In this sermon, Pastor Babij answers the question, “What is True Religion?” He explains that true religion is gained when we rightly (biblically) understand who God is, who man is, and what God has done to solve man’s dilemma. Pastor Babij teaches that true religion is turning away from our own works and supposed goodness and turning to Jesus as God’s provision for sin’s payment, for salvation, and for sanctification. Pastor Babij, therefore, calls all men to truly repent and be saved.
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in the bulletin that your that was passed out this morning there’s a handout sheet with all the scripture that I’ll be using this morning you can take it and follow along with me as I go from passage the passage and I am starting out actually with Matthew chapter 1 verse 21 or the Bible says and she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sin and then I’m going to come back to that passage at the end of the message but today I would like to just direct your attention to the subject of religion and now because religion is a topic that many people talk about many people are involved with in some way but really what is it and what is true religion how do we know we’re right how do we know what we believe is the truth that is something that is important to know so I want you to think about something this morning by way of a question and the question is what does the word religion suggest to you well some may answer what comes to mind our ornate church buildings or maybe stained glass windows or a prestressed in cassock and surplice perhaps people praying or maybe a strange ritual or ceremony in a temple or at a Shriner in a church setting now you can go I can go on and on with these descriptions but there’s one thing a parent in the world is that religion is universal everywhere you go on the planet someone’s somebody’s bowing down to something someone religion is surely universal and everyone has thoughts about it manufactured you as well as I during holiday seasons when you family get together and talk usually they talk about two things religion and politics right those are usually the subjects and of course you try to avoid them at all costs but usually somewhere down the line you have a conversation with somebody about those topics the Encyclopedia of religion and ethics has 13 enormous volumes that only cover a fraction of man’s religious expressions William Blake once said man must and will have some religion but why what lies behind someone’s remarked that man is a religious creature well the clue is found in the very word religion it is a Latin word that means to bind back in fact religion is concerned with man’s greatest need which is to be bound back to God religious systems are man-made attempts at bridging the gap between God and man however almost all of those religious systems have no standard in which to measure what they believe is true or not so the end results of most religious systems give no real assurance about this life or the life to come and as far as man’s understanding of God it is at best lopsided and at worse correct really really completely incorrect so then at the end of the day man-made religions just make things more convoluted and confusing let me Friday Lord this morning I pray that you would use the word of God to impress upon our heart what true religion really is so Lord we can come and worship the God that we know is true the God that we know has done great things and the God who cannot lie to us for his very character permits it permits him not to lie and so I pray Lord Jesus this morning that you would help us to understand where we stand with you on this Christmas morning in Christ’s name I pray amen st. Augustine said long ago thou made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee so the question for us this morning is how can a person be bound back to God the Bible expresses this long lean in man’s heart where says in psalm 42 verse to my soul thirsts for God for the Living God when shall I come and appear before God and then psalm 84 first who says my soul long and even yearned for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the Living God it was pastor d James Kennedy who has now passed on and gone to the Lord who said this if you or I came up with a religion he said I can tell you what the message would be it would be follow this set of rules if you do it well enough then you may accept being accepted into Nirvana or paradise or heaven or wherever you’re trying to go don’t do this don’t do that and you will perhaps earn your way to heaven dr.
Kennedy continued to ask how do I know that is the way religion would be like and he said this because that is exactly what every religion invented by man in the world is like all the pagan religions of the world are the same yes they are the same no matter what form they are no matter what form they take it is always what a person can do to earn salvation the religion of works but biblical Christianity is not the same as others no it stands in a category category all by itself certainly it teaches the very opposite of all other religions it is the message of grace and grace is a wonderment when you read the Word of God it is nothing there’s nothing like it in the world every other religion teaches that we will get to heaven because of what we have done Christianity on the contrary teaches that we will get to heaven in spite of what we have done we hear all the time in the media that human beings deserve everything good but what we really deserve is the just condemnation condemnation of God we’re all guilty the amazing thing is what Christ offers us is not what we deserve but the very opposite of what we deserve he offers us free grace he offers us sovereign unconditional grace the free gift of eternal life paid for by his own son paid for at an infinite cost to those who will simply trust in Christ as their Savior for it says in Ephesians 2 for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is a gift of God not of as a result of works so that no one may boast it is a very strange thing indeed that God would have it so so if finding God is the most important thing in this life why do so many people fail to go through life without even have a relationship with him let alone a dynamic one most people live in a dangerous ignorance when it comes to knowing who God is the god of creation and who knowing who God is the God of the Bible which are the same what is man’s problem in this regard well man needs to be brought in touch with the Living God because he’s out of touch with the Living God see many people have a completely inadequate picture of God only the Word of God can give a proper view of the Living God so to answer the question how can a person be truly bound back to God and know it we have to ask three other questions and the first question is what is God and the only place to really find out what is God is we have to go to the Word of God just a few things about the character of God is this God is personal he is not a thing he’s not an it he is not a higher power or a mere influence he is the Living God who thinks works creates feels he is the god who’s who is far off and he is also the God who was near he is the God who can be talked to he is the God who can be approached in fact in Jeremiah the Prophet Jeremiah he says this but the Lord is the true God he is the Living God and the everlasting King at his wrath the earthquakes and the nations cannot endure his indignation thus you shall say to the the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth from under the heavens it is he who made the earth by his power who established the world by his wisdom and by his understanding he has stretched out the heavens and then God is also plural oh yeah he is one God the Bible says in Deuteronomy but he has revealed himself to us in three distinct persons as it tells us in second Corinthians 13 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all there you have Christ you have God the Father and you have the Spirit of God in that passage of Scripture but God is also eternal God never had a beginning he was neither created nor born nor did he evolved nor can he die for it says in Scripture in Psalm 90 before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting you are God also God is independent his life was not given to him his power was not acquired his wisdom was not learned his knowledge was not gained he does not need anything he does not need you he does not need me he needs neither our wisdom nor our power nor our fellowship for it tells us in Scripture the God who made the world in all things in it since he is Lord of Heaven and Earth does not dwell in temples made with hands nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything he needed nothing but God did create things for this reason for it tells us in Acts chapter 17 it says that he created things so people would seek Him so they would seek God for it says in Scripture if perhaps they might grow for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us for in him we live and move and exist and even some of your poets have said for we are his children being then the children of God we ought to think that the divine nature is like well we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone an image formed by the art and thought of man no God’s not like what we usually think he is like God is also sovereign he is the king over the whole creation he controls all the elements of time and space for it says in South 115 for our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases also God is holy he is completely without fault or defect without blemish or stain it says in Exodus 15 11 who is like you among the gods o Lord who is like you majestic in holiness awesome in praise working wonders see he is separate and different than what people think this can be seen by the way people use God’s name they use it as a swear word and as a joke they speak light-hearted about and casual about him as if he were somehow they’re equal they questioned his judgments they criticized his actions and they blame him when things go wrong actually once scripture sheds light on who God is if you want to be honest you have to conclude that he’s an awesome breathtaking person such a one that I would like to get to know matter of fact and then Revere and fear and worship because he is the God who created the heaven in the earth and the there’s nothing that created that was created that was not created by Jesus Christ because he is our Creator there’s a second question though to answer that ultimate question what is man what happened see man was created in dignity it tells us in Scripture and write the first book of the Bible Genesis 127 God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him male and female he created them you know that means that man did not crawl out of a slime pit he is not a refined ape nor an accidental concoction of atoms not at all humans were made by God in a special act of creation god made man separate and different from the rest of creation gave him dominion over the rest of the world in fact it tells us in Scripture that God blessed them and said to them be fruitful and multiply fill the earth subdue it rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth see God also made man so that he could closely relate to himself as the Creator were the only creature on the earth who can know who God is we can know why we’re here where we’re going where we go after we die we can have the the most complex questions of the world answered when we know who God is so man was created with dignity but what happened well man became disobedient to God man used his freedom wrongly and lost his fellowship with his creator because of disobedience where the Bible tells us in Genesis 216 the Lord God commanded the man saying i am from any of the trees of the garden you may eat but from this one tree you may not eat because God says this is mine don’t touch it you can have everything else but this right here don’t touch so when the woman saw that it was that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that your tree was desirable to make one wise she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate so because both the woman and the man disobeyed God his instructions sin entered into human history and plunged the whole human race into death and chaos so from that act came man became dead see man was separated from God and death and enemy entered into the human predicament where tells us in Genesis 217 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat and the day that you eat it you will die see the Bible speaks of death in two ways it speaks of spiritual death and spiritual death is separation of the soul from God that’s what happened to Adam and Eve back then where it tells us in Genesis 37 of Genesis chapter 3 verse 7 and the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord and among the trees of the garden and then it says and he drove the man out at the east of the Garden of Eden and he stationed cherubim and flaming a flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life man was cast out of the place where they can receive life which is the presence of God the Bible also tells us talks about physical death we all know about that one separation of the soul from the body both of these are enemies so it says in the days of Adam he lived 930 years and this is where it started recording it and man died 930 years as a long life isn’t it you wouldn’t want to live that long would you I wouldn’t see no humankind actually at that particular point man came the victim of disease of decay of deterioration the human being became a dead soul in a dying body a very bleak predicament man fell into and why because he disobeyed God also man became depraved we all now are born after the likeness of Adam and this is what it says in Genesis in verse 11 of chapter 6 it says now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence and God looked on the earth and behold it was corrupt and all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth and God said to Noah the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence because of them and behold I’m about to straw them from the face of the earth and then we have the worldwide flood so you see the depth of our problem is that you and me and Adam are linked sin has affected every single part of our nature it has affected our mind our will our affections our conscience our disposition our imagination everything has been affected by sin so sin has been transmitted to us at birth as soon as we start growing you can see very quickly in a young child that they will tell you know when you didn’t tell them the word no they will tell you they will lie to you they will do things that show they have a sinful nature it says in the Word of God in Romans 5 12 therefore just as the one man sin entered into the world and death through sin so death spread to all men because all have sinned and then Ephesians 2 and verse number 3 it says among them we to all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and we’re buying nature children of Wrath even as the rest see the world that we live in is insane listen to these words written by a person looking at our world trying to desperately find purpose in life see if it resonates with your assessment of things and this is what the person wrote the paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers wider freeways but narrower view points we spend more time we spend more and we have less we buy more and we enjoy less we have bigger houses and smaller families more conveniences but less time more degrees but less sense more knowledge but less judgment more experts but more problems more medicine but less wellness we have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values we talk too much we love too seldom we hate too often we have learned how to make a living but not a life we’ve added years to our life but not a life to our years we’ve been all the way to the moon and back but we have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor we’ve conquered outer space but not inner space we’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul we split the atom but not our prejudiced we have higher incomes but lower morals we’ve become long on quantity and short on quality these are times of tall men and short character steep profits and shallow relationships these are times of more leisure belleza fun more kinds of food but less nutrition these are days of two incomes but more divorce fancier homes but broken homes it is a time when there is much in the show window but nothing in the stockroom a time when technology can bring this letter to you and a time when you can choose either to make a difference or hit delete now you would think that these insightful words were written by some very wise adult with much learning but you would be incorrect these moving words were written by a columbine high school student shortly after the mass murders there on the high school grounds they saw something and they saw the emptiness of life by what was going on right in front of their eyes so see once we get a glimpse of who God is and then once we get a glimpse of who man is and what happened to man and their fall away from God then we have to ask the question the third question what has God done for the Bible says in Ephesians 24 but God being rich in mercy because of his great love which he loved us see God was rich in compassion and he saw our need and moved toward us to meet the desperate need that we all have and that is to rescue us from sins condemnation condemnation in God’s wrath so see our problem is our sin and our inability to do anything about it see our sin has separated us from God for even tells us in Isaiah the prophet Isaiah your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so he does not here and then of course our inability our inability has left us powerless to save ourselves to rescue ourselves from sins condemnation where the Bible says the wages of sin is death and that means eternal death complete separation from God after you die from it die from this world there is still eternal life because we have an eternal soul created in the image of God which cannot die so you have to go somewhere and everybody will be resurrected whether you go away from and separate from God in a place a lost eternity or with God himself everybody will be resurrected so God is also a God of love and mercy and grace so then the cure of sin is not found in ourselves it is not found in man’s ability to solve problems it is found not in a system of religion but it’s found in a person and that person is Jesus Christ he alone is the only one who is able to bring us back to the Father and cause us to be bound back to God only Jesus can remove the obstacle of our sin that prevents us from being made right with God so this scripture this morning that I started out with if you look on your sheets you’ll find that in Matthew chapter 1 verse 21 2 verse number 23 it says this she shall bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus now let me ask this I mean let me just say this what has God done God the Father sent Jesus to save us from our sin look what it says in the passage she will bear a son as you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the Prophet behold the Virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which translated means God with us see we sinners need to be rescued and that rescued is carried out by jesus at the cost of his life but there’s a second thing that God does for us in Christ in Acts chapter 3 verse 19 also on your sheet that god the father has sent Jesus to wipe out our sin not not simply to save us from it but to get rid of it forever and all the condemnation and guilt that goes with it if you look at acts 3 verse 19 it says therefore repent and return for what reason so that your sins may be wiped away in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus the Christ appointed for you whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from ancient times see ancient ink had no acid in it it could be sponged off the surface of the papyrus so the scribe could use it over and over and over again see because of the work of Jesus the record of our sin is obliterated it is sponged away by the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross it is gone never again to be brought up in the presence of God see that’s the hope that we have we could never once coming to Christ beacon m for our sin because Christ took all that condemnation paid it completely and fully for us there’s a third thing that the father does in regard to our sin and that the father has sent Jesus to make us clean in the presence of God now if you look again in 1st Corinthians 6 verse 9 through 11 on your sheets the last couple verses you’ll notice what it says and I want you to see what it says in first Corinthians 6 verse 9 oh it says oh do you not know that the unrighteous that unrighteousness will not inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God and then it says this and such were some of you but what does God do in verse 11 but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of Jesus Christ in the spirit of our God see God washes us completely clean so when God sees you he doesn’t see your sin anymore you know what he sees he sees the pure clean righteousness of Jesus Christ shining on your account that’s what he sees so you see it’s what God has done for us that saves us and he’s done this and this season we celebrate that and then of course when Paul was giving his testimony Apostle Paul he said this now we do not delay get up be baptized and wash away your sins by calling on his name see so the only way we can have our sins washed away wiped away and saved from their condemnation is by calling on Jesus Christ that’s what God wants us to do our sin has separated us from God so God doesn’t hear us but when we get to the place where we realize God’s solution to our sin which is Jesus Christ and we Hall on him God hears us see God wants us to call on us that means use your mouth if you’re convicted in your heart that you are under God’s condemnation then the only thing that you and I could do is call on him ask him to save you he came into this world to save us that’s his job so see our soul has been soiled and stained and muddied by our heart of sin and buy our regulars of sin only Jesus has the willingness and the power to cleanse it so I asked you this sunday this Christmas Day a day when we are celebrating the birth of the Savior has he been born in your heart I would argue and I would urge you to humble yourself and acknowledge your sin if you have not trusted him yet and look to Jesus the Savior and invite him to come so he can be born in you so he can cleanse you so he can forgive you so he can transform you because he’s the only one who could do it so if you don’t look to Jesus the Bible just says you’re still lost you’re still groping for answers without him with no hope really and my friend when you leave this world and you leap into eternity which is by the way very very very long eons and eons of time without number where will you be with Christ in heaven or consign forever to a punishment in the lake of fire see the Bible says that Jesus came into the world with a grand goal in mind first Peter 318 tells us for Christ’s also died for sins once for all the joy for the unjust for what reason in order to bring us to God why does he have to bring us the God because we don’t know our way we have no directions so our inability to please God by ourselves means that the real change of Christian conversion must involve relying on Christ alone nothing you’ve done but everything God’s done I had does one do that in the Bible calls it repentance true repentance means that we turn away and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ we turn from the many individual sins by which we have offended God’s character and broken his law we turn away from any attempt whatsoever to justify ourselves before God by appealing to our Orthodox beliefs or acceptable behavior we turn to God to look to him to bar to pardon our sin to give us a right standing before him to bring us into close fellowship with him to bind us back to him that’s what we do and then we believe and true belief means that we trust only in the person who died in our place and rose from the grave and that’s Jesus Christ we trust Jesus as God’s appointed provision for the forgiveness of our sins we trust Jesus for moral power to affect change in our thoughts in our attitudes and our motives in our desires in our affections in our words and our actions in our patterns of relating to God and to others he transforms us and then we trust Jesus to keep us keep us saved keep us in true belief until he takes us out of this world into his presence where our faith will become sight we no longer will have to believe things without seeing we will be able to see God our belief will be complete see that is what this season is about so only Jesus can bind you back to God because he is the Savior because He is God and Jesus is the reason for the season amen let’s pray lord thank you this morning thank you Lord for all these dear people that you brought here today I pray Lord that the Word of God would bring to them a delight and a joy may be a joy they never had before because today may be the day they call upon you to save them from their sin and Lord there’s no one who is not a sinner so we’re all in the same boat we’ve sinned in different ways to different extents to different periods of time as far as length Lord but Lord you can save us from it all and I pray today Lord those who know you would rejoice and be conscious and pray for those who don’t know you and those who don’t know you today may be the first day they come to a realization about who God is who they are and what God has done and I pray Lord you would bind them back to yourself by repentance and belief and I asked this in Christ’s name Amen