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A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me’” (Mark 10:21). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The story starts on a hopeful note. A breathless young man catches up to Jesus as our Savior sets out on His journey to Jerusalem for what would come to be known as Holy Week. He kneels before Jesus and asks: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call Me Good?” Jesus asks. “No one is good except God alone.” Does the man realize Jesus is God in human flesh? Possibly. Note the man’s posture as he comes before Jesus. He kneels—a sign of reverence and respect, but also desperation, as the two words that form the Greek indicate. In Mark 1:40, it is the leper who approaches Jesus like this. In Matthew 17:14, it is the father of a demon-possessed boy. This man i
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The Prayer of a Righteous Person

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Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Recently, I was asked if I would preach a sermon on prayer. I said I would try to do that the next time that prayer was the subject of one of our texts. Well, here it is: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). Then I began to regret answering that way. That’s a challenging verse in a challenging epistle. I’ve made it a point to preach on the epistles from James during September; and when I arrived at this one, my first thought was, “Maybe it’s time to preach on the Gospel for a Sunday.” The reason for the challenge is this: when we think of “the power of prayer,” the antennae start to twitch as we think about televangelists with unusual hairdos who define the power of prayer something like this: “As long as you have enough faith, God will give you whatever your heart desires.” We want to avoid that ditch; the easy way to do so is to give
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Friendship w/world = Enmity w/God

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Click here to listen to this sermon. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives mo
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The Small but Mighty Tongue

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Click here to listen to this sermon. 3  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2  For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3  If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4  Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5  So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6  And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7  For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 
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If You Can Do Anything

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Click here to listen to this sermon.   14  A nd when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15  And immediately all the crowd, when they saw [Jesus], were greatly amazed and ran up to Him and greeted Him. 16  And He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17  And someone from the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought my son to You, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18  And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked Your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19  And He answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20  And they brought the boy to Him. And when the spirit saw Him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21  And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said
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Impartial Grace

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Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is from our Epistle, James 2:1: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It sounds strange the first few times you hear it. We pray for individuals in the prayers of the church, and among them, we pray for Joseph and Timothy. Now, that doesn’t sound strange in itself until you realize we’re praying for Joseph, our President, and Timothy, our Governor. Suddenly, it sounds inappropriate, disrespectful, or like we’re trying to cozy up or imply that we’re on a first-name basis with people who probably don’t even know we exist. While there’s nothing wrong with praying for people using titles and last names, there’s a good reason for using only first names in prayer. It reminds us of an important truth: God shows no partiality with His Law and Gospel. Out there, He gives us all sorts of different stations and
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