TRUE RELIGION
#417 TRUE RELIGION
Scripture: James 1:22-27 NIV Orig. 6/24/1962
Rewr. 2/5/1987
Passage: 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Purpose: Preaching in conjunction with a beginning Bible study a message signifying true religion.
Keywords: Character Love Religion
Introduction
Those who have studied history closely tell us many things. They tell us of the progress made in discovery. They tell us of journeys that, over the process of time, brought continual discovery. They tell us of the discovery of tribes of people even under the most inscrutable of circumstances.
When explorers went to the far north country, they found a people called Lapps. People who had lived for centuries beyond the Arctic Circle. It did not surprise anyone years later to discover that there were people called Eskimos who lived out much of their lives in a land of darkness and ice.
When other explorers were directed to the south and more humid conditions, tribes were found still. In the jungles, in the deserts, in the mountains, on the flood plains.
Even the most rabid scientist says that these people came from a common source, in fact, beyond that from amoeba, protoplasm, or primitive life form. There are all kinds, shades, cultures, with a common benefactor in Adam. Black, white, red, yellow meet in him, created that way by God. All the families of the earth from common blood lines. We are of one blood.
Acts 17:26 “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”
Even so, there are many religions. All of them contain truth. One is truth. All have polemists who particularize their truth. But only one is the epitome of truth as God revealed it conditionally to especially chosen messengers, Jesus, Himself, being chiefest of all. It should not be any more surprising to us that there are no more ways out of this world than into it. It is erroneously claimed that “there are many ways out of the world, and but one coming into it.”
I. True Religion Reaches First Inward. V23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass . . . and . . . forgetteth what manner of man he was.
There is the mentality of faith: Emotions have their place. But one whose faith is expressed only through his emotions is only half a believer. No doubt the emotions are important:
· I Corinthians 14:15 “I will pray with the spirit, . . . I will pray with understanding also.”
· Romans 12:2 “Be ye transformed by the renewing of mind.”
· Acts 17:11 From Thessalonica to Berea “These [Berean Jews] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily.”
But faith is an inducement of the heart as well. Deuteronomy 6:5 “Thou . . . love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” Old Testament example: When Solomon came to throne, he asked for wisdom. I Kings 3:12 “. . . I have given thee a wise, and an understanding heart.” New Testament example: Paul had a pretty good case of religion before his Damascus experience. But it only set him to the task of getting in the way of what God was doing in the lives of people around him.
I Kings 4:29 “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding, exceeding much, and largeness of heart.” When one begins to practice hearing without doing, then self-deception is practiced. “Be ye doers of the word.” How can mind and heart both be involved when one fails to perceive himself in mirror?
V21 Paul uses “engrafted word.” Who has heard of one using a dead branch? Bro. Morgan’s living Christmas tree. Lady in Ruston with a peach tree with 7 different __?___. Dogwood with both pink and white blossoms. Taken into the mind with understanding. Dedicated with the heart to committed use.
Thus, the entire personality becomes emblazoned by what our faith means.
· Christians ought to look better--not better than anyone else, [but] look the very best that we can look.
· Christians ought to act differently. We know what keeps us fixed on the Lord, [and are] to be constant in these things.
· We ought to feel better. What is happening when we are doing something that is not in our best interest? We know that the Lord doesn’t intend it, so we are out of His will. We are running the risk of taking something precious away from those who love us.
II. True Religion Reaches Upward. V25 “. . . whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, . . . this (one) shall be blessed in his deed.”
Religion can be a self-made ideal. Many people are living by such a standard. It does not necessarily mean their lives are better, just on a margin of acceptance. Do they give even a passing thought to the sovereignty of God?
Our lives could be better without God’s intervention.
· Psalm 23:5 “Thou preparest a table before me.”
· Psalm 78:20 “He shall give His angels charge.”
· Psalm 94:19 “. . . Thy comforts delight my soul.”
· Lamentations 3:22 “His compassions fail not.”
· Romans 5:10 “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
True religion must be acknowledged to have come from above. Not a prepared philosophy. The world has its fill of philosophers, some sincere in helping others, but at best their schemes seldom outlast their own lives, except in the classroom: René Descartes / Immanuel Kant / Voltaire / Thomas Paine / John Dewey. But a higher goal of truth. The prophets left three great marks. Knowledge of a word from God. Knowledge of existing conditions. Will to obedience to higher voice.
Thus we remember that such truth transcends the times. Lady Jane Grey—put to death in 1554 at 27 for her part in intervention against crown by “bloody” Queen Mary. “I ground my faith on God’s word and not upon the church; for, if the church be a good church, the faith of the church must be tried by God’s Word, and not God’s Word by the church, or yet my faith.”
III. True Religion Reaches Outward. V27 “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
True, or pure, is a medical term kathara: Cathartic—purgative, used by psychiatrists for cleansing of the turmoil of emotions; use it here for a religion that keeps the spirit clean.
The word visit episkeptomai, means to see with purpose: An act in another’s behalf; the word used by Jesus in Matthew 25:36,43, (35f—“For I was hungered and . . . .” Acts 6:3 “Look ye out” (deacons). True religion looks for ways to help others. It cannot do all things well. Some things are beyond reach. But people-help is the magnet of truth.
And to remain “unspotted” without defilement: Paul and Jude both use it for moral defilement. Paul to I Timothy 6:14, “That thou keep this commandment without spot.” No better use can we put to the word than to see it as an enjoinment to live by the Word. No clearer word comes to us than that of Christ as Lord to whom we are responsible.
Conclusion
According to a minister who talked with him just before his execution, the German war minister, Adolf Eichmann, had a religion. He claimed to believe in a “personal God” who “did not judge sin,” and “would not condemn” anyone.
Ah, but he, himself, judged it a crime to be a Jew, and condemned six million men, women, and children to brutal deaths. We rightly raise legitimate questions about such a religion as this. It is a form, without substance. What he believed might have even contained some truth, but it was not the truth. It sought not the betterment of others, and drew no strength from the unadulterated Word of God. How secure are we in what we call our religion?
Lady Jane Grey: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/grey_lady_jane.shtml