So, anyway, let me go back. So, so when when when the text says um not hearers only, what he what it's saying is is that we have to have some accountability.

Don't don't just go to audit the class. Take some responsibility there. There has to be a reason why we're going, right? And and we know what that reason is. It's to be a doer. He says, but be doers of the word, not hearers only. And then he goes into talking about deceiving yourselves, being fraudulent. He's not talking about being fraudulent with somebody else. You're not deceiving anyone else. When when you go to church and you audit that class and you do what you're going to do, you are only fooling yourself. You you are you're you're measuring what you're doing then is you're measuring your attendance and not your obedience.

And that's not what that text is about. It's not about how many times you showed up to church. It's about what you did with what you what you learned when you got there. My wife and I used to do this all the time and I realized uh reading this and and doing the the prep that I was doing for today that we stopped doing it. And there was a big benefit in doing it. And when you're in a Sunday message, it's a one-way street. You don't get to raise your hand and go, "Okay, hold on. Can you repeat that? Uh, I have a question about that." That's not what a Sunday message is designed for.

And what my wife and I used to do after that was we would ask each other,"What did you think of the message? What did you get out of it?" And what it did is it it it made us have a conversation about what we thought we heard, what we what what the other person got, it might give us different perspective, but in having a conversation afterward, it was really putting the message into our head. We were thinking about it. It wasn't just show up and listen. uh any I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands because I know it happens to all of us. You're sitting in that message on Sunday and all of a sudden you realize you're not listening.

You're thinking about what you're making for dinner. You're thinking about taking the kids to school. You're thinking about what you have to do for work the next day. For whatever reason, the enemy has slipped in in church and you're no now no longer hearing what you're supposed to be listening to. And I'm sure that that's happened to all of us. I know it's definitely happened to me. And that conversation that I had afterwards was a big one for us because it it allowed me to be able to take what we heard and to be able to put it inside work. Um the mirror.

So he goes into the mirror example and I think the word intently here is is so perfect. And he says he's like a man who looks intently uh at his natural face in the mirror, but for he looks at himself and he goes away and forgets at once what he was like. So what he's saying is that this isn't a this isn't a Someone needs to mute themselves. I don't Robert that this isn't a you're doing a sloppy job. That's not what he's saying at all. In fact, he says just the opposite. You're looking intently. You've got the commentary on your desk. You've got the You've got the study Bible.

You've got the Strongs Concords. Heck, you've got a Zoom link in to the 915 devotional. You got it all. That's not the problem. The problem is what you leave. You You got all that good stuff, but what you're doing is it's not the looking, it's the leaving. You're leaving it there. You're highlighting it. You're reading all about it. But that's where it stays. When we go back to the deceiving side of it, we deceive ourselves. We're not deceiving somebody else. And when when when James writes this, it's an accounting function. So what does that mean?

On the left side, we have, oh, I attended every Sunday service this year. I uh I' I've did every Bible study. I've gone to the men's groups and the women's groups. I go to the 915 devotional. On this side of the accounting chart, you have it all. But then there's no works to balance it out on this side. And so you deceive yourself. It's fraudulent. It's fraudulent bookkeeping. And so, J, this is what James is telling us. Be doers of the word, not hearers only. Don't just audit what you go to church on Sunday. That we have to walk that out. So, let me read the text again.

Be do but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. Who? Yourself. You're deceiving anybody else. You You can go to church every Sunday and if you're not walking out, you just waste your time. go do something else. So don't deceive yourselves. Verse 23, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who's read it all, seen it all, taken the class, done it all, um looked intently at his natural face, and then verse 24, for he looks at himself and he goes away and at once forgets what he's like. So don't just audit the class.

Don't just show up. uh make it count. If you're gonna have it on this side of the ledger, then you should have something equal that matches on this side of the ledger. And if what you can do when you leave this call is recognize that you're real heavy on one side and real light on the other, then you have an imbalanced balance sheet. And we need to adjust that. We need we need either have more Bible study and and a little less work or we need to have more Bible study and a little le whatever it might be. We got to balance that out. I I've talked to a lot of people who are they go to a seven things throughout the course of the week but yet somehow magically don't manage to get that into their heart and become a doer.

Reduce some of those things and work on the doing side. All right. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Unpin, sir. Did we go quiet? Anybody got anything? Pulled the cup out of the out of the air. Something the Lord gave us is the time. We don't get more of it. Don't waste it by doing things halfass. So slap in God's face when you do it that way. It's the parable of the talents. Right. There you go. This this kind of reminds me of my other favorite 3:16, Revelation 3:16. Uh, so because thou art lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I spew thee from my mouth.

Yep. Again, being being, you know, like being being on the being on the fence. Yeah. So, yeah, that that's a that's a great scripture, too. God, because I'd rather be be hot or cold. I don't want anybody in the middle. We use that in our sales philosophy and training as well, too. I'd rather have a yes or a no. I don't want a pending. I don't want a maybe that they just that just cost you your life. Yeah. So, what God is saying is listen, be all in or be all out. Make it make a choice. Anybody else? All right. Cool. Either I'm getting better or I'm getting worse.

I'm not sure what it is. All right. Well, let's You're You're doing a phenomenal job. Thank you, sir. Let's Let's uh let's bow our heads. All right. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for James who just literally calls it like he sees it. Just like Tony just did. He didn't mince any words. He said, "Listen, let's not halfass this. Excuse the French. Let's do this the way we're supposed to do it. Let's let's let's let's read the word, understand what the word had to say, and whether we like it or we don't, whether it's difficult or it's not, let's go do the word.

Let's go be who we're supposed to be. Let's let's lean on you because we know it's in your strength that we get to do those things. And so, Father, I just pray that we would continue to read this word that way. That we wouldn't read it soft with fluffy edges because that's not how Christ gave it to us. He was decisive. He said, "I didn't come to bring people together. I I came as a sword to divide uh to be either hot or to be cold. And so, Father, I pray that we would do that. I pray that's how we would read the word. It's how we would live our lives.

That we would take a strong stand. We we would we would read. We would we would educate ourselves in the word and we would follow what it says. That we would be doers as James has told us that we need to be. Father, just give us the strength and courage to do that, to continue to want to do that, to continue to seek your face. And whether that's Sunday morning, that's a Wednesday Bible study, or that's a 915 devotional. Father, we just thank you for waking us up today. As William said, we woke up on the on the right side of the dirt. None of us had dusty miles.

We uh we weren't promised that, Father, but you gave it to us. And we owe you our our our whole beings for it. We love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son, Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. See you guys tomorrow. Have a great day. Have a peaceful day. that I can usually it's

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.