Faith In Action

Introduction

The story I’m about to share with you, I think I’ve shared before, but I wasn’t the best of students. My brothers were. My oldest brother finished second in his high school class. My middle brother finished first in his high school class. And then there was me. I usually tell everybody that my two older brothers got all the brains and I got all the looks. But that’s usually the response I get. I was the type of student that frustrated the teachers because they knew I could do better.

And books and academics came second. And what that often required of me was working real hard at the very end of the semester to try to pull my grades up. I was the kid that always went to the teacher and said, What do I have to make on this test? And I can remember the close of one semester where that grade was not where it needed to be. Kindly pulled me aside and said, You need to do really well on this last assignment. And I said, Okay. She said, No, you really need to do well on this last assignment. I got her meaning. And so that night I took my books home. And I studied and I did the assignment. I can remember rewriting that assignment.

Maybe she’ll give me extra credit for good penmanship. And so I rewrote that assignment, and it was just, everything was just perfect. Turned in the assignment the next day, she calls me back up to her desk. That’s never a good sign. I learned that the hard way.

I was on the wrong chapter. But she said, I’m going to give you a second chance.

If you’ll do it and turn it in tomorrow, I’ll re-grade for you.

That God makes certain demands and requirements of us. We have to do something. You cannot read the New Testament, even casually read the New Testament, without coming away with the conclusion that God wants us to obey Him. God wants us to do what He says to do. But you also can’t read the New Testament even casually without also coming away from the conclusion that God is gracious and merciful. Our story that we talked about in our Lord’s Supper observance of Jesus washing the feet of those flawed, sometimes heavily flawed men, proves that God gives us second chances, that God is merciful. And so I want us to talk this morning in a section of Scripture. Will you turn with me to James chapter 2? That talks about the importance of faith.

Faith is our response to God. It is our demanded response to God. But James, in this masterful passage in James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26, shows us what faith looks like. And it’s important that we understand what God wants our faith to look like. It doesn’t matter what I think my faith should look like. It only matters what God thinks it looks like.

And so let’s examine God’s demand of us, faith. James 2, you know this passage, verse 14 says, What does it profit, my brethren? If someone says he has faith, but does not have works, can faith save him. I want to point out two words in verse 14 that I think are the most overlooked and neglected words in this whole section. And that’s my brethren. We turn to James 2, verses 14 through 26 when we’re talking to our friends in the denominational religious world, those who may believe in the doctrine of faith only. And we’ll point out to them with a somewhat sarcastic smile on our face that the only time the Bible talks about faith alone is in James, where it says, faith alone is dead.

And that faith is not all that is needed, that we need to obey, and we try to help our religious friends and neighbors to see and to reconcile as God has reconciled the connection between faith, grace, mercy, and obedience and conditions being met.

People who had already accepted the conditions initially of salvation. But it seems that after they had done that, they had rendered obedience to the gospel initially, that they put themselves in cruise control, and they were just coasting. And they were no longer working and serving and obeying.

1. Profession Is Meaningless Without Performance

And what James is going to have us to understand, we just have two points in this sermon. It’s a simple sermon this morning. Two points, and both the points are exactly the same. The first point is profession is meaningless without performance. James is going to help us to understand that as Christians, we can claim to be servants of God. We can even have initially obeyed that gospel, put faith into action with those initial obedient works. But are we really living it in our lives? And he illustrates it with this story beginning in verse 15. If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled. But you do not give them the things which are needed for the body.

What does it profit? Now it’s important for us to understand what’s going on in verses 15 and 16. Verses 15 and 16 are an illustration. James is not commanding us to go out and feed the hungry. There are other passages of scripture that will do that. James is not commanding us to take care of one another’s needs. There are other passages that do that. What James is doing is illustrating his point. And he illustrates his point this way. You say to somebody who is hungry. Now we need to pause there and recognize that for most of us, that’s a condition we’ve never experienced. We think we have.

That naked and destitute person needs. He needs to be warmed with some clothes and filled with some food. But saying those words and not giving him clothes to wear or food for his stomach, you’ve done no good to him. Those words didn’t warm him. Those words didn’t fill his stomach. It didn’t do you any good or him any good for you to say those wonderful platitudes. What you should have done is say, be warmed and filled. In fact, be warmed with this jacket and be filled with this food. And so James’ illustration is do you see that what you say doesn’t really mean anything unless it’s backed up with action. And so that’s an illustration. Again, should we do this? Absolutely. But don’t miss the point that this is just an illustration to show you how meaningless that endeavor was, that exchange was.

You didn’t do that person any good. And his point is going to be, you’re not doing God any service if you say to God, borrowing the words of Jesus, Lord, Lord. And don’t do the words that he has said.

Nothing. And so verse 17 says, thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Just as those empty words that you said to that poor person did him no good. You didn’t warm him one degree, you didn’t fill him one ounce. Faith without works is dead. Now let’s talk about the word dead. We understand dead. It’s the opposite of alive. But the way in which James is using the word dead here means that when someone or something is dead, it does nothing. Activity ceases. We use that word a lot in our common vernacular. You may, and I hope I’m not jinxing anybody, especially myself today, but you may go out this morning and get in your car and come back into the foyer and say, Can somebody help me?

My car is dead. We’d all know what you mean by that. You mean by that you put the key in and turn it, or just push the button, or just telepathically, I don’t know how cars work now, tell it to start and it doesn’t do anything. Click, click, click, click. It’s dead. It’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s dead. That’s the way James is using the word dead. Faith without works is dead. It’s not doing anything. That’s what we mean when we say our car is dead. It’s not doing anything. It’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. Your faith is not doing for you what it’s supposed to do. Profession is meaningless without action and performance. My brethren, that’s us. James, in his section that Donald read for us this morning where he says to be doers of the word and not hearers only, and in this section is telling us to do something.

We take pride in the fact that we teach God’s word here. Nothing more, no man-made creeds, we don’t add, subtract, substitute in any way from the Word of God in our preaching and teaching here. We have a high standard for that. Book, chapter, and verse. Speak where the Bible speaks, be silent where it is silent. You make those demands of the men that fulfill this pulpit. And I know of you that if I failed to do that, you’d probably give me a chance or two to correct it. But if I didn’t, you’d run me out of town. And you’d get somebody who would preach the truth and nothing but the truth. And that’s good. But if we take solace in the fact that we go to the right church and we listen to the right preacher who preaches the truth.

Now, those things are commendable. But James says, if we go to the right church and listen to the right preacher preaching the right gospel, and we don’t do anything about it. Our faith is dead.

Coming to church on Sunday morning and hearing a sermon that may step on your toes is not some whipping that squares your account with God. It’s a prodding to get you to do what you ought to do when you leave the church building. You don’t know how many times somebody has shaked my hand after services and said, Boy, you stepped on my toes this morning. And you know what I want to say? What are you going to do about it? And I need to say that to myself. What am I going to do? Is it really going to change who I am? Faith without works is dead, but someone will say, verse 18, you have faith and I have works. In other words, there’s two different ways.

I have faith and you have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I’ll show you my faith by my works. Our faith is demonstrated through performance. You believe there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. Do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Do I need to prove it to you? Is the illustration of the fact that the demons that possessed people in the days of Christ and they declared who he was. They knew him to be the Son of God. They believed him to be the Son of God, but they didn’t change who they were. They believed. What good is it going to do them? Do you need me to illustrate this point, James says?

Okay, let’s illustrate it. Who are we going to illustrate the subject of faith with? Who better than Abraham, the father of the faithful? And though he was not a Jew or a Hebrew, they claimed him as their own. He was the father of this Jewish nation. And so, for all intents and purposes, he was a Hebrew. He was a Jew. He was who they were in this covenant relationship with God. He was the origin of that covenant relationship with God. And so let’s talk about Abraham, the father of the faithful. He says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac, his son, on the altar.

And by works, faith was made perfect. Or your translation may say, complete. Let’s look at two words in those two verses that talk about Abraham’s faith in action. The first word is in verse 21 that Abraham was justified when his faith acted. The second word in verse 22 is that his faith was made perfect or complete when he obeyed. That’s, we might say, that’s when his faith had flesh put to the bones. It became real when he did something about it. And verse 23 says, our third word, fulfilled, and scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God, and it is accounted to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God. The passage that he quotes, the Old Testament passage, obviously that he quotes in verse 23.

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness is found in Genesis chapter 15. Now remember the story James is using to illustrate Abraham’s working faith. It’s the offering of Isaac. Genesis chapter 15, when this statement was made about Abraham’s faith, Isaac wasn’t even born. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. James, the inspired writer, says, that statement of Scripture about Abraham’s faith was fulfilled. It was stated in Genesis 15, but it was fulfilled in Genesis 22. When by faith he did something in offering up Isaac. Does that mean that Abraham didn’t have faith before Genesis 22? Does that mean that Abraham’s faith wasn’t real before Genesis 22? No, no. But it means that it was filled full when he acted upon that faith.

2. Christianity Must Be Practical to Be Real

Now let’s just ask the simple rhetorical question. What if Abraham, when asked by God to offer up his son Isaac, had said no. Would Abraham be known as the father of the faithful? Would Paul, James, and every other Christian writer and speaker use him as an example of faith. And so his conclusion then is, in verse 24, you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Our second point, which is the same as the first, is that Christianity must be practical to be real. Anybody can make the claim. But James is trying to get us to see what really every New Testament author has tried to get us to see, is we have to live it. Abraham’s faith was fulfilled when he lived it.

When every day what I do in this building, the professions and the claims that I make through my prayers, through my singing, through every act of my worship, is demonstrated in real life out there. That’s when my faith is fulfilled.

That’s when I’m justified. That’s when my faith is made complete. But let’s use another illustration. We’ve used Abraham, the man of the covenant, the father of the nation of Israel. But what about someone outside of that camp? What about somebody way outside of that camp? Likewise, verse 25. Likewise was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way. Rahab, not an Israelite, not in any way connected with the covenant of God and his people, other through this brief interaction that she had with those spies and messengers. Not only was she outside the covenant relationship with God, how would you like it at every time your name was mentioned? They qualified who you were by identifying the worst thing you’ve ever done.

We don’t call her Rahab. James didn’t call her Rahab. Centuries later, she was known as Rahab the harlot.

Now I think James does that for a reason, not to shame, to speak ill of the dead, but to illustrate for us that whether you’re Abraham, or whether you’re a harlot, faith can work in your life. And God can give you a second chance. She was justified. Same word that was used of Abraham. Justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way. She was literally saved. Her and her family, she and her family were saved from the destruction of those invading Israelites. Why? Because she did something.

Why? Because we’ll do something. Now, let’s pause briefly and say, well, now wait a minute. Didn’t Paul in Romans 3, verse 28 and other places say that we’re saved by faith, not by works? Yes, yes, he did. Paul and James contradicting one another. Do I need to choose one? Because if I’m choosing one, I’m choosing Paul. He’s got more books than James, so I’ve got to choose Paul. And some have done that. But what they failed to see is there’s no contradiction at all. The same Paul would begin and end that book of Romans with talking about the obedience to the faith. And what Paul was saying in Romans 3, verse 28 is we’re saved by faith, not by works of the law. That it’s not by a keeping of the law that we’re going to be saved, the law of Moses.

And he would also argue that any law requires perfect obedience. It’s the only way a law can save you. Law doesn’t show mercy. People show mercy.

God will show you mercy. If you have faith.

For as the body without the spirit is dead. So faith without works is dead also. Again, in verse 26, he’s not giving us a clinical definition for death. Although I guess it kind of is. Spirit apart from the body is dead. If you take the spirit apart from the body, the body doesn’t do anything. And it’s the spirit that animates the body. This body does nothing without the spirit. You take the spirit out of the body, it’s just lifeless. It does nothing. You take works out of your faith, you take obedience, service out of your faith. It does nothing. It accomplishes nothing.

Conclusion

James said, My brethren, what does it profit if someone says he has faith and does not have works? I want to ask you this morning. Do you have faith? Do you have a living faith? When you leave this building and go out into a world that cares little for God.

When your fellow man needs help, material, spiritual help.

When your brethren need you, will your faith act? Or do we have the faith of demons that does nothing? Have that faith this morning. Act upon that faith this morning in obedience to the gospel and act upon that faith this afternoon and tomorrow morning and Saturday afternoon. Every day of your life, let God and your fellow man see the faith that saves. Can we help you?