Atlanta Bible Baptist Church

Guest (Male): Morning. Would you stand with me as we read the scripture to be found in the Book of James, chapter one, verses 22 through 25? That's the Book of James, chapter one, verses 22 through 25.

And it reads, "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 observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 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." May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of His word.

Charles Porter: Good morning, ABBC. Thanks be to God who always—and God is one—and thankful for Him that He always gives us the victory in our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. I am privileged this morning to stand before you on the normal routine here on fourth Sundays that one of us gets an opportunity to stand before you and share our faith. Today is my turn and I am excited about it. I am also humbled by it.

I want to start by introducing you to your favorite folks. That is us. You see January '96 there. I purposely took that picture because I wanted to remember it, because that's two weeks after Trisha left. Two weeks. Those are my heroes there and they grew. What you see is April of '26—that's two months ago. That's them there as they grew.

And to add to it, that's us. January '96. I want to say to each of you, but especially—and I'm going to take a chance here because as I was going through and looking at these pictures, the Lord brought back some memories of those of you who reached out to me in very special ways. Sister Gloria, Sister Mary, Sister Tony. They helped me with birthday parties and stuff like that. Yeah, I remember that. I got pictures of it.

And then there was all of you. I want to say to my dear sister and my brother who are walking this journey right now: you won't find a better group of supporters or church folks to support you, to pray for you, to be with you in everything than right here at Atlanta Bible Baptist Church. Pastor McNeil and Mrs. McNeil, they came to everything. They were there. I even have pictures of Brother Albert. He showed up at some kindergarten graduations. Yeah. So thank you all. I am deeply indebted to each of you.

As a result, you see a lot of trauma there in '96. We didn't know what was going on. People ask me, "Charles, how'd you do it?" My simple answer is: I prayed and I picked up my feet. I prayed and I put down my feet. I just kept moving. I didn't have time to look around or to complain or anything. I had three souls that were dependent upon me. Now, you have family here. It was only me.

My mom, my mother-in-law, aunties—they all said, "Charles, we'll take those babies." Well, no. They gave me a million reasons why they should be with them. I only had one reason that they should be with me, and that is: they were mine. They were mine. I felt like the Lord wanted me to walk that path. It might have been stubbornness on my part, or it might have been ignorance on my part. But they were mine.

Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we love you and we do thank you for this hour. We have no strength in ourselves. Our total dependence is upon you. We ask you now, Lord, to preach, to teach, to show unto us the things of Christ. Lord, whatever you say, we will do. Christ in me, the hope of glory. All of me I give to thee for all of Christ who is my life. Amen.

Two weeks ago, Pastor has been in the book of James, but these passages here are all one section, actually. He began it with "hearing aids," the fine art of listening, looking at James chapter 1, verses 18 through 21. Then he said that to be a good hearer of the word, he gave three things that we must do. I guess when some of you opened up that outline and you looked at my outline and you saw it wasn't three things, you said, "Well, we know this ain't Pastor."

He said to appreciate the power of the word of God and to adjust my pattern to hearing. We have set patterns that needed to be adjusted so that we can hear God's word. Then we needed to abandon, to put off certain things—to put off certain behaviors and attitudes and put on others that would increase our hearing and adjust ourselves to be able to hear God's word. We learned—he taught us and shared with us—how to hear God's word.

These verses this morning are just a continuation of that because there is a biblical principle: hearing is doing. If you haven't heard, you can't do. But what proves that you've heard is that you do. So if you're not doing the word, you have not heard the word. It's just a biblical principle.

In James 1:22, we come to the passage that says, "Be ye 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 in a mirror and sees his natural face, and observing, he goes away and he quickly forgets the kind of man that he was. But he who observes the perfect law—or rather, he who looks into the perfect law—and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, that one will be blessed in what he does."

That's our passage, and I'm coming from the subject of my favorite greeting to each of you: "How you be?" I had a young lady I was dating and she invited me to this big program and I went around and asked everybody, "How you be?" She said I was country. She didn't want to talk to me anymore. Well, that's my greeting and I'm sticking to it.

In James this morning, he tells us how to be. I'm using that supporting passage in Matthew chapter seven, Luke chapter six, and Mark chapter four. Hopefully, we'll go through these points here: be a doer of the word (verse 22), be an observer of the word (verse 23), don't be forgetting the word (verse 24), and then verse 25: be a looker into the word, be an ongoing doer of the word, and be rejoicing in God's blessing.

Be a doer of the word. In my studies, I ran across Dr. MacArthur. He said something that really brought home to me—because I've asked the question, why didn't he just say "just do the work" or "be doing the word"? Dr. MacArthur says that there's a difference between somebody who's doing something and someone who is what they are doing. He used the "builder," and that got me right away. There's one thing to be building, to build a house, but there's another thing to be a builder of houses, because that's what you do.

My dad, in the house I grew up in back in Shreveport, my dad built our house. He built it, but he was not a builder. My dad was a mechanic. He built our house. But now the house that I live in over on Union Road, that house was built by a builder. I didn't even know that until one day this young lady pulled up in the yard and we went out to meet her. She said, "I grew up in that house because my granddaddy built that house." My dad said he built all the other houses on this street here.

I didn't know that. She said, "But this is the first house that he built." She went on to talk about the aesthetics of the house and everything, but without going inside, I knew she knew the house. He was a builder. He built houses because that's what he did. That was who he was. He wasn't just building a house; he built houses.

One thing about this verse here is that James actually says what Jesus says. That stood out to me even more because I remember back when I was first asked to preach. These three guys here, we were from Carver and we were to go down to Louisiana. First, I wasn't a part of that group; there was another brother. If I called his name, you'd know, but I don't want to call his name. But what you see there, you see Richard Fleming in the middle. He was a Reverend; he was called to pastor.

Then you had the cartoonist there, Tony Van Dyke. Most of you probably know both of those guys. Tony has gone on; he's now a Christian cartoonist. Then you got the guy on the left there. I'm still trying to figure out why I got on that big old coat when they do not have on coats. But I was a musician and that's what we were going to do.

We were going down to Louisiana to visit the Bakers on spring break. They were missionaries from Moody Bible Institute and we were going to visit them. I can't remember neither one of their names, so it's just "the Bakers." They were in Elton, Louisiana. Once she found out we had to send our information down there, and once she found out that I was from Shreveport, she asked if she could call my mom and dad and ask them to come down while we were there.

She called my mom and dad, and Muddy and Daddy and my grandmother, they did agree to come down and they came down. Once Mr. Baker found out that Muddy and Daddy were coming down, he rearranged everything. He wanted me to preach because my mom and daddy were coming down. I'm not here to preach; I'm here to do the music. That's what I was there for. But because my mama and daddy were coming down, I got an opportunity to preach.

The thing is, leading up to that, I'm saying, "Lord, I'm not a preacher. What am I supposed to say?" I'm just crying out to the Lord and eventually, the Lord simply whispered and said, "Say what I say." As I mulled over that, I finally came to say, "Lord, I can do that. I can say what you say."

That Sunday morning at Tarsus Bible Baptist Church with Dr. Leroy Griffin—most of you know them, him and his wife, Miss Gladys—I preached. I can't tell you what I preached. They may not even call it preaching. But I stood up and I said what God says. That has been my mantra to this very day: say what I say.

That's what James does. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says, "Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock." This is at the end of the Beatitudes sermon. Jesus moves on from this sermon around all of those people. At the end of that sermon, he says whoever hears these words of mine—all the things that he said—and does them, "I'll liken him to a man who built his house on a rock."

He goes on to say, "The rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and they beat on the house and it did not fall, for it was founded on a rock." But not hearers only. Hearers are listeners who only engage their ears. Doers, their whole self is involved in it. Hearers engage their ears, and then life happens.

Mark gives us a little bit of insight into that. If we go to Mark chapter 4 and beginning at verse 14—I don't have that up there, so you're going to have to turn. Mark chapter 4, listen at the insight of Mark as he shares here. He's talking about the sower here, the sower who sows. Mark says in verse 14, "The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes and immediately takes away the word that was sown in their hearts." Immediately, Satan comes. They hear, but then Satan comes and takes away the word. I call those just the casual hearers of the word.

But then there's another group. He goes on to say—but first, let me say this: it is Satan who comes. As shared, there's one opposition against you and me hearing the word of God, and that's Satan. He is the opposition. Remember, Satan has a desire. He says, "I will be like the Most High." As many of us as he can keep from that word of God, we're helping him to be like the Most High. See, that's an ongoing war, this ongoing battle between God and Satan. It's an ongoing spiritual war.

In my opinion and in most, it's an unfair battle because God has already won. As Dr. Evans said, Satan—he's the devil, but he's God's devil. He's under control. But he can't get at God, so who does he get after? His images. And as many of His images as he can keep away from God, confused and buffeted and singing and dancing, he wins.

Verse 16 says, "These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground." Stony ground are those who just get an emotional charge when we hear the word of God. We feel good for a minute, all excited just for the time being. He says, "Those who hear, immediately they receive it with gladness." Oh, we're just so excited. We heard and we got an emotional charge from it. He says, "And they have no root in themselves and so they endure only for a time." They got no root. Life happens.

And what is that life? "Afterwards, when tribulation and persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they stumble." They got that emotional charge, but that emotion wears off. Feelings wear off. There's no root. Then he says, "Now these are the ones sown among thorns." Now, these folks here among thorns, you definitely don't want to be this. We sit here, we hear, but we're not thinking about what's being said. Our mind is on the next dollar we can make, or "How do I rise up and be Mr. CEO?" or "How do I ascend through the ranks and be Mrs. Executive?"

They are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things enter in to choke off the word. So you sit here and you're just not hearing, you really don't care, because the mind is on this world. Now, hopefully, this is what James is pointing to is this group that comes up next.

He says, "But these are the ones on good ground, those who hear the word and accept it." That is equivalent to doing it. And what happens? You bear fruit. That's an automatic result of hearing and doing. You bear fruit. Some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. We're all different, so some are not going to do what others do or as much as others.

Pastor McNeil, when I first met him, said his desire was to win a million souls to the Lord. Then he increased that to 2 million. Doing the word will result in fruit, not just hearing. Those who only hear the word of God are only deceiving themselves. Oh, you're not fooling me, or your wife, or the next brother or sister. You're only fooling yourself. "I was in church this morning. Check that off." The truth is they don't love God.

That's not me saying that. Scripture is saying that. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. He's speaking to those who were dealing with this thing of meat that had been taken over by idols. Their question was, "Should I eat or should I not eat?" Paul is saying that's not the question. The question is: do you love God? Because if you love God, whatever you do, if you love God, God knows you and He's got you. So he says, "But if anyone loves God, this one is known by God."

But again, Matthew, as he wrote what Jesus was saying in chapter 7 of Matthew, speaks on this. The term that James is using here when he says "deceive himself," he uses a mathematical term which means to miscount or to miscalculate. I don't know if this has ever happened to you: you have so many dollars and you get in the store and you got it all figured out, but then when you get there, you have miscounted. You've deceived yourself. You don't have enough money. You say, "Well, put that back. I don't need that right now."

Jesus gives us again an example. Let's go to Matthew chapter 7, verse 21. Listen at this: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven." They're saying "Lord, Lord," but they're not doing His will. They're doing things, and He gives us the thing that they are doing. "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied, have we not preached and taught in your name?'"

Let me back up because there are two other things there. "And cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name?" I don't know if you've heard, but our Secretary of Defense, he's running around saying we're policing the world in Jesus' name. Doing it in Jesus' name. But listen to what Jesus goes on to say: "Then I will declare to them—those who are saying 'Lord, Lord,' casting out demons, teaching, and all these other things in His name—this is what He says: 'Depart from me.'" Why? "I don't know you." There was no love for God. They were doing things, but their motives were wrong. Their motives are wrong because the motive is factored through the hearing. I'm doing this because I love God, not because it makes me look good or because I want to do it. I'm doing it because of a love for God.

So always, we must check our motives. James is really going to get into that because he goes on to say this: "If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror." A hearer only of the word, says James, is like a man. It is the word "man," that's the word *anēr*. We learned *anthrōpos* last week, but this word here is the word *anēr* which is male.

He says he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. Males and females, we have different relationships with the mirror. Males, we're rather casual with the mirror. Females have an ongoing relationship with the mirror. You say, "Charles, that's sexist." Well, I don't mean to be sexist, but I do mean to tell the truth as I understand it.

Let's hear what James says about it because he says be a doer of the word and he says be an observer of the word. What is he talking about? The word here he uses for "observe" is the word *katanoeō*. That word in itself is a verb, and listen to what it means. It means to perceive clearly, to be fully aware. You will hear most translations say that he "glances" at the word. That's not what that word is saying. It means to perceive fully, to clearly be aware. In other words, observers take a deeper look. Observers take a deeper look into the word of God.

Luke chapter 6, verse 47 and 48. Listen to what Luke said. He's talking about the same event of Jesus finishing his Beatitudes sermon. He's at the end of that sermon. Но Luke adds something that Matthew does not. "Anyone who comes to me and hears my word and acts on them will be like a man building a house—" but listen to what Luke adds: "who dug deep and laid his foundation on a rock." You see, you have to dig to get to the rock. You have to dig down to get to the rock.

The house I told you about, when I walked in that house the first time, there was a little slit in the living room and it was yay big, but it was a long slit. It was observable. But then I was told by a brother—you'd even know him if I told you—he said, "That just means the house has settled." You see, there's the layer and then there's sand, there's mud, there's all of that. But it goes through all of that and it settles on a rock. I've been in that house since 1992. I measure that slit ever so often. It has not moved. You know why? Because it's settled. It has not moved, settled on a rock.

He's talking about a foundation here. Но to get to the rock, you have to dig. You have to go deep into the word of God and get to the rock and get to a foundation that's going to give you something to stand on. So that when you do, when you act, you're acting according to the words of your commander, the Lord Jesus Christ. You're standing on His word, knowing that His word will not return to you or to me void.

Observers digging deep into the word will come away with two truths. I'm not talking about just a casual Bible reader now. I'm talking about digging deep into the word. You're going to come away with two truths. The first truth you're going to come away with is the truth of God. And the second truth we're going to come away with is the truth of man, the truth of humanity, the truth of myself. Those two truths are running through the Bible. The truth of God and the truth of man.

We'll find God saying, "I am God and there is no other." You'll find Him saying that. You'll find Him saying, "I am God. I am God and there's none like me." In Exodus 34:6, the Lord says, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth. I am God, I am holy, but I am compassionate. I am loving. I am gentle. I am God." And there's none beside me.

What did this God do? This holy God in His compassion and holiness—this is digging deep now. This is what you're going to find if you dig deep. You're going to find that He sent His only son Jesus into the earth through the womb of His chosen female, Mary. Him coming through Mary, He has no relationship to Adam. Jesus came to pay the death penalty for each and every one of us because of what Adam did.

But remember, He came into the world with no relation to Adam. How Jesus got into that womb was the Holy Spirit. He had an earthly mother, but no relation to Adam. The Holy Spirit put Him in that womb. And in that womb, we find also that He grew and He grew into a man. Jesus is able, the Lord Jesus Christ, he's able to save to the uttermost anybody that would come to Him. He's able to save.

Now, the second truth is that of humanity, which is: he's not like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. You're going to see yourself. You're going to see yourself if you just simply dig now. Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd." A lot of us know that. But if you dig deep into that, what's that going to say? Meaning you dig deep now, but you just hear that. Behold his natural face: the mirror.

The mirror is not like what we see today—these mirrors that we look at today and we get an external look at what I look like externally. James uses that mirror to point us to the word of God. Because the mirror, the way James is using it, is the word of God. An observer will see his natural face. He will see his natural self in Adam. That's the big reason that Jesus Christ came into the world born of a woman, but with no relationship to Adam, because every last one of you and me, we are tied to Adam.

God is all-sufficient, He's sovereign, He's holy. But man, the image of God, we are insufficient. We are needy. We are wicked sinners in our natural state when we see ourselves in Adam. And here's the pronounced difference that God Himself says between Himself and me. He says, "I am not a man that I should lie." How many lies do we hear every day? How many lies do we tell every day? God says, "I will never do that." That's the difference.

He's God and there's none like him. He sent His son Jesus Christ because in Adam we all die, but in Christ, we're all made alive. But if you don't dig into the word of God, you're not going to ever see that. As a matter of fact, you're going to question it and you're going to argue with people who tell you that. What's your response? "Don't be judging me."

Sin came into the world through one man. That one man was Adam. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. And by one man's sin—Adam's disobedience when he disobeyed God—sin came unto all. We are descendants of Adam. We are of the seed of Adam. But Jesus Christ stands alone.

Either we go to Adam and we continue in Adam's way, or we surrender ourselves to the living Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible is going to show you. That's what this mirror is going to hold up to you. The mirror is not going to show me Wayne Johnson. The mirror is going to show me me. It's going to show me God and me. It's going to show you you and God and our relationship to Him. He's like a man who beholds his face in a mirror. Again, that word there is *genesis* face, his "first" face. He's going to see the truth of who he is in Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:22 we've already said: "For as in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive." In verse 24, "For he observes himself." This is the part where I really was struggling with this for a moment, but I don't struggle with it anymore after going through this. He observes himself. He sees himself. He knows what's going on. He sees who he is. But yet, what does James say he does? He perceives clearly who he really is and he continues in his observation, but when he goes away, he immediately forgets.

In looking at that word, I'm going to say don't be forgetting. "Forget," the word that's used there is *epilanthanomai*. That word really would be best rendered "to neglect," or "to ignore," or "to disregard." I argued with that every time I casually read that until I actually studied it starting the first part of this month when I learned that these were my verses. By nature, I'm a forgetful person. You just saw it just a few moments ago. I can be in the middle of a sentence and totally forget what I want to say.

My mama used to say to me, "Charles Porter, if your head wasn't hooked to your neck, you would forget your head," because I just naturally forget. My son says to me, "Dad, we aren't going to ever know when you get Alzheimer's, because you already forget everything." I just forget. But this forgetfulness for me, it's not an effort that I make to forget. That's just how God made me. It took me years to come to the point that that's how God made me.

I just forget stuff. When I was over at the City of Atlanta in safety, those drivers used to bring me incidents out on the route. Another driver who's had an encounter with me would say to him, "You better write it down, because he isn't going to remember." Then he'd say, "Well, you better go up there and see where he put it in his office, because he isn't going to remember that either." I just naturally forget stuff.

But to neglect—neglect is an effort. It's an effort that I make to neglect. It's an effort that I make to disregard. I see myself in the mirror. I see that I'm a sinner, but I say no and I go on my way. That's totally different than what we're being taught that this passage says, because James is saying that you neglect the word of God. You push aside the truth of God's word. You quickly do it, pushing aside His truth.

He tells us that in the next phrase. He neglects to really realize or to understand or accept the kind of man that he was. What is he saying here? He means that he remembers who he is in Adam; he's seen who he is in Adam. He's talking to Christians here, to brothers in Christ. It's the 12 tribes from the northern part of Israel that have been exiled into Assyria. 10 tribes in the north, two in the south.

James says in verse 2, "My brethren, count it all joy." In verse 16, he says, "My brethren, do not be deceived." Because they're Christians, they've been changed. They're new in Christ now, but they go on like they don't remember who they were, and they're acting like that and not taking on the new nature and walking in their newness in Christ.

Verse 25: "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but is a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." Verse 25 gives us three points: be a looker into the word of God, be an ongoing doer, and be rejoicing in God's blessing.

He looks into the perfect law of liberty. Get this right here: this word here is different from the word "observe." It's the word *parakyptō*. This word means to stoop down and inspect. Get in that word, stoop down, and inspect what the word of God is saying. I get the picture here of somebody who's looking for gold. They're out there in that water and they stoop down and they're just going back and forth, running through their hands and looking for little nuggets and little kernels of gold.

If you get into the word of God that deep, that's what you're going to come away with: some nuggets. Two personal thoughts as I read the scripture: in John 15:5, "Without me you can do nothing." Now, just hearing that on its own—"without me you can do nothing"—well, I'm saying that doesn't mean anything to me. Но look at what he says in the full context of the verse. He says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. And he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit."

What's the fruit? 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold. "For without me," he says, "you can do—" Now you hear that in its whole context, it makes perfect sense. Paul says it like this: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." That's the freedom right there. I can do all things through Christ. I don't have to bear this anymore. I don't have to worry about this. I just lean myself onto Christ and I trust him and he takes over my life.

As a looker into the word of God, I become a deep-digging inspector finding nuggets of pure gold delivered to me from the very breath and heart of the living sovereign God, Jehovah. That is what's happening when we read the word and we go deep into that word. We come away with nuggets of gold. We come away with breath for life. We come away with heartbeat to make a next step.

He is the vine and I am His needy, insufficient branch. I need Him. And through Him, I can do all things. So, be a looker and be a doer of the word. This word here is the word "work." What is James saying? Be an ongoing doer of the business of God. Never neglecting, never ignoring, never pushing aside what He says. Be an ongoing doer of all that He says with all my heart, soul, mind, spirit, and body. Then I can rejoice in His promise, because the one who does this will be blessed in what he does.

In Psalms 119, at the end of that, it says this: the Psalmist gives a long list that the word of God is the perfect law of God, it is the testimony of God, it is the witness of God, it is the word of God. At the end, he says, "The word of God, whoever by them your servant is warned." You don't have to go through life blind. God warns us in His word. "And in keeping them," he says, "there is great reward." Listen to what Joshua says. Check this out.

James said what Jesus said. Jesus, who is the personified word of God, says what God says. God told this to Joshua: "Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night." If you think back to what James said earlier about that mirror having an ongoing relationship, keep looking in the mirror. Never stop looking in the word of God. Never stop viewing yourself in the word of God. Never stop. Stay in the word of God. You know that's what those 2:7 programs are all about? It's to put us in the word of God, to keep us in the word of God.

"That you may observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then," he says, "you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success." James is only saying what Jesus says. Jesus says what God says to Joshua. There are some 40 men that wrote the Bible over a total of 1,500 years. All 40 of those men tell who God is and who I am and my response to who He is.

How you be, ABBC? Be careful to hear what God says. Then with all diligence, let us be ongoing doers of what He says. Let's pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, for Pastor McNeil. We thank you for Reverend Ray Smith, two men who have continued to hear your word and to do your word, and then to teach us your word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit who enables us to hear what you say and who lives through us, dear Lord, the person of Jesus Christ who enables us to be the doers that you would have us to be.

I thank you, Lord, for these brothers and sisters here at ABBC who have a love for your word and who we challenge one another to hear and to do your word. Because Lord, if we have heard, we will do. And if we haven't heard, we prove that by not doing. So, we give our hearts to you and say, Lord, have your way. Christ in me, the hope of glory. Amen.