To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

Sadly, this sermon was not recorded properly and so I do not have the audio for it. Below, however, I have included my sermon notes for those interested. 6/23/13- James 3:1-12- “The Power of the Tongue” Intro: We’ve all heard the saying, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me”, but all of us have at some time or another experienced just the opposite. By show of hands, how many of us can remember something harsh said to us during childhood? Mine was three words uttered by one close to me about something I did… “that was stupid”. Proverbs 12:18 states, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” The power of the tongue can be seen in the way one unlikely German won the support of his entire nation to attempt to extinguish a whole race of people. He was not a good public speaker, so he hired a man to help him become one…this man was none other than Adolph Hitler. Context: James warns these Chri

Sermon on James 2:14-26

Sermon on James 2:1-13

It is common knowledge that if you pull up a plant from the soil so that it's roots cannot grow, that plant will die. It is only the plant that has its roots deep in the soil that will be able to produce full, delectable, and savory fruit. Yet even as all this is common knowledge, there are multitudes of people whose spiritual experience only goes so deep as a prayer they prayed when they were ten or an aisle they walked during VBS long ago while there has never been any visible fruit of a change of direction in their lives. Jesus said that not only would these people exist on the fringes of the church, but they would be convinced of their salvation apart from actually having a saving experience and that they would be eternally condemned for a failure to have ever known Christ. In James 2:14-26, the half-brother of Jesus confronts the issue of the evidence of true saving faith in our lives and tells us that such faith will produce works or it is no faith at all. " What

Sermon on James 1:19-27

We've all been there. A hot summer day when you're a kid and all your neighborhood friends gather together outside to play a nice game of football or kickball. God seems to always bless a group of friends with one particular leader of the group…usually the loud-mouthed and arrogant one, but kids are kids. The leader steps up and lays out the ground rules, then chooses you to be the other team's leader. As you and he choose from your group of friends who will be on your team, you don't even make eye contact with the short, skinny kid with glasses. It never crosses your mind to pick the chubby kid with frequent asthma attacks. You go for the tall, stronger ones and then work your way down the totem pole. Then, there's always the last kid who you're stuck choosing because he evens out the teams. Scripture tells us that God chooses the opposite way and calls us not to show favoritism or partiality toward others in return. As James teaches us from his letter t