James 1:22-25 – Grace-Enabled Doers of the Word
Yesterday was October 31st. Along with being Halloween, it is also known as Reformation Day. It marks the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Church at Wittenburg in Germany, beginning the Protestant Reformation.
One of the central issues of the Protestant Reformation was the doctrine of justification. This doctrine addresses the issue of how a guilty sinner is made right before a holy God. For Luther and the other Reformers, the answer was - God does not justify sinners because of an inherent righteousness developed through cooperation with grace. Rather, He counts (imputes) Christ’s perfect righteousness to believers, who receive Him and His benefits through faith alone. In the book of Romans, Paul writes: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
But what about the book of James? Does James’ call to be doers of the Word contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone? If I may borrow the words of the apostle Paul, again from the book of Romans, “by no means!” Our good works do not earn or merit our justification before God. This is clearly taught in places like Ephesians 2:8-9. The teaching of Ephesians and all of Scripture on the doctrine of justification is summarized in WSC 33, which states that justification is, “an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
So then, what about our works, our obedience to God’s Word, the things the Word calls us to do? Does the doctrine of justification by faith make our “doing” of God’s Word pointless? Again, I’ll say, “by no means!” It does not make good works irrelevant. It does help us understand the relationship of our works to our faith.
Works are the necessary fruit of genuine faith, which is what we see James teaching, but they are not the ground of acceptance before God. Christ’s obedience and atoning death alone are the ground of our justification; faith alone is the means (instrument) by which the sinner receives Him. Being doers of the Word is a result, is evidence, of what has already occurred in our hearts by the grace of God alone.
It is vital that we understand this. Particularly as we look at passages like the one we have this morning. A true heart change will be displayed through a grace-enabled response or “doing” of God’s Word. Let us bear this in mind as we look at today’s verses.
Imagine that you wake up one morning and begin getting ready for the day. For most of us, maybe all of us, that involves looking in the mirror at some point. Why do we look in the mirror? The main reason we look in a mirror is to check our appearance. We want to know if anything is wrong with the way we look. We want to know if we look decent.
Now suppose you look in the mirror and discover that your face is covered in black dirt and you have all this food stuck between your teeth. What do you do? Well, you would clean your face and brush your teeth, wouldn’t you? I mean that is the proper response to what the mirror has revealed. You wouldn’t leave things the way they were and go about the day. That would be foolish, wouldn’t it? You would have failed to respond properly to what the mirror has revealed.
The purpose of looking in a mirror is not merely to acquire information about yourself. It is to see what needs attention and then respond accordingly.
Yet something similar often happens when we hear the Word of God. We hear the truth of God's Word. We recognize its teaching. We may even agree that it is right and good. But then, we go away without responding to what we have heard, without being affected by what has entered our ears and minds. We walk away as hearers only, unaffected by the glory and truth of God’s Word.
This is the issue James addresses in our passage. The issue in verses 22-25 is not that we can hear God’s Word too much or that we could ever get enough of God's Word. The problem is that we can hear God's Word without responding to it in faith and obedience. We can become satisfied with hearing and knowing biblical truth without allowing that truth to transform our lives. And this is not a new problem.
Throughout redemptive history, God's people have repeatedly demonstrated that hearing His Word and responding to it are two different things. All throughout Scripture, we see the need to not only hear God's Word but to respond to it by the grace that comes through Christ. Christ not only heard, knew, and agreed with God's Word; he perfectly and completely obeyed God's Word. And through our union with Him, we receive salvation and forgiveness for our disobedience and neglect of His Word but we also receive the Holy Spirit, who works in us to produce genuine obedience to that Word.
Therefore, through Christ, we can not only hear God's Word, but we can also become grace-enabled doers of God's Word.
How is this accomplished in the life of a believer? Here in verses 22-25, James gives us two answers.
By the grace that comes through Christ, we are enabled to avoid the deception of hearing without responding to the Word and we can enjoy the blessing of persevering in obedience to the Word.
The grace that comes through Christ not only justifies us, but it enables us to take what we hear in God’s Word and causes that Word to shape our lives. Let’s look at these timely truths together now.
James begins in verse 22 with a direct command: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
Notice the contrast James establishes. There are hearers of the Word, and then there are those who are hearers and doers of the Word. At first, we might wonder why James needs to make this distinction.
James is not condemning the act of hearing. The Christian life depends upon hearing God's Word. As Paul writes in Romans 10:17: "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."
The issue is not hearing. Hearing is vital. We have a high view of the ministry of the Word. The Word is proclaimed from the beginning through the end of our worship service. The Word is sung, the Word is read, the Word is recited, the Word is preached. These are all purposeful in that they proclaim God’s Word and provide opportunities for the people of God, for us, to hear the Word. Let me say it again, hearing is vital.
So hearing, in and of itself, is not the issue James is addressing here. The issue is hearing without a response of faith and obedience. It is taking what we have heard and having that Word, that truth, transform our thoughts, attitudes, and actions that come to fruition in our lives in tangible ways. To put it more simply, James wants us to understand that true hearing of the Word must lead to godly action.
And James does not merely say that hearing without doing is unproductive. He says that those who hear without doing are "deceiving yourselves.”
No one wants to be deceived, by others or by themselves. But we are especially prone to self-deception, especially when it comes to hearing and doing the Word. Here, James asserts that the deception comes from thinking one has done all that is necessary when actually listening to the Word is only the beginning.
James illustrates this using an analogy of a mirror in verses 23–24: "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."
The image is straightforward. A person looks into a mirror, sees what is there, and then walks away, forgetting what he saw and without responding to it.
James continues in verse 24: "For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." The problem is not that the mirror failed. The mirror did its job. The person saw his reflection. The failure came when he walked away and did nothing with what he had seen.
Imagine that you are asleep in your home one night when the smoke detector begins to sound. You hear the alarm. You recognize what it means. You understand that something is wrong and that you need to respond. But instead of getting up and investigating, you simply roll over, pull the covers over your head, and go back to sleep.
Would anyone consider that a wise response? Of course not!
The purpose of the alarm is not simply to communicate information. It is to warn you of danger so that you will take action. In fact, the more clearly you understand what the alarm is communicating, the more foolish it becomes to ignore it. That is precisely the point James is making.
God's Word is not simply intended to give us religious information. It exposes our sin, reveals God's character, warns us about the dangers of disobedience, and directs us toward the life God calls us to live. Yet we can hear God's Word week after week and fail to respond.
It is the same with Scripture. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is living and active, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. As we read and hear God’s Word, we are confronted with the standard of God’s law and how we fall short.
In those moments, God's Word is functioning as a mirror. The mirror of God's Word reveals that we are sinners. We have not loved God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not obeyed God perfectly in thought, word, and deed.
But if we simply hear or read about these realities and are unaffected by them, to the point that we are unchanged and don’t respond to them, well James says we deceive ourselves.
We hear the warning about bitterness but continue holding grudges. We hear the command to forgive but refuse to reconcile. We hear the call to holiness but continue entertaining the same sinful desires. We hear the alarm, but we refuse to respond.
So how do we avoid this deception? We need the grace of Christ to enable us to not merely be hearers, but to be doers of the Word we receive, the implanted Word.
When God's Word exposes our sin, we must not simply resolve to do better. We do not attempt to make ourselves acceptable to God through improved behavior. We look first to Christ.
Our acceptance before God rests entirely upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
In addition, we must remember that the gospel does not excuse our disobedience. It provides the forgiveness and transforming grace that make a life of obedience possible. Obedience is not the foundation of our acceptance before God. It is the fruit of his gracious work in us.
We must never confuse hearing the Word with obeying the Word. But neither should we confuse obedience with earning God's favor. We obey because we have been saved by grace, not in order to be saved.
And this brings us to the second way Christ's grace enables us to become doers of God's Word.
Look at verse 25. After describing what the person is like who is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, James describes the one who hears the Word and does it. He tells us about the grace-enabled doer of the Word.
He writes, "But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres..."
Why does he call God's law perfect? James uses this phrase as a synonym for sacred Scripture. Psalm19:7 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.”
He calls God's Word perfect because it is complete, trustworthy, and entirely consistent with His righteous character. It reveals the truth about God and teaches us how we are to live before Him.
And why does James call it the "law of liberty"? It is because the law of God sets us free, as it drives us to Christ who alone can free us from sin. The Reformation Study Bible puts it this way, “Having been justified, we then find God's law to be the law of freedom, for we are truly free only when we do what is pleasing to the Lord.” In other words, true freedom is freedom to obey God and do what pleases him.
God's commands do not lead us away from a life of freedom. They show us how to live in accordance with the good purposes for which God created us. Consider Psalm 19:9: “the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. Or Psalm 119:45: "I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts."
But we need to understand something important. Though God’s Word, the Law, is perfect and good, and the “law of liberty,” it is powerless to save us from sin. It exposes our sin and reveals God's righteous standard. Christ alone saves sinners through his redeeming work. And the Spirit enables believers to grow in obedience to God's commands.
In Christ, obedience is no longer an attempt to establish our own righteousness before God. It becomes the grateful expression of a life redeemed by grace.
But James doesn’t stop there. Here continues in verse 25 by saying that the faithful hearer "perseveres." This has been an embedded theme throughout this first chapter of James. James has harped on how we persevere in the Christian life. How so? We persevere when we move from simply hearing to doing.
It is an ongoing commitment to hear God's Word, believe its promises, receive its correction, and obey its commands. We need this kind of perseverance because spiritual growth rarely happens overnight. The Christian life is not a single moment of hearing God's Word. It is a lifetime of being shaped by that Word.
This is why the ordinary means of grace matter so much. We need the faithful preaching of Scripture, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship with God's people, and the encouragement and correction of the church. James wants us to see that we must continually place ourselves under the Word’s authority, asking God to teach us, correct us, comfort us, and conform us to the image of Christ.
And we must not miss this - here is where we must make an important connection between the perfect law of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus never heard the Father's commands and walked away without responding. He obeyed what he heard, knew, and even said about His Father’s Word. He perfectly fulfilled the Father's will. Through his life of perfect obedience and his sacrificial death, Christ secured the righteousness and redemption that sinners need. And His resurrection declares that his saving work was complete and that all who are united to him have new life.
This means that our obedience as Christians flows out of our union with Christ. And the same Christ who justifies us is at work sanctifying us through his Spirit. Paul explains this in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." And in Philippians 2:12–13, Paul calls believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling because God is at work in them, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
We work out what God is working within us. Our obedience is not independent of God's grace. It is the fruit of God's grace. We look intently into God's Word, persevere in obedience, and grow in holiness because Christ has redeemed us and his Spirit is at work within us.
And what is the result of this grace-enabled doing of God’s Word? James concludes at the end of verse 25: "Being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."
Notice where James locates the blessing: in the life of the person who acts upon God's Word. This does not mean that Christians who obey God will always enjoy prosperity, good health, comfortable circumstances, or freedom from suffering. The blessing of obedience is not a guarantee of worldly success. It is the blessing, the goodness, of living in fellowship with God, walking according to his wisdom, and experiencing the fruit of a life increasingly conformed to Christ.
So how do we apply these truths in our lives? What will we do with God's Word? Will we merely listen to sermons, collect biblical knowledge, and agree with sound doctrine? Or will we allow Scripture to expose our sin, lead us to Christ, and shape the way we live?
Let us not deceive ourselves. When we leave worship today, let us not leave God's Word behind. Let us take it with us into our homes, marriages, parenting, workplace, and shape the way we do those things. Let us take it into our conversations, our decisions, our struggles, and our relationships.
But let us also remember that the ability to do that is not a matter of trying harder, it is a result of the grace of the gospel. The gospel offers us something better than self-improvement. It offers us Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can approach God's Word with confidence and humility. We do not come to prove that we are righteous. We come because Christ is our righteousness. We do not obey to purchase God's favor. We obey because, in Christ, we have received His grace.
And that grace changes the way we hear. Through Christ, we can not only hear God's Word, but we can also become grace-enabled doers of God's Word.
Let’s pray.
One of the central issues of the Protestant Reformation was the doctrine of justification. This doctrine addresses the issue of how a guilty sinner is made right before a holy God. For Luther and the other Reformers, the answer was - God does not justify sinners because of an inherent righteousness developed through cooperation with grace. Rather, He counts (imputes) Christ’s perfect righteousness to believers, who receive Him and His benefits through faith alone. In the book of Romans, Paul writes: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
But what about the book of James? Does James’ call to be doers of the Word contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone? If I may borrow the words of the apostle Paul, again from the book of Romans, “by no means!” Our good works do not earn or merit our justification before God. This is clearly taught in places like Ephesians 2:8-9. The teaching of Ephesians and all of Scripture on the doctrine of justification is summarized in WSC 33, which states that justification is, “an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
So then, what about our works, our obedience to God’s Word, the things the Word calls us to do? Does the doctrine of justification by faith make our “doing” of God’s Word pointless? Again, I’ll say, “by no means!” It does not make good works irrelevant. It does help us understand the relationship of our works to our faith.
Works are the necessary fruit of genuine faith, which is what we see James teaching, but they are not the ground of acceptance before God. Christ’s obedience and atoning death alone are the ground of our justification; faith alone is the means (instrument) by which the sinner receives Him. Being doers of the Word is a result, is evidence, of what has already occurred in our hearts by the grace of God alone.
It is vital that we understand this. Particularly as we look at passages like the one we have this morning. A true heart change will be displayed through a grace-enabled response or “doing” of God’s Word. Let us bear this in mind as we look at today’s verses.
Imagine that you wake up one morning and begin getting ready for the day. For most of us, maybe all of us, that involves looking in the mirror at some point. Why do we look in the mirror? The main reason we look in a mirror is to check our appearance. We want to know if anything is wrong with the way we look. We want to know if we look decent.
Now suppose you look in the mirror and discover that your face is covered in black dirt and you have all this food stuck between your teeth. What do you do? Well, you would clean your face and brush your teeth, wouldn’t you? I mean that is the proper response to what the mirror has revealed. You wouldn’t leave things the way they were and go about the day. That would be foolish, wouldn’t it? You would have failed to respond properly to what the mirror has revealed.
The purpose of looking in a mirror is not merely to acquire information about yourself. It is to see what needs attention and then respond accordingly.
Yet something similar often happens when we hear the Word of God. We hear the truth of God's Word. We recognize its teaching. We may even agree that it is right and good. But then, we go away without responding to what we have heard, without being affected by what has entered our ears and minds. We walk away as hearers only, unaffected by the glory and truth of God’s Word.
This is the issue James addresses in our passage. The issue in verses 22-25 is not that we can hear God’s Word too much or that we could ever get enough of God's Word. The problem is that we can hear God's Word without responding to it in faith and obedience. We can become satisfied with hearing and knowing biblical truth without allowing that truth to transform our lives. And this is not a new problem.
Throughout redemptive history, God's people have repeatedly demonstrated that hearing His Word and responding to it are two different things. All throughout Scripture, we see the need to not only hear God's Word but to respond to it by the grace that comes through Christ. Christ not only heard, knew, and agreed with God's Word; he perfectly and completely obeyed God's Word. And through our union with Him, we receive salvation and forgiveness for our disobedience and neglect of His Word but we also receive the Holy Spirit, who works in us to produce genuine obedience to that Word.
Therefore, through Christ, we can not only hear God's Word, but we can also become grace-enabled doers of God's Word.
How is this accomplished in the life of a believer? Here in verses 22-25, James gives us two answers.
By the grace that comes through Christ, we are enabled to avoid the deception of hearing without responding to the Word and we can enjoy the blessing of persevering in obedience to the Word.
The grace that comes through Christ not only justifies us, but it enables us to take what we hear in God’s Word and causes that Word to shape our lives. Let’s look at these timely truths together now.
James begins in verse 22 with a direct command: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
Notice the contrast James establishes. There are hearers of the Word, and then there are those who are hearers and doers of the Word. At first, we might wonder why James needs to make this distinction.
James is not condemning the act of hearing. The Christian life depends upon hearing God's Word. As Paul writes in Romans 10:17: "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."
The issue is not hearing. Hearing is vital. We have a high view of the ministry of the Word. The Word is proclaimed from the beginning through the end of our worship service. The Word is sung, the Word is read, the Word is recited, the Word is preached. These are all purposeful in that they proclaim God’s Word and provide opportunities for the people of God, for us, to hear the Word. Let me say it again, hearing is vital.
So hearing, in and of itself, is not the issue James is addressing here. The issue is hearing without a response of faith and obedience. It is taking what we have heard and having that Word, that truth, transform our thoughts, attitudes, and actions that come to fruition in our lives in tangible ways. To put it more simply, James wants us to understand that true hearing of the Word must lead to godly action.
And James does not merely say that hearing without doing is unproductive. He says that those who hear without doing are "deceiving yourselves.”
No one wants to be deceived, by others or by themselves. But we are especially prone to self-deception, especially when it comes to hearing and doing the Word. Here, James asserts that the deception comes from thinking one has done all that is necessary when actually listening to the Word is only the beginning.
James illustrates this using an analogy of a mirror in verses 23–24: "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."
The image is straightforward. A person looks into a mirror, sees what is there, and then walks away, forgetting what he saw and without responding to it.
James continues in verse 24: "For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." The problem is not that the mirror failed. The mirror did its job. The person saw his reflection. The failure came when he walked away and did nothing with what he had seen.
Imagine that you are asleep in your home one night when the smoke detector begins to sound. You hear the alarm. You recognize what it means. You understand that something is wrong and that you need to respond. But instead of getting up and investigating, you simply roll over, pull the covers over your head, and go back to sleep.
Would anyone consider that a wise response? Of course not!
The purpose of the alarm is not simply to communicate information. It is to warn you of danger so that you will take action. In fact, the more clearly you understand what the alarm is communicating, the more foolish it becomes to ignore it. That is precisely the point James is making.
God's Word is not simply intended to give us religious information. It exposes our sin, reveals God's character, warns us about the dangers of disobedience, and directs us toward the life God calls us to live. Yet we can hear God's Word week after week and fail to respond.
It is the same with Scripture. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is living and active, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. As we read and hear God’s Word, we are confronted with the standard of God’s law and how we fall short.
In those moments, God's Word is functioning as a mirror. The mirror of God's Word reveals that we are sinners. We have not loved God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not obeyed God perfectly in thought, word, and deed.
But if we simply hear or read about these realities and are unaffected by them, to the point that we are unchanged and don’t respond to them, well James says we deceive ourselves.
We hear the warning about bitterness but continue holding grudges. We hear the command to forgive but refuse to reconcile. We hear the call to holiness but continue entertaining the same sinful desires. We hear the alarm, but we refuse to respond.
So how do we avoid this deception? We need the grace of Christ to enable us to not merely be hearers, but to be doers of the Word we receive, the implanted Word.
When God's Word exposes our sin, we must not simply resolve to do better. We do not attempt to make ourselves acceptable to God through improved behavior. We look first to Christ.
Our acceptance before God rests entirely upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
In addition, we must remember that the gospel does not excuse our disobedience. It provides the forgiveness and transforming grace that make a life of obedience possible. Obedience is not the foundation of our acceptance before God. It is the fruit of his gracious work in us.
We must never confuse hearing the Word with obeying the Word. But neither should we confuse obedience with earning God's favor. We obey because we have been saved by grace, not in order to be saved.
And this brings us to the second way Christ's grace enables us to become doers of God's Word.
Look at verse 25. After describing what the person is like who is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, James describes the one who hears the Word and does it. He tells us about the grace-enabled doer of the Word.
He writes, "But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres..."
Why does he call God's law perfect? James uses this phrase as a synonym for sacred Scripture. Psalm19:7 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.”
He calls God's Word perfect because it is complete, trustworthy, and entirely consistent with His righteous character. It reveals the truth about God and teaches us how we are to live before Him.
And why does James call it the "law of liberty"? It is because the law of God sets us free, as it drives us to Christ who alone can free us from sin. The Reformation Study Bible puts it this way, “Having been justified, we then find God's law to be the law of freedom, for we are truly free only when we do what is pleasing to the Lord.” In other words, true freedom is freedom to obey God and do what pleases him.
God's commands do not lead us away from a life of freedom. They show us how to live in accordance with the good purposes for which God created us. Consider Psalm 19:9: “the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. Or Psalm 119:45: "I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts."
But we need to understand something important. Though God’s Word, the Law, is perfect and good, and the “law of liberty,” it is powerless to save us from sin. It exposes our sin and reveals God's righteous standard. Christ alone saves sinners through his redeeming work. And the Spirit enables believers to grow in obedience to God's commands.
In Christ, obedience is no longer an attempt to establish our own righteousness before God. It becomes the grateful expression of a life redeemed by grace.
But James doesn’t stop there. Here continues in verse 25 by saying that the faithful hearer "perseveres." This has been an embedded theme throughout this first chapter of James. James has harped on how we persevere in the Christian life. How so? We persevere when we move from simply hearing to doing.
It is an ongoing commitment to hear God's Word, believe its promises, receive its correction, and obey its commands. We need this kind of perseverance because spiritual growth rarely happens overnight. The Christian life is not a single moment of hearing God's Word. It is a lifetime of being shaped by that Word.
This is why the ordinary means of grace matter so much. We need the faithful preaching of Scripture, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship with God's people, and the encouragement and correction of the church. James wants us to see that we must continually place ourselves under the Word’s authority, asking God to teach us, correct us, comfort us, and conform us to the image of Christ.
And we must not miss this - here is where we must make an important connection between the perfect law of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus never heard the Father's commands and walked away without responding. He obeyed what he heard, knew, and even said about His Father’s Word. He perfectly fulfilled the Father's will. Through his life of perfect obedience and his sacrificial death, Christ secured the righteousness and redemption that sinners need. And His resurrection declares that his saving work was complete and that all who are united to him have new life.
This means that our obedience as Christians flows out of our union with Christ. And the same Christ who justifies us is at work sanctifying us through his Spirit. Paul explains this in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." And in Philippians 2:12–13, Paul calls believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling because God is at work in them, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
We work out what God is working within us. Our obedience is not independent of God's grace. It is the fruit of God's grace. We look intently into God's Word, persevere in obedience, and grow in holiness because Christ has redeemed us and his Spirit is at work within us.
And what is the result of this grace-enabled doing of God’s Word? James concludes at the end of verse 25: "Being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."
Notice where James locates the blessing: in the life of the person who acts upon God's Word. This does not mean that Christians who obey God will always enjoy prosperity, good health, comfortable circumstances, or freedom from suffering. The blessing of obedience is not a guarantee of worldly success. It is the blessing, the goodness, of living in fellowship with God, walking according to his wisdom, and experiencing the fruit of a life increasingly conformed to Christ.
So how do we apply these truths in our lives? What will we do with God's Word? Will we merely listen to sermons, collect biblical knowledge, and agree with sound doctrine? Or will we allow Scripture to expose our sin, lead us to Christ, and shape the way we live?
Let us not deceive ourselves. When we leave worship today, let us not leave God's Word behind. Let us take it with us into our homes, marriages, parenting, workplace, and shape the way we do those things. Let us take it into our conversations, our decisions, our struggles, and our relationships.
But let us also remember that the ability to do that is not a matter of trying harder, it is a result of the grace of the gospel. The gospel offers us something better than self-improvement. It offers us Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can approach God's Word with confidence and humility. We do not come to prove that we are righteous. We come because Christ is our righteousness. We do not obey to purchase God's favor. We obey because, in Christ, we have received His grace.
And that grace changes the way we hear. Through Christ, we can not only hear God's Word, but we can also become grace-enabled doers of God's Word.
Let’s pray.
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