Category: Christian

This morning I preached a sermon titled “Humble & Gentle”. Here are 15 highlights:

• I like Wisdom. I need more Wisdom. I want more of God’s Wisdom. I wanna be wiser.
• Reading Proverbs teaches you God’s Wisdom and discipline. Proverbs teaches you to live a disciplined and successful life. Proverbs helps you to do what is right, what is just, and what is fair. Proverbs makes you wiser – when you do what it says.
• Our talk and our walk are equally important. We must talk like God. We must walk like God. The world out there should see a loving God alive in our hearts. The world out there should know that we believe – that we follow our God – without us telling them so. Our testimonies must come from both talking and walking.
• Humility comes from wisdom, and wisdom comes from humility. When you’re humble you care about others. You help others. You pray for others. You love others. And you don’t brag or boast about it. You just do it. For others. That’s being humble.
• If you don’t have wisdom – then you won’t fear the LORD. If you don’t fear the LORD – then you won’t have wisdom. You must be humble to fear the LORD. Humility comes before honor – the honor of being wise.
• God’s Wisdom is always gentle. Our God is a gentle God. He’s a “Humble & Gentle” God to all of His believers, followers, disciples, teachers, and leaders. He’s a “Humble & Gentle” God to those who do not yet believe or follow Him.
• We must be just like Jesus – “Humble & Gentle” – to those around us. The Bible says that we should always be ready to explain our Christian hope, and we must do this in a gentle and respectful way.
• When you treat someone with care and respect – when you show compassion and kindness and forgiveness – that’s being full of mercy. God is merciful. God forgave you for all of those sins that you’ve committed – and for all of those sins in your future. God forgave you for everything that you’ve done wrong – or will do wrong. He did that when He went to the cross.
• God’s Wisdom shows no favoritism. We must show no favoritism. Treat everyone equally.
• No favoritism means it mustn’t matter what they look like – where they were born – what neighborhood they live in – how much money they have – how much formal education they received – whether or not they currently believe and follow our God. See none of that matters to God. God loves all of His creation. We must love all of God’s children as well. We must be fair and just – just like Jesus.
• The rich must love the poor and not look down on them as inferior. They are not inferior in God’s eyes. Nobody is inferior.
• The poor must love the rich and not be jealous of them. God hates jealousy. Jealousy means we’re not satisfied with what God has given us.
• God shows no favoritism. God loves everyone in the whole world. The sun rises every day on His believers and His non-believers. The Bible says that “He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”
• If our neighbors out there hear about our loving God – and they actually see that loving God in us – if they see that we care for them – that we respect them – if they see and feel compassion and kindness from us – then many of them will want to hear more from us about our God. Some of them may wish to come with us – or meet us here – on Sunday mornings.
• We are peacemakers – when we go out into the world and show God’s great love for our neighbors. When we go and tell the world about our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ – not to judge them – but to save them through Him. That’s planting seeds of peace. That’ll reap a harvest of justice. That’s being “Humble & Gentle”.

Read James 3:7-18.

I’ve begun writing my 22ND sermon – the 19TH of which will be preached to my church family sometime soon. (I’ve actually written 3 sermons that I’ve determined aren’t ready to be preached – for various reasons.)

My new sermon that I started writing yesterday is titled “War & Peace”, and it’ll likely be based on James 4:1-10. It continues my message series on the Book of James which I started in February. (This will be my 9TH sermon in this series.)

Here are 3 working paragraphs that I’ve written thus far based on James 4:1:

… Fast forward not quite 2,000 years into the future. It’s 2018. What do we have in the world today ?  We have Christians inside God’s Kingdom who look and act no different than non-Christians of the world. We have churches squabbling internally about silly things. We have megachurches looking down on small churches as irrelevant. We have small churches chastising megachurches as secular or worldly. We have churches competing with each other instead of uniting with one another. We have religions and denominations – and their respective rules – working against each other. We have church leaders preaching on how much we sin – and how much the world sins – as they get caught in years of sin.

No wonder non-believers and non-followers of Christ walk away from us instead of towards us. The hard truth is that many of our neighbors out there love God, but they don’t care too much for His followers – because of what they hear and see from us. I speak from personal experience here. I felt that way up until 12 years ago. I’ve always believed in God’s existence. Even when I didn’t follow Him – I’ve always believed that He existed. But I didn’t care so much for His people and for His churches. That is – until I became His follower – and then 5 months later – became part of His church family.

In my first year on this fantastic journey I fell in love with God – first – before family – before friends – before the workplace. Once I joined a church family I discovered that God commanded me to love everyone – genuinely – believers and non-believers alike. I don’t think that a lot of our neighbors out there know that we love them – and that God loves them – unconditionally – eternally …