Are You Living in Obedience?
Tom Shrader works through James 1:17-25, establishing that every good gift—including regeneration—comes from God alone, not from bloodline, personal effort, or human will. He then turns to the call of verse 22, urging believers to be doers of the Word rather than hearers who deceive themselves, using the mirror illustration to show that looking intently at Scripture reveals who we truly are before God. The teaching closes with a practical challenge: if the Word is not visibly changing the way a person lives, their profession of faith deserves honest examination.
“When I look into the Word intently, I begin to see who I am — and the fastest way to figure out who you are is to figure out who God is.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2006)
Recorded: 2006 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 51 min
Themes: obedience, scripture, faith, self-deception, repentance, transformation, generosity, spiritual growth, questioning your salvation, raised in church, new believer, struggling with consistency, parent, spiritual plateau, examining your faith, first generation christian
Scripture: James 1:13-14, James 1:17-18, James 1:19-25, James 3:1-12, Genesis 3, John 1:12-13, John 15:16, John 20:5, John 20:11, Acts 17:2-6, Acts 17:23, Ephesians 2:4-5, 1 John 2:3-4, Luke 24:12, Matthew 13, Mark 4, Proverbs 17:27, Proverbs 17:28
Theological Themes: regeneration, sanctification, sola scriptura, biblical authority, doers of the word, saving faith, divine grace, perseverance
Full Transcript
Celebrating Faithfulness Across Generations
At the SALT seniors gathering this week, there were four generations present together, which is a wonderful thing. If you look at the picture, you will see on the middle left Zeta McQueen, the matriarch. Behind her are Jerry and Judy Gerwig, her children. In front of them are Linda Sluder and Bob Gerwig, Jerry and Judy's kids, and in front of them are Nicole Sluder and Anna Gerwig, their children. So you have great-grandma, grandma, parents, and great-grandchildren all together, and I think that is remarkable.
I love the idea that God works in a family like that and allows them to see years of faithfulness. I want to celebrate that with them. But the moment I put that picture up, I know there are some of you who are not very enthused about it, because that is not your story. I could see that on some faces in the first hour, and I have to admit it never really occurred to me until I watched you.
What I hope is that if you did not have that heritage, but God has done something incredible in your life, someday you will be at the front end of four, five, or six generations. Maybe you did not have that heritage, so you get to be the one God uses to begin that line in your family. It might even be that, not having had it, you are even more appreciative of it than those who did — resolved to make it happen. It is a terrific reminder and a great opportunity to celebrate God's faithfulness to that family.
Returning to the Book of James
Open your Bibles, please, to the book of James. I have not been here for two weeks — one absence by design. Susan and I had a chance to get away to Flagstaff, the kids came up on alternating days, and we were there for three or four days. The week before that I got sick, which was only the second time in eighteen years I have missed a Sunday. So it feels like I have been gone a long time, though it has not been all that long.
Let me remind you where we are. We are studying the book of James — chronologically, probably the first book written in the New Testament, written by the half-brother of Jesus. He begins straightaway in verse two of chapter one, telling us to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials, because we know that the testing of our faith produces endurance. He then talks about wisdom in the midst of trials.
The Nature of Temptation
Here is where we were last time. Verse 13 tells us: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." When we are in the process of being tempted, it would be wrong to ascribe to God the authorship of that temptation. We might say we would never do that, but we went back to Genesis chapter three and saw that is exactly what the first man and woman did. When confronted by God, Adam said, "It is the woman that You gave me" — essentially placing the blame on God.
James then tells us what actually happens when we are tempted. Verse 14 says each one is tempted "when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." There are strong impulses inside us that are then enticed by external things — like bait used by a fisherman, drawing out something that was already within. "When lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." James says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren." In other words, understand your life, understand your sin, understand how that process works.
Every Good Gift Comes From Above
Then, as if picking up on that same theme — having described sin in the negative — James gives us the positive counterpart, which is what we looked at last time. Verse 17: "Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." What James refers to here as the Father of lights is what the Old Testament Jews would have called God.
What this verse points to may be the most undervalued attribute of God: His immutability — His inability to change. God does not shift. God is not evolving. That is a very difficult concept for us, because we are all growing and changing. We are growing older, a little wiser, a little more gray. God is not growing, not evolving, not becoming. He says, "I am." That is really important for us.
Everything God bestows on us is good, and it comes from One who does not change. We think of God's love, His mercy, His grace, His omniscience, His omnipotence — all the attributes we ascribe to Him. But then comes this attribute of immutability, and we tend to devalue it, not quite knowing where to place it. And yet in a way it is what holds everything else together. If God were changing, we might look at His Word and think, "That may have been how He felt two thousand years ago, but I wonder what He thinks today. That may have been how God dealt with people then, but perhaps He has moved on." His immutability is the anchor that prevents that kind of uncertainty.
God's Greatest Gift
God doesn't produce dated material. It is the timeless word of God. You will never — or rather, you should never — go into a bookstore and see "Holy Bible: Updated and Expanded." If you see something with those words on the front cover, run from it. What we try to do is teach the timeless word of God in a contemporary context. We take these timeless truths and ask, what is God saying to His people, and how do we understand that in light of the world in which we live?
We understand this: He gives us every good gift. If you want to think of the greatest gift of all, it is right there in verse 18. "In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures." The greatest gift God has ever given you is the gift of eternal life. The phrase James uses — "in the exercise of His will," or "by His own will" — points to a deliberate, specific decision rooted in God's sovereign, perfect will. That is the source of our regeneration. That is the source of being born again.
John writes this in John 1, verses 12 and 13: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God." You are not born again, you are not a Christian, because it is in your blood across four generations — because your mom was a believer, your dad was a believer, your grandpa was a believer, and your great-grandmother was a believer, and therefore you necessarily are as well. It is not by blood.
Nor is it by the will of the flesh — in other words, it is not by something you do. It has been said that man is incurably religious. If we go to the most primitive parts of the world, we will find people there worshiping. It is as though man understands through his conscience that he is deficient, that there is a power greater than himself. It may be a tree, it may be lightning, it may be a cloud, it may be a rock — but it is something, and we are offering sacrifice. We are trying to appease the gods. We sense that God is angry, we connect it with our behavior, and we say, "If we do this, the gods will be happy."
We may get more sophisticated when we bring it forward into our own time and culture and say, "It is not the gods, it is God — but I will do this and not do that, I will go without this, I will give up candy for Lent," and we pile all these things together. Somehow, at the end of the day, we imagine God saying, "You know what? I was wrong about that person — come on in." It is not by blood, and it is not by flesh.
Not by Our Will, But by God's
This is really important: nor does John say it is by the will of man. You are not the one who initiated this or decided this. Now, that gets a little confusing, because our language can betray us. We say things like, "I came to Christ," or "I believed in Him," or "I gave my heart to Jesus." But we have to go one step deeper and ask: why? Why did you do that, and your brother did not? Why you, and not your mother, or your coach? Because it is an act of God.
God, in His love and mercy, in His care for you, determined that there would be a point in time when you would move from sinner to saint — and that would happen not because of your bloodline, not because of your decision, not because of your behavior, but because of God's will. You rejoice in that. That is a good gift. And when that happens, your life changes. That reality is really the balance of this entire book.
Paul Reasoning from the Scriptures
Keep your finger in James chapter 1 — we will be right back to it. Look at the book of Acts, chapter 17. There is a phrase here I want to get to. This is the story of Paul and Silas coming to Thessalonica after being out and about for some time. Verse 2 tells us that according to Paul's custom, he went to the Jews on three Sabbaths and reasoned with them from the Scripture.
Later in this same chapter, in a passage that will be familiar to those who have spent time at East Valley Bible Church, we see Paul reasoning with the Greeks beginning at verse 23. When he goes to the Greeks, he tells them he has been going around their city and has noticed they are religious people with statues everywhere — 35,000 statues to gods. He tells them he even saw an altar with an inscription to the unknown God, and says, "To that God whom you have worshiped in ignorance, I now want to tell you who He is."
But back in verse 2, when Paul is with the Jews, he does not need to start there. He takes the Old Testament scriptures and simply walks them through it, explaining and giving evidence that Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead. "This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ" — that is, He is the Messiah. That is the process unfolding in those verses.
Some of the Jews respond with joy. God has opened their eyes, they see the truth, and they join with Paul. But then verse 5 tells us that some of the Jews —
Turning the World Right Side Up
"These men who have upset the world have come here also." That is what the opponents of Paul and Silas say in Acts chapter 17, verse six. The Living Bible paraphrases it this way: "These men who have turned the rest of the world upside down and now they're here." The implication is clear — the Jews speaking to one another are saying these men have turned everything upside down, now they're here to do the same, and our whole position is in jeopardy.
But who actually turned the world upside down? Adam. God created this world and called it paradise. When we go into the early part of Scripture, we see that God creates this perfect place — the world is right side up. Along comes Adam, and Adam says, in effect, I can improve on this, I can do better than this, I'll take it from here, I'll be in charge now. Through pride, self-centeredness, and disobedience, Adam takes paradise and turns it upside down.
So Paul and Silas are not turning the world upside down. They are turning the world right side up.
Switched Price Tags
There is a book written years ago called *Who Switched the Price Tags?* The author talked about how when he was a little kid, he and others would go into a store and find something they really wanted priced at a dollar, and something they didn't care for priced at a dime. When no one was looking, they would switch the price tags and buy the dollar item for a dime. He said that as he grew up and looked around, everybody had switched the price tags. Especially as his eyes were turned right side up through the Word of God, he began to say: here is what God says is important, and here is what the world says is important — and they seem to be in opposition.
We are always pursuing a knockoff of the real thing. Coach John Wooden, something of a legend, once said in an interview that he had never been too concerned about his reputation, because his reputation is only what people think about him. He said he had been deeply concerned about his character, because his character is who he really really is. We never want to pay the price for the real thing.
Jesus says: your salvation is free to you, but it cost Him everything. And now He is asking for the rest of your life. Jesus comes along and turns the world right side up.
The Word of Truth and the New Creature
Let us go back to James. "In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth" — and He did it by the word of truth. Much of what we are considering revolves around the idea of the law, the word of truth, the law of liberty, the perfect law — all of which points to the Word of God. We hear the gospel, whether or not we hear chapter and verse, and we begin to respond. God uses not just His Spirit — the Spirit of God uses the Word of God — and He touches our hearts and brings us to this point of understanding.
What a natural man needs is not a makeover, or an extreme makeover, or a total makeover. He needs to be a new creature. That is what Paul says: we are new creatures in Christ. Not just remodeled, not just refreshed — new creatures entirely.
And this happens, importantly, through an exercise of His will. He did it all. A child has nothing to do with his own birth — he does not somehow communicate his desire to be born. The parents do what they do, and now there is a child. God does His part, and here you are in His family.
The New Birth and Its Evidence
"In His mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive with Christ." Ephesians 2, verses 4 and 5. "You did not choose me, but I chose you," Jesus says in John 15:16. We are born again, and God does that wonderful work in our life. He uses His Word, the power of His Word, and He brings us forth. He allows us to come into this relationship with Him.
James is speaking to those who are the first of many to come — the first believers of that era, some 2,000 years ago. God continues to work in history, and He will continue to work until Jesus comes again. So here is where we are: here is this person who has been born again. How can we begin to test whether that new birth is real?
The Key Verse of James
James says, let's take a look at that. Verse 19: "This you know, my beloved brethren, let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." He then connects all of these thoughts: "Therefore put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the Word implanted, which is able to save souls."
Verse 22 is the key verse of the entire book — the theme James wants to communicate: "But prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 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; and once he has looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgot what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does."
This Word has to affect your life. It is not enough to read it, work through it, hear it, and come to church. There has to be some way that it actually changes you.
The Tongue as a Window to the Heart
James mentions the tongue. In chapter three, verses one through twelve — twelve verses — we find the longest contiguous discussion on the tongue in all of Scripture. What James is saying is that this speech, what you are saying, is representative of what is really in your heart. You might think you can mask it, but over time you will reveal who you really are.
His encouragement is to be quick and slow — and it is exactly the opposite of what many of us naturally are. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. When I was in high school, and in college as well, I took speech classes. My first speech coach sat us down on the first day and said, "Gentlemen, if you are going to be effective in communication, you must master the English language." It struck me as a strange way of expressing it, but it stayed with me that language is important.
Here is what I never took, and what I need far more than any speech class: a class on listening. The book of Proverbs speaks directly to this. Proverbs 17:28 says, "Even a fool is thought wise if he is silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." And Proverbs 17:27 says, "A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered."
Listening in Relationships
If you truly are a follower of Christ, it will show in how you use your tongue, how you handle your anger, and how those things tend to go together. This communicates something real about our relationships — how a parent handles a child, how a husband and wife communicate, how employees and employers speak to one another. We see abuses of all of these around us constantly.
A father, with his children, ought to be slow to speak and quick to listen — and really listen. Listening is much more than words; that is something I have had to learn. When Susan and I were first married, my approach was simple. I would come home, sense something was off, ask "Is anything wrong?" hear "Nothing," and take that at face value. Then I would say, "Listen, I don't get subtle, so if you've got a problem, just tell me what it is." That approach, generally speaking, does not land well.
What I have learned to do instead is this: when I ask "Is anything wrong?" and hear "Nothing," I say, "I'm not really buying that — why don't you tell me what's wrong? Because I'm listening." And listening means taking in the whole package, not just the words.
At the same time, listening has to be fair in both directions. I can walk in the door and ask "Is dinner ready yet?" — and that question might be received as a demand or a criticism. In fact, I once suggested to Susan that if she liked, I would be happy to help her with some time management. There was quite an implication in that, as you can imagine. What I was actually communicating with "Is dinner ready yet?" was simply a practical question — if it is not ready, I have other things I can be doing in the meantime.
The Power of Words
The key to communication is trusting the other person, because if you trust the other person, it doesn't really matter how much they communicate or how poorly they do it — you will give them the benefit of the doubt, you will love them, and even if they miscommunicate or communicate harshly, you will understand that and move forward. If you are a parent, you have to tell your kids: I love you, I am proud of you.
I did a funeral yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock on a Saturday — a strange time — and the man giving the eulogy was the son-in-law of the gentleman who had died. He addressed the man's son and said, "I want you to know how many times your dad told me how proud he was of you." You could see this adult, grown man, profoundly affected by those words.
Just the other day, Haley was in my office and there was a picture — she had to be maybe three, no more than four years old in it. She is now twenty-four, and she happened to be there with her baby, so we were talking about something that happened twenty years ago. She said, "I remember that picture, I remember where it was taken, I remember the man who gave me the thing that is in that picture, and I remember what he said to me." She told me exactly what he said, and then she said, "Here I am twenty years later, and that thing still bugs me." That is the power of words.
Obstacles to Receiving the Word
I want to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and I want to control anger, because anger is a destructive thing. I have been around a lot of men who say, "I don't get mad often, but when I do, I just explode and it's over." I said, "Just like Hiroshima — quick, doesn't happen often, just a couple of times."
With all of that in mind — all that is true about the tongue, about listening, and all the things that go with it — James says in verse 21: "Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls." The key verb in the structure of that sentence is *receive*. He wants us to receive this word — this word that has been implanted.
There are barriers and obstacles to receiving that word. We understand he is talking to believers here, because he keeps saying "my brother." So he is identifying obstacles: filthiness and wickedness. Filthiness has to do with moral defilement and impurity. Wickedness has to do with evil or moral corruption in general, and speaks very much to the condition of the heart.
Notice that he calls it "the remains of wickedness." In other words, that is what you were — especially if you became a follower of Christ as an adult. Here were all these things you did, all these things you lived in. And now, even though that has changed, there is still residue. There are still things on that hard drive that are very difficult to get rid of. There are still old habits and old places. All of those are obstacles to receiving the word.
Humility: The Prerequisite
The prerequisite is right there in verse 21: *in humility*. That word can also be translated as meekness or gentleness, and the idea behind it is that you are coachable and teachable.
Let's say you have a problem and you come to see someone on our staff or someone in a counseling role. After a brief conversation, we are going to ask you two questions, and if we do not get yes to both of them, there is no point in going on. The first question is: do you believe the Bible is the word of God? If you say no, we really do not have much to discuss. The second question is: if we can show you what the Bible has to say about the specific issue in your life and what you need to do, will you do it? If the answer is no, there is no point in continuing.
You can see people in counseling for years and years. I am telling you, it does not take that long to identify the problem or what to do. The problem is not knowing — the problem is not wanting to do it. But if you believe the Bible is the word of God and you are willing to do what it says when it speaks to you, now we have something to work with.
That is exactly what James is saying here. You are receiving this word in humility. You are coachable and teachable. Someone sits down with you, shows you what Scripture says, and you respond: that makes sense, I did not see it before, I see it now, I need to confess it, I probably hurt some people and need to address that as best I can — and then you move forward. Because you are resolved to be the man, the woman, the student, the person that God has called you to be.
The Implanted Word
When we receive this word in humility, we receive it as a word that is *implanted*. That word literally carries the idea of sowing a seed into the ground, which calls to mind the first parable Jesus told — the parable of the sower and the seed.
The Parable of the Soils
You'll find the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke as well. The sower goes along throwing seed, and some lands on rocky soil and is gone, some lands on tough ground and grows a little before dying away, some grows and looks as though it has life but then the thorns choke it out, and some lands on good soil where it prospers and is productive. Jesus then interprets the parable. He says that first soil — the hard soil — is where the seed lands, the birds come, snatch it, and take it away. There was no reception, no penetrating it.
The second soil is caliche with just a little bit of dirt on top, so it grew for a moment and then died right away. That is the person who comes in, says this is the greatest thing he has ever heard, goes and buys every book in the bookstore, and then is never seen again. The third soil is a little tougher, because that is somebody moving along who looks as though he is beginning to grow — but then, Jesus said, the deceitfulness of riches and the worries of the world come and choke him out. All of a sudden, life begins to take its toll. All of a sudden, there is a collision between God's values and man's values, and what it means to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him daily becomes a very difficult task, and that person quits. Those first three soils, in my personal view, represent people who are not saved at all.
The last soil is the receptive one — the good soil. The seed comes in, it is nourished, it is watered, and it is all done through the Word. It is able to save your soul, and the idea there is not just salvation but salvation past, present, and future. John MacArthur writes this: "It is the divine power behind the truth of Scripture that is able to initiate salvation, keep it alive, growing, and finally bring it to final and complete glory." We have been saved and justified through the power of the Word, we have been kept and sanctified through the power of the Word, and we will be ultimately, completely, and eternally saved and glorified through the power of the Word.
Doers of the Word, Not Merely Hearers
So what James is saying is this: along comes the Word of God and you receive it. Now be on the alert. Look at verse 22: "Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." The phrase "prove yourselves" carries a continuing sense — continually, keep striving, ongoing. You are a doer. The Word transforms our life; it becomes who we are and what we do. A mere hearer is somebody sitting back.
Consider a class where you are taking it for credit and someone else is auditing it. Those are two very different perspectives. The person taking it for credit tends to be listening, doing the work outside of class. The person auditing it has a general interest and may or may not engage with the material. Here is what James is saying: there are far too many people who have decided to audit church, audit Bible study, audit Christ. They are just hearers — not doing any of the work, none of the outside work, none of the extra credit, none of the things that transform their life.
John writes in 1 John 2, verses three and four: "And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." James says watch out — you should continually be a doer of the Word. You and I are saved by grace through faith, and I cannot make that any more plain than when we looked at verse 18. But that does not mean we never talk about works, because the evidence of a transformed life is a life that begins to show that things have changed — that values have changed.
The Useless Statistic
Here is what I hear all the time: the people in the church and the people in the world are the same. All the polls say their values are the same, their behaviors are the same, and everybody gets all bent out of shape over that. That poll does not bother me at all, because they are measuring unsaved church people. Whether you are unsaved inside the church or outside of it, the church is not going to have a profound impact on your behavior. What would drive me to serious concern is if someone said that regenerated, born-again, biblical, orthodox Christians are just like the world — now that would bother me.
Along those same lines, one of the most useless statistics I know is that 90 to 96 percent of the American people believe in God. Who cares? That has to be the most useless piece of information available, because there is no definition around it. I watched an interview recently with Sean Hannity and Howard Stern. Hannity asked him, "Do you believe in God?" Stern said, "I'm afraid not to." He said again, "Do you believe in God?" And Stern answered, "I guess I do. I guess I do only because I'm afraid of the consequences of not believing, and I don't want to run the risk." But he also said he would never be part of any organized religion.
What Stern prefers, then, is disorganized, unorganized, or perhaps reorganized religion — and I will tell you which religion that is. It is the one where he is at the center of it. And this is not picking on Howard Stern specifically, because this describes anyone who says they do not like organized religion. Of course they do not. They want to set their own standards, their own rules. They want to play God.
The Gap Between Hearing and Doing
Couldn't care less that 96% of the people in this country believe in God. Couldn't care less that the church people believe like the secular people. When we take the Barna research and start to define these things just a little bit — do you believe in the infallibility of scripture? Do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe in a substitutionary atoning death? Do you believe in the resurrection? — we find out that only seven percent of the American people qualify as Christian by those measures. What is that but a pagan country? So why would we be surprised?
You know that is true in your own church. Do you think for a second, when you look around you, that everybody you are looking at is a follower of Christ? I said around you, not up here. I know what you are thinking about the short little fat guy up front. No, we do not think that at all. But how would we know? I cannot look into your heart. What Jesus does give us, though, is a great indicator: are you a doer of the word? Does the word transform your life?
I had a man come to me this week — not a church guy, a PL guy — and he said he had a friend who is probably going to get engaged to an unbeliever. Their concern was this: if they have children, they want those children raised in their faith. What would I tell that person? I asked whether they were going to get engaged, and he told me they are already living together. I said, here is what I would tell that person: I have not the foggiest idea why you would care, because this child would be better off not receiving your faith, since you obviously do not have any.
God did not stutter on this one. We do not have to read scripture and wonder whether Jesus would have been uncomfortable with two people living together before marriage. That is not a hard one. It is pretty clear. And if you are not going to respond to that, your child is going to be so turned off by your hypocrisy that whether or not they attend your church becomes an entirely immaterial question.
This is actually a great evangelistic opportunity, and that is what I told the man. If you truly are a Christian, then move out today. That principle applies in your life as well.
Everyone Hates a Hypocrite
Let me tell you what everybody hates. Some people like chocolate mint ice cream and some people do not. Some people like cheeseburgers and some people do not. But everybody — universally, without exception — hates a hypocrite. There is no exception to that rule. I hate hypocrisy myself. If congressmen have in fact sold their votes for personal gain, they should go to jail. If business leaders have misled investors and taken their money dishonestly, they are economic terrorists and they should lose everything and go to jail.
Here is what I have discovered, though: I am a little more gentle when I evaluate my own life. I will cut myself some slack. But I can tell you this — if you are a parent who comes here and plays a religious game while living at home in a way your faith does not affect, there is not much we are going to be able to do in this building to undo what you are doing at home. You are simply a hearer.
Looking in the Mirror
What does a hearer look like? There it is in verse 23: "If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer," this is the person who hears the word but it has not really affected him. It is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror, and once he has looked at himself, he goes away and immediately forgets what kind of person he was.
Now, mirrors in that day and age were not the polished glass we have today. They would be bronze or some other polished metal — brass, and for richer people perhaps silver or gold. So the idea is that a person looks into that mirror. Even with polished brass held at just the right angle in the right light, you could get a fairly accurate picture. They see something, and then they walk away and forget what they saw.
I had someone say to me the other day, "You look like you have lost weight." I came that close to believing them. I was that close to saying, "Really? No kidding." Here is the problem: earlier that day I had climbed out of the shower in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and I can guarantee you I had not lost any weight. If you think I have lost it, I can tell you exactly where to find it. That is what James is saying. The natural man looks in the mirror, sees what he truly is, and then the moment someone flatters him he accepts that instead.
Looking Intently at the Perfect Law
But here is what you do instead — verse 25. "The one who looks intently" — and the idea behind that phrase, in the culture of that day, is to bend over and scrutinize. It is the same word Luke uses in Luke chapter 24, verse 12, when he says Peter arose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. It is the same word John uses in John chapter 20, verse 5, when he talks about Peter stooping
Looking Intently at the Word
In John chapter 20, verse 11, Mary was outside the tomb weeping, and as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb. She looked into that tomb and intently studied every bit of it. This mirrors what James calls us to do: the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the Word of God, the law of liberty, and abides in it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer — this is the man who will be blessed in what he does.
Let's work through that backwards. Would you like to be blessed? Then you become an effectual doer. How do you do that? You look at this Word, and as you look at this Word, the Spirit of God opens your eyes and allows you to begin to see yourself for who you really are.
Knowing Who You Are by Knowing Who God Is
That is the key to spiritual growth — to see yourself as you really are and to see God as who He is. That is where it starts. There is a great deal of self-exploration today, people trying to figure out who they are. The fastest way to figure out who you are is to figure out who God is.
I finished a book a few weeks ago by Louie Giglio called *I Am Not, But I Know I Am*. When I first heard that title, I thought it made no sense. But what Giglio is saying is: I know I Am — I know God — and therefore I know I am not.
Giglio writes about God encountering Moses, and he describes what God was communicating: I am the center of everything, I am running the show, I am the same every day forever, I am the owner of everything, I am the Lord, I am the creator and sustainer of life, I am the Savior, I am more than enough, I am inexhaustible, I am immeasurable, I am God. In a heartbeat, Moses knew God's name — and something more. He finally knew his own. For if God's name is I Am, Moses' name must be I am not.
I am not the center of everything. I am not in control. I am not the solution. I am not all-powerful. I am not calling the shots. I am not the owner of anything. I am not the Lord. As Giglio puts it, that is my name too, and yours — I am not. Just try it quietly. My name is I am not. I am not running anything, not the head of anything, not in charge of anything, not the maker, not the Savior, not holding it all together, not all-knowing, not God.
And that is what the Word does. When I look into it intently, I begin to see who I am.
Paul's Progression of Humility
You can track this in Paul's autobiographical descriptions arranged chronologically. He begins by saying he is the least of the apostles. A little later in life, he says he is the least of the saints. And when he gets to the end of his life, he says he is the chief among sinners. This is not getting better.
My sincere belief is that Paul's life was becoming more and more Christ-like throughout, but what he was seeing more clearly was God and who He really is — and the more clearly Paul saw God, the more clearly he saw the chasm between them for what it truly was.
Doers of the Word, Not Hearers Only
Here is what James is saying. We have the Word of God, and if I look at this Word and let it transform the way I live, I am a follower of Christ. If not, I am absolutely deluding myself. If you are coming in here, listening, reading, and studying, and it is not changing the way you live, something is missing. Those actions and those beliefs have to be linked together. That is what the Spirit of God does — He brings those things together.
Father, help us see this truth. Let us be doers, true believers in Your Word. Let us follow this Word, let it change the way we live, and we will be blessed. God, thank You for that promise. We pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.