James - James 1:26-27

Well, a truly religious person is a controlled person and a concerned person and a clean person. Let's be truly religious people who are practicing our faith in love

And now let's lift our hearts in prayer. Father, we come to Your Word and we realize that we must obey what we hear, because if we don't obey, You will not teach us. And if we don't obey, we can't get the blessing. Deliver us from the delusion that simply hearing the Word and studying and even understanding the Word is the blessing. Remind us, oh Lord, that the blessing comes in the doing. Guide us now as we study together. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

James 1:22-25, he compares the Word of God to a mirror—a mirror that can utterly transform our lives. "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

Now, the Word of God is pictured here as a mirror, and as a mirror, it has three very special ministries in the life of the believer. James 1:26 and James 1:27 are really a summary of what is to come in the letter. James 1:26: "If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 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." 

Now, he's talking here about the tongue, and in James 3 he will devote almost the entire chapter to that theme. He talks about serving other people, and he discusses that in James 2—how we treat other people. And then he talks about keeping unspotted from the world, and that is his theme in James 4. So James 1:26-27 give to us, as it were, a table of contents for the next three chapters in the book of James. 

Now, James is talking about being religious. Interestingly enough, the word "religion" or "religious," these words are used only seven times in the Authorized Version of the Bible. The Bible is not a book about "religion" as such. This word translated "religious" in James 1:26 or James 1:27, "religion," simply means the external observance of some religious system. It's talking about outward activity. There are many, many people who think they are saved by religion. Now, they've gone through certain rituals—perhaps baptism, or confirmation, or the communion—and because they've gone through these religious rituals, they feel that they are truly saved people. I think there are millions of people in this world who are resting on something somebody else did to them, instead of what they themselves have done with the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, this is a terrible delusion. We are not saved by religion; we're saved by being born again. James 1:18: "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth." We are born again, says Peter, by the Word of God. That means you have to hear the Word, understand the Word, believe the Word, trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. We're not saved by religion.

James is quite anxious that we be honest with ourselves as well as with God. In James 1:16, he says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren." James 1:22: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." In fact, in chapter one, he's talked quite a bit about people who are deceived. In James 1:6-7, he talks about a man who's deceived into thinking his prayers are going to be answered, but they aren't going to be answered because he's double-minded. And then over here in James 1:12-16, he talks about a person who is deceived because he thinks God tempts him. God's to blame for his sin, and James makes it very clear—don't be deceived about that. God's the giver of every good and perfect gift. Then in James 1:22-25, James writes about people who are deceived into thinking they are spiritual because they hear the Word of God, they look into the Word of God, but they don't do the Word of God. 

So don't be one of these who is deceived. Don't fool yourself. "If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless." Here's a self-deceived person who thinks he is religious when actually all that he is doing is futile; all that he is doing doesn't accomplish anything. I wonder if he fits into that description our Lord gives in Matthew 7: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven."

Well, James gives to us the characteristics of the truly religious person. If you and I are going to practice our faith—and that's one of the major themes of James—then this is the kind of person we're going to be. Number one, a controlled person, controlling our tongues. Number two, a concerned person, visiting others and helping them. And number three, a clean person, keeping unspotted from the world. Now, that's true religion. He doesn't say a word about the things we usually think about, does he?

Number one, if we are to be truly religious the way God wants us to be, we have to be controlled people. And this means controlling the tongue. James 1:26. Now, why the tongue? Well, because obviously, the tongue reveals the heart. What we say comes out of the heart. The Lord Jesus made that very clear, didn't He? He was talking about this when He said, now you be very careful about what comes out of your lips because that comes out of your heart. Matthew 12:34: "Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." In other words, though the mouth is connected to the stomach physically, the mouth is connected to the heart spiritually. And what is in us is what comes out. And our words and the way we speak and what we speak and when we are silent, all of this is an evidence of what the heart is like. 

It's rather interesting, when you trust Christ as your Savior, something happens to your mouth. In Romans 3, for example, we have a description of what the mouth is like when you're not a Christian. Romans 3:13: "Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." And then God stops every mouth. Romans 3:19: "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." I wonder, was there a time in your life when your mouth was stopped? Now, if not, it may be you've never been born again. 

Romans 3 says that the mouth of the unsaved person is death and destruction and defilement. But then you trust Christ as your Savior, and with your mouth you confess Him. You confess that Jesus Christ has saved you. Romans 10:9-10: "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. You see, the heart and the mouth are connected. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness," you're saved by believing, "and with the mouth confession is made concerning salvation." So when you're born again, that dirty, defiled, death-like mouth becomes a mouth that confesses Jesus Christ is my Savior. 

But it doesn't stop there. Romans 15:5-6, I like these words: "Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." After you're converted, your mouth starts to praise the Lord, and you do this not by yourself but with others. Controlled speech—a controlled person. Now, if we're going to control our tongues, we have to control our hearts. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. You see, what we talk about really reveals what we believe. 

1 John 4:5 talks about this: "They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them." Now we are belonging to God; we are God's children. Therefore we speak about the things of God. Do you have controlled speech? Our Quaker friends have an interesting statement. They say, "Of your unspoken thoughts, your unspoken words, you are the master. Of your spoken words, you are the servant. Of your written words, you are the slave." Be careful what you think, be careful what you say, be careful what you write, because one of these days we're going to give an answer for what we have said. Jesus said even our idle words are going to come up before God in judgment. And if our idle words are going to come up before God in judgment, what will He do with our studied words, our prepared words? 

A controlled person—here is someone who's got the tongue under control because the heart is under control. Here is someone who can practice James 1:19: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." Have you noticed how many people there are who just can't listen? They aren't really listening to you; they're waiting for you to be quiet so they can speak. A bore is somebody who's talking when you want to talk. Well, controlled speech—a controlled person. That's real religion.

Then he talks about being a concerned person. Pure and undefiled religion, James 1:27, "before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble." Now, words are no substitutes for deeds. You know, I might be able to say, well, I keep my tongue under control, I try to, and I say my prayers, and I sing hymns, and I try to bear witness for the Lord, so I guess I'm religious. Well, James goes on to say it's good to have a controlled heart and a controlled tongue, but words are no substitutes for deeds. In fact, he'll go into this in James 2:14: "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?" 

You see, you can't feed on words, you can't dress with words, you can't pay your bills with words. Too often in the Christian life, we've substituted words for deeds. In 1 John 1 and also in 1 John 2, John talks about those people who say, "Well, now if we say, if we say, if we say." And John says it's not enough just to say; we have to do. And James says the same thing. 

He talks here about two of the most destitute kinds of people in his day: widows and orphans. We live in a day when society pretty much takes care of the homeless and the helpless. There's a lot more that we could do, but we have pension funds and we have social action activity and societies. The society can take care of the homeless and the helpless. But back in that day, the government wasn't taking care of people. The church used to do it. Paul wrote to Timothy and told him how the widows ought to be taken care of in the church. They're often neglected. Now James says if you're really religious, you're going to have a personal concern for other people. What are you going to do? Not just pray for them, not just encourage them—you're going to visit them. "Visit the orphans and the widows." It's going to be personal; it's not going to be done by proxy, by substitute. Nor are we going to be satisfied just with giving a check. Now nothing wrong with that—I think it's excellent for us to give money to ministries that help people—but that should not be a substitute for our own ministry. The verbs here give the idea of a constant visiting, a constant care, a personal watching over that is repeated. And it's even a costly thing to "visit them in their trouble," to identify with their needs. 

I wonder how many homeless people, helpless people sometimes drop into our churches and they are totally neglected. I wonder how many people are members of our churches and we're not really caring for them. Every pastor and every elder ought to read what Paul wrote about widows in the local church. Now, their families ought to help take care of them, no question about that, but some of them don't have any family. And some of them have been faithfully serving the Lord. I think not only of widows; I think of lonely single people. I think of missionaries who have served the Lord, now they're retired. Well, you say they have a pension—perhaps they do, but the local churches ought to be doing something to bring joy and encouragement into the lives of people who are needy. 

A truly religious person is a controlled person—he's got his tongue bridled. A concerned person—he's got time to visit people in their affliction. Thirdly, a clean person: "and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Now that's important. By "the world," of course, he doesn't mean the material world or the world of people—God so loved the world. We must live in a world of humanity because we are the light of the world. Our job is to let people know about Jesus Christ. By "the world," of course, he means this whole spiritual order of things that is contrary to God and against Jesus Christ. It's that whole system that is anti-God and anti-Christ. 

According to John 14:30, Satan is the prince of this world. That means he runs this world system. When you sing, "This is my Father's world," that's true—God the Father is in complete control of everything. But He has allowed Satan to be the prince of this world. He's going to find out where people are going to give their allegiance. The unsaved are the children of this world, Luke 16:8. 1 Corinthians 1:20 tells us there is a wisdom of this world. And 1 Corinthians 2:12 even says there is a spirit of this world: "We have received, not the spirit of this world." 

Now our relationship to the world is rather peculiar as Christian people. We are in the world physically; we are not of the world spiritually. We are in it, but not of it. And we are sent into the world to get people out of the world. That's our job. The Lord Jesus Christ has commissioned us and sanctified us and sent us into this world to win as many as we can. Now the danger is this: that while we are winning others, we might become defiled ourselves. We've got to be very careful. 

It's the same story of the little girl in the white dress by the coal mine. And she said to one of the miners, "May I go down into the mine in this white dress?" And they said, "You certainly may, but you will not come out with a white dress." Of course, it would be spotted and made filthy by the coal dust. By the way, there is a progression here—or perhaps I should say a regression. First you get "spotted by the world," James 1:27. Then you have "friendship with the world," James 4:4—the friendship of this world is enmity with God. Start getting friendly with the world because you've been spotted—you got a spot here and a spot there, and you're not too peculiar. The world's crowd says, well, he's different, but you know, he does this just like we do, and he does that. You get friendly with the world. Before long, you experience 1 John 2:15, "Love not the world." Friendship can often lead to love—love not the world. And before long, if we aren't careful, we start getting conformed to the world, Romans 12:2: "Be not conformed to this world." 

You say, where does it all end? Well, for the Christian, it could mean that everything he lived for is condemned with the world. 1 Corinthians 11:32: "But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world." Now, Lot is a picture of this. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom; he got spotted by the world. Then he got friendly with the world—moved in on Sodom. And then Sodom apparently moved in on him. He began to love the world; he got conformed—was willing to give his daughters away in sensual lust. And everything Lot lived for was condemned. He himself was captured as a prisoner of war, and then everything in Sodom went up in smoke. 

Well, a truly religious person is a controlled person, and a concerned person, and a clean person. He keeps himself unspotted from the world. Why? So we can minister to people. We don't want the doctor ministering to us if his hands are dirty. And God wants to use us and use our lives to touch the lives of others. Let's be truly religious people who are practicing our faith in love to the glory of God.