Evicting Useless Religion (Part C)

When you get to heaven, Christ is going to say, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Okay, go ahead. He is going to say, yes, well done. Good and faithful.

You think that's going to be a monotone? Yeah, well done. I'm so right. I've seen better.

Not at all. That's what faith lays hold of. I know who I work for. I know who he is. I know how he conducts business.

I am not going to bury the talent because I see him as being unfair. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of James.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with his continuing study called Evicting Useless Religion, taught from the book of James chapter one. The saints have looked into this mirror of God's word and it has changed their lives. And you who were born again, it is because of the word of God and what is inside of it.

Whether you like what you see or not, it has to be addressed. The mirror tells the truth. It does not lie. And if you hear a sermon and the Holy Spirit points out something in that sermon that is just for you. And you neglect it. You're the one looking in a mirror, walking away, forgetting what you just saw. This does not please God.

It does please the enemy. A problem, a big problem is you get better and better and better at doing it. You've let the proverbial camel's nose in the tent and now he is completely in there. And so you come to church and you've heard, many people stop going to a church because you know what, I don't want to hear anymore about what I should be doing because I've made up my mind I'm not going to do it. Well then let's all stop with you. Let's not read the Bible and see what God has to say because you have gotten good at blocking God. Let's all block God with you.

Of course not. So what do you do about this? How do you overcome this?

You have to learn to commit yourself to things. You know, the public finger of shame. There are things we would not do because it would be shameful.

And people would point at us and they would be correct and we couldn't bear that. I mean, you know when Peter says about women, you know, don't adorn your hair and the gold. He's not saying don't fix your hair because in that same section he says and the wearing of clothes. And of course we, you know, he's not saying don't wear them. If eating meat makes my brother stumble I will not again eat meat.

If wearing clothes makes my brother stumble he can fall right on his face for all I care. These are just things that are shameful that we avoid. So if you're in the body of Christ and you're just one that just won't serve, how do I overcome it Pastor? I hear you preaching it.

I don't want to be the one that looks in the mirror and walks away because I see what the scripture says about it. What practical advice do you have? Sign up. Get on the roster so that if you don't show up the public finger of shame will be at you without anybody even pointing you'll know it's there. That's how you overcome.

Don't just take a sign up, you know, I'm going to take an application and then it ends up in the trash can in your home. Get on the wall. Do something with your faith. Coming to church is not serving the Lord.

Don't fall for that. I want to say this kindly and gently. Just attending and sitting in the pew, that is not serving. That is attending and sitting in the pew. What you do with what you've received from sitting in the pew, that could be serving. You're actually becoming a slave, a bond slave, a willful servant.

It is not a position of shame, it is a position of honor. And there are many of you who do this. Again, I'm not trying to, I'm not going to sweep under the rug what the scripture says when we are on it and here we are on it. And you may be saying if you don't serve, I wish you'd hurry up and get off of it so I can again forget what I saw in the mirror.

You make a lot of jokes about that, I'm not going to, I'm tempted to, but that would take me out of the spirit and put me in the flesh. And so to obligate yourself, why don't you? What do you think the word testament means? It means covenant. What is a covenant?

It's a contract, an agreement, a binding agreement. We are a covenant people. And again, don't say, or let me put it this way, you can start low. Go into a ministry that's not heavy action like the kid's ministry. Go into the kid's ministry. It's easy. I'll hold my nose in Pinocchio. No ministry is easy without Christ.

They are all doable with him. When are you going to get sick and tired of wanting to serve and actually do something about it? When you evict those things that interfere. We've got servants here, they serve almost too much because they've learned, they've got it. Well anyway, I made those points over and over and over again. Verse 25, But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hero but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. Now again, we started off James in the introduction weeks ago. We said James is a man you cannot ignore. And is he not living up to that?

Of course he is. But he who looks into the perfect law. That word for look there means to stoop down and really gaze at it.

Not a glance. The man who took a deep look into the mirror of God's word. That one will see not only themselves but their Savior.

And when they see the Savior, they see the solution. You know, when my dad was in the Second World War and as a little boy, Dad, what did you do in the war? He never wanted to just, you know, Well, I shot a bunch of people up, watched their guts hang out. He never did anything like that. He just would get me onto something else.

Aren't you supposed to be cleaning up your room? Change the subject like that. And I don't know what point I was making now.

I'm back now in my home over 50, 60 years ago. But here I am here. So let's just pray because I don't have a clue what I was talking about. So you see the Savior and we just move on and give the, those who edit the messages for radio something to do.

Oh, share it on the internet. Let everybody find out how goofy the pastor can be. So the one that looks into the Bible and allows the Bible to look back into them and then to do something about it is very serious business.

The one who sees the marks of sin and finds that the sole solution is Christ because sin's work is deadly on multiple levels, not only physically but spiritually. How strong people get when they see you showing up to do what you've committed to do. How strong when the church has an event and there's a large turnout. How strong is it when the sanctuary is full with people wanting to hear the Word of God.

It makes others stronger because the opposite of that is disappointment. Oh, it's too bad nobody came. Oh, it's too bad we don't have enough.

Oh, it's too bad. Don't undervalue what these things mean in your life. And don't for one second think that you're going to get to heaven, those of you who serve, and I know you don't think this way or else you wouldn't serve the way you do. But when you get to heaven, Christ is going to say, yeah, yeah, fine, okay, go ahead. He is going to say, yes, well done, good and faithful. You think that's going to be a monotone, yeah, well done, I'm so right.

I've seen better, not at all. That's what faith lays hold of. I know who I work for. I know who He is.

I know how He conducts business. I am not going to bury the talent because I see Him as being unfair. I'm going to invest the talents because I see Him as holy and fair and loving and not only fair but generous. You see, fair is okay.

It is your day's pay. Generous is I'm going to give you a bonus. That's Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians says, We all, with an unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Into the same image of Christ.

That's pretty generous. Well, we've got two verses to go and I think we can make it. But the born again are supposed to do something with what they see in the mirror.

We got that. What happens when the born again don't do anything? They begin to become carnal until they finally drop out of the church that preaches that. They're tired of being convicted of their guilt.

That is a serious problem. He says, Into the perfect law of liberty. When we get to chapter 2, He will call it the royal law because it's the law that comes to us from the king. We were singing high king in heaven. The high king is the king of kings.

He is the top king. And there is no appeals court above him. And so when we consider the falsities that belong to the fake religions, we understand, oh no, our religion, our faith, our reality in Christ is much greater. It is a perfect law of liberty. God gave the Jews a moral law to protect individuals, to protect families, to protect society from harm. That's why He gave them the moral code.

He gave them the rituals, among other reasons, but to occupy their minds with holiness, with His plan for them to teach them about not only who He was but who man is in sin. There were the prophecies He gave to validate His word, which we're living through in this very age that we are in right now. We are seeing prophecies being fulfilled. You read the book of Revelation. You see these enormous armies being moved around. That could never have happened in the days of John.

It can in the days now with the ships and the airplanes that we have and the ability to supply large armies unlike ever before. We are seeing prophecy on multiple levels being fulfilled. He gave them the Sabbaths and the festivals to teach them about rest and reflection and refreshment that comes from reflection with the Lord. How many of you are too busy to ever sit still? Now I know some of you moms, you've got a handful of kids and you're quite busy, but still there are times when you have a moment to yourself. Is there something wrong with the pastor saying, Take those times! Reflect on the Lord if you've not been able to.

Turn the radio off and listen to some of the thoughts that you have about Christ. The dietary laws were given to the Jews to tell them essentially, You're not like everybody else. Don't try to be like them. You see what they eat?

I don't want you eating that. I think that the people that kill the meaning when they come in, Well, it was for a healthier living. Prove it! Because there were people living just as long who were eating the bacon. And so that cannot be it.

It has to be deeper than that, and it is deeper than that. That's why Paul said, You can eat anything you want with thanksgiving. Just trust the Lord.

Eat it. That doesn't make a man righteous. Those laws were to make them distinct. Why is the church losing that? Whenever the church loses her distinction from the world, she stops becoming a church eventually. She's lost her distinction. She's no longer called out. Ecclesia means you're distinct.

You're called out of line. God has made a distinction between the sheep and the goats. The ceremonial laws for illustrating His great truths of cleansing from sin and how to live the holy life.

Of course, there are the types that speak of the future, so when they are fulfilled, they will have a great impact. James saw the benefit to all of this, but he wanted to, again, to maintain too much of it. But the rabbis came in. The rabbis came in and they slaughtered their own religion. They ruined it. They piled up law atop of law until you could not even walk on a Sabbath with studs on the bottom, little metal studs on the bottom of your sandals, because that was adding labor to your day.

Just ridiculous things. It made cooking the most undesirable thing in the world on the Sabbath. And so, when Paul writes to the Galatians, he tells them, I need you to stop being, going back to Judaism as he did with Hebrews and Romans, he says, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. And so he says this perfect law of liberty. Christianity is free, not free to sin, not free to thou shalt kill because now I am free. Grace has her laws and they are good. And they are good for the good of others.

He says and continues in it, that's to the finish line. Life without law is chaos. It is lawlessness. Satan is called the lawless one. His antichrist is called the lawless one.

We're not to be this way. It's not legalistic. It doesn't have to do with, it has to do with obedience, not trying to do something to get saved.

That is legalism. He says and it is in verse, bottom of verse 25, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work. Well, I mentioned the seed that was planted. He didn't understand it. The birds took it away.

They didn't understand it because they didn't want to and really didn't care that the birds came. It is said that John Newton, fig's brother, in his study he had these words plastered on the wall and on a plaque, Deuteronomy 15, 15. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and Yahweh your God redeemed you. You see, he didn't forget what he saw in the mirror. He kept it before him. It doesn't matter how you mark your Bibles.

You've heard this. You young Christians, maybe you have not. It doesn't matter how you mark the Bible. It's how it marks you. Is there any change? When someone looks at you, do they see the marks of scripture on your life?

Or maybe it's some other stuff, Crayola or something, I don't know. He says this one will be blessed in what he does. I want to be in that group, but it's not automatic. Verse 26, If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Oh, man. And these were, again, these Christians, these were Jewish Christians who were deep into religion all their lives, and he comes out and says, If you are playing games with your faith, it's useless. It's a bucket with no bottom.

It doesn't serve its purpose at all. Now, the tongue can be a little dictator. We'll get to that when we get later on in James, but suffice it to quote Matthew 12, Jesus, For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Want to find out what's inside your heart? Listen to how you talk. Maybe you are given to profanity.

Anger is in your heart or carelessness or other things. Maybe you're just a critic of everybody else. You're just an arrogant person. You're just full of yourself. Your self-importance rises above everybody else. You have no problem criticizing other people. Makes them feel small.

You feel big. Have a nice day. And so can people, again, can they attend a church regularly and still miss the point? Yes, that's the whole purpose of the New Testament writing, so you don't miss the point. Religion cannot wash away your sin. Christianity is reality. It is what will be eternal.

It is everything. And right now it's war, but in the end it will be peace forever in the kingdom of heaven outside of this life. So the relationship with Jesus Christ takes away my sin.

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. Maybe you're visiting here and you're used to churches that give a 20-minute sermonette. In 10 years it'll be a 15-minute sermonette and a 10-minute.

Because the people can't bear the Word. It's tough sometimes to sit still and hear one person just speak from the Scripture. But it is critical nonetheless. Pay your dues.

It's good for us. We have to be able to bear the Word because that is a critical feature in overcoming the flesh. One thing that helps when you go verse by verse is you get to stay in it when we look back down at a verse again.

Write notes. That will help you. But if you're constantly looking at your watch, wondering when you're going to get out of there, do you think that is correct behavior in the eyes of the Lord? Do you think the angels will say, well, maybe it's the sermon's bad.

Maybe they will, but that's never happened here. That's not funny. But anyway, bear the Word.

Don't, when it knocks down, when you start whittling the time off, it goes down until you have nothing. And it's useless religion. Anyway, pure and undefiled religion before God, verse 27, and the Father is this. This is genuine religion which should mock fake religion. It should have action that belongs to it, never separated from the Spirit. There are religions that do great works, but they have no connection to Christ. This is one of the problems with the church at Ephesus when Christ said, I see all the things you do, but you've left your first love, and you better get back to it, and you better do it quick, or else I'm going to take your lampstand from you. Lights are going to go out if you don't fix this. We pass over these things.

He does not. It says, visit them in their trouble. It's when it's an urgent need. You can visit them any time, but he's talking about when there's a need, an urgent need. Titus rings in on this, Paul writing to Titus. Let us and let our people also learn to maintain good works.

Again, why do you have to tell Christians the way you do? To meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful. If you don't do what you're supposed to do, you won't bear fruit. It's the same thing with a tree out in your yard.

If it's a fruit-bearing tree and it's not bearing fruit, it's not living up to what its purposes are. Now, just a brief word on this. We make the mistake, at least in this country, of always throwing money at problems or people who have problems. That is a big mistake in most cases. Money tends to just be an enabler to the person. You give them money and they spend it on the very things that caused them to get the problem in the first place. It won't fix the problem. Again, be careful when someone needs money and you just have deep, not deep, shallow pockets, and you want to help them out.

Ask God what you're supposed to do. Well, look at Haiti. How much money has been thrown into Haiti? And it's Haiti still.

Do you understand what I'm talking about? I'm not saying people don't get saved there, but I'm saying much of the money that is thrown into the country goes to those who are corrupt. And this is the case with other countries also.

That's just probably the poorest one in our hemisphere. So just be careful that when you're going to help, you're actually going to help and not just make your conscience feel better by sacrificing something that you would otherwise not sacrifice. Maybe it's your time. If you want to serve and you don't have time, there's no help to anybody. In the church, God is interested in your availability, oftentimes more than your ability. What if you could do the very thing we need you to do, but you're not available to do it?

Then it's useless. And so who does your time belong to is a good question for all of us. He says, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world, including their attitudes, their faithless life. Why do so many Christians think that we have to be like the world to preach the gospel? Why do so many Christians think we have to look cool if they're going to listen to us? Truth demands attention.

That's what we're supposed to give. You go the opposite way, too. You know, the Amish, you know, they complete, I think, too far to the opposite. Why can't I just be the servant of Christ in the time I live in without trying to make myself appealing to unbelievers?

That doesn't mean, the opposite of that does not mean I make myself unappealing by being who I am. But I am not going to try to dumb down the gospel because it's not cool. You're younger Christians again. You know, we could get a lot more of you in here if we started doing more theatrical things, appealing to your flesh more. But what would we be saving you to? What would we be bringing you into? I don't know.

I do know this. We want you younger Christians to be like the older Christians, the matured Christians. That's the goal.

How would it look like if I dyed my hair purple? You look pretty stupid, I know. It'd be that man needs to go look in a mirror and not forget what he has seen. We want you to identify with Jesus Christ.

And many times the youth come and they don't see the theatrics and they don't see, oh, they sung a hymn, I'm turned off now. Trying to get you to understand the merits, the merit that belongs to living the Christian life as opposed to tailoring the life to suit your exposure to the world. Orphans and widows is how he closes this. Keep oneself unspotted from the world.

That's going to take a lot. And of course, he mentioned the orphans and widows. As I said, we're out of time. No comment is necessary.

But we get the point, I think. Thanks for joining us today as we took a deeper look into the book of James here on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. We're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. If you've been blessed by this program, we'd love to hear from you. When you visit the website, there's a broadcast link at the top of the page and leave us a message. That website, again, is crossreferenceradio.com. Please join us again next time as we continue our study through the book of James right here on Cross Reference Radio.