James – Thoughts & Prayers?

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, let's do this, everybody.

Let's get to work today.

Today we are in part two of a five-part series of messages on the book of James that we have creatively and affectionately titled James.

And uh if you missed last week, Pastor Isaiah kicked us off with a brilliant message on the first half of James chapter one, where James talks about what we do with our troubles and our trials.

If you are walking through troubles and trials, read James chapter one.

If you are not going through uh troubles and trials, you should read James chapter one because you are going to go through troubles and trials.

If you're like Jason, be more positive.

I am positive that you will go through troubles and trials.

It's just gonna happen.

Today, I've got the second half of James chapter one and all of James chapter two, and it's a, I'm gonna be honest, it's a strong one.

Before we get to it, let me kind of give you a couple of reminders.

First of all, the book of James was written to a Jewish audience who were these new followers of Jesus.

They were this new church as they're following Jesus.

So that helps to inform as we read the book.

In fact, in the book of James, Jesus is only mentioned two times, and the reason is there is an assumption that these people know him.

They've followed him, they saw, many of them maybe saw his resurrected body.

They they know Jesus.

And so this is not a theology book so much as it is a practical book of how you live as a follower of Jesus.

The second thing that's so interesting to me is James was the half-brother of Jesus.

And that may not seem interesting to you, but here's the question it begs for me.

What would your brother or sister have to do to convince you that they were the son or daughter of God?

Come on, like, how weird would it be to have a brother who's like, I'm the son of God, you will worship me someday.

How weird would that be?

Like, like it would take a lot.

And here's what I love from the book of James.

James didn't actually crow up believing that Jesus was the son of God.

Later in life, he came to the full knowledge and understanding that he was.

And not only did it change his life, he became the leader of the church.

If Jesus can do it there, he can do it over and over and over again.

Now, I want to be really honest for a moment.

The passages we're gonna read today are both controversial and they're incredibly strong.

They're controversial and they're challenging.

And so as I was reading this, I thought, man, there's really kind of two ways this message can go.

And do you remember the books when you were younger called the Choose Your Own Adventure Book?

Do you remember these?

Today's gonna be a choose your own adventure sermon, okay?

Now the verses are very strong, so we have two options.

Option one is we can do what I call kid gloves.

We'll make it real soft, real palatable, really easy.

Or option two is we can go strong, okay?

We're gonna do a quick vote.

How many of you want us to go kid glove?

Keep it real easy, you'll just feel good and no challenge, cool.

Anyone want us to go strong all up in this place?

All right, you voted for this.

I need you to look down at your toes.

Everybody look down, look at them quick, just find your toes.

Hopefully you got them, just look at them.

And I want you to remember when I step all up on them that you voted for this.

Are you with me?

Let's get to work.

I've been married uh coming up on 20 years this December, and uh awesome.

Married my wife when she was seven, and uh, we've just been loving each other for a long time.

And when you've been married that long, you've run out of things to fight about.

And we fought about all the big stuff, all the normal stuff, and now we have dumb little fights, little, just little ones, and I want you to know up front we're good, we love each other, we adore each other.

A couple weeks ago we had a dumb, just a little fight, just a little tiff, if you will.

We were running late for something and we needed to Google search something very quickly.

So I had my phone open and I pulled up Google, it looks something like this.

I need to tell you something.

I have Googled a billion things in my life.

I know how it works, I know where to write what I'm searching for, I know what to do next.

But we were in a rush.

And when you're in a rush, things get kind of rushed, they get tense.

So I'm typing as fast as I can, and you can't see it on the screen.

But usually after you type in what you're searching for, a little blue button pops up that says, search.

I've done this a million times.

I know what to do.

But my wife is standing over me as I'm typing in these words, and she goes, push the blue button, search.

And I just looked at her, and regretfully, I said these five words.

I said, I'm kind of a genius.

Like, like I know where the search button is.

And look, I want to be honest, I didn't mean this about everything in life.

I'm not an encyclopedia, I'm not Wikipedia, I don't know everything, but I'm kind of a genius when it comes to the blue search button.

Like I know what to do with this.

Now, why has this become a problem?

Because this fight hasn't stopped.

Now, if we disagree about something, she'll say, Well, you're a self-proclaimed kind of a genius, you know, like keeps biting me all these weeks later.

And here's the funny thing.

You understand why this is funny on a simple Google search, but can I tell you the truth about you and me?

If we're not careful, we will adopt this attitude when it comes to things of God.

What do you mean?

I mean what we tend to do is we tend to say, well, I know what God's word says, but I think my opinion matters more than God's word.

Told you I was gonna step on your toes.

Okay, I know what God's word says about fill in the blank, but I have my opinions.

I know what God's word says about marriage or sexuality or gender.

I know what God's word says about abortion or hot social issues, but that doesn't feel good to me, so therefore, my opinion matters more than the opinion of God.

And one of the things James is gonna do is he's gonna come out and sucker punch us and remind us that it's not enough to say that we believe.

No, no, no, no, no.

We have to say, God, you are first.

It's not enough to hear what God's word says, but we have to be people who actually live it out.

Second half of James chapter one, here's what he says.

James 1.19.

My dear brothers and sisters, he's so sweet because he's about to punch you in the throat.

Take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

Okay, quick note: how awesome would social media be if we just did that.

Quick to listen, slow to share your hot take, and slow to become angry and fire off a nasty comment to someone.

Here's the reason.

Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

So, therefore, here's what you do get rid of all moral filth and all the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

And then this next part is so wildly important.

In fact, if you fall asleep in the rest of the message, please get this.

Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself.

Don't just be a hearer of God's word, but instead four key words.

Do what it says.

Okay.

How many of us compartmentalize our life?

So there's the Sunday us where we come to church and we stamp our God card and we're good.

And we walk out the doors and we act like nothing that was said has any real impact or bearing on our lives.

How often do we read scripture and we say, I know what God's word says, but then we come up with the reason.

But that was written 2,000 years ago.

But they didn't know what it was like to be an American, but they don't know the pressure I feel, they don't know what it's like to be single and to be 30 years old.

They don't know about me.

At the end of the day, you have to decide once and for all whose word is the final word.

And the way you can tell if you are a fully devoted follower of Jesus is not how much you know.

It's how willing you are to obey.

All right, let me let me get a little bit more clear.

Probably over the 17 years that I've been a pastor, the number one question or concern or complaint that I've gotten is why don't we preach deeper messages?

Come on, Pastor, I want deeper messages.

And I understand what people are saying.

Really, I think that I try to be very clear in what I teach.

Big, huge, uh awesome biblical principles, but in ways that everybody can understand it, where everybody's welcome to the same table and everybody understands it.

Depth isn't about head knowledge, though.

This is something that you need to understand.

This will kickstart your relationship with God in a new way.

Depth isn't about how much you know, depth is about how much you obey.

Are you willing to do what the Bible says?

So the verses go on.

It says, Do what it says.

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

Whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but you know, actually doing it, they will be blessed in what they do, and this is my goal for you.

So James gives us this beautiful picture.

He says a lot of Christians treat the Bible not like a mirror that we look at to reflect on ourselves.

We tend to look at the Bible like a window.

And what we do is we look at the Bible like a window and we look through it to judge other people.

Oh, I wish my wife could read this.

I wish my kids would get this.

Oh, if my neighbor would just act this way, if my boss at work would just treat me the way this says.

Scripture was never intended to be a window that we look through with judgment.

It was intended to be a mirror that we look at and we look at ourselves and we ask the question: how am I actually living this out?

Remember, more Christians, most Christians are more educated than they are obedient.

And I just want to say that we're gonna be the kind of church who we hear the word of God and we don't leave and pretend like it has no bearing on our lives, but we're gonna be the people who don't just hear, but who put into practice the things of God.

I want to ask a rhetorical question, this is so important.

If you were to fill in the blank with the answer to this question, what would you say?

Most Christians are blank.

Don't say it, just think, what would you say?

Most Christians that you know are what?

Well, a couple weeks ago I had a long plane ride, so I read the whole book of James in one sitting.

It is so practical, it is like the book of Proverbs in the New Testament, full of practical wisdom.

And here's some of the things that James says Christians should be known for.

Most Christians are steadfast, quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, that they're doers of the word, that they're impartial and non-judgmental, that they're involved with care, and they're full of mercy.

Okay?

I wonder what your answer to the question was.

Most Christians are blank.

Now, this isn't like my feelings, this isn't just my own opinion.

Research shows that most Americans think that most Christians are hypocrites.

That we say one thing, but our life doesn't reflect that which we've said.

Research was done by Barner Research, a massive Christian polling agency.

They answered this question.

87% of people surveyed said that Christians are judgmental, 85% said they're hypocritical, and 78% said they're out of touch.

A book was written many years ago by an author named David Kenneman.

The book was called Unchristian, and he said that 84% of non-Christians say they know a Christian personally.

That's good news.

Yet only 15% say the lifestyle of those believers are noticeably different in a good way.

That's an indictment on you, and it's an indictment on me.

May we never be accused of living this way.

Interesting note, there's something like over 900 translations of the Bible in English.

It's hard to get your mind around that, right?

One of the questions I get sometimes from people is out of the 900, which one is the best one?

Can I tell you the answer to this question?

It's the one you will obey.

It's the one where you will take the words of God and you will let them take root in your heart so that it can affect every other part of your life.

It's not enough to hear the word.

We have to be doers of the word.

It's not enough to come to church and stamp our God card and then to get in our cars and act like nothing happened.

We have to be the kinds of people who are willing to do what the Bible actually says.

Now, four times in the book of James, and it's six times if you include derivations of the Greek word, there's this word that really is the heart of James.

The word is telios.

Telios means mature, perfected and complete.

This is the goal of being a follower of Jesus, is that we are mature in our faith, that we have become perfected or become more like Jesus and complete, that God has taken all the brokenness that we are and put it back together.

This is the goal for you and for me as we read these verses.

That we won't just be hearers, but that we'll be doers, that we won't just be people who have like a shallow kiddie pool relationship with God, but that we'll be the kind of mature Christians who live out our faith and it's evident to everyone around us.

The verses between the verses we just read in chapter one and the next verses we're gonna read in chapter two, James asks a question, and the question is, what will you do to show the love of God to people in your life in need?

To those who are hungry, to those who are thirsty, to those who are homeless, to those who are in need.

You should be the kind of people who you use your life in a way that meets needs for others.

And then he goes on, James 2, verse 14.

James 2:14

Here's where we're gonna go today.

He says, What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?

Can such faith save them?

What a strong question.

He says, Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or and daily food.

If one of you says to them, Go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by actions, is dead.

Leave this on the screen for me for just a moment.

We live in a hashtag thoughts and prayers kind of culture.

Nothing wrong with praying.

I believe that prayer changes things.

But when you read the words of James, he's saying if all you do is pray, you're missing the mark.

If all you offer is good thoughts and well wishes, you've completely missed what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Faith in and of itself isn't enough.

And it's not just enough for the world, it's not enough to save you, James says.

Today we're gonna talk about faith, but faith from the perspective of not what is good or bad faith, we're gonna talk about what is saving faith.

If you're a theology person, this is called the study of soteriology.

What does it mean for God to actually save us?

If you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, several times Jesus says a version of this.

He says, you can tell what kind of tree a tree is by the fruit that it produces.

You can tell what kind of tree a tree is by the fruit it produces.

In the same way, you can tell if a person is a follower of Jesus by the fruit that is evident in their life.

And I want you to get this.

The Bible knows nothing of a fruitless faith.

The Bible knows nothing of a faith where there's not action behind what we say.

If you go to your Bible, if you have the actual printed Bible, often above sections of chapters there will be headings.

The heading in many Bibles over the verses we just read in James chapter 2 says this.

James 2 · chapter mention

It says, faith and works.

I want to talk about faith and works today, because I want to give you a theology of what it means to be saved, but really, maybe even more importantly, a theology that helps you to live out your faith in the world around you.

Now, to define these, let's start with faith.

Faith is belief in action.

Could explain it like this.

Uh, if if you have children or if you've ever seen children at a swimming pool, I love it when they're little and they're like two years old and you have to hold them because they can't quite swim yet.

And so you'll hold them and you'll walk around and they'll ride on your backs.

But I love it when your kid figures out how fun it is to jump into the pool as long as you'll catch them.

And so if you can remember maybe your first experience with your own children, you're standing in the pool and your kids are standing on the edge, and you say, All right, baby, jump to me.

Come on, I'll catch you.

I will catch you, jump to me.

And your kid's like, Okay, okay, okay.

And they don't go anywhere.

They stay there.

And then they'll they'll do the but then they don't jump, right?

Let me ask a question.

When that happens, do they trust you?

I hope so.

If you're their parent, they should trust you.

But it's not faith until they actually take the jump.

This is what faith is.

If you read from the beginning of the Bible, here's here's just a quick highlight list of some of the early people in the Bible showing faith as belief in action.

Abel brought an offering, Noah built an ark, Abraham left his home and offered up Isaac.

Sarah trusted God.

Jacob blessed his grandsons.

Joseph instructed about his burial.

Moses chose to be mistreated.

Rahab welcomed the spies.

Faith isn't just belief, it's belief backed by action.

But we're called the faith and works.

Well, what is works?

Works is literally deeds.

It's literally doing the stuff.

It's literally taking the jump.

It's literally trusting and giving.

It's trusting and doing something.

It's trusting and providing a meal.

It's trusting God and giving water.

It's trusting God and giving financially.

It's just taking the step of moving from faith being something you believe to something you actually live out.

So here's what I want to do.

I want to look at the end of James chapter 2, and I want to talk about three types of faith that James identifies.

James 2 · chapter mention

I want to tell you up front, the first two are fake.

They're impostors, they're fake news.

Number three is real faith.

If you're a message note taker, write this down.

Number one is what I call dead faith.

It's dead faith.

It's not real faith.

We read it, but let's read it again.

James 2, verse 15.

James 2:15

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical need, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.

Dead faith is what I call belief alone.

It's just to believe.

And a lot of us have seen this.

Let me tell you, one of the reasons I love our church so much.

One of the complaints sometimes we'll get is if there's some big natural problem, some big natural disaster.

We're talking about a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami.

We're talking about a school shooting or just something that like makes international news and rocks the world around us.

If our church doesn't throw up something on social media within 4.2 nanoseconds, I start getting messages from people.

Well, are we praying?

Well, are we pray are we pray?

You should put up a post that says hashtag pray for whatever it is.

Like, are we are we doing it?

Of course we're doing it.

We believe in the power of prayer, but I need you to understand something.

When you give, you don't give to your church, you give through your church, and we respond immediately because your generosity allows us to be proactive.

We don't settle for having good intentions and having good thoughts and just praying.

We want to be the kind of people who prayer leads to action, it leads to works, it leads to deeds.

I think a lot of Christians settle for good intentions.

Can I tell you the funny thing?

Good intentions don't work any other place in your life.

They don't.

Okay, so the quick note.

So my my wife's birthday is Tuesday.

Tuesday is her birthday.

And imagine this.

Imagine Tuesday comes and goes, and on Wednesday morning, she's like, babe, you forget about me?

Forget about my birthday.

There was no party, no gifts, no kind words, no social media post.

And I say to her, girl, don't worry.

I got you.

In my heart, I had the most beautiful poetic Instagram post ever for you.

And I thought about getting you some really nice stuff.

I walked some jewelry stores and I saw some really nice stuff.

I thought about it because I love you.

We didn't have a party.

Because like everybody, you know, people love you, right?

We we didn't do any of those things.

Does it count?

No, it doesn't.

Okay.

Uh remember COVID?

That was fun.

Remember COVID?

Remember that?

When COVID shut everything down, my gym where I go was awesome, and they lent out like barbells and rowing machines to people.

And so I went and picked up some stuff, and I'm like, I'm gonna get so jacked during COVID.

I'm only gonna eat broccoli, rice, and chicken.

I'm gonna come out of this thing like a machine, is what's gonna happen.

In fact, I was so convinced of this, I had good intentions.

I spent$2,000 buying a weightlifting rig and all these weights for my garage, got it installed.

I'm like, your boy's gonna be jacked after this.

You know how many times I worked out during COVID?

Two.

As in not too many.

Two.

Two.

Why?

Because intentions that it doesn't really do any good for you, right?

How about this one?

Like, imagine you bought a car and it's a new car and you got a monthly payment.

You made your payments for a few months, but then you missed a month, then you missed another month, and then you missed another month, and then you come out one morning and there's a repo man putting your car on the back of a tow truck, and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And he's like, wait, you didn't make your payments.

We have to repossess the car.

And you're like, no, I I meant to in my heart.

You understand how this doesn't work, right?

The reason is intentions don't make a difference.

Intentions don't equal impact.

And as Christians, we can't settle for good intentions if we want to make a difference.

Saving faith is not a dead faith, it's the kind of faith that puts faith into action.

Well, then James is cool because he's like, well, there's gonna be some people who object to this.

So he speaks to those of you who might object.

He says this in verse 18 but someone will say, You have faith, I have these.

Without deeds.

And I will show you my faith by my deeds.

This begs the question: if people in your life didn't know you were a Christian because you hadn't told them, would they know by your actions?

Would there be something so starkly different about your life and the way you live compared to the world around you?

If there's not, you need to do an examination and look yourself in the mirror and ask, what am I doing wrong?

Now, earlier I said that these verses are some of the most controversial verses in the book of James.

Here's why.

It'd be really easy to read this at a cursory overview and to think that James is contradicting what Paul says.

All throughout Paul's writing, he says, we are not saved by our works.

Let me show it to you like this.

Ephesians, here's one of many times he says it.

Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God, and I want you to see this, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Okay, so we're not saved by our works.

Here's what James says.

James says it like this.

You see that a person is considered righteous or saved by what they do and not by faith alone.

So which one is it?

There are some people online that are gotcha, people they're looking for the gotcha verses, and they're like, ah, gotcha.

The Bible contradicts itself.

No, it doesn't.

Here's what's happening.

Paul and James are talking to entirely different audiences.

Paul says it like this: this is what faith is to Paul.

It's how we're born into true faith.

James is how we are living out our faith.

I heard someone say, Paul is like the OBGYN doctor that helps a baby be born.

James is like the pediatrician that helps them once they're born.

So what is works according to these two guys?

Paul would say that works is laws you try to keep in order to earn God's favor.

James says, no, no, no, works are the deeds done out of gratitude for God's grace.

They're not contradictory.

Paul is saying that we're not saved by works, but he wants you to understand we are saved for works.

The result of you being saved by God should be that everyone around you sees it.

So essentially, according to Scripture, Paul and James are standing back to back, showing you both sides of the coin.

We're not saved by the good stuff we do, but as a result of being saved, there should be some stuff evident in our lives.

And then we're gonna get to number two.

Number one was dead faith.

Number two is this James says it's what we call demon faith, but here's what he says.

He says, You believe that there is one God.

Good.

Even the demons believe that and shudder.

It's kind of a weird verse.

The number two faith is what we call demon faith.

It sounds weird.

I understand that.

But you read the Bible, the demons believe in God.

They believe in Jesus.

The demons know what God's word says, they just live diametrically opposed to it.

So I would say that demon faith is this: it is belief and emotion.

It's more than believing, there's emotion tied to it.

Let me show it to you.

We just read this verse.

Next verse, it says, even the demons believe that and shudder.

They have an emotional response to it.

I would almost loosely compare this to what I would call like a youth camp, a church youth camp experience.

Bunch of teenagers in the presence of God, so excited to be there.

Jesus has saved them, and emotion overtakes them.

And they think that emotion is the highest level of experiencing God.

I want you to understand this.

Nothing wrong with emotion.

God gave you your emotions, nothing wrong with that.

But emotions are not the highest level of your experience with God.

In fact, Billy Graham said this: he said, many people will miss heaven by 18 inches.

The difference between your mind and your heart.

What is the difference?

The difference is that we weren't intended to just have an emotional experience with God to get goosebumps and be like, that's it.

I did it.

I've achieved maturity.

That's not it.

The third is this.

The third type of faith is the one that we should aim for.

It's dynamic faith.

And I want you to see what he says.

Here he goes.

James chapter 2, verse 20.

James 2:20

You foolish person.

Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?

Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

I'll talk about that in a moment.

He says this.

Next verse.

He says, You see that this faith, that his faith, and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete, mature, by what he did.

And the scriptures was fulfilled and said, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend.

You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

By the same, in the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?

And I want you to see this key line.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

So here's what he does.

He picks two people from Scripture that are honestly basically diametrically opposed to each other based on their lifestyle.

He picks Abraham, one of the fathers of our faith, and he picks Rahab, who was a prostitute, and he says, both of them showed true faith.

Here's what it looks like.

For Abraham, one of the four fathers of our faith, he's one of the legends.

There's three places in Scripture where Abraham has these moments.

Genesis 12, 15, and 22.

Genesis 12, he's called by God.

Genesis 15, he's in covenant with God.

Genesis 22, there's this weird thing that God says to him.

He says, I know you say you believe in me, but I'm gonna ask you to do something weird.

I want you to take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.

And I want you to take him up Mount Moriah, and I want you to sacrifice him for me.

If we had time to unpack the story, it's wild.

He longed for a son.

He didn't have a son until late in his years.

This was the son of his dreams.

And now God's saying, Sacrifice your son.

If you didn't understand the Bible, you would think this is God is barbaric.

He's not.

The world in which Abraham lived was barbaric.

Child sacrifice was a normal form of pagan worship.

So, Genesis 22, verse 2, God tells him to do it.

Genesis 22:2

Verse 3 is wild because it says early the next morning, Abraham saddles up his donkey.

He puts his son on the donkey and he takes him up to sacrifice him.

For the sake of time, I want you to know what happens.

Abraham is just so convinced that God's way is the right way that even when it doesn't make sense, he says, yes.

He goes up on the mountain, builds an altar, places his son on the altar, and he goes to obey God in what is one of the most dramatic moments in all of human history.

And before he can kill his son, an angel stops him and he says, Look, I know this is crazy.

God was testing you.

He was just checking to see if you would fully go in and trust him.

God provides a sacrifice instead of his boy.

Beautiful story, Abraham trusts.

Took action, didn't just feel it, he believed and he proved it.

And then on the other side of the social spectrum is Rahab, a prostitute, considered the worst of the worst in her culture.

She sold her body for money and for pleasure, and this was her whole life.

And there's this moment when the people of Israel are coming to overtake a city that she lives in, and she has a moment when she doesn't settle for trust, she puts action to it and she saves the lives of these people, and God ends up sparing her life.

What's fascinating is both are mentioned in the story of Jesus.

Someone really close to God, someone whose lifestyle was far from God.

But for them, what made them notable, for them, the reason we're talking about them some six or eight thousand years later, is their real dynamic faith was belief plus emotion plus action.

And I want you to get this.

This is what James says real faith looks like.

It's not enough to do thoughts and prayers.

And I want you to hear this.

Nothing wrong with praying.

I believe that prayer changes things.

The book of James says that the prayer of a righteous person is fervent is effective.

The fervent prayer of a righteous person is effective.

I want you to get that this is an important thing.

We can pray.

But you should be the kind of person that people look at you.

And even if they don't know you're a Christian, even if they don't know that this is your church, they should know there's something different about that person, and I want to be like it.

Maybe you've settled for the wrong side of this equation.

For some of you, you thought that religion was the way.

Religion asks the question: what do I have to do to earn God's favor, to earn God's blessing?

Religion will burn you out because you'll never be able to do enough.

You'll never be able to serve enough or give enough, and this is never the intention.

Religion is about what you do, relationship's about what's been done.

And because something has been done for you, now the response is that you do something.

Now the response is that you don't sit on your hands, but instead you leverage your life in a way because of the grace of God so freely poured out by Jesus to me, now my life should be poured out to the people around me in serving God.

So let me end with this question.

If in some weird turn of events, America outlawed Christianity, all religion.

They said, churches can't exist, you're not allowed to pray to your God, no more worship music, all Christianity is done, gone, just off the face of the earth.

Would the people in your life know that there was something different about you?

That Jesus had radically changed you from the inside out.

Would the people in your life know that you were different?

Or would you just be another one of the 84% that people label as hypocrites?

So here's how we're gonna end today.

In a moment, I'm gonna pray for you, but I'm gonna ask you to not leave and just do nothing with this message.

I'm gonna ask you to do what James chapter 1 says, and I want you to treat scripture like a mirror that you look intently into.

James 1 · chapter mention

And I want you to look into the mirror of scripture and ask, am I living this way?

Would my life reflect it?

Would my beliefs reflect it?

Would my views on politics reflect it?

Would my sexuality reflect it?

Would my heart reflect it?

Would my work reflect it?

Would my relationship with my spouse and my kids reflect it?

Would how I'm treating the single season of my life reflect it?

Would my bank account reflect it?

And if there's any part of your life that isn't reflecting what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus, told you I was gonna step on your toes, it's time to grow up, it's time to change, and it's time to go all in with Jesus.

There's a lot of people out there that claim to be a Christian, and nothing in their life reflects it.

My prayer is that Access would continue to become more and more and more like Jesus, that teleos, that we become that mature kind of follower of Jesus, so that even if our words never spoke of Jesus, our actions would reflect his love and the fact that he's changed us from the inside out.

Can I get a good amen from anybody in here?

Would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this room?

If you're joining us online, just take a moment and pray.

And in this moment of self-reflection, would you ask God, say, God, show me the areas in my life where I'm not fully devoted, fully living for you.

Then let's pray.

So, God, my prayer is that this won't be one of those messages that we compartmentalize, that we won't walk out of here and act like nothing we've heard really matters.

That we will stop living the life where it's that we have the Sunday church version of us, and then we have the Monday through Saturday version of us.

God, for those of us who have lived those disconnected, disintegrous kinds of lives, we ask you to forgive us and change us.

Jesus, we just want to become more and more like you.

So my prayer, God, change us from the inside out.

Help us to see the areas in our life where we have not fully surrendered or submitted to you.

And Jesus, as a result of your word today, may we leave changed.