Be Doers of the Word, and Not Hearers Only

We are in the Epistle of the Apostle James, chapter 1, and you will remember the path we have been following. In verse 18, we are told about the importance of the word of God, the word of truth. Because that word of God is so important, we must conduct ourselves in a certain way, pay close attention to that word, and see how important it is.

And whenever we read it, we must always take care to treat it with great reverence because it says that this word can save our souls. And, it says, we must rid ourselves of all filthiness and all abundance of malice.

I believe that the last time we spoke, we emphasized the matter of casting off certain things in our lives, that we must make a commitment to live according to the Lord’s commandments. We must cast things off so that we can then clothe ourselves in the Lord’s blessings. There in verse 21 it says that, casting off all filthiness and abundance of malice, you are to receive with meekness the implanted word.

Casting off is a strong expression, as we said. In our lives, we must decide to change. I believe that many people do not experience that change in life and conduct because we have never confronted ourselves; we have never had a kind of crisis experience in which we say, “You know what? I am going to commit myself to living a life that honors the Lord and conforms to the word of God.” A decisive, crisis-level decision must be made.

Notice how interesting the path James follows is. He says, “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which can save your lives.” There is an inward matter there, that of making a covenant with the word, receiving it, and allowing it in. But then James says that it is not enough simply to remain at the point of saying, “Oh, yes, word of God, enter my life; I want to be good, I want to be holy, I want to please God.” We must begin to practice it.

Many people stop at good feelings and good intentions, but there must also be an “Okay, I am going to begin to change, and I am going to stop doing these things.” I am not going to wait for God to sort of touch me with a magic wand and turn me into a well-behaved person. No, I too must begin to make clear and firm decisions in that regard. We must be doers.

It says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” That applies to all of us. Therein lies the key to a successful life in the Gospel: being a doer of the word and not merely a hearer. Churches are full of people who are only hearers; they come to church as though to listen to a show, watch a performance, sing very sentimentally, and so on, and say, “What a beautiful sermon; what beautiful prayers,” but they have not made a commitment to be doers of the word. And that is the key.

We must be practitioners of the Lord’s word. And that is what makes the difference between a merely religious person and a truly committed person. And, by the way, if you read the entire Epistle of James, the chief characteristic of the Epistle of James is this continual emphasis on practice and lived experience. The Apostle James continually insists on this idea of being practitioners.

We will see it later, but it is a theme on which he continually insists, like a pastor telling his people, “Hey, change your way of thinking.” So tonight I would like the Lord to imprint this idea on your spirit: I must be a doer of the word of God, whether male or female, and not merely a hearer.

It says, “Deceiving yourselves.” Who is deceiving himself? The person who only listens and does not act. You know, people who come to church and do not change the way they behave are deceiving themselves; they are wasting their time.

Now, that does not mean that you must be perfect, because we will always be in that battle, but you do have to do everything in your power to please the Lord. What happens when you stray from that word? What you do is confess, acknowledge it, come back, realign yourself, enter in again, and keep moving forward.

But your guiding ethic is, “I must live according to the Lord’s word.” That is your motto, that is your goal, that is your standard, and when you stray, you return once again. That idea—I want to imprint on you this idea of being practitioners of the word and not merely hearers.

If you go, for example, to 1 John, chapter 1, it says there, “If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

The person who says, “I love the Lord, I am a Christian, I am a believer,” but does not live according to the Lord’s principles—whose practice, lived experience, and overall conduct do not reflect the life of a male or female servant of God—is living a lie. We are always struggling with sin; that is true. But the standard, the overall pattern, the total image that a child of God should project is the image of a person who is living within the Lord’s commandments.

There are flaws, yes; there are falls, yes; there are deviations, yes; there are temptations, yes; but we are always fighting against them; we do not submit to them. There are people in churches whom you know are not even trying, and there are whole areas of their lives about which they have simply said, “In that area I am weak; the Lord knows and has mercy on me.” And the devil is out there waiting to give them a good wallop so that they will learn. That is how it is.

In verse 7 of John it says, “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.”

Even verse 8 is interesting, so that you can see that the problem is that we often do not preach the whole counsel of the word of God, because John adds something. He says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

I always say that our life is a life of aspiring to holiness while knowing that we will always be struggling with sin. That is natural, but we do not submit to sin. Instead, we are always saying, “I am going to defeat you; I am going to overcome you.” And when we depart from God’s standard, what do we do? We confess our sins. We must always be confessing our sins to the Lord; we must always be transparent before God.

The Bible says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive them. In verse 9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Thus, the child of God moves between that acknowledgment of sin and of never being fully within God’s standard, while always striving to conform and adjust to the holiness God requires. We are always there in that battle, in a state of tension. I believe that the problem with many churches and many preachers is that we do not preach enough about that tension, about the complexity of the Christian life and the process of holiness.

If you go to 1 John, chapter 2, verses 3 through 6: “And by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, ‘I know him,’ and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Say, “Ouch!” “But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God has been perfected in him.”

Look at how beautiful verse 6 is. I believe we should all memorize this verse 6. It says, “He who says that he abides in him ought to walk as he walked.” Wow!

My desire this morning is that we, brothers and sisters—all of us—would make a commitment to remember what God is telling us and to live a life in which we say to him, “Lord, I need to renew my vow to you, my covenant with you, to live a life according to your commandments.” That is our desire as a church: to be a church, a congregation, that truly reflects that integrity.

Let us ask the Lord to allow our church to be that kind of congregation. If you will give me two more seconds, we will leave it there; when God allows us, we will continue. I think that is enough for tonight. We do not want it to get too late.

May the Lord enable us. But the next time we return, we are going to emphasize this a little more, in verse 23, where Pastor James speaks about how, if anyone is a hearer of the word but not a doer of it, and makes a comparison—he uses a metaphor, an image of a person who looks at himself in a mirror and quickly forgets what he saw, what he looks like—that is what the person who simply reads the word but does not practice it is like. And we will continue a little further with that, and I hope that when we finish this section, we will have a good idea, a good sense of God’s call to a life of holiness, a life of integrity, a life that conforms to the Lord’s commandments. Amen.

Bow your head for just a moment. Receive from the Lord this call to live a life according to his word. If there is any area in your life that does not conform to that word of the Lord, surrender it to the Lord right now. It may be your character, some area of moral conduct, a flaw that you need to surrender to the Lord—something. Name it in your mind, in your spirit. Tell him, “Lord, every day I want you to help me improve, to improve in that area of my life. I want to be a doer of your word, a practitioner of your word.”

Thank you, Father. Thank you. May your word reach deep into our hearts, Lord, and do its work in us. We want to be practitioners of your word, Father; we want to be doers of your word, Lord. We will not make excuses; we will not pretend. Help us, Holy Father, to be people who please you through the way we act and walk, Lord, through our lives. Thank you, Lord Jesus. We adore you, Lord; we bless you. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen.