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Review:

• Be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to be in angry in engaging God.
  
  
• This will enable the Word of God to be planted in you.
  
  
• That planting happens when we look more intently into what the Word of God is saying and apply it daily to our lives.
  
  
• Application happens well when we let the Word reveal the truth about our lives—like a mirror.

Read James 1:19-27

Three Self-deceptions that can derail our lives.

1. We deceive ourselves when our flesh, in the attempt to justify oneself, redefines truth and ultimately redefines God. (16)
   
   
2. We deceive ourselves when we think the mere reading of the Word is sufficient. (22)
   
   
3. We deceive ourselves when we think that we our religion is real, yet our mouths show no restraint. (26)

Religion- is the outward expression of an inner work that reveals ones God. 

• True religion in a person is exemplified when they are conforming to the character of their God.
  
  
• Fraudulent religion is when a person forms God according to their wishes, thus becomes humanism not true religion.

We deceive ourselves when we think our religion is real, yet our mouths show no restraint. (26)

• If a tongue is unbridled, it means there is no control or submission. It is independent of any authority other than impulse. 
  • An unbridled tongue brings into question other evidences as being authentic and can make them worthless.
• “Worthless religion” means that it is not changing you and it certainly will not change others by your example.

“Religion is designed to produce an effect on our whole conduct; and if there is any one thing in reference to which it does not bring us under control, that one thing may show that all other appearances of piety are worthless.” Barnes

• The tongue is not meant to be the complete list by which our religion could be rendered worthless, but it is the most likely evidence of a true faith.

Authentic religion is evidenced by care for others and reverence for God’s holiness. (27)

• God approves and affirms the person who, in worship to God, serves others.
  • Widows and Orphans—people who have lost or have no protective covering that serves their needs. They are distressed.
  • Illustration: Offering “water” to those in need is like giving water to Jesus. This was the evidence that separated the sheep from the goats. Matthew 25:31-40

• God approves and affirms those who pursue the holiness of God as the standard for their life not the standards of society.
  • “Keep from being polluted”, “unstained”, or to be “without spot” by influence of the world.
  • It is not a spot that is merely on the surface. It is spot that reveals an inner corruption.  Illustration:  an apple.
  • The world pushes a standard of self-appeasement that corrupts good character, but God desires holiness—a setting apart.

Take Aways

1. God is about the whole of us, not just what can be seen.

1 Samuel 16:7b “…The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

2. The outer expressions of our life reveal the true condition of our heart.

Matthew 15:18 “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.”

3. The fruit of God working in you is revealed in a compassion towards others who are struggling and are distressed.
   
   
4. The fruit of God working in you will cause you to be disgusted by sin because it is not holy.