WORKAHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Keeping Your Faith Alive

Introduction

Acknowledging and thanking Pastors George and Terri and Brother and Sister Copeland

Acknowledging Pastor Holden’s message from last week

Tell a funny joke

Faith is NOW…so now what?

James 2:17–18 (ESV)

17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

What is the work that must accompany our faith?

Lexham Theological Wordbook (ἔργον)

ἔργον (ergon). n. neut. work, duty, task, workmanship. Refers to a task, or set of tasks, that is accomplished by someone.

It specifically refers to work delegated by a master to a servant to be performed with the tools that the master has given the servant

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

You can only work with what you’ve got, but the only way to get more than what you’ve got now is to work what you’ve been given by grace

What you’ve been given by grace is your gift

Lexham Theological Wordbook (χάρις)

χάρις (charis). n. fem. grace, good will, favor. Conveys the sense of a gift of kindness and favor given to a person or persons.

How do you access what you’ve been given by grace? Through faith. Faith is God’s delivery system for gifts given by grace and faith requires something of you beyond just a posture to receive. Faith requires a corresponding action. W-O-R-K.

There Must be a Mix-Up

Hebrews 10:24–25 (ESV)

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Love must be the catalyst for our good works. Galatians 5:6 tells us that faith works by love. The only way we can properly add corresponding action to our faith is through the motivator of love.

Good works done outside of love are a performance, not a response.

It’s our response to the love that God has shown us. Without a revelation of how much He loves us, we can never love others.

Apostle John in Ephesus

“Little children, love one another.”

“It is the Master’s command and if this alone is done, it is enough.”

What does it mean to stir up one another? The Greek definition of this word implies taking the existing conditions and shaking them to pull out something better. The King James Version says we should “provoke” one another. Stirring is the combination of multiple ingredients into one common container or body to create something unique and special. So we’re to stir one another to love and good works.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Our love-driven work is this: every one of us taking what God uniquely gave us and bringing it to the place where God designed us to be stirred together create the unique tapestry of His Kingdom through His Church

Hebrews 10:25 gives us the context for this stirring of gifts.

We are to emphasize the assembling of ourselves and not allow the circumstances of the world to take that away from us

As the Day approaches, this is even more important!

The writer of Hebrews (maybe Paul, but definitely someone who was a disciple of Paul) tells us we should be doing more church, not less church. Stirring ourselves up together more often, not less often.

Your gifts were made for the body of Christ!

Your love-driven, faith-fueled response to the finished work of Jesus is the work of the Kingdom. The work of the Church. The work of the BODY.

1 Corinthians 12:12–27 (ESV)

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

This is Paul again here, speaking to the Church at Corinth. He’s telling them (and us) how to interact with one another as members of this same body.

Celebrate one another, protect one another, cooperate with one another.

No jealousy; just love. And love that he goes on to describe in the next chapter as patient, kind, without envy or arrogance. A love that rejoices with truth and not wrongdoing. A love that isn’t irritable or resentful. A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A love that never ends or fails.

And that’s the work that James 2 tells us should be our response to faith being planted and nurtured and grown within us.

Faith that comes from hearing the inspired and prophetic WORD OF GOD should compel us to love-driven work as members of the body of Christ coming together to accomplish the purposes of the Kingdom and our King.

To shake down the kingdom of darkness and send the devil fleeing. To bring the fight to the gates of hell that is showing up all around us.

We can’t hide from it. We have to work against it. And that work comes from a revelation of the love of God for us that builds faith. And that faith produces a corresponding action to stir ourselves into the body of Christ and take everything He’s given us and build His Church as we prepare for the day that the King returns.