22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.
27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (Jam 1:22-27)

My wife goes about once a month to a biokineticist who gives her exercises to help with her back pain. Because my wife does these exercises every day, the biokineticist once said to her, “You’re a really easy patient. I give you exercises and you do them, and the next time you come here, I give you more. Some patients do not do the exercises I give them, and then they are in a worse condition the next time they come, and want me to fix that.”

You could put those same words into the mouths of doctors who told their patients to stick to a certain diet or medicine, coaches who told their athletes to exercise, music instructors who told their students to practice, or teachers who told their students to study the chapter before coming to class. In each of the circumstances the person does some hearing, but then fails to do any doing, and comes back, expecting to be better even if he or she hasn’t done anything.

Whatever field of human experience you go into, we soon find the same thing. You don’t get better by just listening to the doctor’s instructions; you have to take them. You don’t become a better pianist by just watching your teacher show you technique, you have to practise. The whole world understands that words have to become deeds. That’s why we have sayings like, “Practice what you preach!” “Walk the talk” “Actions speak louder than words.”

That’s never more important than in Christianity. We are a people who do a lot of hearing, a lot of listening, and a lot of learning. There is a huge body of truth to take, a very large Bible to learn, thousands of years of Christian teaching and history behind us. But the Bible has the same concern as any doctor or violin teacher: this theory must become practice, this knowledge must transform your life.

This goes back to those words James heard out of the mouth of Jesus when he and his brothers and Mary went to go fetch Jesus and bring Him home.

Mat 12:50 “For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”

Those who do God’s will are truly related to Jesus. And perhaps James would have heard Jesus say this in other ways during His ministry:

Luk 6:46-48 “But why do you call Me `Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say?
Mat 7:26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: “and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Luk 11:28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Joh 13:17 “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

God’s Word is more powerful than a conversation you might have with a coach. God’s Word has life-giving transformative power. That’s why James began in verse 19 telling us that the way this seed germinates is if the soil of our hearts is attentive and receptive. We studied recently the truths that true believers must hear the Word in a godly way.

But now James wants to take us further. He knows that hearing is 50% of the equation when it comes to God’s Word. The other 50 is doing. And it is not like the 50% on an exam that will get you a pass mark. It is more like a plane with 50% of its wings – it is not going to fly.

So from verses 22 through 27, James will show us what it means to become doers of the Word. He will show us the self-deception of hearing only, the secret of hearing and doing, and the signs that someone is hearing and doing.

I. The Self-Deception of Hearing Only

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

Fresh from telling us how to be righteous hearers, that we must have the attitude of attentiveness and the action of receptiveness, James tells us, it cannot end there. Genuinely righteous hearers are doers of the Word. A hearer only of the Word is much like what James will talk about in chapter 2 faith without works. Instead, people who are genuinely Christ’s are implementing what they are hearing.

One of the reasons why this verse is so often quoted is because we are all aware of the importance of applying God’s Word. God’s Word is not pure theory, a bunch of beautiful ideas to be loved for their own sake. The Christian faith is a Christian life to be lived, not only truths to be known. We all sense the great force of these words: we cannot be people who only eat and drink the Word but never exercise, who study but never change, who learn ideas which we do not apply.

In fact, James says that hearers only are guilty of a fascinating phenomenon – self-deception. When you are a hearer only, you are in the grip of a lie you tell yourself and believe. That’s an amazing thing. When we think of lying, we always think of lying to someone else – that is, we know the real truth, we distort or conceal or obscure it to someone else. But here the experience is bizarre: we know the truth, but we tell ourselves a convenient lie, until that comfortable lie has obscured the truth we know.

One part of the lie is the idea that because we enjoy hearing the Word, it means we are doers. We read in Ezekiel 33 of this odd phenomenon –

31 “So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain.
32 “Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them. (Eze 33:31-32)

It’s possible to become collectors of God’s Word. Some people collect little spoons that are never used to stir, some people collect knives that are never used to cut, some people collect stamps that are never used to post letters, some people collect rare editions of books they do not read. And I think some people collect sermons and lessons and teachings of God’s Word. It is pleasant for them to hear it, and keep collecting.

A second part of the lie is the idea that mere exposure to the Word counts as obedience to the Word.

Here is the illustration. A person who is a hearer only is like a person who looks at his own appearance in the mirror. He comes, looks, but then walks away, having seemingly immediately forgotten what he saw, and having made no adjustments.

Now as I thought about this, I asked myself, who is like this? Who goes to a mirror, sees his own reflection, sees something that needs to be adjusted or combed or fixed, and does nothing? The truth is, almost nobody. Most people use a mirror for the purpose of improving their appearance. But that’s the point. We would think it bizarre to see a person standing before the mirror, but changing nothing, especially if he had bread crumbs in his moustache, or a big chocolate smear around his mouth or if her eyeliner was smudged, or if the hair was sticking up. If we saw a person do that, we would say, “what was the point of that little routine?” Who was he trying to impress? What was he trying to prove? He looked in the thing that shows you yourself, ostensibly because he wanted self-improvement, but upon seeing obvious necessary modifications, he did nothing. We’d ask if this is a little game he plays with himself. He is calming the conscience that says, you need to improve your appearance by looking in the mirror, but he doesn’t actually want to make those changes.

But that’s just the point.

If you are truly interested in change, you will see something that needs to be modified. But merely hearing the Word is a game we play with ourselves. The truth we know is that hearing God’s Word is a moment of confrontation. To hear God’s Word is to hear a holy God present Himself to us, and show us the contrast between Himself and ourselves.

You cannot have this experience and not be confronted with needed change. But the lie we begin to tell ourselves is that simply being exposed to God’s Word is good enough. By being in church, we have done more than most people, and we can congratulate ourselves. By listening to a sermon, even a long sermon, and even staying awake for 80% of it, we have shown great devotion to God. By reading the Bible out of church, we are especially pious, and God must be impressed. And so we tell ourselves a lie: you do not need to change – the fact that you go to church and hear the Word shows that you are changed. Just keep doing that, and it means you are healthy.

There’s a third part to the lie. James also gives us another clue why a person is a hearer only. Not only is the person doing this deceiving himself, but he is also doing this all superficially. The words James uses here all suggest haste. Observes, goes away, immediately forgets. The word for observes means to glance, to take a quick look. He has a quick look, gets away, and retains nothing. A casual look, a hasty retreat, and instant forgetfulness.

This person is only superficially interested in what the Word has to say to him. He might have to sit through a long sermon, but he is only taking occasional and quick glances at God or himself. He really wants to get this over with as fast as possible, so he can do the things he really loves. And if you ask him what the sermon was about one hour after it is over, he has no recall whatsoever.

Now how do we avoid that phenomenon? How do we avoid being theory-only Christians? I have heard some silly suggestions. I have heard some people say we should stop teaching theology, and only teach practices. The only thing that will result from that is a social Gospel with no spiritual backbone. I have heard some people say we should preach less sermons, because people are not implementing the ones they’ve heard, so we need to stop and park on one or two until everyone applies it. The result of that approach will be we’ll probably have one sermon for five years at a time. Some people suggest dispensing with preaching altogether – just get small groups, and encourage each other one on one. Well, I’m all for discipling one another, but without the centralising authoritative power of God’s Word declared, those small groups slowly denigrate into mutual therapy sessions, Protestant confessionals, eclectic theology. No, these are not the answers.

James has the answer for us in verses 23 through 25.

II. The Secret of Hearing and Doing

But now James tells us the secret of the doer of the Word.

25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

Here the man does something completely different. James says this man looks into the perfect law of liberty. The word for looks means to bend over to look, to stoop, to look into, to investigate. It has the idea of peering, intently examining, studying. You know, the way most people do in fact use the mirror. Here is someone who becomes a doer of the word, and not a forgetful hearer, and it comes back to the attentiveness and receptiveness we studied recently. This person is quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to get angry, repentantly welcoming the Word with meekness.

This person meditates, studies, deeply investigates God’s Word, and then continues in it. He hears, but hears righteously, he receives the implanted Word, and he retains it. He does not lose it to forgetfulness, but keeps it and can apply it long after he first received it.

Now we could make the mistake of thinking that this comes down to having a great memory, and that the person with a near-photographic memory will be the best doer of God’s Word. But that would be wrong. The image here in James is not of someone with great powers of retention, but of someone who looks intently enough for the Word to make a lasting impression upon him. The way he hears changes him in the very act of hearing, and the impression is deep enough to last and continue.

Jonathan Edwards helps us understand how this happens. During the time of the Great Awakening, a criticism was raised that one still hears today: too many sermons! Too much information! People cannot remember all this stuff!

“Tis objected that when sermons are heard so very often, one sermon tends to thrust out another; so that persons lose the benefit of all: they say two or three sermons in a week is as much as they can remember and digest…Such objections against frequent preaching,.., are for [lack] of duly considering the way that sermons usually profit [listening to them] The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by an effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered. And though an after remembrance of what was heard in a sermon is oftentimes very profitable; yet, for the most part, that remembrance is from an impression the words made on the heart in the time of it; and the memory profits as it renews and increases that impression (Some Thoughts, Part III, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 4, page 397)

The goal is preaching is not that everyone have perfect recall of every word, but that each true believer encounter God’s glory in the declaration of the Word, and faith rises up, and repentance, and a deep impression is made of truths to believe, and sins to forsake, and obedience to begin, and affections to have. When this deep impression is made, a Christian goes away and continues in the Word, because he is not trying to remember what has been said, but because it has already shaped him.

This is a moment of two revelations: who God is, and who we are. God’s Word shows you yourself, and shows you the perfect image of Christ superimposed over your reflection. John Bunyan, when he wrote of the wonderful glass which the shepherds of the delectable mountain, and he pictured them looking into the glass, “Now the glass was one of a thousand. It would present a man one way and with his own features exactly and turn it but another way and it would show one the very face and similitude of the prince of pilgrims himself.” Read the Word and you will see your sin and your Saviour. This is the deep impression which the Word makes. The preaching of God’s Word is not informational only, it is affectional – it is to move us in our affections, stamp a deep impression upon us of Christ and ourselves, which lingers and changes us as we reflect on it afterwards.

But remember what we saw in our last study in James. When this doesn’t happen, you can’t blame the sower, you can’t blame the seed. It is the soil that determines if the life-giving seed will germinate. The state of our hearts, their attentiveness, their receptiveness is the explanation for what kind of impression God’s Word makes, and therefore how lasting that impression will be.

And I want you to notice the tone of how James describes this. He says the man who does this is blessed in all he does. He calls the Word of God the perfect law of liberty. Why would he say that? Because the sinful desires in our hearts lie to us and tell us that an encounter with God’s Word will be restrictive, clip our freedom, close us down, narrow our lives, take out the joy and delight of life. But James says, “No! The opposite. The doer of the Word is the blessed one. He is the Psalm 1 man

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. (Psa 1:1-3)

The psalmist says,

Psa 119:45 And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts.
Psa 119:96-105 I have seen the consummation of all perfection, But Your commandment is exceedingly broad.

Jesus said,

Joh 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Joh 8:36 “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Paul says,

Rom 7:12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
Rom 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

James, says, this is the good life – the life of obeying the Word. Stop the self-deception of running from the Word. It’s as if James is echoing the words of John who also speaks of self-deception and hiding from God.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1Jo 1:8-10)

James says, stop the self-deception. Stop running from the Word, and glancing at it as quickly as you can. Stop and stare. Be attentive, be receptive. It will hurt, but don’t get angry, keep welcoming the Word, because it will make such an impression on your meek and tender soul, that you will change, and the change will last. And your joy, and your blessing will only increase. Your true liberty, your true freedom will only increase.

What will that look like? In verse 26 and 27 James gives us three tests to confirm we are doers of the Word.

III. The Signs of Hearing and Doing

26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.
27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Religion here just means a reverence for God or the gods. The idea is someone who is devoted, someone who claims to be a worshipper. Once again, someone who claims to be related to Jesus, who claims to be in the faith, who claims to be on God’s side. James says, here are three tests. If you are a true believer, and are hearing the Word, then three things should be happening, otherwise your claim is empty. Three things will demonstrate that real change is taking place, and that you have pure, genuine, uncorrupted love for God. James doesn’t mean these are the only three things, or that they are the final summary of all that goes into genuine, heart religion, real worship of God, true Christianity. But he is saying that these are vital and key signs of a real heart faith.

The first is that God’s Word will be changing your speech.

26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.

This will be James’ theme in chapter 3:1-12. Why is the tongue such an indicator of spiritual change? Because of what Jesus said.

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luk 6:45)

Your tongue is simply the reporter of your heart. It just announces and transmits your thoughts. As God’s Word cleanses your thoughts and desires, and replaces them with His own, that will manifest in your speech. You will bridle your tongue, and keep back certain thoughts, and say what is edifying. If a man claims he is a Christian and loving God, but his mouth is as unclean as it ever was, he is deceiving himself. God’s Word is not making an impression on his heart, his thoughts and desires and attitudes are not changing, which is why his speech isn’t changing.

The second sign of becoming a doer is your service of the helpless.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble,

This is going to be James’ theme in chapter 2:1-13 and 5:1-8, partiality against the poor and towards the rich. In the ancient world, there were no social grants, no welfare systems, no pension funds, UIF schemes, disability cheques, or government housing. Two groups who were most vulnerable then were widows – women who were not likely to remarry, but could not work to sustain themselves, and orphans – children without parents, and without means. This was a theme even in the Old Testament.

Isa 1:17 Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.

These people were destitute, needy, and would require ongoing charity to sustain. Really, the idea behind this is: help and serve those who are helpless, and cannot repay you. Be generous, kind and serve those who are of no personal advantage to you. Remember Christ’s words?

12 Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.
13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.
14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luk 14:12-14)

For us, we still see the orphan needing help. We still see the aged needing help. We have other needy groups: immigrants fleeing destitute nations, handicapped people, people whose poverty comes from a calamity or a disaster. We will see them in the church and outside the church. James says, this is a key mark that you are a doer of the Word, when you love those who you cannot be to your advantage. It means you are not living for selfish gain. You have eternal priorities. God’s Word has changed your goals, your focus.

The third mark of being a doer is your separation from the world.

and to keep oneself unspotted from the world

James will take up this theme from chapter 3:13 through to the end of chapter 4. A Christian being changed is not allowing the world’s attitudes and ways and priorities to shape him. He is becoming more and more aware of how the world system wants to shape him through the media, through social contacts, through everyday life. He rejects the world’s desires, and morals, and their loves. He does not want the stain of the world on his life and conscience.

Jam 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

The Word is making an impression and you are becoming a doer when you become counter-culture. Your marriage is different. Your communication and conflict resolution is different. Your attitudes towards wealth are different. Your attitude towards self and self-promotion are different. The things you watch and wear and eat and drink and drive and use are consecrated to God and not driven by the world.

James has given us a mini-summary of the rest of the book: speech, service of the helpless, and separation from the world. Each of these are deep, heart changes. You can’t do any of these casually or superficially. When these three happen, it’s because you are becoming a doer of the Word.

Righteous hearers are righteous doers. Hear it with attentiveness and receptiveness, and you will retain it and obey it. Allow God’s Word to make a deep impression upon you, and you will perform the expression of what it commands.