[0:00] Good morning, everyone. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad of it. If any of the kids want to come up? This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
[0:25] Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
[0:45] This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made. Hi, I'm Linda Barzikowski. I'm a certified lay minister and lay leader of the 1115 service.
[1:03] If this is your first time here, be sure to get a welcome bag from the connection site or the Welcome and Information Center. I hope everyone will fill out their friendship card that you find in the bulletin.
[1:14] If you have any updated information, please be sure to fill out the card with your address and phone number. If you'd like to receive the newsletter, we ask that you do the same.
[1:25] On the back, there's a section for prayer requests, blessings, or notes to the staff. If you'd like them to stay confidential, we can do that too. We hope that you enjoy the service and have a wonderful day.
[1:39] It is good to have you here in worship this morning. There are two opportunities for ministry going around on our clipboards. One is to help with things in service, and there's only one of those clipboards. So if you want to help with communion or flowers or things like that, they're going to go around wherever they happen to go.
[1:54] I try to start them on a different side. The second one, you're kind of doing me a favor because we were supposed to have somebody here to sell some of the chicken barbecue tickets for our sister church in Niagara Falls. The barbecue they're having today, and something happened and they couldn't make it.
[2:08] So I have no tickets. So this is what I did. I made a clipboard. I apologize. I don't normally do this. I made a clipboard. They will deliver the chicken barbecues here at 2 o'clock.
[2:19] So if you want chicken barbecue for lunch, just sign up on the sheet, and we'll send in the orders, and you can take care of figuring out how to pay for them at 2 o'clock. Okay? I want to make another. Yes, ma'am.
[2:31] $10. $10. That's on the sheet too, and that's actually the pre-sale price. So if you sign up today, I call that pre-sale. That's kind of how that works. So you will find in your bulletin another announcement that I wanted to just make personally so you hear it.
[2:47] Over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of conversations about how many worship services and what should be our schedule on Sunday morning. A number of years ago, our schedule was two worship services with Sunday school between them.
[2:59] And we drifted around for a while until we ended up with three worship services for people's convenience. But what we've discovered is that wears out our worship people, and it's also causing a lot of the people who want to lead Sunday school to choose between whether they're going to be in worship or they're going to be leading Sunday school.
[3:15] And we've discovered that's not healthy for a lot of people, especially a lot of our teenagers who are involved in the Sunday school. So starting this fall, we're going to be having two services that I'll be leading in worship, and we have Sunday school in between.
[3:28] You can take a look at that. If you have questions or thoughts about it, you can let me know. There will be a junior church for the littlest ones within the worship service, but we're going to do Sunday school between the services. So I just want to let you know that.
[3:39] It's a month away, but if you want to talk to me about it, feel free to do so. Shall we turn to the Lord in prayer? Dear God, there are so many things that rush through our mind when we come to worship you. Some of them are good, and some of them are not.
[3:52] Some of them keep us from worshiping as we should, and some of them draw us away from you. Push those out of our hearts and our lives and our minds today, Lord, and help us to simply focus on you.
[4:06] And let your spirit bless us and touch us and move us in this place so that we can experience a living God. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I'd like to invite you, if you're able, to stand as we're going to sing together, Jesus, united by thy grace.
[4:22] Jesus, united by thy grace, And each to each endeared, With confidence we seek thy place, And know our prayer is heard.
[4:51] Help us to help each other, Lord, Each other's cross to bear. Let all their friendly aid afford, And feel each other's care.
[5:10] Touched by the giving of thy love, Let all our hearts agree, And ever toward each other move, And ever move toward thee.
[5:28] This is the bond of perfectness, Thy spotless charity. Hold on us till we pray, The mind that was in thee.
[5:48] The Lord be with you. Take a moment, if you will, And greet your neighbor with the peace of the Spirit. Children come up and join us now, The children are invited to join us.
[6:16] Good morning.
[6:30] How are you guys doing this morning? Anybody know what this is? A tin can? Looks kind of like a tin can, doesn't it?
[6:41] It's got some weird handles on it. And you know what it does? It sticks to metal. It's kind of cool, isn't it? But that's not what it is.
[6:52] You know what it is? It's a light. Yeah, it didn't look like a light, did it? It didn't look like a light at all, But it was. You know, there's a lot of things That are like that in life.
[7:04] They might look like one thing, But they're actually something else. But what we find in the world Is some people are that way. They might say one thing in one place, Or do something somewhere else. But what we really need them to do Is to be the light of God every place, right?
[7:18] Even if sometimes they need to keep it a little quiet Until they're ready to. To show everybody what they are, okay? Just like that.
[7:30] It's cool, isn't it? Yeah. What are you guys thankful for this morning? Anybody want to share anything? My Friends and loved ones.
[7:45] My family. Food. Family and friends. All right. Lord, we thank you for our family. We thank you for our friends. We thank you for the blessings you give to us.
[7:57] And we pray that in all things And in every way, You'll touch us and be with us. And help our light to shine to all the world. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay.
[8:07] You guys can go out to church school now. The kids are all invited to go out to church school. Good morning.
[8:27] Well, I am grateful to be back, Although I won't be here next Sunday. No, I was in the falls because Pastor Gene was on vacation for the last two weeks. And this week, I'm on vacation. So, yeah.
[8:38] But things will get back to normal soon, right? I am just so, I was so blessed. I was here on Wednesday to just be hanging out and checking out what was going on with all the vacation Bible school stuff.
[8:51] There were kids everywhere. There were adults everywhere. It was amazing and wonderful. And I got a count of 231 children at BBS. It was just the most amazing thing.
[9:03] And I've heard from people, a couple of people this morning even, Just saying what a wonderful time their children had. And that they were blessed to have been part of vacation Bible school. And that's just a wonderful thing to know, isn't it?
[9:16] It's a great, wonderful thing. As we continue to worship God and give thanks to God for all the ways our God has blessed us, let's return our gifts, our tithes, and our offerings to the Lord.
[9:27] Amen. We are looking for a city that's not made by human hands.
[9:54] We are looking for a city people call the promised land. Because in this life we're pilgrims looking for our final home.
[10:06] Ever looking for the city of the Lord. We are listening for the trumpet. How we long to hear its sound.
[10:19] We are listening for the trumpet. From the hills it will resound. Then we all will rise to meet Him. Yes, we'll meet Him in the air.
[10:33] When we hear the trumpet of the Lord. Each day brings us one step closer to the coming of the Lord.
[10:45] He promised to return again. It's written in His Word. He gave His Word, His Holy Word.
[10:57] We are waiting for the bridegroom. Waiting for our wedding day. We are waiting for the bridegroom. He'll lift the church away.
[11:09] We will hold our invitation. We'll be dressed in spouse's wife. At the wedding supper of the Lamb of the Lamb.
[11:24] We're waiting for the bridegroom. Listening for the trumpet. Looking for the city of the Lord.
[11:35] Home andается realize the He takes home at Heimat Amen.
[12:24] Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks and praise for this day and that we may gather together and worship you. We've come to hear from you, Lord.
[12:34] We've come to offer ourselves before you. We ask that you bless all that we offer you this day. Give us wisdom to know how to use all of the gifts you've given us to reach those who are in need of knowing you, to grow in your grace and your mercy, to be a help wherever it is that help is needed.
[12:58] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. We have a number of concerns that we want to bring before the Lord along with those joys that we have.
[13:13] Kevin Childs is hospitalized with an infection right now and Sharon Hendages has broken her foot and she's going to be out of commission for several weeks. Ed Simpson had successful bypass surgery on Friday.
[13:25] He's recovering. So a joy that he's gone through this successful surgery, but prayers for his continued recovering. George Minor, who is Heather Minor's father-in-law, was hospitalized with a blood infection.
[13:39] We want to keep him in our prayers. He's going to be going to rehab. Renee Lawrence is having back surgery tomorrow. We want to keep her and her family in our prayers. And Adrienne Demmon and her family.
[13:50] Two of her aunts passed away this week. We want to make sure and keep her and her family in our prayers. And Michael, who is related to Arlene Morong, 29 years old, is going to Roswell.
[14:06] And so we want to be keeping Michael and Arlene in our prayers. With these concerns, and those that are on your hearts as well, whether you join me from your seats or at the rail, let's turn to the Lord in prayer.
[14:19] Amen. Heavenly Father, what a beautiful morning it is and how grateful we are to be able to come before you.
[14:44] When your people pray, Lord, according to what your Spirit tells us to pray and how you move in our hearts, we know that you hear us.
[14:54] We know that you answer us. We know that we're participating with you in restoring the world to the way you intended it to be from creation.
[15:08] We're grateful to be part of that process, Lord. Lord, and so we lift up all of your children, all of the people of this world who are in need of healings of all kinds, those we have mentioned and those who are in our hearts that have not been, whose names have not been spoken out loud.
[15:27] Lord, we pray that you will touch them and make them whole in their spirits, in their souls, and in their bodies. Give wisdom to their doctors and nurses and caregivers that they could be made whole in Jesus' name.
[15:45] Lord, there are many who are grieving losses. We pray, Lord God, that you would comfort their hearts, draw near to them by your Holy Spirit.
[15:59] Let them know your presence. Help them to have the hope of salvation and eternal life in you. Help them to trust all of the promises that you have made, even as they get used to life here in this place without those they love.
[16:26] Lord God, we hear of so many things happening in our world, in our communities, in our nations. People acting out in violence because they are just disgruntled with the way that their lives are because they have differences that they cannot seem to resolve because they are in pain.
[16:53] Father, we ask in Jesus' name that you would quiet the hearts of the people. Draw them by your grace into your presence.
[17:07] Let them see the hope you offer. Let them see, Lord, that you are love and that it's only by your love coming into their hearts and into their lives that they can be satisfied here.
[17:28] Be with us, Lord. Fill our hearts with your love, with a fresh infilling of your Holy Spirit so that we can carry your light into this world so that when people see us, they see Jesus and they will be drawn to you.
[17:54] Be with us as we worship. Allow the music and the prayers and the word as it's spoken, the message Pastor Tom has for us this day. Let it all wash over us and transform us, making us a little bit more like Jesus, a little more perfect in the love that you have poured out into our lives.
[18:17] in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Shall we hear from the word of the Lord?
[18:45] Good morning. Today's reading is from James, chapter 2, verses 14 to 16. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims has faith but no deeds?
[19:01] 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?
[19:17] In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. If someone will say, you have faith and I have deeds, show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
[19:32] You believe that there is one God. Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. Foolish person. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
[19:46] Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did.
[20:00] And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
[20:16] In the same way, not even Rahab, the prostitute, considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction.
[20:26] As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you. This morning we're continuing this sermon series on what makes Methodists different from other religions and other faiths.
[20:51] And this one is something that makes us different but the same. In verse 14 it says, what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such faith save them?
[21:05] In the book of Luke, a young man came to Jesus and asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What do I need to do? What do I need to be? Well, let's see what you think.
[21:16] We're going to do a little quiz. You know how this goes. We've been doing it for a few weeks now. Take out a little piece of paper when you brought with you or when you take from somewhere else and write down A, B, C, or D. Or you can send it to pendletonchurch.org.
[21:30] A, should you have faith in God? Or B, eat dark chocolate and salads? Or C, should you be a good person and help others?
[21:42] Or D, should you have your mind downloaded into a powerful computer? What do you need to do to inherit eternal life? A, B, C, or D. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out one answer or another.
[21:53] Just pass that to the middle and they'll come around with a basket and pick it up for you. There are different kinds of churches and different ways in which they actually have brought people to Jesus over the years.
[22:11] Some churches do it by biological growth. They just have babies. And that worked for some denominations for a number of years where they just had babies. And if you have enough babies, your church will have enough people in it.
[22:25] Others did it by conquest, honestly. They sent the armies into the world. And eventually, the clergy went with them. The Methodist church has always been what they call an evangelical faith.
[22:38] We believe that it's our job to take the good news of God to other people. That's what it really means to be evangelical, is to share the good news, the grace of God with others, to bring them closer to God.
[22:52] In fact, our United Methodist Upper New York Conference says that our whole purpose is to make disciples for the transformation of the world. Now, for some people, that's easy.
[23:04] And some people, well, not quite so easy. So I went on a mission trip a few weeks ago. You've heard a little bit about that. I want to tell you about a woman named Helen. You see, the first night of a mission trip, we have to go around to all the different projects, partly to meet the people, but partly to see what we're doing and figure out how many people we need, how much stuff we need, what can we get to, what could we do, what can't we do.
[23:28] And well, we went after dinner, and it was quite a lot of people that seemed to be a long distance from each other and were wandering and wandering to these different places. And so the last one we decided to go to was Helen's Place.
[23:40] It was a trailer out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, sitting on this piece of land, and we pulled into the driveway, and she came out of the house, and she said, well, it's about time you got here.
[23:51] Where the heck you been? What took you so long? I said, well, we did have to travel quite a distance to get here. Well, how far did you have to come? I said, well, we came from north of Buffalo.
[24:03] No, you didn't. Come on, tell the truth. Where'd you come from? Well, a little north of Buffalo is where we were this morning. So it took us a little while to get here, Helen.
[24:15] I don't know who you are or where you came from anyways or how you got my name. Well, let's talk about what I need done. Okay. Could tell that Helen was going to be an interesting project.
[24:30] Needless to say, some people are like that. It's not always so easy to share God with other people, but we know that what we bring is the good news, that God can change our lives, that God can take all the brokenness, all the pain, all the hurt, all the things that put us in a bad place and remove them from our lives.
[24:53] In the book of Romans, it says to us, for all have sinned, every one of us, and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
[25:05] Every person, every person can be saved by the grace of God. The grace of God is very simple. It just means that if we trust in God, he will give us a gift called forgiveness.
[25:20] If we love God, God will love us back by forgiving everything we've ever done wrong. Not something we earn, not something we can buy, not something we can somehow come up with in some other way or make a claim like this man wanted to inherit it, but something that we can have given to us.
[25:39] That's what grace means. It's a gift. And all our sins, all that's wrong, all that's broken, is forgiven. That's the heart of the Christian faith.
[25:51] And it's the greatest gift that God gives to us. Amen? Amen? The blessing of life is that God says, you get a mulligan. If you're not a golfer, that means you get to swing again.
[26:03] All right? I swing again a lot. Some people ask me if I'm a golfer. I just say I have clubs. There's a difference. Okay? You get a do-over.
[26:13] God says, let's try it again and we won't hold any of that against you. But faith is more than just an idea, more than just a thought.
[26:24] While it's important that we turn our minds to God, God wants something a little more from us. In that same passage where the man said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
[26:36] Jesus answered, well, what's written in the law? How do you read it? And the man answered, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourselves.
[26:50] Most of you know that law, right? The two great commandments of God. Love God. But not just with your heart or your mind or your soul or your strength. All of them. Do them all.
[27:02] It's not just whether or not we worship God in the sanctuary on Sunday morning. It's not whether we just have an idea in our mind. It's not just that we have relationships with other Christians and get along.
[27:13] Well, it's that we've been changed. And our actions are changed with it. James, in my mind, is the patron saint of the Methodist church.
[27:27] Nobody's ever said that. I just believe that. He's the guy who says what we are more than anyone. Your faith has to be accompanied by actions or else, he says, it's not real.
[27:43] It's dead. Yes. Now, for some people, they can speak a good faith. They're good at talking about God. For other people, they have to actually go do it.
[27:55] Show their faith. And so, James gives us a couple of examples. It wasn't that Abraham went and proclaimed his faith in God. It's that he did what God told him to do. And he was declared righteous by what he had done.
[28:10] It wasn't that Rahab, who was a prostitute, was such a wonderful, perfect person that did everything right and had great faith in some particular theological concept which she had never heard.
[28:21] It's that she did what was faithful before God. We do that. Methodists are a part of that.
[28:32] We are as a church. We don't just do mission trips. We feed people in Buffalo, at Seneca Street, over in Niagara Falls, at First Church. We send out aid and help the people all over the world in Nicaragua and flood zones.
[28:47] And wherever we can, we find a way to help. We even send little shoeboxes to children. In verse 18, James said, someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds.
[29:00] Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by what I do. The Methodist church has always been an evangelical church that believes we need to share the gospel, the good news, that God will forgive our sins, the grace of God, but also that that should be proved in actions.
[29:17] So the very first church in the Methodist system, the very first church John Wesley had was in an old factory. It actually was a foundry that had been used to make cannons and had been laying in waste for nearly a hundred years because people had died tragically there and so John could buy it for a low cost and he fixed it all up, made it into a church, a chapel that held fifteen hundred people.
[29:45] A lot of people like to hear what John had to say. But it wasn't just a place where people came to worship God. They came to have their medical needs met. They came to get food.
[29:58] They came to get help. See, a lot of the people attracted to the Methodist church back then were not exactly what you'd call the higher class of the culture. They were people that were addicted to drugs and alcohol.
[30:12] They were people that were having trouble with their relationships. They were people who were demonized by all sorts of past history. They were people that were out of work, people that were hungry, people that were broken.
[30:26] They were so broken that the Methodists were not really welcome in the Anglican church where John Wesley was a priest. That's why he built the foundry.
[30:37] But they didn't just need a place to go worship God. They needed a place that would fix their lives and the Methodists did. And a lot of people got their lives turned around and changed and transformed and became healthy.
[30:50] They went to work and they got jobs and they reached out to help somebody else and pull them up as well. Because faith is more than a belief. It's more than a way of thinking.
[31:03] It's a way of life. It's not offering the bread of heaven alone, but the bread of earth as well. Both and has always been a Methodist idea.
[31:18] Because faith without actions is not only a problem for us, it's a problem for others. You foolish person, James says, you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Useless!
[31:29] Faith without any real action is not only useless and foolish, it can be damaging. After we were with Helen for a little bit, she started telling us her story.
[31:44] Helen originally was from Brooklyn. You could tell that when she opened her mouth to talk. So picture a Brooklyn accent on Helen. She's a tough little lady of 84 years of age.
[31:57] She lived in a little trailer with very little possessions. What had happened was she came from Florida. She said, I used to live in a penthouse. But my husband lost money in a business deal and so we moved up here and he bought this acreage, about 15, 20 acres, and he was going to build these cabins in the back and he would sell them off and then we would have enough money to live in one of them ourselves.
[32:25] So that was the plan and they took the money they had and they bought this beat up old trailer, put it on a piece of property, moved in and the next day Helen's husband died.
[32:37] That was probably 30, 40 years ago. She's a middle-aged woman with no kids and no husband and no income living in a beat up old trailer in the middle of upstate New York.
[32:55] She tried her best to do what she could. She didn't have a car so she told us that she walked to the grocery store. You know the grocery store was at least 10, 15 miles away?
[33:07] She walked to the grocery store. She was younger then. She could do it. But what bothered her was that her neighbors would see her and wave and keep driving.
[33:20] Sometimes she'd go on a Sunday and they were driving to and from church and she'd be carrying the grocery bags back home and they'd wave to her, hi Helen, and keep driving. Do you want evidence that faith without any actions is not only dead, it's hurtful.
[33:39] It's hurtful. It's painful and it causes people to have resentment and people to have attitudes like Helen did where she just didn't trust and didn't know what to think of us. She called up Pastor Sherry because we hadn't shown up on Tuesday and said, where the heck are you and what kind of scam are you pulling on me anyways?
[33:57] Because as far as she was concerned, the world was out to get her and everybody was trying to take advantage of her and people just showing up from north of Buffalo to fix her house was nuts. It's hard.
[34:13] You see, it's not just me and my Jesus. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
[34:24] sometimes Christians forget about that. In that same passage from Luke with that young man, he wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus, so who's my neighbor? Are there the people that live next to me?
[34:38] We had a whole crew painting what we called the White House. It was a big, big White House. Tucker declared himself El Presidente because he worked at the White House.
[34:48] But the interesting thing is there was a lady in the house next door who was so excited to see the house that looked so bad start to look so good that she brought over molasses cookies for the kids to eat.
[35:03] The kids ate the cookies and they went over to visit and they realized that the house next door was just as bad as the house they were working on. And they came back and they said, Pastor Tom, can we paint that house too?
[35:15] It's Thursday, guys. We can't take anymore. Can we at least paint her porch? I said, well, of course you can.
[35:26] See, if you can picture this dark, dreary, kind of cruddy-looking house with the brightest, most beautiful painted porch in the world. It was pretty amazing, wasn't it, Pete?
[35:42] It just shined. Well, is that our neighbor? Of course it is. Should we help our neighbor? Should we help the people that live next to us? Of course we should. But a neighbor is somebody more than that.
[35:54] In verse 15, James says, suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. Would you leave your family alone? Would you let them starve?
[36:05] Would you let them have no clothes? Is that what you do with your family? What kind of animals are we that we wouldn't take care of our own people, our own folks that live in our own world? Of course we take care of our family.
[36:17] But we call ourselves brothers and sisters in the church, the family of God. Do we take care of them as well? I know we have the Good Samaritan Fund, which is a wonderful thing. We help out people. But sometimes people need more than that.
[36:32] They're in a crisis and they just need a hand. Has it ever happened to you? It's happened to me. I was actually the pastor out in Wyoming County and my sister-in-law, 36 years old, died in Florida.
[36:46] And my wife and I are like, what do we do? I'm making $80 a week. You don't go very far on $80 a week. And we shared it as a prayer concern, not the money part, just that our Jackie's sister had died.
[37:02] Some lady comes up and says, here, gave us $500. We're like, what? You can't do that. She says, I've got it. You need it. We're family.
[37:15] I know we can't do that for everybody we see, but from time to time, can we do that for someone? Can we share that kind of love like a family would? Now, Jesus was once asked when he was in a gathering of people who his brothers and sisters were and he said, my brothers and sisters are whoever does the will of God.
[37:36] Luke, Jesus says it this way. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?
[37:48] Even sinners do that. Everybody takes care of people that are nice to them and good to them and friends with them. But what about people that aren't? Now, that passage goes on to say, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
[38:02] Now, that's just off the edge, isn't it? That's just, how do you do that? That young man asked Jesus, who's my neighbor? And Jesus answered, there is a man who was going from Jericho to Jerusalem.
[38:16] You may have heard this story. And some guys beat him up and left him for dead on the side of the road, took all his stuff, stripped him of his clothes. And it says, along came a priest, you know, somebody like me.
[38:28] We don't know what they were thinking, but they were probably in a hurry to get to a church meeting or something. So they walked on the other side of the road and did nothing. And then somebody who worked at the church, what they called a Levite back then, came by and we're not sure exactly why they did what they did.
[38:44] Maybe they saw what the priest did and figured they'd follow him, so they went on the other side too. And then along came, now I won't name anybody because I got in trouble for that last night, but imagine the person that you can't stand the most, the person you consider your enemy or you consider to be your adversary or somebody you're just angry with or upset about, who's hurt you, who's mean, who's nasty, who's scary.
[39:06] That's the person who came along because they didn't like Samaritans at all. They considered that they weren't even a healthy group of people. One of them came along.
[39:18] The person you like the least that you don't want, you can't, came along and saw you in the ditch, picked you up, bound up your wounds, took you in an inn, paid for your stay with their own money.
[39:35] And he said, who's the neighbor in this case? Would we ever really do that? There was one guy who was doing it with several people.
[39:48] It was a social experiment. He wanted to see what would happen because you know you feel like if you ever give money to people who are on the streets, it's going to go right to a bottle of booze, right, so you don't want to, so he wanted to see what would happen.
[39:58] So he started giving out money. This is one of his. This is one of his. number of people is because Delta is Kentucky.
[40:34] It's the only one of their DON is out there particularly in March Friday they must have two минут wasn't that serious that would happen.
[40:47] Again, then you're over during summer and down the whole time that they will have their same Breathing on the trail So did he buy booze or drugs or something bad?
[41:08] No, he went to Target and got some things he needed. By the way, did you see him? It looked to me like he thanked God, didn't it? Looked that way anyways. Verse 24, James says, You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do, not by their faith alone.
[41:25] Oh, that's fighting words in some Protestant circles. We're saved by faith alone. And yes, you will not earn salvation. You will not earn eternity by what you do.
[41:38] But what you do does matter. Is Christ really alive in you? A lot of people who practice the Christian religion, they got the words down, they got the actions down.
[41:52] They may even come to church and sit in the pews. They might even do some things, but they don't really have Jesus alive in their hearts. Because if you have Christ alive in you, it will change who you are, what you are, from the inside out.
[42:08] I took my tools with me. I got a really neat set of tools that I got at Sears before they went bankrupt, you know. It's a great little set, you know, the portable ones with the batteries, click them in.
[42:21] I've got a Sawzall. I've got a rip saw. I've got drills. I've got a flashlight, you know. And I got down there, and I was so excited, a trunk full of tools.
[42:32] Went to pull out my tools and realized there's one thing I forgot. The batteries. So I got a trunk full of useless tools. We got to Helen's house, and we had a, I say we, one of the teenagers did it.
[42:45] I didn't. Had to crawl back. I couldn't fit. Back behind the trailer in a dark little spot. And I'm thinking, I need a light. I need a light. But I left my batteries home. I don't have my flashlight.
[42:56] Then I remembered, my wife gave me a light. Cool. I didn't have batteries for it. But Helen did. And we made it work.
[43:10] See, it's not, it's not the tool. It's the power within them. You take away the power, and they're worth nothing. I took a whole trunk full of useless tools.
[43:21] I couldn't do a thing with them. And sometimes that's what I think people are like. With no power.
[43:33] As the body without the spirit is dead, James says, faith without deeds is dead. A body without the spirit's a useless corpse. And religion without a power that changes who we are and what we are to the point that it changes our actions and what we do.
[43:51] It's useless as well. People who have Christ aren't people who think about helping. Aren't people who go out and look for it.
[44:02] They just do it. In Matthew, Jesus had that parable about the sheep and the goats. And he separated them out. And he said, you know, I was in need and you helped me. And the other ones, he said, I was in need and you didn't help me at all.
[44:15] And they both said the same thing. When did we see you hungry or thirsty or in need of a visitor or down on your luck and help you out? And he said, when you did it for the people I made in my image, you did it for me.
[44:27] When you did it for any of these people, you did it for me. What a friend we have in Jesus. Do we really? Not if it doesn't change who we are.
[44:38] God removes our sin through faith. But faith needs to change us and it's proved out in its actions. Let's see what you did with the quiz. Have faith in God. There you go. That's the quintessential Christian answer.
[44:52] Good job. B, five of you think if you eat dark chocolate, you'll be good to go. Or maybe it's the salads. I'm not sure. Got a lot of accidents in there. 41 said, be a good person and help others.
[45:04] And two of you think that you really just need to find a powerful computer to download yourself into. Could be coming. You never know. Got a scary world. Here's the interesting thing because really it's AC.
[45:16] Do you follow? It's not either or. It's both and. If you really have A, it should lead to C. And if it doesn't lead to C, you don't have A. That's really what it comes down to.
[45:29] That's what James is telling us. Real faith, genuine faith, changes us, our priorities from the inside out. You see, James says, that faith and actions are working together.
[45:42] And faith is made complete by what we do. We're really committed to Jesus. If we're really filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, it should change our actions.
[45:57] This guy needed food. If you see somebody, he says, who needs food? What do you do for them? Can you imagine somebody without food? Have you ever had somebody say, I'm hungry to you?
[46:10] I've had people say that. And you think, I'm not giving you any money. I remember I had one guy downtown and he was asking for, he said, I'm hungry. I need lunch. And I said, where do you want to go to eat? And we walked into a restaurant and he made his order and I paid the bill and he was really hungry.
[46:25] I felt good that I fed him. My goodness, I don't want anybody to go to hungry. Do you want anybody to go hungry? No. We're so worried we're going to get taken advantage of.
[46:36] But first thing we should be saying is, what can we do? Because, you know, I wonder sometimes, have you ever read that verse on the back wall? Whether we're entertaining angels unaware. Whether God's sending his secret agents to see what we will do.
[46:51] When we're pushed. Helen, evidently, is quite poor. She has a neighbor that turned out to be a real friend. She said he shovels off her roof and from time to time he comes to help with little projects.
[47:05] And he showed up one day with a box of food. You know the kind of food you get from a food pantry or you get from some place where they give out food, right? And we were sitting down to lunch and doesn't Helen come out with that box of food?
[47:20] And start handing out her food to us. All the little things that were special in it. Anything that looked like a cookie or a cracker or something that a kid would eat. Just handing them out. She had a whole box of combos.
[47:34] Well, they weren't combos. They were generic combos. They were probably out of date too, but that's another story. The point is she shared her lunch. And while we sat there having lunch, something amazing happened.
[47:49] Because what we did this year that was different is we had devotions in the morning. We thought that would be good to start the day with devotions. But Pastor Sherry realized that was getting us out on the properties too late. So she said, you know what?
[48:01] Just do your devotions at lunch. And so there we were sitting around having lunch with Helen and we said, oh, we've got to do devotions. So I hope you don't mind, Helen, but we've got to read this Bible story and we've got to talk about it.
[48:13] I don't mind. Let's just do that then. And the next thing you know, we're talking to Helen about Jesus. Because the amazing thing is A should lead to C.
[48:27] But sometimes C, doing the right thing, being loving, leads to A. God has called us to bring light in the darkness.
[48:38] God has called us to share that transformation. Making disciples for the transformation of the world. And don't we need a transformation in our world?
[48:50] People driving cars into folks. People carrying around shields in our cities and attacking each other. Pastor Lisa prayed, we need to quiet our hearts.
[49:03] And I thought, yes, we definitely do. We're so worried about whether or not we're going to get our piece of flesh. We're going to get our idea. We're going to make our thing work.
[49:14] That we're hurting people. We're retaliating. We're bringing judgment. I hate to say it. Sometimes it's people that call themselves Christians. We have enough hate in the world.
[49:28] We need something different. James says to us, someone will say you have faith. I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds. And I'll show you my faith by what I do.
[49:41] People won't care what we know until they know that we care. Because love changes everything. That guy took the experiment one step farther.
[49:51] Remember, he came by and he gave money and the guy went to Target? Well, he came back to his little park bench there with his stuff. And so the guy came by and sat down to have a conversation. Like, I don't know what to do anymore, dude.
[50:04] Like, completely lost. I have no money on me right now. She's really sick and she really needs the medicine. That's the thing. It's like, seriously sucks living paycheck to paycheck when you don't have enough money for your daughter's medicine. And you can't really do anything.
[50:15] You know what I mean? It's like, I'm so lost right now, dude. Just let me know if you can, you know, help out with any money, dude. Because I really need to get my daughter medicine, dude. But, yeah, I'll hit you up later, man. All right. All right. Peace, man. Peace. Peace. God.
[50:29] What do I do? You all right, babe? Huh? Okay. Yeah, I just need to get my daughter medicine. And it's like, I don't know what to do, man. Like, I don't have the money.
[50:41] I didn't like a sucker, right? Huh? I don't even talk about it. Yeah, I know. It sucks so badly. You know, it's like, she depends on me, you know, to get the medicine, too. And it's like, I don't know what to do, you know?
[50:52] I can't get her medicine, you know? It's so bad. Get the air in it. Huh? Get the air in it. Get the air in it. Yeah, I'm over here the whole time. Let's rush my backpack for me. Yeah, I got you.
[51:03] I'll be right back. Okay. Okay. Hey, sir, what's up?
[51:17] How you feeling? Huh? How you feeling? I'm feeling good, man. I'm still trying to figure it out, you know? I have your backpack. I'm still trying to figure it out and everything, you know what I mean? I managed to drop a little bundle right now.
[51:29] Oh. What happened to your bags? I just took them back from where I got. It's Target over there. Ah. I had a few things that... Oh, did you get something from Target?
[51:40] Yeah. What happened? Blankets and a cologne. Blankets and cologne? Yeah. Okay. I had to get by without him now, but he seemed to be in a little more trouble than I was, so...
[51:53] There. So you return... Yeah. I want you to take care of your daughter. You return... Yeah. You return your pillows, your sleeping bags, just give me, my daughter, my medicine? Yeah. Yeah.
[52:03] Why would you do that, though? You didn't have to do that. I'm pretty stressed out, you know? I can remember plenty of times. Don't you need that stuff, though? I'll get by without it. I'll get by. I'll be okay.
[52:15] But don't you need this money? You can get something to eat. I'll get something to eat. I'll get something to eat. It'll come up. And how long has it been since you're ate, though? Yesterday.
[52:27] Yeah. You don't have a pillow or a blanket or a house to live in, and you haven't eaten since yesterday.
[52:39] Would you give your money away to some guy whose daughter needs medicine? I hope it's not going to be the people at the bottom of our world that are going to put us to shame for what we need to be.
[53:00] God wants us to be a light to the world. Show that we love. Not hate. Not judge. Not criticize. Not sound somehow like it's all about us.
[53:14] But share the grace. And make disciples of Jesus Christ, which will transform the world. I didn't get to be there the third day with Helen because I had to go to a different site.
[53:27] But the second day, at the end of the day, Helen had gotten so excited about these kids that were working with her that she went to her house and started looking around for things to give them. They came out with two old dog beds.
[53:41] I'm like, really? They thought they were the greatest treasures in the world. They had dog beds for their dogs. And Helen felt like she had done something incredible by sharing a gift to say thank you.
[53:57] And her face wasn't mean or nasty or angry. It lit up. That's what God wants you to do. If you have real faith, go light the world.
[54:09] There is a candle in every soul.
[54:35] Some brightly burning. Some dark and cold. There is a spirit who brings a fire.
[54:50] He lights a candle and makes his own. Sparing our candle. Run to the darkness.
[55:03] Take out the hopeless. Unused and torn. Hold out your candle.
[55:15] For all to see it. Take your candle. Go light your world. Take your candle.
[55:30] Go light your world. Frustrated brother. See how he's tried to.
[55:44] Light his own candle. Some other way. Some other way. See now your sister. She's been rock and light too.
[55:57] Still holds a candle. Without a flame. Take your candle. Take your candle. Take your candle.
[56:08] Run to the darkness. Take your candle. Take your candle. Take your candle.
[56:45] Take your candle. We are a family. We are a family whose hearts are blazing. So let's raise our candles Light up the sky Pray to our Father In the name of Jesus Make us a beacon In darkness night Bury our candle Run to the darkness Seek out the helpless Be safe and poor Pull out your candle For all to see it Take your candle Go light your wood Carry our candle
[57:45] Run to the darkness Seek out the hopeless Seek out the hopeless Confused and torn Pull out your candle For all to see it Take your candle Go light your candle Go light your world Take your candle Go light your world In the streets of every village Every city Every city In the streets of every village Every city Soaring town
[58:45] Every people live in darkness Every minute Every hour In the cry of desperation From a million broken hearts Will they be so great When will we even start Let it start with me Open up my eyes Open up my eyes You're my heart And your compassion Free my mind From all distractions Here's my hand Set the captive free Who I need to follow Who I need to follow After you Go change the world And let it start with me God with me You're giving us the orders
[59:51] There's a place for everyone I don't want to miss my mission And the plans that you've begun Who I need to follow Who I need to follow Who I need to follow Who I need to follow To the edges of it all To change everything That leaves me from your call Let it start with me Open up my eyes Fill my heart with your compassion Free my mind From all distractions Here's my hand Set the captive free Move my heart with your heart Move my heart with your heart Move my heart with your heart Move my heart with your heart Move my heart with your heart Oh, change the world And let it start with me Take my life All that I have called my own Everything I am goes alone
[60:57] Let it start with me Let it start with me Open up my eyes Fill my heart with your compassion Free my mind from all distractions All distractions Use my hands Use my hands Set the captive free Set the captive free Set the captive free Move my heart with your heart And let it start with me Move my heart Move my heart with your compassion Fill my mind from all distractions Use my hands And let it start with me Open up my eyes Fill my heart with your compassion Fill my mind from all distractions Fill my mind from all distractions Put yours that With my heart with your heart Hold my heart with your heart Help my heart with your heart If my heart is set the captive free Move my heart with your heart Put my heart with your heart Let it start with you Oh, change the world And let it start with you Let it start with me
[62:01] Amen. Please be seated.
[62:18] Oh, I want to help people. I see I'm hurting in the world around me, but I'm in a hurry. Or I'm afraid I'm going to get taken advantage of or somebody's going to do something to me to hurt me.
[62:29] You know what I've discovered is helping out people in need usually costs me 20 bucks. I can afford 20 bucks. If I get taken advantage, at least God saw what I was doing.
[62:41] Amen? I just, sometimes I feel like I just come up short. I just let that selfishness in me start to focus my life.
[62:53] We've all sinned, it says, and fallen short of the glory of God. The good news where we began is that Jesus said he will forgive everything we've ever done wrong and give us a fresh start. So let's not look at yesterday.
[63:05] Let's start living into tomorrow. And let's begin by putting our sin behind us. Shall we pray? Dear God in heaven, I have sinned. My thoughts, my words, my actions have not been what they should.
[63:23] forgive me, Lord. Change me, Lord. Fill my spirit. Fill my soul. That I might be a light to the world.
[63:38] Living as you would have me live. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Jesus said if we confess and we repent or change, he will forgive us.
[63:53] So God has decided a new beginning today for you to go out and live your life the way he intended. In the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven. Glory to God.
[64:07] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Lord, whose love in humble service, Lord, the weight of human need, who upon the cross forsaken, offered mercy's perfect deed, we are servants, bring the worship, not a voice, a love, but heart, consecrating to your purpose, every gift that you impart.
[65:05] Still, our children, wander homeless, still the hungry, cry for bread, still the captives, long for freedom, still in grief, we mourn our dead.
[65:24] As, O Lord, your deep compassion, heal the sick and free the soul, use the love your spirit kindles, still to save and make us whole.
[65:48] God helped us with everything God had. He sent his son Jesus to us. Jesus gave up his divinity to come and live with us and save us from our sins.
[66:03] That's what we celebrate at the table today. Everyone is welcome to come to the table. If you love God, repent of your sin and seek to live in peace as disciples.
[66:17] Disciples of Jesus Christ, you are welcome to come. What happens when we come to the table? We receive everything Jesus has for us.
[66:28] We receive blessing. We receive strength. We receive power. We get to meet with Jesus in a very special way. So come to the table this morning.
[66:40] Come expecting. God will meet you here. The Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
[66:54] It is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life.
[67:08] When we turned away and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us through your prophets.
[67:22] And so with your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join there in ending hymn. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
[67:37] Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Holy are you and blessed is your son Jesus Christ.
[67:49] Your spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people.
[68:04] He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water in the spirit.
[68:21] And on the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, and he gave thanks to you. He broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take and eat.
[68:32] This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And when the supper was over, Jesus took the cup, and he gave you thanks and praise.
[68:51] He gave it to his disciples, and said, Drink from this, all of you. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sin.
[69:04] Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And so in remembrance of these, your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
[69:27] Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here. And on these gifts of bread and wine, make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.
[69:49] By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other and one in ministry to all the world until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
[70:01] Through your Son, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit and your Holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
[70:12] Amen. Shall we pray together with the confidence of children of God, the prayer Jesus taught us? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[70:25] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
[70:53] Amen. Will those who are serving please come forward. Amen.
[71:41] Amen. Amen. Amen.
[72:41] God calls us to the blessing of his table, the place where we all come together. Regardless of what we come into this place with, we go out together as the body of Christ.
[72:54] So you're welcome at the table, at the rail for prayers, for healing and anointing, to light a candle. Come and join us with the Lord. Amen.
[73:41] Amen. Amen.
[74:41] Amen. Amen.
[75:41] Amen. Amen.
[76:41] Amen. Now I invite you, if you're able to stand, as we're going to sing together, Lord, whose love through humble service.
[77:01] Amen. As we worship, grant us vision till your love's revealing light in its height and depth and greatness dawns upon our quickened sight, making love's love, needs and burdens, your compassion bids us fair, stirring us to tireless striving, your abundant life to share.
[77:59] Called by worship to your service, both in your dear name we go, to the child, the youth, the agent, love in living, deeds to show, hope and health, goodwill and comfort, one who faith and peace to give, that your servants, born in freedom, may your mercy grow and live.
[78:37] Amen. Amen. Our words disappeared in the back. We invited a lot of kids here this week. We had over 200 kids, as Pastor Lisa shared.
[78:52] We had about 50 or 60 teenagers. On Friday afternoon, I was watching the teenagers. They were making out postcards to all the kids they worked with to write them a little note just saying what they thought of them to go out in the mail.
[79:05] But what you don't know is that all the little kids who came here to receive from us wrote a note for you. And they're out on the board out there, that stringy thing around the table, and they want you to just pick up a note from them, whatever note you'd like, and take it with you and take it home as a gift from them.
[79:21] You know, we give our light to the world. We just give it out abundantly. And if we do it right, what happens is that light comes shining back on us. So may God cause your light to shine.
[79:33] And may God fill your light and your heart with love that you might abundantly share the good news of Jesus Christ in all that you are and all that you think and all that you do.
[79:43] Go in His peace. Amen.iquita