Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. I'm going to have you turn in your Bibles this morning to the Book of James. We continue a series looking at chapter two, the end of the chapter, beginning in verse 14.
[00:00:11] Wow. Okay.
[00:00:15] One of the great. Can we have a little more light, please? Thank you. Yeah, just felt like I went into the dark here.
[00:00:22] One of the great themes of the Bible is a concept and is it's one of the great virtues of the church, faith.
[00:00:32] You know, the Bible says it's impossible to please God apart from faith. We read that in the Book of Hebrews when the disciples were struggling and unable to deliver a young boy from a demonic attack.
[00:00:44] Jesus told them it was because they had such little faith.
[00:00:48] But then later on, as he's talking to them, he mentions that even if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say unto a mountain, be thou plucked, uprooted and cast into the sea. In other words, the idea of faith is not so much what you know, it's not how much faith we have. I think we sometimes think that way, but rather it's where we have our faith. And by the way, everybody has faith. Even non believers have faith. How many know we have faith? Faith is a gift that God gives. There's a common faith. Let me tell you what that common faith is. You and I exercise it every day when we step in an elevator when we get on the highway. I have faith that the people coming from the other direction are going to stay in their lane and they have faith that I'm going to stay in mine. How many know that's true? That's a common faith. We're talking about something different than that. We're talking about a faith in a supreme being. We're talking about a faith in God. We're talking about a faith that even if we have even a little bit of faith towards him, something will begin to happen in our lives. And it's transformational in nature. I want to talk about this morning. What is true biblical faith? Because a lot of times people will say, yeah, I believe, but okay, we're going to find out. James is going to start challenging us and talking to us about this faith. We know that from Scripture, salvation from sin and death is acquired. It's a gift God gives us. It's a great grace thing. It's a gift, but it's given to us by faith. So what is biblical faith and how do we know that we have it?
[00:02:22] Because, you know, when I was a brand new Christian, you know, I was questioning myself, do I really have faith. How many know when you're brand new? Sometimes you question that, and then later on you might reevaluate yourself and say, do I have the right kind of faith? You know, we're going to talk about some people who are doing things that say they have faith, but it may not be saving faith. It may not be transformational faith. I've even seen people pray to God for temporal things, but it doesn't translate into an eternal transformation in their life. So what is this thing called faith? Matter of fact, faith is defined here in the book of Hebrews as the confidence in what we hope for, but also it's an assurance about what we do not see. So it's not something we're seeing.
[00:03:11] It's not out in the natural material world.
[00:03:15] So if you continue to read chapter 11 of that book, Hebrews 11, you would discover that faith produces something. That's the important thing. That's what James is going to argue now in chapter two. Faith actually reveals something. Something begins to happen. When people have genuine biblical faith, there's going to be genuine outcomes of that faith. That's extremely important.
[00:03:41] That's part of what true biblical faith is all about.
[00:03:45] And I think as we look at this book, James is now addressing this whole issue of the reality of faith. In the first two chapters, there tended to be a social tension that invaded the church world even in the first century. What do you mean? Well, think about it. 10 to 20% of the people living in James world were slaves.
[00:04:04] Now, I don't know about you, but if you're a slave, sometimes you were well taken care of, but sometimes you weren't.
[00:04:10] There was a lot of poverty, and I would even argue today that that's still the same. There's poor people today and there's wealthy people today.
[00:04:18] And many of the people who came to faith in Christ came because of necessity, their lives. They were in crisis. There was needs in their lives and they sought God for the answer. And that's why James says many times the poor are rich in fai, many times the wealthy seem to trust themselves in all the things that they have. And we can see that very clearly even in our own society.
[00:04:44] But now take a look here.
[00:04:46] There was even a tension between the rich and the poor in the church.
[00:04:49] And it was in that context that we need to read what genuine believers do as a result of fellow believers when they're struggling with personal needs.
[00:04:59] And James is going to challenge us. He's going to say a few things to us here in chapter 2. Verses 14 through verse 26.
[00:05:07] So I want to focus in on what is genuine faith.
[00:05:11] James is going to declare that it's more than simply a mere confession of belief, but it's a faith that transforms the behavior of the person who possesses it.
[00:05:22] I think that's important.
[00:05:24] In other words, if your faith isn't producing over time change in your life, it's not producing a change in your thinking, it's not producing a change in your actions, then I think you got to re examine what kind of faith you have. Okay, and I want to look at this because James now is going to raise the question, can a faith that has no outward evidence in life be a biblical saving faith?
[00:05:51] And I know some people will raise the thief on the cross. We'll get to that. I'll talk about that. I'm going to talk about even the tension that some people seem to see between what Paul says about faith and works and what James says about faith and works. And are they conflicting ideas?
[00:06:08] I don't think they are, but we're going to look at that today and so we'll have a better understanding.
[00:06:12] James now in his answer, gives three expressions to help us understand the nature of biblical faith. But only one of them is genuine, the other two are false.
[00:06:23] And the tragedy is that these other two expressions leave people in a state of self deception that has significant and severe eternal consequences.
[00:06:35] So I'm going to say it right now. This is not something you want to. This is the one question in life you don't want to fail on.
[00:06:41] Are we all. Are you tracking with me right now? You following what I'm saying? This is not the question you want to make mistake on. It has huge, huge ramifications and we're going to look at it. So let's take a look at the first expression that James is going to describe. He calls it a dead faith or merely a verbal ascent to truth.
[00:07:02] Many people today in Canada, you know, because they do these surveys, you know, what religious background do you have or what are you, are you Christian, are you Muslim or you Hindu, or you have no faith or whatever.
[00:07:16] And you know, Canadians right now are saying about 50% of our country say they're Christians.
[00:07:22] How many say that's probably not the kind of faith that we're going to look at today? Because I'm going to challenge that there's actually 50%, because if there were 50% of Canadians having the kind of faith James is talking about, we'd be living in a different country.
[00:07:43] All right, so we're going to see that. Because these people, some of them even are theologically right. But unfortunately these truths are not governing their lives, it's not shaping their living. These are the people who sometimes may. Some of them don't even hear God's word. But some of them hear God's word, but they're not putting it into practice. And James is going to say this verbal assent is dead. Faith. Let's pick up these verses.
[00:08:12] What good is it, my brothers and sisters, when someone claims to have faith? I want you to look at that claims to have faith.
[00:08:20] A lot of people claim to have faith. They don't necessarily have faith, but has no deeds. They're claiming faith, but they have no deeds. Can such faith save them? It's a great question. It's an eternal question.
[00:08:35] Suppose a brother or sisters without clothes and daily food.
[00:08:39] If one of you says to them, shalom, because that's what the word is, go in peace. Hebrew expression. James is writing to the Jewish believers scattered abroad. They're just walking along. Shalom.
[00:08:52] And shalom means may it be well with you, may your life be well in God.
[00:09:00] You're giving them a blessing, you're saying nice things to them. Shalom, go in peace, keep warm, be well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs.
[00:09:12] What good is it?
[00:09:14] In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions, is dead.
[00:09:22] When something's dead, it has no value.
[00:09:25] It's done.
[00:09:27] So we're going to look at this claim to faith.
[00:09:31] What we notice is that this individual is claiming to have faith, but they don't actually have it. James is arguing in these verses that faith is not just a confession of words, but is demonstrated by genuine expressions of actions. And they're right actions. They're the right kind of actions. And here's the example seen in this typical greeting as I've already said this word shalom, to say it to a fellow believer, you wish God's word, wish God, you wish them well and God's well being in their life. But they're in suffering and they have a need. And you and I can do something about that need. Now, I'm not talking about every poor person. I'm talking about people who are fellow believers. He's saying within the community of faith. Last week I shared the idea. The one main big premise of the idea was simply that we should treat people as Jesus treated people, okay? And then I talked about the great command that Jesus left us. We need to love people as Jesus loves people. Now, when Jesus sees a person in need, he doesn't just turn and turn away. He's moved with compassion. He does something for them. You and I need to do something for the people that we can see. Now, you can't meet everybody's needs, but you can certainly meet some people's needs. And the thing is, if you don't have the resources to meet that need, that's understandable. You can't. You don't have it. But if you have something, you have the ability to do something in that situation.
[00:10:57] Why aren't we?
[00:10:58] Notice I didn't say why aren't you? I'm saying why aren't we? Because I'm including myself in the sermon. You know, what should we do in that situation? What should we do in that situation?
[00:11:09] So he's basically exposing insincerity and indifference. And how many know the opposite of love is not hatred, it's just indifference? And how many? It's easy for us to be indifferent. It's easy for us to be apathetic. Apathetic. The word pathy, or it's the word pathos, means emotion. Ah. In Greek is no emotion. We have no emotion. We don't feel anything. And, you know, a lot of times it takes some sense of emotion to get us to do something. And so he's saying we're just indifferent to these things. And you say, well, after a while, there's so many needs passed, I just get burnt out. I don't do anything. Well, that's not a good answer. And we're going to find out that's the wrong answer. Because if we have the ability to do something, maybe we need to pray today. God, would you help us have a heart that's touched with the things that touch your heart?
[00:12:02] Wow. All of a sudden it would change what we'd be doing. And that's maybe what we need to do. We need to pray for the heart of Christ.
[00:12:08] Dan McCartney says the the faith deeds of provisions for a fellow believer's hunger or nakedness is particularly an apt example, not only because it emphasizes the necessity of love of neighbor in the church, but also because the needy person receives no benefit from nice words, just as the professing Christian receives no benefit from inactive faith.
[00:12:31] Wow, that's kind of a challenge. So it's not just, you know, you walk by and you go, I'm not going to do anything. It's like it's also an indictment against that we're not involved, that we're indifferent to the situation. We don't want to be that way.
[00:12:45] And Jesus speaks to this very issue in two of his parables on the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to what he says.
[00:12:54] He gives an example of the storms of life. How many know in this world we're going to have trouble? How many here this past week you had a moment of trouble?
[00:13:03] Anybody have a challenge this week? A moment of trouble? Come on, how many?
[00:13:07] I got my hand up. Anybody else have a moment of trouble? Okay, we're not immune from these things. Okay, that's good to know. Just checking your pulse, make sure you're living here. Guys, we have a moment of trouble. Okay? James is going to talk a lot about this stuff, and I want to bring that idea back into the sermon. But listen, he says Jesus is saying, listen, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
[00:13:34] So what is he saying in that one verse?
[00:13:37] He's saying, the people who are true believers do God's will. How many does everybody understand? That's what he's saying.
[00:13:46] Let's go on. He's going on, he says, you know, people are going to say to me on that day, didn't we prophesy in your name or preach, drive out demons in your name, perform many miracles in your name? Then I'll tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me, you evildoer.
[00:14:00] That is such a shocking verse. Anybody have a problem with that verse? It's kind of a challenging verse because these people are doing religious things. Come on now. These are things. These are actually good things. I'm not saying they're bad things.
[00:14:14] But he's saying, you know, why would these people do these things and still not know Jesus? And Jesus basically saying, you're an evildoer.
[00:14:29] Isn't that a good question?
[00:14:30] It is a good question, and I think the answer is simply that you can preach and not really have a genuine faith in God. You have your own game plan, you have your own agenda. You're doing your own thing.
[00:14:45] And I think we have to be careful of just doing our own thing in God's name. It's not about doing the wrong thing in God's name. It's about doing God's will.
[00:14:53] Watch what he goes on to say.
[00:14:55] And a lot of times we stop at that verse. But here's the context of that verse.
[00:14:59] Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person, wise man. Remember the two distinctions in the Old Testament, wisdom equates to the person who's a follower of God, God fearer and foolish person, who's somebody who's morally deficient and is doing his own thing. He goes, everyone who hears my words and puts them into practice, like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. In other words, you're building your whole life on a foundation that is Christ the rock. You're building on doing God's kingdom. You're doing God's will. Then the rains came. That's the trouble.
[00:15:39] And the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against the house, and yet it didn't fall because its foundation was on the rock.
[00:15:48] So what is trials designed to do?
[00:15:52] It's an indicator of where we are building our life.
[00:15:56] And so if our life is crumbling and falling apart and we're coming unglued at every trial, we got to take a look at our foundation. It's not good. That's why James says, count a pure joy when trials come your way. Because these trials are helping produce something in your life that's very powerful. Endurance. It's showing you something about where you're really building your life. Are you building it in the kingdom of God? Do you have the right foundation? Then he goes on to say here in the next verse, but everyone who hears these words of mine does not put them into practice, is like a foolish man, which is the ungodly person who builds his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. And. And it fell with a great crash. And then he concludes, and he says, you know, basically Jesus is explaining it's the doers of God's will, which is revealed in God's word, that will stand in the trials of life.
[00:16:55] That's why trials are important for us.
[00:16:58] You know, if I'm teaching school and I teach a class for an entire length of time and I never test the students, do I really know if they're learning or not?
[00:17:11] I know every student hates an exam. Every student hates exams, right? I know, hey, I've been a student, I've been a teacher, and I know they all hate exams. But, you know, you have to figure out, you know, for me, I want to know, do they know? Are they getting it? Do they understand it? Are they comprehending it? Are they grasping? What do they learn? What's deficient? Where have I failed? I don't see it always as the student, as a failure. So sometimes I say it myself. I'm the teacher. Why didn't they get this point somehow? I didn't make it clear enough to them. It's not only this, you know, low grade, sometimes it's a bad teacher.
[00:17:44] Come on now. We got to try to help people understand if you're really serious about this stuff.
[00:17:50] That's why trials are important. As I said, if we crumble under them, we have a superficial faith.
[00:17:56] We could say it's another way that God's will is.
[00:18:01] We can say another way that God's will is simply obedience to what God's word's revealing. So then it comes down to, am I doing what God's telling me to do, or am I not doing what God's telling me to do? That's why we simplify the Christian life. It's trust and obedience, trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. The hymn writer got it right. We're trusting God and then we're doing what God tells us to do. We're doers of the word of God. Okay, Second parable is even more specific to this type of neglect that we're talking about aiding the poor.
[00:18:35] You know, in this parable, Jesus is coming at the end of time and there's a judgment now, and he's separating the sheep from the goats, and the sheep are the good guys and the goats are the bad guys. We've all read it in Matthew, chapter 25, or if you haven't, you should. And this is what he says. He says, and the righteous will answer him, lord, when did we see youe hungry and feed you'd? When were youe thirsty and we gave youe something to drink? And he said, and Jesus is basically saying, when you've done it to these my brothers and sisters, when you do it to the people God's called you to do it to, when you're serving them, meeting their needs, you're doing it to Christ.
[00:19:10] He said, when did we see you a stranger and invite you and needing clothes and clothing? The King says, truly, I tell you, whenever you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me. Wow.
[00:19:22] What's he telling us? Faith has to have action now. Then he goes on and tells in this parable, he says, they will also answer, this is the other side, the goats. Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger and needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help? And he said, I tell you, whenever you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me. Then you will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous, to eternal life. How many go? That's a very strong parable.
[00:19:52] Are we hearing what he's saying to us? He's saying, listen, it's real simple. Genuine faith produces something.
[00:20:00] How many got that point? If I gave you a test, you'd leave the room. He goes, okay, genuine faith is going to produce something. So this is called dead faith. These are the people that claim to have faith, but they're not doing what God's will is. They're not obeying what God's telling them to do. They're just living their own life. They have their own agenda. Okay, let me move on.
[00:20:21] I call it, you know, example of false or dead faith.
[00:20:25] James.
[00:20:29] Okay, I think I need to read this, because I'm going to. James is explaining that genuine faith produces good works. He's not in conflict with Paul's statement that we are saved by faith apart from works, which means that Christ's sacrifice alone brings us into a right relationship with God.
[00:20:49] But the results of that right relationship with God will produce a change in our behavior, and the results will produce good works. Listen how Paul says it. I want to show you. Sometimes we read scripture and we stop in the wrong places. Okay, so here's Ephesians. Paul's going to describe the means by which you and I are saved for all of eternity. How we have eternal life, how we have a relationship with God. How do we get to heaven? I'm just giving you different ways of saying it, but how does good works and grace fit together? Here's Paul. Let's read the three verses together. And it makes sense. For it is by grace you've been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. You don't save yourselves. Paul says it is the gift of God. It's what Jesus did on the cross for you. It's not by works. No one's ever going to be able to boast, I saved myself. No, nobody saves themselves.
[00:21:38] Christ saves us.
[00:21:42] For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. So in other words, he says, God saves us. But out of that salvation, something happens to us. We come alive. We become spirit of God comes in us. Christ starts living in us. The spirit of Christ is a spirit of compassion and love. And good things start happening. We start learning of the ways of God. We start understanding God's ways of doing things. And then God says this. Listen. Oh, by the way, when I saved you, I had something in mind.
[00:22:13] What is that?
[00:22:14] He Says he created you to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. In other words, back in. Back in, before the world was created, God decided to create you. You're not an accident.
[00:22:29] And he had in mind how he was going to reach you, save you, and then even prepare for what your life is going to be like. He has a game plan for you. Now, some of us, we can get pretty excited about that. Well, this is great, but here's what I'm going to say. A lot of times it's just ordinary living and helping people along the way, and that's the game plan. You're just doing good as you're going along. And at the end of the day, you go, I didn't even know I did anything of significance. God said, oh, yeah, you did. You remember back there when you did this? Remember when you did that? Remember when you did this? This has eternal reward. Beautiful.
[00:22:59] You were building my kingdom and you didn't even know it. Okay, so if your faith. I like this.
[00:23:05] Dan McCartney says, if your faith does not benefit others, it will not benefit you either.
[00:23:12] That's a pretty direct hit, isn't it? How many say that if my faith does not benefit other people's lives, then the faith that I have is of no benefit to me? It's the wrong kind of faith. It's a dead faith.
[00:23:27] Wow. Or John Calvin. He says it this way. It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone. What is he saying?
[00:23:38] He's basically saying, yeah, we're saved by faith and faith alone and what God has done. But if that's all you have to your faith and you don't have good works to show for it as a result of that faith, then you're in trouble. Okay, let me move on to point number two.
[00:23:54] This is the deceived or demonic faith.
[00:23:57] This is the kind of faith that moves beyond just an intellectual ascent to truth, and it even has emotion to it.
[00:24:05] You know, a lot of people get really emotional.
[00:24:08] They get religion. It's emotional, you know, but just because you have an intellectual faith and you have emotional faith, there's just something missing. Now watch how James brings this thing up. These people have a false assurance because they think they believe. Even though they believe the right things, even though they feel something, it's still not getting them to do the right thing.
[00:24:32] And that's problematic.
[00:24:35] Watch what happens. But someone will say to you, will say, you have faith and I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I'll show you by my faith, my deeds. In other words, he's saying, if you really have faith, it's going to happen. And then he says something very strange.
[00:24:52] He says, verse 19, you believe there's one God.
[00:24:56] Good.
[00:24:57] But even the demons believe that and they shudder. How many know demons are not going to make it to heaven, Guys.
[00:25:05] Okay, so what is he saying here? He's saying, I wrote it down.
[00:25:11] I think this is so interesting to me. To drive his point home, this is a response of demons towards God.
[00:25:18] It may come as a shock to you, but demons are not atheists, nor are they agnostic.
[00:25:24] Isn't that interesting? People go, I'm an atheist. Oh, that's interesting. Well, I'm agnostic. Oh, okay. You know, even the demons are on a better footing than you guys that are atheists and agnostics. They know there's a God. As a matter of fact, it says they shudder.
[00:25:41] Isn't that true? They even know that Jesus was the Messiah. They even acknowledged it. They said here In Mark chapter one and verse 23, a man was in the synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit. He cried out, what do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. These are the demons. I know who you are. That's better than most people.
[00:26:09] The Holy One of God.
[00:26:12] Jesus said, be quiet.
[00:26:14] And Jesus sternly said, come out of him. And the impure spirit shook the man violently, came out of him with a shriek.
[00:26:22] Wow, what a. That'd be a little lively service.
[00:26:29] Douglas Moose says James may also intend irony by mentioning the demons reaction to their belief. The word shudder was used in some ancient magical texts of the effects that the sorcerer was hoping to actually bring upon the people through their magic. Isn't that interesting?
[00:26:46] It is said.
[00:26:49] It is, says HOR at 1, more distant and more prostrate than worship. But at least it's a response which is more apparently apparent than can be said of some professing Christians who make the same confession. In other words, at least they have emotion to that. You know, a lot of people, they feel like emotion is a bad thing. I think. You know what?
[00:27:08] Listen, if you're going to encounter the Almighty God, you're going to have emotion.
[00:27:15] You're going to be impacted.
[00:27:17] If you had a revelation like Isaiah had, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, he had emotion.
[00:27:23] You cannot stand in God's presence and not get emotional. It's a very profound thing. It'll affect you.
[00:27:29] Okay? The verse indicates quite plainly that the faith that James speaks about in these verses is very far from the full Christian faith that both he and Paul were proclaiming.
[00:27:41] As important as correct doctrine is, no one in the early church considered it sufficient for salvation. Genuine faith must go beyond the intellect to the will.
[00:27:50] It must affect our attitudes and actions as well as our beliefs.
[00:27:55] You know, Warren Worsbee says it this way. A person can be enlightened in his mind and even stirred in his heart and be lost forever. True, saving faith involves something more, something that can be seen and recognized, a changed life.
[00:28:08] So James has pointed out that there's a claim to faith that is dead and is strictly intellectual. And now, as we've seen, there's even a deceived and demonic type of faith that is intellectual and emotional, but still lacks volition or the will.
[00:28:23] How many know there's three parts? You know, we have a mind, we're intellectual, we have emotions, but we have to have a will. The will is the volition. That's the part that gets us to do things.
[00:28:35] So emotion many times motivates us to do things.
[00:28:39] Many times our intellect motivates us to do things. But until we do things, it's still not a complete giving of ourselves to God. That's the point of what James is trying to drive at some of us. You know, we've given God. Oh, yeah, I believe the right things or I feel the right things, but I'm not doing the right things. Until you get to the doing part, God hasn't fully captured you. You haven't fully surrendered yet. Okay, so the final kind of faith I've described as devoted and dedicated, this is the genuine stuff.
[00:29:14] This is the actual biblical kind of faith that changes our status with God, which then creates new desires to please God in our hearts. You know, I can always tell when people are believers. You go, how do you know, Pastor? Well, first of all, here's some of the things that start happening. Change. Number one, I want to please God rather than myself. All of a sudden, I've shifted. It used to be about me. Now it's like, I really do want to do the right thing. I really do want to be right with God. I do really want to please God. Yeah, there's a part of me that still wants to please myself. There's a little battle going on, but there's a part of me that wants to please God. That. That part didn't exist before.
[00:29:49] Then there's a part of me that goes, I used to do this, and it never bothered me. But now when I do It, I feel terrible because I know it's wrong and it makes me feel bad.
[00:29:59] But before that, I didn't feel that at all. I didn't have any concern about it. You know, I could easily justify that. I didn't even think about it. But now, the moment I do the wrong thing, I feel like a sword is in my spirit. I feel I grieve the Holy Spirit.
[00:30:14] That's God at work. That's when you know you've got something real happening. You know, this faith actually causes us to walk in obedience to God's ways. You know, before that, I. Even if I wanted to do the right thing, many times I didn't do the right thing because I didn't have the power to do the right thing. But now all of a sudden, I actually have the power to do the right thing. How many think that's kind of exciting?
[00:30:35] God's given us the ability to do the right thing. And then this faith is not only intellectual and emotional, but as I'm sharing, it affects our will or our volition, and it impacts us to move to action.
[00:30:47] And he says here, you foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Remember this word, foolish. You know, you got to get the biblical understanding. This is not saying you're stupid, it's just saying you're morally deficient. And Douglas Moose says it this way, foolish literally means empty. It's rarely applied to people. But when it is, and there's times it is, but probably suggests deficiency and understanding as well as moral perversity.
[00:31:15] You know, I always say to people, you know, you don't have an intellectual problem with Christianity, you have a moral problem with Christianity.
[00:31:23] What do you mean by that, Pastor?
[00:31:25] You don't want to give up control of your life. You're still playing God. You're still thinking you're in control. Do you know how ridiculous this is?
[00:31:32] You've got control of nothing.
[00:31:35] You know.
[00:31:36] You know, it was just interesting last night, Patty and I were watching this thing Francis Chan was showing, you know, the universe.
[00:31:45] And I'll tell you, it was really humbling because as you keep pulling away from the earth and further and further away you go, eventually our universe is really nothing.
[00:31:53] He said, just think about it, you know, here's a God who created all of this, and yet he's focusing on this little planet in a small, yeah, it's a good sized universe, but still there's all these universes. And then David says these beautiful words in Psalm 8. He said, you know, what is man that you consider him God.
[00:32:14] You know, do you realize how arrogant and self centered we really are? We think that the world goes around us.
[00:32:21] It's really ludicrous when you think about it. But here's even. What's even more wonderful is the fact that this God who created all of this, created you and me and loves us to pieces.
[00:32:32] That to me is amazing. That's what's so exciting about it. Why wouldn't I give myself wholeheartedly to this person, this God, this being, this wonderful compassionate person who only interested in my good and has proven it and demonstrated it by dying for me and for you. Wow, that's amazing.
[00:32:55] He goes on to say here, now I'm going to say this, that's my quote there. But we need to take. So he's going to give us two examples of genuine biblical faith that has actions to it. The first one makes sense. It's Abraham. Yeah, we all know about Abraham. Abraham is kind of like the father of the faith, right? He's the father of the Jewish faith. He's the father of the spiritual faith. You know, we're all children of Abraham because Abraham believed God. And you know, we see this. Paul uses Abraham when he's speaking about how you and I are put in this idea of being right, in a right relationship with God, being justified or giving him, you know, righteousness and justification are similar terms. So he's saying Abraham believed the Lord and he credited to him as righteousness. And Paul makes a whole argument that before, what did Abraham do to be in a right relationship with God? He simply believed God. He simply believed what God told him. He simply believed what God said. And he couldn't have his own children because his body was beyond the age of having children. So God had to do the whole thing. Just like our salvation is something that's out there. You and I can't save ourselves. You can try all you want. You can try to be a good moral person. But at the end of the day, you're going to fail at some point. He's already talked about that in chapter two earlier, but he's going, no, no, no, no. We're saved solely by what God does for us. Just like Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God, he trusted God and God gave him a promised child, a son. Okay, but look what happens. And Paul makes that big argument in Romans. In fact, Abraham was. If Abraham was justified with something he did by works and he would have something to boast about, but not before God. Because what the scriptures say, Abraham believed God. It was credit to him as righteousness. I just quoted Genesis 15:6. I'm just showing it to you.
[00:34:42] It's not something Abraham did. Now, genuine faith acts on what's been promised, though. That's the thing. Faith acts in obedience to what God commands, even when it's tested.
[00:34:56] So James says this now, was not Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? So now he's moving down the track. Abraham, God says this before Isaac's born. Boom. Isaac now is a young person. And God says, I want you to offer him up as a sacrifice.
[00:35:16] You see that his faith and his actions were working together. And his faith was made complete by what he did.
[00:35:23] Because now he's acting based on God's promises.
[00:35:27] Really powerful.
[00:35:28] Just stay with me here because this is interesting. It says here, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
[00:35:49] James is arguing that just acknowledging something is far different than acting upon that information or that knowledge. Abraham believed God, and God later tested that belief.
[00:36:01] Are we following this train of thought?
[00:36:04] And that faith now, which was at the beginning, was a little, you know, we first become a Christian. It's a very small faith. It's a little. It's just starting up. It's the little garden growing. But down the road, when it becomes fully mature, it looks a lot different than the beginning.
[00:36:21] It really develops.
[00:36:24] This is what he's talking about here.
[00:36:27] Douglas Boo explains it this way. James uses another wordplay to stress the intimate relationship between Abraham's faith and his works, his faith and his actions or works. Ergos is the Greek word for it. We're working together.
[00:36:44] We get the word synergy.
[00:36:47] Faith and actions working together. There's a synergism that starts happening.
[00:36:53] We're working together. Abraham's faith was a working faith, an active faith, A faith that was not so much the source as the constant partner of his works. In other words, everything Abraham did after he believed God was as a result of the synergism of his faith. His faith kept producing something and it would move him to actions. And every time he moved to actions, he saw fruit of that action. And that's what starts happening when you and I begin to do what God's telling us to do. We believe God. That's the beginning point. But how do we develop and mature and grow our faith? Well, we keep doing what God's saying, and a synergism starts happening between what we're doing and what we believe. And our belief is making us do something. And then what we're doing, we look back and we say, yeah, God got me into this, but God got me through this. And now God brought me to a new place. And I keep doing this, and all of a sudden, something's happening in my life. I'm maturing as a person.
[00:37:46] Follow that train of thought. It's an act of faith. Now, this constant cooperation of faith and works is highlighted with the use of the. I know, the little bit of language imperfect tense of the verb, a tense that connotes continual or repeated action.
[00:38:02] Now, it's interesting. Do you know in the Greek language there's this thing called continuous tense. Let me just point this out to you why this is so important.
[00:38:09] Because a lot of times people say to me, yeah, I got saved 30 years ago, Pastor. But they're not. You know, they say, I prayed that prayer 30 years ago, but they haven't done anything with it. I'm going, well, wait a minute. Salvation is a verb tense that's continuous.
[00:38:24] So we are saved. We are being saved, and we shall be saved. Wow. It's just a continuous tense thing. So I'm never more saved. In the moment I gave my life to Jesus, I'm totally justified. I am righteous before God, but now I'm being saved every day. What do you mean? I'm being sanctified. I'm being set apart. I'm actually getting closer to God. I'm becoming more like him. I'm turning away from the way I used to live. I'm being sanctified. And then all of a sudden, one day I'll be in his presence and I will be glorified. Then I will be fully saved. Because, you see, salvation has a past tense, a present tense, and future tense. And we need to understand that with language. Here he's saying it's a continually repeated action.
[00:39:07] Now, faith was not something that Abraham exercised on one occasion. It stimulated, directed, and cooperated with his works. But not only did Abraham's faith do something to or with his works, his works also did something to his faith.
[00:39:22] They completed it.
[00:39:25] And I like this word. The verb used here is tilio.
[00:39:30] And tilio is translated into English as, remember, the Bible says, be perfect even as I am perfect. That's the word. Tilio. When we think of perfect, what do we think? Perfection. No, I'll never hit perfection. That's not what he's saying to Be perfect means to grow up, to become mature. Just as the perfect Christian is produced through faithful endurance of trial, so perfect faith. Faith is produced through successive acts of obedience.
[00:39:59] Wow. So Abraham's faith was strengthened, matured, and deepened by the successive trials through which he was called to go through.
[00:40:09] By this, James does not mean that faith cannot exist without works. For a dying person may truly believe without performing a work. That's true.
[00:40:18] Nor that faith is simply shown to be perfect through works. But that works are the unnecessary, inevitable product of true saving faith, and hence brings faith itself to maturity.
[00:40:30] So it says the end of the slides here. And somehow I have a few more. I don't know what the deal is.
[00:40:38] My fault. I probably didn't send them the rest of them. But let me just close with this. So then you get Rahab, which is really the opposite. Here's a Gentile, she's a prostitute. You know, he uses her as an example. I just love. I love the way the Bible handles these things. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? In other words, she believed what God had said and she acted on what God had said. And that's saving faith. And then he closes with. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
[00:41:11] Now, let me just have us stand as we close the service here.
[00:41:15] And.
[00:41:19] Yeah, so one of the things we need to understand about faith and works, it gets confusing to a lot of people. How many know that's true? People are a little confused.
[00:41:33] So I'm trying to make it as clear as I can here today. But let me say it to you this way.
[00:41:38] You and I need to understand that salvation is a gift from God. There's nothing we can do to earn it.
[00:41:44] Okay, does everybody understand Jesus is the one that provides righteousness?
[00:41:51] Okay.
[00:41:53] But having said that, the fruit of this genuine transformation, this acceptance of Christ, will always produce fruit.
[00:42:03] Now, the thief on the cross, he had faith. We know that because he said, remember me when you go into paradise. Jesus said, today you'll be with me. So he did nothing to save himself.
[00:42:13] That was a great example that shows us we can't save ourselves.
[00:42:17] But as we continue the journey of life, God's prepared some things that we need to do. And at that point, we make a choice. I either obey God or I disobey God. I either stay immature or I mature.
[00:42:30] There's a lot of underdeveloped Christians because they choose not to obey God.
[00:42:35] How many say that's true? We make choices.
[00:42:38] You are as mature as your obedience, if I could say it that way. You are moving towards God and I want to just encourage us.
[00:42:50] I want to say this too. It may be at times be challenging to obey God. Sometimes your emotions want to do the opposite of what God wants you to do.
[00:42:59] Ever have that struggle?
[00:43:01] Okay, I've had that too. But I've had to tell my emotions. Listen, buddy, get in line because you already know that if you do what you want to do emotionally, it's going to be the wrong thing. You're going to suffer and other people are going to suffer. It's never going to turn out good, so don't do it.
[00:43:16] So the emotions are going, yeah, but it'll be what you want to do. And I'm going, yeah, but that's not the best for me and others. So I'm going to make a choice right now. I'm not going to make it emotional choice. I'm going to make a intellectual choice to say this is what God wants me to do. I'm going to do it anyways even if I don't feel it. And so I make that choice. And the moment I make that choice and I start doing the right thing, you know what happens? The emotions run up and catch up now because they were in the other room pouting.
[00:43:43] You didn't do what your emotions wanted you to do. I'm going, yeah, I know, but it'll get us everybody into trouble. So I'm over here doing the right thing and the emotions are running up going, hey, wait up for me.
[00:43:52] Oh man, is this ever fun. I feel great.
[00:43:57] What happened to the emotions?
[00:43:59] Well, they were fickle anyways and they just came on board.
[00:44:03] When you do the right thing, in the end, you go, I feel so good about this.
[00:44:08] Amen. Isn't that the way it works? Sure it is.
[00:44:13] So this morning, why is this such an important message? First of all, I want everyone in this room.
[00:44:18] If I had my way, you'd all have genuine faith. That's what I want for you. I want you to have the kind of faith, says Jesus. I'm going to trust you for my eternal salvation. I'm going to trust you. You're going to deal with my sin issues. I'm going to trust you to change my heart. I'm going to trust you to put the spirit of God, the living God inside of me so I can do what's right in your sight, so that I can live the Kind of life that you designed me for and desired for me, and that I can experience the best life possible. That's what I want for you.
[00:44:49] The other thing, and I was praying about this this morning. Is anybody here that they're going, man, I always thought I was a Christian, but I can see now that there's a disconnect between what I believe and how I feel. And based on what you're saying is it has to move towards doing the right thing. It should move towards action. I should be maturing. I should be doing God's will. I should be obeying God's word and doing what he's telling me to do in the scriptures.
[00:45:15] And I will start maturing.
[00:45:18] And that's what I want for you. I want you to have a mature faith, a growing faith. What I don't want to have happen is one day you're standing before God and Jesus said, I never knew you.
[00:45:31] To me, that would be the most awful thing in the world. That would be Christian crushing.
[00:45:36] I would not want that on any human being on the planet. To be really honest, I don't want anybody getting that messaging, that's not my heart cry for them. And you know, I don't think that's God's heart cry either. He wants us not to be deceived and isn't the Satan is just a deceiver and a liar.
[00:45:56] So with every head bowed this morning, I'm hoping that somehow, with clarity, I've brought this message across and how critical it is.
[00:46:06] And you're saying this morning, you know what, Pastor, I can raise my hand and say, you know what? As you're describing, genuine faith. I have the real deal. Just raise your hand. I've got the real deal. Just raise your hand. I've got it.
[00:46:19] You know what? I know I've got it because I've been acting on what God is showing me. It's great.
[00:46:25] How many here? Just put your hands down. A lot of people, okay, some of you are shy and you didn't raise your hand.
[00:46:31] But some of you, maybe you need to raise your hand on the next one you go. You know what? I realized something. Maybe I don't have the real thing.
[00:46:38] Maybe I need to get the real thing.
[00:46:41] I think I understand it. I have the right head pack, I got the right information. But I can see that right now it's not changing me at all. And what I need to do is ask God to change my heart and create in me a new heart, renew a right spirit within me, and allow the gift of God's spirit to come and give me this gift of salvation. If that's you this morning, just raise your hand. I want it. I want it. Just raise your hand. It's beautiful. People are raising your hand. Good. I don't want you to be deceived. That's great.
[00:47:12] You know what? If you've never given your life to Jesus and, or maybe you you felt you did, but this morning God spoke to you and said, hey, I don't want you to be faked out and fooled. Fill out a contact card. That's the only way we can follow up on you and say, hey, what can we do to help you in this journey? Because we want you to succeed. That's our cry. That's our prayer. That's why we're here.
[00:47:36] That's what this is all about, guys.
[00:47:39] So, Father, I thank you this morning.
[00:47:42] I pray that the things that I've shared today are the that things, things that you wanted me to say and that it just penetrated our hearts and we have a clearer picture of this relationship between salvation and faith and works that it's clear in our minds now what James was challenging us about. We don't want to have dead faith. We don't want to have be deceived in our faith, but we want to be dedicated and devoted. We want the real thing. We want biblical faith that changes our lives. We thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave this morning.
