James Week 4 -Faith Without Works is Dead

James Week 4

Faith Without Works is Dead

James 2:14-26

Series Slides

Good morning and welcome to church, it is so good to be back with you. I had the chance to listen to Alex last Sunday as he preached. What a great message for us to remember. I had a Millennial tell me, wow, he gave a sermon for Millennials to a room full of Boomers… I don’t think he realized that a lot of us are Gen X, but even more than that, I don’t think he realized the importance of Sabbath for all of us. We all need to take time, stop, be with God, and grow in our faith in that way.

So, some of you already know, but I was out all last week, mostly working on my Dissertation trying to finish up my Doctor of Ministry. My focus started in late 2021 to be about Evangelism and how different personality types can effectively share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others. Then March of 2022 happened and my entire focus shifted to looking at what had, was, and will happen among the people called Methodist, regardless of denomination. My focus is still evangelism, but I also included a lot more history about the Methodist movements rise and decline.

Well, after writing some 100 pages and 25,000 words, I am down to the last chapter and I hope to complete the whole program by the end of the summer.

But, for today, we are back in the book of James. We are in week 4 and we’ve looked at the themes of testing and perseverance – that God is with us when we struggle and it is with God that we persevere in hard times. Sometimes it’s in those hard times that we grow the most. Then we looked at listening and doing, that we need to do what the Word of God teaches, not just reading and think about it, what we believe should have a profound impact on our lives and how we live and relate to one another. Then in week 3 we moved into chapter 2 and talked about Preference and prejudice. If you remember, I said we are all like both ice cream and loves of ice cream… we are all different flavors, and we all have our own favorite flavor… But God calls us to see past our preference and prejudice, God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves… and that word ‘love’ there isn’t just something we talk about, Love is an action verb… it is something we do.

Sermon Title Slide

Now, we are going to take some time to talk about the fact that faith without works is dead. If our faith leads to nothing, what is the point. Listen to what these giants of faith from the 19th and 20th centuries had to say about it:

Dietrich Bonheoffer said, “Faith without works is not faith at all, but a simple lack of obedience to God.”

Charles Spurgeon said, “Faith and works are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God; and he that trusts God obeys God. He that is without faith is without works; and he that is without works is without faith.”

And C.S. Lewis said, “Regarding the debate about faith and works; it’s like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most important.”

What is interesting, is we don’t have to go back 75, or 100, or 150 years to see this debate. We can go back 2000 years and see the debate. It was going on in the church soon after Jesus’ resurrection, and his brother dealt with it head on.

Let’s read James words together:

James 2:14-26

<Prayer>

So, men, does it matter if you only tell your wife that you love her, but never show it? I mean, you don’t spend time with her… you don’t talk to her… you come home when you want and leave when you want, never asking her what she plans to do… you don’t cuddle on the couch or hold her hand in public… you don’t kiss her good night… you don’t take her to her favorite places… but in passing, you occasionally say, “Oh, hey, I love you.” As you hit the door?

I guess a get question is to the wives… is that love?

Love is an action as well. Right!? So is faith. Faith is an action.

James introduces us to several ideas about Faith and the history of faith here. He talks about Abraham and Rahab of what we call the Old Testament, and he talks about their great faith.

Once again, people sometimes compare James and Paul and say that “Paul was all about Grace and James is all about judgement… Oh, they are so different…” But, the truth is, they have so much in common. It looks like Paul read James’ letter before he wrote Hebrews 11, and the passage we call the Role call of Faith where Paul talks about the faith of Abraham and Rahab and even further back to Able (the son of Adam and Eve) and Enoch, Then he talks about Sarah and Jacob, and Isaac… all these heroes of the faith, but it was by their actions that their faith was known… and that brings us to the first verse of today’s passage,

James 2:14

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?

So, what is Saving Faith? We get some examples to consider as we read on in James,

But, before we go on, I want to ask you, what good is all the faith in the world if it doesn’t move you to action? Can a person with an inactive faith truly be saved?

That’s the part of our first verse that’s so difficult to reconcile. Especially in light of a passage like Ephesians 2:8-9 which so clearly states we are saved apart from the “works” we do:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

So, salvation comes through faith alone, not as a result of anything you or I do.

And a faith filled person will be a person of righteous action.

It’s 2 sides of the same coin, so to speak.

I’ve heard it said we are not saved BY good works but TO good works. And once you’re saved, the righteous action of a transformed heart and mind will follow.

We are a two-sided coin of faith and works, or good deeds. We aren’t saved by our works, but when we are saved, the work of God in us will lead us to do good works, or to bear fruit has we have talked about before.

Examples to Consider

So, moving on to the next verses, James gives us some examples to consider. First about seeing someone in need and doing nothing about it…

James 2:15-16

If you do nothing and just say a few words to a person in need, is your faith changing your life? Is your faith having an impact on the way you live out your faith?

James has a word to say about that…

James 2:17

You walk up to someone in the grocery store, and they are standing at the seafood counter looking at a whole fish, Let’s say it’s a Talapia with the head on and everything, wrapped in plastic, and they tell you, it’s alive. It really is… so you look again… thinking you missed something… there’s no sign of movement, the cut along the abdomen tells you it’s been cleaned, so eventually you look at your friend and say, “Dude, it’s dead.”

If there is no life, if there is no activity, if there is no action, you determine that it is dead. I know… a ridiculous illustration. BUT…

So it is with faith. If there is nothing to show, if there is no action or activity, is it faith?

James goes on..

James 2:18-19

Someone can argue all they want about this, they can say it is their belief that dictates that they have faith and they don’t need to have good deeds, they don’t have to do anything because they believe. Isn’t it scary to think that the Demons believe that God is real… Our belief in God is important, but belief alone isn’t what saves us. The Demons of Hell have the right doctrine. They have

Orthodoxy, the right authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice so to speak,

We can have the right set of beliefs and that is good and important, but what is lacking at that point, and what the Demons don’t have is

Orthopraxy, the correctness of action or practice.

James wanted his readers to see that their actions matter. As Jesus said, the devil came to steal, kill and destroy – those are the actions of evil, we are called to the actions of good, the Orthopraxy of our faith!

So, James goes on to talk about the faith and the works of Abraham.

James 2:21-23

What was the action of Abraham? God told him to get up and leave his home and go to a new land… and he did.

God told him that he would be the father of a great nation, then he was to take his only son up on the mountain to sacrifice him… and he took Isaac up on the mountain, carrying the wood he would be sacrificed upon… Yes, God stopped him before he went through with it, but he was obedient to God in an extreme way!

James goes on to talk about Rahab, the prostitute who hid Jewish spies and protected them because she believed in and trusted God… Her actions spoke for her faith!

Sermon Title Slide

Faith and works are partners, they are two sides to the same coin.

I love C.S. Lewis’ example from his book Mere Christianity, that the debate on faith and works is like trying to determine which blade on a pair of scissors is more important. They are both important, if you have one without the other, you have a very dull knife… but together, they are a mighty tool useful for the purpose they were created.

As followers of Jesus, we need both. They work together to build upon each other… your works flow from your faith and your faith grows because of you works.

You’ve probably heard faith is like a muscle, and the more you exercise your faith, the stronger it becomes.

But not all of us are inclined to willingly thrust ourselves and our families into situations that would stimulate our faith to grow. Especially in the ways James probably had in mind when he wrote this letter… as the church in Jerusalem was being persecuted.

And yet, these are some of the moments where we see our faith grow the most… In the midst of suffering, pain, hardship, and persecution. Maybe James was trying to inspire his church to keep going, to keep “fighting the good fight” as the apostle Paul says. Maybe it had been difficult enough for long enough that people were starting to lose hope. Maybe a reminder that, “Faith without action is dead,” was exactly the kind of blunt truth this early church community needed to hear.

And maybe it’s the truth you need to hear today as well.

We live in an admittedly “easy” culture compared to the one James was writing from but that is no reason to limit our faith.

So today, I want to encourage you to find ways this week to put your faith into action. Don’t get too comfortable or worse, complacent in your faith. Allow yourself to enter into situations that will stretch you and grow you as a believer. Pray that God would give you the courage to step out in faith.

You know, my dissertation I am working on is about evangelism, and sharing our faith, and the courage it takes to step out in faith and talk to others about faith.

The world you live in, here in Brownwood, is hungry for the good news of Jesus. You, and I are the ones God has called to spread the good news of Jesus with this community. This week, let’s put our faith and our works into action! Just like we sang earlier, may our prayer be that God would open our eyes, and ears, and mouth the we might gladly bear God’s warm truth everywhere

May our hearts be open to share God’s love to everyone, everywhere!

Here’s the thing, that which we haven’t received, we can’t share.

So, as we prepare our hearts for communion, may we open our hands, open our hearts, open our lives to all that God has for us this day, and to share in the days to come!

Let’s pray together.