COME TAKE A WALK: THOSE WHO DO AND THOSE WHO DO NOT


Sermon Notes, June 10, 2018
Rev. Garry McGlinchy
            Pastor Garry's sermon, the second in the series Come, Take a Walk, a journey through the book of James,  was titled "Those Who Do and Those Who Do Not."  It was based on James 1:22-25.
            The nugget of this passage is that there are two kinds of people: those who are engaged, and those who are not.  Those who listen, and those who do.  
            The listeners, those who just hear, are the ones that do nothing.  These are the ones who listen, attentively.  For Jesus, it would be the disciples.  For you teachers in the congregation, it would be your students.  The hearers are inactive.  Passive listeners of the Word deceive themselves; they should not simply listen, they should obey what the Word says.  They may come to church every Sunday, they may have their Bibles open on their laps, they may nod their heads in approval, but when they walk out the door, there is no change.  The multitude that received the bread and fish from Jesus on the mountainside were fully engaged.  But when they heard what He wanted them to do, John says in chapter 6, verse 66, they turned back and no longer followed Him.  When He was feeding them and healing them and doing all those miraculous things, they were engaged, but when He told them what they must do, and how to live their lives, they turned away and no longer followed Him.
            Jesus compared the hearers who hear but do nothing to a man who looks in the mirror, but when he turns away he forgets what he looks like.  This isn't an unusual phenomenon.  How many of us, if asked, could tell what our own loved ones are wearing today?  Or how many of us have gone into another room to get something, then forgotten what we came for?  For a disheveled life, for a life filled with chaos,  for a life that means nothing, here's what you do.  Look in the mirror of God's Word and do nothing.  Forget all about it.  Do nothing, and you'll have that mission accomplished.  Look at the Word, and do nothing about what you see there, and you'll have a disheveled, chaotic life.
            The other person that James talks about is the obedient listener.  And this is where we should want to be. If you want to make a change in the world, if you want to do something for Christ, if you want to be more like Him, look at the Word and do what it says. Be a doer, someone who does something.  The doers do what the Word instructs.  Psalm 1 says  "Blessed is the one who loves God's Law and meditates on it day and night."  The doers look closely at the Word. They mull over it.  They make it a part of their very being.  They stoop down and look closely at the law at the Law and see what Freedom really means.
            It kind of sounds odd to talk about the Law and Freedom in the same sentence.  But when we study the Law, God's Word, God's scriptures, the Holy Word of God, we find freedom.  Obeying God's Word keeps us from the snares of the sins of Satan.  There's great freedom in doing what God wills us to do.  We find blessing in obedience.  We are blessed when we obey God.
            Then we have the Word itself.  It is the content of what is preached about the Good News of Jesus ways of salvation.  If you find yourself in an area of imminent flooding and are warned by the authorities to seek higher ground, you need to obey the warning immediately.  Sometimes people decide to ignore the warning, and we see on the news that there has been loss of life because someone did not heed the warning.  Obeying God's Word saves us from a lot of heartache and pain, but it also brings us a blessing.  My encouragement to you is to be doers of His Word, and not just a hearer.  Do you want to build a faith that is built according to the instructions,  or do you want to build a faith on what you think might work?
            Every person who has given their life to God, at that moment, as soon as they tell God that they are His, He says, "Great! Here's how you do it."  At that point we have a choice.  We can read the instructions, or we can toss them aside.  Read His Word and do what it says, and He will make us what He wants us to be, to be more like Jesus.

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