The Source of True Religion: the Filling of the Holy Spirit

The Source of True Religion is Holy Spirit Filling

What makes a car go?

If I ask a child, they may say, pushing the pedal, or turning the wheel, or spinning the tires makes the car go. My 6 year old answered that it was the engine and ‘gas’ that makes the car go.

But if you ask someone who works on cars all the time, what makes a car go? They’ll understand that it’s much more complicated than that. You need fuel and a perfectly timed spark to create the combustion pressure necessary to push the pistons at the proper rate to move the gear with enough torque to rotate the tires.

What makes a Christian do good things? What gives Christians the power to live out true religion?

We’ve been studying True Religion from the Book of James for a few months.

We’ve

This book is filled with commands. Do this. Don’t do this. Each one is helping us understand what it looks like to more closely align with what he calls ‘true or pure religion’

count it all joy & remain steadfast under trial

remain steadfast under trial

be quick to hear, slow to speak, and be slow to get angry, unselfish in love

persevere

control your tongue

visit widows and orphans

navigating life’s storms with wisdom from above

our words reflect our heart and should be used for good

ask God for wisdom

...and on and on it goes

and on and on it goes

That makes James immensely practical, because it’s very clear what he’s calling us to do.

However, Christians may look at this list and think, there’s no way. I cant do all of this. I’m failing in so many of these areas.

But before we get depressed that God will never love us because we are constantly missing the mark, or just throw in the towel completely because its just too overwhelming (does God really expect us to live like this??)

remember, what saves us?

James 1:21 ESV

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

- the word of God is able to save us - the Gospel - which the Spirit of Christ uses to make us alive in Christ.

- the word of God is able to save us - the Gospel - which the Spirit of Christ uses to make us alive in Christ.

Don’t miss one of the most important parts of what James is saying

Doing all these good things does not - - cannot save you. If you are saved, you will do these things.

As followers of Jesus our goal is not to earn our salvation, but to work it out—to act in a way that pleases God.

Now like the car that in incapable of going without the combustion of fuel and spark, a person is unable to live a life of true religion without the fulness of the Holy Spirit.

The Source of True Religion is the filling of the Spirit

...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

He gives both the ability and the desire. They come from God.

If you look at the insert, you can see the list of expectations in James, and I think we can group them into three categories.

Keep unstained from the world

Love your neighbor

Draw near to God

As you look at the list, you may notice how similar these things are to Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit from .

While the main point in James is that ‘faith works’, we can’t get too far away from remembering that all of these good things are energized by the Spirit.

Only the working of the Spirit in your life can enable you to remain unstained from the world, to truly love your neighbor, and to draw near to God.

Philippians 3:15 ESV

Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So lets look at these three areas and see how they connect with the power of the Spirit

As Christians, we want our lives to be what God wants them to be. We’ve submitted ourselves to God in faith. He is our creator and king. So we worship him and obey him.

Keep ourselves Unstained from the world

Love our neighbors

Draw near to our God

I. Remain Unstained from the World

When James gives these commands, he offers the reason to do them or the solution to them

Count it all joy 1:2

for - you know something 1:3 - you know that steadfastness works in you to make you what God designed you to be. These trials turn you into the image of Christ…they sanctify you.

That’s the Spirit’s work. JOY

You trust him in trials, and he fills your heart with a steady assurance that God is good and is in charge.

remains steadfast under trail 1:12

for - God blesses him. He receives this crown of life - eternal blessing to dwell with God.

this faithfulness comes from the Spirit. to endure even the darkest of times.

Slow to get angry 1:19

for - the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God

but patience is evidence of the Spirit working in your life

Control your tongue 1:26

if you think you know God, but don’t control your tongue, that kind of religion doesn’t have the power to save you. It is not connected to the Spirit’s power. When you walk in the Spirit, you have self-control

This does not mean you’ll be perfect or that you will never say something you shouldn’t say. It does mean you will be constantly submitting your language to God…not just because kids are around, but because you want to be pure before God.

4:11-12

Don’t be cursing people based on who they are or how they act. Rather speak no evil against them at all - because then you’re not obeying the very law you think you’re delivering. You’re trying to condemn those that aren’t following the law, and the law will condemn you.

Speak no evil against another 4:11- because then you’re not obeying the law, you’re trying to adjudicate the law. You’re trying to condemn those that aren’t following the law, and the law will condemn you.

Rather, if you’re filled with the Spirit - when you encounter people who mistreat you, or sin against you, or are living terrible lives, you don’t curse them, rather you’re full of the fruits of gentleness and kindness.

Keep your word 5:12

so that you may not fall into condemnation

People controlled by the Spirit are faithful to their word because they have eternity in mind.

so that you may be healed

when the Spirit fills us up, we make peace with each other, confessing when we’ve wronged someone.

Now James sets the stakes incredibly high here.

IF you live this way you will receive the crown of life.

IF your faith acts this way, you will be blessed by God and live with him.

If you have a faith that works, you will be saved.

BUT if you don’t. If your faith doesn’t exhibit these fruits of the Spirit, you have no reason to be confident in your profession of faith.

The faith you think you have isn’t sourced in God himself.

if your faith is fueled by God, you’ll live this way

So, to have a life that is unstained from the world, you must be full of the Spirit

in the way you say no to the covetousness and materialism around the holidays

in the way you deal with stress,

in the way you keep going, keep praying, keeping reading the Scriptures, keep hoping in Christ.

These acts of faith are from the Spirit. He is the combustion in your engine to make you choose to pray for a missionary before you eat, or to shut off Netflix and memorize a passage of Scripture.

But James has another group of expectations directed not at our inner purity, but on our relationship with those around us.

II. The second area of true religion is loving your neighbor.

We are incapable of loving our neighbor as we ought without the Spirit working in us.

You say, well, unbelievers can be careful about what they say, they can give to charity and visit widows, they can try to get along with others.

But you see, loving your neighbor goes above just caring for the needy. God has given enough common grace to many people that they do many good things.

Loving your neighbor includes a sacrificial and merciful attitude toward them. This love prays for them to be healed of their sickness, but also for them to draw close to God, and to be forgiven of their sins.

If a brother or sister wanders from the faith, and begins to live a life that DOESN’T evidence a faith that works, then a loving person brings them back 5:19

This love is more than just not blowing your leaves into your neighbors lawn, or picking up after your dog, or keeping an eye on their house when they are gone on vacation.

This love MOVES

This love MOVES

- visit the needy, doesn’t simply send them a check

We need to consider where our true religion is taking us. If we love our neighbor, are we willing to travel to get there.

This may mean crossing the fence to invite your neighbor to the Christmas candlelight service, or travel to the other side of the world to tell your neighbor in southeast asia about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It may mean that you have to take some risks to share Christ with someone. To go to a place that may not feel perfectly safe.

It may mean you encourage your children and grandchildren to follow God’s leading no matter where it took them, even to a more dangerous part of the city or across the world.

Sometimes we can get so selfish in how we demonstrate our love. We will love in a way that’s convenient for us. As long as we don’t have to sacrifice our comfort, we’ll willingly give.

This is not a matter of politics, its a matter of eternal gravity. Our faith must motivate us to love our neighbor wherever God calls us.

I can recall my parents telling us numerous times as my five siblings and I were growing that the greatest desire of their hearts for us

was to see us serve Jesus wherever he called us. If it meant that it took us across the world, then they’d love to come visit us.

If you don’t encourage your children to follow the leading of Christ wherever it takes them, and to take risks for the Gospel of Jesus, what are you encouraging them to do?

Are you really serving your Christ?

Are you making the safety or the career of your child the most important thing in their life?

Or are you encouraging them to be so full of Christ that their true religion might take them away from us.

True religion will take you somewhere.

It has to be motivated by the Spirit out of concern for the spiritual and physical wellfare of your neighbor. People need to hear the Gospel. Many are dying without faith in Jesus and are travelling to a place far away from Him forever.

If a brother or sister wanders from the faith, and begins to live a life that DOESN’T evidence a faith that works, then we bring them back 5:19

James sets the stakes so high. Eternal consequences await those who don’t have the kind of faith that works. Who aren’t energized by the Spirit.

The third point, is the capstone to true religion. Truly religious people ...

III. Draw Near to God

4:7-8

True religion pursues an intimate relationship with Jesus by seeking him in your day to day life as we eagerly anticipate his coming return.

Consider the prodigal son -

A father and his two male heirs

The younger son arrogantly demands his inheritance

and went on a ruckus vacation

when all his money and ‘friends’ were gone, he found himself feeding pigs

he had to come to the end of himself to discover that he needed his Father. he was wrong to treat his dad that way and submitted to him as a servant.

Life without dad wasn’t a life worth having

So he travels back home

The father runs out to meet him

and his heart was not on punishing his repentant son.

His greatest desire had been to reunite with his son.

He greeted his son with lavish joy and reinstatement as his honored child

But his son had to come to him in humble repentance and faith so that his father could accept him.

The act of drawing near to God requires humble submission to the Father. It is not simply a decision to ‘get out of hell’ we must want to be close to God.

But how does this play out practically? We don’t literally live in squaller feeding pigs.

How do we as Christians, who have come to our senses and run to the Father through faith in Jesus, how do we draw close to God?

What can help us live out true and pure religion that is fueled by the Spirit??

My suggestion today is to establish towers in your life to regularly encourage and exhort you to seek God and his righteousness.

Let me illustrate it this way...

Most of us have cell phones. We understand our phone doesn’t have the ability to send a signal directly to the person we’re calling. Rather, it connects to a cell phone tower. The strength of your connect is represented by those little bars at the top of your screen.

If you use your phone while riding in the car, you’ve probably experienced dead zones and dropped calls. Depending on your provider, we’ve got one or two on the way to Rockford. Some of you may even be lucky enough to have really bad reception at your house because you’re not close enough to a tower.

Now you can think of these dead zones as times in your life that you’re not drawing near to God. When youre not relying on the Spirit to energize your true religion.

The closer you are to God, the stronger your signal is to be able to clearly communicate your focus on an eternal life awaiting you.

These “ towers ” are practical access points for us to connect to God.

One of your towers should be your private prayer and Bible reading

Where you can get alone with God, confess your sin, thank him for the day, and ask him to help you be a better Christian. You need more Scripture than you can get in an hour or two on Sunday mornings.

So set up your private devotion time as a ‘tower’ that is a constant in your life, not a sporadic event. Make it happen daily. Keep it simple if you can’t make time for something long and elaborate. But establish this time for yourself, don’t simply say ‘I pray to God throughout the day’.

Another one of your towers should be faithfully engaging with a local church in prayer, Bible reading and preaching, the Lord’s Table, and singing.

You need the church and the church needs you to point us every week, even multiple times a week, to draw near to God.

The world is SO quick to fill up our Sundays with activities now. You need to ask yourself how strong the signal is from your corporate worship.

If you let yourself or your family go weeks or months without engaging with each other at church, you are cutting off a major connection to the power of the Spirit in your life.

One of your towers may be listening to Christian music that exalts Christ

Walking in the Spirit requires us not to just hope Jesus will work in us. It takes us working with Jesus to change our hearts.

or having family worship time to pray, sing, and read scripture with your spouse and family

or attending a small group that studies the Bible and prays for each other

or having a few verse cards you meditate on every week

Now unfortunately, setting up our ‘towers’ is much more difficult than buying a plan from Verizon. For us it takes hard work, discipline, sacrifices, and maintenance to keep these connections with Christ working well.

If we draw near to God 4:8, God will draw near to us.

This is incredible! The infinite God, who split the red sea and dried the river bed, who gushed water from stone, who fed his people with food from heaven, THIS God allows people to come to him through Jesus. NOT through good works.

To Walk in the Spirit we must do more than hope Jesus will work in us. It takes us working with Jesus to change our hearts.

So what towers do you have implemented in your life?

I encourage you this week to make a list of the ways you engage with God and ask yourself if it reflects the religion James describes.

We all have some ‘dead zones’ where we are not exemplifying the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

The dead zones are where we indulge in the lusts and pleasures of this world, we are “loving” out of convenience, and where we’re stockpiling stuff for this earthly life and not our heavenly one.

Establish towers in your life to eliminate as many ‘dead zones’ as you can. Target certain areas where you’re prone to temptation and put practices in place where you purposefully put God and his righteousness at the forefront of your mind.

True Religion will tap into the power of the Spirit. It really is supernatural. It takes a church working together caring for each other, encouraging one another to live the Christian life. Confronting each other when we need it. Bringing each other back when we stray.

So be in the world but don’t belong to it,

Let your love take you somewhere

and purposefully establish habits in our life that connect us to God.

As Christians, we want our lives to be what God wants them to be. We’ve submitted ourselves to God in faith. He is our creator and king. So we worship him and obey him.

Keep ourselves Unstained from the world

Love our neighbors

Draw near to our God

Remain Unstained from the World

When James gives these commands look at some of the ways he offers the reason to do them or the solution to them

Count it all joy 1:2

for - you know something 1:3

Our true religion takes action. It takes movement. It requires us to get outside our comfort zone, to overcome our inhibitions and reach out to others in love.

Love will care for eachother

love will speak the truth

Bridling the tongue doesn’t mean muzzling the tongue. It means to guide it into speaking the loving truth.

When the tongue is said to be like a rudder or a bridle, it guides things but also, ‘boasts of great things’ .

While the illustration is poised in the negative ‘ set a forest ablaze’ - setting on fire our entire course of life - set on fire by hell

But the tongue may be accused of turning the world upside down with the message of the gospel.

The thing about moving forward is not being able to back up,.

Faith works

visits - moves

speaks - truth sets forests on fire

endures

gives

Faith that works requires the filling of the Spirit

Remains Unstained

Requires Inner change

Requires Spirit filling

Love, Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control

Count it all joy - 1:2

Remain steadfast under trial - 1:12

Slow to become angry - 1:19

Persevere - 1:25

Control Tongue - 1:26

Keep unstained from the world - 1:27

remains unstained - 1:27

Be Humble 4:6

Speaks no evil - 4:11

Speak no evil against one another - 4:11

Be Patient - 5:7

Patient - 5:7

Keep word 5:12

humble 4:6

Keeps word 5:12

Confess to one another - 5:16

Loves Neighbor

Slow to speak - 1:19

Visit needy - 1:27

Be impartial - 2:1

Love your neighbor - 2:8

Make peace - 3:18

Pray for one another - 5:16

Bring brother/sister back - 5:19

Draws Near to God

Ask God for wisdom - 1:5

Be quick to listen - 1:19

Bless the Lord - 3:9

Draw near to God - 4:8

Seek his will - 4:15

Establish your heart in waiting for His kingdom - 5:8

Establishes heart waiting for kingdom - 5:8

Pray in faith - 5:13-18

Sing praise - 5:13

English Standard Version Chapter 2

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

James

GRACE

Count it all joy - 1:2

Have you ever watched someone refurbish an old car? The change of our hearts is as radical as walking into an old barn and removing the shell of an old truck, putting in a new engine and running it on the road. Old things are gone, the new has come.

Remain steadfast under trail - 1:12

Slow to become angry - 1:19

Endures - 1:25

remains unstained - 1:27

humble 4:6

Speaks no evil - 4:11

Controls Tongue - 4:26

Patient - 5:7

Keeps word 5:12

Confesses to one another - 5:16

Loves Neighbor

Slow to speak - 1:19

visits needy - 1:27

impartial - 2:1

loves neighbor - 2:8

makes peace - 3:18

Brings brother/sister back - 5:19

Draws Near to God

Asks God for wisdom - 1:5

Quick to hear - 1:19

Blesses the Lord - 3:9

Draws near to God - 4:8

Seeks his will - 4:15

Establishes heart waiting for kingdom - 5:8

prays - 5:13,16

Sings praise - 5:13GRACE!