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But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Now how many times have you heard people say, well, I don't have a religion, I have a relationship? And people want to just tear down that word religion and cast it out as evil and say, oh, you have a religion, but I have a relationship. Well, no, the Bible actually talks, it talks a lot about people who have bad religions and people who have vain religions, as it did in verse 26, saying, hey, if you seem to be religious, right, a lot of people have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. There's a lot of people who have religions that are based on traditions of man and not on God's word. These are vain traditions. If you seem to be religious, and you bridle not your tongue, but you deceive your own heart, the Bible says your religion is vain. I mean, how vain is that to just deceive yourself? To say you believe something or to put off some front that you don't really believe in your heart, that's vanity, that's empty, that's meaningless, okay? People want to put off like they're so great, and I'm so spiritual and everything else, that's vain. That type of religion is vain. So I'm not just for all religion, right? The Bible talks about pure religion, good religion, pure things that we ought to have. So yes, I say I have a relationship because I'm a son of God, I'm a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That is the most important relationship, by the way, because most people want to tell you all never religion of a relationship, are trusting in their good works to remain in their good grace and standing with God as far as their salvation is concerned. And I would say, no, I was born again, I was born into God's family as a child of God. And whether I'm a good child or a bad child, I'm still a child of God, and God's never going to leave me or forsake me. But I should work on having a good relationship with Him so that I could be blessed in my deeds, so that I could not be a hearer of the Word but a doer also, because the man that doeth such things is going to be blessed in his deed, is what the Bible says in verse 25 there. Verse 27, he says, pure religion, undefiled, before God, undefiled. So here is what the Bible is defining as pure religion, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. So I'm going to start with this latter portion of that verse, keep yourself unspotted from the world. It's basically get the sin out of your life, right? Try to keep yourself pure. That is a pure religion, which is ironic because people who want to say, I don't have a religion, they're going to call us Pharisees and oh, you follow the law. Keeping yourself unspotted from the world is a good thing. And that is actually part of pure religion in God's eyes. According to God's Word, that is pure religion. By definition, it is pure, I mean, thinking about purity, well, if you're trying to keep yourself clean from sin, you're trying to keep yourself pure, right? And that's a pure religion is trying to do that, attempting to keep yourself unspotted from the world. But the focus of the sermon this morning is actually on the first part of that verse, where it says pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. This is a part of our Christian life that we ought to have that I believe is going completely just null and void almost 100%. And people aren't taking this very seriously. Visiting, you know, if you want to have pure religion, the Bible says visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Helping a much more generalized term and we're gonna get specific on this, believe me, this is specific, but just doing good and helping other people out is something that we can't lose and forget in all of our doctrine and all of our teaching. Yay, even in all of our soul winning. We can't forget the other aspects of loving people and helping people and being a blessing to people, especially those that are weak, that have nobody, that have no one else to be there for them and to help them out. The fatherless and widows. I've mentioned this in other sermons, but we see God as a special place in his heart for the fatherless and the widows and the people who don't have anyone to just help them out. People who are abandoned, orphaned, they're left alone. God likes to look out for those people because those people are more vulnerable than anyone else. There's a lot of evil, wicked people out there and God makes sure that, you know what, I'm gonna defend those people. And as believers, he wants us, if you have a pure religion, to visit those people, to help people like that out.