These are days of blessing at West Haven. I look forward to gathering with you on Sunday! If you are a guest joining us for the first time, I would like to meet you afterward and get to know you a little bit!

Sunday, we will open God’s Word to James 2. We see a subject seldom discussed and that is the sin of favoritism. God takes it seriously. His Word says in verse 9 “If you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” I am praying that God’s Word and the Holy Spirit will bear fruit in your life this morning.

I was recently in contact with someone from the first church I pastored. It was a little country church about 15 miles outside of our town of 4,000 people. It was (and is) a small country church of faithful people. I pastored them bi-vocationally. I still have the notes from most of the sermons I preached. Those sermons were dreadful! I can’t believe anyone sat through them! Yet our time there was fruitful. The church grew. We were there for almost four years and we were “built up in Him and established in (our) faith . . . overflowing with gratitude.” (Colossians 2:7)

Do you know what that tells me? God is patient. He is patient with each of us. Keep growing in the faith. Be consistent. As I like to say “stay in the bucket.” You will be astonished at how much God will grow you in the faith over the years.

Last Sunday, God gave me another example of that. While I was preaching here, my son David was preaching at his church in mid-Missouri. I will confess that during one of the songs last Sunday, I streamed his preaching for a couple of minutes with the sound off. It almost brought tears to my eyes. It brought back my memory that in 1984, God graciously redeemed my life. I was on a monorail for hell.

He redeemed me, and then He brought Tara and me together. Now we have three kids who follow the Lord. And He called another into the ministry. To see David preaching as I was about to preach made me think back to my pre-Jesus life. Then it made me think of this verse:

Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 (NASB)

WHAT AN INCREDIBLE SAVIOR WE HAVE!

So, don’t give up in kingdom work! Remember what Paul told the Galatian churches:

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. Galatians 6:9-10 (NASB)