Be Doers, Not Just Hearers

Well, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee Coffee and devotions this morning. We're at James chapter 1 beginning at verse 19. What's fake religion? What's real religion? Let's have some coffee. We'll pray. We'll get into God's Word It's too hot for you? You sure? Yeah. Okay. After I'll drink all of it. Oh, you'll drink all of it. Okay, let's pray.
God, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessing it is to get to read your word. And we thank you for time together. Lord, we pray that your spirit would be with us. Teach us, God. Please do not let these words just go into our ears and just flitter away.
But God, we pray that it would Seep deep down to our hearts take root in our lives and play out Lord as we are united to Christ and bear good fruit in Jesus's name. Amen Okay, so here we go. We're at James chapter 1 beginning at verse 21 How about you read verse 21 and I'll read 22 through the end.
I Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and leave Receive Implanted But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his own tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. pure and undefiled religion before God, and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
Well, we got three questions to ask ourselves. A, what's this? About, B, what's the best verse to summarize, C, what are we called to do? All right, so A, what's this about, B, what's the best verse to summarize, and C, what are we called to do? So, what is this about, Dandan?
I think it's it's that if you're just Sitting around and you're like oh look at me. Yeah, oh, I believe in God But you actually don't it's you useless. Well. How do you show that you don't actually believe in God? Yeah, oh, I'm so cool. Yeah, oh Okay, so what does it look like to show that you believe in God? Okay, so you think there's a certain amount of pride in this with people deceiving themselves? All right So there's a few things here, right?
So I think the first side part is in verse 21 that you read is that How do we show that we're actually saved? We turn away from filthiness. We turn away from sin. This is no different than what Jesus says. Repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Can somebody be saved and not repent of their sins? No, if you love your sin, but you're saying you love God, you don't.
Yeah, right. Now, does that mean sometimes that we might still get ensnared by sin? Yeah. Yeah, sometimes. But do we love that sin? No. No, we should cast off that sin that so easily ensnares us, right? And so, that's the first thing. The second thing is not just being hearers of the Word only, But? Doers. Doers. Right, yeah. So if you come and you read your Bible and you listen to the sermon and you hear God's word and you think, oh yeah, that's good, that's good, that's good.
And then you go home and it doesn't change you at all. One iota. Yeah, he says you're deceiving yourselves. I should go make a fire. Well, the point being, you deceive yourself. You're like a person who went to the bathroom, and you looked in the mirror, you saw your face, you turned around, you walked away, and what'd you do? You forget. That's like going to church. You go to church, you read the Bible, you see what God says about who you're supposed to be and who you naturally are, and then you leave the church, you walk out the doors, and you forget. And you go back to living like a non-Christian. My God says, don't do that. Don't do that.
But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty, into the law of Jesus, right, sees the grace and the love that God has poured out in our hearts by Jesus Christ, and we continue in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, that one will be blessed in what he does. Well, yeah, but was there a point in time in which David kind of, it seems like he almost just forgot or didn't think about God's law at all?
Yeah, the same one who said, oh, how I love your law. It is my study all the day. It makes me wiser than my foes. Its precepts with me stay. That same one is the one who would then sleep with another man's wife and even have her husband killed. Pretty horrible and wicked, isn't it? Yep. Yeah, he deserved death. But did he stay there? No. No, God's law was pointed out to him by the prophet Nathan. And did he just say, well, OK, well, that's life. No, he repented. He turned from his evil ways. He turned from that wickedness.
So we can't just be those who hear about the good things we should be doing and hear about how Jesus loved the orphan and the widow and cared for the poor and the oppressed and then turn around and not do any of that ourselves. Actually, that's what he says here. What is pure and undefiled religion before God the Father? It's not just belief it starts with beliefs that's for sure but true belief does something What this true belief in Christ right belief in Christ unites us to Jesus so believing in Jesus Unites us to him by his Holy Spirit And then from being united to him, it's like he's a vine.
So now we're like a branch that's put on to him. What should a good branch do? It should stay there. It should both stay there, but... It should produce fruit too. Yeah, it should produce fruit. If it's a fruit tree. Yeah, well, we're supposed to be a fruitful tree, aren't we? So what are the fruits here that James points out? What are some of the good fruits? Pure and undefiled religion. Mangoes taste good. No, I don't think he's talking about mangoes. Did you notice this? Verse 27.
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble. And to keep oneself unspotted from the world. And so caring for people who can't even ever pay you back. Caring for the most vulnerable of society. And also, keeping yourself unpolluted from the world.
All right, so you can't go and run barefoot in the dirt anymore, because that's what this is saying. You would be polluted by that dirt. That stinks. Do you think that that's what this is talking about? No, it means being polluted and sin. Yeah, being polluted and sin, that's right. Good. So, great. What would you underline as the best verse to summarize all of this? All of them? Well, I have verse 26 and 27 underlined, but I can see people underlining other things, like maybe verse 25. We didn't even talk about verse 26, right? About the tongue. You gotta bridle your own tongue. James is gonna go on more in that in chapter three, so we'll leave that there. Let's talk about seek calling.
What do you think you're called to do? How does this show you Jesus Christ? Well, don't get sent. Don't get polluted in sin? Okay, how do you keep yourself from getting polluted by sin? Ask God to help. Okay. How do you know what sin is? Well, you know something's wrong and somebody's trying to make you do it. So how do you know something's wrong? Because God told you it's wrong. Where did God tell you it's wrong? In the world. That's right. That's right.
So we go to the scriptures. That's where we find out what's sin and not sin, right? And so we go to God's word and we look at that and we try to figure out, okay, is this sin or not? And then if it is sin, what should we do? Don't do it. Don't do it. And if we have done it, what should we do?
Well, yeah confess repent Maybe if the sin was against somebody restore and be reconciled good and is that against the the grace of Jesus that says that By grace you have been saved and that by faith not through works Is this saying that you're saved by those good works?
If you if Jesus didn't die we won't even be here Yeah, so it's because of Jesus that we do these good works, isn't it? Yeah, good. Hey, you ready to pray? All right. Lord, we thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the blessing it is to get to read your word, to spend time together. Lord, we pray that you would please help us. Lord, we know that we are tempted towards hypocritical and dead religion. And so, Father, we pray that you would please turn our hearts to Jesus Christ, our only hope in life and death. And as we look into that perfect law of liberty, Father, we pray that we would have good works because of your spirit in us. Father, we thank you for what you have done in our lives and what you continue to do in our lives.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, may God bless you. May you walk in. No, coffee's not done yet. Oh, you wanna drink it, though? It's pretty warm, but it's not hot. Well, may the Lord bless you as you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus. May you be not just a hearer of God's word, but a doer. We'll see you next time. Bye.