Alright. Usually by Thursday I know what
I'm going to preach and have just about finished preparing
it. But that wasn't the case this
morning. And I didn't know not only what
I was going to preach, I didn't even know what text I was going
to preach from. And Melinda and I were talking
on the phone after she had left the house. Just talking about
some things that we're concerned about at home and trying to learn
ourselves. And I discovered what I would
preach on tonight. And I want to take my text out
of James chapter 2 and some other verses around this text. But
it has to do with what we've been seeing in James. James chapter
2 verse 12. So speak ye, and so do as they
that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have
judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy, and mercy rejoiceth
against judgment. Now, we've seen this word, the
law of liberty. We saw it back up in James 1.25,
he says, whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty. That's
the gospel, the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of Christ
Jesus. It's the perfect word of liberty,
of perfect liberty, of full liberty. He says, whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty and continueth, he being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
When a believer looks into the gospel of God's grace in Christ
Jesus, by the Spirit of God, we're made to behold two things.
The first thing is, is that in our flesh dwells no good thing.
No believer had any power to bring ourself into subjection
to God, to submit to God, to believe on God. We had no power
to discern the truth of God, much less believe on Him. And
that's the first thing that we have to be taught, is that we
don't have any good thing in us. And then the second thing
He teaches us is that God, of His own will, begot us through
the Word of Truth. We know and we believe that every
good and every perfect gift is from the Father above. It comes
down to us. It's a gift freely given of God. Our full acceptance with God
is Christ Jesus alone. He's the unspeakable gift that
God gave. And every believer is complete
in Christ. There's nothing left for the
believer to add, to do, to be accepted of God. We are accepted
of God. That thief on the cross had nothing
else to be done. With his hands and his feet nailed
to the cross, he was as complete as you believers sitting right
there in your seat, right now. He was as complete as the believer
who lives a long time on this earth and dies in old age. He
was complete. We broke the whole law of God.
And in Christ Jesus, God in Christ Jesus reconciled His people to
Himself. Christ justified His people.
He put away our sin. He made peace through the blood
of His cross. And by God's grace, He gives
us faith from Him, so that we have access into this grace of
free justification, of peace with God, of complete acceptance
with God, so that all we do is stand and rejoice in the hope
of the glory of God. Now that's what we learn in this
Gospel. And when we look into this gospel
of liberty, this gospel of peace, and we behold this, we continue
it as doers of the work. Now, how is our faith justified
as genuine faith? That's what Paul begins to address.
That's what he's been addressing from the very first verse. But
he addresses this throughout the book. And he says in verse
27, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is
this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction
and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Now, that's a
description of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's pure and undefiled. He visited the widows and the
orphans in their affliction. And He said, I sanctify myself
that they might be sanctified through me. He separated Himself,
kept Himself unspotted from this world. The spotless Lamb of God
is He, that He might bear the sin of His people and put away
their sin. And this is what he says to us
that pure religion and undefiled is. To visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction and to keep ourselves unspotted from
this world. Now, widows and orphans represent
those that are utterly helpless to help themselves. Throughout
scripture, widows and orphans represent the utterly helpless
and comfortless. They have a true widow, according
to scripture, is someone who has no sons. She has no husband. She has no sons or daughters.
She has no nieces or nephews. She has no one to provide for
her. She's a widow indeed. And an
orphan is just as helpless. No one to provide for them. Now,
you and I may come into contact literally with orphans and widows. But the principle here reaches
beyond the literal. Now here's what I mean by that. Affliction is translated from
a root word which means trouble. Trouble. He says, pure religion
and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction. It's in their
trouble. Every sinner that's born into
this world is in trouble. They're in affliction. They're
oppressed by their own spiritual defilement. They're oppressed
by their own vain imagination. They're oppressed by sin. They're
oppressed by Satan. They're oppressed by the world.
They're oppressed by religion, false religion. They're oppressed,
and God hates oppression. He delivers those who are helpless
to help themselves. And every believer in this world
is in ourselves helpless, utterly helpless and utterly comfortless
in ourselves without any ability to help deliver ourselves from
trouble and from affliction. Absolutely. This, that's every
sinner, believer and unbeliever. Now the affliction may be a temporal
need that we have, or a temporal need that someone has, and it
may be a temporal need in one who is strong spiritually. And they just need help in temporal
things. Or it may be a spiritual need
in one who has much in temporal things. Do you understand what
I'm saying? It may be one who has nothing
temporally and has a need spiritually. Or it may be one who has much
in temporal things and yet has a need spiritually. Or it may
be one who has all things spiritually. A believer has all things given
to him. But when a temporal need comes
about, very often it affects our spiritual need too. So visiting
the helpless and keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, they
go hand in hand. Because those with true faith
delight to show mercy to the helpless. That's pure religion
and undefiled. And they delight not to turn
away from God's word, back to themselves, back to the world. That's to be spotted. Now, James
describes a few of those spots right here for us. In verse 26,
he said, if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth
not his tongue, You see how the tongue, the word, if you go through
James and you see how much James talks about saying and what we
speak and what we say. There's a lot, we're dealing
with the word. What we say, that's what we say
is doing. What we say to someone is doing. And how we do towards them is
doing. But he says here, if any man
among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Now pure religion, undefiled, will visit those who are in trouble. Not unbridling the tongue and
upbraiding. God doesn't deal with us that
way. Pure religion and undefiled is to continue remembering. to continue in the word remembering
that of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. God
is one who removes the burden from the afflicted. God does
that. He removes the burden from the
afflicted. He does so with the word of truth,
brethren. Whether he removes a temporal
thing, a temporal obstacle or not, he removes the true affliction
with the word of truth. And whether it's temporal or
spiritual affliction, whether there's someone in temporal or
spiritual affliction, the truth of the gospel of God's grace
in Christ Jesus is what we visit with. That's what we visit with is
the truth of the gospel of God's grace. And we also visit with
any temporal substance that we can that will help to relieve
that temporal need so that they can hear this word of truth.
But whether it's a temporal need or not, those in affliction are
going to be delivered from affliction by the word of truth. This is
a spiritual thing. The Lord said, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sin. That's the word that's going
to relieve the afflicted, the troubled. That's the word that's
going to do it. to hear God speak in the heart
and to say, you are mine, my people, mine. He speaks in the
heart and he says, you've received of the Lord's hand. You've received
of my hand. He speaks to the heart through
the word of truth and he says, I have accomplished your warfare. I have pardoned your iniquity. And I've rewarded you with more
abundant grace than the sin that polluted you. I've come to you
in my Son and I've put away your sin forever. It's gone. And I've robed you in eternal
righteousness, in the righteousness of my Son. You can never again
be lost. You can never again be turned
away from me. God says, I won't allow it. Now that's the word of truth
whereby the Lord is going to remove the affliction, whether
the trouble's temporal or the trouble's spiritual. The Word
Himself says that. Listen now. John 16, 33. These
things I have spoken unto you. This is the Word Himself. This
is the Master speaking. These things I have spoken unto
you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall
have tribulation. It might be temporal. It comes
in every shape, form, and fashion. And it's going to be some spiritual
affliction. In the world you shall have tribulation,
but what's the cure? But be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world. That's how the affliction is
removed, to know Him who has overcome the world. So first,
it's visiting the helpless with the word of truth. It's visiting
them with that and with whatever temporal substance the Lord has
given us to provide. In short, it's this, it's to
be merciful. That's what it is, to be merciful,
to delight in mercy. Now here's the second thing.
Pure religion and undefiled will visit those in trouble regardless
of their persons. This is another spot. The first
spot that James said is if we unbridle that tongue and we start
speaking a word other than the word of God's grace. We're not
delighting in mercy. That's the first spot. The second
spot is if we speak the word and we decide who we're going
to give it to and who we're not going to give it to based on
some outward appearance of things. Now, a respect of persons. We
saw James talk about this in chapter 2 last time, and I'm
not going to get into detail because I want to get to something
here I want you to see. Sir, turn with me to 2 Corinthians
5. Now, those who are afflicted,
who are afflicted, they may be poor materially speaking. As we see them out, they may
be poor. But they may be rich in material things. But we never
put one above another based on outward appearance. Look, this
is in 2 Corinthians 5.14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. That's why we don't. The love
of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge, we discern this
way. that if one died for all, then
we're all dead. Every sinner he died for, whether
they were rich in temporal things or poor in temporal things, all
had this in common. They were all dead. Spiritually
dead. Whether they were rich in religion
or poor in religion, they were dead. and that He died for all,
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto Him which died for them and rose again." We don't now
turn around and start judging according to our own selves,
what we think, but we live unto Him now. What He says, that's
what we do. What He commands, that's what
we do. Wherefore, this is what Paul concludes, henceforth, this
is what he's saying, henceforth know we no man after the flesh. We don't look with these eyes
and determine who's worthy to receive this gospel and who's
not. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more after the flesh. How do we know
Him? by faith. We worship Him in spirit and
in truth. We don't worship Him by looking
at Him visibly and judging whether we have salvation in Him visibly.
We know we do by the Spirit of God's grace. And we don't judge
any man by the outward appearance either. Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, he's a new creature. Those old things are passed away. That old way of looking at things
and that old way of doing things, that old way of putting ourselves
in the judgment seat, that's gone. That's gone. But he's a new creature. Old
things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. We see things all together differently now. In all things,
all of this is of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
Christ and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now that's
what we use. We use the Word of God. Now back
down to James 2.12. James says, So speak ye and so
do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty, by this
gospel of God's grace. Now look at the back end of verse
13. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment. Now let's take the first part.
So speak ye and so do. Speak the word of God's grace
to all alike and do so He said, Speak this word of God's grace
to all alike, and do so, that is, rejoice in mercy toward all
men alike. Speak and do, remembering that
we have no power in ourselves, but it's God that's going to
take off the burden, the affliction, the trouble, and He's going to
do it with the word of truth. And then he says, mercy rejoiceth
against judgment. Mercy rejoices against putting
ourselves in the judgment seat of passing the sentence of condemnation
of choosing one over another based on the outward appearance
of things. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ did
tell us that there are those to avoid. And he did tell us
that there is but one way we're going to know. And what has he
been talking about? What's James been talking about
from the very beginning of this book? God's Word. God's promise. God's faithfulness. To not turn to our Word to trust
His Word. You know how we're going to be
able to know those to avoid and those not to avoid? It's not
going to be by outward appearance. It's going to be by the Gospel
of Christ. It's the only way. Hebrews 4.12
says, The Word of God is quick, is powerful, is sharper than
any two-edged sword. I've seen some sharp swords,
but the Gospel is sharper. It will divide quicker than a
sword will. Piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit. and of the joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." That's
how this heart's going to be revealed in a man. How he regards
the Word of Truth. How he continues in the Word
of Truth. How he delights in the Word of Truth. Or whether
he doesn't. Whether he doesn't. There's no
creature that's not manifest in his sight. All things are
naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Seeing then we have a great high priest that's passed into the
heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession."
That's what James is saying. Don't turn back to that spotted,
corrupt, vain word of your own imagination, word of your own
discernment, that vain, spotted judgment seat that we used to
sit in and pass sentence on, folks. Don't go back to that
anymore. Hold fast this profession. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him and continue in
this word. Visit with this word. Visit in
mercy to everyone that'll hear this word. God's gonna make the
distinction between who are His and who aren't. And as long as
a person will hear, delight in mercy and keep declaring the
gospel to them. So, now, trials of our faith. Trials of our faith. James started
out here speaking about trial. Now, when you think of trials,
don't you think of the big trials? We think of the big trials, don't
we? When the big trial comes to us
or it comes to one of our brethren, we'll get serious and we'll think
on these things, very much so, that James is saying here, these
things. Patience, waiting on the Lord,
asking God, not turning back to our own lust of our flesh
and all those things. We get to thinking on those things.
examining ourselves in those things. But these illustrations
that James gives us here throughout this book, they aren't dealing
with the big trials. They may turn into big trials,
they may turn into large trials. But the things that James is
dealing with here are things we encounter every day on a daily
basis. And when we think of visiting
those who are utterly helpless, the widows and the orphans, don't
you tend to think of somebody who has a great instance of a
need, somebody that's, oh, they just, something terrible's happened
to them and they have a terrible need? Isn't that what comes to
mind when you think of the orphans and the widows? But daily, we encounter those
in desperate need, don't we? I'll give you an example. Our
own children. Every day. We tend to envision
that one in need is, when we think of the orphan and the widow,
here's what kind of goes through our mind. We picture ourselves
going over to some poor lady's house that don't have anybody
to care for, and us knocking on the door, and her opening
the door, and receiving what we have to give, and loving us,
and rejoicing, and thanking us. And that's not wrong. I mean, we need to do that. But
were you receptive to God's grace when He came to you, when He
visited you in your affliction in the first hour? Were you receptive
to His grace? I wasn't. We think of the person
ready to receive it, don't we? I wasn't. What about all Israel
when the Lord Jesus Christ came preaching to all Israel? He preached
to every person alike. Were they all receptive? Peter had a great need as a believer. When he began to come into that
trial, and the Master Himself was speaking to Peter, was Peter
receptive of what He said to him at first? He denied everything
the Lord said to him, didn't He? When the trial first comes
to us, and the Lord is speaking to us, Are we always receptive? But the Lord dealt mercifully,
and He dealt tenderly, and He sent forth the same word of grace
to everybody alike. He dealt with everybody. He spoke
the same to everybody, and He did the same towards everybody.
He dealt mercifully. And what was the result of it?
Some believed, and some believed not. Now, let's bring this down to
where we live. I don't want us to lose sight
of those that are without. And don't lose sight of the widows
and the orphans. And don't lose sight of outside
of this that we're going to talk about here. But I want you to
consider a minute how we deal with those in our own homes,
our children, on a daily basis. Ephesians 6 verse 4 says, Ye
fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Colossians 3 verse
21 says, lest they be discouraged. Now, do you find that the trouble
that your children have on a day-to-day basis, a little bickering and
squabbling and things like that, Do you find that the trials they
have, those little daily things, do you find that they often become
a great trial for you, for the father and the mother? Here's what I mean by that. We teach our children to be patient, to wait on us, to ask us and
we'll help them. We teach them to be swift to
hear us when we speak. Slow to talk back to us. Slow
to become angry when we correct them. But then they don't obey
us. They get into an argument over
something. And they come, they're fussing and fighting and it gets
loud or whatever and they come running to us and say something
to us. And what do we say to them? If you'd have just listened to
me in the first place, that sound familiar, children?
Well, if you'd have listened to me in the first place, we'd
lose our patience. We don't listen to what God has
said to us. We do exactly the opposite of
what he said to us. And everything we're trying to
teach them, we show them the opposite. And
that's how we really teach them. Is that a trial? Is that a trial? It's just as much a trial as
that big monumental thing, isn't it? Does He mean even in these little
day-to-day trials? He sure does. What does He mean
do in these day-to-day trials? Look back up at James 1.3. This
is being a doer of the work and not a hearer only. Listen to
this now. Verse 3, the end there, He says, The trying of your faith
worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
If any of you like wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to
all liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." That's exactly what we teach
our children, because we know that's what God teaches us. And
then we do the opposite. Don't we? We can learn a lot
about our relationship with our father by looking at our relationship
with our children. My little children are utterly
helpless. Where are they going to get any
spiritual understanding? Where are they going to get any? How am I going to visit them? My children, they're not rich
in temporal things. and they're not rich in spiritual
things. And so often, I'm in my office working, and they get to squabble, and I make this awful, awful
statement. Now, you kids are going to have to stop interrupting
me. I'm trying to prepare a sermon. Isn't that a respect to persons? Don't they need grace just like
you need grace? I'm preaching this to me and
to Melinda. We've been talking about this
a lot lately. But here's the point. Here's
what I want you to see in this. I'm not just talking about children.
I'm not just talking about our dealings with children. I want
you to think that the trial, think of the trial as Not just
the big trials, but these everyday trials, these everyday things. This is the life of the believer. It's not just, it's, you know,
we do our best when the trial comes, the big trial comes, to
make sure everybody knows that we're being patient about the
trial, you know. We want everybody to know that. But what's the tenor of our life
in the home with our own family? And as we walk around in the
world, and as we go to work in the morning, and as we deal with
folks that we come into contact with on a daily basis. We're
sure to pray in the assembly during these big trials. We all
the time, but especially during these big trials, we want to
make sure to pray and say everything just right and all that, you
know. And so we're asking God to teach us in this trial and
bless us and have you. But this is what I want to learn
myself. Before I say a word, when my
kids are got me frazzled to the end, or it's my neighbor, or
whoever it is. Didn't He say, if you need wisdom,
come ask me? Not just in the big trial, not
just when the mountain comes, but in these everyday things.
Continually asking Him, living upon Him, asking wisdom from
Him. The widow and the orphan, the
helpless and the comfortless, they're not just out there in
the big wide world somewhere and we as a church are going
to try to visit them. These are folks that we deal
with in our own home and every day and every hour of our life. Isn't that right? Respect of
persons is not just as the illustration here that James gave of somebody
coming into this place. It's in our own homes and in
the world and in the places people we come in contact with every
day. And none of this, brethren, none of this is to be me looking
at you or you looking at me. Satan has a heyday there. That's
the surest way for us to be turned away from Christ and to exalt
ourselves. And the deception here, brethren,
is not pulling the wool over somebody else's eyes. What did
James say back up there? That man deceiveth his own heart. This is a personal thing between
us and God. Now, the doer of the work This
is what we have to be reminded of, and this is what we remember.
We don't forget the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. If I'm not a forgetful hearer,
if I'm not a hearer only, but a doer of the work, then I remember
the nurture and admonition from the Lord Jesus to me. I remember
the admonition of the Lord, the nurture and admonition of the
Lord to me. Now, this is what the Scripture
says, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he
remembereth that we're dust. We're dust. I'm slowly learning
how the Father nurtures and admonishes me. I'm slowly, slowly learning
this. In that first trial of affliction
that He brought me into, through the Holy Spirit, God visited
me. I was utterly helpless, utterly
comfortless, and He visited me. And you know what He did first
of all? He drew me unto Himself. He literally turned me from everything
else and He drew me to His own breast. Now, no chastening for
the present is joyous, it's grievous. I fought against it. I fought
against it. Don't you notice it again with
the illustration of the children? When we turn them from each other
and from whatever is causing the squabble and the affliction
and the burden they're under, when we turn them from it, they
don't want to be turned, do they? But something I'm discovering
that is the first thing that will do better than anything
else is to just take them in your arms. They may be wrong. They may have just done something
that is horrible. But the first thing, take them
in your arms. That's what God does to us. He
drew us to himself. We might have fought, squirmed,
and tried to get away, just like a child would do. But you know
what that hug will do? An embrace will do. Whether it's
a literal hug, or it's a gesture of kindness, or it's a whatever
it is, you know what it'll do? It'll melt the heart. It'll melt
the heart. And it'll melt it to where you
feel like you're utterly foolish for fighting against God. Why
have I been fighting against Him? And once He settled us,
once He drew me and settled me, just like you set somebody down
to talk to them. Once He set me down, and didn't
you know what He did? He spoke the word of truth to
me. Now what James is saying, visit
the helpless that are afflicted. How? Not with an unbridled tongue,
in love. Embrace them. That melts the
heart. That melts the heart. And visit
them with this word of truth. And keep ourselves unspotted
from that flying off the handle and that seat of judgment, condemnation,
and all of that. And He spoke this word of truth
and He made me to know that I'm His son by His free choice, that
He chose me, that He made me to behold that before I was ever
born, He did everything necessary for me. He provided everything
for me. He made me to know that when
I was dead and trespassing in sins, His Son took my sin upon
Himself and laid down His life in my behalf. He spoke the Word
of Truth to me. He made me to know that He's
clothed me in the righteousness of His only begotten Son in whom
He's well pleased and that He's well pleased with me even as
He is His own Son. The Word of Truth. That's what
He spoke. That's how He did this. And by
His Son, He gave me faith to enter into this grace and to
stand and rejoice in this full accomplishment of His Son. He
did it with the Word of Truth. And every hour since then, every
time I turn away, every time that I look to myself, every
time that I start to get critical of my brethren, every time that
I get too attached to this world, to something in this world, you
know what he does? I mean great affliction. I mean
great, great anguish of soul. And the trial is him taking that
away from us. and drawing us to Himself in
that sweet embrace. And we'll fight and kick the
whole way, but He's not gonna take no for an answer. And He's
gonna settle us right there first, where we got no other options.
He might hedge us about with thorns in every way, so we can't
turn any other way, but we gotta sit there and listen to Him.
But He does it in love. In loving kindness have I drawn
you, He said. Loving kindness have I drawn
you. He draws us. And when the Hebrew writer says
we had fathers that corrected us for their own pleasure, that's
generally how we correct our children. It's for our own pleasure,
meaning we don't want them to embarrass us or they've offended
us in some way or some another and it's really our own pleasure. It's for our benefit. because
we don't want them to, they embarrassed us in front of somebody or they
didn't do like we told them to do and it offended us because
of something out there. But he doesn't do it that way.
He does it in loving kind, without sin, perfectly is how he does
it. And that Word of Power that raised
Him from the dead, that Word of Power that first brought me
to newness in life, that Word of Power that will one day change
this vile body so that it's like His glorious body, that mighty
working whereby He's able to subdue death and hell and the
grave and sin, and He's able to subdue every heart. That's why James says, go with
this Word of Truth. Go in mercy. The trial's going
to be when we're opposed. But go in mercy. Go in mercy. And He teaches us mercy by drawing
us to Himself and dropping down this wisdom into our hearts.
And listen to what He says. Paul said over in Colossians
that when the Holy Spirit enters in, He strengthens us with all
might according to His glorious power. Unto what? all patience
and long-suffering with joyfulness. He makes us glad to wait on Him
and rejoice to wait on Him. And then we say within ourselves
what is said in Lamentations 3.21, This I recall to my mind,
therefore have I hope it's of the Lord's mercies that we're
not consumed. It's of His mercies. Because
His compassions fail not. They're new every morning. Great
is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Mercy.
That's what we're talking about here. Mercy. Mercy. Now in these little daily trials,
and in the big trials too, that's how He's going to teach us this
patience. That's how He's going to cause us to wait on Him. That's
how He's going to cause us to ask wisdom of Him, to believe
Him, to continue trusting Him, to visit the helpless in mercy,
to put no confidence in our flesh. That's how He's going to do it.
I can look at your faces. We've been sitting here talking.
I can look at your faces. You experienced these little trials
and you've experienced big trials. The things we're talking about
here. You've experienced them. I can tell by looking at your
faith. And then He speaks this word of grace to you. So now
when you experience these trials, you'll rejoice in Him. You'll
think about these things. Continue in these things. And
you'll come into more trials and you'll forget these things.
And He'll speak that word into your heart that at silent as
light. He'll speak at silent as light.
And that light will come on and you'll say, oh, Lord, thank you
for keeping me for myself. Thank you for keeping me. Teach,
show me what I am. Turning me to you. And whether it's a brother in
Christ or whether it's a friend in the neighborhood or whether
it's your own children or whoever it is, you'll want to hug them,
either with your arms or with a gift or with something, a phone
call or just something to let them know you're thinking about
them and speak a word of grace to them. Now the disciples, I'll end with
this, they came to him one day and they asked him, they said,
who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Who's the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? The scripture says, Jesus called
a little child unto him and he set him in the midst of them.
I want you to, just for a minute, put yourself in the place of
that little child. I don't know how little he was,
but I do know this, I do know he was more than likely smaller
than any of these children we have right here. He was a child small enough that he just obeyed the Lord.
He just did exactly what he said. But I want you to put yourself
in the place of that little child. Here he stands in the midst of
all this group of people. All these big people. They're
all bigger than him. They're all wiser than him. They're
all worthy of more notice than Him. They don't even notice Him. Now that's you. You're standing
there and all these people are bigger than you. All these people
are wiser than you. All these people are worthy of
more notice than you. And you don't really understand
what they're talking about. You're just standing there because
you're just there with whoever brought you. And you're just
sitting there. And then all of a sudden, the master puts his
eyes on you. And says, you, come here. And he calls you to himself.
Now you can put yourself in that place. That child's too surprised to
say anything. That child, he don't offer any
resistance. He don't babble. He just steps
out and comes to the Master. And while the Master is speaking,
he just stands there. And the Master does all the talking.
He just stands there. This is what the Master said, I say unto you, now, you put
yourself back in your own shoes. We're the big people standing
there. We're the big important folks standing there. And he
says, I say unto you, except you be converted and become as
little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, Just like this little child,
when I called him, and he walked right here, stood here, right
by me, unless you become as this little child. He says, but him
that's like this little child, he's the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. He's the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. How can, how can Scott Keller, be made
one of these little children and be the greatest in heaven.
And Art D'Armiento be made one of these children and be the
greatest in heaven. And Kenny be made one of these little children
and be the greatest in heaven. And Clay be made one of these
little children and be the greatest in heaven. Doesn't that mean
one of us has got to be greater than the other one? Isn't that
what he just said? No. That means you'll be greatest
in the one who is the greatest. And you'll be happy for it to
be so. Isn't that right? How's that going to happen? When
he puts his eye on you, and says, come here, and he puts his arms
around you, and he draws you in, and he makes you to know
his love in the heart, you're going to do exactly what he said
to do. You'll humble yourself before him every time. Every time. All right.