What a Christian Does

This morning you may have notice something a little different, I am not Pastor Barry or pastor Darrell, or Pastor Sandy or even the other Pastor Barry. In fact, I’m not even a pastor, I’m a college student at Carolina Bible College that aspires to be a Pastor one day. My name is Josh for those of you that don’t know me. I am the co-leader of our awesome Young Adult Ministry that if you can’t tell, has some very talented men and women that are leading worship this morning. So, give them a round of applause. Thank you, guys.

The overall theme we are going with is Christianity for Dummies, this morning we are going to be in James chapter two. As your flipping or swiping I just want to review quickly what Pastor Darrell preached on last week. does anybody remember what last week’s message was on? (if nobody replies) “it is at this point when I am talking with the young adult group that I would say, this is not a rhetorical question, it is an actual question.” Pastor Darrell preached in on “What a Christian HAS” ,

Here are a few things that a Christian has just to recap,

A Christian has Joy in trials

A Christian has wisdom in uncertain times

A Christian has confidence & humility

A Christian has toughness under trial

A Christian has the ability to escape temptation

A Christian has patience and humility which comes from the Word of God

A Christian has purpose in the journey

Which brings us to this morning in , What a Christian DOES

There are three things that a Christian DOES that we are going to go over.

Let’s begin, verse 1. My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes,

3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,”

4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?

5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

Example: Have you ever heard the phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” That’s essentially what James is telling the 40’s AD NT Greek church goers.

How many of you have seen the any of the Avengers movies and know who Chris Hemsworth is?

If Tiger Woods walked through those double doors and sat next to you this morning. Just try and picture that, you sat down where you normally sit and suddenly Tiger Woods sits down on your left side. Wowww is he real. And then Jennifer Aniston came and sits in the seat to your right.

Would you be distracted right now if that happened? But why, why would that distract you so much?

Now let me ask you another question, Tiger is on your left and Jennifer Aniston is on your right and then suddenly God appears here on stage. The all-powerful, completely perfect glory of God, just somehow He allows us to live through seeing him in some veiled form where we can just see Him on His throne, the glory of God radiating throughout this room. at that point will Tiger and Aniston be a distraction to you?

At that point they aren’t going to matter, right? because at that point your reaction is going to be NOOOO WAYYYY, that’s God and I am in his presence. Why is that? Because all we have in our sights is the glorious Lord Jesus Christ. You see that’s the problem here, I am guilty of it to. We forget who God is and we become a respecter of persons. And we put these people in these different systems and different classes because we forget in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ that all we should see is that there’s a great God out there, then there’s people. And our job as believers is to reflect what God has done in our hearts, what God has written down in His Word and not put people in systems or classes in church because of their status, don’t think that doesn’t happen in churches. Have you met church people??? Yeahhhh exactly,

I was listening to a Craig Groschel sermon a few months ago and he gave a great real-life illustration about one of the first churches he worked at as like an assistant pastor that occasionally preached. Pastor Craig was doing his occasional preaching one weekend and he was preaching one of two services. He said he did the first message and it was just dead, he was telling this really funny story and somebody said, “you think your funny but you’re not.” Probably every preacher, pastor, speaker’s worst nightmare. Well there was this guy who was turning beat red in the face and you could see his veins popping out of his neck. Pastor Craig was like, what’s wrong with that him??

Afterwards the vein guy came up to Pastor Craig and said, “young man, that was the funniest story I’ve ever heard, you almost made me laugh in church!” Pastor Craig asked, well why didn’t you laugh? His responds were, we don’t laugh in church.

So, the service was over and the receptionist came up to Pastor Craig and said, “Oh Craig, this is so exciting! We’re going to have a visitor coming, I picked up the phone and a young lady on the other end said she’s really hurting and her life is in shambles and she felt like she needed to come to church this morning. So Craig you better do good!” Craig said, OK Great!.

So, Pastor Craig was standing outside greeting people coming in with beat red vein guy and sure enough the visitor drove up. The young lady got out of her car and she looked like she had just came from a very long, hard night of partying. You know, not dressed as someone coming to church would look like. Her body language showed she was nervous and she was walking towards the church building. Pastor Craig was about to welcome her and vein guy stepped in front and said, “young lady, at our church we wear our best for God, is that the best outfit you have?” This young lady turned around, got in her car and drove off before Pastor Craig Groschel could even say anything.

When I heard Craig Groschel tell that story, I thought the same thing he did.

Jesus Christ did not lead a ministry for 3 years, be beaten with the cat of nine tails whip to the point of seeing his bones, carry his own cross to Calvary, get a crown of thorn stuck in his head as humiliation, nailed hands and feet to the cross for over 6 hours then died for you and me so that we can judge what someone wears, their status, bad reputation or good reputation that wants to go to church.

Here at the Lakes no matter what you wear, at least wear clothes please, as far as appearance that’s all we care about. You are welcome here. Verse 8 in James chapter 2 says this,

8. If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

Our first thing a Christian, I would say, ought to do is, Love your neighbor as yourself.

A Christian Loves Thy Neighbor as Yourself

Before we move on I want to make one point here about LOVE. What love is, this is not a scientific question, or a question of how you feel. Its truly a philosophical question that can be answered by seeing how God loves us because God being perfect, He is perfect in love and we do not know what love is unless there is a creator who is loving and shows us how to love. Chemical reactions don’t show you what love is, says,

“4 Love is patient, love is kind and bis not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 1abears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails”

In the presence of the Lord all earthly distractions are less than the dust and all earthly righteousness is a filthy rag. Don’t let reputation, status, or anything blind you from loving others.

Lets continue, verses 9-11

9. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

10. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one [point], he has become guilty of all.

11. For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT COMMIT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

Essentially James is seeing the law as the will of God and to show favoritism is to break the law and when you break one law you are seemingly breaking all of the laws.

If you’re wondering, dude I thought we as Christians aren’t under the law, I thought were under grace because Jesus fulfilled the law. Well yes but Jesus also told us things that we as believers should do in order to be right with God on top of that we have the natural Law in what says that the Law is written on our hearts. We naturally know not to murder; our conscience is aware of things that are wrong when we do them especially the first time.

As Christians I think there comes a time where we individually need to reevaluate ourselves and see where we need to fix our aspects of our lives in order to be right with God because you can literally be on your game with devotionals every morning and yet still be a transgressor in another area of your life.

So I’d encourage you to evaluate where your strong suits are and weak spots are in your walk with God. I know for me; I just don’t like people in general. Ill be kind but around a ton of people at once I feel uncomfortable because people being sinful are not smart when were in a large group often time. And I’m definitely not a people person especially if I’m driving. We might be friends now but get behind that wheel I don’t trust anybody so that’s something I’m constantly trying to work on.

Verse 12-13,

12. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by [the] law of liberty.

13. For judgment [will be] merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

The Law of Liberty, liberty is freedom. Freedom to make choices and we are judged by the free choices that we make so speak and act as those who are judged by the law of freedom.

We here in America are the only country in the world that is completely free and when I say free, I mean that we are able to freely worship God, we have religion liberty, we have free speech which no country in the world has that. There’s blaspheme laws in every other country which means that if you offend someone by your words (different than threatening someone with violence) then you can spend a night or more in jail because so and so’s feelings got hurt.

With great freedom comes great responsibility as a believer to freely choose to obey and we are judged by this because we know better.

Now, to understand a little clearer verse 13, lets turn to , Jesus’ Sermon on the Mt.

Jesus says,

14. "For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

15. "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Jesus also says,

35. "My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart."

Essentially what James is saying here is that God’s judgment is not worth holding onto a grudge you have against another brother or sister in Christ. Forgive as God forgives your transgressions even if it is very difficult.

The second thing a Christian does is A Christian Shows Mercy

Illustration: question, anybody else here not like your sibling growing up? Or was it just me?

I was a meannnnn kid when I was little, like I would just bite people I didn’t like. Yeah I was one of those kids and I would always want to fight my brother and sister when they were both smaller than me and I could take them. I remember I always wanted to fight them because they were just annoying, and I think my brother Jake would tell you that I didn’t actually have a full conversation with him until he was like 12, true story.

But my mom would tell me that family is forever and friends are temporary, especially where we live, military town. She also taught me that no matter what someone does to you, always forgive them because harboring something against someone in your heart will eat at you more than the other person.

So after that, for the most part I stopped being mean to my sibling and anytime we get into an argument we always ask for forgiveness and truly forgive. Eventually.

As a body of believers, we too are a family and if brother John gets mad at brother George over here because George says he can’t understand Johns beautiful Scottish accent, then guys y’all gotta squash the beef.

Alright verse 14 – 26,

14. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

15. If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,

16. and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for [their] body, what use is that?

17. Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, [being] by itself.

18. But someone may [well] say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

19. You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.

20. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?

21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

22. You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;

23. and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.

24. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

25. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

26. For just as the body without [the] spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

I’d like to clarify one thing here and ill use the last verse to do so, 📷

This verse right here is not a contradiction to what Paul says, “A person is justified by faith apart from works.” in multiple verse such as & .

Paul is telling us that in order for us to be saved, in order for us to receive salvation we must have faith, works do not get you to heaven.

There is only one way to heaven ladies and gentlemen and that is faith in Jesus Christ that died on the cross for our sins and was raised 3 days later conquering the grave.

What James is saying here is in accordance with Jesus when Jesus insists that a man or woman of faith will be noticeable by the fruit they produce.

Paul also agrees with James throughout his letters such as , “we shall all receive our rewards according to our labor” or , “For we must appear before the judgment Seat of Christ, so that each one may be rewarded for his or her deeds in the body, according to what he has done, good or bad.”

So the last thing a Christian DOES, A Christian SERVES

James is telling us that, hey you know its great that you believe but without any production, any fruit, it is not going to get you very far with God.

Serving others should be the product of the faith you have in Jesus Christ which only strengthens by reading the Word of God.

I see a lot of people who say they’re followers of Christ but by the way they live none of us would know that by the way they live. A belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is suppose to transform your life and you ought to live your life everyday living the reality that Christ is your Lord and Savior.

Good works are the outwards expression of your burning passion of faith in the One True God.

If there’s anything The Lakes Community Church believes in consistently is to serve the community as Christ served.

As the worship team comes up, I want to encourage the believers in the room that as a Christian we should love our neighbor as ourselves, show mercy and forgive, serve other because God loved us first, He shows us mercy every day, and He is always there to help us. God is good all the time.