In this message, Charlie unpacks why favoritism is rarely loud. Most of the time it’s quiet. It’s the person we walk past without noticing, the hospitality we aim at people who look like us. James doesn’t answer with guilt. He points us to the glory of Jesus, the inheritance every person in Christ shares, the call to move toward people the way Jesus moved toward us, and the mercy we’ve all been shown. Mercy triumphs over judgment. To find out more about Oaks Chapel, visit OaksChapel.org.

There's a gap between the person you want to be and the person you actually are. Most of us feel it. The dad who swore he wouldn't yell. The person who knows all the right things but still keeps doing the wrong ones. James felt it too, and he wrote about it two thousand years ago in a way that still hits. In this message, Charlie walks through James 1:19-27 and identifies four places where that gap usually lives. Anger that crowds out listening. Pride that resists change. Knowledge that never becomes action. And religion that worships the things pointing to Jesus instead of Jesus himself. But this isn't a "try harder" sermon. Charlie makes the case that the gap doesn't close by grinding. It closes by fixing your eyes on the right thing. When we genuinely see the goodness of God, it starts to reorder everything else. The why behind the what. That's what James is after. To find out more about Oaks Chapel, visit OaksChapel.org.

Most of us spend a lot of energy worrying about the wrong things. Bear attacks. Plane crashes. The big dramatic event that might derail our life. But James has something different in mind, and it's a lot closer to home. In this message, Charlie walks through James 1:12-18 and makes a case that the greatest threat to our faith isn't what's coming at us from the outside. It's what's already living on the inside. Desire that goes unchecked. Sin that starts small and feels friendly. The thing we keep telling ourselves isn't that bad, right up until it is. But James doesn't just leave us there. He pivots in verse 16 to something beautiful. The way we fight the pull of desire isn't only by white-knuckling our way through it. It's by learning to hear a better song. God's generosity. His unchanging love. The first fruits of something far greater still to come. Charlie lands on a line from Viktor Frankl that ties the whole thing together: he who has a why can live to bear any what. That's what James is building toward. And it's worth your time. To find out more about Oaks Chapel, visit OaksChapel.org.