Sermons from September 2026

What does real faith actually look like? James 2 gives us a challenging answer: living faith doesn’t just believe—it moves. It serves. It obeys. It gets its hands dirty. In this message by Preaching Minister Gordon Dabbs, Ph.D., from our IRL: In Real Life series, we explore one of the most debated passages in the New Testament: “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Are we saved by faith or by works? And how do James…

We live in a world that is constantly ranking people—by success, appearance, wealth, influence, background, and even how easy they are to like. But James says the church should be different. In James 2:1–13, we’re confronted with a challenging truth: favoritism isn’t just a manners problem—it’s a gospel problem. Grace changes the way we see people. When we remember how much mercy we’ve received from Jesus, we become people who are eager to extend that same mercy to others. In…