If you would, to open your Bibles
to James chapter 1. That's where our lesson will
be from this morning. James chapter 1. Before we begin,
let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your matchless name. We've gathered here together
in your name, in that name which is above every name, the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, it is our earnest
plea this morning that the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, be exalted and magnified and extolled in our worship service
this morning. Father, enable us by thy spirit
to worship you in spirit and in truth. Speak to us through
your word. Give us a heart of faith, a heart
that would receive and believe the things that are prepared
for us. enable us to truly worship you. Father, how we thank you
for this blessed privilege that you've given us to worship. We thank you for a place that
you've given us where we can meet together. Thank you for
this family of believers that week after week meets together
in peace and unity with one heartfelt desire to hear word from you
and to worship you, to hear your gospel. Father, how we thank
Father, I pray that You would preserve and protect this place,
protect this body of believers, protect the attitude and the
spirit of worship and trust and love and faith. Continue to bless
Your Word, as this priest, from the pulpit, on the radio, on
the internet. Father, bless Your Word, we pray.
We pray a special blessing on our upcoming Bible conference,
that You'd bless those who are traveling Father, give those
men who are coming to preach a word from thee. Enable us to
hear it and receive it. Father, we pray for the young
people's classes going on right now. Father, how we pray that
you bless. Bless those teachers. Bless our
children, Father. Use this time that you would
plant the seeds of faith. The word would be planted in
their heart. The word that's able to make
them wise unto salvation. Father, bless us, bless us in
this hour, enable us to worship, we pray. For it's in the matchless
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his glory, we pray, amen.
All right, James 1, I titled the message this morning, Doers
of the Word. Verse 22, James 1 says, be ye
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Now, what is it to be a doer?
of the Word. What does that mean? Let me give
you four points from our text this morning. Number one, a doer
of the Word comes to God by faith in Christ. It just is obvious
to us, a doer of the Word is somebody that does what the Word
commands us to do. Well, what does God's Word command
us to do? Not many things, not many different
laws, not many different ideas, not many different ways. The
Word of God commands us to do one thing, to repeat and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Someone who believes
Christ, who trusts Christ, who turns from trusting anything
that they've done or anything about them, that person is a
doer of the word. God's word is to be believed.
It's not to be questioned. It's not to be speculated on.
We're not to use the word of God to accomplish our own agenda.
The word of God is to be believed. So a doer of the word believes
Christ. And they quit all their religious
works, all the things that they're doing in order to be saved, in
order to make themselves savable. And they just trust Christ. To
be a doer of the word is to start faith and quit the law. That's
what it is. And verse 21 tells us what a
doer of the word does. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the
engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Now, we looked
at this verse last week, the word filthiness means something
that stains, something that makes dirty. Well, that's our sin. It stains us, it makes us filthy.
And superfluity is something that's not necessary, something
that's extra. I'll tell you what superfluity
is. It's something, the works of our flesh that are extra.
It's Christ plus. That's exactly what it is. So
to be a doer of the word is to cast away all hope and the works
of our sinful flesh. Because not only is the work
of our flesh not necessary, it's damning to our souls. Christ
plus something is always damning to our souls, isn't it? And a
doer of the word does that in meekness, with a meek attitude. A doer of the word receives instruction
from God's word and receives correction from God's word in
meekness. not fighting against it, but
being meek. A doer of the word constantly has to, this is not
a once for all thing, but to constantly cast away the pride
and the arrogance of our flesh that makes us think we know a
better way than God does. And to just receive Christ, to
receive every commandment, every word of God meekly. You know,
to be a, to hear the word, to only be a hearer of the word
is to hear the word of God, hear the message of the word of God,
and still think you come to God by your works, or your morality,
or something you're learning. And to do that is to be deceived.
And it's to be willfully deceived. James says, deceiving your own
selves. If we're deceived, it's not because
God deceived us, is it? It's because we deceived our
own selves. Let me give you an example of how both the believer
and the unbeliever can do this, be a hearer only of the Word.
Verse 23, yeah, verse 23. If any be a hearer of the word
and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face
in a glass. For he beholdeth himself and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth. Right away he forgets
what manner of man he was. So to be a hearer only of the
word is to be a man who looks at himself in a mirror. That's
what the glass is, is to look at himself in a mirror. He looks
in the mirror, and he sees his face is all dirty. But he doesn't
wash it. And he turns away from the mirror
and immediately forgets his face is dirty. Everybody's going to
see his face is dirty and needs to be washed. Well, the scripture
is the mirror, the glass, and the word of God shows us our
sin, our depravity, our filthiness, our superfluity of naughtiness.
The scripture tells us we're filthy in our sin. Sin is not
just breaking the rules. Sin is a corruptness of nature. And God cannot and will not accept
us in our filthiness because God's holy. That's what the mirror
shows us. Now, we can't clean ourselves
up because everything we do is defiled by sin. So trying to
clean ourselves up by our own works just makes us more dirty,
makes the situation worse. So a person deceives himself.
When he hears the word, when the word shows him who and what
he is, and then he goes back home. And he goes about his life
just living the way he wants. Being as good as he can, hoping
the good will outweigh the bad, you know? Trying to make God
happy with him by how well he keeps the law. You know, thinking
that he can fool everybody else into thinking how religious he
is, and how holy he is, and how righteous he is, and what a man
of faith he is. When he doesn't live his life
that way at all, he can fool us. So he thinks he's fooling God.
That person is deceiving himself. He's forgotten straight away,
right away, he's forgotten what God's word said about him. We
need to be washed. See, the problem is not with
the word, is it? The problem is not with understanding the
word. He's willfully deceiving himself. That's just to be a
hearer only of the word. But a doer of the word hears
that. A doer of the word sees himself in the Word. Here's a
good clue about a doer of the Word. A doer of the Word doesn't
see man's sin and man's depravity in the Word and think, well,
that's everybody here, so I can see that in them. No, the doer
of the Word sees that in himself. I'm filthy. I'm lost and depraved
in my sin. I need to be washed. And a doer
of the Word does what the Word says and comes to Christ for
cleansing, to be washed in his blood. I can't cleanse myself,
so I need, it's not just everybody else needs this, I need Christ
to cleanse me from my sin in his blood. A doer of the word
will come to Christ for cleansing, and he will be. Everybody who
comes to Christ for cleansing will be cleansed. Remember Matthew
chapter eight, that leper came to the Lord. Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. And the Savior will say every
time, I will be thou cleansed. And immediately, when we come
to Christ for cleansing immediately, the leprosy of our sin will be
cleansed. A hearer only of the word is
a man who looks in the mirror and he sees his hair's all messed
up. He just gets out of bed in the morning. He's got bad head.
His hair's all messed up. His hair needs to be combed,
but he doesn't comb it. He just turns away from the mirror
and right away he forgets His hair needs to be combed. Everybody's
going to see he's messed up. And he deceives himself into
thinking everything's in order. Well, the Word tells us everything's
not all right. Everything's not all right. We're
messed up. We're dead in sin. I heard this
question recently. Here's a good question for you.
Think about this. If we're all right, if everything's okay,
we can set everything in order in ourselves by what we do. Here's
a question for you. Why did Christ die? Good question,
isn't it? Huh? I wish I'd asked that question.
That's a good question. The Word of God tells us everything's
not all right. We need to be set in order. We
need Christ to be our righteousness. We need his righteousness imputed
to us, and we need Christ to be our righteousness, to be found
in him, to be complete in him. That's the only way we can be
set in order. So a doer of the word does what the word says
and comes to Christ to be his righteousness. He quits working,
trying to establish his own righteousness, and he comes to Christ. He submits
himself to the righteousness of God. The Word of God says
all men are totally depraved and a doer of the Word says,
that's right. I am totally depraved. So I must have Christ to be my
righteousness or I'll be damned. And that person, that doer of
the Word, I can tell you what he's going to do. He will seek
Christ with all of his heart. You'll find him every time because
the Savior promised he would. But you know, even believers
can be guilty of this. We can find ourselves just being
hearers of the word. And that's why we need to be
constantly reminded who and what we are through the preaching
of the gospel, through the preaching of the word. We need to have
the word held up to us constantly so we're constantly reminded
who and what we are by nature and who and what we are in Christ.
Now, a believer hears the word. They believe it. They're not
arguing against it. You know, that man, that believer, he believes
in his total depravity. He's not saying he's not. He
believes in God's electing love. That's his only hope. He believes
in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. That's the only way
his sin can be put away. He believes, wholeheartedly he
believes, in the keeping power of God. That's the only way he
can be kept, by the power of God's grace. But we always have
to remember this about ourselves and about our brethren. Every
believer has two natures. We're still in this flesh. I
mean, it's a body of flesh that carried us here this morning.
I mean, we're still in this in this flesh and the flesh is still
deceived. The flesh is still willfully
deceived. It's still trying to deceive us. So a believer will
hear the word. And how often does this happen?
We go home and we quickly forget. Quickly forget, I've got Adam's
nature. We quickly forget how desperately
we need Christ in all things. I need Christ to save me. I need
Christ to keep me. I need Christ to teach me. I
need Him to stay with me, not let me go. We need Him in all
things. And to quickly forget the things
that we've been taught is to go home and somehow think that
we've been so well taught. I'm so well taught, I'm insulated
from making these mistakes. God's blessed me so much. I have
everything, you know, and somehow we deceive ourselves into thinking
we're more independent than we used to be. We're deceiving ourselves,
aren't we? Well, what's the remedy for God's
children for that? Well, there's just one. It's
coming back to the public worship service and having the mirror
held up, having God's word preached and hear the truth about ourselves
and the truth about Christ again. That's the remedy. Here's another
way a believer is only a hearer of the Word. We go back home
and we quickly forget what we've been taught. And we begin to doubt. Now, we
don't doubt Christ. We don't doubt the power of His
blood. We don't doubt His love. But we do doubt our own salvation
for the wrong reason. We think, how could I be saved
if I did that? How could I be saved if I think
that? And you know what we've done?
We've deceived ourselves. Our flesh has deceived us and
we've forgotten. How are we complete? Huh? We're
complete in Christ. We're not complete in what we
do. We're complete in His obedience, not our obedience. We're complete
in His work, not our work. We're complete by looking away
from self and looking to Christ. And we're going to be disappointed.
We're going to begin to doubt. Every time we look at ourselves,
what we do, what we think, something about ourselves to find any evidence
of the salvation of our souls, we're going to be disappointed
every time. There's just one evidence that God saved us, and
it's faith in Christ. It's the only evidence. See,
it's good to have a mirror, isn't it? But the mirror doesn't wash
us. The mirror doesn't set us in
order. Now, I can't stress to you how good it is. to have the
Word of God. But hearing the Word only won't
save us. It's Christ that saves. It's
got to be the engrafted Word that saves us. Christ in you,
the hope of God. It's Christ who cleanses. It's
Christ who makes us righteous. So come to Christ. And keep coming
to Him. Peter said to whom? Come and
keep coming to Him. Trust Christ and keep trusting
Him. That person is a doer of the
word. He's coming to Christ by faith.
All right, here's the second thing about a doer of the word.
A doer of the word will continue in the faith. He's not going
to quit. Verse 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man should be blessed in
his deed. Now I've told you many times,
I was, uh, I'm not a English major at all, but I'm pretty
sure the word looketh is in the present tense. He who looketh
into the mirror, he who looketh constantly is looking into the
perfect law of liberty. He doesn't just look just one
time and go away. No, he keeps looking in the world
to see himself, to see Christ. He keeps seeking Christ in the
world. He looks at it. And he studies
the word with great interest for his own soul. A doer of the
word will continue to be swift to hear the word. We looked at
that last week. That means to be anxious. A doer
of the word will be anxious to hear the word over and over and
over again, to be reminded. A doer of the word will not be
forgetful. Now he's not going to be forgetful
because he's got such a great memory. He won't be forgetful
because he's being constantly reminded. by constantly hearing
the word being preached. See, faith never says, well,
I believed. You know, I believed one time
in the past and everything's all right. No, faith always says,
I believe. I am believing right now. True faith never quits trusting
Christ. It continues to trust Christ. Salvation is looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. Not that we look one time,
but it's looking to him right now. Yes, I looked to him yesterday,
but I'm looking to him right now too. And that person who's
looking to Christ won't be moved away from the hope of the gospel,
which you've heard. That's what Paul told the Colossian
church. A doer of the word is looking,
he looketh into the perfect law of liberty. Now the perfect law
of liberty is the gospel. The gospel is perfect. The gospel
is just exactly what a sinner is perfect to supply every need
a sinner has. And that gospel believed will
make a sinner perfect. The gospel is a law. It's a perfect
law. Now, it's not a law like the
demands of the law of Moses. It's like a law of nature, the
law of gravity. What goes up must come down.
It's a law. Well, the gospel is a law. It's
an undeniable Unchangeable fact. Salvation is in Christ. Life
is in Christ. And whoever believes Christ has
eternal life. It's an unchangeable fact. It's
a law in that way. And the gospel is a gospel of
liberty. It proclaims freedom. If the
Son should make you free, you're free indeed. See, the law tells
you what you have to do. You have to serve. You have to
obey. You have to love. The gospel
tells you you're free. That you're free to serve God.
That you're free to obey God by faith. You're free to love
God and to trust God. You're free to come to God always
in the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ has made you free from
sin. And whoever's looking into that
perfect law of liberty continues in faith. That's a doer of the
word. All right, here's the third thing. A doer of the word will
be blessed by God. At the end of verse 25, James
says, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Now, this is not
saying that whoever believes God is going to be blessed in
everything he ever does. You know, whoever believes God's
got the Midas touch and he's going to be rich and happy. And
no, that's not saying that at all. Our text says the person
who believes God will be blessed in his deed. singular, his deed. What's his deed? Faith, faith
in Christ. That's look at Ephesians chapter
one. That person whose faith is in
Christ, that's his deed. His whole spiritual life will
be blessed by God. Ephesians one verse three. Let's
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had blessed
us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.
according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Now don't just pass over that.
You think what a blessing of God. How blessed is a person
who is holy and without blame before God. What a blessing.
Verse five, having predestinated us under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace." Oh, God has blessed His people. And the person who
believes Christ is blessed in every way. He's blessed in Christ. He's blessed in election. He's
blessed in God's love. God loves him perfectly. He's
blessed in redemption. God perfectly redeemed his soul.
He's blessed in forgiveness. God's forgiven all of his sin.
He's blessed in God's grace in every way, always. He's blessed. And it shall be
well with the righteous. He'll always be righteous. He'll
always be forgiven. He'll always be accepted. He's
blessed in every way. It shall be well with the righteous.
I don't care what he's doing, whether he's going in, whether
he's going out, whether he's being born, whether he's laying
on his deathbed, whether he's going through his life, working
like a mule down a salt mine. I don't care what he's doing.
In every way, he's going to be blessed of God. It shall be well
with the righteous. The doer of the word is going
to be blessed. David said he's going to be preserved in going
out and coming in. Always, from this time forth,
even forevermore. And you mark the end of that
man, the doer of the word. David said, you mark him. You
behold the upright for the end of that man is peace. He's blessed
always. And then here's the fourth thing.
The word will affect the daily life of a doer of the word. Back in our text, James 1 verse
26. If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridle if not his tongue, but deceive with
his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
and widows and their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. Now this is just so. I don't
want to say this and sound hard, but now this is just so. If the
gospel does not have an effect on the daily life of a person.
They're not a doer of the word. If a man acts religious, but
here's the, here's the main way James says you can identify that
he's, he's only acting religious. If he can't bridle his tongue,
he speaks against God's word. And that's what we're talking
about here is being a doer of the word where he speaks against
God's word. He says things that are contrary to the gospel of
grace. He says things that are contrary to salvation by faith. He cannot bridle his tongue.
The tongue has got to eventually show what's on the inside. Here's
the issue always. He wants more than Christ. It's
more than Christ. It's a it's something he does.
It's his morality. It's his reputation among people.
Whatever it is, he wants more than Christ in some way. He cannot
bridle his tongue. He cannot stop himself from boasting
about himself. That man, that woman is not a
doer of the word. If he has a critical attitude,
listens to the word and he's critical, critical about the
preacher. Let me give you just a word about
preachers. It's not going to be hard. to
find a reason to pick at them. They're far from perfect. Very,
very, very imperfect. And if that's what you want to
do, we'll give you plenty of ammunition. That's just so. But someone who loves Christ
is not interested in the vessel. They're interested in the water.
I mean, I guess this glass looks pretty good up here. I mean,
you know. But you know what? That water tastes just as good
out of that pretty glass as it does a paper cup. If you're thirsty,
you don't care about the glass, do you? If you're thirsty, you
drink it out of a garden hose. But that man who cannot bile
his tongue, he's critical about the way the message was preached.
He's critical about the message. He likes to gossip about people,
tear down their reputations. That person is not a doer of
the word. But if a man is kind to others, he's merciful, he's
forgiving, That man is a doer of the word because the engrafted
word in people makes a difference. Where there is genuine faith
in the heart, love is going to be shown in the hand by reaching
out to help, by reaching out to comfort. God's grace makes
us gracious. God's mercy is going to make
a person a merciful person. God's love shed abroad in our
hearts is going to make a person loving. God forgiving us in Christ
is going to make us at least try to be forgiving. Is it not? Look back at 2 Corinthians chapter
3. 2 Corinthians 3 verse 18. But we all with open face, beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord. are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Here's the doer of the word,
looking with open face, beholding in a glass. What's he looking
at and seeing in the glass here? In the mirror, he's seeing the
glory of the Lord. He's seeing the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Spirit of God uses this word to change his people into
the very image of Christ. That's a doer of the word. That's
a blessing of God. So that, that person, the doer
of the word is going to be unspotted from the world. Now that doesn't
mean he's not going to participate in the world. He's not going
to go out and be around people. And you know, there's an attraction
to that to me, but that's not what you're the salt of the earth.
You go out there and be the salt of the earth. To be a doer of
the world, not being spotted by the world, means that even
though you're out there in the world, you're not going to be
drawn into the rebellion of this world against God. Pure religion
is not going to be spotted by the ways and the method of the
world's religion. What is it to be spotted with
the way of the world's religion? It's to mix grace and words.
Pure religion is not going to be spotted with that because
it's pure. It's pure Christ. It's pure grace. A doer of the
word is not going to be spotted by the sin of the world because
Christ has made them clean. See, we're not kept clean by
what we do. No, the believer is made clean
in Christ and we're kept clean by Christ. It's because of what
Christ has done for us and what Christ has done in us. They can't
be spotted by the sin of this world because they have union
with Christ. And this is what this verse is
teaching. Worship God. Worship God. That's what we were
talking about earlier, Bob. Worship God on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Worship God. And then worship God everywhere
you go. In everything you do, worship
God. Go about all your activities
of this life keeping this in mind. You're serving God. That's
right. Now don't try to live so people
see how godly you are. Don't live so everybody's going
to be impressed because they see Christ in you. Let me tell you,
the world didn't see Christ in Christ. They're not going to
see Christ in me. Besides that, if we're doing
this so people see Christ in us, that's an attitude of Pharisee
anyway. Just go serve God because you love him. Just serve God, because your
only real concern is he sees what you're doing. Go through
your life looking for ways to be gracious, looking for ways
to be kind and merciful, looking for ways to tell people about
Christ. Just live following Christ. In all things, just live looking
to Him. Everywhere you go, go looking
to Him. In everything you do, go trusting Christ in all things. And I love what James says here
in this verse 27. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the
widows in their affliction. Now I reckon why he said that.
to go visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction.
Let me tell you, this is not an exhaustive list of pure religion. I saw someone recently, hadn't
seen me in a number of years, and found out that I was a pastor
now. And he made this comment, oh,
I bet you spend all your time going and visiting people, don't
you? I said, matter of fact, I don't. I don't. If y'all need
something, I mean, call me just, you know, but I'm not going to
just come around knocking on your doors. I mean, I'd love to be
with you, you know, but I'm not going to spend all my time. He
was shocked to find out. I spent all my time every day
in the study, studying God's word, trying to find a message
from God. So this visiting the widows and the fatherless, that's
not the exhaustive list of pure religion. It's a framework. It's
a framework. You know why James says to visit
the fatherless and the widows? It's a framework. You know why
he says that? He's telling us, live your life looking to Christ. Live your life imitating God's
grace to us. Who did Christ come to save?
He came to save the orphan. He came to save those sons of
Adam whose father Adam ruined them and left them. He came to
save the widow. that woman who doesn't have a
husband, the orphan and the widow are left defenseless. They're
left with no visible means of support. And that's who Christ
came to save. I want to show you two scriptures
in closing. Psalm 68. Christ came to be a gracious,
loving, providing father for the orphan. And he came to be
the great bridegroom to the widow spiritually. Psalm 68 verse three. But let the righteous be glad.
Let them rejoice before God. Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.
Sing unto God. Sing praises to his name. Extol
him that writeth upon the heavens by his name. Hallelujah. And rejoice before him. A father
of the fatherless and a judge and advocate of the widows. is
God in his holy habitation. That's who he came to say. Psalm
146, we'll close with this. Psalm 146. Here's who God came to say. Psalm 146, verse eight. The Lord
openeth the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises them that are
bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth
the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and
the widow. But the way of the wicked, he
turneth upside down. And the doer of the word looks
into God's word, sees that message from God's word, and says, that's
my savior. That's my father. That's my bridegroom. That's the one who I trust. And
by God's grace, I'm going to keep trusting. All right. Lord
bless you.