Just Do It!

There's a danger in hearing a sermon. There's a danger in reading a letter. There's a danger in having a devotional that you read. There's a danger in memorizing a passage of scripture to say.

The danger is you would say, I learned something. Hey, that was good. I got something out of that. That devotional page, wow, right on the money. That takes care of my day.

I'm good for the week, the month, the year. As a Christian today, you have many opportunities to sit under the teaching of God's Word. For example, Christian radio is a powerful and important tool for spreading the truth of God's Word. Of course, your pastor and your personal time in God's Word are vital. But is God's Word doing its intended work?

What I mean by that is this. Are you allowing scripture to transform your life? This is wisdom for the heart. Today, Stephen Davey returns to the book of James and has a warning to us of what happens when scripture merely tickles our ears rather than changes our lives.

Today's message is called Just Do It. James chapter 1, verse 22. But prove yourselves doers of the Word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

Let me illustrate what he's saying here. This is a person who today will attend a church but never join the church. And this is a person who wants the benefits of the assembly, the climate control, the chair, the parking spot, the room for the kids and all of that, but not shoulder the responsibility of whether it's the mortgage or operations or fixing up the place or maybe serving in a way to help those who show up, who come over. I think that shows up in a lot of different ways, whether it's the need for individuals to serve in ministry, whether it's the offering that's taken. You know, I rarely see any thing about money except in greenhouse class, but you know, the average giving per capita in America among Christians is $20 a week.

Now you ask yourself the question, what did I just give? And how much am I giving to support the ministries of Christ in his church? You move from spectating to participating.

You move from dating to responsible marriage. Now there are those who would say that James is not talking about Christians as auditors here. They would argue that the auditor here is an unbeliever. I think that misses the context of what James is saying and the context of to whom James is writing. It might preach a little more easily, but I think it actually lets the church off the hook. It misses the context here of maturing faith. If you go back in time, you find the reformer by the name of Martin Luther, who really didn't like the book of James. He called it a right strawy epistle, and he didn't want it included in the canonical record. And the reason for that is because he was passionate about justification by faith alone.

That was the string on his fiddle. And in that particular time in our world and church history, that was necessary because of the corrupted church and all of the merit systems that it had added to the gospel. And so Martin Luther preached sola fide, faith alone, along with sola scriptura.

We go to the scriptures as our rule for faith and practice. And I think he didn't like James because he missed the context of James. He believed that there was a contradiction between James and Paul.

And we're going to deal with this a little later on, on some other Sunday. But just as a thumbnail sketch, let me tell you, Paul was interested in the definition of saving faith. And it is without works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. That's the definition of the gospel, and you need to get that right. But James is not so much interested in the definition of the gospel as he is the demonstration of the gospel, the demonstration of the faith.

And you cannot demonstrate faith without works because if you try to do that, your faith will be viewed as dead, useless, meaningless. See Paul was talking about being justified in the sight of God. James is talking about being justified in the sight of men.

So James is not contrasting a believer with an unbeliever. He's contrasting a maturing, active believer with an immature, mark that, inactive believer. In fact, the very verb tense of this verse as it begins in verse 22, but prove yourselves, doers. Your translation may read be doers of the word.

The verb tense is present tense. It means do it, keep doing it, don't stop doing it. He's exhorting the believer to grow, to mature because the temptation is to stop. The temptation is to audit that particular trial.

I'm going to sit that one out. He's saying, show yourselves more and more doers. In fact, James goes on at the end of verse 22 and he gives a warning. He says, if you do that, you're going to be deluding yourself, right? Those who are merely hearers delude themselves.

Literally, you've gotten off track in your thinking. The word for delude partly gets in my...carries with it the idea of cheating or defrauding yourself. In other words, whenever you hear the word taught or you read the word for yourself and you decide in your mind and heart, I will not do that.

I will not put that into practice. Among other things, James focuses on this. You end up cheating yourself.

You defraud yourself of the gifts of growth and maturity and what that deeper walk in faith and with Christ can mean. Let me illustrate it this way. You take your little kids to the Lincoln Memorial. And what do they want to do? They want to run up and down the stairs.

This is great. Look at that set of stairs as if they're running up and down and up and down. And you as an older, more mature person, what are you doing? You're reading what's engraved in stone. You're reveling in what that man meant to the nation. You're looking at Scripture and you're thanking God it's carved in stone and not painted.

They could be painted over. And you walk away and your children walk away and you're all happy. That was great. For your children, it was great to be able to run them downstairs. And they have a sense of pleasure and satisfaction. For those who are more mature, they understand the gravity and the sense of the awe and the blessing of that monument and what it means. That's the idea here. He says you're going to cheat yourselves if all you want to do is run up and down the stairs. There's so much more to appreciate about our Lord.

Don't miss out on depth and growth in Him. There's one more thought here I want to show you before we leave this classroom illustration. James is talking about a doer as he begins verse 22. He uses the word poites. It's actually in noun form. It's a reference to a group of people who are becoming this. They are becoming poites. They are becoming literally translated poets.

It's the word we get our word poetry from or poet. He's talking about creatively serving God. I find this fascinating. He's not talking about obeying with the idea that okay, I'll do the minimum. I don't really care what it looks like. I got it handed in.

You know the term paper, I mean it might have stuff hanging off it and it might be all splotchy and I've misspelled words and the pages aren't in order but I did it. Or you can go all the way in growth and maturity and you give God your creative best. You give God your passionate service. You give God a desire to serve him with excellence and if the church needs any testimony right now to our world, it is that we pursue our reflection of God's character through excellent work.

No matter what we do. See, immaturity says I'll get the job done with the least amount of energy, the least amount of thought and you probably work next to somebody like that, don't you? I mean they work harder at getting out of work than they work and they're very creative and you think why don't you use that creativity to actually work?

That's the point here. Serve God creatively. That is, how can you improve what you do?

How can you do it better no matter how mundane? He's talking about servants of God who don't just put in time but they say how can I do that better and what can I do next? They reflect then the excellence of God's character in the excellence of their work and their testimony brings glory to God. Now speaking of a reflection, James takes us out of the classroom and he opens another door and this time he leads us into a dressing room. Look at verse 23. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. Once he's looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

Now let's break this down and find out exactly what he's talking about. James is basically saying as an overview, anybody who listens to the word but doesn't take action is like a man looking in a mirror. He sees his natural face, the word is the word Genesis, literally he sees the face he was born with. I think James is using a taste of humor here. He sees the face he was born with but then walks away without doing anything about it. I think James is suggesting here with some sense of humor, why would anybody, he's asking why would anybody do that? I mean looking into a mirror usually leads you to take some kind of remedial action.

It's most often emergency action. None of us showed up today looking exactly like we looked when we first saw ourselves in the mirror, right? We put in a tremendous amount of work and repair and reconstruction, whatever. I love James' choice of words. By the way, under the inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit, even his use of the word for man is specifically intended. Verse 23, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his face.

He's not using the generic term like he did at the beginning. If anyone, if anybody is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a, and he uses the specific word, he is like a male. He's like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and how does a man look at his face in the mirror? A man glances into the mirror. A woman gazes into the mirror. A man looks in the mirror and says, yep, that's me. A woman looks, oh my. Just count the pieces of machinery it takes to get a woman ready versus a man.

Now, none of us men would complain, right men? You're not going to say anything. You're on your own, Stephen.

You've got no dog in this fight. One of the first things Marsha bought me when we were dating in college, one of the first things after we dated a few months was a comb. It just showed up in my college box, a comb. And this is 1977. I had a head of hair.

You're going to have to use your imagination on that one. You don't need a comb anymore. That is great. You just got to, yeah, okay, sure, great. There we go. Off to class. Got a comb. She took it where my mother failed and left off.

See, this is the inspired clarity of James' illustration. A woman is not usually going to step in front of a mirror and do nothing. A man just might. In fact, let's do an experiment here. I've done it for the first hour and the second hour.

Same results every time. Let's see. I want you to get ready to stand up, okay? Every woman in here right now who is in possession of a mirror, would you stand up?

Go ahead. You're in possession of a mirror. It's in your purse. Stand up. And all the men said? You're still not going to say anything, are you? Okay, ladies, sit down.

Now, I want all the men who have in their possession a mirror to stand up. All right, case closed. You got my point. James is not pulling words at random. Don't look in the word like the typical male looks in a mirror. Yeah, fine.

No. Now, here's having our attention now with the illustration. James goes deeper with application. Look at verse 25, but one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty. That is, the law which produces liberty.

He's not thinking of the Mosaic law. He's actually talking about this principle, this law we are enslaved to which is the grace of God's gospel, which has given us freedom. You're bound by that and abides by it, not having become a forgetful mirror, but an effectual doer. This man will be blessed. He'll be fulfilled, he'll be satisfied in what he does. Now, James is talking about what we need to do, and that is male or female look intently into the mirror of this perfect law of liberty, the law of grace which has captured us, the gospel, the truth of God. James says we're abiding by it. I love that word. It means to stick close to it.

We're looking and we're sticking close to it. He says we're not going to be forgetful hearers. The word for forgetful, you might think, oh boy, I've got problems here because I am so forgetful. Let me tell you, I am.

I have to have notes pinned to my pocket when I go to work. I forget anything and everything. That's not what he's talking about.

He's talking about someone who comes to some cognizance of who he is and he chooses. I'm not going to do anything about it. In fact, I'm going to forget I ever saw that.

I'm going to forget I ever learned that. He willingly disregards it. That's the idea here. But James says, look, what I want you to do is I want you to look intently into the gospel of God and the words looking intently have the nuance of stooping, of bending, as if the mirror is on a table and you've got to bend over to look carefully. See, that implies, what James is implying, is humility as we approach the word of God. See, pride fogs up the mirror.

Pride looks at its reflection and it has only one desire and that's to save face. Humility says, let me improve upon my reflection, my face, and so conform a little more to the image of Christ. F. B. Meyer, the British pastor and commentator, born in 1847, wrote it this way, commenting on this text. He says, I used to think of God's blessings on shelves, one above the other, and that the taller we grew in character, the easier we could reach them. I now find that God's gifts are on the shelves, one beneath the other. And it is not a question of growing taller, but of stooping lower, that we have to go down, always down, as we mature to get his best gifts.

It's a great thought. James says, you do that and you're going to be blessed. David the psalmist wrote it this way, I walk about in liberty and in true freedom.

Why? Because I'm bound to your precepts. Being bound to the law, the word of God, brings freedom. And so with humility, David has this kind of experience and stooping toward the word as he says, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any hurtful way in me.

Is there anything about my complexion that needs to change? See, that's the way you respond to the truth of the word. You stoop down to see, to learn, and then you go out to live. One contemporary of F.B. Meyer was a British pastor named Robert Chapman. I've read a couple of his biographies. Robert Chapman was born in 1802 and died in 1903. Ninety-nine years, he was single all his life, pastored in England, a little church. Charles Spurgeon called him the saintliest man he'd ever met.

Fascinating biography. But on one occasion, Chapman was giving advice to someone who really wanted to make a difference for Jesus Christ. And he was asking, okay, now, how do I do that?

It's always challenging to be in ministry or leadership. In a Sunday school class, a Bible student, somebody asks you a question that needs a volume, and they want a sentence. Just give me a sentence.

I love his sentence. He said to this one, here's how you can make a difference for Christ. Keep low, look up, and press forward. Keep low. In other words, stay humble.

Look up. In other words, stay focused on Christ who ran the race before you, and press forward. Live out what you learn.

That's just another way of saying just do it, which is exactly what James is saying here. Don't be content with just listening even though you have two ears open. You need to learn it. Don't stop after learning it. You need to live it.

Do the homework. Practice it. Practice it.

Practice it. Those who practice are able then by that practicing capable of discerning between good and evil, the writer of Hebrews said. It is that which is our guarantee to spiritual maturity. It is looking into the Word as we do, being convicted by the truth because we see a reflection that we ought to be that we are not.

And we say, oh God, you're giving me something new to live, and I will live it. I'll falter. I'll fail. I will be faithless. Thank you that you are faithful. But I'm not going to say, Lord, look, I'm auditing.

Don't give me any more homework. I don't care to practice anymore. In his book Improving Your Servant, I'll close with this, Chuck Swindoll repeated a parable that I have used myself in days long, long.

He comments wonderfully on the truth of this paragraph, and I'll read you his version of the parable. Let's pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly, and I'm the owner, and I'm interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay overseas until a new branch office can be established. I make all the arrangements to take my family in this move to Europe, which will last between six to eight months. As my assistant, I leave you in charge of all the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I'll write regularly to you and give you direction and instruction. I leave, you stay, and months pass by. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters, and in them I spell out for you my expectations.

Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival, I drive down to the office, and I'm stunned. Grass and weeds have grown up high.

A few windows, facing the street, are broken. I walk into the receptionist's room, and she's doing her nails and listening to her favorite radio station. I look around and notice the waste baskets are overflowing.

The carpet hasn't been vacuumed, and no one seems concerned that the owner has even returned. I ask about your whereabouts, and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells over the radio, I think he's down there. Disturbed, I move in that direction, and I bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office, only to discover that has been temporarily converted into a television room. I ask, what in the world is going on?

What do you mean? Well, look at this place. Didn't you get any of my letters? Letters?

Yeah, we got every one of them. As a matter of fact, we had letters study every Friday night. We divided all the personnel into small groups to discuss the letters. Some of the things you wrote were really interesting, and you'll be pleased to know that few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs, and one or two employees even memorized an entire letter, and more. Great stuff in those letters.

Okay, you got my letters. You studied them. You discussed them in small groups. You memorized them. What did you do about them? Do?

We didn't do anything about your letters. We're still studying them. There's a danger in having a devotional that you read. There's a danger in memorizing a passage of scripture to say.

The danger is you would say, I learned something. Hey, that was good. I got something out of that. That devotional page, wow, right on the money. That takes care of my day.

I'm good for the week, the month, the year. James is effectively saying you're not really learning anything unless you desire to live it out with creativity and excellence so that Christ is glorified and we are truly changed a little bit more into the reflection of Christ that we see in the word of God for, by the way, to look into the mirror of God's word is to both see the complexion of our soul and the character of the Savior. To see the complexion of our soul is discouraging and challenging but to be exposed to the character of our Savior of whom we say and the power of his cross gives us energy and hope and grace as we obey him and we say, yes, Lord, your servant is not only listening but I'm willing to live it out there.

I'm willing to just do it. You've been listening to Stephen Davey here on Wisdom for the Heart. Thanks for joining us.

Stephen is currently teaching from a series out of James called Bringing Faith Down to Earth. Today's message is entitled Just Do It. Our ministry is on social media and that's a great way to stay informed and to interact with us. Be sure and like our Facebook page so that you'll get updates. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We post our daily Bible messages to our YouTube channel so you can subscribe to that as well. We'd enjoy interacting with you and we'd really enjoy hearing from you and learning how God's using this ministry to build you up in the faith. Please take a few moments and drop us a note. Our mailing address is Wisdom for the Heart, PO Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. By the way, please consider including a gift when you write. Stephen often reminds us that our ministry is empowered by your prayer and enabled by your support. Your partnership is vital to us and we're thankful for it. That's all for today. Join us next time for more wisdom for the heart.