Better Works

ME (A hook):

Anyone here ever have an imaginary friend?

I remember having an imaginary friend when I was like 5.

When I did something that I probably shouldn’t have done,

But wanted to do anyway.

I would blame my imaginary friend.

I remember hanging out with my sister when we were little kids.

We were sitting in the yard,

And I just reached down,

Took grass and started eating it.

Because I wanted to know what it tasted like.

But when she was like,

“What are you doing?”

I said my imaginary friend told me that grass tastes good!

I blamed my imaginary friend!

Because he was a bad influence!

Turns out,

In James 2:14-26,

James seems to have a conversation with an imaginary friend of his own.

An imaginary friend who was also a bad influence.

An imaginary friend who claims to have faith,

But has no works,

Who claims that you can separate faith from works.

So, James addresses this imaginary friend in this letter to the early church.

Because many in the early church apparently thought like James’s imaginary friend.

This morning,

We are going to walk through these verses carefully,

Because there is a lot of misunderstanding around this passage.

So, we need to see clearly and accurately what the Bible is saying here,

Considering how this passage fits into the entire Bible’s teaching on faith and works,

And how this passage challenges us to better works.

Slide

We are going to look at these Better Works from three different angles.

First, in vs. 14-19, James teaches about Fruitful Works.

Then, in vs. 20-24, James teaches about Sacrificial Works.

Lastly, in vs. 25-26, James teaches about Risky Works.

To produce better works,

We must have genuine faith in the work of Jesus Christ.

This communal exhortation continues the theme James introduced back in ch. 1,

About being hearers and doers.

WE Fruitful Works (vs. 14-19) (Why does this matter to us?):

Slide

So, he begins to address the relationship between faith and works in vs. 14,

With this question,

What good is it,

Brothers and sisters,

What benefit is it,

If someone claims to have faith,

But does not have works?

In other words,

What kind of faith is saving faith?

Now this is a rhetorical question,

Because the answer should obviously be that faith without works cannot save,

And he makes this point clear in just a moment.

But from the jump,

James wants us to understand,

If our faith is not fruitful,

It is not saving faith.

He repeatedly makes it clear,

We are not saved by merely making a profession of faith.

Rather, we are saved by taking hold of true and genuine faith.

This is incredibly important to James.

We can tell,

Because he mentions the word, faith, 11 times in this passage.

And eight of the eleven times he uses it here,

He uses it in connection with his imaginary friend,

Who claims to have faith but does not have works.

He wants his readers to understand,

That this imaginary person does not truly have faith.

His so-called faith is dead and worthless.

It does not save,

It does not work.

Therefore, this is true of others who are like this imaginary friend.

This is not contrasting immature vs. mature faith.

This is about faith that saves,

Or no faith at all.

And that is what James is concerned about.

Even in the church,

We can claim to have faith,

But not truly be saved.

So, James says fruitful works is how we know faith is genuine.

He is not saying the fruitful works save us.

But he is saying, if there are no fruitful works,

Then there is no saving faith.

Slide

Jesus taught the same thing.

Matthew 7:16–20 ESV

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

The fruit on the outside is evidence of what is on the inside.

Therefore, fruitful works are the evidence of faithful hearts.

Slide

James gives an example of this in vs. 15-17.

It may seem harsh,

But James says,

If we see a fellow believer who does not have the clothes or food they need,

And all we do is tell them to go,

Wishing them well,

Without offering any tangible aid,

Then, James says, our faith is no good.

Faith by itself,

He says,

Faith without works,

Is dead.

The believer in this example doesn’t have the covering they need for the cold.

They are literally starving.

James is not talking about any mild need.

He is talking about believers who are in desperate and dire need.

And to send them away with nothing but a well-wish is unthinkable.

Faith that responds this way is not saving faith.

It is dead,

It is not faith at all.

So, James is saying that people who claim to be Christians,

But do not help a poverty-stricken brother or sister,

Are not truly saved.

And we can try to do all sorts of interpretive gymnastics around this text to avoid what James is saying,

But it does not make it any less true.

If any of us respond to a fellow believer without clothes or food like this,

Then we do not have a faith that saves.

1 John 3:17 similarly says,

1 John 3:17 ESV

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

The answer is that it doesn’t.

Slide

Let me highlight a couple important points here.

First,

James is not teaching that acts of mercy will save us.

We are never ever saved by what we do.

James has already repeatedly and clearly taught this earlier in this letter.

Faith is something that God graciously gives to us.

We do not muster up enough faith to save ourselves,

The Bible says,

It is a gift of God!

Therefore, acts of mercy,

Helping the poor,

Giving to others,

Cannot save us,

But they are evidences of salvation.

These fruitful works are a natural outflow of salvation.

James is not telling us to do works to earn God’s favor.

That is works-based righteousness.

Rather, he is saying, fruitful works are a product of genuine faith.

Pastor Tim Keller helpfully commented,

“Mercy to the full range of human needs is such an essential mark of a Christian that it can be used as a test of true faith. Mercy is not optional or an addition to being a Christian. Rather, a life poured out in deeds of mercy is the sign of genuine faith.”

Jesus also equated mercy toward poor brothers and sisters as the equivalent of showing mercy toward Him.

Because Christ dwells in every believer.

So, seeing a fellow believer hungry,

Is like seeing Christ Himself hungry,

And to not feed them,

Is like not feeding Christ.

This can’t happen.

Because the overflow of a saved person’s heart is to serve,

To do fruitful acts of mercy,

As evidence of Christ’s mercy in our heart.

But a lack of mercy demonstrates a lack of faith.

So, although acts of mercy do not save us,

They are evidence of salvation.

This is important,

Because it means we cannot be motivated to care for others out of a sense of guilt or obligation.

It must be the gospel that compels us to care for others.

We show mercy because our hearts are transformed by God’s mercy,

And it just flows out of us.

Slide

Pastor C.H. Spurgeon once wrote:

“The saints fed the hungry and clothed the naked because it gave them much pleasure to do so. They did it because they could not help doing it, their new nature impelled them to it. They did it because it was their delight to do good…They did good for Christ’s sake, because it was the sweetest thing in the world to do anything for Jesus.”

This is saving faith,

Evidence by fruitful works.

Anyone who claims to have faith but fails to do fruitful works,

Are not truly saved.

Slide

This leads James to begin his argument with his imaginary friend in vs. 18.

First challenging him to prove the faith he claims to have,

To make his faith shown.

This imaginary friend separated faith and fruitful works.

And James is like,

“Nuh-uh! You can’t do that!”

Fruitful works are not optional.

True faith makes fruitful works inevitable.

So, if there are no fruitful works,

Then your faith does not exist.

The only evidence of faith that is visible to the human eye is fruitful works.

James continues in vs. 19,

Making three things about faith abundantly clear.

First, is that faith is not mere intellectual approval.

We can believe what the Bible says about God,

Believe, as Deut. 6:4 says, that...

Deuteronomy 6:4 (ESV)

The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You can even approve what the Bible says as true,

And that is good, James says.

But true faith is not just believing God,

It is believing in God.

Because just believing God is something that even the demons do.

Demons believe a lot of the things we believe.

They believe God is real,

They believe Jesus is God,

They believe heaven is real,

They believe hell is real,

They believe Christ is the only One able to save.

They believe all these things.

So, a mere intellectual approval,

Mere belief,

Can still end in eternal judgment,

Just as it has for the demons.

Belief alone is not sufficient for salvation.

Demons believe but they are not saved,

Therefore, belief alone is clearly not enough.

Yes, saving faith includes this cognitive knowledge of God,

But it is more than that.

This leads us to James’s second point in vs. 19,

Faith is not merely an emotional response either.

Notice the emotional response of the demons.

James says they tremble in fear.

They are affected by the truth of God.

But it is still not faith.

So, just because we may have a strong feeling or emotional response to the truths of God,

It does not mean it is the same as saving faith.

So, James’s final point,

Is that faith involves trust.

This trust is what produces our fruitful works.

We demonstrate our faith,

Not solely by what we think,

Or what we feel,

But by our fruitful works,

Done in response to trusting God.

GOD Sacrificial Works (vs. 20-24) (Teach the text):

So, James is teaching about genuine salvation.

Slide

That is why this is one of the most difficult passages in the entire NT.

It is why Martin Luther called James an “epistle of straw,”

Saying he felt like “throwing Jimmy into the stove.”

Luther was not a huge fan of James.

But it was largely because of the context he was in,

Where James was being misused.

So, we don’t have to shy away from James.

He is still writing about the gospel,

From a particular vantage point,

Addressing specific problems.

The reason Luther struggled so much with James,

Is because he was fighting the Reformation battle,

Confronting the false idea that we earn our salvation with our works.

That is why the reformers taught that we are justified by faith alone.

To be justified,

Is to be made right,

Or to be found just before God.

It is talking about salvation.

So, when the Bible talks about justification,

It is talking about being saved by relying on Christ alone.

This is what the reformation needed to emphasize.

But James’s point is that faith does not exist in a vacuum.

Faith produces works of obedience.

Saving faith is a living faith.

Dead faith, however,

Never had life in it.

And dead faith,

As James said back in 1:21,

Cannot save your soul.

So, although Luther and the reformers were fighting a good and important fight,

Against works-based righteousness.

James is fighting an equally important fight,

Against easy-believism that reduces true salvation to mere intellectual belief.

And we are fighting both of these battles still today.

Many who claim to be Christian,

Whether they say it or not,

Operate as if they can work their way to God.

So, we must fight against this idea with everything that is in us!

But at the same time,

There are many others who believe that being saved by grace through faith,

Means that our works are unimportant,

And obedience is irrelevant.

And we must also fight against this idea with everything that is in us!

Because James gives us this picture of the glorious gospel that is given by and received through faith.

A faith that is more than intellectual belief,

But produces fruitful works of obedience.

Slide

James goes on in vs. 20-24 to illustrate how included in these fruitful works,

Are Sacrificial Works.

James uses Abraham as an example of what he is getting at.

But he is not the only one,

Paul also used Abraham as an example of the truth Luther and the reformers fought for in Romans 4.

Because Abraham is this model of faith,

Whose life takes these important truths,

And allows us to see them in action.

Slide

But first,

Look at the strong language James uses in vs. 20.

He asks his imaginary friend,

James 2:20 ESV

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

This is the point James has been making in this entire section.

Again, he is not contrasting mature faith with immature faith.

He is contrasting genuine faith against a profession of faith that is not truly faith.

He is continuing to show how some people will claim to have faith,

When they don’t really have faith at all,

It is dead,

It is nothing.

That is why his language is so strong here.

He calls his imaginary friend foolish.

The word he uses literally means empty.

The only other time this word is used in the Bible,

Slide

Is in 2 Pet. 1:5-8,

2 Peter 1:5–8 (ESV)

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You see,

James is giving this rebuke against emptiness and worthlessness.

Saying, if you claim to have faith but have no works,

You have nothing,

You are nothing,

You bring nothing.

This is the language of judgment used in the OT wisdom literature.

Claiming to have faith apart from works is useless.

It has no benefit.

Living faith, however,

Like James mentions at the beginning of ch. 2,

Is faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the faith that perseveres better,

Worships better,

And lives better.

So, James is letting us listen to his conversation with his imaginary friend,

Saying if you claim to have faith but have no works,

You don’t really have faith,

Your faith is dead.

James is confronting us with this same question,

Is your faith dead or alive?

Is your faith limited to intellectual approval about God or Christ?

Or is your faith transforming every part of who you are?

Because living faith will produce sacrificial works,

Like it did for Abraham.

Slide

That is the example James gives in vs. 21.

When he asks if Abraham was justified by works,

It is important we understand in what way Abraham is being declared right.

When we are saved,

Justified,

The Bible says we are given the righteousness of Christ.

So, salvation makes us righteous.

But there are two facets to righteousness.

Positional righteousness and practical righteousness.

Positional righteousness is a right standing before God.

It happens the moment of salvation,

The moment Christ is trusted and confessed as Lord and Savior.

By God’s grace,

We are made right before God.

Christ’s righteousness makes us right before God.

Sinners can have peace with God,

Because of the righteousness of Christ.

But the Bible also teaches us about practical righteousness.

Which is living rightly before God.

We demonstrate righteousness,

And grow in righteousness,

By how we live.

And these two facets of righteousness are interconnected.

When we are counted as righteous in Christ,

We manifest righteousness in our lives as we grow in Christlikeness.

Slide

So, what is James talking about in vs. 21?

Well, look what he says in vs. 22,

James 2:22 ESV

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;

There are two ways works are described in the Bible.

Works of the flesh is the negative usage,

And works of the Spirit is the positive usage.

Works of the flesh do not honor God.

The works of the flesh are talking about works of the law done in order to earn God’s favor.

Paul repeatedly speaks against this in the NT.

Because in the early church,

People were being circumcised, obeying the laws, abstaining from certain foods,

All in an attempt to earn their righteousness before God.

But these works cannot earn God’s favor,

They cannot save you.

It was true then,

It is true today.

You can never earn your way to God.

This is the danger of legalism,

A danger we must be on guard against.

Because legalism believes that being made right before God,

Is a result of doing enough to earn God’s favor.

Over and over again,

The NT teaches that the works of the flesh do not honor God.

But that is not what James is talking about here.

He talks about works in a positive way.

He is talking about works that bring glory to God.

He is talking about obedient works,

And sacrificial work

Driven by the love and mercy of God.

This is when faith and works are working together.

And this is what James is talking about when he says Abraham’s faith was completed by his works.

He is saying,

The full outworking of Abraham’s genuine faith in God,

Is seen through his works.

Because genuine faith in God will always produce fruit.

But how exactly is Abraham an example of this?

In vs. 23,

James quotes Gen. 15:6,

Which is the end of God’s covenant to Abraham.

The covenant was a promise God gave to Abraham.

And the Bible says Abraham trusted in God’s promise.

Therefore,

Abraham’s trust in God was counted as righteousness.

So, Gen. 15 is the foundation of Abraham’s sacrificial works in Gen. 22,

That James was referring to in vs. 21.

God had given Abraham this miraculous child, Isaac.

Then, in Gen. 22,

God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering.

And what happened?

Abraham took Isaac,

Went up the mountain,

And as he raised the knife to offer Isaac to God as a sacrifice.

God has an angel interrupt him at that exact moment,

Sparing Isaac,

And pointing to a different sacrifice provided by God.

So, when James talks about Abraham trusting God here,

The question is,

When did Abraham first trust God?

Was it in ch. 22?

No, Gen. 15 shows us that Abraham trusted God long before that.

Therefore,

It was Abraham’s trust that resulted in the sacrificial works of ch. 22.

So, Abraham was justified,

Long before he offered his son.

His positional righteousness was already set.

But James is saying Abraham’s faith was shown to be genuine,

To the human eye,

By his sacrificial work.

So, “justified” here is showing Abraham’s practical righteousness.

It demonstrates the truth of Abraham’s faith claim.

Because despite how sacrificial his works were,

They did not earn him salvation.

The basis of his salvation,

Is the perfect and sufficient work of Jesus Christ.

So, James’ focus here,

Is on the role sacrificial works play in proving faith to be genuine.

Abraham’s faith that he had many years earlier in ch. 15,

Made his sacrificial works in ch. 22 possible.

By its nature,

Genuine faith creates sacrificial works,

But in turn,

James says,

Sacrificial works complete faith,

They mature your faith.

It is this wonderful cycle where they feed into one another,

Building momentum of deeper faith and better works.

This is why sacrificial works are so good,

Because they are the fruit of genuine faith.

Let me give you a couple practical examples.

Coming to worship services.

If you are coming here as a work of the flesh,

Then you are coming here to put on an act before others,

Or to earn God’s favor.

This attitude says things like,

“I go to church, I give my tithe, I deserve good things.”

This is not a sacrificial work produced by true faith.

But if you are coming because you love and trust God.

Then it is genuine faith that drives you here.

Genuine faith that leads you to sing,

No matter how out of tune you may be.

Genuine faith that draws your ear as you hear the Word of God,

No matter how convicting it may be.

And genuine faith that compels you to connect with one another,

No matter how inconvenient it might be.

So, when genuine faith brings you here,

It will in turn grow and mature your faith.

A second example is regular time in prayer and Scripture.

Again, if you do these things as a work of the flesh,

It makes them a mechanical routine,

Because you are trying to earn God’s favor.

But if you trust that your supreme delight is found in God.

If you want to know Him,

Hear from Him,

And express the longings of your heart to Him,

Then these regular meetings with Jesus are a really good work,

That in turn grows and matures your faith.

Genuine faith instinctively produces works that grows your faith.

Slide

Martin Luther once said,

“O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.”

Slide

Look now at vs. 24,

This is probably the most controversial verse in this passage.

James says to his imaginary friend,

That a person is justified by works,

And not by faith alone.

The faith he is talking about here is dead faith,

Faith that does not save.

As we have already discussed,

To say we believe in Jesus but do nothing,

Is no different from demons.

But the reason this verse is so controversial,

Slide

Is because it seems to directly contradict Rom 3:28,

Romans 3:28 ESV

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

So, how do we understand this apparent contradiction?

By a subtle but key difference.

We already noted how James is talking about dead faith.

But notice how Romans talks about the works of the law,

While James speaks only of works.

That is because,

Romans is talking about the OT law,

And doing works of the flesh to earn salvation.

While James is talking about the law of freedom he mentioned earlier in ch. 2.

The law of freedom,

The royal law,

Refers to the gospel,

Which affirms James’ argument that true faith is expressed through works.

He is bringing to a head,

His entire lesson that making a profession of faith,

Devoid of works,

Is not saving faith.

Instead, James said,

Like Abraham,

A person is only shown to be justified by their works.

But as Romans also teaches,

Our works of the law cannot make us worthy of justification.

It is only Christ’s works that justify.

Therefore, only by trusting in Christ alone can we be justified in terms of our positional righteousness.

If you want Jesus to save you,

You must embrace Him as your Lord and Savior,

No your works of the flesh.

Because it is fatal to trust in your own works,

But it is also fatal to trust in your faith claim without works.

The balance of Scripture teaches us,

Salvation is only found by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Slide

And faith is the channel through which salvation reaches you.

Galatians 2:16 ESV

yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Slide

And Ephesians 2:10 says,

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

YOU Risky Works (vs. 25-26) (Response):

Slide

As if James’ example of Abraham wasn’t enough,

James says in vs. 25,

In the same way,

Rahab the prostitute is an example of Risky Works produced by faith.

Rahab’s story is in Joshua 2.

The people of God were ready to take the promised land for the glory of God.

So, they send in some spies to check out the land.

The spies stayed with Rahab.

But the king hears about these spies and wants to kill them.

So, he shows up at Rahab’s house.

And when he does,

Rahab hid them,

Protecting them from death,

And helped them to escape with their lives.

Later, in ch. 6,

When the people of God took over the city,

Rahab and her household were saved.

So, why is James talking about Rahab?

For three reasons.

First of all,

She was a recipient of God’s grace.

Here was a woman who could not be more opposite of Abraham.

First of all, he was a man and she was a woman.

But He was also a Jewish patriarch,

She was a Gentile prostitute.

He was considered a friend of God,

She lived among God’s enemies.

He was a great leader,

She was just a commoner.

Yet, James asks,

Was not even this prostitute considered righteous?

The holy God of the universe brought this prostitute into His family,

And her line eventually led to the birth of Jesus Christ, her Savior.

That is grace!

God reaches down into the least likely of lives and pours out His mercy.

Praise God He does the same with us.

Reaching into our own sin and brokenness,

To bring us into His family.

We, too, are recipients of God’s grace!

And this is the picture of justification.

A holy God who is perfectly just,

Adopts sinners like us into His family,

By pouring out His wrath for our sin onto His own Son.

The second reason James is talking about Rahab,

Is because she feared God and His sovereignty.

Slide

Look at what she says to the spies in Josh. 2:11,

Joshua 2:11 (ESV)

And as soon as we heard [what God had done], our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

Rahab didn’t have the Scriptures to study.

She only heard the stories about God parting the Red Sea,

And all the foreign armies He wiped out for His people.

But this was enough for her to trust in God.

She knew He was sovereign over all things,

And knew she was accountable to Him.

She knew His judgment was coming on her land,

And she feared Him.

So, she responded with risky works of obedience,

Produced by her saving faith in God.

When we have this same type of faith in God,

It produces risky works in us.

WE (Paint a picture of the future):

Slide

This leads to the third reason James mentions Rahab,

Which is also where we will be landing our time this morning.

So, at this time,

I’d like to invite the music team up.

Rahab’s risky works were done for God’s glory.

There is no question Rahab’s actions were risky.

If the king discovered those spies,

She and her family would have been immediately executed.

Her life was literally on the line.

That is why Hebrews points to her as a hero of faith.

But she wasn’t a hero because of her religious deeds.

She is a hero because her risky works done for God’s glory.

She trusted God without hesitation.

She did risky works, went against the culture around her,

So that the people of God would take over the city,

And God would be glorified.

The Bible says she is considered righteous for her risky works.

So, the question is,

Are we willing to do the same?

Are we willing to do risky works in obedience to God’s Word,

Because we fear the sovereign God,

Who has saved us by His grace?

Are we willing to do sacrificial works like Abraham,

Who took his son to a mountain to sacrifice him,

Out of obedience to God?

Will we go against the grain of the culture around us,

And go against the lies of works-based righteousness or empty easy-believism,

Instead, produce fruitful works based on genuine faith in Christ?

Will we do better works for the glory of God’s Name?

Because James teaches us,

That all it takes to produce better works,

Is to have a genuine, trust-based faith,

In the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

Pray.