So, have you ever taken a test on doors? There's a, a personality test out there that is about doors. Basically. What you do is you choose a door, there's 10 doors, all different colors and shapes and sizes and stuff and you pick which door looks like you. And then it matches up with this little paragraph that says who you are and, and what you're like. Now, as with all personality tests, we have to be a little bit careful because just because you take a personality test and it says you're a, a lion or it says that you're a beaver or you're a, you're a high I or high D or whatever all these personality tests are, that's fine. Those things can be helpful. But ultimately, a personality test does not say who God defines you as or ultimately, it is not the call that God has placed on your life, but, but they're fun and, and they can be helpful. So I usually don't take long with those things. I just picked the first door that kind of appeared to me and, and then I read the little paragraph that went along with the door that I picked and the first line said this, you are an old soul that can be slightly dramatic. And I thought, well, first of all, I'm too goofy to be an old soul. I don't even know what that means. And the only time I really get dramatic is when the bacon is either too soggy or too crispy. You know, just, just the important things usually bring out the drama. We, we're connected and you know what I found, I found that there was a little bit of me in every single door. If there's a little bit of me spread out, the same is true when it comes to decisions in life and in life, it's not just one door, there's all kind of doors, right. There's doors at home and work and, and school and church, there's doors at the stadium, there's doors at the cinema, there's, there's doors at the hotel at the hospital and the funeral home. There's all kind of doors that we have to go through in life. It's not just one door. And as we go through all of those doors, we need wisdom because we need wisdom to know when to go through those doors, when not to go through those doors. And if we do go through the doors, we need wisdom for what we're supposed to do. Once we're through the door, we continue our, our series navigating Life and, and what we're doing is we're hanging around and in the end, the last part of James chapter three, and we're looking at the ingredients, so to speak of making good, wise, healthy decisions. We've been looking in the Bible and James and, and James with these ingredients. Each one is, is kind of strategic in helping us make good decisions for ourselves, but also making good decisions that impact the people around us today. He has an ingredient that's super important for us any time we are walking through a door. So before we even engage, just, just take a second, what kind of doors are you walking through this week? What doors do you know? Are, are on the schedule? Are they doors at the doctor? Are they doors at the courthouse? Are they doors at the hospital? Are the doors at the accountant, the lawyer, wherever it may be. What, what kind of doors are you walking through this week? Well, whatever doors you face, whatever doors are ahead, you, you will need this one ingredient that James gives us. And so what is it? Well, let's find out together. Our message today is turning toward enough. We're going to be looking in James three, almost the last part of verse 17. And this is what James says, but the wisdom from above is impartial wisdom from above God's wisdom is impartial. Now, this is the only time in the Bible that this word is used this particular word for impartial and it means unwavering it means not showing partiality, it means not showing favoritism. It means not creating unnecessary division. It's a very interesting, fascinating word, the impartial word that we have here, it kind of has a, a 12 punch. We're going to look at both of those punches. The, the first punch is that to be impartial means that you are unwavering with God's truth, meaning that the, the truth that we find in the Bible, we are unwaveringly committed to that truth. It becomes our standard. It becomes our ultimate playbook guidebook map for how we do life and, and what we do in life. James speaks to the same idea of being unwavering back in chapter one. He's talking about praying and asking God for wisdom. So same topic, wisdom. And this is what he says in James 16. He says, when we're praying and asking God for wisdom, we have to do something he must ask in faith without doubting. So when we need wisdom, we're supposed to go to God, but we have to go in faith, not in doubt. And then he goes on in verse six for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. If you've ever been to the ocean for more than one or two days, you'll discover that the ocean never looks the same sometimes a day. It's, it's super calm and there's just little, little trickles of waves and other times it's it's loud and, and there's huge crashing waves. James says that's, that's not how we should be when it comes to God's truth. We shouldn't be trickling and we shouldn't be crashing. We should just be steady. We should be unwavering and holding to God's truth. We should view God's truth is what we need the most and we should be sure that there's no division between our hearts and our minds. When it comes to the truth of God, we shouldn't create division in our own hearts and our own minds when it comes to God's truth, stay true to his truth. Now, at first glance, if we kind of think about it, this may almost sound like a paradox, like a real oxymoron. Ok? We're talking about being impartial. We're talking about not showing favoritism. And yet we're saying that God's truth should be our favorite truth and, and that kind of being partial. I mean, if we hear the word impartial, if we're, I mean, if we're going to be impartial, then shouldn't we just say that all roads lead to heaven? I mean, if you're really not going to show any favoritism, shouldn't we just say that that whatever you believe will help you when, when life is over and, and that whatever you believe, whatever religion, whatever philosophy that you want to buy into, it'll help you make things right with God. Well, no, we, we can't say that and the reason we can't say that thankfully is, is very simple. It's simple because of some words from Jesus. John 14 verse six, Jesus said this, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. So when we say that wisdom from above is impartial, when we say it's unwavering, what we mean is this, we're taking a very serious look at the historical and practical and spiritual realities about the birth and life and crucifixion and resurrection and ascension of Jesus. And we're taking those realities and we're combining them with this proclamation from Jesus that He is the way and the truth and the life. He's the only way that can, that we can be right with God. The only way sin can be dealt with. And we're taking all of that together and we are concluding and embracing that we must treat all things equally in the light of who Jesus is. We bring everything together. We don't show favoritism. We don't show anything impartially to anyone. We're not partial to it. But actually we take all of that and we hold it up in the light of Jesus Christ, everything and everyone, we say, all right, I'm going to hold this up into the light of Jesus Christ. And what happens when we hold everything and everyone up to the light of the truth of Jesus. Well, here's what happens. Everything becomes the same and every, everyone becomes the same. What in the world, does that mean? The Apostle Paul said it this way to the folks at Rome Romans 3 23. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. One of the most impartial realities in the universe, one reality that has absolutely no favoritism. One of the greatest statements of equality in all of human history is this every single person, past, present and future has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no greater, more impartial statement than that. And Paul continues just a few chapters later in Romans six. He says this Romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death. There's no partiality. There's no favoritism when it comes to the wages of sin. The greatest salary of equality in all of human history is the same for every single person. And that is the wages of sin is death. Everyone earns the same thing. And what kind of death are we talking about? We're talking about a death that never ends. We're talking about a death. That's, that's unimaginable. It is a physical, spiritual, emotional death that keeps going and going and going. That is how the Bible describes eternal death. What it means to be separated from God. We can't put it into words and yet it's real, it's true so much so that, that, that's probably the exact reason why Jesus spoke more about the reality of hell being separated from God than the reality of heaven being together with God. Now, someone may say, well, that just seems so mean, so unfair, so exclusive, this, this notion of eternal death, this death that never ends. It just, it just sounds so cruel. Well, listen to the second part of that exact same verse from Paul in Romans six. But the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, every single person who is dead in their sins, which is everyone. Every single person who's earned the wages of sin has free gracious access to eternal life. Oh, everyone has access to free gracious, eternal life. The most impartial gift in the universe. The gift that has absolutely no favoritism. The greatest gift of equality in the history of humanity does not originate in America or Austria or Italy or Israel. The greatest gift of equality in the history of humanity cannot be established by the Supreme Court or the court of public opinion. It cannot be legislated by Republicans or Democrats or independents. It cannot be grass rooted by conservatives or liberals. It cannot be progressed by the same sex community or the transgender community or even indoctrinated by a fundamentalist Christian church. No, the greatest gift of equality in all of human history only comes the true, lasting joyful, eternal life only comes through Jesus, the messiah, the lamb of God, the savior of the world. Do you know that Jesus? I don't I don't know what version of Jesus you have in your mind. But do you know that Jesus, the Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life, the, the Jesus who makes things right with God, the Jesus who provides free eternal life to those who believe some people say, well, again, that's just, that's so ugly. It's so mean. It's so arrogant. It's so exclusive to say that that Jesus is the only way. But actually, it's not, it's just that Jesus, he is the ultimate, mighty, awesome, excellent savior of the world. We, we have no other message to give. It's the nature of who he is. He's the only savior who by the spirit of God approaches every person the same, the Southern housewife that makes a mean cobbler and the Middle Eastern terrorists that makes a mess of evil chaos. Jesus approaches the same with the same message repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Do you know that Jesus? If you do, then you may also know that that almost in the same theological breath. Jesus also says, come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest. Listen, there are a lot of people, a lot of places, a lot of philosophies, a lot of things that are promising rest. There's a lot of communities, a lot of political agendas, a lot of social agendas, even churches that are promising you that they themselves can give you rest. They cannot, the only person who can give your soul rest is the Lord Jesus Christ and he desires to. And the reason he's the only one who can give you rest is because he loved you. He gave himself up for you. He conquered sin and death and hell so that you could be saved and safe and satisfied. You cannot find that in your political social agenda. You cannot find that even in the church itself, you can only find it in the person of Jesus Christ. Life is hard. Life is terrible. There are tragic things that happen all the time and life will always be hard. There will always be terrible things. There will always be tragic things. But when it comes to the moment that every single one of us will breathe our last breath, are you confident that you have received the impartial gift of salvation from Jesus Christ? Do you know this Jesus? If not turn to him today? Why? Because this Jesus and only this Jesus is enough, he's enough for whatever it is we face, he's enough and you can start turning to him today. You, you could turn to him and, and even your mind right now or, or maybe after the service or, or maybe sometime tonight you, you can just pray, you know Jesus, I, I know I can't save myself. I can't do it. And I know you've died to make it possible for me to be right with God that if I repent, I can receive your salvation. So I, I trust you to forgive me. I trust you to save me. Thank you for dying to make salvation possible. It can be that simple but turn to him. He's enough. He's only enough. The first punch of being impartial is that we are unwavering in our commitment to God's truth, unwavering in our devotion to follow after Jesus. And the second punch is like it to be impartial, to be devoted to Jesus Christ means that we are unwavering and following the example of God's impartiality, meaning that God is impartial. He's gracious. He gives and he gives and he gives and we too, we follow him and his example in that mercy. Well, how do we do that? Well, again, think of the word itself, this, this impartial that we're following after it means that we don't play politics. It means that we don't take sides with sinful agendas, especially just knowingly and it means we also are not afraid of sinful agendas. It means that we do not create unnecessary division, whether it's in our homes or at work or school at church, wherever it means that we do not side up with the good old boys club and we don't saddle up with the, the gossipy gals grapevine. It means that we do not play favorites. Now, do, do you play favorites? Let me just go ahead and let you know you do. We all do. We all have our moments. So we're not perfect. I laughed about a month ago when, uh, the head football coach at the University of Colorado Deion Sanders was, was taken flak for saying that he ranked his kids and his response was all y'all do it. We all do it, you know, you do it. And in one interview he said this, you know which one's going to roll you right to the nursing home when it's the end of the day. I mean, he's right. Right. I mean, we do, we all know there's, there's the one, but it's interesting ranking and favoritism are not the same thing completely different. For example, let's say that there's 10 people being considered for some kind of school board. And let's say I'm, I'm one of the people and the, the first part of being considered for the school board is that you have to take an exam. OK? And the exam is all on algebra and trigonometry. OK? And so there's this person that comes in with the 10 people to give the exam and they, they pass out the exam. Now when the exam is over and when the results are tallied, I will be 10th meaning last place because I'm not an athlete. Ok? And there will be no favoritism in the fact that the other nine people are ranked ahead of me, that's exactly how it should be. Ok. But if the exam giver comes into the room, sees the 10 of us sitting there looks over at me and says, man, that guy's got a goofy face, man and man, his hair is falling out all over. I bet he stinks at math and he writes me off. That would be a, a type of strange favoritism. It would be devaluing me based on some appearance or, or some other thing. Again, I will simply say there are a lot of people that are, that are offering to us, to make us feel valued and to give us rest. But it all comes with a prerequisite. See if you never give your life to Jesus Christ, you have value. You were created by God. But we live in a world that says you only have value. If you say you're this, if you sign up this way, if you orient this way, if you wear this jersey, whatever it may be, but that's not the call from heaven. The call from heaven is that every person has been fearfully and wonderfully made. God is impartial in the sense that he created us. And he is impartial in the sense that he has offered us the free gift of his salvation. If we repent and believe James wrote about this back in chapter two of the same letter, it seems that in the church, people were starting showing favoritism to the wealthy, to, to the rich folks and they were kind of ignoring the poor and just, you know, pumping up the, the important people and, and sometimes we go, oh, the rich, let's just keep it on our level. This could also mean anyone who just agrees with us, people who like our kind of music, people who like our kind of clothes, people who like our kind of restaurants, people we've known for a long time or maybe even our, our new friends, people who like our politics and people like our sports and our hobbies, whatever it may be, people who are, are like us. They started being a little favoritism showing a little favoritism to some people that they wanted to show favoritism to. And James said this in James 29. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators. Now, look, if we're honest, more often than not, we think just like these people 1900 years ago in the Church of Jerusalem thing. We, we think things like, I mean, I'm a pretty good person. I, I volunteer in the community. I, I give money to charity. I, I've got a lot of people, you know, at church that like me, you know, I'm, I'm, I think I'm ok. I, I think I'm all right. Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you confessed sin to another person? Or, or maybe be more specific. When was the last time you asked someone to forgive you. I'm not saying that you apologize. Anybody can apologize but godly sorrow according to the Bible leads to repentance. When was the last time you asked somebody to forgive you? When was the last time you became so aware of sin that you actually texted or emailed or called or met with someone and said, please forgive me for how I spoke to you in the hall at church on Sunday. When was the last time you turned to your spouse and said, please forgive me for what I said after dinner last night. When was the last time you said to your Children? Please forgive me for not making that effort to, to be at that event? When was the last time you said to your parents? Please forgive me for not at least giving you an emoji on your text. When was the last time you confessed finn if we're going to call ourselves Christians and we never confess sin and never ask for forgiveness. Are we Christians? If you're that good? You don't need to come to church. What would change if we really started confessing sin? Can I just hurt all of our feelings if you're really, really seriously answered that question? I bet it's been a long time. And can I just really hurt our feelings? Some of you have never asked someone for forgiveness? You've never said the words, please forgive me. You're not alone. There are people like that in the early church and James says, well, if you do that, if you're showing favoritism to the wealthy or if you're showing favoritism to yourself, then you are a low down, dirty rotten scoundrel. Breaking the royal law of King Jesus. No, James. Tell me what you really think. But, but that's what he says and, and just like some of us, some of those people sitting in the church that day, they went. All right, whatever preacher, come on, we gotta get the lunch. You, I'm sure I'm sure somebody needs to hear this. So, so James keeps going verse 10 for whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. See, James knew there were people going well, the worst thing I ever do is favoritism. I'm not so bad, but that's the wrong angle. James says the royal law of King Jesus is the standard. It's the antidote of all type of partiality and favoritism and to strive to obey the royal law of King Jesus means that you will be the kind of person that shows no favoritism. You'll be impartial, you'll be the kind of person that apologizes and, and ask for forgiveness. But on the flip side, if you're the kind of person that doesn't apologize, doesn't ask for forgiveness is not impartial shows, favoritism all the time to the good old boys or the good old gals, whatever it may be. If you're showing favoritism, then you are actually functioning outside of the royal law of King Jesus. And that's exactly why James wrote this. Now. Now to be clear, we're not saying that 01 sin means you're going to hell, ok? And there's some heretics that preach that from pulpits. That's, that's not what's happening. James is not saying that one sin is going to cast you to hell. Here's why that would call into question all of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and from the grave. So that's not it, James is just saying this, you know what? There's some people in the church whose Christianity is phony. It's, it's not real. They, they seem like everything is good people in the church and in the community may think they're great Christian people, but there's this sin in their life that's never been surrendered to. In other words, we could say there's like this one sin that still keeps them from God. Mel Trotter spent his life sharing the gospel with the homeless community. And he said this in the last analysis, there's always just one sin that keeps a man from getting right with God. Is there one sin in your life today? That that's keeping you from God. This may be the first time you've ever been to church or maybe you've been in church your whole life. Is there one sin that's keeping you from God? Now again, that doesn't mean everybody needs to question their salvation. OK? Black doesn't mean you don't either. Maybe so, maybe, maybe there's still some prideful sin that would tell your heart that things are not right with me and God. And I don't have confidence that I've received Jesus. If that's true, just turn to Jesus. Now, the free gift of rescue and redemption and salvation and satisfaction, eternal life, the free gracious gift with all equality, no partiality is being offered to you even right now and know this Jesus Christ is enough. He, he's enough no matter what you're facing, he is enough. Now, this word impartial sounds OK. Sitting here in church. Ok, impartial. That's, that's fine. What, what does it mean? What was it like in real life? Well, I want to give two pictures of that. Uh One comes through a man named Vince Miller. Vince's dad abandoned the family when Vince was only two years old. He endured um two failed marriages from his mom and also a lot of poor choices from his mom, including drug abuse. When Vince was a teenager, his grandfather stepped up and stepped into his life and, and helped him find and, and follow Jesus. And today Vince works as a speaker and author trying to help other men follow Jesus and, and he wrote this in conversations about candidates policies and platforms. We should follow Jesus's example and ask good questions. Don't miss that before we go when it comes to anything in life, whether it's politics outside the church or politics inside the church, whether it's planning a family vacation or planning for the holidays, whether it's anything else when you're in a conversation with another person, believer or unbeliever. Follow the example of Jesus and ask good questions. Don't, don't yell your opinion. Don't tell them they're fools and they should believe what you believe, ask good questions. That that is the example of Jesus. So we can follow Jesus or we cannot follow Jesus. And can I just say generally speaking, we aren't following Jesus. We're obsessed with our opinions so much so that we don't stop to ask people questions and listen to their answers. Vince goes on, we ask good questions to try and understand the reasons for our neighbors deeply held beliefs and we make an effort to understand how they came to their conclusions and their convictions and then reason with a respectful attitude. Once again, these are the examples that we see from Jesus. How are we doing at following them in the United States of America? That's where we live. So I'll just say for us, we're not doing great and it's ok for us to say, oh, it's the people in DC. No, it's the people at Holland Avenue. None of us are doing good at this. We're obsessed with our opinions and our thoughts and, and we're not really following the example of Jesus and we don't like hearing it. I don't like hearing it and I'm saying it to myself. Then Vance said this, we ask good questions. We listen, we respond and then he says this put on the impartial compassion of a good American. I read that sentence and I went, that's a really interesting sentence because it sounds like the opposite of how we function as Americans. Now, the impartial compassion of a good American. But if you look through our history, the history, let's just say from the 17 hundreds, go back and watch how the politicians argued in the 17 hundreds. It ain't like today. They still argued. But there was an impartial compassion. There, there was a willingness to listen. The same truth was in the church as well. You know, I have a lot of good friends of mine who aren't Southern Baptist. We disagree on things, but that's why we don't go to church together. But it doesn't mean we won't be in heaven together. Vince goes on to say this, don't assume everything rests on your opinions. This political season is not about us. We kneel before the throne and submit our preferences, our opinions and our purposes to almighty God. Why? Because it's all about Him. It is all about him, period, exclamation point times 10. And then he says this, keep your focus on Christ because there is ultimately only one king and one kingdom, one king, one kingdom, one king, Jesus and friend. That king is enough. Doesn't mean that, that we don't have to vote for people doesn't mean that we don't have to be involved in, in politics. Doesn't mean that we don't have to have constitutions and bylaws and rules and take up money and all these things in life. They're just part of life, but they're not keen. There's only one king, there's only one kingdom and King Jesus, he is enough. He's enough. So that's a bit of what it could look like in our personal life. Ask good questions. Respond with impartial compassion doesn't mean throw our truth out the window, but it just means bring our truth into the conversation and let it be a conversation. But what would that look like? Look like in the life of the church? Wiltshire is a county in in southwest England and there's a church there that in recent years had a sign on the wall. Listen to what the sign said. O God. May the door of this house be wide enough to include all who need divine love and human friendship, narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and strife. May its threshold be smooth enough to be no stumbling block to Children or to strain feet yet rugged enough to turn back the tempter's power wide enough, narrow enough, smooth enough and rugged enough. Those are good cause for the church. And and why can we be impartial like that? Why can we be wide enough and narrow enough and smooth enough and rugged enough while we come into this church. And when we leave this church, why can we as a church gather this wisdom from above and be impartial? Why? Because we have this truth, we have this knowledge. There's only one king, there's only one kingdom and King Jesus is was and will always be enough. Let us turn toward Jesus.