Faith That Responds

We have been considering over the past weeks what it looks like to be people who make room in our lives for priority choices. As a church we focus that vision into three areas. We make room to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit; we make room to cultivate relationships with other people; and we make room to nurture the wellbeing of our community. Last week we considered what it means to make room to listen to the Holy Spirit. Today we are going to take a closer look at what it means to respond to the holy Spirit. I say that as a buildup to a very necessary progression. We can never be people who respond to the Holy Spirit if we are not first people who are listening to the Holy Spirit. If you missed last week, catch that message on our website where you will find all our services archived.

Responding to the Holy Spirit requires some action on our part. And the thing we want to uncover today is that this response is not random; it is not something that if it happens it happens and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. No, this is a response to the Holy Spirit which is intentional. And being an intentional response means that we make room in our lives for this response to be a priority choice. Consider today what James has to say about it in his letter to the New Testament churches.

James 2:14–24 (NIV)

James 2:14–24 NIV

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 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. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Martin Luther wanted the book of James taken out from the Bible — too far towards promoting legalistic works/righteousness

This topic is something of a delicate subject for us to consider. 500 years ago when Martin Luther was going about the work of reforming the church during what we know as the protestant reformation, he argued that the book of James should be taken out of the Bible and not included as part of scripture. Luther pressed the message of James crossed too far over into a theology of work/righteousness which undermined the teaching of the gospel—that we are saved by grace through faith. Luther saw among the abuses of the church 500 years ago that there was a legalistic understanding of salvation—that the church was saying the only way you could be saved was to be a good enough person who lived a good enough life. And on top of that Luther pressed against a practice in the church which offered people the ability to buy their own righteousness by paying money for it. Of course, Luther was correct that any thought of earning (or paying) our own way to salvation went contrary to the teachings of the gospel in scripture. Martin Luther so wanted to emphasize this point that he thought it would just be for the best if we get rid of what James says here in the passage we see today.

Christian faith declares a God of unconditional love who acts in grace towards his people because of his covenant promises

I think we need to begin by acknowledging this. It is still a very real tension in our world today. We live in a world which continually tells us over and over again that the only way you prove your own value and prove your own self-worth is to work for it and earn it by your own success. All the other major religions of the world apart from Christianity run in this same direction. All the other religions of the world teach that you can only achieve salvation or enlightenment or nirvana or whatever they call it by your own efforts. You have to be the right kind of person who does the right kind of things and lives the right kind of way. The gospel message of Christianity is different. It is the only religion that declares a God of unconditional love acts in grace towards his people because of his covenant promises. The apostle Paul summarizes it like this.

Romans 5:6–8 (NIV)

Romans 5:6–8 NIV

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

actions are a byproduct of faith, not a prerequisite for faith

It kind of looks like this leaves us stuck—that the Bible appears to be contradicting itself. Do our own actions have anything to do with our faith or not? We need to spend some time getting this one right in order to understand what it means to have a faith which makes room to respond to the Holy Spirit. There is no contradiction in scripture about the role of our actions in a life of faith. The confusion, I think, comes as a result of misplaced order. Our actions are a byproduct of faith, not a prerequisite for faith. The faithful obedience of a Christian life is produced because of faith, not a checklist of items needed in order to be admitted into faith. Let’s get the order of things straight.

The apostle Paul understood this too. And he make reference to this order of things in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2:8–10 (NIV)

Ephesians 2:8–10 NIV

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God’s saving work of grace comes to us by faith alone through the cross of Jesus. And then, says Paul, there is an expected result in the way our lives respond to this saving grace of Jesus—in the way we live. Elsewhere in the Bible Paul summarizes it this way.

Philippians 2:12–13 (NIV)

Philippians 2:12–13 NIV

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Jesus himself notes the same thing in the gospels. Jesus loved to place his teaching inside of stories. The parables of Jesus point us in the same direction.

Matthew 21:28–31 (NIV)

Matthew 21:28–31 NIV

28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Or take it all the way back to the Old Testament in a story God shares through the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 5:1–7 (NIV)

Isaiah 5:1–7 NIV

1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” 7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

God has done everything necessary for his people to be redeemed and restored unto him. And there is an expected result. Our lives are redeemed and set free from the guilt of our sin so that our lives may produce a response to the Holy Spirit who is at work within our hearts. Our confessional doctrines are helpful to further understand this. The Heidelberg Catechism frames our response to the Holy Spirit as serving three functions.

Q & A 86

Q. Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image,

so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits, that he may be praised through us,

so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits,

and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ.

the actions of my faith: say thank you to God by how I live, assure me of my faith by spiritual fruit through the way I live, share the gospel so others may see Jesus in how I live

The life that you live in response to the Holy Spirit is your way of saying ‘thank you’ to God; it is your way of being assured of your faith by seeing the blessing of spiritual fruit; it is your way of sharing the gospel so that others may see Jesus in how you live. None of what we see in scripture or in our doctrinal confessions even hints that your actions are necessary to earn your way towards God or prove to God how worthy you are. The spiritual fruit in our lives which comes through our faith is a response to God, a byproduct of faith, a result of what Jesus has already done for you and in you.

are we people of good intentions poorly executed?

I think I am the kind of person who could win an award for good intentions poorly executed. I like to think I am a grateful person, but am I really? I mean there are plenty of times when I feel grateful for something that was given or a blessing that was shared. And so often I have every intention of expressing that gratitude somehow, either by a thank you note or a phone call or a token of some kind. And so often the moment passes by and it slips through the cracks and I don’t follow through on it. I feel gratitude. I have every intention of responding. I fail to act. Am I really a grateful person, then? I am afraid these words of James in scripture today would convict my heart that—without the actions of gratitude—I fall short of truly being grateful.

unless I make room in my life for responding to the Holy Spirit, good intentions will always struggle to follow through to completion

Here is the simple truth of it. I have not made room in my life for responding. All the right intentions are there. But unless I make room in my life for responding, those intentions will always struggle to follow through to completion. It is not difficult to figure out and understand how it is we should be responding to God. Scripture tells us that our faith ought to bear spiritual fruit. Scripture also tells us what spiritual fruit looks like.

Galatians 5:22–23 (NIV)

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

As growing disciples who are followers of Jesus, we have a faith that produces fruit of the Spirit in our lives as a response to the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The response to the gospel is not a mystery. The answer is not hard to find. As growing disciples who are followers of Jesus, we have a faith that produces this kind of fruit in our lives as a response to the Holy Spirit. Take a step forward into that this week by making room in your life for this response of faith.