Please stand. I'm going to read the entirety of the book of James chapter one because of the context. We're really going to be focusing on two verses and really one phrase will be the primary thrust of the message, but this will help us to get in tune with what the Lord is speaking through his servant. I want to remind you that when we open the pages of Scripture, we are opening God's holy, authoritative, sufficient, inerrant, and infallible Word. We are to tremble and submit to all that it teaches and take all the benefits and comforts it supplies. James chapter 1. James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad, greetings. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away, for no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beautiful appearance perishes, so the rich man also will fade away in his pursuit. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word. and not 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 he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, This one will be blessed in what he does. 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 to keep oneself unspotted from the world. May the Lord be pleased with our study of his most excellent word. Please be seated. Thank you. I often supply an outline for my messages in large part because my wife is a committed note taker. and I have an outline point for you which you already have access to. The entirety of the message is summed up in the title of the message. Everything really falls under that heading. It is a one-point, very simple and basic message. When you come to a congregation like this that is well-fed, and steeped in soundness of doctrine, there could be a temptation to want to show off your bona fides, that you are reformed, and you have good doctrine, and you have all these things, and you can talk the talk. I came under some conviction some time ago that we need occasionally to have a little bit more of a rustic flair to our preaching. What I mean by that is we need to have some plain speak about Christ and his gospel. All of those wonderful things that we treasure as Reformed people are still true, but sometimes we just need to get the straight word. Let's get into it now. James is an incredible book. I've been preaching through it. I'm currently in chapter four, and that's actually what precipitated me coming to this text today for you. And one of the things that we have to understand is that James has a couple of very simple themes in mind and points and aims and purposes he's trying to get across. And you know what these are if you've ever read and studied James with any diligence. The first thing is to be doers of the word. because faith without works is dead. That's a drumbeat message that comes through the epistle of James. But there's another aim, and it can sometimes be lost, and it's this idea that genuine faith in Christ is, it looks a certain way. Real faith in Christ has characteristics and qualities. James, he says it in chapter one, he wants his audience to be perfect and complete and lacking nothing. And he offers what appears to be some surprising tests of genuine faith. Now, if I were to come to Westminster people like ourselves and say, what are the hallmarks of the faith, we might go into the loci of systematic theology, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of Christ, doctrine of salvation, pneumatology, the study of the spirit, eschatology, the last things. James gives a different kind of test for genuine faith. All of those things are true. You have to have an orthodox view of the Trinity. You have to believe in the virgin birth. You have to believe that Jesus came in the flesh, that he lived a sinless life, that he died, he really died on the cross, and he atoned for the sins of his people there, and he was raised again on the third day, and he ascended into heaven, and is even right now at the right hand of God, reigning and ruling over all things. You have to believe all of that. But there's some other things you have to do and you have to believe. James gives us in our little section, beginning at verse 26, three tests of genuine faith. These are not comprehensive or exhaustive, but they touch on sensitive areas in the heart. The first, and this is developed very big in a strong way in chapter three, is a bridled tongue. The first test of a genuine faith is a bridled tongue. And what you would learn if you study James is it is impossible to have a bridled tongue if you don't have a bridled heart. From out of the heart, the mouth speaks. We cannot really conceal those hard and dark places of our hearts. At some point, our tongues, our mouths are going to betray us. So James encourages us to keep a tight rein on our tongue. In verse nine of chapter one, the theme of the widows and orphans is touched on a little bit, and that is love for the weak and lowly. You and I, we are strategic in our relationships. I remember growing up, that there were certain clothes you had to wear to be part of the in-group. There was certain styles that you had to embrace. There was the cool kids and there was everyone else. That is an abomination to Christian love and fellowship. Christians don't look a certain way. They don't all wear bow ties. You got some bow tie Presbyterians here. They don't have regimental ties. I like regimental ties. Sometimes they don't wear ties at all. And we have to be the kind of people, when we see them, we don't immediately jump to the conclusion and say, they're not really like us, they're not as solid as we are, they don't look like we do. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. the rich in his humiliation. The rich, most powerful man in Tripp County, I don't know who he is, if he comes in, he gets no other special honor than to the homeless man who comes into the church. Do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, chapter two, the Lord of glory, with partiality. These are two tests. Will you look after the widows and orphans in their trouble? They can't repay you in any way. They can't do anything to further advance your cause or your reputation. If you serve them and if you visit them in their affliction, they're not going to be able to repay you. These are the kinds of behaviors and characteristics of a genuine Christianity. James is very eager that we have that. When we study this, the temptation is for us to launch into the church's need to be more engaged in its diaconal work, widows and orphans. It's certainly true. The last phrase is more of an afterthought, but it's the punch in the gut for us. Look at it again. It's the title of the message. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. to visit orphans and widows in their trouble. Maybe I can go and serve and give them some money and I can be righteous. Be good if you did that. It's not the deaconate or the elder's responsibility. You should meet the needs of the widows and the orphans. But are you really zealous to keep yourself unspotted from the world? Let's dig into verse 27. Pure and undefiled religion. Pure and undefiled that they are linked together. Sometimes we use and children to separate and distinguish, but sometimes and includes the words together. It brings them together. Pure and undefiled have similar ideas and view. This is to be clean. We want a clean religion. We want an unstained religion. We want a ceremonial, literal, or spiritual religion that's pure. We want to be guiltless and innocent and upright and without admixture. We want to be spiritually clean because it has been purified by God and therefore has been freed from the contaminating influences of sin. Each one of us today should say, oh Lord, give me a pure and undefiled faith in Christ. and let my religion, the external performance of those duties, let that be consistent with a heart that is white-hot on fire in love with Christ. And it's sincere and it's earnest. I don't want it to be defiled, O God. That should be what you're saying. It needs to be untainted and free from contamination. It needs to be unsoiled. It needs to be not debased or deformed. It needs to be free from adultery. The author of Hebrews in chapter 13 uses this language, the marriage bed is undefiled, and it communicates something. 1 Peter 1 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. And that does not fade away. I should pause here and smile because the Sunday school lesson was partly in my sermon today, and I'm just rejoicing. And that Psalm 51 is beautiful and wonderful. What a perfect psalm for today. Isn't it interesting how the Lord orchestrates things? I was gonna do this at the outset, but since I paused, I'll do it here. This church is very important to my family. I'll tell you why. My son was looking at a lot of schools to play football at, and I would say one of the biggest deciding factors was this church, that he could go to a solid Reformed church. There were other options other places. And he happened to get a roommate who happens to be an exemplary man who's Tim Garnett. And Tim got to meet my daughter Savannah. And now they have kids in your church. You never know what ordinary faithful ministry will do. I prayed for my daughter since her conception that she'd marry a godly man and covenant played a role and a part. because he wanted to come here and this is where he was going to go to church. And so that's how our sons met. Don't ever begrudge ordinary faithful stuff because big things happen as a result. Do you want to be unspotted from the world? I mean, do you really want it? Do you want to be pure and undefiled? Do you want to have a religion? And so often isn't the phrase, we don't have a religion, we have a relationship with Jesus. This is the religion. It is a religion, but it's the only real one. Faith in Christ. Don't be afraid of the word religion. It's the expression of worship and acts. It's all of the liturgical things, private and corporate, that make up what worship looks like. That's what religion is. And James is calling into question those who said, I have orthodoxy. I have good theology. He said, this is what pure and undefiled religion looks like. What's the second thing that I want you to look at is the word before. It's the word para, and that's a word that's very familiar to us, para-church. That's that word, that's where it comes from. But this word before is very important for us to understand the seriousness and sobriety of this text. before God and the Father is this, that our life, our religion, our purity or our impurity, our undefiled state or our defiled state is in front of and before the face of God. How many of you, by show of hands, pray sometimes in your mind without speaking the word? How many times do you ever do that? Does anybody ever do it? How do you do that? How does God hear that? You know in your heart that He knows everything. He knows what you think. He knows that He hears and answers the prayers that are not uttered out of your mouth. The entirety of our existence is in the presence of God. our religion, hollow and empty and formal, performance maybe, all whatever it is, whatever you are, it's laid bare, God sees it. And in this sacred hour, we worship and dwell in the presence of God in a special way. There's something special about the corporate gathering of the church. And as was mentioned this morning, do not neglect the opportunity to come and gather with the people of God. I'll tell you this, the people of God are filled with the Holy Spirit, but I can assure you right now the Holy Spirit is here in this place because God's people in Christ have assembled and he's at work in us. He's completing a work. He's finishing a work in us. So we should be not slack in taking advantage of these wonderful things. Our faith, our worship, our reverence, our devotion, whatever it is, pro or con, it's all barren his sight. And this right practice of faith and religion is really displayed in public but it's also displayed in the marketplace, in the workplace, in the secret place. You can't really perform true, pure, and undefiled religion as outward rituals of faith without the full engagement of your heart. So today, one of the things I would like you to do in terms of application is no longer make an excuse for the coldness of your heart and your practice of evil things. Every one of us has said these circumstances that you put me in, that wife, that husband, those children, my parents, this is the reason that I sin. This is the reason my life is hard. We just read that this comes from the heart Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. We live in an irresponsible age. The people of God must take responsibility for their life and their sin. And as you know, there's great hope in that because we have a great Savior who is Christ the Lord. We live in the presence of God, and to visit orphans is not to drop off and say hello to them, but to look upon them in order to help them, to care for them, to provide for them. The helpless plight of the widows and orphans, their property was in jeopardy, their livelihood was in jeopardy. We're to visit them and whatever person there is that is in trouble and in need of help, the Christian should be eager and zealous to reach out and meet that need. But now we get to the central language of our text. To keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Children, I want you to imagine that we have erected a beautiful castle and that we take turns and rotate who's going to be the guards and the sentries of these beautiful castle lookouts. Now imagine that you had the shift this evening after the Sabbath day from midnight to 6 a.m. in the morning and you are to stand guard and you are to notify the leaders if trouble comes. To keep is to watch over, to guard. This is a continuous action. Now, if you fell asleep from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., your guarding would not be very successful. We would be vulnerable to attack. In order for us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, we have to first acknowledge the danger, the reality that the world is out there and its ways are wicked and contrary to our new nature in Christ. And we have to continuously keep watch and guard our hearts against those things. One of the definitions I love about this word keep is to keep one in the state in which he is. And you people of God have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ. You bear the family resemblance of the people of God. How can you go put on the clothes outwardly of the harlot? It's inconceivable. We who have a new nature, our new creations in Christ, it shows you the folly and the insidiousness of sin that we, royal in our garb, royal in our standing, loved of God, united to Christ, that we would dabble in the things of the world. And everyone Since Adam, save the Lord Jesus Christ, every person in this room has done it. This is when our reformed theology kicks in and we say, it's total depravity is what it is. And I think we should uphold total depravity and all the fullness and all of its implications. But have we forgotten the radical transforming power of Christ and Him crucified and His death and His life applied to the heart of believers? We make the excuse, it's just a sinful world. It's just total depravity. That's why these things happen. You have been redeemed by the Lamb. You've been washed. You and I bear the name of Christ. We're wearing His holy garments. It seems that we ought to live up to that high calling and standard. And all of this is positive and good for us. Keep guard over the treasure of your faith in Christ. One of the things that I think we have done poorly at, and I don't know why this is, we think that God's commands are preventing us from having fun. This lie is as old as the serpent in the garden. God has not withheld with anything, not one thing that is good from his people. The world has nothing for us. This age of sexual immorality does not compare to the blessing of union between a man and woman in Christ for life. These lies are as old as the garden. Every command has attendant blessings with it. Every command. And God says, don't do this. He's not restraining us from fun or pleasure. He's protecting us that we might experience true pleasure in Him. The locus classicus of this idea is 1 John 2. Don't turn there. This verse is probably just as important, this concept, as the one we're reading, and it says this. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, And the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. He has supplied us an inheritance, I read it earlier, incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. In Sunday school, we learn today beautifully that we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and if that is our heart, if that is our desire, we will be filled. I don't know if you know this or not, the world and her pleasures never satisfy. The heroin addict doesn't ever give up the heroin, he injects more in his arm. The adulterer, the fornicator, the thief, they're never, ever satisfied. It promises and doesn't deliver. What a gracious God to give us his law, not to restrain us, but to set us free, to liberate us from the bondages of sin and death in Christ. We don't want to be stained by the world. We want to be spotless, unstained, morally and spiritually untainted. I'm going to have you turn with me one time to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 5 is not the wedding passage. It's got an application for marriage. It's very big. It's about Christ and his church. And I want you to think about this notion of being unspotted from the world in relation to these very familiar words in Scripture. Ephesians 5, we'll begin reading at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. Now I want you to listen carefully. Jesus Christ did die on the cross to save us from our sins. He did die on the cross to make atonement for our sins. He did expiate our sins. He was the propitiation for our sin. He satisfied divine justice on the cross. But he's done something else. Look at verse 26. He gave himself for her, the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. He went to the cross, our King, our leader died to make us the bride, pure and undefiled. That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. but that she should be holy and without blemish. Brethren, why is this not more central to the Christian identity? See, holiness is not legalism. Obedience is not legalism. Holiness apparently is the most beautiful thing in the world. Isaiah in his confrontation with the glory of God was undone by the holiness of God. Young people aspire to be married. I wonder if we're getting this wrong. Are we attempting to allure one another with worldly things? Worldly adornments? A virtuous Christian woman is much more beautiful than the harlot who is well adorned. And later, James is gonna say, adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? I don't wanna be an enemy of God. I want you to imagine a bride, using this illustration, in the most pristine, the most beautiful gown that you've ever seen, white, so bright and shining. I want you to imagine that just before entering into the sanctuary and to be wed to her husband, She decided that she would run out and jump into the mud. All of us would be horrified. What are you doing? You spent so much money on the dress. You've waited for this hour. You were adorned without blemish. You were a picture of the church coming to Christ. But that's what we do. We have Christ waiting for us at the front, at the altar. He's ready, and someday the fullness of the consummation will be realized, and we are united to Him, and there's something in us that wants to go run and play in the mud. These things ought not to be. Well, let's go back to our text. I don't know how we're doing on time. unstained, undefiled religion, keeping yourself unspotted from the world. And the final word that I'm going to spend time on is the world. The cosmos is the order of things. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but there has been a significant declension in the culture around us. These are, in this case, the affairs of men, the inhabitants of the earth. This is the comings and goings, the doctrine, the speech, the lives, the manners of the ungodly multitude. of the whole mass of men alienated from God and therefore hostile to the cause of Christ. It is for us to speak in accordance with the world's character and mode of thinking. I occasionally catch my children, I say, don't be so dependent upon the slang of the world. You're a righteous one. Even what you're saying is not necessarily inherently wrong. Let's be careful. the world's ways. It is the aggregate of all things earthly, the whole circle of earthly goods, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, which although they be hollow and frail and fleeting, they stir desire. They seduce from God and are obstacles to the cause of Christ. That's what the world is, and we have to ask again, how could we be friends with the world? Now, one application of this takes this in the wrong direction. There could be a call for someone to say, well, we should go and become like the Amish. And if I don't get this beard trimmed soon, I'm going to have to be producing some apple butter and some red oak furniture. But we're not called to retreat in isolation. Paul called the Ephesians in the shadow of the temple prostitution of Diana to be salt and light there. Men, women, and children had to walk by that temple with all that wickedness, and they had to be upright and devoted to Christ. You and I are salt and light here in this world. There is no retreat. We do it here. We do it out in front. We're in public. and you and I have to be untainted and unstained from the world, and I think the only way this is possible is if we cherish and love holy things. Is church boring to you? Is this sermon, however unskillfully or unartfully delivered, is it unenjoyable to you? Is this a hassle to come to church? You have to acknowledge you do not really love the things of God. If you don't want to sing these hymns and these psalms and you don't want to be at church, you don't want to be, you don't cherish them. You don't love them. They don't have hold of you as they ought. And I would say that I believe with all my heart, the reason many Christians don't have the joy of the Christian life is they're so entangled with the world. They are in conflict because they're at war with their own new nature in Christ. Well, let me have a couple of words of application and some encouragement to close this. Brethren, you're a special people of God. not only personally because of who you are to our family, not because you're well-trained by a faithful pastor, but you're clothed in the fine linen of Christ's righteousness. And brethren, this garment is highly stain-resistant. So you have blown it in some ways in your life in being worldly. But now you're clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. Take heart, Christian, today. You've been washed. He'll keep washing you. Keep coming back to Him. He'll wash you. But we have to acknowledge, we have to take responsibility, we have to own that we have been disloyal to the one who loves us. and gave Himself for us, so I think we should repent right now of every drop of worldliness that's in us. Lay the axe to the root of the tree, put off the old man and his corruptions, and put on the new. Brethren, we need to starve our flesh Think about all of the benefits they talk about for fasting and intermittent fasting for your personal health. How healthy and healthful would it be for us to starve our flesh and to feast upon Christ? Feed the Spirit. I was thinking about pleasure. And I think something happens in the young person's life when their hormones begin to change and all those things are happening that the pursuit of pleasure begins to take over. And I was thinking about this and I recognized again very simply that God created pleasure. And if God created pleasure, his pleasures are better than the pleasures that men can create. Our Lord is and takes great pleasure in his Son. You and I should take great pleasure in the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes pleasure in the creation. You and I should walk out and love the beautiful blue sky and the sun shining and the birds singing and the gentle breezes blowing because God made a good earth. He said it was good. He took pleasure in it. We too should take pleasure in his created order. He also seems to really take pleasure in the glorification of his most holy name. You and I need to glorify the name of the most high God. He takes great pleasure and delight in saving sinners. What if this Orthodox Church, sound in theology, said, it is our responsibility. LaGrange will not hear the gospel if it were not for us. I think the Lord would take pleasure in your efforts to reach LaGrange for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He takes pleasure in saving his sinners, his elect ones. And brethren, he's pleased to give us, his people, his ear. There are many people I can't get on the phone because they don't know who I am and don't care to talk to me, but the King of glory takes pleasure in the prayers of his people. Our feeble attempts at worship was good singing. It didn't raise to the level it ought to be, but it's no fault of you. I'm not criticizing you. Did you sing with all of your heart? Did you pronounce the creed with all of your heart? Were you filled with zeal and fire and love for God, or was it just the ornaments and externals of religion? We need the substance of genuine faith in Christ, and there's a lot of passion and zeal, and that runs afoul of our Presbyterian sensibilities sometimes, but genuine, real faith is zealous. He takes great pleasure in inhabiting the praises of his people, and he delights to meet the needs of his people. You know, the illustration of widows and orphans, there's a lot of gospel there. Do you know that Christ takes the orphan and brings them into the family of God? Do you know that he takes the widow and gives her a divine husband who will never die? It seems fitting that you and I would keep ourselves unspotted from the world because we have been given so great a salvation. I'm going to read one little portion of scripture and this will be our conclusion. This is found in Romans chapter six. If you need a Sabbath day meditation, I would encourage you to read Romans chapter six. I know you guys are also going through the shorter catechism, and I was thinking we need to think about the positives of law as well. We have great benefits in obedience, and sometimes we just only portray it negatively. I want to read this section to you, and I hope this is an encouragement. It's very familiar. This is from Romans 6. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. And do not present your members as instruments, this is verse 13 if you're trying to follow along, of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you. I want to stop there. Remember our doctrine of total depravity? We are radically corrupt. We are totally depraved. But we're in Christ. We're not gonna have sinless perfection on this earth, but we have been set free from the bondage and slavery of sin and we need to live like it. It's there, it's ours for the taking. We must do it and walk in it. And why does this sin not have dominion over us? Because we're not under law but under grace. Christ has dealt graciously with us. What then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one's slaves whom you obey. whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. Sunday school lesson. Sermon. There are two paths. There's only two. Strip it of its nuance. There's a way that leads to death and there's a way that leads to righteousness and eternal joy in Christ. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, Yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." In the woke world, you can't say slaves. I'm here today to tell you that we are slaves of righteousness, and it's a glorious slavery. If that be true, we ought to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Amen? Let's pray together.