Church: Where Everybody is Somebody

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham a little later in the program will tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's brand-new book and reignite the first years.

His message church where everybody is somewhat God's word and turned to the second chapter of J were going to begin reading in verse one through the 10th verse, my brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 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 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 made distinctions among your cell and become judges. Watch this with evil thought. 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 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 honorable name by which we are called, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, and you are doing well, but if you show partiality, favoritism, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has been accountable for all of it, the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ changes lives. Someone said if your religion hasn't changed your life, you need to change your religion. We don't preach religion. We preach Jesus Christ but Christ the reality of Christ living in his changes the way we practice our faith. This passage tells us what true religion as compared to Paul's funeral worthless.

Religion does and does not when we walk with Jesus we will walk in love and welcome people and treat people right. Everyone how do you treat people, especially people who are different than you, especially people you don't know very well. James talks to us about the danger of discrimination.

The peril of prejudice. The sin of snobbery. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is not a snooty religious country club is a place where everyone is welcome. There's no place for personal favoritism in the church or in the life of the Christian verse one.

He speaks of partiality. If you show partiality. Now this can go under a lot of different names.

This partiality favoritism. It literally means to lift up the pace. The word which means to lift up the face to look at the face to lift up her face so you can see the exterior but partiality comes in various forms they can be call racism can be call classes are cultural is him in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no place for discrimination are the disk termination of those who do not know Christ and those who love Christ are in the body of Christ welcome and all of us need to be a part of the welcoming committee of inviting people and including people in the church because God plays no favorites. The Scripture says in first Samuel 16 verse seven that God doesn't look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

Jesus never showed partiality. He welcomed everyone from the smallest child to the outcasts to the open house. The down and out he was not impressed with social or cultural or racial or even religious standing.

God cares absolutely nothing about any of that.

What people look like or their profession or their success or lack of success there, standing in line for the strata of life God is no respecter of persons. According to second Chronicles 19 God is not a sinner.

There's no iniquity in him there is no respecting a person with God. We put people in various categories and classes no it comes natural to we categorize people in terms of of affluence or lack of affluence, a appearance accomplishment.

All these categories. There are no categories with God. Well, there's one category really saved or lost. Those who know Jesus and those who don't know Jesus but God doesn't look on the exterior. God doesn't play favorites. God doesn't look at the skin. He looks at the heart. Therefore, faith and favoritism are not compatible in the Christian life. God is impartial, and therefore those who know God follow Jesus are also to become impartial. It is a lifelong struggle for all of us.

But remember, the goal in the book of James is becoming mature in Christ. Becoming more like Jesus. I know this. Everyone is love and level at the cross, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel that God so loved the world everyone in it that he gave his only son, Jesus bled and died for all, and he rose again on the third day, so the gospel is the great equalizer. So the gospel is for all is not the American gospel or the European gospel are the African gospel or the Asian gospel is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and is freely wanted everyone his amazing grace for every race, we are told to go in all the world and preach the gospel of Christ.

Real religion loves without limits. It loves without libels and it loves without a label. We are called to go outside our own comfort zone and to welcome all into the family of God. Now with that principle in place James gives us a story and this evidently was a problem in the first century church as well as the 21st century church and everything in between. James tells us about two guys who go to church first guy goes to church a guy walks into a church and it is obvious that this guy got it going on in his life. He's dressed like he just walked out of GQ.

His clothing is fine and he's wearing gold rings literally. He's Goldfinger and is obvious that he's got money he's got self-worth and net worth. So he walks in the Usher takes notice of Mr. doping and says oh, sir, come on in. I got just the seat for you, he gets a good see right down front and center. Because the Usher courses thinking this person is important. He's a VIP were taking care of this guy because he just might do something for the church. Then another guy walks in the church. This guys right off the streets.

He's not dressed in fine clothing. He's dressed in rags. In fact, the shabby he's maybe even homeless financially. This guys got nothing working for the has no net worth and he's told go stand over there now. No problem in welcoming the rich man that's not the issue. Maybe the rich man was a lost man who needed Jesus for all we know, no problem sitting the wealthy man on the front row, the best seat in the house. That's not the problem.

Everyone is welcome. Remember, rich and poor, but the problem is on how the poor man was treated in comparison to the rich because the rich man was viewed as more of the best seat in the house. The poor man was seen as unworthy of the and therein lies the problem.

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Reignite offers biblical insights to encourage you in your pain and help fan the flames of faith in your life and it's our way to thank you for your gift to PowerPoint so call today to get your copy of reignite as thanks for your support: 800-795-4627 that's one 800-7954 six C7. You can also text the word PowerPoint 231-3131. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop a restore give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional our website again is Jack Graham.Margie. Now let's get back today's message church. Everybody is somebody. The Bible calls this here favoritism was a word that also means snobbish is the lead is in the Bible says that snobbishness is sinful.

This is not just a social problem. This is a spiritual problem. Discrimination and prejudice. Prejudice is more than preference. We all have reference things we like things we don't like. That's normal. That's life. But sometimes our references can turn into prejudices and that's when it becomes sin in our lives. Partiality playing favorites, looking on the outside of a person in judging them instead of seeing the person's heart as God would save and this is more than just a preference. It is in the sign of God, vicious sin I can to murder and feebly, because the same passage compares partiality or prejudice in the same sentence as murder and stealing so we can say well it's just my little thing my little sin. That's the way I was ready.

You know I came up in the 50s or 60s.

That's just the way I am no. If you are in Christ. You are a new creation. You don't see things you don't see people the way you use to see people in verse four that we read earlier says when you treat people like this when you discriminate against people based on their external appearance things I can't even change if they try. Are you not look at verse four.

Are you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts, vicious bad among yourselves. Notice, this is the sin of the church you would expect this kind of behavior in the world right but not in the church is been said that prejudice in all its forms is ignorant, true prejudice is arrogance, but it is more than ignorance and it is more than arrogance is vicious sin, evil sin in the heart of an individual. We should know better. James then asks a question in verses five and six will look at it again. Verse five he says listen, my beloved brothers now, lest you think James is about to hammer us for the sinfulness of this and in this kind of behavior.

He says now listen, beloved brothers, James is a pastor and is counseling us brothers and sisters. Listen to this. Pay attention to this has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom to think about this God laws and receives all who come to him in faith and in particular God has any action and affection for people who are poor. We see it all through the Bible that God loves the poor and that we as believers should also allow the minister to the poor. Jesus hung out with the despise the disregarded the disease, the disrespect, and he often did his greatest work among the common people who heard him gladly, the outcasts, God uses the poverty of the poor to give them the richness of faith because when you recognize your desperation and your poverty, you're a candidate for God to do something great in your life.

The minister's help and hope in your life. The richness of his love toward you. But if you're flying high.

If you're rolling, we tend to get self dependent, rather than God dependent and I daresay for a lot of us. There was a time in our lives when you had, lest we had less, but God had more of us. That's the point that James is Mike when you're poor you're rich in faith. He goes on to say, isn't the rich that are oppressing the poor and why would you honor the rich and dishonor the poor can happen all of us. I've had to repent many times before I preach this message, attitudes and actions. Because you see we start valuing the wrong things in life and we start thinking that our self-worth is all wrapped up in our network not every man, every woman is of infinite worth and value to God should be welcome among Christians and in the Christian church.

So back to our story. Rich man, poor man.

The problem of prejudice is when we indulge the wealthy and are in different to the pool.

That's the message. When we indulge the wealth and in ignore or are indifferent to the poor. This is an die Christian behavior. You know where okay loving our neighbors as long as we can pick our neighborhood. Nothing wrong with living in a nice neighborhood no problem with that. The problem is when you close yourself off to people either in your neighborhood are out of your neighborhood and no longer seeing needs all around. Jesus gave a great story. The story of the good Samaritan is not an it was an answer to the question of a lawyer religious lawyer one to know who is my neighbor. He said he wanted to categorize who is his neighbor. He wanted to find out who he should serve and who we shouldn't serve, who is on limits and off limits. And so Jesus told that story about the man. He was beaten on the side of the road and along came a religious person and another one and they just passed by on the other side of the road and then came this despise Samaritan who saw the man broken down and beaten and die and he ministered love and bound his wounds and paid for his stay overnight or however long it took. It hospice hotel there and he ministered his love and and Jesus said that should answer your question.

Who is your neighbor say also. Jesus is showing us in the story that anyone in need is your neighbor anyone you find along your life road who needs you is your name and therefore we as the church of Jesus Christ. Those who love and follow Christ. We are to welcome all and to reach out beyond ourselves and our own friends in our own click.

Remember the church is not a club where religious snobs get together and tell each other how wonderful we are. We are the church design not just for eyes, but those who are not yet with us. I wonder how many people not like this poor man. At least he walked in the church. At least he came in the church that day. I wonder how many people would never walk in the church because in their heart of hearts I think I would never be accepted there. I would never be welcome there.

I don't fit in there. Nobody cares for me there.

How many love people, except people welcome people into your life into your home into your family and you may have to get aggressive and intentional about moving out of your own circles in order to do this. This is one of the great values of serving in some way. It gets us out of our routine in our regular life in the busyness that results in such a barrenness and Allah we start showing and sharing the love of Jesus Christ. The Scripture tells us he's told your man what you do but to love mercy and to do justly and to walk humbly with your God. And James closes the same passage by saying that that mercy overcomes judgment, mercy overcomes the judge minimalism that so often in our lives. It is, is mercy accept one another welcome one another. I just read an article this week regarding churches, says most churches think their friendly but they're not. Sometimes we think we're friendly. If we have a time in the service where we secondhand all around know if we're friendly church. We walked across the aisle to meet someone new. We walk across the room to share Christ with somebody we don't know we get out of our regular group to include someone ending by someone in there are lies, taken the logic that we never met before till today nice friendly church and that's a Jesus church except people love people tell people about Jesus. Because when you do you open up your heart and I make a difference in listening to PowerPoint contact man in today's message church where everybody is somebody. Chances are you faced your share of crisis maybe you even in the fight of your life right now. Or maybe you're simply feeling exhausted by the busyness of life and Santa spiritual strength. Whatever your facing.

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And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop you store give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional our website again is Jack Graham.Margie Pastor what is your PowerPoint for today. The Bible says in first Samuel 16 heaven that God doesn't look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart no favoritism of any kind is contrary to how God sees people the word James uses for the sin of favoritism literally means to lift up and look at the face. In other words, it means to see what is on the outside of a person and measure a person's worth. According to the standards of the world are your own standards.

So if we want to fight the sin of favoritism.

We need to have the heart of God and start seeing people as God sees people the gospel of Jesus Christ is the great equalizer. We are all leveled and loved. At the cross, Jesus died for all Jesus loves everyone. God loves you without limits and without labels. So if you truly have a heart for God, then, as the Scripture says, the second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. You won't label people you want libel people. You will love people welcome them into your life into your home and even into your family. No one is excluded from Christ and therefore no one is excluded from God's church because everybody is somebody in his body and that is today's power member will you give a gift to PowerPoint today will send you Dr. Graham's brand-new book, we had night as I was, thanks. Call one 807 957-1800 795-4627 can also text the word PowerPoint 313131 text PowerPoint 31311. The next PowerPoint. Dr. Graham brings a message about your faith can make a real difference in your life. Next time on PowerPoint with Jack PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint ministries