What's in your heart?

What does our passage say about God?

If you have your Bibles, Turn with me to our text James chapter 1, we will be looking at verses 26 & 27. Let’s read our passage.

James 1:26–27 ESV

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

I like how the Complete Jewish Bible puts it.

Complete Jewish Bible Chapter 1

26 Anyone who thinks he is religiously observant but does not control his tongue is deceiving himself, and his observance counts for nothing. 27 The religious observance that God the Father considers pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being contaminated by the world.

So what does our text tell us about God?

I think our passage tells us that God cares about our hearts. You might be doing a double take at our text and thinking but Brad the word heart isn’t even there and you would be correct, but hear me out. Look back with me at our passage.

James 1:26–27 CJB

26 Anyone who thinks he is religiously observant but does not control his tongue is deceiving himself, and his observance counts for nothing. 27 The religious observance that God the Father considers pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being contaminated by the world.

So God wants our religious observance to be pure and faultless. How do we achieve that? Verse 26 controlling our tongue. So how do I make the leap to God caring about our tongue to it is all about our hearts? Let me ask you a question, from here does your tongue speak?

Luke 6:43–45 ESV

43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Our tongues reveal what is in our hearts. So let me ask you what is coning our of your mouth most days? Blessings or curses? Do you use your words to build others up or tear them down? Do words of anger and strife come out of your mouth or words of comfort and peace? Don’t rush past this stop and meditate on this. Because if we turn to our second question, what does our passage say about people. The first thing I would say is people are easily deceived. We are prone to think that we are religiously observant, we believe we are following and obeying Jesus but we slander other people, we gossip about other people. We speak ill against our enemies. One of the scariest pictures of how easily we can be deceived is from Mark chapter 10. The rich young ruler.

He comes to Jesus and ask Him how to be saved.

What does Jesus ask? Have you kept the commandments? What does the man say? Yes I have kept them since my youth. The what does Jesus tell him? You lack one thing. What was that? He told the man to go and what? Sell all his possessions and store up treasure in heaven and come follow Jesus.

How hard is that? How hard would it be to physically go home and sell everything you own? I guess that would depend on your asking price right? If you put everything you own up for sale at half it’s value you should have it all gone by next weekend.

So why was this so difficult for him? He was standing there facing the greatest business deal of all time. Give away all this worldly stuff that will pass away and go follow Jesus. Which is worth far more than all his worldly stuff. What stopped him? He loved money more than God. Do you think the man saw it that way? Do you think he consciously refused this deal or was his heart deceived. I think he was deceived and we are just as vulnerable to this mistake amen? Only God can search our hearts and see what is there. Will you come to Jesus and ask Him what you need to do to inherit eternal life and then listen? It is only by the power of The Holy Spirit through His Word and through prayer that we can come to this same point of understanding what we need to do to be saved. We have a warning here in our text verse 26 is clear.

James 1:26 ESV

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

Don’t gloss over this. I think this is our application. What does God what us to do in response to this text? I think He wants us:

Take time this week to meditate on this passage. Ask Jesus to reveal the truth of your own tongue to you.

Are you complaining are you arguing, are you gossiping are you slandering others. Are you words tearing others down are they running others down? Remember your mouth speaks from the overflow of your heart. So what is in your heart?

Let us pray.