“Be doers of the word…"

“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 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.” (James 1:21-23 ESV)

The Epistle of James Chapter 1 is so full of wonderful truths from our heavenly Father, like what we talked about last time in verses 5-6, that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God, and we shouldn’t let our feelings or emotions determine what we believe. Then there is verse 13 “Let no one say when he is tempted ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” Or how about verse 17: “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.” And in Verse 19 we read “… But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; …”. We could spend a lesson on each of these and see the beautiful truth of God’s Word and how it applies to our lives.

But for today, we’re going to look at verse 22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Doers of the word, what comes to your mind when you hear this? Reading/studying the Bible more, going to church more, giving more to support missions, all of which are good in and of themselves, but I don’t think James is telling us to get busy at doing things.

So, let’s look at this verse and the surrounding verses to keep it in context, so we can better understand the message of James. The first part of this verse is a command to his readers; he commands them to “be doers of the word,”. So, whatever he means, there is some action involved on the believer’s part, but it’s not to do more things.  He specifically tells his readers to be “doers” of something specific, “of the word”.

To understand how James is using the phrase “of the word”, we need to look back at verse 21, where James says “… receive with meekness the implanted word, which can save your souls...” So, James can’t be talking about working or doing good deeds, because neither of those has any bearing on our salvation. What does “save our souls” mean? The gospel of grace, the truth about “by grace you are saved through faith, not of works”. James must be saying the gospel of grace (“of the word”) has been implanted into who we are, and because this gospel has been made part of us, we now have salvation.

Now back to verse 22. James commands his readers to be doers of the word, which has just been used to refer to the gospel of grace, the good news of Jesus, salvation by faith, not works.  I believe that James intends the same meaning here as he did in verse 21.  He is telling the believers reading this to be a doer of the gospel of grace, not a doer of works or activities. He’s not commanding the believers to “get busy and do more things”, he is saying that now that this gospel has been made part of you (implanted), live like it. Live out the saving grace of God.  He finishes this verse by warning them not to be hearers only who do not have the engrafted word in their souls. Hearers only are deluded people deceived by the lies of the evil one.

Now, how do we live out the good news of Jesus? By trusting Him, as James said in 1:6, don’t be a “spiritual schizophrenic” who trusts Him and then doesn't; don’t be someone who only hears but doesn’t believe and trust the good news of salvation by grace. Be someone who lives out the grace of God, be a doer of the word.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"