Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship 10/8/2023

Psalmody and Corporate Worship

The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory. Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship him, all you gods. Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments, O Lord.

For you, Lord, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. You who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.

Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. Come now, let us worship him. Please pray with me.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what a privilege it is to be called your people. I pray that this would delight our hearts, that we would worship you acceptably in a manner that is pleasing to you, that we would love righteousness and hate evil.

O Lord, we ask that our service to you would be pleasing through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. We ask this in his name. Amen. Please kneel for the corporate confession of sin. Let us join together now confessing with one voice.

God of love, it is your will that we should love you with heart, soul, mind, strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. From freedom to slavery, from wholeness to emptiness, have mercy on us, that we may shine before the world.

Please stand. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours only, but also for the whole world.

O take heart, people of God today, in Christ you have the forgiveness of sins. Amen. Please take up the hymnal and turn to.

Number two. O worship the King. Number two. DJ, I'm going to ask you to help us.

This is a familiar psalm to us because it was the Psalm of the Month, but it's been some time now. Would you help us with the first line or so just to get us started, explain that really? Let us sing this great psalm and former Psalm of the Month.

Reading from 1 John 2 and the Call to Obedience

Please remain standing for the reading of the word from 1st John chapter 2. 1st John 2.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, children, because you know the father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

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 desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the father, but is from the world, and the world is passing away along with its desires.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the holy one, and you all have knowledge.

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the father and the son.

No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the son and in the father.

And this is the promise that he made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

But as his anointing teaches you about everything, it is true, it is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness.

Has been born of him. This is the word of God. Let us now confess our faith in the singing of.

The apostles' creed. Please take up the trinity hymnal and turn to number 710,.

God of our fathers. And we do not have organs or trumpets, so we're gonna have to start later.

DJ, help us get started. Please make preparations now for the prayers of the people.

We're on the Ten Commandments today, and so we need a lot of you men to pray, so please jump in when available. Let us pray together now in unison. Oh God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsel, and all just works.

Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, may live in peace and quietness through the merits of Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit.

The Lord says, I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Your father and your mother, you shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, mind, and strength. Amen. Please stand, take up the insert, and find our Psalm of the Month, Psalm 46. We should be a little bit acquainted with this now after some practice, and last week.

Let us begin to the glory of God. Please remain standing for the reading of the word from the.

Pure and Undefiled Religion

Book of James and chapter one. I'm going to begin reading in verse 16. This is God's holy and infallible word. 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 firstfruits 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. Please pray with me now. O Lord, we desire to be a faithful people, and I ask that you would use your word to bridle our tongues and our hearts, that we would have a religion that is useful, that we would practice and teach and model a pure and undefiled religion.

And O Lord, I pray that your people would derive great encouragement and comfort, that their lives would be changed and transformed. Holy Spirit, we ask for power and unction and illumination and conviction, and we ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Please be seated. The title of the message today is Pure and Undefiled Religion. And what we're getting at today is what it means to be a doer of the word. And to put it another way, we're looking to have pure and undefiled religion in practice.

For those of you who are needing an outline, there are three measures of faithfulness in our text. The first is bridling the tongue. The first point for consideration is bridling the tongue. The second is visiting orphans and widows in their trouble.

Visiting orphans and widows in their trouble. And the third, keep yourself unspotted from the world. All of this derived very simply from the text. Bridling the tongue, visiting orphans and widows in their trouble, and keeping yourself unspotted from the world.

A bridled tongue reveals a pure heart. To visit orphans and widows in their trouble is to give without getting. To keep oneself unspotted from the world, you have to see the beauty of holiness. You have to love God and his holiness.

Do you take pleasure in holiness? Do you practice holiness? That's how you keep yourself unspotted from the world. Let's look at our text again. 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.

That should get our attention. The most important thing in the Christian's life is his relationship, communion with God through the person of Jesus Christ. For you to have your religion described as useless or potentially to be useless, this should stop you and cause you to pause and to ask, am I living up to the standard, the obligations that are incumbent upon the people of God who have forgiveness in Christ, who have been made new in him?

You and I want to have a useful, potent faith in Christ. Let's consider the first point. Speech is produced by an airstream from the lungs, and this air flows through the trachea and into the oral and nasal cavities.

The tongue in your mouth has to be properly oriented, and it has to be manipulated behind the teeth, sometimes on the roof of your mouth, extending through the teeth, retracted and sometimes even curled and made wavy.

Somehow this produces words, and these words are intelligible to others. In a great demonstration of the union of the body and soul, I want you to pay attention to this. The thoughts and intents of the heart and mind springing from the soul of man appear upon the machinery of the brain and travel through a four-stage process of initiation in the lungs, phonation through the vibrating anatomy of the trachea, then shaped by the articulators of the mouth and nose, and somehow words come out.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and just as remarkably, the hearers of these vibrating sounds take in the waves through their auditory faculties, beginning with the outer ear, and they are transmitted to the brain, whereby they are instantly recognized, interpreted, understood, and they become thoughts.

As image bearers of God, this verbal ability—speaking, hearing, thinking, understanding, writing, and singing—distinguishes us from other animals of God's earthly creation. We are so language-oriented that the deaf can speak and hear with their hands, and the blind can read by running their fingers over raised dots.

We have to acknowledge that this whole process is very fast and has an intrinsic reactionism to it. Our text today reveals that the well from which the water of words are drawn are from the person's heart, and out of his heart flows the issues of life.

Proverbs 4 says,. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Matthew 15 says,. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

These are the things which defile a man. Matthew 12 says,. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The verse before Matthew 12 .33,. For a tree is known by its fruit. It's a big principle in James, isn't it?

It's really a central idea of James, an under-appreciated fact that a tree is known by his fruit. And again in Matthew 12,. A good man out of the good treasures of his heart brings forth the good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

But I say to you that for every idle word that men speak, they will give an account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Looking at this text, it seems like a short list for what pure and undefiled religion is.

Bridling the tongue, visiting orphans and widows in their trouble, and keeping oneself unspotted. So the question is, how deep does this tongue bridling go? The psalmist says, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.

Keep the door of my lips. Keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking lies. In Proverbs, it says, Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul, and health to the body. The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.

Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity. Proverbs 21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, this one, this one's religion is useless.

The first idea I want us to consider is religion. In the last 30 years or so, a common phrase has become popular within the church, and it's this. Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. Christianity, they say, is not a religion but a relationship.

Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, I have two of these. If any of you and your families want one, I'd be happy to give it to you. It really helps you understand particularly King James English and how tied our forefathers in our country and the Christian world were to the Bible and their understanding of everything, even the meaning of ordinary words.

In his definition for religion, Noah Webster cites as the cross-reference James chapter one. His best definition of religion, the cross-reference is James chapter one. This is what he says. In its most comprehensive sense, this is the definition of religion.

In its most comprehensive sense includes a belief in the being and perfections of God, in the revelation of his will to man, in man's obligation to obey his commands, in a state of reward and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God, and also true godliness or piety of life with the practice of moral duties.

It therefore comprehends theology as a system of doctrines or principles, as well as practical. For the practice of moral duties without a belief in a divine lawgiver and without reference to his will or commands is not religion.

And religion, as distinct from theology, is godliness or real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow man. I don't know if you noticed, that's what we just prayed through in the Ten Commandments.

All of this and obedience to divine command or from the love to God and his law. You are practicing the religion. There are many false religions, but the Christian religion, the orthodox Christian religion, which has the Bible as its final authority.

If you are a Christian, you are practitioners and participants in the real religion. I find the statement, Christianity is not a religion but a relationship, to be flippant and misleading. Pray a prayer and go on your merry way.

There's a set of doctrines to be believed, but more than that, those doctrines say my life has to be ordered in a certain way. I need to live as a Christian. And this seems to be in a deficient state in the life of the church, particularly in the West.

Christianity is most certainly a religion. It's the only true religion. We are, by definition, a religious people. We have gone through rites and ceremonies even this morning, and we will continue to do so.

And particularly, we get to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. So let's set aside this notion that the word religious or religion is bad. And James is speaking of here a true faith in Christ, a real, genuine belief in the Son of God made man, the incarnate Christ, and all that goes with it.

And we like to leave off what goes with it. And here he challenges us, I think surprisingly, given where we've come. He starts with this idea of bridling the tongue. What does it mean to bridle? It means to guide, to hold in check, to restrain.

You and I have to have bridled tongues as Christians. And we are wanting in this area. We are a people of loose lips. We're a people of coarse mouths. We're a people of cursing tongues. And these things ought not to be.

I'd like you to turn over to James in chapter three. In several weeks, we will be taking this subject up with even some greater depth and exposition. But it's going to help us understand where James is going here in chapter one.

Look at verse two. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. If your tongue is bridled, your body is bridled. In order for your tongue to be bridled, your heart has to be bridled.

These words that miraculously appear on our lips, this incredible biology and all these things happening, they spring from the heart of what's in us. And if that place in us is corrupt and not walking in faith, our words will be spewing a venom.

Look at verse three. It says, Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths, and they may obey us. And we turn the whole body. I saw a video recently of a very young girl saddled on a horse, and she was riding him with such competence and skill.

The horse went everywhere that she directed him. And our tongues have this capacity to lead us in the right direction. From out of it, we praise our God. We preach Christ to the lost. We offer words of encouragement and consolation to those who are hurting.

We build one another up. We proclaim the glorious name of Christ. And with it, we also curse, we tear down, we destroy, we murder with our words. It gives another example. It's very powerful. If you've ever seen particularly ancient ships or from the medieval later period, the rudder of a ship is very small.

Look at verse four. Look also at ships. Although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

The tongue is so said among our members that it defiles the whole body. Verse six. Do you remember those words I just quoted from Matthew 12 of Jesus? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

A tree is known by its fruit. A Christian is known by the words that proceed from their mouths. And I have to tell you something. Since the early 90s, when I became very serious about my faith in Christ, I have seen a rapid decline in the use of the mouth of Christians.

Words that would never be uttered in Christian company are now freely used. There is a coarseness and a crudeness to our language that defies our most holy faith in Christ. We must rein in our tongues.

They reflect hearts of corruption. We need to rein in our hearts because out of our hearts are coming some very unseemly and unpleasant things. External conformity is not enough. We can't hold our tongues in some external discipline and we must rein in our hearts in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

But that venom will come out. And coarse and careless lips reveal calloused hearts. This religion that James speaks of must be of central importance to us. It's everything for us. It encompasses our faith in Christ, our worship and adoration of God, our privilege and obligation to keep covenant with him.

Oh, children, I want you to think of the power of words. I love you. It's wonderful to hear, isn't it? Two young people aspiring and hoping for marriage in that magical day when the husband-to-be poses the question, will you marry me?

And her heart leaps within her. She's so delighted. Yes, I will marry you. But what about I hate you? What about the words I want a divorce? Powerful words, life changing words, families being started, families being destroyed in words.

What about the great message from Jesus Christ? I forgive you. Oh, Lord Jesus, the weight, my guilt is gone. I have forgiveness and salvation in you. What powerful words. Oh, let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Let every Christian build up the brethren with words of edification. Transform your marriage and your parenting and your work life and your church life by being disciplined and proficient in your use of words.

I think in verse 10 of chapter three gives us the problem that James is trying to address and he lays out for us in chapter one. It says, out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

Does the spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? The answer is no. Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

This is the question. Do we have a mixture of words proceeding from our mouth? And if we have a mixture of words proceeding from our mouth, we have a mixed heart that's not fully consecrated and dedicated and resolving to live as a Christian.

I'll go back to chapter one. If you look at other portions of the Bible, you can imagine the list, not as exhaustive as last week, but how many verses speak of the tongue and related issues. It's a very large number.

Job calls it a scourge or a whip and every blow inflicts severe wounds on the character and leaves welts on a, as one author put it, a lacerated peace and reputation. Daniel styles the tongue as a sharp sword, a murderous weapon, which hews down those upon whom it falls and drips with the gore of slaughtered innocence or virtue.

Jeremiah says of the tongue, it is an arrow shot out, a pointed arrow shot by wicked archers against those whom they wish to pierce through with anguish and yet themselves keep at a distance from the one whose good name they aim to destroy.

Paul, speaking of the lips through which the tongue speaks as the poison of asps is under their lips. James here says it's full of deadly poison. I hope the case is being made. We have to be a people of clean lips.

That great scene of Isaiah, the righteous, most righteous man in the land. He sees the glory of God, the most righteous man, and he says, I'm a man of unclean lips. I don't speak rightly about God or my fellow man.

I am undone. You must recognize that this very simple, common thing speaks of a world of our heart. Look again at our text. If I don't bridle my tongue, if you don't bridle your tongue, you are self-deceived.

How many times has he been concerned about deceiving ourselves? Twice in just the section we read, three times in the section we read today, two prior to our text. Be doers of the word. If you're not a doer of the word, you're deceiving yourself.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Previous text, 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.

I want to pause here. Parents, this is a hard lesson for you today because your pattern of words is covenantally being transmitted to your children. If you're harsh with your wife, your children are going to be harsh with each other and really harsh on your wife.

If you're a backbiter and you gossip and slander and talk bad about people, your little sweet children will be corrupted by your poison. They're going to be backbiters. They're going to be gossipers. We must put this to death now for the sake of our children and our grandchildren.

We're modeling the Christian life inappropriately, improperly, misleadingly so if we do not bridle our tongues. If anyone among you thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart.

Terrifying words. This one's religion is useless. This term is to be described as without purpose, fleeting, ineffectual, devoid of force. A weak, impotent faith used negatively this language to describe heathen deities and the worship that surrounds them.

Worthless. We're the people of God. Our faith and our religion, our salvation cannot be worthless. It can't be useless. It has to be useful and effectual and potent and powerful and filled with hope and joy and thanksgiving.

You and I better bridle our tongues and pull back on the reins of our sin-stained hearts. There are several sins that are attached to the tongue. This isn't all of them. Some of them will go over in chapter 3.

Proverbs 10 .8 says a prating fool will fall. And this is a person who talks much on a trifling subject, idle talk, talking a lot about trivial affairs. They're busybodies who out of idleness roam from house to house gossiping about what they heard.

They're tailbearers. Proverbs 26 .19 says this kind of man scatters firebrands, arrows and deaths and says, I was only joking. There's something I've noticed proliferation of in the life of the church is a subtle passive aggressiveness and getting your jabs in on a person and a creative use of words.

Underhanded compliment, a little jab attached to it, not coming out and really saying it, but meaning it with all of your heart that has to be gone. We have to be people of integrity. And this isn't just not allowing the words to come out of my mouth.

I have to put to death the thought and bring it in captivity to Christ. I shouldn't be thinking evil of my brethren. I have to back there in the deepness of my heart. I have to put it to death there. It's not some external prevention of the words coming out of my mouth.

I cannot hate my brother. Another sin of the tongue is slander. And God says whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, I will cut off. Slander is speaking of evil of someone, usually a lie, defaming someone's good name, having envious jealousies and secret whisperings and innuendos, all the ways by which the tongue wounds and injures the name and reputation of another.

And of course, the greatest form of slander is bearing false witness, which we pray through. A good thing to consider this Lord's Day afternoon, maybe when you get home, is to consider something like the Third and Ninth Commandments and the larger catechisms, full treatment of what's forbidden and permitted and what should be done in relation to those commandments.

You're getting this body of information to understand just how deep and how wide this issue of the tongue is. Satan is the greatest accuser of the brethren. We don't want to be like him. There's another sin of the tongue, and it's a murmuring, complaining tongue.

The one who murmurs is always discontent and complaining. This is so opposite the Christian virtue of gratitude and thanksgiving. They are always ready to find fault. Not only in their dealings with their fellow man, but reality is the deep one is they find fault with God and his providences.

I don't like what you're doing, God. So I murmur the children of Israel murmured at God's provision in the wilderness. And most of them perished there. The basic falsehood and lies, every sin of lie is a sin against one's own soul.

It's a sin against your fellow man. It's a sin against God. And it will invite the judgment and chastening of God. No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house, he says. No one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

The fifth one is filthy language and indecent speech. Why do reformed theological students like to have potty mouths? It doesn't make any sense. Why does a virtuous Christian man speak crudely? He shouldn't.

Do not let any unwholesome language or talk come out of your mouths. The unclean tongue evidences an unclean heart. There are jokes that you shouldn't laugh at. And the laugh should not be restrained.

The laugh, the punchline should be repulsive to us because we love holiness and we love good words and we love Christ and we we seek the better things. Another sin of the tongue is boasting. It reflects an overestimate of ourselves.

In scripture, it teaches that the Lord will picturesquely cut off every boastful tongue. And if you're a boaster, I want here today to tell you, it betrays weakness, littleness, ignorance, vanity, self-conceit, and pride.

Your boasting makes you look smaller, not bigger. It's self-seeking. It's pursuing a vain glory. It's because we want to elevate ourselves and tear down others. Another sin of the tongue is flattery.

The Lord's going to cut off all flattering lips. The flattering mouth works ruin. It's a desire to say something which pleases the person whom they're appraising or to get the esteem of those who hear it.

It's usually given and sometimes given in a backhanded way, but really it's intended to curry favor for some selfish end. And the flatterers I've known, they are jealous, and the flatterer often covets what the other has.

They often actually despise the one whom they flatter, and they should be the ones themselves to get the attention. The final one I'll do here now is profaning the name of God, the third commandment, obviously.

The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. The words of Paul ring true. We consider this list that has more to it, more to be discussed in chapter three, Ephesians four, but no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.

But what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. In earthly terms, the tongue is both a thermometer and a thermostat. As a thermometer, it takes our spiritual temperature.

If your course, if you're grumbling under your breath, if you're speaking ill of brethren, if you're cursing, if you're angry, it tells us something about your heart. Are you hot for God? Or are you burning with a sin fever?

Are we lukewarm? We're neither hot nor cold, or are we cold toward God and our fellow man. The tongue, our words, our speech will reflect the realities of our hearts. It's also a thermostat which regulates temperature.

The bridal tongue is steered in the direction of holiness. It's reciting the words of scripture. It's singing psalms and hymns. It's got an orientation, a direction toward God. An unbridled tongue veers toward destruction.

Our right use of the tongue and employing the means that God has given us in our most holy faith can temper the tongue. It can tamp down pride and anger and jealousy and spite. And renewed minds and hearts spring forth in praise and build up rather than tear down.

I want to give you a simple formula to regulate your speech. You've heard these before, I'm sure. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it needful? If you are asked, is this dress nice? And you don't think it's nice, you should be nice.

We should be the kind of people who restrain our words knowing that our words would be interpreted. If you don't prefer the dress, you could offer some counsel. I don't prefer this dress, but you shouldn't say I think that dress is ugly and any person who would like that dress is an idiot.

That's a big difference. But taking that simple kind of easy formula, let's take it a step further. Does my speech, what I'm about to say, does it bring glory to God? If not, I shouldn't say it. Does it promote holiness?

No, I shouldn't say it. Does it build up the church? Is it befitting? Is this conduct, these words befitting the gospel of Christ? Brethren, today I have to ask you, what do your words say about you? Stop making excuses.

You may have been slack in this area. It's time today to bridle your tongues, to put these things in order. And to bridle your tongue means to bridle your heart. Your desires have to change. Only the Holy Spirit can do this, but he seems to do it in cooperation with the obedience and the striving of the believer.

Well, that was going to be the smaller part of the message, but I'm going to stop there today. We'll continue the next part of our study, pure and undefiled religion, next week. Lord willing. How's your language?

How's your words? Are you bridling your tongue? A bridled tongue reveals a pure heart. Please pray with me. Oh Lord, we have to confess we have much room for growth and improvement. We do not speak to our spouses and our parents the way we ought.

Oh Lord, I pray that you would transform us, that we would not be deceived, that we would have a pure, useful, undefiled religion. And oh Lord, we are getting the message that the defilement comes from within.

We like to blame and shift responsibility. Oh Lord, our defilement comes from within, and we desperately need you, Christ. And we thank you for coming and saving us. And we ask that you would be pleased with the powerful working of your Spirit, coupled with that Spirit-enabled obedience, that we would purge the defilement of our hearts.