Don’t Kid Yourselves!

All of us like imagining a better version of ourselves.

Maybe we underestimate our weight, or we add an inch to our height. But honestly, who do we think we're kidding? Today on Truth for Life, we discover that when it comes to issues of faith, self-deception can have eternal consequences. Here's Alistair Begg to tell us more.

Our text is James chapter 1 and verse 22, which reads as follows, "'Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.'" I've told some of you this before, but it bears repeating in this context that some years ago I was invited to play at a golf club down in southern Ohio, somewhere in the Dayton—towards in between Dayton and Indianapolis, I'm not sure really where I was. I was the guest of a gentleman, and he told me that he would meet me on the practice range. And so, having received my clubs, I went down onto the practice range to find myself in the company of just one other man who was not my host.

So I was there, filling time and swinging a bit and waiting for my host to come. My procedure was, as those who know me well, marked by my standard mediocrity. But in comparison to the person who was the stranger just a couple of slots away from me on the range, I was really pretty good, because this man was, by any standards, appalling. He was not good at all. His drives were ineffectual and weak, and when he took out irons, he consistently dribbled the iron shots all the way along the ground in a fashion that was, frankly, quite embarrassing. Didn't seem to embarrass him, but embarrassed me.

In the middle of this sorry display, he took a call on his cell phone. And his side of the conversation went something like this, yes, on the driving range. Oh, pretty good. Actually, very good. Driving it to the far end of the range. My irons? Oh, straight.

Great, as straight as arrows, and incredibly long. Took everything in me not to go over and grab the cell phone from the man and speak to his friend or his wife or whoever it was and say, You've got to be kidding. Let me tell you the truth. And to hand it back to the gentleman and say, Don't kid yourself. Do not kid yourself. And I begin like that, because that is essentially, in colloquial terms, what James says in verse 22 of James chapter 1. That's what he's saying.

Don't kid yourselves. When it comes to the issues of faith, when it comes to the Bible, when it comes to Jesus, when it comes to believing, when it comes to behaving, make sure he says that you don't kid yourselves. Because there was, in the experience of those to whom he wrote, a significant gap between their imagination and their execution, in much the same way that there was on the driving range in the gentleman beside me. And James urges his readers to consider two things. First of all, what is a very clear distinction? And the distinction is there between listening and doing. Do not merely listen to the Word, do what it says. The Bible must be taught. That's why we've been given the Bible. That's why we preach from the Bible. It is a matter of necessity, as we've seen in the previous verses. Not only is the Bible a life-giving Word, but the Bible is also a life-transforming Word. And it is, as the Bible is explained, that faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of God. And when a man or a woman comes to believe in Jesus and to trust in him, then the Bible becomes the light on their pathway, the food for their journey, the map, and so on.

They have in their hands, if you like, their own global positioning system, and they're able to go into it and find their direction and discover where they ought to go. But if the process stops there, simply in the teaching of the Bible or in the listening to the Bible, then little, if anything, has been accomplished. What James is pointing out is simply this, that if the Bible is going to be effective in our lives, it must not only be listened to but also received and acted upon. James has urged everyone to make sure that they're quick to listen in verse 19, but he now says, but make sure that you are not merely listening. Now in this, he is much like his brother Jesus, isn't he?

And in one particular instance, this becomes very clear. When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, where we have the Beatitudes, all these wonderful statements concerning the poor in spirit and those who mourn and so on, after Jesus had concluded what we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, he then tells a story of two builders. And Jesus was a masterful storyteller, and having given them all the material in his sermon, he then gives them a therefore. He deals in the realm of the so what, if you like.

So he says, let me tell you, so what. Everyone who hears these words of mine—now, notice the next phrase—and puts them into practice, is like a man, a wise man, who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the wind blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine—and notice this next phrase—and does not put them into practice, is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. James, the brother of Jesus, seems to be taking a leaf from Jesus' book by making the same point and making it absolutely clear in this pithy statement—a clear distinction which all of us can understand. Secondly, he also identifies a crucial deception, and that is the danger of being self-deceived. James is concerned about people being deceived, and you'll notice in verse 16, if your Bible is open, he says, I don't want you to be deceived, dear brothers. Here in verse 22, he is concerned about self-deception. If anyone considers himself religious and yet doesn't keep a tight rein on his tongue, again, you have the same verb. He deceives himself. Accepting the Word of God means doing what it says. And James, as we'll go on through this letter, works this out with great clarity, and at some length, beginning in chapter 2 and verse 14, where he asks the question, What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith and has no deeds? And then, as he follows that line of thinking through, he's driving home this point that he simply pays reference to in passing in this particular verse. And he uses what is supposed to be, I think, a humorous analogy.

Anyone he says who listens to the Word but who doesn't do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and then after he's seen his face in the mirror, he goes away and forgets what his face looked like. Now, every so often, in an early-morning breakfast meeting, since I've been here in America, I have seen some funny stuff. I have been in the company of men wearing one brown loafer and one black loafer. To point it out to them, they are amazed, and they said, Oh, dear, I think I noticed that, but I forgot all about it.

I got dressed in the darkness. Most of us have stories like this. When taking flowers from our church to people who were infirm, back in Hamilton in Scotland, on one occasion, I had gathered up these flowers, been given them by either my wife or someone and instructed where they were to go, given the instructions. And somehow or another, I had got pollen on my fingers, and as a result of that, I had rubbed my nose or scratched my face, and I saw myself in the rearview mirror, and I made a mental note, You better take care of that before you get out on your visits. But then in the course of traffic and everything else, I wasn't paying attention to it, and I forgot about it, only to discover that people looked at me in a very strange way, and I remember thinking to myself, What's up with them, you know? What are you looking at? You got a problem or something?

What's your problem? And then I got back in the car, looked in the rearview mirror, and I realized what the problem was. It was absolutely no good to me to look in the mirror unless I did something about it. The value of the mirror is not narcissism so that we can congratulate ourselves.

The value in the mirror is in order that we can see our predicament and do what we can to fix it. And the Bible is like a mirror. And when we look into the mirror of God's Word, we find things out that we wouldn't know had we not looked there.

But if we look in and discover them and do nothing about them, then we are self-deceived. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. So let me make application of this in one simple aspect, and that is in relationship to baptism. Because what is about to take place here in this pool is the expression on the part of six individuals who are testifying to the fact that they've actually gone into the Bible when they've looked into the mirror of God's Word, they found out things about themselves, they found out things about Jesus, and they found out things about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And they have guarded themselves against being self-deceived and have decided to follow through on what they've seen in the mirror.

What have they seen when they've gone into the Bible? Incidentally, I think there is some legitimacy in making application of verse 22 to baptism, for this reason. And we notice the phrase, Get rid of.

Get rid of. The phrase, Get rid of, put off, occurs frequently in the New Testament. You'll find it in Romans chapter 12.

You find it in Hebrews chapter 12, where he says that we set aside all the things that would hinder us in Ephesians 2 and in Colossians chapter 3. The picture is very clearly of clothing and the idea of taking off clothes that marked a previous way of life and putting on clothes that mark a new way of life. And so frequently the New Testament writers say, Now you should put this off, and you should put that on. There is some evidence that in certain areas of the early church, that symbolism was worked out in the experience of baptism, so that when a person came to be baptized, they came wearing their outer clothing over their undergarments in the Eastern fashion, and when they came down into the river's edge, they took off their outer clothing and left it on the one side. They went down into the river or into the lake or the stream to be baptized, and when they were baptized, they came out on the other side of the river, only to be met by some of their friends who gave them a complete new outer garment that was a symbol of them having said goodbye to this and hello to this. So I say again, I think there is some legitimacy in taking verse 22 and making application of it to baptism, even if we weren't having a baptism service. The apostles were commanded by Jesus to baptize, go into all the world, he said, and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach the people who are baptized to obey everything that I have commanded.

Teach them not simply to hear it, but to do it. Now, it is vitally important when we think in terms of baptism that we're very clear about what is not happening. In this baptismal pool tonight, there is no washing away of sin.

It's just, frankly, a pool of water. Although the washing away of sin is not being performed in here, the washing away of sin is pictured in here. He has given to us this baptism so that we might see in this a picture of the fact that it is his blood which cleanses us from sin, it is his sacrifice which washes away our sins, and having come to an understanding of that, our going through this water is simply providing for ourselves and for those who observe a picture of what has already been performed. So no one is having their sins washed away in here tonight. No one is becoming a Christian in this water tonight. You will hear each of the people say that somewhere along the line they understood the gospel and they came to believe in Jesus and to trust in him. What is really happening here is that the people who are coming through this baptismal pool in doing what the Bible says are in some ways like shopkeepers who put a new sign-up outside their shop which reads, Under New Management.

Legal transactions have taken place behind the scenes and in private. All that has become apparent is that the shop is no longer what it once was, and suddenly there is a change in the whole fascia of the shop and the content of the shop and what the shop has to sell. And it is no surprise when the sign goes up, Under New Management. When these people come through this baptismal pool tonight, they're not coming through the baptismal pool to say, We just got a master's degree in religion. We just moved up three rungs in the spiritual ladder towards acceptance with God.

No, what they're coming through saying is, I'm under new management. I'm under the management of Jesus. So then who should be baptized? Those who are under the management of Jesus. If we're not under the management of Jesus, then the symbolism is completely lost, isn't it? Those who are under the management of Jesus are those who have come to the Bible and have looked into the Bible, and they've seen a picture of themselves as described, like a sheep that has gone astray, like a rebellious son, like someone who's disinterested, and they said, You know, that looks a lot like me. And when they looked into the mirror and saw that, they also looked further, and they saw that Jesus, by his death on the cross, had come to make provision for all of our rottenness and our wandering and our waywardness and our sinfulness. And looking further into the mirror, they discovered that acceptance with God was not something that was earned or achieved by religious activity, baptism, or anything else, but was something that was granted as a gift to all who would come in humble and believing faith. Now you can check this for yourselves by reading all the way through the Acts of the Apostles, and you will discover that there is a distinct pattern which runs all the way through the Acts. For example, Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost. And as a result of his preaching, people begin to say to him, What are we supposed to do with this?

In fact, Luke tells us that they were cut to the heart. There was a listening with their ears that was something that they'd never encountered before, because they were hearing the very voice of God through the voice of a man. What are we supposed to do? What should we do, Peter?

And he said, This is what to do. Grant and be baptized, every one of you. In other words, do an about turn from the way you're going, trust in Jesus and what he has done, and then get baptized so that everyone will know that you're serious. Get baptized so that everyone will know you're for real. You see, baptism is an outward sign of an inward spiritual change.

It's the sign going up that declares what has taken place in private. That's why we often say that an unbaptized believer is like a soldier who's unwilling to wear the uniform. I never saw anybody become a soldier and didn't want to wear the uniform. That's the reason you become a soldier in part, isn't it? Wouldn't you like to have one of those uniforms?

They always look so good. I can imagine joining the Air Force, and the man says, And now, your uniform, what size would you like? And I say, Well, you know, and he said, Okay, well, I think we can find one like that. And so he gave me the uniform, and I said, No, I just want to be in the Air Force. I don't want the uniform. I just want to be a soldier, but I want to be incognito. I don't want anyone to know that I'm in the army. I don't want any, because there might be some people who hate me for being in the army. It might be hard to be in the army. There may be opposition. You might get killed in this army. So why don't I just do without the uniform?

No can do. It is no such thing as secret discipleship, because either our discipleship will destroy our secrecy, or our secrecy will destroy our discipleship. And an unbaptized believer is like a soldier that won't wear the uniform, or like a spouse who refuses to wear a wedding ring, who says, I'm not going to wear a wedding ring. Well, you better be very careful if you've got a husband who says, I'm not going to wear a wedding ring.

You might want to get him a ring for his nose, then, if he doesn't want to wear it on his finger. Because you want every girl to know that that is an expression of the reality of a relationship that is precious and unassailable. The distinction is between listening and doing. There are some people who are very good at going through the menu for you. Aren't there when you go into a restaurant? Can I just go through the specials? Increasingly I want to say no.

No, because my life is going by, and frankly, no, no, just I'll get something, you know. I need to sit there and listen to all of that, and it doesn't mean a thing until you order and you eat it. You can memorize timetables for all the buses that go everywhere on the Greyhound system and never take a trip.

You can listen at Cleveland Hopkins Airport to every announcement of every flight that is going to where you want to go without ever going to your destination. Because there is a vital distinction between listening and doing. In those cases, perhaps not earth-shattering. In this case, it is a matter of our eternal destiny. Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says. There is a vital and important distinction between merely listening to God's Word and doing the Word. That's from Alistair Begg today on Truth for Life.

Alistair returns in just a minute to close with prayer, so please keep listening. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, we hope this program has become a solid source of Bible teaching for you. As Alistair mentioned, the Bible is not only a life-giving Word, but it's also a life-transforming Word.

That's why you'll often hear us invite you to open your Bible, because God's Word has the power to change your life. We also want to help you instill a love for the Bible in the hearts and minds of your children or your grandchildren as well. So we've been recommending a book titled Bible Stories Every Child Should Know. This is a colorfully illustrated storybook. It's packed with Bible stories you can read to your young children from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

There are even questions at the end of each chapter to help guide the conversation after you've read the story. Be sure to request a copy of Bible Stories Every Child Should Know when you give a gift of any amount to Truth for Life. Simply visit our website truthforlife.org slash donate or call 888-588-7884. Now let's join Alistair in prayer. Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you that we can read it. Thank you that its truth prevails. Thank you that the Holy Spirit drives it home to the minds and hearts of those who will humbly accept it.

Speak into the lives of those of us who've been listening to this story for a long time without ever doing anything about it. Help us not simply again to go through another Sunday where we look into the mirror and then go away and forget exactly how we appear. Save us from self-deception and help us Lord we pray for Jesus' sake, Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. A new appliance usually comes with an owner's manual and if you don't follow the instructions and do what they tell you to do, the appliance is not going to function properly. God's Word works in much the same way. It's not enough to merely listen to God's Word. We have to do what it tells us to do. Learn more as you join us tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.