James chapter 1, verse 26 and 27. 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. Amen.

May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

Here is an interesting little thought from James. There is, he says, in this world, Such a thing as pure religion. Religion isn't a word that we need to be cagey about. Although we have to acknowledge that religion in the world has been used to justify many terrible things. When we speak about religion, very often people become prickly. And even believers sometimes think, oh, we don't like to talk about religion because of the way that we perceive it or that it is perceived in the world around about us. A formalism, a nominalism, a ritualism. When we look at history, or even around the world today, so much trouble seems to stem from religious differences, from prejudices and intolerance. Or maybe it is that evil people just are happy to use any excuse, any difference to hurt one another. They oppress people who don't believe as they do. Actually, doing so, oppressing people who don't believe as you do, just means that you can be evil and whitewash your actions by doing it in the name of God.

And let us be clear about this, you and I, brothers and sisters. Some of the more fundamentalist or even we might say aggressive religions of this world, religions such as Islam, doesn't have a monopoly on viciousness in religious practice. We can be very close in in this matter. Calvinists have been guilty of it too.

But I think that James is helping us here by reminding us that there is a true religion in this world, one that surpasses all others and is distinguished from all others in that it is pure. And pure religion is what we all ought to aspire to, seek for, and cherish. And James here, in these couple of verses, has some helpful things to say to us today about what pure religion is.

Let me mention something about the word religion, the actual word as it were. Religion isn't often used in the Bible. There's a couple of occasions in Acts, I think. Paul speaks about it when he is speaking about his religion in the Jews, in the Jewish faith. But maybe there's only four or five occasions in the whole of the New Testament where religion is actually used as a word. As I say, usually it's in connection with the religion of the Jews.

The word derives from a Latin word that means to bind up or to connect two things together. Let me see if I can give you an example of that in another way. If you have a sore knee or a sore elbow, The doctor might tell you that you've damaged your ligament. Well, religion and ligament come from the same origin, the same etymology. It's the flexible material that joins the two bones. Or sometimes we speak of a ligature, which is used for tying and binding something together tightly. And again, a ligature is from this same word, re-ligion, religion.

Religion is man's attempt to reconnect or reunite themselves to God, having lost connection with him by sin in the fall. And religion all across the world is people trying to reconnect with God. And some people follow rules of behavior, obey the laws of their faith, their religious documents, their religious teachers, their history, their heritage. They think about how they dress, they think about how they live, they think about what they eat, what they sing, how they pray. They make all kinds of sacrifices to try to please God, whatever they conceive God to be, to try to recover that broken relationship.

because man was made in the image of God and man knows that there is a breach in that relationship between the God who is evidenced to them in creation and in their own heart and where they presently are. And their faith in the religions of this world, their faith is hoping that what they are doing will be sufficient. That what they are doing, the cost they are bearing, the price they are paying, the sacrifices they are making, will work to appease God. That God will be satisfied and that they will get to heaven.

That's what the religions of the world are doing. They are trying to reconnect with God. They are trying to bind up that which has been broken. And James has a word for it. James calls it vain. Vain religion proceeds from a deceived heart and an unbridled tongue. To James, vain religion is men talking about what they know nothing about. It's human wisdom springing from a darkened, evil, sinful heart.

So here is a distinction. We started off by talking about James telling us that there was pure religion in this world. And then we've talked about James calling the religions of the world, the religion of fallen man, as being vain religion. Here is the distinction. There is, says the apostle, a religion that is pure and a religion that is not pure. Or again, as he calls it, vain religion. And this distinction between true and false, pure and vain, runs through the whole of this little epistle. And if we have that in mind, if we have in mind that James is distinguishing between these two forms of religion in this epistle, we shall not go far wrong in understanding his message.

Now James has already explained that pure religion must be from above. He says in verse 17, Now if pure religion is good, then it must come from God. It must come from heaven. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And he has, James has preached to us from the very outset, from the very beginning of what he has had to teach us in this chapter. He has preached to us the gospel of free and sovereign grace. He says in verse 18, of his own will, begat he us with the word of truth. Of his own will, begat he us with the word of truth.

James is showing us that the connection, the binding, the ligature that links us and joins us to God, the pure religion has to come from God to us. It can't be something we do to reach God. The men who built the Tower of Babel tried that, and the Lord showed his disgust by smashing it down. The Jews tried it for hundreds of years, and Christ called them whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones.

This is why the incarnation that we've been talking about with the young people And the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ is so important. Christ is the ligament, the mediator, the joiner. Christ himself has to be our religion. And only Christ is the pure religion that James is talking about. Every effort of man to placate God by religious effort is vain religion emanating from a darkened, deceived and evil heart. It's offensive to God because it replaces Christ or in some way adapts Christ, reimagines Christ in a form to suit man's natural vanity. And if our religion hasn't come to us from above, if it hasn't been personally and spiritually implanted and applied into our heart, then we are deceived and our religion is vain. That's what James is telling us.

He has stressed the transforming effect of the engrafted word upon the heart of a sinner. James is very clear. He is speaking here. He's going on to speak about the way in which we live, the things that we do, how we live, the good works, if you like, that will characterize a believer's life. But first of all, initially he has stressed the transforming effect of the engrafted word upon the heart of a sinner.

Verse 21 he says, receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. That engrafted word is the powerful phrase in that little verse. This engrafted word is the spiritual cutting of the stony heart and the inserting of new life within it. Resurrection life, the very life of Christ. That's why we can call Christ, as Isaiah has told us, the everlasting father. Because Christ has fathered his people by giving us his life, the life of Christ, into the dead soul of a sinner.

And it is our regeneration and our conversion. Christ's life in us is our regeneration, and it's outworking our conversion, our experience of that newness of life. Where the gospel of saving grace is imparted by the quickening spirit, where the word of truth is engrafted, there is true religion. And regenerated sinners are converts. converts to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're transformed people. A change has been made.

True religion, pure religion, flows from living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and men and women of pure religion live accordingly. They live lives that are conditioned by faith. They live godly lives because they have been made in the image of Christ. They have purity of heart. They have newness of spirit. They manifest that newness, that purity in good works. that are produced spontaneously by faith within them.

This isn't talking about works of obedience that are demanded by the law. These are the outflowing works, the consequences, the repercussions, the manifestation of new life in a believer's heart, the life that lives by the faith of Jesus Christ. And where God the Holy Spirit works a saving change in the soul of a sinner, the effect is obvious. Evidence of grace follows hard on spiritual conversion. It's why we call it conversion, because a change is evident.

A new heart runs on new principles. Old things pass away. New ambitions are discovered in the soul of the converted. New desires arise. We don't want to do the old things that we once did, go the old places that we once went to, spend our time with the people that we once spent our time with because we've got a new passion. New desires arise, and the believer's life and walk and conversation is changed for the better, and noticeably so. As I say, there are consequences to being made in the image of Christ.

And James gives us a few examples, just a few. He talks about visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction and caring for them. Now if that doesn't seem like very grand or amazing things to do, if that doesn't seem much to you, well don't worry about that, just do it anyway. The ability and the motivation for good works comes with the engrafted word. And James has told us that a doer a doer of the work of faith, that is, a believer in Jesus Christ, one who has had this engrafted word, engrafted, implanted, and as a result of that, believes or trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, a doer of the work of faith, is blessed in his deed. It's in verse 25. He is blessed in his deed. That is, he gets the blessings of God as he believes, so the blessings of God are dispensed and bestowed in his experience.

He is blessed in his deed, in believing he receives. And these blessings that he receives inspire a believer to serve. They are the gifts and graces of our loving Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are dispensed to the children of his house. Gifts such as Paul lists. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and many, many more. They are Christ's good gifts to the church, good gifts to his people. and they come from above. They're granted to us. They're the gifts of God to his people. Like all good gifts, they come from above.

But remember, James is distinguishing here between true and false religion. And he is warning the real church of God, that church that is comprised of regenerated believers. He is warning us against nominalism and hypocrisy. He's saying to you, if you are a child of God, don't be deceived by nominalists and hypocrites. Don't be deceived by their practice of vain religion. Don't get dazzled by their robes and their rituals and their self-righteous works. Don't be overwhelmed by all of the sparkly things that they appear to be able to do, their numbers, their wealth, their engagement with society, all the things that are the trappings of modern day religion. Don't let those things get under your skin. That's all they're good at. There's nothing of any depth or reality to their religion because it is a vain religion.

And as in the Apostles' Day, so in ours. There are false professors in whose life is no saving, no saving change has been worked. They seem to be religious. They're religious in their talk. but they're deceived. They've no divine energy in their soul. They've no real experience of grace in their heart. I mentioned yesterday, vain religion talks a good game. It has the language of the Bible, but it doesn't have the spirit of the Bible. It can pray, it can preach. In vain religion, A form of godliness is practiced, but it is void of power because it is void of true, engrafted faith in Christ.

And the unbridled tongue is a rebellious tongue. It speaks lies, and it preaches another gospel. Peter tells us of false teachers among you. I think I mentioned this last week. false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies. And he warns, many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Could we find a greater example of what we see in the world today in Christian circles, so-called, We should say Christendom, maybe that's a better way of trying to distinguish between the true church of Jesus Christ and that which calls itself Christian in the world.

Many shall follow their pernicious ways. by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And it is absolutely certain that the gospel of free and sovereign grace is evil spoken of by the vast majority of those who speak with unbridled tongues today. And we see that falling away from the truth, in many instances, is evident. We can see congregations that perhaps 50 years, 100 years ago had a testimony. And that testimony has been diluted and diluted until, if the church continues at all, it continues with a new set of principles, a new statement of faith, or at least, if they haven't got a new statement of faith, they're hypocrites about the original statement of faith that they used to have.

and we see that many are falling away from the truth that they once proclaimed. But the elect will not be deceived. There is but one pure religion, one religion that is undefiled before God. It is the gospel of free grace and every other religion has in it too much of man and too much of man's work.

Faithful preachers bring the pure religion of free grace that comes from above and unbridled tongues preach everything and anything else. Pure religion tells us what God has done to secure our redemption. Pure religion tells us what Christ has done to cleanse our souls and reconcile us to his Father. It tells of Christ's sacrifice and blood and of divinely accomplished salvation. All of Christ and all of God.

Pure religion makes sinners pure. Only those who are born again from above are pure in spirit, pure in heart, pure in conscience, and pure in mind. And yes, certainly it is derived purity, but it is pure just the same. It is the imputed righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

I mentioned in a little note yesterday how that Job in the Old Testament knew that a mortal man cannot be more pure than his maker. Actually, it was one of his friends that quoted this in Job 4.17. But, as that is true, we cannot be more pure than our Maker, yet we can be as pure as our Savior when we're clothed with His righteousness and we're spotless in His sight.

I'm going to spend the rest of the time that I have today thinking about what James means when he says that we are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. What does he mean by that? How does a man keep himself unspotted from the world? Well, we've learned Have we not that pure religion is from above and our righteousness, our purity, our unspotted holiness comes from above, not from within. Our holiness is not from within us, not anything to do with what we do. Our holiness is granted to us in the new man by the Lord Jesus Christ and we bear the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is by faith in the completed work of Christ that we experience peace with God. We lay hold upon what Christ has done, what God has imputed to us and imparted to us in the new birth. We lay hold upon those things by faith. And so too, it is faith that keeps us trusting. in the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ, when the spots and stains of this world come calling and cling to us.

We've already seen that the engrafted word converts a soul and transforms our nature. And where true, pure religion comes with power, and where the gospel of grace enters and changes our heart, that gospel teaches us to follow Christ, to actively follow Christ, to separate from the world and follow him.

Paul speaks to Titus in this way, and he teaches Titus. and us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. That's what the gospel does when it enters. That's what the engrafted word does when it enters into the heart of one of Christ's children. It teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Now, let's put it like this. If we have not been taught that, then how can we say that we've experienced that engrafted word? But note this. It is the gospel and not the law that teaches us this. It says, the gospel says, live like the holy people you are. The same grace of God in the gospel, excuse me, that tells us we are pure in Christ, teaches us to repudiate ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.

All who look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein, as James told us last week, all who look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein desire to do this. We are eager to do good works and we are repelled by evil works.

Now, if this was the end of the matter, the rest of our Christian lives and our service to the Lord would be straightforward and easy. The reality is different. Our experience is not like that. Although we desire to do good, although the gospel teaches us to do good, to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world, although this is what the gospel directs us to, In our distress, we find that we are capable of both good and evil acts. And the very desire to do good works and the blessings that God has given us, they provoke internal conflict between the old and the new man.

The pure spirit which God implants is willing, but the flesh which is corrupt is weak. It is true that quickened souls delight in acts of kindness and to serve the glory of God, but the old man attacks those very admirable acts. He stirs up pride and cynicism. And he brings back again those old hankerings after the things of this world and the lusts of the flesh. And this proves that we cannot remain unspotted in our own strength. And again, there is but one way we can succeed, by faith in Jesus Christ. It always comes back to Christ. it always comes back to Christ.

We draw strength from the Lord Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 9 verse 14, How are we going to serve the living God? Only when Our consciences have been purged from these dead works. And how is that affected? By the blood of Jesus Christ. It is only by trusting in the efficacy of the blood of Christ, leaning upon the finished work of our Saviour, that the child of God can mortify the deeds of the flesh and war successfully against the passions of the old man and the wiles and temptations of the devil.

And there will be some bitter battles. And there will be some heavy losses. but we look to Christ, the captain of our salvation, and we draw strength and wisdom from him to live for him, to honour and serve him, and to seek the good of his body, his family, his church. In staying close to the Lord, we are kept from following the ways of sin and indulging the works of sin. When we wear in our soul the spotless garments of Christ's righteousness, the new man has no desire to soil them with the filth of the flesh. And the man with pure religion keeps his eye on the sacrifice of his saviour. And he believes in his heart that for Christ's sake, and despite our own faults and failings and unworthiness, for Christ's sake, God sees no sin in his people.

We shall not be free from sin or the effects of sin while we remain in this flesh, in this world. Nevertheless, by faith we live with the liberty of conscience that every sin is forgiven, every stain is removed, every transgression forgotten by God because it has been taken and carried and paid for and it is washed in the blood of the crucified Christ.

May the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.