James 2:14-26
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
What Faith Does
What Faith Does
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?
If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.
Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?
We can miss this but James is picking a fight here
He is well aware of Paul’s letters about salvation by Grace alone when he is writing
Paul says in Romans works can’t save us
This church would know
And in so many ways he is picking a fight with us and challenging us to consider how much the American Church has missed it
So he is picking a fight with a gospel faith they have adopted
You think you just get something from this and then don’t change how you live?
Ok well let me hit you with this “Your grace alone by faith alone doesn’t show up in anyway in your heart and what a new heart does to how you live…so did you ever get the Gospel or just a get out of hell free card useful Jesus”
So often with James it is helpful in a gut punch from him to work back from what he has ended with
At first it looks like what we have walked away from
This doing to earn God’s love
But we have seen that is not what James is saying
Look at what he ends with
A question to challenge us and read the passage through that lens
Look at the question at the end of verse 20
Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?
Are you willing to see what faith does when the Gospel changes us from the inside
James is a challenge machine
James is saying the point of your life is not to get rich or simply happy but to find gods purposes for you and make them your own
Are we willing to do that
My favorite book from Cornelius Plantiga has this amazing quote here and it is what James is calling us too
we are saved by grace to grow into adult roles in the drama of redeeming the world
James is saying we are service in the war to take back what sin has stolen
To be active participant in the building of shalom wholeness flourishing of the people and places God has you
we are tasked with seeing in the Gospel how things are supposed to be in every life.
Having it make us alive again. and in that new life giving all we have to see the coruption of sin pushed back right where we are everyday
And as he does he tells us what it looks like
If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.
So if we think he is saying do to earn the gospel he is saying what it is and what it looks like
He is not telling them to do all the ritual laws
he is saying grow into adult roles in the drama of what God is working toward
And here he is saying something we saw in Mark
simply knowing about god who he is does nothing for you
Have you crowned the real Jesus king of your life or simply said you know who he is?
Because we are saved to find our part to play in the great redemptive drama and make it our own
There is a jewish proverb that captured James’ call to us
The day is short and the work is great but fear not. it is not your duty to complete the work but neither are we free to stop from it
it can be overwhelming to look at a world that isn’t how its supposed to be
But James is calling us to the battle field the Lord has given us and fight along with our King
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?
It is not that the works make God love us
It is because he first loved that we take up his war
And the battle ground is the heart
J.R.R. Tolkein was in the middle of his epic Lord of the Rings when World War 2 came to Britains front door
He was overwhelmed that his books would never get finished
So he wrote a short book called Leaf by Niggle
He was symbolized as the broken Niggle
the main character had a dream to paint an amazing tree
But at the end of his life all he could get out was a leaf
But it was on his arrival he looked and there was His tree more alive then a painting ever could be there was his work on the other side of glory complete
That is the call of James
Get a dream for a tree work with all you have to paint a Gospel masterpiece and know on this side of our hope it won’t be done
But it is complete in where our king is taking us
We have seen the challenge from James to remember the image of the mirror and never forget it when we go to the battle field of an unseen tuesday
But another aspect of that mirror is remembering the end of the story
to live in light of heaven and the future we have
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him.
Hosea says on that day we won’t remember the names of the things that have scarred us and left us broken
We will see the completed picture like Tolkein dreamt
There is a reason Revelation was the most sought after letter for the early church
It is the hope that changed there wednesday and thursday
Can it change yours
Oxford defines Faith as “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”
In the Gospel we have both
Your King is a warrior and we need that picture to remember in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be
there is a reason Psalm 23 says he has a rod
David Gibson said: Our shepherd is heavily armed. This is why we need not fear the darkest of valleys
And it is why we are not to fear the work he has for us no matter what it costs us
And it is why we fight His fight and not our own to see that hope reach the broken
James saw the oppressed and poor but who do you see in need of the hope of the finished tree
Who needs the sure faith that everything sad will come untrue
Who needs encouraged to stay in the fight when it looks like the right way won’t win (me hint hint)
I am both
I fight in a fight that seems unwinable some days
And in a phone call sunday my dad told me he has cancer
Simply knowing who God is means nothing if I don’t have faith as the bible defines it
Look at Davids language in Psalm 23
He doesn’t say the Lord is a shepherd he says the Lord is MY shepherd
He makes Me lie down in green pastures
He is the one who restores My soul
James is saying to simply say the Lord is a shepherd but not yours you have no hope
Thats what verse 19 means James 2:19
You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.
If he is just an idea you have nothing
Being an armchair christian is worthless
The enemy believes in God
You may be scared of hell so you believe theres a God to stop you from going there
But You will never have a savior who wants a personal relationship with you to make you whole
You won’t take up your Rod in the mission he has for you for the people and places he has you today
Remember Plantinga’s quote on what he calls Spiritual Hygeine and listen to the call of James in it
Although it sounds as if it might have something to do with the brushing and flossing away of small particles of vice, spiritual hygiene is actually wholeness of spirit—that is, wholeness of what animates and characterizes us. Spiritual hygiene is the wholeness of resources, motive, purpose, and character typical of someone who fits snugly into God’s broad design for shalom. A spiritually hygienic person is one who combines strengths and flexibilities, disciplines and freedoms, all working together from a renewable source of vitality
look at his words
The wholeness only the gospel can give us animates and characterizes us
it is the wholeness that drives our resources, motives, and purpose
That is faith that James says is ours if we have crowned the real Jesus king
and when we do it changes our tuesday and our mundane that is where God is working
And if they needed a trump card he is about to play it
What It Looks Like
What It Looks Like
Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete, 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 justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
You want an answer to the question in verse 20?
well here you go from your heros
James for You The Patriarch
If you can prove a point from Abraham, you’ve won the argument! This is the trump card
Here is what he is after: The life of faith is more than a private (long past) transaction of the heart with God. It is the life of active consecration seen in the obedience which holds nothing back from God, and the concern which holds nothing back from human need
That should hit the southern baptist in us hard
Walking an aisle at 7 because we were scared of hell then letting the American Dream be our driving force should make us question if we ever really got the Gospel
One author says “We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.”
Checking some boxes because we are scared of going to hell is not the Gospel
James is saying it is God’s alone that saves us
But it is our love for the radical saving of God that changes all of what we do
We have a faith that works
What kind of works show the gospel has gotten hold of you
What kind of works show the call of God on your life outweighs all other things
The Message of James The Primary Works
What was the work of Abraham? He held nothing back from God. God said, ‘I want your son’ and Abraham ‘rose early in the morning’ (Gn. 22:3) in prompt obedience. What was the work of Rahab? She reached out and took into her own care those who were needy and helpless, regardless of the cost to herself
Has the Gospel done that to you?
Here are the trump cards
First Abraham
Ok if you are here and you are the religious type
like Abraham’s faith, it shows itself in works of obedience to the will of God
Genuine faith works itself out and is shown in costly obedience
David Platt has a book i cannot reccomend enough to challenge our American christianity
He said- “I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we have missed what is was radical about the call of the Gospel on our lives and replaced it with what is comfortable”
The Trump card of Abraham is a war on American box checking comfort Christianity
Platt again said “My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him. ”
Abraham had a faith that led to radical obedience
A faith that asked everything he held dear
So that in letting go of everything he could see God do the impossible
It was his faith that meant he was saved by the Gospel
And God used His life at its worse to be the very bloodline our King would come
Second Rahab
Ok the religious box checking type aint you
How about a prodigal mess saved by the Gospel
a radical life turned around
Sam Alberry said: The real evidence of new life is how faith moves someone to obey what God has said to them—what Paul called “the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). As Christians have often summarised it, Paul shows us we are saved by faith alone; James shows us that saving faith never remains alone. It is seen in godly deeds. Just look at Rahab
The Message of James Making Sure about Faith
Genuine faith reaches out in costly compassion to people at risk
remember we saw James answer his question with Rahab
The Message of James The Primary Works
What was the work of Rahab? She reached out and took into her own care those who were needy and helpless, regardless of the cost to herself
She was a prostitute in Joshua 2 who encountered the God of the broken
She was longing to be whole and heard about the God who made her who could make her whole and fix what was shattered life
And it changed everything
James for You The Prostitute
Along with many others, Rahab has heard of God and of what he has done in fulfilling his promises to his people. She knows him to be the Lord over all. And because she believes all this, she acts. She doesn’t just offer a parting I hope it all works out for you guys; she lives her life in the light of the reality she now understands to be true. She demonstrates and proves her faith by what she does.
that is what James is challenging all of us with
He is saying this is about Abraham, Rahab, and you
James for You The Prostitute
It is this image of lifelessness that James uses to hammer home his point. Professions of faith—claims to be trusting in Christ and believing in God—can look superficially impressive, and even move us. But without deeds, they are no more vibrant than a dead body awaiting the grave
Do you have a get out of hell free card Jesus because you are scare of Hell
Or do you have the radical love of God that gave up everything to save you and because of that love you show him you love him