1996 SINGLE SERMONS
SINCERE FAITH
DR. JIM DIXON
JULY 21, 1996
JAMES 1:27
Karl Marx was the founder of Democratic Socialism and so-called Revolutionary Communism. Karl Marx was a brilliant man. He was educated at the University of Bonn and at the University of Berlin. In the year 1848, along with Frederick Engels, he wrote The Communist Manifesto. In 1867, he wrote his famous work Das Capital. His writings impacted the world. They changed the course of history. For a time, Karl Marx lived in Brussels. For a short time, he lived in Paris. For a lengthy period of time, he lived in London. But he was born in Prussia. He was Jewish by blood, and in his early years he was Jewish by faith. His family attended the synagogue on every Sabbath, either on Friday night or on Saturday. His family honored the Holy Days and the Jewish festivals from Hanukkah to Passover. They were Jewish.
One day, a very strange thing happened. The family had moved from one little town in Prussia to another town. Karl Marx was almost 13 years old. He was standing in the kitchen late in the afternoon with his mother when his father came home. His father made a very strange announcement. He said to his family, “We’re Lutherans.” And his family was stunned. They said, “How can we be Lutherans? We’re Jewish. We go to the synagogue. We celebrate Passover and Hanukkah. How can we be Lutheran?” And Karl Marx’s father said, “In the last town we lived in, it was possible to have a successful law practice and be Jewish because there were many synagogues in that town and there was a large Jewish community. But in this town we’ve just moved to, there are no synagogues. There are very few Jewish people. If I’m going to be successful as an attorney, then I’m going to need to be Lutheran just like everybody else. So we’re Lutheran.”
Well, this had a tremendous impact upon Karl Marx, and he grew up to hate God. He grew up to hate religion. He built, he founded, and he articulated a philosophy of life that was built on economics and on money. He hated religion and he called it “the opiate of the masses.” But Karl Marx had never seen true religion. He’d only seen religiosity. He’d never witnessed or experienced sincere faith. He’d only seen feigned spirituality.
Now, in the Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “I’m reminded of the sincere faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and then in your mother, Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you.” Now, the word “sincere” comes from the Latin word sincerus, a word which literally means “without wax.” You see, ancient sculptors, when they created a work of art that was without flaw, they said that it was sincere—sincerus, without wax. When a sculpture was flawed—if the nose was broken, if there was a crack—the broken piece or the crack was filled in with wax. If a finger was broken off of a sculpture, the finger was replaced with wax. But if the sculpture was whole—if it was without flaw, if it was without wax—it was sincerus.
Now, God wants Christians to have a sincere faith. He wants you to have a sincere faith, a faith that has nothing phony in it. He wants you to have a faith without wax, a faith that is whole. This morning we come to this verse, James 1:27: “Religion which is pure, faith that is sincere, spirituality that is genuine before our God and Father is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James states two qualities that are necessary for sincere faith or true religion.
The first quality is that we reach out to the afflicted. James is saying, “If your faith is sincere, if your religion is true, you will care about afflicted people. You will reach out to hurting people.” Now, in the passage, James gives two illustrations of hurting people. He refers to widows and orphans. In the biblical ancient world, widows and orphans were afflicted. Now, in Deuteronomy chapter 24, the Bible tells us that it was required in Jewish law that a Jewish farmer not harvest all of the crops. That way some of the harvest would be left, whether it be grain or whether it be grapes, so it could be there for widows and orphans. That’s in Deuteronomy chapter 24. In Deuteronomy chapter 26, we’re told that in the Jewish law it was mandatory that every third year the tithe of the people given to the Levites be shared with widows and orphans. We’re told in Deuteronomy chapter 10 and we’re told in Jeremiah chapter 49 that God is the protector of widows in orphans. We’re told in Isaiah chapter 68 that “God is the Father of the fatherless and the protector of widows.”
Now, why did widows and orphans need so much protection? Why did they need such provision? They needed it because in Judaism orphans and widows were oftentimes destitute. You see, in Jewish law, a widow could not receive inheritance. This was unusual, even in the ancient world. But it was true in Judaism because the Jewish people viewed a man’s premature death as the judgment of God. If a father or a husband died before reaching old age, that was considered to be the judgment of God and an indication that, somehow, that father or husband had displeased God through a sinful life. And so that stigma upon the Father was then vested upon the widow and upon the orphan. It was a tragedy.
But you see, James isn’t really talking about widows and orphans. James is simply talking about any people who are afflicted. He’s saying, “Whatever people are afflicted, if your religion is true, if your faith is sincere, you’ll reach out to them.” The Bible tells us that in the Jewish culture there was this awareness amongst the people that God was protecting widows and orphans. And if people were callous towards widows and orphans, they would receive the judgment of God. But that’s really true of all afflicted people.
The word for affliction in this verse is the word thlipsis. This Greek word thlipsis means “to suffer.” It was used to refer to physical suffering. It was used to refer to emotional and relational suffering. It was used to refer to spiritual pain or spiritual suffering. What James is saying in this verse where he says, “True religion is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction,” is that true religion, sincere faith, reaches out to afflicted people who are suffering, whether that suffering be physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. And so God wants to ask you today, “What are you doing for the afflicted? What are you doing to reach out to people who are hurting in your neighborhood, in your community, and in the church? Are you reaching out to help the afflicted? Is your Christianity real? Is your faith genuine? Or is it full of wax?”
For many years, the most famous prison in the United States was the Sing Sing Prison in New York State. It was more famous—really more infamous—than Alcatraz. Sing Sing was infamous because the prisoners there were so mistreated and the conditions were so tragic. In 1921, a man named Lewis Lawes became the new warden of Sing Sing Prison. He came with his wife, Kathryn. Lewis and Kathryn Lawes were committed Christians, and when they took over Sing Sing the conditions of the penitentiary were appalling. But he loved the prisoners. Lewis Lawes loved the prisoners, and he wanted to change those conditions.
Over a period of almost 20 years, the Sing Sing Penitentiary in New York State was transformed. By the year 1940, it had become a humanitarian penal colony. In the year 1940, Lewis Lawes was honored at a great banquet for the transformation of the Sing Sing Prison. He was given an award. When he was invited to the podium to accept the reward, he said, “I don’t deserve this.” He said, “This should go to my wife, Kathryn. It was Kathryn who transformed that penitentiary. I didn’t do it. She did it.” And he was right. You see, it was Kathryn who had loved those prisoners. In 1921, when Lewis and Kathryn Lawes came to Sing Sing, Kathryn was very young, and she had three children. She had been warned to stay away from the prisoners because they were violent. But she said, “God loves them, and God wants me to love them. God will protect me.”
That very first week, there was a basketball game that the prisoners were playing in. She went to the game with her children and she sat with the prisoners. And the prisoners were stunned. I mean, who is this woman? Soon they began to understand, as she began to love the prisoners. There was one prisoner there who was blind. Incredibly, Kathryn Lawes went out and learned braille so she could come back and teach the prisoner how to read braille. That prisoner would later cry when Kathryn Lawes died.
There was another prisoner who could not speak. Kathryn Lawes went out and learned sign language so she could teach this prisoner who could not speak sign language that he might be able to communicate. She showed unbelievable acts of compassion. Gradually, her attitude began to just transform the entire penal colony. The prisoners began to love her.
In the year 1937, she died in a tragic automobile accident. And when she died, the men all over Sing Sing Prison began to cry. In an unprecedented act, the prisoners were released for a day to go to her memorial service. At the Memorial service, many of those prisoners were allowed to speak. And the thing that they said again and again was this: “Kathryn Lawes was Jesus in the flesh to us.” Isn’t that a great statement? Kathryn Lawes was Jesus in the flesh to us.
Do you realize that’s what God wants us to be as we go out into the world? He wants us to be Jesus in the flesh to hurting people. That’s what He wants us to be to little children in the Sunday school classroom, Jesus in the flesh. That’s why He wants us to be Stephen Ministers, that we might be Jesus in the flesh to somebody who’s hurting. That’s why He wants us to go into the inner city and work with a little child (a Hispanic child or a black child, a poor child), that we might be Jesus in the flesh to them through our WhizKids program. See, He wants us to reach out to those who are hurting with the love of Christ.
Is our Christianity real? Is our faith sincere, or are we full of wax? That’s the question God would pose to us today. I know it’s really not a subject we want to deal with. I know that many of us feel like it’s just all we can do to cope with life. I mean, sometimes we feel like just putting a little bread on the table, taking care of our immediate family, and doing a good job at work is all we can manage. I mean, it just seems like it wears us out and we already feel stressed out. I mean, it’s all we can do to wake up to face another day. But you see, if you love Jesus Christ, if your religion is real, if your faith is sincere, if your spirituality is genuine, then you must (you will) reach out to hurting people. That’s what James is saying.
Now, secondly, if our faith is real, we will seek to be unstained by the world. “Religion which is pure and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the afflicted and to keep ourselves unstained from the world.” Now, the word “world” in the Bible is the Greek word cosmos. That word literally means “order,” or “arrangement.” That word cosmos was used to refer to the universe—the galactic systems—because the Greeks looked at the universe and they saw order. Sometimes the word cosmos was used to refer to the Earth—not the universe, but the Earth. This was because, again, the Greeks looked at this planet and they saw natural laws—they saw seasons, they saw a consistency of days. They saw order, and they saw arrangement in the creation of this world.
So, sometimes the word cosmos referred to the planet Earth. Sometimes the word cosmos referred to the world of people. Sometimes in the Bible the word cosmos, when it’s translated “world,” doesn’t mean the physical, geographical Earth, but it means the world of people. That’s because the Greeks looked at the world of people and they saw order and arrangement there, too, as people were divided into nations and cultures and subcultures with various languages and dialects. And so, they use this word that means “order” or “arrangement” to describe the world of people.
But you see, there’s a fourth meaning to the word cosmos. It doesn’t always mean universe or Earth or people. Sometimes the word cosmos (and this is particularly true in the Bible) refers to the kingdom of Satan. Did you know that? Sometimes the word cosmos in the Bible refers to the kingdom of Satan. It refers to the fallen powers of darkness which are dominant on this Earth. And you see, God wants us to understand that even in the kingdom of Satan, even in the realm of darkness, there is order and there is arrangement. Satan is organized, and that’s why this word cosmos is applied to the kingdom of Satan. He is organized and he has a strategy. He is not arbitrary or capricious. He has purpose. It’s malignant, but he has design. His kingdom is organized, he has demonic powers, and he himself rules them. He has strategy. He has philosophies that he would instill in the hearts of women and men the world over. Sometimes this word cosmos refers to the fallen world ruled by Satan.
The Bible says that Satan is the ruler of this world. In another place in the Bible, we’re told that Satan is the god of this world. Now, the Bible makes it clear that Satan is a usurper. His authority is not genuine, and one day Christ will come again, and He will claim the Earth for Himself, and He will judge the nations and He will receive His people to Himself. But in this age of the world, the world is fallen and it is dominated by Satan. So, when in this passage of scripture James says “if our faith is genuine, if it’s sincere, if it’s without wax, if we seek to be unstained by the world,” he means to not be influenced by Satan or by the philosophies or thinking of Satan.
See, John speaks the same way in the little letter of 1 John, where he says, “Do not love the cosmos. Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life—is not of the Father, but is of the cosmos.” It’s of the fallen powers of darkness. “And the cosmos,” John says, “passes away. But those that do the will of God abide forever.” Now, when he describes the kingdom of Satan or the fallen world as containing the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, these are expressions referring to materialism, the lust of the eyes; hedonism, the lust of the flesh; and egoism, the pride of life. These are the philosophies of Satan: materialism, hedonism, and egoism. He would instill these philosophies in you. He wants you to think that you can find fulfillment through materialism, hedonism, and egoism. He wants you to think that. By and large, the world believes it, and they live by those philosophies.
But you see, God wants you to be unstained from the things of Satan. God wants you to understand that material things are not in and of themselves evil. God created the material world. God said it is good. But God wants us as Christians (if our faith is sincere and without wax) to understand that we are to use material things in accordance with His will, not our will. He wants us to understand that pleasure is a gift from God. But pleasure should be used in accordance with His will, not with our will. I mean, Satan says, “If it feels good, do it.” But God says, “Only do it if I say so.” He wants us to understand that you’ll never find fulfillment if self is on the throne, but only if He is on the throne.
Ultimately, it’s all about sin because Satan’s great weapon is sin. Through sin, he leads people to spiritual death. So, in this little verse of James 1:27, the apostle is saying, “Stay away from sin. Keep yourself unstained from the world. Avoid sin.” The issue is righteousness. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” He would ask you today (if you would have a sincere faith) if you hunger and thirst after righteous. I mean, do you long for holiness? Do you really want to live a life pleasing to Him? And then He would ask you, “If you do long for holiness, what’s your motive? If you do hunger for righteousness, why? What’s your motive?” There can be varying motives. Some are good, some are not good. And you can actually hunger for righteousness and still have a faith full of wax. The Pharisees prove that. So, what’s your motive in longing to be good? What’s your motive?
I’ll tell you a little story. Many of you have probably heard it. It’s an old story about a man who worked from 4:00 PM to 12 midnight. That was his shift at work, 4:00 PM to midnight. When work was done, he walked home every evening. And one night the moon was out (it was full and it was bright) and he could see better than normal. And so he decided that night to take a shortcut home through the cemetery. Now, he had never done this before, and he went through the cemetery that night without incident.
It shortened his journey home by one half mile. So he thought, “I’m going to do this every night after work. At midnight I’m going to leave work and just head home through the cemetery.” He did that day after day and week after week. He kind of wore a path where he walked. Well, one day, unbeknownst to him, they dug a grave in the cemetery, right in the path that he walked through. It was a dark night. There was no moonlight and there were clouds. It was really black. And so he headed into the cemetery. He just walked by habit, almost ritualistically, through the cemetery. And soon he fell into that grave, stunned. He found himself at the bottom of a pretty deep grave, and it was moist and damp and dark. He tried to climb out and he couldn’t get out. He kept trying to climb out, struggling, but couldn’t get out. So finally he just sat down in the corner of the grave and he thought, “I’ll wait for morning light.” And he fell asleep there.
Well, he wasn’t asleep very long before he heard a big thump. A drunk man had fallen into the grave. A drunk man had fallen into the grave, and this drunk man began to struggle to get out. He was struggling to go up those moist walls but getting nowhere. Finally it occurred to the first man that this drunk man didn’t know that somebody else was in the grave. He reached out and he touched the drunk man on the leg. He said, “Friend, you’ll never get out of here.” But he did. He did.
Now, you see, sometimes fear can be a tremendous motivator, can’t it? I mean, sometimes the adrenaline surge that comes with fear can be incredible. And some people generally—even in their religion, even in their faith, in their spirituality—are motivated by fear. Maybe you’re motivated by fear. Maybe the reason you seek righteousness, maybe the reason you seek to be good, is you’re afraid of God. Maybe it’s fear of God. I know for me, in the early years of my Christian life, oftentimes that was the case. And there’s a sense in which this is not entirely inappropriate, because, biblically, we do stand in awe of God. The Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. And certainly we venerate God and we respect God.
There’s a kind of holy fear. But God doesn’t want your actions, your quest for holiness, your pursuit of goodness, to be based primarily on fear. The Bible makes that very clear. God wants your pursuit of holiness to be based on love. He wants it to be based on love. And that’s why Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.” The Bible says, “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out all fear. Fear has to do with punishment, and those who fear are not perfected in love.” So you see, God doesn’t really want you to be motivated by fear so much as He wants you to be motivated by love.
Now, here’s a warning. There were a group of people called the Pharisees. They were not motivated by fear or love, and yet they sought, in some sense, goodness. They sought, in some sense, righteousness. But they weren’t motivated by fear of God, and they weren’t motivated by love of God. They were motivated by pride. They wanted to feel good about themselves. They wanted to be pleased with themselves, and they wanted to impress others, but they didn’t want to please God. It wasn’t about that. The judgment of Christ was strongly upon them. If you’ve read the gospels, the judgment of Christ was strongly upon them.
This quest for righteousness is tricky business. It’s important. We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness, but we need to examine our motives too (if we would be without wax). Let me tell you what the Pharisees did. They took the law of God and they expanded it into legal minutia. For instance, the took the Decalogue—the 10 Commandments of Exodus chapter 20—and they expounded upon each one of the 10 commandments so that each commandment became a series of commandments, with sub-commandments under the primary commandment. For instance, the fourth commandment has to do with the Sabbath day. In the fourth commandment God says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all of your work. But the seventh day is holy, set apart for God.” Well, the Pharisees looked at that and said, “We’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath. What does that mean?” And so they decided to define work. They came up with 33 different categories of work, all of which were illegal on the Sabbath day.
Now, one of the 33 categories of work they called burden-bearing. You couldn’t bear a burden on the Sabbath. Then they had to define burden-bearing. That category itself needed definition, so they came up with more than 300 categories of burden-bearing. For instance, they ultimately decided that you couldn’t carry so much as a sewing needle on the Sabbath day, or you would violate the law and you would be unrighteous.
Now, this was tough stuff and they certainly needed to lighten up. But why were they doing all this? It wasn’t because of fear of God, and it wasn’t because of love of God. Why were they doing all of this? They were trying to define righteousness in terms of behavior, and they were trying to earn righteousness by their own behavior. They wanted to acquire righteousness the old-fashioned way. They wanted to earn it. And they knew it had to be tough. They knew that it would require great discipline, but they wanted to be proud. So they established all these petty laws and they actually lived by them. Many of them really did live by them, but their righteousness was not pleasing to God because it wasn’t for God. It was all done in pride. It was self-righteousness and it was to impress others. It wasn’t out of love.
It wasn’t real righteousness anyway. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount was all about. That’s what the sermon on the plain was all about. I mean, Jesus wants us to understand that you really can’t earn righteousness. There’s a certain humility that you have to take for this quest for righteousness because you can’t really earn it. Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ I just say to, whoever looks upon a person of the opposite sex with lust has already committed adultery in their heart. You’ve heard it said of old, ‘You shall not kill. Whoever kills shall be liable for judgment.’ I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother or sister is liable for judgment.” See, Christ wants us to understand that if you’re going to try to equate righteousness with a behavior code, you can’t do that because righteousness isn’t simply behavior. It’s attitude. It’s thought. It’s heart. It’s what’s in your heart.
He also wants us to understand that even in terms of behavioral righteousness the standard is too high. We’ll never measure up. He said, “You’ve heard it said of old, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ I say to you, love your enemy. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other as well. From him who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs of you. If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. But as you would have people treat you, even so treat them. If you’re good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners are good to those who are good to them. And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again. But I say to you, love your enemy. Do good, lend, expecting nothing in return, and you’ll be children of the most high and your reward shall be great.”
You see, the standard is high, but Christ wants us to understand that it’s so high that there’s no such thing as self-righteousness. You can’t earn righteousness. Christ has earned righteousness. And through faith in Him, His righteousness has been imputed to us. By faith in Him, His righteousness has been vested upon us. In terms of our own thought and our own heart and our own behavior, we do seek purity (not because of pride, hopefully, but because we love Him and we want to please Him). And we long to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
There should always be, in this quest for holiness, a humility that acknowledges that there’s a little wax in all of us. There should be humility to acknowledge that we’re sinners and that in this life, until we see Jesus face-to-face, we’re not going to be, in our behavior and in our thoughts, truly holy. But we long for it. We long for it, for Christ’s sake. If our faith is sincere, if our religion is true, if it’s not feigned spirituality, if it’s not insincere faith, then we reach out to the afflicted and we long for holiness. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, thank You for Your Word, which teaches us. And Lord, I know that these are difficult things for us. And I know that sometimes a subject like this, Lord, is not pleasing to the ear. Lord, sometimes we have itching ears and we want to be entertained. Yet Lord, these things are so important. So Lord, help us to be genuine in our faith. Lord, help us to have true religion. If we’re really Christians, Lord, then help us to reach out to the afflicted with Your love for all who are hurting. And Lord, help us to hunger and thirst after righteousness because we love You, not for pride’s sake. We pray these things, Lord Jesus, in Your great name. Amen.