A Man Named James | Part Four | Pastor Malachi Maillot

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My name is Malachi.

I'm one of the pastors here of the church, and uh I have the honor of speaking to you this morning about uh the book of James.

And uh Pastor Brody asked me a couple weeks ago, so I'm just so thankful for Pastor Brody.

Let's just give a hand for Pastor Brody.

He's doing an amazing job this year, just taking over the church and uh leading us.

And uh so he's been actually leading us through uh the book of James uh this month, and uh as a church family, we've been going through the book of James collectively in our in our youth groups and and uh connect groups.

Some have been doing uh the four-week devotional, or the I guess four-week devotional.

I don't have one with me, I forgot to grab it, but it's not too late.

If you don't have one, we we still have some, I think, right, Pastor Brian?

Yeah, we still have some, so we've been going through uh a devotional kind of study on the book of James.

Uh some of us have been going through connect groups.

Uh me and my wife have just been doing it as a devotional, and we love it.

So, for how many love this uh this study that we've been doing on the book of James?

I think it's so important uh for us as a church to be kind of unified and it's and it's so helpful that we can all just kind of go through it together.

Um Pastor Brody's been leading us through uh some of the main topics in James.

Uh and uh, you know, first we talked about how to essentially get through hard days, right?

Because this life uh following Jesus, we there's hard days.

I'm sure most of you have experienced hard days.

You experience storms, they kind of just they come, right?

It's not like we can really prepare for them, but uh James is saying, hey, we need to persevere through these trials, we need to persevere through these because it's gonna produce a deeper faith, right?

And it's gonna help us continue.

And uh, and then second, we talked about how to see the world without a per a prejudice lens, right?

We talked about uh James is probably this was probably really close to James's heart, not picking favorites, being the brother of Jesus.

Jesus was probably the favorite brother.

Uh I mean you look at Jesus, he was pretty much a perfect guy, and I'm sure he was the perfect son for Mary, and I'm sure that James was always in the dust of Jesus.

I'm sure he was probably the best sprinter and probably the best uh athlete in high school.

He probably built the best things because he was a carpenter, and James was always trying to, you know, catch up to him.

So he's probably it was probably a little close to his heart.

He's like, hey guys, don't pick favorites because it hurts me.

It hurt me, so don't pick favorites.

And and God doesn't pick favorites, right?

That's that's the main the main lesson of that was hey, if God doesn't pick favorites and he he loves everybody equally, we should do the same.

And then last week we talked about uh in the book uh in in in chapter three, actually, the power of our words, right?

And it was such an awesome message, and it was so convicting, it's so real and tangible for us today, uh, that our tongue has the power sometimes to direct our life, really.

We can either be really negative and it can direct us down a negative path, or we can really uh go on the opposite side and be positive, and we can we can speak life over people, we can speak encouragement over people, we can speak life and encouragement over our lives too.

And that will affect uh it can affect the trajectory of our futures, right?

And uh and then at the end of that chapter, James uh starts talking about uh wisdom, and and wisdom isn't always knowing the right answer to say, isn't always knowing uh the perfect moment, but it's sometimes knowing what not to say, right?

Pastor Brody had said uh sometimes your authentic you needs to be dialed back a bit.

Sometimes people aren't ready for the authentic you, right?

You have to you know be a little bit more in the spirit and uh have some help from God on that personality.

But I have the honor of closing out this series.

I feel like this is a trend.

Uh I think Brody just likes to do this to me.

Uh but we're gonna jump into the last chapter, and it's chapter five.

And so in this chapter, James hits on a few issues.

I think he's just trying to tie up everything.

And uh I'm not gonna not gonna read through the whole chapter.

I'm just gonna, I'm actually gonna only preach on one verse this morning, and uh, but I want to just kind of give you some context about what he's talking about because we can still learn through uh a quick paraphrase.

And so in verses one to six, um, he essentially is he's warning somebody.

He's not warning necessarily us because this was actually written to, uh, as as Pastor Body had spoken at the start of the month, that this was actually written to uh Jewish people who were converting to Christianity.

They had converted to the Jesus faith, essentially, right?

And so they were being persecuted, they were being dragged out of their homes, they were being beaten, they were being put on trial, they were being put in jail, some were being uh killed for their faith in Jesus, because uh there's this guy named Saul before he became Paul in Acts 8.

He was actually just like destroying, he was trying to destroy this Jesus movement, right?

And so uh James is he's actually written this whole letter to these people, these people that are kind of scattered, these Christian Jews that are that are kind of holding on to just faith.

And so uh he begins by uh you know with a warning, not necessarily to us again, but I think uh there was some wealthy people around that were essentially, they were manipulating people, they were abusing their power, they were uh taking this the uh money from people that didn't have much, right?

It was uh probably a group of the Pharisees that were that were part of that group, uh, and and it wasn't necessarily that being wealthy was bad, right?

But I think these men, they were abusing, they were controlling people, they were waving it in the faces of who had who had little.

And I think that what we can take away from this is uh you know, James is saying at the bottom line that the world is temporary, right?

And uh, you know, you we don't get to take whatever we we gain on this in this earth and this earthly body, we don't get to take that money that we we saved up for years and years and years, we don't get to take that to heaven, right?

We don't take that to the next life.

And and and instead of abusing what we have now, and instead of taking what we have now for granted, he's saying, Hey, let's do the best we can with it, right?

And so, and then he switches gears again in verse 7, and he begins addressing his main audience again, and he's he's encouraging to have patience through suffering, right?

Kind of similar to what he started with in chapter one.

And then we finally get to where I kind of want to I want to talk about, and it's in James uh verse 13, James 5, 13 to 16.

And it says, Is any anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing songs.

Is anyone among you sick?

Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray over him.

Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and in verse 15, the prayer of faith will save the sick.

The Lord will raise him up, and he, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

And in verse 16 is where I want to kind of hit home and take off this plane.

Is uh it says, confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

And ladies, you can throw your name in there too.

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous woman avails much.

Okay?

You can throw your name in there too.

But I this morning I wanna I want to talk about that.

I want to talk about that idea that there is an effective way to pray.

Right?

Not just prayer, but there's effective prayer.

And, you know, I didn't really know there was a difference until I read what James had states at the end of his book here.

And uh, you know, being the brother of Jesus, one of his closest disciples, I think we could probably take his word for it that there's a better way to pray.

And I think that I think that all of us could agree that, you know, if there's something better, we tend to, you know, a better way to do something.

We probably want to do that better thing, right?

We don't want to waste time doing what doesn't work.

And uh so the question I want to kind of wrestle with and and ask you guys this morning is uh, you know, how does how does our prayer become effective?

How does it go, how does it go from just being prayer to effective prayer?

You know, the first things that popped into my head is you know, do I just read more of the Bible?

Right?

The more I know, the more I know about God, the better my prayer can be, so the more effective it will be, right?

Or, you know, do I just go to church more?

You know, I probably go to church maybe like once or twice a week.

I'm gonna really show God this week.

I'm gonna go three times a week.

I'm gonna find another church, I'm gonna get to that, and I'm gonna show God how committed I am to Him so I can be closer and closer with Him, right?

So the closer I am to God, right?

The closer in proximity, right, the better my prayer?

Or, you know, do I just simply try harder?

I just gotta pray harder.

I just gotta pray more.

I gotta I gotta get up at five in the morning, I gotta pray for hours on end, and then until I do that, until I reach that goal, then my prayer becomes effective.

How does my prayer become effective?

I just want to pray really quick before we begin.

We just bow our heads.

God, we just thank you for your word.

We thank you for uh your brother James, who wrote this amazing book that we can just take so many practical ideas from.

And God, this morning that you would speak to us through this word and you would just uh you would open our eyes, you would soften our hearts, and you would just help us just to know more about you and to grow this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Everyone said, Amen.

So uh you'll probably notice I'll ask a lot of questions this morning.

I tend to like to do that whenever I speak a message.

Uh I find that you know if you can ask good questions, it can help you know engage your brain.

It kind of helps people uh you know in the crowd engage with you.

And so I'm probably gonna ask a lot of questions.

They're probably gonna be rhetorical, you don't need to answer them.

I might ask you to raise your hand, so don't be you know offended with me or annoyed that I have to you have to raise your hand in church.

Um But I I hope this is for everyone.

I like to ask questions that it kind of encompasses everybody on in a level playing field so we can all just kind of jump in the pool together, right?

At a you know, ankle deep level.

But my pet my question this morning is have you ever been passionate about someone?

Have you ever been passionate about like one thing?

Anyone in this place?

Anybody?

We've got like 10%, come on, 90%, here we go.

Well let's get 90%.

90% of people are passionate in this place about one little thing.

It doesn't have to be about a lot of things, but just like one thing.

And uh, you know, hopefully we can all say that we're passionate about something.

If you if you're not, we have a prayer team that's gonna come up at the end, and we can we can pray for you.

Uh but passion is a funny thing, right?

Passion is this crazy emotion that causes us to do sometimes things that we wouldn't regularly do in public, right?

Uh or it might cause us to go to extreme lengths to satisfy that passion.

Maybe we uh, you know, Black Friday was just here and maybe we spent an unwise amount of money on our passion.

Maybe some of you do that on a regular basis and you're trying to get your wife to like cut up your credit card.

But uh, you know, sometimes I think if we're passionate enough about something, it can also be infectious, right?

It can actually convert someone to your passion.

And uh, you know, also there's another case that it could be embarrassing, right?

Passion could take you either one way, it could be so so much that it can it converts the people around you to be passionate about what you're passionate about, or you could go so far as to make it embarrassing for everybody, right?

Some of you parents have been there at sporting events, and um you know I know for myself, I I'm pretty passionate about sports.

Uh, you know, I I especially love hockey.

If you've ever been to my house, we you're probably watching a hockey game.

Uh I love the Washington Capitals.

I don't know if there's any Capitals fans out there.

I know that's like few and far between, but uh, I know there's some Canucks fans out there.

Yeah, a few of you.

Yeah, they won last night.

Hey, that's pretty good.

That's a first.

Uh but I I get pretty passionate about hockey.

They they won the the cup this year.

It was like a long run for Ovechkin, and uh it was probably the best year of my life.

I got married and the Capitals won the cup, so uh but but if you've ever been to like a big sporting event or maybe maybe you've been to an NHL game, but you know that there's like this passion that's infused in that stadium, right?

When when the Canucks, you know, maybe you're at a Canucks game.

I was recently at a Canucks game, and you know, I don't mind the Canucks, they're actually not doing too bad.

But you know, when they score, which is not super often, but it's more often now, um when they score, you know, it doesn't matter if they're losing, the entire stadium just erupts, right?

And you just like you you almost get drawn in, even if you don't like that team because you're in that atmosphere of passion, right?

And you someone scores and like I wish we were like that in church, right?

Um we're getting there.

But passion is infectious, right?

It's infectious, and then like I said before, it can also be embarrassing.

And uh and I remember when I was in high school, and it feels like a long time ago, um, some of you are like, you're still a baby, but I grew a beard, so I'd look older today.

Uh just yesterday.

Uh but I played rugby for our school team, and uh we were the we were the Griffins, we were the Smithers secondary Griffins, so we had a pretty cool mascot.

Um and I you know I was pretty into rugby since like probably grade seven as soon as I got into or high school actually started in grade eight, but uh as soon as I was into rugby, I started getting really passionate about it.

And uh, you know, we would whenever we would have home games, uh sometimes my parents would, you know, come by most of the time.

And uh, you know, my dad, I think he was he was pretty he was pretty chill.

Like he kind of me and him kind of saw eye to eye on on things.

He he knew that he didn't need to like go crazy at the games.

He knew that I would probably get embarrassed and tell them never to come to my games again.

And um, but then there was my mom.

And I've told a few stories about my mom before, and she's you know, don't get me wrong, she's an amazing woman.

And if she's listening right now, hi mom, I love you.

Please don't be mad at me for this.

Uh but you know my mom was a different story, right?

And I couldn't really tell her, hey mom, like if you get too crazy, you're not allowed to come to my games.

It's my mom.

I can't say that to my mom.

Like she'll just like spank me or whatever.

Um go to your room.

Uh but if you if you know my mom, I don't know if anyone has really met her.

Uh I know there's a few of you, but she's a pretty reserved English woman, kind of like Andrew.

Pretty not a woman, though.

Caught myself.

But, you know, pretty reserved, right?

Like, doesn't get too excited except for when England's playing, uh when they lose, you know, but you know, it's it's okay.

They're gonna get it in one year.

They're gonna get it again.

Um but look, I get I get onto the playing field, and my mom's and I can see her, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like here we go.

And you know, the minute I like I touch the ball, it's not even like I've done anything yet.

Like I've I've taken a step and she's like screaming, and I'm like, mom, like I haven't even done anything.

She's screaming, she's I'm running down, I'm I'm trying to run with the ball, and she's running along the sidelines.

And my my dad's just sitting there, just like, well, okay, well, maybe we'll not come again.

But you know, some of these parents, some of you parents are like, that's me.

Uh you know, but it was so embarrassing.

Like, I'm there with my friends, I'm trying to be cool, like it's high school, and she's screaming at the top of her lungs, and she's like getting violent, like yelling at the ref.

I'm like, mom, chill.

But she wasn't, you know, the point is she wasn't necessarily, you know, passionate about the game of rugby.

I'm pretty sure she didn't even understand the rules.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Villy, but I mean, I'm pretty sure the rules are pretty complicated in some circles.

You don't really know, it's not really straightforward, but I'm pretty sure she didn't really care about rugby.

Like, I think she hated that I played it because it was so violent, but she was passionate about me, right?

She was passionate about her son.

And uh, and I want to jump back into what James had written here, and he talks about this prayer that's effective.

The effective prayer, and he has two components to it.

First, there's the word fervent that's used, and the reason I'm talking about passion is because fervent means passion, right?

So first component, fervent or passion.

And then the second is righteous, right?

And I'm not gonna go too far into that.

I just wanna I'll quickly explain it, but the second part of effective prayer is righteousness, right?

A righteous man or a righteous woman, and that's where they stand, right?

It's where you stand in righteousness.

Righteousness isn't what we gained, uh, or is what we gained when Jesus went to the cross for your and my sin, right?

Yeah, through that sacrifice, he essentially bought us back.

It said a great price was paid.

And uh and he stood in that gap between us and God, and he removed the barrier that was between us and God to have a right relationship with our heavenly Father.

That's what righteousness is, kind of summed up.

And righteousness has nothing to do with you know my strength or what I can do, has nothing to do with my will, has nothing to do with the fact that I go to church, has nothing to do with the fact that I can pray, has nothing to do with the fact that I can read this Bible, has nothing to do with the fact that I can, you know, sometimes hold my tongue when I want to tell someone off, or when someone cuts me off that I don't swear at them.

And uh it has nothing to do with the fact that I pray before every meal, or it's not what I can do, right?

It's righteousness is not what what I can do, it's what we were given.

Right?

So that's that's almost like the easy part because we just kind of we get to step into that, right?

It's we we do play a small part of that, and that is by our choosing and our and our belief in what God did, and we we say, hey, like God, I believe that you died on the cross for me, and I want to step into that righteousness that you have given to me, purchased freely for me.

So that that's righteousness, but this thing called passion, sometimes that's a tricky one.

And when you but when you put the two together, right, our our prayer becomes infused with this fervent passion, this uncontrollable, overwhelming desire.

That's what it means, right?

And then, you know, when we understand and recognize the grounds of our righteousness that resides in Jesus, we put those two together.

And then James is saying, according to him, that our prayer becomes effective.

So you might ask, like, I ask this, like, how do I become more passionate?

You know, like I said at the beginning, you know, do I just go to church more?

Do I just give more money away?

Do I sacrifice more?

Do I pray harder?

Or maybe you might say, you know, I you know, I pray, but I don't really feel passionate.

Or, you know, I go to church, but I feel disconnected from God sometimes.

I don't feel like he's there.

I don't feel passionate about it.

Or maybe, hey, hey, Malachi, you know, I actually am passionate about God.

And uh and I'm dedicated to him, and I have been dedicated to him, and I and I and I love God with all my heart, but you're telling me my prayers should be effective?

Something's not adding up.

But I think I think if we can have a really honest moment with ourselves here and kind of just step back and and and and just look at our own heart for a minute and just be brutally honest.

And and and I think that much of our prayer is not effective because we often offer it up to God with a lukewarm attitude.

And I'm not saying that you do this all the time, I'm not trying to convict you or like this hurts me, okay?

Um I'm preaching to myself, if anything.

And I and I and I've saying this, you know, to just kind of bring us back.

And I think if we have that honest moment, and sometimes our attitude says to God, hey, or our ass of God to care about something that I care little about.

Maybe our prayer has just become a tradition.

Maybe our prayer life has just become an obligation.

But we have this often a lukewarm attitude towards what God cares about and what I care about.

And so to really, I think to really understand what James wrote, we need to ask ourselves a much bigger question.

Another question.

Sorry.

But in order for us to move forward, I think that you know, we need to understand God's perspective on this.

And uh the question I want to ask is, you know, what is God's heart?

What is God passionate about?

What is God fervent about?

It's not about just having passion, it's it's understanding what God is passionate about.

And if I understand what God is passionate about, then I can I can then direct my attention to what that thing is, and my prayers in turn will line up with his will and his heart.

Right?

Oftentimes we think the will of God is this confusing, big, mysterious thing in the sky that we'll never figure out.

But if we can, it's a very simple concept.

If we can understand what his passion and his heart is, that's his will for us.

Right?

And so let's let's go there.

Honestly, it's a very clear answer to a very sometimes hesitated question or sometimes confusing question.

Um, but I can give you the answer in one word.

It's people.

You.

Me.

Everybody outside this building.

It's the world.

Right?

It's so it's so clear, it's so simple, but God's passion is people.

I, you know what, you might think, well, I'm God's passion?

Really?

Like, I'm God's passion?

Like I look at my life and I and I'm like, I don't think you should be, I should I should be your passion, God.

Like, come on, there's gotta be someone better out there.

Or, you know, the guy on the street, that's that's God's passion.

Every person you meet, that's God's passion.

The girl who served me the wrong Starbucks order?

That's God's passion?

That that lady?

Yes.

People are God's passion, and we can we can see it in in the whole mission of God sending his son.

That's his whole his whole mission of sending Jesus was John 3.16.

God so actually, this is this is taken from Judas Smith.

I love how he says it.

God so loved the world.

Right?

And I'm gonna paraphrase that.

He gave his one and only son that the world could eventually believe in him and enter into everlasting life with him.

It says God so loved the world.

He didn't just love the world, he so loved the world.

Right?

He's obsessive about you.

God obsesses about you.

He can't wait for you to come home.

He risked everything he had and sent it for you.

And not just you, not just people in this room, not just Christians, but the world.

Right?

When that when that word uh world is written in the Bible, when it's used, oftentimes it's actually used to describe bad people.

Right?

It's used to describe a bad way of thinking.

It's used to describe this bad thing, right?

Negative.

The world is negative.

Stay away from the world.

Don't be conformed by the world.

But in this verse, it says, God so loved the world.

God is fervent about the world.

God is passionate about his kids.

And it's and it's so interesting.

I I looked up this word passion.

I just typed it in on Google, and and this and it popped up on the dictionary of Google.

I don't know if it's like official, but it was pretty interesting to me.

It's a noun, it's an action, obviously.

And the first one that it describes passion to be is a strong, barely controllable emotion.

And then it says in brackets, uh a man of impuitous passion.

I don't even know what that means, but uh it sounds intense and probably important, but this and then the second is this is really interesting.

This is on Google, this is right there for the world to see, and it says the suffering and death of Jesus.

The passion of the Christ.

Crucifixion, his crucifixion, his suffering, his agony, his martyrdom.

I mean, Jesus suffered probably the worst death in all of history.

Even if we look back today, it's the most gruesome death that we've that ever been depicted on the screen.

I know that Mel Gibson made a movie called The Passion of the Christ.

That movie makes me cry every time because it's so brutal and intense.

And and but Jesus was the personification of the passion of God.

He went to extreme lengths to show us who's God's passion.

Right?

He took our blame, he took our sin, he took the shame on the cross, he took it all in that one moment when heaven looked away and he was abused and beaten by the people that hated him, and and and and we we essentially put him on the cross.

And he took my spot where I where I actually belonged.

I deserved death.

I deserve death.

We deserve death for what we do and for the sin.

And and but he gave me my spot or his spot instead.

He took my spot and gave me his.

Right?

Jesus took that barrier out.

And it was this intense moment, but that's his passion.

Right?

He was willing to go to that extreme length.

He was willing to risk it all.

I mean, the odds were against Jesus.

Right?

The odds were against him.

It wasn't like he was getting up on that cross and everyone's cheering, yay, we love you, thank you so much.

It was like, good, good written.

We hate you.

Get out of our life, Jesus.

It wasn't like he went up there and he had a following, like even his followers, even his closest disciples, see ya, nowhere to be found.

His passion is us.

I'm gonna ask Ben to come back up here and uh just as we kind of close up.

But where does this where does this leave us?

What do we what do we do with this information?

You know, it's great to to be sitting here in a very quiet room where people are probably thinking, but you know, where do we go with this?

What do we do with this?

What do we what do we take this?

How do we take this to our Monday morning?

How do we take this to our Tuesday?

And I mean if if I'm if I'm honest with myself, I can be pretty passionate about God.

I can get up here and I can I can yell and scream and shout and jump around and do like a crazy dance and say, you know, it's all for God.

I can be passionate about God and it can be from my heart.

And I can stand up here and I can lift my hands and I can cry during worship and I'm passionate.

I can be passionate about God, but sometimes if I'm if I'm really honest with myself, to be passionate about people is extremely hard.

Okay, and I'm a pastor.

I'm supposed to be really good with people.

I can be passionate about God all day long, but when I have to be passionate about people, that's hard.

You know, people let you down all the time.

People, I'm imperfect.

I'm gonna let you down.

I'm probably gonna say something stupid one of these days up here.

I'm gonna let you down.

You know, we sin constantly, we make mistakes constantly, we badmouth each other, we react towards each other, uh, we fight, we disagree, we compare each other, we argue over beliefs, we argue over values, we steal, we lie, we start wars over personal belongings.

We're people, we're we're so imperfect, and my passion is supposed to be people, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But God's passion is people, so therefore, my passion needs to be his passion.

When I can catch the heart of God for his people, for all people, when I catch his passion, it's a different story.

It's not just my passion coming from what I can muster up, what I can get passionate about.

When I connect with God's passion, when I when I essentially plug into his passion, that changes things.

When I understand what it is, then I when I connect myself to God in that light, I see people differently.

I see people in a different light.

But I you know, I think sometimes we we as Christians, you know, we we almost confuse the goal.

We say, okay, well, people are my passion.

I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get everybody saved.

I'm just gonna bring everybody to church.

I'm just gonna get them all in the door, just get in there and close the door and stay there.

Don't do anything stupid.

Just just get you to church.

Here, say the prayer.

You're saved.

Good.

Next one.

Bring them in.

Come on, line them up.

That's like we confuse that goal of our life as a Christian to just try and seal the deal.

You know, we just need to get them saved.

We just need to get into the church.

I'm not saying that's bad.

That's not what I'm saying.

Hear me out.

Instead of, you know, just simply treating people with kindness wherever we go.

Try that for a day.

Reaching out to simply connect with somebody, you know, creating a relationship and actually building a bridge to someone's heart.

You know, Jesus was really great at building bridges.

And I'm not saying, I'm not saying this though.

I'm not saying that you know, people didn't radically encounter Jesus in a moment, right?

There were so many moments where they they touched the hem of his garment and instantly there was transformation.

There was an amazing, miraculous moment.

And I'm not saying that it didn't happen, like it happened and it still happens.

I'm just saying that there's this thing called everyday life.

Everyday life.

And if we can start shifting our mindset, not to a lead up to a big moment, maybe, maybe God's gonna do something today, maybe God's gonna do something in a month.

I can feel it in my bones, like I feel like there's gonna be a revival one day, I feel like there's gonna be something that God's gonna do, but if we start taking the moment by moment, the the everyday life, and we start to see that as the mission, instead of this big moment that might happen, every person I make eye contact with, every person I see with my eyes, every person I shake their hand with, we see that as the mission.

We see every person that I talk to, every person that I interact with.

We start seeing that barista across the counter.

We ask their name, my goodness, what's happening with the world?

We figure out their name and we say, How is your day?

Simple.

But that could be the start of an even greater moment to come.

When I just simply treat people with kindness and the love of God, when I treat them with respect, that's gonna open the door.

That's gonna be the door opener for the greater conversation.

It's not gonna be pushing people into church.

We're gonna open our doors and there's gonna be a lineup.

We don't even know who they are.

We were just people that were kind.

We were just people, we were just doing what Jesus said.

We were just being nice to people.

And Jesus, Jesus gave a one one commandment.

He gave one commandment to simplify it all.

First, before this, uh the Pharisees were were get they gathered together and they were they were trying to figure out a question they could stump Jesus with.

Like, good luck.

But this, you know, this lawyer comes up to Jesus and asks him, and he's probably got a smirk on his face, and Jesus is standing there, and just okay.

Like, hey, hey Jesus, can I ask you a question?

Sure, man.

Go ahead.

And this and this lawyer asks him, what's the greatest commandment?

Singular.

Right?

He asks, What's the greatest commandment of all?

Right?

And Jesus gives him the first, and he says, Hey, well, the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

But then before the lawyer can say, Hey, I got you.

Ha! I got you.

Because in the law, right, if you break one, if you break any one of the commandments or you break any one of the laws, you've broken them all, right?

So there's no greatest commandment, right?

It wasn't a scale.

But but Jesus says, and the second, before the lawyer could say anything, he says, and the second is like the first.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

As to say that there's no greatest commandment here.

They're equal, they go hand in hand.

You know, our relationship with God is just as important as my relationship with you.

Just as important.

And then Jesus being Jesus, he squishes it all into one.

And he's talking with his disciples at one commandment I give you.

And he summed it up all into one sentence just to make it easy for us.

He liked to simplify things.

In John 13, 34, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I've loved you.

And he and he goes on to say that this is how.

He says this to his disciples, this is how people will know.

This is how they, he used the word they, as to say, the people that don't know are gonna know because of the love you have for one another and that you love other people.

Why was Jesus so focused on treating others with love and kindness?

Why was he so why was that his goal?

Why did he say, this is my one commandment I give you, love people as I have loved you, as I have done for you, as I laid down my life for you.

I want you to do it for others that hate you, that don't like you, that don't want to be a Christian.

I'm gonna ask you to do that for them.

And then they will know that you are my disciples.

It was his passion, right?

We see it.

People are God's passion, it was Jesus' passion, it's what moves God's heart.

And this is where our prayer comes in.

I know we didn't talk about prayer, but this is where it comes in now.

We just talked about one word fervent passion.

But now we can bring our prayer in.

I will pray differently when I catch the passion of God.

My prayers won't be limited to what I need, they won't be limited to what I'm going through because I'm not even gonna see what I'm going through because my heart is gonna burn for others.

And I'm not saying that your life's not important.

God will take care of you if you take care of his sheep.

If you look out, he's gonna take care of you.

If I if I'm constantly just, Jesus, get me through this.

God, I need a breakthrough.

God, I need finances, I need money, God, God, me, me, me, me.

Please help me.

My, my, my, me, I.

Instead, we go, we start praying for one person.

What would happen?

What would happen?

What would happen if we decided as a church, just today, we took one person, everyone just thought of one person in their mind, and they started praying daily for that person for five minutes.

It doesn't need to be a long prayer.

Passionate is isn't about length, it's about depth.

It's not about if you can pray for three hours, it's if you can pray consistently for that one person with a heart for that person.

What would happen if we took one person and we prayed for them for a year, every day?

What would happen?

Or every time we saw that person, we just we just wanted to be with them and just be kind, be nice, create relationships.

We were praying for them, and that passion was stirring.

Every time you you start to think about that person, you just start to, your heart starts to break for that person.

That's what's gonna change the world.

That's what's gonna change this this church.

It's gonna it'll double the church.

And then what kind of influence can you have with a bunch of people that are just rowdy for God?

Passionate about people, not about a religion, but people, relationship.

That's what God was getting to, that's what Jesus was getting to.

Our prayers become effective when it's infused with God's passion.

God's heart is at the center of our prayers.

That's what's gonna change the world.

Would you just bow your heads with me as we close?

I uh I just want to pray for two groups of people, and I just want I I don't want to walk away from this moment, and I don't want to ever leave this moment without giving it an opportunity.

And if you're here and you you would say that, you know, I've never made that decision to become a Jesus follower, and I've never I've never done that before, and I and I was kind of scared, I've been scared, but right now I you know you're saying that there's something going on in my heart.

God's doing something in my heart, God's been speaking to me this morning, whether it was in the worship or the turn, the time that we were just talking about passion.

If that's you, if you've never made that decision to follow Jesus, I just want to just want to know if you're here.

And we just want to pray for you.

You can just lift your hand.

The reason I asked that is just so I can know if you're here.

That's you.

I just want to give a moment.

I never want a moment like this to pass.

This is so important for your life.

If you've never made a commitment to follow Jesus, if you're here, it's gonna give you a few more moments.

And the second the second group of people that I want to I want to pray for is you've been feeling like your passion is gone.

You've missed you've missed the cause, you've missed the mark, you've missed the goal, you've missed what it's all about.

And you just want God to infuse your passion, reignite your passion this morning for his people.

You just lift your hand.

I just want to know if I'm hitting the mark here.

If you want your passion, reignite it this morning.

Thank you.

All across the room, thank you.

I was gonna pray for that that first group.

If we could all just collectively as a church, just pray this prayer of salvation, you just repeat after me, Lord Jesus, we thank you for what you did on the cross.

That you took our sin, you took our shame, you took our pain, you took our anxiety, you took our depression, and you took it with you to death.

It died that day.

And God, we just believe that you resurrected from the dead, and through that resurrection, we were also resurrected into new life.

Lord, forgive me for my sin.

I want to follow you today and for the rest of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And I just want to pray for that second group of people.

We're gonna close here in a minute.

But uh just bow your heads and just keep your eyes closed at this moment.

It's just between you and God.

So, Lord Jesus, we just lift up everybody who who is in this place that is just needing almost like a restart, a reignition.

God, we we I think we can all say this that we all want your passion.

Even if we didn't raise our hand, but God, we all want your passion to be in our hearts.

So, God, as we walk out these doors this morning, that would be on our minds.

Every single day, every single moment, that would be on our minds.

What is your passion?

Your passion is people.

I need to reach out to people that would be on our minds.

We would see people in our in our whole demeanor would change, we would see every opportunity as a moment for an even greater moment.

And God, would you just stir in every single person a new passion for your heart?

A new passion for the goal, God, to build the kingdom, to spread the love of God, to simply, you know, treat each other, us, the people in this room, with kindness so that so that they will know.

That we would know the love of God, and we would know how to show that love so that they would know.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.