Sermons

The Gospel is about God restoring his broken children so that they can enjoy a right relationship with him. Parenting is an earthly demonstration of this truth, and we need to look to Jesus not only for the grace to love our children well, but to also trust that he is ultimately responsible for their souls.

When church is on Sundays we will ruin everything. James closes his letter with a look into how the Christian should understand the church. We are to be truthful with each other. We are to be praying for each other. We are to be confessing our sins to one another. We are to restore one another. In summary, we are to be the church. If we are to evolve as a church we will have to grasp the concept that Church is not on Sundays

When Jesus' return is irrelevant to our mission and community we will ruin everything. James encourages us to live like Job. That takes perseverance. James' reminds us that the story of Job promises that the Lord would be compassionate and merciful as he preserves those he has saved. A church must do everything with the coming of Christ in view. Jesus' second coming must be relevant as we work with urgency.

If we are going to plant a church that is making a big impact, we will have to make hard decisions in each of our personal lives. It doesn't seem like your one personal choice will affect the bigger plan—but when a church is full of people who are making bad stewardship choices the collective effort is ruined. When we are not intentional with our time, money and resources we will ruin everything.

It takes about 3 minutes from the birth of a church program for church people to be willing to die for a program, idea or tradition. Some of the same church people who are willing to die for a sacred cow were at one point willing to kill if the sacred cow was erected. Sacred cows become sacred because we seek our own ends and not the Lord's will. Sacred cows graze when we are not flexible to the desire of God. Sacred cows starve when a church's mission is to glorify Jesus alone. When we allow sacred cows to graze we will ruin everything.

The lead pastor of Mars Hill Church, Mark Driscoll, makes it a point of saying, "I am just a nobody, trying to tell everybody, about a somebody." This just about sums up what James is saying in these verses. We often find ourselves slandering other people rather than taking inventory in our own lives. It is very difficult to pass judgment and slander others if we have in view that we are nobody trying to tell everybody about Jesus. When we are honest with everyone but ourselves we will ruin everything.

When it is all about us we will ruin everything. For three weeks we will examine this one area in which we could ruin everything. Our mission and community cannot be about us. We must make much about Jesus. The third area we will deal with is what we are drawn too. When we stop drawing near to Jesus and drawing others to Jesus we will ruin everything.

When it is all about us we will ruin everything. For three weeks we will examine this one area in which we could ruin everything. Our mission and community cannot be about us. We must make much about Jesus. The second area we will deal with is our influence. We know that our mission is about us when we stop transforming the culture and are instead transformed by the culture.