James 1:22
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Good evening. I'm sure you've heard the story about the preacher who the little boy said, Dad, the preacher gets out his watch and puts it on the pulpit. What does that mean? And the little boy says, I'm sorry, the father says, absolutely nothing. I can tell you on Sunday nights it means something. Greg holds us to a pretty close account on that. So hopefully I'll not keep the people in the nursery waiting. We have a verse that's well-known tonight, James 1, 22, chapter 1, verse 22.
It's at 10, 11 in your pew Bibles. I think we will be helped by reading it in a little bit of a context, so I'm going to read verses 16 through 25, and again, that's at 10, 11 in your pew Bible. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, who deceive yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is a person, your verse says a man, but that's mankind, who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away at once and forgets what he is like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
So the main idea of this passage, I think, can be summed up in the verse of a song that you may have learned in vacation Bible school. I didn't attend vacation Bible school, but I'm told it was sung there and I've heard it afterwards. It goes like this, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. So, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
What does it mean to be a doer of the word? It may seem obvious, but the word we're talking about is the Bible. the Word of God. So to be a doer of the Word is simply to obey the Bible. It does not mean just be a doer. Do great things for God. That's not what God means. He doesn't need us. He's not impressed by what we do. In fact, I think sort of the kind of doing that he is interested in is best, not best, I don't know what's best, but is well described in Isaiah 66 verses 1 and 2, which says, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
What is the house that you will build for me? And what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But, but this is the person to whom I look, who I'm focused on, who's doing what I want. He who is humble, has a contrite heart, and who trembles at my word.
Do we tremble at God's word? Or is it something we just talk about, maybe argue over, pontificate about, as my family would like to say? Or worse, something that we just neglect? Maybe it was important to us in the past, but now we basically, I mean, we've got lives to live, right? We've got jobs to do, classes to take, something we just kind of ignore. Do we really have to try to obey the Bible to be a Christian?
I mean, didn't the gospel take care of that for us? And the answer to that is plain in the scriptures. And that answer is yes and no. It's yes in the sense that we cannot earn our salvation by obeying the Bible. May I take just a moment for those of you who are children with us tonight, or maybe teenagers, or maybe you came with a friend, and let me say plainly that like the rest of us in this room, you are not a doer of God's word.
We don't love God with all our heart and soul all the time, do we? We don't obey our parents. We don't love our wives as Christ loved the church. There's a long list of things where we're not really doers of God's word. I know you don't have wives. To each his own application. We're in trouble.
We're in desperate trouble. But if you come to Jesus Christ, I know you've heard it before, but he's willing to trade lives with you. He's willing to take on all of our failures to do God's word. And he's willing to give us the benefit that he's the only human being who has ever done all of God's word all the time.
You can have that. It's there for the asking. Ask him for it. Come to him. And if you do that, not only will you have the benefit of the perfect life he led, but he will change what you want. You may be wondering why your friend or mom or dad or whoever you may have come with, they're always wanting to go to church.
What is the deal? I mean, who sits and listens to people lecture anymore? We've got TV to watch. Well, actually, y'all don't watch TV anymore. We've got live streaming to watch. It's because their hearts have changed, and they didn't do that. That's something God did for them. And until that happens, until that change happens in your heart, you will be the problem in this world. And if you will come to him and he changes your heart, you will be part of the solution in this world.
Because you will draw people to Christ instead of repel them. Which brings us to our next point. That's the sense in which we do not have to obey God to be a Christian. We can never become a Christian by obeying him. We can only become a Christian by coming to him as we are and seeking mercy from his hand. But if you have become a Christian, your heart has been changed and you will want to obey God.
And that is true for the rest of your life. Now we know we are not going to perfectly obey God for the rest of our lives. But the scripture, from this point, I'd just like to read some scriptures to you and hear the way the Bible talks about our need as Christians to obey what the word of God says. So, this is the word of Paul to start out with, or as we just pointed out, some people would say, pull.
Is that right? Pool. Pool. Wow. but I discipline my body and keep it under control lest after preaching to others I should be disqualified myself well maybe Paul wasn't familiar with the doctrine of perseverance of the saints and eternal security of the believer you're trying to say he was actually concerned about being disqualified himself?
Well, as I heard an old Calvinist say one time, what does your Bible say? 2 Corinthians 7.1 Since we have these promises, the wonderful promises we hear about, Beloved, let us cleanse ourself from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
Does that sound like a strange concept to you, the fear of God? May I respectfully suggest that if it does, you may have more kind of a Santa Claus in mind than the God of the Bible. He is serious. He's nobody to be fooled with. Like the children's story, C.S. Lewis says, he's a lion. He's a loving lion, but you don't ever forget he's a lion.
Hebrews 12, 14. Strive for peace with everyone, and the holiness, or sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord. Galatians 6, 7 through 10. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.
But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due seasons we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith. Ephesians 5, 3-8. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.
Let there be no filthiness, no foolish talk, no crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an adulterer, has no inheritance in the kingdom of God or Christ. Now, let me be clear, what it doesn't say is anyone who has fallen into any one of these sins, they can't ever go to heaven.
It does not say that. What it does say is if this is what characterizes your life, you're not a Christian. You haven't really come to Christ. What is the difference between lapsing into sin and a life of sin? It's repentance.
If you don't repent, you'll keep going down that same path. I heard Brandon Schaeffer say in a sermon not long ago, "Sin has no bottom. It's not your exact phrase. I wish I could remember it. You'll keep going down that road. And the more you go down it, the harder it is to turn around. It's the only thing we have to really fear. So let me bring this to a conclusion quickly as I can here by saying that there's a danger in this type of message.
There's a danger in these scriptures and how you hear them. The danger is the wrong people hear it the loudest. And the people who most need to hear it don't hear it at all. So let me just say plainly, if you're here tonight and you're struggling with sin, there's something that has brought you down again. Maybe you did it again today. You're fighting. But you don't seem to be winning.
At least not winning as much as you want. When I read from James, you heard him say, put away all filthiness, all rampant wickedness. Maybe you thought, that's what I'm desperately trying to do. I just can't seem to get rid of it all. You need to hear Philippians 2.13. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
You are a doer of the word. You're fighting. You are not like the man who looks into a mirror and walks away and forgets what he looks like. You're looking into the mirror of God. You see what you look like because that's God's reflection. I'm stealing this from Greg when he went through here. It's God's, when we look at the Bible, we see how God sees us. And when we see that, it's terrifying. Like I say, if that's not happening to you sometimes, I wonder if you're really reading the Bible.
But you see, you are looking into the perfect law. You are looking into the law of liberty. And you are persevering, continuing to do that. You have a broken and contrite heart. You are trembling at his word. As James says a little later, but he, God, gives more grace. Therefore, it says, God opposes the crowd but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You know why that is? Every time you say no to temptation, It gives great glory to God, and the devil is running from that. And it gets easier every time you say no, because if he knows you're going to persistently say no, he'll go and, as it's said about the Lord, he'll come back for a more opportune time. The complete opposite is what the devil tells us. He tells us, you're going to eventually give in, why don't you just go ahead and give in?
The opposite is true. Every time you say no, it gets easier to say no. This is not something I read in a book. And equally, every time you say yes, it gets harder to say no. That's not something I read in a book either. So, if that's you, if you're struggling with sin, don't leave here discouraged, leave here encouraged. You are exactly the kind of person the scriptures commend. But if, you know, I don't really remember much fighting against sin.
I mean, after all, no one is perfect. You know, once saved, always saved. I don't have anything to worry about. Kind of like McDonald's, you deserve a break today. I don't need to be worried about, you know, because I'm safe. You know, I know the Bible says to love my wife as Christ loved the church, but, you know, when she learns to submit to me, I'll be more loving to her. That's not what your Bible says.
Or vice versa on submitting to your husband. You know, he's not asking me to sin, but he's such an idiot. How can I be expected to follow him? That's not what your Bible says. You're not trusting him anyway. You're trusting Christ. In other words, if you're making excuses, if you're rationalizing, you need to hear another immediately preceding verse in Ephesians. Philippians, excuse me. Philippians 2.12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
That's where we need to be if we become lazy and unconcerned about what the Bible tells us to do. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your Holy Spirit. If anyone is here tonight and thinks they belong to you because of something that happened in the past, but you're not part of their present, we're asking you, Lord God, to draw them to you tonight.
For those who are struggling with sin, and that's all of us, We ask you, Lord God, to give us the great encouragement that your son has paid for those sins. That we are safe in you. And if we will turn to you, you will give us the power to overcome those sins. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.