Why Faith Without Action Is Impossible | Book of James | Shan Moyers

So good.

It's good to see all of you.

It's great to have all our campuses joining us and uh everybody online.

I want you to get to James chapter one.

We're gonna start in verse 22.

We'll get there in just a minute.

I was listening to a message this last week by a guy named Francis Chan.

You guys know Francis Chan?

He is one of the most well-known authors and speakers, pastors, very unique guy, most well-known in probably the last 25 years.

Wrote a book called Crazy Love, wrote a book called The Unknown God.

And I mean, those books just went crazy, sold millions of copies.

And uh his teaching is listened to by so many people, and not just so many people in churches.

We're talking like conferences.

I mean, the kind of conferences that are in stadiums.

I mean, he speaks all over the world.

And he was talking about this moment.

He was at one of those conferences.

It was in a stadium.

There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and the kind of conference that has not just speakers, but has like, you know, concerts, like Christian concerts and people coming in and incredible worship and some of the best speakers across the nation.

And all this emotion, all this emotion was just kind of flowing through this stadium.

But Francis said he just felt like in his sitting there and participating, he just felt like there was a lot of emotion, a lot of listening, a lot of teaching of God's word, but not much move of God's spirit.

And so he began to pray.

And he just began to pray and pray and just ask God, God, would you would you just send a move of your spirit into this stadium with all of these people?

And then he said he began to pray so boldly, he said, God, would you just bring a move of your spirit?

Would you do it like you did with Elijah?

Like you remember in the Old Testament, the story of Elijah?

Elijah goes up on Mount Carmel, there's 450 prophets of Baal.

Israel has turned away from God.

And Elijah challenges these prophets of Baal to a duel.

He says, We're gonna build an altar and we're gonna see whose God brings down fire.

And the God who brings down fire will be the God we serve.

So the prophets of Baal go all day, nothing happens.

Elijah steps up and he prays.

After he builds the altar, he puts the bowl on top of the altar, then he douses it with gallons and gallons and gallons of water three different times.

So there's like no way anybody could believe it happened any other way than by God.

And then he prays, and God sends the fire and blows up the altar, and there's basically a hole burned into the ground.

The water's gone, the sacrifice is gone, the altar's gone, and Francis Jan is just praying and says, God, would you just send the fire?

Like not literal fire, but would you just send your spirit down in this moment?

Prayed over and over and over, and then all of a sudden he just felt like God's spirit said to his spirit, Francis, like Elijah was on top of Mount Carmel with 450 prophets of Baal that were ready to cut his head off.

You guys, you and all these people in the stadium, the thousands of people, you're at a Christian concert.

I don't know, have you ever felt those moments where you're just like, God, would you just, why don't you do it?

Like, why don't you do it in my life like you did it for an Elijah or for a Mary or for an Esther or for a Peter?

Or why don't you just bring the fire, a move of God's spirit?

And do you ever wonder if God says, you know, all you people sitting right here, Sean, all you and all you people sitting right here in the comfort of these four walls, sitting next to a whole bunch of Christian people doing a whole lot of listening to God's word?

Do you ever wonder if he's saying we're doing a lot of that, but not a lot of going out those doors after listening to God's word and actually doing what it says?

James chapter one.

We've been in this series that's called Faith at Works.

Been asking the question the entire series, what's your faith supposed to do?

Like it should do something in your life.

And what we're gonna find in James 1, 22 through 25 is James gonna say, Hey, your faith will not do much for you until you do something with it.

Look at verse 22.

It says, Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at their face in a mirror and then after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed by what they do.

Do you catch that last line?

James did not say, they will be blessed by what they hear.

He didn't say they're gonna they're gonna be blessed by what they understand.

He didn't say they're gonna be blessed by what they feel.

He said, They will be blessed by what they do.

You see, the blessing comes not just in the hearing, the blessing comes in the doing.

And then what James does is he gives illustration that we all understand.

Talks about this idea of a mirror.

Like every single one of us, we get the idea of a mirror.

This morning, you got up and you walked into the bathroom and and you looked at this mirror, like you got ready, you you you took care of yourself.

Ladies, you you went into the bathroom, you sat in front of a mirror, and you you did your makeup, like you did your eyelashes, you did your hair, you got in front of the mirror and you looked at your outfit to make sure that your outfit was good.

I mean, you did all of those things.

Guys, you got in for the mirror, in front of the mirror.

Not nearly as long as the ladies did, but you got in front of the mirror, you did your hair, at least some of us we did our hair.

Right?

I mean, we looked at our outfit.

Hopefully, we just kind of check things out and make sure that we look good.

And in the mirror, here's the thing with the mirror: the mirror has one job.

What the mirror does is the mirror tells you the truth.

Like this mirror right here, it is not going to.

It's not gonna look at me and it's not going to do my hair for me or your hair for you.

Like it's not gonna do your makeup, ladies.

It's not gonna pull the spinach out of your teeth, it's not gonna do any of that stuff.

What the mirror is gonna do is it's gonna tell you the truth, and you have the responsibility to do something about it.

I mean, you get that.

Every single one of you, you probably even looked in the mirror before you came.

Every time you walk into a bathroom, you look at the mirror to see how you look.

But the mirror, all it does is it just tells you the truth about how you look.

Tells you the truth about your outfit, all of that.

But what you have the responsibility to do is to do something about it.

Now, imagine this.

Imagine that I walk into the bathroom this morning.

I get up, kind of look in, like, whoa, you know, you get the kind of look at it yourself, and then imagine that I got stuff, just you know, the crust stuff going on.

I got whatever, I got stuff coming at, you know, a little dried right here and whatever.

And I look in that mirror.

Imagine I get dressed and and I button my shirt and I'm off a button, you know, and the whole thing is is is off.

And imagine I just walk up and I glance at that mirror, see all of that, and then just walk away and do nothing about it.

Like, first of all, you would be like, do not get on that stage, right?

You you would look at me and you would say, You're crazy.

Like, go back in there and do something about that.

James would look at us and say, No, that's us.

That is you and me when it comes to the word of God.

So often, so many times, what we have this tendency to do is we glance.

We have this tendency to glance at the word of God that is supposed to be a mirror that examines our lives instead of looking intently into it.

Look at verse 22 again.

He says, Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says.

What does James mean by deceive yourselves?

Well, he says, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.

There's this connection that he's talking about with hearing.

And what James is trying to communicate to us is there's so many times in our life that we think hearing is growing.

Like we think there's actually something happening in our life, some kind of growth, because we sit here and we listen.

And you guys get it.

Like there are moments where you sit down, you listen to a sermon, whether here or somewhere else, or you listen to it online, and you're listening to a message and you nod.

You know, I'll see some of you, I'm up here teaching and talking about something.

Some of you are nodding, and hear an amen, love my amen people out there, you know, and somebody give an amen.

Some of you will hear a story, and that story will prick something in your heart, and you'll feel the emotion, and even maybe a tear.

Everybody loves their good sermon quote, man, because that makes a great post later to get some likes and everything else, right?

You know, you feel that, you get a little goosebumps, you get a little excitement, and then you go post something later on.

And what James is saying is hearing is not growing.

Like being convicted does not mean that we are obedient.

Feeling some emotion does not mean that we go out and we change anything in our life.

And what James is saying is the blessing in our life actually comes from getting into this mirror right here.

This mirror, the word of God, this mirror, and getting into it and looking intently into the word of God, and then doing what it says.

Like there is so often, too many times, where we sit here and we listen and we're like, man, great sermon, Pastor, or okay sermon, pastor, and then walk out the door and then do nothing about what we just heard in the Word of God.

And James is saying, if you want to transform life, if you want the blessing in your life, you should actually do what it says.

Warren Wearsby, I love this line.

He says, Too many Christians mark up their Bibles, but their Bibles never mark them.

And we got highlighters, we underline things.

We've we've got Bible apps that we read and read devotions with it.

We've got podcasts that we listen to on 1.5 speed.

We wear the t-shirt with the verses on it.

We are the most informed generation of Christians in history.

And sometimes I wonder if we are the least obedient.

We might even say, not just the most informed, we might say we are the most entertained Christians in history.

But we could also say we might be the least obedient of stepping out and taking God's word and doing what it says.

Now, Jesus does say, it's interesting, Jesus does say in the gospels that faith comes through hearing the word of God.

If you don't hear the word, if you don't hear the gospel, you won't understand the gospel.

If you don't hear the gospel, you can't be transformed by the gospel.

If you don't hear the gospel, you can't understand and accept the gospel.

Hearing is important.

Jesus says faith comes by hearing.

But Jesus' half-brother here that we're listening to, James, James says, do not merely listen to the word, do what it says.

And then in the next, very next chapter, he goes even further and he says, faith, which comes from hearing, he says, faith without deeds is what?

Does anybody know?

Let's say it.

Faith without deeds is what?

It's dead.

Like, what good is your faith if it doesn't do anything for you?

Well, it's not very good for you.

James says, not gonna do a whole lot for you until you do something with it.

Verse 25 is where James turns toward the application, and here's what he says.

He says, But whoever looks intently, that word's really important, whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.

James says it.

But whoever looks intently, that word means to stoop low and to examine.

Like to get low, to get close to something, to stoop down low and to get close to something and examine it.

It's the same word that John in the Gospel of John uses when he and Peter were running to the tomb.

John outruns Peter, goes into the tomb.

Peter stands there and says, He peered into, he looked into the tomb.

That's not a glance.

Like Peter didn't just walk up to the tomb and like glance and walk away.

No, Peter peered into the tomb, saw the grave closed.

He describes, John describes everything they saw.

They were bending low to examine what they saw.

And that's what James is talking about, the Word of God.

He says that we are to get into this thing, to begin to read this, to read throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament, to understand the history and the gospel and the starting of the church, and then what Paul describes and teaches about our faith, and begin to put those things into practice.

We are to look intently into the perfect law that gives what?

Freedom.

We don't think of law giving freedom, we think of law being judgment.

God says, James says, this book is the perfect law that brings freedom to us from the consequences of our sin, from the trials and temptations that we talked about in the last two weeks.

It gives freedom to us in a relationship with God.

But here is where we learn about that relationship with God.

Now the problem is, is most of us do not look intently into the Word.

Like what we have a tendency to do is we're more like my college roommate.

My college roommate name was Scott.

And uh Scott and I lived in our dorm rooms.

We were about five minutes from our first class, which is at 7 a.m.

So we could walk from the dorms to the lecture hall in five minutes.

I would get up at 6.15, I would set my alarm, I would get up at 6.15, I would, you know, do all the stuff, get ready.

Scott would set his alarm for 6:50.

Class starts at, did I say 7 a.m.?

6.50.

We have five minutes to walk to class.

Scott would set his alarm for he'd set his clothes out, and so here's how it would go.

I would be getting ready, I'd leave the lights off, and then finally his alarm would go off.

I'd turn the light on.

He would pop up, do this with his eyes.

He'd walk over, put his pants on, put his socks and shoes on, put his shirt on, grab his toothbrush without saying anything.

He would walk down the hall, brush his teeth, come back, and here's what he would do.

So this that was took about two and a half minutes right there.

We've got just a couple, you know, a minute and a half left.

He would turn around, walk over to the mirror, and just do this, put on his hat and out the door and gone.

We would make it to class, we would have about one minute, like maybe like 25 seconds left before class started.

And that's what he would glance in the mirror, and that's all he would do.

And man, so many of us, I think what we do with this book is we glance.

You know, honestly, we don't even glance at this book.

We wake up in the morning, we grab our phone, we look at our favorite Bible app, and all we do is we look at the verse of the day, we read the verse of the day, we read our Bible, put that down, and we go.

And what James is saying is a glance will not do it.

A glance will not do it.

What he says is it's those who look intently, who examine, who examine scripture, so that scripture will examine them.

It says those people who examine it, who tear it apart, who dig into the deeper understanding of it, who allow God's spirit, because God's spirit works with God's word.

You know, God's spirit is the author of God's word.

And he works through God's word and begins to teach and communicate and share God's will with us and begin to help us understand the story of the gospel, the picture of Jesus.

If you want to get an understanding of God, you've got to understand Jesus, and the only way you do that is here.

And he's saying, those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, they will be blessed in what they do.

The better mirror illustration would be the mirror that sits on my wife's vanity.

Ladies, you know this mirror?

It's the magnifying mirror, the one that's lit up, that's electrical.

You plug in, you turn on, and you sit down, you do your eyelashes in it, you know, and you get about this far from this mirror, and you are like looking intently into that thing.

She does her eyelashes, she does her makeup, she does all the different things, and then she comes, and she's beautiful.

But she spends time in front of that thing.

And for you, God's saying that's the kind of mirror we're talking about.

That the word of God would be one we that magnifies, that reflects and looks deeply into our hearts, so our motives, our life, everything about us, and shows us who we are.

Hebrews 4 12 says, For the word of God is alive.

I mean the Holy Spirit works through it.

It is active, it is sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart, and it begins to remove.

It begins to help remove when we do what it says, it begins to help remove the things, the blemishes, the faulty places.

You look into that mirror and deeply examine.

Sometimes you find blemishes that need to be checked out.

The word of God is the same way.

It begins to test our motives, it begins to test our actions, it begins to test our words, it begins to God doesn't want scripture to merely inform you.

What he wants it to do is to expose you in the best of ways, because what God wants for you is the best.

He wants the best in your relationships, he wants the best in your life, he wants the best in every area of who you are.

And I think that sometimes the reason we just glance at Scripture is because we're afraid of what it will tell us about ourselves.

It's kind of like that appointment that you avoid with the doctor, not because you feel great.

You know, your wife, guys, your wife says, Hey, did you schedule that appointment?

You're like, no, and it's not because you feel great, it's because you're afraid of what they might tell you, which you need to hear.

James says, it's worth the time, it's worth the time to lean in and to examine scripture and allow scripture to direct you.

Because the blessing is not just in the hearing, the blessing is in the doing.

So, what do we do?

We look at this blessing like what is the blessing that God actually brings through the word?

It's interesting.

If you think about the word of God, the blessing would be three things I would just say, just many things, but three things.

It's relationship number one.

Jesus actually connects our affection and our love for Him to our obedience.

He says in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commands.

Keep my commands written in Scripture.

You will do what I say.

Transformation.

Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:2

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Have you ever wondered, wanted to know what God's will is for your life?

Paul says, get in scripture.

Scripture will direct you in your life and it will show you what God's will do.

If you want to know God's will for your life, you better get in God's word and be directed in your life.

And the third thing would be miracles.

Man, you step back and you look in scripture.

When were the moments that God showed up in people's lives in miraculous ways?

They were the Elijah moments, not when they were sitting in the crowd.

Man, there's a whole lot of people that sit in the crowd and pray a lot of prayers.

It was the moments where they got out of their seats in the crowds and they were doing something.

They were doing what God called them to do.

Elijah, Moses, Mary, Esther.

I mean, we could just go through all the Peter.

Massive storm.

Disciples are in the boat.

See Jesus walking across the water.

They call out and they say, Is it Jesus?

Is that you?

And Jesus says, Yes, it's it's me.

And Peter's like, if it's you, then call me out on the water.

I don't know why he said that.

He probably regretted saying that.

And Jesus' like, yeah, come on.

Eleven other guys stayed in the boat.

Jesus said, Come.

Eleven other guys stayed in the boat.

One, Peter, got out and walked on the water, and to this day he holds the world record for water walking because he got out of the boat.

Man, you want to see a miracle in your life?

You got to get out of the boat and actually get into the word and begin to listen to the word, dissect the word, examine the word of God, and then go do what it says.

Now, I do need to be careful.

I'm not saying that obedience to God and obedience to his word is a vending machine for miracles.

But James does say the blessing, and the blessings come in many ways, but the blessing comes from doing what God says.

So back to the question do you wish that you felt more in your relationship with God?

How many of you wish that you just felt more connection?

How many of you wish that you just feel like, God, I wish that I would see you work, your spirit just kind of maybe not call down fire.

But just feel you tangibly directing me and showing me in my life.

How many just wish that you felt more of that?

And all of us do.

Every single one of us do.

And here's the thing: we want to hear God's voice.

Is it possible that God's saying, is you're doing a little too much, sitting in church services, listening to the word, but not getting out and doing what it says?

It's in the moments of faith.

What did Jesus say?

If you have enough faith, you can move a mountain.

If you got the faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.

What is faith?

It's believing in what you cannot see.

Is God just calling us to look at Scripture and begin to see what Scripture says in our lives and then get out there and begin doing it, even though we don't know what the result is going to be?

Those are the moments in my life where I've seen or my family has seen.

We've seen the miracles of God when we go do with faith the things that God says.

I mean, the blessing's not as a husband.

The blessing's not in hearing a message saying, Man, I should go love my wife.

It's in going and loving and serving my wife.

The blessing is not hearing and saying, Yeah, we should be about the next generation.

And man, if we don't lean into the next generation, what's going on?

We're going to lose that generation.

The blessing is going and getting in a younger person's life and beginning to bless them with your wisdom by serving, whether it be in our children's ministry or student ministry, or just someone you know that you meet for coffee and you mentor.

The blessing is not in, hey, hearing a message about we should be generous.

Because everybody sits there and says, Yeah, man, everybody should be generous.

And what most of us are saying is somebody else should be generous.

The blessing is in doing it.

And then when God blesses and provides in doing more of it, and when God blesses and provides doing more of it, and challenging God in your faith, and that's where God steps up and says, Man, let's go walk on some water together.

When we do what the word says.

So, so if we just put some application behind this, like what would James be telling us to do?

I think he would say this.

He would say, Examine scripture so that Scripture could examine you.

That you and I should be willing to examine Scripture on a daily basis so that Scripture can examine us.

Here's the thing Scripture can't examine you if you don't examine it.

Kind of like this mirror.

This mirror can't tell me anything in my life if I don't stand in front of it.

If I just glance at this thing and walk away, it can't do anything in my life.

But if I get in front of this mirror and I look intently, look intently and make sure that everything is in place and going.

If I do that with scripture, that's when the word of God begins to work in my life.

We examine scripture so that scripture can examine us.

Statistics say we're not doing that.

It's really interesting.

This year's State of the Bible report found that 62% of all people, 62% of Americans read the Bible less than once a year.

See, that means like if we just if that was true about this group right here, that would mean six out of 10 of you have not picked up the Bible in the last year.

But you're all Christians, right?

You're you're all church people, so that wouldn't be true of you, right?

But here's what's true of church people 46% of weekly church attenders aren't regularly engaging in scripture on their own.

The way they defined that was less than once a month.

46%, meaning almost, almost like every other person.

Every other person sitting here.

This person right here, she read her Bible.

That guy, not so much.

I mean, we could just go all the way around.

Every other person to your campus, wherever you're watching from, is the reality is, let me just ask you this.

When's the last time you picked up your Bible?

Here's an interesting stat.

The Center for Bible Engagement found that engaging in Scripture once or twice a week made almost no difference in people's lives.

At four or more days a week, people showed dramatically lower odds of negative emotions, meaning depression, anxiety, of negative emotions, and self-destructive behavior.

And they grew bolder in their faith.

And one thing that's not mentioned right there, they said they even lived longer.

I don't know what that was exactly about, but they live long.

Like you just you read scripture four to five times a week, it drastically changes something in your life.

In the joy, the perspective, the belief, the understanding.

Because when you created a habit and a discipline of reading scripture, God begins to do other disciplines in your life.

Seriously, how many times in the last week did you get into the word of God?

Man, a glance will not work.

A glance will not work.

We've got to look intently into the word of God.

And here's the thing to our parents and to our grandparents, the statistics on our young people.

Francis Chan in that message was talking about how two-thirds of our high school students and college students will lose their faith or stop practicing their faith in their 20s and 30s.

Dads, moms, single parents, grandparents, if your child, if your teenager, if your young adult does not see you in the word of God, why would they be in the word of God?

Why would they understand the awe of God, the beauty of God, the fear of God?

If we are not in the word of God ourselves and setting the example for them to say, this thing right here is changing my life, or this thing is telling me about the one that is changing my life.

I would encourage you this week to get into scripture, to examine scripture so that scripture can examine you.

And maybe I would encourage you to choose a book of the Bible and just begin reading.

Don't start in Genesis.

Don't start at the beginning.

Man, if you want to start with the book of John or start with the gospel, start with Jesus, or maybe you want to start with the book of James, because the book of James is five chapters.

Five chapters.

What I would encourage you to do every week is just pick it up and read it.

We read one chapter a day for five days.

And you can come to church on Sunday and you can see it on the screen and you can count that as a six-day, right?

And then when that week's done, do it again.

And when that week's done, do it again.

And do it every week for the rest of this series.

And then the real challenge would be this is to do what it says.

The two best questions that you could ask when you're reading scripture is, God, what do you want me to know?

And what do you want me to do?

I've said this before.

Best two questions you could ever ask of God.

God, what do you want me to know about my life, the meetings I'm gonna have today, my relationships, my parenting, my marriage, what do you want me to know?

And then what do you want me to do?

And then go do it.

Don't just say, hey, God, that was a great story.

Hey, God, that was great inspiration.

Felt something in that prayer time.

Go do it because the blessing is in doing.

I'm telling you this: James is all about doing your faith.

If you were to take the book of James and do everything the book of James says in the next month and just practice doing what he says, I'm telling you, it would transform your relationships, your connections, your parenting, your work ethic, your words, your attitudes, your generosity, your everything.

People might like you better.

You might like yourself better.

And you might see all the different things that God's actually doing in your life when you begin doing what He says.

Church, I think it's incredibly critical.

Because if you do not know God, you will not understand God.

If you do not understand God, you will have no awe of God, you will have no respect of God, you will have no fear of God, and eventually, even Christian people who have dedicated their lives to God will stop following God.

Read a I'm reading a book called The Awe of God, and it's written by John Bavere.

John Bever is an incredible preacher, writer, um, leader, and he writes in this book, he he has this one story where he talks about back in 1989, there was a guy named Jim Baker.

Some of you may remember Jim Baker.

He had a he had a ministry that was called PTL, praise the Lord.

Had a had a in his hometown, he had a hotel and an amusement park, you know, Christian themed deal.

I mean, he had built this empire.

It was one of the largest and most lucrative Christian ministries in history.

It's massive.

It was kind of a televangelist type thing, you know, it's kind of that kind of feel to it.

And Jim was accused of some sexual impropriety.

There's some accusations, and there were accusations of hush money and all of that.

And then there was accusations of inappropriating funds.

I mean, stealing money basically from people.

And I mean, he it was so bad that when your sentence is 45 years, that's a big deal.

In prison, he's five years in.

His sentence was later reduced, but he's five years in.

He reads a book that John had written, which now has led to this book, Awe of God.

And he just reached out through his assistant.

He reached out to John Bevir and said, John, would you come meet with me?

I got to talk to you about this book.

And John didn't really, he wasn't really excited because Jim Baker didn't quite have the great name, and it just kind of difficult, and just had a little feel with his ministry.

And so John shows, just decides to show up.

Shows up, Jim Baker walks in, he's in his prison guard, they sit down, and Jim just talks for like 30 minutes.

He's sharing with him his story, he's sharing what's happened, he shared this change he feels like he had.

And John says, I really did feel like there was a contrite and repentant heart, but I just couldn't like justify it with what had happened before.

And so finally, Jim just kind of slows down talking, and John says, I got an opportunity to ask a question.

So I asked this question.

He said, Jim, when did you, with all that happened, when did you fall out of love with Jesus?

And Jim Baker looks at him like confused, and he says, John, I never fell out of love with Jesus.

I loved him all the way through it.

And then John said, that frustrated him.

He thought, how could you do the things that you did and steal money like you did and the sexual accusations and all these different things?

How could you do that and still love Jesus?

And then he kind of said that, and Jim let him go, and then Jim looks at him and he says, John, seriously, I never fell out of love with Jesus.

I loved him all the way through it.

I just didn't fear God.

And then he said, and John, there are millions and millions and millions of Americans or Americans across this country that love Jesus but do not fear God.

I'm telling you, I read that church and I felt convicted.

And I did not feel convicted for people in the seats.

I felt convicted for the person on the stage.

Like I felt like God was saying to me, Sean, that there is so much truth in that.

And there's so much, I felt like he was convicting me, speaking to you, and saying, Hey, Sean, I feel like you're allowing.

Like you're allowing people to just come in and to sit and listen to sermons and hear some, feel some good things, be encouraged by some good stuff.

But the actual challenge to get out there and do something about, I feel like God was saying, man, there's a whole lot of you, Sean included, love Jesus, but do you fear me?

And I would just ask you that.

Because I won't ask you that.

I know you love Jesus.

I see the way you serve, I see the way you love people, I see how kind you are.

But can I just ask this?

Do you fear God?

Do you fear him enough to get into this book and allow it to shape who you are?

And to say, no questions asked.

Whatever you tell me to do, I will do.

To say no questions asked, the opinions that I have that go against this book, I will set aside and I will study and I will find out why, and I will ask people and I will ask for help.

I will help understanding why you say this is the best way.

And then I will believe what you're saying and hold to it.

Man, to our dads and our grandfathers and our moms and our single parents and our man, do you believe in it?

Do you fear God enough to teach your children the fear of God?

Not to be afraid of God, but to be in awe of God, to respect God, the creator of the universe, and to say, I will do.

I will teach, I will show, I will be here every time those doors are open, not just to listen, but to hear so I can go do.

I will be here so I can serve, to help other people hear so they can begin to go do and to feel the blessing.

If you go all the way back to the beginning and think about that story with Francis Chan and Elijah, do you ever just wonder?

When we just kind of pray and say, God, why don't you send the fire?

He's saying, I'm ready.

I am ready to send my spirit down.

But what I want you to do is I want you to get in front of that mirror and I want you to look intently into the word of God and to listen to what I'm telling you to do.

And then I want you to go out there and I want you to get it done and do what I say.

And man, I'm telling you this.

In my experience, in the moments that I've lived that way, man, the miracles do happen.

Which gives deeper faith to go obey more.

Because just a glance ain't gonna work.

We gotta lean in.

So grab your Bible this week, pick a book, dive in and start reading and ask the questions.

God, what do you want me to know?

And what do you want me to do?

And then go do it.

Let's pray.

Father, I just want to humbly come before you right now.

Father, I would just say on behalf of all of our campuses, I just repent for all of us for the times that we think we know.

God, we've got more knowledge in our minds than we have obedience.

Just repent on behalf of all of us.

And God, I pray this week we would walk into our relationship with you anew in prayer, in seeking you through your word, and praying and asking, God, what do you want me to know?

What do you want me to do?

And then, God, I pray there would be boldness in our lives to go do it no matter what the consequences are, no matter what the questions are.

And Father, I pray you would confirm the actions and the obedience and the blessing and blessings that you give to these people.

And so, God, we love you.

We thank you for Jesus, but we also thank you for his word that teaches us about him, help us to value it, help us to treasure it, and help us to get into it.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Church, it's good to see all of you.

I do want to let you know in a couple weeks there is a baptism service that's gonna happen.

And so next week we'll have our regular service, then the week after.

And I want to encourage you, that is one thing that God commands in scripture.

He says, Everyone, we are saved by our faith.

But if you place your faith in Jesus, he says, he commands, says, go participate in the death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

And I would just encourage you to do it.

You can go out to Information Central today and connect with people there.

They can get your baptism scheduled, you can go online.

We would encourage you to do it, but let's all be there.

Invite your groups to be there.

Let's be there and support the people that are making that decision Sunday.

If you need prayer, we've got people that'll be up here after service.

You guys have a great day, and we will see you next week and get into those bias.