It Matters

James 1.22-25

 

I want you to take your Bible and open it up to the book of James. I’m glad to have a chance to challenge these graduating students. Last week I was with my nephew who graduated from High School and will be attending college, and we are all so proud of him. I also have a niece that graduated from college this spring also and she has a passion for God and ministry and we are very proud of her also. And today I want to share my heart with you, graduates. But today I’m also talking to everyone of us here today, with a word from God today. Take you Bibles and open them up to the book of James.

 

James is a great book. It’s small, but its power packed. James, who wrote this tiny book,  was actually one of the brothers of Jesus. He was a religious man, who was raised in the Jewish traditions but early on was not a believer in Christ. In fact, we have at least two places in the scriptures where we read that members of his own family of Jesus didn’t accept Jesus’ claims to be the Son of God.  (JN 7.1-5; Mark 3.31-35) But after Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to James (I COR 15.7). And from that moment, James became a devoted follower of Jesus and emerged as one of the most powerful leaders in the early church. Paul called James a “pillar” in the early church (Gal 2.9). And when a major dispute arose and threatened to split the early church, we see James leading out, brining consensus and resolving the matter.(Acts 15). While the Bible doesn’t speak about his death, tradition tells us that James was so hated by the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem because of his witness of Christ, that they threw him off the temple and beat to death with clubs until he died. But James was known as a godly man. He was a powerful leader. He was a man of conviction. He was a man of prayer. In fact, it was said of James that he prayed so much he had “camel  knees”.

 

And James wrote this letter primarily to the Jewish believers in the early church. Chapter one makes it clear, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, tot the twelve tribes scattered among the nations.”  James 1.1 The “twelve tribes” is a reference to Jewish people who had been scattered all over the Roman empire. These new Jewish converts to Christianity had responded to the gospel, but they were still having problems. They were having problems in their personal lives and in their church. Some people were going through really difficulties and were struggling on how to respond to them. Others were facing conflict in the church and people’s words were causes rifts and divisions. Some were even drifting back into a lifestyle that was godless, wayward and disobedient. And so James fires off this little letter to tell them how to live, how to walk as a follower of Jesus.

 

This summer we are going to looking into this book. We are calling this series: “Walk this Way” because James is telling us in very practical ways, how to walk as a Christ follower. Listen, the world around you is telling you every day “walk this way”. “Live this way”. “Listen to this music, watch these movies, go to these websites, have these kinds of relationships”. Graduates, you are going off to college and there is tremendous pressure to walk a certain way to be accepted. But when you decided to follow Jesus, he walking in a different direction! Jesus says, “Don’t follow the world, walk this way”. Jesus’ path is counter cultural. Jesus’ walk is different. Jesus will lead you against the grain of this culture. And we are going to look at the specifics of how to walk the way of Jesus through the next several weeks.

 

THE GAP

And I want to tell you why we are going to look at how to walk the way of Jesus. “It matter”. It matters how you live. It matters what you do. I believe the single greatest reason why people are not coming to Christ and there is a resistance to the gospel - I think the reason why so many people claim to know Christ but are living defeated lives - I think the reason why churches are stale and declining is because there is a gap. There is a gap between what we say we believe and how we live our lives! We say, “God I want to please you” but then we live a live that doesn’t please God. We say, “God I want to follow you” but we have no intentions at all of living a life of surrender to Jesus’ leadership. We say, “I believe in Jesus, I believe in God” but there is no difference in the way you live your life than that of someone who has never met Jesus. And that GAP is killing us!

 

I have a friend named Jason. He doesn’t know Christ. And the times I have shared the gospel and pleaded with him to know Jesus – every time he refuses because he knows people that are in the church who act ungodly at work. And He is convinced that his morals are better than most professing Christians. And the truth is, he is right! I have a friend tell me this week that the term “missionary” in certain cultures has a very negative connotation because it was the “missionaries” that came over in the name of Christ that bought up property or took advantage of people for their own means. I had another friend from Nigeria tell me that in many growing Muslim countries particularly in Africa the reason why Islam is so appealing is because when they look at the Christians, they don’t see anything but worldliness and at least the Muslims live different lives! This gap between what we say and how we live is the greatest threat to the church of Jesus Christ. Most of my counseling appointments are people that confess to know Jesus, but are living lives that are self-destructive and godless. There is a huge gap – chasm –between what they believe and how they live.

 

Listen, it matters how you live! That’s the message of the book of James! It matters. It matters because people are watching you. It matters because people are following you. It matters because your life either will be a stepping stone or a stumbling block to people in their spiritual journey. And James talks about this gap in James 1.22-25.

 

HEARERS AND DOERS

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1.22

 

James starts out with a direct command. Don’t just mere listen to the word – do what it says. James is picturing a man, woman who come regularly to church, they go to small group. They listen to the preaching, they listen to truth. But that is as far as it goes. They listen. But what they hear never produces any change in their lives. One pastor said, “They mark their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them!”  James is warning, “Don’t do that! Beware! Watch out!” Why? Because if you do that you will “deceive yourselves”.

 

There is a self-deception that happens when you are listening to the God’s truth, but you are not putting it into practice. What do you mean? You can begin to believe that simply because you know the scriptures, go to church, attend meetings –that you are right with God. Listen, you right standing before God is not evidenced by how many times you go to church. You right standing before God is evidenced by how you live your life when you are not in church! How you live at home. How you act at work. What you do on that business trip. What you watch in that hotel room. Where you go after office hours. What you do when your angry. How you respond to crisis. How you control what you say. How you treat people regardless of their color or background. Theses things are a more accurate reflection of your walk with God than how often you attend church. And there are many people that think that it doesn’t matter how they live – they can do whatever they want – live however they please and if they go to church occasionally and say they walked an aisle then there are right with God. And James says that person is deceived.

 

The word “deceived” is a math term, it means to make a miscalculation. And there are many people today, some in this room, that are making a great miscalculation. Who you are on the inside will always be revealed by what you do on the outside. This is all through the scripture.

 

John writes – “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” I John 2.3-4

 

Peter writes – “…be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for if you practice these things, you will never stumble.” 2 Peter 1.10

 

Jesus said – “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.” Matthew 7.21

 

The point is clear – it is possible to deceive yourself into thinking that you are right with God because you go to church, listen to preacher – when in fact, you are not right with God at all. So how do you know if you have deceived yourself?

 

MAN IN THE MIRROR

James gives us a word picture that helps. He pictures two men that look into a mirror. The first guy looks into the mirror, but what he sees doesn’t change what he does.

 

“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James 1.23-24

 

It would be like you rolling about of bed this morning. You stumble into the bathroom and you look at yourself in the mirror –there you are in all your glory! Hair is messed up. Teeth smelly and not brushed – still some stuff in there for diner the night before! Face not washed. You’ve not shaven. Ladies, your hair’s not fixed, no make up. Your still in your pajama’s. For most of us what we see is a cry of help! We have a lot of work to do to get ourselves together. But this guy sees it. He knows what needs to be done. But instead of going to work on himself, he just walks out of the bathroom, gets in his car and goes to work. And- here is a key word – FORGETS what he looks like. He doesn’t see it anymore, because he’s not looking at himself in the mirror. He thinks he is OK. He thinks he’s great! He thinks all is good. But get this – everyone one else sees the problem! It’s obvious to others – but it’s not to him. He is deceived!

 

Now on a spiritual level, this is the guy who comes to hear the word of God. The Bible is the mirror. And when he hears the preacher, he begins to see some things that need to change in his life. He starts to notice a resistance to God, or secret sin, or anger problem, or tension in his marriage –these things comet to light. He feels a sense of conviction. Maybe at the end of the service he knows that he needs to come to Christ, needs to surrender some things to God, he needs change! But instead of responding, he white knuckles the pew, he stands his ground and when the last song is over he’s the first one out the door. And by 1:00pm he’s all but forgotten what God said to him. He’s now distracted by other things. He’s now convinced himself that he’s really OK – after all he goes to church pretty regular and his dad was a deacon, or he walked the aisle when he was a kid. He tells himself that the cost of changing is more than what he wants to pay and he’s not ready to give up some of these relationships, habits, things in his life that he knows is wrong but he loves. And any doubts about his walk with God, he quickly silences. Any sense of conviction, he quickly puts out of his mind. And he goes on with his life. But the truth is – he is far from God! Deception always leads to a dead end.

 

Finding God’s blessing

But there is another way. Another man has a mirror, but he looks into it and does something about it. “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.” James 1. 25

 

This man “looks intently” into the mirror. He listens to the word of God, He studies it. He pours his life over it. James calls the “perfect law that brings freedom”. People think that if I do what God wants, then I loose my freedom. But the truth is, the only freedom in life is what God can give you. Free from your sin, free from your self-destructive habits. Free from the guilt. Free from hopelessness. Free from being aimless. Free from the worry about eternity. Free from being alone. Free to start over again. Free to be used by God in unbelievable ways. Free to make a difference. And when this man poured his life into the Word of God and began to live it – began to do it – then he found the favor of God in his life! James is NOT saying that if you walk with Jesus you will never sin, you’ll never make a mistake. But what is IS saying is that when you do mess up, you will see it – you wont run from you, and your will confess it and make it right with God, so that nothing will come between you and God. This man closed the gap in his life. He started walking the way of Jesus. And as a result, God’s hand was on him!

 

Closing the Gap

Two guys looking to a mirror. So here is the question. Which one are you? All of us fall into one of these two categories.

 

Maybe you are the man who is deceived. Convicted right now. Been distracted. Made excuses. Convinced yourself youre OK.

Gospel, receive Christ. Isn’t it time you closed the gap in your life?

 

Maybe you are one that is looking closely, but today you see some things that God wants to change. Then do it. Don’t put it off.