The Sign of Real Faith

We lived here for about 13 years or so. Prior to that, I was a police officer up in the Bay Area and conquered. And that's where I met my wife, Sally. And we purchased a business and ended up moving to this area. We have two daughters, ages 12 and 14, that both go to Twin Lakes. One will be entering the seventh grade. One just finished up at Twin Lakes and will be heading on to high school.

Prior to my involvement with Twin Lakes School and the church, I was lost spiritually. I don't know if I was even looking. I felt like there was something out there, but I never had the urge to explore. My wife Sally was exploring churches in the area in the year 2000 and began to attend Twin Lakes, but at that time I wasn't really interested.

So Riley and I were going to church. We started going to church about one and a half. And then got involved in the CEC Preschool Program. And from there went on to Twin Lakes Elementary School, starting in kindergarten. And I think that's when Scott started getting a lot more interested in finding out what she was learning and what was going on there. And started to have a bit of a heart change.

When Riley was around ten years old, I felt kind of like I at least had an obligation to figure out what she was learning in school. She'd come home and Sally and Riley would talk about various characters in the Bible and things that she had been studying. And like I said, I felt like I had an obligation as a father to at least dig into it, at least know the stories. And the more I dug into it, the more I realized that there's a lot of truth in the Bible and in what they're learning in school.

Eventually I felt compelled to read the entire Bible, to investigate it as best as I could. Eventually I had dug into it enough that I was ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. In September of 2008, I was baptized as part of the Beach Baptisms by Pastor David.

I'll miss a lot of things about Twin Lakes when I leave next year. Just a really great school. I've been at Twin Lakes all of my life since preschool. And next year, going to ninth grade, will be my first year away from Twin Lakes. There's a lot of great kids there, so it's easy to make long lasting, great friendships.

I also love the teachers there. They incorporate the Bible and prayers into every class and lesson they have planned. So a lot of times when you're learning, they'll add something in about how this relates to our lives or to the Bible. I love Twin Lakes. I'm feeling so blessed, and especially because they added the middle school. It gives our two daughters an extra long time to go to school together, which they wouldn't have had otherwise.

And also, just the support and the Christ-centered education they get, the electives, they just think they did a really good job. And I tell Mrs. Emel, the principal, all the time, if she added a high school, we would totally be there. We're both really excited about the 2020 vision. Just to have a real school building dedicated just to the kids. Where they're all in one place. They get to go there both for classes and for worship type events or gatherings, Bible studies.

The dual purpose of the school, I think, is gonna give them a complete home there at Twin Lakes, where everything's intertwined, their school work and their faith. And I think it's going to do wonders for our kids.

Don't you love stories like that? Let's give it up for the Harnes. Wonderful story. Where you see all those different ministries to children impacting not just the kids, but whole families. And of course, that is exactly the reason that we are doing our 2020 vision project.

The school, the preschool, the church children's ministries are doing such a wonderful job. But they need permanent homes, they need bigger homes. And that's the main part of the 2020 project. And I just have to tell you right now, I have been so encouraged by the responses that we've received to this so far.

Last week, I told some of you how we got a letter from a church in Alaska that has been watching our sermons on video. They haven't had a pastor for the last year. And so I've been their pastor via video and I hadn't the slightest clue that I was a pastor in Alaska, but I was. And they heard about the 2020 vision because they watch our sermons and they said, we're so excited about it. And they sent a donation for the building project. How cool is that? I'm so stoked about it.

And it gets even crazier because that was last week. Then this week, we opened up the mail and I got a letter from a guy in Shanghai, China, and we are his church. He watches on video and he said, I'm so excited about the project. And he also sent in a contribution to the 2020 vision project from China.

Then I got a letter from a guy in London and it gets even better because we got this this week, I want to show you a picture. This is a group of your brothers and sisters up at the Ben Lomond fire camp. Now that is a state prison facility. But you know what? These guys actually watch the Twin Lakes Church services on video every single weekend and they watch them actually concurrent with us. I mean, they're up to date. They're doing the faith building series right now. They're doing the 2020 vision project and mid weeks Ron Petty, you see it there in the red, white and blue sweater. Ron goes up there and he leads a home group and they're right in sync with us doing the faith building home group study.

And so last week they said, we just want you to know that we're a part of this. And so they had to go to the prison administration and ask for special permission to take a picture of themselves inside and send it out to us and get this for the first time in six years. The warden approved of a group doing that because they said, we don't have a lot to give, but we want you to know we are with you in the project. Is that not cool? Doesn't that just excite you? I love that.

There's so, so many more people have told me how they're getting into this. And so like, for example, this little boy, Jake, I got this email to me. This is very cool. You know how we give out little 2020 vision piggy banks? That's what he's holding right there in the picture. And we gave this to all the littlest kids in the church because we're saying, hey, it's your building, you know, so you better contribute. And so, but the mom, Jake's mom said, you know, I don't know if the kids, how much of this do the kids really understand, you know? And so unrehearsed, she decided to ask him with her iPhone, you know, do you get what's going on here? And I want you to watch his response.

Look at this. Jake, what do you have? Piggy bank. Where did you get that piggy bank? From school. From, um, church. From church? Yeah. Cool. What is it for? It's for the building that you put money in it and tells God to the, and then makes a new building. Wow. Who's going to make the new building? We are, um, the, me and God and everybody else. Do you not love that? He's got it exactly right. Who's going to build a new building? Me and God and everybody else. I love it. And that's how work gets done.

So listen, commitment weekend is in two weeks. And on commitment weekend, I'm so stoked. As you heard Mark say, we're celebrating with a Lincoln Brewster concert here. Lead guitars for Steve Perry of Journey fame. The Christian hip hop artist, KJ five two is going to be here too. It's going to be a ton of fun and all the proceeds are going to go to the 2020 vision project as well. And you can get tickets here or online on our website. So please pick up one of these brochures. If you haven't yet, they're out of the display in the back.

And what I love about the guys at the state prison, what I love about little Jake is they, they, they get it. They get that it doesn't matter if you feel like you don't have a lot to contribute. Just contribute what you can. Even if you feel like all I can give us a dollar, then I hope you pledge that dollar. Why? Because I don't want you to miss the joy of seeing the ripple effects from what you and God and all the people can do together.

You know, there's going to be so much joy for years to come in this and I just don't want you to miss out. So I am looking forward to it in two weeks commitment. We can bring in your pledges, bring him back to food for second harvest too. And then the next weekend, which is the weekend after Thanksgiving, we're going to announce the totals. And I think it's going to be a great celebration. Do you agree? Do you think it's going to be a great celebration? I'm stoked about it. Awesome.

Well, grab your message notes that look like this in the bulletins that you were handed when you came in. Faith Building is the name of our fall series. We've been studying faith. For five weeks we've been studying faith. And so the million dollar question is the question we asked this morning and that's this, what is real faith? Right? What's the sign of real faith?

We've been talking about how the Bible says without faith, it is impossible to please God. The Bible says with faith, I can move mountains. The Bible says I'm saved as in freed from my guilt and I go to heaven by faith. And so the big question is, do I have real faith? Right? There couldn't possibly be a more important question to ask than so do I have that kind of faith? You know, am I a Christian? Not to put too fine a point on it, but am I going to heaven when I die? I mean, these are very important questions to ask. What's the evidence? How do I know?

Well, there's one little section of the Bible, James 2:14–20 where the apostle James talks about this, the sign of real faith, how you know. And before we get into the words of the apostle James, I want you to get into the head of the apostle James because this is a very interesting character and there's a very interesting story behind this epistle.

One of the best kept secrets about Jesus Christ, even though it's right there in the Bible, is this, Jesus had a family. Jesus had brothers. That's in the Bible. He had a bunch of half brothers and they had a strong opinion about Jesus and shouted out if you know, what did they think about Jesus Christ? They thought he was what? They thought he was crazy. His own brothers, the Bible says, thought that Jesus was nuts.

You know, like, okay, he's claiming to be the son of God, right? You know, we grew up with this guy. But as time goes on, his own brother's hearts begin to change. And if you've ever had conflict with your brothers, you know how tough that that can be at times, right? To really change your own siblings' opinion of yourself, what did it take to cause that change of opinion?

Well, the Bible isn't real detailed about what caused his brother's change of heart, but it does give a tantalizing clue. The Bible says Jesus Christ's half brothers mock him, make fun of him, say he's crazy, and then they turn around and they become fully devoted followers of his. Why? Well, the Bible says after Jesus dies an agonizing death on the cross, I mean, he's speared, he's crucified, he's dead, dead, dead, then three days later, he's resurrected.

And the Bible says he appears to a lot of people, and specifically he made a special appearance to James, his next oldest sibling. And I can just imagine that there's probably a little bit of good-natured brother-to-brother stuff going on. They're like, "Hey, bro, what'd you say about me being crazy?" You know, I just can imagine that. And the Bible says after that, James is totally sold out as a follower of Jesus Christ to the point where he himself gets executed because he will not disown his faith in his brother Jesus, the very one that he used to mock.

Now, I've often wondered, what would it be like if we had James here as a guest here in church? What if we gave him the stage for half an hour for the sermon time and just said, "Hey, you were the half brother of Jesus. We want to have you as our special guest. Come and tell us what that was like. You know, what would he say? What was it like being Jesus Christ's sibling? Like, was your mom always, "Why can't you be more like your brother, the Messiah?" You know, is that what it was like?

What would James say if we gave him carte blanche? Well, we don't have to wonder. We know what he would say because James wrote an open letter to all Christians, which is in your Bible as the book of James. And it's not written to any specific church. It's an open letter to all people who call themselves believers in his brother Jesus. And James wrote that letter because there was something that kind of bugged him about us.

There was something that kind of got under the skin of James about you and about me and about the other people who claim to follow his brother Jesus Christ. Now, what is it? You will be fascinated by his words, but I got to warn you, James is going to say some things to you this morning that are going to make you uncomfortable. In fact, you might get mad at some of the things you hear from the half-brother of Jesus this morning.

In fact, you might get so mad that you feel like just walking out because you're going to be experiencing kind of cognitive dissonance as you listen to James. But I'm telling you, don't walk out. Stay till the end because there's kind of a plot twist to what James gets at. So James, if he was here, would say, "Hey, thanks a lot for having me and I want to talk about what's the sign of real faith?"

How do you know you're really a Jesus follower? And he would say, "I want to make four points here. Number one, real faith is it's not just something I say. It's not just something I say." Now let's read this verse aloud together, verse 14 of James 2. And this is one of the things James would say to us. So let me hear you read it out loud. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?

Now I want you to take your pencil or your pen and circle that word "claims." "Claims." He's not saying here that this guy actually has faith. He's saying this guy just claims it. He knows all the right phrases. He can speak the right jargon. He knows how to talk Christianese. You know the kind of person I'm talking about? James says, "Is that what makes you a Christian? You know the right words?"

I've told some of you the story of how years ago now my wife Lori and I were coming back from visiting my relatives in Switzerland and it was a long plane flight and Lori at the time was pregnant, very pregnant, very uncomfortable on the plane, couldn't wait to get back home. And on this particular flight it was one of those where we came in from Europe, we landed, had to go through customs, then catch another flight to get home. But our flight coming out of Europe was very delayed, like by hours.

And then we get out, we're like, "We're not going to make our flight. Let's be the first in our plane to get to customs." We come around the corner and there's an hours-long line to customs, biggest line I've ever seen in my life. And I look over to my wife and she just goes, "Oh no." And she doesn't know whether to get angry or to cry, she's so frustrated, all the hormones are raging.

And in an ill-advised attempt to calm her down, I said, "But honey, look at it on the bright side. If we miss the flight, you know the airline's obligated to give us a free hotel stay here in the city and we can have a nice romantic evening on the town." And she looks at me like, "If you continue to be happy about that prospect, I will kill you." I thought, "What am I going to do?" I thought, "I got to at least show her that I'm sympathetic." And so I went to the head of the line and I asked if I could talk to the head customs official. I truly did this.

And I said, "Listen, my wife, that's her back there. You can see the heat distortion kind of coming off of her head." And she's expecting and possibly homicidal right now. And so what I want to say is, "Can you give me cuts? Can you just give me cuts?" And I didn't think that he would, I thought he would just send me back. My whole goal was to say, "Honey, well, I tried." You know, that was the reason for doing it.

And he looks at me and I don't know why he said this. He goes, "Hmm, what's your job?" And I never know whether to say, "I'm a pastor or I'm an educator." You know, I never know how people are going to respond. But I just said, "I'm a pastor." And he goes, "Right." Just like that. Right. I said, "No, I am." He goes, "If you're a pastor, quote John 3:16." Like no one but a pastor could possibly know this. It's the password.

So I thought, "This guy might give us cuts if I know John 3:16." And I took a brief deep breath and I thought, "I'm going to choke right now. I'm going to open my mouth and like the Gettysburg Address is going to come out or something." So I thought, "Calm down." And I closed my eyes and I said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but of everlasting life." And I opened my eyes and he goes, "Wow, you must be a pastor." True story. He goes, "Move to the head of the line, Reverend, and we got cuts in the customs line. Walk by all those other people with my pregnant wife."

So listen, the moral of the story this morning is memorize Bible verses. It pays off. And there's another point to that story too, and it's this. I have a feeling that a lot of people think something like this. I can say the right words like "saved" and "born again." I can quote John 3:16. I've prayed the sinner's prayer word by word that's in the back of the bulletin every single week. And so that means I know the right words so I can cut to the front of God's line to get into heaven. I'll get in for sure now. Like there's phrases, there's litmus tests that God's gonna give you when you die to see whether or not you get into heaven.

But James' point here is, "Uh-uh, talk is cheap. Real faith is more than something you say because you can say anything." Now of course there's Christian vocabulary, but that doesn't mean that you're a Christian. Now some of you are going, "That's right. It's not just what you say, you gotta feel it. It's gotta be in your heart too, right?" Well James gets to that next. He goes, "Yeah, and real faith is not just something I emote, not just something I feel." Now of course there's feelings that come from the security and the serenity of faith, but a lot of people confuse feelings with faith, and there's a big difference.

Look at verses 15 through 17, the next couple of verses here in James 2. "Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food." And one of you says to them, "Ah, go in peace, keep warm, be well fed." But does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way faith by itself, if it's not accompanied by action, is dead.

Now circle that phrase, "Does nothing about their physical needs." In other words, real faith is not just feeling sympathy. It's gotta go beyond sympathetic feelings. You could do something about it. And then if you flip your page over, you'll see number three, real faith is not just something I think. It's not just something I think.

This is actually fascinating. He said, "It's not just something I say, not just something I feel or emote, not just something I think." In verse 18, the next verse he says, "But somebody will say, 'You have faith, I have deeds.' They will show me your faith without deeds, I'll show you my faith by my deeds." He's saying they can't be separated. You believe that there's one God. Good. And the demons believe that and shudder.

Now circle the word believe. James is just saying faith is not just cold facts, you memorize. It's not just something you learn in class. Now it does have content, right? Of course there's doctrine involved that's important. And it does stimulate the most creative and deep thoughts. It's called theology and I love theology. But James is saying it's not just that.

Let me ask you this. How many of you know somebody who knows the Bible better than you? Does anybody here know somebody who knows the Bible better than you? Everybody probably. Now think of the person you know who knows the Bible the best. Like they probably know the Bible say 10 times better than you. So imagine that person standing right here. Do you have that person in your mind's eye? Now here's my question. Are they also 10 times more loving than you? Are they 10 times more compassionate than you? 10 times less judging than you? There's not always a correlation.

I mean I can think of people in my life, Lori's great-grandma Grace for example, for whom that would absolutely be true. She knows the Bible much better than me and so many verses. And she's also just exudes love and good works to everybody. But there's other people I know. They're like Mr. Bible know it all and they seem to be less loving. What James is saying here is just there ought to be a correlation between content and character.

Let me put it to you this way. Let's say that you as a church come up to me and you go, "René, it's great that you've been here 20 years at Twin Lakes." 20 years, that's awesome. We'd love for you to be here another 20 years so we're concerned about your health. And so what we did was we bought you a fitness book and we bought you the book that's right now the best-selling fitness book on Amazon.com. And I actually looked this up this week because I wanted to be current. And this is, I'm not making this up, right now at the top if you search for a fitness book, the top-selling fitness book on Amazon.com is this book. It's called Becoming a Supple Leopard. I have no idea.

But Becoming a Supple Leopard. So let's say you give this book to me and we go, "We want you to be more supple and more leopard-like," as a pastor, "René." So, okay. And you come back six months later and I am not suppler. And I'm not more cat-like as I move across the stage. And you go, "What happened? Didn't you like the book?" I said, "I love the book. I bought extra copies of this book. I'm sending copies of this book overseas. I bought different color to highlighters. And I highlighted different parts of this book, color-coded. In fact, I memorized some key lines from this book. I started a home group where we study this book chapter by chapter every single week. We have weekly meetings where we sing songs about exercise. We have announcements about exercises that are coming up. We're starting a grad school where we're going to study word origins of words about exercise.

But there's a little bit of tension in a group because it's not clear in the text whether the author wants us to stretch before or after exercise. And so we're kind of dividing up into a pre-stretchational and post-stretchational group. So there's a little bit of tension. You would think I was insane, right? That we do that with the Bible and call it deep. Is that what makes your faith deep? Now I love doing that stuff with the Bible. I love it. But is that what James would say makes your faith rich and deep? No, what would he say? He would say real faith is something I live. It's something I live out.

Not just something I say or feel or think about. This is a fascinating section, James 2:20, the next verse. This is from the Living Bible. He says, "When will you ever learn? Believing is useless without doing what God wants you to do. Faith that doesn't result in good deeds is not real faith." Now I want you to circle the key word there, doing.

Now let me just say this. The passage I just walked you through, those seven verses that we just went through verse by verse, those are definitely the most controversial and debated verses in the book of James. And they could be some of the most controversial verses in the entire New Testament. You know why? Because it seems like they contradict much of the rest of the New Testament. It certainly seems like they contradict the Apostle Paul's writing. Paul is always talking about how it's by grace you're saved, not by works. And then James comes along and says, "Ah, no, no." He seems to be saying, "It's by works too." So who's right, Paul or James? This is very important for Christians to understand.

And I want you to look at the chart that I put there in your notes about this. And somewhere in your notes, just write the word both. Because really they're both right. It's just that they're talking about different things. Paul was fighting, primarily fighting the problem of legalism. People who said you've got to keep all these picky little religious rules in order to be saved. James wasn't fighting that battle. James apparently was fighting laxity. Those who say, "Ah, it doesn't matter what you do because you're saved by grace. You can do anything. Light, cheat, steal, whatever, it doesn't matter because God just, you're saved by grace." Two different enemies.

And they both used the word works. They both used that word. But they mean completely different things when they use that word. Paul's talking about religious rules when he uses the words works or deeds. But when James uses that term, that's not what he means at all, ever, in his whole book. He's talking about acts of love that you do for other people. Paul focuses on the root of salvation. And James focuses on the fruit of salvation, what happens on the outside. Really they agree.

In fact, Paul says several things that sound like James, like in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter that you hear at every other wedding, right? Famous line, "If I have a faith that can move what? Mountains. But have not love? I am what? Nothing." That's exactly what James is saying. Now Paul says it in a way that's maybe more palatable to you, you know? It's kind of nicer language. It's probably why Paul kept getting invited back to pen more epistles. And James is like, "Good, that's one book, James. Thanks very much. Thanks, great. We'll call you." You know?

Paul says things maybe in a different way, but they mean the same thing. And James says things that sound like Paul. People skip past this, but in chapter 1, James establishes that God's a God of grace and we're saved by grace first. He says, "God gives to all without finding fault. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. Watch this. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth." That sounds just like Paul. God's a giver and he chose you. You didn't earn it. You're saved by God's sovereign grace. James stakes out that ground before he ever gets into the rest of his letter.

And most importantly, they both say things that sound just like Jesus. Jesus says, "By their fruit, you will know them." Now, Jesus here is talking about teachers that will come after him. And he's like, "Christians, let me just tell you, there's going to be a lot of teachers. Some of them are going to be good teachers. Some of them are going to be false teachers." He's talking about people like me, right? And he's like, "How can you gauge whether or not to give anybody any credence and listen to them?" And Jesus says, "Not by whether or not they have charisma. Not by whether or not they have speaking or teaching gifts. Not by whether or not they make you think or emote or teach you the right words. By their what? Their fruit. By their what? Their fruit." That means, are they more loving, less judging, move to acts of compassion? By their fruit, you will know them.

And we've gotten into so much trouble over the years when we don't pay attention to Christ's criteria, right? It's like there's a lot of gifted people that have bad fruit. Gifts are a dime a dozen. It's the fruit you've got to look for. Did you know that right now, in survey after survey, Christians are being held in the lowest opinion almost in American history? Did you know that? The American public has a lower opinion of Christ followers and especially of teachers than almost any other profession. Preachers, pastors, they don't trust us. Why not? Well, in survey after survey, the American public is saying they say they follow Jesus, but they don't act like Jesus. They're greedy, they're unloving, they're exclusionary.

What would Jesus or James or Paul say about that? They would say that's exactly the right way to gauge us. They would say that's exactly the right metric to use to judge Christians by. Exactly right. Are they acting like Jesus? That's how people should judge us. That's fair. And the way to change people's opinion about Jesus or the church is not to be combative, it's to show them different fruit.

And if you've been coming to Twin Lakes for any number of years, you know that this is a real emphasis of ours. We're saved by grace entirely and we want to show the fruit of changed lives to the whole world, but specifically to our community. The people here, we want to show them we love this county, we love this city because Jesus loved you first. And that's why we want to do acts of service.

I'll give you just one example. A couple of weeks ago, we did our Serve the Bay day where a ton of you volunteered with volunteers from other churches and we did acts of service all over the county on one Saturday morning. I want to just show you two minutes of just some of those projects. Watch the screen. This is amazing.

Sometimes I, I just wanna close my eyes and act like everyone's alright when I know they're not. This world needs God but it's easier to stand and watch. I could say a prayer and just move on like nothing's wrong. But I refuse 'cause I don't wanna live back, I don't care. I don't wanna say another empty prayer. Oh, I refuse to sit around and wake someone else to do what God has called me to do myself. Oh, I could choose not to move but I refuse.

I can hear the least of these crying out so desperately and I know we are the hands and feet of you, oh God. So if you say move it's time for me to follow through and do what I was made to do and show them who you are. 'Cause I don't wanna live back, I don't care. I don't wanna say another empty prayer. Oh, I refuse to sit around and wake someone else to do what God has called me to do myself. Oh, I could choose not to move but I refuse.

Let's thank all those people who were wonderful Sharefest Serve the Bay volunteers. The point is simply this, real faith has ripple effects, right? That's the point. You drop a pebble into a pond, there's gonna be ripples and real faith, if you receive God's gift to you, there's gonna be ripple effects.

You know, one movie about this that you see a lot this time of year is It's a Wonderful Life. Show of hands, anybody else love this movie? I'm a huge fan of this. I cry every time I see it, I just love it. But you remember that at the beginning of the movie, George is in despair because he thinks his life has amounted to nothing. He wasn't an important man. He never even left Bedford Falls. His life is meaningless, and maybe you feel like that sometimes too.

But then he sees his one life lived well has impacted so many other lives. It has so many ripple effects. And I love that. And I want to believe that about my life. Don't you want to believe that about your life? But you might say, well, it's just Hollywood, right? It's just a movie. Well, let me show you something.

Every single person in this room right now who's listening to me, or watching over in venue, or watching, you know, in Shanghai or Alaska or whatever on the Internet, your lives are being impacted as ripple effects of our own George Bailey. A guy like George Bailey, who lived here in Santa Cruz. I want to show you his picture. This is a picture of the young adult class here at Twin Lakes Church. This was taken in 1928, and these are the... This is the college career class in 1928, and they're standing in front of the old church on 7th Avenue down by the harbor.

And that young man standing right there in front is named Victor Bowen. And Victor, when he was about 24, was one of the 11 people who reopened this church. This church died. It was founded in 1890, died about 40 years later, and it was boarded up for several years. And Victor got a claw hammer and pried off the boards off the windows, reopened the church, started this little Sunday school class here.

Now, he was never what you would call an influential man or a wealthy man. He wasn't a civic leader. He was a carpenter. Somebody who knew him told me he was the simplest, most humble, gentle servant you could ever know. Now, fast forward 50 years after this picture was taken. These guys are breaking ground here on this property 40 years ago. They're breaking ground on this building 40 years ago in 1973. And you know that guy on the left? You know who that is? That old man in his 70s? That's Victor Bowen.

That's this carpenter who was in other ways an unremarkable man, but supported this church faithfully over the years. And this one guy's simple life has had all sorts of ripple effects that every single one of us in this building is still enjoying today, even though most of us have never heard of him before. And I want to live a life like that. I could care less if somebody remembers my name either or has heard of me before, you know, 10, 20, 30 years after I die, whatever. But I want to have ripple effects that go on like him. It's possible. We all want to live like that.

So why don't we? Sometimes I think we forget our motivation. This is a great summary verse that wraps it all up. Paul says in Ephesians 2, "It is by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not from yourselves. It's the gift of God, not by works. Nobody can boast about it." Now watch this, "For we're God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Three prepositional phrases. And don't get them out of order. We're saved by grace, not by works, through faith, not by trying harder to do good works. Works are a result of our salvation. Our salvation isn't a result of our works.

You're on the team. God has chosen you. That part has been settled, and now he has a job for you to do. Let me give you an illustration. I don't know if you saw this news story a week before last. It's about a bus driver who saved the life of a suicidal woman. It's an amazing story. It was just a normal day. He was driving his bus route for Buffalo, New York. His name's Darnell Barton. But as he drives his bus across a bridge, he notices a woman standing on the bridge, and she climbed over. She's on the wrong side of the guardrail, and she's ready to jump to her death.

And I want you to watch. This is not a reenactment. This is actual footage from the security camera on his bus. And look at this and see what happens next. And what he does is just absolutely amazing.

Ma'am, are you okay? It didn't seem real because of what was going on around. You know, the traffic was going as normal. You know, pedestrians going by as normal. Ma'am, are you okay? She was distraught. She was distant. She was really disconnected. I grabbed her, and I grabbed her arm, and I put my arm around her, and I said, "Do you want to come on this side of the guardrail?" And that was actually the first time she actually spoke to me. She said, "Yes." It was meant to be. I was supposed to be there for her at that moment, and I was.

I wanted to convey that, you know, whatever it was, I'm going to... We're going to help you through whatever it is, and it's not as serious as jumping onto the 198. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do at the time. Like, you know, I'm a football guy, so, you know, when you sit on the bench and a coach calls your number, you got to go in there and make a play, and you got to do what the play calls for, and I think that's what I did.

Do you not love that? I love it. The coach chose you to be on the team. You're not in the stands anymore. You're on the field. You're not a spectator anymore. You're a player. And so the question is, how's the coach calling your number? Not every player on the team has to do everything, or can do everything, but how's the coach calling your number? Ask yourself, "What am I going to do as a result of hearing this?"

You might say, "Well, I thought about it. I felt it. You know, I learned some new words, some new facts." James would say, "No. What are you going to do about it?" Ask yourself, "What are the ripple effects of my faith? What are the next steps for me?" I just want to give you some ideas as we close. Easy applications. You got the bullets in right? Like, just about every other ad there in our bulletin, so to speak, is for one of our ministries that needs help.

Like, look at the fourth one down there. Bridge of Hope is in need of volunteers. Do you know what Bridge of Hope is? Look at the screen. Bridge of Hope brings people in wheelchairs from local nursing homes, and they sit in the lobby or here in church. There are brothers and sisters in Christ, but in order for this to continue, they need people to just sit with them in the lobby in church. And if you'd like to do that, you don't even have to pick them up or bring them back. Just sit with them while they're in church. They really need your help.

And there's a lot of other opportunities too. I would encourage you to do this. And of course, the thing that I think has some of the greatest ripple effects of all is our 2020 Vision Project. It's going all the way out to India with a community service center we're going to build there. It's going to our local poor people. It's going to impact children and families' lives like the Harns for many, many years to come. So will you go do it?

If we want to have ripple effects, why don't we? Let me close with this. There's only two reasons I can see why people would want to sit on the bench and not have ripple effects in the world. That's fear and distraction. We get distracted and we get afraid. I don't think I can really do that. And I have felt that way too. The end of the spring, I felt that way about this 2020 Vision Project. I don't know if we get it so big. It's the biggest thing that I've ever attempted with a church. I'm just kind of, I don't know what people are going to think about it.

So I thought, I got to call a friend. And I called my friend Steve Clifford. He's a pastor over at Westgate Church in Saratoga. And if you know Steve, you know Steve's from Texas. And he talks like someone from Texas. In fact, anybody ever seen Dr. Phil on TV? Anybody ever watched Dr. Phil? Steve talks like Dr. Phil. He really does. So I called him up. I go, Steve, there's this 2020 Vision thing. I don't know whether we should go ahead with it or not. He goes, René, let me ask you a question. He says, you ever heard of the parable of the talents that Jesus told? I said, the parable of the talents? Yes, I've heard of that. I hate that parable. I really do.

And he says, do you recall what that third servant who buried the master's bag of gold and would not invest it and would not use it, he says, do you recall what that servant told the master? Well, he said that he was afraid. René, are you afraid to invest your talents? I mean, he was preaching at me on the phone. I said, well, I am a little bit. He goes, René, you got to understand Twin Lakes Church is a five-talent church. And I said, thank you, Steve, very much.

He said, I'm not complimenting you. I'm just telling you a fact. God has blessed Twin Lakes Church in certain ways that are enormous. And if you do not invest those blessings well, then you are not doing the Lord's will. And I said, well, what are you talking about, Steve? He says, don't you know the way God has blessed you with multiple talents? I said, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. He says, buildable land. He says, René, one other church in Santa Cruz County has a pastor who, in order to get to his office, is walking past three vacant lots that his church owns on the property. He said, nobody. He says, three, three, René, three vacant lots that are crying out for children's ministry. They're crying out for a college ministry. They're crying out for a chapel. So are you going to invest those talents, or are you afraid? Just like that.

I said, but it's such a big goal. He goes, René, what would Jesus say? At least you got to try something. And I hung up that phone completely convinced. God has blessed us. We can't bury our talents and just leave the vacant lots vacant. We've got to at least try something. I was convinced. Are you convinced? I'm convinced that we need to do a faith-building. Let's bow our heads and close in a word of prayer. Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, I just pray there's literally hundreds of opportunities to make ripple effects at TLC. I pray that we would be motivated by that and that we would do ripple effects for your glory and not our own. And Lord, whatever the next step is for each one of us, whether it's to accept Jesus for the first time as our Lord and Savior, or whether it's to be baptized or find a small group, or whether it's to find a way to get on the field and be doers of the word and not hearers only, God, I pray that each one of us would take the next step in Jesus' name. Amen.