In 2007, 2 guys that were friends James Park and Eric Friedman had this crazy idea that you they put some sensors and they actually had them in a wooden box and they went around and they pitched this idea to investors saying that we believe we can take sensors and put it in a wearable device that will start tracking your activity and then give a person accountability for what they're doing throughout their day. And so these uh, two friends went and pitched this idea at a technology conference. They were hoping to get 50 preorders. Uh they thought they might only get five, but after their one presentation of what they could do with personalized sensors and wearable devices, They got 2000 pre orders. And the company, Fitbit was born and just in 2000 and 17, 15 million Fitbit devices were sold around the world and the company is now worth billions. Well, the the idea behind a Fitbit device is that the sensors track your activity and then they offer accountability. And so the premise behind selling these devices is that a healthy life is an active life, healthy life is an active life. And so that in order for this to, to best use a Fitbit you have, you have to wear. But then you have to move. And so this idea of knowing how many steps you're taking or what is your heart rate and and going through even tracking sleep patterns. And some of the newer devices there. And so the concept though is that if you can know where you stand. um you can actually grow in your health and and become a healthier person by allowing a Fitbit to offer you again um accountability and then measure your activity. And so it allows to do that. Well, the premise for today's messages were walking through the book of James is that really just like a healthy life is an act of life. I believe that a healthy spiritual life is really an active spiritual life. That the whole summary of the Book of James is this idea that faith works, Christianity itself is not just really a necklace to be worn or uh post on a, on a blanket or on a, on a plate on a wall, but really a transformational truth and a personal relationship with God that impacts your daily life and that if you want to live a healthy spiritual life, if you want to be active, that we want to activate our faith, we have to move in a way that actually moves us. And so if you're taking notes, you want to write down this general premise for this morning is that faith works because faith moves faith works because faith moves, it moves us personally emotionally physically mentally, but then it moves us towards action. And so healthy faith is a moving faith. And so if you have your bibles open up to James Chapter one and I don't want to try to address three questions this morning that comes from trying to break down this concept of what exactly is a moving faith. And so let's go ahead and we're gonna start reading together and James chapter one verse 19. I'm gonna read the first three verses here. No, this my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthy nous and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. So I want to try to address this morning, spend a few minutes diving into the tensions that come from understanding, what does it mean to have a faith that moves an active faith, a spiritual Fitbit, so so to speak, how is it that we can actually have a faith that moves us and actually changes our daily decision making and impacts the world around us? And so uh we're gonna have three questions and then just kind of three D. Visualizations. So how you can picture how we can apply this passage today. So the first question is really why should you move in the first place? Why should you move? Well, simply put you have to remember your identity, remember who you are. So in other words, understanding of faith that moves, really starts out with who you are before, what you do? So it's the who not the do, it's your identity, It's about being a child of God. Um It says in there that we just read that verse. It says no this my beloved brothers. Do you view yourself as being beloved by God? The verse that we actually read last week verse 18 talks about how we are actually the first fruits of creation. In other words we are the best part of creation. We are the ones we are sons and daughters of the living God. And it says the father of lights or the father gives good gifts and is unchanging. And so we have a God who loves us and wants to give us gifts who wants to to love us the world to bring us back to him. And so do we view ourselves as a child of God. See this concept of remembering your identity is so crucial. Um And if you've ever lost your your form of I. D. You know how crucial that is. I know recently I went to the bank and I tried to make a transaction and they said okay I just need to see your I. D. And I pulled out and turns out I had fallen out of my wallet when I pulled another card out and so I couldn't complete the transaction because I had lost my I. D. And I was trying to pull out other forms to show who I was and said you know you need you need you need an official form to prove your identity. And so I had to go and I had to order a new license and get that just so I could go back and do regular transactions. Same thing when you travel, okay when you travel and you're walking through the airport, they need to authenticate your identity and you and it doesn't work just to say no, just trust me. And that doesn't work because there's legitimate cases of stolen identity out there where someone takes the name, takes their, maybe their credit card number of the social Security number, they take that and they act as if there's somebody else. And so this idea of a stolen identity is very um very difficult to, to battle and face if anyone in this room has ever faced that. Um, but knowing who you are and actually having the ability to prove who you are is crucial in this life. Whether it's it's you're buying something, you're traveling wherever you go. They always say, okay, I need to see license and registration or or passport or some form of identification. Okay, prove to me who you are before you can go somewhere you have to prove to me that you are who you say you are. Um, I also think of it this way that um, if there's a crime committed and a witness is trying to describe to a sketch artist who someone is. Well they look like this, they look at this and they're actually able to form this sketch and then they say, okay, we are on the search for this man or this woman. And so they actually have, it's incredible that um that sketch artist just based on descriptions um can actually draw a person in detail so that the rest of us can recognize it in the public and actually find this person. Now I always want, I just was curious that um if there's good sketch artists out there, um there's got to be not good sketch artists, right? Um And so like, for example, we used to do this event when I was a youth pastor, we would go face painting at this hope kids carnival. And I had um actually you can give him a hard time. He's working in kids this um this morning. But my brother in law, Ben, we were short on workers and we had all kinds of carnival games and activities, but we were short on face painters. Um Just f y i if we're face painting, don't have been be the one to the face painting because you want that middle school artsy girl, right? Like they're doing like butterflies, they're doing all these things. And then, and then it's like really like artistic and like accurate and uh and then I look over and bends like you want to be a warrior, you're a warrior. Hello girls. Like, hello, could I be a flower? How about a warrior? Okay, just like going through it, just like, so here's why I bring this up because this is a true story. I'm gonna show you a clip here. Um, that apparently there was a county sketch artist that I don't know, he called in sick and so somebody else had to step in and this is awesome because um, they did a breaking news story. You know, sometimes news, the stories coming like breaking news, it's like, well, so they're trying to track down this criminal and the newscaster doesn't know the sketches like, oh we have a sketch of who we're looking for and and watch, just, just watch him try to hold it together in seriousness about possibly the worst sketch artist drawing ever after criminals. Go ahead and check out this clip. This just in police just watched lancaster pennsylvania. We're asking people to be on the lookout for a man who robbed the store. And I think, yeah, I think we do, we do have his description, we take that, let's take his description. Mhm Okay, this is the guy there. They wanted, they wanted people in pennsylvania to be out on the lookout for, he's got, he's got a nose and some hair that goes like that and he was, he was wearing a hat at the time of this particular particular crime. It's got kind of a Chen that comes down to a almost a point Officials about 5' 4\" tall. There it is. Get a good look for yourself. Oh and now I'm getting word that police actually caught this guy thanks to the sketch no doubt. So here's a picture of the real guy next to the sketch that led to his arrest. It's uncanny lisa. Uh, the guy on the left is now charged with two counts of theft is being held in the Lancaster jail. And I say give that sketch artist to raise. This wouldn't be so funny, except it's a real sketch. That was actually the sketch that police sent out to the good folks in Lancaster. I mean, clearly exact resemblance, Right? Um, so here's here's my fear though, when it comes to remembering our identity is that one I think we struggle identifying ourselves of recognizing who we are as beloved Children of God. So sons and daughters of God. But then too our actions are supposed to reflect who jesus is. In other words, when you go out and you love your neighbor, the way that you talk to someone, the way that you serve somebody is a representation. It's a sketch artist to somebody else of what jesus looks like and what I'm fearful of is that spiritually speaking, sometimes we look like that sketch and they're like, no, no, that's that's jesus and we got eyes and nose and thing and like I just wonder what is the representation that we're offering our community and our culture of of what a relationship or what an act of faith looks like. And so if you're trying to understand or recognize your identity in jesus, I want to give you five things right from the passage um that can help you identify yourself with jesus and actually have a better sketch artist drawing of who jesus really is. Um and so the list is up on the screen here. The first thing is that it says in the passage to be quick to listen, to be quick to listen, and we want to be quick to listen because our identity is secure. In other words. Imagine walking into a room with nothing to prove. Imagine walking into a room with nothing to prove, because if you have your identity secure in jesus, if you view yourself as beloved of beloved child of God, then you walk into a situation not thinking, what can you get, but what can you give? But secondly, it says in that passage to be slow to speak, and you want to be slow to speak because you want your words to count, And then it says to be slow to anger, because in that passage, verse 20, it says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. In other words, you can't plant the seed of bitterness and expect to get the fruit of blessing. You can't spew anger and then desire, love, Isn't it interesting that we live in a culture, that when it comes to us and on our shortcomings, we typically defend it by saying or describing the circumstance. Well I said that, but what I really meant was this, so I've really had a long day or it's it's you know, the you know, I made a bad decision or the market's down or this that and we and we put things off on circumstances when it comes to us, but when somebody else makes a mistake, what do we do? We put it on the person? Oh, they're horrible, that jerk, I can't believe they would say that do that and we project it on someone else. And so if you look at this list, this idea of um just taking those first three things, this seems like the exact opposite of our culture right now. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. We live in a culture that doesn't care about the other side. We listen to reply instead of listening to understand, were quick to speak and share our opinions and social media is just like exponentially brought that out of the human nature that we all desire to comment on everything, right? Because we're experts apparently and everything. And and then it says to be slow to anger. Like if you turn on the news or or do any type of social media scrolling, it can be depressing because everyone's mad at somebody else for doing something and they're evil and they're evil, we're all evil and nothing's gonna work and like you're like, man, our world's gonna end tomorrow, right? But James actually says, no you as beloved child of God, who has nothing to prove who your words can count who understanding that planting the seed of anger will never result in the righteousness of God, but then says actually remove the filth, remove the wickedness from your life and then he focuses in there on plant the Gospel. In other words, place the seed of the Gospel, the Word of Truth into your life into your soul. Because that's the only thing, The word of God and the truth that comes from scripture is the only thing that can produce salvation for your soul. In other words, it's that seed of hope, it's that seed of life, it's that seed of goodness. That if you plant that into your soul, the fruit of that is righteousness of God and it is light, it's freedom is pieces. Hope is purpose and so based on those things. Okay, does our life, does our sketch of our our life, does it represent these five things? Or does our sketch look more like the cartoon drawing in the clip we just watched. It's like, yeah, technically we have features of jesus but we're not really accurately depicting who he wants us to be. So why should we have a faith that moves? Well, first of all remember your I. D remember your identity. The second question is well then how do we move? How do we move? Well let's go ahead and keep reading vs. 22 to 25. But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and forgets what he looks like again tied to identity. But the one who looks into the perfect law, this idea of whole the whole law, like the wholeness of it, the law of liberty or freedom. The one who looks into the perfect law and perseveres being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts he will be blessed in his doing. Isn't that a challenging phrase? There being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts my prayer and hope that mission growth churches that we as a church will have a bias for action. And so the picture, the first one was remember your I. D. Remember your identity the second one in terms of how do we move? I want you to simply turn your neighbor and say this phrase ride the bike right. If I go and turn your neighbor and say ride the bike. Okay you didn't say that with passion. So I know I caught you off guard. So I'm gonna be one more chance to turn to your um second lesser option. Apparently I don't know why you chose one neighbor or the other, but go ahead and turn to the other person and say ride the bike okay? And here's what I mean by that it's cheesy, but, but hopefully it's gonna stick with you because here here's where it starts out. Is that remembering your identity is about being, it's about balance in your life, that comes from knowing that your identity is secure in jesus, I think about actually. Um, so are our oldest, when we taught him to ride a bike, we did the standard way of training wheels and it took a little while and he finally learned, but kind of the newer trend these days is actually two instead of training wheels, you actually give a young toddler a what's called a balance bike. So there's no pedals on the bike, but they actually get used to balancing on the bike and they just kind of scoot and push themselves along what we did that with our second child. And he actually picked up riding a bike a lot faster and the idea is that get the child used to balancing before you add the pedals and I kind of think spiritually that's true here as well. And so the idea of balance comes from your being. But then when it comes to actually going somewhere, if you really want to face that moves, you add in the pedals of knowing and doing knowing and doing and, and this idea, um, kind of comes from several pastors. One of them is Pastor Mark Driscoll but brings us out is that the idea is that we have christians that read the bible and you implant the word into your soul and that's like the knowing side. Okay. That's the knowing side. But if you, have, you ever tried to peddle a bike with one pedal, it's really kind of difficult. You can do it for a little bit of time, but the rhythm is off and it's just kind of like awkward and it's difficult to maintain. But when you add the other side, which in our case is the doing side. Now you have a faith that moves, you have a faith that goes somewhere and, and so you have people on one side who are in like 15,000 bible studies and they're like, yeah, we're learning, we're learning, we're learning, but yet they're not actually loving their neighbor or living a generous life or speaking with humility and truth and, and kindness. But then you have the other people who think, um, well I don't need to read, I don't need to do anything and they're all about doing and they're all about doing and it's great and, and it's awesome that they're doing and they're loving and they're serving. The problem is if you only focus on the doing side, you're not actually getting filled up yourself and and after a while you have no basis or foundation from which you're doing stuff in the first place. And so it's both, you need both pedals on the bike to go somewhere. You need to be able to know the word of God. But then you need to actually do what it says. Warren, where's B says this? He says when the child of God looks into the word of God, he sees the son of God and is transformed by the spirit of God to share in the glory of God. Paul writes in the book of romans. He says, do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. We forget things all the time all the time. Um, we um, I was actually joking with our worship team this morning. Um, I was saying that um guys, sometimes when we lose stuff, we don't look for very long or well, so we just ask our spouse and so um, and, and so one of our guys were saying, yeah, I'll ask my wife where something is and said, well, did you boy look and boy look is like, I don't see it. Hey honey, where is it? You know, you know what I'm talking about? Alright, I do that all the time. Like I would say, hey Sam, where are the keys? And she's like, did you even look there in the drawer. Okay. And then we go, well I'm just thinking, okay, hey, you know what she knows where they are. So I could spend a few minutes so I can just go right to the source and ask her. But but we do that sometimes it's, it's the boy look or something like we're not really searching for it. Um, and we just want somebody else to fight it for us. But um, and so the ideas and scripturally you have to actually understand, you have to search and seek after who God is. And so this idea of knowing the word of God, having something, having a source that fills you up, having a source that that comes alongside you because you're exposed to thousands of media messages a day, There is more information in the New York Times or in the Washington Post or um in, in the average newspaper then people had access to an entire lifetime's 1000, years ago. We are bombarded with information. And so when our culture is bombarded with information, you have to go to scripture because without scripture you won't find meaning and more than information what our culture needs right now is meaning. And so you can dive into the word and then you can actually then apply that and go and act that and live that out. And so the balance comes from your being and then you have the knowing on one side and then you have the doing on the other side and if your core, if your balance comes from an identity in christ and you regularly are filling yourself up with the message of jesus and you start living out that truth now you have a faith that moves and a faith that acts, you know, action is what separates knowledge from wisdom, Knowledge is saying, okay, I acknowledge what happened there, but wisdom is actually having knowledge plus action, compassion turns passion, our action turns passion into compassion. Like it's one thing to be like, oh it's another thing to actually go do something about it, to have compassion is to live with passion and the actions and and the idea of moving from anger to empathy right from apathy to action. And so you have this picture of moving forward, so why do we want to face that moves? Well, it's because it's our identity, we are sons and daughters of the living god, and then how do we move? Well, it's this balance in this continual attention of knowing, doing, knowing, doing and we're not perfect, okay, we struggle, but then they go back and forth. And so when you're struggling with in the doing side, you can go back and actually reading about how so many people mess things up in the bible and God gave them second chances. But then it's the idea when you go and do that, it's it's like I'll put it to you this way. If when you read okay, when you read your getting into the scripture, when you do, you're getting the scripture into you. So it's one thing to read into the bible. It's another thing when you live that out and now scripture is getting into you. So like when you serve you get that feeling, it's like, wow, that was cool or you get that sense of joy and purpose that comes from doing. So then the last thing, the last question is, well, what does it look like? What is the faith that move look like? Let's read these last two verses here, Verse 26 and 27. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart. 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 reflection and to keep oneself unstained from the world. So what does it look like? Well, our final picture of the morning is it comes from football because it's championship playoff season. Um people that know me. I'm a big Bears fan. And Greg texted me the other day. He said, should the sermons title be when you miss life's field goals. I'm still hurt by that. I've never prayed against the team Greg, but if you want to throw up a prayer against the rams, I'm okay with that. Um That's what, you know? Um So no, it's playoff time, it's college football playoff time, it's NFL playoff time, Well, what's awesome about sports when it comes to playoff times? Like now it's crunch time. You've been working all year to win as a team. Well, as you go in, as the coach calls into play, they huddle together, they call the play the things they've been working through all year. You run this route, you run this right? You go here, you block this person, you get this person now, imagine if they gather together and it's in the playoffs, it's the championship moment. It's it's under two minutes to go and they call the play and in the huddle, the players go, yeah, good one and just stood there. Yeah, that was awesome. Good play coach. Like you're like, no, the reason you call the play is that you can go do it and what we want to ride the bike, that the reality is the reason we want to ride the bike is that we want to go out and actually live the christian faith. In other words, God gives us the play he calls us here. Here's a faith that moves you. Here's a faith that brings light into the world that you see in the world around you. And so I've given you this play, here's the truth, Here's the freedom here now go do that. And so he gives us the play, he calls it in and he says, here's what it looks like. And so the idea of running the play, the idea of executing what a christian faith looks like gives us three things in these two verses here is he calls us to um, it causes here to speak with humility. He calls us to serve the oppressed and then he calls us to stand for truth. So I find it interesting in all these cases, it talks about the tongue and what we say and how true is that, that you know, I find myself sometimes like worshiping God in one breath and then complaining about God in the next right. Or I I show love and speak love and the friends and family. But if somebody upsets me, do I show that same kind of love in other words, Am I executing the play and then serving the oppressed is the idea that do we reach out to those in need around us? Now there's an individual level. Um, but we want to do that as a church as well. And so one of the main things we do as a church is that we want to be for the community. And so each and every month we're gonna partner with a local organization as well as we want to give. So we ask you to give to the vision and mission of Mission Grove. But we also are going to be a generous church. And so actually I want to share with you two organizations right now, just because you're a part, we're gonna give, um, we're gonna have $250 to these two organizations that we're gonna actually try to partner and serve with. So, um, one of them is actually Grace and Mercy ministries, uh, they actually feed thousands, They give out thousands of meals every single every single year. Um to those, they actually work within refugee apartments, um, and work with immigrants here in the phoenix valley, and then they also serve down um outside of homeless shelters in downtown. And so we're gonna give them a check this month from Mission Grove, just a donation, but we're not just gonna give financially actually Grove teams are going to go down and serve this saturday. And so if you have any interest in serving um the least last and lost and serving those oppressed and serving those who are in need, you could actually just on that connection card, just right, Grace and Mercy ministries on there and then I'll connect you with Pastor Clark um and you can actually have an opportunity to serve. So we're gonna go down and partner with Kevin Winbush and Grace and Mercy ministries this weekend. Another ministry that we're gonna highlight is actually called the Harvest compassion center. Harvest compassion Center. I actually met their director of names Nicole when we actually joined Mission Grove Church actually joined the North phoenix Chamber of Commerce and we're actually starting a philanthropy division, which is really cool when a secular organization has come to churches and then another church in there in the chamber called Bell Road Church and said, Hey, can you guys help us start uh, philanthropy division in this community so that we can help businesses better serve those around us Well, Harvest compassion center is on that committee and they actually serve um families in need and they actually have a center right there on tatum and Thunderbird. And so I'm going to go down later this week and we're going to meet with our director and find out ways that we can plug in. And so I don't want to just speak from states. It's like, hey, let's get involved, let's help serve. But we're gonna have tangible practical ways for you guys to plug in. If you're looking to do that and if, and wherever you are right now, I want you to just recognize that well, I might not be able to go downtown, I might not be able to do this. But okay, who in your life, who's in front of you, who's your neighbor, who's at your workplace, Who is it that you can have that conversation with? Who can you provide a meal to, who can you just go out of your way and intentionally serve somebody this week, in other words, to run the play of a moving faith and actually show the love of christ in a practical way. And then that last thing there is the concept of standing for truth is that the world is going to try to sell you a bit of goods that just that doesn't fulfill. It's like hey if you buy this, if you do this, if you wear this, if you have this, if you talk this way, whatever it is, they're gonna put something in front of you that I promise you it's not going to fulfill. And so it's connected. All of us is connected. And so the concept of why should we have a faith that moves well? It's remembering our identity and that we are beloved Children of God and that we have security and who God is when once we have security of who we are then that gives us the ability to know and to do, to know the word of God and then to do the word of God, know the word of God and then do the word of God and then we practically live that out by serving the poor by speaking in humility and then standing for truth, I think if we can do that, I honestly believe that are north phoenix valley can be radically transformed with the gospel because here at Mission Girl, if we want to see every man woman and child experience jesus and I don't know about you, but I want a faith that moves and a faith that changes lives and a faith that changes my life all for the glory of God. Let's pray together during the father God, we just thank you for challenging us this morning. God I pray that we can just be changed by your word. God help us to recognize that our identity is in you may our actions about how we speak and how we act and how we serve may give an accurate sketch of who you really are and God, no, we just have that balance of of knowing the word and planning that into our soul and then to go out and live that out and do that and obey it on a daily basis. And I mean we just run the place that you've given us. Can we look to seek and serve those around you? Because you came first to seek and serve us God. We love you. And I pray that if there's somebody here that doesn't know you that doesn't have that relationship with you that they will accept you and receive you into their life. And God I pray that if there's somebody who is struggling and not and just not feeling it and and not, I just had a sense God, I'm not feeling close to you. God, I'm not feeling active in my faith and I just feel far from you. God. I pray that we can just commit our lives to you today. I mean you just give us a fresh move of your spirit. Will you just give us a fresh feeling of faith because God I don't want mission Grove to be an apathetic group that just gathers together. But God we want to come together and sing your praises and to worship. But we want to have a faith that moves God. You tell us that if you have a faith of a mustard seed, you could move mountains. God, we want to be a church that moves mountains with our faith. We will be securing our identity in you may we know your word and implant that into our souls and then to go out and live that courageously knowing that when we fall down, God that you pick us back up, that we can actually seek and serve those around us, that we can stand for truth, that we can speak in humility and God that we can live with purpose and passion in this life. God I just pray that you would give us this faith that moves this morning. We love you God and we give this community up to you for we want every man, woman and child to experience you. We love you got it in your son's name. We pray Amen