James 2:14-25 (Biblical Faith)

Introduction

I am glad to be back with you once again to talk about this excellent passage in the book of James.

If I could have chosen any passage in this book to teach tonight, it would have been this one for many reasons.

The reason I find this passage so important is because,- for many,- if overlooked, it can be a matter of heaven or hell.

For others, if misunderstood, can be a matter of lifelong misery trying to earn their salvation.

Some may even read it and think that it contradicts what Paul says in other books of the Bible.

But when properly understood, we see that it doesn’t contradict Paul and it shows us what true saving faith really looks like and what it doesn’t look like.

James 2:14-25

English Standard Version Chapter 2

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 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. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Defining the Terms

We see in this passage two words used frequently that I believe should be defined before we look closer into how they work in this passage.

The Bible defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

The Baker Bible Encyclopedia defines faith as “simple trust in God or in the Word of God, and at other times faith almost becomes equivalent to active obedience.”

The term works is defined by the pocket dictionary of the Reformed tradition as “the expected outworking of salvation of believers who are enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to obey God’s commands, grow in *assurance, increase in maturity and participate in God’s mission.”

Now that we have properly defined our terms, lets take a look at what James is talking about in this passage.

What is James Purpose in this passage?

When we look at the passage as a whole, we can see James included this in the letter because he was concerned with how his audience was defining the terms we just mentioned, Faith & Works.

This group that he was writing to seemed to have emptied the word “faith” of its true meaning and watered it down so that it did not even serve the purpose it was intended for.

To give you an example, let us look at the word “love.”

Can you picture a situation where somebody says they love someone and doesn’t show it?

Since I am a father of young girls, I am reminded of the movie Frozen.

Hans claims to love Anna and asks her to marry him but when it is time for him to show his love to her and save her , he leaves her to die so he can take over Arendelle.

This example shows you that the word “love” actually means something and saying you love somebody without “showing it” proves the word ineffective.

Or what about when Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?” After he has just denied him three times.

When Peter responds with “Lord you know that I love you.”

Jesus says to Peter, “feed my lambs.”

This is like saying to Peter, if you love me, show me! This is how you can show me.

This is the same thing that was going on with James and the Jews he was writing to regarding the word “Faith.”

As a pastor of this flock, he was very concerned about this and wanted to clear up any misunderstandings that his people may have had regarding this term.

False Faith

I am sure many of us have met somebody who say they are a believer in Christ and you think to yourself, they sure don’t act like it.

If you have ever ran into this situation, you have a genuine point.

What James was concerned with in his flock then is still a popular thing today.

Some people are under the impression that all you gotta do is say you have faith in Jesus and that’s it, you are saved.

This could not be further from the truth.

I like how our definition of faith mentioned above says faith is almost equivalent to active obedience.

As we looked at love being proven through action, so faith, is also something proven through action.

For the first 26 years of my life, I told everybody I was a Christian and I thought so myself.

I mean I knew some Bible stories and had a basic head knowledge of who God was.

The problem was that the way I lived my life was not consistent with what I said I believed.

How can I say that I have faith that Jesus died to pay for my sins when I love the sins that he died for?

How can I say I love Jesus when he takes no priority in my life and I didn’t really even know anything about Him?

If I truly had faith in Jesus, it would be visible in the way I live my life.

The example I like to use is that if somebody told me this building was on fire and was ready to burn to the ground.

If I had faith that what they were saying was true, it would cause me to run out of the building in a hurry.

If I said I believed them and didn’t move, you would either think I didn’t believe them or else I had a death wish.

James makes this very clear when he says in verse 19 “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe- and shudder!”

The demons believe in God?

James is saying you simply know that God is real? That’s great and so do the demons. Nothing special here buddy.

The simple lip service of saying your a Christian or that you have faith in Christ is no good unless it expressed in your life.

Its like the good ol phrase “Don’t talk about about, be about it.”

In this case its good to talk about it, but absolutely necessary that you be about it.

Faith + Works

The question James asks at the beginning of this passage is “If someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”

The answer is NO! and he plans to tell us why.

The whole theme of this passage if you were to go away remembering something about what was talked about is “Faith without works is dead.”

In other words used by James, faith without works is “useless.”

He says “Show me your faith apart from works and I will show you my faith by my works.”

To give examples of this concept in action, he starts with Abraham.

“Was not Abraham justified by his works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?”

Abraham had faith in God that he was able to do what he said he would do and he acted on it in a way that showed he trusted in God.

Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us, “17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

This is a prime example of faith used in the Scriptures.

What about Rahab the prostitute?

“Was not Rahab also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?”

For those of you who don’t know, Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho who helped the Israelite spies from being killed by her people.

She received them into her house and sent them out a different way so that they were not captured.

She had faith that God was going to give her city into the hands of the Israelites and acted on it by helping them from being caught and as a result, they spared her life when they conquered the city.

We have seen what true faith is and how it is always accompanied by works.

It is important that we understand this a little better because if we get it wrong, it changes the gospel which is a big deal.

Faith or Works?

I mentioned in the beginning reasons why I found this passage to be important and now that we have looked a little further into the passage, I want to clear these things up.

First, I said if this passage is overlooked it can be a matter of heaven and hell.

What do I mean by that?

It is important that we have a living faith because James has told us that a dead faith is useless.

Many today in the world are resting on a dead and useless faith.

The issue is that we are saved by faith.

If our faith is dead and useless, can we be saved by that?

James say’s NO!

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 , “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

We should look at our lives and see if we have a living or dead faith?

If we claim to believe in Jesus, does it show in our life?

Do we strive to keep his commandments?

Do we battle the sin in our lives or just let it live freely and unopposed?

My favorite preacher Paul Washer always says being born again is like getting hit by a Mack truck, there is no way that you can be the same afterwords.

If you believe in Jesus Christ today, you are not the same person as you were before you believed.

Earning Your Salvation

Another reason I said that this was such an important passage was because if its misunderstood, it can lead us to believe that we have to earn our salvation.

It is very easy to read this passage and think that you are saved by works because James says in verse 24 “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

You may think to yourself that’s not what Paul told me.

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

This is absolutely right!!!

You are saved by faith in Jesus Christ PERIOD.

You cannot do enough works to earn your salvation.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SAVED BY YOUR WORKS!!!

The way I have heard it put that makes the most sense to me is that we are saved by faith alone but never by a faith that is alone.

As Ephesians 2:8 tells us that we are saved by grace through faith and it is not our own doing it is the gift of God.

That passage also tells us in verse 10 that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Works are a product of faith.

If you remember our definition from earlier, it say’s that works are “the expected outworking of salvation of believers who are enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to obey God’s commands, grow in *assurance, increase in maturity and participate in God’s mission.”

The same God who gifts us faith doesn’t stop there but also works in us to produce good works in our lives.

It is important that we understand that we are saved by Christs work and only His work can save us.

Not his work and then our work but His alone.

We are saved by faith in His work and that faith in his work produces good work in our lives.

We should strive to do good work for God, not to be saved, but because we are saved.

So we see that James and Paul are on the same page and are not contradicting each other.

James believes we are saved by faith and that living faith is made known by our works and Paul says that we are saved by faith to walk in good works.

Summary & Application

We have covered some very important ground in this message looking at the topic of true biblical faith.

what it is

and what it isn’t

I am calling you today as Paul said in the 2 Corinthians passage to examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.

Is your faith accompanied by an obedience to God as this passage is telling us it should be?

or is it empty?

Dead?

Useless?

Just because you go to church doesn’t mean your faith is alive

but

because you go to church could be a sign that your faith is alive.

Faith is a lifestyle not a one time thing.

If you believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, there will be evidence of that in how you live your life.

Would your peers know that you are a Christian simply by the way that you live your life?

I want you to consider tonight areas in your life where you have not been obedient to the word of God.

By living a life obedient to the Word of God, you will be showing your faith by your works.

I have three applications for you from this passage.

Practical Application

Read the Word of God

How can you be obedient to the word of God if you don’t know the word of God?

It is important as a Christian that you become familiar with Gods word because this is how we know God and his will for our lives.

Be intentional about spending time in the Word daily whether 5 minutes a day or more.

2. Practice the Word of God

After you have read the Word put it into practice

Have you ever heard the term if you don’t use it, you lose it?

If we don’t put the Word of God into practice, a lot of times it goes in one ear and out the other.

In order to profit from the Word is important that we put it to work in our lives.

If the Bible says to love one another, think about how you can start putting that into practice in that moment.

If the Bible says to turn from sin, what are ways right now you can start turning from sin?

These are examples of how you can read and apply the word of God

3. Pray the Word of God

Reading the Word of God should lead to practicing the Word of God and praying the Word of God.

After reading this passage, I am feeling like I want to pray and ask God to increase my faith.

Let my faith be known by my works

Let my faith not be as the demons who believe and shudder at their future but as Abraham who was willing to go to the extreme to show it.

Or as in the other examples, if the Bible tells us to love one another, I would pray that God would put it my heart to love the people I come in contact with, that my actions would make them feel loved, that my eyes would be opened to ways of loving them.

Or I would pray that God would reveal how I am sinning against him.

I would pray for grace to turn from that sin

A heart that would hate the things he hates and love the things he loves

A heart that would be obedient to and love his commandments.

These are practical examples of praying the Word of God.

By Knowing, Practicing, and Praying the Word of God, you are putting yourself in a good position for your faith to increase and it to work in you and from you!

Let’s Pray!