Our upcoming Bible passage is:

Jas 1:26  If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

Jas 1:27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

An introduction to this week’s sermon:

Unspotted From The World

The apostle James has gone to great lengths to emphasise the transforming effect of the engrafted word upon the heart of a sinner. Where the gospel of saving grace is imparted by the quickening Spirit, where the word of truth is engrafted, there is true religion. Regenerated sinners are converts and live godly lives by faith. True religion flows from living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Purity of heart and newness of spirit are manifested in good works that are produced by faith.

Spiritual conversion

Where God the Spirit works a saving change in the soul of a sinner the effect is immediate and obvious. Evidences of grace will follow hard upon spiritual conversion. A new heart operates upon new principles. Old things pass away. New ambitions are discovered. New desires unleashed. The believer’s life, walk and conversation is changed for the better and noticeably so. There are consequences to being made in the image of Christ and James gives a few examples, such as visiting, which includes caring for, the fatherless and widows, in their affliction.

Fleshy counterfeit

But remember, James is also distinguishing between true and false religion and warning the real Church of God, comprising regenerated believers, against nominalism and hypocrisy. As in the apostles’ day so in ours there are false professors in whose life no saving change has been worked. They seem to be religious in their talk but they are deceived. They have no divine energy in their soul, no spring of life to motivate their actions, no real experience of grace in their heart.

Powerless religion

Vain religion talks a good game. It can pray, preach and testify theoretically of things it has seen and heard, but never felt. In many churches a form of godliness is practised but being void of true faith in the sovereign God it is void of power. The tongue of those who minister the word is unbridled and rebellious. It speaks lies to the point of preaching another gospel.  Peter tells us of ‘false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies’ and warns, ‘many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of’.

Pure religion

The elect will not be deceived. There is but one ‘pure religion’, one religion that is ‘undefiled before God’. It is the gospel of free grace. Every other religion has in it too much of man and man’s efforts. Only those who are born again from above are pure in spirit, pure in heart, pure in conscience and pure in mind. Of course, it is derived purity but it is pure just the same. Job knew a mortal man cannot be ‘more pure than his maker’. Yet we can be as pure as our Saviour when we are clothed with His righteousness and spotless in His sight.

Unspotted

How does a man keep himself unspotted from the world? Not in his own strength and determination. Again, there is but one way, by faith in Jesus Christ. Such a man keeps his eye upon the sacrifice of his Saviour and believes in his heart that for Christ’s sake God sees no sin in His people. We shall not be free from sin, or the effects of sin, while we remain in this flesh in this world. Nevertheless, by faith we live with liberty of conscience that every sin is forgiven, removed and forgotten when it is washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.

The ongoing fight

All who look into the perfect law of liberty, and continue therein, show themselves to be desirous of good works and repelled by evil works. If this were the end of the matter their service would be easy but to their distress they discover they are capable of both. The blessings of God provoke internal conflict between the new and the old man, the spirit and the flesh. Quickened souls delight in acts of kindness for their brothers and sisters in the Lord but the old man attacks those very acts and stirs up pride, cynicism and negative feelings.

The power of faith

It is only by faith that the child of God can mortify the deeds of the flesh and war successfully against the passions of the old man and the wiles of the devil. We look to Christ the captain of our salvation. We draw strength and wisdom from Him to live for Him, honour and serve Him, and seek the good of His body, the church. In keeping close to the Lord we shall be kept from following the ways of sin and indulging the works of sin. When we wear the spotless garments of Christ’s righteousness in our soul we have no desire to soil them with the filth of the flesh.

Amen