Christ Church Leavenworth
James 1:22-25
August 17, 2025
…
OT READING: Deuteronomy 30:11-20
NT READING: Luke 6:46-49
"Do or Die"
READING OF THE TEXT
Our text this morning is James 1:22-25, these are the words of God
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was 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.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.
PRAYER
Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Give us ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to believe, and hands to do everything according to Your Word. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Last week we were told to “be quick to listen and slow to speak.” We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk. This week, James points out that we also have been given two hands: one for each ear.
In other words, when it comes to the Word of God, what we hear should match what we do. 2 Corinthians 6:7 says it this way, “as servants of God we commend ourselves with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left.” We have two ears because God has much to say. We have two hands because God has much for us to do. And that is where our text begins this morning. Turn with me to James 1:22-25 as we take a quick survey of the text before circling back to set up camp in a few verses.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
(22) Listening to God means hearing what He says and then doing it. God does not talk just to hear His teeth rattle. When He says something, He expects a captive and obedient audience. As James points out, however, the one does not always follow the other. It is possible to hear the Word of God and not do it. You can be a hearer without being a doer. Not only that, but you can hear the Word, not do it, and trick yourself into thinking that you’ve done the work of God simply because you heard it. But hearing and doing are separate sides of the same coin. You cannot spend one side of the coin without spending the other. And if you think you can, try putting half a quarter in an Aldi cart. Do not be deceived: hearing and doing cannot be divorced. God has married them and what He has joined, let no man separate.
(23) If you think listening to sermons is the same thing as doing what the sermons said, you are kidding yourself. You are like a person who sees a mailbox in his rearview mirror, but backs into it anyway. Your life, like that car, is going to be a wreck if you forget what you’ve been told. Forgetting is a gateway sin. It is a sin in itself, but it always leads to harder sins. So, we must remember what God has said and the best way to do that is to get to work. If a word from God hits home, put it into practice. Quick obedience is the best memory aid.
(24) If you look into a mirror and see cream cheese on your face, you find a napkin and you wipe it off. You don’t walk away without doing something about it. It’s that simple. You see the crud in your eye, the gunk in your teeth, the stain on your shirt, and the booger in your nose. And what do you do? You wash your face, you brush your teeth, you change your shirt, and you wipe your nose. Simple.
So, why don’t you do the same thing with your sins? It’s the same thing. You see your face in the Scriptures and you see all your imperfections. You see your blemishes, your sins, and your shortcomings. And what do you do? Nothing? How can you do nothing? How can you just walk away without doing something? You should not be able to see yourself in that state without being motivated to do something about it. Sure, there’s a lot to fix, but still… start somewhere. Some of us wake up to some pretty gnarly reflections looking back at us, but we do our best and we get ourselves where we need to go looking better than what we began with. So, what do you need to do?
(25) The Bible, like a mirror, tells it like it is. Don’t blame the mirror for what you see in it. The Bible is not smeared, streaked, blurry or broken. It is crystal clear. There are no blemishes or flaws in it. So, if you see any issues staring back at you, they are yours. The Bible is also a full length mirror. It is not like one of those little mirrors they stick on the back of your car’s visor. It is big enough to get all of you in view. And what you see is a perfect reflection of who you are because the mirror itself is perfect. It is flawless, that is why it can show you your flaws. That is the reason why many people don’t like to stand in front of it very often or for very long when they actually do. That is why some people avoid going to church altogether and why some bounce out of the service as soon as it is over.
But if you are in the habit of looking into the law of God and getting after the problems you see in its reflection, you will be blessed. You will see yourself being conformed to the image of Christ. It may only be as in a mirror dimly, but it is a glimpse of what you’re going to be. The grace of God gives you the ability to face yourself without falling apart because it gives you the ability to see Him face to face without being destroyed. After all, the same mirror that points out your faults also points you to Christ. The same Word that calls you out, calls you back home.
HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD
The tension in today’s passage is between hearing and doing, or rather, between hearing and not doing. James is not against hearing. He did, after all, write this letter with the expectation that someone would read it. But more importantly, he expected the hearer to do something about what they heard. But not just any thing. James is not promoting a “ready, fire, aim” form of a religion.
On the contrary, he is committed to doing what God has said. This begins, of course, with hearing but it cannot end there. We’ve all sat through conversations, meetings, or even sermons that we technically heard, but could not, for the life of us, remember. Hopefully not this one though. So, take heed, hearing the Word of God at church may be the main context James had in mind.
More often than not, the only time people hear the Word of God is at church. They might read it at home, but they hear it at church. This is the one place where it is regularly read out loud. And if that is true today, how much more so was it the case at the time he wrote this? We can listen to Johnny Cash read the New Testament on YouTube. And if you haven’t already had the pleasure, I would highly recommend it. The original recipients of this letter, however, likely only ever heard the Word at church. Consider 1 Timothy 4:13 where Paul tells Timothy this: “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” The church has been given the Word and the sacraments and it is its job to protect them and proclaim them. So, church people, all things considered, hear the Word of God more than most, which is why the sin of hearing without doing is almost exclusively a problem particular to parishioners.
DO THE WORD OF THE LORD
Three times in four verses James contrasts hearing with doing. He then goes so far as to say that those who hear the Word of God without doing it are dopes. They are like a man who puts a rabbit into a hat, waves a wand over it, reaches in, and is just as shocked as everyone else to see a rabbit come out. They have somehow fooled themselves. Those who act like listening to sermons is the same thing as obeying them are deceived. They are under their own spell.
Children, pay attention. Listening to your parents is not just hearing the words that they say, it is doing the things that they say to do. When the Bible says, “Listen to your parents,” like it does in Pr. 23:22, it does not mean simply waiting around for them to be done talking. It includes that, of course, but it primarily means paying attention to what they say and then doing it when they’re done. It is the same with God. Listening presupposes doing. The child of God who truly “listens” to his Father is the one who obeys him.
The Word of God does not come back void. The Lord does not talk just for the Heaven of it. The Bible is not chit chat or small talk. If God says, “Jump!” your only question should be, “How High?” If He says, “Hop to!” your only reply should be, “I’m your huckleberry.” Do not pat yourself on the back because you heard the sermon. Big whoop. The devil has sat through countless sermons. Aim higher. Consider Ezekiel 33:30-31, “The people say, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it.’”
There is a long, rich history of people gathering to listen to sermons they have no intention of obeying. Going back to the days of Ezekiel, they would get excited to sit under teaching that they felt the freedom to ignore. People have always preferred a “take it or leave it” kind of approach to going to church over a “hear it and do it” approach. But sitting under preaching with that kind of attitude reminds me of a story I heard about a boy who got in trouble in class. He kept standing up and wandering around several times after he was told to find his seat. After several gentler approaches had failed, the teacher sternly said, “Tommy, sit down right now!” He walked slowly back to his seat and sat. The teacher continued with the lesson and turned around every once in a while to make sure little Tommy was staying put. He was, but she noticed that he was wearing a big grin on his face. It seemed odd for a child who had just been corrected in front of his peers to be so cheerful about it, but she considered that perhaps she had finally gotten through to him. So, she turned back to the whiteboard and continued the lesson. She glanced back once more and saw that lil’ Tommy’s grin had grown wider. Her curiosity now getting the best of her, she stopped the lesson and said, “Tommy, what are you smiling about?” Tommy took a moment, looked up, and said, “I may be sitting down, but I’m still standing up on the inside.” If you see the Word of God as optional and sermons as a matter of opinion, you are like lil’ Tommy. You may sit under the Word of God most Sundays, but you are standing tall in your heart.
If you only do the things in the Bible that you already like and only do the things in the sermon that you were already doing, you are not a doer of God’s Word. You only hear what you want to hear and do what you were going to do anyway. This kind of thing was apparently prevalent in the days of Augustine of Hippo as well, for he once said, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
If you only do what you want to do, you are not following Jesus, you are just following your own fancies. At some point, being a Christian will require you to do something you didn’t feel like doing; at another point, it will require you to stop doing something you wanted to do. If it doesn’t, it is not Christian. If Christ is King, He gets to contradict you. You do not get to contradict Him.
THE F-WORD
Consider Matthew 21:28-31, “‘What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’”
Both sons got the same instructions, but neither wanted to do what they were told. The first said, “No,” but ended up doing it anyway. He told the truth about not wanting to do it, but he repented and did it anyway. The second said, “Yes, sir,” but ended up doing nothing. He told a lie and then went AWOL. Hear the Word of the Lord: honest repentance is better than dishonest lip service. It is better to look bad and do the right thing than it is to be a good looking good-for-nothing. It is better to eat crow than it is to cook up stories. And that brings us to a very important and powerful word. The F-word. Yes, you heard me correctly. There is a four-letter F-word that everybody knows and everybody despises. Especially God. I’ll spell it out for you. F-A-K-E. Fake.
Listen to Matthew 15:7-8 “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.’”
We get the word “hypocrite,” from a Greek word used to describe an actor on a stage. A hypocrite was someone who played a part and wore a mask. You’ve likely seen the classic comedy and tragedy masks that are used as symbols of the theatre. Those were worn by hypocrites. In this context, it is like someone cosplaying Christianity. The worst part is, however, as James points out, is that some people have tricked themselves into thinking that that is all Christianity actually is. And so, just like the demons, they believe that there is a God and just like the demons, they refuse to do what He says.
Consider what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:13, “Impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” The worst part about telling lies is that you start to believe them. Lying is like trying to remember two truths. There is the one you know and the one you want others to know. But the longer it goes on, the more lies you have to tell, and if it goes on long enough you can’t remember what is what. Sir Walter Scott it well when he said, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” In other words, those who spin tales either get caught up in them… or they become spiders.
Consider Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” There will always be more people saying, “Christ is King,” than there are people living as though they were His subject. If you play fake games, you will win fake prizes. You might fool some of the people some of the time, but you won’t fool Jesus any of the time and in the end what will it profit a man if he gains the approval of the whole world, but forfeits the approval of God? God is not fooled by fake IDs. The only solution then is to get real with God and with ourselves.
1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” When you are high on pride, you cannot see your own sin. But the Word of God can sober you up. And once you see your sin, you must confess it. The word “confess” is the Greek word homologeo and it literally means homo = same + logeo = word. Confession then is a matter of using the same words that God uses. Confession is agreeing with God and finally saying what He has been saying all along. And if you do that and then call upon Christ to save you, He will. If you give Him real, solid sins, He will give you real, solid forgiveness. If you set aside all the faking and get real with God, He will become real to you. But if you call yourself clean, you are calling Him a liar. You have heard His Word, but it is not in you. You have said something other than what He has said.
The only person who cannot be helped is the person who does not think they need any help. That person is drunk with pride. They need someone to take their keys and drive them home before they hurt themselves or somebody else.
C.S. Lewis said it this way, “When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not when you are sleeping. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.”
That brings us to our NT reading today. Turn, if you will, to Luke 6:46-49.
NO, LORD AND OTHER NON-SEQUITORS
In Luke 6:46, Jesus asks the following question: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” It is a penetrating question, is it not? Why call me Lord if you’re not going to do what I say? Either say, “Yes, Lord,”and do what He says or say, “No, you’re not my Lord.” But do not say, “No, Lord.” That doesn’t make any sense. That’s not even possible. If He is your Lord, you have to say, “Yes,” and if you say, “No” He is not your Lord. 1 John 2:4 says it this way, “Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” You cannot say, “I know God” and then act like you don’t know Him. You can’t say, “I’m a follower of Jesus,” and then refuse to follow Him.
Jesus goes on to punctuate this point with a familiar parable in vs. 47-49, “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Both men heard the Word of God, but only one built his life upon it. He did his best to keep Christ’s commands and his house endured the day of the difficulty. Convictions are not formed during times of trouble, they are revealed in times of trouble. The day of difficulty reveals what doctrines you hold to.
The second man heard the Word of God, but built his life on something else. He may have gone to church every week, but he did not do what he heard there. He may have read his Bible in the comfort of his home, but he did not put it into practice. And his house, according to Jesus, came crashing down. It could not endure the day of difficulty and it fell down in dramatic fashion. The point then is obvious. The blessing is in doing what you’ve heard.
In John 13:17, Jesus said it this way, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” Knowing is incomplete if it does not do something. Repentance is a change of mind that manifests itself in a change of conduct. If your theology comes out your fingertips, and it does, what do yours say about your doctrine?
Keep this in mind: Judas heard of all Jesus’s sermons. In fact, he was sitting in the room when Jesus said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” He heard those words with freshly washed feet. He sat at the supper table with Jesus that same night. But he did not do what he heard. He already had something else in mind. And so he chose to do something else. And that leads us to our OT reading for the day. Look at Deuteronomy 30:11-20.
HEAR IT AND DO IT
The commands of God are always for today. The question is always, “What does God want me to do today?” You cannot carry two days at once and God doesn’t ask you to. So, let the past rest in the grace and forgiveness of God and stop trying to pick up the future. It is too heavy for you to carry. And besides, God will be there to help you carry it when you get there. Life and death are before you. Good and evil are your only two options. God has made it clear: it’s do or die. If you obey, you will be fruitful and you will multiply. Blessings will abound. But if you don’t do what you’ve been told or stop listening to God altogether, you will not be long for this world. Heaven and earth are God’s witnesses. They are watching whatever you do. Whatever you choose, they will see it. So, choose life. What you do with what you have heard from God is the most important decision you make every day. So, what will you do today? You have heard. What comes next?
WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD
Begin by reading your Bible and paying attention when the Word of God is read or preached. In other words, take a look in the mirror. What do you see? If there is something wrong, set to putting it right. The Word of God is a good mirror that tells it like it is. But here’s the Good News. The mirror of God does not just show you what’s wrong with you, it shows you what is perfect about Him. It is not just a reflection of your gross, it is a reflection of His grace. And the longer you look to Him, the more you will become like Him. It is another one of those inescapable concepts: you will become like whatever you behold. You will look like what you look to. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says it this way, “we all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Hear the Word of the Lord: if you look to Christ, you will become like Him. Because this is an inescapable concept, however, it can and does work in the opposite direction as well. Psalm 135:15-18 “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, and so do all who trust in them.” Hear the Word of the Lord: if you look to idols, you will become like them.
Everything is going somewhere and sooner or later it's going to get there. Everyone is becoming something and sooner or later they are going to become it. The best predictor of where you are going to end up is the direction you are currently going. Direction determines destination. The best predictor of who you are going to become is what you do today. So, look down at your feet. What are they aimed at? That is the direction you are going. If you don’t like the direction things are headed, repent and point your feet in a different direction.
IT IS FINISHED!... AND SO IT BEGINS
At this point, you might be thinking, “Ok, this all makes sense, but who could do everything God says? I want to do what He says, but I keep falling short. Is there any hope for me?” Yes, there is. So, you have not done what God said to do. What does the Bible say to a man in that place? Does it have anything to say to him? Yes, it does. Hear the Word of the Lord: Repent and believe the Good News.
If you have heard the Word of the Lord and done what it said not to do or failed to do what it commanded, there is yet more Word of the Lord for you: REPENT. Confess your sin as sin and believe the Good News of God. Christ has completed the work of God. He has lived a perfect life in your place for your righteousness. He has died a sacrificial death in your place for your sins. He has risen on the third day in your place for your justification. And He has ascended into Heaven in your place that you might be seated with Him at the right of God the Father Almighty. On the Cross He cried, “It is finished!” Are you calling Him a liar? He completed the good work His Father called Him to do. He finished his race without faltering. He never sinned. He never fell short of anything God called Him to do. As such, He has a perfect record. He has a spotless resume’ and He is willing and able to give it to you. The Gospel of God is that Jesus takes all of your sin and nails it to the Cross and He gives you all of His righteousness and credits it to your account. So when God sees you, He sees His Son. And how does God feel about His Son? He loves Him. In Christ, that is how God feels about you. So, when you feel like you are done, remember what He has done. Today we have talked a lot about doing, but don’t start there. Begin with done. The DONE of God in Christ saves you from what you have done and what you have left undone.
You have heard the Word. What will you do now? Will you do it? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to wake everyday with this battle cry in your heart, “It is finished! …and so it begins!”
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we have heard Your Word. Help us now to do it. We have been blessed by the opportunity to hear You speak. Let us now go out and be blessed in doing what You have said. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing...
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