...Hear AND Do
James 2:24-25 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,
being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,
being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
Some of you right now are hearers. Natural-born hearers. You don’t struggle so much with the listening. You internalize and process everything, you just want to work through stuff. After it’s said, you know you need to work through it. You love to hear it from others, from yourselves, you love to hear the word preached.
Why didn’t he just say, “some of you read the Word and don’t do it”? The literacy rate back then was very low, so the people were hearing the word read and preached. That’s the only way they were going to get it. They couldn’t look at the scrolls and read them – you can! Don’t just be a receiver or consumer of the word, start being a producer.
Some of you are stuck on hearing because you love to talk it out. You could sit here and talk theology all day long. And you could argue Calvinism and Armenianism, and you could argue post-trib and pre-trib and mid-trib, and you could talk eschatology and soteriology and ecclesiology and you love it, you feed on it! And some of you have no idea what that sentence even means, and that’s okay, too. Here’s the problem: your hearing is where it stops. You hear and hear and hear, and because it stops there, you see something completely different in the mirror.
Why didn’t he just say, “some of you read the Word and don’t do it”? The literacy rate back then was very low, so the people were hearing the word read and preached. That’s the only way they were going to get it. They couldn’t look at the scrolls and read them – you can! Don’t just be a receiver or consumer of the word, start being a producer.
Some of you are stuck on hearing because you love to talk it out. You could sit here and talk theology all day long. And you could argue Calvinism and Armenianism, and you could argue post-trib and pre-trib and mid-trib, and you could talk eschatology and soteriology and ecclesiology and you love it, you feed on it! And some of you have no idea what that sentence even means, and that’s okay, too. Here’s the problem: your hearing is where it stops. You hear and hear and hear, and because it stops there, you see something completely different in the mirror.
This is what guys are like. Bad thing is, lots of wives have seen their husbands doing this – and they know that guys are seeing the picture in the mirror! That may be the way it is with your faith, too. You think because you’re faithful on Sundays (or mostly faithful), you think you’re good, but you are deceiving yourself! This guy in the picture is deceiving himself. You hear and hear and hear and think you’re okay, and you’re missing it! You are under a delusion! Some of you are believing the lie. It’s so simple – hear the word, do the word. Hear the word! Do the word!
When I was younger, I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and we could go to what we called Monkey Island and to the park and ride bikes all over and climb up trees and over rocks. Well, the pedal broke off on one side of my bike one day, completely broke off and so being a kid, I thought I could fix it. However, I had completely sheared the pin, and there was no way to fix it. Nobody wants to push their bike all the way home, so I was pedaling the bike with one leg. I’d push with my foot, then push super hard with the pedal on the other side to make it go down. I looked like a fool. I just looked ridiculous! Now you can laugh at that, it’s silly…but that’s what you are doing with your faith! You only have one pedal! You’re like, bring it up, bring it up, push really hard, I can do this. You have only hearing – a bike with one pedal – and it applies to every instance in your life.
Do you want to know why you’re so frustrated with your faith, why it seems like even though you’re doing all the stuff, it’s not easier and you’re still not getting it? Because you’re consuming it! You’re not producing! You’re making it about you! “I want to know more, I want to get more” and you’re not pouring it out anywhere. You’re not doing.
When I was younger, I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and we could go to what we called Monkey Island and to the park and ride bikes all over and climb up trees and over rocks. Well, the pedal broke off on one side of my bike one day, completely broke off and so being a kid, I thought I could fix it. However, I had completely sheared the pin, and there was no way to fix it. Nobody wants to push their bike all the way home, so I was pedaling the bike with one leg. I’d push with my foot, then push super hard with the pedal on the other side to make it go down. I looked like a fool. I just looked ridiculous! Now you can laugh at that, it’s silly…but that’s what you are doing with your faith! You only have one pedal! You’re like, bring it up, bring it up, push really hard, I can do this. You have only hearing – a bike with one pedal – and it applies to every instance in your life.
Do you want to know why you’re so frustrated with your faith, why it seems like even though you’re doing all the stuff, it’s not easier and you’re still not getting it? Because you’re consuming it! You’re not producing! You’re making it about you! “I want to know more, I want to get more” and you’re not pouring it out anywhere. You’re not doing.
Matthew 7:24-27 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them
will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house,
but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them
will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house,
and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house,
but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them
will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house,
and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
Does that sound familiar? James was Jesus’ brother after all. If you’ve been in church, you know what we’re talking about. Everybody thinks that sand builder guy is a moron, but you forget verse 24 – everyone who hears the word and then DOES THEM is the guy who builds on the rock. “And when the rains came…. And everyone who hears the words and DOESN’T DO THEM is like a foolish man building on the sand.” You know what that’s like if you’ve been to the beach and felt the waves pull the sand out from under your feet. It moves, and you have to shift your balance or the ground gets pulled right out from under you. Some of you feel like your lives are like that right now. You’re unsteady and shaking because you hear the word, consume it, and don’t do anything with it, and so it’s a balancing act all the time to try to get this to work out. Hear the word. Do the word.
My kids asked recently how this whole message preparation thing works. They saw me typing all Friday and Saturday, and thought I was waiting until the last minute to work on the sermon! I told them no, I start on Sunday afternoon preparing for the next week, so I decided to show them, work through this together. On Monday morning on our ride to school or ride home, we’ll talk about the message sometimes. What does that mean to you, what does it make you think about? I brought this up yesterday, and this is what came up.
A few months ago, we had a baptism party, and we heard the story of a man in our church who heard God tell him, “You need to run for this guy”. How many of you would have done that, if God told you to run? But this guy said “Okay, what does that look like?” And it has become him running from Losantville all the way to the Little League fields here by our church – a full marathon – every year for the past 5 years. Did he have all the answers? Did he know what was going to happen? NO!
Stop being a consumer! Stop being stuck in “I need to know more, I need to hear more” - no you don’t! You need to do more! That’s what’s holding you up! Just do it! Turns out Nike had it right all along! Nobody knows how many hours it takes to plan, prepare, and make this race happen every year. And these guys aren’t doctoral theology students, just like most of us! So what’s stopping you? You don’t need to hear more, you need to start doing more. “Well I can’t do that, I can’t run” – either you’re out of shape, too old, whatever…did you pray? Did you start there? Do they know you prayed? Start there. Just pray for someone else, instead of your own circumstances – start praying for other people and see what happens. See what the Lord does in your head and your heart and what happens in their work.
Even if you can’t go do things, you can partner with someone anyway. Stop consuming, start producing! Am I making you uncomfortable? If your response is, “I don’t want to hear this, I just want things that will make me feel good, music that I enjoy”, if that’s your mentality – I love you, and this is probably not the book for you. It just isn’t. Because I will never be content to just sit here and say, “We have church on Sundays and I hope people show up.” I will push hard to build an army of warriors. I don’t care if they’re servant warriors, prayer warriors, or teaching warriors, to go out and be in the community and do things.
I get that there’s time to be a Mary, when you’ve had massive circumstances happen in your life, there is time to not do any more. I’m not saying wear yourself out, but do what God has already given you. He’s already speaking to you!
Stop reading for a few seconds and think about what you already that you should be doing that will build your faith that you’re not currently doing.
Did you hear it?
Hear the word, do the Word.
My kids asked recently how this whole message preparation thing works. They saw me typing all Friday and Saturday, and thought I was waiting until the last minute to work on the sermon! I told them no, I start on Sunday afternoon preparing for the next week, so I decided to show them, work through this together. On Monday morning on our ride to school or ride home, we’ll talk about the message sometimes. What does that mean to you, what does it make you think about? I brought this up yesterday, and this is what came up.
A few months ago, we had a baptism party, and we heard the story of a man in our church who heard God tell him, “You need to run for this guy”. How many of you would have done that, if God told you to run? But this guy said “Okay, what does that look like?” And it has become him running from Losantville all the way to the Little League fields here by our church – a full marathon – every year for the past 5 years. Did he have all the answers? Did he know what was going to happen? NO!
Stop being a consumer! Stop being stuck in “I need to know more, I need to hear more” - no you don’t! You need to do more! That’s what’s holding you up! Just do it! Turns out Nike had it right all along! Nobody knows how many hours it takes to plan, prepare, and make this race happen every year. And these guys aren’t doctoral theology students, just like most of us! So what’s stopping you? You don’t need to hear more, you need to start doing more. “Well I can’t do that, I can’t run” – either you’re out of shape, too old, whatever…did you pray? Did you start there? Do they know you prayed? Start there. Just pray for someone else, instead of your own circumstances – start praying for other people and see what happens. See what the Lord does in your head and your heart and what happens in their work.
Even if you can’t go do things, you can partner with someone anyway. Stop consuming, start producing! Am I making you uncomfortable? If your response is, “I don’t want to hear this, I just want things that will make me feel good, music that I enjoy”, if that’s your mentality – I love you, and this is probably not the book for you. It just isn’t. Because I will never be content to just sit here and say, “We have church on Sundays and I hope people show up.” I will push hard to build an army of warriors. I don’t care if they’re servant warriors, prayer warriors, or teaching warriors, to go out and be in the community and do things.
I get that there’s time to be a Mary, when you’ve had massive circumstances happen in your life, there is time to not do any more. I’m not saying wear yourself out, but do what God has already given you. He’s already speaking to you!
Stop reading for a few seconds and think about what you already that you should be doing that will build your faith that you’re not currently doing.
Did you hear it?
Hear the word, do the Word.