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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
James 1:27.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before
God the Father
is this to visit orphans and widows
in their affliction,
and to keep oneself
unstained from the world.
Right.
This is the final message of our four week
series that we're calling Good News
for Every Family.
We started out
with Good News for Children.
That was the outdoor service
then Good News for Every Marriage.
And then last week, Good News for Broken
Families, which I thought was great.
And now orphans and widows is Good News
for the Family-less.
And the message seems to be clear
that God doesn't leave anyone out,
which is pretty profound.
It means I can say to you,
no matter who you are,
no matter how far away you feel from God
or how close you feel,
no matter if you have a wonderful family
or a broken family, or no family
at all, God pursues you
and that is amazing.
Here are the three points
that I want to pull out
of this verse,
and I want to use this as the outline.
I want to talk about the religion of God,
the heart of God, and the family of God.
The religion of God. The heart of God.
In the family of God.
First, the religion of God.
Let me start with this.
I don't like that word I don't like
I don't know if I've ever liked
the word religion,
and I only I have to use it
because James used it,
which seems weird for me to say.
The reason I don't like it is precisely
the way it sounds in this verse,
because religion always seems like
a bunch of rules, like boxes to check.
And I'm good at checking boxes.
And you know, in this verse
it seems like, hey, if you want to please
God, just visit the orphans and widows.
And I could just go check, check.
But it doesn't really do anything
inside of me.
That's why I don't like religion.
But I told you a couple weeks ago
that it's important
to read the Bible in context,
because if you just read a single verse
out of context,
you can misunderstand the whole thing.
This is what James says.
But right before this verse he says, but
be doers of the word and not hearers
only, deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hear of the word
and not a doer,
he's like a man who looks intently
at his natural face in a mirror,
for he looks at himself and goes away,
and at once forgets what he was like.
But the one who looks into the perfect
law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,
being no hearer of
being, no hearer
who forgets, but a doer who acts.
He will be blessed in his doing.
James likens the
Bible to a mirror, and when you look
in a mirror, what do you see?
You don't see a list of rules.
You see. You
okay? Yeah, this is the point.
Don't miss this. This is big.
Before the Bible ever tells you
what to do.
It tells you who you are.
Before the Bible ever tells you
what to do.
It tells you who you are
and what James is saying here.
And he does it all through his letter.
If you're struggling to obey God,
whether you're struggling
to forgive someone
or give generously or love those
that God loves,
you forgotten who you are.
You've just forgotten who you are.
And I say that because that's the central
message of Christianity is
is called the gospel.
And the gospel literally means good news.
That's what that word means.
And news is different than advice.
Every other religion is based on advice.
Do these things, then God will accept you.
But not Christianity.
Christianity is based on news.
I remember hearing it, hearing this story
and it helped me a lot.
In the ancient world,
if you lived in a city in a
an army was going to attack your city.
You would send your army out
to meet them in the field
before they got to
the city, and then you'd wait
to see what happened.
And from the battle lines,
they would send a runner
to tell everyone in the city
what had happened.
If the runner came and said, the enemy
has broken through, bar the gates.
Arm yourselves. Prepare to fight.
That's advice.
That's advice.
But if the runner comes
and the runner says
the battle has been won.
The enemy has been decimated.
Rejoice and be glad.
That's news.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is news
is that the battle has been
fought by Jesus.
Rejoice and be glad.
That's Romans five eight.
The God demonstrates his love toward
us, that while we were still sinners,
Christ died.
For a second Corinthians 521
God made him who had no sin
to be sin for us, so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God.
It's like
James is saying,
if if I lived in under incredible debt
and someone paid off my debt,
and you came to visit me
a couple of months later
and found me with the same anxiety
that I had before the debt was paid,
you say, have you forgotten
what has happened to you?
See that?
That's what James is saying.
James is giving something to do.
But he said, before I tell you what to do,
you need to remember who you are,
that the battle has been fought.
The debt has been paid by Jesus.
Rejoice and be glad,
and in that joy,
then live out of that joy.
And that brings me to my second point,
which is the heart of God.
There are a lot of images
that the Bible gives
to try
to describe our relationship with God.
It'll talk about
God being like a king
and we are his servants.
God is a shepherd and we are his sheep.
God is a Savior and we are
the ones who have been set free.
But one of the most powerful images
I think, in the whole Bible is the one in
right in the middle of Romans,
and it's the image of adoption.
And I love this image.
This is what Paul says, for
you did not receive
the spirit of slavery
to fall back into fear,
but you've received the spirit of adoption
as sons
by whom we cry, ABBA, father!
The Spirit Himself bears witness
with our spirits
that we are children of God.
I love adoption,
I love that the whole thing,
because when someone is adopted,
they hear unmistakably from someone.
I see you,
I want you,
and I love you, right?
That's what this says,
that God does that with us.
You know the Gospel of Luke, that
the disciples are hanging around Jesus and
and then they
they one of them shows up to Jesus
and said, Jesus,
would you teach us to pray?
And of course, you would ask
that if you're a disciple, right?
If you're if you're watching Jesus
and you watch him pray,
I mean, I always feel like I'm
not a very good prayer,
but if I was around Jesus,
I would ask him that.
Teach me to pray like you. Pray right?
And Jesus said, okay.
And then he taught them
what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer.
But we become so familiar
with the Lord's Prayer,
I think sometimes that we we miss
what must have taken their breath away.
Because the way Jesus starts
the Lord's Prayer,
he says, okay, I'll teach you how to pray.
This is the way you start.
Call him father.
And right then,
that must have blown their minds
because no one called God Father.
What Jesus was saying is because of me,
when you go to God,
you can call him dad.
When James mentions orphans
and widows in the first century,
they were terribly vulnerable.
Orphans and widows
fell through the cracks.
There was no social
welfare net to catch them
if they didn't, if you didn't have family
in the first century,
you had nothing.
You know the gospel, Luke,
Jesus goes into a town
and there's a funeral procession going on,
and Jesus ends up asking, what's going on?
And they say, oh,
that's the only son of a widow.
And it
says that
Jesus was filled with compassion.
And he goes over
and he raises the young man from the dead
and gives him back to his mom.
The reason that James mentions
orphans and widows
is because they matter to God.
It's showing God's heart
what what God is saying
is that if you are alone
or you are lonely,
he's saying,
I see you,
right, I want you.
I want those who are lonely
and alone, taken care of.
And that brings us to my final point,
which is the family of God.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says
a couple of really interesting things.
How I the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says
a lot of interesting things, but
there are two that kind of stuck out to me
as I prepared for this message.
The first is in Matthew 12.
Jesus is teaching in a house
and there are tons of people.
They packed the house, which you can just
imagine so much so no one can get in.
And, Jesus, mother and his brothers come,
his family comes and they're outside
and they send word they can't get in.
So they send word
in, tell Jesus we're out here
and we want to talk with him.
And so somebody told somebody
who told somebody told somebody,
the message gets to Jesus.
And this is the way, Jesus responds,
says while he was still speaking
to the people, behold,
his mother and his brothers
stood outside asking to speak to him.
But he replied to the man who told him,
who is my mother?
Who are my brothers?
And stretching out his hand
toward his disciples, he said, here
my mother and my brothers,
for whoever does the will of my father
in heaven
is my brother and sister and mother.
I don't think Jesus was dissing his family
as much as he was saying,
you don't understand.
I'm creating a whole new family.
He says something similar
in Matthew chapter 19.
In Matthew chapter 19,
a man comes to Jesus and he's referred to
as the rich young ruler.
And he comes to Jesus and he says, what
do I need to do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus says, go and sell
all that you have
and come and follow me.
And it was too steep a price for that guy.
So the guy just went away.
And this is not my point.
But what a mess, right?
What a mess on his part.
Forget that he was rich.
Forget that Jesus said go and sell all.
But Jesus said, come,
be one of my disciples.
Follow me. What?
He was inviting him to walk with him.
24 seven.
Can you imagine what that would have been?
If he had done that,
we would know his name.
We would name our children
after that guy we would name like Peter
or John or Matthew, but instead
he's just an anonymous guy
that was referred to
as the rich young ruler
because he chose his money and property
over Jesus.
But there's some high point.
What happens right after that is Peter.
You can always count on Peter
to say something.
And Peter says, Jesus,
we've left everything to follow you
and you can hear what he's doing.
He's just going, hey, we're good, right?
I mean, we've sacrificed to follow you.
And Jesus says this to Peter.
He says, no, Peter,
no one who has left father or mother
or sister or brothers or houses to follow
me will not receive back
100 times in this life
and the life to come.
What Jesus is saying is that Jesus didn't
come just to call individual believers
to himself.
Jesus came to create a family.
When Jesus says to me,
you can because of me,
you can call God Father.
You can call him dad.
And he says to you, because of me,
you can call him father.
You can call him dad.
What he's saying is you have siblings,
I have siblings,
they're sitting all around
scads of siblings.
There's a sociologist and historian named
Rodney Stark.
He wrote a book
called The Rise of Christianity.
I've mentioned it
before. I really like that book.
But in that book, he tries to explain why
Christianity spread across the Roman
Empire at lightning speed,
and one of the reasons he gives
it is the way the church responded
to those who had been marginalized,
to people who are poor or orphaned,
or widows or slaves,
because when someone
who is marginalized,
who was alone would come into the church,
what they would hear is the heart of God,
but they also were able
to feel the heart of God,
because when they walked
into the ancient church,
what they felt was
a bunch of people would say, we see you,
we want you,
we love you,
you're home,
right?
Because the church is filled with people
who know what it is to be adopted,
who know
what it is
for God the Father to look at us and say,
I see you, I want you, I love you
because before the Bible tells you
what to do,
it tells you who you are.
There's an emperor named Julian
the Apostate.
Some years ago, archeologists
found a letter
that he wrote, and I love this
because Julian
the Apostate hated Christians.
And when he wrote the letter,
and I'll paraphrase it,
he was writing it to some pagan priests,
and he was saying, you know, I hate those
blasted followers of the Galilean.
That's what he called Christians.
Because Jesus was from Galilee.
He wouldn't even mention Jesus name.
But he said, listen, they take care of
not just their own.
They care of take care of ours.
And then he
told the priests, if you don't start
imitating them and doing what
they're doing,
the whole world is going to follow Jesus.
And I love that,
because, you know, they did.
But the other thing is, I like it
that he realized we don't play fair
because for us, people aren't just people.
People are family.
So if you are here
and you are alone or lonely,
I have good news for you.
And the good news is that God sees you.
God wants you.
God loves you.
But he's not just calling you to himself,
he's calling you to a family,
to this family.
And for us,
we want to be a church where anybody
who walks in that door not doesn't
just hear about the heart of God for them,
but they feel it
because we say, we see you,
we want you, we love you.
The gospel is good news
and it's good news for everyone.
It's good news for you.
Would you pray with me?
Our father in heaven,
we come to you and I am so, so grateful.
Adoption is something
that just, resonates with me.
The fact that you look at us and you say
you see our us in our loneliness
and brokenness, and you say, I see you.
I want you, I love you,
and I will prove that by sending my son
Jesus
to live in your place, die
in your place, and resurrection.
Thank you that you didn't give us
some kind of dry religion of rules,
but you gave us something
that actually changes us
from the inside out, because there's
nothing more powerful than that.
I pray that you would create
us, create a church here
where we will have your heart.
So everybody who walks in here,
we're not just here about you,
but we'll feel
what it feels like to be loved by you
because of us.
That's our prayer.
Thank you. We pray this in Jesus name.
Amen.