INTRO.- ILL.- The two thousand member Baptist church was filled to overflowing capacity one Sunday morning. The preacher was ready to start the sermon when two men, dressed in long black coats and black hats entered thru the rear of the church.
One of the two men walked to the middle of the church while the other stayed at the back of the church. They both then reached under their coats and withdrew automatic weapons.
The one in the middle announced, "Everyone willing to take a bullet for Jesus stay in your seats!"
Naturally, the pews emptied, followed by the choir. The deacons ran out the door, followed by the choir director and the assistant pastor. After a few moments, there were about twenty people left sitting in the church. The preacher was holding steady in the pulpit.
The men put their weapons away and said, gently, to the preacher, "All right, pastor, the hypocrites are gone now. You may begin the service."
Well, this is one way to separate the men from the boys or the saints from the sinners. Of course, this would not be the only way to distinguish committed Christians from the non-committed.
Often it takes a whole lot less to determine who is committed and who is not committed to Christ. How so?
- When a person gets a paycheck, what do they do with it? Just pay bills and buy things or do they also include the Lord by giving back to Him?
- A three-day weekend or a vacation can sometime give an indication about a person’s commitment to Christ or lack of it. What do they do on that weekend or vacation? Do they remember and honor the Lord by going to church?
- What if someone at work approached a Christian and said, “My life is miserable. I sure need something to change. I need some help somewhere.” Suppose that Christian said little and never offered Christ as the answer to that person’s misery.
Would you think that Christian was either nervous, didn’t know what to say, or just didn’t care about that miserable person?
How religious are you? People are religious about many things: sports, movies, TV, video games, traveling, shopping, hunting, fishing. You name it and people can be very religious about it.
But how religious are we when it comes to our faith? If we are truly religious then our religion will be more of a relationship than a religion. We will have and develop a relationship to Christ.
Philippians 3:7-9 “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”
Knowing Christ is the most important thing in our existence or should be. And to know Him will make you the relational religious person you should be.
PROP.- If you are religious you have a greater responsibility in life.
1- If you are religious - listen and do the Word
2- If you are religious - keep a rein on your tongue
3- If you are religious - minister to those in distress
4- If you are religious - keep yourself clean
I. IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS - LISTEN AND DO THE WORD
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
ILL.- The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said.
One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir."
It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Somewhat confused, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I’m sure she had it coming."
Are you listening? Are you truly listening? I’d like to know if you are listening whenever I preach God’s Word!
How good a listener are you?
1) Since you think about four times faster than a person usually talks, do you use this time to think about other things while you’re keeping track of the conversation?
2) Do you listen primarily for facts rather than ideas when someone is speaking?
3) Do you avoid listening to things you feel will be too difficult to understand?
4) Can you tell from a person’s appearance and delivery that there won’t be anything worthwhile said?
5) When someone is talking to you do you appear to be paying attention when you’re not?
6) Do certain words and phrases prejudice you so you cannot listen objectively?
7) When listening are you distracted by outside sights and sounds?
Here is how you can you can really tell if you’re a good listener to God’s Word: BE YE DOERS OF THE WORD!
Anybody can come to church and listen to a sermon. Anybody can read the Bible if they want to, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating or rather the doing of God’s Word! And the illustration in this text is obvious. When you look into the mirror of God’s Word and see yourself as you really are, how can you not want to make some changes in your life? How can you do something?
II. IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS - KEEP A REIN ON YOUR TONGUE
26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
ILL.- A man working in the produce department was asked by a lady if she could buy half a head of lettuce. He replied, "Half a head? Are you serious? God grows these in whole heads and that’s how we sell them!"
"You mean," she persisted, "that after all the years I’ve shopped here, you won’t sell me half-a-head of lettuce?" "Look," he said, "If you like I’ll ask the manager." She indicated that would be appreciated, so the young man marched to the front of the store. "You won’t believe this, but there’s a lame-brained idiot of a lady back there who wants to know if she can buy half-a-head of lettuce."
He noticed the manager gesturing, and turned around to see the lady standing behind him, obviously having followed him to the front of the store. "And this nice lady was wondering if she could buy the other half" he concluded.
Later in the day the manager cornered the young man and said, "That was the finest example of thinking on your feet I’ve ever seen! Where did you learn that?" He said, "I grew up in Grand Rapids, and if you know anything about Grand Rapids, you know that it’s known for its great hockey teams and its ugly women."
The manager’s face flushed, and he interrupted, "My wife is from Grand Rapids!" "And which hockey team did she play for?"
26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
I think perhaps that one of the hardest things in the world to do is to keep control of our tongues or our speaking.
ILL.- William Norris, the American journalist once wrote:
If your lips would keep from slips,
Five things observe with care:
To whom you speak; of whom you speak;
And how, and when, and where.
Yes, but that’s hard to do, so what can we do to keep a tight rein on our tongue? Like everything else: take it to the Lord in prayer! The Lord can do things that we cannot do. We must ask Him for mercy and grace to overcome.
III. IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS - MINISTER TO THOSE IN DISTRESS
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
ILL.- 9/11 of 2001 was a very distressing day for the American people. We know what that happened that day. What a shock it was to America with over 3,000 Americans killed as a result of terrorism at the twin towers and beyond!
That day was also a somewhat distressing day for mother, Juanita Shepherd. It was the very day that I had to put her in the National Healthcare nursing home in Joplin, MO. Mother had been hospitalized for a very bad eye infection after cataract surgery. It was bad enough that it drained her health, weakened her, caused her to lose her eyesight in that eye, and put her in the nursing home. The doctor told me over the phone on Friday, I think it was, “Your mother cannot live at home by herself anymore. I’ll keep her here in the hospital over the weekend if you’ll come down here and put her in a nursing home.”
Well, I really didn’t want to do that, but I felt like I had no choice. I was mother’s power of attorney over her health and property. On Monday, 9/10, I went to look at Nursing homes and decided on the National Healthcare because it appeared very clean and the people were very nice.
The next day, that day of terrorism, I put mother in that nursing home and later found out what happened in New York, etc.
It was a distressing day for America and a distressing day for my mother.
I’ve always heard it said that we must treat our children well because when we get old enough they will choose the nursing home where we will live out the rest of our lives. My mother was not the only distressed widow in a nursing home. There are plenty of distressed widows in nursing homes and they are often very neglected. Not many go visit them, if anyone.
I always felt like I didn’t do enough for my mother when she was in that nursing home, but I felt a lot better when they told me that many people in that home had family members who lived right there in town and NEVER came to visit them.
If you are truly religious, if you have a true relationship to the Lord then you should minister to those in distress.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
I don’t know many orphans but I know of plenty of distressed widows in the nursing homes. We may be missing out on ministering to some very needy people. I just know that I am obeying God when I go visit widows in the nursing home, talk to them, make them laugh, etc. And it’s mighty good to know that I’m obeying God.
IV. IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS - KEEP YOURSELF CLEAN
27 And to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
ILL.- Bud Robinson, a Holiness preacher (1860-1942) from TN, was taken by friends to New York and shown around the city. That night in his prayers he said, "Lord, I thank You for letting me see all the sights of New York. And I thank You most of all that I didn’t see a thing that I wanted!"
When it comes to the pollution of the world we must realize that it’s everywhere. There is nothing wrong with seeing the sights of this world as long as we don’t get infatuated with them to the point that we forget about God and Christ.
Seriously, some people get so caught up in the things of this world that these have become an “evil” to them because they may have started to worship them. And worshiping anything more than God and Christ is idol worship.
Romans 1:25 “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
II Timothy 3:1-2 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money...4 lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
I John 2:15 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
These verses don’t sound too encouraging for many people. They sound rather condemning or convicting. And in this world of sinful pollution we must stay as clean as possible! Why? Because God is holy and He wants us to be holy.
ILL.- Addressing a national seminar of Southern Baptist leaders, George Gallup said, "We find there is very little difference in ethical behavior between churchgoers and those who are not active religiously. The levels of lying, cheating, and stealing are remarkable similar in both groups. Yet, eight out of ten Americans consider themselves Christians...”
How do we keep from being polluted by this world? It’s ok that we’re in this world, but we can’t be OF this world! So what do we do? We keep looking up. We keep reading God’s word and allowing it to do a good work. We keep obeying God as best we can, not the least we can. We stop straddling the fence in regard to the world. We choose Christ over this world. When we choose Him over the world He’ll keep us clean!
CONCLUSION--------------------------
Two brothers lived down our way
One was do and one was say
But this one thing from none was hid
Say always talked and do always did
What does this tell us about being religious? It tells what is most important about our relationship to Christ. To be what we should be in the eyes of God we must live our faith every day as best we can.
Steve Shepherd, Jonesboro Christian Church, AR
jonesborochristianchurch@suddenlink.net
