James chapter 1 please. James chapter 1, would you look
at verse 26. If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. 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. I was walking this week out at
the mall. By the way, that's where us seniors
walk. And I overheard two ladies talking,
and let me say before I go any further, I don't eavesdrop on
folks. They just talk loud, and they
talk openly. This lady asked her friend this
question. She said, did you know that Susie
got religious? I remember 38 years or so ago,
the rumor about me in my hometown was that I found religion. David Edmondson found religion. Well, that wasn't a rumor, that
was exactly right. I found religion. I've come to
know and understand that fallen, vain, and sinful men and women
can very easily, on their own, find religion. I'm talking about
man's religion, the religion of the world, the free will works
religion that man has conjured up for himself. And I say man's
conjured it up because the Bible doesn't teach it. It's very easy
to find religion. Are you religious? Now these
two verses that we just read reveals to us that there are
basically two kinds of religion. First, man's religion, which
is vain. That's exactly what it says.
This man's religion is vain. And then the second is pure religion,
found in verse 27, which is undefiled. True religion, pure, unsoiled
is what the word means, is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This
is the message of substitution. And God asee to it that this
message of Christ crucified will cross the chosen sinner's path. It's for certain. The Gospel
message, this true religion will find the sinner. Because the
Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And He came
into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. Now in 1989, I had a job that
moved me and my family to Franklin, Tennessee. And shortly thereafter,
within a week or two, Teresa and I heard the Gospel. It wasn't
my job that moved me there, I saw, it was God that moved me there.
And it was God that moved me there for that very reason, to
hear the truth about God. You see, God is the first cause
of everything. And God was the first cause in
our moving. My job and all that was just
secondary things. What I'm trying to say is this,
the Gospel found us. God sent us to where we could
and would hear it, and then God enabled us to hear it. God enabled
us to believe it and rejoice in that perfect work of righteousness
that Christ did for us. That was no mistake. That was
no accident. We weren't just lucky. We were
directed by God and we didn't even know it. It was ordained
and purposed before the foundation of the world. I look back on
my life, it was no accident that in 1955, a young woman got pregnant
out of wedlock and was forced to give that child up for adoption. No accident that that child was
not unlucky. I was adopted by a couple who
couldn't have children. It was no accident that I've
lived in Henderson, Kentucky. It was there that I met my wife.
And it was there by the very purpose of God that one day I
would hear the Gospel and live right here in Madisonville. That
was no accident. And God's divine providence now
reveals that it was for the very purpose of preaching God's Gospel
in this place. When I moved here, if you would
have told me one day I'd be up here preaching, I would have
laughed. But it was God's purpose. Amanda, it was thought that you
might be raised here, meet your husband here, and that your children
would live here and would also be under the sound of the gospel.
No accident. None. Teresa's mother, a young
girl, was she just lucky when God spared her when all her classmates
died on August the 9th, 1945, when they dropped the atomic
bomb on Nagasaki, Japan? Was she just lucky? No, no, no. There's no accidents with God.
None of us are affected by luck, whether good or bad. I know we
say it without thinking, well, you know, I was just lucky. We
ought to remove that talk from our conversation, really. No
such thing as luck, good or bad. All things come about according
to the will and the purpose and the eternal counsel of God Almighty. Now we understand that God spared
Teresa's mother because He had a sheep that was going to be
brought into the fold. And the effects of God's sovereign
providence have yet to be revealed completely. Just maybe God purposed
before the world began to save my children and my grandchildren
and your children and your grandchildren. Could it be that God has crossed
your path with the Gospel because you belong to Him? God is going
to cross all His elect's path with this message of substitution. And if He's pleased to do so,
it was all according to His will and His purpose. For it pleased
the Lord by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
It pleased the Lord to make you His people. It pleased the Lord
to move us to Madisonville in 1989 to attend this church and
to sit under a faithful preacher of the gospel for nearly 20 years. It was all of the Lord. We all
have our stories. But I didn't find religion. No,
sir. Christ found me, the lost sheep
that I was, and he put me on his shoulders, and he carried
me all the way back to his fold. And the heavens rejoiced over
this sinner who repented. Perhaps you are one of God's
sheep. Our Lord did say, and of the sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them also I must bring. Oh, if you belong to Him,
you're going to come, because He must bring you. And they shall
hear His voice, and they shall be one fold and one shepherd. Again verse 26 here, If any man
among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Here we see quickly that man's religion is vain. So that brings
me to the first point. Vain religion is much of show. It just is. Men and women go
to great lengths to seem religious in the eyes of others. If any
man among you seem to be religious, the word seem there simply means
thinks himself, so if any man think himself to be religious,
but all of us know that things are not always as they seem,
are they? There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end, oh my, thereof, the end, way of death. When men and women are more concerned
to seem religious than to actually know what it means to be, there's
a problem. They only seem or think themselves
to be religious. That brings me to the next point.
Vain religion talks way too much of self and way too little of
God. Vain religion, that's a good
name for it because it is certainly vain. Why are we surprised? Because man in his best state
is altogether vanity. Sin has made us to think and
believe that God is altogether such a one as ourselves. You
need to just get that thought out of your mind. God is nothing
like you and I. Well, His thoughts are not our
thoughts. His ways are not our ways. His ways are pass-finding
now. Man's religion, oh my, vain religion
cries, haven't we, haven't we, look at what we've done. Haven't
we done many wonderful works? False religion likes to talk
much about what the sinner has done. Have you ever noticed that?
But pure religion, religion that is undefiled, talks about what
Christ has done. Such a striking difference. Vain religion thinks and speaks
way too highly of man and way too low of God. And sadly, it's
out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, so they
really do believe what they say, proving that folks really believe
what they profess from their heart. Thirdly, we see, according
to verse 26, that vain religion, this world's religion, man's
free will works religion, causes men and women to deceive their
own hearts. If a man or woman seem to be
religious, here's how to tell if he has a false religion or
a pure religion. If their religion is true religion,
pure and undefiled, and of God, they'll bridle their tongue.
God's going to see to it. You know, I was thinking yesterday,
we truly are our own worst enemy, aren't we? We blame a lot of
things on Satan and on this world, but a lot of times it's just
us. It's just us. We're so sinful
that we deceive ourselves. The word deceiveth here means
to cheat. It means to delude. It means
to mislead. Our hearts by nature believe
their own lies. Men with their own tongues convince
themselves that they can, by the work of their own hands,
by a work of so-called righteousness, that they can provide what God
requires from them. It's a lie. We can't. But we
convince ourselves in thinking that we can. We cheat ourselves
when we do. We believe our own self-righteous
lies. And we delude and we mislead
ourselves. Turn over a page here, you may
not have to, to James chapter 3. Look at verse 2. For in many things we offend
all. If any man offend not in word,
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole
body. Behold, we put bits in the horse's
mouth, that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole
body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great,
so big in size, and are driven of fierce winds, yet they are
turned about with a very small helm, whethersoever the governor
listeth or wills the ship to go. Even so the tongue is a little
member, and it boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter
a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a fire, a world
of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members,
that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course
of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beast,
and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea is tamed.
and hath been tamed of mankind, but the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of
deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even
the Father, and therefore curse we men, which are made after
the similitude of God, out of the same mouth proceeds blessing
and cursing." We use the same tongue to curse some and bless
others. He said, my brethren, these things
ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at
the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my
brethren, bear olive berries, either of vine, figs? So can no fountain, both yield
salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endured
with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation
his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. The wisdom descendeth not from
above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and
strife is, there's confusion in every evil work. But the wisdom
that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy
to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality,
without hypocrisy. Now there's your pure religion
and undefiled right there, folks. Jesus Christ is made unto us
wisdom and pure and peaceable. Verse 18, and the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace. How's the fruit of
righteousness sown in them that make peace? Look back in chapter
1, verse 18. This tells us that. Of His own
will beget He us. with the Word of Truth, that
we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures." It
all goes back to Him, doesn't it? Who beget us? Who born us? That's what the
Word means, according to His own will and purpose. God did. What did God use to bring forth
life to us? The Word of Truth. This book,
the Word of God. Why did God do such a thing as
this? That we, His children, should
be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. Believers are
new creatures created in Christ Jesus. And old things are passed
away, and behold, all things have become new. And then Paul
said, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself
by Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.17 Do you know
what that means? Child of God, it means all your
sin is gone. Every single bit of it. You know, for years, I, like
many others, we define justified as just as if I'd never sinned. But you know, that's not right.
Being justified in Christ means I've never sinned. Not just as
if, it means I've never sinned. Get your finite mind around that
if you can. This new man God has created
within me is as perfect as Christ Himself. The tongue boasts great
things. Great things about itself. The
tongue is the spokesman for our deceitfully wicked and desperately
wicked hearts. The tongue is what outwardly
exposes what inwardly is in us. Man's religion, vain religion,
free will, works religion, won't get the job done. But there is
a pure religion that's undefiled before God, according to verse
27, that will get the job done. Look at it again. Verse 27. 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 religion, pure and undefiled
before God, begins with God. That's the first thing I want
you to see. Man's religion begins with man.
True religion begins with God. Pure religion, undefiled religion,
begins with God. It begins with a right knowledge
of God. It begins with a right understanding
of who God is. It begins with knowing that God
is sovereign and in control and in charge of everything. What
makes men think that they're in control of anything? I still
haven't figured that out. The first words recorded in this
book are in the beginning, God. True, pure, undefiled religion
begins with God. God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. What did you have to do with
it? You weren't even born yet. Before you had done any good
or evil that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand. Not of works. It's not of works. People say,
I'm a Baptist. But my religion doesn't begin
with John the Baptist. My religion began with God. Others
say, I'm a Calvinist. Have you heard anybody say that
lately? True religion, pure and undefiled, didn't begin with
John Calvin. No, sir, it began with God. Someone says, well, I'm a Reformed
believer, but my religion didn't begin with Martin Luther. No,
sir, it began with God before the foundation of the world.
I went to church with a young man who had went to Lutheran
seminary. And he said while he was finishing
up in seminary that the big slogan was, back to Luther, back to
Luther. And he was telling us that one
day. And one of the older men in the church said, you're not
going back far enough. And he wasn't. Back to God. In the beginning, God. God created,
God saves, God does it all. True religion is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. True religion, pure and undefiled,
concerns our pure and undefiled substitute, our sacrifice to
the Lord Jesus. And secondly, true religion,
the Gospel of Christ, declares God to be holy. That is so important. God is holy. God is just and
right. And He won't accept anything
but perfection. Shall not the judge of the earth
do right? Yes. How holy and righteous is
God? Well, so holy and righteous that
He will by no means clear the guilty. How holy and righteous
is He? He's so holy that He spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up when sin was found on Him. That's how holy He is. Sin is
not simply forgiven. No, no. Sin's paid in full. Sin
was paid by the One who put it away. And that's the Lord Jesus. He who knew no sin was made to
be sin. That we, we read over these words,
that we, in order that we might, might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He had to be made sin first.
That we, in order that we who believe might be made the righteousness
of God, where? In Him. in, by, and through Him. Third thing, true religion, my
religion, pure and undefiled is what it is. It tells the truth
about God, and it tells the truth about man. God is infinite and
in control of everything, and man is finite and in control
of absolutely nothing. We really aren't in control of
anything, are we? We think we are. God is holy,
just, and right. Man is unholy, unjust, and wrong. And we begin by taking sides
with God against ourselves and declaring God to be right. True
religion tells the truth about God and tells the truth about
me. You can't exalt God too high. Heaven is His throne. The earth
is His footstool. You can't preach man too low.
The nations are as a drop of a bucket. Someone said one time,
I believe it was Brother Montgomery, he said, that's not talking about
the drop in the bucket, that's talking about the drop that falls
off the bottom of the bucket when you pick it up. It's not
worth drinking. That's what we're compared to.
God must raise the poor up from the dust. God must lift beggars
up from the dunghill. Isn't that right? It's God that
does it. And it's God that sets them among
princes. And it's God that makes them
inherit the throne of glory. He changes your want to. He gives
you the ability. He makes you both willing and
able to come to Him, doesn't He? The child of God knows He
does. Only the Lord can do that. For
the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and He has set the
world on. True religion, fourth thing,
the teaching of Christ and Him crucified, hear me on this, requires
total commitment to Christ. We don't make a decision. We
don't give our hearts to Jesus. There's no salvation in walking
an aisle. There's no salvation in shaking
a preacher's hand. No salvation in getting into
baptismal waters. Salvation is in Jesus Christ
alone. Now, if you ever come to Christ,
you'll want to be baptized. But there's no salvation in the
water. Salvation is in Christ. Paul
said, I know whom I have believed. He said, I am persuaded that
He is able. You see, our salvation is in
Him and in knowing what He's capable of doing for us. What
is He able to do? Anything and everything that
you commit to Him. Every single thing. It requires
a total commitment to Him though. Salvation is having faith and
confidence in a person and that person is none other than God
the Son. And you can trust Him because
He's able. He is able. He that hath the
Son hath life. Do you have the Son? True religion
is fifthly a living principle. It's not a creed. It's not a
ceremony. It's not a doctrine. It's not
systematic theology. We don't accept Jesus. We're
accepted where? In the Beloved. We're the ones
that need to be accepted. We're not the ones that make
a decision. God's the one that made the decision before the
foundation of the world if we would trust in His Son. We're
accepted in the Beloved. Christ is God's Beloved Son,
and we're accepted in Him. Ephesians 1.6. And true religion,
sixthly, is unsoiled. It's unsoiled with the attempts
of man to save himself. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah
learned that real well, didn't he? Redemption is not mixed with
the inventions of man. Salvation is not mixed with the
corruption of the world. In verse 27, we don't have a
full definition of true religion here, but we certainly have the
effects and evidences of it. Where there is true faith in
the heart for the true God of heaven and earth, there is love
to that God. And where there is love to God,
there is love to others. And it will show itself in works. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this. Look at it, verse 27. To visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep
himself unspotted from the world. Visiting the fatherless and the
widows is not just going to see somebody ever so often. No, it means much more than that.
It means to speak a word of encouragement to them. It means to help supply
their needs if they have any. You see, where there is true
religion in the heart, there's love to God, and there's love
to God's people. It's just a fact. How do we know
that we've passed from death to life? You know. By our love
for the brethren. He that loveth not his brother
biteth in death. People say, me and Jesus got
a good thing going. Then you ask them where they
go to church, and they say, oh, I don't. I don't get along too
well with folks at church. You know, they're just a bunch
of hypocrites. Have you ever said that? I have. Those who
say such things don't know God. And their religion is vain. This
is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God
in Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. John 17.3 I'm not particularly
fond of the word or the term or the title religious. So much
evil and corruption had been done in the name of religion.
It was the religious Pharisees and the high priest who plotted
and carried out the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. It was the
religious people of that day that hated Him without a cause. Don't be surprised if they hate
you too. Don't be surprised if they call your God their devil.
Don't be surprised if they kill you and claim to do God's service. Some of the cruelest, most hateful,
and unmerciful, and ungracious, and unforgiving people in the
world are religious people. But they have a vain religion,
and it's not true religion. Our religion is pure and undefiled,
those of you who trust in Christ. How could I best sum up my religion? Well, it's everything that Jesus
Christ has made unto me. It was God that made Him to be
my wisdom, as we looked at a week or so ago. Now we see through
a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part,
but then I shall know even as I am also known. Oh, that's the
wisdom of God given in Christ, isn't it? He's made unto us righteousness. Our Lord said, for I say unto
you that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven. Unless we're given the perfect
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, we'll in no wise, no
case, no way enter into glory. But we've been made the righteousness
of God and we've been made that in Him. What about sanctification? Our Lord prayed in His high priestly
prayer in John 17. He said, sanctify them through
Thy truth. Thy Word is truth. Christ is
the Word, friends. Christ is the truth. And we're
sanctified. We're set apart and perfected
forever in Him. And therefore, we have redemption. The fourth thing mentioned there.
We've been redeemed. Why, isn't that a wonderful word?
It means to be saved. It means to be vindicated. It
means to be free from blame. Unblameable. Free from reproof. Unreprovable. To be absorbed. To be delivered from sin. Christ
made restitution for us. He paid off. He cleared. He discharged
the debt of sin that we owe. I remember, I think, telling
you before that there was a time in my adult life where I was
struggling. Financially, I'd changed jobs,
wasn't making much money, and I had this truck payment. Man,
it was just a burden on me every month. And finally, I'd scraped
up enough money to make the payment and went down to the Ford credit
office, said, I need to make a payment, I'm a little bit late,
and probably owe some late charges, and she said, It's paid in full. My mom and dad had went and paid
it off. Oh, I tell you, when you see
that Christ paid your sin debt, it'll mean something to you.
It sure will. Christ fulfilled the law that
was against us and He satisfied God's justice that sought to
justly condemn us. This is my religion? No, I didn't
find religion. I was the one who was lost and
Christ found me. and He brought me to God. This
is my religion. First of all, God is God. Secondly,
man is lost and he needs a Savior. We need mercy. We need grace.
We need forgiveness. Do you see your need? Those that
have no need, need not a physician. But those that are sick do. Are
you sick? Do you see that you are? Salvation
is a new creation. It's not a reformation. It's
a new creation. Salvation is a free gift. It's
by grace through faith that you're saved. And that's not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God. Not by works lest any man should
boast. Man's religion boasts. Pure religion
boasts in Him. By faith in Christ. Faith in
Christ without works is dead, being alone. Isn't that right?
We're not saved by our works, but our works certainly prove
that God has done a work of grace in our hearts. And that's why
we're loving and gracious to others, forgiving them, because,
well, Paul said it this way, be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. What motivation that is. All
that He's forgiven me of, and I dare not forgive a brother
for something so insignificant. Lord, help us. This is pure religion,
undefiled, and the child of God will keep Himself unspotted from
the world. How are we going to do that?
By continuing to trust in the pure and undefiled God-man, the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's how. Are you religious? Is your religious vain? Or is
your religion pure and undefiled? Are you trusting in self? It's
vain to do so. Or are you trusting in Christ,
the perfect One? For such a high priest became
us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens. That's my religion. It's pure
and it's undefiled before God. And that's all that matters is
how God sees me. According as He had chosen us
and Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. I don't want that
old time religion. I've heard that song sung all
my life. Give me that old time religion. It's good enough for
me. Well, it's not good enough for me and it's not good enough
for God. Not if it's man's religion. I want Jesus Christ. I want the
One who loved me and gave Himself for me. The One who chose me,
the One who called me, the One who made me holy and without
blame, unreprovable in His sight. Oh dear sinner, may God make
you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you
that which is well-pleasing in His sight. in His Son, through
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.