Trademarks of a Christian

(This is a sermon originally preached on August 9th, 2020, at Syracuse Alliance Church. If you’d like to watch the service, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70zNZnKQxg The sermon starts about 32:00. I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors.)

0:03

So I’ll be preaching from back here. (laughter)

0:20

I was talking to Bud Werner a couple of weeks ago, at prayer night, I said, “my main concern is that I don’t wanna start preaching heresy.”

0:30

And he said, “Well, if that starts to happen, we’ll tackle you, don’t worry.” So I didn’t get tackled the first service, and I’m going to try and get through the second service, and we’ll see how it goes.

0:40

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Elijah Southwick and I wear a hat.  I know it’s a bit of a weird place to start, but stick with me, we’ll, we’ll get there.

0:50

Now if you’ve been coming to this church for a while, you probably recognize me, because I grew up here – I’ve been going to this church for a while. I worked in KidZone, I was an usher for a while I think I did the coffee bar for a little bit.

1:05

You might also recognize that because I share the same face my elev- ten siblings. And they were all raised in thischurch and my oldest brother led worship. My mom plays the piano sometimes.

1:17

So you probably recognize my face. And the way that I differentiate myself from my 10 siblings, because there’s a lot of us, is I wear a hat. And it’s kind of become my trademark. So that’s, that’s my tie to the sermon today.

1:31

This, this idea of a trademark. Now when people see me, or see me across campus, they, first off, know that I’ll probably be wearing the hat, and if they see the hat across campus, they know it’s probably me.

1:43

In the same way, as Christians, we’re supposed to live lives that have these certain characteristics, certain trademarks, that show  we are Christians.

1:55

Today I’ll be reading and speaking from James chapter one, verses 19 to 27. And it’s… There’s a lot of passages in Scripture that we can look at and say this is what Christians are supposed to be like, these are trademarks of Christians,

2:15

but I think James chapter one, is the place to start, that lets all those other passages flow from it. If we start here, then everything else just naturally flows from it. So let’s read that together.

2:28

“My dear brothers take note of this: Everyone should be to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry for man’s anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth, and the evil that is so prevalent and how they accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

2:49

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word, and does not do what it says it’s like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law, that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does.

3:16

If anyone considers himself religious and does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless, is this: look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

3:35

Please join me in prayer.

3:38

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the chance to come and speak to my church family. Heavenly Father, I pray, I pray for Your Spirit to be in this service. Father, I pray that Your Spirit would lead my words. Father, for anything I say is of no value, unless Your Spirit leads it. Father, I pray that the Spirit would be in the hearts of everyone listening, because I know that my words will have no effect unless Your Spirit is working. So Father, please I pray that you will hide the church, from my opinion, and instead show only what is Your truth. We pray all this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

4:26

So, the book of James is written to Jewish believers, okay, so right after Jesus’s death and resurrection, the Jewish people, a group of them are like, “Hey that’s our Messiah, He’s the Savior that’s supposed to save us. He’s not supposed to save us from oppression, but to save us from the oppression of sin.” And they start following Him, and all the other Jewish people say, “That’s blasphemy.” Because they think it’s blasphemy, they start pulling the Jewish Christians, out of their homes, away from their families. They’re throwing them in prison. They’re killing them. And so the Jewish people, the Jewish Christians, decide to run away for their lives.

5:07

So now they’re scattered all around the world. And James writes to them, saying, “Persevere. Push on. He goes through all this he says, “God’s gonna bless you if you keep going. Trust God. And he comes to verse nineteen. And the first three verses, honestly, are pretty self explanatory. There’s not a whole bunch of exposition that we need to go through. Because we agree that, like, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak slow to become angry and we’re like, yeah, we can see how that looks in our life.

5:43

We can see where I don’t do that and you can see how I should be doing that. And he says, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Basically, he’s saying when you hear something, you can’t just react. Because when you react, it builds resentment towards you. And if it’s talking about God, it builds resentment towards God.

6:04

So he says, you have to listen. And then respond.

6:09

Now in context, he’s saying, “This letter I’m writing to you, guys? You might not like some of the things I have to say. You might, it might rub you the wrong way. It might hurt. But I want you to make sure that you’re listening first, you’re listening. And then from there, you respond. I don’t just want you to react, because you feel like you’ve been insulted in some way.

6:38

And so James, James comes into that. Now that’s in context. Out of context, this is practical for the day to day. You know, if you open up your Twitter, if you open up your Facebook. You see people yelling at each other, usually because of some political issue. I think the current one is, hydrocloricoxyn or whatever. And you see people yell at each other. And James would take this verse and say “No, listen, even if you don’t agree, you still have to be civil, you still have to listen to the other side.

7:12

I have an amazing friend, amazing friend, who, we vote very differently. Our political views are very different. But we have an understanding about coming together and we talk about it. We listen first, and then we respond.

7:26

So there have been times when I’ve said something and she’s called me out she’s like, “Hey, I don’t agree with this, because of this. And there were times when I said “Hey, what you said? I feel like that’s just attacking, it’s not explaining. It’s not winning you friends.” And we listen, and then respond.

7:46

And be very clear, James says be quick to listen. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. He doesn’t say, “Everything you hear, you have to accept.”

7:59

So my friend and I disagree. My friend and I disagree. We just agree to disagree, but James says in verse 21, “Humbly accept the word.”

8:10

He says, the only thing you can’t argue with – political issues, you can argue that all day long. But the only thing you do not argue with is the word of God. When this is word, whether it’s preached to you, whether you read it on your own. However it comes, when the word of God comes to you, you take that for yourself. You have to accept that, though, you can’t try and change the Word of God, based on your view. This shapes how you view the world.

8:42

So first trademark is to humbly accept the word. Now, it’s humility in general, and you have to be kind and courteous, but I think this is the central aspect of Christianity. If we start here, everything else I talk about, all those of the passages in Scripture naturally flow from accepting the Word of God. With a humble spirit.

9:11

See, when we accept the Word of God, one of two things happens. It either goes into our head, or goes into our heart. We can either have head knowledge or heart knowledge, having head, head knowledge is a good thing, because when I first started talking, what’d I say, I said, this book is written to the people who are scattered around the world, that happens in Acts.

9:33

So having head knowledge is good, because you can take it out, and you can map out the Bible and see where everything connects, and that’s great, but the problem is that you start looking at this and you start saying, “Look how much I know about this. Look how much I know about the Bible.”

9:50

But heart knowledge is different, because heart knowledge, you read it and you say, “Wow, I have to accept this. I have to change my life based off of this,” and you don’t say, “Look how much I know about this,” but “Look how much this knows. Look how much this teaches me.”

10:05

See, head knowledge inflates pride, but the heart knowledge ignites your faith.

10:15

He goes on and explains this a little bit, a little bit more he says, “You don’t just listen to the word, you can’t just listen to what and have a head knowledge, that’s great, but you have to apply it as your life, you have to live this life out. You have to live this word out. He says, “If you just listen to the word, if you just come in on Sundays, hear the Word and then leave your Bible in the pews, it’s the same thing as walking into the bathroom after a long day of working on the farm. (I grew up in a farm, in case you didn’t know) Walking into the, into the bathroom after a long day on the farm, looking at your face, seeing it covered in dirt, and then going to dinner. You don’t do that. You see that you have problem, so you clean yourself. And then you go on.

11:01

And he says, this is the same way. You have to see the problems, do the word. This word is like a mirror; it shows what’s in our hearts.

11:12

And when you see those problems, you change the way you’re living.

11:18

He says, “This is, again, this is something we’re supposed to live out.” He goes, he goes further into it in chapter two, right across the page. This is verses 14 on.

11:29

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a 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 needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

12:11

He says, “You’ve got to live this faith out. You can’t just let your faith be stagnant.” Now when we read this, verse 19 especially, we missed something, because, especially this, this translation because, you believe there’s one God. A better  translation would be you believe God is one.

12:30

If you come to our prayer meetings, then you’ll remember two weeks ago, I read something called the Shema. And the Shema is a Jewish prayer, that’s prayed ritually over their lives and it’s found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 9. And I’d like to read it, because this is what that references.

12:55

Imagine if I said, “I Pledge Allegiance.” What’d you guys think? The Pledge of Allegiance, right. And you can hear all the words because they’ve been repeated constantly. So in the same way when they hear “God is one,” or “the Lord is one” those Jewish believers that James is writing to immediately think, “Wow, he’s talking about the Shema,” and so they go back and they think through all of this.

13:23

They think “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strengths. These commandments that I give you today  are to be upon your hearts impress them upon your children, talk about them, when you sit at home and when you walk on the road when you lie down, and when you get up. Tie them as symbols as on your hands and on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

13:57

So the Jewish people took that very literally, so they wrote. They wrote out the Shema, the commandments, they wrote out the Torah law, and they bound them on their hands, and they tied them on their foreheads, and wrote it on the doorposts, but it’s not supposed to take it exactly literally. t’s a figurative thing, it says, you’re supposed to live this out on a day to day.

14:20

This is something we’re supposed to live out and, and so, so James says, back in chapter two, he says, “If you believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder.” And he says that, because he says, “Look, the demons know that the God the Shema talks about is so powerful it deserves a response. It deserves a response, that if you aren’t following it. If you aren’t living out the Shema, and this is day to day life, then what can you do, but shudder?” Because the demons know that they’re going to be destroyed. They know – that’s why they shudder!

15:01

And so James is saying, “I’m glad you believe it, but if you aren’t living it out, then you might want to start shuddering. Because this is serious.”

15:14

He says, “Okay.” He says, “When we have this faith, when we have this heart knowledge it leads to this active faith.” We will live this faith out. That if your faith isn’t active, then it’s dead, and we don’t want to have a dead faith, we want to live this thing out.

15:37

He says, “Okay. Maybe you don’t believe me, that you have to have actions to show that you have, have faith,” so he says, “Let’s talk about some heroes of faith, from our history. Let’s talk about Father Abraham.

15:51

Now, Abraham is the beginning of the nation of Israel. And so he is called by God. He’s walking to this land and God has promised him.

16:03

And God says, “I’m going to make you the father of a great nation. I’m going to make you into a nation and through that nation, Abraham, I’m going to bless the world.”

16:14

And so finally, finally, Abraham and his wife, who had no children finally get their son, they finally get their son, Isaac. And Abraham’s holding his son Isaac and God says, “Abraham. That son of the promise, the one that I promised you, that the son that is going to make a great nation, I want you to go sacrifice him.

16:38

And we hear that, and we say, “How can you say that, God? You promised him,  he has his son. Why are you taking him?”

16:45

But Abraham hears it different, because when, when God made a covenant with Abraham, God made a one way covenant. He said, “Abraham, I know you’re gonna mess up because you’re human. I know you’re going to mess up, but I’m going to keep my promise, no matter what you do.”

17:03

So Abraham says, “God, I’ve seen You move mountains. God, I didn’t have a son. And now I have a son. So I know you’re going to do it again. Even if my son dies. I know you’re just going to bring him to life because that is the son of the promises, and Je- the God of the Bible does not back down on His promises.”

17:30

And so he lives his faith out. He takes his son onto the mountain. And he’s about to sacrifice his son. And God says, “Stop. Because here’s the thing, Abraham. I knew your heart. I knew you were faithful. This wasn’t a test.”

17:49

God doesn’t need to test our faith.  God doesn’t need to test our faith, he says, “The reason I did this was to show everyone in the world that you are a man of faith, and you are a man walks after me.

18:05

I love how verse 22 finishes, when he says, “You see that his faith, and his actions were work together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”

18:18

You can’t just have faith. Faith has to be lived out.

18:25

He says, “Maybe you need more proof. Let’s talk about Rahab.”

18:29

Okay so later on down the line, there’s this nation of Israel. Abraham has Isaac. Isaac has Jacob, Jacob has a whole bunch of kids, his kids have a whole bunch of kids and so on, and so forth. And 400 plus years later, they’re going back into the land that Abraham was promised.

18:48

And the leader, Joshua, says we’re supposed to take over this land, so I want to know what we’re up against. So he sends int two spies forward, into this town called, Jericho and in Jericho they end up at this prostitutes’ house, her name is Rahab.

19:02

And Rahab takes the spies and she says, “The king’s men want to kill you. And that makes sense. But I don’t want you to die, so I’m going to put you upstairs, and I’m going to hide you.” So she’s hiding the men, hides the spies, sends the king’s men away.

19:18

And she goes to the spies and says, “Look, we’ve heard about the power of your God. We know, we’ve heard about the Amalekites, we’ve heard about all these other tribes, all these other nations that have come against you ,and they don’t exist anymore. So, we know we’re next. We know that your God is going to come to destroy us. So, yeah, we know God is powerful, but is your God merciful? Will your God save me?

19:55

And the spies said, “Yes. Yes, our God is merciful, yes our God will save you.”

20:04

So later on Jericho is destroyed. And the only family that’s saved – the only house that is left standing, when God comes through and decimates Jericho – is the house of Rahab.

20:19

But I have a question for you. Would she have beem saved if she hadn’t asked? Because she obviously had the faith. She knew that God was powerful. And she believed that God is merciful. But if she hadn’t stepped out in faith, if she hadn’t asked for salvation, then she wouldn’t have been saved.

20:45

So it’s the same way, our faith and our actions work in tandem to show that we’re following after Christ. It’s an active faith

20:57

Our active faith as we live this out naturally leads to holy living. Now I was thinking about finding the pastor Brian’s sermon illustration about the three circles. If you don’t remember, basically, the center circle was your inner man. And then outward thoughts, and then outward actions.  And it’s the same outflow.

21:21

Sometimes our inner man has been changed and healed. And then that flows, once that inner man has changed, once that inner man is saved, it flows outwards into our thoughts, and finally flows out to our actions.

21:41

So verse 27 in James chapter one ends like this it says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to oneself from being polluted by the world.”

21:55

And the last part is basically saying that as you live out this Christian life, as you live this active faith out, you see all the things you should be doing, but you’re not, and you start doing them. But then you also see all the things that you should not be doing, and you are. And you stop doing them, and slowly but surely, they come back together, and as that natural process of change occurs, you look and you realize, “I’m following directly after Christ. I’m walking after Christ.”

22:32

This is so much so that people look at you, and they say that guy kind of looks familiar – that guy looks like Christ.

22:39

Now, on campus, it’s kind of funny, kind of annoying because my friends will look, and they’ll see someone wearing a hat like mine, and they’ll run up to them and be like, “You’re not Elijah. That’s awkward.” And then have to walk away.

22:54

And this is the same sort of thing. People are supposed to look at us, run up and say, “Wait a minute. You’re not Jesus Christ. But you look so much like Him.”

23:07

This holy life, this holy living, this active faith should make us look more and more like Christ, and the way that you learn how to look like Christ, is to read this. This is the mirror that we’re supposed to compare our lives, and realize that we’re not living this out, and change.

23:29

But active faith doesn’t just lead to holy living. It leads to love, a crazy love. Now, I had a discussion with my father about this we kinda went back and forth, and he finally said, “Okay, I understand why you’re using the word crazy. It’s not my choice but I’ll let you use it,” because he was listening first; responding after.

23:53

But this kind of love that we have, this kind of love that we live out, is such that people look at us, and they say, “You’re crazy for doing that. That kind of love is crazy.”

24:11

See, because it says, to look after orphans and widows in their distress. And I don’t, I don’t want to just push that aside, but, but understand that orphans and widows isn’t just orphans and widows, like, that is not the only people we’re called to serve. Okay? So he says here, the people who are in need, the people who need help, yeah, we need to love those, because those people, the broken, the hurting, the abused, all of those people need the love of God.

24:40

But there’s a passage later on, or further before, I should say. It’s Luke chapter six verses, 32, and 27 starts, you know, before, before this passage. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, bless those who curse”. And it comes down to this verse 32 he says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. But love your enemies do good to them, and lend, not expecting to get anything back. And then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He’s kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

25:38

See, I didn’t want to leave James one more time, because I know I keep going away from it, back to it. But I can’t let you leave today I think that the only people to love are the ones that it’s easy to love. Because we look at them and we say, whether, it’s because of pity or compassion and say, “Yes, I love you and Jesus loves you too,” but the thing is that the people who are broke, and hurting and abused? Yeah, they need God’s love. But the people who broke them. The people who abused them and the people who hurt them, need the love of God’s too.

26:13

Because Jesus doesn’t look at this group and say they’re the enemy. God doesn’t look at that and say, “I hate you because what you’ve done to them.” He says, “No they’re not the enemy. They are the prize.” These are the prize to be won.

26:30

And that’s a shameless steal from my campus pastor at Liberty. He says it all the time and I can’t agree more. The people that’s hard to love are not the enemy, they’re the prize.

26:46

It’s this crazy love, you’re supposed to have. And maybe you don’t believe me, that they’re the prize. If you don’t believe me, then take a look at yourselves. Because there is no reason for Jesus to die for us. There’s no reason that we should be saved. All of us at one time were the enemy. All of us did not follow the Shema, all of us did not love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls, all our minds and all our strength.

27:16

All of us, like the demons, should be shuddering, because we should be destroyed. But God looks at us and says, “You are not the enemy. You are the prize.”

27:23

But I’ll give you a Biblical example, too, because I like telling Bible stories.

27:36

In the book of Acts chapter nine the leader of the persecution of Jews, is a man named Saul. And Saul is adamant about pulling Christians, out of their homes, jailing them, killing them, and he says, “It’s not enough to do it here here in Jerusalem. I’m gonna go across, I’m going to go to Damascus, too.

28:00

So he gets his papers. He travels to Damascus, and on the way. The Lord Jesus meets him on the road. And with a divine slap, says, “Saul, stop persecuting me.”

28:21

And Pa-Saul, I should say, says, “Who are you?”

28:26

And Jesus says, “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.” And he sends him into the city and Paul, blind, now, is led into Damascus, and he sits there.

28:40

While he’s sitting here, praying and fasting, God goes to another man, a man by the name of Ananias. This man named Ananias is a Christian.

28:53

God goes to him and says, “Ananias, I want you to go to Straight Sreet. I want you to go to the house of Judas. I want you to pray for a man there, his name is Saul.”

29:02

And Ananias says, “God, I know what he’s been doing, and he’s been killing my brothers. I know he was there, watching when Stephen was killed. God, he’s not a man that I want on my team, I don’t want to go pray for him, because he’s just gonna throw me in jail.”

29:25

God says something to him that I just, I just love. If I can find the passage.

29:32

God says, “Go. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings, before the people of Israel. I will show how much he must suffer for me.” He says, “Ananias, you don’t understand. That man, Saul? He is my prize. And I am going to use him for this, this kingdom, like no one else.”

30:02

You know we don’t ever hear what happens Ananias. But we we hear this. Ananias humbly accepts that word from God. That turns to an active faith, where he walks his faith out, literally walking over toSaul. And then he shows this love that I can assure you, anyone looking from the outside in, would say was crazy.And he prays for Saul.

30:31

Paul – uh, Saul, is healed. And he changes his life, drastically. And instead of working against the kingdom of God, he starts working for the kingdom of God. And he writes over half the New Testament. The doctrine that we hold so dearly. A lot of it comes from Paul. The guy who led the persecution against Christians. So if anyone, anyone should have been the enemy. It was him. And God says, “No, he’s not the enemy. He is my prize.”

31:14

So here are the trademarks of a Christian, as I’ve seen from James chapter one.

31:21

First is humility. And I wanted to humbly accept the word, butit’s a little long for the page so we changed it to humility. Humility, both in our action to each other, but more importantly, humility in accepting the Word.

31:40

Then it’s this active faith. It’s this faith that says, “God, I’m not just gonna pray about provision for people. God, I’m going to pray, can I be the provision for people?”

31:57

It’s this active faith that leads to holy living, and this crazy love that we see.

32:04

I don’t know where you are today. Maybe you don’t understand what it means to humbly accept the word. If you don’t know what it means to humbly accept the word, then let me explain the message of this Bible.

32:16

See, the message of this Bible is that all of us, every single one of us in this room, everyone streaming online has not followed the Shema. All of us, like Rahab, are sitting in a city waiting to be destroyed by God, who is great and powerful.

32:42

And the Gospel, the good news is that God says, “Hey, I stopped Abraham from sacrificing his only son. But I did not stop myself. My Son, Jesus Christ came. He came and lived on this earth, and he took the destruction, that is waiting for you. That destruction he took on himself. So now you can be saved, because, yes, I am great. And yes, my judgment is coming, but I am merciful. I am merciful and if you just turn to me, if you just accept this word. And I’ll accept you, and I will save you.”

33:31

And that’s what- – if you’ve never heard that before, then it’s true and God is calling you today saying, “You are not the enemy. You are not the enemy today; you are my prize. I love you, and I want to use you for my kingdom.”

33:50

Maybe you’ve accepted that and you say, “Wow, you know I feel like I just do things to do them. I don’t live this faith out. It’s not an active faith, it’s just, I’m trying to get by, by doing these.” James again says that your brain isn’t active, then it dead.

34:06

But there’s good news, because  heart knowledge ignites our faith. It resurrects our faith, so that’s where you are today, pray. Pray because what did, what the, what was that we were talking about earlier this summer? If my people will humble themselves, call up my name, and seek my face.

34:29

God says, “If you don’t have this faith if you’re not living this faith out, you’re struggling on that. And what you need to do is you need to humble yourself.  You need to seek my face.

34:42

Maybe you have those, maybe you don’t, and you say, “Wow, this holy life? I don’t have this holy life. There’s a whole lot that I should not be doing, and I am.”  And again, that goes back to this the same issue. Same thing with crazy love.  Saying, “Wow it’s really hard for me to love that person. I really don’t love them. God is saying, “No matter what it is, it always goes back to humility and accepting the word. And if you start there, all these things will naturally pour out.

35:11

And sometimes, it’s like, it’s like growing, sometimes, you hit a point in your life. “Man, I feel like, I don’t understand why, why am I not growing in my faith anymore?”

35:24

God says, “You need to go back to the beginning. You need to humble yourself more. And as you humble yourself more, more faith comes. You never stop growing in your faith. The way you keep growing is more humility and more prayer.

35:44

So today, wherever you are, if there’s a place where you look at this word you say, “I’m looking at the mirror and my face is really dirty right now. I don’t line up.” Then the first thing to do is to get on your knees into prayer. But prayer – again, it’s an active faith – we can’t just pray.

36:09

You have to pray, “God, use me, change me, fix me.” And one way to do that is to get into community. Because we don’t have a cowboy Christianity. Our cowboy’s not like “I’m going to go it alone.I’m going to figure out everything on my own.

36:24

Our Christianity is that everyone comes together, and everyone works and helps each other and supports each other. You have to go get mentored. You have to go and be accountable to peers. You know when I was writing my sermon, if you had heard the first drafts, it was me rambling for like 30 minutes. And there was really no direction or anything.

36:49

But Pastor Tony said, “Let’s work on this.” So we sat down together we worked on it, we work through it to a point where he mentored me. He trained me on how to write a sermon. Whether I did a well or not remains to be seen. But he trained me on how to do it.

37:06

And it’s the same way our Christian life. I have two amazing mentors at Liberty University. And I go to them and say, “Hey I’m struggling with this. I’m struggling with this sin. I don’t know what to do.” And they say, “This is how we work this out, this is how we live this out.”

37:25

So to the younger Christians in the room, online, maybe what God is saying, is you need to find someone older to train you.

37:38

For the older persons in the room and online, maybe God is saying, it’s time for you to mentor people. It’s time for you to find someone who’s younger and train them up.

37:53

I don’t know where you are. I don’t know, every single thing in this sermon spoke to you or if nothing in this sermon spoke to you. But wherever you are. There’s a call that God has put in front of you.

38:11

So if you will, please join me in prayer.

38:17

Almighty Father God, again, I thank you for the opportunity to preach to my brothers and sisters here. Father, I pray that as we live our lives, our lives we filled with this active faith.  We’ll be filled this crazy love. We’ll be filled with this holy living. Father, I pray that our focus will be on you, and we will learn to humbly accept the word. Father, you’ve never given up on us, even when we walk away. Just like Abraham, you made a one way contract that says it doesn’t matter what you do, I’m going to continue to pursue you. God, that kind of love is crazy. God, I thank You for that love. I praise You for that love and I pray that it will change us to go out and live this life.

39:15

In Jesus precious name,

39:15

Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai