Divine Mentor - James | Week 2 | Pastor Benton Cole | Five Lakes Church

Well, we are, we are continuing on in a sermon series and the book of James right now.

And, uh, James has some amazing things to say to us.

Uh, it's a book about practical Christianity.

This is about what believers should do beyond just what they should think.

And, uh, this last week we had someone share a story about just putting faith into action, putting the message into action.

Uh, pastor Micah have received this note and, uh, and these folks gave us permission to share it here.

Uh, they had written him, pastor Micah said, uh, said I've been sick.

We both been sick for the last five to six days.

Last night, I felt especially sick and miserable.

Then your words came to me about James verse two, we talked about last week, counted all joy, choose joy when times get rough, go to the Lord and praise and worship.

And so we turned on YouTube and began to listen and sing and worship the Lord.

The Lord literally took me out of the total misery of the moment.

And I came out feeling better than I had all day.

Thanks for again, for sharing God's word and the practical applications from it that will change our lives through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

Love hearing that.

And that's what James is all about.

It's about taking things, a message, taking beliefs and putting them to work, putting them to action.

You know, there it's been said, there are some Christians who are so heavenly minded that they do no earthly good.

I don't want to be a person like that.

I don't want us to be a church like that.

And yet on the, on the flip side, there are some people that, that dwell so much on things of earthly value that they miss things of eternal worth.

We don't want to be that either.

What James is talking about is the both in a faith and works and how those fuel one another, but putting faith to work, putting our faith into action.

So in this series, what we're doing is taking each week a big question that we may have in life and, and a practical question and saying, how does James speak into this question that we walk through?

And we think about, and so if you're taking notes with us, I encourage you to there's there in your service guide are also can be found online.

But our question for today is this is how do I love others?

Well, how do I love others?

Well, you know, the Bible says to love others and, and part of our mission as a church is to love others, to love each other.

But what does that look like if sometimes we think of love in terms of what happens in, in the romance novel or, or in the hallmark movie?

My wife's already watching hallmark movies.

I think there should be some limit.

Uh, you know, we don't, they don't turn the on until December.

I don't think I'm changing her mind, but sometimes we define love by that, that who he gooey love you, feely, you know, kinda, kinda love, but more often it's a practical choice when life real you think about it.

When a friend disappoints, you, it's a choice to love when a brother and a sister are bickering together, it's a choice to love sometimes for them to love each other.

And sometimes as a parent to love them.

When your spouse, irks, you, or annoys, you I've heard that happens in some homes.

It's a choice to love who, you know, there's a reality that Jesus, while a crowd of people was shouting, crucify him.

He chose to go to the cross to die for them.

It's a choice to love.

Love is a choice more often than it's a feeling now it's nice when it's a feeling it's nice when it's something that we do just naturally come by and naturally feel.

But far more often, it's a decision we make when we rise up, it's a decision we make through the day.

It's a decision that we make when we go to bed.

And what we're going to see is what James has to say into how to love one another.

Well, and we're going to be in the first half of James chapter two, here are three thoughts for today.

And the first thought is this, that favoritism for some can undermine a love for all favoritism, for some can undermine a love for all.

James opens up chapter two with a hypothetical situation and some, some, uh, pretty hard hitting rhetorical questions here.

He says, my dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord?

Jesus Christ.

If you favor some people over others, if for example, suppose someone comes into your meeting, dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.

And another comes in who's poor and dressed in dirty clothes.

Now, if you give special attention in a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, Hey, you can sit over there.

That Petra floor looks really nice.

Doesn't this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives.

It's nice uplifting versus today.

You know what James, the issue that James is presenting here is that our inward faith is supposed to drive an outward love for other people.

But sometimes the outward stuff that we see gets in the way of that priority to do that.

And it's a natural temptation of all of us to judge a book by its cover.

It's a natural temptation for all of us to discriminate in one way or another.

You, what James is addressing here is the topic of wealth that sometimes there are people that either are rich or that look or appear to be rich.

And there are people that are poor or that look to be poor.

And he's saying there's a problem here in, uh, in discriminating against that, about showing favor to some and not to others.

But notice he starts all this by saying, for example, there's a hypothetical situation here.

So we can broaden this to say, there are other things that we discriminate about those.

There are other outward things you think about race or ethnicity, where someone's from, or the color of their skin.

You think about age.

Sometimes we discriminate based on age.

Oh, that's, that's a millennial, that's a boomer that's gen X or Y.

That is a, that's the greatest generation that in some way, we start to discriminate based on our perceptions that have been built over time of a certain demographic of, of age.

Sometimes we discriminate based on education.

You know, we, we assess value or worth by, by whether someone has a high school degree or a college degree or a post-grad degree.

You know, some people go to four years of college and other people go to one year of college, four times that piece of paper on the wall.

Isn't all that there is to say to the story.

Sometimes we discriminate based on health or the health decisions that people make.

There's a lot of that in our world today.

I'm not even going to get into all of it, but sometimes we'll discriminate on others based on the decisions they're making health wise, sports loyalties.

I'm going to go there early.

And pastor Mike, his time here, he was asked at one point, whether he was going to be a Michigan or Ohio state fan, his response was which ones in the sec said, that's just not the right answer.

It's something all of us can align around.

No, there's, sometimes we do discriminate off just outward things and discrimination can run two different ways.

Sometimes it means that we're treating others poorly because, because of things that we have viewed to be inferior, for whatever reason, we've come to that conclusion, we said these set of things or qualities, or these set of externals are net are inferior.

And so we're going to treat unjustly because of those things, unjust treatment based on differences that we've assessed to be inferior.

Now for on that side, I don't think I need to camp on this, that all that much, because our world does a pretty good job of policing that, right?

I think most of us would say discrimination based on those things that we chose.

We've assessed somehow to be inferior, that that's wrong, right?

That's the stuff of HR departments everywhere.

Social media will come out against things.

When they see it, our culture tends to stay when, Hey, when you're looking at someone for their external qualities and you're judging those to be not good, and you're treating them unjustly because of that, it's not a good thing.

So that's one, one sense of discrimination.

The other is when we show unfair favor, based off of differences, we viewed to be superior and the world doesn't do as good a job of policing that.

And that's what James is talking about right here.

We wrestled to justify that we've, we've elevated certain people based off of external things that we've judged to be superior, they're wealthy.

And so we, we elevate them and it's easy to elevate people who have potential to elevate us back.

It's easy to bless people who have potential to bless us in return, right?

There are some times where we've just assess things, say these are positive.

And so we're, maybe we're not judging unfairly or treating unfair or unjustly, but we're giving unfair treatment still by elevating others.

Now there's a couple of times when showing favoritism to some people can be okay, and I want to caveat this with this because there are times where I think we're when it's out of a right relationship, that it's okay to show some favor to someone you'll.

I favor my son and my daughter over my son and my daughter's friends.

That's right.

And good.

I favor my wife over other women.

That better be good.

There are times where, when it's born of right relationship, that elevating certain people are showing favor to some, maybe a good thing.

Even the other place I think it can be okay, is when we choose some, some, if you will unfair favor out of a consistent pattern of consistent generosity as the Lord leads, right?

There's some times where we're just being, we're being consistently generous across the board.

And yet God seems to be leading us to, to maybe bless someone a little more.

And then we listen to that.

There are times we do for one, what we wish we could do for all you I'm thinking into our next resource initiative right now.

And our families praying into this as well.

And what we're going to give to that.

We're going to give more toward the next resource initiative as a family than we do to other things we're going to, we're going to elevate that project and the people behind you, helping that to happen more than we do.

Some of the things out of a sense of leading.

Now, we're tithing to the church generally, and that's not going to affect that.

But out of a, out of a pattern of consistent generosity, we know that that's something that we're being called to give to.

And so we're planning on that.

So sometimes out of right relationship, and then other times out of calling and consistent generosity, it can be okay to show some favor where it's not where this becomes a problem.

And this is where James is coming from here is when it's a systematic favoritism, that's based on outward things.

We've looked and said, there's a set of people, either a person or a set of people that have these qualities or these attributes.

And we're not.

And we're going to show favoritism based on that and not show favoritism and other people that don't have that.

Now, why is this a problem?

Because sometimes it just doesn't seem like there should be a problem, but it, that idea of showing favoritism becomes a problem because of the character of who God is and how he's called us to live.

See impartiality is one of God's attributes.

And I'll, I'll bring you through a few scriptures just quickly here to help, help bring this to life.

Deuteronomy 10 17 says for the Lord, your God is the God of gods and the Lord of Lords.

He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed Romans two 11.

And it says it plainly for God does not show favoritism.

Ephesians six, nine.

He is your master in heaven has no favorites.

And I love this verse out of[inaudible]. This is the early church is growing, and they're trying to determine how God works and among who he works.

And what does he do among different people.

And Peter says here, I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism because in every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what's right.

This is the message of good news for the people of Israel, that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all a peace that's evenly distributed, evenly offered to all people.

He saying, God, doesn't show favorites here.

Now for us, we are created in the image of God and we're called to bear his image to the world around us.

And so what happens when we start showing favoritism, when God's character is impartiality, and we then start to show favoritism, what happens is we don't reflect the image of the creator and we don't do what he calls us to do then.

And what James says is to, to do that as his sin, he says, yes, indeed, this James two, eight and nine, he says, yes, indeed, it's good.

When you obey the Royal law is found in the scriptures, love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you favor some over others, you're committing a sin.

So favoritism based on economic status or any other outward thing violates that command to love everyone.

It's a tough message.

And it's a tough thing to take to heart, to start to open up and say, am I showing favoritism to some people over others?

And how does the question then becomes, how do I turn the corner?

And how do I move from a place where I'm showing favoritism or I'm loving an equally to a place where I love all evenly.

And here's thought number two is a seeing yourself accurately helps you to love others equally.

This is how we move towards living in the image of our maker, rather than the patterns of the world, seeing yourself accurately helps you love others equally.

You'll how you come to understand who you are, right?

Your identity and who you are, plays a significant role in how you will treat other people.

I was watching this last week, a guy named Terry crews, who was a, I believe a linebacker in the NFL at one point, he's now a host for America's got talent.

He's been on other shows.

The, the man is just a huge man.

And yet he was being a little vulnerable with some things emotionally that he was talking about.

And he said, you know, a lot of my problems in life have come from what I've seen as better than, or worse than other people.

I thought about that in light of what we're talking about today, you know, what happens when you see yourself as better than other people, is it fuels a sense of pride in you that somehow I'm better than, than they are, or it can also fuel a sense of laziness because I have arrived.

At least I'm not them on the flip side, when you view yourself as less than as others free and greater than you there, that what that fuels is a sense of envy or jealousy, or even a lust for what they have that you don't.

It's when you start to see yourself evenly among all people that suddenly you're not trying to get a leg up on some, and you're not trying to kiss up to others, but instead, you're trying to live a life where you're loving equally where your, your identity is being driven, not by who they are, but by who you are now understanding your identity.

That's a, that's a tough topic, I think, but I'm not talking about what you do.

I'm talking about who you are.

You say, how do I define that?

Well, as tough as it is, I want to encourage you to press into this because you'll never become what you cannot define.

You think about that.

If I want to be a construction worker or a plumber or an electrician, if I can't define what an Homer or an electrician or a construction worker does, I'm never going to become one.

If I want to be a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher that I have to learn what a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher does.

But even beyond that, whether you're a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher or a construction worker, or an electrician or a plumber or anything else in all of creation underneath what you do, who are you now learning to define that there's a few different voices that will tell you what the answer to that is.

And one is a whisper from the enemy.

We talked about this in our love and peace or love and war series, warm piece series a in July, that there is an enemy who's whispering into your ear, who you are, or maybe more often who you aren't.

And that's one voice that, that is there.

That's coming to you.

That's trying to, that's trying to identify what is, what is your identity?

Who are you beyond the enemy?

There's also a world around you.

That's just full of messaging.

That's pushing you to help identify yourself and who you are and what you have or what you don't have, what you need or what you don't need.

It's coming through social media and billboards and TVs and family and friends and coworkers.

And there are consistent voices and noise all around you.

That's pushing you to identify yourself through their thoughts and there's God.

And God's voice is whispering into your, uh, your, your, who are you?

How has, how have I made you that voice of God is the only voice that is impartial among them.

The only one that knows exactly how you've made in the image in which you were created and who wants you and long street to live that out, to understand that more and take that on more and act more that way and be more that way.

It's his voice.

That's really the only one that's worthy of listening to and following and taking to heart.

Now, one of those three will become the primary voice in your life and defining which one you'll allow to be the primary voice for you is one of the most significant steps you'll make in loving others equally.

And seeing yourself accurately.

Now that said, I've rarely heard the audible voice of God telling me exactly who I am.

Maybe some of you hear this, but the question becomes, how do I hear that?

How do I learn?

How do I tune my voice, my attention to listen to God's voice?

What do I do with that?

And I've got a video clip here in just a moment that I think I think helps to illustrate this and what this looks like.

This is a father and his daughter.

It's a YouTube video, but of a father and a daughter in their before school routine.

And listen to what happens here.

Listen to the dialogue that happens here, because I think in some ways, this mirrors, how we get to how we make God's voice, our primary voice and understanding who we are.

Take a look,

Looking at X to get a, see it.

Okay.

You gotta be ready.

You ready for school?

Is it going to be a good day, a really good day?

You're going to be positive.

Like I am strong.

I am smart all on snap.

I work hard.

I, hi.

I am beautiful.

I am respectful.

I'll say I'm not better than anyone.

Nobody's better than me.

I am amazing.

I am.

Maybe I am great.

Great.

What's your name?

If you fall, what are you?

Yes.

Say thank you guys for making me the greatest.

There's nobody better than me, right in fire.

[inaudible]

That awesome.

You know, side note dads be a primary voice in your kids' lives, man.

So that stuff in, but here's the thing.

You have a heavenly father.

Who's whispering those things into your indie, into you.

I'm great.

I'm awesome.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

I am strong.

I am courageous.

I am loving.

I am patient.

I am kind, I am generous.

And it begins with us learning to hear those voices and say them first, we borrow the language from him as we develop our own, and then it becomes our voice outward.

And it's a, it's a process where man, God is sewing in an identity into you and calling you into an understanding of who he's made you to be and how he's made you to live, where there's, you're not better than anybody else.

And there's nobody better than you where you can live, understanding yourself accurately and then loving each other equally.

And his confidence is rooted in your upward relationship.

It can then be extended to your outward relationships as well.

Now there's two places.

I think we, we get to understand this voice and hear that voice better.

One is through the scriptures.

You know, we, we are doing this 21 day devote a daily devotional challenge is starting today.

Pastor Micah mentioned it.

It's on our website as well.

You, that is a way that every day for now, for the next 21 days, you can be consistently in front of the word of God and listening to what God has to say through that.

The scriptures are our clearest voice of God that we have.

And so listening to that and allowing that to soak in making observations and applications and praying into that.

But I want to say beyond that, beyond having that commitment to the scripture, and I encourage you to do that, have a mentor in your life or some identified mentors in your life who are consistently bringing that voice as well.

You know, people who know God and know the scriptures, people who know you and people that you have given intentional access and said here, Hey, help me be better.

Help me do better.

Help me understand better.

The first service a guy named Steve was sitting here in the front row and it hit me that about 10 years ago, I'd been watching the church for men who, from what I saw were people who read the word and applied it for men who were great fathers and husbands men who were, who were well-respected in the community and through business.

And I pulled Steve aside and we had sushi one day and over sushi, I said, Hey, Steve, would you be a guy that I can bounce things off of in life?

Would you be a guy that I can ask about what it means to be a better father or husband, and that you can help bring some insight there?

Would you be a guy that when you see what's going on in me, that you're willing to call it out, I want to give you access here.

And I'm asking you if you'd be willing for me to have access to you and see said it made a huge difference in my world and in my life over the last 10 years here, who's that person that'll help to bring God's word to life in.

You spend time in the scripture and then spend time with people who know the word who know you and can help you continue to see yourself accurately and love others equally when you stop playing this game of one up and one down, and who am I one up on and who am I one down on suddenly you start to be able to live that that equal love out.

And you have an opportunity there for respect, for people to rise, because you start to see them as people who were also created by God, just like you were, who might be different, who might think different, who might do different, but who were all created in his image.

And so we can respect that.

Here's my last thought for you today is that respect must rise for love to reign.

Respect must rise in order for love to rain.

See, seeing yourself accurately and seeing others around you accurately is, and evenly is a two-edged sword on one, on one side.

It's awesome because suddenly we find ourselves equipped to respect people and to, to see them accurately does not play that one up in one down thing to not show favoritism or discrimination.

On the other hand, seeing people accurately uncover some stuff that maybe we'd rather not see is knowledge deepens the importance of mercy heightens because as knowledge deepens, the more, you know, the more flaws you see, the more flaws you see, the more opportunity there is for judgment and discrimination and condemnation, and the more opportunity for mercy, the more need there is for mercy in order to move beyond that and to come to a place of respect, see mercy has to be shown in order for respect to be maintained in order for love to be magnified among all the people that you see, what mercy is, is a compassion or a forgiveness that's based on, on that's extended to someone who's deserving of consequence.

And it's tough to live out.

James closes this passage, chapter two, with this, these verses, he says, whatever you say or whatever you do remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free.

There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others, but if you've been merciful, God will be merciful.

When he judges you like what some other versions, put it at the here at the end, mercy triumphs over judgment.

What this is saying here is whatever you do, whatever you say, acting and speaking, be people that live out mercy in relationship to other people, be people who've received mercy from God, and then extend that to other people and do that consistently.

He's saying there's a law that sets you free a Royal law of love to love your neighbor as yourself.

And there's no more powerful demonstration of love than the extension of mercy.

Now there's a caution here.

And the caution is those who are not merciful will be judged for that.

Now let me clarify.

It's not for me to judge that, but God will, for me, that frees me up to not have to be the arbiter of, of judgment, because I know that God will.

I know he is just, and I know he'll take care of things in the end.

My call has to be merciful.

There is a caution here that those who are not merciful will be judged, but there's also a promise here, then mercy triumphs over judgment.

And then any threat of judgment is overcome by a promise of love and mercy and forgiveness for everyone who will turn toward God to receive it.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

It did at the cross.

And it still does here today.

Let me say this.

This whole book of James is written to believers.

It's written to people who have received the mercy of God.

And let me just say, if you're someone here today, if you're someone watching with us online who has never received the mercy of God, then hear loud and clear today that mercy triumphs over judgment and that Jesus Christ death on the cross through that act of grace and mercy, mercy is extended to you.

And for everyone who would receive it, they'll receive mercy.

His forgiveness is greater than his judgment.

His love for you goes beyond any judgment that you can, you might expect to see.

And so you not receive that today.

No, that offer is there for you.

But remember James, here in this book is talking to believers.

He's talking to people who have believed, who have received the mercy of God.

And so his challenge to you and to me today is will you be people that extend that same mercy to others?

Will you be people not who haven't just received mercy yourself, but people who extend it to others.

And this is where things get hard because in my world, even this week, I've had opportunities where things have come up, where it will be way easier to stand in judgment or condemnation of someone or something than to show mercy.

It'd be way easier to show favoritism than love.

It'd be way easier to discriminate than to show compassion.

My challenge, my question for you today is who in your life, who in your world do you need to extend mercy to this week?

And maybe it's a person, maybe it's someone who's done something, or who's rubbed you the wrong way or said the wrong thing or done something that just doesn't make any sense.

Not saying what they've done or said is right, but that's on them before between them and God.

His kingdom, his calling to us is to be people of mercy.

People who have compassion, or maybe there's a group of people out there that you just have categorized in some way that you need to say, I'm going to be merciful toward them.

I'm not going to hold this over their head any longer, because what I'm doing when I cleaned to stuff.

And when I don't extend that mercy is I just dwell on it and I dwell on it and I dwell on it.

And it eats me up inside.

That keeps me from living in a freedom that God's called me to live in his calling is to live out, love, to live out mercy, to live out compassion.

So will you be a person who not only receives that from God, but will you be a person who extends that to others here this week?

I'm going to encourage you to do that.

Let me pray for you, Lord.

I just, I give you thanks and praise because while we were once sinners, you died for us while we were once deserving of judgment condemnation.

While we were once suffering under the consequences of our sin, you looked on us, not with judgment, but with compassion because we accepted the gift of love and forgiveness that came through Christ and Lord for everyone here today, I pray that we would take stock of that and be grateful for the mercy we've received from you to be grateful for your love in a way that transforms our heart and our countenance towards other people or your word to your church and towards us as individuals to be people of compassion and people of mercy over people of judgment.

And just as your mercy triumphs over judgment, let our mercy triumphs over judgment to the people who are in front of us.

And God, I know that this is a tough one, and I know that sometimes we'd rather not, but I pray that this will be a moment that this week would be full of moments for us as a church and us as people where we choose mercy, where we choose a love for all over, just a love for some and where we'd make a faith decision, be people who live this out and live out your word Lord, we will be people who bring your name praise.

We will be people that elevate your voice over the voices of the world.

We will be people who are dictated by love.

Not of all the other things that shot for our attention.

And in that Lord, I pray that people would see our good works.

See the quality of who we are and what we do.

And they'd praise you in return.

What I asked that in Jesus name, amen.