Introduction

Robert Coles, was a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University, wrote an article titled ‘The Discrepancy Between Intellect and Character.’

He wrote it after being confronted by one of his students who was disturbed by the lack of ‘moral sensitivity’ among her peers. She was from a working-class background and cleaned dorm-rooms to help pay her way through college. Her classmates shamed her for being poor and wouldn’t give her basic respect or courtesy. One guy in particular was especially crude with her – repeatedly propositioning her for sex while she cleaned. What made this interesting was that this guy was in two moral philosophy and ethics classes with her – and he was earning top grades in them.

She eventually quit and left the school, saying in her exit interview: “I’ve been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what’s true, what’s important, what’s good … What’s the point of knowing good if you don’t keep trying to become a good person?”

Coles could only shrug in response to her disappointment.

Connect

James finds himself in a similar situation with his audience.

Reading into some of the different situations James talks about, you can come away with the sense that the Christians were being persecuted and responding to that persecution by compromising their faith.

• He’s concerned about how they are neglecting the poor in favor of the rich
• Their speech is full of anger
• They follow the wisdom of the world

And he condemns them in James 4:4

James 4:4 NIV

⁴ You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

These people had heard the word of God – but it wasn’t doing them any good.

This month of February is about taking our knowledge to its intended goal – action. To rephrase our Harvard students question:

What’s the point of learning about Jesus if you don’t keep trying to be like Jesus?

Merely Listening

But that’s unfortunately where James finds his audience.

James 1:22 NIV

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

James is by no means discounting listening to God speak. He even says just one verse before this that we need to accept the word of God that is able to save our souls. Without God speaking to us we are lost and without hope.

and so we rightly put a lot of stock into listening.

• On an average Sunday you’re going to get roughly an hour and 45 minutes of bible study – two sermons and a class.
• Ad another hour or so for Wednesday night
• We got a group studying evangelism on Tuesdays
• Our college members have a Thursday study
• If you follow along with Bible Habits you have your daily reading and a podcast to follow

There’s a lot to learn and you got plenty of opportunities to hear it all. So good job, high fives all around we’re doing the thing!

But if you are only listening to the word, then you are deceiving yourself.

Deceiving Ourselves

It happens every Sunday, it might even be happening right now. Where we show up to church and we just assume that this is what it’s all about. God’s looking down from heaven and giving you thumbs up man! And then after church we look back up at him and say “Hey, I even paid attention today!” And now God must be just besides himself. Wow! Now that’s a Christian!

And then we take that home and think we are just such spiritual people. If only the rest of the world showed up to church like me. We haven’t done anything but deceive ourselves. that’s what James is telling us. If we think that our walk with Jesus is only walking into this building so we’re only listening to the word, we’re not doing anything with it, we’ve deceived ourselves.

We may be deceived, thinking that showing up on Sunday is all there is, but other people aren’t. Because some of those outsiders, the people who aren’t religious at all, don’t show up on Sunday and are just as good, if not sometimes better, than the people who do. They know that we get angry just like they do, that we hold grudges, that we gossip, that we make crude jokes, that we’re just like the world.

But we think we aren’t because we went to church on Sunday. Because I:

• Woke up earlier
• Endured a speech of some kind
• Missed out on the football game
• Threw some money in the basket

I did the thing God! I showed up and let you talk to me!

Do What It Says

Did the creep at Harvard become ethical after taking an ethics class? Do we look at him and think “Wow, what an ethical person?”

Does God look at us and think “Wow, what a Christ like child?”

James 1:22 NIV

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

That’s what makes the difference. We are not just passive receptacles of knowledge. Jesus wants us to be active agents of his word.

Like Looking in a Mirror

James draws this out by comparing this all with looking into a mirror.

James 1:23–24 NIV

²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

We look into mirrors all the time, and usually for a single purpose – see if there’s anything wrong we can fix. James compares listening the word of God like looking into a mirror. When you listen to the word of God, it is going to show you what you look like – warts and all.

It’s a rare soul that wakes up first thing in the morning and runs to the mirror so they can admire themselves. I’d bet that most of us prefer not to look into the mirror because we’re real good at finding things wrong with this. Have you ever opened up the camera on your phone and been unpleasantly surprised to find it’s in selfie mode? Have you ever seen yourself in a picture with someone much better looking and you look like a thumb with googly eyes?

Hearing God’s word is a similar experience.

• If we listen to God we’re going to find out that there’s quite a few things that need fixing.
• We’re going to be surprised at just how awful we actually are
• And it’s going to feel even worse when we see ourselves compared to Jesus.

Well imagine waking up in the morning, taking a look in the mirror and seeing

• Unkempt hair
• Eye boogers
• You drool has dried and crusted
• You even have some dinner scarps from last night stuck to your face

And you think “Wow! What a mess!” and then head out to work without doing a thing about it. Someone said “Morgan, you didn’t brush your hair!” Thanks – will you pray about it? I go to a small group study and everyone tells me the same thing “Yes, someone else told me about my hair. I’m aware of it. Will you just pray for me please?” And you’re thinking Just do it! But that’s hard work.

That’s what hearing the word without doing it is like.

We sit down in our seats, we’re hit by a passage and are thinking “Wow, I need to stop doing that. I need to fix this, start that, because I’m such a spiritual mess.” And then we run back home without doing anything to fix the mess we’ve just realized we are.

The sad thing is that when we take a look in the mirror in the morning we get real busy in fixing it. Shower, shave, cologne, make-up, hair – we have a full counter-top full of things to fix ourselves with. We might even carry a few things around in our bags in case we find something that needs fixing.

We are much more aware of our need to fix our appearance than our spirit. Think about that one big sin in your life – the one that makes your eyes pop open at 2 in the morning full of guilt and regret. I bet your hair looked great that day.

James is telling us that we’re really good a majoring in minors. We look in the mirror and think “I gotta fix this!” We listen to the word and think:

• I gotta get my act together
• I need to stop watching those kinds of shows
• I need to work on that relationship
• I need to rethink my charity

And we deceive ourselves into thinking that’s as far as that process needs to go. We’ve done nothing to fix what was wrong. We stopped looking into the word of God and forgot how bad we are and assumed we were beautiful.

Fixing Ourselves

So let’s break free from our deception.

James 1:25 NIV

²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Look Intently

We deceive ourselves when we stop looking and forget about what we saw. If we want to do what matters then we have to get comfortable with taking good long looks at ourselves. James says we have to continue in it. That means we’re not going to get a glimpse of who we are an immediately look the other way.

Back in James’ day they didn’t have these polished mirrors. They were lucky to have a shiny piece of metal, or maybe a bowl of water that could get your reflection. So if you wanted to pretty yourself up you had to really stop and look:

• Different angles
• Really focusing on one spot before moving on
• Going back to review

When we hear God’s word we should be listening for all the different things we need to fix.

It might very well be one of the reasons that we deceive ourselves – because looking in the mirror, hearing the word of God, and realizing what mess I am isn’t a fun experience. But at least I don’t have to walk around all day staring at myself.

But if I always have to be conscious of my mess, always aware of what’s in the mirror – that gets depressing. Isn’t feeling bad about all of it once a week enough? Shouldn’t I at least get points for acknowledging I’m a mess? Do I really have to confront it and work on it? So I’ll just deceive myself – look into the mirror occasionally, but not do anything about it. That’s just too much man.

Look Into the Law

But notice what James wants us to look into – “the perfect law that gives freedom.”

James calls it the perfect law. Elsewhere he calls it the royal law which is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (James 2:8). It’s the Old Testament law as seen through our king, Jesus.

And what’s crazy is what this law does – it gives freedom. That’s not what we think of typically when we think of laws. Laws are restrictive, it’s all about confining myself to set of approved behaviors and forbidding me from others. It’s a bunch of do’s and do not’s. But laws give such incredible freedom.

If you ever happen to go to the Philippines  you’re in for a shock when you start driving around. They don’t have driving laws, more like driving suggestions. They’ll take a 2 lane road and treat it like there were six. Motorcycles just darting in and out of traffic, with one bike carrying an entire family. People just casually walking through major roadways. Overall it’s a pretty stressful environment.

Now, I could say that there’s a lot of liberty on the roads of Manila. You’re not likely to get a ticket. But it’s also incredibly restrictive. With how stressful it is to drive around I’d rather just stay home. All of that liberty to drive however I want, but that lack of law keeps me from going out my front door.

Meanwhile, here, I worry about going 26 in downtown Johnson. I’m not free to do what I want but in return I feel so much safer and willing to get out and drive around.

God’s perfect law works in a similar way.

Another way we’re deceived into not doing the law is listening to the lie that following God is the a horribly boring way to live. We think that by looking at the law we’re binding ourselves to it and restricting ourselves.

But James says by following that law we’re going to experience greater freedom.

• We’re taught that sex should only happen after marriage – and that’s restrictive. You have a teenager wondering if they’re even going to get married, and if they do will it even be that great when I get that old and ugly? And we’re surrounded by sexual liberation movements that are all about doing whatever turns you on, and why bother waiting? Does a porn addiction sound like freedom? Do STD’s or unplanned pregnancies sound like liberation? Does spending thousands of dollars on your personal pornstar sound like you’re in control?
• How many people can’t wait to turn 21 so they have the freedom to hit up the bars finally! And they’re free from that silly abstinence and can drink whenever . And then you know what they say when they’re invited to a dry-wedding? What a bore! You can’t have fun without being a little tipsy.
• How many of us wanted greater freedom than our parents gave us? So we snuck out at night, did all the things they told us not to, and even got away with it? But now you’re bound to that life of keeping up appearances – never free from the fear of being found out.

When you keep to the perfect law of freedom:

• You are free from all of the crutches everybody else needs to get thought life.
• You are free from the guilt.
• You are free from the bondage of sin.
• You are free from the judgment of God.

We’re deceived into only listening because we’ve been convinced that doing anything will take all the fun out of life. But God’s law was not given simply so God could arbitrarily control us and laugh about how much we want to do the things we’re not allowed to. He gave it to us so that we could experience life as it was meant to be.

Do It

But you gotta do it.

• Thinking about heavy weights won’t make you stronger
• Taking a moral philosophy class won’t make you a good person
• Listening to the word of God doesn’t make you a follower of Jesus

Listening will help us see the flaws and mistakes we need to correct in our lives, but that in itself is not enough to fix them.

If we want to be transformed by active obedience that means joining a support group – AKA the church. Hebrews 10:24-25

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Our gathering together is not to go through the rituals that make God smile, endure the sermon, say amen and go home. It’s your active responsibility to stir up good works by being here and being encouraged to do them yourself.

And just like any new practice, it’s difficult in the beginning. It’s hard to break the old habits and form new ones. It’s painful to push boundaries. But look at the last thing James reminds us of in verse 25:

James 1:25 NIV

²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

By doing it you’ll be blessed. The Thursday night bike crew got me to go on a 14 mile ride by lying and saying it was only 12. I was dying the whole time. Meanwhile, everyone else, including two people who have had heart attacks, and a number of grandparents, are just zipping around and talking about how great it all is. they were blessed in their doing because they had kept at it. I would be blessed in bike riding if I had kept at it!