DO IT!
- God's Word should be kept
- God has kept his Word
There are certain passages in the Bible that hit harder than others. It will vary from person to person and situation to situation of course, but there are a few verses of Scripture that always seem to make an impact whenever they are read. Some of those are beautiful passages of the gospel that produce a sigh of relief in any Christian’s heart. Others are brazen passages of the law that sting a sensitive conscience no matter how many times they are heard. For me, James 1:22 is one of those verses that stings and burns and itches. Every time. Because it is a passage of Scripture that I can’t talk myself out of. I’ve tried, of course! I’ve tried to convince myself that it doesn’t apply to me or that I really do follow its command or that it’s not all that big of a deal in the long wrong if I don’t measure up… But if I care to think about this passage for any length of time, if I am being truthful with myself, I can’t avoid what it reveals. When I am confronted with this passage, my conscience is pricked and I once again realize how guilty really I am. And the passage is this: “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” This verse gets me. It catches me red-handed and I have to bend my head low in shame whenever it comes up because I know that this is a sad description of me. This is an ugly insight into my heart. Is it an uncomfortably accurate description of you too?
It’s time for a gut check this morning. It’s time for some serious self-evaluation. A passage like this will do that. And so we need to spend some time taking a very candid look at whether our actions measure up to what we believe, whether we just hear what God says or we actually do it. And I don’t think this exercise is going to be all that pretty. Self-evaluation never is. If we are truthfully going to consider what this passage says, we’re going to have to look at some things about ourselves that we don’t want to think about. We’re going to have to admit some things about ourselves that we have avoided for quite some time. But it’s necessary. It’s spiritually healthy for us to do so. And the Holy Spirit will help us through it.
And to start out with something positive: I think in our circles we have been well-trained by the Bible itself to believe anything that God says. We are very familiar with the concept that if God clearly says it in his Word, it is true. For example: we believe that in the Lord’s Supper the bread and wine are also Christ’s true body and true blood at the same time. It doesn’t make sense, we can’t explain how that happens, but because Jesus clearly says that, we believe it. It’s also second nature for us to believe that God created this entire universe in six 24-hour days. Again, we can’t prove it, but we believe it anyway because God says that’s the way it happened. The Triune God, three distinct beings who are different from each other and yet there is only one God - not something that makes sense to our minds, but something that we agree with through faith in our hearts. And that goes for anything in Scripture. Since we believe that every word of the Bible is the inspired Word of God himself, we have no problem endorsing anything that we find in this book. We whole-heartedly agree with anything that God says. That’s the nature of faith. But agreeing with something and doing it are two completely different things.
My wife and I tell our children to get their pajamas on every night. Now they might agree with us that it’s a good thing to do, that it’s getting to be that time of night, that they need to get them on before going to bed, and that they know where to find them. But agreeing with something and doing it are two completely different things… And so James says, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” There are some things in God’s Word that we simply believe. But there are other things in God’s Word that we are to do. Allow me to give just a sampling. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 6:22,25). “Do not lie” (Leviticus 19:11). “Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10). And here in the book of James: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (v.19). I doubt that anyone in this room would disagree with any of these commands or any other directives of Scripture that we are to carry out. We would all admit that they are good and God-pleasing things to do, right? But how often do you make a conscious effort to actually do them?
It’s so typical of us to nod our heads in agreement, to confidently say “Amen” to whatever the Lord says, but then to walk out these doors every Sunday without any inclination whatsoever to actually do it. And we don’t really even give any excuses for it either. We just don’t think about it. Most of the time we just don’t plan on changing the way we live our lives and so it never happens. We agree with what the Lord says, but we ignore it at the same time. We believe that those things are good and right, but we act as if they aren’t worth putting into practice. We go about our Monday-through-Saturday lives as if God didn’t give us anything to do back on Sunday morning. We go about our day-to-day routine without giving one thought to how we can implement the commands the Lord has given us. That’s not a Christian attitude. To concur without complying is pointless. It’s hypocritical. To hear what God says to you without putting it into action is defiant. And that’s the very attitude that James is addressing here in the first chapter of his book.
When James originally wrote this letter, he was writing to a group of Christians just like us, Christians who already had the Truth. They had been brought up with the Word of God and had been blessed with the knowledge of what the Lord wanted them to believe and to do. But it seems that over the years their faith had been producing less and less fruit. And from the way that James talks in these five chapters, some of those Christians had apparently started giving the excuse: “Since we’re saved by faith alone and not by works, then what I do doesn’t really matter. Why do I have to do anything at all?” Those Christians had forgotten that faith automatically produces works. Although works do not contribute to our salvation in any way, works must follow faith. Just as the sun must produce rays of light and fire must produce heat, so faith must produce works. And so if someone claims to believe in Jesus as their Savior, it should then follow that they would want to do what their Savior says in his Word. Not for salvation, but because of salvation. And that point is so important that it’s worth repeating a couple more times: As Christians, we want to do what God tells us to do in his Word not for salvation, but because of salvation. Not to gain salvation, but because we have already been given salvation. That is our motivation behind our actions. That’s what moves us to want to do whatever command we find in the Lord’s Word. It’s really an attitude of gratitude. It’s a response of admiration and appreciation. Every command the Lord gives us in his Word we want to do for the Lord because every promise he gave us in his Word he did for us.
And if we ever struggle to find the motivation to keep the commands of our Lord, we just have to think about every promise the Lord has given us in Scripture. He carried them all out. They weren’t just empty words. He didn’t just tell us things to make us feel good. He did it. He did it all. He did not leave one thing unfinished. He did everything he promised in full without a doubt. Way back at the trunk of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, right after Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent, God made a promise. He promised that he would send a Savior to crush Satan’s head and save all people from their sins. And he did it. Throughout the centuries he promised to save a remnant of the Jewish nation although by and large they rejected him. And he did it. He promised to Mary and to Joseph through the angel Gabriel that their first son would be placed in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit and he would be called the Son of God. And he did it. God promised that this Jesus would proclaim freedom to the captives and give sight to the blind. And he did it. Jesus himself promised that he would be handed over to his enemies, that he would be murdered, and that he would rise from the dead after three days. And he did it. The Lord promised that on account of his life, death, and resurrection, he would no longer count your sins against you. You would be released from your death sentence, you would be freed from your guilt, you would be taken out from under the control of Satan. And Jesus did it. The Lord has kept every promise he has ever made. The Lord has carried out every word he has ever spoken to you. And now the Lord gives you the words of his promise that he will take you home to be with him forever. This is what the Lord promises you. Do you think he’ll do it?
The Lord doesn’t take his words lightly. The Lord doesn’t take you lightly. And if you ever begin to wonder if he ever takes you seriously or not, just go back to where his own words took him. His own promises took him to the cross and there he suffered and screamed (God himself screamed!) in agony. Not only were nails driven into his body, but the love of his Father was ripped away from him. And there Christ hung all alone. With no one to help - not even his God. Because he would rather cry out in unbearable torture than to see you even taste a drop of God’s divine wrath. And he promised that for himself. He planned that for himself. Even though he knew it was going to be a furious amount of pain and a sick-to-your-stomach dose of torment, he did it. He did it because he said he would. He did it because he made that promise to you. And he would never even think about letting you down. His words to you are that important to him.
Are his words that important to you? I know they are. I know that you love and believe his Word. I know that you cherish what he says and cling to every syllable of Scripture. And so do it too! Put his words into practice! Carry out the commands he so graciously gives you to do! Because when he asks you to do something in his Word, he is not asking you to gain anything. He is not requiring you to earn your keep at all. He is not placing an ultimatum on your shoulders that will determine your eternal future. He is simply giving you a way in which you can thank him for securing your eternal future for you. He is providing an avenue in which you can please him, in which you can show him how much you appreciate how much he has accomplished for you. These commands are not burdens, they are blessings. They are wonderful ways to praise your God.
And so don’t just listen to what God is saying to you this morning. Don’t just read what God says to you in your Bible every day. Do it! Do it with an excited heart because you have found yet another way to thank your Savior! You have come across another activity in which you can serve your Lord. And, of course, this kind of attitude is going to take some work. It’ll take a little bit of practice. You’ll have to plan for it. You’ll have to make up your mind that you will do whatever the Lord asks you to do no matter how inconvenient it may be. No matter how uncomfortable it may make you. No matter what the sacrifice. Because as Christians we do these things not because it makes us feel good and not because we will get something out of it and not because “it’s just the right thing to do.” We do it because these are the words of our Savior. These are the words of him who bled on a cross and traveled to the sewers of hell for us. These are the words of him who rose from the dead and promises us free life in perfection with him forever. And what better way to thank the Lord for that than to do the simple things he asks us to do?
What a privilege we have as children of our Father: We know exactly what will make him happy. We know exactly how to honor his name. Because he tells us right here in his Word. And so “do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” The Lord will be pleased with us when we do and he will forgive us when we don’t. And in the end, whether we have proved to be faithful and dependable Christians or Christians that have left something to be desired, the Lord will stay true to his Word. He will come back and he will bring us home. He will carry us to the place he has personally prepared just for us. He will wrap his arms around us like the loving Father that he is and we will be overwhelmed by the glory of his presence and the majesty of his power. That is what his Word says. And so he will do it. He always has.
Amen.
“May the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” - 2 Thess. 2:16-17
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