We’ve begun a series in John 13-17, which is known as Upper Room Discourse. Here we find Jesus’ last words to His disciples before His crucifixion.

We’ve entitled our series Love Letters from Christ, because look at how Jesus begins in John 13:1: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” 

“Where is God?” is a question that’s asked during tragedies—national or personal. We especially tend to ask this question when bad things happen to “good” people. Or good things happen to bad people.
This is a question the exiled Jews in Esther’s day were asking. This is a question we often ask when we don’t see God working in obvious and spectacular ways.
But what we see in this book is that even though God is nowhere explicitly, He’s everywhere behind what we see. God is the King behind the Seen. He is providentially fulfilling His promises and purposes for His people.

Our theme for 2014 is Growing in Grace. Over the course of the year, we will be looking at the message of Grace and its profound impact on the believer’s life. While God’s grace begins at salvation, through God’s sanctifying work in the believer’s life, all Christians should Grow in Grace!

Why is your work so important? Watch or listen to the following sermons to find out why Your Work Matters:

We are excited to announce a growing archive of old messages from Pastor Leigh Crockett’s “God’s Turn” program. These messages were played on the local television networks from 1991-2009. To view the gallery of God’s Turn sermons, visit the God’s Turn Vimeo page at https://vimeo.com/godsturn/videos.

James is going to show us that our tongue, this little two ounce muscular organ, has incredible power—for good or for evil.

In WWII, Adolph Hitler used his silver tongue to turn a very advanced, very intelligent nation into a racist killing machine. And yet when it looked inevitable that the 3rd Reich would take over England. Humanly speaking what held their nation together? London had been bombed to pieces. Winston Churchill getting on the radio and the force of his words breathed hope into the hearts of the British people.

The tongue is power—for good or for evil.

On May 26, 2013, Grace Baptist Church had a special afternoon service with the four Crockett sons honoring Pastor Leigh Crockett’s entering his 30th year of ministry at Grace.

This video includes three vignettes from the three decades of Pastor Crockett’s ministry as well as testimonies from the Crockett sons and tributes from leaders across the country.

Dr. Nathan Crockett, son of Pastor Leigh Crockett, preached this message during the morning service at Grace on Sunday, May 26, 2013.

Dr. Crockett currently serves as a Bible professor at Bob Jones University. For more information about Grace, visit our website at GraceToAnderson.com.

You graduates have worked hard. And we are happy to celebrate your academic milestone with you. Even though some of us haven’t graduated from an educational institution recently, we’ve probably graduated a grade or two in “the school of hard knocks.”

One of the greatest lessons you can learn—is that you will fail. You won’t always succeed in business, in your career, in relationships, in marriage, in life. You’ll have times when you fail, when you fall flat on your face—not just physically, financially, but spiritually.

But you’ll also learn that God is a God of 2nd Chances. We saw that on Wednesday in Ps. 86. God is full of compassion and gracious, longsuffering and plenteous in mercy. He’s the God of 2nd chances.

This morning we’re going to look at the story of a woman who was given a 2nd chance and graduated from God’s school of faith.

Last week we saw an example of dead faith. This week we’re going to look at an example of living faith. And it’s related to motherhood. It’s a story about infertility.

You see Mother’s Day can be a very difficult day for women who have tried and wished and prayed to God to be mothers.

And if you’ve ever gone through that struggle, you can probably identify with the fears and doubts of Abraham and Sarah.

And yet interestingly James is going to use Abraham as an example of living faith that surrenders.

You see some of you are wondering, “Why is he talking about work again? It’s almost the beginning of summer. I’m sick of homework, seat work, school work. All I can think about is my summer vacation. How many of you kids can’t wait for school to be out? How many of you parents can wait?

Even though vacation and Sabbath are good. They are the exception, work is the rule. God is a worker. We are made to work.

God is a worker. We are made to work.

Work is not a curse from God. It is the gift of God.

When God created Paradise, he gave man a job.
You see paradise is not a vacation. Paradise is a vocation.

Is it possible to know the truth about Jesus Christ, to understand who He was and what He did, and yet not have a genuine faith in Him, just a head knowledge? Is it possible to go through some motions—bow your head, pray a prayer, walk an aisle or some other rituals, but never exercise real faith?

James was writing to converted Jews who knew a lot about ceremonies and rituals and going through the motions. They were good church people. And yet as a pastor, he was concerned that their faith was dead.

And so to make his point, he introduces a shocking comparison. Worse than comparing them to ducks, he compares them to demons.

James shows us the insufficiency of dead faith through the case study of demons.

Many years ago when the church sent our family to Disney World, I remember being overwhelmed by the Magic Kingdom. The parking lot that can hold 75,000 vehicles. The Disney characters walking down the streets. Space Mountain. But one of my favorite things was the animatronics. Back then it was country bears and the Hall of Presidents. Today they have Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean and many more.

And what was so amazing to me is how life-like these figures were. They could stand up and sit down. They could move and talk like real people. It was an amazing feat of engineering back then. People who look and act real—but they aren’t. They’re just machines with wires and hydraulics—simply programmed to do things.

They have the appearance of reality on the outside, but are really just imitations on the inside. What we’re going to see in the next few verses is that James says many professing Christians are like this. They have a form of godliness on the outside, but nothing on the inside. They claim to have faith. But their faith isn’t real. They’re not real Christians.

I wonder how many of you have worked at some kind of service job, where you were serving others? Customer service, waiting tables, servicing equipment, something in the service industry. How did people treat you?

I think the show Undercover Boss reminds us how prejudiced we are—how easily we show favoritism. Makes you think, “How would I treat the exact same person if he was wearing different clothes, a different uniform or introduced with a different title? Would I treat him with the same respect if I knew he was the CEO of my company, not just a line worker?”

We’re so easily impressed with rank and status.

We’ve seen in James 2, that prejudice is wrong because it usurps God’s glory and opposes God.

Jack was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers. His mother single-handedly raised Jack and her 4 other children.

They encountered prejudice as the only black family on their block, but it only strengthened their resolve.

#42 Jackie Robinson experienced prejudice throughout his baseball career—becoming the first player to break the Major League color barrier that segregated the sport for over 50 years.

Unfortunately prejudice is something people, even Christians, still struggle with today.

We saw last time prejudice usurps the glory of God. Because who is the glory of God? Jesus Christ. And Jesus was not a respecter of persons.

He didn’t discriminate based on age, race, gender or social status. In fact he intentionally broke down those barriers.

Not only does prejudice usurp God’s glory. Now James shows us that prejudice opposes God.

Easter, like all American holidays, quickly turns into a way for merchandisers to make money. And there’s nothing wrong with having some jelly beans, marshmallow peeps,  chocolate bunnies or Cadbury eggs. But that’s not what Easter is about.

A Sunday School teacher asked her class to write in 1 sentence “What Easter Means to Me.” One student wrote: “Egg salad sandwiches for the next two weeks!”

But Easter is about much more than eggs or chocolate. It’s about resurrection. It’s about new life. But first, it’s about death.

Pastor Josh preached this message on March 23, 2013. The message is the eighth sermon in his ongoing series from the book of James entitled, “Real Faith Works.”

In 1988, Nike began using the slogan, “Just Do It” inviting sports enthusiasts everywhere to get off the couch and get into the game. Nike wants you to get serious about your sport—running, jumping, cycling, swimming, diving, tackling or whatever it was. If they are going to sell apparel and shoes, they need you to do more than just talk about it or watch it on TV, they want you to—just do it.

James has a similar message for Christians. It’s great to receive the Word, to listen and read and memorize and even be convicted by the Word. But it’s not enough to be a mere listener, a “hearer only,” you have to be a doer of the Word.

A San Francisco motorist following a taillight in a dense fog crashed into the car ahead of him when it stopped suddenly.

“Why didn’t you let me know you were going to stop?” he yelled into the mist.

“Why should I?” came a voice out of the fog. “I’m in my own garage!”

I believe many Christians feel like they’re in fog when it comes to their work. We wonder how our career is supposed to fit with our Christianity. Is it a problem that I hate my work too much? Is it a problem that I love my work too much? What does God think about my work?

We are living during a communication explosion. We receive so much information. We process so many words, but there is one word that we truly need—the Book of all books, the very truth that came to us directly from the mind of God, His Holy Word, the Bible.

For the next section James is going to talk about the Word:

V. 18 says we were begat  by the Word of truth.

V. 21 says we need to receive the engrafted Word.

V. 22 says we need to be doers of the Word.

V. 23 again says be a doer of the Word.

V. 25 says we need to look at the perfect law of liberty—which is God’s Word.

Valentines Day seems like such an innocent holiday, with children exchanging cute cards and candy. And hearts and cupids everywhere.

And yet it can also be very depressing for singles or people who’ve become single. It’s easy for them to start counting how many years they have been Valentine-less. It’s hard for them to walk in a CVS to buy a tube of toothpaste without being overwhelmed by hearts and chocolate and sappy cards.

Of course some single people do celebrate Valentine’s Day. They call it Happy Independence Day. They’re glad not to have all the grandiose expectations that women can put onto men on this day that keeps Hallmark and flower stores in business. But for others, especially for those who’ve lost their Valentine, and are all alone, this can be one of the very difficult holidays.

A man was on a diet and struggling. He had to go downtown and as he started out, he remembered that his route would take him by the doughnut shop. As he got closer, he thought that a cup of coffee would hit the spot. Then he remembered his diet.

So he prayed, “Lord, if You want me to stop for a doughnut and coffee, let there be a parking place in front of the shop.”

A few minutes later he was eating his donut. He prayed again, “Thank you Lord for that parking place right in front—even though it was my 7th time around the block.”

James started out his letter talking about trials. But when we come to 13 we see the dark side of trials. You see the Greek word for “trials” is the same word as “temptations.”

These days the principles of American capitalism are under attack. A younger generation who have been taught by progressives and liberals in the American school system are demanding bigger government, more regulation of business, more taxes on the rich and more entitlements for the poor.

To many Americans in their 20s and 30s, “capitalism” is a dirty word. And so we’ve been looking at principles of Capitalism from the Bible to see what God’s Word says.

We all like heroes, don’t we? From the time we’re kids we think about soldiers and knights in shining armor, firefighters and superheroes who save the day. Many of us looked to our dads as our heroes.

This Thursday for my birthday, my 5 year old Karis drew a card for me on green construction paper. It was a picture of the two of us standing beside each other with some red hearts to the side.  I thought “This is pretty great— to still be my daughter’s hero.”

Then she pointed to the drawing of me, at what looked like thin white ear muffs on the side of my head. And she pointed out, “I had to use a white crayon. Because you’re old, and you have white hair.”

In our story today, we find an unlikely hero. A normal, quiet, blue collar guy. Literally an average Joe.

When you think about the Christmas story that we just heard multiple times last month, how much of the spotlight does Joseph usually get? Not much. If you watched a Christmas pageant, you may not have heard him utter a single line. The sheep baaing may have had more lines than he did.

But this morning we’re going to shine the spotlight on Joseph and see how his heroism applies to the sanctity of life.

These days capitalism is blamed for many of our economic woes. It’s not just the young people who formed Occupy Wall Street. But most Americans are fed up with executives at giant multinational corporations like Enron, WorldCom, AIG who cheat, lie and steal from workers and shareholders to the tune of billions of dollars.

Maybe we wonder: Is capitalism so great after all? Isn’t capitalism’s focus on profit the reason there’s so much greed? Doesn’t a free market cause the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer? Isn’t inequality of possessions a bad thing?

Of course capitalism isn’t perfect. It isn’t inherently Christian. In fact, we will never have a perfect economy, a perfect government, a perfect world, until Jesus comes again and makes all things new—including our hearts.

And yet the capitalist vision, though imperfect, accounts for man’s depravity and gives government a limited role to provide a check and balance on the greedy abuses of big business. So how do the principles of capitalism line up to biblical principles?

Late Friday afternoon, I was putting the finishing touches on my Christmas sermon for this morning, when I heard the tragic news from Newtown, CT, a 20 year old man gunned down his mother and her 20 six and seven year olds and several adults, before turning the gun on himself.

I don’t know how that news hit you, but for me, it hit very close to home. I’m a teacher, a school board member and a parent of a kindergartener whose bright eyes I look into every morning in the rear view mirror. I see the innocence and excitement on her face, as Karis and I drive into school every morning—singing and laughing and talking.

I can’t imagine the overwhelming grief of the parents who lost their children in such a senseless slaughter. I think this story shook our nation in a very profound way, as many of us couldn’t help but weep with those who weep in Newtown, CT. What a horror. What a tragedy.

As believers we want to make sense of this biblically? We wonder, “What does God’s Word say? How does God think about this tragedy?”

For the past few years I’ve begun my Christmas sermons with a popular Christmas song-”Silent Night,” “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” and last year “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Probably all of us have favorite Christmas songs that we enjoy hearing and singing this time of year.

This morning we’re going to look at what many have called the first Christmas song. A song that can bring peace to our worry-filled hearts.

In the first part of Luke 1, the angel Gabriel appears to two women telling them they’re pregnant. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are “well stricken in years” that phrase was used of people in their 80s, but in v. 13, Gabriel tells Zechariah his wife is expecting. Then in v. 28 Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her she will be pregnant.

Two women find out they are expecting baby boys with two different reactions. One elderly married woman who couldn’t get pregnant was told she would be. Her young unmarried cousin who shouldn’t be pregnant is told she’s about to be.

How would you react if you were Mary? She’s probably about 15 years old, and an angel pops out of nowhere and tells you you’re going to have a baby-who is the Son of God.

Like Mary, you may have a lot to worry about. And so you need to hear Mary’s song.

In verses 1-4, James led out with the paradox that believers can have joy in trials. In verses 5-8 we saw that this comes by seeing God’s wisdom—not being a double-minded minded man, but single-hearted in our trust that we serve a generous God who loves us, even in the dark.

Click here to download the sermon audio.

In verse 9 James turns our attention to a trial many of face? Money issues.

This is one of the biggest temptations that lures us into being double-minded. Jesus warned “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Now why is money so important to us? Why does money so easily become a trial for us?

Why is money the source of divorces? The source of fights? The source of so much of our worry and fear? Why does money cause us to fall into self-pity and constant complaining? Why does it cause us to envy others? Why does it lead to such bitterness in our spirit that we lose our intimacy with God