Tim Rivers: All right. You all ready to get in this word?

Audience: Yes.

Tim: Let's go to James Chapter two, the book of James, Chapter two. We're going to read a few verses of scripture starting at verse number 14.

Here, James is writing and he says this. "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, 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 them the things needed for the body, what good is that? Also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, "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. You do well. I love James because he's about to get sarcastic, "Even the demons believe and shudder."

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham, our father justified by works what 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 that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rehab, 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."

Somebody say amen.

Audience: Amen.

Tim: You know that last week we kicked off a series called Get Ready, and we focused in on faith. Remember, faith is simply believing that God tells the truth. Faith is simply trusting that whatever God said He will do, He will do, but in the realm of faith, we talked about embracing ambiguity. Embracing ambiguity means that you may not know, but ambiguity does not mean that you should not do.

Today we're going to continue our discussion on getting ready, but the title for today is Work It. Is it worth it? You better work it? I grab my faith, I drop it and reverse it. Let's pray before I get in trouble.

Heavenly father, we thank you so much for your goodness and mercy. I pray, God, that you would have your way in this place today. Give us ears to hear, a heart to receive and a mind to understand what the Spirit would say to us. Help us to walk out here different than the way we came in. We give your name all the praise, the glory and the honor in Jesus name and everybody say amen.

Audience: Amen.

Tim: Work it. You got to work your faith. Faith by itself is dead unless you put some works behind it and that's what we're going to talk about. I want to give you a little bit of context. I earned my undergraduate degree in marketing from the University of Texas at Arlington. —- "Go MAVs, we win no sports." That's why I was like, who's the Mavericks?

In the area of marketing we studied what is called buyer behavior. Buyer behavior is simply evaluating the psychology behind potential buyers and how they interact with products or marketing. In the realm of that study, there was a theory developed in 1987 by a guy named Higgins called the Self-Discrepancy Theory. What the self-discrepancy theory did is, it evaluated potential buyers or consumers, you and I, and it narrowed down that there are three aspects of our self.

These are called self-concepts, and the three are your ideal self, your ought self, and your actual self. Now, let's break these down a little bit. Your ideal self is the version of you that you project to others. It's the version of you that you want to be like and you want people to perceive you as that. I call it the social media you, it's the highlight reels. It's the one with all the filters and the Photoshop and the edits. Have you ever seen somebody on social and then met them in real life and you were like, "This don't seem like the same person."

The ideal self is the version of you that you present to a potential date. Anybody met that type of person? They're like,"Hey I'm a real estate entrepreneur." I always get nervous when I ask somebody what they do and they're like, "I'm a serial entrepreneur." I'm like, "Really?" Then I find out they live in the basement of their parents' house, but the ideal self is who we want to be like and we want others to perceive us this way. Right, wrong or different doesn't really matter. It's the version of us that we project and it's also the version that marketers target.

They never give you commercials in real life. It's always the commercials where you look at the screen, you're like, "Wow, I want to go there. I want to be that person." They try to convince you that if you buy that Mercedes S550, you all know I've been looking at some commercials. They have you convinced that if you buy this car, you will instantly lose weight, grow abs, your hair will come back. When you drive this car, the life partner you've been praying for will pop down in the passenger seat and they will look better than you. They have you convinced that if you-- Your ideal self is this person and it's not real.

The second self is the ought self. This is the person that we know we should be or we ought to be. Not the ideal self that we project to others, but the self that we know we ought to be like, "Ideally I'd like to buy this car, but I ought to be saving my money. Ideally, I'd like to date this person, but I ought to pass on them because they ain't got a good record. Ideally, I like to do this, but I ought to be doing that. Ideally, I'd like to go buy this outfit, but I ought to be saving my money."

When there is a gap between your ideal self and your ought self, it creates agitation-related emotions, fear, anxiety. When you want to do something but you know you ought not to, and those things are not in line, it creates an agitation type of emotion within you because what you like to be and what you should be are not the same things. Then the third version is the actual self and this is who you are when all the lights are off. This is who you actually are.

Not ideally, not who you ought to be, but this is who you are. This is the version of you that after the low lights of the club are off and the street lights hit you, and the fluorescence come on, that's you, it is that version of you. When you wipe off all the makeup and the edits are gone and the Photoshop's not there, that's the actual self.

Now here's the problem. We all deal with these three concepts of our self, but where there's a gap between your ideal self and your actual self, it creates anxiety, which creates more anxiety, which ends up being depression. This is why you may hear of people who ideally seem like they have everything. They have the large house, they got the cool cars, they got the friends, they got the fame, they got the jet. Do you all remember when Bow Wow took that picture with the jet?

Audience: Yes, embarrassing.

Tim: Yes, super embarrassing. That's his ideal self. He wanted us to believe that about him but Bow Wow, your days are over of fake. Hate to say that, Hey, I'm praying for you brother. When there's a gap between who you ideally want to be and who you actually are, there's anxiety within us and that's why when there are a lot of people that seemingly have everything, but they're still dealing with depression, they're still overdosing on drugs, they still are being found in their homes committing suicide. Why, because there's a gap.

The problem is our social media culture has tried to convince us that we should project who we want to be while not work on who we actually are. People will spend more time editing photos, than actually going to school. They will spend more time trying to project who they like to be than actually work on themselves. They will spend more time trying to convince you that they're a serial entrepreneur and that they're an entertainment mogul and that they're an influencer rather than actually go and save your money. Right?

Social media didn't create this problem. It just amplified it. This problem has always been in existence. There's always been a self-discrepancy theory. It's not even a theory. There's always been self-discrepancy. There's always been an identity crisis that existed in mankind ever since Adam and Eve sinned against God. You can look and find us throughout scripture. You can find that with Jacob and Joseph and Samson and all these other guys, but what I love is that Jesus actually talks about it in Matthew, Chapter seven.

This is what Jesus said in Matthew, Chapter seven, verse number 17. He says that every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. What Jesus was doing here in this passage is he was actually addressing false prophets.

A couple of verses earlier, Jesus says to the crowd, he says, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they're ravenous wolves." In order to be a false prophet, you must first have proclaimed and projected yourself to be a true prophet.

Audience: Come on now.

Tim: And we got a lot of those right now. Proclaiming to prophesy, but really they —-. Right? So these jokers were going around saying, "Hey, I'm a prophet. I'm called by God, I'm doing this." Jesus says, "Hey, listen, anytime someone tells you who they are, just watch and wait," because eventually who they say they are should match what they produce. If they don't produce that, then, take off your jacket, revealed you're a false prophet. He uses the example of a tree. He says, "A tree can sit there and claim to be a fruit tree all day long, but if there's no fruit hanging off the tree, it is not a fruit tree."

It can be an oak tree, it can be a pine tree, but it's not a fruit tree, and many of us will proclaim to be fruit trees. I'm an apple tree. I'm an orange tree or an orange bush. I'm a lemon tree. I'm this and that, and here's the thing. Eventually, your fruits will reveal who you are because in order to be a fake, you have to what, not match what you say and what you produce.

Y'all remember a few weeks ago, I preach a message on counterfeit Christianity. Y'all saw my Gucci shirt, right? G-U-C-C-I is the real one, but mine was G-U-C-H-I. What Jesus was saying is there's a lot of people saying they are Gucci, but they got a CH in it, right? And Jesus says, "Hey, if you're going to be productive in the kingdom of God, and if you're going to proclaim yourself to be a fruit tree, then just watch and wait, because eventually if fruit don't come, they ain't a fruit tree."

That's right, and you've heard these scriptures or you hear people say all the time that God's the judge. That is true. He is the judge ultimately of your soul, but you can still judge people's fruit. If they don't produce fruit, they're not a fruit tree. If they-- Here's how, something's fake. If what they proclaim doesn't match what they produce. If what they proclaim doesn't match what they produce, it's a fake.

Jesus talks about this, and this is what James elaborates on in James, Chapter two. James is dealing with a group of people who have taken out of context the message that we are saved by grace through faith apart from our works. There were a lot of people developing in the early church who were not exercising their faith in works because they were saying, "Hey, listen, I don't have to do anything. I just have to proclaim to have faith. I don't actually have to show it because God's the judge of me internally and God knows I have faith."

James says,"Well, here's the problem. The kind of faith that God gives you is a faith that produces works." The kind of faith that God calls us to, includes us participating in it, the faith of God that God imputes unto us when we believe his promise produces us to action. This is why the word works actually means the word action or deed. What James is saying, is that if you, by faith, which faith is trusting in God, if you trust that God is telling the truth, then you will produce works, which means action.

If you say that you believe that God is going to come through for you, then you need to move toward the direction that God's going to bring you through. If you believe that God is going to open a door for you, then you got to move and put your hand on the handle that God wants to open for you, because faith without works is dead. Why? Because the fruit tree without fruits is not a fruit tree.

Audience: Right.

Tim: James says, "Listen, I want you to have faith. I want you to believe and trust that God is telling the truth. The only way that we know that you truly believe it, is that it motivates you to do things according to the faith that you have." Here's what we know. God did this all the time throughout the Bible, he did it. We see this with Noah, right? When we talked about this last week, "Hey Noah, I'm going to send the rain and I'm going to save you and I'm going to reestablish the population through you." Noah says, "Okay, I believe it."

Then God says, "Now go build a boat." "Well, God, that's works though. That's me doing it." God's like, "No, you're not doing that, unless you had a word." If you don't have a word that is works just by yourself, but if you got a word, then you're just exercising what I told you to do because your works, your actions, and deeds prepare the stage right for God to do what he needs to do.

Here's the thing, if we don't put faith into action, that's why some of us are waiting around for a cloud and for a raindrop. And for God to move, and God's like, "Are you building on the ark? Because you said you believe that rain is coming. Well, you don't have an umbrella. I need you to go build that real quick."

Audience: Yes.

Tim: He did the same thing to Abraham, right? He said, "Abraham, I want to, I want to bless you. I want to multiply you. I want, I want all the ends of the earth to be blessed by you. And everywhere that you put your foot, I'm going to give it to you. Well, here's the thing, Abraham, in order for you to receive what I have for you, I need you to step into the thing that I have for you." "Well, I don't know where I'm going." "That's not what I asked you. I just asked you to leave the Ur of Chaldees." And because here's the thing, he can't possess the land that his feet step on, if he ain't moving.

James says, "All right, I feel like you all don't believe what I'm saying, so let me get practical with you. Let's say you pass a person that is cold outside and you walk by them and you say, I believe that you're going to be warm in Jesus' name." He said, "That's dumb." Essentially he goes, listen, you ignorant man. That's why he even called them foolish, which foolish means void of knowledge. He says, listens, if you can walk by someone and say, Hey, be filled with food right now in the name of Jesus, but you got bread and you don't give it to them, you foolish. Then he attaches that to our faith and he says, "Am I trying to call you fools?" I'm just in the scripture, James says, "If you proclaim that you trust God, but you don't do anything about it, you are void of knowledge because true faith always is followed by true action."

He says, I'm going to give you one more example. I'm going to talk to you about Abraham. Now, we love to talk about Abraham in the sense that God has given him promises and God's given him all these things, right? And then he walked it out, and then most people stop at Abraham receiving the promise, so he receives the promise at 75, and then it is actualized. Isaac is born when he was a 100. As Isaac gets older God says to him, "Hey, I want your son, your only son. I want you to sacrifice him."

Abraham's like, "That don't make any sense. Why would you give me something and then want it back?" Let me just stop and say this. The true test of if you are living with your hand wide open is when God takes back what he gave you. Can God take back what he put in your hand? Because if he can't, then you've closed your hand. It means you have now made yourself the sole proprietor of the promises of God and God don't work that way.

He begins to talk about Abraham. He says Abraham, God speaks to Abraham. He says, "Abraham, I want your son, and Abraham has so much faith in God that he's like, "I'm going to sacrifice this —- and God will raise him from the dead." Which is powerful faith, right? That's the kind of faith that you're like, "Whoa, that's the type of faith that'll move mountains." The true test of whether he believed it was that he had to get wood together, he had to go to the mountain, and when he got to the base of the mountain, he told the servants, "Hey, listen, I'm going to leave you here. Me and the boy will go to worship God." This is what he says "We will come back."

[applause]

Man, that's faith right there. He didn't even say, "Hey, I'm going to go kill Isaac, and then let's see what happens." He said, "Hey, listen, I know that before I get back down, God is going to do a miracle because God is God all by himself, and if He say He is going to do something, He will do it." He goes up to the top of the mountain, and he builds an altar, and the whole while, Isaac is like "I see the wood and I see the fire, Abba, where is the sacrifice?" The scripture literally says that, "He says this," and Abraham is like, "Boy, be quiet. Just help me build this altar."

[applause]

I know the feeling. Have you ever been with your parent, and you're asking them questions, and they're like, "Stop asking questions, just do what I'm asking you to do." I've done this with my three-year-old. I'm just, "Hey man, we'll get to that in a second. I just need you to do this." This is what Abraham's telling Isaac, right? Isaac is doing this and then Abraham's like, "All right, hey put your hands behind your back." Now at this point, Abraham is well over 100 years old. Isaac has the power to either run away or MMA his dad, hog-tie him and sacrifice him. You know what I'm saying? He puts —-, and Abraham ties him up and places him on the altar. He's got the fire, he's ready, he grabs his knife.

Joker is about to stab his son, and the angel says, "Abraham." He's still going. "Abraham." Literally, the angel has to call to him twice to stop it because he was so convinced of his faith that he was about to go all the way through it, his works. Because he was willing to do it, the angel stopped him and provided a ram in the thicket. James, he is alluding to this story because he says, "Some of us are at the base of the mountain." We won't even go up because we're like, "All right, God, you got to come through now. You said, you go and do it. Are you going to come through now?" We won't even pick up the sticks, right? Because we want God to come through now.

Most of us use the scripture in Isaiah chapter 40:31. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, and soar." We use that scripture, we're like, when people come to us, and they're like, "Hey, didn't you say that God's going to do something special?" You're like, "Yes, I'm just waiting though." Isaiah 40 taped it on my chest, fam. He got scriptures, scrolls, Isaiah 40:31. Here's the problem, what Isaiah was saying in that passage was that the word to wait actually in the original means stretch.

The picture that Isaiah was drawing for us is that when an eagle is perched up high in the sky, and it's looking out, and it can feel, it can feel the wind moving. The eagle trusts that the wind will take him to heights that he can't get to by himself. In order to get to heights that he can't get to by himself, he's got to jump off of the ledge, stretch its wings, —- its wings, and trust by faith that the wind is going to take him, so it can soar up to heights that it's never been before. If you want to experience what God has for your life in a sphere that you've never been to before, you've got to exercise your faith by stretching out your wings, by works.

[applause]

You can't walk on water, Peter, until you get out of the boat. This is why Jesus consistently would tell people that he was about to give miracles to do something that they felt uncomfortable with. He said, "You want to see? Go wash your eyes. You want to walk, take up your bed and walk. You want to walk on water? You better get out of the boat. You want to be alive, you better get out of that grave."

Our participation in our faith is necessary because God designed it that way. Can I get practical with you? You believe by faith that God is going to bless your business, write a business plan. You believe that God is going to provide for you that special someone, get your life right? You believe that God is going to bless your finances, put together a budget.

You believe that God's going to bless you with a great job, go apply for it. You believe that God's going to give you wisdom, and education, and knowledge, read a book.

[applause]

Work it. Work it. Is it worth it? You better work it.

[applause]

Hey, let me tell you something. Too many Christians say they believe God's going to come through and sit on their hands. I've come to preach some faith in you and some works in you to tell you that if you believe that what God has for you is for you, get up and move in that direction. The results are up to God. The results are up to God. I can't make the rain come down, but God didn't tell me to make the rain come down. He just told me to build the ark, so I can't stop and not build the ark because I can't produce the rain. I just got to work my faith by what God told me to do. Am I preaching to anybody today?

Audience: Yes.

[applause]

Tim: All right, one more scripture. Jesus begins to talk to his disciples, and he says, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Then he doesn't say, "Hey, I need you all to pray for a harvest." He says, "I got the harvest fam. I got what you need." Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into whose harvest, His harvest. God is the one that produces the harvest. He's the one that produces what He said He is going to do in your life, but you have to partner with Him in faith by going into the field to work. Blessed is he that when He comes back, He finds them working.

For some of us, what stands between the promise of God, hearing the promise of God and the fulfillment of it is, we haven't acted on our faith. Remember, faith is trusting that God tells the truth, but faith without action makes your proclamation void. It's like, have you ever seen those jokers that they've been dating for like 20 years, and they keep telling, "I love you." Listen sis, this is for somebody. Listen sis, I'm about to help you right now. This is worth the price of admission. If the joker keeps telling you he loves you, and he's got everything together, but he hasn't proposed, cut it off.

Audience: Amen.

[applause]

Tim: He ain't a fruit tree. He ain't got no fruits. Find you a fruit tree. You didn't like oranges anyways, so get you an apple. The reason why I'm preaching this is because true faith motivates us to action. We only have a few weeks left between now and the beginning of the year, and many of us are making plans for what we're going to experience in the beginning of the year.

I truly believe, what I preached a couple of weeks ago that God is going to give us a great harvest. I truly believe that God is going to do great things within our church. The way God does great things within the church is, He does great things within individuals. Here's the thing, the reason why 5,000 people were fed is because 12 disciples decided to pass out bread. Well, I could stop there and preach, but here's what God did for the disciples. They were willing to act on the faith, God provided them a full basket of blessing.

After they fed the 5,000, how many baskets were left? 12 baskets full. When you act on your faith, when you put works to your faith, God will put more on you than you can even imagine it's possible. You thought that God was going to come through, but he would do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you were able to ask or think according to the power that works in you. Oh Lord see, you all didn't even know that was in there.

The power has to be moving in you, and working in you in order for God to exceed everything that you thought was possible. I don't know what you come in here with. What kind of promises are on your life? What kind of things the Lord has told you? Remember, the way to differentiate between whether God is speaking or you is speaking, is do you need God to fulfill it? If you need God to fulfill it, probably Him speaking and whatever God speaks to your life, it always includes others.

That's never just for you. When God gives us promises, He's not like, "Hey, I'm going to bless you with a million dollars so you can buy a jet, by yourself."

[laughter]

If God blesses you with a jet, take somebody else for a joy ride. Come, pick me up.

[laughter]

God always, when he begins to do stuff in your life, it always includes blessing others. In order for us to step into the things that God has for us, we have to move toward His word. When Peter saw Jesus walking, everybody was scared and afraid, "Ah, it's a ghost." Peter was crazy enough to be like, "Yo, if that's you Jesus, bid me come to walk on the water. Jesus says, “— come." Now, Peter had one of two decisions. One is, "I believe that you're the Christ and that your word is true. I have faith that you're going to do what you said you're going to do. All right, come pick me up Jesus."

[laughter]

They that wait upon the Lord, Jesus didn't go to him. He said, "I'm going to let you experience it, but if you truly believe that I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do, I need you to leave the comfort of where you are and mix your faith with some actions." Peter with trepidation, little bit of anxiety. "I'm not sure this is going to work out, with risk." Looking at the other disciples, he was crazy enough to be like, "All right, let me try it."

[laughter]

"Oh, this is good." He gets out of the boat and he walks on water. There's not another recorded instance in the Bible of anybody walking on water. If you want to experience things that are literally beyond belief, you got to leave these jokers behind in the boat and walk, step out, put action to it, put deeds to it, put works, mix your faith, works. It looks different for everybody, but exercise and faith does not mean just sitting around and like, just waiting on the Lord to do something right. No, you've got to be actively preparing yourself. If you want to preach the gospel, you feel like God's called you to ministry, study the Bible. Again, if you want to get married, make sure that you're marriable.

[laughter]

That's a new word, I like it.

[laughter]

Are you marriable material? You know what I'm saying? I'm going to change all this when I get married. No, fam, that's not how it works. You're going to end up marrying somebody that thinks the same thing, "I'm going to change all this when I get married." Your faith is revealed by your actions. That's why James said, "You got faith, —-prove it."

we sometimes hate to attach that to Jesus. We hate to think that God wants us to prove things, but he does. You can look at scripture, it's all the way in there. God is always like, "You trust me. Prove it." "Now. Don't worry. I'm going to make the water solid. I'm going to provide the rain. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to give you a chop." All throughout scripture, God says, "I'm going to do my part, but I need you to do your part." You say, you believe in me —-, prove it.

Whatever it is in your life right now that God's promised you, that God says he's going to do in your life, and you're like, "Yes, I believe that." Here comes the part where your faith is about to be tested. Can you act on it? Can you move toward it? Before this day is over, can you start moving toward what God said belongs to you? Can you close your eyes, —- heads?

Man, I don't know who I'm preaching to, but I believe I'm preaching to somebody. In fact, I'm preaching to myself. Because I believe there are things that God has called you and I to do and to accomplish and he's going to do what he does, but in the midst of that, he's calling us to participate. If you feel like you're in a season where you believe God, but you've been a little hesitant to move toward it, just stretch your hand up. It's okay, because I want to know who I'm praying with and praying for. If you're online, just put it in the chat. Put your hand in the chat there.

Let me pray for you. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for number one, your promises to us. Because your promises are yay and amen, which means that you proclaim them and you perform them, but in the midst of that, you've called us to faith and works. You've called us to believe in you, to believe and to trust that you are able to do it, but then also to participate in you doing it.

Right now, I pray, God, that we would mix our works with our faith to move toward the promise that you have for us. We get ready, Lord God, and we prepare ourselves, and we step into the unknown, and we step into ambiguity and we step into areas that we don't really understand because we know that in the midst of those places, you're still there. You're still going to move and work and do. Right now, we give your name all the praise to glory in honor in Jesus' name, Amen.