Good morning, Calvary Chapel, good morning.
There's a lot happening here, as you can see, or as you can hear
rather. But we thank God for His
goodness, and we're going to be talking a lot about that today.
I'm going to ask that you turn in your Bibles if we can just
look at that right now with James chapter 1, and we're going
to be looking at verses 19 through 27.
I just want to reiterate the welcome to Calvary Chapel for
those of you who are new to our church this morning.
If you're visiting for the first time, we thank you for choosing
us to worship with this morning, and we pray that you have a
wonderful worship experience. Pastor Clark is suffering on the
beach. Poor thing.
Yeah, he's suffering on the beach, he and Cindy.
Yeah, please, let's lift him up in prayer.
But we pray. We're one body, right?
We should be there with him, right?
That's right. But we want to pray that he and
Cindy and all those on vacation with them, that they make it
back safely without any hurt, harm or danger.
So why don't we pray and let's get into get into the words.
Morning, our Father and our God. We do Thank you.
You are an amazing God. There are no words to define or
to be able to describe just how good you are to us, how good You
have been, Your patience with us, Your love for us, Your
forgiveness of our sins. All of those things come out of
Your goodness. And this morning, Lord, we just
want to thank You for all the blessings that you bestow upon
each and every one of us every day, and the dangers that You
keep us from, both seen and unseen.
What a mighty and awesome God you are.
So we have worship through song, we have worship through
fellowship, and we have worshipped even with our giving
this morning. We thank You for the opportunity
for all those things. But now, Father, it's time that
we worship You with a hearing of Your Word, and we pray that Your
Word would just penetrate our hearts and that it takes up
residence in our hearts, Lord, not just come to visit, but to
take up residence in our hearts, cause us to walk in the very
things, Lord, that we hear. We thank You for the blessing
that Your word is in our lives, how it changes us, how it
comforts us, but also how it warns us and how it corrects us.
We thank you. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. As I was studying for this word
this morning, the whole time that I was preparing for this
word, there are things that just become illuminated.
I did a lot of repenting as I've gone through this particular
word. I did a lot of repenting because
of things that the Lord has shown me about me, but also as
he began to open up to me, the understanding of where we're
going. And James, he reminded me that
back in the Old Testament he presented himself, he introduced
himself to Moses on the mountain.
Moses said, Lord, show me your glory.
Can you imagine how comfortable Moses must have been with the
Lord to say, Lord, show me your glory?
And the Lord said, you can't see my face because no man can see
my face. And live, however, I will put
you in the cleft of the rock. We are in the cleft of the rock
this morning in Jesus Christ, aren't we?
He said. I'll put you on the cleft of the
rock. And when I walk by, I'll cover
your face so you can't see my glory.
However, I will remove my hand and you'll be able to see my
back. And if you read that scripture
back in Exodus of 30 chapter 34, looking at verses one through
about 7, when God walked past and Moses was able to see his
back, even that was glory that he couldn't look directly into
to the point where it singed his face.
But as God walked past him, he introduced himself and presented
himself to Moses. And I just want to read to you
in your hearing. Please turn to it if you choose
to, back in Exodus chapter 34. And I'm going to be reading
verses 5 through 7. But as I read this, please think
of the goodness of God to present himself to mere man, to
cause Him and us to know just who He is.
You see, God is His name. He is His name.
We know that people get names today, and the names have
meanings and their personalities may be totally different than
what that name means, but with God, not so.
He is His name. And this is what He said
beginning in verse 5. He says, now the Lord descended
in the cloud and stood with him there, God coming down in the
cloud, and proclaim the name of the Lord.
And the Lord passed by him, and proclaimed that this is what the
Lord said to Moses. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious loves, and long-suffering, and abounding in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the Father's upon the children
and the children's children to the third and 4th generations.
God, said Moses, this is the God who is sending you.
This is the God who is with you as you go through the
wilderness, as you go through all the things that you're going
through. This is the God who is with you,
the God, the Lord God who is merciful.
Our God is merciful. He's gracious, He's full of
grace, He's long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin. I wish that that could have been
based in my heart, that somebody would have shared that with me
and open that up to me in my heart when I was younger.
Then I may, maybe I wouldn't have been such a rebel because
he has presented himself as the way he is in all of his goodness
in this verse. God is good, and he's not just
good sometime, He's good all the time.
He's good when we have our mountaintop experiences and he's
good when we go for the valleys. He's good all the time and I
just felt it was really important to bring that out
today. Somebody might be struggling and
want to be assured that if I give my life to this God that
you're all talking about, will he not just be a, a God who
looks at me like a, a mean old man and just wants to send me to
hell or, or, or just want to judge me and, and, and, and
destroy me? No, I'm appealing to you this
morning. Whoever's listening, I don't
know who this is for, but I'm appealing to you this morning.
Give your heart to him. Give your life to Jesus Christ,
whom he sent to embody all these things that we just read.
Jesus Christ walked and lived out all these things that we
just read about the Father. Jesus was gracious, He is
merciful, he is long-suffering and he is abounding in goodness
and truth. The scripture says God is good.
Taste and see that God is good and his mercy endures forever.
So I just want to say if anyone here is thinking about giving
your life to God, but you just don't know, can I trust it?
He's good and He wants to save you more than you want to be
saved. He wants to give you salvation.
He wants to take you out of the suffering of affliction of sin
and to bring you into his peace. He wants to love on you and for
you to be able to experience that love in a way that you
never have before. So we take this, don't think
it's disjointed. We're we're not, we're not
disjointed. So we take that and we go now
over to James. In the last couple verses that
we talked about connects those things that we just talked
about. The last couple verses that we
read was in James one verse 17 and 18, and it says every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from
the Father of light with whom there is no variation or shadow
of turning. We just got finished saying that
God is good and He's good all the time.
He doesn't change just because our circumstances change.
He doesn't change. I think some people believe
that. You know what?
When I'm going through the good times, when I'm feel like I'm
being blessed, God is good, but it's a bad God that allows me to
experience suffering and allows me to experience affliction.
No, no, because even that in that he works good.
We read back in the 1st chapter, back in back in the the first 3
verses that he says that the suffering, the affliction, the
trials that we go forth produce patience.
Patience is the fruit of the Spirit.
It's good. Romans 828 says that all things
work together for good to those who love God and are called
according to His purpose, He's good.
So here in verse 17 he says all these good gifts.
That's right. Even the trials, even the
suffering, even those temptations that we get and we
struggle with. But if we trust in him that when
we come through those things, we come out stronger, we come out
more faithful, we come out more blessed and able to help
somebody else. We come out more useful because
he's good. And then verse 18, he talks
about the greatest gift that he's given to us.
Eighteen says of his own will he brought forth, he brought, he
brought us forth by the word of truth.
That's our salvation, that that we might be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures of his own will.
He didn't do it because we deserved it.
He didn't do it because he was incentivized to do it.
He didn't do it because he was going to get something back.
He did it of his own will because the God we serve is a
good God. I can't say it enough.
So now we go to verse 19 and we go to get into what we're going
today. So in verse 19, he says so then,
now that's so then is a phrase that connects everything that
you just heard. It connects all that to the next
step of where we're going and what it is he wants to share
with us. James is basically saying, look,
God is good and everything he gives to us is good, even in our
trials. Because all this, the backdrop
of all this, remember, are the trials and that we should count
it all joy. And he said, This is why we
should count it all joy, because out of those things come good
things. So now we move from the fact
that all his gifts and everything he gives us is good.
And the greatest gift that he gave us is salvation, which is
good. And now he says, so then so how
do we respond? How do we live in these trials?
What is the instruction that he's given us?
And the fact that He gives us this love letter, that He gives
us these instructions written to us that we can have every single
day. We can wake up to it, we can go
to bed by it, The Word of God, because He's good to give us
this and we have it, and we know Him through His word.
So he says so then, my beloved brethren, so he's talking to
those who are in the church, those who are saved.
Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to
wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of
God. James could have just put a
stamp on that, put my address on it, and just mail that directly
to me. Because if there's anybody who
needs to hear that, it's me. Man, Be quiet sometime.
Just listen and stop talking. We're going to dig into that in
a minute. In fact, all through his letter,
he goes back to talking about being swift to hear and slow to
speak and controlling what we say.
So he says be swift to hear. Be swift to hear what?
Be swift to hear the word of God.
Be swift to hear the Holy Spirit speak to us when we think we
need to say something because we, we get into this thing
sometime we feel like we got to have a counter, a counter
speech. You know, I got to, I got to
have something prepared against what you just said because I
didn't like it. I didn't like what you just said
and I definitely didn't like how you said it.
So I got to get you told. And while you're talking, I'm
thinking about what I can use to come back at you.
Instead of doing that, let's listen to hear what the word of
God says. What is the Holy Spirit trying
to say to us? Jesus told the disciples back in
Matthew. He said listen, when they bring
you before in the temples and they drag you in the temples and
they bring you before the magistrates and they bring you
before the leaders, you don't have to think about what to say.
The Holy Spirit will give you what to say.
And we need to try to depend on the Holy Spirit to give us what
to say when we feel attacked, when we feel like we're being
spoken to in a way that we don't deserve or, or when we feel like
we're being offended and we feel like we just have to strike out
and, and, and, and get my saying told, Ah, you need to hear what
I got to say. No, no, no, no, no.
If she ever talks to me that way or if he ever talks to me, I'll
be the last time she talked to anybody that way because I'm
going to let them know how I feel.
You know, we're going to give a piece of our mind.
I don't have much mind left, so I can't give you a piece of my
mind because I ain't got much left myself.
So be swift to hear, but be slow to speak.
The other thing we need to be swift to hear.
We need to be swift to make sure that we're hearing the voice of
the Lord and not our flesh, not the enemy.
We need to make sure we're hearing the Lord and not
responding to something because it's our flesh.
I know, you know, I, I, I, I bet if my mother was here today, she
would say, boy, you should have had this when he was a teenager.
And I'm sure parents can relate because teenagers get to the
point where they feel that they can just explain.
They, they become, you know, prosecutors and, and, and, and
defense attorneys. They can explain anything.
But I'm going to tell you something.
I'm going to give you a lesson for free in here.
Kids. Be quick to listen and slow to
speak because even if you're right, sometimes just being
quiet helps the matter not be so bad.
I have made things worse by speaking too much rather than
just being quiet. And can anybody relate to that?
Anybody had that experience other than me?
Yeah. So be swift to hear and slow to
speak. And then he said that if we are
swift to hear and if we're slow to speak, guess what?
We'll be slow to wrath because the same the very same fruit of
self-control that we use with our hearts or our tongues.
The self-control. It's the same thing that we can
use with our wrath, not to jump to conclusions and be wrathful
right away. Judge, I'm bringing it down.
If we are swift to hear and slow to speak, if we can control
that, then the Lord can work in us to control the wrath that
comes out of our hearts. To control that, be swift to
hear. So being that we are swift to
hear and if we are slow to speak and we will become slow to
wrath, but we have to understand something.
One of the reasons why God doesn't want us to just give our
wrath is because, well, first of all, let's understand this.
There are two types of wrath. There's godly wrath, which he
does. He has, and in his human wrath
now godly wrath is good because godly wrath.
The purpose of godly wrath is to bring forth repentance.
It's to bring us to repentance. It's not to punish us.
It's to bring us to a place of humility and repentance so that
we can slow down and hear Him, to walk in obedience to Him, so
we can be protected by Him when we give ourselves the sin.
And it gets to the point where He has to bring wrath against
the sin, which is what He's bringing wrath against.
It's not for the purpose of destroying us.
It's the purpose of bringing us to humility and repentance.
You see, this wrath that we're talking about here is opposite
of the patience that we talked about over in verse 3.
It's opposite of that patience. You know, when you know when
someone is quick to wrath, then that means that they're not
experiencing the fruit of patience, which we all need the
fruit of patience. We have need of that.
There are actually a lot of examples in the Bible of people
who were quick to wrath instead of slow to wrath and they were
quick to speak instead of being slow to speak.
And I just want to give one example.
I don't know if you, if you recall in the Bible, in the book
of Luke, Luke Chapter 9, James and John was with Jesus.
They were going through, so they needed to go through Samaria to
get to where they were gone. And the Samaritans say, no, you
can't come through here. James and John.
See, there's a reason why James and John is named the Sons of
Thunder, because they had short tempers, very short tempers.
And the first thing out of their mouth was, Lord, should we
demand that fire come down from heaven and consume them?
Quick to speak, slow, you know, quick to wrath.
And Jesus just simply said, you don't know what spirit you're
of. I didn't come to destroy men's
lives. I came to save them.
We have to understand when we speak out of our flesh, we are
not demonstrating the righteousness of God.
We are not demonstrating the grace and the mercy and love of
God. That's not what spirit we are.
We're being influenced by another spirit, an evil spirit,
a wicked spirit, an angry spirit.
There's a story also in the book of Acts where Paul did the exact
same thing. Paul did the exact same thing.
He was, he was brought before the the, the governor, the high
priest. Actually, he was brought before
the high priest and Paul was, you know, was defending himself
and the high priest commanded that he be smitten on the side
of his face. This is over in Acts chapter 23.
And Paul said you will be smitten also you white washed
wall. He insulted the high priest and
the person that was standing next to him said do you not even
respect the high priest? And Paul says, I didn't know
that he was the high priest. It is written we do not speak
evil of the leaders of the people.
He knew the law. But because he was so angry and
that that that tongue just came out of that cage and whoosh
quickly. And how many times that happened
with us, you know, God even in his love for us, he says, look,
I'm trying to, I tried to tell, I'm trying to tell you that
you'd be slow to speak, that you don't speak more than what you
should. Listen.
And I even did that by the way, I created you.
How many? I gave you one tongue and I put
it behind your teeth. I put it behind your lips so
it'd be caged up. I gave you 2 ears and they're
open because I want you to hear the things that we know are
caged up are dangerous animals, aren't they?
What the Bible says that our tongues can be dangerous and
unruly evil, full of poison. We'll get to that over in
chapter 3 though. But anyway, so the righteousness
or the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.
So God's wrath is to bring repentance, to bring us to
repentance and, and, and also it's to it's to humble us.
It's a good rather it's, and his wrath is always against evil,
always against evil. And the one thing that we know
is that when God judges, his judgments are true.
Over in Psalm 19 and 9, it says that the judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous all together.
God's judgments are righteous, but ours are not.
Our judgments are not righteous. We judge and we act based on our
feelings, based on our flesh sometimes.
And God never does that. You know, one of the things that
God never has to do is that he's never to the point where he acts
uncontrollable or he acts out of sudden, of a sudden fit of
anger. But we have done that.
We do act out of anger sometimes sudden fits of anger.
You ever get frustrated so and before you even realize what
you're doing, you, you've already gotten to the height of
where you want to, you know, like you've already, you've
gotten so angry so quick that you don't even realize that you
know that the danger of what you just said or what you just did
because you just got so angry so quick.
And they can get you there sometimes, you know, sometimes
things that people do can get you there.
But we allow that to happen because our righteous or our
wrath is not righteous. But but what you have to
understand that God's wrath is our wrath is for the purpose of
bringing punishment, retaliation.
You know, I want to retaliate against you.
So I'm going to say some things to you, do some things to you
that you know that you can't do that to me.
But God's wrath is not like that.
It doesn't bring forth those kind of things.
So then we understand now that, OK, let's be slow.
Let's be swift to hear the word of God.
Let's be slow to speak, and let's be slow to getting angry,
be slow to wrath. For we understand our wrath do
not work the righteousness of God.
So because of that, he tells us in verse 21, therefore lay aside
all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with
meekness the implanted word which is able to save your
souls. So James is saying, in order for
you to be able to receive the Word of God and to really hear
it and have it benefit you, you got to clean out your heart.
You got to clean out your heart. You got hardness in your heart.
You got some things that shouldn't be there.
You got bitterness in your heart, you got anger in your
heart, you got clamor and wrath in your heart.
Those things are filthy. They defile us.
Those things defile us. And he said, lay aside those
things, Get rid of those wicked things, and receive with
meekness, receive with a teachable spirit, receive with
humility, with gentleness, the implanted word of God.
And I love the fact that he used the word implanted because many
places in the Word of God, he talks about the Word as being a
seed. It's a seed that is planted in
our hearts right now as the word of God has gone forth.
It's a seed that's coming forth. And it should be planting in our
hearts. It should be resting or find a
resting place in our hearts, a place where it it, it can grow
and bring forth fruit in our lives.
So he said that this implanted word and, and there's many
places where he uses this example of the word as being
implanted, this word that he that he sows over in Mark four,
he talks about sowing the, you know, the parable of the, of
the, of the sower. And what is it He's sowing?
He's sowing the word and he gets four different grounds of the
word, four different types of, of soil.
In other words, it, it represents our hearts, the four
different hearts. First of all, it's the hard
heart that nothing penetrates and that falls by the wayside.
Anything can come and grab it and take it away.
So the word has no effect. Another type of heart that we
can have can be a Stony heart. Well, you can plant the, you can
sprinkle the seed on that, but it doesn't take up any growth.
And as soon as some hard times come, like the trials that,
that, that, that James is talking about, because there's
no growth, it's scorched and we walk away from the Lord because
there's no growth, there's no grounding.
Then of course there's a the word that can be sown and
thorns. But then the cares of this life
and the deceitfulness of riches and, and, and, and the cares for
other things, though the desire for other things chokes that
word and it causes it to have no effect.
So that's why he's saying, look, clear these things out of your
heart. So when you receive the word,
you can receive it with meekness or with gentleness.
And this word can literally work effectively in you.
You see, when we first heard the word of God, it worked for our
salvation because we trusted in it.
We believed on it and it worked for our salvation.
But we have to continue to receive the word of God.
So it works for our sanctification as we continue to
grow in our Christian life to look more and more like Jesus
Christ. We continue to receive the word.
So he said, let's take that. So now he's goes to verse 22
through 25 and he now talks about what we do with that word.
Oh, oh, one of the things that we realize as a church, any
church or the church, he says here be doers of the Word.
Verse 22, Be doers of the word and not here is only deceiving
yourselves. Verse 23 For if anyone is a
hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like a man observing
his natural face in the 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 here, but a doer of
the work, not the word, but the work, this one will be blessed.
And what he does, so he shares with this, there's two types of
people that sits in church every day, every Sunday.
There's those who hear the Word and there are those who are
doers of the Word. Those who hear the Word, attend
church every Sunday, come and listen to what's said, but then
walk out and that's it. That's the end of it.
And then there's doers of the Word hears it, It goes into the
heart and we begin to work on it.
You begin to work on what it is that you heard you, you, you,
you pray and ask God to to help you in those areas that he
pointed out through the word that you're not quite there yet.
Like this. Be slow to speak thing that I've
got to stay before God with slow to speak.
Be swift to hear all that. You know, those are things I got
to stay before God with patience.
Those are things I got to stay before God with.
So we have those things, right? So basically what he's saying is
that when you receive the Word, you need to know what to do with
it. Not to be just a hearer of the
Word, but to be a doer of the Word.
I want to be a disciple. We want to be disciples of the
Word of God. We want to be disciples of Jesus
Christ and not just come in and be hearers, not just come to be
hearers. He said, if you're just a hearer
of the Word, you're just deceiving yourself.
Over in Matthew Chapter 7, verse 21, he begins to speak about
those who are just hearers of the word and not doers of the
word, and this is what he has to say about that.
I'll just read it to you. He said, not everyone who says
Lord, Lord, I'm sorry, let's go down.
Let's go down. Verse 2024.
He says, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and
does them, whoever hears the word of God, whoever hears my
teaching and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who
built his house on the rock, and the rain descended, the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat on the House, and it did
not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
So he says, look, if you're a doer of my word, then you're
going to have a good foundation that can stand up in trial, that
can stand up in times of tribulation.
You'll be able to stand in temptations and when the hard
times come. But if you're not a doer the
word, listen to what he says here, but every in verse 26.
But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do
them will be liking, will be like a foolish man who built his
house on sand. So he's talking about the
significance of hearing the word and being a doer of it.
Now he now he, he, he, he mentions this illustration,
which I think is just awesome because we can all relate to
this. He gives the illustration of a
mirror. Most of us have more than one
mirror in the house. Will we agree on that?
Most of us do. I know we do.
OK. And actually I'm looking because
we need to get a full length mirror.
I don't have a full length mirror in my house.
Anybody got a full length mirror?
You can say, oh, many. OK, I got to get a go.
I got to get a full full length mirror.
Let's get back to the point. I digress.
The point I'm trying to make here is that James uses a very
interesting illustration to talk about those being a doer or
hearer, the word only, and those being a doer.
And he used the illustration of a mirror.
So we walked this morning, every one of us when we got dressed,
we went to that mirror and we looked, does this go with this
outfit? Do I need to change my shoes?
Does this shirt go? I know what y'all thinking.
Stop it. I know what you're thinking that
I'm. I'm thinking about how I match
up my shirts with my shoes. I know that's what some of you
guys are thinking. So we look at other things,
right? Do we have fuzz in my hair?
Do I need to shave men, you know, women, is my hair done
right? We look at those things.
So we see the flaws. We look in the mirror and we see
the flaws, but then we go and do something about it.
If we think we need to change something in our outfit, we
will. If we think we need to do
something different with our hair, we will.
If we think that there's, you know, we need to wash our face a
little better because there's a little coal in the corner of my
eyes, We will. When we see the flaws, we do
something about it. James is saying, when you look
into the mirror of the word and the Lord points out those flaws,
those things in your life that are not good, those things that
are not of him, we too should be doers of that as well and do
something about it. Let's come to him.
Say, Lord, I lay this before you, I need to change this.
The Bible says that we are clothed with Jesus Christ, Amen.
So we're closed with Jesus Christ.
What is it in our hearts that don't go with that outfit?
What's in our hearts or in our lives that don't go with the
outfit that we're wearing of Jesus Christ?
So then he goes on, he says, but those who look into the perfect
liberty, the law of liberty, and continues in it, and he goes on
to tell you what that means. That means not being a forgetful
here, but to be a doer, OK, but to do a doer of a work of the
work of salvation. Now see, we don't work for
salvation, but we do work in our salvation.
There is work in our salvation, good works.
Bible says we are created unto good works in Christ Jesus that
we should walk in them so we're a doer of the work and he said
this one will be blessed. This one will have happiness and
and divine favor if we're a doer of the work.
I'll just want to share this, you know, when, when, when, when
we are truly seeking the Lord in heirs of our lives that are that
are wanting areas our lives. We may be slacking a little bit
areas of our lives that take us kind of take us away from him.
When we start to seek the Lord in that we feel so much closer
to him when we're walking in that obedience to him, we're
loving him, we're fellowshipping with him.
We, we, we endeavor to please him in the way that we walk, in
a way that we speak in the things that we do.
With through other people, there's such a closeness that we
feel to Him. There's such a fellowship that
we feel to Him. There's such peace that we have
in Him because we have that communion with Him through
obedience of His word. I'm not talking perfect
obedience, honest, I'm not. None of us are perfect.
None of us. We are constantly seeking to
mature in Christ Jesus. Every day, every Sunday we come
here. We want to hear something to
help us mature in Christ Jesus, not go backwards, but to move
forward in Him. And when we're doing that, it
brings us so much peace, so much joy.
Even in the midst of trial, we can have that peace.
But then in verse 26 and 27, are we about to come in for a
landing? Believe it or not?
See, see, I know what some of you are thinking.
We're about to come in for a landing.
So in verse 26, he says, if anyone praise and worship team,
you can come forward. I'm sorry.
So 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. Hear that word useless.
It's the word he used here. Pure and undefiled religion.
Verse 27. 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. So now he moves from being a
hearer of the Word to being the doer of the word and he's about
to mention three things or three areas in which our evidences
that we are doers of the word or evidences that we are in Christ
Jesus. The first one, he, well, first
of all, he talks about religion, not know.
When we hear that word religion, we get a little turned off in
the New Testament church. And there's a good reason to
because to be religious or to be called to be religious is not
necessarily a ever, you know, not used as a positive thing.
If someone says, you know, you're religious, that usually
says to me that, you know, there's not much depth to what
you practice. There's not much depth to what
you believe. And the reason why is because,
and I'm just going to give you a quick definition of religion
here or being religious. It's the outward appearance or
the outward practice of serving God.
It's the appearance that we're serving God, not really
necessarily serving God. There's nothing in our hearts.
The heart is dark, but on the outside we look like we are this
religious righteous person. I come to church every Sunday.
My Bible is a nice sized Bible and I got a cross on that you
can see, you know, from a block away.
And you know, I, I, I wear the right clothes and, and, and I do
the, I say the right things, but that's not, that's, that's the
Pharisees. Jesus said that's the Pharisees.
They look why? You know, they look good on the
outside, but inside they're full of dead men's bones.
He says woe to them, He said, unless your righteousness
exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees.
It's got to be more than just looking good on the outside.
It's got to be about what's going on in that heart.
And that's why he says be a doer of the Word because that deals
with our hearts. James was called James the
Righteous for a reason, not because he was a perfect man,
but his desire, his desire to live out the word of God, the
walk with God. So he says.
So here when we talk about religious, we talk about
something that looks good on the outside, but necessarily not
having any depth on the inside. And James said that really, he
said if you are religious, if you say you're religious, but
yet you can't even control your tongue, you can't even bridle
your tongue. You speak to people in ways that
are belittling or or or or demeaning.
You attack people with your tongue.
You use language that's, that's unbecoming of someone that's in
Christ Jesus. The jokes that you're telling,
but yet you want to talk to me about coming to church.
You want to talk to me about being righteous.
And I'm I'm listening to this conversation that you're having
and it just doesn't sound like it's of the Lord.
Many testimonies have been destroyed by ungodly
conversations. Ungodly conversations.
So he says that if, if, if anyone thinks that they are
religious, but yet they came bridle their tongue or even
tries to bridle their tongue, but they deceive their own
heart. This one's religion is useless
if we don't have a religion that speaks or that deals with the
word of God, that obeys the word of God, that's endeavoring to
obey the word of God, and we act the same way as the world acts
that we're trying to minister to.
That religion is useless to them and to us and to us doesn't
benefit anybody. But then he goes on and he says,
but true and pure and undefiled religion before God the Father
and the Father is this. In other words, be a doer.
Listen to what he says here to visit the orphans and widows in
their trouble. And he says the widows and
orphans in their trouble, because that was the population
of people that was the most neglected in Bible times.
Orphans and widows kids were made orphans because both
parents or died or either can't afford to take care of them so
they had to give them up. They had nobody to take care of
them. Widows husbands died.
Maybe they died before they even had kids.
The husbands took care of the wives.
Now there's no one to take care of her.
She's a widow. And those were the 2 neglected
and the two misused groups of populations in Bible time.
But yet Jesus tells us or the word of God tells us that God is
a defender of those who are orphans.
And he pleads the case of the widows.
He, he, he's, he's not someone who looks over and looks past
them, but he deals with them, he helps them, he serves them.
So he said, the first, you know, the second, the first evidence
is to keep our tongues, but the, the the second evidence is to
care or to give service to those who can't help themselves to be
doers of the word of God. Matthew 25 as you've done it to
the least of these, you've done it unto me.
Psalm 68 and five says the father of the fatherless, a
defender of the widows is God and his holy dwelling.
And then he says the third thing is to keep yourself unspotted
from the world. One of the biggest things that
we can do is to keep ourselves separated from the things of the
one looking like the world, but to keep ourselves unspotted from
it. And sometimes when we talk about
our speech, go back to that for just one second to talk about
the speech. We see that there are times when
we post, I mean, even in our writings of emails or text
messages, not just things we say, but what about the things
that we write? We got to be mindful of those
things too. How do we respond in a text
message? How do we respond in emails?
What are we putting on Instagram?
What are we putting on Facebook? When we read that, what are we
seeing? What's the image that the people
see of us, the pictures that we have?
What do they say about us? What do they speak of us to be
mindful of those things? It's what he said to have
control, that self-control and to be able to keep ourselves
unspotted from the world. Well, you know what?
We we were all orphans at one time.
And then it was the Lord Jesus Christ who adopted us, right?
We're now adopted into the beloved.
And I thank God that we have a heavenly Father, regardless of
what the earthly father did or doing.
We have a heavenly Father who loves us and who cares about us.
And as we go into communion, I just want to mention that maybe
you here today, maybe there's someone here today that feels
like, you know what? I'm saved.
I've given my life to Christ. But I still feel like an orphan
because after I got saved, I was just left to myself to try to
walk through this, this, this walk with Christ.
I mean, no one discipled me, you know, no one really shared with
me. No one took me in.
I, I don't feel included in the body of Christ.
I don't feel connected to anybody.
I just want to say to you, if that's you today, come and join
us here at Calvary Chapel. You're welcome to walk with us.
We don't want you to have Bill Orphan.
We want to walk with you as we all are walking in this walk to
become, to become more like Jesus Christ.
We do it together, not in isolation.
We do it together. If you don't feel connected to
anybody in the faith, come and connect with us.
Come and connect with us. No one has to do this by
themselves. But I'm so grateful that Jesus
Christ himself embodied all those things, the mercifulness,
the goodness, the truth, the long-suffering or patience.
He embodied all those things and He showed it as He walked for
the 3 1/2 years in His ministry on earth, even to the point
where He showed His obedience to the Father by giving His life.
So today we want to just remember that.
We want to remember that. Yes, we'll remember it in the
table as we take the table, as we take the bread, eat the bread
and we drink the wine. We'll remember that this is His
broken body that He gave for us and His obedience to the Father.
We'll remember that it's the blood that He shed for us in his
obedience to the Father that we would have salvation.
We do want to remember that, but we also want to remember it when
we walk out of here, after we put this cup into the bag and we
throw it in the garbage can. Let us remember the sacrifice
that was made for us to have salvation.
The the, the, the work of sacrifice that was made for us
to have eternal life, to be forgiven for our transgressions
and our sins. Let's remember what was
sacrifice for us and may we consider that we give our lives
to him. And the night in which Jesus was
betrayed, he took the bread, and after he gave thanks, he broke
it and said, take, eat this is my body broken for you, Eat
this. And remembering to me in the
same manner he also took the cup.
And after supper he said, This cup is the new covenant in my
blood, which is shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.
Jesus came to give His life a ransom for many, and His blood
still cleanses us. Those of you who have not
trusted in Christ Jesus, the blood that he shed, it is still
cleansing our sins today, and it can still cleanse yours if you
trust Him. Give your heart to Him.
So this cup is a new covenant in My blood, which was shed for the
sins of many. Drink this in remembrance of Me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
show the Lord's death till he come.
Amen. The Lord bless you all.
The altar is open if anyone wants to come and share your
heart with the Lord. There's people here who will
pray with you. If there's any areas where you
want to give to Him, If there's someone here who says, you know
what, today I want to give my life to Jesus Christ.
You are welcome to come forth and to pray with someone that's
up here, but you can also do it right from your seat.
He hears it. He knows your heart.
I pray someone does. The Lord bless you.
Amen.