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

 Click here to download the sermon audio. 

On June 23, 1959, Glen Chambers arrived in the Miami Airport to board a plane that would take him to Bogota, Colombia and then to Lima, Peru.

He had gone to Bible college and raised support to be a missionary to Peru. He was so excited. As he waited for his plane he wanted to write a note to his mom. Because that’s what people did back then before cell phones and text messages and Facebook. But he didn’t have any stationary so tore off part of a page of the newspaper he was reading that had some white space and he wrote his letter, folded it up and dropped it in the mail slot before the plane took off.

He made his connecting flight in Bogota and boarded the final flight for Lima. But after his Avianca Airlines reached a cruising altitude, something happened. The plane crashed into the 14,000 foot Cerro Baco mountain. There were no survivors.

After the funeral on July 1, his mom received a letter from her dead son Glen in the mail. She opened the envelope and unfolded the note, and all she saw on the back of the corner of newspaper Glen had written on was one word in large black print—“Why?”

Isn’t that how we often respond to trials? “Why? Why me, why this, why now?”

Click here to download the sermon audio.

We just celebrated Thanksgiving. One thing I really enjoyed this year was the way many of you for the past month put things every day that you’re thankful for. What a great exercise to remind ourselves and others of how much we have and how gracious our God is.

However what I found interesting, and there’s nothing wrong with this, but almost all of the reasons for thanksgiving were blessings from God (I.e. my family, my spouse, my parents, my kids, my church, my freedom, my calling).

And all of these are excellent reasons for thanksgiving. But what I found missing (with a few exceptions) and what makes the opening of James little letter so shocking is this idea that we should be thankful for trials! Let’s look at James 1:1-4.

This election didn’t change our national conscience. It just showed us where it is. It’s not a makeover. It’s a mirror. It didn’t cause. It revealed a new moral landscape in America.

You say, “How did this happen? How did a nation that just decades ago made our national motto ‘In God We Trust’ come this far this fast?

Robert Bork in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah talks about America’s fall from within. He talks about the Great Generation of veterans who came back from WWII. Two years ago on Veteran’s Sunday we honored those WWII vets. They went over there as inexperienced kids, they came back as mature men who had seen more than anyone should have to see in a lifetime.

Because they had gone through such hardship, they came back with a great work ethic, a great spirit, a great reverence for God. And our nation became great. Their children inherited unsurpassed freedom and prosperity. But then what happened? Judge Bork calls it the vertical invasion of the barbarians.

A generation of Americans who were given everything, who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, decided to bite the hand that fed them.

They turned on their parents, on the establishment that had given them so much. They turned against the God of their Fathers and God’s boundaries for sexuality.

They turned against the very ones who had given them so much.

Proverbs 30:8-9

“…Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me [just enough; my daily bread]:

Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD?”

 
A 2009 survey by Rasmussen Reports found that…

53% of American adults believe capitalism is a better economic system than socialism.

20% say socialism is better than capitalism

27% said they don’t know which system is better.

 A couple weeks ago, we started to zoom out in our study of what the Bible says about Work, to look at work not from a microeconomic level (your job, your boss, your coworkers), but at the macroeconomic level (looking at economic structures like socialism, and in particular free market capitalism here in the US).

No one contends that Capitalism is perfect, because no economic structure will be perfect this side of heaven. When it’s operated by fallen humans. But we can’t compare it to some socialistic utopia that’s only existed in theory.

Instead when we look at actual socialistic states like the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and Cambodia—we see the terrible cost of these experiments.

So we want to compare the basic principles of capitalism with the Bible. Last time we looked at the principle, ownership, and saw that it’s inherently good. God is the first Owner. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” He approves of personal ownership when He commands us not to steal our neighbor’s property. Why? Because it belongs to him he owns it.

We’re glad you’re here for our Civil Leaders Sunday. I think it goes without saying that as Americans we don’t always have the highest opinion of our government leaders.
I heard about an Idaho sheep rancher, who was approached one day by a stranger in a suit. The stranger told the sheep rancher, “If I can guess how many sheep you have, could I have one of them?”

Thinking this was impossible the rancher agreed. “1795 sheep” the man said. The rancher was stunned, the man was right. So he said, “Take your pick.”

The man in the suit selected the animal and slung it over his shoulder and started to walk away.

The rancher then said, “Hey if I can tell you who you work for can I have that animal back?” The man in the suit said, “Okay.”

The rancher said, “You work for the government.”

The man in the suit said, “How did you know?”

The rancher said, “Put my dog down, and I’ll tell you.”

Not everyone has a high opinion of civil leaders. But our church does. Why?

There is a growing distaste among many Americans for the excesses and abuses of Big Business—from Enron and Arthur Anderson to Bernie Madoff to the bailout of the banking industry.
Some Americans even took their anger to the streets when last year on a Canadian activist group, Adbusters, that was started in 1989 created an advertising poster the got people’s attention. It was the picture of a ballerina on a Wall Street bull with the date September 17 and the Twitter hashtag “Occupy Wall Street.” “Bring tent.” And for the next few months protests erupted across the country over income inequality and wealth distribution, the 1%. Many protestors held signs that explicitly attacked Capitalism.
This evening I want to zoom out in our series on work from microeconomics to macro. We’ve been looking at work on a personal level—what does the Bible say about your job. Now we want to see what the Bible says about our economic system. Does the Bible condone or condemn Capitalism?