James 1:19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
3rd test of true faith
Hearers and Doers
Attitude: swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath
Actions: Don’t just hear- do
Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country.
Soon
after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three
questions:
"Where you scared?" "Yes."
"Would you do it again?" "No."
"Why did you do it?" "Because," he said, "you
can't just sit there."
Leadership, Summer 1993, p. 35.
Be a doer, not just a hearer. If you aren’t, you are deceived. What “just a hearer” looks like. What “a hearer and doer” looks like
I. Be a doer, not just a hearer.
22 Do not merely listen to the word… Do what it says.
“Your Actions speak so loudly, I can’t hear what you are saying”
“Do what I say, not what I do.”
In the American church, it is easy to become content with just hearing, hearing, hearing, and no doing. Positive and negative commands. Yes, yes, let my light shine in the world---day after day---I’m just tired---Yes, yes, the tongue, watch your words---no filthy communication, coarse jesting, ----but once Sunday is over---join whatever crowd we are part of.
A. Doers…not “be doing the Word.”
It’s one thing to fight in a war, it’s another to be a soldier.
It’s one thing to teach a lesson, it’s another to be a teacher.
B. Hearers--auditors
II. If you aren’t, you are deceived.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
If your actions don’t match your words…you are deceiving yourself…. about your Christianity.
Jesus illustration: Matthew 21:27-2928 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to Him, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward [f]relent and believe him.
III. What “just a hearer” looks like.
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
If you look in a mirror, it is to see if anything needs to be corrected. If you see it, and then walk away, you end up with an apparent flaw. There are people who hear the word, sometimes on a regular basis, and change absolutely nothing.
Galatians 5:14 (ESV)
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Chapter 2 14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
IV. What “a hearer and doer” looks like
25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
A. Looking intently
When I shave, I have to get up close to the mirror and look over my entire face. And even then, Denise will look at me and say, “you missed a spot, there and there, and there.
Or she will say, are you wearing that?
I haven’t taken a close enough look
B. Continuing
He habitually takes long and deep looks into the Word of God. In particular, he uses the Word of God as a diagnostic tool, and a change prescription for his life.
Example: chapter 59 Do not [g]grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be [h]condemned.
Steps: what is grumbling? Am I guilty? Who do I grumble against? Who do I grumble with? Talk with the grumble committee. Check each other. Ask for forgiveness from God. Pray instead.
C. Not forgetting
John 2:3-4 “By this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” He that says he knows him, but doesn’t keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Going the distance
The Greeks had a race in their Olympic games that was unique. The winner was not the runner who finished first. It was the runner who finished with his torch still lit. I want to run all the way with the flame of my torch still lit for Him.
J. Stowell, Fan The Flame, Moody, 1986, p. 32.
D. Doing
Do they always do? No, Paul said, Romans 7:19 “the good that I desire to do, I don’t, and the evil that I hate, I do, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death.
But look at his desire…
E. They will be blessed.
Matthew 7:24–27Build Your House on the Rock
24 z“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like aa wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like aa foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Joshua 1:8 the Scripture says, "The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. You shall meditate on it day and night and observe to do all that is written therein and then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success."
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