What is Saving Faith?

What is saving Faith According to the Bible?

Outline:

Talk is cheap and just that, talk

Faith requires action

Faith without action is dead

1. (V14) What does faith without works profit and is that genuine saving faith?

Context: James is writing to the Christian Jew.

The Jews were known for following the 613 commandments prior to Christ

After getting saved, they fell onto the other extreme of thinking, works didn’t matter at all

James is asking a very good question, should there be evidence of regeneration?

(Ja 1:14) In the NLT, it says, What good is it if say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that faith save anyone?

a) If someone says they have faith, but no works or in other words no fruit, are they saved?

I can say anything, but doesn’t make it true

I have heard people say, “I am a man of faith, yet their actions are in direct opposition of what the Bible teaches

Their outward action don’t align with what they profess to believe

Illustration:

When I was going to Grand Canyon University I was taking a class called “Christian World View”

Then they began to ask a series of question about our beliefs on social issues, theological beliefs and things of that nature, then they took our answers and compared to the teachings of the Bible

I remember most professing Christians were shocked, their “Christian world view they thought they believed, contradicted the way they lived and even their understanding who God is

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Is the Bible the final authority in what you believe or not, was the point the professor was making

Matthew 7:21 ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”

Jesus and James both warn against lip service

1.1 (V15-16) True faith requires action

a) You see a need and your moved with compassion to meet that need, it’s the condition of the heart

Just saying the words be filled and warm do nothing for a person, it the action of giving someone food and clothing that makes the difference, in fact, you could say it would be unloving

1 John 3:17–18 “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

Before coming to Christ, I didn’t care about others, but after getting saved God began to change my heart

Caring for others or serving is not something I have to strive to do, it a natural over pouring of my heart because I have the love of God in me

2. (V17) Faith without works is dead

a) James bluntly says answers his question in verse 14, faith without works is a dead faith and cannot save him

Matthew 7:26 ““But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:”

3. (V23-26) Abraham as as illustration of faith without works is dead

a.  James will now use the Old Testament to demonstrate what he has already said about the character of a living faith, showing that a faith that is not accompanied with works is a dead faith that cannot save.