Gerald Griffin: good morning hear me working good uh one quick story about denison ministries i was thinking about it when um mike was up here telling about the different things they do i went to cuba with three other pastors probably oh maybe 12 15 years ago i did not i knew jim denison i didn't know a lot about his different ministries and while i was there uh one of the local pastors uh was i guess he's kind of like the guy who does a lot of writing for the church there anyway they gave him a laptop and delivered him a desktop and I thought oh that's really neat they're giving him a laptop they said no it's already loaded with everything Jim is it ever written it's just like ready to go because he's the one writing over here so he can always look and say what Jim say say about that, you know, and I love that. That's just a heart of how can I help, and that's something I really do appreciate about Denison Ministries. I'm going to talk to you today out of James chapter 1, and we will get into the passage, but I'm giving you a don't be afraid because I'm gonna talk a little bit and then jump in the passage. Okay, just to kind of set it up.
Gerald Griffin: Appreciate your prayers for Tammy and I next week. We go back to the church that I pastored for 30 years we're going back next week first time to go back so um praying that'll be a good time and praying that the people won't walk out and say aren't we glad he's gone you know that's that's the biggie you know i'd like for him to at least say oh my goodness he's still alive anything like that you know when i was a kid we went to a very large church in fact we were not believers believers as as when i was a kid my mom wasn't a believer my dad wasn't a believer both of them came to christ after my brother and i came to Christ he said well why'd they go to church because that's what you did we were in east texas and you went to church and so the family there were a lot of believers in the family some that were not but like with my mom and dad they just didn't know that they weren't they equated if they had a church they must be a christian and some people are that way it's not about a relationship with Jesus it's just you know what church do you go to and that's kind of their thing but God did not come to the earth in the form of a baby just so we'd have a denomination he came so we would have a relationship so anyway when I was a kid I went we went to this big church it was chosen because it was big that I remember that I remember clearly my parents talking about this is a nice church and people are friendly but it's too too small it's almost the Goldilocks three bears story we were looking for the just the right one and I remember when we joined that church one thing about it was it was so high inside and somebody at one time told me a story that one of the top lights up there in the center had to be changed from the roof you had to go up there and open a trap door and change the light bulb And then, of course, they told me as a kid, and one guy fell and died from it. I mean, you know what I thought about every time I went in that church, don't you?
Gerald Griffin: I looked at that light. Is there somebody up there about to fall right now? Well, when I said, when i was a kid we went to that large church and one Sunday morning one of the staff members, I only knew the pastor. And you know the pastor because he's one of these guys with snow white hair, cascading back, very much southern baptist pastor.
Gerald Griffin: big white hair and he wore a black suit every Sunday every Sunday it was it was that very formal church and he and one guy got up and said pray for the pastor today and they named some guy I'm sorry I don't remember his name he was a member of the church that they are on a mission trip and he named where but I don'T remember but all I know is I was an eight-year-old little boy and I didn't know really anything about missionaries, and it shocked me. Why is the pastor and this guy on a mission trip? Does that mean they won't come back? You know, to me, missions was there's a missionary. They live here, and the only thing I knew about missionaires is I thought they went to Africa, and I thought they had to sleep in a hut, andI thought they had to eat weird stuff like bugs. I mean, that was my thinking because those were the few stories I guess I'd heard and so immediately my mind is occupied for the next 30 minutes with thinking about my pastor in that black wool suit sleeping in a hut and eating bugs I mean that's the only thing I could think about and I thought about man that's a real hardship that I didn't use words like that when I was eight but that's that that's not easy and And I guess that's a really big deal, and it makes God look at you and think, wow, pretty good. I mean, I think I'm going to count them as one of the big ones, one ofthe good ones, one ofthespiritual, oneofthe real religious people, because they went over here to sleep in a hut and eat bugs. And it wasn't anything about the gospel. I didn't understand that. It was just going someplace else, andit's difficult.
Gerald Griffin: So here's an honest question for you today, And I really do mean to ask this question and let you kind of look at it from every angle. At eight years old, was I correct that God looks down and he sees what we do and he evaluates us by how many risks we've taken, how many mission trips we've gone on, how many Bible studies we've led, or how many we've attended? I mean, how does God look at that? how does he evaluate us because he does evaluate us he does know who we are and i will tell you right off i've been on a lot of mission trips now at my age and many of you have been on one or many mission trips so is that what god looks at he says okay they've kind of arisen to upper tier because they do this stuff and so i'm not saying any of those things are good or bad i think they're are good to go on mission trips, think it's good to go to Bible study, but I'm asking something a little bit narrower. How close was the eight-year-old me to understanding what God is looking at when he looks at our religion? And that's what the book of James is going to talk about, because even what I didn't understand back then, and here's my premise, here's what I'm going to try to prove today. No matter where you go to church, no matter what is the name on the sign out front, whether it's Baptist or or Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, non-denominational, no matter what it'll do, no matter how many years you may have served the Lord, you can rack up a lot of scorecard points and still kind of be on empty in his scorecard. So here's why. We're all pretty good at looking at how devoted we are on the big day.
Gerald Griffin: Me today is standing in the pulpit. I can look at myself today and evaluate myself today, and that's kind of the time I do it. i don't evaluate it when i'm in a bad mood i don'T evaluate my christian walk but nobody's watching somebody on a mission trip and thinking i bet they're faking it no they think they're the real thing right because they came and did all that most of our lives however are not mission trips and they're not big days most of Our lives happen on ordinary days like a tuesday that's our life life that's the way we really live and that's where in the book of james james the brother of the lord is writing to us saying something about every ordinary day not the big days you see you can spend your whole life being religious and end up having wasted your time not that you're lying to god because you can't do that i can't either there's no lying to god he sees right through it but we do lie to ourselves we do fool ourselves quite often and so it's not just how much we can give or sing or pray or fast or sit through a sermon James is going to name three things in just a moment that help us really evaluate where we are so to James when he makes this statement it's in James chapter 1 in verse 26 let's read that together James says if anyone thinks that's That's a key word. Thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart. This person's religion is worthless.
Gerald Griffin: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and keep oneself unstained from the world. Now, when he says if anyone thinks he is religious, he's simply saying this. it's the way we imagine it's the way we imagine ourselves if you imagine yourself what are you really seeing and i'll just give a warning here self-deception deception is the easiest deception that there is so many times that's where we go in and the word religious to james means the visible stuff the services the singing the giving the praying the trips all those things look like faith from the outside and so james is saying if you're looking at yourself self and you're evaluating yourself by all the stuff that is on the outside it can be totally worthless and how is it going to be totally worthless well he gives us three tests none of them look like what you you'd expect a religious exam to look like God is looking at us and what he's looking at and it's just simply these three things what comes out of your mouth what you do do with your hands and what you get on you so that's the whole exam warren weirsby summarized this passage into two lines worth repeating he said real religion was never about ceremonies or temples or special days on the calendar it's about what you actually do with god's word what you say how you serve and whether you stay clear of the world the way the world is which is It's just another way of saying what I said, your mouth, your hands, and what gets on you. So let's start off with the mouth. Let's startoff with the most critical, biting statement that James says. If anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, he deceives himself.
Gerald Griffin: Bridle is a horse word. In recent days, we have had opportunity to watch many programs on television that have horses in them. and every time I watch a horse or see a horse, because I did not grow up around horses, I grew up around cows. Horses are a different animal altogether. There's something a little bit scary to me about a horse because I've walked up right next to them, and they're so big, and they'RE so powerful. I remember as a little boy, I went riding one time. Only time in my life I've been riding. It's not saying I wouldn't ride again. It'S the only opportunity I had, and so we got out to the place we were going to ride together it was our Sunday school class that went and they were they were divvying up all the pretty little horses and they're all going out and all the other kids are getting on that for some reason or another probably because I was short I was overlooked I was in the back and all of a sudden they said oh we need one more we didn't bring out enough horses and the guy said go ahead it's okay get big red out of the barn seriously big red and he brought big red over and big red's bigger than all the other horses like you might imagine and he said it's okay we'll help you get up on the horse but you know we need more than the little ladder we had for the others and i got on i got on the course and the guy says uh she she tends to bite so keep your hands right here don't you know don't go towards her neck just leave her alone and also she sometimes will run away so stay on the path and hold the reins and and no matter what you do horses can sense your fear so don't be afraid you know that's kind of like me saying to you just right now I want you you to not think about a frying pan. Okay, can y'all do that? Don't think about a fryingpan. Okay now frying pans in your head. You can't tell a kid don't be afraid when you just describe this horse because the horse will read your mind. Well that's kind of my feeling of a horse. It's big, it's powerful, and they put bits in the horse's mouth because something as strong and fast as a horse follow me on this something as strong and fast as a horse will run wherever it wants whenever it wants if there's no bridle and that is your tongue also it will it is so fast it is powerful it will run wherever it wants to run whenever it to run unless there is a bridle so So James is telling us, left alone, the tongue is going to get you in trouble. Now, I know this is not an East Texas Southern Baptist Church book. Can I get an amen over that one? I mean, the Tongue gets me in trouble and has gotten me in trouble my whole life. And if we're all being honest here, we would say, some of you would say well, not so much for me. and we would know it just got you in trouble again because that wasn't the truth it just gets us in trouble James is telling us there's there is a problem it is in our mouth it is our tongue and here's the trap here's we guard excuse me we we grade ourselves on the curve curve what we say is my speech is good it is clean it is edifying it is not deceitful 95 of the time 98 of the times i don't let my tongue carry me into things i don t talk bad about people i don criticize i don lie about things i dont get angry and say bad things 98 percent of the time but the problem is simply this the curve here the percentage doesn't work if I were to say to you listen I've learned a lot of things in my life and I've had a lot of struggles with things but I've gotten I'm a pretty honest guy because I only steal 10 percent of the Time that's true three days out of a month I steal so what I'm an honest guy because 10% is not that bad a number. Well, nobody would trust the guy. Nobody would trust somebody like that. That's not acceptable with us. And I'm sorry, but 95 or 98% of our tongue being correct is not acceptable to God. It just doesn't work that way. So James is giving us a test here to see whether or not our heart is exposing who we are and the tongue always exposes our heart solomon already told us that the tongue matters a lot because he said in proverbs 18 21 death and life are in the power of the tongue death and live not kind of bad at times and kind of good at times he says death and alive so every time we open our mouths one of the other starts starts working that's a warning for us we can cut we can hurt we can heal all these things Spurgeon was the great English pastor who's who if you were raised in a Protestant church you may have heard his name many times Spurgen put in an illustration years and years ago it is stuck with pastors throughout the years I think it'll stick with you too how does a doctor usually start start an exam. He usually says, or she usually says stick out your tongue. It's an amazing thing that something that small is a diagnostic tool, but James and Spurgeon both arrive at the same place. The mouth does not lie about the heart. So you live long enough and you'll begin to understand that the tongue, what we say is probably the hardest thing to bring under the Spirit's control. Your tongue reacts faster than anything else. In other words, if somebody comes up and says something ugly to you today, you might not take a swing at them, but you sure might open your mouth. It's just the way we react. It is extremely fast. It ist something that James says you have to be careful because if your tongue is out of control, you're out of of control. If your tongue is out of control, you are not someone whose religion is pure before God. You're not someone that God's looking at and saying, man, they're really walking the line. They're really working with Jesus. You can sound off and be so strong in the doctrine of sin, and you can still say something about your best friend you would not let anyone else say.
Gerald Griffin: You can lead worship on a Sunday and lead the rest of your week with a lot of bad language. that's the tongue and today where we live when we live there's no slowing down about this problem you want me to prove it technology we see we tend to have this idea that whatever crosses our mind everybody needs to hear we text it we post it before we ever should and before we even and engage our brains. Now, one of my friends, love the guy, he is one of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life. He has an amazingly sharp wit. He is also from Oklahoma, and so he has an Oklahoma turn to him to where he'll say things in a certain way, just cracks me up. Very smart. Years ago, he was rising or climbing fast in his job, and he was posting on social media a lot, and it was always funny to me but now he is being looked at by his whole organization people that don't think like me and he said hey man he said I need you to help me with something I said sure what do you need he said could you be my filter I said dude you've never had a filter what makes you think you're gonna get a filter now I know I'm not gonna get filter that's why I'm asking you to be my my filter and I played along with it sure man what do you want he said well when I post something like on this back in the day or post something on Facebook if it doesn't look right you don't think it's going to land right would you let me know and I laughingly said you bet the next morning I woke up my phone toes tells me that my friend has posted something I go and I read it and I I immediately start hitting the dial, calling him, calling him. He's not answering. Call again, call again. Call about the third time he answers. He said, what's up, man? Man, I'm about to do such and such. I said, take it down. Take it down! He said. What? What I put up this morning? Yes. Well, I don't see anything wrong with it. And I explained what could be wrong with. He says, I am taking it down right now.
Gerald Griffin: The tongue engages, even if it's through the finger faster than we can ever imagine this general warning about the tongue is easy to agree with and walk out and totally forget it not apply it think about the hardest last conversation you had in your own home or what you said to someone who was working with you or what what you said to someone at a restaurant and ask yourself was that true was it necessary or was it just the first thing that got into your mouth before the brain caught up think about the text you sent and whether or not that could be misconstrued or whether you actually were just being kind of mean that day did you say it did you type it didyou need to James says this is where religion really starts that God is looking at this last Wednesday I was in a meeting and I'm this is this is not a I'm gonna make sure about you understand this when I give this story it's not a good thing I'm saying about myself it may sound like until you understand the very end of it but I was in a meeting Wednesday with the Baptist director of missions now if you guys don't know what those are those are the guys who were in a county and they usually have been promoted up to that they've retired they became that whatever it is they are here to help all those churches in in that county and provide resources and training or just talk to them, that kind of stuff. It was a job actually offered to me when I was leaving my church and I said, no way, no, don't want that job. It's got a lot of parts I don't wanna do. But I was meeting with the guy who took the job and he knows that I am, in my ministry, he knows THAT I'm helping this guy, I'm working with this guy, trying to coach him a little bit. And he asked me a question and it was kind of a leading question about what was going on and since I care about the pastor I was careful with my answer and he smiled and the director smiled at me and he said I appreciate the way you answered that it was very strategic and what it made me realize is this is a guy that talks to pastors all the time and he expected me me to be brutal pastors respond to him brutally and I thought to myself I'm glad for one moment I was pulling on the bridle but I need to remind you I had to really think about it it's not easy the automatic is to let the tongue run wild and that's the test not what I say from up here but what actually comes out of my mouth tomorrow and yesterday that's the test that's the first gauge I mean the second gauge no I've just missed it I did this last week sorry I skipped a whole page here y'all okay with I go back just a little bit okay tell me and help me with this I'm not doing well number two the second guess is here what you do with your hands no actually I was preaching in another church about I guess it was two months ago and the church shook me I've never been shaken by a meeting in a place but it shook me because the church was meeting in an auditorium and the auditorium was based in such a way that they had a orchestra pit in front of it and so I'm standing on the edge because I move around I'm sitting on the end here and there's a 15 foot drop and it it goes about 10 feet across and then there's a row in front of the first chair and then there's the first chairs and they all go up and most of the people are sitting in the middle or in the back where I can't even see them and it threw me because I'm not used to not seeing people and so I missed the second point there too, but I didn't go back on that one, I just thought I'd give them a break, give them the short day, you, I'm going back.
Gerald Griffin: Number two, it's not just what you say with your mouth, but what you do with your hands. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and and widows in their affliction. This is one of those passages when you read it, you begin to understand God's laid out some very clear lines for us about how to act, and what to do, and whom to act and do it to. Orphans and widowers in James's day were not just a group of people that you heard about on the television, and you say, we're collecting money for these folks, send money in. OrPHANS and widOWS were two categories, and this is the key. This why I wanted you to get this is why I went back these are two categories of people who have nothing to give you back full stop think about that for a minute do you serve do you help people this is your hands part who can't give you anything in return you know this is kind of the way often we act in our lives lives. My son-in-law one time was moving into the area and he said he was going to have to find a job because he wasn't moving for the job. He wanted to move towards us. And he said, I'm going to find a job. And I said, do you want help? He said, no, no. I don't need any help. I just don't want any help. Okay. So I promptly forgot that and went to church the next week and asked three guys that were in his field. I said you guys hiring? You guys hiring, you guys, hiring? And they're all like yeah to have him call me I'd love to help so I came back and I told my daughter I said hey um you know three guys my church are in the field your husband's in and they're all hiring and they all would like to talk to him because I asked I said yeah have him called me and she said yeah he wants to do it by himself now I've got two things going on in my head here number one is they're living with us how long oh lord and number two because i have been here for decades i know that i can help him through a door that he doesn't know is even there and so we went on for one month and finally i went back to my daughter and i said i know i I can't say this to him but I'm telling you those four guys actually four guys that have already said that one of them's already said the door is shut now okay he needs to step forward through these so anyway she she had a talk with him as a wife would with her husband and he came to me said I need to apologize I think I need you to listen to these people here so anyway long story short he got he got the job uh and he was moving forward but do you understand this is the way we operate operate, even if we don't mean for it to, we often know that I now have some credit in this guy's bucket. I know that i've done something that these people could help me back. That's kind of the way we often operate, but not when it comes, James says, to widows and orphans because they have nothing to give you back. And James is simply saying this, it's absolutely fine to have these great relationships where you're helping each other that's normal but it also needs to be a part of your life that you're hoping people that can't help you that's a big deal God says when you're doing that you have my heart because here's the deal God helps us all the time and we can't him there is no no payback me living for christ is not payback it's not like he needed me to do that it's when we show grace like god's grace that's james's test will you care for people who can never repay you this wasn't a new concern when james wrote it this is going through the whole bible exodus In Exodus, the word to Israel is not to take advantage of the widow or the orphan. Isaiah told the nation to defend the cause of the widowed or the orphans. Fight for their rights.
Gerald Griffin: Zechariah repeated the same warning centuries after that. Three different eras, three different prophets, same test. God keeps coming back to it, so it must be important. We had a gentleman in our church.
Gerald Griffin: church I think the church was only about three years old and he in fact no it wasn't it was less than that we were probably two years old because we were building our first building and we had been told by the construction team that if we would clean up on the weekends like go up on a Saturday and clean up the junk throw away the old pieces of lumber that are cut off you know just straighten it up he would discount the construction he wouldn't be charging us for the cleanup. So we got involved and the guys would go up. We chose different teams. We would go up on a Saturday and we'd clean up. And so one Saturday I was going to go up and I asked one of these guys that had never been up there and he was new to the church. And I asked him, hey, I'm headed up there to the Church to clean up, do you want to go with me? I could use some help. He said, sure, I'll be glad to go. So, we got up there. And we're talking, I don't even know why in the world i did it but i asked him while we were cleaning up back to the original story i said hey man have you ever been on a mission trip and he said what's that i said oh it's it's where you go into a different place and you get to share christ with somebody maybe you do a work for somebody maybe you serve in some other capacity he said tell me more so i told him a little bit more he said well if i was to do that how would i go about doing it i said well here's a couple of agencies you You could call this guy and this guy and this guys. I could call them for you. He said, that's okay. He wrote it down. He jotted it down on his phone. He said okay, great.
Gerald Griffin: Then that was on a Saturday. On Monday he calls me up. He says, I'm going on a trip next week. I said, wow, that is fast.
Gerald Griffin: He said yeah. He went on the trip. Then he went on another trip like three weeks later.
Gerald Griffin: Then he comes to me about six months later and says, I'm gonna start a mission agency for orphans.
Gerald Griffin: I said. man that was fast and he started it and for years we in our church we served and we we went to that orphan those his orphanages and we served in those different places and i'll never forget the first time this passage really hit me was not from reading it it was from me talking to another guy in the church who was a uh who was student at dallas seminary he's about to graduate with with his doctorate. And he looked at me and he said, yeah, we're doing this. We're pouring this money into that mission. And I said, that's fantastic. And He said, well, it's kind of funny. Do you think that's strange that I'm doing it? And I say, well you just never mentioned having a heart for orphans. He said widows and orphans, it is in the scripture. How much does he have to to spell it out got you that's the heartbeat of james here is saying who are you helping and he lists two groups that cannot be helped and cannot help you in return now we're back to to point number three we okay now i'm breathing a sigh of relief that kind of freaks me out when i do that number three thankfully i don't do it often number three is what you get on you now why Why did I say it like that?
Gerald Griffin: Because the scripture says to keep oneself unstained from the world. I said it like this simply because that's an homage to my mother. Who, when I'd be out playing in East Texas during the summer, and I don't know how you grew up, probably more careful than this, but we would put on our shorts or blue jeans or whatever in the morning, eat breakfast, leave until lunch. lunch, our parents never knew where we were. Never. I do not advertise that as something to follow. I'm just saying that's the way we were, and then we'd slam down lunch, and we'd say going out to play, and the sign for us to come home is it was dark, and my mother would turn on the porch light that meant get home and i would get home after being in creeks and rolling around in red clay and playing with animals and bugs and everything else because we went fishing we did everything around there and my mother would say to me what'd you get on you what she was saying is is, I have no idea how you get this dirty. I have no idea what in the world, how'd you tear your arm? How'd you hurt your knee? And I would begin to recount my exploits that day, telling her only what I knew I could tell without getting in trouble. But James says this to us. You're living in a world that's not real clean. What are you getting on you? You see, you can't leave the world. but you can be careful about what you get on you jesus left heaven because he was willing to go into a dirty world but even in the dirty world where he was around people that were he was he was judged for being around people who weren't the best he did not get that on him some of you you are dog or cat people you've got those in the house when you got a dog or a cat you may notice at one time or another you should not set your drink down too low you better be careful where you put your sandwich because you can look over and you put you're coke over here with a nice clean ice and you just poured it you're ready to go you're so thirsty and you look over and your big dog is larping it up tongue is in the glass now i don't know if that's ever happened to you or not but when i was a kid that meant nothing to me but i got a little bit older and i realized what all had been in that dog's mouth and i realize time for a new coke that is more the idea of what james is giving us here keep yourself unspotted from the world it's the idea of what are you ingesting not what it is touching you what is bringing on the inside what's coming inside and James even gets stronger than this in a little a few chapters later when he says that friendship with the world's values that's inside is on at odds against God but as I said Jesus walked out among all the unholy and he did not get him on get it on him and James is being careful here he doesn't say that you need to keep someone else unspotted or unstained from the world that's not your business and you can't do it he's saying yourself that's your job and that's the third gauge not whether you stayed near the mess but whether or not the mess stayed on you so we have here three simple tests to see where I am and what's going on now you can walk out today either patting yourself on the back or you can be crushed by it and either response misses what James is actually trying to tell us to do he's already told us four verses earlier than what I read that every good gift comes from the father and the greatest gift of course is Jesus and the gift of Jesus living within us is how I control my tongue it's not that I sew my mouth shut it's It's not that I have a timer going off every 10 seconds in my pocket telling me to remind me not to say something bad. It'snot even a rubber band around my wrist where I turn it every time or pop myself every time I say something bad.
Gerald Griffin: Those are all great disciplines and they work for a while. But the primary thing to do for all of these to be a part of our lives, a bridled tongue, clean hands working for those those who cannot help us back really serving for the for the reason of serving and keeping yourself unspotted from the world those come from jesus within that's what the way to do it and so james is telling us it's actually christ running my life that changes me so when you think about these three tests this week hopefully you will hopefully you remember at least one of them whether or not your tongue is bridled or or all the rest i hope you'll remember that it is because you started that day with once again turning your life over to him so tuesday is today monday is today wednesday is today you'll see what you're really like and what jesus is running or not running now i'm going to close this in prayer and then we're going to have a communion together together, and I have not had this with you guys before, so I asked Mark, how do they do it at Possum Kingdom? He said, just do it however you want to. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for that clear instruction. So then I asked Mike a few moments ago, and i said, how did we do this? He said, you want it before or you want do it after? I said, I don't know, Mike. I don't care, and he said, let's do it afterwards. So we'll do that in just a moment, and after after communion which will not be long that is when we will dismiss and we'll go our own ways i think many of us go to lunch together and let me just say before we start that how much i appreciate being here how much I enjoy seeing you guys Tammy and I both find this very refreshing every month when we can come down so let's pray together heavenly father we're about to take a moment to remember what Jesus did for us and as we take that moment and we as we We remember, I pray, Lord, that we will reflect and be changed. Once again, may we look at what we have experienced in our hearts, look at our own lives, and look carefully at that. And may we commit ourselves over to you again.
Gerald Griffin: Thank you again, Lord for letting us meet together. In Jesus' precious name we pray, amen.