Genuine Religion

The last few messages in this series have been challenging and my hope is that you have been really internalizing and letting God work in your life. and being challenged

If you were looking for some relief from the challenges, sorry, you won’t get it today.

I say that in jest, but I hope we all understand that being challenged is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

We keep talking about having True Faith and how it develops as we come to know Jesus.

It is through our experiences as we are following, as we are being challenged, that we are changed from our own likeness into God’s likeness.

True Faith is the result of God’s work in our lives.

It is the result of God’s redeeming work.

It is the result of God doing what He said He would do.

True Faith is Jesus being more visible in our lives than we are.

We are going to be continually challenged because we are still being redeemed.

We see this active process in scripture, and we see it in one another’s lives.

For the last two weeks we have talked about Listening and Doing.

Listening to what God is saying and then Doing what He says.

Today we are finishing up chapter one with the last two verses.

These two verses are the culmination of this last section in chapter one, and James is going to wrap up this thought on listening and doing.

This doesn’t mean that we will be done with these thoughts, though.

James will go into deeper detail further along in the book.

Read this with me, and then we will dig into what God is saying to you and me.

James 1:26–27 CSB

26 If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James gives us three practical ways to be “doers.”

We will touch on all three of them today, but the bulk of our time will be on the overall message.

We will dig deeper into all three of them as we work through the rest of the book.

These three examples of being “do-ers” that James gives us are:

Controlling the tongue.

Concern for the “helpless.”

Avoiding “worldliness.”

The main idea that James is keying in on with these three examples is Genuine Religion.

Let’s talk about religion for a moment.

At TGP, we use that phrase often, but we usually refer to our personal experiences with “dead” religion.

We defined dead religion as the act of just going through the motions.

Our experiences were similar in that we did things or acted certain ways because we were expected to.

From the outside, our lives looked spiritual, but on the inside, there wasn’t a lot happening.

We were discontent with life and felt like there had to be more to being a Christian than just those empty activities.

This is the very thing that James is addressing!

The people that James is writing to grew up in the same kind of experience that many of us did.

They did a lot of religious activities.

The problem with dead religious activity is its inability to make real, lasting changes in our lives.

It was no accident that part of James’ teaching on genuine religion deals with controlling the tongue.

Our words are such powerful tools that can either build people up or tear them down.

As I think back through my own experiences, most of the times when the churches I was working in were struggling, it could be traced back to things people said.

I don’t think we give enough credit to the power of words.

Have you ever thought about the fact that God created with words and that we are created in his likeness?

Now, I can’t speak things into being, but with just a few words, I can change a person's life.

With just a few words, the trajectory of a person’s life can change.

I’ll give you an example.

Years ago, before I was involved with TGP, God called me to help with a church plant.

For at least a year, I prayed over the plant with the pastor.

We had hours of conversation about what the church would be like, how we would operate, and what our message would be.

I moved to Texas and began working the plan that we had put into place.

After about six months I began to notice a shift in things.

The plan we had discussed was all of the sudden different and as I challenged this I was met with opposition.

Eventually it ended with the pastor firing me with reasons that weren’t even related to my job.

That final conversation negatively impacted my view of myself, my call to ministry, my family, and my relationship with God for years.

That experience was one of the hardest things that I have ever endured.

Not because of the work, the moving, or the stress.

It was because someone that I loved and trusted lied to me and then tried to blame his failures on me.

As you can probably imagine, the church dissolved in no time at all because everyone could see what was happening.

What we say can and will have a major impact on people's lives.

What we say will always come from our hearts.

James 1:26 CSB

If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.

James has seen this first hand as he, Jesus, and the other disciples interacted with the Pharisees, the religious leaders.

They saw the disconnect between what they said, how they acted, and who they claimed to be.

The church he is addressing would have seen the same thing.

James reminds them that if they are not pursuing God but simply going through the motions, their tongue will reveal it.

That religious activity that they have been toiling away at is useless, and they have deceived themselves.

They have looked in the mirror, walked away, and forgotten what they looked like.

All the Old Testament practices were focused on outward cleanliness and purity.

While those activities made a person clean on the outside, it did nothing for the part that really matters: the inside.

James is purposefully using sacrificial language here, but he is redefining it.

Look at verse 27 again.

James 1:27 CSB

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Pure and undefiled is a reference to thequality of the sacrificial animals that were used in their Jewish religious practices.

James is using this kind of language on purpose.

The purity of the sacrifice was important then, and it is still important now.

James is showing the church that what is happening on the inside matters.

All three of the examples that he uses are things that begin inwardly.

What we say about people.

How we care for others.

The condition of our hearts.

James says that if we are pure on the inside, our natural response will be to care for those around us.

If we are being made into Jesus’ likeness, we will see people how he does and respond the way he responded.

James isn’t calling out specifically the care of orphans and widows as the only pure things.

He is using these as “code” words, if you will, for those that have experienced a “reversal” in life.

Do you remember us talking about that in June?

The rich will become poor, and the poor will become rich.

Orphans and Widows are great examples of people who have received an unfair lot in life.

There are people all around us that have experienced reversals.

People who are struggling.

When the Holy Spirit reveals those people to us, we need to ask how God wants to use us in their lives.

I hope you see that James isn’t calling out specific sins in these two verses but instead asking us to evaluate our faith honestly.

Evaluating things can be scary, especially if you are the one that is the responsible party.

But, evaluations can be incredibly helpful tools.

I don’t know if y’all have ever really noticed, but we are constantly evaluating the ministries of our church.

If you have served with us on Wednesday nights, you may have noticed or remember that we often ask you “how things went tonight.”

Or we may talk about specific things that happened with kids and how we responded.

Bethany and I do that every week because we want to make sure that we are effective in our ministry to this community.

The changes we make in the ministries of at TGP, whether it is children, youth, worship, life groups, etc. is the direct result of prayerful evaluation.

What we are doing here has the potential to make life altering changes in people’s lives and we want to make sure that we are getting it right.

This isn’t a practice that we should only do in public ministry but in every area of our lives.

James’ intent is for us to look at our own lives and determine if we are experiencing Genuine Religion or, as we would say dead religion.

As you are prayerfully evaluating your own life and ministry, do you find yourself just going through the motions or are you obeying God because you love Him?

Over the last two messages, we talked about talking less, listening more, and then doing.

I asked you guys to be intentional last week about focusing in on what God has been telling you to do.

I also asked you to discuss some specifics in your life group last week.

The first thing I want to ask is, did you do those things?

The second is, how did it go?

Did God move in your relationships, and did you join Him?

I’m asking these questions because until we can honestly answer that we are following God’s lead, motivated by love, we are not experiencing genuine religion.

Remember last week, James talked about a man who looks at himself in a mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like?

If we aren’t letting God speak into our lives and evaluate our faith, we are that man.

Listen, if this only affected you, that would be one thing.

The problem is that when I don’t do what God says, the people around me suffer.

That could be from the results of my inaction, words that I have said to them, or simply that they don’t get to experience God’s love.

Have you ever thought about how devastating that is?

It would be like watching someone drown while you are holding a life vest.

I think that a big part of the church’s problem of inaction stems from an improper understanding of what God has asked believers to do.

Answer this out loud.

What was the last thing that Jesus asked his followers to do before he ascended back to heaven?

To make disciples.

Matthew 28:16–20 CSB

16 The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. 18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The word here for disciple appears 261 times in the NT, and it only has one meaning; to be a follower, learner, or pupil.

I know that I have brought up this scripture so many times over the last four years.

But I still don’t think we get it, so let’s work through it.

Who was talking? Jesus

Who was he talking to? The eleven disciples

What did he tell them to do? To make disciples

Who was he talking to again? The disciples

Was he talking just to the future pastors or church staff? no, he was talking to the disciples.

What do disciples make? more disciples

What does that make you? a disciple

So what is Jesus asking you to do? to make disciples.

Who’s job is it? the disciples/mine

Are we all on the same page?

Is this new information?

Why do we not see more people making disciples if not?

I had to write a paper my senior year of college for a Tylitha class called Philosophy of Religion.

It occurred to me throughout that class that my whole life, the “church” inadvertently and occasionally directly taught me that only Pastors could do this work.

It was specialized work that took years of training and study to accomplish.

The same is probably true for you as well.

The biggest problem with that ideology is that it isn’t what Jesus said.

One of the other major problems is that it seriously limits how many disciples can be made!

Jesus, the son of God, how many disciples did he have?

I’m talking about close friends that he was deeply involved in their lives?

12, right?

So why on earth would we expect that a pastor or staff could do more than that?

It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t work.

I know you’ve heard the phrase a mile wide and an inch deep.

That is what has happened to the church.

This is why churches are dying, and people are walking away from their faith.

The church has relegated its call to disciple people to just a few staff.

The results are that many of their “disciples” haven’t really been discipled; they’ve been converted.

For many years, I was just a convert.

I had given my life to Jesus, but I had no idea what it meant to have an active relationship with Him.

It wasn’t until someone invested in me that I saw and understood what it meant to know Jesus.

Church, hear me out.

I think that many of us still hold that view of ministry.

I want you to understand that if you have Genuine Faith, you will be a disciple-maker maker.

We won’t take the time today to get into the nitty-gritty of what that role looks like in your life, but understand this, you have a responsibility to teach others what you are learning about God.

That’s not new information because we spent a year talking about and practicing Sharing Our Stories, aka, telling people about God's actions in our lives.

Run the numbers

number of people present x 2 =

Divide that number by 10 and that is how many new Life groups we would need to start.

Here is what I know, most of us stand up here on Sunday mornings and tell one another about what God is doing in our lives.

God is moving and active in your lives; you see it and respond to it.

Share that with people outside the church!

Don’t reserve those stories for Sunday mornings and Life Group.

As you are having normal conversations, tell people the whole story of what is happening.

Let me ask you this, don’t answer it out loud, but I do want you to discuss it at Life Group.

How many people that don’t know Jesus do you spend meaningful time with every week?

If the answer is zero, you need to make some changes in your life.

I’m not asking you to go out and recruit twelve disciples, but you should have at least one.

Let’s look back at James again and consider what he is saying again.

James 1:26–27 CSB

What we say is important, and we should be mindful of what comes from our mouths.

People are listening.

As we evaluate our faith, looking at the return on our investment is a significant metric.

Here is what I mean by that.

What comes out of our mouths reveals what is happening in our hearts.

If we believe that we are growing and experiencing Genuine Faith, does our life reflect that?

One of my commentaries points out that the word “and” in verse twenty-seven isn’t in the original Greek text.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (James 1:27)

so close is the connection between active works of mercy to others, and the maintenance of personal unworldliness of spirit, word, and deed; no connecting word therefore is needed.

He is saying that works of mercy and personal holiness can only co-exist.

You cannot have one without the other.

James takes the time to use sacrificial language to point out that in the OT, God only accepted if they were unblemished.

James redefines what that means for the church.

Our outward actions are a direct reflection of our inward purity.

That purity can only come through the work of the Holy Spirit as he works in our daily lives.

James is reminding the church who they are.

James is reminding us today of who we are.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while, and God said that today is the day.

Look with me at our distinctive on our mission as a TGP church.

Mission Leading People to Know God – The Gathering Place Mission Statement is our most significant distinctive.

We believe that God created man to enjoy a personal, intimate relationship with Him.

The Christian life should be more than just a list of religious things to do.

The first way we want to lead people to know God is by introducing them to Jesus Christ as Savior (John 17:3).

Following salvation, we believe God will also use us to lead believers to know him in a progressively more intimate way.

We promote intimate moments with God where we learn to discern His will, obey it, and get to know Him through obedience. Philippians 3:10

Philippians 3:10 AMP

10 [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

Right there, in our first and most significant distinctive is what we have talked about today.

Develop a personal relationship with God.

Introduce people to Jesus.

Disciple those people so that they can learn to know God progressively.

Teach them to hear God’s voice and obey it.

TGP West, this is who we are, and this is what we do.

Take some time this week to evaluate your ministry of disciple-making.

Also, take some time at Life Group to evaluate your group's disciple-making.

I want to reiterate one last time as we close that this is to be motivated by love, not just strong words from me.

If you are moved to action only because I asked you to, what you are experiencing is dead religion.

If you find yourself in that place, talk with God about it.

If you take the time to have an honest conversation with God about where you are and how you feel, the result will be peace and comfort, not guilt and shame.

Church, what experience of God, is nothing short of amazing, and God’s desire is that we wouldn’t horde that for ourselves but rather share it with the world.