The Man in the Mirror
James 1:22-25
Last week, we considered what James says about responding to trials God’s way. We saw five keys: be swift to hear, be slow to speak, be slow to anger, deal directly and ruthlessly with sin, and apply all of your strength to receiving the implanted Word of God. That’s good counsel.
In verses 22-25, James tells us what it really means to receive God’s implanted Word. Is there a way to tell when a person has really received the Word? James says there is. Apparently there were Christians in the early church who thought it was enough to merely hear the Word. There have always been religious people, church people who think it’s enough to simply go to church and listen to a sermon; as if listening to the sermon was God’s punishment for the sins you had committed that week! So you make it through the sermon and, whew! I’m glad that’s over.
But what is the purpose of biblical preaching? The Bible is not a book of suggestions to be considered, but of commands to be obeyed and promises to be believed. The Bible was written to change our lives. It warns us. It corrects us. It shows us what our sin really is and it cuts through our self-deception. It exposes us for who we are; and every time you read the Bible, it reads you. Believers don’t judge the Bible, it judges us. But it also shows us a majestic Savior who made provision for sin.
The Word of God is a mirror. It reveals us to ourselves. It shows us where we’re unclean and impure. It makes us known to ourselves and that can make us uncomfortable. Some people want nothing to do with the Bible because to them it forbids everything they enjoy doing. Rather than confessing that their ‘wanter’ is broken, they choose to say the Bible is irrelevant. But nothing could be more relevant to sinners one heartbeat away from eternal judgment than a message of conviction and repentance before it’s too late. True comfort and joy come from reconciliation with God through faith in Christ. So let’s look into the honest mirror and see what it reveals. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 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. [NKJV]
[Prayer] This passage in James is so practical. It seems to hit all of us right where we live. We have all struggled at one point or another to put God’s Word into practice only to come up short. This text can be outlined in two phases: first we have the problem in vv. 22-24; then we have the solution in verse 25. First, let’s consider the problem we all face…
I. Knowing the truth without obeying it leads to increasing deception (22-24).
Verses 22-24 describe a religious person who merely hears the word, but never does anything about it. In other words, their life remains unchanged even after all the warnings and appeals from God’s Word. This man is deceived. James says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
How self-righteous and religious we can appear by being hearers of the Word! The hearer may be present every time the church is open. They may even travel great distances to pay high fees to hear skilled teachers at conferences and retreats. They hear and hear and hear… but it never goes any further than that. What they hear doesn’t translate into life-change. And when we hear God’s truth over and over, year after year, and it’s never put into practice, we become callous to the Spirit’s leading. We become like the Dead Sea which has the rich waters of Jordan flowing in, but nothing ever flowing out! The Dead Sea is so rich with minerals that it cannot sustain life. I think that’s the way it is with unpracticed doctrine in the life of a hearer. But James says…
22Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
The hearer who does not obey God’s Word is a deceived person, and this deception spreads like gangrene. I think the most frightening element of this deception is that while the gangrene of spiritual deception is spreading, the conscience that ought to know it and feel the pain has grown less and less sensitive. So the more a person is spiritually deceived, the less able they are to perceive it. Hearing God’s Word by itself does not promote growth; it takes doing God’s Word to promote growth.
Not only is the disobedient hearer of God’s Word deceived, but James says they’re also forgetful. Verse 23 – “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; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”
In this figure, the Word of God is a mirror. It shows us what we really are on the inside. It reveals our sin and impurity. But the person who learns of this sin and impurity and does nothing about obeying the Word, that person is like a man who looks into the mirror and sees dirt on his face and grime on his shirt and walks away as if looking into the mirror has cleaned him up! He hasn’t responded to what the mirror revealed to him. When you hear God’s Word, it’s like looking in the mirror. It shows you what needs to be corrected. If you hear God’s Word and do nothing about what you hear, then you are deceived and forgetful.
The biblical line between God’s people and Satan’s lot is abundantly clear. In 1 John 3:10 we read, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
The word James used for deceiving or deluding is paralogidzomai. It means to reason beside or alongside and it refers to incorrect reasoning. The self-deceived person will hear the truth of God and then set up an alternative interpretation other than the one intended by God. They do this to exonerate themselves. The self deceived person is a master of excuses. They have an answer for everything about why they can’t change. Their alternative interpretation may sound plausible and even scholarly, but its purpose is to cover sin and prevent God’s truth from taking root in their lives. So after the mirror has exposed the dirt and filth in the hearer’s life, James says he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
What a painful description of the common attitude of sermon hearers who never apply the Word. They go away and immediately forget. It would be better for that person to go to a church where the Bible is never taught than to hear it only to neglect it. What a privilege to see our true image in an honest mirror! The Bible isn’t a distorted mirror to make us look better or worse than we really are; it just shows us exactly as we are before God. It is correction mingled with mercy; it is conviction interwoven with grace.
To look into the mirror of God’s Word is to drive us to the cross where we find a better laver to cleanse our transgressions; we find at the cross a better sacrifice than bulls or goats. Christ must be our righteousness and this righteousness always demands conformity. Christianity is not a do-it-yourself religion; there is no place for freestyle sanctification. It must be Christ’s way because it must be of Him.
James is warning all believers of a problem that threatens every hearer: knowing the truth without obeying it leads to increasing deception. But what is the solution to our problem? Verse 25 advances this life-giving proposition…
II. Knowing the truth with progressive obedience leads to freedom and blessedness (25).
Verse 25 says: “25 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.”
Thank goodness for verse 25! This is hope for our despair. This is the prescription for our disease. James says, “Just do it!” But it’s too hard. Of course it’s hard! If it were easy you might think you didn’t need the Holy Spirit of God to empower you! You might even think He called you to do it on your own. But God never calls His people to do anything apart from Him. The first call of Jesus to His apostles was that they would be with Him. That’s it… that they would first and foremost be with Him that wherever He was, they would be also. We too are called to be with Jesus.
James says 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. Here’s how to be blessed by a sermon. The blessed person begins by looking. This word for “looks” is more intense than the word used in verse 23 for observing. This word in verse 25 means “to look intently”; to bend over to carefully examine something from the clearest possible vantage point. This is the same word Luke used to describe the way Peter looked into the empty tomb after the resurrection of Christ. The person who looks intently at God’s Word examines it to discover its deepest and most complete meaning. God is telling us through James that this person will be blessed in what he does.
As we listen to what James is writing in this first chapter, can we not hear the voice of his half brother, Jesus Christ? On the subject of hearing and doing, Jesus said,
46 “… why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” [Lk. 6:46-49; NKJV]
So James is applying what Jesus taught in the Gospels. We find this theme throughout the book of James. What has God been saying to us this morning? First, He calls us to be diligent hearers of the Word who look intently into the Bible to learn what God is saying to us; But, second, He also calls us to take the next step, which is to change our lives based on what He’s said.
When you change your life to conform to God’s Word, then you’re a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. When you actually do what God says, you are like the one who built his house on the rock and when the storms of life inevitably come, you will not be shaken or destroyed. When you and I put God’s Word into practice, even when it requires great risk and sacrifice, then we will be like a man who looks into the mirror and does something about it. We will make changes and God says, we will be blessed in what we do.
It all begins with hearing God’s Word. Without the hearing, there can be no changing; without the changing, there can be no blessing. And without the blessing, there can be no freedom to live the life Christ died to make possible.
Let’s pray.
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
October 25, 2005