Jacksonville Presbyterian Church
🪇Mexico Sunday🪇 James 2:1-9 ft. Nate Moir (June 23, 2024)
(upbeat music) - We worship the same God. - Amen. - Peaceful to you. (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) Hey, you're giving a hand for a god day on that trip. (applause) So he's having a little Chris Reagan said, you know, I can, I can plan all I want to, but they were some things that went beyond the things I had planned for, but the Lord is so there and he's still good, so what a blessing that was. Hey, I can't wait to get to share the word, Lord, with you this morning, go ahead and turn your Bibles if you have them to James chapter two versus one through nine. If you don't have a Bible, you can go ahead and grab one of those blue hardback Bibles and turn to page 1,200. So we're going to find it in the blue hardback Bibles. James two, one through nine. We're going to take a short little break as we've been going through Corinthians. We're going to take a short little break to, to look at James and what James has to say about, has to say about loving others. So, I'm at the pleasure of meeting. My name is Nate. I get to be the director of youth ministry here as an actual Presbyterian church and it's such an honor to be able to serve in this position and it's an honor to be able to be up here. This morning, delivering the word, the Lord to my family. So with that being said, if you have turned to that passage, go ahead and stand out of respect for the reading of God's word. Again, we're going to be in James chapter two versus one through nine. Here's what it says. It says, "My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For for man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. And if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet. Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs to the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him. But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the whole honorable name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Friends, my voice will fade away, but the word of our God remains forever. This is the word, Lord. Let's be a God. Go ahead and take a seat. Let me pray for us. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity that we get to dive into your word, that we get to see the truth that you have prepared in advance for us to learn from. I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us. I pray that you would open our eyes to see the truth of your word. We'd open our ears to take it in and then when you open our hearts to receive any encouragement or any correction that you would have to give us. Lord, we'd love you to hear a name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, I'm not sick. I've lost my voice kind of because I was yelling to over 61 people who are willing to step out in faith to minister to our brothers and sisters in Mexico. And about a couple months ago, Pastor Dustin brought me in his office and he was like, "Hey, we'll get a Mexico Sunday." And I was wondering if you would be willing to preach to it. And in my excitement a couple months ago, I said, "Yes, I would love to you." And about two weeks ago, I thought to myself, "Why in the world did I agree to do that? Why in the world did I agree to preach two days after coming back from Mexico?" But to be honest, it's such a privilege being able to be here. And even though it was a quick turnaround, I'm actually really grateful that the first thing that was on my mind after coming back from Mexico was preaching because I've found for myself, and this is what I've found for a lot of other people that go on this trip, is that every year we come back, I feel like my whole perspective on life sort of shifts. And the thing that I'd like to encourage you with this morning is that I don't think that you need to go to Mexico in order to get this perspective shift. Rather, I think that perspective shift is what the Christian life is all about. And I think it's something that all of us should be doing. I just don't do a good job of embodying that in my life personally. And I'm hoping that maybe after reading this passage, you'll begin to shift your perspective on how you live your life as well. And it won't take going to Mexico to do it. Rather, it will take just the word of the Lord. I hope that you see the conviction of the word of the Lord this morning. And with that being said, go ahead and look at verse one. This is how James opens up this passage. She says, "My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." Now, I'm going to stop there because I want to ask you a question. I'm wondering if there were any parts of this first verse that stood out to you. Go ahead and look back at, look back down at your Bibles at verse one. Was there any part of this verse that stood out to you in particular? I think that leaves off the pages. So if you might have found something, I know for myself, when I first read this passage, there was nothing about this first verse that sort of initially stood out to me. I think that that's one of the problems when we read our Bibles is that we tend to kind of breeze pastel off things. And we don't really stop to appreciate what the word of the Lord is actually saying. When I slowed down and when I kind of read through this passage a little more, I saw something. I want to show it to you guys as well. The title that, or not the title, the thing that James calls Jesus is he says, he says, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." I think all too often we got skim over that. We skim over the concept of Jesus being glorious of attributing glory to Jesus because the word glory is almost synonymous with Jesus. Like we hear Jesus and we almost expect to hear like holy or glorious afterwards. It's just kind of numb to us because we hear it so often. But let me ask you a question. Do you actually know what glory means? Do you know what you're saying when you are calling Jesus glorious? Because I think that when we sort of dig into that, well, I actually have the definition on the screen. I'll look this up in the dictionary. According to Merriman Webster's dictionary, these two sort of definitions for glory that I think pertained to our passage today. The first definition is high renown or honor, one by notable achievement. And second is magnificence or great beauty. And the fact that James calls Jesus the Lord of glory, I think raises a question that we as Christians don't find ourselves asking all too often. And that question is, how is Jesus glorious? How does Jesus fit into this definition? In Old Testament, there is this thing called the Shekinah Glory Cloud. This is a cool word. I enjoy saying it. But what the Shekinah Glory Cloud was is it was the presence of God made manifest. The first time we see the Shekinah Glory Cloud is when the Israelites are being led out of Egypt and into the promised land and they don't really know where they're going. So we see this cloud by day and this pillar of fire by night. The presence of the Lord is made manifest in this pillar of fire and this pillar of cloud. And we also see the Shekinah Glory Cloud kind of filling the tabernacle and the temple when it's first constructed and erected. And we see the presence of God like physically filling up the space that he inhabits. And we also see a kind of as this cloud that sits above the ark of the covenant. So in all kind of three ways that we see the Shekinah Glory Cloud in the Old Testament, we see like this really impressive form that God takes. Imagine seeing the Lord today as a pillar of fire by night. Imagine the glory of the Lord physically filling it like every time we come to church. There's like this like there's a smoke like there's this haze and it's not fog machines, but rather it's the presence of the Lord. What would that be like? And this is how the Lord's glory was made manifest in the Old Testament. It was very impressive outwardly. Now this is where I think the cool thing happens is how was the presence of the Lord made a manifest in the New Testament? The presence of the Lord's made manifest is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, which is sort of in a way of our cry and it's very different from the Shekinah Glory Cloud. Because unlike the Shekinah Glory Cloud, Jesus was not impressive. He was a man. He was born of Mary and Joseph and Nazareth. He grew up as a carpenter. He ate, he drank, he slept, he grew tired, he grew weary, he had to take rest breaks. He was a man. And this is not being sacrilegious, this is not me being sacrilegious either. In Isaiah 53, 2 through 3, this is Isaiah's prophecy about the Messiah, about Jesus. This is what he says. He says there was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance. Nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and he was rejected. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief. This is the explanation. This is the description of Jesus. Nothing impressive about him. So the question we have to ask ourselves is how does Jesus fit into this definition of glory? How can we call Jesus glorious when he doesn't even seem to, when he doesn't even seem to complete this second definition? The Shekinah glory cloud did and we often long for the presence of God to be, we long to see it manifest in this powerful way. We long to see healings. We long to see powerful things but we don't look for it in the person of Jesus because it doesn't seem to fit our definition of glory. Jesus wasn't magnificent. He wasn't beautiful but the thing that I need us to see is that it's like he wasn't on the outside. I'll agree. He wasn't on the outside. That's what Isaiah said but he wasn't on the inside. Jesus' magnificent and great beauty came from the way he loved others and the ways that he walked in step with the spirit, the ways that he obeyed his father in heaven. In other words, Jesus was the perfect embodiment of the verse that says that God doesn't look at your outward appearance but rather he looks at the heart. And the father saw that the son's heart was good. He saw that it was pure. He saw that it was perfect. He was the embodiment of God. And even though on the outside he was an impressive, like the Shekinah glory cloud, on the inside he was the most impressive man to ever live. In the glory of the Lord radiated from him and we can see that made evidence in so many of the interactions that he had throughout the gospels. Now this is probably something you've heard before, right? Maybe this isn't. Maybe this is the first time that you've heard this concept of God's look at the outside. He looks at the inside and I'm glad that I get to be the bearer of good news. Like yeah, like God, but maybe you've heard this before. Maybe you've heard like, you know, God doesn't look at the outside. He looks at the inside. Maybe you roll your eyes a little bit. Like, oh, here we go. Another sermon about inner beauty. But I think if you've heard this before and you're tempted to kind of tune out a little bit, maybe this, you feel like this isn't for you. I want to challenge you with something because I think this statement about how God looks at the inside on the outside. I think it bears repeating because all too often, I think what happens to us is we let this statement make us feel good about ourselves, but we don't let this statement actually change us. Well, stop here. We need to keep on going with it. The thing about this way, like imagine you are now, imagine you are a messy person. Maybe you already are, so you don't have to imagine. But imagine if you're like super clean, like imagine you aren't and you're super messy and you don't take care of your house. Your house is a mess. You don't ever take out the trash. Like it's kind of piled up on the outside of your house. The paint's chipping. The windows are dirty. The inside of your house is worse. It's all there's trash everywhere. No, all dust everywhere. Super dirty, like super unpresentable. Now, imagine you want to upgrade. You want to sell your house. So you call up a realtor and the realtor finds a prospective buyer and they say, hey, you know, they call you up and they say, the prospective buyer is coming in 15 minutes. So look at your house and you look around and you see there's no way about cleaning up all of this mess before they get here and you try your best, but you can't quite do it. And all of a sudden you see the car pulling up outside and kind of rush out and you are set them. You're like, hey, and you're talking to the prospective buyer and you say, hey, I'm so sorry about the seat in my house. Like, don't worry. I'm going to get it cleaned up. And before you can finish, they stop you and say, hey, don't worry about it. Don't worry about the outside of your house. You know, we're not going to be looking at the outside of the house. What we care about is we care about the inside of your house. So, hey, we just wanted to come. We just wanted to check out in the neighborhood, check out the area, want to look at the house, but then we'll be coming back in a week. And in a week, we want to have a tour of the house and able to see the inside. And they leave and you say, that's great. I don't have to clean up my house today. So you don't for a week. Like imagine like having that mindset of like, oh, like you get this news of like, oh, I don't care about the outside. I only care about the inside. And you let that instead of being like, oh, I better get my house clean this week. Like you let it kind of simmer and then you don't do anything about it. This statement from this perspective buyer of, I don't care about the outside. I care about the inside. It's not a statement that should make you feel good about the outside of your house. Rather is a statement that calls you to action. It's something that you should hear and you should desire to do something about it. Now, I understand that this illustration isn't perfect. You aren't a house. God is not a perspective buyer. And God doesn't also demand that you clean up your house in order for him to purchase you. You've already been purchased by the blood and sacrifice of his son. I don't want you to get the idea that I'm saying that you have to work for your salvation. Your salvation has already been paid for. However, I want us to look at this differently. I want us to look at this statement differently of how God doesn't look at the outside. He looks the inside. I want this to be a call to action for us. Clean up the inside of your house. But what does that look like? What does that look like to clean up the inside of our house? Go ahead and look down verse two. It says, "For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. And if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet. Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" If you go ahead and look at that definition of glory again on the screen, we've seen how Jesus fulfills that second definition of glory, how he actually is magnificent and has great beauty because it's not on the outside. Rather, it's on the inside. Even though Jesus of Nazareth might not have been outwardly glorious as Isaiah so elegantly put it, he did have a radiant inward beauty that shines so bright that he called the most crooked people to repentance. One of my favorite stories is Zacchaeus. He was a tax collector. He swindled people out of money. Imagine the state that your soul has to be in. To look at a poor person and say, "I'm going to take even more of your money. I'm going to cheat you out of your money." That's the state that Zacchaeus' soul was in. And he has one night with Jesus, one conversation with Jesus. And after that conversation, Zacchaeus has changed. In the morning, he says, "I want to pay back all my debts. I want to pay back all the people I've wronged. I want to give away half of what I have to people I've wronged." He's a changed man. He has repented of his sin. This was not because Jesus was impressive outwardly. It was because his beauty and his glory shines so brightly from within him that he had no other option but to change. When people interact with Jesus, they change. In the case of Zacchaeus for the better, in the case of his disciples, the better. For the case of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they change for the worst. For the case of the rich young ruler, they change for the worst. Jesus' inner beauty was so radiant that people had to change when they interacted with him. And do you look at Jesus? Do you look at the way that people interact around Jesus and how he interacted with them? And do you say, "I want that"? Is that something that you desire? Now, obviously, we can't get to the place where Jesus is. He's God, but you work towards it. That's the call of the Christian life. It's a walk. It's a work towards making our lives look more and more like Jesus Christ. And that means shining forth that radiance of inner beauty that Jesus did so well. Now, is that something you desire? It's a second definition of glory. Something you desire, or are you so fixated on the first definition of glory? Because I think deep down, all of us look at Jesus. If you are a Christian in the stream, even if you are not a Christian in this room, I would hedge my bets on you looking at Jesus and say, "Yeah, that is somebody that I want to be." The impact that Jesus had on people's lives, that's the impact that I want to have on people's lives. I would hedge my bets. That's what you feel deep down. And yet for a lot of us, the pull of this world is far too strong for us. I think the effect that verses two through four have on me as a kin to the effect that Nathan the prophet had on King David. If you don't know, King David didn't just kill enemy giants. He also killed one of his best friends because he slept with his wife. He wasn't, he wasn't, he'd sin just like the rest of us. And there's this grave sin that David has just committed. He hasn't seen it. He marries her. He goes on living his life. He lives in unrepentant sin. And the king and us, but especially King David cannot go on doing that. So God sends Nathan the prophet to go demonstrate. And Nathan comes to him with this story. He says, "There's this rich man who owns herds and flocks of sheep." And then there's this poor man. He owns one sheep. But that one sheep, he treasures. He feeds it from his table. He, he, he coddles it at night. He, he, he looks at it like his own daughter, the sheep. And he just supposes these two men. It's one man who, who's evil and rich and this other man who's poor and who treasures what he has. And then this, this rich man, instead, you know, he wants to have a big fancy dinner. Instead of killing his own, one of his very many sheep, he doesn't want to do that. Instead, he steals the poor man sheep and kills that sheep instead. Now what, what Nathan's done is he's taken these two figures. And he says, he presents it to David. He says, "Look at these people." And what the Bible says, 2 Samuelus says, "Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, the rich man. And he said to Nathan, "The Lord lives. The man who has done this deserves to die, not realizing that this man, that David feels so much anger towards is actually him." And the sin that he has committed does the same as David's sin except on a much smaller scale, morality-wise. What Nathan did is he took these two men and he said, "Look at these two men." And David, for all of a sudden he, he separates himself from his own self-justification and his own pride and he looks at the situation objectively. He says, "This is not right." And when I met when I said that the effect that these verses has on me is akin to the effect that Nathan has on King David, is when you read this description of these people, this person who would look at a person with higher status and literally kiss their feet. On the other hand, the person who is beneath them, they look at them that way and they say, "You sit at my feet." We look at those people and we say, "The audacity of someone will look at somebody who is less fortunate with them as them as somebody who doesn't have glory like this and our eyes does not have glory like this and the nerve to say, "Sit at my feet." We say, "How dare they." And yet we don't think of all the times that we've done that in our own lives. The times that we've held this first definition of glory, high renown or honor, one by the things that we do or the things that we are and that's what we care about and we neglect the people that Jesus has called us to love. Who is the last person in your life that you neglected in order to pursue that first definition of glory? All I know for me, there's a couple names that come to mind. There's a couple situations that come to mind. And as David was able to disconnect and look at the situation objectively, his anger burned against that person. And when Nathan revealed that that person is actually David, it led David to repentance. I wonder if this passage leads you to repentance as well. Maybe you're doing great with that and I applaud you. But maybe you aren't. Maybe you're like me. Maybe you've been caring too much about this first definition of glory. And maybe you want to change. One of the things I think that the Mezco Mission trip, what it does for me and for so many other people is that it shows us that we care more about the wrong kind of glory. Now, I like what Paul washer says about this. He says, you should be worn out by the amount that you're loving other people. You should be worn out by the amount that you're loving other people. Wearing yourself out for the sake of loving others fulfills something deep within you, because this is what you were made to do. And when we spend a week in Mexico physically wearing ourselves out for the sake of loving these families, we're leaning into what we were made to do. And there's a completeness there. There's a wholeness there. And the thing that I encourage everybody, every year we go to Mexico, it's like, hey, wearing ourselves out for the sake of other people doesn't just stop in Mexico. This is a lifestyle that we should be living. The Christian life is not one that is complacent about those around us. The Christian life is one where we invest in the lives of those around us, where we wear ourselves out for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the love of Jesus Christ. That is what we are driven by. That's what gives us purpose. Not trying to buy our way into the good graces of other people, but rather by looking to Jesus who wore himself out. We look to Jesus and we see the life that he lived. Think about this way. We don't remember Jesus necessarily for being, for not being impressive outwardly. We remember Jesus for the ways that he loved other people. We remember him for making himself healing people. We remember him for preaching to the 5,000 after his best friend John the Baptist was beheaded. He wanted to agree, but he saw these people who needed him and he said, I'm going to preach to 5,000 people. We remember Jesus for coming the ultimate sacrifice of dying on the cross. We remember Jesus for his sacrificial love and we wore himself out to love other people. Now, contrast that with somebody like Pontius Pilate who cared a lot about that first definition and who got it, by the way. He was a lot of leaders of Rome. He was a lot of higher-ups of Rome. He had everything that we could ever want. He had power. He had influence. He had authority. He had money. He had a palace. He had women. He had servants. We don't remember Pontius Pilate for any of those things. What do you remember Pontius Pilate for? Remember for being a coward? For condemning the Son of God to death. That's what we remember Pontius Pilate for. Your verse are going to fade away. Your high renown and honor, my high renown and honor, what little I have, are going to fade away. So why are we investing our lives into that? Why are we not looking at Jesus? Why are we not looking to him and saying, I want my life to look like that? One more point and then we'll be done. Go ahead and look down. Verse 5. We'll finish this out. Listen to my beloved brothers. This is not God's chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him. But you have dishonored the poor. Are you not the rich, the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the arable name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well. But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Now, is this passage saying that poor people automatically go to heaven and rich people don't? So you're all doomed if you're 4k. No. You have a good retirement plan? No. That's not what this is saying. So what is James talking about when he says that they will be the ones who inherit the kingdom of God? I think what he's saying is that those who are poor are usually more aware of their lack of power, their need for help in the fragility of life. In other words, the poor are much more acutely aware that they need a savior. And this is made much more evident in the fact that third world nations are usually more willing to accept Christianity than first world nations. I looked at a 2020 poll and I found a really interesting stat. If I were to ask you out of the six continents, not including Antarctica, is it six? North, south. Yeah, okay, six continents. Where do you think North America ranks in terms of the population of Christians amongst the six continents? Will you be surprised if I said second to last? In terms of the continents in the world, North America ranks second to last only in front of Oceania. Every other continent actually has way more Christians than we do. I was surprised by that. Now, let me ask you another question. What do you think we're like the top two nations with the most Christians? Africa in South America, Latin America, two of the economically poorest countries. This is just statistics. Why do you think that is? It's because they are aware of their need for a savior and we aren't. We think that we can save ourselves. We think that we can earn what we want in lives and our lives ourselves by pursuing this first definition. We say this is what life is all about. It's all about getting what I want. It's all about me getting ahead in life. But the thing that I've noticed going to Mexico, the thing that I've noticed looking at third world countries, but especially in Mexico, is that the generosity there is something that I've never seen ever in my life. I remember in 2018 when we built houses for Roxanne, she cooked a meal for us every single day we were on that site. That was probably financially strenuous for her, but she wanted to do it because she was generous because she embodied the person of Jesus. She embodied that second definition of glory. The only do you want that? I think in order to get that, in order to get to this place where we forsake that first definition of glory and pursue that inward beauty that made Jesus so captivating, in order to get to that place, we must become poor. Not necessarily in a financial sense, but we must get to the place where we recognize that we cannot do this on our own. That the greatest thing in life is not that first definition of glory. It's not the high-renowned or honor that you win for yourselves, but rather is surrendering your life to Jesus, and we cannot do it on our own. We are poor. We cannot do it. We need a savior. This is not, listen, I know that it's kind of sounded like it thus far, but this is not like a raw, raw sermon. This is not like a, okay, like go home and like really like white knuckle it and like chase your desires. That's not what this is. Rather, this is like be open to the Holy Spirit who's leading you in that direction already. The goal of the Christian life is to have our lives look more like Jesus. And as we get older, as we get wiser, our lives tend to mirror the life of Jesus more. And we don't do that through our own power. The first step to clean your house is not grabbing the mop. It's not grabbing the Windex. Your heart is to stain with sin for you. Do that on your own. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We rely fully on God in order to get to that place. This is not me saying, try harder, Jacksonville, Prez. This is, this is not me saying that. Rather, this is me saying, be receptive. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. He's leading you in that direction, and we resist Him more often than not. It's much easier than than we make it out to be. The Holy Spirit is literally bringing people into your life. And He's drawing you towards them, be loving towards them. He's giving you desires to pursue Him in prayer by reading your word. Listen to Him. Allow Him to lead you there. Don't resist Him. Let the Lord clean your house. Let Him come in. Let Him spray the Windex. Don't keep pushing Him out saying, I'll do it on my own. We cannot do it on our own. The Holy Spirit is our advocate. What grace, what joy can we find in that? That the Holy Spirit advocates for us. That the Holy Spirit is the one who doesn't work to draw us towards Jesus. Is Jesus somebody that you want to be like? Is He somebody that you want to reflect? Then let the Holy Spirit do the work for you. Allow Him to wear you out for the sake of loving others. The reason why, and I'll end with this, the reason why we as Christians can forsake this first definition of glory is because Jesus has already won the high renown or honor. Amen. Jesus has already won the high renown and honor. We don't need to earn that for ourselves. When you place our identity, we center our lives around Jesus. When we place our identity in Him and what He has already accomplished on the cross, and what He has already accomplished in the empty tomb. The victory and the renown and the honor. I want you to hear this. The victory and the renown and the honor that Jesus has already won for you is greater than any victory, renown, or honor that you can earn for yourselves. So stop trying to pursue it. Stop trying to pursue your own cheap version of renown and honor and surrender yourselves to the Holy Spirit who is already leading you towards that. I'll end with this. John describes this moment in the book of Revelation. God the Father seeth on his throne, and his right hand is a scroll, and the angel cries a loud voice who is able to open the scroll and break its seals. And no one comes forward because no one is worthy. And John, the receptor of this vision, he weeps and weeps because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and open it. Then one of the elders lifts his head and he says, "Do not weep. Look, the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered so that he is able to open the scroll." And just like the magnificent Shekinah glory cloud, the Old Testament, we expect the glory of the Lord to be manifest in this impressive form of a lion, the king of the jungle, coming out to open the scroll in this magnificent show of power and force, but what comes forth as a lion. But rather it's a slain lamb and the lamb of God who is not impressive, who is meek, who has won the victory through his death and resurrection comes forward. And he opens the scroll. And when he does, when he does, the elders and living creatures fall before him in worship, saying worthy are you to take the scroll. Do you look towards Jesus? Do you look towards Jesus who has already won the high renown and honor? And do you surrender? Do you desire to surrender to him? To surrender to him as he makes you more into the image of a son, and he makes you from the inside out, magnificent and beautiful. As Jesus was, and as Jesus is, think on that. So Lord, we thank you for this time. We thank you for these words from James. Forgive us for the masks that we so often wear. And the carefully designed pretense that seeks self glorification over your good and perfect kingdom. Lord, you know our hearts and the mode is behind our thoughts. And we confess that we need your inner cleansing. Create in us a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within us, I pray. For too long, Lord, we have lived alive by hiding a range of inner hurt and damaged emotions behind a facade where our hearts are bitter, unforgiving, selfish, and self-serving. Change our hearts from the inside out. Remove all the impurities within that are so offensive to you and fill us with your peace and your joy so in spirit and truth we may show forth your love to others that we might be worn out by you for the sake of others. Thank you, Lord, that changed heart and changed life only comes from you and we don't have to strive. But you lead us there. Father, we desire to surrender all that we are to you. Would we become increasingly aware of the presence and the voice of your Holy Spirit within us who is leading us to look more like the image of your son and would our prayer every single day be only this. Would you increase and would I decrease? Lord, we believe that you are God that heals. The you are God that heals inner and outward hurts and illnesses and sicknesses and diseases. So we're ready for those in our congregation who are in need. We pray for John Schmidt, Karen Applegate, Bailey Taylor, Klein-Lering Hoffman, Jim Schulz, Sean McCoy, Paul Deller, and the Moore family. Lord, we also recognize that we are all one body of believers, that we are all the big sea church. So we pray alongside this morning St. John's Lutheran Church in Medford. I pray that you would be with their pastors, with their leadership team. I pray that your Holy Spirit would move in their hearts as you are moving in our hearts this morning. Would there be revival in that congregation? Would you increase in their numbers and their excitement for the word? Would you call them to repentance? Would you call them into a greater knowledge of you? And finally, Lord, as we like to pray for missions, we thank you for the Mesko mission trip. There's so many things every year that can go wrong, but Lord, your provider, your protector, you're the one that we love. We thank you that you are all those things that we can trust in you. Thank you that everybody was able to get home safe, that we were able to finish the houses. And I pray once again for those families that received them. Lord, we hear many stories of those houses. Would they use those to minister to their communities? To then share forth the love that they've received to those around them? Would people even come to a knowledge of you in those houses? And Lord, we can't wait for the day that we get to see them again in heaven. We get to hear stories of how they wore themselves out for the sake of the gospel. Let me pray for our brothers and sisters in Mexico. We pray for everybody here in this valley and in this church. We thank you for your provision. We thank you that you are the God of all gods, that you are the king above all kings, and that the lion and the lamb are worthy to open the scroll. You're worthy of our praise. You're worthy of our honor. You're worthy of our worship. And we do that now. We sing to the king of kings. Would you receive our worship? May the meditations of our hearts and the worst from our mouths be pleasing to you as we close in worship. We pray for all these things of your name. Amen.