WWUTT 268 Religion That is Pure Before God?

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September 21, 2016

00:00: James 1 .27 says that religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
00:11: And yes my friends, Christianity is a religion when we understand the text. Many of the
00:25: Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.
00:34: Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
00:40: Thank you, Becky. We're in James chapter one again today and we will finish chapter one today.
00:47: We'll be looking at verses 19 through 27. So if you have your Bible open with me, let's begin reading in verse 19.
00:56: Know this my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
01:03: For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
01:19: 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's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
01:36: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
01:48: If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
01:56: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
02:10: It is a privilege to be reading these couple of verses with you today, verses 26 and 27 and I'll share with you in just a little bit the significance that those verses have for me.
02:20: But let's go to verse 19 here because this week as we've looked at this particular section, we've looked at verses 19 through 21 on Monday, yesterday was verses 22 through 25 and then today we'll be looking at verses 26 and 27.
02:35: We were in verse 19 reading, know this my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
02:46: We are being reminded once again that God is sovereign and we place full trust in him.
02:52: And if we say that we love God and we trust him, then we will not be quick to get angry about things, lashing out, being quick tempered because we know that God is in control of all circumstances.
03:05: The quick tempered individual shows a lack of trust in God and also shows a lack of love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, for our neighbor.
03:17: We do not love others as we should. So there's a, there's a little bit of a problem when we make the claim that we love the
03:23: Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbor as ourself. When we're a quick tempered person and we are quickly angry, rather we need to have the implanted word, receiving it with meekness, humbly, with patience and without resentment.
03:40: That's what meek would mean. We receive the word of God, which is continuing to grow and mature us in Christ.
03:49: Then yesterday we looked at verses 22 through 25, be doers of the word and not hearers only.
03:55: If we just hear the word of God and then we turn around and we don't do what it says, then we have deceived ourselves.
04:02: And these are probably the most common church goers in America. Those who go to church, they hear the word, they might, you know, give their and amens in the middle of the service, but then
04:15: Sunday afternoon, Monday through Saturday, they are living as though they never heard what was spoken on Sunday morning.
04:22: If indeed, I guess I have to add this caveat, if indeed the pastor was preaching from the word of God and giving the gospel to his congregation, but still you have
04:31: Americans who claim to be Christians, but are not living out the word in their lives. And so they are like the person who looks intently in the mirror at his natural face, looks at himself and then goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
04:47: I so appreciate the way that James puts that in verse 23, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, because what is our natural disposition?
05:00: We are sinful. We are fallen. All of us are born into sin. All who are descendants from Adam are born into sinfulness.
05:09: We're physically alive, but we're spiritually dead. It is the spirit of God that brings life where there was none that gives faith where we did not have faith.
05:17: That all comes from the spirit of God. So we're all born into sin. We're all born into this fallenness.
05:24: That is our nature is sinful people. And so when we see the word of God, ourselves being reflected in its pages, we are looking at who we are naturally.
05:36: When the scriptures tell us about the law of God, exposing our sin, telling us to turn from sinfulness and come to the righteousness of Christ, that we see our natural state there.
05:48: And so a person who looks into the word and sees themselves is like a person who looks at his natural face in the mirror.
05:56: So let us be convicted by our sin and turn from that sin to Christ who forgives sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
06:06: So we need to look into the perfect law and persevere. This goes back to something that James said at the start of the letter, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, persevering, enduring.
06:25: And we do that. When we look into the law of God, we see our sin, we seek repentance from God and it is given to us.
06:33: First John 1 9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
06:41: So let us never feel like, hey, I've asked forgiveness enough times. We still need to come to God and seek forgiveness.
06:47: When Jesus washed his disciples feet, which we read about in John chapter 13, he says, what
06:53: I do for you now, you do not understand, but soon you will understand. And Peter protested.
06:59: He would not let his master and his Lord wash his feet. Of course, he thinks that he's being pious, like he thinks he's being super holy.
07:05: He says, Lord, I will never let you wash my feet. And Jesus said, if I don't wash you, then you have no share with me.
07:13: And then of course, Peter changes his tune. Well, then do the whole thing, Lord, get me from head to toe. And Jesus responds to him then at that point, you know,
07:20: Peter still being hyper holy here. Jesus said, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean.
07:32: So Jesus was saying that when we come to Christ, we're completely justified, but we've not yet been fully sanctified.
07:39: And as we walk this earth, kicking up dust, our feet are going to get dirty. And so we still need to have our
07:45: Lord Christ wash our feet for us. This is the cleansing from all unrighteousness, the daily process of coming to the
07:55: Lord and repenting of our sins so that he may wash us clean. We need to do this all the time.
08:01: It's not just something you did when you came to Christ and boom, there I went there. I did it. I asked forgiveness for my sins and Jesus cleansed me and now
08:07: I'm done. He bathed you. You've been fully washed from head to toe once, but you're still getting dirty as you continue to inhabit this flesh.
08:17: And so we continue to need that forgiveness of Christ. You know, the Lord's prayer where it says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
08:27: So if this is a prayer that we should pray daily and give us this day, our daily bread that's in the
08:34: Lord's prayer, kind of giving us a lesson of you always come before God to pray every single day. So we're asking forgiveness for our sins daily.
08:43: And this is where 1 John 1 9 comes into play, that if we are faithful to ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
08:53: And so this is the way that we need to be continuing to do what is said in the word of God.
09:01: If we continue to read the law and do what it says, when we fail at the law, we come to God and we ask for his forgiveness.
09:08: And he has promised that he will give it to us because Christ has died for us and it is by Christ we are being sanctified.
09:15: OK, so we've gotten that far here on this section, verses 19 through 25. Here's verse 26.
09:21: If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
09:31: This again is still in context of everything that we've talked about. We've been talking about. I know that when you go through James, you could look at every paragraph as kind of its own thing.
09:40: But we talked about this. It was either last week or the week before how there's still a context going on here.
09:46: OK, so there's still a context even here that ties in with the context we were looking at at the start of this particular section.
09:53: If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart.
09:58: Both sections are being included in that statement, verses 19 through 21, where he says does not bridle his tongue and verses 22 through 25 when he says and deceives his heart.
10:12: OK, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, because, as James said, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
10:26: And then in the next section, he said that if you are a hearer of the word and you don't do it, then you deceive yourself.
10:34: So if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart because he's not doing what the word says to do, then this person's religion is worthless.
10:47: It means nothing. Control your tongue. Do what the word says. If you can't do either of those things, then the religion that you claim that you have is worthless.
10:57: Now, understand me well that Christianity is a religion.
11:05: It's very popular to say it's not about religion. It's about relationship. And it's true that as a
11:12: Christian, we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But it's still a religion. Relationship doesn't negate religion.
11:19: Jefferson Bethke got popular a couple of years ago when he made this video about how
11:25: Jesus hates religion. And I'm not going to play that video, but I am going to play the what video that was in response to Bethke's video.
11:34: Here you go. In 2012, Jeff Bethke wrote a poem that became an internet sensation entitled,
11:42: Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus, saying things like Jesus came to abolish religion and that he hated religion.
11:48: Now, while Bethke went on to clarify he was talking about false religion, his poor wording has misled millions to believe some things about the church that aren't true.
11:56: Jesus founded the church. He put guidelines in place for church discipline. He instituted a ritual meal.
12:02: He told the disciples to baptize others and teach them to obey everything Christ had commanded. Jesus said he came not to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them.
12:11: He went to services in the synagogue and observed holy days. So if you're looking for someone who hates religion, Jesus is not your guy.
12:17: When the Bible talks about religion, here is what it says. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
12:26: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
12:35: In other words, if a person calls themselves a Christian but does not control their speech, if they do not show mercy and love to the oppressed, if they behave like the rest of the world instead of having the mind of Christ, their heart remains unchanged and they are not saved.
12:48: It is Christ who saves us, not our deeds, but we show outwardly that we have been changed inwardly when we obey his commands.
12:56: True religion means loving the things that God loves, hating the things that God hates, and delighting in the things that delight him.
13:03: We know what those things are when we understand the text. There was my whole devotional lesson today in that 90 second video.
13:11: Now you see why the what videos are so effective. So what we need to do is love the things that God loves, hate the things that God hates.
13:21: And there are things that God hates. Like we tend to think that God is all loving, he would never hate anything.
13:27: In order to truly love, it is necessary to hate. Because I love children,
13:33: I hate child abuse. I hate abortion. I hate anything that would cause a child to stumble, as Jesus talks about.
13:43: If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were tied around his neck and he was tossed into the depths of the sea.
13:50: I hate those things just as God hates those things, because I love children. And there are things that the scriptures are clear about that God hates.
13:59: In Proverbs chapter 6, you got a list of seven of them, and among them are hands that shed innocent blood and one who sows discord among brothers.
14:08: Psalm 5, 5, God hates all evildoers. So there are things that God absolutely hates.
14:13: So when we when it comes to practicing pure religion before God, we should love the things that he loves and hate the things that he hates and delight in the things that delight
14:25: God. That is religion that is pure and undefiled before God. And there's all kinds of ritual that is involved in Christianity.
14:32: It is a religion going to church, the Lord's Supper, baptism, these kinds of things, regular study and prayer.
14:40: This is all part of our religious practice. We're not winning any converts when we say to the world, no, it's not about religion.
14:47: It's about relationship. They look at us like we're weird. What are you talking about, man? You said you're a
14:53: Christian. That's your religion. Nobody is buying the argument when we say it's not about a religion, it's relationship.
15:00: The only person that's fooled is you. So it is a religion. But what's important is that we do these things to the joy of the
15:08: Lord. Right. You don't do it halfheartedly. You don't go through the motions thinking that by doing these things,
15:13: I'm somehow saved because I'm executing these particular works and I'm doing the Lord's Supper properly and I believe in baptism the right way and this, that or the other.
15:22: That is not what saves you. We can be completely disingenuous in our exercise of our religion, and then we become like the
15:30: Israelites and through the prophet Isaiah, who said that, uh, they, they acknowledge me with their works, with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
15:40: We need to give our whole selves to the Lord, loving him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
15:47: All of the things that we do need to be an outward reflection of the change that has occurred in our hearts.
15:52: The righteousness that has been placed there by Christ, not by anything that we have done, but because of what Christ has done, the implanted word.
16:00: And so if we've truly been changed by Christ, we will show it on the outside and the religion that we do, uh, the, the, the religion that people see us doing will be genuine.
16:11: It will not be halfhearted. It will not be fake. It will be according to the word of God and giving
16:18: God the glory for all of these things, knowing that he has saved us in Christ, not by anything that we have done, but because of what
16:26: Christ has done for us. We're able to offer God right worship, worship that is acceptable to God because of what
16:35: Christ has done for us. Remember back to Romans 12 one, present your bodies as living sacrifices unto the
16:42: Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
16:52: And then you will see God's will for you, his good, pleasing and perfect will.
16:58: And this is all according to the word of God that we are able to know God's will, pleasing and perfect as it is.
17:06: So as we execute this holy religion before the Lord, having been transformed by Christ to offer
17:13: God right worship, the Bible says James one 27 religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father is this to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
17:27: Now I mentioned at the very beginning that this verse has a particular significance to me and I would share with you what that significance is.
17:34: When my wife and I first got married, one of the wedding gifts that we received was a study
17:40: Bible. It was actually my first study Bible. And so we received that Bible together and we decided what is the first verse that we would want to read as newlyweds.
17:51: And so I took that Bible and I set it down on its spine and I said, okay,
17:56: I'm going to let this Bible fall open. I'm going to place my finger down and whatever verse is underneath my finger, that's going to be our first verse together as newlyweds.
18:06: Now that could have been a disaster because it could have fallen open as something like Deuteronomy 25 11 where it says when men fight with one another and the wife of one draws near to kind of pull her husband out of the fight and she grabs the other guy by the private parts, you shall cut off her hand and show her no pity.
18:25: That's what it says. Deuteronomy 25 11. I'm not quoting it exactly, but it's something like that. So yeah,
18:30: I could, that could have been our first verse as a married, but the
18:36: Lord was gracious to us. I said, we're going to go ahead and do this anyway. So I let it fall open. We had our eyes closed.
18:41: The Bible just fell open. I reached down to put my finger on a verse and we opened our eyes and looked at it and, and this was the verse.
18:48: This was our first verse together as newlyweds, James 1 27 religion that is pure and undefiled before God.
18:57: The father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
19:04: Now I'm already an adopted father. My oldest is adopted, but my wife and I are still, still looking toward adopting children sometime in the future.
19:15: Right now we're pregnant with our fourth. We're going to get through this first, but we think that the Lord still has it for us to adopt.
19:22: And so something you can be praying for us about that sometime into the future. Now when we read verse 27 and the way that you hear it get preached, orphans and widows get all of the attention, right?
19:32: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God. The father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.
19:39: And so that's what we need to do. That's good religion before God is that we take care of orphans and we take care of widows, but that's not really the meaning.
19:47: Okay. A couple of things I want to mention here. First of all, it's not the meaning. And secondly, it's not all the verse says. So the meaning there is simply that we need to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves.
20:01: And who are those that are kind of like the primary examples of those who are unable to take care of themselves?
20:08: Well, the fatherless and the elderly who no longer have a husband to take care of them.
20:15: They are, they are the ones in our society, in our culture who need the most care.
20:22: And this is old Testament language that James is using because in Psalm 68, five, it says that God is a father of the fatherless and a protector of widows.
20:32: This is God in his holy habitation. And in Deuteronomy 10, 18, we read about justice for orphans and widows because they are the most helpless in a society.
20:43: So James is using old Testament language to say that we need to care for those who are the least able to care for themselves.
20:51: That's simply all he's saying here. He's not saying our primary concern should be orphans and widows.
20:57: In whatever culture society that we live in, it is those who are unable to care for themselves.
21:03: The fatherless and the widows would simply be the way that we should consider that. So it doesn't mean that everybody needs to go out and immediately adopt, although it might mean that for you, it might be that the
21:14: Lord is placing it upon your heart to open your home up to a child who does not have a mother or a father.
21:21: It could be that the Lord is convicting you to be a mentor to a child in your community, maybe not adopting them.
21:28: Maybe it's not even available for you to do that. But you can at least be a mentor to a child who doesn't have a father.
21:35: Fatherlessness is rampant in our country right now. And so you could be a mentor to a child that needs a father or a mother, a girl that needs a woman to look up to, a boy that needs a man to look up to.
21:48: You could do that. And that would be a way that you show care for the most helpless in our society.
21:55: But again, there's a second part to this verse. So first of all, James is not saying that only orphans and widows, they need to be our primary care and concern.
22:05: But secondly, it's not all the verse says, because James goes on to say that we need to keep ourselves unstained from the world.
22:12: So this is religion that is pure and undefiled before God, caring for those who are the most helpless in our society and keeping oneself unstained from the world.
22:26: So this goes back to mentioning, as I did before, Romans 12 to do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by renewing your mind, submitting your mind and thoughts and everything of yourself to the
22:40: Lord. And this is religion that God finds pure and undefiled, whatever you have to do in terms of meditating on the word of God, submitting your thoughts in prayer, making sure that you are keeping your mind and your thoughts away from worldliness, away from the temptations of this world that would attempt to poison your mind and your heart and draw you away from God.
23:05: And keeping ourselves unstained from the world, guarded in our hearts by the word of God, the implanted word that is implanted upon our hearts and is protecting us from the things of this world, rejoicing in the
23:19: Lord in all circumstances. As James said, again, at the start of this letter, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, that continued perseverance in joy protects us from the things of this world.
23:32: Also, because as the apostle Paul said in Philippians chapter four, rejoice in the
23:38: Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.
23:45: The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
24:03: If we have thankful hearts, we will be guarded against worldliness and fleshly desires and the passions of this world.
24:13: Finally brothers, Paul goes on Philippians four, eight, finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable.
24:26: If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me again, the implanted word practice these things.
24:40: Don't just hear them, do them and the God of peace will be with you.
24:47: We will be protected from all of these worldly things, keeping ourselves unstained from the world.
24:53: When our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength is completely focused on God, giving him the praise and the glory for all things and every circumstance, amen.
25:05: And that's James chapter one, our great God. We thank you so much for this word that has been given to us by your servant,
25:14: James, speaking to the Christians that he was talking to at this particular time, but speaking to us even today, direct instructions to every
25:24: Christian on how we are to live, that we need to rejoice when we meet trials of various kinds, that if we lack wisdom, we ask of you knowing that you give generously to all without reproach.
25:39: We are reminded that the possessions of this world will not last and they will not sustain us.
25:44: Instead, we need to rejoice in Christ and exalt him. We remain steadfast under trial.
25:51: And in doing so, when we stand the test, we will receive the crown of life.
25:57: We know that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change that we have been brought forth by the word of truth, according to your will, that we would be a kind of first fruits of your creatures.
26:17: We ask Lord that you help us to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger and produce in us the righteousness of Christ.
26:28: Help us to not just have heard these words, but teach us to do what they say and help us to understand what is pure and lovely before you and do those things, delighting in the things that delight you and keep us,
26:46: God, from being corrupted by this world as we live in it, continuing to give you the glory for all things and speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are around us, the gospel that has the power to save a person from death and bring them into eternal life, just as we just has been done for us when we heard that word and turn from our sins and believed in Christ as Lord.
27:11: It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Do what it says, do, do, do, just do it, do what it says, oh yeah, oh yeah, do what it says, do, do, do, just do it, do what it says, do what it says, just do it.
28:24: Alright, try this with us, goes like this. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do what it says, do, do, do, just do it, do what it says, oh yeah, oh yeah, do what it says, do, do, do, just do it, do what it says, do what it says, just do it.
29:01: Alright, we're going to do it one more time. Here we go. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just do it.
29:19: Yeah! You've been listening to When We Understand the
29:30: Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. The music today was provided by Seeds Family Worship, putting the Scripture into song for the whole family to worship with.
29:37: You can find more of their music and information about their ministry at seedsfamilyworship .com.