I am a big Alabama football fan. I have to admit, therefore, my bias concerning the head football coach, Nick Saban, for I believe he is a phenomenal coach. Though crusty and notoriously exacting, he understands the importance of doing rather than saying something. He is obsessed with the importance of action over words. One of his more successful players was asked what his favorite Saban quote was.

The player, now with the Indianapolis Colts, replied without hesitation, “What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say.”

How true this is. What we do crowds out what we say, and the mark of integrity is not that we say the things that are right, but rather that we show them, we manifest them by our actions. Said another way, talk is cheap. It’s easier to say than to do.

St. James in his General Epistle would be in agreement with Coach Saban on this point. We read in James 1:22 that “we are to be doers of the word and not hearers only.” St. James compares who hears the word and isn’t a doer to someone who goes to a mirror and sees himself as he truly is, then goes away and forgets what he looks like. The mirror of the Word of God shows us the truth of our condition in the light of the perfection of God our Father.

When we hear the Word of God, we realize how wretched and needy we truly are. We see how far we are from what God intended us to be. We see how often we fail in our attitudes and actions on a daily basis. We also see how beautiful the things of God truly are, and how important it is to focus on things of eternal value. What a dreadful outcome if we have access to the Word of God and hear it preached, have the opportunity to study it, and our lives remain unchanged.

But St. James has better hope for us. He says if we look into the perfect law of liberty, and avoid being a forgetful hearer and do what God calls us to, then we will have assurance that we shall be blessed in what we do. The doer will be truly blessed because he is being obedient to the light of the truth that God is giving him. This life will be full of meaning and purpose because his aspirations and actions are larger than his ego and his self-centeredness. He will see others not as obstacles to his self-fulfillment, but as men and women created in the image of God who stand, as he does, in need of redemption and the work of God in their hearts.

We have heard the beauty of the Easter message - that Jesus Christ has come to save sinners. Now let us live in this truth, and bear the fruit of obedience. In the days to come, let us pray for God’s grace to be doers of the word and not hearers only.