If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but the seeds is art. This person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God. The father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords, for if a man wearing a gold ring and find 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 been 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 of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him, but you have dishonored the poor man or not the rich, the ones who oppressed and the ones who drag you into court are they not the ones who blasting the honorable name by which you were called the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's go before him now for a moment to ask for his help. Gracious heavenly father, we pray that you would indeed pour out your spirit in order that we might be helped. Help to understand this word, um, helped in having you apply this word to our hearts in order that we might be changed. Father, however, we find ourselves coming into this place this morning. Hearts heavily burdened with doubts and skepticism. Others excited to be here, others full of questions, others of us angry and discouraged and feel beaten up by life. Father, however, we find ourselves individually this morning. We pray that you, through the power of your spirit, would reveal to us that we really are all the same for we are all far more broken and we could ever imagine, and so together we stand in need of the good news of Jesus to be reminded that it can be true of us, that we can both at the same time be far more broken than we could ever imagine, but also far more love and farm work accepted and approved of and secure than could have ever dared to dream this possible and father, we need that good news to come in and to transform our lives. For it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Here's what I want you to begin thinking about with me this morning. One of the deepest impulses of our humanity I think is really to prove that we matter whether that prove to God that we manner or prove to others that we matter or even just to prove to ourselves that we matter. We want to know that we count for something. We want to know that were significant. We were hungry to know that we have value and that we have worth and importance. I can't remember if I've mentioned the name Ernest Becker before or not, but becker was an anthropologist and mid 19 hundreds and he wrote a book called the denial of death, which won a Pulitzer Prize in, in the seventies. And it was a hugely influential book in it still gets quoted a lot today. Um, anywhere from pop culture kind of articles to a, if you read a psychology or sociology or theological journals or something like that, you'll run across his name quite often. But here's what, here's what Becker who wasn't a Christian, uh, was basically saying in that book of his, he was saying that every person, every culture, every society at the bottom is really trying to cope with a deep fear and anxiety that we don't map. And he offered some pretty, um, pretty amazing insights, I think, at penetrating insights into how this deep impulse within us to prove that we matter and have significance and value really gets itself worked out. See, Becker would say that what lies behind our craving for something like romantic love is really a deep desire to know that we're good enough that someone else approves us, what lies behind it is this desperate desire to prove that we matter to someone or to convince ourselves that we're attractive in some way. Or he would say that what lies behind much of our artistic endeavors is this deep desire to prove that we matter by creating something of lasting significance and recognition. Um, and he, he would talk a lot of other things in that book where he would talk about this desire, this desire being what's behind our hunger and our desire to succeed in our careers or to succeed in parenting or to accumulate wealth or power or be passionately engaged in some social cause. It's everywhere. And listen, I've read the book and I honestly don't like the book because it's pretty painful for him to come and put his finger on all these things in your life and to expose this insecure unit, needy compulsion that we all have to prove that we matter. Because we are desperate to know that we're lovable at the, were enough, that we're not less than that we have lasting value and significance. So why am I bringing all that up before we talk about the passage that we just read from James Chapter One and chapter two is because I think what James is writing here in this section of verses, he is telling us about a life that matters. He's telling us what a life that matters really looks like and how we can find a difference that we matter and if we find that we matter how that can change, how that can and will completely change us. So here's where we're headed this morning. I know this is crazy dangerous territory, but we actually have four points this morning. Um, so, um, no, it's usually three, but, but here's where we're headed this morning. These four things I want us to talk about. First, I want us to talk about the lifestyle that matters. And then second, I want us to talk about the people who matter. And then third, I want us to talk about how Jesus matters. And then fourth, and finally I want to talk briefly about how we can matter and be like our father. So the lifestyle that matters, the people who matter, how Jesus matters, how we can matter and be like our father, and I'll repeat those as we go. But first the lifestyle matters. Verse Twenty Six and verse 27, at the end of chapter one, they're really important versus because what James is doing in those verses is he's giving us an outline for the rest of his life. Uh, his aim is to tell us about the lifestyle that matters. And so he says in those verses that pure undefiled religion before God. In other words, a lifestyle that matters consists of three things consistently, control tongue. He tells us, keeping oneself unstained from the world and caring for widows and orphans. Now, this morning, let's think big picture here because we don't need to get lost in the details because James will be coming back to all these subjects. In chapter three, he's going to be talking about the tongue chapter four mil address keeping oneself unstained from the world. And in chapter five, let's talk about how we can use our wealth to care for others less fortunate than ourselves. So big picture, the lifestyle that matters. James is saying is characterized by these three, three things, and if I could summarize them, they would be these three things, integrity, justice and compassion, using our words to bring healing into the world and not broken this into the world. Protecting and caring for the most helpless and vulnerable in society, living whole, consistent, uncompromising, morally pure logs. But here's the question, or here's a question. Why are these the three things that James sees at the very essence of a lifestyle that matters? It's this because as James is going to show us in the weeks to come, these are the things that matter to God's heart. Proverbs six lists six things that the lord hates and a seventh that he absolutely detests, and I'll, I'll let you read proverbs six about about the other six, but the seventh thing that the author of proverbs tells us that the Lord detests above everything else is a false witness who pours out wise and a man who stirs up dissension among his brothers. He is a god of truth and reality, not lies and deception. He is a God who speaks. You see it in the very beginning of the Bible, he speaks and by the power of his word, he creatively brings forth life right, and it matters to him that the words we speak bring a wife and healing and redemption and hope and not destruction and brokenness and despair. Isaiah wrote in Isaiah chapter six that the angelic choir is always praising God and singing what? Holy, holy, Holy. The only time any characteristic of god is ever tripled in the Bible for emphasis. He is absolutely pure, consistent, and morally uncompromising in who he is. The psalmist wrote that God goes by this title in Psalm Sixty eight. He is a father to the fatherless defender of widows. He is forever on the side of the helpless, the poor, the marginalized, the disadvantaged in the oppressed, and we're going to get to the details in the weeks to come, but can you see this? This is the lifestyle that matters because it is a reflection of the very heart of God and what matters to him. I read a book, this is years ago by a former navy seal and the the author went into a lot of detail describing some of his navy seal training and he talked about how the final test in their training was what they call this intense physical, emotional, psychological intellectual test that they would have to endure. And so he wrote down what his training officer told his class, his navy navy seal plugs about this impending hell week that was coming in their training and this is what his instructor said, said, each one of you is like an earthen vessel. A beautiful piece of poetry, pottery prettied up by your fathers and mothers and teachers with tender loving care will in a few weeks, few days. Hell week is going to begin and we're gonna take every one of you out onto the grinder and we're going to smash you on the ground, break you open, and we're going to see what's inside. Each one of you with many of you will find nothing. There's just a air. You are empty men without substance for others. When we break you open, we're going to have to turn away from the smell because you live in a weak culture that has allowed you to get by on charm and pretty tall and backslapping and a and a practice dishing manure for so long that it almost seeps out of your every poor and now that is what you are, but for others, when we smashing will find inside a sword made a pure Damascus steel and you are going to become navy seals a load this raw. I'll think that's the marines. I don't know who does, that's the army, but I love that quote. It gets me fired up. Um, but here's the reason I read it as this because I want to ask you this question. When everything in your life has been stripped away and you are late barrier, what will be there? Look, look at what James says that the end of verse 20 says, he's saying you can be really religious and check off a lot of boxes, but when all your Bible knowledge and theology and praying and volunteering for committees are stripped away, if what's not, there is a controlled Tom and caring for the helpless and keeping yourself unstained from the world. James says, if your religion is worthless, your life will be. It will have been found to be empty without substance insignificant. It won't matter, and if it's not empty, it will be putrid in smell because if you aren't in some way living out compassion and integrity and a concern for justice in the world, you are actually contributing to and participating in all the brokenness and evil that this world has to offer. I know that we're coming out of the gates strong this morning, but this, and this is James and James just doesn't pull any punches, right? He's saying, this is the lifestyle that matters and I'm asking is that you? Is that you're alive if you are opened up and you were smashed on the ground, is this what we would find or you at least moving in this direction in your life? And if you're not, why not? Self examination is incredibly hard and giving painful, but it is also very, very good. Um, all right. Second, let's move along. Second, let's talk about the people who matter verses one through seven of chapter two are pretty finite thing. I'm James described a scene in the church were a rich man, was shown favoritism while a poor man was, was cast Assad. And James wrote about how contrary this is to God himself, who verse five chose the poor to inherit that keep his kingdom. I mean, even as you hear that, or as we read that earlier, it shouldn't make you think of Jesus' words, right? Jesus saying, blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God. God, God's kingdom flipped entirely upside down the world's values when it comes to the people who matter. And here's, uh, here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'm getting at. Ever since elementary school. You and I, we've been walking into rooms and sizing everybody, right, who are the cool and who are the people who are the popular and the unpopular, who are the haves and the have nots and the athletic and that unathletic, right? It's what we did in the cafeteria in elementary school in junior high and then high school and I'm telling you the rooms have changed and the sophistication with which we size people up has changed, but we're still doing it because they're, of course james is right. We look at outward appearances and we want to be aligned with the wealthy and not the poor and so we give them preferential treatment and by the way, wealth or lack of wealth is just one example of an outward appearance that we've been sizing up in the rooms that we walk into. I mean, we've talked about a few of these. The cool get priority over the unemployment, the attractive over the unattractive, the educated over the uneducated, the successful over the unsuccessful delete ism, classism, racism. Where does that stuff I'm from? We show favoritism to people who look like and act like and talk like and think like us. Right, and James is writing to say there's something terrible and horrific about favoritism because when you play favorites where you show partiality as he puts it, you ignore the very people who matter to God. His kingdom flips upside down the world's values when it comes to the people who matter, and let me tell you, this is nothing new. A tiny slave nation wandering in the desert of people politically and militarily oppressed by those stronger than them. Jesus came and he chose his followers. Be Tax collectors and zealots and dirty fisherman to lead the church. Philip Yancey, some of you may know that name. He's an author. He was speaking to a group of women who found themselves trapped in prostitution and at the end of this conference, this engagement he was speaking with with one of the women, and he told her what Jesus said in Matthew Chapter Twenty one where Jesus said, truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes get into the Kingdom of God before you or go into the Kingdom of God before you, and he explained to this woman that Jesus was speaking to the religious authorities of his day, prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the Kingdom of God before them, and so he asked this, who was herself a prostitute? He said, what do you think Jesus meant? Why did he say the loud prostitutes and this is what she said. Everyone has someone to look down on, but not us. We are at the bottom. Our families feel shamed for those. No mother looks at her little girl and says, honey, when you grow up, I want you to be a good prostitute in most whites. And she says, we are breaking the law. We believe me. We know how people feel about us. People call us names and I'm going to spare you from the list of names she mentioned, but she says, we feel it too. We are the bottom, and sometimes when you're at the bottom you do cry for help. So when Jesus comes, we respond to him. She said, maybe that's what he meant. Maybe that's exactly what he means right when Jesus comes and you're at the bottom with nothing to offer him. When you're crying out for mercy and he shows up to save you and he shows up to love you and he shows up to call you ms dot treasure and his delight. When that happens and you're at the bottom, you respond. Listen, you could easily, we could easily miss here, James here. James Point isn't to say that there's something inherently wrong with wealth or success or being educated or attracted or anything like that. The point of verses one through seven of chapter two is, is this at the moment you showed our verse one, the moment you favor the wealthy over the poor, the cool over the pool, the attractive of the unattractive verses two and three. The moment James says, you will make distinctions among yourselves and become judges. Verse Four, he's saying, you have completely departed from the very essence of God's nature and have entirely abandoned grace for some kind of meritocracy. He is the defender of widows, a father to the fatherless. He moves towards the bottom of society to the helpless and the poor, the unprotected, the oppressed, the vulnerable, the disadvantage, and the marginalized. What does it look like to get in line with God's nature? Think about this just briefly before we leave this point. One author writes that kindness to widows and orphans and to the poor is pure kindness. Kindness to the poor is pure kindness. See, when we size up a room, when we walked into the room and we played favorites, we're looking for a return on our investment in relationships. Maybe it's financial, but it might have it. It could also be emotional or psychological or a social return on your investment. Now I feel like I'm at because of this person or this group of people meet my emotional needs or helps me feel like I belong or makes me feel like I'm somebody who's now I'm connected to some bodies, but what happens when you show kindness to the poor? It's pure science because you cannot expect a return on your investment. They're just cost emotional cost, a social cost, a financial cost, inconvenience. Your ego not being stroked. Now we've got to leave and move on because I do have four instead of three points, but are you moving towards? Are you moving light God towards the people who really matter to God, and if you're not, ask yourself why. All right. Third James says in this passage how Jesus matters in verse one of Chapter Two, James called Jesus the Lord of Glory, right? And every scholar that's commented on this passage notes what a unique name that is to give Jesus, especially in this context because the word glory. It has a very rich history, right? All throughout the Old Testament and into the new testament itself. Because Laurie is a word that means heaviness or weight or solid mass, right? And that's what matter is, right matter as an object of volume and mass, its weight, its heaviness, figuratively. It's weight of importance, right James? We say Jesus matters. He is the Lord of Glory. The thing about this, how did Jesus reveal his glory? His weightiness his matter. I love this quote from Kent Hughes. He writes, the glory of Christ sprang from his downward mobility. The glory of Christ Sprang from his downward mobility, from his movement toward that which the world despises the weak, the poor, the unsophisticated, the despised, and helpless. Isaiah Isaiah was one of the Old Testament prophet in Isaiah 52. He prophesied about Jesus who is to come, the suffering servant, right? And, and it's, it's a puzzling passage because in verse 13, Isaiah wrote that Jesus shall be high and lifted up and he shall be exalted, right? He was writing about Jesus, unmatched, exalted, important and glory. But in the very next verse in verse 14, Isaiah wrote that his appearance will be so more that will be beyond human symbols. In other words, he's going to be full of glory and so abused and so bloody and disfigure. The people are going to look at him and asked questions. Is that even human? And the question is, how does this puzzling picture of Jesus high and lifted up, exalted Laurie in this disfigured object of brutality? How do they fit together? That tension can only be resolved in the Gospel and the Gospel writer John, he wrote that Jesus, the son of man, be lifted up that is exalted and glorified and shown to matter, but how would Jesus be lifted up? He would be lifted up on a wooden cross, fastened to it with nails through his hands and feet and bloodied and disfigured wearing your crown. And the whole Bible testifies along with John, that the cross was the ultimate in chief display of Jesus's glory, his sign from his downward mobility and tears. Why? Ultimate glory is when the one who possesses true glory gives it up for someone else. Another few runners in the room. Um, I'm not a runner, but runners will probably appreciate this, or at least. No, I'm talking about team hoyt, a father and son, team Dick, Rick Hoyt. Maybe you've seen some videos online about it. I'm Rick White. I'm the son was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors told his, uh, his parents when he was born that they should institutionalize their son and they refused to do that. You know, Rick's father had never run in a race, but when rick, his son, asked his dad to run with him in a five pay, he did it and since then they've run in well over a thousand races together, including hundreds of triathlons, six iron man races and multiple marathons. All of this with Rick's father pushing him in a wheelchair, pedaling and minibike pulling him in around. And here's the thing, they're actually pretty good right there. Usually just off pace of the winners of these races and experts say that Rick's bothered Dick. Wait, he could have been a world class triathlete, triathlete or marathon runner if he wasn't pushing his son in all of these races. They've been doing this for like 30 plus years and Rick's father won't run a race without a sun, and every one rightly recognizes something truly heroic about that. Why? Because we know ultimate glory is when someone gives up their glory for someone else. James wrote in chapter two, verse one, my brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. This the Lord of Glory. He shows you how he matters. He reveals his glory on the Cross. He gave up his glory for you. This is why any favoritism, no matter what it is, is terrible because James sees it as a betrayal of the grades of the glory that Jesus came to give you. We're going to get two more on that in just a second because we got to get to this last point. How can we matter and be like our father. Now, I know that this is hard, um, but if we're honest, um, there is this deep fear and anxiety in our lives that we don't map that were less than that. We're not enough. Maybe that no one would really miss us if we were gone. We don't have a lasting significance and that fear I'm trying to tell you this morning is driving us at the deepest possible levels of our logs, but I also want to ask this question as we prepare to end here this morning. What if we could get free of that fear that we don't map Jesus wants told a parable in Luke chapter 16 about a rich man who is dressed well and lived in luxury, comfort and feasted every day and but at his gate in this story that Jesus told was a poor beggar named Lazarus who begs for food every day and was covered with sores and in the story that Jesus told you can read it on your own. Both men, doc, poor Lazarus, was carried into God's presence while the rich man was tormented in hell. And maybe some of you remember the story of the rich man bag, Lazarus. Just to be able to tip his finger and some water and touch it to is tom to ease some of this agony. There's a lot of interesting things about that parable. Could I think the the most interesting thing about that parable is this. Jesus told a lot of these stories, a lot of these parables, but this is the only story Jesus told were a character in his story. He had a name which was the Lazarus, a poor beggar. The rich man spent a lifetime accumulating wealth and power and influence to prove he mattered, but when death came, Jesus is saying that's all he wants. He was just a rich man without a name, without an identity that couldn't last, that could last. That Lazarus, he says, had a name. He had an identity that was untouchable by the circumstances of his life. He had an identity that was untouchable even by death itself. You know, Ernest Becker was right that were deeply afraid that we might not matter, and it's driving us at these incredibly deep levels in our lives. Becker died young in his forties, I think, and I don't think he ever became a Christian, but cynical as he was of all religious claims, even he admitted that Christianity among every other religion that the world had to offer had the most to commendment. Why is it because only in Christianity can you ever get free from to stop trying to prove that you matter and that you have glory in Christianity. It's Jesus who gave up his glory for you to freely give you a glory that will last forever and ever. You come to Jesus and the Bible says you'll get a name. You'll get an identity that will last forever and ever this. There's this place in revelation chapter two where Jesus says he'll give each of us a name written on a stone in the new heavens and the new earth, whatever that means, and I'm not pretending that I know what it at least means this. If you come to Jesus like Lazarus, you'll get a name and an identity card on a stone that will matter and last forever and ever and listen. When you come to Jesus and receive a name and identity that is purely and completely by grace and grace alone, guess what happens? You're free. You are free. Chapter two, verse one, to show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, you're set free to control your tongue for the sake of others. You're set free to live a life of uncompromised integrity and set free to care for the most helpless in society. You're set free to practice pure kindness. Why? Because you've got nothing left to prove. If you matter Jesus forever and ever and you don't need any return on your investments because everything you could ever hope or need is given you as a gift in Jesus, in his person and his work. I'm going to say one more thing here. I know that to take these verses seriously requires some hard self examination and I can imagine that there is some of you like me and you recognize that still at times in your life you're very scared that you don't matter and you see the ways that you've been trying to prove your worth and you see how that has made you cold to others and how stemming from this desperate need to prove we matter, our kindness has become very calculated. Where can we get a return on our investment instead of being pure in our kindness and if that's where you are today, let me tell you this. You don't need to start by trying harder. You need to remember who you are. So when my grandfather was living with my parents and he was struggling with dementia, he would ask questions all day, all day long. Who are you? Was one of his favorites. But also where am I? Who am I? What Day is it? Why do I live here now, my married. And for those of you who've been through this with someone you love, you know how heartbreaking and heart wrenching it is to see that, and I realized with my grandfather how disoriented he was and how all his questions were just grasping for books back into reality to understand who he was. And here's the deal with the Christian life. We get disoriented all the time. A kind of spiritual dementia sets into our lives all the time. And before you just try to do better next time you need, need to get reoriented and remember who you are. You need to come back to Jesus and see how he gave up his glory. For you to give you a glory in a name that will last forever. You need to come back and hold the faith of the Lord of Glory. It's from that place deeply convinced of who you are in that you begin to live out your freedom. It's from that place that you begin to live into a life that truly matters. So here's my invitation to you as we close. Come to Jesus. Maybe for the first time today or maybe for the millionth time today, the come to Jesus and remember who you are so that you can be set free to live into this life that really matters. Let's pray together.