“Changing Hearers into Doers”
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only" James 1:22 (KJV)
Intro: Do you think God ever gets frustrated with us? I’m going to give you some time to think about your answer to that question. The answer is not a simple “yes or no.” Because no matter which answer you give the importance, the implications, the consequences, the results, the cause and effect, of your answer is far deeper theologically and spiritually and personal than we could ever explain in the few minutes we have here together today.
I am convinced that God has a plan. Aren’t you? I am persuaded by God’s road map. I am converted to His purpose. I am guided by His direction in life.
And he puts up signs to direct us. Not tiny hard to see signs. I believe God puts up billboards. I believe He uses loud bullhorns so we can hear his voice. I believe He shakes earth and sky to make clear the direction and guidance that he wants us to take. He makes clear his word and where he wants us to follow. He makes plain his message and what he wants us to do.
Unlike human voices and hearing, which can be fuzzy and blurred and distorted, God’s voice can be heard clearly and precisely. It is a symphony of completion and perfection.
The message God gave his followers thousands of years ago is still the message he gives each of us here today. So today we are going to talk about “Changing Hearers into Doers.”
I. Hearing God Will Challenge Our Comfort Zone
"Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached Jesus. He knelt before him, worshiping. "Lord," the man said, "if you want to, you can make me well again. Jesus touched him. "I want to," he said. "Be healed!" And instantly the leprosy disappeared. Then Jesus said to him, "Go right over to the priest and let him examine you. Don't talk to anyone along the way. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy, so everyone will have proof of your healing." Matthew 8:1-4
I love these stories of Jesus’ healing! They show us the great love of Jesus. They show us the selflessness of caring, the unselfishness of Jesus.
There was no cure for this poor man with his disease. He was banished from his home, his city, his life. Our Lord Jesus – literally – gave him a life changing hand.
Sin is also a terrible disease. One that destroys our home, our community and who we are. From this we learn that in our ministry to people around us today we too must be quick and ambitious to give our self away. To place ourselves at risk to save others by thinking nothing of our own desires but solely on the needs of others.
How many times does Jesus try to teach us to think nothing of our own desires, but to think solely on the needs of others?
An old Paul Harvey story is about a man by the name of Ray Blankenship. One morning as Ray was preparing his breakfast he heard the terrified cries of a little girl. As he looked out his window he saw her being swept away in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream the ditch disappeared into a tunnel underneath a road and then emptied into the main storm drain.
Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the sinking child. Then he jumped into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. Only a few feet away from the culvert Ray’s free hand felt something--possibly submerged tree limb— He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to rip and tear him away from the child. “If only he could just hang on until help comes," he thought. But he did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself…, thinking solely on the need of others. Because Ray Blankenship could not swim. And now you know the rest of the story.
Learn this lesson: Hearing God speak Will Challenge Our Comfort Zone.
Ray could have said, “I don’t want to get wet. I don’t want to ruin my breakfast. I don’t want to risk my life,”
BUT God’s voice was unmistakably clear! When Ray heard the terrified cries of the little girl and looked out and saw that little child drowning in the water there is no way that anyone could misunderstand what had to be done!
When Jesus came along with the large crowds of people all around him and suddenly a man with leprosy is kneeling and worshipping before him. The crowd would say, stand back, unclean! Don’t touch him! You are risking your own life!
But this man looked up unto the Lord and said, to Jesus "if you want to, you can make me well again. Jesus touched him. "I want to," he said. "Be healed!" And instantly the leprosy disappeared. Then Jesus said to him, "Go right over to the priest and let him examine you. Don't talk to anyone along the way.
No doubt there would be skeptics in the crowd. People who would say, “I have never heard it done that way before. Do you know the last words of a dying church? “We have never done it that way before. We are not going to change.”
We can’t do church as usual in the world we live in today because the world we grew up in is long gone. The world I was a teenager in has changed. The world your grandchildren live in is way different. The church has to change or it will fade away.
Oh, listen; I had rather be the pastor of a church that is kicking and screaming than one that is slowly dying with grace.
Then Jesus said, Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy, so everyone will have proof of your healing." Matthew 8:1-4 The offering was an offering of praise and thanks for the miracle of healing that was done.
Bill Hybels the founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, Illinois has an average weekly attendance: 22,500 with an annual budget of $36.2 million, puts it this way: “I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncalloused hand – a hand never dirtied by serving – and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.”
Does the voice of God challenge us and change us? Does the word and message of God cause us to want to do something? Are you living in a comfort zone? Or are you living in God’s zone?
II. Doing what God says is one thing, getting others to follow is even harder.
"(Christ)… gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:14 (KJV)
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18 (KJV)
There are two things I want you to get here. (I recently heard Bishop Mike Coyner of the Indiana Conference author of “The Andrew Paradigm: How to be a Lead Follower of Jesus.”) He made the following points and I am paraphrasing:
1. Christians are not called to be normal people.
We are called to be strange, weird, abnormal. We are not supposed to fit into this world. Christ died for us to redeem us, to rescue us, to save us from our sins, to make us holy, to draw us unto him as a peculiar people. Jesus came to pull us out of the downing waters, to pull us out of the world of sin. We are to be people zealous of good works, adamant, firm, on fire, unstoppable.
He doesn’t want us to fit in. He doesn’t call us to be normal in the eyes of the world. He doesn’t want us to embrace human passions, and be controlled by normal ways of thinking.
Instead ours must be a voice of radical hospitality. Where no one is treated like a stranger and even our enemies are welcomed to our table.
He wants extreme generosity. Where faith dictates our finances instead of a balance sheet. Where we out give what we have and trust in God to provide for what we need.
He wants passionate worship. Where we are obsessed with loving God. Where we are fanatical in our praise.
Where we are drunk in the Holy Spirit on the new wine of Jesus Christ! God doesn’t call us to be normal!
And for most normal people becoming God’s peculiar people is one thing, but getting others to follow is even harder! Christians are not called to be normal people we are called to be purified unto Christ through the cross, a peculiar people, zealous (enthusiastic, passionate) about being doers of good works.
That brings me to second thing I want you learn here.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18 (KJV)
2. Christians are called to the cross, and the cross seems like foolishness to those who will not embrace it. But unto us who do…, which are saved…, it is the power of God.
In his book “Rising Above the Crowd,” Brian Harbour tells of a church in Florida that sponsored a Week of Champions. They invited Christian athletes from all over the country to share their testimonies with the youth of the city. One of the athletes was Paul Anderson, the strongest man in the world.
His testimony was, "If the world's strongest man needs Jesus, so do you."
A few weeks later, a young man went to the pastor of the church and told him of his decision for Christ. The young man explained that he had made the decision on the night that Anderson had spoken. Out of curiosity the pastor asked what Anderson had said that convinced him of his need for Christ. The young man answered, "I don't remember what Paul Anderson said. What touched me was a paraplegic being pushed forward in his wheelchair during the invitation time to accept Jesus. I said to myself that if God could do something for him, then surely he could do something for me." If God can use a paraplegic in his weakness to lead others to Christ, God can use us.
I am not the strongest man in the world. I am not the weakest person I know. Like each of you…, we are somewhere in between. Hearing what God’s says, and then doing it, requires a willingness on my part to take action.
You can hear the best preaching you have ever heard in your life but if you don’t do something, if you don’t come to the altar and give your life to Jesus you will leave this place lost, unsaved, and bound for destruction.
You can hear the most meaningful words of songs ever sung but unless you let those words redefine your life, unless the music causes you to make changes and do something about your soul, you will leave here unaltered, same hearted, unmoved to tear or joy.
You can hear the most powerful prayers ever prayed but if you don’t go out when you leave this place and testify to what you have heard and sung and experienced then nothing has changed. You have to listen and let God break your heart. Let God become stronger than your strength and greater than your weakness. Let God hug you. Let God hold you in His arms.
How you let God change you from a hearer into a doer is not by squeezing harder but it is by letting your grip go. Instead of clinching and hanging on so tight to who you are and what you have. Instead you turn it all over to Him. You must turn over your life, your family, your job, your entertainment, your joy, and yes you must also turn your church over to God.
Getting others to follow God is even harder. Because normal people don’t act that way. Because only foolish people kneel at a cross which is the symbol for death and expect for find eternal life.
In the marketing book “Brandwashed” by Martin Lindstrom, he says, “it only takes persuading five percent of the people to influence a crowd.” If that is true, how many people in this church do we have to convince to cooperate and work together to make real changes in the way we do church and present the gospel?
Closing: "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only" James 1:22 (KJV)
It is easy to get discouraged and to give up on God. I also know that when we are moving in the wrong direction, the direction that is away from God there is no peace. There is no contentment in life until you are moving in the direction that God want you to follow.
In the Bible it is clear that when the people were disobedient unto God they always suffered the consequences.
The most frightening thing that can ever happen in your life is for you to hear and feel God and his Holy Spirit leading you but instead of you listening to God and doing what you know God is calling you to do, instead you ignore the bill boards, you tune out the loud speakers.
I see…, I hear…, I feel…, I know what God wants me to do and I am willing to do it! There is healing for you. There is comfort for your loss. There is help for your brokenness. But it all starts by “Changing Hearers into Doers.”
I invite you to make that decision today. The decision to take what you have heard and feel…, turn it into actions of repentance and become doers of good works. Will you make that commitment to service today?
