Genuine Faith Cares - Leaders' Talks

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Today, be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Well, today's a really special day because we're going to be featuring so many different outreaches that we're a part of.

But I've asked Mike McNeil to share today about his heart for the fatherless and the widow.

And uh his is this guy's awesome.

We've become really good friends, and uh, we've hunted together and been together, and his love and passion for the outdoors and for the fatherless is contagious.

You're gonna be blessed.

Open up your Bibles right now to James 1, but he's gonna speak to your heart.

So, Mike, come on up.

Bless you, brother.

Thanks, brother.

Father, in the Lord's Jesus' name and in the power of your spirit, would you anoint this man to speak to our hearts in a mighty way?

Amen.

Amen.

Go get him, bro.

Pastor Steve, I want to first of all just thank you for your heart, for the fatherless and the widow.

If you're a visitor here today, this is the best part.

You get to come back and actually hear this man preach God's word with boldness and truth.

I'm so thankful to call him my pastor and that this is my home church, that Marie and I get to sit under his amazing teaching.

And so, if if you are a visitor, I just really want to encourage you, make this your home church.

This is an amazing church.

Amazing church.

Yeah.

So as you open up your Bibles to uh James chapter 1, verses 19 through 27, today God's word is going to show us how our relationship with God should produce compassion and concern for others.

James 1:19–27

And so let's take a look at what James says.

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive the meekness, the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers, underline doers, and underline word.

In verse 21, there's the word, it was implanted in you.

But be doers of the word, not just hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But the one who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

You want to be blessed?

I do.

Says, be a doer.

Be a doer of the word.

Being a blessing, here's an opportunity that we get to be a blessing, that we receive blessing when we do what God's called us to do.

He also continues in verse 26, and he says, If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and keep oneself unspotted from the world.

So, whatever this pure and undefiled religion before God is, before God and the Father is, that's what I want.

I hope that's what you want.

And I know when we talk about religion, the first thing that we do, and I was sharing this sermon with my bride Maria, and it's like, I hate that word religion.

But we need to understand that James is talking about a good religion that's acceptable to God the Father, right?

As well as a bad religion.

So when you look at the comparison, he's talking about this comparison of knowing what is good religion, what is bad religion, the comparison in verse 26 to verse 27.

And the word religion used here is an interesting word in the Greek.

It's threskos, which means worship.

It's like religious worship.

So if you think about this, let's reread this passage in verse 27 when it says pure and undefiled worship before God and the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and keeping oneself impluded from the world.

So what is this pure undefiled religion, this pure, undefiled worship?

Well, pure and undefiled worship is loving God and loving others.

Right?

With motives that are pure.

Specifically, it's loving God and others that it's without guilt.

And what I mean by that is it's not worshiping, it's not coming here to worship because you feel guilty because of maybe the way that you lived your weak.

It's guilt-free.

It's not worshiping God because you feel guilty about maybe the way that you haven't served others, or you see the troubles that they're in and they're being mistreated.

Pure and undefiled religion is worshiping God and serving others because you love them.

You're motivated and inspired to honor God and others because you love them.

You care for them.

You want to be a blessing to them because we're committed to them.

We should be committed to them.

You're loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself, right?

Jesus said the greatest command right there.

I gotta be honest with you, sometimes it's really hard to love my neighbors.

Y'all are sometimes hard to love.

I know.

Steve told me.

But no, the truth is that it's changing our heart and our mind.

It's growing in that area, but sometimes it's really hard to do.

And I understand that pure and undefiled religion is also a process.

It's difficult to get there overnight.

It's a changing of our heart, right?

The word undefiled in the Greek is used to describe a cleansing process.

It's like if I was mountain biking, coming down the hill, and I crash, which I've done before, that's why I don't mountain bike anymore.

No.

And my knees, you know, legs all scraped up, and there's dirt and crud in there, right?

This undefiled, that word is cleaning it, it's cleansing it, it's getting all that garbage out of there so it can begin to heal.

And in the same way, this cleansing is of a vine is pruning it so that it'll bear much fruit.

And so that's what that idea of, when he's using that word undefiled.

And so, pure and undefiled religion is as we walk through that and as he talks about it, is that we worship, we're cleansed by the removing of the impurities and the bad motives, the wrong thoughts that we have with our relationship with the Lord and also with others.

James goes on and he says, pure and undefiled religion, before God and the Father.

Let's just stop there.

The only opinion that matters when it comes to before God in pure undefiled religion is God.

That's all that matters.

So, what does God say is pure undefiled religion?

What does he say true religion is?

True worship that is not dominated by selflessness or self-motivated or by guilt or consumed with religious legalism and self-righteousness?

To understand how God sees pure, undefiled religion, we need to get into his word.

And that's the reason why I had you underline word, God's word.

That's what I love about this church and Pastor Steve.

He preaches the word.

He preaches God's word, the word that cuts through us, that challenges us, that confronts us with the truth of his word.

It doesn't matter what we think or what other Christians think or what the world thinks, what does God say?

What does God say about pure, undefiled religion?

He says, true religion, true worship that is dominated by selflessness or motives of guilt.

It's not worship.

And so to understand as God sees undefiled religion, we need to get into his word.

And when James says and uses the phrase before God and the Father, James is talking about what he sees best, what God sees best before him, before God and the Father.

So what is God's opinion on this?

What does he say?

See, this takes us to James's next word he uses in this verse.

James goes on and says, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father means caring.

I love that the New King James uses this word visit.

Let's stop there for a moment.

If your religion, your worship to God, is not producing concern, compassion, sensitivity, and thoughtfulness towards others, then your religion, your worship is empty and worthless.

On the other hand, if your religion, your worship to God is producing kindness and forgiveness and concern and compassion and acts of generosity towards others, that idea of being a doer of the word and not just a hearer of the word, then it's pleasing in God's sight.

So pure undefiled religion or worship not only changes our perspective on and about God, but it also changes our perspective towards other people.

You can care more, you can love more, you want to help more by being a doer of the word.

And the word visiting is really a fascinating word.

It literally means to look after someone.

You have to be present, to visit someone, to look after someone.

That's why I love that word.

Visit means go, seek out opportunities.

You can't be caring, well, we can, but it's not very effective sitting at home caring about someone.

That's why he says visit, go be, go do, make it happen.

You have to be present.

So it would be fair to say that pure and undefiled religion before God and the fathers to look after orphans and widows in their trouble.

The idea is seeking them out to bless them.

Remember when I said, Do you want to bless?

God says, be a doer, go visit them.

Visit is not waiting for an opportunity to come along, to bless someone, right?

But it's to search out opportunities.

It's active, it's both reactive compassion and proactive compassion.

And Jesus told a parable in Matthew.

Go ahead and flip over to Matthew really quick.

Matthew 25, 34 through 40.

It's going to help us understand what the kingdom of heaven is like within this parable.

Jesus says this in Matthew.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food.

I was thirsty and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger and you took me in.

I was naked and you clothed me.

I was sick and you visited me.

I was in prison and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?

Or thirsty and give you drink?

When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you?

Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?

And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.

See, James is telling us the exact same thing that Jesus said here: pure and undefiled religion, that God the Father, that that it means being a doer, visiting, going to, looking for ways to bless others and care about them that normally wouldn't be cared for, be cared about.

And at this point, James gets really specific about who that is.

Take a look back in James 1.27 again, and he says this pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is to visit orphans and widows in their trouble.

James didn't just pull this out of thin air, you guys.

He knew God's word.

He knew what was called the Torah, which we call the Old Testament today.

He knew exactly what God's heart was.

He knew that God had talked about the orphan and widow over a hundred times in Scripture.

He knew that he knew God's heart, that he was the defender of the fatherless.

It wasn't new to him.

In fact, he even knew the Levitical law that said you are to care for the orphan and widow.

Even the minor prophets, there were three consistent things that God had against the Israelites: idolatry, adultery, and not caring for orphans and widows.

The fourth one I would say is not following the Lord and worshiping him, right?

But it was consistent.

And so James just wasn't just pulling this out of thin air.

He knew God's heart for the orphan and the widow.

And like in James' time, the one that had the most pressure on them, the disadvantaged, that it was common in that time.

You go all the way back even into Exodus.

And fatherlessness was an issue then.

In fact, God's word in Exodus, write this next to your in your margins on your Bible, Exodus chapter 22, 22 through 24.

Exodus 22 · chapter mention

You want to know what God's heart is for the orphan and the widow, for the fatherless?

He says, If I hear them cry out to me, I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.

See, when God talks about the orphan, the fatherless, it's the same word.

Biblically, when a man is not in the home, that is a fatherless child.

It is very clear whether they were killed in war or they're off in war, that is a fatherless child.

And God cares so deeply for these fatherless children.

And that's the reason why James addresses this word and he wrote, orphans and widows here.

They were the most troubled, uncared for, most neglected, vulnerable people in that time.

They had no husband to provide for them.

They were vulnerable.

Just like they were in Old Testament times and James times, it's the same today.

The most vulnerable are these single moms, these fatherless boys.

Nothing's changed.

They need our help.

You see, religious observances, like coming to church, right?

It's empty.

That worship, that religion is empty if there's no concern for the needy.

If we ignore the needy, our worship is worthless.

And so it's interesting that James then uses another word here that emphasizes this phrase.

He uses in their trouble.

The word can also be translated as affliction.

It's primarily a meaning of the idea of being under pressure, being crushed, being pressed together, compressed.

It describes actually the word is the pressure that they put on grapes to get the juice from it.

See, there are fatherless children and single moms in our own community that right here are under enormous pressure of one kind or another.

Perhaps it's the pressure of divorce that's come upon them, or even worse, that a father, the one that God called to be the pastor, provider, protector of the home, abandons his family, walks away.

50% of children in America are raised in fatherless homes, you guys.

Maybe it's a sudden death, or maybe it's just a single parent with low income or unemployment.

When the father is not in the home, it causes severe pressure.

The word that he used, trouble.

The bottom line is James is telling us that genuine worship that God our Father desires is to help others in trouble.

And one of the signs of a genuine follower of Jesus, I believe, is that our compassion for others is growing.

And we're wanting to honor God and how we love and bless other people.

I want you to listen carefully.

You don't need to turn to it, but I want you to listen carefully.

What God says is worthless religion and pure religion.

It's in Isaiah 1, 11 through 17.

Listen to this.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord?

I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and of the fat of fed cattle.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats.

When you come to appear before me, who has required this of you, your hand to trample my courts, bringing no more feudal sacrifices?

Incense is an abomination to me.

The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meetings.

Your new moons and your pointed feasts my soul hates.

They are a trouble to me.

I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your arms, I hide my eyes from them.

Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.

Your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves, make yourself clean, put away your evil doings from before my eyes.

Cease to do evil.

Learn to do good.

Seek justice.

Rebuke the oppressor.

Defend the fatherless.

Plead for the widow.

Pure.

Undefiled worship means caring.

Let's just be honest, guys.

Couldn't we all demonstrate more compassion for others?

Can we become more of the doer of the word and not just a hearer of the word?

I want to share this with you is that one great way to become more compassionate, more of a doer of the word that demonstrates pure religion is through ministry called Fathers in the Field.

I believe that fatherlessness is the number one social issue we face in America.

The attack on the family, the attack on men, the attack on godly masculinity.

It is destroying a generation of boys.

It's destroying them.

And I am so grateful that this church, the road, is taking a stand and saying no more on our watch.

The name of the ministry of this church, specifically to the fatherless and the widows called Fathers in the Field, to heal that deep, deep anger-souled wound.

I want to speak to you men for a moment.

Look at me.

I have a question for you guys.

Would you be willing to take whatever your hobby is, whatever your passion is, and teach that to a fatherless boy?

I don't care, Jim, if it's playing golf.

I don't care if it's fishing or hunting or fixing cars or whatever, right?

Gardening.

Would you take and teach that to a fatherless boy?

And then this church and the leadership team that's in place called church champions and fathers in the field, we're going to provide all of the materials and training and resources to address and heal that abandonment wound.

Ladies, you can be involved as well.

Who do your kids go to school with?

Who do they play sports with?

Who are your neighbors?

Who are your coworkers that are single moms?

Do you know that 84% of single moms are unchurched?

84%.

Because they're working multiple jobs, service industry, they're exhausted.

I know that when Maria would go on a retreat when we were raising three little girls, I couldn't wait for her to get home so I could go back to work on Monday for a break.

Right?

And so they're under enormous pressure.

And to be able to, I talk to single moms all the time, and they say, I know how to.

Raise my daughter, but I need help with my son.

And so we're focusing on boys seven to seventeen.

If you know one, come to the back after service, grab a brochure, and give it to that single mom and say, Our church cares for you.

Here's a ministry that we're doing to reach these boys.

I want to share with you the mission statement of fathers in the field.

It's to rekindle and establish the spirit of boys who have been abandoned by their fathers, mentoring them one-on-one in life skills through outdoor activities, and by sharing a Christian understanding of our heavenly Father's love and sacrifice for his children.

Men, we're going to go behind enemy lines.

We're going to be on mission to go behind enemy lines and steal out of the grip, out of the hands of Satan, these fatherless boys, so that they can come to know that they have a heavenly father that'll never leave them or forsake them.

When we look at the slide of statistics, why should we care?

50% of kids in America are being raised fatherless.

We can be overwhelmed by the statistics, but I'm talking about men, one boy, impacting one boy.

God has given me such a heart just to reach one more boy.

Because I've seen the impact.

His name was David.

He was 17 when I got to start mentoring when Maria and I brought him into our family.

He's part of our family now.

Drug addiction, sexual addiction, and he attempted suicide.

He's just like the 6,000 fatherless boys that are going to attempt suicide today.

The church has got to step up.

If godly men, if we as a church, men and women of the church, don't step up and become advocates for the fatherless, who's going to do it?

Our government?

Oh, that's effective.

Or how about the LGBTQ community?

No, it's got to be us, the church.

It's got to step in and do that.

It's a biblical mandate, church.

I don't know if you know this or not.

The scripture mentions missions 12 times, sanctification 72 times, repentance 110 times, and baptism 80 times.

Caring for the orphan and widow 118 times.

Do you think God's serious?

Do you think God's serious when we read passages like in Exodus?

That we're losing a whole generation of boys to a culture, and I'm so grateful, like I said, that here's a church that says no more.

We're stopping now.

The body of Christ stepping up.

One man saying, I choose not to be selfish.

I'm going to take one fatherless boy and just invite him into our lives.

I was the only person that David would allow to come in after he attempted suicide.

Do you know he went to his stepdad's house to kill himself there to get back at him?

And it was God that spoke to his mom and showed up, and she never goes there, but she just God told her to go there and she goes knocking on the door.

He literally had taken his socks off of a shotgun and had his toe on the trigger when his mom knocked on the door.

Thank God that she heard his, listened to God and went there.

But I was the only one that he would allow to come and see him when he was locked up.

And I was so thankful.

I said, I'm so thankful, and I I get it.

He's hurting.

And I asked David, what were you thinking?

What was going through your mind?

This is what he said to me.

I just wanted the pain to go away.

I just want the pain to go away.

It is such a deep wound when a man, the dad, abandons his children.

It's such a deep wound that these boys carry with.

They think there's something wrong with them.

They have no value or worth, and that's a lie from the pit of hell.

But God wonderfully created them.

The heart of the ministry is to heal the deep anger-filled soul wound that an abandoned boy suffers from and carries with him, thereby stopping the cycle of destruction and abandonment.

85% of men that have been abandoned will repeat that generational sin.

We have an opportunity to stop this generational sin, to see these boys come to faith in Christ.

And you may ask the question, what about the girls?

That's why the church exists.

That's why the church exists so that the church, we have children's ministry here and youth ministry here, VBS, to be able to love on these single moms and their families.

Men, understand this.

It's simple.

We're talking about going and picking up a fatherless boy and bringing him to church.

Guess what?

Y'all are at church.

Just bring them with you.

Do that twice a month.

The third contact is all the men and boys getting together and doing a service project like you saw on the video to bless someone else because they don't believe they have value or worth.

I was interviewing a fatherless boy after three years, a 13-year-old boy's name's Caden, and I said, Of all the fun stuff that you've gotten to do, you've learned how to fly fish, and you've learned how to ski and snowboard and do all these fun things with your mentor Chris.

I said, I'm just curious, of all the activities, what was your favorite thing?

You know what he said?

Service project.

It's because it gave him value and worth.

When David was asked that question, the same exact question from someone about of all the cool things you've gotten to do with Mike, pack trips in the wind rivers, hunting, fishing, all of this stuff.

What was your favorite thing?

You know what David said?

None of that.

It was that Mike was there my deepest, darkest time.

See, men, we can't fix these boys, only Jesus can.

But all we can do is be constant and consistent and let them walk through life with us.

To be a part of our lives.

David's been a part of our life.

David got saved.

He came to faith in Christ.

I got to baptize him in an 11-mile canyon in a river I grew up as a young boy.

God took that hobby, that passion, that outdoor passion of mine, and he turned it all the way around for me to baptized him.

And then he went on a YWAM DTS, and guess where God sent him?

South Africa.

And he ministered to orphans and widows.

Today he's a police officer here in Colorado Springs.

And I've just been doing their premarital counseling.

He's getting married here in July, and I get to officiate it.

We just get to do life with these boys.

They're hurting.

And David would tell you the path he was going down would have killed him.

But a man, just me.

I just said, here I am, Lord, use me.

So what's next?

I'm asking you, men, if you would come and your wives to meeting tomorrow night in the chapel from 7 to 8:30 to hear more about what's involved in mentoring a fatherless boy.

Would you be a doer and just do that?

Ladies, we need some more church champions, some ladies that'd be willing to do single mom interviews and love on these wonderful, wonderful people to help us find more fatherless boys.

I met someone in first service and she goes, Oh my gosh, we have tons.

Praise God.

Bring on tons because I know there's a bunch of great men in this church that'd be willing to sacrifice a little bit of their time to love on a fatherless boy.

Do you know that David has spent every single holiday with us since he was 17 years old?

For 10 years now, he spent every holiday with us.

You know why?

Because mom would put that pain aside and would choose to work.

He even flew to Texas one year to spend it with us because he's just part of our family.

That's who they become.

They just become part of your family.

And I'm proud to serve a God that changes men's lives, that changes these boys' lives for the gospel.

If you're a single mom or a single grandmother, would you come see us in the foyer?

There's a table there.

We would love to have your information.

If you know a single mom, grab a brochure and get it in their hands.

Because we want to reach those boys because they're hurting, and these single moms are afflicted.

Genuine faith cares for others, especially those experiencing hardship.

Martin Luther, I leave you with this, once said this about religion.

Religion, the world, does not need a definition, but a demonstration.

May we be a demonstration of pure, undefiled worship.

Because a fatherless boy is dependent on it.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.