James the Just 7
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A Vain Religion
A Vain Religion
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. 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.
*open prayer*
Vain- worthless or useless
We see a continuation of the idea that we are to not just be hearers of the word, but also doers.
James shows us what real religion is...
And perhaps more importantly, what it is not....
2357 εὐσεβῶς (eusebōs): adv.; ≡ Str 2153—LN 53.6 religious, with a godly life, in a godly manner (2Ti 3:12; Tit 2:12+)
The word for religion here is “eusebos”.
If you have a Strong's concordance it is word 2153.
Its interesting that in the Greek, the new testament never uses this word in a positive sense.
James is using it here to refer to someone who identifies as being right with God, but really is not.
This is evident in their speech.
A Christian should talk different than the world.
Many Christians seem to struggle with this one, but our speech should be brought under control by conviction from the Holy Spirit.
It doesn’t mean we will never slip and say something we shouldn’t.
One of the hardest things to control is our tongue
But our goal should always speak in a way that brings honor and glory to God, who we represent out in the world.
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
Paul tells us we are ambassadors for Christ.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Jesus goes to say we are the light of the world.
So if our speech is not representing Christ, who is it representing?
Speech is really just one metric to look at, but the point James is making is pure religion is not claiming it, its living it.
Your walk with God should translate into the way we live our lives.
By the way we treat others.
Vain religion often reflects on self and not on serving others.
Let’s look at verse 27 again...
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.
“Undefiled before God”
It is interesting that what appears to be pure religion in the worlds eyes is usually not pure religion on God’s eyes.
The world looks at it in a sense of works because of yourself.... to prove your devotion or worthiness.
Instead we should look at it in a sense of works in spite of ourselves.
It is works that save us, but as we spoke on this before, it is NOT our work.
In fact, we couldn't do the work if we wanted to.
But it is the work of Jesus on the cross that saves us.
Our region should be with an attitude that reflects what Jesus did for us.
Jesus gave us something we did not deserve or earn.
We should serve others in the same manner.
This verse also shows us something interesting, a call to visit the orphans ans widows in their trouble.
We can honour God in real world, practical ways.
Its one thing to say you will help those in need. Its another in knowing how to properly do that.
God gives us simple solutions.
Solutions that are revealed to us through His Word and the Holy Spirit.
What is interesting is we also are called to present ourselves as unspotted to the world.
We have discussed this before, you do not have to give someone a reason to leave the church.
Im not talking about in a manner of being called to another church, I mean as in leave God’s church all together.
If they want to, they will find a reason on their own.
It doesn’t have to be a good one, but they will find one.
But since the church is made up of flawed people, its usually not hard to find an excuse.
Although I have seen people pretty much make up a reason in the past...
Regardless, our goal should be to never make the church look unloving in site of the world.
They can call us names, and accuse us of not being politically or socially correct, but they should NEVER be able to say, the church is unloving....
Whether they agree or disagree with our doctrine and values, they should be able to see we really do care about others.
And we will be guided to do things we in our pursuit of that idea.
i.e. to present to Gospel, to stand on our convictions of Truth, right and wrong, etc...
Part of being unspotted to the world means we cannot isolate ourselves from it.
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
We are called the salt of the Earth.
Check out this article from Everyday Health
Salt 101
Ever grab some table salt and instead of sprinkling it on your food you just leave it next to your plate?
Probably won’t do you much good unless you apply it to your food.
The world is Hungry for the Word.
They are searching for salted food.
Instead they are constantly consuming unflavored food, because the salt (the church) is too busy being seperate that we are doing no good.
We would be worse than the flavorless salt mentioned in Matthew...
We have good flavored salt sitting in pews all over the world on Sunday, yet we never apply it to the things consumed by the world.
We hear things like the church has no business in that...
Things like politics....
Maybe the church should stay out of that when we talk about things like how taxes should be collected…
Until politics becomes things like killing babies, attacking truth, or promoting other anti-God agenda’s.
As far as politicians go,
I don’t care what letter you have next to your name, if you promote wicked things, the Church has an obligation to call you out on it.
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.
Unspotted to the world...
The challenge is to show love to the world, but interacting with it.
We are to be in the world, but not of the world.
If we are not active in the world, or simply acting like the world, then we have a vain religion.
Do not worship in Vain.
Is your religion pure?
*close*