What Is Your religion?
I came across a statement this week that I had put in a note file sometime ago. It is a simple declaration that came to me in a moment of prayer.
The statement is as follows; “You want to change the world, prove it.”
Now I know that we can go a lot of different places with this statement but today I want to focus on only one. That one is the vehicle, if you will, or the standards we follow in our effort to be relevant in our community and the world.
The code we live by or to be more specific, our religion. Now this is a word that I have purposely used very little because I have always believed that it was divisive and exclusive in its very nature.
Nothing has changed in my opinion because for over two thousand years the church splintered apart and each resulting order, or religion if you will has declared themselves to be the origin of truth and if you are not like them you are not right.
Religion has excommunicated people from fellowship, refused to allow fellowship. Nations have been slaughtered and murder committed in the name of religion.
Yet the power to change the world lies in our religion. There are several definitions of the word so I chose one that would mean the most to us today.
“A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.”
Now we all know that our spiritual leader is Christ so I am going to attempt to use the Bible to define the beliefs, values and practices that He would have us follow.
First let’s read how religion is defined in the Bible.
In the OT it was defined this way.
Deuteronomy 10:12 KJV
And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Micah 6:8 KJV
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Message
But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.
Even in the OT God was speaking to the heart of our lives. In the midst of the law and all the rules and regulations what would matter most is loving God and doing right by our fellow man.
Living an amazing life in Christ is no different. The core values that God was trying to get inside His people did not change with the coming of His Son. In fact they were presented to us over and over again in the life of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles.
You want to change the world? Prove it.
James 1:27 KJV
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.
James is echoing the heart of God as he defined religion for the church.
It is not something that we just talk about. It is something that must be done. The word religion in this passage is defined this way; “religious worship, especially the service of religion.” James used it to contrast with what is the wrong way.
James 1:26-27 Message
Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
These passages do not imply that this is all that we should do to follow Christ. Only that these basic principles are the foundation of our beliefs and the means to reach the destiny of the church and our own individual destiny.
Ok, so these are our principles. Do good for others and keep ourselves from the evils of the world. Guarding against the corruption that enslaves our hearts and our minds.
This brings me to the point. What it’s all about. If we are going to change the world the first place we have to go is within. To change the world we may just have to change ourselves first.
There is a wealth of writing in the Bible about how to treat others.
My question this morning is. “how do you treat yourself?”
Betty and I watched a movie a few days ago that had us both in tears. It was a story about a young girl who was dying of cancer and the fight that her and her family waged to keep her alive. The particular story was fictional yet it is played out every day somewhere in the world. A child or even an adult with a terminal disease fighting to live along with their family and friends. Wanting to live, fighting to live, yet facing death’s door every day.
Betty said something important and insightful that I want to share. She said that if possible she would make everyone who who lives in a destructive lifestyle. Bound and deceived by drugs, alcohol, sex or any other hurtful and deadly habit. People who are trying to kill themselves by living their lives like nothing can hurt them.
Betty said they should have to watch someone that wanted to live but could not, and possibly it would make them want to stop trying to kill them selves.
It is a thought and for some it could work. Yet so often people have convinced themselves that what they do is alright. That if it hurts it only hurts them and not someone else.
I have never met anyone that somebody didn’t love. Mostly because when I met them I loved them whether anyone else did or not.
If you are here this morning because you think no one cares you came to the wrong place. With all our hearts there are some who are endeavoring to not talk about their religion, but do their religion.
If you think you are only hurting yourself, look around; someone’s heart is breaking because of the hurt that you are living.
So what is it all about? The Bible says that when we come to Christ old things will pass away and all things become new. The Bible says who the Son makes free is really free.
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
An Amazing Life awaits us all as we choose to follow Christ. A life of love and service to God and to our fellow man. This is our religion, our standards,and they have been set high. Following these principles can and will change the world. Beginning with our world and the destiny that God has for us.
As I close let me go back to the question I asked earlier. “How do you treat yourself?”
Let me share some thoughts from the Apostle Peter. I will read them from the message to save time.
II Peter 1:3-9 Message
Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
Everything in the word of God says you can be free. It says you are loved. It says you have promises. It declares your destiny. Your worth in the eyes of God.
Pastor Marvin
