Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro –

Theme: “What a Christian DOES”

Key Passages: vs. 8 (vvs.

1-9) A Christian Loves Thy Neighbor

vs. 12-13 (vvs.

10-13) A Christian shows Mercy

vs. 18 (vvs.

14-20) A Christian Serves

Intro –

Good morning Lakes Community Church.

How is everyone doing this morning?

Amen if it’s been good, and Amen if it’s less than one of your best days.

Either way, you have all made it here this morning.

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."