Religion That is Pure

Introduction

How many of you have taken one of those DNA tests that you see advertised and done? Come on, raise your hands if you’ve done that. Who’s done that? Now not talking about the ones at a crime scene. Rob, put your hand down. Talking about the ones where you find out your genetic makeup, you know, whether you’re European or wherever your background might be.

But finally sent it off and got mine back. And I found out that mine, my results said that I was 100% awesome. No, not really. Mine couldn’t have been more boring of where I was from. But what we learn, we learn a couple things about that. Number one is we learn how varied our backgrounds are. And then maybe a greater moral lesson we learn, and that’s not really the point of this lesson, but a lesson that we learn from that is just how ridiculous racism is when we realize just how we’re all a blend of different races and ethnicities and backgrounds. But we also learn from that and other things in life, how rare it is to find something that’s pure. Something that’s 100% something without anything else in it.

That’s what the word pure means. It means it’s all of something and none of something else. In James chapter one and in verse 27, we read about something that is pure, or something that should be pure. When James, in his very practical treatise on Christian faith, tells us in James chapter one and verse 27, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. To visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. I want us to talk about that verse and this concept of a pure religion. Let’s talk about the two big words in that phrase, religion and pure. Religion is one of those words that’s fallen on hard times in our society. Even among those who claim to be Christians.

Religion has become a byword, a negative. People say, I want a relationship with God without the religion. As if those two were mutually exclusive. Scripture would have us to know that a relationship with God is all important, but it involves religion.

And negative in our society because of impure and defiled religion. When they think of religion, they think of the worst examples of the impurities of some religion. But James tells us that we’re to have religion, that it’s a part of our relationship to God, but it is to be pure. And again, the word pure means a hundred percent of something with nothing else clouding it and nothing else mixed in. And so let’s talk about this pure and undefiled religion and seek to make our relationship to God and our religion, those things that we do in relationship to that relationship, pure.

1. Pure Religion Involves Self-Examination

Religion is my response to what God has done for me. And I have a control over that, and in order to control it and to properly administer it in my relationship to God, I must begin with some self-examination. Pure religion is so personal that it demands and must involve this idea of examining myself. In one of the most graphic passages of the idea of self-examination, again, Ben read in our reading about the word of God being this glass, this mirror in which we see ourselves. Let’s look at that verse again. James chapter one. And in verse 23, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

James tells us that the word of God, the Bible, is a mirror. I believe it’s a mirror in two senses at least. Number one, it’s a mirror in which I can truly see myself. Two of the most unfortunate realities of life is that mirrors and bathroom scales never lie. They just reflect the reality of life. And the word of God is that mirror in which we can see ourselves for who we truly are. We see the flaws. We see our shortcomings, our failures, our sins. Sometimes I’m struck when someone comes out sometimes after a sermon, one of those kind of step on your toes kind of sermons. And they lean in and said, I know you were talking to me. I know that was for me.

Or that really hit close to home. I want to tell you one thing. Your preacher’s not that smart. I don’t have access, I haven’t hacked into your ring cameras at home. I don’t know what you’re struggling with unless you tell me. I don’t know your failures, your foibles, your troubles.

And so it wasn’t me, it was the word. You looked into the mirror of God’s word and observed what manner of man you are. But I also believe that the word of God is a mirror in the sense that not only it shows us the reality of who we are, negative included, but it also is a mirror that can show us what we can be. It shows the potential that lies within us because made us in his image, given us his Holy Spirit so that we can be what we ought to be, not just what we see in the mirror, that we can examine ourselves and change who we are. With the help that God gives us, again, in his word. The word isn’t just a mirror that mocks us and says, see, you’re wrong.

2. Acceptable Religion Involves Bridling the Tongue

See, you failed there. See, you shouldn’t have done that, or you should have been better at doing that. It’s also a mirror that says, here’s how you can do that. Here’s how you can be that and be better. And so our religion is so personal that it has to involve us being honest with ourselves and being brave enough to look into the mirror of God’s word and say, God, show me who I am. While showing me who you want me to be. And so pure religion is that personal relationship that involves that self-examination. And James would also have us to know that acceptable religion involves bridling the tongue or controlling what we see. Look in James chapter 1, verse 26, he says, if any among you thinks he is religious, but deceives and does not bridle his own tongue, but deceives his heart, this one’s religion is useless.

So if you think you believe that you’re religious, you have this relation. I’m a Christian. I wear that name proudly. But if you don’t control your tongue, it’s all a sham. Now I don’t think James is saying, as we’re going to go on to see, that this is the only way. But I think he’s saying this is a good test. This is one of those things you need to look at in the mirror. Stick your tongue out and ask yourself, how am I doing in controlling what I’m saying? Now he’ll go on in chapter 3 and tell us how difficult that’s going to be to bridle and control that tongue. And we’ve talked about that before. But he does say this matters. Hold your finger here and go to Matthew chapter 12.

This matters because relationship and religion begins in the heart. But you know, I’m going to Matthew chapter 12, and I’m starting verse 33 in just a minute. But when I look in a mirror, I can’t see my heart. But I can look in the mirror and see things that reveal my heart. I can look in the mirror and see my speech. And that tells me the condition of my heart. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 22? Begin the reading with me in verse 33. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For a tree is known by its fruit, brood of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Out of the abundance of the so when I see metaphorically, figuratively, I see my speech, I understand what I’m saying. That is an indication. I can see my heart in that mirror, then, can I? Because when I examine myself in light of God’s word, I realize what I say reveals who I really am. That’s a gauge, again, not the only gauge, but a pretty good gauge of how I am in my relationship to God, of how my religion, my answer to God’s blessings, how it really is. And again, back to the self-examination point. A good, conscientious Christian is going to be looking at those things. I want to know a gauge. I want to see how I’m doing.

And I’ll again, according to James chapter 3, I understand the absolute struggle I’m going to have in this arena. But just because it’s a struggle and just because it’s difficult, and just because I may fail at times in it, doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do my dead level best to control what I say. We’ve talked about this before, but let’s talk about it again. It’s so important. Sometimes we want to give excuses, don’t we? And we need to see those in the mirror as well. We want to say, well, that’s just who I am. I just speak my mind. I’m just that kind of guy. I have no, I have no sequel, I have no filter. In fact, you know, my my dad was that way, and my grandma, boy, you didn’t you didn’t you didn’t want to know her opinion, you didn’t ask.

3. Pure Religion Demands That I Care for Others

You just you know what the Bible calls that. And rather than saying that’s the way I am, repent. Yes, it’s a struggle. And maybe it’s a diff more difficult struggle for some of us than for others. But if our religion is to be real and pure, we’re going to control what we say. Back to our text in James chapter 1. This pure, this real, genuine religion, makes certain demands of me. And one of those demands is that I care for others. Did you see that in the text? James chapter 1, verse 27. Pure and undefiled religion before the God and Father is this. Now let’s pause there. If you had never read James 1, verse 27 before, and you just had to guess what God, by inspiration through the pen of James, was going to say next, when he says, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this.

What would we expect him to say? I think we could put a lot of things there, couldn’t we? And some of them would, probably most of them would be right. But you know the one he put there and put first. If my religion is going to be genuine and real and a hundred percent, it’s going to include this, to visit the orphans and widows in their trouble. Pure religion demands that I care for others. Now let’s talk about the words in that phrase. Orphans, widows, visit. Let’s start with the word visit. This word that’s translated visit in our English translations of the New Testament doesn’t mean what we sometimes mean by visit. When I think of visit, I think just go by and see. I want to visit you.

I’m just going to come by. I’ll spend a little bit of time and I’ll try to balance how much when I go see you in the hospital, how much before COVID, when I could go visit you in the hospital, how much I don’t want to wear out my welcome and stay too long, but I’ll go by and stay there a little while. And when I can kind of gauge that you’re getting tired, we’ll say a prayer and I’ll leave. That’s visiting, just going by and seeing somebody. That’s not what this word is. It doesn’t mean just go by and see them. Because you really, I mean, you’ve cheered them up a little bit, but that’s not what these orphans and widows need. They don’t need a social call.

So visit here is carries with it the idea of seeing to their needs. Now it may include a physical visit. And I go and I see the yard’s a mess. And so I’ll take care of that. I’ll go and see the pantry is empty. And so I’ll take care of that. I’ll go and see the roof is leaking. And so I’ll take that’s the idea of visit. Is the visit with the eye of seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Orphans and widows, let’s talk about that. We know what those words mean, don’t we? We don’t even need those defined. But maybe we do. It’s my contention that orphans and widows here is not a limiting phrase. But it’s an inclusive, not an exclusive, but an inclusive phrase.

In other words, orphans and widows in that culture, and maybe even in some degree to our culture today, it means those who didn’t have the means, the resources, the families to take care of them. They were orphans. Their parents were gone. They were widows, their husband was gone. They didn’t have a family member to take care of them. And so it comes to typify those who don’t have the means, the resources, and the people to take care of them. They may not be technically orphans and widows. They just might not have anybody else or any other means to take care of them. And I think they would fit within that category of somebody who needs me to visit them. For me to be their family, to see to their needs.

4. Pure Religion Requires Living a Pure Life

Clothe me by visiting, feeding, and clothing my people. And to those on his right hand side who had a pure and undefiled religion, he will say, Welcome in, because you did those things to me by doing them to someone else. In other words, on the day of judgment, we’ll look into the ultimate mirror of judgment. And we’ll be exposed for who we really are and who we really are. Are you getting the point from these first two points about controlling what we say and taking care of others? That who we are, the heart is revealed by what we do, and we care for others. And then James would have us to know that pure religion requires living a pure life. Are you still there in James chapter one?

Look at verse 27 again. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, first of all, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble. And then what we admit is a very general statement, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

But he uses the use of the word unspotted. Let’s think about being spotted. What does that mean? Well, here’s what comes to my mind. It’s a tradition in most places that I’ve been, at least, when you hold a gospel meeting, is that before the services, they try to kill you with food. And so you eat. And you eat a lot because they put a lot on your plate. And it’s almost inevitable that if I wear my whitest, whitest shirt, that someone will have me over to their house and serve spaghetti. I don’t know about you, but I can’t eat spaghetti in a white shirt without getting some of it on me. I’ve tried everything there is to do. I’ve tried cutting up the noodles into little bitty pieces so they don’t sling as much.

I’ve tried leaning way over on the table. I’ve tried the hand under the fork. But inevitably, some of that tomato sauce in its bright redness is going to find its way in probably more than one location on my big white shirt. Spotted. And so James says, or the Holy Spirit through James says, if you want your religion to be real, you need to keep yourself unspotted from the world. Now, I think he assumes that the Christian is not going to be just doused with the world. We’ve made that much of a commitment. And so, with that assumption in mind, he issues the challenge not to be covered in the world, but not to be spotted. And again, like controlling the tongue. That’s a challenge, isn’t it?

Because we’ve been given the responsibility to live in this world. That’s the only way we can be the light of it. Without letting that darkness spot and contaminate the purity of my religion. And I know it’s easy to say. You know how to keep those dots of spaghetti sauce off your shirt, push away from the table, and don’t eat anything. Don’t eat the spaghetti. You won’t get the spaghetti sauce spotted on your shirt. That’s easy, isn’t it? And so we can make that application.

What did John say? Love not the world nor the things that are in the world. For anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Jesus talks about making that choice of either loving God or loving riches, the wealth of this world. You can’t do both. And so, yes, a decision needs to be made, a separation. That’s what the whole words holy, saint, and sanctified is talked about. And so, yes, there has to be a separation, but what does that separation look like? Is it always just a physical separation? I won’t go to those places, I won’t do those. Yes. But it also must mean some kind of spiritual separation when I cannot avoid being in the world and around the world.

Because again, God has called me to do that. To be that light of the world in the midst of that darkness. Without letting the world creep and crawl and find itself contaminating me. Again, it’s a challenge. It’s a struggle. But James says if our religion’s going to be real, it’s got to be pure. And if it’s going to be pure, it can’t have the world in it and on it. So I have to make that decision. I’m going to be different. Whatever the fallout and the ramifications of that are, I’m going to be different. I’m going to be pure. And I don’t want to look into that mirror as often as I can and say, What’s my heart look like based upon what I say? Is my religion real on the ground in the sense that I’m caring for those people who don’t have the ability, the resources, and the family to care for themselves.

Conclusion

And am I really different than the world around me? And do I really love God more than I love those things of this world? You know, it’d be interesting, maybe frightening. If we could swab inside our cheeks and mail off this package.

Others 50% of the time. And you’re 70% unspotted from the world. And in a sense, we can have that test. Again, as James says, what do we do? We look into the perfect law of liberty. Perfect. The pure word of God. And it’ll tell you who you are. Better than that, it’ll tell you who you can be. If you would surrender yourself to His will and seek to have the relationship with God based upon a pure religion. Have you started that journey? Have you looked into the Word of God and tried to do what He would have you to do in order to be saved? Then why not do that today? Look into the Word of God honestly and say, Lord, what would you have me to do in order to be saved?

And you’ll see that He says to believe in me. Repent of your sins. That means turn your back on the impurity of this world, to confess your faith and to be baptized to wash away your sins. Maybe you’ve done that. But your religion, your faith, your relationship to God has become contaminated along the way. Spotted by the world. Or you failed to do those things in controlling your tongue and caring for others that you ought. The mirror of God’s word can correct that as well. So if we can help you this morning as you come to Christ and seek to have that pure relationship in that pure religion, then why not let it be known right now as together we stand and as we sing.