Religion (Part 3 of 3) — 10/05/2021

foreign [Music] we've all heard the expression practice what you preach it's a familiar way of saying our words should match our actions we should be living in a way that demonstrates the reality of our faith but how do we prioritize holiness while we serve in an unbelieving world today on truth for life alistair begg concludes a message titled religion or in james chapter 1 verse 27. [Music] if we are the children of god our father then we ought to look in some measure at least increasingly like our father we ought to bear the family resemblances you see what we have here is what god has begun at least to nudge us in the direction of as a church family and that is to remind us of the absolute necessity of keeping two things close together the genuine proclamation of the good news and that genuine participation in good deeds emphasized not only by james but also by paul when he writes to titus speaking of god he says who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own eager to do good they are the epitome if you like of do-gooders when wilberforce was converted he wrote in his personal journal god almighty has set before me two great objects the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners you should understand the reformation of manners not now about which which fork you use for your salad but rather the transformative impact of the gospel in a culture and in a community and here we are 200 years on from the historic parliamentary vote and that classic vote banned the transportation of slaves by british subjects and if you've read of wilberforce and if you've read of newton you will have found there that again you discovered the juxtaposition of good news and good deeds in many ways god raised up newton who was a slave trader ironically converted him gave him a compassionate heart made it possible for him to write hims and to preach the bible to become if you like a proponent of good news and to become one of the key influences in the life of william wilberforce who is epitomized by good deeds and when you think about it as god in the immensity of his plans and purposes from all of eternity causes the birth of these two little boys one newton and one wilber force and the confluence of his redeeming purpose is to be found in this compassionate heart when wilberforce was buried in westminster abbey in 1833 seven years were to elapse before they put an epitaph on a statue in the abbey which some of you will have stood before and have read i have it written in front of me here in my own scribble and i want to read it to you because it is so profoundly moving this is what you'll find on the statue in westminster abbey to the memory of william wilberforce born in hull august 24 1759 died in london july 29 1833 for nearly half a century a member of the house of commons and for six parliaments during that period one of the two representatives for yorkshire in an age and country fertile in great and good men he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times because to high and various talents to warm benevolence and to universal candor he added the abiding eloquence of a christian life eminent as he was in every department of public labor and a leader in every work of charity whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of his fellow man his name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which by the blessing of god removed from england the guilt of the african slave trade and prepare the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire in the prosecution of those objects he relied not in vain on god but in the process he was called to endure great oblique and great opposition he outlived however all enmity and in the evening of his days withdrew from public life and public observation to the bosom of his family yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country the peers and commons of england with the lord chancellor and the speaker at their head and solemn procession from their respective houses carried him to his fitting place among the mighty dead around here to repose till through the merits of jesus christ his only redeemer and savior which in his life and his writings he had desired to glorify he shall rise in the resurrection of the just fantastic isn't it a man of conviction a man of great compassion and 200 years later we are the beneficiaries of his willingness to combine a commitment to the good news that jesus sets the captives free and that the implications of that transforming power in a culture cannot leave the least and the last and the left out absent the fatherly care of god now what wilbur force did in the 18th century spurgeon did in the 19th century spurgeon on one occasion at their at their evening prayer meeting on a monday all of a sudden breaks into the events and he says to his congregation we are a large church and should be doing more for the lord in this great city i want us to ask god to send us some new work and so all the people then in the remainder of the prayer time said oh god send us some new work and the new work that god sent them was the establishing of what became the stockwell orphanage and spurgeon's impact among the fatherless children of london and what spurgeon did in the 19th century moody did in the 20th century and if you read the work and the writings of are tori and what moody did then you will know that he combined good news and good deeds and it is imperative that the two are held together for whenever the good deeds are disengaged from the good news whenever the impact of a life is torn away from the compelling transforming power of the gospel then it eventually degenerates into pure moralism and nothingness social involvement dare not take the place of the gospel and i leave the remainder of this to you if you take a concordance and look through it you can go into the old testament and you can go into the new and see that the bible is replete with references to this you have it in acts chapter 6 don't you where they had in the jerusalem church already put together meals and wheels whether they were on wheels or not i don't know but they had a roster for the widows in jerusalem didn't they and that's why the friction emerged because people began to say i'm not sure that our group is getting getting the i think the meals are coming a little late or i don't think they're hot or whatever it might be and the apostles said what are we going to do about all this meals on wheels business and then they said well let's get seven guys who really know what they're doing who've got the god in their hearts and who've got a good head on their shoulders and we'll give them the responsibility of this because it wouldn't be right for us to leave the preaching and teaching of the bible to to serve tables you got that wonderful division of labor then very very important that the apostles are not saying it wouldn't be right for us to serve tables it's always right for every one of us to serve tables what they said is it would not be right for us to leave the preaching of the word to serve tables they knew what their job was if you go to first and second timothy of the pastoral epistles you'll find that paul is implementing the exact same program amongst the gentile churches in 1st timothy 5. and if you read secular history you read eusebius he will tell you that by a.d 250 the church in rome was reportedly supporting 1500 destitute men and women children and children on a daily basis and you don't want to hear again from me about how the place i grew up in glasgow was farmed by dwight l moody and that it was uh customary for us uh both to feed the people from the streets five or six hundred of them before ever we got to any praise or worship on the lord's day morning they came came in in in dire condition off a saturday night in the early hours of sunday morning to be given tea and food and to be have the scriptures open to them and to be provided for why because they were homeless because they were helpless because they were impoverished because they were without god and without hope in the world but don't forget the person on skid row is no more without god and without hope in the world than the affluent suburbanite on the east side of cleveland finally we'll just say a word about the third area of the test part one a controlled tongue part two a compassionate heart and part three a clean life religion that god accepts as pure and faultless not only involves our controlled tongues and our interest in those who are so desperately in need but also it demands that we keep ourselves from being polluted by the world in other words not only are we to be practically helpful but we are to be personally holy practically helpful and personally holy we are to be identified with society in its need but not in its sin again i say to you that social involvement dare not be at the expense of moral purity our friend john dixon in his commentary which he so kindly sent to me with a letter he argues uh quite strongly the case for this final phrase here in verse 27 as being a reference not he says to the pollutions of private immorality but to the socio-economic perversions of society and so he says that when james says not only should you have a controlled tongue and a compassionate heart but make sure that you don't get sucked into the polluted way that culture deals with socioeconomic questions i want to say two things about this one this sounds like an australian theologian and number two he is alone in making this case he does make a good case but i searched in vain throughout everywhere to see if there was another person in the entire universe who had ever suggested that the final phrase of verse 27 of james chapter 1 had anything to do with socioeconomic perversions maybe john's right and all the rest are wrong but i think in this instance we're probably safer with the majority which means that what james is urging upon us is spiritual watchfulness spiritual watchfulness his readers then and now are surrounded by all kinds of distracting demoralizing and even dehumanizing influences they and we walk around in a world that is actually opposed to the standards and purposes of god they the initial readers and we reading it tonight need to remind ourselves that the standards of our life in jesus are heavenly and they're not those of the prevailing culture the fact of the matter is that we are different we are different i know it's not uncommon for us to try and use as a sort of apologetic an approach that says to people you know we're just the same as you are what we can say in that is we pull our trousers on in the same way or we or we share the same supermarkets or whatever it might be but the fact is we are not the same as they are we're radically different from what they are and james and peter and john and paul every last one of them makes the point i could keep you healer all night quoting but i won't i'll give you this one first peter 4 and chapter 3 4 says peter to his his christian readers you've spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do what do they choose to do living in debauchery lust drunkenness orgies carousing and detestable idolatry and they think it's strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation and they keep abuse on you why do they do that i think in the king james verse and the word is profligacy which always start me as a fascinating word it's like oblique from earlier you immediately need a dictionary incidentally obligatory is simply opposition or abuse isn't it but what he's pointing out is you're no longer what you once were you are radically different you live in a world in the world back in james 1 here is the word cosmos you live in a world a world that is actually opposed to the lordship of jesus and if you want to think about what he's saying here to keep yourself from being polluted by the world what he's really saying is make sure that you don't swallow everything that is at odds with the lordship of jesus in your life because remember if you're going to get down and dirty as it were in the culture if you're going to invest yourself in that way if you're going to make yourself vulnerable if you're going to open yourself up to so much that is there you better make sure that you're controlling your tongue and that while you're being practically helpful you're not neglecting to be personally holy see some people have used the approach to practical help as a cover for their own personal immorality why is it that you're interested in going to the strip joints all of a sudden the man was asked oh well these poor girls you know they need they need all the help they can get yeah but you might just not be the person to go there and help them have you thought of having your wife or your grandmother do that assignment see be very very careful says james that you don't get this thing all messed up that out of a genuine desire a compassionate heart to be helpful to the needs of others it doesn't become a smokescreen for our own personal immorality because the world dominated by satan is opposed in spirit and an attitude to the things of god and there is a clear line of demarcation between the two we'll come to that in james chapter four when he says in verse four you adulterous people don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards god no he says i want you to be found without spot now the word is s p loss it's the same word that you get uh spelos at least in ephesians uh where the bride of christ is coming down prepared for her husband and without spot or or wrinkle or blemish or any of those kind of things it's the same word that is used in second peter chapter three when in relationship to the return of jesus christ peter urges his followers make sure that as you anticipate the return of jesus christ that you will you will be found as be lost that you will be found without a spot and it's not surprising then that by the time paul is writing to timothy as a young man and urging upon him the vital importance of running the race and keeping the faith and finishing the course he says at the end of first peter 5 and verse 22 in just a phrase timothy keep your self pure that's it keep your self pure one of my friends who will be known to you because he's heard every day on the radio when i was in his company not so long ago and we were talking together and praying together he said to me and this man is just a few years older than me but he said to me alistair you know one of my daily prayers is simply this lord don't let me become a dirty old man i admired his honesty i've thought about it often since i guess the way to become a dirty old man is to be a dirty young one and a dirty middle-aged one and who when the bible comes and says one of the tests of the authenticity of your faith is that you keep yourself unspotted from the world it's a sin i don't think that really applies to me well says somebody what a test i'm not sure what i got on the test and i'm not sure what i should do if i prepare for this test what am i supposed to do well james has actually already told us what to do the answer to all of this is a steady recourse to the bible get read verse 21 of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you you have it all here right in the book humbly accept the word plant it in you which can save you saves us from our selfishness so that we reach out with compassion saves us from our hasty outbursts and our sullen verbosities as it controls our tongues and saves us from walking through the world and just becoming filthy as it purifies our minds and constrains our feet keeps our hands in our pockets and turns our gaze again and again to our heavenly father [Music] we need to be keeping a careful watch over our spiritual lives so we don't start blending in with the culture we're trying to reach with the gospel you're listening to aleister begg this was the final message in our series faith that works from the book of james alistar will be back to close in prayer in just a minute so please keep listening if you've enjoyed listening to volume 1 of the faith that works series you can own the entire study from the book of james for just five dollars that's 40 sermons through the entire book of james comes on a usb drive you can find it in our online store today at truthforlife.org store while you're there be sure to take a few minutes and shop around in addition to the faith that works usb there are many other helpful resources available at our cost for just a few dollars you can stock up your library or your church's library with many wonderful books and teaching materials once again go to truthforlife.org store being a christian isn't an isolated or individual activity believing involves belonging we are members of one another by definition this means we should belong to a local church and that's a topic of a book we want to recommend to you titled devoted to god's church core values for christian fellowship each church is unique in many ways but there are some fundamental principles that ought to apply to every congregation author sinclair ferguson examines the early church to uncover the hallmarks of church life that apply regardless of church size or geographical location devoted to god's church is a book that alistair has highly recommended to the congregation at parkside church in fact he and the church pastors and elders selected this book to read through and discuss together you can request your copy of devoted to god's church core values for christian fellowship when you tap the book image you see in the app or you can visit us online at truthforlife.org and if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book devoted to god's church write to us at truth for life the address is p.o box 39 8000 cleveland ohio 441 now here's aleister with a closing prayer eventually you'll know all the choruses that i know from sunday school as i turn them into prayers but i want to use a sunday school chorus as our prayer i say it in the first person make it your own cleanse me from my sin lord put your power within lord take me as i am lord and make me all your own and keep me day by day lord underneath your sway lord and make my heart your palace and your royal throne for the sake of your son jesus we ask it amen i'm bob lepen thanks for listening today what kind of signal is your congregation sending to a watching world and what kind of signal are you sending to god join us tomorrow for a special message titled a call to worship the bible teaching of alistair begg is furnished by truth for life where the learning is for living [Music]

Channel: Alistair Begg

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Christian Life, Christian Living, Service

Id: nzZGluFD02w

Length: 25min 0sec (1500 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021