Grab your Bibles and let's go to James again.
I got halfway through this last time we were together, and we'll finish it tonight. We're talking about practicing the Word. I love James' heart. He's passionate about the things in his church, and he's practical about what's going on, and what needs to change, and what needs to start happening. And just about living out our Christian life as it ought to be lived, and the fact that we are all weak, and struggle, and stumble, and fall. And James exhorts the folks.
Now he's coming out of a... Well, obviously he's writing out of a legalistic context. The folks he pastors are converted Jews. And so they naturally bring in outward religious observance into their Christian thinking. And there's some good in that, in that there's some discipline in their lives, but the bad part is they would wrongly supplant true spiritual heart Christianity with just putting on some outward rules and observances of religion.
Now there's a balance here. Inward heart Christianity has outward conduct, of course. But we don't put our faith in the outward conduct. We don't trust in our capacity to do outward conducting. Can I say as just a preliminary strike here tonight, really be careful judging somebody's spirituality, because outwardly they may struggle in an area or two or three that you just...
It's easy for you. Some of you grew up in maybe some very disciplined, structured, hopefully spiritual environments, and there were just some good disciplines in your life. And so there's some outward, ugly things that just never show up in your life. And then there's another brother or sister. And I think again, my mind always goes to, and I forgot who the lady is, but a young lady who said her earliest childhood memory was being an infant child sitting on the floor while her parents and others she didn't know were passed out from drugs and alcohol all around her. And she was raised up in the kind of abuse very few of us can comprehend. Now she comes to Christ and she has the kind of struggles you don't know about. But she may from her heart love Christ just as much as you love Christ. So my point is, as James is dealing with outward stuff and disciplines, there's good stuff for all of us, but we got to be careful. What we always want to look for is that spirit of humility, that spirit of teachability, that spirit of repentance and wanting to grow from wherever God found them.
Can I get an Amen right there? And we're going to put our arms around that kind of person and love that person. And by the way, when you pastor a church, you know, you get a lot of sloppy sheep. You get a lot of difficult sheep. You get a lot of folks with just stuff they're working through.
Hey, I'm one of those. And we just have to love each other and go on. And the reason I'm saying all this is as I studied through this, I thought about Jeff Noblitt and I thought about my own past.
I thought about my teaching going almost four decades back and how I would be more balanced in my teaching now or then if I knew what I know now. But you can only grow and repent and learn. Amen?
So let's look at it together. Practicing the Word, James 1, 22 through 27. James says in verse 22, chapter 1, But prove yourself doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
That is, make a miscalculation about yourself. Verse 23, For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror. For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
Now here's some new material. Verse 26, If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself, not untouched, but unstained by the world. Now we've already talked about under practicing the word, the exhortation, where he says in verse 22, Keep on being doers of the Word. Make it your disciplined purpose, your continual pattern to be a person that says, Lord, what can I repent of? What can I change? Is my thinking out of balance here? Is my thinking not lining up with scripture here?
What behavior in my life do I need to begin working on? Be a continual, keep on being a doer of the Word, not just thinking that sitting under the preaching of the Word, or maybe going through the motions of your morning quiet time is it. No, is your heart in it?
That's the question. Is your heart saying I want to be a doer of the Word? Well, I talked about not only the exhortation, but secondly, the exercise, and that is there is, should be an examination of our hearts.
He said, don't be like a man that looks in a mirror and forgets what he sees. Examine yourself under the ministry of the Word. And then we talked about not only examination, but restoration. As you examine, you are in the process, actually the continual process of restoring yourself back to intimacy with God, back to communion and union with your Lord and the one you love and treasure more than anything or anyone else.
Then thirdly, that leads to a transformation. Our lives are continually being transformed to the image of Christ by this process of examination, seeing where we are. Then through repentance, restoration, and then through a process of time, our lives become a transformation. We should be more like Christ today than we were yesterday and continuing on in that sanctification process.
Now let's go to new material right quick. The evidence, the evidence, that would be Roman numeral three if you're keeping notes. So there was the exhortation to doing the Word.
There's the exercise doing the Word. Now the evidence that you are one who's living a life of doing the Word, not merely hearing. He says it there in verse 26, if anyone thinks himself to be religious. Now in this context, I'm confident James being a converted Jew, preaching to or pastoring, I should say, those who came out of Judaism to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What he's talking to about these folks too, if you think your religion consists in just the external observance, but your heart's not changing enough to change your tongue and your life isn't changing enough to change how you live your life so that you're still marked and stained by the world, then your religion's worthless.
And you can go all over the world today and you will see this. There are folks all over the world who are unbelievably faithful and disciplined to the outward observance of whatever their religion is. They'll go see the priests. They'll go see the bishop. They'll go to confession. They'll take the sacraments.
They'll light the candle. They'll do the right things on the right days at the right times and say the right words and repeat the right prayers. It's an external observance. And James says if you think that is what makes up your religion, you're deceived. Now certainly, those of us who know the truth understand that there are some outward things we all do. We all try to attend church faithfully. We all try to come to church ready to be an expository listener. We all try to come and be faithful with tithes and offerings. We all come and take the Lord's table together. We all come and when we come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we're baptized, et cetera, et cetera. There are things we do outwardly, of course.
Those are proper and right. But if anyone thinks himself to be religious, that is that you are pleasing to God because you got the outward stuff down and not really anything else, then you're deceived. You have become one who is, well, he just simply says it in verse 26, you've deceived your own heart. Now, the flesh loves that kind of religion. I'm confident that if I were lost and decided I need to be religious, I'd become a Roman Catholic. I just think it's a neat system for a lost man.
And I don't mean that ugly. But then again, the Baptist system's pretty fun for a lost man. And the charismatic systems could be pretty fun for a lost man.
I mean, they've all got systems you can just kind of get lost in and kind of dot the I's and cross the T's and jump through the right hoops and feel pretty good about it. But James says, boy, that's deceiving yourself. All of these things that we do in our outward obedience and worship are important and they should not be neglected.
But to have pure and genuine and a true heart and a right spirit and then observe the outward observances out of that true heart, that's what we're really looking for. And now he gives a test. He gives, and we're talking about the evidences here. He gives an evidence that you're more than just going through the outward motions of empty religion.
What's the first thing he talks about? Well, I'm going to call it, I'd call this sub point A in the outline, and that is language or your tongue. If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion's worthless. Now, why of all things would he pick the tongue? Because every one of you are guilty of it.
And so am I. There's not a one of us that can go back several days and say, man, perfect with my tongue. Never was sharp, never had an edge, never was ugly, never said anything that was hateful or angry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
No, we all know we struggle there. But, but the man who is really religious, the man who has truly been born again, the man who is truly of the spirit finds himself on a, hopefully at least a slow incline of seeing his speech change as God changes him. I know there was a clear change in my life and my speech when I became a Christian. Now, folks, it's not perfect. And by the way, this isn't just getting rid of dirty words. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just not say seven words and say, oh, my speech is good now. Praise God, I'm perfect now. I'm going right to heaven. I don't say those seven dirty words anymore.
And I'm not sure I could think up seven and don't you try. You can be the kindest Christian lady in the church and have never used none of them dirty words and have the most vicious tongue in the church. You know why? It comes out of your old gossiping nosy heart. The point is we all struggle there, but the man of God, the woman of God repents there too.
Are you hearing me? He wants to fight there. Because see, Jesus said what comes out of the tongue comes from the heart. We don't want to just fight with our tongue. We want to fight with our heart before it gets to the tongue. And so we want to be in a process and a pattern of working to control the tongue. And he said the only kind of human being that makes any decent progress of controlling the tongue are those who have the new hearts from the new birth. Are you hearing me, church?
I've heard it, I've seen it a million times over when I've seen couples where the wife was a Christian and she'd pray for her husband, she'd come to church and others would pray, and he would get wonderfully converted and she'd say, you know, he talks to me different than he did before. Not perfect. None of us are going to be perfect there, but the tongue, your language is an expression of the condition of your heart. We need to woe our tongues a lot. Discretionary speech is more valuable and more important than eloquent speech. Now, I pick on our president a lot because I wish he'd shut up sometimes. He's like Jeff Noblitt, he gets too many opportunities to talk and I say things I shouldn't say sometimes. I have to even tell you I shouldn't have said that.
I understand that temptation. However, just because he's crude and forceful and strong in his speech and maybe not as presidential as we would like, I don't know that that's worse than these slick-tongued, eloquent, pompous ones who speak on such a high level, yet their hearts are wicked and what they actually do is beyond wicked. Sometimes crude, plain talk's better for the folks than eloquent, deceptive talk.
But above and beyond anything, disciplined speech, discretionary speech is far more holy than eloquent speech. It came to my mind that there's an evangelist we had years ago by the name of Sam Cathy. Y'all remember Sam Cathy?
Some of you do. Sam Cathy was an Arkansas cowboy, but he loved to bird dog hunt. He loved to bird hunt. He had bird dogs and I'll never forget him talking about how he taught his bird dogs to stop. I'd put a rope around my waist.
It'd go at about 30 feet and I'd put it on that dog and I'd find something that dog would just love to chase after it. He said, I let it take off full speed. He said, I hold myself and right when it gets to the end of the rope, I go, whoa! And he woes.
I mean, he just flips all the way backwards. Well, as a child of God, God tells you and me, you need to get a whoa on your tongue sometimes. Just stop it.
Just stop it. Now, I'm preaching to Jeff this evening, I'm preaching to you too. He said, only, what James is pointing out is, you can do all the outward observances of religion, but if you're not one who's winning the fight in your heart and controlling your speech, maybe not perfectly, but if that's not the pattern of your life, then your religion is useless. We need the fruit of the spirit language in our lives. Proverbs 17, 28 reminds us that even a fool when he keeps silent is considered wise.
Did you hear that? Even a fool when he keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he's counted prudent. Someone says, it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it to everybody. He says, watch your language.
Strive that your language, and I think in the context, he's talking to a local church family. Are you sweet to one another? Are you kind to one another? Do your lips speak of forgiveness to one another? Do your lips have a tone of forbearance of one another? Do your lips carry the communication of selflessness one toward the other? Do your lips speak generously one toward another? Is it not beautiful and wonderful that, like in my life, you go from total complete worldliness, my values, my goals, my everything was the world, to come into Christ and come into a church, and now everything about me is focused toward the church.
And it's true of you too. This is the kind of change James says ought to be evident in a true child of God. Now let's go to the second one. Not only our language is a good evidence, and again now, don't put, I'm not, and I'm not here just to beat you up.
I'm not talking about you've reached some perfect plane. I'm talking about there's a steady sanctification in your language and in your learning of how to use your language to glorify God and edify others. Secondly, let's talk about love.
Be in our outline. Love is an evidence of true religion. Verse 27, pure and undefiled religion, the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress. The word visit here is the common word for visiting the needy.
So he says here, real religion is when you have a real heart to minister and care for those in your church family who are most needing of charity. A lot of folks can take care of themselves. Matter of fact, even the Apostle Paul in another setting says if there's a widow and she's got a family, let that family take care of her.
Don't put her on the list. But generally speaking, especially in this day and time, they didn't have the social ministries that we have today. They didn't have the government agencies to support those we have today.
And an orphan and a widow were in a place where they would really suffer. And I can tell you, and you know, the one thing that we have not done at Grace Life, and it's become a big thing, and it's become a new movement in the church to be missional and go out and do these social things for people. But our folks in our church have done a lot of things and a lot of ministries for people.
We just don't fly it as a banner. It's just something we do as we can do it. We worked on some homes during the flood. Now, some of those homes we had during the flood were our church members, and that's always to be our priority. But there were some neighbors that we helped at the same time. And we ought to try to do those things. We don't fly it as a banner. You probably didn't even know about it.
98% of you didn't know about that until I just said it just now. But he's saying when God has changed your heart, you have a love and especially our love starts with the most truly needy in your local church family. Matter of fact, the Bible says in Galatians 6, 10, so then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men. In other words, as you go along your way and somebody's genuinely hurting, try to help them if you can. But then he continues on, listen to the balance, and especially to those who are the household of the faith. Now, I have a, this will surprise you, but I have an obsessive personality.
Now, what are you giggling about? But you want the man that cares for your soul to be pretty obsessive about it, I guarantee you. And when I would read verses like that early on in my Christianity, and I would look at the world, and there's so many needs out there, you could literally kill yourself.
How can I meet all those needs? But that's why we have this beautiful balance. As you have opportunity, help folks, but especially to those of the household of the faith. As I like to say in a figurative language, when you joined a church, you took a wife. You committed yourself to a body to care for and serve.
And that's what James is bringing out here. Just going through the ceremonial rituals of the local church or your old Judaism is not gonna, do you love your brothers and sisters, which will always be evidenced by your willingness to take care of those who are hurting. And I just have to commend you and just say praise the Lord for you, because whenever there's been a need arise, somebody went through something terrible, something catastrophic, I'm telling you folks have just risen to the occasion.
It's just God's truth, you've done it. You just serve and care. Matter of fact, there was a family that, actually they used to go church here years ago, and they heard, this is some time ago now, they heard that a family or two had a unique need in the church. And they said, well, the Grace Life Army will be on that, you watch and see. That was at the Grace Life Army.
And you know what? The Grace Life Army was on it. And those people were ministered to and the needs were met. So I'm not suggesting that you and I have finished the course on how to love one another. I am saying this, that loving your brothers and sisters from your heart is evidence that you got the real thing. If you can glide through this church and coast through this church and have no real feeling in your heart, if I love those folks, and I want to care for those folks. Now look, you can't care for the whole church, but you can care for your small group. And that's why we're organized.
It'd be overwhelming to just throw you out there and say, all right, we've got almost a thousand people on the road, take care of everybody. But we can organize in small groups and we can truly live out the reality of what James is saying is true religion. That love and service and ministry one to another. So the point is again, the regenerate heart has the heart of Jesus and Jesus does he not have a special heart for those he saved.
Boy, I don't want to go too far down this track, but here's where sound theology just kind of fixes stuff and helps you know the balance and stuff. If you understand in grass something of particular redemption, and I preached it on this thoroughly in my series on the eight strands, unbreakable strands of sovereign grace. If you understand particular redemption, that is while God loves all, in a sense Jesus died for all, the Bible holds out there was a special and unique and fuller love in his death for the elect, for those he would save. Consequently, Christ is in us and we love all men and would help all men, but we have a special love, a more devoted love for those of the faith, those who are the elect. They're called a lot of things, the called, the elect, the predestined, whoever they are, but nevertheless, our love is greater there. James says, your love for your church is the evidence of a heart that has the marks of true religion in it.
Romans 14, verse 15, he talks about, Paul talks about in Romans 14, how he wouldn't eat food and cause a brother for whom Christ died to stumble. What he's talking about, he's talking about loving one another. By the way, the whole concept, there's some of this out there today that, boy, we're flying our banner of liberty. We have a liberty to do this now in Jesus, we got a banner to do that. Here's what, you have your liberty to love, and when you love your brothers and sisters, you gladly give up a liberty if it might cause a brother or sister to stumble.
He said, that's the kind of love we ought to be looking for in our hearts. Churches never fly their liberties, churches fly the banner of their love, one for another. 1 Corinthians 8, 11, he talks again about causing the brother for who Christ died to violate his own conscience. In other words, I'm not gonna do anything to cause another brother to violate his own conscience.
Now he might be immature, his conscience might be ill-informed, he's not right in his decision, but until he grows through that, I'm not gonna do something in front of him or as an example for him to cause him to do the same behavior and cause him to stumble and violate his conscience. Again, the concept here is love for one another. John 13, 35, all men will know you're my disciples because you hold the sound doctrine.
No, that's important, that's essential. All men will know you're my disciples by the love you have for the world. No, we do love the world. All men will know you're my disciples by the love you have for one another because look, increasingly so as our culture becomes secular and godless, we'll be seen as the scourge of society. But all men will know we're Christ's disciples because even though others say we're a worthless bunch of troublemakers, we really love each other. We love the church while the world hates the church. So our language, as we're on an incline of sanctification and using our language to bless and encourage and love and be gentle and be forgiving, et cetera, et cetera, that shows we have true religion in our hearts, the true new birth in our hearts.
As we live a life of love and we wanna love our brothers and sisters and care for them, orphans and widows especially, or whoever it might be that has the special need in the church, our heart just goes there and wants to help them. He said that's an evidence of true religion, not just the outward observances. And then thirdly, lifestyle, and this overlaps the other two, but it goes a little further too. C in our outline would be lifestyle, verse 27, the last part, he says, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Now you gotta be careful with this because you can't keep yourself untouched by the world, but you can avoid wearing the world's colors. You can't avoid bearing the stain of the world.
Literally it's a present tense verbal expression. It says, keep on keeping yourself unstained. In other words, you just don't quit this fight. It never ends.
About the time you'll think, whew, I think I'm doing good in this area. God opens your understanding, you realize there's another area that you're completely immersed in. And you gotta repent there and start fighting over there. It's a viewpoint, it's an attitude, it's a disposition that's just not pleasing to the Lord. I mean, we are continually striving to keep ourselves from being marked by the world, are marked as a worldly one. Some years ago, and this has become in more and more commonplace, there was an article in a Baptist paper on the bar church. It was a church that met in a bar and it wasn't that they had to meet in a bar, it was that they were being novel and cool and open.
And now look, using a building is one thing, but the concept behind this, in my opinion, crossed the line. It was bearing some of the marks of the world is what it was. When we're supposed to be striving to not be marked by the world. Is the purpose and practice of my life to not allow worldly stains to set into the fabric of my soul? Have your mom ever talked to you about a set in stain? Well, that stain is set in, they're hard to get out.
And sometimes you can't get them out. Well, see, this is not talking about you'll never sin, you'll never be touched by the world, but it is saying you can avoid letting those sins be set into the fabric of your soul. Are you a repenter? Are you a fighter? If you're not killing sin, sin's killing you. If you're not fighting, sin has you. And I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you that it is like, no, I don't wish I could tell you that it's like Joel Osteen says, because he's a wicked liar. It's nothing like what Joel Osteen says.
And it's nothing like some of these Baptists who are preaching this shallow, comical, goofy, easy beliefism and decisionism, where you just jump through a little hoop and the rest of the time it's gonna be fun. I'm sorry, this is a warfare. This is a battle. This is a fight. And we are in this fight to keep striving to keep ourselves unstained by the world. We work and we work and work.
Now I wanna give you some practical application here, and some of you recognize this from days gone by. I don't wanna spend much time here, but I wanna just jog your thinking on this. Here's some helpful things to avoid letting a worldly stain set in on the soul of your life. Number one, continue to renew your mind. Continue to renew your mind, of course, with the Word of God.
Do you have a pattern whereby you memorize and meditate on the Word of God to continually be pushing out worldly thinking and pushing in God's truth? Probably the toughest job are the, let's say the age category that's toughest to do this would be young men. Young men as their hormones kick in, young men that are facing the temptations that are only experienced by young men, it's a tough time. And the Bible says in Psalm 119, 9 to 11, how can a young man keep his way pure?
The point is if a young man can do it, anybody ought to be able to do it. How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word. With all my heart I've sought you, do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart. That's the idea of meditating on it that I may not sin against you.
It is a power and it is a help. So be in that process of renewing your mind. I think some of you need to revive the old accountability book and find a brother or sister and make it simple, but just say, hey, let's do a couple of verses a week and let's hold each other accountable, not legalistically.
That's one of the reasons I pulled back on it. I saw too many people that were checking off the boxes on the accountability, but I didn't think their hearts were in it. Aren't we so prone to become Pharisees? But that doesn't mean the discipline of memorization and meditation, and that doesn't mean the principle of accountability is wrong at all. Maybe some of us need to dust off the old accountability notebook and find a brother or sister and say, let's hold each other accountable to continually renew our minds.
That's a great help. Number two, not only to renew our minds will help you from avoiding the mark of the world and the stain of the world, let God pick your friends. Do you let God pick your friends?
And I say this a lot to our young people. I used to growing up when I was in the student ministry and our kids were growing up, three types or two types of people you're not to choose are your close friends. Number one, those who don't know Christ. The Bible says you can't have those who don't know Christ as your close friends.
Now look, I know we live in the world. You have classmates. You want to be kind to everybody.
I'm not saying that. You have people you work with that don't know Christ. We're friends in a sense with all that we can be friends with, but those we choose to draw near to. And for young people, those you would date or those you would court, you have absolutely young people. Moms and dads, do you listen to your pastor or not? Your children have no business ever dating a lost person. Now sometimes our own children are unregenerate and they reach adult age and that's a different thing, okay?
But as they're growing up, there's no basis for that whatsoever. 2 Corinthians 6 verses 14 through 18. Very clearly, Paul writes to this church at Corinth who esteemed themselves in being above most people and were very carnal in their behavior. So he says to them, do not be bound together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial?
Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you.
And I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Now again, we're talking about knowing people in the world and even doing business with people in the world, that has to happen. But those you choose to draw near to for fellowship shouldn't be running with lost people. Look, one of two things gonna happen, they're gonna come to Christ or they're gonna pull you to the world. Never been an exception to that.
It's always gonna be that way. Businessmen need to be careful with partnerships. I'm not saying it's always evil to have a partnership with an unbeliever, but you gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. They can lead you to places where you get the mark of the world and we're to walk so that we don't have the mark of the world on us.
Another group is backsliders. I really don't believe in that concept, but those who profess to know Christ, but openly live like they do not know Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 11. 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 11, Paul writes to the church at Corinth and says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of the world.
Isn't that interesting? Or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you'd have to go out of the world. If you just didn't associate with immoral people, you'd have to leave the world.
You can't do that. I don't check out the spirituality of the lady at Walmart before I check out. You're gonna have some contact with people in the world who are unbelievers. But he says in this context, verse 11, but actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he's an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or reviler or drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a wine. So not only are we to not have intimate chosen fellowships with the lost, we're certainly not to choose to run with those who claim to be Christians, but live like they're lost.
Do you let God pick your friends? Let the word of God guide you in that? And only run with those, only draw near to those who are growing spiritually.
That'd be the third category I would say, the third guideline I would say, under letting God pick your friends, only those who are growing spiritually. Proverbs 27, 17, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. There's no way a man can sharpen you if he's not walking with God. There's no way a lady can sharpen you if she's not trying to walk with God. Look, are you a spiritual challenge to those who are around you? I have some brothers in Christ who are in ministry and we're really honest with each other from time to time, really challenging to each other on our thinking and our viewpoints on things. Are we balanced on things?
I need that and so do you. Well, one way to avoid being sin stained or bearing the colors of the world in your life is by renewing your mind. Another way is letting God pick your friends. A third way is to avoid dirty places and dirty things. Avoid dirty places and dirty things.
And this has so changed over time. What kind of social events do you attend? What kind of parties do you go to? I don't know anybody in this church that goes to drinking parties, but you ought not be going to them. Now again, in balance, I've had more than one businessman to come up to me and say, Pastor, it doesn't happen often, but every now and then I'm taking a client out to eat and they'll buy drinks or whatever and I don't drink but it happens. I say, look, don't worry about it. We're not here to be legalistic over things like that. But you don't have to go to parties that are designed for drinking. What about the parties you go to? What about the novels you read?
What about the all encompassing internet where in two clicks, you'd be right in the middle of hell itself? Are you striving? Are you fighting? Are you repenting? Let me ask you, what about the music you listen to?
The television shows you watch? Philippians 4, 8 says, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there's any excellence in anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Are you in the fight? You say, Pastor, this stuff is so... It's extremely prevalent. And we've had some national leaders here who've just helped plunge us down the toilet as a culture, literally. And so our culture is so vile, but we are not to give up the fight.
We are not to give in. We are not to wear the banner of the world. We don't go to places most of the world goes to. We don't go to the same movies most of the world is comfortable going to.
We don't do the same things most of the world tries to do. We must... Look, if you do, then you repent. If you're touched by the world, make sure you're not stained by the world.
And if you get stained by the world, make sure it's not a set-in stain. He said, that's true religion. You know what? You know how you know if you're a true child of God? It troubles you when you're touched by the world. It troubles you more when you start getting stained by the world. And it troubles you deeply if you sense it's becoming a set-in stain. Now, be careful. You've checked your boxes off, but you may have a disposition and an attitude over here that you've coveted and held to for years, and it's a stain. You don't even know it.
Be careful. First, there's friendship with the world. If that keeps going, then there's love for the world.
And if that keeps going, then there's conformity to the world. Now, I want you to get a balance here. James starts out by talking about, how's your tongue? And the context, again, is you're with your brothers and sisters in Christ, certainly your husbands and wives, certainly your children, your home, and then the further body, the church. He said, is your heart being transformed so that your language is sweet and kind and edifying and holy and good? And then what about your deeds? Are you doing the service deeds to the body of Christ? Is that meaningful to you? Do you have a burden for that? Is that a part of who you are? Now, listen to me.
Here's what he's getting to. Because if that is, the first thing Satan will do is get you to have an appetite for the world and stain by the world. And when you get an appetite for the world and stain by the world, you will stop loving your church like you need to, because you'll stop loving Jesus like you need to, and the church is his body.
He said these always have a direct relationship one to another. When you're worldly, your love for the church wanes. And when your love for the church grows, you have a deeper conviction against letting the world creep into your life.
And that's what he's getting at. Think about the example of Abraham and Lot. Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom. Then Lot moved into Sodom. Then Sodom moved into Lot. Lot lost his testimony and lost his family.
He lost everything. Abraham, a sinner, but he fought at a different level. He repented at a different level. And Abraham has a lasting legacy of faith. As a matter of fact, the New Testament says we're children of Abraham. Now, let's be that kind of Christian. Let's practice the Word in that way and make sure we are not one who has a set-in stain from the world. He says, here are these evidences. Your tongue is doing better speaking the things that are pleasing to the Lord. You're more faithful and you're burdened about serving and caring for the church and those with special needs in the church. And you do not let things that are worthless and worldly become a part of your life and stain your life. I don't know where that is. Because if I were just to list them specifically, you'd check off some and I'd miss yours. Practice the Word, James says.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-06 02:51:02 / 2024-02-06 03:08:19 / 17