Sermon Tone Analysis

*prelude*

*Prayer of Preparation            *Solomon asked God to make provisions for the people when they sinned.

God answered with four conditions for forgiveness: (1) Humble yourself by admitting your sins, (2) pray to God, asking for forgiveness, (3) seek God continually, and (4) turn from sinful behavior.

True repentance is more than talk—it is changed behavior.

Whether we sin individually, as a group, or as a nation, following these steps will lead to forgiveness.

*welcome, announcements, joys and concerns*

*~*Hymn # 28    *Great Is Thy Faithfulness

*~*Call to Worship*

L. What is salt without its flavor?

What is light you cannot see? \\ P. What's a ship without a rudder?

Without fruit, what is a tree?

\\ L. Jesus said they're good for nothing, and he gave this warning call: \\ P. If we speak and then do nothing, we do not have faith at all.

\\ L. We believe our true salvation comes by grace through faith alone; \\ All.

But true faith results in action, by our deeds we make love known.

\\ *~*Invocation* ~/ Lord’s Prayer    We desire your presence with us, O God.  Still our restless spirits, that with quiet minds and reverent hearts we may hear your voice and worthily worship you.

~/Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, at it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.Amen

*~*Gloria Patri* \\ *Young’s Peoples Moment *                            Divide the children into two equal groups, and show them all a jar of jelly beans.

Say to the group on your left, I want you all to be my friends.

Here, each of you take a jelly bean.

Then say to the group on your right, I want you to be my friends, too.

Have a nice day.

(But don't give them any jelly beans.)

Ask the children if they all feel like they are now your friends.

The group on the right will, of course, say No! Quiz them on why they feel they haven't been treated as friends.

Explore whether it is enough to SAY you are friends, or if these words need to be backed up with ACTIONS.

Conclude by saying that God wants us all to back up our words with deeds, and to show the world our Christian faith by doing good works (James 2:17).

Also let them know that God does not want us to play favorites in the church (vv.

1-7) - and demonstrate this by giving every child in the whole group a jelly bean.

\\ *Call to Prayer* 2 Chronicles 7:14                                 If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.

15I will listen to every prayer made in this place, 16for I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be my home forever.

My eyes and my heart will always be here.

Prayer Hymn                # 402 Take Time to be Holy v. 1

*Pastoral Prayer                      Eternal God,* by your love you have made us, through your love you have kept us, and in your love you would make us to be wholly in accordance with your holy will.

We humbly confess that we have not loved you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and that we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loves them and us.

We have resisted your Spirit and gone our own ways.

Forgive what we have been and help us to change what we are.

By your Spirit direct what we shall be, that your image may come into full glory in us and in all people.

AMEN

*Musical response*

*Offertory sentence  *“So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24leave your sacrifice there beside the altar.

Go and be reconciled to that person.

Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

*offering*           Doxology

*offertory prayer         Gracious God*, help us to be cheerful givers, that in giving we may find joy, and having found joy, go out to spread it abroad, that the world might become a more joyful place in which to live.

AMEN.

*Hymn # 397   *             Search Me, O God

*Scripture Text            *James 2: 1-17

*Sermon                       *Friends

*We may shift our earthly friends at different points in our lives, but a strong, active and deep faith-friendship with God is a non-shifting necessity.*

Friends.

Who needs 'em? \\ Some argue that friends are the latest casualty of the lifestyle wars as we struggle to balance the full-time demands of career and family.

With spouse, mortgage, kids, schedules, work and travel, there doesn't seem to be room for anything else.

Something's gotta give.

Friends seem expendable, so friends are the first to go.

\\ Like Jim Hoffman.

About twice a year, when he can't handle the guilt anymore, he sits down and answers neglected e-mails from a half-dozen pals he hasn't seen in ages: "Sorry I stink as a friend," he begins.

\\ The New York Internet executive, 42, says he's too busy, and friends are a luxury he can no longer afford.

With a wife, a young daughter and a busy job, "I'm already at 120 percent, there really is no room for anyone else."

No big deal.

\\ Or ... maybe it is.

Recent research tells us what we've long suspected: friends are important.

That's why so many organizations use the word "friend" in their name: Friends of the Sea Otter, Friends of Libraries, Friends of Israel, Friends of Freedom, Friends of the Environment, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the Ocean and Friends of Japan.

\\ There are friends of gardens, parks, countries, cities and states.

There's even a group that calls itself Friends of Tobacco, headquartered in North Carolina!

You need a friend?

You can find one at FriendFinder (www.eFriend.com).

\\ When the medical community chimes in, the value of friendships is dramatically underscored.

Fewer friends lead to higher stress and a shorter life.

In a study of 2,800 men and women over the age of 65, those with more friends had a lower risk of health problems, and they recovered faster when they did develop them.

A Yale University study of 10,000 seniors showed that having friends reduced the risk of death by about 50 percent over a five-year period.

Friends can help you reduce stress, improve the quality of your life, live longer, get a better job, expand your business, improve your marriage and derive more joy from your life.

\\ So there you have it.

There is value to having friends over the long term.

No surprise.

\\ What is intriguing is the notion that our friends will come and go throughout life, and that this is absolutely normal.

Dr. Jan Yager, in her book, FriendShifts, argues that it is very rare for a person to have a friend for a lifetime.

Instead, we tend to shift our friends as our own needs and circumstances themselves shift.

\\ Typically, adults today have one or two "best" friends, four to six "close" friends, and 10 to 20 "casual" friends.

But let's be honest: Even these numbers seem high.

Healthy friendships take time just to get going, up to three years according to some experts.

Then they require nurturing and attentive planning.

\\ But just when the friendships are in place, they vanish, victims of some new component in the social equation: new job, new school, new baby, new spouse, whatever.

\\ The bottom line is that we not only don't have as many friends as we used to, but we're going to lose the ones we have.

But that's okay.

We will pick up new friends in a cyclical pattern of friend shifting that will continue for the rest of our lives.

~/~/~/~/~/ \\ James takes the discussion to another level.

Christians tend to exaggerate their claims of friendship.

We've got the friendliest church in the world, but we'll walk right by the stranger in the narthex.

We love one another, but we're just as likely as the next guy to badmouth a brother, or scandalize a sister.

\\ We say we'd never stoop to the behavior of the nearsighted usher in today's text, but we forget that the church has a shady past.

For example, the church must never forget its complicity in promoting slavery and segregation and in resisting their termination.

Have we forgotten that there were plenty of Christians who had their hands on the ropes when they were stringing up a black man, leaving him swaying in the wind from an oak tree during the 1930s?

\\ But that was then; this is now, we say.

True.

But James argues that it is not enough to assert love and friendship.

There must be signs of this friendship or else both the friendship and the faith are dead.

Partiality (2:2-3) is not a sign.