SPEAKER_00 0:03

Religion is often associated with external forms and ritual gestures that are empty on their own. Contrastingly, James points us to a true religion that is pure and undefiled. Today we explore the scriptures with Pastor Wei, preaching from James chapter 1, verses 26 and 27.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Church, I'm sure you are familiar with this song called The Heart of Worship. Right? And you may not know this, but there is a story behind this song. Back in the 90s, there's a church in UK called Soul Survivor Church where Matt Raymond was a worship pastor. And during their time, this church was hitting all the right marks. They had a new building, they had a new PA system. The bands, the musicians, and the singers were all very professional. They were doing really well. The people were coming, they were filling up their halls, the people were singing, they were worshiping. But the pastor recounts somehow we seem to have lost the spark. We seemed to be going through the motions, but our hearts were far from God. They realized that the church had become spectators and not participants of worship. So this pastor did uh something that I think is really courageous. He stopped the band and the singers from playing anything, from singing anything. And he just gathered the church just to sit and to sit in silence so that they may relearn what it means to come before the Lord with their gifts, with their sacrifice. And they slowly started breaking out singing in a cappella, and and they slowly reclaim their heart for the Lord. And it is out of this uh experience that Matt Raymond wrote his song, The Heart of Worship. Uh, it is with this story in mind that I have titled uh today's sermon as The Heart of Religion, which may be provocative to some who think that religion is uh sort of a bad word, right? Um normally it's taken to mean the external things, right? The outward actions, the religious forms, the ritual performances. Those well-versed in the New Testament will know ah, this is what the Pharisees is about, right? Theirs is religion, and they are the legalists and the hypocrites. We want nothing to do with that. Which is why it is also very popular for us today to say that Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. And to be honest, if that is all there is to religion, if it's really just about the external forms and the rituals, then I would agree. I think that that religion is empty, legalistic, and even false. Yet we find in the letter of James that there is such a thing as true religion. If we just see uh the first uh the the two verses uh of our reading today, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue or deceive but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. What James is saying here seems to be that there is a religion that is worthwhile. One that is pure and undefiled before God. But in James's time as well as in our times, this religion seems to be elusive to many. And it seems to me the problem uh is not so much with the external forms themselves, just like how for Red Matt Raymond and his church. The problem was not with the music or the singing, the problem lies in the heart. And so, what is the heart of religion? What is the heart behind everything that we do? True religion actually deals with our hearts, as we will see soon. The problem of humanity and really the problem of sin is a problem of the heart. And only when we deal with our hearts can our lives be properly religious before our holy God. Uh, in the 18th century, uh there's an American theologian named Jonathan Edwards. Um he wrote this true religion in great part consists in the affections. And he defines affections as the as the exercising of the inclination of the will of the soul, right? And he he emphasizes the uh our will, right? Our volition. And he contrasts it with understanding. Understanding versus the will. So, I mean, today we know we are all pretty smart people, right? We understand things well, we are good at gathering and digesting information, you take out your phone and you have all the information in the world at your fingertips, right? Many of us are even good at giving biblically correct answers. We have no lack of information. But how is that information interpreted and translated into our faithful living? Right? It is through the will, it is through the heart. Importantly, how how well our head knowledge can flow into our daily living is dependent on the affections of the heart. And so Edward says this that the will never goes any further than the level to which it is affected. The will never goes any further than the level to which it is affected. Edward points us to what is at the heart of religion, that true religion is possible only when our hearts are affected by the word and the work of God, when our affections are love for Him and hatred for the worldly things, when we have a longing for the things of God, when our will, our heart, our soul, our motivation in life is inclined toward God. And so John Wesley, another 18th-century theologian, uh also wrote a lot about religious affections, and he was an Anglican priest, right? He of course saw the beauty as a good Anglican, he saw the beauty in uh liturgy, and he also saw the necessity of theology, of right uh teaching, right beliefs. But he said that they are not sufficient in and of themselves. Very interestingly, he he kind of recounts that from experience. He saw how liturgy could serve as a place to hide from God, and how a clever mind can invest in doctrines and twist it into a strategy for avoiding the presence of God. And what I think Wesley is saying uh is this we can come to church, we can really just go through the motions, stand up, sing, sit down, listen to the scripture being read, or kneel down to pray. We can go through the motions and tell ourselves this is worship. That's all there is. I don't need to go any further. We can load up our minds with doctrines, with theology, with with uh what might even be sound teachings, and say, Oh, this is very, very fulfilling. I don't need to chase God in any other way. And Wesley saw the lack in such a religion. He saw that pursuing that sort of religion was leading to a decline in the church of his time. And he says that we need to go deeper than that. So and so for him, true Christian religion is a religion of the heart. We need to worship God and respond to his word from the heart, not just with our mind, not just read the words, tell us to do something, we do something. But he says we need to respond to it from the heart, such that we live for the Lord with holy affections. Again, that we may love God and hate sin. And this is where James is coming from. Um, no doubt James is a very practical book, but this is James working out what the Christian life looks like when we practice true religion out of holy affections from our hearts. And so we come come back to James chapter 1, verses 26 and 27 to see how all this works out. Uh, you can see a progression in the writing of James, right? Increasingly practical for his readers as they are called to respond the word. First, they are to accept the word, right? That is in verse 21. Accept the word. Right? In verse 22, uh to not just hear the word but be doers of the word, right? That was uh the message preached last week. Right? To hear and accept and then to do the word. And then how do we do the word? Uh he offers three different ways of doing the word in uh our reading today. First is control your tongues, second is care for the vulnerable and the needy, and third is holiness, to to avoid being stained by the world. Um, this is of course not all there is to true religion, right? Very likely these are these were pertinent issues in James's time, which is why I think he will address them again in later chapters. Right? But that's it. For our religion to be true, for it to mean anything at all, it must be demonstrated in these various ways. So we come to verse 26, and number one, to control our tongue. James writes this if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Um, James is not alone in calling for us to control our tongue. There is just too many verses that talk about uh tongue. This is just a sampling, um, if I can, the next slide, this is just a sampling of what's what's in scripture. Um, Psalm 141, verse 3 Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. Proverbs 10 19. When words are many, transgression is not lacking. But whoever restrains his lips is prudent. 1 Peter 3 10 says this whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Um, throughout scripture, there is this huge emphasis on the tongue. Because as Proverbs 18 21 tells us, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Uh most of us, most of us know this saying, right? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And that is one of the biggest lies we learned as children, isn't it? If anything, words, I think at least words hurt and scar us in a much deeper and profound way. Right? So much of our trauma comes from what people have said to us or about us. Um interestingly, just recently, if you um uh if you go to Christager especially, uh you might know that they were run, they are running this promotion. Right? If you bring your child to the restaurant and in front of the receptionist, uh you you recite this Cantonese saying, uh, you get free chasyu. I I'm not a Cantonese, so I'm not gonna try to butcher it, but it translates as uh it is better for me to give birth to chas you than to give birth to you. Right? Apparently it's a very popular saying. I don't know what the Cantonese put in their chasyu. I can't imagine uh how good it is uh to for you to say that. Um but don't you think that will really, really hurt the child? Um this is kind of silly. I remember vividly uh that something happened to me when I was a primary school kid. Right? Um one fine morning I was just walking to school. Lots of our schoolmates were just kind of walking along along, right? From the corner of my eye, I saw a girl waving her hand in my direction. At that time, at that point of time, I thought she was waving at me. So okay, I just waved back. Right? It turns out she was waving to her friend behind me, right? Um and that's not the worst part. The worst part was this other boy saw me from over there and he started laughing really loud. He started pointing at me and just laughing at me and then telling his friends around him what happened. Um so needless to say, I was embarrassed, I was scarred for life, and I dropped out of school. Um okay, one of those things, one of those things is not true. But even today, if I see anyone just vaguely waving in my direction, I will I will be stunned for a little bit. I will tell myself, nope, nope, that's that person is not waving at me, right? Don't raise your hand, please. Um and I mean how how many of us in church have been hurt because of something someone said to us? Or something that someone said about us when we know we hear of gossips behind our backs? How many of us have been the ones who have hurt someone with the things we say? And I'm guessing it's more than we ever realize, right? Or when we are hurt, when people joke, joke with us, right? Joking at our expense. If our words cut or tear people down, if we do not control our tongue, then James says we deceive ourselves, we deceive our hearts, thinking that we are followers of Christ. Um, and it is not a simple matter of uh if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say. Right? It is not as simple as that. I think the Bible goes deeper, and it looks at our heart behind the speech. So Jesus puts it this way, right, in um Matthew chapter 15, uh, especially verses 18 and 19, right? Um what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false weakness, slander. These are what defile a person. Uh elsewhere he says, out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. Jesus locates the source of our words in our heart. Our heart determines what we see. And the heart that is unaffected by the Lord will spew out anger and curses, slander and gossip. And our and our words will tear and destroy. But church, let's be clear about this. The symptom is unclean lips, but the root problem is our heart. To control our tongue is not simply to watch what we say, even though that is needed, right? But it is far deeper. It goes deeper to a transformation of our hearts to be affected by the Lord so that it is inclined towards God. Only when we have that inclination towards God, then we can say, as Paul uh says, uh, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up. We use words to edify and not to destroy. And we don't use bluntness or we don't use what cold honesty, or that's just the way I talk. We don't use that as an excuse for being hurtful with the things we say or with the way we say things. We learn to speak the truth in love and we temper speech with grace. And that's the first thing to control our tongue. Second religion uh that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father is this, James says, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. Um and and by now many of us know this, orphans and widows were often the most vulnerable people in their society. Who would care for an orphan? I mean, a child really has almost zero social standing. Nobody cares about a child, much less a parentless child. Who's going to take care of that child when that child is not yours? And often for widows without their husbands, uh, and normally they have no way of getting work for themselves, they are really uh helpless in their situation. Often they are reduced to begging or to prostitution. No one would look out and care for the orphan, orphans and the widows. But God causes people to care for them. In Deuteronomy chapter 14, we see that part of the tithing of the people goes actually to the orphans and the widows and also the other marginalized people in their society. And the social responsibility continues over to the church today. Um, and James is very particular in his phrasing when he says uh that this is a religion that is before God, the father. Right? He points us to the fact that God calls himself the father of the fatherless, the protector of widows. That's from Psalm 68, verse 5. And we are we also know that he defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow from Deuteronomy chapter 10. God has a special concern for the helpless and for the afflicted. The father heart of God goes out especially to the orphans and widows. And so to worship God the Father is to also share in his holy affection for the vulnerable and the needy. And so a preacher puts it this way lip service without life service is empty religion. Lip service without life service is empty religion. But when lip service is combined with life service, when we go out, serve the people, care for the needy with our lives, that is true devotion. And uh he was reflecting uh on on Isaiah chapter one when he says this, and Isaiah chapter one, I'll just read selected portions, verse 12 When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my cords? Bring no vain offerings, incense is an abomination to me. Verse within you, when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. And verse 17 learn instead, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. And all that is to say, God, the Father, who identifies himself as the father and defender of the orphans, the widows, and every vulnerable people, this God calls us to have his heart for them. And true religion is never without caring for the needy. Um, that heart of religion comes not simply from a place of philanthropy, right? Not just wanting to do something good, but comes from a deeper affection for God the Father. Thirdly and lastly, we see how the heart of religion is worked out in holiness, right? Um James says, again, religion as pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to keep oneself unstained from the world. And now he's talking something a bit more general, a bit less concrete, right? Um in my teenage years, Soul Garden was hugely popular. And last time, last time not like Naula, now you have this exhaust fan that will kind of suck up all the oil and all the smoke, uh, so you don't really smell anything. Uh last time it was just really a barbecue and in an enclosed uh restaurant, right? Um and I I I have had friends who were apprehensive about eating there, right? And and yet there are various reasons, right? Unhealthy, or we tend to overeat to get our money's worth, right? You got yourself, um, and then you go to the toilet and then come back to eat some more, right? Uh those were my friends. Um, there's this smoke, this oil that just kind of somehow gets into your hair, in your clothes. You can you cannot prevent it and you cannot get rid of it until you go home. Right? You feel queasy, you feel grimy, you feel gross after a while. But barbecue is so nice. And your friends are all your friends are doing it, right? So why not? Just don't let these things bother you. Just go for it. Imagine you were supposed to meet someone important, maybe your boyfriend's parents, or you are supposed to go for some special occasion later that day. Would you want to turn up smelling like smoke and oil, smelling like barbecue, uh with stains on your shirt and feeling bloated? Would you not rather have avoided the barbecue instead? On a high much higher level, we all have that struggle with the world. The world in a biblical sense refers to the things, the ideas, the teachings, and the pursuits that are not of God and often are against God. To be worly is to give in to our uh self-centered and carnal desires and pursue the things of the world and to place them above God. And the world is so very attractive, right? All of us know this, and it is so hard to fight against our fleshly desires. And it really doesn't help that the devil is so crafty, right? He knows how to tempt us, he knows how to tug at our heart strings, and he knows how to help us come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses as to why we should pursue this or that or anything else instead of the will of God. And I think this is ultimately a struggle of the affections of our heart. Do we love God or do we love the world? Right? The scripture kind of puts it very simply as that. Do we love God or do we love the world? Because we cannot love both. And I think the devil uh will be quick to try to make you think that you can actually love both. Why not? Come to church, be a good Christian, do all these things, but no, there's all these other all these other things that you can indulge in once in a while, maybe you can just pursue and and and buy in and so on and so forth, right? And he tries to sell us this idea that we can love both at the same time. But Jesus says this we cannot serve two masters, we will love one and hate the other. And all the devil's got to do is make us love the world and ourselves, even just a little more. And wrote can set up in our heart, and our religious piety will gradually uh become this empty motion and empty gestures, and we find it harder and harder to meet and to worship the Lord. We find it harder to incline our hearts to his will and his purpose because there are all these other competing um desires of our hearts that that has already gotten a stronghold in our hearts and lives. But church, we are a people called out of the world by God, to be set apart from the world for God. And we are, as James put it, to remain unstained, holy without blemish, ready for the bridegroom. And so uh I would like to conclude this sermon now by saying this. It feels like for the last two or three weeks, uh especially since church camp, uh, we have been touching on the issue of the heart. And maybe the Lord is saying something to us as a church, right? James calls for us to be doers of the word, right? Being a really practical uh apostle, he calls us to be doers of the word. And the heart of religion, the heart behind that doing is anchored by the affections we have for the Lord. Whether it is to control our tongue, to care for the needy, to keep ourselves unstained, or whether it is to love and be faithful to our spouse, to bring our children up in the ways of God, to serve the church as a host or in a sacristy team or on the worship band, whether it is to lead Bible study in our connect group, whether it is to do this or that, in all things, they must come from a heart that has been deeply affected by the word and work of God, that is inclined towards God and towards his spiritual things. So, uh, a couple of questions I'll leave for us this morning. Do we get ourselves busy with doing and doing, or do we clog up our minds with lots of theology and lots of knowledge? Or to hide from God, or to neglect being in his presence? Do we find reasons and excuses for the things we do and pursue that we know are really not of his will? Who does our heart belong to? The world or God? Church, may we deal honestly with our heart and surrender, surrender it to God that we may we may be holy before Him. That we may do all things from a religious affection that inclines us to love God and hate sin so that we may uh take hold of what this true religion is all about.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

One that is pure and undefined before God. We pray that you can minister to the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about the Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at ycccanglican.com. Have a blessing.