James doesn’t close his letter to believers with closing greetings or a prayer like other letters in the New Testament. Instead, he closes with a declarative letter. He is calling believers to a higher standard of living. James is teaching how to be made complete and whole. He is calling believers to a pathway of wholeness. There are four key points to obtain the pathway to wholeness as a Christian: prayer, praise, confession, and accountability. Listen to this sermon about prayer, praise, confession, accountability, and what these keys mean to a pathway of wholeness in the final part of our In The Word series, walking through the book of James.

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There is no secret recipe for how to avoid hardship or struggles in life. Tough times come not because God is mad or frustrated with us but because we experience tough times and heartaches in this life because we live in a broken world. However, James writes to believers about how to respond to tough seasons that are faced in life. As followers of Christ, we must respond to tough seasons with patience and endurance. While being patient and enduring is difficult, we obtain patience and endurance by clinging to the promises of God. Our hope and the promise is that Jesus is coming back and His return is near. We must focus on the promise by honoring God with what we can control and trusting Him with what we cannot control. Listen to this sermon about responding to tough seasons in the fifteenth part of our In The Word series, walking through the book of James.

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As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we look at how the disciples of Jesus scattered at the moment of His arrest and crucifixion but then were called to gather back in Galilee to meet Jesus after the resurrection. While the disciples had declared that they would never leave Jesus, prophecy and Jesus’ words were fulfilled as the disciples’ circumstances of what they were witnessing overwhelmed their courage. In our lives, there are often times that our circumstances will overwhelm what we have committed ourselves to, like the disciples. However, it doesn’t matter how far you’ve scattered; Jesus eagerly awaits you. Go back to your Galilee. Listen to this Easter sermon as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

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As Palm Sunday is this start of Holy Week, it begins with the Triumphal Entry where the people went from being on top of the world that the King has arrived to making a turn when Good Friday gets here. The four gospels detail the account of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and today, we focus on Luke’s account of Jesus’ entry. Through the obedience of the disciples and the colt owner, we see prophecy fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus riding in seated on clothes covering a donkey. God used their availability, their resources, and what seemed insignificant to them. Similarly, God wants to use our availability, resources, and what seems insignificant to us. Our responsibility as a follower of Christ is to deliver the message of Jesus wherever it is that God leads us to be. Listen to this Palm Sunday sermon about what God can do with and through our obedience to deliver the message of Jesus.

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In the first six verses of James 5, James is calling out the rich for taking advantage of the poor. It’s a call to us as believers to be open-handed with what God has given us. While God doesn’t need your money, God does, however, want your heart. If we will live fully surrendered to God’s vision, He will provide. God is not going to call us to do anything and not provide for it, but it’s going to take our obedience and our surrender. If God sends it, He’s entrusting us to spend it. If God gives it, He expects us to give it back to Him and trust Him. What is God calling you to give and be open-handed with? Listen to this sermon about giving in the fourteenth part of our In The Word series, walking through the book of James.

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In James 4, James continues with reminding believers that life is fragile. We can make all the plans we want, and we can live like we are in control, but we don’t know because our life is short and fragile. While we want to control our lives, we need a life that says, “if the Lord wills,” because this statement declares God is in control, not us. We might not know what the future holds, but God does. We might not know what the next year looks like, but God knows. It can be easy to say, “my will; not Your will,” but we need to say, “Your will; not my will.” We must surrender and submit to God’s will. Listen to this sermon about what God’s will is and living in submission to His will in the thirteenth part of our In The Word series walking through James.

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In James 4, James reminds believers of what it means to follow Jesus. When we declare Him as Savior, we also declare Him as Lord. Declaring Him as Lord means we surrender to His power, surrender to His authority, surrender to His influence, and submit to His commands. One of the commands we are to follow is to love one another. Because we are commanded to love one another, that means that we are not to criticize another child of God. Don’t tear other followers of Christ down. In Christ, we are all a part of the same family. Is the way we love each other inviting a lost world to follow Jesus or turning them away from Jesus? Listen to this sermon about not tearing down other followers of Christ and loving one another in the twelfth part of our In The Word series walking through James.

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It’s frustrating when we are watching a movie or a show, and the audio and video don’t align together. Similarly, in James 4, James is writing with concern that what the believers are saying isn’t lining up with how they are living. As Christians, we have to ensure that what we are saying aligns with how we are living. Many times, it doesn’t because, even though our spirit is redeemed, we still have our flesh that often pursues the passions and desires of the world. This is why it is important to ask ourselves the question: who are we close to? The answer to this question is important because what we are closest to influences us the most. No matter how many times we fall short though, God will never not want us. When we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. Listen to this sermon about being close to Jesus versus being close to the world in the eleventh part of our In The Word series, walking through James.

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Wisdom is referenced all throughout Scripture, and James writes about two types of wisdom in James 3, false wisdom and true wisdom. It is tough to define wisdom, but you will know it when you see it. True wisdom is not strictly intellectual but is mostly behavioral. How do we discern false wisdom from true wisdom? Listen to this sermon about false wisdom versus true wisdom in the tenth part of our In The Word series, walking through James.

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In James 3, James writes about controlling our tongue. James alludes that we all have struggles and our struggles all look different, but the one struggle we have in common is that we have all stumbled or will stumble by our tongue. Humans have the ability to tame every single animal on Earth, but we can’t tame our tongues. We learn through James’s letter that the tongue is powerful, dangerous, and revealing. The only way we can control it is by walking closer to Jesus. Listen to this sermon about controlling our tongue in the ninth part of our In The Word series, walking through James.

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As we continue our walk through James, we see in James 2, that James is teaching that faith without works is dead. This is not to be confused with James saying that our salvation is based on works. Instead, James is talking about two types of faith: dead faith and saving faith. Our salvation is not based on works. Saving faith produces works. If faith has no action, then this faith is dead. Faith without works is dead, but saving faith brings life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Listen to this sermon about dead faith versus saving faith in the eighth part of our In The Word series, walking through James.

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We want to cultivate a culture where you can come home and just be you. We desire for everyone who steps on our campus to know that they can belong to God and feel they have a family they can belong to at CMC. As church attendance continues to decline in America, though, what is our role as the lighthouse in this community to change the trajectory of the church? Looking at the principles Paul writes about in Romans, if we will apply these simple principles that should be the evidence of a child of God, CMC will become a place where everyone will feel like they belong. Listen to this sermon from our Welcome Home Sunday.

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Prayer is oxygen for the Christian. Prayer is our means for communing and communicating with the one who made us. Its importance cannot be overstated. There is a price and a prize of prayer. The price is persistence. The prize is His presence. When Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He continues and reminds them to keep on asking, to keep on seeking, and to keep on knocking. Jesus is teaching us to be persistent in prayer. The prize of the prayer is not getting what we are asking for. The prize is His presence with us always. Listen to this sermon about the price and prize of prayer in the third part of our I Surrender All series.

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Satan tempts our flesh in order to hinder our spiritual. Jesus sympathizes with us because He knows the temptation we face each day; Satan did the very same thing to Jesus. In 2024, we are going to experience seasons of exhaustion. In those moments of weakness, the enemy is going to show up and try to appeal to our flesh to satisfy us temporarily. How do we fight the ways of the enemy? We look to what Jesus did when Satan tempted Him; we fight the ways of the enemy with the Word of God. As followers of Christ, we already possess everything we need in order to fight the enemy as we have the Holy Spirit in us. As we fast, pray, and read together, be empowered to discern what the enemy is doing in and around you and also have the confidence to know you have what it takes to fight the enemy. Listen to this sermon about facing temptation and fighting the ways of the enemy in the second part of our I Surrender All series.

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During the Christmas season, we focused on the first advent of Christ. When He first came, He was born, died, resurrected, and then ascended back to Heaven. However, Jesus promised that He would come again. The second advent of Jesus will be very different than the first. In the first advent, God poured out His wrath on His Son. When He comes again, God will pour out His wrath on the unbelieving people. While there are many things we may not understand about His second advent or have the answers to, we know that He is coming and there are reminders to us in His Word of His return. Listen to this sermon about the second advent of Christ.

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During the Christmas season, we focused on the first advent of Christ. When He first came, He was born, died, resurrected, and then ascended back to Heaven. However, Jesus promised that He would come again. The second advent of Jesus will be very different than the first. In the first advent, God poured out His wrath on His Son. When He comes again, God will pour out His wrath on the unbelieving people. While there are many things we may not understand about His second advent or have the answers to, we know that He is coming and there are reminders to us in His Word of His return. Listen to this sermon about the second advent of Christ.

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In Isaiah, it was prophesied that one of the names of the Messiah would be the Prince of Peace. As Jesus was preparing for the cross, He told His disciples that He was leaving them with peace and giving them peace. The peace that the world gives us is completely different from the peace that Jesus gives. The world teaches that peace is a life of no worries, a relief from pressure, problems, trials, difficulties, etc. This type of peace doesn’t last and is the exact opposite of what the Prince of Peace came to provide us. Man’s lack of peace is our inability to be made right with God. This peace is everlasting. His peace that Jesus gives us is what raises us above the storm. Just turn your eyes to Jesus, and He will remind you of the joy set before us. Listen to this sermon in the fourth part of our Christmas series, With Us.

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Not only did Jesus come to display the attributes of God, but Jesus also came to talk about Him. Jesus preached. Jesus talked. He continued to talk about the attributes of who our Heavenly Father is. The reason Jesus speaks about the Father so much is because He wants us to understand what the Everlasting Father is all about. The enemy is at work because if he can break up our relationships with our earthly fathers, then he can create a stumbling block in an attempt to hinder us from coming to the Heavenly Father. To see what the Father’s love is for us, we look at Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son was tired of living in submission to his father and living under his father’s rules. The father never kept the son hostage and prevented him from going to try his own plans. He gave the son the freedom to do what the son wanted to do. He let the son choose what he wanted to do. When the son returned though, the father was eager and desired his son’s return. This is the picture of grace and it’s the same for us with our Heavenly Father. He’s waiting for us to come home. Listen to this sermon in the third part of our Christmas series, With Us.

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We all have a name, and our names each carry weight because the lives that we live are building the meaning of our personal names. Names are a big deal, and the same goes for the names of Jesus. Immanuel defined the purpose and the mission of who Jesus is. Isaiah tells the children of Israel that this son that God will give to us will be called Wonderful Counselor. Jesus gives wisdom to His children. He gives direction to His children. As a child of God, are you utilizing what you have access to? As a child of God, you have the spirit of God living inside of you. Draw near to the Wonderful Counselor that you have access to. Listen to this sermon in the second part of our Christmas series, With Us.

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When the angel appeared to Joseph and told him that Mary was with child, the angel told Joseph not to be afraid and that this child was to be named Immanuel, which means God with us. This wasn’t the only time in the Bible that the Messiah was referred to as Immanuel, as this was prophecy fulfilled from what God conveyed to His people through the prophet Isaiah not to fear because He was sending Immanuel. God came to us through His Son and, eventually, the Holy Spirit. He is with us! Listen to this sermon about God being with us in the first part of our Christmas series, With Us.

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