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James
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Welcome to Eagle Brook Church. We are in a series on the book of James, and I've been encouraging you to read James on your own throughout the coming month. It's a great way to get into God's word. You can find a Bible reading plan on our app, and I'd encourage you to bring your Bible to church so you can write notes in the margin and underline verses that speak to you.
I love the book of James. I love it because it was written by James, the half-brother of Jesus. Initially, James did not believe in Jesus. As Jesus went throughout the Mediterranean world healing and teaching people, James was off in the corner saying, "No, I don't think he's the Son of God." But then something changed. James saw Jesus in resurrected form, and he became a leader in the church of Jerusalem.
One of the things I love about James is that he gets right to the point. He doesn't waste any ink. Consider the Apostle Paul, who wrote several letters to churches all throughout the Mediterranean world. Paul has these long greetings—"May the God of our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, give you grace and peace"—and he just goes on and on. Here's how James begins his letter: "Greetings."
He just gets right to it. He has no time for stale and empty religion. Today's message is titled "Do the Word," and we're going to see that God cares more about our doing than he does about our hearing.
Have you ever gotten expert advice? Imagine you ran into Warren Buffett at dinner, and he sat down and organized your investment portfolio for you. Would you ignore him? Or say you ran into Arnold Schwarzenegger and he gave you a copy of his bodybuilding book. Two months later you run into him again and say, "Man, I read the book cover to cover. In fact, I got together with a group of guys for breakfast, and we talked about the book over bacon, eggs, hash browns, waffles, cinnamon buns, biscuits, gravy, and lard."
And Arnold asks, "But are you doing it? Are you eating healthier? Are you exercising?" You say, "Of course not—that would be a lot of work. But I read the book. I heard it." Would Arnold be satisfied with that? No, he wouldn't.
That makes sense, because I'm not satisfied when my kids act like that either. When my three sons were little, they played a boxing game using winter gloves from the mudroom closet. They asked if it was okay, and I said, "If there's no blood and nobody tells Mom, I think we should be fine." But one of my kids pulled all the winter clothes down from the closet and just left them there.
The next day I said, "Hey, I told you to put all those clothes away in the bin." He got a distant look and said, "Oh, yeah." Then he started shoving the gloves and hats randomly on any shelf—not back in the bin. I asked, "Is that what the closet looked like before you took the bin down?" He looked straight at me and said, "Yeah."
What's the problem here? It's not that my son didn't hear me. He heard. He knew what he was supposed to do. The problem was he didn't do it. It wouldn't have made me feel any better if he'd said, "You know, I love what you had to say about cleaning closets. I was so engaged and entertained. I'd love to hear more next week." I'm not interested in my son being a hearer of my words. I want him to be a doer.
Apparently, God feels the same way. Look at what James writes:
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." — James 1:22
Another translation puts it: "But be doers of the word." I love that phrase—doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James cuts right to the chase: a faith that listens but doesn't do is a faith that doesn't work. God isn't interested in hearers of the word. He wants doers.
Let me ask you—does that describe you? Not perfectly, of course. We're all going to sin and struggle. But I'm asking about the overall trajectory of your life. Are you a hearer or a doer?
It's easy even for me to come to church on the weekend, and afterward my family asks, "What'd you think?" And it's easy to say, "It was funny. I liked that story. It was too deep. It was too shallow." That's a hearer. It's not a doer.
Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 7:
"Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds his house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash."
A few years ago, we had several large hurricanes around the United States. I read a story about the country singer Kenny Chesney, who owns a house on an island that was in the path of Hurricane Irma. Several dozen people who lived on the island gathered at his house to wait out the storm, because his house was safe—it was built with stone, concrete, and brick. Most of the other houses were built out of wood.
Jesus takes that situation and applies it to all of life. There is going to come a time when a storm hits your life. Some of us are in the middle of that right now—not a literal storm, but something so difficult it feels like wind beating against you, like you're drowning. When that happens, here's the most important question: What is your life built on? Will your foundation stand?
Jesus says there is only one foundation that can get you through the storms of life: doing what he says to do. Notice the difference in the verse. Both men heard the word. The difference wasn't if they heard it—the difference was if they did it. The strong foundation wasn't built on hearing. It was built on doing.
D.L. Moody was an evangelist in the early 1900s. After he spoke on evangelism—which just means telling other people about Jesus—a woman came up with some critiques. "I don't think we should share our faith with people like that," she said. Moody was humble about it. "You might be right. Tell me, how do you tell people about Jesus?" The woman said, "Well, I'm not an evangelist. I don't do that." Moody looked at her and said, "I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it."
As I was praying about this message, I wondered how many of us have an area of our life where we know what God wants us to do, but we're not doing it. You've read it in the Bible. You've heard messages about tithing, debt, sexual sin, living together, anger, alcohol, or judging others. You've seen those verses—but up until now, you've ignored God. My hope today is to help all of us take a step from being just a hearer of the word to being a doer of the word.
James says it is dangerous to be a hearer and not a doer, and he gives two reasons. The first is this: you fool yourself. Right after telling us to do what the word says, James writes:
"If you don't obey, you are only fooling yourself. For if you just listen and don't obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror; you see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like."
I brought this mirror as a prop. It's not just a mirror—it's a magnifying glass with a light around it. You can see every pore and blemish known to man. Can you imagine waking up with bed head, something hanging out of your nose, ear wax dangling off your ear—seeing all of that, and just saying, "That's fine," then walking out the door and doing nothing about it?
James says that happens spiritually all the time. Personally, I struggle with this. The Bible says, "Be patient"—and there are times I want to honk my horn and be upset. The Bible says, "Do not provoke your kids to anger"—and I can't tell you how many times I've gotten irritable over some little thing and done exactly that. The Bible says to love your enemies—and I remember a time when there was a person I found difficult to love, and when others spoke negatively about them, I wanted to join in. I knew what to do. I had heard those verses. The problem wasn't that I hadn't heard. The problem was I wasn't doing.
Several years ago, I knew two people who each told me they were leaving their church because they wanted "deeper teaching." "The teaching's just so shallow. I want to go deeper into the word of God." I wouldn't even have remembered that conversation, except that a few months later I learned that one of them had been fired for lying on their résumé, and the other had done things that significantly harmed their marriage.
Here we are saying, "I want new information, I want something deeper," while not obeying the clear teaching we already have. It is harder to obey than it is to learn. God is not just interested in what we know if we don't do.
In 2005, I went through a period where I felt like I was drowning. We had our first child, I was in seminary full-time, and I was working full-time. I was crabby, tired, angry, and irritable, and I wasn't finding much joy. I'd read verses like "rejoice always" or "give thanks in every circumstance," and all I could do was complain.
During that time, I listened to a message titled "Replace a Complaining Attitude," based on Numbers 11, where the Israelites—rescued out of slavery and given everything they needed—did nothing but grumble. I listened to a lot of messages that year. I don't remember that one because I learned something new. I remember it because of what I did.
After that message, I vowed to do two things:
Every time I've had a spiritual renewal in my life, it's because I stopped merely listening to the word and started doing what it says. Spiritual renewal begins with spiritual action.
Author and counselor Henry Cloud tells the story of a man he counseled who had been addicted to alcohol for years. He'd lost three businesses and his marriage. By the time Cloud worked with him, he'd been sober for 20 years. Cloud asked, "How did you get sober?" The man said, "I went to three AA meetings a day. My goal was simple—get from the morning meeting to the afternoon meeting without stopping at the liquor store. Then from the afternoon meeting to the evening meeting. I did that for years, then dropped down to one meeting a day, and now, 20 years later, I still go a couple times a week."
Is there an area of your life where you need to take a step and start to obey the word of God? Look at what James promises: "If you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for it." Do you believe that? It comes down to faith and trust that what God says is true.
Here's the second reason this is dangerous. James writes in chapter 2:
"Faith that doesn't show itself by good deeds is no faith at all—it is dead and useless."
In the late 1970s and early '80s, a man named Darrell Pace won an Olympic gold medal in archery. Years later he gave a demonstration in Central Park in New York City, shooting steel-tipped hunting arrows and puncturing one bullseye after another without missing. Then he called for a volunteer—all they had to do was hold an apple at waist height beside them.
Out of that huge crowd, only one person stepped forward: an ABC news correspondent named Josh Howell. He stood there, apple in hand, a lump in his throat. Pace took aim from 30 yards away. Clean hit. The apple exploded.
Here's what I learned from that story: you can see faith. How many in the crowd believed Darrell Pace could hit that apple? Probably most of them—they'd just watched him hit bullseye after bullseye. But not one of them stepped forward to hold the apple. Only one person believed it enough to do it. His faith showed.
Does your faith in Jesus Christ show? There's an old question: If you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? That question is asking—does your faith show?
Right after saying faith without works is dead, James uses Abraham as an example:
"Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was declared right with God because of what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?... So you see, we are made right with God by what we do, not by faith alone."
But then Paul, in Romans 4, also uses Abraham:
"Abraham believed God, and God declared him to be righteous... People are declared righteous because of their faith, not because of their works."
So which is it? Like every so-called contradiction in the Bible, this is not a contradiction at all. Here's how the two ideas come together:
The Bible is clear that we are saved by faith alone. You are not saved by doing good works or being a good person. A person is made right with God when you turn from your sins and believe in Jesus Christ.
But here's what James is saying: if a person is truly saved, you will be able to tell by their works. Genuine faith reveals itself through good works.
Another way to say it: Good works don't create faith, but good works reveal faith. Faith is like a seed. If you plant a watermelon seed, it naturally produces watermelons. In the same way, genuine faith naturally produces good works. Both James and Paul are right.
I was talking to a 20-year-old who was a little flippant: "I believe there's a God. That's good enough for me." You hear people say things like, "I believe in the big guy in the sky" or "the universe." Here's the problem with that: Satan believes God exists. He doesn't just believe it—he knows it. James says:
"Do you still think it's enough just to believe that there is one God? Even the demons believe this—and they tremble in terror. How foolish! When will you ever learn that faith that does not result in good deeds is useless?"
There's an amazing athlete named Erik Weihenmayer, known for mountain climbing. He's the youngest person ever to climb the seven largest mountains on all seven continents. What's remarkable is that Erik is blind. He has scaled the world's largest mountains without seeing where he's going.
How is that possible? Erik says it's because he's become an amazing listener. A bell is tied to the climber in front of him, and he listens to that bell. His fellow climbers call out, "Move to your left—two feet to your right is a deathfall." For Erik, listening is a matter of life and death.
The same is true for you and me. Listening to God's instructions is a matter of life and death. Psalm 119 says:
"Your word, God, is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."
God's word is like the bell on the climber in front of Erik—it tells us where to go and where not to go. But imagine if Erik heard, "Move to your left, deathfall to the right," and didn't move. It wouldn't do him much good to hear if he didn't do.
Hebrews 3:15 says:
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart."
Today. Not tomorrow, not when you graduate, not when life slows down. Every time you or I hear God's voice and don't do what it says, our hearts become a little harder.
I was speaking here a few weeks ago, and during a video at the end of the message I noticed a man in tears, extremely emotional. I didn't hear an audible voice, but I had an impression I believe was from the Holy Spirit: Go pray for that man after church.
When I finished speaking, I didn't want to just rush over—that felt weird. So I decided to go around the back and come over to his side. But by the time I did, there were a bunch of people between us, and I didn't want to push through the crowd. So I didn't do it.
I wonder sometimes—when I've sensed God speaking to me and didn't obey—what happens then? I wonder if God simply says, "Well, if you're not going to do it, I'll speak to someone else."
What are you hearing God say to you? What are you reading in the Bible? What is God telling you to move away from—a relationship, an environment, a sin? You've heard him. You know what he's saying. But up until now you haven't done it. Today—not tomorrow. If you hear his voice, don't just hear it. Do it.
I want to tell you about a group of guys who heard something from God and did something about it. Back in 2019, they saw that Rochester was a city that needed a place for people who wouldn't normally walk through the doors of a church. So they started what we call a viewing group—a group of people watching our Eagle Brook messages on their own. They began in a basement, it grew so big they rented a space, and eventually they reached out to ask us to open a campus there.
That group heard from God, and they didn't just hear—they did something. I'm excited to announce that we will be opening a permanent campus in Rochester on October 3rd and 4th. We believe God is going to do something great: lives changed, people coming to Christ, people getting baptized, new life and transformation.
So where is it in your life that you've been hearing from God? Where has God been calling you to move away from something or step into something—and up until now, you've heard, but you haven't done?
If you hear his voice, don't just be a hearer. Let's be a doer. Let's pray.
God, I thank you for every person in our church, and I believe you are a God who still speaks to us through your word. Lord, I pray for the person right now who's had something in their life you've been speaking to them about—you've called them to step into something or step away from something. God, today, my prayer is that they would take that step, that you would give them the courage and strength and faith to believe that if they take that step, there will be a blessing in their life. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
If you want to talk to someone about that in your life, we've got people down front who would love to pray with you.
