Well, have you ever wondered how we decided to do church? Have you ever thought about how that came about? Was there some kind of strategy, meeting with a whiteboard, where different pastors were offering different ideas? Was there some kind of focus group that was done with the key stakeholders of the church where we heard from them? Was there a survey that was put out where people were able to respond and say, this is what I want the church to be like? Or was it we looked at this book and it has shaped how Jesus wants his church to be? And so, this morning, I would like to turn our attention to a passage that God wants you to consider because he wants it to shape our church and he wants it to shape you and how you operate in his church. And that comes from the book of James. So, if you could turn to the book of James, chapter 1, for our time in God's Word this morning, I'd invite you to turn there. We're going to be looking specifically at verses 22 through 25. So, once you've found that in your Bible, I'd invite you to stand for the public reading of Scripture. We're going to pay attention to this text and do what it says together. This is the reading of God's Word, James 1:22, where James says,

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 who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 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.

That's the reading of God's Word. You can have your seat. And as I was thinking about this text, I remembered the story of the early church because James, who wrote this, he became a leader in the church in Jerusalem. This is James, who is actually the actual brother of Jesus, not James the apostle, and he became one of the leaders in this church in Jerusalem that God established. And in the story of the first day, where there were the original disciples that were there after Jesus died and rose again and ascended, but then on the day of Pentecost, Peter preached a sermon, and thousands of people got saved, and thousands of people started being followers of Jesus. And now, here's the first church that is established after Jesus ascended into heaven, and it says, read with me on the screen. This is Acts 2:42, and it says, "And they,” this whole church, this group of disciples, they “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and of prayers.” And if you look at James 1:1, you say, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.” And if you follow the story in the book of Acts, you realize that persecution came for this church, and it came very quickly. That the same people who killed Jesus did not like people proclaiming his name and following him, and so they persecuted the church, and that actually led to many people actually having to leave the city of Jerusalem and scatter all throughout Judea and even throughout different parts of Israel and different parts of the world. And you know what they did? They brought the good news of the gospel with them, and they started proclaiming it.

And so, what the religious leaders thought would end the church, actually led to the spreading of the church. And so, James is still there in Jerusalem, but he's still got great concern for all the people that have gone other places, and now they're doing church in other places, and he's wanting them to remember what it really looks like to be devoted to the apostles' teaching, that even from the very beginning of the church, it was like men were going to stand up and they were going to say what God's Word had to say. They wanted to bring God's Word to the assembly of people, and it says here in James 1:22, it says, "But be doers of the word.” James wants us to know clearly that we can't be devoted to the teaching of God's Word like the church should be if we're not being doers of the Word that we hear.

So, let's get that down for point number one, if you're taking notes here this morning: You need to “Realize the Bible is a call to action.” That when you're hearing the Bible proclaimed here at Compass HB, when you're reading the Bible on your own, it is calling you to do something. There is a response that God's Word wants to create in you. I mean, you'll see throughout our text there is a contrast between people who are just hearing it and then people who are actually doing something in response to what they've heard.

The Bible is not just meant to give you information; it's meant to transform you, to transform the way you think and live and act. And so, I want to ask you a question. Are you someone that actively responds when you hear God's Word? Is that the way you're living your life here this morning, that you're saying, hey, each and every time I hear God's Word preached, when I show up to a service like this on a weekend, I actually have in my mind that something about me is going to change based on what I heard. That I am going to be walking out not the same, not living the same, not thinking the same as when I walked in. That’s your expectation for the way that we're going to be devoted to the teaching here at Compass HB. I mean, a lot of times, we could walk away from a sermon and maybe there's a conversation after. What did you think of the sermon? Always good. Ever had a conversation like that? That's like the classic post-church conversation, and maybe we're going to see as we study this text that God might want that conversation to change. He might want that conversation to be a little bit more like, Wow, it wasn't just good, here's what I'm going to do in response to what I just heard. Right? And look at what he says. He says, "But be doers of the word.” So, that's the thing that James wants to encourage the people towards. But then there's this thing he wants to help the people be careful against, and he says, "Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” That you could come and you could hear and you could actually have it hit your ears and you're actually considering what's being said, but then nothing actually happens as a result of that hearing. And look at what he says. This is very concerning because it says that people who are hearers only are deceiving themselves.

I mean, isn't self-deception the worst form of deception that there is? And this is a kind of self-deception that is, I believe, rampant in Southern California. That does not seem like it only would affect a few people. In fact, if you turn with me to Matthew, chapter 7 in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapter 7, verses 21 to 23, or you could just hear me as I read these words of Jesus when he was proclaiming, when he was preaching a sermon, when he was talking to a great many people in the Sermon on the Mount. He says this in Matthew 7, verse 21. He says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who” what? What does it say? What's that next word? The one who “does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” You want to know the people who are going to get to be with me forever in the paradise I'm creating and building for them? It's the people who are doers of my Father's will, the people who say this is what God says, I'm going to do it. He says in verse 22, “On that day,” that day when it's the judgment day, when it's finally being like who's in and who's out, and Jesus is the one who decides, he's going to have the final say and the final word. He says, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,’” that you didn't become someone who actually does the will of my Father who is in heaven. You kept doing your own will. You kept living in your sin. You kept doing the things that I hate.
And does it seem like he says that's only going to be a few people who are self-deceived into thinking that, or does Jesus say there are going to be many people who are going to think that way? I can't sugarcoat this for you. I can't. I can't say it any way different than that. When we're talking about self-deception, that's serious, and I know what probably most of us in this room are thinking when we hear about people who are self-deceived. We're probably thinking, well, that's not me. Right? That's the problem is that I'm deceiving myself. I am not being true, and I am the one who is suffering as a result of it. I mean, deceiving themselves, have you ever been around someone that you can tell they were self-deceived, but they couldn't tell it? Right? You ever had a friend like that? Those are not the people that are the most enjoyable people to be around. I played basketball in high school with one of those people. I went to a small private school, and so the first the tryouts were actually like the first practice of the year. If you wanted to be on the team, you were on the team, right? So very low-level basketball, right? Like, not high-level basketball. It's not impressive at all. And I have this one guy, and I won't say his name, but he thought he was one of the better players on the team, and he was the only one who thought he was one of the better players on the team. If you know anything about basketball, if you see someone dribbling a basketball and their eyes remain fixed on the basketball as they dribble, no court vision, no ability to dribble and trash talk and pass at the same time, right? When you see someone and they're making defensive movements and you realize there's no one actually near them that they are defending, right? Like I mean, that's the level that this guy was at, but yet he thought he was at a high level on the team, and there was no convincing him otherwise, right? As hard as we tried, as long as we tried, this guy was self-deceived. He thought he was somewhere that he was not, and I even remember this because when my wife and I started having children and oh it's a boy and what are we going to name the boy? Maybe this guy's name actually came up in the list of suggestions that my wife maybe had and it was instantly vetoed by me and I was like I knew a guy with this name one time, and I've met many other people with that name who are great and godly people, but that guy and his self-deception left such a bad memory in my mind that I was like, no, I am not going to call my child by his name. And that's the way that God might think about some of us here in the room, is we're thinking we're somewhere where we're not. And is that leaving a bad taste in his mouth? Is that him thinking, I don't know if I'm going to call that person my child? Like that's how serious this is. That's how serious this self-deception is.

So, let's get that down for point number two: You need to “Beware the danger of self-deception.” James says that people are deceiving themselves. Jesus says, hey, many people are going to realize that they deceive themselves in the end. And so, how could we know? Like James says that, and what he compares this person who is self-deceived to, he uses the comparison of a mirror. And a mirror, it's a great call to action for many of us, right? When we wake up in the morning and we walk into a room with the mirror and we see ourselves, we think now is the time to act, right? Like I did not wake up all put together. There is some work that needs to be done to this to get it presentable, so I can face other people without shame, without embarrassment, right? He says, hold the mirror up, and it's going to show us who we are. And right before this, look with me in verse 21. It says, “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

So, if there was someone here, and I'm not surprised to think that there might be more than a few someones here who right now are kind of in this self-deception that James is trying to address. Well, James, right before this, he said there's a way that you've got to receive the Word, and the word he used was with “meekness,” that there's got to be a humility that the thought is going to be God's Word has some kind of authority in my life that I am willing to give it the place to edit me, to change how I think, to change how I act, to change my attitudes, to change what is in what place in what order of importance in my life. We've got to receive the Word with humility, with meekness. I mean, people who are self-deceived, they don't treat the Word like it has authority in their life, right? Like even the thought that God has the right to tell us what to do. If He's God, we obey Him. He's God, we're not, and he has these commands, right? Like when I say that word "commands,” some of us it's like, "ooh, commands, bad.” No, no, no, commands are good, right? Like this whole thought of obedience to God's command, it's fallen on hard times in the American church today. There are many people who are slandering people who want to obey?

Let's find a buzzword we can use that would make people feel wrong about what they're doing. Like sometimes people want to say, oh, if you're someone who wants to obey the commands of Jesus, you're a legalist. Oh, yeah. Nobody wants to be a legal. I don't want to be a legalist. No, but a legalist, do you know what a legalist is? It's someone who's trusting in their works for their salvation. They're trusting in their doing of the law to save them. They're thinking, well, because I did this and I didn't do that, that means that I'm going to be acceptable before the Lord. Or a legalist is someone that they're not actually looking at the commands of God. They're adding their own commands on top of those commands, and they're actually making their commands just as important as God's command, if not more important than God's commands. That's what a legalist is. You want to know what we should call someone who's zealous to obey the commands of Jesus? A Christian, someone who loves Jesus. I mean, look with me on the screen. I have a few verses from Jesus Himself. Look at Luke 6:46-49, where Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

You know what Jesus is saying is like, hey, someone who does what I say, they're going to live a secure life, right? They're not going to be facing this type of ruin that the people who don't do what I say are going to face. I mean, look at what it says in John 14:15. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” You want to know what Jesus' love language is? Obedience. It's not something I came up with. That's not a Compass Bible Church teaching. That is a quote from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. Did anybody read Ecclesiastes this week? Do you guys remember the end where we finally got to the point of the whole book right at the end? Ecclesiastes 12:13, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” There are some people that they're like, that's not my chief end. That's not what I'm going for in my life. I haven't given God's Word the authority it should have. There's not humility in response to the Word. There's actually pride. And you know what those people are going to find out over and over again in their life is that God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.

So, if you haven't given God's word the authority to set the tone for your life, to tell you specifically how you're going to think and act and operate, then it's quite possible you could be self-deceived here this morning, right? I mean, even if we were to look at Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, look at this. It says, " And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And then, what does it say to do with those people? Teaching “them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” You know what is the church supposed to do? Well, if we said, hey, we're going to not talk about obedience, we're not going to talk about what God wants us to do, we're just going to talk about what God has done for us, and not talk about what we're supposed to do in response to what God has done to us. You know what we'd be doing? We'd be in sin. We'd be betraying the mission that Jesus gave to us. We'd be betraying this mandate that he told us this is what you're supposed to do. It's like we would be saying, yeah, no, thank you. We're going to do it our own way. We’ve got this whiteboard and these focus groups and this survey. How evil would it be for us to do that? But yet there are many people doing that all over America today.

And so, I know sometimes here at the church we get that feedback, right? We're not sending out the survey, but people, they're filling out the card and they're sending it in, and they're saying things like, why do we talk so much about obedience? Why does that always seem like it's an emphasis here at our church? And if that's you, if that's the way that you felt, I just want to ask you: stop asking us to change, because we're not going to change. We are not going to stop talking about obedience because we're not going to stop loving Jesus at this church, we'll never do that. If that's what you want, you will be forever dissatisfied at this church. Now, maybe you're like, okay, well, that's not me. I've given the Word authority in my life. I'm willing to hear what it has to say. I'm thinking, okay, yeah, God's Word, it's got something to say in my life, but maybe there are other things that are being said too, and if I'm really going to humble myself and receive it with meekness, well, what if someone else says something different than what the Word says? What if the Word says this, but then all the modern day scientists seem like they're saying some other thing? Which am I going to listen to, right? Or what if I'm actually hearing the word proclaimed here, and it's like, oh, it seems like it says that if you just read it, oh, it seems like it's saying that. But then I remember at some point in my life, I heard someone else say something that, oh no, it's not like what it says is not really what it means. Who am I going to listen to? What if it's like, well, this is what the Bible clearly says, and someone's explaining it to me so that I can clearly understand it, but I feel this other thing. Which am I going to humble myself before? Am I going to listen to my feelings, or am I going to listen to what the Word has to say?

Now, go with me to verse 26 of James, chapter 1. Right after our passage, it says this: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but what does it say? Deceives his heart, this person's religion is” what? “Worthless”. So, another way that you might know that you're self-deceived is if there's a command of God that you just say, yeah, not going to listen to that. Like there's maybe some certain command, and one of the ones that James wanted to call out is the bridling of your tongue. That when you hear the Word and what it has to say, it's actually going to change the way that you talk. I mean, it's common in America today where basically we just spew out whatever comes to our mind and say exactly what we thought or felt in that moment. You know what following Jesus is going to do? It's going to put a bridle on your tongue. It's going to direct your speech in a certain way, like a bit would, or like the trappings of a horse, where you're going to be able to tell the horse where to go. The Word is going to do that with the way that you talk, but it seems like it's very common that I've heard people say here at this church that like it's okay for us to say things this way. Have you ever heard someone say, hey, it's okay for Christians to cuss? It's okay for Christians to tell the same type of crude jokes that other people at the office or on the job site are telling, like, yeah, it's totally fine. That's not a problem. Like, if you say that's a problem, you're actually a legalist.

You know what James has to say in the Word? If you don't bridle your tongue, your religion, it's worthless. It's worthless. I mean, look with me at a couple commands, that makes it seem like Paul and James are on the same page. Ephesians 4:29-30 says, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” I mean, it goes on. Look with me in chapter 5, verse 6. It says, "Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Hey, you might hear what the Word says, but then there might be other people saying other things. Word is saying, hey, you're going to have to bridle your tongue. You're going to have to install Ephesians 4:29 filter on your speech, so only things that are good for building up are coming out of your mouth. But then there are other people who are saying, no, say whatever you want to, you're free. You know those people. What James has to say about their religion is it's worthless. If you've heard someone say that and they're preaching that, unfollow them, unsubscribe to them. You don't want to follow them in anything that they're saying. It's worthless, completely, utterly Worthless, and I think this is a danger that I've seen a number of times here at our church, where even in fellowship groups, I've been a lot in a lot of different fellowship groups, kind of like sat into different groups and led them from time to time, and I've seen it even among the fellowship groups at our church, where it's like, hey, the sermon was preached and the word was explained, and it's kind of clear what God is telling us to give the kind of response he wants us to have to this specific text of Scripture. But then in the groups, it's like I see people casting about, and it's like, let me try to do some extreme hypothetical scenario that is not real in any way in their own life, but like, like they're actually expending a lot of work thinking, how do I not have to do what this told me to do? And I'm kind of like, why aren't we flipping that around and trying to do work to figure out how are we actually going to go do what God is telling us to do?

So, if you're kind of like, yeah, here's this command, I don't need to do that. There's a good chance that you're self-deceived. Now, I mean, look at chapter 2 of James, where he says, "My brothers, show no” what does it say in chapter two, verse one? "My brothers, show no...” Now, when you heard that word “partiality,” did you think, oh, this is this epic sin? Did you shudder when you heard partiality? Right, James, he goes on to give this example of like, hey, you're having your assembly, you're having church, and two different types of people. One guy's really rich and he's dressed in a fine way, and one guy's really poor and he's dressed shabby. And you prioritize the rich person, and you're like, here's this great seat for you. Let us usher you to the to the front if those are the great seats. And yes, some of you guys have found the great seats in the front, right? Like, or maybe some of you are like, no, let us usher you to the back because that's the best seat, right? I don't know what it is, but we put this position of prominence to this person and to the poor man. We're like, sit over there, sit down at my feet. Like, you don't even deserve a seat. And look at what it says in verse 4. Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has God not chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love him, but you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones that blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well, but if you show partiality, you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery,” also said, "Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you've become a transgressor of the law, that there could be this way where it's like, okay, I'm going to do the Word. I'm going to be a doer of the Word. I'm just going to be a selective doer of the Word, right? Well, these are the commands I really like, and these are the commands I kind of neglect, I kind of don't pay attention to. I mean, could partiality be one of those things where it's like, yeah, I'm not murdering anybody, I'm not committing adultery, but I'm just actually only loving the people that have something to give me that I want, and not caring about these other people that don't have anything that I want. That's evil. God's Word would have to say, hey, love your neighbor as yourself. It doesn't matter what you're trying to get from them. You're actually trying to give something to them. You're trying to care about them. You didn't have anything to give Jesus, but he cared about you. Now that the command is to pass that on, to love your neighbor as you would yourself. See, we could be selective. We could be like, "Well, okay, I'm feeling good about myself because I don't do this and I don't do this, but here I am doing this. We could be selective and be self-deceived.

Now go back to our passage because it says, "If anyone's a hearer of this word,” this self-deceived person, “and not a doer,” what's he like? He's “like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror,” and some of you guys that you have experience in this department, you did that this morning. You spent some quality time with the mirror, right? I can tell. I can tell. Does anybody want to say there's someone else in your house that spends too much time in front of the mirror in the morning? Okay, it's probably good to not out your family here at church, but you know you're thinking that. I don't know if you've had multiple siblings that you had to share with, and maybe one of the siblings was more in in the mirror than other. Not going to say who that was in my family growing up, but it says that he looks intently at his natural face in the mirror. I mean, if you woke up and you saw, oh wow, my hair's messed up, or like, have you ever been in that situation where someone tells you’ve got some food on your face, and it's like, oh, for a mirror, right? Like, oh, let me turn my camera back around and look at myself and make sure I’ve got it all. But if you saw that you had food on your face, and you just walked away, and you did nothing about it, what good would it be that you actually looked in the mirror? The mirror is there to help you. The mirror is there to show you who you really are. But if you don't change anything as a result of what you see, what good is it? And look at this phrase here. It says, "Who looks intently at his face in a mirror.” If God's word is a mirror to us, if it's meant to show us who we are, so that things could change, so that things could adjust in our life, some of you guys are like, well, I couldn't be self-deceived because I'm actually studying the Bible, I'm actually reading it, I am paying close attention. This looks intently not like the person who thinks, oh, I just kind of glanced at the Bible, or I kind of had that one half of a verse of the day that I lightly touched in the morning. Like, no, this person who's self-deceived, they might be a know-it-all. They might feel like they know a lot of theology. Oh, you get me going on eschatology, and I can go all the way. I can debate this about theology, and I've read this book, and I've read that book, and I know this, and I know that. The question isn't what you know. The question is, what are you doing with what you know? If you know all about eschatology, are you evangelizing people and saying, I want to hasten the coming of the Lord because I know he's coming back, and I actually want to be prepared for him, and I want to be doing his work while I wait for him to return. Not everybody who knows about the end is actually living like the end is real and coming soon, right? I've met a lot of people that they are getting degrees in theology, and they can write all these scholarly papers, but it seems like they've missed the fact that the Bible is talking about them. The Bible is addressing them and the way that they live their lives.

There's been this thought that is really wrong that we need to adjust, that you're mature in the Christian life if you know a lot of information, if you can cite things, if you know even some of the theological voices throughout church history and what they've said. Oh, you must be mature. It says in Hebrews 5:14 that the mature have actually had “their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” The people who are mature, not just the people who know things, the people who are mature are constantly practicing what they know. They're constantly making choices to avoid sin and do what God wants them to do. That's the mature person. You're not just mature based on what you know. And let me ask you this question: Do you really know it if you don't do it? I mean, you might know information, but if you can't actually act upon that information, you don't really know what you think you know. You might be self-deceived.

It's not what you know; it's what you do that defines you. And some of us, as we're coming in here today, we might have to be honest and say, maybe there's a chance I'm actually deceived in some way. Maybe I've actually not been thinking clearly about myself. God wants me to be a doer of the Word. Well, let's just think. Can you remember the last two sermons that you heard? If you came here the last couple of weeks, can I ask you, did you do anything in response to what you heard over the last couple of weeks? If a friend came up to you after the service and said, yeah, last week when you were here and we were both here, what did you do as a result of what you heard? Would you have something to say to them? Has your life changed this last week because you were here the week before this, or the week before that? Or if I was even to ask you, what did we talk about two weeks ago? Have some of you already forgotten that? You see how easy it is to be self-deceived? Oh, I'm not like those people. I'm not like those people. All I got to do is just sit here in the room and walk out and say it was a good sermon and do nothing, and I'm well on my way to deceiving myself because I'm not being a doer of the Word. I'm being a hearer only in my life. And so, that's something that that James wants us to be very careful about. He's wanting to warn everybody, hey, this whole like knowledge thing, it could puff up, but when you're actually doing it, that's going to build up. When you're actually loving people, when you're actually obeying God's commands, that's when it's going to lead to real progress in your life. And so, it says in verse 25. So, we don't want to be this person that looks at himself, and the Word is showing us who we are and things that God wants to adjust. But then we just walk away, and it seems like we forget it, and we forget it really quickly. Like some of us, if I were to call you on Sunday night and be like, hey, what was the sermon about this morning? You'd be like, looking for your notes. Ah, it was about this.
We're going to remember it when it changes us. And so, look at what he says. He says on the positive side, verse 25, But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty,” and it's really interesting. I got into the Greek as I was studying this, and looks into like other places that this word is used. It's like we stoop down to look into the tomb. Like we're not these people who are putting ourselves above the Word and we're looking down on it. It's like we're actually getting down to look into it. We're actually humbling ourselves to look into the Word, “the one who looks into it, the perfect law, the law of liberty.” Like if you want to live a free life, if you want to be an American who loves freedom, you want to know the best way? It's through the commands of God. That is the way to live a free life, an abundant life, a life that is filled with joy. “The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,” we'll come back to that in a minute-being no here. Who forgets, but a doer who acts, being not a hearer who forgets. It doesn't really matter. I just think you want to think through this clearly. It doesn't matter how many sermons you've heard. It doesn't matter how much of the Bible you have read. You could forget all those sermons you've heard, you could forget the impact that the Bible wanted to have on your life. Some of you, it's like you're putting together a streak. How long is your streak of the sermons you've heard but have done nothing with? Some of us, it's scary to think how long that streak could be. And I know people come to our church and they remark. I've heard people say, like, "Well, I'm just interacting with the normal people here at Compass HB,” as if somehow if you are like a leader or a fellowship group, you're not normal. But like, hey, this person doesn't have any position; they're just a Christian here at the church.

And I've heard people be like, "How do these people know so much of the Bible? How are they able to quote this like they know it? Like I mean, was there some like epic Bible memorization program that you guys are doing? Like how did it go? And you want to know why a lot of people have a lot of Scripture that they can quote, that they can share. You want to know why that is? Because that Scripture actually changed them. They actually did something in response to that Scripture. Now, let me ask you: If you drive a car or you own a vehicle, do you have a VIN number? VIN number, a vehicle identification number. Do you know that number? Now I bet in a room this size, there's one guy who is into cars and into details, and he does know it. And well done, if that's you. But a lot of us, it's like I don't know my VIN number. When do I need to use my VIN number? Maybe when that off year comes and I actually have to get my car smogged, and what a hassle! And oh man, but then it's conveniently listed there on the piece of paper that the DMV mailed to me, so I don't even have to remember it because it's right there in front of me. Now, do you have a PIN number? Do you have a passcode for your phone or a number that gets you into the cash at the ATM? Do you know what that number is? I would hope so. Yeah, you know what that number is. Why do you know the one number and not the other number? Because you use it. You are going to actually be able to remember and quote accurately many passages of Scripture when you actually do something based on those passages of Scripture. Hey, I remember when this Scripture changed my life. I remember when I learned this, and I wasn't the same after I learned it as when I learned it for the first time because it's changing me because I'm actually doing something. It called me to action, and I responded to it. It says, "But a doer who acts,” literally in the Greek, it's like a doer who works. Like ergon is the word. Have you heard of ergonomics, the study of work? It's like a doer who works, a doer who says God's going to have something to say to me, and after he says it to me, I'm going to get to work doing what he told me to do.

Now, as you go through the Bible, there are different parts of the Bible. They say different types of things. Like we're going through Mark, where it's Mark and he is writing with intention his account of Jesus' life. There's a reason why he's writing it, but it comes across like a story, like it's unfolding, like we're seeing what happens. There are times where he's telling us things that Jesus said or things that Jesus taught, but it's unfolding like a story. And some of us recently read the Book of Proverbs, where it felt like, oh, this is not like a story. This is like a group of sayings that are all kind of linked together in rapid fire kind of style. Some of us just read Ecclesiastes, where I'm like, oh, I wonder if the guy who wrote Proverbs also wrote this Ecclesiastes book. Yes, it did. It was Solomon, and some of us are about to start reading this book called Esther, where it feels like a story. It's this epic story of God preserving his people in the nation of Israel. So, you're like, okay, well, what do I do when I hear a sermon and it's on a part, well, there's no command, so I didn't have to do anything. I'm thinking of Pastor Bobby's sermon last weekend, where he talked about you know, hey, there's going to be this guy with the water jug, and you're going to follow him, and he's going to lead you to this room. And the point is that God wants us to know something. God wants to affect the way that we think, that we should think. Hey, Jesus, he didn't just have a lucky thing that happened there, that by chance this all just happened to work out the way he predicted it. No, Jesus is actually the one in control of everything that's happening. It's kind of like we need to learn how to think that way. Like when things are going on in my life and they feel kind of out of control, well, I needed the Word to instruct me to change the way I think. That every day of my life, I'm thinking God is in control of all of this, and so even when things are a surprise to me, even when I didn't expect that, I couldn't foresee that, you want to know who saw that coming and who knows all about it? It's God. He's in control of what's going on.

So, when anxiety comes knocking on my door, I learn to think, hey, God's in control. I can pray to him about this. I don't have to let these feelings just take control of me and dominate me. I actually have another option because God's in control. The things that I'm kind of worried about because they're so clearly out of my control, I know the person who's in control, because I heard that sermon and it taught me how to think. Jesus also kind of told his disciples how he wanted them to celebrate the Lord's Supper, communion, as some people call it, and he had specific things that he was teaching his disciples to think about it that were explained to us last weekend. But those things are kind of different from some things some other people have said about it throughout human history. Did you like adopt Jesus' way of thinking as your own way of thinking as a result of last weekend, to where you would actually think that way so clearly that you could actually maybe help someone who's thinking differently…not that you would argue with them or be mean to them, but you could actually take them back to that passage and say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about the way it says it like this? Because this is how God taught me to think about communion. Have you heard that before?

God wants to change the way that we think. Look at what it says here in Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. It says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” That you're going to learn to think differently, that you want to adopt God's way of thinking as your way of thinking, that's going to be something that's happening all the time as we are devoted to the teaching of the Word together. There's also, I mean, a common way that God might want you to respond to something that you heard is to pray. You know, often, when I think about God and his Word and what he wants me to do, I don't always feel like, oh yeah, I got that covered, no problem. When I see God and his commands, I often think I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot to learn, and I'm seeing, hey God, this command, this is what you want me to do. But are some of God's commands challenging? Does it feel like that's not natural to me? That would have to be supernatural to me. That would have to be God doing something in me. I couldn't do this on my own, and so I would need God's help to do it. Oh, should I spend some time praying about that? Should I pray for myself? Should I pray for our church? Should I pray that we all would be doers of the Word together? And then a lot of times, there are things to do. I'm thinking a couple of weeks ago from Pastor Taylor's sermon, where he talked about making disciples, and we saw this example of Timothy. Who did Timothy hear the word from first? His parent, his mom, his grandma. Right? They taught him the Word. He was acquainted with the sacred writings that were able to make him wise for salvation. Just like we prayed for these families up here in this service, that we want their children to hear the good news about Jesus from their parents. And so, in that verse, I didn't see things that were in the imperative case in the original language. Seems like we were getting a little bit more of an example. But did Jesus tell us to make disciples? Is there a command from Jesus that his people would be making disciples? So, if I see an example of a mom and a grandma who are making disciples of their child or grandson, should I then think I want to go imitate that example? I mean, parents, God wants you bringing up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I just want to ask the parents who heard the sermon two weeks ago, did you do anything? Did you actually make a plan and have an actual conversation with one of your children about the Lord? Did you open up the Bible and talk about it together. Did you think to yourself, hey, is my child someone who's really responded to the gospel in repentance and faith, the way that Jesus commands all of us to respond to the gospel? Does my child know the gospel? Man, maybe I need to spend some time talking to my child. Maybe I need to spend some time talking to the Lord about my child in prayer, asking God to do what is so much beyond what I could do as a parent. God has to save them. I can't save them.

Parents, did you did you do anything? But then we also saw in that passage how Paul actually took a role in Timothy's life. Paul, who's not related to Timothy, pours into him and trains him and helps him become the pastor of the church in Ephesus; Paul wrote the letter of Ephesians to this guy Timothy. So, there's like making disciples. It happens in our home, but we're also seeing an example of how it happens outside of our home. Now, were you the kind of person who was selective, and said, okay, I'm going to go talk to my kids, but I made no progress toward talking about anybody I'm not related to physically. You see how this could be going on? This kind of self-deception could be going on right here, right here in this room over the last couple of weeks. We heard it, but did we do anything with it? There's always something to do. There's always a response. God wants us to be doers of the Word, a doer who acts.
So, this is what we're going to do. Point number three. Write this down: “Make an action plan.” Every time you hear a sermon, you need to make an action plan. There needs to be an active response. It's not well. I'm just waiting for this feeling to strike me as if I'm passively sitting by. No, you're going to be a doer who works, a doer who takes action. You personally, for every sermon, if you're going to be devoted to the teaching, like the church should be, every sermon you should be thinking, what's my action plan to respond? And I know some of us, we have a thought about a response, but too often that thought. I want you to write a few words down, right? I want you to write the word vague down. You know how to spell that? V-A-G-U-E. Vague. How about the word general? How about the word unspecific? You know, sometimes it's like, okay, I heard this word, so I'm just going to go and love God more. How? What does that mean? What's it going to look like for you to love God more? Are you just thinking that you're going to have some kind of greater feeling in the future, or are you thinking, no, I'm going to actually pay more attention to God's commands, right? A lot of times it's like, well, I'm going to put my response, my action, in some kind of hypothetical scenario that may or may not happen in the future. Well, like if this were to happen at some point six months down the road in my life, well then, I would do this. But by the time six months down the road actually comes around in my life, I've actually forgotten that I was going to do that because my plan was so hypothetical. My plan was so general, it wasn't specific. It wasn't like someone might say, hey, well, as a result of that sermon, I'm going to read my Bible more. Well, when, and where, and how, and what are you going to choose to read in the Bible?

You know, a lot of us in summertime, we like to take a vacation, right? Anybody like to take a vacation? Some of you guys are just no vacation people. That's okay. That's fine. We live in a vacation here in Southern California, so you don't have to leave to enjoy life here in Southern California. But I think if you're planning a vacation, like oh yeah, let's take a vacation, is that a great plan to where you're actually going to take a vacation, or is it no, I’ve got to get more specific than that plan. That plan's too general. I’ve got to think about well where are we trying to go on this vacation? How would we get there? Is it going to be by car? Is it going to be by airplane? By boat? Like where would we stay when we're going to be there? What are our accommodations going to be like? What are we going to do? What are we going to eat? You go on Instagram and find some of the coffee shops and the pastries and this kind of stuff, right? Like when you're actually going to go do something, and then there's this like, how am I going to pay for this vacation, right? Like you actually have to start getting specific. You actually have to start getting into the details, right? So, if you're going to make an action plan, right? Hey, vague, general, unspecific, that's what we want to avoid.

But write down three other words on your note sheet. Write down specific. Hey, when am I going to read my Bible. I'm going to set an alarm at this time and get up, or after work at this time, I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to spend this time in prayer. I'm going to call this person at this time. We're getting specific with it, right? Oh, I'm making a disciple. That's what I was told to do. Hey, when am I going to go talk to my child about Jesus? At what point today am I going to put that on my agenda, where I'm not going to be like, well, if it happens, it happens. No, I'm actually going to go make it happen. I'm actually going to make choices that would result in it happening. I'm going to go up to my child and be like, hey, what did you think about what you heard in Anchor, what you heard in kids’ ministry? Hey, we're going. Open up the Bible, and I'm going to be reading it, and I'm going to be like, what do you guys think about this? Let's talk about this. I'm going to be taking my kid out to lunch on this day at this place, and I'm going to be like, hey, what's the gospel? What do you think about Jesus and what he did for us? Like these plans need to get specific. Write down the word “definite,” not like well maybe it'll happen or maybe it won't. Now we're not sovereign, we're not in control of anything, but we have a lot of ability to make choices. I want to ask you, who's in control of your schedule? It's you. You're the one making choices. Oh, we're so busy. Who's the one choosing to be so busy? Yeah, to obey some of God's commands, you might have to make a choice to not do some other things you could do. Maybe some of those things aren't wrong things to do, but they're just not doing what God's telling me to do. No command about this in the Bible, but there is a command about this. Which am I going to prioritize?
The thing I want to do, the thing that this our culture says needs to happen, or what God is saying in his Word? Definite. I'm resolved to do it, and then tangible, like not hypothetical, not if this happens, then this. That's not the way to be a doer of the Word. We need to say, "I'm going to go. I'm going to make a plan, and that plan is going to be specific. It's going to be real. It's going to be like something that would actually happen. That would be concrete in my life,” right?

So, let's add another thing. Well, because one of the things that we’ve got to think through is that like some of us we've got good intentions to be doers of the Word. Like we could go to our fellowship group and say I'm going to do this, but we can't just make a plan. Let's add to point number three: “We actually have to do it.” You can have all the plans you want, right? Like I can remember more than a few times growing up in the Blakey household, where there was a chore, an expectation that Bruce and Roberta had for me, and how do you think they felt about my intentions to do it without actually doing it? Well, I meant to do that, Mom. But did you do it? No. We actually have to do it, right? Or you could write down Psalm 119, verse 4 that says, "You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently,” like right away, like when you hear the Word, when you're reading the Word, you should think I need to have a same day response, right? Like what's your response time if you're on a marketplace app and somebody messages you and you're getting graded based on how quickly you respond to them, hey, how quickly am I responding to God's Word? How many hours, how many days do I put in between when I heard and when I'm actually going to do something? Okay, why can't I? God's telling me I need to go talk to this person. I can't talk to him today. Well, could you call him today and set up a time that you're going to talk to him? Could you text him? Could you actively say, God, would you provide an opportunity this week? Could you actually sit down and look at your calendar and see when can I make time to talk to this person this week, like even if it's like, oh, I need to do this, but I couldn't do this until Thursday? Couldn't I get going on the plan for it to happen Thursday today? Couldn't I start putting those pieces in motion so that it's actually going to happen on Thursday? Oh yeah, I should meet with that person. Then a week goes by, month goes by, year goes by. Did I actually do it? I had a plan. I had an intention, but it never led to action. It never led to me actually doing the work.

The people that hear the Word and do it, those are the people that grow the fastest here at Compass HB. Like how long you've sat in these seats, how long you've attended our church, actually means very little to how mature you are. If you're thinking that you are really mature in Jesus because you've sat here and heard a lot of things, you might be deceiving yourself. I've seen people and they are very new; they just got saved, but you know what they're doing? They're hearing it, and then they're doing it, and they're hearing it, and then they're doing it. They hear it, they do it. They hear it, they do it, they hear it, they do it. And you want to know what happens? It's like there's all this obedience, there's all this godliness, there's all this growth that happens in their life. It's not how much you actually kind of taste the Word and then spit it out? It's how much you digest it, and it becomes a part of you that really matters in your life.
So, we've seen in James 1, 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.” And let's go back to that perseveres thing. Let's go back to perseveres. Now, some of us like, hey, we're not expecting that everybody here knows everything that God has to say about living our life. We're not trying to be like, well, hey, do you know everything first, then you can be a part of our church? It's like, hey, come on, if you want to hear about Jesus, we want to learn that together, and that's something that I'm so excited about. We never want anyone to feel like, hey, if I don't know this already, that I couldn't come and I couldn't learn. But a lot of us were hearing things from God's Word that are new to us, that we haven't really realized that that's the way that God wanted me thinking. That that's the way that God wanted me living my life. And so now I'm trying to do something that's different than I've done before. When that happens in your life overall, like how do you usually go about that? Because it isn't just like okay, well God, I heard this sermon this week, so I'm a doer of that Word for this week, and then the following week, I stop being a doer of the Word, and it's like, oh well, I did it that week, but then some of the things that God commands us to do are challenging, like the thought of making disciples. Is that like I'm going to hear that in a sermon this week, and then I'm going to go have one conversation the next week, and then that's all I'm going to ever need to do? Like, are you on like one hundred percent average, where like every person that doesn't know Jesus that I sit down and talk to, all of them get saved immediately, or does it kind of feel like work? Does it kind of feel like labor? Like, man, I'm like a farmer and I'm plowing and I'm watering, and it's actually taking a long time before I see the growth that I've been praying for.

God doesn't want us to be people who are thinking obedience is like a quick sprint and then I'm on to Gatorades and nachos after it. This is like something we need to persevere in, we need to remain in, we need to stay in. What God is teaching you today and what he taught you last week and the week before, he wants those things to become a part of the way you live for the rest of your life, not just for one week, for all the weeks that he gives you. How do you do that? Let's say that I was wanting to get into running, like I want to be a marathon person. I want to get that 26.2 bumper sticker and put it on my car. I mean, am I going to be very successful if I just go try to do that by myself? I mean, look at me. No, right? And let me just tell you, I don't want to become a runner. So don't ask me. Don't ask me. You marathoners, I'm not going to join your running club. But if I did, I probably should join a running club. I probably should find a friend that it's like, hey, I'm training for this. You're training for this. Doesn't even matter if we're not running at the same time in the same place. Oh, I saw you on Strava, bro. Hey, great run there. Oh man, that pace. That was really good. Hey, let's sign up for this race together and let's work towards it together. Some of us this running thing is making us tired, and we're like my knees. I've torn my ACL too many times to be talking about running, and there's still a sport for us. It's pickleball, right? Like, hey, this is the sport for every man, every woman, every age, right? A lifelong sport, and hey, if I'm going to get into pickleball, am I just going to go to the court and start playing pickleball? Like, I'm going to challenge you, and like, no, we paid for this court. You do not have next. We have next. Here's the email. I can show you my confirmation right here. No, I'm going to have to get some pickleball pals. I'm going to have to get a squad. You pickleball people, you know who you are. God bless you. God bless you.

The thought is that it's not just me devoting myself to the Word. It's like we are devoting ourselves to the Word together. Like this is one of the things as we thought about well how does God want his church to function here at Compass HB? We're like well we know for sure that God wants us to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. How are we going to do that? Are we just going to leave every man to himself to accomplish that on their own, or are we going to get together and try to do that? Like, hey, let's have these groups, these fellowship groups, where one of the key things that we're going to be trying to do every single week is think: How are we going to do what we just heard in the Word together? To make sure that we don't become hearers who forget, but we're actually doers who act. What if we had a conversation about that? What if we were banding together to where we actually did something? I mean, turn your handout over if you've got your handout. Turn your handout over. Did you see that we didn't call them application questions this week? We called them doer of the Word questions. That every week on the back of this handout there are questions that whoever's preaching has been thinking about this text and has been thinking about how am I going to be a doer of the Word this way myself? They’ve written the questions. I wrote some questions that I hope will help you really think through what is this specifically, tangibly, practically going to look at my look at in my life. And I know some of us, our groups have been on a hiatus. Now, if you're here and you're not part of a group yet, right? There is a Foundations class that's happening two weeks from today, August 16th. It goes for three Sundays in a row. There's free food after the service. It meets at 1 O'clock in the Revival Room.

And if you're not in a group yet, we would really welcome you to come to that class, and if you're like I'm out of town for those three weeks, then you could email me, and I'd love to sit down and meet with you. And we're going to talk about hey, this is one of the things when we get together in these groups, we want to be doers of the Word. You know, hey, people who say this is what stood out to me from this sermon, sometimes that's a great thing to say, but it's not just what stood out to you that we need to talk about? It's like, what are we going to do? How are we going to act? It's almost like on every week you could be at the you know we oh okay this is what it said, this is how God wants us to respond. Oh man, this is what this is going to look like in my life. Oh, okay well, I'm going to send you a text and encourage you and we're going to do this together. It's almost like we could put our hands in the middle at the end of every group and say, "Okay, break, because we're going to go do something. We’ve got to play. We're going to run. We're actually in the game. We're doing something actively in response to every sermon that we hear.

So, it says, "A doer who acts.” Look with me again at verse 25. You’ve got to see this last point, and it says he will be blessed in his doing. So, let's add that to point number three as well: “Make an action plan, do it, and you'll be happy.” This Greek word for blessed, makarios, also could be translated happy. My friends, God's commands are not there to suppress you; they are there to bless you, right? You might be running through the muck in your own life, right? Feeling like you're hacking through the bush, crawling through the mud, and it's like there is a wide road that is great to walk on, right over here. It's the way of God's commands, and they are specific, and they're like a “lamp to your feet and a light to your path,” showing you the best way, the absolute best way. Jesus said that he's given us his commandments so that his joy would be in us and that our joy would be full. Man, when you live life and it's just so simple, what do I need to do today? I need to fear God and keep his commandments, and you just do what you know God wants you to do. That is such a good day. You'll be happy. Look with me at 1 John 5:3. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and are his commandments this heavy burden that we're carrying. No, His commands are not burdensome. They're the best. It is the best way when you actually bridle your tongue in your family with the people that you live with at your place of business. Oh, it goes so much better. Oh, we're not having to work through all of these careless words that we said to one another that hurt each other's feelings, and now there's conflict and strife and bitterness growing in our house. No, oh, we're actually just obeying God's command to only say things to build one another up. Oh man, our house is such a happy place, a happy place to be.

So, this is what I want to ask you. Like God's Word has been like a mirror to us this morning, and some of us, it's shown us some things about ourselves. It's shown us at the beginning, I didn't want to think that I was self-deceived in any way. I thought I had it all right. But after hearing this sermon, maybe some of us need to be honest with ourselves. We need to say, yeah, I might be showing up. I might be going to things and attending things, but I don't know if I'm quite doing this. I don't know if I'm quite operating this way, and God wants that to change. He brought you to this text because he loves you, because when you're a doer of the Word and not a hearer only, that's when you're going to be happy. When you go to church, it's not like oh I've heard this before, before when it's like you go to church and you're like that changed me, God showed me things, God taught me things. I think differently, I act differently. Oh man, what a place this is going to be! What a happy place. When it's like man, we're just hearing from the Lord and from his Word, and it's changing us, and it is awesome. The mirror is showing you this today, and so my question is: Are you going to respond to that? Are you going to allow God's Word to have authority to edit you to where you're going to see yourself as God sees you in the mirror of his Word, and you're not going to forget it? You're not just going to go on to your next thing in your day, and it's like, oh, what did Pastor Bill preach about three weeks ago? I couldn't tell you. No, you could do something different. You could make an action plan. You could think, okay, this is what I'm going to do to respond. Maybe I need to get out the last couple weeks of my notes, and I need to go back to those application questions, and I need to really consider: Did I change anything in my life, and maybe I need to start operating a new way. Maybe I need to actually pray before I come hear the preaching. God, teach me. God, change me. God, I know that you've got some way that you want me to respond to this text. Don't let me be a hearer only. I don't want to deceive myself, Lord. I want to be a doer of your word, and I believe your promise. I believe that when I follow you and do things your way, it's going to be the best way for me to live. So let me pray and ask God to help us.

Father, we lift up the hearing of this Word, God, and we want to be devoted to it, God. We don't want to be people who hear and we never do anything, God. I'm just praying for my friends here, God. I know if I was self-deceived, God, I would want a friend. I would want a friend to come alongside me and help me to see what I was having trouble seeing on my own. And God, you are such a friend to us, God. Through your Holy Spirit, what James wrote is such a friend to us, God. You didn't say this just to make us feel bad, or to press us down, God, you want us to change, and so that we'll be happy, so that we'll be blessed. And so, God, we need you to help us, God, we need you to show us who we really are, and don't let us leave the same as we came in here, God. We want to be doers of your Word, because we know that if we do that, we will be blessed in our doing, and so God, we ask for your help with this. And all God's people said, Amen.