So What? | Sunday Message (with Jonathan Laurie)

Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. You're listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, and my objective is to deliver, hopefully, compelling practical insights in faith, culture, and current events from a biblical perspective. To find out more about our ministry, just go to our website, harvest.org. So thanks for joining me for this podcast. My name is Jonathan Laurie, and I'm one of the pastors, and I get to share the message with you today.

Open up in your Bible to James chapter 2. That's what we're going to be going through together. As we look at this message, which I have titled, So What? So What?

And we'll get into that in just a moment. If you were watching with us last week, my dad shared about how we had this really, really cool opportunity to partner with a brand who sponsors a NASCAR car. It's a pretty big deal. The driver is Jeffrey Earnhardt, and he is a really famous race car driver.

He's a grandson of Dale Earnhardt, kind of a big deal. And so Jeffrey, he was driving his car, and this ministry that partnered with us, they told us that they wanted to put our website on the bumper of their car with the words, Find Hope. Well, we were so excited because, you know, millions of people are going to be watching this program, and we're excited to see and hear just about the fruit that was going to take place. And so we thought maybe it would pop up on camera one or two times if we're lucky. And hey, we'll see what happens.

Well, check this out. As the driver was driving around the racetrack, at some point the bumper became dislodged. And look at this on the bumper that it ripped off. And this is what you would call, friends, viral marketing. How ridiculous is this?

That it's literally waving in the wind with tight close up cameras all over it, pointing people to our website. I love that. That was so hilarious. When I saw it, I just started laughing so hard because that's exactly how God works.

He works in mysterious ways, doesn't he? We didn't know what was going to happen. We were hoping for the best. But this, I mean, give me a break.

This is best case scenario right here. And so praise God. And hey, maybe some of you are watching right now because you saw it on our website or you saw that little website on the bumper. And so you joined us.

Well, hey, that's amazing. We're so glad that you've joined us. I hope that you have. If you have, actually, would you mind just saying, hey, I saw your website while watching the NASCAR race on the bumper. Why don't you throw it in the comments if you have?

That would be seriously insane if you were. We would love that. So today we are going through a message, as I mentioned earlier, that I've titled So What? And it's in James Chapter 2. The reason I titled it this way is because the last few months together here on Sundays and Saturday evenings at Harvest at Home, we've been going through the Book of Revelation together. And man, what a blast it has been. We've been going through it in our teaching with my dad as he's led us through it.

Also in our small groups. If you're a part of one of our small groups, we've been studying it. And I tell you what, it has been one of my favorite books to go through. This has been such a fun series and interesting and engaging and challenging and convicting as well.

And it's been a great time. And now if you're new to harvest or you came in a little bit later for the series, you might be of the mindset that Revelation, it's at the back of the Bible for a reason, OK? Now, you know, Moses, Jesus, Adam and Eve, Noah, King David. You know, these are the characters that you're familiar with. We've heard the Bible stories about.

We've heard great teachings on these characters and we love hearing about them. But you know that once you get to that book that's between Jude and the concordance and all the colorful maps, you know, that's that's an interesting place, that book of Revelation. That's where you find, you know, the child eating dragons. And that's where you find, you know, this great prostitute who's riding around on a seven headed, ten horned, scarlet covered beast while simultaneously drinking human blood. Yeah, that's a description in the Bible of the Antichrist. And what a crazy description that is.

Let's be honest. It's a little terrifying. We can kind of chuckle about it and say this is like the most radical, graphic description of anything we've ever heard of. It sounds terrifying.

It sounds terrifying. And as you study Revelation, as we have here on Sundays, what you learn, especially with that description in particular, is that many of those things are symbolic. They're symbolic and descriptions of the Antichrist and the power that he has during the tribulation period. And so if you go into Revelation and you don't understand what you're doing or what you're going through, my encouragement to you would be this. If you miss one of those messages, this is such a good book for you to go through. This is such a good book for you to understand, to see what the future holds for the believer. It's all good news for us. I assure you, if you're a follower of Christ, you can know we win in the end. So my encouragement to you is if you missed one of these messages through this series, as my dad wrapped it up this last Sunday, or you didn't get to hear any of it, go to harvest.org or go to our YouTube channel and watch these messages.

They're free of charge. You can check them out. And I assure you, you're going to be encouraged and you're going to be challenged and you're going to love it. Well, last week in my dad's message, as he wrapped up this series in his opening part of his message, he started talking about some of the words that people will say on their deathbed, words that celebrities have said, words that common people have said as they laid there uttering the last phrases and the last noises that they ever would. Now, we find those things interesting, right? We find those things interesting how a statement uttered by someone on their deathbed can give insight into who they really are, what really mattered to them, the things they cared about. And it's interesting.

It gives us insight. Well, the Book of Revelation contains the last recorded words of Jesus Christ. Everybody wants to know what are the last things that Jesus said? What was the command that he gave?

What did he want us to do? The Book of Revelation contains all of that, except they weren't uttered when Jesus was on his deathbed. No, they were uttered when Jesus was in glory, uttered from heaven when he was in the throne room of God, spoken down to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and he shared these words. The Book of Revelation is so important for us to understand, and as we have read this book together and studied it together, and we will study it again in the future right here at Harvest, we do this because it contains the words of Jesus Christ.

That's why. That's the simple reason why is because it contains the words of Jesus Christ. It is scripture.

It is breathed out by God. And in this book in particular, it gives us insight. It gives us instruction and it gives us hope. And it's the only book with a built in blessing, which I love. And the third verse in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 1, verse 3, it says these words, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written for the time is near. Now, what I like is the third verse out of 404 that are found in the Book of Revelation. It tells us exactly what its goal is. It gives us the key to unlocking it right there. And verse three, blessed is he blessed is she who reads, hears and keeps, most importantly, the words found in this book for the time is near of Christ's return.

I love that. Now, this is not a book solely for our intellect, for our cerebral understanding that we should pursue those things. No, the Book of Revelation was written to give us hope, to give us perspective so that we can live our lives here on Earth with hope. We see how our story ends.

And because of that, we can live our lives with confidence, with boldness, with faith and with action. We know how our story ends. About two years ago, my little boy, Christopher, he was seven years old. And now, Christopher, he is what you would maybe call accident prone.

Some people have said this. I don't know if he's accident prone. I think that he's just kind of a daredevil and he has a high tolerance for pain. And so what happens is he usually comes home, he's bleeding, his legs bleeding.

What did you do? Oh, I don't know. It's just not a big deal. Well, he came home when he was about seven years old, a couple of years ago, and his leg was bleeding pretty bad and he was hurt. He came in, he said, Dad, I fell. He told me the story. He said he was sitting in his friend's window and he fell out of the window into some bushes.

Now, as much as I tried to drill down, I'm like, how high was this window? How hard did you fall into the bushes? I'm really clear to this day, but he fell into the bushes and there were some twigs in there.

There are some sticks and branches that were sharp enough that it punctured his leg and he got a good little hole just below his butt. And so we knew that right away we were going to have to take him to the emergency room, take him to the walk in clinic and get that stitched up. And now my policy as a parent, when it comes to taking my kids to the doctor or taking him to the emergency room or whatever it might be, has always been complete transparency.

I always tell them exactly what's going to happen because I always just figure, hey, I'd rather them know and be prepared and then we'll get through it better. And so with Christopher, we're driving to the hospital and we were talking just about what was going to happen. I told him, hey, OK, buddy, so what's going to happen is you're going to get some stitches. You're going to have to get, you know, one or two, maybe three shots of numbing, you know, this numbing stuff that they're going to put into your leg so you don't feel it when they give you the stitches. And it's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to hurt for a little while. They're going to stitch you up. You're not going to feel it.

It won't be a big deal. We'll be in there for 30 minutes, an hour at the most. And so I tell him all this stuff. We get in there and he just handles it like a champ. But one of the reasons he handled it so well was because, yes, he knew what was coming. So he knew the amount of pain he was going to have to endure, the discomfort he was going to have to go through. But I also told him at the end, when it's all finished, I'm going to take you to go get ice cream. Or I've told him before, when it was a worse injury, I'm going to take you, I'm going to go buy you a new video game.

We're going to rent a movie, whatever you want. Just something for him to look forward to. And so because Christopher knew what was coming, because Christopher knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, that something good was coming at the end of all of this, he was able to face it with confidence. He was able to face it without fear.

He was able to face it with perspective. And Christian, it's no different for you or I. It's no different for us, for those of us who follow Jesus Christ.

Because here's the reality. Because of the perspective that we have been given by our Heavenly Father through prophecy, we too know what's going to happen. We too know what the worst is going to be. We too know that we are going to endure some discomfort.

We're going to endure some painful things in this life. But we also know how our story ends. And I think it's worth saying, thank you, Lord, that we know we win in the end. Christ conquers the devil.

Jesus conquers death. We know how our story ends. And we can say thank you, God, to you goes all the glory. And so for us, reading, hearing and keeping the truths found in the Book of Revelation, and in all scripture for that matter, are to be a way of life for believers. And because we also know how our story will end, it gives us further incentive. We know how our story ends. And so let's live in light of that. Let's live out the things God has called us to. And so as I prepared my message for this weekend, I put myself in the shoes of a cynical person. A.K.A.

I put on my own shoes. I kind of end up being a little cynical. I don't know.

I lean that way somewhat. But I thought of a person specifically who would hear this whole book, hear this amazing book of prophecy, hear these wonderful teachings and these wonderful exhortations found in scripture spoken by Jesus himself from eternity in heaven. And I thought of a person who would be sitting there kind of with their arms folded and saying, OK, who cares? Who cares? So what?

Why should I care? What's next? Right. And that's our message title.

So what? And as I thought of that person, one person really came to mind. I was reminded of the most cynical and jaded person probably in all of scripture. It was Jesus' very own half brother, James.

That's right. Jesus' half brother, James. Now, James did not believe in his brother Jesus in the sense that he was the Messiah and he believed that he was coming to deliver mankind from their sin.

He didn't believe in him in that sense. But James knew that there was something special about his brother. And but ultimately, it wasn't until Jesus appeared to James after his death and resurrection that James came to believe. And as a result of that encounter, one of the things that James did was write this letter, which we now call today the Book of James. His exhortation throughout this letter is towards action, towards response, to live out what we know is true.

You could kind of start off the Book of James with this statement. If everything that you believed about Jesus Christ is true, how would it affect your daily life? Well, friend, we know that the things about Christ are true. We know that the things found in scripture are true.

And so how should we live as a response? Again, James' exhortation in this letter is towards action, response, and to live out what we know is true. So, James, in our text today, he highlights for us a couple of different types of faith that people can have as a result of reading Revelation and encountering Jesus. But only one of them is a saving faith. Only one of them is a true faith.

Only one of them is a living faith. And so let's read together in James Chapter 2 and see what he has to say about the type of faith we need to have as followers of Jesus Christ. James Chapter 2, starting in verse 14, he says these words, What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving the things needed for the body, what good is that? And so also faith by itself, if it does not have works, it is dead. But someone will say, Oh, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works. And I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one.

James continues, You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Verse 20, Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? It's always a great way to speak to your audience.

Call them fools, right? No, but seriously, do you want to be shown, he says, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father, justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see, this is the key right here, that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works. And the scripture was fulfilled that said Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. Again, I've titled this message, So What? So What? Who cares, right? Who cares?

What does it matter? We look at all these things in scripture, we hear about all this awesome stuff that's true for us, these resources that we have, these gifts that we have. So what? What are we supposed to do as a result? OK, so let's look together at point number one. The first type of faith that James points out for us is a dead faith, number one dead faith.

And we read about it in verses 14 to 17. James talks about basically how he's walking down the street. He illustrates this dead faith. He's walking down the street and there's a person kind of sitting there on the ground. They're cold and they're hungry and they're asking for food. And James is like, what kind of faith is this? If you walk over to that person, you see their need.

You have the means to meet their need and you bend down to them and you go, hey, brother, how are you doing? Pretty cold out here, huh? Hey, be warmed and filled. Take care. God bless.

And then you just go on walking. What the heck is wrong with you? What kind of faith is that? What a terrible thing to do. That is not a good faith.

That is not a true faith. What good is that? James says it would almost be like you're on the freeway and the car in front of you gets into a bad car accident and it bursts into flames. And you look on your passenger seat.

You've got a brand new fire extinguisher you just bought. And so you run out of your car, you grab the fire extinguisher, you run up to the car and you set the fire extinguisher next to the car. And then you go over and you open up the doors for the people and they're passed out. They're not able to get out on their own. And you're able to reach in and unbuckle their seatbelts. And you open the door and you unbuckle their seatbelt, but you don't pull them out. And then you go over to your phone and you dial 911, but you don't press call.

What the heck is that? What's wrong with you? That's like the worst thing that you could do. You might go to jail for that.

And rightfully so. You had the means to help somebody. You had the ability, you had the knowledge, but you didn't do it.

You didn't do it. James says this is a dead faith. This is what a dead faith is like.

What good is that? So James uses this laughable illustration to tell us that a faith that knows the right thing to do, but chooses not to do it and chooses not to act on it. Well, that's a dead faith.

That's a false faith. People with a dead faith will often substitute their knowledge for actions. They know the right things they need to do. They know the vocabulary to use. They know the behavior they should engage in. And they often tell others how they should be living their lives. Oh, I know exactly what you're supposed to do. I can come in and fix this situation just right and tell you, oh, you need to reconcile with your wife and you need to be a better parent. You need to read your Bible and do all these things.

I know all the steps you're supposed to be doing. But often they don't do it themselves. Now, this dead faith, it doesn't change or affect the way you treat your family. It wouldn't change or affect the way you treat your roommates, the way you do your taxes. It wouldn't change the way you drive or the way you talk to people. It wouldn't change how you spend your free time. It wouldn't prompt you to share your faith. It wouldn't prompt you to be generous and to start leaning into that. And it wouldn't also prompt you to make yourself available to help others and to serve at church. It wouldn't do any of those things.

Why? Because it's a dead faith. A dead faith isn't going to prompt you to do those things. Maybe a better way for us to understand it rather than works is this. James says, you know, faith without works is dead.

Maybe a better way for us to understand it would be this. Faith that doesn't drive you to action isn't real faith. It isn't saving faith.

That's a big deal. You know, we always hear salvation by grace through faith. It's faith alone that we need to have in Christ that saves us.

Yes, that's very true. But James is telling us there's different kinds of faith. And if you have the wrong faith, it isn't a saving faith. You're not going to go to heaven with this type of faith.

And so we need to listen and be aware. In James 2 14, in a modern translation, he says these words. Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this life if you learn all the right words? But you never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?

How good is that? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? I tell you what, there's some people today walking around. They can walk or rather they can talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk.

They don't walk the walk. Warren Wiersbe, he said these words. Any declaration of faith that does not result in a changed life and good works is a false declaration. That kind of faith is a dead faith. John Calvin, he said this. It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone.

So a dead faith is knowing God and what behavior we need to turn from and turn to. But for whatever reason, we don't do it. We choose not to. The reason could be apathy.

It could be apathy. You just don't care. Oh, whatever. I don't care.

You know, not that big of a deal. I don't care what God has to say. It could be that you disagree with some aspect of scripture. I don't like this. I don't think this applies to me. I'm just going to pick and choose the parts that I like.

The parts that apply to me and my mind. It could be that you want the appearance of being something that you are not, the appearance of being a Christian without having any of the character traits, without any of the discipline, without any of the obedience. You know what? We would have called you back in high school when I was a kid. We would have called you a poser. We would have called you a poser. You know what a poser is?

A poser is somebody that dresses like a surfer or a skater or a mountain biker or whatever. And they have all the parents. They've got all the gear.

They can talk the talk. But then it's like, hey, man, here's a skateboard. Do a kick flip.

Well, I can't do that. And they, you know, they step on the skateboard and they fall and they crack their head open or something. It's like, well, I thought you were a skater.

No, are you kidding me? I just look like I just dress all the, you know, the different ways. That's called being a poser. You don't want to be a poser. You don't want a poser faith. A poser faith is a dead faith.

It has no power to save you. The second type of faith that James points us to is a demonic faith. Yeah, a demonic faith.

Look at verse 18. I love that. James says, hey, you've got faith? Well, congratulations. La-di-da. Kudos to you.

Well done. Even the demons believe and they shudder. James is calling us out.

He's calling us out. And to some people today, and I'm sure back then, it would surprise them that the demons, the demons have a type of faith. Yeah, they sure do. The demons have faith. What do they believe? Well, demons would for sure know that the existence of God is true. They would believe in the existence of God because they exist. They are neither atheists nor agnostics. Demons also believe in the deity of Christ. They believe that Jesus is the son of God throughout scripture. In the New Testament, when we read whenever Jesus would encounter a demon possessed person, the demon would immediately say, why are you here? Have you come early to throw me into the lake of fire or whatever else? Oh, the son of God, Jesus, the son of God.

He would. The demons would always recognize this. They always knew they believe in the deity of Christ. Jesus said in John 5, 24, kind of speaking on this type of faith. He said, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. That's interesting verse, because right there, Jesus says, whoever hears my words and believes in me has eternal life. So, Jonathan, is this one of those parts in the Bible that's a contradiction? James says faith without works is dead. Jesus says, hey, believe in me and you'll have eternal life. Which is it?

Which is it? James says that even the demons believe in trouble. They're not saved, obviously. But then Jesus says right here that you have to have faith to get to heaven. Well, it's not either or it's both.

It's both. You can have faith. But unless that faith brings you from spiritual death to spiritual life, it's not true saving faith. Look at the last part of verse 24 of John 5.

Jesus said those words. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. OK, so if this person believes they are passing from death to life, I have a question. Does a dead person make breakfast? Does a dead person go for a run on the weekends? Does a dead person do anything except decompose? No, no, they don't.

Why? Because they're dead and they're literally incapable of it. So when Jesus says if we believe we will pass from death to life, we'll go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive. He's saying faith in Christ brings life. And where there is life, there is evidence of life. This is a good opportunity for us for a moment to be introspective and to pause and look at our own life and ask, do I have evidence of spiritual life? Is there evidence of faith in my life?

Is there evidence that I actually do the things I say I believe? You know, I live in a neighborhood and I've got some great neighbors, and a lot of them are really into doing projects on their homes and doing different things. And whenever I have a project taking place and in my house, whether it's tearing something out or fixing something or doing something in the front yard, doing some landscaping or whatever it might be, usually what happens is the neighbors come over and they want to talk about it. They want to check out what's going on. They want in on the action. Oh, you're using the miter saw? It's a good choice right there.

They just like to kind of stand around and hang out. And there's evidence of the fact that there is work being done in my house. And there's also evidence of the fact that when I'm doing a project, or let's say, you know, it's not just a project that I'm having done on my house.

Maybe it's I'm having a new surfboard shaped. Or maybe it's you're building a car, you're a gearhead, and you're, you know, you're restoring this beautiful car and you want to drive it. It's going to be awesome. What are you going to do? You're going to talk about that. You're going to talk about every step of that project with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers, probably at the grocery store, at the clerk. You know, oh, hey, I got a new car. I'm building up. They're like, oh, cool story.

Can I have your credit card, please? The point is, we can't keep it to ourselves. When there's something new, something fresh, something changing in our lives, we can't keep it to ourselves, especially when it's something we're excited about. And so one of the evidences of spiritual life that takes place inside of us is when God is doing something inside of us and we can't keep it to ourselves.

We're telling others about what God is doing and how great it is and how, man, you need to let God do this in your life. And then what happens when that project is completed? Or at least you get some major progress on it. You can't wait to start on the next one. You're saying that was great. I loved that process. I loved growing. I loved spiritually developing.

I loved finishing that project on my house even. You want to start another one. You want to have something else take place and you can't keep it to yourself. That is evidence. That's evidence of a real faith, a faith that is beyond just a cerebral understanding and beyond an emotional faith. You see, you can understand the gospel and you can cry real tears of repentance and you can feel real remorse for your sin. But unless there is action, unless there is evidence, unless there is fruit, it is not saving faith.

James says you can be enlightened in your mind and stirred in your heart, but be lost forever. True faith and involve something more and involve something that can be seen and recognized a changed life. Show me your faith apart from your works.

James challenged. And I will show you my faith by my works. And so James introduces us to three kinds of faith in this section.

So far, the first two cannot save a person. The first faith was that dead, intellectual, cerebral faith. The second was a demonic, cerebral and emotional faith, adding emotions to that component. But the third and final faith that he closes this section with is the kind of faith that we want. It's the only faith that can save a sinful person like me. And that is a dynamic faith, a dynamic faith. Number three, let's look at verse 20 together as James talks about this.

He says these words. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith, apart from works, is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works. And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God. You see, a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And in the same way, was not Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. And so here in that section, James points to Abraham and Rahab as examples of dynamic saving faith, a faith that that prompts them to action, that prompts them to doing something about what they know to be right. Dead faith touches only the mind, right?

It only touches the mind. Demonic faith involves both the mind and the emotions, but dynamic faith involves both of those and the will. Again, Warren Wiersbe, he's one of my favorite commentators, great Bible teacher.

He's now in heaven with the Lord. He said this, The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13, test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don't drift along taking everything for granted.

Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. What an exhortation to us today.

Hey, if you fail the test, do something about it. If you see that, you know, somebody else is telling you about Jesus, you need to find out firsthand. You need to witness it and experience it for yourself. Remember the scripture that we talked about at the very beginning of this message, Revelation 1 3, So we learned about these three types of faith. We learned about the dead faith, the demonic faith, and now the dynamic faith and how that is the type of faith we want.

If we want to go to heaven, we need to have a dynamic faith, the faith that touches our minds, our hearts, and prompts us to act upon it. And so as we studied this book of Revelation over the last few months together, this book of promises, what do we do now? So what, right?

So what? Well, to quote my dad, he said the reason we learn about the future is to motivate us to live right in the present. Listen, we know what we need to do. We know the things that we need to do. God has revealed it to us.

The equation that James has presented us with, it makes it very clear. If you have a faith that does not produce action, your faith will not save you. Now, salvation comes by grace through faith. The Bible tells us, yes, that's true, but the question is, what kind of faith is inside of you? What kind of faith do you possess?

And so in closing, let's ask ourselves this question together. Do I live out the faith inside of me? Do I do the things that I say I believe in? Do I live my life in a way that reflects that Christ is living inside of me?

If you don't, well, then you need to take self inventory. And again, the Apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians 13, if you fail the test, you need to do something about it. The ball's in your court. It's your responsibility. God has given you the tools, the resources, the gifts, everything that he can do to make you successful spiritually in this life. It's up to you what you are going to do with them. It's up to you what you are going to do with all of these wonderful things God has presented to us. Do I live out the faith inside of me? Do I live out these things that I say I believe? You know the right thing to do.

You even sometimes feel the right thing to do what you need to do. But for whatever reason, maybe you choose not to. Well, let me just tell you, the person in that equation that is missing out the most, it's not God.

Certainly it's you. It's you that's missing out. When you don't do what God has called you to, you're missing out because God has given us amazing gift of forgiveness. He's given us the amazing gift of restoration and love and adoption into his family, his Holy Spirit, the church, resources for our spiritual growth. But it's up to us what we will do with those gifts. We leave that gift up on your mantle and admire it and look at it. Wow, look how great that gift of salvation. Look how great that gift of restoration is, that gift of grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It's so beautiful. Look, it's sitting up there on the mantle. Listen, have you taken that gift down and unwrapped it and put it on and began to use it?

It's not going to do you a whole lot of good just to admire it and know about it and talk about it. You need to use it. You need to use it. God has given us an amazing gift. He wants to bless us with it.

It's up to us to use it. Billy Sunday, an American evangelist and preacher in the early 20th century, he shared with us an amazing way that we can begin to unbox and unwrap this amazing gift that I just talked about. Billy said these words. If you will spend five minutes every day letting God talk to you, five minutes every day talking to God, and five minutes every day talking to others about God, nobody will ever be able to write the word backslider after your name. I love that.

I love that. Reading your Bible, he's talking about letting God talk to you. Praying, talking to God, talking about your faith, telling others about what God is doing in your life. If you do those three things, five minutes every day, 15 minutes out of your day, nobody's going to be able to write that word backslider after your name. Guys, these are the fundamentals of Christianity.

Reading your Bible, praying, being in fellowship. Really, if you talk to any professional athlete, any person that does any kind of sports really in general, anybody who's successful at it, they're going to tell you, you never outgrow the fundamentals. You never stop doing the fundamentals. You never stop drilling. You never stop working them out. You never stop practicing them. And the same is true for the believer. Reading your Bible, praying, being in fellowship, talking about what the Lord is doing in your life.

You never outgrow those things. And as you grow in those fundamentals and you begin to see the work and the evidence that God is working inside of you, he is changing you into a new creation, making you new from the inside out. You're going to look for opportunities. You're going to be hungry to go and exercise the gifts and the things that God has given to you. I tell you right now, here at Harvest, we have opportunities for you to live out your faith, to exercise your faith, to practice that dynamic faith.

There's a couple of different things. And just quick, I'll just list a couple of bullet points that you can do as we now have all this information of revelation. We know prophecy. We know how our story is going to come to an end. And we know we win in the end. We have perspective.

It's all good. As we know these things, it ought to prompt us to begin to work and begin to develop our faith even more and develop others. And so some of the ways that we can do that, just quick couple of bullet points for you. You can join a small group. You can join a small group.

Online, we have Harvest at Home groups. I'll tell you right now, one of the ways I grew most in my faith as a young believer was joining a small group, having a study guide to help me understand scripture and to understand what different things meant. It was one of the best ways for me to grow my relationship with the Lord. Another way that you can practice your faith and practice that dynamic faith is that you can invite someone with you to come and watch the service with you. Yeah, yeah, come to church with me. Come watch Harvest at Home with me. Hey, check out this link. Let's watch this together.

I want to talk to you about it afterwards. Check this out on YouTube. You could do that. Another way that you could do it is you could help volunteer, serve online, be one of our online hosts, help sign up for our email list so we can let you know about opportunities that you can engage in to serve. You can make the Lord a central part of your family by discipling your children, discipling your wife, praying together, talking about the Lord, reading scripture together, having bedtime stories and reading God's word to them, praying together. These are ways that you can grow in your relationship with God. These are ways that things that are our faith is dynamic faith as we have this information is going to prompt us towards. You can start one of our reading plans through the Bible app. You can go and look that up.

Type in Greg Lauren. You'll see a number of great Bible plans that will help you get into God's word every single day. You can start giving up your finances and practicing generosity, which God has called us to, and begin to reflect the nature that God has shown to us, his generosity and his love and his grace and his mercy. Listen, God has called you to do all of these things. And I promise you, you are going to grow as a result of them.

You're going to be blessed as a result of them. And you're never going to look back and say, man, I'm so bummed out that I spent the last two years of my life really spending time with the Lord and focusing on my relationship with God. No, you're going to look back and say, man, I wish I started sooner.

I wish I started sooner. I wish I leaned into my relationship with God at an earlier age. Listen, you're going to be so happy and you're not even going to recognize yourself at the end of the day, because God is going to transform you into a new creation. You're going to love who you become by the power of God's Holy Spirit. He will do that for you.

He's called you to. And we also know that because of how our story ends, we can live our lives with confidence. We can live our lives with boldness. We can live our lives with faith and we can live our lives with action. And so in closing right now, I can't help but think about that person who is listening to this and saying, oh, that's all great for the Christian, but what about me?

What about me? If you've never put your faith in Christ, if you've never called out on God, if you never asked him to come into your life and put your faith in him, or if you are one of those people that is experiencing that dead faith or that demonic faith, and it hasn't done anything inside of you, listen, you need to repent from that and you need to turn to God and you need to experience that dynamic faith that creates action. True repentance, true change only can take place by the power of God's Holy Spirit. And so in closing right now, I want to invite you to ask Jesus Christ to come into your life, to make you a new creation. He can do that for you. He's done it for me.

He's done it for so many others. He's going to do it for you if you call on him with a pure heart and you turn from that sin. So would you pray with me now?

Lord, I do thank you for all the people that are watching. I thank you, Lord, for the truth that is found in scripture. I thank you, Lord, for all the principles that we find that help us grow and become amazing people.

Your children, God, we ask that you would help us to become more and more like you each and every day. And while we're praying together, if you do want to put your faith in Jesus Christ, you can do that. You can ask Christ to come into your life. He can make you a new creation from the inside out. I believe he can do it for you because he's done it for me and for so many others. And so if you need Jesus, if you would say today that when I die, I want to go to heaven, you want to be a child of God.

You're ready to say yes to Jesus Christ. Would you just pray this prayer wherever you're at? You can pray it out loud.

You can pray it in your heart. You might be in your car. You might be on your way to work. You might be sitting at work with some headphones in.

You might be watching on your television set, whatever it might be. You can pray this prayer right now. Just pray these words. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner, but I know Jesus is the Savior who came to this world and died in my place. And so I turn from my sin now and I turn to you from this moment forward. Help me to walk with you. Help me to talk with you. Help me to fall more in love with you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and help me to become the person you want me to. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here. Thanks for listening to our podcast. And to learn more about Harvest Ministries, please subscribe and consider supporting this show. Just go to harvest.org. And by the way, if you want to find out how to come into a personal relationship with God, go to knowgod.org. That's K-N-O-W-G-O-D dot org.