in the book of James, James chapter 1. We're going to begin reading in verse 22. James chapter 1, verse 22. We'll read down to verse 25. And we want to think today about hearers and doers of the word, mere hearers and true doers. James chapter 1, beginning in verse 22, where James writes, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. deceiving your own selves. For 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 what manner of man he was. 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 shall be blessed in his deed. And we trust the Lord will add his blessing to the reading of his eternal and inspired word. Well, I learned something this week. I was in conversation with someone and I never really thought about this before, but here it is in a nutshell. You hear with your ears, but you listen with your brain. I never really thought about that before. You hear with your ears, but you listen with your brain. You see, your ears can hear everything that is going on all around you. You can hear people shuffling in their seat. You can hear people turning the pages of their Bible, you can hear all kinds of little noises, but you're not necessarily noticing those noises, because although your ears are hearing those things, your brain filters out this peripheral noise, and it only allows you to hear those things, to listen to those things that is needful for you to listen to. For example, believe it or not, your ears can hear your heartbeat. But your brain has now learned to filter that noise out so that you do not hear your heartbeat. I don't know if you've ever had the fun of having a stethoscope on for a moment and holding it to your chest and hearing your heartbeat. It's quite unnerving. You put it to your chest and you just hope it's going to keep beating while you can listen. So you'd be quite distressed if you heard your heartbeat every single day. You'd be waiting for it to stop. But thankfully the Lord has so designed us that our brain is able to determine which noises we need to hear and which noises we do not need to hear. And so although we hear with our ears, we listen with our brains. thought brings us to the very heart of this message in the first chapter of James. Because the Bible is really no good to us unless we apply it, unless we listen to it. And like any medicine, it only works once it is taken. And James is keen that we should get a hold on this principle. And last week we read how a Christian was to be swift to hear, and slow to speak, and slow to wrath. But now James tells us that hearing without heeding is futile. That you're wasting your time if you're hearing something, but you're not really listening to what is being said. Now as he teases out this point, he brings before us two characters. The first character is a mere hearer. They simply hear the Word of God. The other character is a true doer of the word. And I want to think about each of these individuals together this morning. Beginning with the mere hearer. Look in verse 22 again. He says, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For 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 what manner of man he was. I've heard this passage taught multiple times down through the years, I'm sure as many of you have also. And it's usually taught along this vein that a person who just is a hearer of the word is like a man who looks into the mirror. and he doesn't correct the problems that he sees reflected in the mirror. So if he comes with tousled hair and he has bleared eyes and he's maybe got something on his nose or stubble on his chin and he sees those things but he doesn't take care of those things and he just walks away in that condition. And of course that's fair enough, but I've come to the conclusion that that's not quite what James has in mind here. You see, he's speaking about a man, quite literally the text in the Greek is referring to a male, not just a man generically, not a human, but a male, someone of the male species who sees his natural face in the glass. And many times in the use of the word natural, in the Bible, there's a contrast made between the natural and the spiritual. For example, in 1 Corinthians 2.14, it says, So there's this contrast between the natural and the spiritual. Likewise in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul talking about the resurrection and of the resurrection body. He says it is soon a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. He says there is a natural body and there's a spiritual body. So you always have this contrast between the natural and the spiritual. And I think that's what James is doing here. He's making a contrast between a natural response and a spiritual response. And the word for face there is kind of interesting. It literally means the face that you were born with. The face that you were given, okay? Now some of us have been given nicer faces than others, what can I say? But nevertheless, that was a joke. But nevertheless, that's what it's referring to, the face that you were born with. And the emphasis is upon that which is natural, that which is temporal, as opposed to that which is spiritual, and that which is eternal. So James is speaking specifically about men, and a man looking at his natural face, the face he was born with, in a mirror. Now, stop and think. How do most men look in a mirror? Think about that. Most men, how do most men, now there's always exceptions to the rule. But we're going to make a generalism here. Most men do not spend a lot of time looking in mirrors. Most of us just glance at the mirror, admire ourselves and move on. We look at the natural face we were born with and we bless the Lord that we were so good looking and we just get on with the rest of our day. We don't think much more about it beyond that. Maybe, you know, the only time we look in the mirror as men is maybe when we're brushing our teeth or combing our hair, or shaving maybe. You might look in the mirror for a little while, but that's about it. Now women, and I can say this as the father of three daughters, Women on the other hand, well, they can barely pass a mirror without spending some time at it. They're either adjusting their hair, or looking for blemishes, or correcting their makeup, or applying their makeup. In other words, they do not leave that mirror with their natural face, so to speak. Not the face that they were born with. Okay? Maybe I should just stop now. This sermon is really not going well, is it? I'm clearly on thin ice here. But, you know, men, you know, leave a mirror just as they find it, but women, they take a little bit of time there. In fact, the term beholding, this natural man who's beholding his natural face in a glass, is referring to a casual, superficial glance. He just glances at it and sees, that'll do, and he heads off to face the day. But that's the difference between men and women when it comes to the use of mirrors. A man may glance at a mirror and be satisfied and move on, but a woman will rarely pass a mirror without having a good look at herself. Now, every Sunday morning, just about, it didn't happen this morning, I have to admit, but just about every Sunday morning, my wife gets dressed. I'm usually in my study, and I'm looking over my message for the day and thinking about the sermon that lies ahead, and she'll come into my office and she'll say to me, how do I look? Every day. Not today, actually, but she normally does. So I kind of wait for her to come. And then I have to stop what I'm doing, because if I don't look up, she'll be mad at me. So I look up and I go, fine. And she goes off happy with that. Well, she goes off anyway. I don't know if she's happy with it, but she goes off. And then she'll come back in a few minutes later with her hat or her beret on her head. And she'll say, how's my beret look? Fine. And she'll say, is it sitting right? Yes. And then she'll come back two seconds later and she'll go, how's it look now? Fine. Is it sitting right? Yes. And then she'll go off for a few moments, she'll come back. Does it look better now? Yes. It's fine. Then we get in the car. What does she do when we get in the car? She pulls the phaser down. Clips open the little mirror. She spends the whole journey doing this. And we get into the car park, what does she do? She rips it off. She puts it back on again. She fixes it again. And she says to me, how does it look? Fine. You see, a man wouldn't do that. That's not a criticism of my wife. The fact that you're laughing suggests to me my wife's not the only wife who's on this camp. But a man wouldn't do that. A man would just cram the berry on his head and say, right, let's go. It wouldn't matter to him how he looked. And that's the difference between men and women. So that's why God focuses upon the males here in this text, upon the male habit in front of a mirror. And he says that some people approach the mirror of God's Word much like a man approaches mirrors. they give it a casual glance, just a quick look and think very little about it. And the problem with that is that that might work for the face that you're born with, but it doesn't work so well with the mirror of God's Word, because it doesn't really help us when it comes to the spiritual aspect of our life, not to the face that we're born with, but the spirit that we're born again of. In other words, a casual reading, a casual glance at the Word of God, is insufficient. And the same goes when we're listening to the Bible being read or preached. A casual listening is not enough. So what happens when a person adopts a casual approach to the scriptures? Well, notice that first of all, he lacks discernment. He's gullible. He says, be doers of the word and not hearers only. Deceiving your own selves. This man who looks at the Word of God in the same way that he looks at a physical mirror is in danger of self-deception because he's just glancing and he's just taking very little from it. And he goes on with his day. And it's interesting how often the Bible cautions us to the possibility of spiritual deception. I remember a number of years ago watching a documentary about the Moonies, the cult And in that particular documentary, they were talking about this cult as though it were a Christian-based organization. It's no more Christian-based than the man on the moon. But nevertheless, they were presenting it like this was a Christian cult of sorts. And it just amazed me to watch this documentary, to see how people thought that the reverend Tsa-Yung Moon was the messiah, that he had come to succeed where Jesus had failed. that he had come with the authority to tell you who you should marry, when you should marry, and when the marriage should be consummated. That was the kind of authority that he had, the kind of control. And it was just one great big error after another error. And as someone who's familiar with the Bible, you sat there and you shook your head and you thought, my goodness, how can people be so deluded? How can they be so deceived as to buy into this and believe it's a Christian organization? And there was no doubting the sincerity. of many of the devotees who were testifying to their experience in the Mooney Church, but one fellow stuck out to me in what he said. He was an ex-Mooney, and he said this of the Reverend Moon. He said, I don't blame him. I blame myself. I did it to myself. And I thought, well, there's a fellow that maybe has taken a step in the right direction. You know, he admitted self-deception. But anybody who has a cavalier, casual attitude to the word of God is really open to self-deception. Look in Romans chapter 16 for a moment. Romans chapter 16. Romans chapter 16 and verse 17. Notice what Paul says here, he says, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches, notice this, deceive the hearts of the simple. Deceive the hearts of the simple. Now here are the simple. The simple are those who are unsuspecting, undiscerning, those who are naive about the things of God, those who are gullible concerning the truth of Scripture. And believe me, such folk exist in every church. There is in every church people who have a degree of naivety and gullibility, who believe everything that they read and hear and see. and they swallow it all, and they seem somehow incapable of taking these things that they're exposed to, and filtering them through the sieve of God's Word, and seeing whether or not they're really true. And it's so easy to be deceived. It's so easy to deceive ourselves, or to be deceived by others. So the casual reader, the somebody who just glances at the Word, you thought for the day, that'll do me, and gets on, It's a person who's likely going to be subject to self-deception or the deception of others. So, in the first instance, the person who's a mere hearer of the word is simply gullible. He's casual. Notice again in verse 23 of James chapter 1. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man, behold, his natural face in a glass. Someone who just listens to the Word, but is never really serious about the Word of God, is never going to grow like they ought to grow. To grow requires roots, and roots require depth. You see, a lot of folks think that by just coming out to church on Sunday morning, or maybe coming out twice on a Sunday and hearing two sermons in the week, that that's enough for them to grow in grace, to grow in their faith. Friends, that's never enough. That's never enough. If you were fed just two meals a week, let me tell you, you wouldn't be in physically good condition. You need to be feeding every single day. And so, if you have this notion, well, I went to church on Sunday, and that did me for the week, and my Bible is shut now until next Sunday, well, you're making a very grave mistake in your spiritual life. You see, the problem with such a person is not that they're not reading the word or hearing the word. They are, they hear the words and they see the words of God, but they're not going deep enough to really grasp the truth, for it really to take root in their lives, to make them a strong and upright Christian. He lacks discernment, he lacks depth, he lacks discipline. Look again here in verse 24. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. Gullible, casual, forgetful. You know, years ago I bumped into a man who was a very sad story really. He was a man who had been beaten up in Belfast city centre for no reason whatsoever. He was the most harmless character I think I've ever met. And he had suffered a terrible beating in the middle of the city. Some boys had just sat upon him and kicked the poor man nearly to death. And as a consequence of that attack, he had lost a large chunk of his brain, a large chunk of his head. There was a great big indent, you know, you could put your fist in it, in his head. That was the kind of damage that he was left with. And he was then, as a consequence of that, very nervous about being in contact with men generally. He got this phobia about men. He didn't want to be near men in a bus or in a street or anywhere. So he became a recluse. And we put a leaflet through his door and he responded to this leaflet and he asked if someone could visit with him. And so I went to visit with him and I was the first man that he had interacted with since this terrible event in his life. And I was able by the grace of the Lord to lead him to salvation, to point him to the Savior. And so he wouldn't come to church because of this phobia. He was living in fear of even being in church around men. He just didn't want to be anywhere where there was men, even church men. And so I was working with this man and so because he couldn't come to church and it was the time before the internet, I would bring him tape recordings of the sermons on Sunday. Every week I'd bring him a tape recording and he could listen to the sermon on Sunday. And then I'd come the following week to visit with him and here was the interesting thing. He would have an A4 block of paper. And he would have anywhere up to 30 or 40 questions written on that block of paper about things he had heard in the sermon. It was kind of humorous, really, because if you're a pastor, if you're a preacher, you know, and particularly if you're preaching regularly like I am, you know, very often you finish a Sunday evening service, guess where my thoughts are? Next Sunday service. So I'm always a sermon ahead. So although I'm preaching here from James chapter 1 and verses 22 to 25, I've already taken a look at verses 26 onward. So I'm already thinking about next week's sermon. So I was visiting this man, so I'd give him, say I'd give him this Sunday sermon, and then a week would pass and I'd preach the next Sunday sermon, and then I'd visit him, and he'd have 30-some questions about the previous Sundays, the two Sundays. before sermon. And sometimes I couldn't remember myself what I'd said. He would say to me, you said this, what did you mean by that? And he would quote what I'd said. And I'd say, did I say that? And he'd say, yes you did. And I'd say, well give me the context. In what context did I say that? And then he would help me with the context and I could answer his question. But here's the thing, this man was showing much more earnestness and seriousness about studying the word of God than the people who were actually attendant at the service. It was quite a remarkable thing. See, many of those people came to church, heard the sermon, left, and were largely unaffected by the sermon. And maybe they would even go home, and maybe you do this, you go home to critique the sermon, or critique the pastor's performance. The pastor was good today. Oh, he wasn't as good as he was last week. Oh, he was all right, but he isn't as good as that guest speaker we had. And whatever your take on it is. I remember preaching a sermon one day and a fellow came to me after the service and he corrected the pronunciation of one word, a Hebrew word, an anglicized Hebrew word. He said that I had pronounced the word wrong. And I thought to myself, 45 minutes that fella sat there and listened to the sermon, and the only thing that bothered him was that the one word was pronounced wrong. And sometimes that's where we're at. That's a casual glance at the scriptures. That's just looking at the things superficially. It's not going any deeper. It's not asking questions. It's not searching. It's not taking root. And there's a real difficulty there, because if that's the way you approach the Word of God, you end up having very shallow roots and you're easily deceived, easily blown over by every wind of doctrine, easily taken in by every false teacher. easily led by any video that comes up, any preacher that comes up on Google that you happen to find that you've listened to. And you don't have the wherewithal to deal with what is being said as to whether it is true or it is false. Now look at verse 25. James deals now with the true doer of the Word. He says of the man who's a doer of the word, but who so looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. So here's the The flip side, the opposite side of the coin. Here's the other fellow, and his is no casual glance at Scripture. He's taking a long, lingering look at the Scriptures. He's doing some soul searching. He wants the Bible to have an impact upon his life. He's searching the Scriptures, not to find out what's in them, but that the Scriptures might find out what's in him. He's reading the scriptures not for information. He's reading the scriptures for transformation. He's wanting the Lord to do a work in his life. And notice it says, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty. You see the word looketh there? It has the idea of a careful, earnest look. It's the same word that is used of the Apostle John on the resurrection morning when he went to the empty tomb. It says, and he's stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying. In other words, he didn't just glance and say, oh, you know what? He's not there. No, he got in there. You know, you understand that in ancient Israel, in fact, even to this day, you can go and visit the tombs in Israel and they're not graves like we have graves where you just have an opening in the ground and you drop the body in there and it's easy to find, easy to see. No, the ancient tombs of Israel were like little compartments with rooms, separate rooms for different purposes. John came to the tomb he didn't just glance and say oh he's not here no he said where is he could he be here and he's looking in this part and looking in that part in other words he's trying to figure out where Jesus is gone on the resurrection morning he's been very careful to make sure he's got it right his was no casual glance that particular day. He intended to put that tomb under scrutiny to make sure that he understood exactly what it was his eyes were telling him. Not a casual glance, but a careful gaze at what had taken place. And this is how we really approach the Word of God. And I wonder, as you come out to services on Sunday morning, or perhaps as you're reading your Bible during the week, And do you seek with the spirit's help to get beneath the surface of what you're reading? To go a little bit deeper. to search every nook and cranny of God's Word, to meditate upon it and get anything out of it that you possibly can. You might say, well, Pastor, that's fair enough, but that second fellow, he gives more attention to the Scripture, sure, but how is he better off than the first fellow? How is he, in any sense, benefited by that? Well, notice he sees the Scriptures as the perfect law of liberty. He's set free by the scriptures. Jesus said, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. He's enjoying the abundance of life that Christ brings. This man knows the truth. He knows it exists in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word, and in the scriptures, the written word. And he knows that obedience to the things of God is not going to bring him into bondage. It's going to bring him into slavery. You see, here's the devil's lie. The devil tells you that if you submit to the word of God in some way, you're going to be in bondage. You're going to be entrapped, that your life is going to be somehow hampered, that you're going to be somehow put in a box and not able to enjoy the things of this life. Listen, the opposite is true. If you'll obey the Lord, you'll enjoy freedom and liberty and blessing. Joy! So this man has not only got discernment, but he also has depth. Notice what it says, "...whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein." Literally, is faithful to it, and perseveres looking into it. You know, when Paul visited the city of Athens, he met two kinds of Greek philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics. And if you were to go to Acts 17 and read that passage there, you'll see that they referred to Paul as a babbler. What meaneth this babbler, they said. And they used a very specific Greek word, spermalogos. And it means, it's a reference to a particular little bird that lived in that vicinity. And that little bird would just go out, and it would pick a little seed here, and a tiny little seed there, and it would flit around from place to place, picking up these minute seeds, but never really getting to the meat of something. And that's how they described Paul. Now, of course, it was an insult to Paul. Paul wasn't that way at all. Paul was a scholar of God's Word. But I wonder, does that describe you and I? Are we just, is our approach to the Bible just a little verse here and a little verse there? Oh, and this little meme over here that I read on the internet, that'll do me for the day. Well, this little thought, this little poem, is that us? Is your Bible time personally a case of fits and starts? Or are you spending time in God's Word? You know, is it marked by a determined discipline that God promises to reward? You say, well, I make it my business during the day at some point to spend time with the Lord and His Word. As one preacher put it, God does not reveal the deep things of the Spirit to the casual Christian who is merely dropping in for a chat. Are you guilty of chatting with the Lord? I'm not suggesting for one moment that you have to spend hours and hours and hours in study. I appreciate that I'm in a very privileged position. You know, I can do that. Thankfully, because of the nature of my calling and my vocation, I have this joyous privilege of studying the word of God for hours and hours and hours and hours. You don't have that time. But you do have some time, and you should make the most of the time that you have. You know, we've got an hour and a half, most of us in a week, most of the men will take an hour and a half and maybe watch football, or watch a movie, or do something else, watch something else on television. And we've got all this time for these things, and so little time for the word of God. Is that really right? Is that who we should be? That the things of this world occupy our minds far more than the things of God occupy our minds. Does your Bible reading have any structure to it? Do you linger in the word of God? You know, a very simple question, are you here for the midweek meeting? Because in the midweek meeting, we spend the best part of an hour studying the Word of God together. It's not like a Sunday morning either. We touch on things in midweek that we never deal with on a Sunday morning. You should come to the midweek meeting. You say, well, pastor, I would be there, but I have to be at this place and that place and the other place. Priorities, friends. Get your priorities right. Remember what we said last week? Swift to hear. Slow to speak. Slow to wrath. Swift to hear. You know, we presented that thought last week, and I appreciate it already. Did you hear it? Of course you heard it, but did you listen? Or did your brain filter it out and say, well, that's not a noise I want to hear. I heard it, but you don't want to take any notice of that. Well, just filter that out like the heartbeat. Well, filter that out like somebody shuffling on their seat. That has no relevance to me. No, no, no. We've got to allow the Word of God to make a difference in our lives and our outlook. And that's the difference between someone who hears and someone who listens and obeys. The true doer has discernment. He knows God's word will radically liberate his life. He has depth. He dwells in the scriptures. But he doesn't stop there. He is disciplined and determined to obey whatever it is he has learned. Look what it says. Let me give this to you from the Amplified New Testament. He being not a heedless listener who forgets, but an active doer who obeys, he shall be blessed in his doing, in his life of obedience. Now notice that it's in his deed or his doing that he's blessed, not in his listening. I think probably every week at some point, somebody will contact me somewhere and say, I listened to this message, whether it was in church or online or whatever, and it was a blessing to me. And that's great, I'm glad it's a blessing to you. But the real blessing is not in the listening or the hearing. The real blessing is in the doing. So I'm going to obey what was said. That's the reality. He's not blessed here because of his biblical knowledge or the acquisition of knowledge. He's blessed because he is obedient to the revealed will of God. This is, is this not the repeated message of scripture? Listen, Psalm 99, the judgments of the Lord are right, and in the keeping of them, and in the keeping of them, there is great reward. Luke's Gospel, 1128, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. Do it. John 13, 17, the Lord Jesus says, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them, if you do them. You know, a father once told about the problems he was having getting his son to clean his room. And the son would always agree to tidy up his room. He would acknowledge that his room was a mess and that it should be tidied up, but then he wouldn't follow through with the tidying of the room. But after school, the young man left home and he joined the Royal Marines. When he came home after boot camp, after basic training, his father asked him what he learned in the service. He said, Dad, I learned the meaning of the word now. How many times have we said that to our children? I want you to do so and such. Yes, I will. No. What you're saying to that child is your obedience is to be a medium. You're not to deliberate about it. You're not to sit on this command. It's something that you need to do instantly. You see, folks, instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there really is. Delayed obedience is disobedience. And here's the thing, sometimes God's word comes to us, and as I said last week, it brings us to uncomfortable places. It faces us with difficult choices. Maybe God's word comes to us and says to you, you ought to be baptized. You say, no, I'm filtering that out. I don't want to be baptized. This is a command to obey. In a few moments we'll sit at the Lord's table, and you will sit there on the premise, and I'm not judging you individually, but people will sit there on the premise that they're walking with the Lord, and yet they are deliberately disobeying his command to be baptized. Deliberately disobeying it. Or maybe you should join the church. You say, oh, I'm filtering that out. I don't want to join the church. No, no, no, no, no, listen. This is the will of God. This is in the word of God. In the Bible times, they joined the church. You say, well, I'm a member of the universal church. Well, when does the universal church meet? What's the time of its services? When do they gather for ordinances? When do they have their baptisms? Who's their pastor? When does he do his visits? Universal church, friends, doesn't meet until the rapture and the resurrection, and then the local church is done away with. But between times, the local church has primacy over the universal church. You should be a member of a local church. Or maybe you hear the scriptures telling you you should forgive somebody. Oh, I'm gonna filter that out. I don't wanna hear that. I read it, I heard it, but I don't wanna obey that, because if I obey that, well, This means I'm gonna have to change in some way. No, no, no. Immediate obedience is the only kind of obedience there ought to be. Any delay in obedience is disobedience. A true doer of the word has learned the meaning of the word now. So that when God says it, he says, right there, right then, that's what I'm going to do. God said it. That's what I'm going to do. His obedience is immediate and his obedience is certain. Well, what about you this morning? Which of these two characters best reflects your life? Are you a mere hearer or are you a true doer? Because we know from God's word where his blessing rests. not upon the hearer, but upon the doer, the one who acts upon what he hears. May God bless these thoughts to your hearts this morning.