Sermons tagged with Prayer

Advent. The coming. The waiting for light to shine in the darkness. We light candles each week to remind us of the coming of Christmas. As the candles burn down, our anticipation grows. We hear songs on the radio, think about sales we want to hit, see the smiles and the well wishes of peace on earth, the bright lights and decorations and everyone talking about joy, joy, joy. Really? People are more cranky and stressed, more frustrated and depressed than ever. Tragic news pops up in our headlines almost daily now and around the world we hear the same story. We live in a world starving for joy. In the New Testament, Luke tells us of angels coming to announce the birth of Jesus to some lowly and defeated, depressed, and joy-starved shepherds. That night, there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them, Don't be afraid, he said. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. Lighting up night, the angel proclaimed, And we marvel as well that God would step into our mess, a broken world marred by our sin. And the knowledge that God is accomplishing something new, that he cannot be stopped or deterred, brings us great comfort and great joy. Yes, we still feel sorrow and pain, but God is ever redeeming, ever remaking, bringing joy from sadness, and we look forward to his return when he will make all things new, and we will live in the great unceasing joy that he has promised us. No matter what you go through, we can know this. Jesus is with us. Think about it. He is with you in your greatest victories and your most humiliating defeats. He invited us to come with him and he will give us rest. He has won the victory for us to relieve our frustration and stress. Our striving is over. Let us be overjoyed. Jesus is with us at all times, in all things. That is the beauty of meeting together around these candles. We light a new Advent candle each week to help us prepare for the coming of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas. And this week we light the pink candle to remind us of the real, deep-seated joy that Jesus brings that we can hold onto no matter what is going on. This great joy is the startling realization that God has taken up residence in this world. Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Will you receive this king? to be here this morning talking to you about joy. I am also very sorry that I just made that wordplay joke. That was terrible. I can't promise you it's going to be the last one of the sermon, but I can promise you you're going to not enjoy any of them. But the truth is the same. I am so thrilled to be here this morning getting to talk about joy. As you just heard, we are in our third Sunday of Advent. We are lighting the candle of joy, the pink candle of joy, and for me, it is maybe my favorite one. I think maybe the reason for that is because I believe one of the major reasons why people love Christmas so much, why it truly is the most wonderful time of the year, or at least this is how I feel, is because I feel like Christmas is just synonymous with joy. That the purpose of Christmas, the purpose of all of the decorations and the lights and the giving gifts and the songs and just the super fun, joyful songs. All of this is just meant to bring about this joy of this Christmas season. And it's so cool because when you go all the way back to scripture and when you look at the very first Christmas, I think we see the same exact thing. When we jump into Luke 2, and we're going to actually read through some verses in Luke 2, when we look at the first Christmas, as we look at what happened when Jesus was born, I think we're just overwhelmed with the amount of joy that's coming out of it. As it starts, Jesus has been born and there are shepherds that are in the field. They're to Jesus, this angel comes. And so we pick a sign for you. wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, excuse me, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. And so what happens? The angels go away and the shepherds immediately, I mean, it doesn't say this, but I imagine they sprinted to go find this baby because they're like, that was the most insane thing I've ever seen. I've got to figure out what they're talking about. And so they go and they see that what the angels had said was true, that this baby had been born. And I think they knew, they knew what that meant. And so after they see the baby, they see that it's legit. They run back and they want to tell everybody they know. They tell their families that it says they basically just recited what the angels had said to them. And then what did they do then? They hussled on back. They returned. They had to go see Jesus again. And we pick up back in verse 20, it says, I mean, there's just joy oozing out of every part of that passage. You start, you got the angels who come and they bring, quote, good tidings, good news of great joy. And then after delivering the message they have, they immediately start singing. It was essentially the world's first Buddy the Elf Christmas gram. And then after they get done singing, all of these shepherds in their joy and excitement run over. They see Jesus and then they're so excited that they take their joy elsewhere and tell other people about it. And then they bring them back and they're so overjoyed at just looking at God that they just have to turn to praising God because they're so overcome with this joy that they've experienced. And how incredible is it that now, today, this season, this December 25th, this Christmas time, we're celebrating that exact same joy. And I would argue that even the, excuse me, even the folks that celebrate Christmas that are more doing it just as a holiday, maybe because they aren't believers yet, that I don't think that they would even argue with you that Christmas is synonymous with joy. Because every part of Christmas is meant to push that agenda. But what we have the blessing of knowing is that the reason, the real reason why Christmas is synonymous with joy is because Christ is synonymous with joy and because Christ was born and Christ came and we have the gospel, we have the Savior who we know came and we know why that is a big deal and why that is important. And so we celebrate with everything we have. We have this childlike wonder and this childlike joy to just sing these goofy songs and to put up these goofy decorations and to do all of these things so that we can celebrate with the people around us this great and wonderful and awesome Christmas joy like none other. But as we all know too well, regardless of how soon, regardless of what date, even if it's like November 1st that we decide, all right, I'm going ahead, I'm getting my Christmas tree, I'm putting up my Christmas decorations as soon as possible, I'm immediately switching to only Christmas music for the next three months, as we all know, as quickly as Christmas comes, it goes. As quickly as we are just once again encapsulated by the joy of Christmas, we get on the other side of it. We get into the new year and we pack up all of our Christmas stuff and we kind of turn from that Christmas joy back into our far less joyful, far more mundane, boring, regular lives. Counting down the days until it's the next Christmas season so that you can experience that Christmas joy all over again. This is going to be weird to say, but just roll with me. I feel like our relationship with Christmas in this way is similar to my relationship that I had for a long time with the sport of disc golf. Yes, I said disc golf. It is not the same as actually as was said to me this morning, golf golf or real golf or regular golf or as us in the disc golf community like to call it, ball golf, but it is similar. Instead of there being a hole in the ground and instead of hitting a ball with a club, yeah, the form was good, I know. That was just a show off to you guys. But instead of that, it is played with a frisbee, or with different frisbees, so you throw it, and the goal is to get it down into a basket in a certain number of shots. You know, you've got your birdies, you've got your pars, bogeys, all of that stuff, and you play a round of disc golf. Now, for those of you who know me, this sport was basically tailor-made for me. One, because it's outside, and it's in these beautiful parks in nature, and you just get to be a part of that, and that's really cool. Another thing is, like, it's a sport in the sense of you're throwing frisbees, and throwing Frisbee is literally my favorite thing to do and has been my entire life. But it's not so intense to where you still just get to hang out with the people that you're with. Talk, mess around, and it was perfect during COVID because you could stay far away from people but still be around people. And you add an element of competition. And as much as I love disc golf, it was something that I very seldomly did. Basically, it was my times playing disc golf were reserved to the times where I was able to go visit home or we would go on maybe a once or twice a year, we would go on a family vacation when it worked out for the family's schedules. And so anytime we'd go on one of these vacations, my brother and my dad and I would look up and we would try to find these different local disc golf courses so that we could play. And it was awesome. It's so much fun. Like I said, it's right down my alley to play this sport. And so it became one of those things where like one of the things I most looked forward to about our trips and about getting to see my family was being able to look up these different courses and get to go and play these courses the couple times a year I was able to do so. Well, imagine my elation as I put together in my head that, wait, Kyle, you can play disc golf more than just a couple times a year. Because, Kyle, there's literally a disc golf course that's a quarter mile from your house that you drive by all the time. Now, as you hear that, I know you're putting it together in your head and you're giving me way too much benefit of the doubt as you think, oh, I bet what he did is say, I like disc golf. I wonder if there's any courses in Raleigh and realize that this one was close. No. Literally, this is a course that is very easily seen that I drove by, I'd point at people playing disc golf, and I'd be like, can't wait to play that in six months. I know, I was very obtuse to this understanding that this is something that was within my grasp this whole time, but thus, there I was, realizing for the first time this truth, that I could go and I could play this sport of disc golf, this thing that I absolutely loved doing, I could go and I could play it whenever I wanted to. Well, let me tell you that that is exactly what happened. I started playing all the time. I, I'd get done with work, and I'd go and play like two rounds every day. I'd hit up people, see if they'd want to come, or I'd go out there by myself, and I absolutely loved it. Because guess what happens when you really love something, and something brings you a lot of joy, and then you get to do it all the time. It brings you a lot of joy. And clearly I'm saying that to say the point of my message this morning is keep all of your Christmas decorations up all year. No, obviously not. And I mean, like you do you if that's down your alley, like more power to you. But obviously the point of that is not to say, hey, if Christmas brings you joy, then just celebrate Christmas all year. But what I am here to say is that the joy that is brought through Christmas is not brought because of the season. It's brought because of the truth of Christ. And there is a big and vast difference between the first time that these people celebrated Christmas and us celebrating today. And what that difference is, is that they were celebrating the birth of a baby that gave them hope. We celebrate not only the coming of Jesus, but the life of Jesus. And we celebrate the death of Jesus as he took on the weight of our sin, of your sin, of my sin, and said, I am putting this to death because I want the opportunity to have a relationship with you. And in that death, and in his resurrection, coming back to life, signifying that if we would put our sin behind us, if we would simply say, I realize that I am not perfect, I realize I deserve nothing but death, but I also realize what Jesus has done for me and has given me the opportunity to have eternal relationship with God, with our creator, with this perfect creator. And that is the joy that we celebrate on Christmas. That is the gospel. And put so beautifully, I think, by a musical group, Beautiful Eulogy, in their title song, they say, as long as the gospel is true, why do we treat Christmas as our quick fix, as our quick time where we are able to experience this great joy. Why do we use Christmas as the one time that we just celebrate Jesus and we're willing to be more childlike in our hearts? Being a little bit more goofy, decorating a little bit weirder, all because inside of us we're just joyful that it's Christmas time. Because the joy of Christmas and the joy of the gospel is forever. In Lamentations, Lamentations 3, 22 through 23. It's funny that I'm reading a verse out of Lamentations because lament is kind of the opposite of joy. But nonetheless, here we go. Lamentations 3, 22 through 23. It's funny that I'm reading a verse out of Lamentations because lament is kind of the opposite of joy,. Again, I say rejoice. I've got news for you. God invented joy. God sent his son to be born and created the joy that that brought to those people. He sent his son to die so that we could have joy eternally. He didn't create joy to say, man, when it comes to December, my people are going to be so excited. He sent joy so that literally every single day he could shower on us joy and he could shower new mercies on us every morning. God is giddy to bring you joy. He wants to celebrate with us. He invented singing. He invented dancing, both of which I'm eternally thankful to him for. Because they're great and I'm great at both of them. But not only that, but guess what happens? Guess what happened when I started playing disc golf a lot more? I got a lot better. As I played more, I started understanding more intricacies of the game. I grew this much greater love and appreciation for what was going on, from what I was seeing other people doing and trying to emulate that because I wanted to achieve those things, I started achieving goals that, like, I never even thought I could achieve, you know? I was getting my first birdies, shooting my first under par round, shooting my first 10 under par round. A few weeks ago, I think some of you guys saw on Facebook because I posted about it. I wasn't quite as joyful on my Facebook post because, you know, the putting was off. But I played in my first tournament, which is hilarious because I didn't even know that that's a thing that existed. Like when I used to just play a couple times a year, like I was like, oh, that's a thing people do. And hey, guess what? Yes, it's a thing that people do, including your boy Kyle. And I played in it, and it was so much fun, and it was so cool to just like unlock this whole new joy I didn't even know was a real thing. My putter was off, but hey, you know what that did? That just made me want to press in, because I didn't want to fall short on my putter again. The next round I play in a tournament, I want to do better. I want to see what it feels like to do even better than that. Hey, a few days after that, I went and played disc golf with my brother and with my sister-in-law, and that in itself brought me great joy. But hole 13, I got my first ace, my first hole in one. I mean, I like, you know, I put it, I got my stance. I ripped it up. Nice little Anheuser, little turnover shot up the hill, about 250 feet uphill. Smashed that thing. It's flying. It's going. Smashes into the chains. Lands in the basket. And I go nuts. I mean, like, you probably can imagine, like, you're watching me right now, and you're like, this guy's just talking, and he's going this crazy. Yeah, I'm kind of nuts. But I went insane. I was screaming, I was yelling, I was cheering. Like, literally, I wanted to make sure everyone on the course knew that I had just gotten an ace. I mean, like, I'm running around and yelling. Like, to the point that I turn around at one point, I see that my disc golf bag is here on my bench, and all my body can think to do is, I got to kick that. And so I just kick it, like, through the air. I mean, I was absolutely thrilled, and it was awesome, and I can't wait to get another one. But what was incredible to think about was the fact that that was a joy. Throwing a hole-in-one in disc golf is a joy I never even thought to be possible when I was just playing disc golf once or twice a year. Playing in a tournament, I didn't even know tournaments existed back when I was just doing it once or twice a year. Literally, as I kept playing, I've continued to unlock these greater and greater joys that I never even knew were possible or never even knew existed. And that's just a silly game. I love it. It's fun. Let's go play sometime. But it's just a silly game. Imagine how much more joy the Lord has in store for you if you will just say, I want to put that type of effort every day into seeking after him. I want my faith to be so important to me that instead of just waiting for December, I want every day to be a day that I'm seeking the same type of joy that I get to experience during Christmas time. Psalm 1611 says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy, true, complete, 100% fullness of joy, may not be completely available until heaven, where joy, as John Piper put it, joy has no other competitors. I believe that this verse is making us, making it known that this does not start until heaven. I mean, excuse me, that this starts way before heaven. We get to experience this fullness of joy now. And guess what? Fullness of joy changes definitions because God continues to unlock joys we never even knew were existent. He has pleasures for us forever. He wants to shower on us a love that knows no bounds that we can't even comprehend. He wants to bring peace to us and hope to us that sustains us in every part and in every portion and in every circumstance of our life. And he wants to overwhelm us with joy to the point that as an overflow, we can't help but sing and we can't help but dance and we can't help but just be childlike and giddy because we're so overwhelmed with the blessings of God. And at the end of the day, I say all of this, but I don't say this to say that the gospel changes. The gospel remains the same. Every Christmas we're celebrating the same thing. And so I don't say this to say that if you spend more time with God and if you spend more time in scripture and more time growing in your personal faith, that that will change the facts of the gospel. Because the gospel is the root of our joy. The gospel is the reason why we're able to rejoice. But what I am saying is when we choose to pursue this type of joy, when we choose to pursue the joy of the gospel and the joy of salvation and the joy that is a relationship with God, when we choose that daily, and when we decide that we want to start taking that next step of obedience, whatever that looks like in our life, I can promise you that those joys that you experience through a growing faith will be far deeper and they'll be far sweeter and they will be far more profound and they will come so much more frequently than anything that you could ever imagine. So, what if next Christmas, what if instead of next Christmas being just the next time where we get to celebrate the joy of Jesus, what if instead it is a time where we get to take stock of what the Lord has done in our lives and in our hearts the last year, where we look back at the Christmas prior and then we see the ways that because we sprinted after and we pursued the joys of the Lord all year, and we said, oh my gosh, look at the unbelievable things that the Lord has done in my life this year. Literally, if I would have thought last Christmas that the Lord would have done this in my life, I would have said there's absolutely no way. So what if next year? What if next Christmas? What if this Christmas? What if from now until this Christmas when we look back from, what, a week, two weeks? We say, gosh, look at all the joys that the Lord has brought me and my heart and my family just in these two weeks. And I think that's the point of Christmas. Not simply to celebrate a birth of Jesus, but to celebrate his life in eternity. Everything that he did. Everything that that means for us. And because the gospel is true, and because the gospel is final, we do not have to wait for Christmas time to rejoice. But instead, we always have reason to rejoice. God's blessings, his joys, his mercies are new every morning and all he wants to do is shower them on you because all he wants to do is celebrate with you his creation and somebody who he has a relationship with that he loves more so than we can even grasp. And so let our joy of this Christmas be the beginning. Let it be the root by which our joy grows throughout this year. And I can't wait until next Christmas to hear what has grown out of that root of joy that started last Christmas. Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you for creating joy. Thank you for Christmas, God. Thank you for even the holiday of Christmas so that we can be reminded of your great joy, so we can be reminded of the gospel and of its truth. But God, let us not forget once Christmas time is over that the joy of the gospel is final and is forever. But instead, God, let this be the nudge in the right direction to say, I want this joy always. Every day, I'm going to pursue it. I'm going to pursue you. God, let us pursue you always. And let us, let you do what brings you so much joy, and that is simply raining down blessings, raining down mercies, and raining down joy upon your children. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.

Advent. It means coming. And with that, a longing for something greater. With a year like this one passed, we can't help but look forward with much anticipation. Kids wait impatiently for Christmas morning to arrive. But we've all experienced that ache from waiting. Waiting for the pain to go away, waiting for that next check to arrive, for the broken heart to heal, for this season to pass because it's just too hard, or for the hospice to finally call and say, hurry now, it's time to say goodbye. Hope. From a newborn king, we've heard of how he can pull us together in unity and heal us. He is the wonderful counselor, our mighty God, the Prince of Peace. But we also know that as soon as we leave here, we will step back into our bruised and broken dark world. So we burn these candles week by week and watch them burn to build anticipation, to prepare for the coming of Jesus. The prophet Isaiah warned us about this. He said, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of darkness, a light has dawned. That is our hope. So we light this hope candle because our hope lies in you, Jesus. And so we say, come Lord, we need you to come soon. Because the coming of Jesus changes everything. Just be sure you remain open, you listen, because Jesus will whisper to us, there is always hope. It doesn't matter how dark the dark is, a light can still dawn. Well, good morning, Grace Raleigh. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy football weekend. Maybe it was a shopping weekend instead. And I also say welcome to the season of overeating and stretchy pants. It has officially arrived and we are welcoming it in full all arms. I'm Erin. I am one of the pastors here and I am so excited to be with you guys this morning to kick off our Christmas season. So thank you for joining us and for being here and for sticking around when you saw Nate introduce me. I do appreciate that. It seems like 2020 has left us in a place possibly looking for the comfortable or for that which is familiar. I'm not sure where you are in that, but that's kind of how I felt. And so as a staff, we began to talk about what Christmas at Grace this year could look like. And in our conversations, we said, what would it look like if we took Christmas and kind of stripped away the noise and stripped away the excess stuff and kind of shifted our focus and found that place that was comfortable and that was familiar? And what would it be like if our focus shifted to the Christmas story? And I don't know about you, but I am a sucker for a good story. A book, a cup of tea, a blanket, a couch, and a couple of uninterrupted hours is an absolute gift to me. And I will roll around in it and envelop it like nobody's business. And so, you know, you give me a book and give me the opportunity to dive into the characters, into the richness of who they are, they become kind of one. And so I, here's an example. The entire Harry Potter series, when my kids were smaller, we went from book one to book seven together. And it was a great adventure. And we loved every minute and every time we picked up those books and jumped into Hogwarts and met up with Harry and Hermione and Ron and all of their adventures. And we got to the end of book seven and the author did a phenomenal job of wrapping it all up. And I shut the book and then I looked at the book and went, now what do I do? Like it was this place of mourning because these characters had become people, had become part of our family. And now all of a sudden, I didn't have them anymore. So now what do I do? So as you can see, a good story for me is a gift. And so as we delved into this idea of the Christmas story and coming closer to the Christmas story by looking at Advent. I was beyond excited because Advent brings this place of depth and meaning to the season and it roots us into a story that we're already connected to, the story of the arrival of Jesus. And so for the next four weeks, we get to anticipate this arrival together, and we get to jump into Jesus's story and his arrival and what he fulfills in his arrival. Things like hope and joy and peace and love. We'll also look at how we choose to accept those things during this season. We'll also get the opportunity to look at the Advent wreath. And the Advent wreath has great symbolism. And I invite you to take the opportunity to look at what that symbolism is. Go to Google. Just Google Advent wreath and see what it says. But it's going to talk all about the circles and the different colors of the candles. But I want you to focus on something else as well. Because it doesn't matter if your Advent wreath is a circle. It doesn't matter if it's a straight line. It doesn't matter if your colors of your candles are pretty purples and pinks and whites. They could be white or yellow or green or whatever you happen to have had in your cabinet. What matters is the light that we get to see each time we light one of these candles. Because that light that comes from that candle represents the light of God that crashes to this deep, dark earth in the form of a sweet little baby by the name of Jesus. And so, oh, for the next four weeks, we get to roll around in the richness of this Christmas story, and we get to find places where we can connect deeper to Jesus. And so today, we are going to start with the candle of hope. And I think first I need to make a distinction for you as to a definition of hope. Because biblically, or in the Bible, there are lots of times that the word hope is used. But it can actually have two meanings. And the first one is, I hope that you get to feeling better. Or I hope that it doesn't rain today because guess what? On our calendar, we have three soccer games that we need to go watch outside. Or it could be also this hope that your kids right now, as the TV comes on and all the commercials roll through, or the catalog that comes in the mail and they start flipping through it and it's like, oh, I hope I get that this year. I hope that's underneath my Christmas tree. That hope is a wish. There's not a whole lot of, there's no guarantee of any kind of fulfillment. It's just a wish. But the second kind of hope is a hope that gets in us and it travels with us into these places of darkness, into these places of pain, into places of longing and waiting. And it becomes for us a place, a definition given that I hooked onto and can't get rid of. This is it. This hope is a confident expectation in something good in the future. Let me repeat that one. This hope is a confident expectation that something good is going to be in the future. So here's your distinction. You have the one hope that has no guarantee of fulfillment and is basically a wish. But then you have this second hope, this hope that says I can stand confident in the expectation that something good is in my future, that a good ending is possible. This is the hope that Jesus fulfills in his arrival 2,000 years ago. So as with every story, every good story, there's always a beginning, a middle, and an end. And for those of you that are writers, I understand I just simplified that to absolutely nothingness, but don't come at me. It's just the best way for me. So beginning, middle, and end, and then sometimes we need a little extra beginning. We need a little background in order to understand the beginning of the story. And so that's where we're going to start this morning as we continue this conversation of hope, is that we're going to give you a little background. And I'm going to start with the people, or God's chosen people, the Israelites. We're picking up in the back of the Old Testament. These are God's chosen people who at this point in time are living a pretty incomplete story. They have had judges around that have given them things that they need to do and ways that they can stay connected to God. And they've listened to the judges and then they've ignored the judges and they've gone about and done their own thing, and it's this cycle, and it keeps going. They keep walking further away from God, and then they'll come back, and then they walk away again. God has given them earthly king after earthly king, and then again, they're still walking away and not happy. Their kingdom is now divided, and in this I would say that the beginning of the end of the people of Israel is at hand. But this is where God begins the Christmas story. He takes this moment to actually breathe hope into the places of darkness for these weary people. And he does it through a group of people that are called the prophets. The prophet Isaiah was spoken of actually in the video earlier, and he states, the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light, and who dwell in the land of deep darkness, on them light has shone. There's that light again that we talked about, the light of God coming into the darkness. He then goes on and talks of the birth of his government and of peace Lord of hosts will do this. Oh, the words that must have rung in the ears of these weary people. It had to have been a balm to their souls. Because guess what? He just told them that their king was coming. Their true king is coming. And with him, he's bringing all of those things that they are hoping for. Things like restoration, things like peace and prosperity. He just gave them the confident expectation that something good was coming in the future. And oh, what it had to have felt like to them to have a place of hope now in their hearts, holding on to the fact that their true king, the Messiah, was coming. Now, I don't know about you, but I noticed as I read that, that Isaiah didn't mention the timeline for when this king would arrive. And I imagine he did that on purpose, but he didn't. He just said he's coming. And so the people of Israel walked into a period of waiting. And they began to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Because you see what happened is during this period, they went from being the people of Israel to divided kingdoms, to being in exile, to being scattered, and to having God go silent. And when I state that he goes silent, this isn't the kind of silent treatment that you might get when you and your spouses have had a small argument and everybody gets really quiet and you walk to your separate corners and there's no speaking in the house for maybe a couple hours or possibly a day or two. And it's just quiet, right? Well, no, no, no. This quiet, God went silent for 400 years. So that was the major silent treatment if I've ever heard of one. But just completely quiet. And so they began to continue, well, they continued to wait. But then in the middle of this waiting, God speaks again. But this time, he speaks through an angel by the name of Gabriel. And this is, in my paraphrase, how it all went about. Is that God sends the angel of Gabriel to the city of Nazareth, very specifically to a young woman by the name of Mary. And he comes to this sweet girl and says to her, you're going to have a baby. And in the process, you're going to name this baby Jesus. And he is going to be great. And he will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom. There will be no end. The words in Mary's ears at that point. Did you hear Isaiah? She heard the words of the prophet spoken to her. It was a king. It was a king the angel told her his name was to be Jesus, she knew immediately because Jesus means Jehovah saves or the Lord's salvation. This was the Messiah. This was the promise of the confident expectation of something good in the future being fulfilled. He is coming. Remember the hope that I promised you 400 years ago? I'm delivering on that promise, and it's coming in this sweet little package of a baby, and his name is Jesus. And of course, true to his word, nine months later, the angels get to take over the heavens and to sing loudly of the announcement of Jesus and the fact that Christ the Savior has been born to hold on to. That in our places of difficulty, in our places of pain and weariness and waiting, that God is going to come to us. And he's also able to come to those places where maybe, just maybe, we've stopped believing in a good ending being possible. And I think that we actually have those places where we believe that a good ending is not possible anymore because we have somehow misplaced our hope. A.W. Tozer writes of misplaced hope as this, that misplaced hope or hope that has no guarantee of fulfillment is a false friend that comforts us for a little while with all kinds of flattery, but then leaves us to our enemies. So leaves us to our enemies. Have you all ever been there? I want to invite you into a story now to kind of give you a taste of misplaced hope. Many of you know my daughter Zoe. And for those of you that don't, Zoe is funny and she is sweet and she is kind. She is very quick-witted. She's a great friend. She loves coffee. She loves Jesus, and she loves country music. So I don't think we need to describe her any further than that. She has just finished her first semester as an intended nursing major at East Carolina University. In the middle of a pandemic, she's moved a couple of times over the course of the last couple of months, but she has completed it very successfully. Now, if you had told me a couple of years ago that that statement about my daughter was true, I would have questioned your judgment. Seriously, I would have. Because you see, Zoe suffers from, or Zoe, I shouldn't say that, Zoe has anxiety. And a few years ago, her anxiety had control of her. Somewhere towards the beginning of her high school career, we began to notice in Zoe that she made excuses as to not connect with friends. Friday night football games came. She might go for a little while, but she was home very quickly. Or she'd get invited to go someplace, and if she said yes, she was there a short time and then again came home. If not, in a lot of cases, she just said no. She was not exactly happy. And so as we sat back and kind of watched all this, we're scratching our head but then saying to ourselves, oh, well, wait a second. It's just high school. She's a freshman. She's a sophomore. It's hard. It's just hard. We also began to see some of this happen in youth group as well, where she's very connected and grace students and mission trips would come along and we'd have all this buildup, and then let's just say it took an awful lot to get Zoe onto the bus in order to go wherever it was that her group was going. And mind you, her dad went every year as well as one of the student leaders. And so we just kept watching. And in this process, though, I kept justifying all of these behaviors and saying it just is because she's a teenager. I went to what I would call my Pollyanna place, thinking it was all going to be okay. Everything's going to be fine. She's going to grow out of this, and it's going to be good. It is. It's going to be good. Well, as you can guess, my it's going to be good didn't change our reality at all. Zoe's path continued to go just where it was. And our situation never changed. So I decided that if the situation hasn't going to change there, that maybe I needed to do something different. And so I did. And this time, for those of you that know me, this is me in a nutshell, but I'm going to fix it. I'm going to help somehow. And we're going to make change here. And so I went into that mode of I hit Google and I hit books. I don't know what I'm going to help somehow, and we're going to make change here. And so I went into that mode of I hit Google and I hit books. I don't know what I'm looking for at this point, but I'm trying to find something that is an answer. And I started talking to people around me, and it was just what can I do? What kind of checklist do I have? How can I fix this? How can I help my daughter? And the thing is in all of this, the one really good thing that possibly came out of this moment was the fact that somebody said to us, hey, maybe Zoe should see a counselor. And so I went to her and I said, hey, girl, what do you think about this? She's like, sure. And so she goes, y'all, this was good. It was great. Because guess what? When she got to the counselor, there was a connection with their counselor. All was great. And we had a diagnosis. We knew what was going on. And guess what that means? If I know what's going on, because I can now fix it. Because I know what I'm battling against, right? So she was diagnosed with anxiety. And we started that whole process of giving her the tools that she needed in her toolbox on how to deal with her anxiety and what it looked like. And guess what? It worked. And lo and behold, she's reengaging with her friends. She's out on a Friday night. The world is great. Her smile has returned. And I sit back and I'm like, yes, we've got this and all is great. So let's now fast forward to Zoe's, the beginning of Zoe's senior year of high school. Where Zoe went to high school, one of the things that they do at the beginning of the senior year is a large trip. They take the entire senior class to New York City for four days of crazy fun with your friends, seeing New York, and doing all of the things. Now, I will tell you, one of the things that went through my head as we started into the beginning of the senior year, this is the thought. The thought was, if we can get Zoe on the bus to go to New York City, we have won. We have officially beaten the enemy, and we have wrangled anxiety, and we've won. Now, I spoke that to no one. It's just in the back of my head. And so as we walk into the preparations for New York, all is fabulous. And Zoe is excited. And we're doing the things that you have to do before a trip like this, especially if you're the parent of a girl. You know, you've got to have the right outfits for the different activities. We had to do all that. Had to get the right roommates. Had to do all of the things. And everything was so positive. She was so excited. And here we go. And so the night before the trip, Zoe's upstairs in her room packing. And I decide to go up and help because, of course, you know, I can help pack, right? So I go up the stairs. I open up the door. Zoe's in the middle of her floor, and there's clothes all around her, and a suitcase is open, and I'm like, I'm here to help, and she turns around, and she looks at me, and she has tears streaming down her face. And she says, Mama, I can't do this. I can't go tomorrow. And at that moment, my heart broke for her, for us, for this situation. And I collapsed onto the floor with her, and I grabbed hold of my girl, and I cried with her, and I told her how much I loved her, and that I had her, and that we would do this together. And at that moment, everything that I had went from, we got this, we've won, to, oh my heavens, now what? Hope to hopeless. Now what do we do? And my head's spinning and the questions are running around in my head. Even places like, is she going to be able to go to college next year? Like I can't even get her on. We can't get onto a bus to go to New York for four days. How is it that we're going to get to college next year? Like, the brain starts to spin off of the rails, basically. And then after this process, I began this process with God. We had lots of very interesting conversations. Things like, why? Why my girl? And the big question of, hey God, where are you in all of this? And you all, I'm so thankful that we serve such a loving and faithful father. Because he looked at me and he said, hey Aaron, I'm here. I've always been here. And I've been walking with you and your girl through this. But guess what? You, mama, you need to let go of your control. You, mama, need to invite me in and let me give real hope to this situation. And the real hope that Paul speaks of, he speaks of it in his letter to the Romans. And this is what it says. It says, not only that, but we rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Y'all, this real hope that is sourced and supplied by God himself, it does not put us to shame. It does not tell us that we aren't good enough. It does not tell us that we can't do it. It does not tell us that we are failures. No, no, no. It's just the opposite. And so we grabbed onto this real hope for our situation. We began believing in that good future and in that good ending for Zoe. The one thing I need to clarify here, though, is that believing in the good future and believing in the good ending wasn't saying that I was believing that she was going to be cured. What it was was for me, it was a change of posture. It was a moment that I said, no longer is it about me. It's now all about you, God. It was a moment of surrender where I said, and I knew in my heart of hearts that God loves my child more than I do, and that he had her, and he had a good future planned for her. And I needed to let go of what I felt was Zoe's story. And I needed to key into the story that God was writing in her. And so maybe this was now that ECU isn't where she's going to go. Maybe she's going to go to Wake Tech for a couple of years so she gets some security and she gets some confidence. And then she'll go off to ECU to finish her nursing degree. Or maybe she's supposed to be at Campbell where her brother is in a place that's familiar and a place that feels comfortable and secure. Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe, like all of a sudden, when I let go of what I felt her story needed to be and let God write her story, the maybes became huge possibilities that anything could happen if he writes her story. And I release control. And so through all of this story and through this place of surrender and this place of saying, hey God, you've got this. I have learned a few things. The first one is that misplaced hope trusts in me, whereas real hope trusts in God. So when my hope was misplaced, it was all about what Aaron could do to fix Zoe's situation, not what God could do. We had to trust in him and who he says he was and the promises that he's given that he was never going to forsake her, that he loves her, and that he has this confident expectation in a good ending. I also learned that misplaced hope leaves you so weary, but real hope sustains. The constant trials and guilt and sleepless nights that we had in trying to figure out what was going on and worrying about the situation left us so very tired, just exhausted, but that real hope gives us what we need to move on, to be sustained. And we know now that Zoe still has struggles, and it's okay though, because she has him to hold on to in those struggles. And lastly, I learned that misplaced hope leaves you feeling hopeless. But that true, that real hope knows the end of the story. And so with Zoe's story, yes, Zoe has anxiety, but anxiety doesn't have her. It does not define who she is. It's just there. And in August of this year, she packed up her little car and she drove to Greenville and she has not looked back. And yes, as a mama, I will tell you there are times that I kind of wish maybe she would look back and say, hey, mom, I'm coming home. But you know what? It's those moments, though, too, that I can hold on to and say, hey, God, thank you. Thank you that you provided us with this confident expectation in a good future for our girl. Thank you that she's in Greenville. Thank you that she's thriving. And so I have to also say that I am so very proud of my girl. What she's walked through has not been easy. And I'm just over the moon proud. And it is a true joy to watch where she is now and to hold on to that expectation of the cool things that she's going to do in the future. So in light of all that we as a group have been through in 2020, I know in years before we could say, you know, everybody could say they've had issues with a year here or there or otherwise. But 2020, I think, has left us all feeling a bit weary. And I look back at the Jewish people who were in their place of weariness and in their place of waiting 2,000 years ago. And I wonder if that's not us now. We're all weary. We're all waiting. Waiting for a vaccine. Waiting for maybe it's something to happen good in our financial situation. Maybe it's waiting to be able to go visit loved ones again. We're waiting. We're weary. Just like the Jewish people were 2,000 years ago. And my prayer for all of us is that we get to experience the same thrill of hope that they experienced at Jesus' arrival. I want us to be that weary world that rejoices this year as we hear about the arrival of our coming King. And so, what would it take for us, Grace Raleigh, to experience that thrill of hope? What would it take for us to shift our focus and our hope from hope in us to hope in him and him alone. Will y'all pray with me? Lord, thank you. We are so beyond grateful that you loved us enough to send your son into the middle of our places of darkness and our places of weariness and our places of waiting. You love us so much that you want us to experience that thrill of hope. You want us to hold on and grab hold of this confident expectation that a good ending is possible. And we're so grateful for that. We're so, so grateful. And so, Lord, I just ask that you wrap our beautiful Grace Raleigh family in your arms and that you allow us for the next four weeks to anticipate together the arrival of your son and all that he fulfills as he comes. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's mighty name that we pray. Amen.

Good morning, Grace. It's so good to get to spend some time with you in this way. I'm really hopeful that we can be together again in person, but for now, caution is winning the day, and so we'll get to enjoy church in our different living rooms wherever we are. This is the last part in our series called James, where we're going through the book of James, and we're going to land today in what I believe to be is a very hopeful passage on prayer. I think that this is a really encouraging and empowering passage, and my hope is that by the time I'm done, that you'll feel empowered by prayer as well, and you'll be inspired to cling to prayer and to persevere in prayer. As we approach this topic, I'm reminded of Memorial Day 2017. 2017 is the year that I got to come to Grace and become the senior pastor. And some of y'all know this story, so if you do, bear with me. But maybe it can be a little reminder. And for those who don't know, when I got to Grace in April of 2017, things weren't great. Financially, we were really struggling. We were in debt. We didn't really have a way to go into more debt. We didn't have any more lines of credit to tap on. And so it was a little bit dire. And my goal was simply to just make it, to make it through the summer, to make it into the fall, to see if we could get a little bit of momentum going. And I'll never forget, we were headed into Memorial Day weekend, the last weekend in May. The person handling the finances at the time told me, Nate, we're in trouble. We're going to be behind on some bills in May. We're already behind on giving. We need giving to be really good this weekend. And I asked what the number needed to be, and they said we need $15,000 this weekend. $15,000 was more than we had brought in any single week in 2017. We were bringing in like $8,500 or $9,000 a week. So $15,000 was, that was pie in the sky. That wasn't going to happen. And on top of that, it was Memorial Day weekend. And you may not know this about church world, but one of the things that pastors are aware of is Memorial Day weekend, that service is the lowest attended service and the lowest giving service of the year, every year in every church in the history of America. That's just how it went. And so not only do we need more giving than we've had in any single week for the whole year, but we needed a Memorial Day weekend, which feels impossible. So the finance person told me that in the middle of the week, and honestly, I didn't tell anybody. I just knelt and I prayed. I said, God, we need something here. We need a miracle. This church can't go into debt. I'm not ready to move back to Georgia yet. I just got here. We need you to show up this weekend, God. And so we had the services, and I went into the office on Monday, and usually Tuesday or Wednesday, I get a little financial update, and so I'm just hitting refresh on my email browser, just waiting for the news to come in. And I think it was Wednesday morning, the news came in. I see that I got the email from the finance guy. I break out in the cold sweats, and I click on it, and I immediately just lost my mind. $28,000 came in Memorial Day weekend 2017. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't $15,000. It wasn't just a little bit shy of that. It was $28,000. That was the biggest single weekend giving in all of 2017. I couldn't believe it. I was floored. And God made it apparent that he answers prayers. He made it apparent that day to me, Nate, my hand is on grace. My hand is on you. I answer prayer. I hear you. I've been moved by prayer. And here you go. Here's your answer to prayer. And so that stands out in my memory as a time when prayer buoyed my faith. When prayer bolstered my faith. When I prayed fervently for something in the quietness of my own heart and in his word. And I hope that you have stories like that too. I hope that there are times in your life that you can remember where you prayed fervently for something and God answered. God delivered. He gave you what it was that you needed. He reconciled that relationship. He healed that person. He brought that thing back. He saw you through that circumstance. I hope that if you're a believer that we all have instances and times that we remember God answering our prayers. Because instances like that, like Memorial Day for me, like whatever it is that you think of when you think of answered prayer, instances like that help us believe in passages like this. If you have a Bible at home, I want you to look at James chapter 5. I'm going to pick it up in verse 13. This is what James writes about prayer. You know, when I was a kid and I encountered that verse, I encountered it in the King James Version, and it said, Other translations say that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful in its working. And I used to think, well, yeah, sure, like the prayers of righteous people, of those people that we write about in the Bible, of those pastors that are really good people, like the righteous people, as I'm thinking about this as a kid when I encountered the verse, those are the people who have effective prayers. But here's the deal. If you're a Christian, if you call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, you're righteous. You're as righteous as you're ever going to get. Because Scripture teaches us that when God looks at you, he sees you clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, your affectionate and fervent prayers are powerful in their working. They availeth much. Christians, I want you to know based on this passage, your prayers work. When you're grieving, go to God in prayer. When you're joyful, praise him in prayer. When someone is sick, pray over them. When a situation is bad, pray over it. Your prayers work. They are powerful in their working. They work to much avail. And sometimes we have stories in our life that remind us that this passage is true. But here's the flip side of this passage. Here's the thing that I wish that someone would have told me somewhere along the way. I wish growing up, I would have heard a pastor talk about this passage in the way that I'm about to talk about it. I wish that somewhere in my formative years, back when I knew what it was like to have a pastor, that one of them, and maybe they did and I just didn't pick up on it, but I wish that one of them would have talked about the fact that sometimes this passage actually makes us doubt our faith. Sometimes passages like this make us actually not believe the Word of God, make us wonder if God really does keep His promises. And I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I had to encounter this question the hard way. But I think if I'm being honest, that when we read passages like this, that sometimes we tend to doubt it. And that makes us doubt the truth of Scripture. When this slapped me in the face, and I wish that someone had walked me through this before it happened, was in the spring of 2010. From 2007 to 2010, I taught Bible at a school called Covenant Christian Academy. And there was a kid in the class that I was a sponsor for named Alex Williams. And Alex was a great kid. He was just a charming guy. He had this winning smile. He would do anything for you. Super nice guy. I loved Alex, and I love Alex to this day. And Alex got a lot of those traits from his dad, Ron. And during high school, during his high school years, Ron contracted cancer. I forget which kind. And we watched Ron slowly deteriorate. Alex was an athlete, and Ron was always on the sidelines, whether it was football or basketball, cheering. He was the loudest voice there. You could always hear him. He was boisterous and loud, and it was really fun to have Ron around. But the cancer began to eat away at him until in his senior year, Ron would attend in a wheelchair. And I can remember the spring of Alex's senior year, we prayed over Ron. Fathers and coaches that were involved in that school who were elders in that church, according to the passage here, came together, I'll never forget it, in my classroom at Covenant. And Ron sat in the middle of us and somebody even brought oil to anoint him which is something that some denominations still observe. And we poured it over his head and we placed our hands on Ron and we prayed, we prayed a prayer of faith that Ron would be healed. And then weeks later, Ron died. And I remember thinking, how can this be true and our prayer not be answered? God, you said that if we would do these things, if we would gather and we would anoint his head with oil and we would pray, God, you said that he would be healed. You said that he would be raised up. And he's dead. God, you didn't keep your promise. And I'd be willing to bet that you have that story too. I'd be willing to bet that for most of us believers, we can point to a time in our life where we prayed fervently for something in accordance to God's will. We asked in his name. There was two or three gathered there and we asked in his name. And he promises to give us what we asked for. We prayed for healing that didn't come. We prayed for more years that weren't granted. And it makes me want to ask, what do we do when it seems like this passage isn't true? What do we do when it seems like this isn't true, when it seems like this can't be trusted, when it seems like these are just the words of James that make us feel good but aren't really a truth that we can anchor ourselves in? What do we do when it feels like this passage isn't true? And again, I wish that someone would have talked about this with me. Because I think the thing that you do is you go back to the passage and you read it again. You go back to God's Word and you ask, what did I miss? What did I presume that I didn't see the first time? And so when we read it again, here's what we find. It says, What we notice here is that there's a future tense. He will be healed. He will be raised up when we pray the prayer of faith. But there's no sense of the timeline of this. There's no sense of when it's going to happen. And here's the reality with Ron. Ron was healed. He wasn't healed in the temporal. He was healed in the eternal. Ron was raised up by God. He wasn't raised up in the temporal. He was raised up in the eternal. And so the reality is that he will heal us. He will raise us up. He does answer those prayers. And it took me a minute to figure that out. We were praying fervently, God, heal Ron. And he did. He just chose to heal him for eternity rather than heal him for a few years. God, raise him up. He did. He raised him up into heaven where he's no longer sick, where he lives in a utopia, where he walks with his Savior and he waits for his children. The truth of it is that Ron was healed, that Ron was lifted up. And this is a concept that even my four-year-old gets. My four-year-old Lily somehow understands this. A few weeks ago, we were back home visiting Jen's family. And if you've been following along in church, you know that Jen's dad isn't doing very well. And truthfully, he looks pretty sick. And after Lily spent some time with him, just Lily and I were in the car, we were driving somewhere, I think to pick up breakfast or something, and she said, Daddy, how come Pawpaw's not getting better? He's sick, but he's not getting better. How come he's not getting better? And I said, well, sweetheart, there's kind of two kinds of being sick. There's the kind of sick where it just lasts for a little bit and then you get better, like a cold. And then there's the kind of sick where you just get sick and you stay sick and you don't get better. And she said, okay. I said, does that make sense? She said, uh-huh, yes, Daddy. And then she thought about it for a second, and she said, but when Pawpaw dies, he won't be sick anymore. And I looked in the rearview mirror, like, where did this four-year-old get this? I said, that's right, sweetheart. He won't. And she goes, yeah, because he'll be in heaven with Jesus. And you don't get sick in heaven. And I said, yeah, that's true. And she goes, and then one day when I die, I'll get to see him again too, and neither of us will be sick. Right. That's it. And I think that if she can get it and comfort her own four-year-old self about her pawpaw who's going to pass away soon, and she knows that he's going to be better when he gets there, that we're praying fervently for his healing, and the reality of it is God's going to heal him. He's either going to heal him for a little bit or he's going to heal him for forever. And she knows that. And she's already looking forward to the forever healing because that's the bigger answer to prayer. When you pray in faith, when there's faith in God, when the prayer is based on a faith in God that was won by Jesus, then we know that we have eternal life and God will heal us. In order to understand this passage and how it's not contradictory with some of our experiences, we need to understand that we pray in the temporal, but God answers in the eternal. We pray our prayers in the temporal, in the here and now, with the blinders on of just these weeks or just these months or years. We pray urgently for the here and now, and God answers in the eternal. He sees all of time. And I don't think we grasp just how big of a deal eternity is. The Bible tells us that our life is like a mist or a vapor. Paul went through the worst of sufferings, and he says, though we endure these sufferings for a little while. James tells us at the beginning of his book that when you endure trials, consider them pure joy. They're not that bad. How can they say this? Because their eyes are on eternity. They're praying eternal prayers. James can say he will be lifted up because when you pray in faith, they will be lifted up, either for a little while or for forever, but they will be lifted up and they will be healed. We pray in the temporal, but God answers in the eternal. And what that means is sometimes God doesn't answer in the time frame that we want. God doesn't heal the relationship or fix the problem or bring about the answer to the question in the time frame that we would choose. Sometimes we have to wait. We're told to be patient in waiting for God because he doesn't hurry. And sometimes it's answered in eternity. And sometimes it's answered in our life. It's just answered later and in a way that we don't anticipate. I have a friend back home named Jenny. When she was growing up, she was Jenny Payne. Now she's Jenny Smith. And when Jenny was a little girl, she had two older brothers, and her mom was pregnant. And she prayed fervently as a little girl. She wanted a sister named Jessica. And she prayed really hard for this sister named Jessica. And then the birth of her sibling came about, and it's a boy named Jimmy. God doesn't answer prayer. He doesn't keep his promises. Her four-year-old heart is broken. But as she gets older, her faith matures, and she kind of understands, and she accepts that blow. And then one day, her brother starts dating somebody in their 20s, and they start to get really serious. And they end up getting married, and Jenny loves this girl. And Jenny, in her own language, said this girl is like a sister to her, and her name is Jessica. You want to tell me God didn't answer prayer? You want to tell me God didn't hear that four-year-old Jenny praying for a sister named Jessica, and that he didn't answer it? It just wasn't the way that she expected. But God listens. He hears and he answers. We just have to wait. We just need to be patient. We just need to trust him even in the midst of hurting and suffering when it feels like everything is destitute and messed up and this couldn't possibly be picked up and arranged in such a way that glorifies you, God. Even in the midst of that, we need to be patient and understand that God hears, and he's listening, and he's answering prayers. It just isn't in our timetable because we pray in the temporal, and he answers in the eternal. Maybe that's why he precedes this passage on prayer with the passage imploring us to be patient. I don't think it's a mistake that the two are married up there in chapter 5. Look at what he says in verse 7 of chapter 5. He says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. Just be patient on the Lord, like a farmer watching the field. If you watch it every day, God, please bring me crops today. God, please bring me crops today. It's going to seem like they're never going to come, but if you'll just be patient and wait for the late and the early rains, like a farmer, God shows up. He'll answer in due time. And then down in verse 11, he says this, James warns us. I'm about to talk about prayer. I'm about to tell you to pray. There's going to be some times when it feels like God isn't answering prayer. So be patient. Be patient like the farmer is patient. And be considered blessed. Remember that those who wait, those who persevere should be considered blessed. And then he brings up Job. It's interesting to me that he would bring up Job as an example there. For those unfamiliar with Job, he is one of the classic figures in the Old Testament. There's a whole book dedicated to his story. He was the most righteous man on earth, and Satan asked permission to tempt him and to tear him away from God. And God said that Satan could do that. And in the course of that, he took away everything that Job held dear. He lost his children. He lost the people that worked for him. He lost his livestock. He lost his wealth. It was so bad for Job that his wife's advice to him was to curse God and die. But he didn't. He held on steadfast to the Lord. And in the end of the story, what we see is that because of his continued faith, because of his perseverance, because he clung to prayer and he continued to believe that God kept his promises, that God restored everything that Job had lost and he built him back up. And I think it's so interesting because if there's ever been anybody who lived that would have had cause to not believe this passage that says when we pray they will be healed and they will be lifted up. If there's anyone who's ever had the right to not believe this passage and say God's not telling the truth, it's Job. Yet he didn't. He was patient and he persevered in his prayers and he clung to God and he believed in the power of, and he clung to God, and he believed in the power of prayer, and he believed in a God that kept his promises. Grace. We can anchor ourselves in prayer. We can anchor ourselves in God's Word. We can trust these pages. We can trust these promises because we serve a God who keeps his promises. And listen, I know that it doesn't feel like that this year to some of us. I know this year feels hard. It feels heavy. It feels like we might not get out of it. We are facing difficulty after difficulty. Candidly, in my family right now, it is hard. And sometimes it doesn't seem like these verses are true, but I'm telling you they are. And we can anchor ourselves in them, and we can trust in them, and we can believe in the power and the efficacy of prayer of those who are righteous. And we can believe that God is listening, and we can believe that God is answering. And if we'll only be patient, and if we'll only persevere, we will be blessed in that perseverance. So grace. Pray. Don't lose heart. Don't give up hope. Don't stop praying. Believe that if you're a Christian, that you're clothed in the righteousness of Christ and that your prayers are powerful and effective and they're working. Believe that they bring about healing. Believe that people will be risen up. Go to him when you are hurting. Go to him in joy. And let's continue, no matter what, no matter how bleak things might seem sometimes, to be a people of prayer who choose to believe in the power of it and choose to believe in a God who keeps his promises. Let's pray together. Father, we know that you are good to us. We know that you love us. We know that you look out for us. We thank you that you see things in eternity, that you see past the temporal. God, we thank you that you are orchestrating things in our lives to bring about our pleasure and your glory without us even knowing or understanding. God, I thank you for the gift of hindsight where we look back on seasons of our life that we didn't understand in the moment, but now we see you working. I pray that we would have that in increasing measure. God, for those who feel weak and burdened and maybe even beaten down, may we persist in prayer. Give them strength to be patient and to cling to it and to believe. For those who have been bold in their prayers and are seeing them answered, God, we are so grateful. I pray that they would become ever more bold. And God, I pray for grace. I pray that we would be a church that prays, that we would be a church that believes, and that we would be a church who knows because you tell us that our prayers are powerful and effective. It's in your son's name we pray all these things. Amen.

Good to see everybody. Thank you guys for that. As is often the case these days, when it's time for me to preach, I don't want to. I just want to keep singing. It's so good to get to sing with my church family and to look and see everyone praising. What a blessing that is. I'm actually going to invite you guys back into prayer as I start the sermon this week. I don't know if you guys know this. Tuesday is kind of a big deal for us in this country, and it would probably be wise for churches to pray over it. So join me in doing that. Father, Tuesday is the election, and this is, you know, one of the more contentious ones that we have ever experienced. It is more polarizing and divisive and filled with vitriol than any that I am aware of previously. So Father, I just pray that you'd be with us. Pray that you'd be in the process. May your hand be all over what happens on Tuesday and very likely, Father, in the weeks following. Would we see you in the nooks and crannies and the polling locations in the districts of this election and the results of it. And Father, more than anything, I pray that your people would be peacemakers in the wake of it. I pray that your people would be unifiers in the wake of it. That we wouldn't have a heart to be right. We wouldn't have a heart to gloat or to complain. Or even have a heart towards doomsday scenarios. But that God, your children would seek to make the peace that you have won. Help us to do that no matter what happens on Tuesday. It's in your son's name we pray, and we're able to do that. Amen. All right, this is the third part in our series called James. I take great pride in my creative series titles, and so this one is James. Last week, Kyle carried the torch exceptionally well in talking about taming the tongue. Take it easy, it wasn't that good. It was fine. I assigned that to him because he is better at that than I am. It was less hypocritical coming from Kyle than me, if you know me well. So I'm very glad about that. I would also say just as a general statement so you guys know that it's a big value for me and for the elders and for Grace to have different voices up here speaking into your lives. So we will always look for opportunities for people besides me to continue to share and offer you their perspective, because I think we benefit from that. Scripture tells us that where there is many counselors, that there is wisdom and wise choices. So I think that that's a good thing. This week, we are jumping back into James chapter 2 to one of, some people call it controversial, though I don't really think that it is. It is confusing. A cursory glance at the passage, James 2 verses 14 through 26 is where we're going to be. If you're watching at home today, thank you so much for doing that. I don't blame you on this rainy morning, but I hope everybody will grab a Bible and interact with the text as we move through it, because we're going to go through that whole passage today. Just a cursory glance of the passage, it renders it a little bit confusing, I think, because as you move through the whole of Scripture, particularly the New Testament, the New Testament writers are very careful to explain that salvation comes through faith. Paul says it most pointedly confess with our mouth and believe with our heart that Jesus is Lord, then we will enter into the kingdom. Jesus beckons us to believe in him and to follow him. So we see over and over again through Scripture the miracle and the mystery of the gospel, which is salvation is offered to you free of merit, free of works, completely by faith. It is the greatest gift that could ever be given. God sent his son to die on the cross for you, for everyone, for the sins that you have committed and for the sins that he knows that you will commit. He died for those so that you might be reunited with his Father, with the Father, and with him, and with the Spirit for all of eternity. God loves you so much that he came after your soul by sending his Son to die on the cross for you. And if we place our faith in that death, then Scripture teaches us that we're going to heaven. Scripture teaches us that we will spend eternity in bliss with God. Scripture teaches us that because of that, we don't have to fear death. Scripture teaches us that because of that, we're a new creature. We're no longer a slave to sin as the old creature was. And so all through the Bible, we see salvation by faith. And then we get to James here at the end of the Bible. At the end of the Bible, this peculiar passage, James says, yeah, you show me your faith, I'll show you my works. You show me your faith without works and I'll show you a faith that's dead. As a matter of fact, let me show you how Abraham proved his faith by his works. And at a cursory glance, it seems like James is disagreeing with the rest of Scripture. The rest of Scripture is like, I'm good, I'm good, I have faith, I believe. And then James says, yeah, but if you believe you ought to do some stuff. And if you don't do some stuff, then you may not believe. Actually, James is more pointed than that. Remember we said that this was a well-crafted punch in the gut, this book was? James just says if you don't do some stuff, then you don't believe. It's not real. It's not sincere. And so even though it can seem a little bit contradictory, even though it can be challenging, I don't think it's confusing. I think it is crystal clear. So I want to walk us through James chapter 2 this morning and help us understand this passage and let us be appropriately challenged and worried by this passage because it's a tough one. This is what James writes. We'll start off with the first half of it. James 2, verses 14 through 18. So James shares this pretty stark, blunt reality. You can say all day long that you have faith. You can give a mental assent and a lip service to faith. Do you think that Jesus is the Son of God? Yes. But what James says is unless actions follow that, it's not sincere. We saw in chapter 1 that one of the things that James says about true religion, the thing that James says about true religion, is that true religion visits the widows and the orphans in their affliction and remains unstained from the world. So what he's saying is, true religion, people who truly have a genuine faith, will care for the poor and the needy. They will care to be a voice to the voiceless. And in continuing to pull that thread here in chapter two, he basically says, you can't call yourself a believer. You can't say that you have a genuine saving faith if you don't help someone who is in need. If someone comes to you and they say, I'm wet and I'm cold and I need a jacket and I live, I'm homeless and I'm in need. And we say, in our double-layered North Face jackets, I will pray for you. Be warm and filled. I hope you find good food. There's a place downtown called Seat at the Table. You should figure out a way to get there. It's great. And then we leave. James is saying, you don't care for the poor and the needy. You just like to say that you do. You're like me this morning. I was watching a woman get out of her car with a baby, and I watched her do it for like 10 minutes. And at the last second, I was like, you want me to come get you an umbrella? And she said, I mean, I'm good by now. And then she walked in. Like, if I really wanted, if I really cared about her, I would have walked out there with an umbrella. I just cared for the perception that I cared, right? What we do shows what we believe. It actually evidences that. So what James is saying here, and it's important not to miss this, is that works are an unavoidable result of a genuine faith. Works, good works, and we're going to talk about what those are, are an unavoidable result of a genuine faith. It is a natural consequence. If you have a genuine, believing, saving faith, then God will work in your heart to change you. There's a verse in Matthew that says, if you delight yourselves in the laws of the Lord, then he will give you the desires of your heart. And I've always loved that verse because it makes it seem like if I simply just love the Bible, then God will give me all the stuff that I want. I'm going to be a billionaire in no time. But what it means is when we reflect on God's word and we delight ourselves in it, we grow more like the principles in it. We grow more like God in character. And slowly, over time, because we delight in His Word, our heart beats for the same things that God's heart beats for. Our hearts beat with God. This is how the Spirit gets in our life and changes us. And the things that we want slowly become the things that He wants. The things that He delights in are the things that we delight in. And we're told in Romans that when we are saved, when we become a believer, when we have a true saving faith, that the old self, the old version of ourself that was a slave to sin, is buried with Christ and that this new self is resurrected with him on Easter. That's why baptism is a symbol of this rebirth. We go under the water. That's our old self being cast off and we rise as our new selves that God has radically and fundamentally changed. This new self has a Holy Spirit that's given to us as a down payment on our salvation, who speaks into us, who convicts us when we're going wrong, who encourages us when we're doing right. And so everything in Scripture points to the unavoidable reality that when God fundamentally changes our heart, when we have a saving faith and He rushes into our lives, that the unavoidable result is good works. Because we no longer have to choose our good works. They're a natural manifestation of the faith that is going on inside of us. That's what James is saying. And in saying this, this is important, James actually agrees with Jesus. In saying this, James actually agrees with the teachings of Jesus you have in your notes there. And at home, you should have been able to download the notes on the Gracevine. You have in your notes there two references, John 15, 5 and John 13, 35. And he says in those, John 15, 5 is this wonderful passage. He says, I am the vine and you are the branches. In our vernacular, I am the trunk and you are the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. I've talked about this before. When a branch is attached to a tree, it doesn't have to worry about when to produce the fruit or what kind of fruit to produce. All it has to worry about is staying attached to that tree. And Jesus says, if you abide in me and I in you, if you obey me, if you follow me, if you pursue me, if you walk with me, if you abide in me, then you will bear much fruit. You won't have to try to bear the fruit. You won't have to try to do the good works. You won't have to make a conscious effort to do it. Just abide in me and it will naturally produce a fruit in your life. James is simply agreeing with Jesus. He's saying it another way. He's saying it in a more pointed way so it's easier to understand. Then Jesus says again in John 13 35, he says, I give you a new command to love others as I have loved you. And then he says that the world will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. The world will know that you are my children by what you do, by how you treat one another, by your actions. Jesus says you can say all day long that you love your brother. This is the exact example that James gives. You can say you love the poor and the needy, but if you walk away with your warm coat, then you don't. You don't really believe. Faith isn't really there. Jesus says, the world will know by your actions who you are. It's not a matter of just saying it. And honestly, we understand this principle. We get it. We've experienced this, that if there is love, there will be evidence, right? If you're not married, I think you can still appreciate the principles of this. When a husband and wife are married, when they get married, they stand at the altar and they make vows to each other. And they promise, I will love you and be faithful to you in sickness and in health and good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow. It's one thing to stand on the altar and say those things. I had no clue what that meant when I was 25 years old. I said them and I meant them with my whole heart. I know what they mean now more than I did then. And those of you who have been married for 30 and 40 years, you know even way more than me what those words mean. And a husband, listen, a husband can tell his wife that he loves her. He can write her a nice card on her birthday, I love you, you're the best, you're the most beautiful woman in the world. Which apparently when people get married, everyone's unrealistic, right? I'm married to the most handsome man ever. Are you? Because we all look pretty average. Anyways, you can say nice things and it's fine to do that. It's fine to give a mental assent to it. But a wife knows if she's loved, right? If a husband loves his wife, he won't just tell her. He'll run interference for her on Saturday morning with the kids to try to let her get a little bit more sleep than she normally does. He'll clean the kitchen without being asked to clean the kitchen. He'll make a big deal over her birthday if she wants a big deal made of it. He'll make a little deal over her birthday if she wants a little deal made of it. He'll say kind things to her. He'll let her watch what she wants to watch. He'll take her car out on the weekend and wash it and fill it up with gas so that she doesn't have to worry about that. He'll learn the little things that let his wife know that she is loved. And she never has to wonder at that. And if a guy just says occasionally, hey, I love you, you know you're the best, and then never does anything, that's not love. That's selfishness. We understand this principle. We know this to be true in our own lives, and it's true of our faith as well. And it's so true of our faith, and James actually takes this, he actually doubles down on this. This idea of faith will produce works. Love will be manifested in how we act. By presenting us with this idea, and this is where it starts to get scary. According to James, mental assent is not the same as faith. Mental assent is not the same as faith. Promising love on the altar is not the same as loving for 30 years. Just agreeing mentally that Jesus is the Son of God is not a saving faith. This is why Jesus says another scary statement in the Gospels, not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. That should give you pause. This should give you pause. If what you're clinging to for your salvation is a prayer that you prayed when you were eight, the mental assent that you gave, we need to do some introspection about whether or not we have a saving faith. And I say that mental assent is not the same as faith because look at what James says in verse 19. He says, you believe that God is one. You do well. In other translations it says, good. Even the demons believe and shudder. You know who else knows that Jesus is the Son of God? Satan. You know who has way better theology than all of us collectively in this room? Demons. They know the Bible inside and out. They know who Jesus is, and they are scared of him. Yet they have not placed their faith in him for eternal life. They're still working towards something else. So a faith that simply gives a mental assent, that simply says, yeah, I think that's probably true, is a demonic faith, according to James. And we don't talk about demons and Satan here a lot, but it's in the passage. This is what he says, and this ought to give us pause that even demons go, yeah, Jesus is the Son of God, and they're scared of him, yet they don't have faith because it's more than just a mental assent. It's more than just agreeing with the set of facts. It's more than just confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. Again, I'll go back to that writing in Paul and Romans. If we confess with our hearts, if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God, then we will be saved. Some of us stop at confessing with our mouths. That's where demons stop. And that's a scary, scary thing. James takes it a little bit further as he finishes out the passage. And he says that faith that doesn't provide works isn't even a saving faith. Faith that doesn't produce works isn't even a saving faith. He says it this way at the end of the passage. He says, A faith that is simply claimed and not evidenced and not met out with a series of good works and good deeds and love and grace and kindness, that's a dead faith. That's not a saving faith. A faith that we cling to because of a prayer that we prayed years ago and then nothing in our life changed after that is not a saving faith. That's why I am of the conviction, I've thought this for a long time from where I sit in ministry, that the surest sign that the gospel has taken root in someone's life is a radical change in their priorities. I've watched families come and go from churches. And you see families come and they profess a faith. They confess that they believe. And they come and maybe church attendance gets ramped up for a little bit. Maybe they're excited about it. They're caught up in the moment. But nothing between Sundays really changes. They still roll with the same group of people. And it's great. We ought to roll with the same group of people. We ought to have our friends who are not believers, but they can't be our only friends, and they can't have the only values that we emulate and try to not adopt. And the way that they spend their money doesn't change, and the way they spend their time doesn't change, and the way that they seek joy doesn't change. The only thing that really changes is now they go to church, and it makes them feel a little bit better. But eventually, eventually they'll start to fade away and then a year or two later, it's like that was just a flash in the pan. It was a confession, but it wasn't a sincere belief. Conversely, I've watched families profess a faith, come into church, kind of slowly step their way in, slowly take their next steps of obedience, becoming disciples of Christ, join small group, begin to give. Well, a huge indicator of someone's faith, and I don't talk about giving a lot, so hopefully you'll allow me this, is whether or not they give. I'm not talking about the church. I'm just talking about being generous people. Why else would you give 10% of your income away unless you were in love with a God who allowed you to do that as part of obedience to him? It doesn't make any sense. Why would a family do that unless God had radically changed their priorities? I've watched families come in and they had kids on ball teams and they were gone most weekends during the fall and the spring and every night of the week and it was consuming them. And they said, listen, because of our faith, because we want to be around church people more, we're not doing that. We're going to ratchet back all of our involvement everywhere else so that we can be involved in church. It's a radical change in priorities. I'm not saying that every family has to do that, but I am saying that that family radically changed their priorities. And to me, it's evidence that faith has taken hold. But James is very clear. If your faith is a faith that clings to a confession that you made years ago, and in the wake of your life, there is no difference. You're no different now than you were five years ago, and only you know the answer to that. And let me just twist it a little harder as I say that. Don't let yourself off the hook with this. Don't find pockets and ways to make yourself better when you really know that you're the same. If that's our faith, and there are no works, James says it's dead. So by now, you ought to be asking the question, well, crap, man, what are the works then? Because I'm a little nervous right now. What are the works that I ought to be producing? How do I know that I know that I know? How can I be certain? What kind of works is faith going to manifest in my life? I would point you to three passages to answer this question. The first is James 1.27. We talked about it earlier. I talked about it two weeks ago. It's the true religion passage. James says that, and I've that we are his disciples by our love for one another. So we should ask ourselves, as I look back on the wake of my life, do I have an increasing heart for the needy? Do I have an increasing desire to help those who are facing injustice and to be a voice for the voiceless? Or do I care about them as little now as I always have? Do I have an increased desire for holiness? Is the Holy Spirit in me, speaking into me and encouraging me as I venture into places where I need not be? Is he encouraging me as I venture towards places and people where I do need to be? Do I see that in my life? And then according to Jesus, do I look in my life and I see a wake of love in my life? Are there people who would point to me and say, I'm closer to Jesus because they love me well? Has that been manifesting itself in your life in such a way? And listen, the litmus test for this love, this godly love, this faith-inspired love that Jesus gives us is not loving the people who love us back. That's easy. Everyone does that. It's loving the people who don't love you back. It's loving the people that you don't have to love. It's loving the people when there's no transaction there. I'm not getting anything out of this. I just love you and I care for you. Do you have an increased wake of people that you love in your life that you don't have to love, that are sometimes unlovable? James says, if you have a genuine faith, then the answer to that question will be yes. And finally, Paul says in Galatians, we're told that we receive the Holy Spirit as a down payment for our salvation, that when we are saved, when we have a genuine faith, that the Holy Spirit rushes into our life, and that the Holy Spirit produces fruit. And the fruit of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So again, look at the wake of your life over the last three to five years. Are you producing? Are you experiencing more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Are you still the cranky grump that you've always been? Is it more? Is it less? Is it the same? And now listen. I know this is not a fun sermon. You did not get up and shower and brave the rain and you families, we opened kids ministry today. You didn't get your kids ready so that you could come in here and I could kick you in the teeth. I'm sorry about that. This is a hard one. If you're feeling uncomfortable, you should. If you're doubting your salvation, that's all right. Because Paul tells us in Philippians that we should continually work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that our understanding of our salvation and our relationship with God will change over the years. And if it's not, and if it's not challenged, and we're just allowed to walk through life clinging to this thing that we said once and not seeing any works and not actually being a genuine believer and not experiencing genuine faith, shame on me if I'm your pastor for years and I never confront you with the truth that James gives us here. I have to. And here's why we need to have these hard conversations with ourselves. Here's why we need to think through this and ask the question, do I have a genuine faith? Do I see that in my life? Am I sure that I'm sure that I'm sure? This week, Jen and I spent the week back home. Jen and Lily are driving back today. I've shared with the church through the journey. Jen's dad, about two years ago, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so we've been walking through that, Jen and I have, as a family and with her family. And this last week, he made the decision to stop treatment and receive hospice care in the home. And so we went home to be with the family. The good news is, it was a really, it was a good, sweet, peaceful, life-giving, gracious week. It was good to be around the family. And we're probably talking about months, not weeks. And so that's good too. And we're looking forward to sweet times with John as a whole family. I would also say for those of you who love Jen, please direct your condolences through me. The last thing she needs is to drive home from Athens, be sad that she is not with her dad right now, and then have to answer emails and texts about how he's doing and thinking and all that stuff. So direct those through me. Thank you. But here's why I bring it up. Because I sat with that man this week who has a genuine faith. We were joking about the multiple jackets that he's given to homeless people and sign spinners on the corner of the road. He just stops his car, gets out of the car, and hands him his jacket. He worked at AT&T for years and years and years. He was the vice president of international real estate, yet he knew the name of the parking attendants, he knew their birthdays, and he gave them gifts. He left gifts for the cleaning people in his office. He had a genuine faith. And now, as he's made the decision to embrace death, he is totally fearless and completely at peace. He is living out the verse that says, oh death, where is your sting? It has none for John because he's not fearful. He's totally at peace and he's going to see his Savior. And he's looking forward to it. I want you to have that peace. I want you to know that peace. I want my church to understand what that is. And that peace doesn't come by avoiding the hard truths in Scripture. It comes by continually working out our salvation with fear and with trembling. It comes with being sure that we know that we know. It comes with a genuine faith that will unavoidably produce works. I want you to have that faith too. I want you to have that peace too. So go home. Be concerned. Be confused. Be fearful. Work it out. Make sense of it. If I've confused you today, email me. Let's have a Zoom call or let's have a lunch and let's talk about it. But it's a good thing to have these conversations. It's a good thing to think through these, because when we do, we can be sure that we're sure that we're sure, and we can live our lives in perfect peace, and that's what I want for you, and that's what I want for my church. Let's pray, and then I think we're going to sing one more song together. Father, you were good. In loss, you are good. In grief, you are present. And in joys, you celebrate. So God, thank you for all of those moments and all the ways that you're with us. Lord, I pray that no one here would unnecessarily doubt that they know you. On the flip side, God, I pray that some of us would very necessarily doubt it and that in that doubt we would find a saving faith for maybe the first time ever. God, if any of us listening to me now needs to cry out to you as we sing this song, would we do that? Would you give us the courage to kneel at our house or in these rows or stand and maybe not sing and maybe just pray and search our hearts for where we are with you? Give us a genuine faith. Give us a faith that's rooted so deeply that we abide in you and you produce fruit in us. Give us the peace that comes when we know that we know you. It's in your son's name that I pray all these things. Amen.

All right, good morning, everyone. As Steve said, my name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace. And before I get started, not for nothing, when Aaron announced that we're starting kids back, your woos were very weak. So, I mean, I was just like, just sitting and just listening to a lot of weak woos. So you owe Aaron a much more hearty woo after the service is over. That's all I have to say. But I'm thrilled to be able to be up here this morning. I'm thrilled to be able to go through James as we are doing so as a church. I'm thankful to Nate who, you know, since I'm the student pastor, kind of tossed up the softball of being able to have the opportunity to talk about taming the tongue. I mean, certainly a very easy thing to be discussing and going through. Obviously, I'm kidding. But that's kind of as is the way of James. This morning, we're going to be going through James 3, mostly focusing on verses 3 through 8. If you have your Bible or if there's a Bible in front of you, I would love for you to grab that. I would love for you to go ahead and open up to that section as that is where we are going to be parked for this morning. As the video talked about last weekend that we watched in our introduction to James, the Bible Project put it as, James is a beautifully crafted punch to the gut. And I hate to tell you, but this is certainly no different. As we get into this, it's going to be pretty overwhelming to read, but I think we're going to get through it. So hopefully we can get through it together. Let me see some thumbs up. Yeah, good, good. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear you're with me. Let's go ahead and jump in. We're going to start with verse 3. Go all the way through verse 8 of James chapter 3. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. So I'm just going to let us all take a quick collective breath as we just read all of those verses together. That is certainly strong language. Those are certainly incredibly powerful images basically saying that the tongue is like the small bit inside of a horse that steers the horse and makes it turn anywhere you want it to go. That it's the rudder, the tiny rudder on a ship that regardless of wind, regardless of sea, you can change the direction of an entire ship with this small rudder. It's like a small spark that creates a giant forest fire that it can corrupt every part of us and it can corrupt anyone else who's around to get burned. And it's funny because these are beautiful illustrations, but they're pretty heightened. They're pretty strong, but as I read them, and the first time that I read through this, my response wasn't, man, James is wilding out right now. My response was, yes, certainly this is a lot, but I don't see any hyperbole here. As I read that, I kind of just shrugged, nodded my head and said, yeah, he's right. The tongue has immense and incredible power to do evil. I imagine that you guys probably feel the same way as I just got done reading and as you just got done reading along with me. I bet that none of you were like, okay, that seems a little bit intense. I can almost guarantee you everyone in here fully agrees with everything he just said. Why? Because we've experienced it. We've experienced someone using just a few words to completely light us on fire. We've experienced being completely broken down to our core because of a simple phrase uttered to us. Even more of a bummer, we know we've done it to other people. That in a moment of frustration, in a moment of a lack of willpower, whatever it may be, we slip up, we say something that you probably have those things that ring back in your mind right now that you still regret that you said five years ago. The author William Barclay, who wrote a commentary on James, puts it this way. He says, Once again, that's a big and that's a bold claim, but I don't see any lies there. The sin that comes out of our mouth is something that can have dire consequences, not only in that moment, but for years to come. And as he starts it, and as I think is so beautifully put, there is no sin into which is easier to fall, right? Because when we're wronged, when we're angry, when we're upset, when something happens to us, we want, and so often our knee-jerk reaction is to respond. Setting ablaze a large fire by a small spark. So what do we do? I mean, with how heightened this language, with how heightened this diction is, it feels like the only thing that we could possibly do is just stop talking altogether, right? The classic, if my tongue causes me to sin, let me cut it off. And I'm going to walk over here, as Nate has taught me, I'm going to go over here to say that while this is certainly not the purpose and the point of what I'm talking about, I do believe and I do think that there is very distinct and very clear merit and wisdom that comes from all human beings, but especially believers, knowing when to respond in silence, when to simply be quiet, when to simply hold their tongue and respond in listening as opposed to responding with being the first to say something. I don't say that to put you guys on blast. I say that to put myself on blast. If you look around and find anyone who I've ever been in a small group with or who's ever sat in a staff meeting with me, you will see emphatic nodding because Kyle is at the top of that list of people slash believers who needs to learn sometimes how to just be quiet. Thank you for that amen in the back. I love being made to feel great by my fellow staff members. But obviously we can't do that, right? Obviously we can't stop talking, we can't just cut out our tongues because that would hurt. But obvious issues of practicality aside, there's other issues with that. There's other issues with simply stopping and abstaining from talking. The main one is that the tongue's immense power isn't limited to evil, but also to do substantial good. Paul reminds us of this in Ephesians 4.29 as he writes, What Paul encourages us to do here and is all through Scripture. Every writer and the Lord himself and Jesus, they are encouraging us not simply to give up our evil discussions and our evil talking, but instead to replace those with good. Instead to replace those with speaking life and speaking love and speaking encouragement to any and every one of us around, and that doesn't happen if we just stop talking. The same commentator, William Barclay, puts it this way. He says, I'll say that again. Abstention from anything is never a complete substitute for control in its use. Simply abstaining from speaking isn't enough. The goal is not to be quiet. The goal is to be able to control the things that come out of our mouth so that not only are we getting rid of the evil that comes out of our mouths, but we are replacing it with good and with love and with all great things. So the question obviously is how? Because I know, I'm 100% certain that every person in this room, every person watching at home, every person wherever you are, has done just as I've tried to do in trying to do it, in trying to tame the tongue, in trying my very hardest to hold back the things that I'm feeling and instead to change those and to still show love to people, still encouraging people even when I don't want to. Trying my best to speak humility even though I feel a sense of arrogance or ego. Trying my best to live by the old saying of if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. But what happens? We try to be silent or we try to replace our speech. We try to replace and hold back how we actually feel to instead be uplifting and encouraging, instead being loving. And that just builds up and it erodes our insides, it erodes our heart. And then at some point, whether it be the person who's actually causing you anger and frustration, or whether it just be the first person to look at you wrong that you just blow up on, right? Small words, huge fires. So what do we do? James in verse 8 literally says, no human being can tame the tongue. It would be incredibly unwise for me to stand up here and try to argue to you guys that he's wrong. It'd be unwise for me to say, yeah, you're the half-brother of Jesus, you wrote James, which is in the Bible, but I think, you know, like, I'm Kyle, I know more. But, what I will argue is I think that this statement, this claim that he makes is a bit more nuanced than how it sounds by simply reading it once. Growing up, if me, if myself, my brother, and my dad were all riding together in my dad's car, we were almost always listening to one of two cassette tapes. The first, License to Ill by the Beastie Boys. I think it probably won't surprise you that that's not the one that we're going to focus on this morning. We can talk about that afterwards. I'll pass you the mic and you can show me what you got. The other, probably the exact opposite, I guess, was this old sermon from 1995 by this pastor named Tony Evans that he gave at some men's conference. I'm sure anyone who's sitting here listening to me run my mouth, especially if you've never heard a sermon before today or like why in the world would anyone ever want to re-listen to a sermon? But I can assure you that this is a sermon to be listened to. This is a sermon to get excited about. Tony Evans has a way with illustrations and a way with both telling stories and connecting stories to this greater and larger point that I think is unparalleled and unmatched. This sermon is as entertaining as it is powerful. And as a three-year-old child, I'm sitting in this car just quoting along with Tony Evans this sermon. I'm hyping it up a lot. Reach out to me and I'll send it to you because I promise you I will not do this justice. But as I went through this and as I was preparing, I kept coming back to this story that Tony Evans opens his sermon by telling. The story starts off by him having a problem in his bedroom because he's got a crack in the wall of his bedroom. Can I get an aww? Yeah, that's a bummer, right? But hey, you know, easy fix. He reaches out to a painter. The painter comes. He says, my man, I've got a crack in the bedroom. Can you fix it? He said, yeah, of course. He does what he does to fix a crack in the wall. He replasters it. He paints it. It's all good. Beautiful wall. Zero cracks available. Everything's great. Pays him along the way. A month later, guess who's back? The crack. The crack is back. And so as he so eloquently puts it, somewhat evangelically ticked off, he calls the painter back. He says, sir, the crack is back. Can you please come fix it? So he apologizes. I'm sorry. I'll come and fix it. He goes, does his thing, replasters, paints it. Good to go. Month and a half goes by and the crack reappears. As he says, this time, this crack that is in the wall has been visited by all of its nieces and nephews. There are now a family of cracks living on his walls. So out of frustration, he goes, okay, clearly this painter has no clue what he's doing. Let me get another one. Calls another one. He's like, I've got cracks in my walls. Can you please come and fix it? The guy comes. He takes a look at the wall. He looks at him. He says, I can't help you. And he's like, sir, what do you mean you can't help me? You're a painter. He goes, yeah, but the problem is you don't have a problem with cracks in your wall. And to which Tony replies, to which Tony looks up quietly at the cracks in his walls. And as he says, he looks back at the crack standing in front of him, telling him he doesn't have a problem with cracks in his walls. And he says, sir, you see cracks. I see cracks. All God's children see cracks. How are you going to tell me I don't have a problem with cracks on my walls? And he says, I can fix this. I can replaster your wall. I can make it to where you don't have any cracks on your wall, but the problem is not with your walls. The problem is not with cracks. The problem is you have a shifting foundation. And until you fix your foundation, you will always be fixing cracks in your walls. Until you fix your foundation, you will always be fixing cracks in your walls. When it comes to our tongue, we try so hard. We try to edit our language. We try to replace how we feel with what we say. We try so hard to bury all of that down so that we can be as kind and as godly as possible when we have interactions and when we have conversations. We hold back our actual thoughts and our feelings. But the problem is that we don't have a problem with our tongue. And when we think we do, it's never going to be eradicated. You see, taming the tongue has nothing to do with the tongue. The tongue is simply a vehicle for the heart to speak. We attempt to tame our tongue through our own willpower and we focus so much on what comes out. We focus on the outside. We focus on the words that leave our mouths when our foundation, our hearts, are corrupted. If our hearts are harboring ill will, if they're harboring hatred, helplessness, negativity, arrogance, impatience, curses, and or doubts, we don't have a willpower that is strong enough to prevent the tongue from slipping up and expressing these things. If that evil rests inside of our hearts, at some point it's going to make its way out of our mouths. And until our hearts begin to reflect God's heart, we will never be able to control our tongues. And so the goal becomes our hearts. We have to fix our hearts or we can never fix our tongues. Taming the tongue is no longer about our speech. It's not about changing your speech. It's about allowing God to change our hearts. It's about allowing God to mold our hearts. It's about allowing Christ to come and to shape our hearts into what it should be. We give our hearts to Christ. We learn, we realize, and we continue to grow in our joyful understanding of the fact that God created every one of us. And even though we sin, even though we deserve hell, we deserve eternity in hell, God sends his perfect son to live and then to die in our place. All so that we can live forever with him in a relationship with him, our hearts are changed. And as our hearts are changed, they continue to be molded as we realize that this gospel truth that God created us, that God sent his son to die for me. That same gospel truth is also true of literally every single person you will ever make contact with. In the same way God created you, in the same way God loves you, in the same way that Christ died for you, he also did all of those things for every single person you will ever interact with. And when we start to look at people that way, as God's children, as our hearts are being molded into seeing people the way that God sees them, our tongues are going to respond in kind. No pun intended, because I think our tongues are going to also respond with much more kindness. And as we continue to read through the Gospels and read through Jesus's life and with the memory and with the knowledge that Jesus not only died for us, but he lived on earth to give us a measure of this is what it should look like for you to live. This is how you glorify God through your language. This is how you glorify God with the way that you see and the way that you treat people with the openness and with the grace that you show people and the love that you show each and every person. And our goal becomes just trying to be more Christ-like. And that starts at the heart. And it all culminates with constant prayer. As Nate talked about, what, two or three weeks ago, that we continue to keep God at the center of our hearts and we continue to think through and pray with him and have him on our minds, meditating in scripture and meditating in prayer so that God is always at the forefront because if God is at the forefront of our hearts and if he is at the forefront of our minds, I think it means we are going to speak differently. And when we allow God to change and to mold and to shape our hearts in this way, we are able to replace both in our hearts and in our speech, ill will and hatred with love, helplessness with hope, negativity with positivity, arrogance with humility, impatience with patience, curses with blessings, and doubt with faith. And most importantly, when our hearts have been transformed by the gospel of Christ, our tongues have no choice but to rejoice and to proclaim that gospel. Will you pray with me? Lord, I pray that as we try to glorify you in our words, in our actions, as we try to glorify you through our prayers to you, but God, also our words and our prayers, our words and just the way that we interact with any and everyone. The way we talk to people, the way that we talk about people, the way that we talk about ourselves. Lord, I pray that we put aside and we stop worrying about and we stop trying to fix our tongues by simply our own power and our own willpower because, God, we know it's never going to work. God, instead, allow us to come to you. Allow your heart to shape, mold, impact our hearts, God. Allow our hearts to look more like yours so that our speech can do the same. We love you. Amen.