Amen. All right, if you'd open
your Bibles to James chapter 2. I was listening to some preaching
this past week, and somebody referred to a text of Scripture
that we'll look at in a few minutes from James chapter 1, but It
got me thinking about these scriptures, and I want to preach this morning
on the subject of true faith and true religion. True faith
and true religion. In verse 1 of James chapter 2,
it says, my brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,
do not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your
meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man
in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention
to the man wearing fine clothes and say, here's a good seat for
you, But say to the poor man, you stand there or sit on the
floor by my feet. Have you not discriminated among
yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my
dear brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes
of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he
promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor.
It is not the rich, or excuse me, is it not the rich who are
exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are
dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are
slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal
law found in scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you
are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you
sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever
keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of
breaking all of it. For he who said, do not commit
adultery, also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery,
but do commit murder, You have become a lawbreaker. Speak and
act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives
freedom. Because judgment without mercy
will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs
over judgment. What good is it, my brothers,
if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith
save him? Suppose a brother or sister is
without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, go,
I wish you well, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about
his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith
by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, you have
faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds
and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that
there is one God, good. Even the demons believe that
and shudder. You foolish man, do you want
evidence that faith without deeds is useless? was not our ancestor
Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered
his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his
actions were working together, and his faith was made complete
by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled
that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness. And he was called God's friend.
You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith
alone. In the same way was not even
Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when
she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different
direction. As the body without the spirit
is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. I believe it was Spurgeon who
said, discernment is not the ability to discern between what
is true and what is false, but to be able to discern between
what is true and what is almost true. Of course, And I heard
one person say, you know, a half truth is a whole lie. And so,
of course, that which is almost true is wrong. But we don't have
any problem, do we, in discerning the difference between what we
believe and, let's say, something like Buddhism or Islam. I mean, that's easy. But what is being set before
us here in these scriptures, what James is talking about,
is being able to discern what is true between those who all
profess the same thing. Remember back here in verse one,
he says, my brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,
So he is sending this to those who are true and honest believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ. But he knows that among them
are those who profess to believe, but they really don't. And he
also wants, you know, sometimes the apostles addressed people
according to what they profess to be. In other words, he could
say, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, understanding
that there would be many who profess to believe in our glorious
Lord Jesus Christ, but they really didn't. And so he sets forth what is
the difference between that faith that truly saves and that orthodox
faith And by orthodox, I mean a faith that's connected with
what we would consider straight doctrine. That's actually what
the word, or straight opinion. Orthodox, you hear about an orthodontist. Well, the ortho part means straight.
And in Greek language, the dox part means opinion. So believers,
or those who profess to believe and have straight opinion, they're
right on doctrine. There can be those who are in
that position, but they do not have the faith that justifies. Now we feel we have to make this
little disclaimer all the time when we talk about a faith that
justifies. Faith in and of itself does not justify. The word justify
simply means to declare to be righteous. We are justified through faith,
though, because faith lays hold of that which actually does justify. It lays hold of the blood of
Christ. We are justified through his blood. And faith connects
us to God, of whom it is said, it is God that justifies. So
faith is not, in and of itself, some righteous thing which God
takes as a substitute for righteousness. God is a just God. He cannot
justify someone who is not righteous. He's not accepting faith as a
substitute for righteousness. Rather, faith lays hold of that
righteousness of God which is in Christ. And based upon that
righteousness, performed and accomplished by Jesus Christ,
God declares us to be righteous. But, There is a faith that is
very orthodox, and yet it does not justify, it does not save.
And so James goes to some length here to point out how it may
be discerned whether or not a person, not whether it can be discerned
about someone else. I can't use his pattern here to judge you.
I don't know that in the scriptures it ever gives us a yardstick
for judging other people. But we do well to examine ourselves. As Paul says, examine yourselves
to see if you be of the faith. That's the issue. Now, when people
approach the latter half of this chapter, beginning in verse 14, It's difficult for most people
to grasp what James is saying, because they try to compare it
with what Paul says, and it seems as though they contradict. James
quite clearly says that we are justified by works. And Paul rather clearly says,
by the works of the law shall no man be justified in his sight.
Now, that sounds like a pretty clear contradiction, doesn't
it? And I've seen a lot of people do all they can to somehow or
another reconcile those two concepts. And some of them actually just
say, yeah, salvation is by faith without works, but you got to
have works. And you know, you got to have good work, got to
have righteous works. And I'm saying, well, you just contradicted
yourself. And then others do theological gymnastics, as it
were, trying to reconcile what James' statement, taken out of
its context, and Paul's statement, taken out of its context. They seem to contradict one another.
But if you carefully read what James is saying, he is not distinguishing
between faith only and faith plus works. He's distinguishing
between a faith that exists in words only and a faith that has
works accompanying it. Now let me show you that. Verse
14. What good is it, my brothers,
if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? You see there? He doesn't say, what good is
it if a man has faith but has no deeds? He said, what good
is it if he claims to have faith? What good is it for him to say,
I believe, if that faith does not produce within him works
that are consistent with what he claims to believe? Now, if I say, I believe, that
playing out in the middle of the street is dangerous and stupid,
and yet you see me playing out in the middle of the street,
what are you gonna say? You obviously don't believe what you said.
You can say you believe that, but you don't, or you wouldn't
be out there in the middle of the street. And that's actually what
James is talking about here. He says, can a faith, that is,
a claim to faith, A faith that consists only in saying, I believe,
and then maybe recite some doctrines. He says, if that's all there
is to his faith, can that kind of faith save him? And then he
illustrates what he means. That is, he illustrates the contrast
he's trying to make. Verse 16. Or verse 15, suppose
a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one
of you says to him, go, I wish you well, keep warm and well-fed,
but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the
same way, faith by itself, if it's not accompanied by action,
is dead. Now, many people And I've heard this
preached several times this way, not from the brethren that we
closely associate with. I heard it growing up, and I've
heard other preachers on the TV talking about this. And they
act as though the kind of deeds that James is talking about,
which must accompany faith, or faith is dead, the kind of deeds
is like taking care of the poor and seeing to it they have food
and clothing. That's not what he's doing there
in verse 15 and 16. He's setting up an illustration.
He says, if someone came to your door and they are hungry and
they are cold, they don't have the clothes and the food they
need, and you say, there's the key again, you say, go, I wish
you well. Keep warm and be well fed. Doesn't that sound nice? Keep warm, be well fed. But then
you do nothing. You don't give him any food.
You don't provide him with a coat. Then what were your words worth?
Nothing. Telling him to go and be warm
and be fed, telling them, I wish you well, doesn't do anything
unless it is joined by actions on your part to provide for them. So he says in the same way, faith,
that is words of faith, words of I believe
that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior, and I trust
Him and Him alone for my salvation." He says, if that's not backed
up by a life that's consistent with that faith, with that declaration,
then that declaration means nothing. It's just words. And just like
the fellow who says, I wish you well, be warm and well fed, his
words are worthless words. So will the professions of faith
that are not accompanied with deeds. They'll prove to be useless
words. But it's not deeds of charity. It's not deeds of morality that
James is talking about. He's not saying, if you claim
to be a believer, but you don't have an upright walk, then your
faith is nothing. Well, I realize that believers,
most of the time, their life will be upright according to
human standards, but none of us absolutely zero of us live
a life that God could call righteous, upright. None of us. So it can't be that James is
saying faith that is not accompanied by the kind of works, works of
morality and righteousness that God could approve of. No. See, James is in agreement with
Paul. Works of the law, works of righteousness presented to
God as a reason for Him to do something good for us. We can't
do any works like that. We're incapable of doing anything
that God could look at that and say, that's good. Because he
did that, well, I guess I won't send him to hell afterwards.
After all, I'll give him a mention in heaven. That's never going
to happen. There's only one human being whose conduct in this world
was good enough, because it was perfect, good enough to attract
the eye of God in heaven, and when it happened, God made it
clear. He opened the heavens and he
spoke and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
That has never been said about anybody else. So James is not calling us to
a legalistic addition to faith alone. He's calling us more than
calling us. Actually, he's not saying to
do this. He's saying, if this is not the
way you are, you don't have real faith. Whatever it is you have
is not the faith that's the gift of God. But what he's saying
is, if the words of your profession are not accompanied by the kind
of things people would do if they really believe that, then
your words mean nothing. He points out the uselessness
of a mere faith, or a faith that simply believes what we would
call true doctrine. He says, verse 19, you believe
there is one God. Now remember, James was addressing
Jews primarily, because that's where he ministered. And he's
addressing it. you know, while all the apostles
and prophets were inspired by God to write the scriptures the
way they did, it doesn't mean that they were like robots writing.
God worked in all the apostles and prophets to write things
in a way that needed to be written. But as James is writing this,
he's got in mind this is going to be read by Jews. Well, what
is the first thing that God said on Mount Sinai? Hear, O Israel, Jehovah your
God is one. And so James says, you say you
believe in one God. Good. But if that's your profession,
and that's the end of it, and all you have is this profession
that you believe there is one God, he says, you've simply risen
to the level of demonic faith. He said, because. Demons believe
that, and they shudder. Do you realize that in many respects
the demons have a greater faith than many who profess to be Christians? Because Christians will say,
that is some professed Christians will say, I believe God, I believe
there's one God, but they don't shudder. That doesn't have any power with
them. At least it made the demons afraid. And then James goes on and says,
you foolish man. Now, to understand what he means
here, you've got to understand how the Jews approached the concept
of wisdom or foolishness. He wasn't accusing them of not
knowing things. In the Hebrew mind, wisdom and
foolishness involve conduct as much as knowledge and understanding. In the Jewish mind, a wise man
not only knew what was right, he did what was right. In one of the Psalms it says,
the fool has said in his heart there is no God. What's he talking
about? Well, the fool was the man who not only had no understanding
of right and wrong, he was himself a ne'er-do-well. He was living
as though there were no God to whom he must give an account.
So when he says, you foolish man, he's addressing the person
who had a head full of knowledge, but that knowledge did not result
in anything or any change in their conduct or any direction
of their conduct. He's saying your faith exists
only in words, in doctrines up in your head. It did nothing
about how you approach life. He goes then, he says, you want
some evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Verse 21, was
not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when
he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith
and his actions were working together and his faith was made
complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled.
It says, Abraham believed God. and it was credited to him as
righteousness. Now, when God, when it is written
in Genesis 15, I believe it is, Abraham believed God and God
credited righteousness to him. That's Genesis 15. Abraham was
justified then, justified by faith. And Paul makes that same
argument. Well then why does James bring
up this business with Isaac? Because Isaac was not even born
for many years after this. After Genesis 15. Much less had
Abraham taken him up on the mountain to sacrifice him to God. Here's
what James means. Abraham believed God. Therefore,
when God said to him, take your son, your only son, many years
later, some speculate that Isaac was as much as 40 years old when
that happened. A fully grown man, anyway. After
all, he had to carry the bundle of wood up the mountain, and
you can't do that to a five-year-old boy or something like this. He's
a grown man. But God says to him, Abraham,
take your son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him
as a sacrifice to me. Now several things about Abraham
were being tested at that point. One of them, his devotion to
God, that there wasn't anything that he wouldn't do and anything
he wouldn't sacrifice for the privilege of knowing God. But Hebrews, the book of Hebrews
also tells us in Hebrews 11, it was a test and proof of the
reality of his faith. Now how did faith enable Abraham
to be willing to offer his son as a sacrifice? Do you think
you could do that? No, you couldn't because you
don't have something that Abraham had. You don't have a promise concerning
your children and what shall come of them. Isaac did. And the book of Hebrews tells
us that Abraham by faith offered Isaac on the altar. Faith in
what? Faith in the promise that God
had given concerning Isaac, because he first promised that from Abraham
would come a seed that no man could number. And Abraham later
thought, well maybe it's Eleazar. It's going to be an adopted son.
He said, no, no. It's going to be a son from your
own loins. Well, nothing was happening between him and his
wife. She wasn't getting pregnant, so his wife came up with the
idea, you know, well, you take my handmaid. And that was common
among the people who could have handmaids and such. If the wife
could not bear a child, they would use one of the servant
women. And it was in some ways like
we would say a surrogate birth, but of course, this would be
the son of the servant woman. But legally speaking, it would
have been considered the son of Sarah, even though it was
actually her handmaid who would give birth to Isaac, or whatever
child was born of that. And so Abraham had relations
with the servant. She got pregnant. And Ishmael. And they're kind of thinking,
okay, we've got the promise seed. And God said, no, that's not
him. And God further refines the promise.
And he says, it will be a son born of you and your wife, Sarah. And from him will come this seed
that no man could number stars, the sky and all this. So, sometime
later, sure enough, what Abraham's, well, I guess it would have been
about 99 when Isaac was conceived, and Sarah would have been about
89. And then in the next year, after the, you know, the nine
months have passed, Abraham's 100, Sarah's 90, and they have
their firstborn and only born child. Now, you might say, and actually the
book of Hebrews does say, that by faith Abraham received strength
to sire a child, and Sarah received strength to conceive. Actually
back then their concept of reproduction was not what our scientific understanding
is. They didn't believe that the
woman really contributed anything. It was more like planting seed
in a garden. And the woman was the soil in which the man's seed
grew. So they didn't understand. For instance, you take the law
concerning the firstborn, that the firstborn would receive the
double portion because he is proof of the father's strength.
Well, we understand it's also proof of the mother's strength
as well. But they didn't understand that
at that point, and God just accommodated their way of seeing things. But
by faith, yes, Abraham received strength to sire a son, something
you wouldn't expect from a 100-year-old man. But then it went on to say,
by faith he offered Isaac. How could Abraham consider offering
this son. The only son he had with
his wife is dear to him as any of your
children would be to you. How could Abraham take this son
through whom God had said all the promises would come to pass?
How could he kill him? he could kill him as a sacrifice
to God because God had promised that through him would come that
seed. And the book of Hebrews says,
so Abraham reasoned that God was going to raise him from the
dead. Well, we know that the way it played out, God simply
stopped him from going forward with the sacrifice. And so the book of Hebrews chapter
11 goes on to say, and indeed he, in a sense, did receive Isaac
back from the dead. Why? But here's the thing. Why
could Abraham offer his son without hesitation? Because he believed the promise
of God that said Isaac would be the one through whom the promise
would come. At that point, Isaac had no children. Consequently,
Abraham says, God's going to raise Isaac from the dead. Because
there's no way for him to fulfill his promise to me if I offer
my son as a sacrifice and he stays dead. And you know, you
find that that's the truth of things. Because it says that
he took his servants and Isaac went out there to Mount Moriah,
and when they got to the bottom of the mountain, he told his
servants, you stay here. I and the boy will go up and
worship and we will come back. You hear that? We will come back. Now, Abraham could have said,
I believe God. He promised me that through Isaac
would his seed be called. Well, go up and offer him a sacrifice.
No, I'm not going to do that. Can't do that because he's the
promised one. Wait a minute. The same one who
made the promise told you offer him as a sacrifice. And because
he believed that what God has promised he's able to do, he
willingly went up there with the assumption, I will sacrifice
my son, he will be burned up on the altar, and then God's
going to raise him from the dead and we're going to go back home.
That's faith with the kind of works that back up a profession
of faith. If Abraham would have refused
to do it, It wouldn't have been an act of unrighteousness that
brought him under condemnation. Rather, it simply would have
proved he didn't believe God. You see what James is getting
at? And then he uses another example. In the same way, was
not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what
she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off
in a different direction? Now, you remember that story,
as the Jews are going to come into the land and Joshua's leading
them, a military commander, and they're going to take Jericho. But before they approach Jericho,
they send in some spies just to get an idea of what Jericho's
like. Well, it's found out in the city that these are spies
from the Jews, and so people surmise, OK, they're trying to
spy on us to figure out how to overthrow us. these two spies go to what would
have been called a hotel, the way they did hotels back then.
And it was in the very wall of Jericho, which meant you had
the wall there, and they just built a building up next to it
and cut a hole through the wall so they'd have a window. And
back then, most who had places for overnight stays, also offered
other services, and that's why it says Rahab the prostitute.
But she was a, what we might call a motel owner, that offered
other services as well. But they go there. Now, here's
Rahab. By the law of God, she's cut
off from the people of God because the law of God made covenant
with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Didn't make
a covenant with anybody else. And she's not from that bunch.
Not only that, she is guilty of regularly breaking, I don't
know which of the commandments it is, but the one, thou shalt
not commit adultery. She broke it regularly. Not only that,
she did it for money. So this woman certainly cannot
be justified based on her conduct as the law would judge it. She
couldn't be justified, accepted, protected because of her ancestry. Because her ancestry was wrong.
But notice what happened. She believed. She believed that
the God of the Jews is God indeed. And she proved that she believed
that because when the spies showed up at her place, she said, You
hide here. And when they come looking for
you, I'll tell them that you already left. And then once they've gone
out looking for you and enough time has passed that I think
it's safe, I'll let you down, let you out of the city through
the window in the wall. But when you all do attack the
city, you protect me and everybody that's inside my house here.
And those two spies said, OK, we'll do that. But if you want
our protection, you're going to have to hang a scarlet cord
out that window that you let us down through. And that's exactly
what Rahab did. Now you say, how is that a work
of faith? It's not a work of righteousness,
not a work of morality. After all, she's betraying the
people of her city. We wouldn't call that a moral
act, would we? How is it an act of faith? She threw her lot with
the people of God. She said, I believe that your
God is the true God, and I want to come under the protection
of that God, even if it means that I'm cut off from everyone
else in this city. Not only that, there was, humanly
speaking, a risk involved. Now, imagine on the day when
the, you know, remember the people came to her house and they, you
know, she said, she told them, oh, they aren't here, they left
already. And she said, but if you go quick, maybe you can catch
them. And she sent them out the door looking for them when she
knew they were up on the roof. And then she let them out. Well,
when the Jews come and they're, going around the city. Every
day, they came for six days straight, marched around the city once,
and went home. And that must have looked strange to those
people. They're in Jericho. They're closed behind their wall. And here comes the seventh day.
And they go around the city seven times. Looks like they're here
to stay. The other days, you know, march
around once, go home. But now, you know, they're getting serious
about this. You can imagine maybe some soldiers up on the wall,
because they would get there on top of the wall to face the
enemy. And they look around, and they
look over, and here's Rahab's place. And hanging out that window
is a red cord. What's that about, Rahab? You're the only one with a red
cord hanging out. Normally, you've got that red cord out on the
front door to advertise. Why is it hanging out there by
the wall? They already were suspicious of her. You see, she plainly,
openly threw her lot with the Jews, and that made her an enemy
of everybody inside that city. She was no secret believer, so
to speak. And at the very time when it
could have brought her the most trouble, the loss of her life. She openly confessed. She's with the people on the
outside. Now how does that apply to you and me? We say that we believe. various
doctrines. We believe that Jesus Christ
alone is Savior and we are saved through trusting Him alone without
adding anything to it. And we believe that the worship
of God can only be according to truth for the Lord Jesus said
that the Father desires such as worship Him in spirit and
in truth. We claim to believe all that.
Now, For 35 years, this congregation has proved that's what they believe.
Why? Because despite, and this was
more in the early days than now, but despite the contempt that
was shown for us by some in this area, you continued. They, as it were, said, well,
why you got that cord hanging out the window? What are you
saying, we're wrong? How come you're siding with them? And you didn't let what we might
call peer pressure. You didn't let the threats of
them withdrawing their love. And we've seen that happen to
people. Not all of you, but some of you. I mean, it put up a wall,
as it were, between you and your family, you and your friends.
Here's another thing, a little church like this, you can't just
be one of 500 people trying to support the church. It required
of you that you give more sacrificially than others might just to keep
the business going. What does that do? That proves that what you said
with your mouth is real to your heart. because you were willing,
as Abraham, to give up whatever it is of this world that is required
to be a believer after this fashion. You separated yourself from those
who would claim to believe that salvation is by grace alone,
but after they said that, they kept adding stuff that was necessary
too. You bore the insults. You stayed with it. You aligned
yourself with the people of God like Rahab, and you left everything
in which you formerly found peace and confidence. You just left
it all behind as Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. That's
the kind of thing that James is talking about. I've heard
people say, I mean people I've preached to, It's kind of disappointing,
but you know. Yeah, we believe in God's free
and sovereign grace, but this church over here, they've got
something for the kids. I'll tell you what they've got
for the kids. They've got poison. They've got a program that kids
will like. Well, of course, anybody likes
entertainment. Well, we like the kind of hymns
they sing. You're going to walk away from
the faithful and truth gospel being preached simply so you
can hear your favorite hymn sung? I say you. I know it's not you
because you're here. But people do that. And what
are they doing when they do that? They're proving that what they're
saying with their mouth isn't real. Oh, I believe that salvation
is by grace alone and through the work of Christ alone, but
I'm going to go down here to my local church and I'm going
to have the priest bless that bread and that wine and I'll
make the sign of the cross and I'll do all that stuff and I'll
go out and do good works and all that just in case. Then you
don't believe that salvation is by grace alone through Christ
alone. That's what James is talking about. You see, the Jews, Jewish
Christians, suffered because they sided with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And all they had to do, they
could have gone on professing themselves to be Christians and
avoid persecution. It would have been a very easy
thing. All they would have had to do is quit meeting with the
Christians, start going back to the synagogue. And they could
have said, well, you know, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, but
I'm still with you guys, you know. That's just one of the
doctrines we disagree on. That's all they'd had to do.
And some of them did it. They went back to avoid persecution. But if you really believe, you
don't go back to that which is not the truth of Christ. Now,
I spent a lot longer on that than I planned on, but I don't
want to avoid it. Give me just a couple of minutes
here on what is true religion. If you look back at verse 27
of chapter one, And this is a similar thing to
what we've just said. But it says, religion that God
our Father accepts as pure and faultless as this, to look after
orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being
polluted by the world. Now, when he's talking about
faith, he's talking about how we relate to God. Do we really
believe God? If we really believe God, then
we'll walk according to faith. We'll worship according to the
faith we claim to believe. Religion, as James is describing
it, is the way we display our faith in this world. Now, we usually use religion
in a negative sense. We're thinking about Usually if I'm in preaching I
say, well, religion says this, and I'm talking about human,
purely human religion. But we're a religion. I mean, what we believe affects
what we do, doesn't it, in the world, affects how we relate
to other people. Well, remember how our Lord,
he preached in a very religious context, the Jews. It was a national
religion. And you had some among them who
are especially religious, folks like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they were very big on doctrine. And the Pharisees in particular
were very, were emphasized very much living an upright moral
life. And James is saying to people
like that, if that's all there is to your religion, your religion
does not please God. Here is how to practice religion
in the sight of the world. Not do like that Pharisee who
went down the street corner and right in front of everybody prayed,
I thank you God I'm not like other men. Not by going in front
of the world as the Pharisees would do, and they'd make the
fringe on their garments very long, because the old covenant
law talks about the fringe on the garment, the tassels on the
garment. And so they wanted to show everybody just how religious
they were, and they'd have them very long. They had these things
called phylacteries, little boxes that had scraps of scripture
written on them and put inside those boxes, and they'd have
that on their forehead, you know, because the Bible said, may this
law not depart from your mind, you know, and so they were showing
everybody just how dedicated to the law they were. But they wouldn't lift a finger
to help anybody. Now, we may go around and say,
well, we believe free and sovereign grace. Good. You should, because
that's what the truth is. We go to church faithfully. Good.
A person ought to do that. But if your religion consists
in wearing t-shirts that declare your religious devotion. or in making a big display of
saying grace when you're at the restaurant. I'm not saying there's
anything wrong with that, but I know by personal experience that can
be done for very self-righteous reasons to demonstrate to everybody
just how committed to Jesus you are. He said, here's real religion. This is what the gospel will
teach you to do. You find those in need and you
take care of them. Why? Why is that the proper expression? of gospel conduct in this world
because God found you in need and took care of you. And if
whatever relationship you have with God doesn't promote in you
the desire or the, not just the desire, the act to look upon
the struggling in this world with pity and a heart of love combined with actual activity
that tries to meet their needs. Then your religion. Oh, it might
look good to the world. They may say, oh, that's a man
that stood for the truth. That's a godly woman. Are they? Do they have a heart for those
who are downtrodden? Do they have a heart for those
whom the world rejects? Or are they just worldlings?
who, as James goes on to say in the first part of chapter
14, worldlings enamored with the world and the people who
are successful in this world, the rich, the celebrities. This is true faith, a faith willing
to lose anything and everything for the privilege to be among
the people of God. This is true religion. Religion,
the practice of it, that pleases God. To look with pity upon the
poor and the needy of this world. And that's not just those that
are poor in money. It means also to look at those
who are poor in spiritual things I remember when the war was going
on in Iraq and that church from Kansas, Westboro Baptist Church,
and unfortunately, you may not know this about them, they claimed
to be Sovereign Grace Baptists. Do you remember how they would
go to the funerals of soldiers and hold those, you know, God
hates fags? Reverend, we can't call homosexuality
good. There's a lot of things we can't
call good because they're wrong. That doesn't mean we don't love
them and pray for them and do what we can to get the truth
for them in the hope that the God of all grace will be gracious
to them as they were to us. God, to be honest, God doesn't
hate fags any more than he had a right to hate what we were.
That may not be how we expressed our rebellion against God, But
we expressed it, didn't we? But God, in mercy, oh, think
of what he did for you. Plucked you out of that mess.
And you know, there's some of those marching down the streets
in these gay pride parades and all this transgender stuff, and
they look, oh, we look at them, we think, that's so foolish,
that's so ungodly, that's so disgusting. We say those kind
of things. But brethren, that's exactly what we look like to
God. And there's some of that marching crowd that God, in his
mercy, is going to reach out to and pluck them out of that
mess and make them believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
himself said that. He said, these kind of people
will not inherit the kingdom of God. And among that list,
he mentions homosexuals. And then he says, and such were
some of you. That's true religion. And here's
one thing I got to confess. I'm not particularly good at
it. I want to be. It's easy to judge, isn't it?
It's easy to be enamored by fleshly glory and sidle up to those who
have the nice clothes and the golden ring. But we're forgetting
that Paul says, you see, you're calling an election, brethren,
not many. And he goes on to lists things
like the poor, the ignorant, the nobodies. That's God's people. Most of them come from those
ranks. Well, I'll quit. There's so much more that could
be said. You know, when we look at these things, isn't that a
whole lot better than having to be mad all the time? Isn't
that a whole lot better than having to go around trying to
prove to everybody just how Christian you are? Going around, you feel
like you've got to make some kind of outward profession of
faith. And the reason you've got to
make an outward profession of faith is because it's quite obvious
your life doesn't go along with it. If we just believe God and
live according to what that faith says, trust Him completely, really
do that, and abandon all hope, and therefore not be enamored
with the world and the people of it, Rather, look after, seek
out, and help the needy, just as God sought