James says be quick to hear the word of God but then he says don’t just hear it, be doers of the word or more simply stated: do what it says.
James says something here that can be a little shocking to us. Hearing the word of God is not enough to remain steadfast or faithful. That can make us uncomfortable especially for Christians who value the preaching and teaching of the word of God; for Christians who value growing in their knowledge of the word of God; for Christians who value spending time each day in the word of God.
And we can say, “hearing and knowing the Word of God is not enough?” Yes, that is what James is saying. In fact, he says if we only hear the word and we do not obey it, we do not do what it says—we are deceiving ourselves.
Now the natural question is: what is the deception? How are we being deceived if we only hear the word of God and we do not do what it says.
The deception is that we believe we are walking through this trial in truth. The deception is that we believe we are walking through this trial trusting God. The deception is that we believe we are facing these temptations while living according to the will and word of God. The deception is we believe we are being wise and faithful when in fact, we are not.
If you are just hearing the word of God and not actually allowing it to shape your heart, mind, will, decisions and emotions, you are not walking in truth and being transformed by the truth.
There are many Christians who believe that they are growing spiritually, they believe they have a mature faith but in fact they do not. They are living life deceived. And then trials come into their life, temptations come into their life and their world falls apart and then they wonder what happened. Asking questions like: God, where were you? How could you allow this?
Because they had knowledge of the truth, because they were attending church regularly, involved in Christian activities—they believed they were growing spiritually but because they were not obeying the truth—they were not actually maturing in their faith.
That is the deception that James is warning us about.
Jesus also addressed this issue. After spending some time teaching his disciples, he said these words: “…everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).
But everyone who hears these words of mine 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” (Matthew 7:24-27).
Jesus is comparing two people: one who hears the words of Jesus and puts them into practice. And the one who hears the words of Jesus and does not. The first person he calls: wise because he is like a builder who built his house on a solid foundation. The second person he calls a fool because he is like a builder who built his house on sand.
The interesting thing about this parable is the foolish man doesn’t become foolish because he doesn’t hear the words of Jesus. No, He hears them. The man who will be called foolish isn’t rejecting the words of Jesus, he is probably intrigued by the words of Jesus, he probably enjoys listening to Jesus teach.
In fact, in this moment he is talking to his disciples and they are probably glued to his every word. If they were note takers, they were probably taking a lot of notes. After Jesus finished, they might have turned to each other and said, “Wow. That was good.”
The challenge from Jesus to his disciples is that spiritual maturity does not come from taking a lot of notes, or being fired up after a good sermon, or having good small group discussion but Jesus is saying that spiritually maturity comes when we obey the words of Jesus.
As Christian, we can fill our lives with hearing the word of God. We can be people who come on a Sunday morning and hear the word of God through preaching, through Sunday School, we hear the word of God through songs that we sing, we can listen to sermons throughout the week, read our bibles every day, attend bible studies where we passionate discuss the word of God and we even teach bible studies.
We can fill up our days and find great satisfaction and joy in hearing and learning about the word of God and yet Jesus says if you do not actually obey, live out, be transformed by it then you can actually become like a foolish builder who builds his house on a foundation of sand.
The mark of maturity isn’t the educated Christian. (and by the way, we need to be education Christians). The mark of maturity is the obedient Christian.
This is why Jesus says, if you love me you will obey my commands not just learn my commands. The call of disciple-making is to teach people to OBEY and just to teach.
Because education without obedience leads to foolishness or as James says leads to deception. Wouldn’t you hate to get to the end of your life as a Christian and realize that you were never actually growing in your faith because you were never actually living out your faith.
This is why some Christians can have an outward appearance of maturity and then at some point in their life they crash, their life falls a part, they begin to make some really poor decisions and we wonder, ‘what happened? They were a Sunday School teacher, they were an Elder, they were a pastor.’ It could be that they were never actually obeying the word of God or at some point they stopped obeying And they had deceived themselves.
This is why we need to be in community with each other. This why discipleship requires one-on-one or small group relationships where we can be challenged and encouraged to actually be living out what we are learning. This is why when someone comes to us for counsel, we need to be quick to ask the question: how you obeying the word of God. What is your place of obedience in this situation?
In verse 23 James gives an analogy about a man looking into a mirror. Now why do we look into a mirror? To see what we look like. When I am looking in a mirror, in that moment, I know what my outward appearance is. And this is the moment that I can make adjustments if my hair needs brushing or if I need to change my shirt.
And James compares the one who hears the word of God and doesn’t do what it says to the man who understands the adjustments he needs to make but simply walks away and forgets what he looks like.
James says that like a mirror, people can look into God’s word and they clearly understand God’s word and what it is calling them to do, and how it is calling them to live and yet sometimes people choose not to obey and then they just forget as if obeying the word of God makes no difference.
We are to hear the word of God, so that we can be changed by it. We hear the word of God, so that we know how to obey God. We have times of teaching as a church so that we can know how to live rightly before God, so that we remain faithful, steadfast and experience the blessing of that obedience—the blessing of truly following Jesus in our everyday lives.
VERSE 25
God’s law is perfectly sufficient for us to be able to live a life that pleases God. And his law is a law of liberty James writes (other translations use the word freedom).
His truth untangles us from sin and death and deception. When we walk in his truth, there is freedom in that obedience. It is when we walk outside of his truth we are enslaved to the lies and the the worries of this world, the fears of this world, the sins of this world.
When we obey God’s word it brings freedom into our life. And so James calls us to be people who looks into the law and perseveres
The idea of looking isn’t that I quickly hear the word of God, I don’t’ just quickly read it in the morning but I hear it, read it, I meditate on it, I consider how I live it out and then I obey it and then after I obey it, I remain in it, I don’t move away from it – this is why James calls us to persevere in the word.
Sometimes we hear and obey the word of God but we don’t see change in our life or life seems to get harder and it doesn’t seem like blessing. And so we give up.
And so James encourages us to persevere in truth. Don’t move away from it. Stay in it. These are the moments we need community. We need encouragement. We need accountability.
By the way, one of the common characteristics of someone who has walked away from God’s truth is someone who has walked away or removed themselves from intentional community with God’s people. If you are outside of biblical community you are placing yourselves in a dangerous place of being vulnerable of walking away from the truth of God.
James finishes verse 25 by saying when you persevere in the truth, when are living out the word of God, doing what the word of God says, you will be blessed.
The blessing isn’t the absence of trials or storms. The blessing is that you remain faithful in the midst of the storms. When we go back to words of Jesus, the wise builder who built his house on rock still experienced storms. Obedience doesn’t remove the storms or the pain of the storms but it allows us to remain faithful in the midst of the storms – that is the blessing.