True Religion James 1:26-27 Series

James 1:26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Introduction

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, then He created a man and a woman and put them in a garden paradise as husband and wife. He gave them one simple command, and they rebelled and broke that command so they were expelled from the garden. That is the story of how this world got so messed up. That is the first three chapters of the Bible. Now, if you were God, what would you put in chapter 4? What is the very first thing you want to say to mankind after you have explained how the world got started?

Adam and Eve have kids, then what? We don’t know because decades pass without anything being recorded. Cain and Abel grow up and become adults, and all their years growing up not one single thing happens that God decided to record in Scripture. But one day something happened, and it was so important that God said, “Right there – that’s going into Bible. People will open their Bibles and read about the creation and the fall of mankind into sin, and the next thing I want them to read is this event on this day.”

“What happened?”

Here is what happened: two people came to worship God, and God accepted the worship of one of them and rejected the worship of the other one.

Now, what does that tell you? The very first thing that God wants to say to us when the human race is starting out in this fallen world is this: “Here is an example of acceptable worship and here is an example of unacceptable worship.” The most important thing in life is worship, and God does not accept all worship. God wants us to understand that the most important question in life is, “Does God accept my worship, or does He reject it?”

Later on, when God gave His law to His people, He went on for chapter after chapter after chapter with descriptions of what is clean and acceptable in religion, and what is defiled and unclean and unacceptable in religion. Sometimes our eyes glaze over when we read those chapters because there is so much detail. But God wanted to set up an elaborate system that touched on every single detail of life so that we would understand that every second of every minute of every hour of every day we must be engaging in acceptable religion and not unacceptable religion. All of life is an effort to engage in true, undefiled, acceptable religion. And so this little paragraph at the end of James chapter 1 is immensely valuable to us, because look what James says in verse 27.

James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this…

We come today in our verse by verse study of James to some direct instruction on the most important topic there is. Every one of you is here this morning because you are religious. But the big question in life is not whether or not you’re religious. The big question is whether or not your religion is acceptable and pleasing to God, or defiled and rejected by God. And this passage is designed to help us with that.

Religion

26 If anyone considers himself religious …

I need to define that word translated religious. Sometimes we use the word religion to refer to a belief system or a body of doctrine – like the Muslim religion or the Hindu religion. But that is not what this word means. This word refers to religious observance – all the various things that you do to express fear of God and worship of God. It is how you behave toward God.

And James is speaking specifically here about Christian religion. And that is very obvious just two verses later, where he identifies the religion as faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

He is not talking to pagans. He is talking to Christians who have actually placed their faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

So when he says, “If anyone considers himself to be religious,” in our vernacular it’s like saying, “If anyone considers himself to be a committed, practicing Christian…” James is going to give us the definition of a practicing Christian. George Barna defines a practicing Christian as anyone who says faith in Christ is very important to their lives and they go to church. I think that is about how most people would define it - going to church, reading your Bible.