Faith Without Works

James

Faith Without Works

We are in week two of our series called, “James - A Faith That Works”.

These first two weeks are basically part 1 and part 2.

Last week we talked about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

Which led us to discussing how James said to not just be hearers of God’s word, but doers!

God is not just interested in your knowledge of Him but that you are obedient to what He says.

This leads us to today’s message.

I’m going to jump to James 2:14.

Verse 14 takes us back to what James was talking about when it comes to being DOERS of God’s word.

In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church's integrity problem is in the misconception "that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior." He goes on to say, "It is revival without reformation, without repentance."

This is exactly what James is talking about in chapter 2.

James 2:14-26 NIV “ 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. 25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

James makes a BOLD statement that a lot of people today would find offensive or theologically inaccurate.

James is saying that you JUST believing in God is not enough to save you.

Now many people will call that blasphemy.

Because we read verses like Romans 10:9-10 NIV “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

And I think the problem is what we think the word “believe” means.

We think that the word “believe” means to just acknowledge His existence.

So the problem is we acknowledge and don’t do anything with it.

The word “BELIEVE” in this verse means, “trust, put faith in, rely on a person, thing, or statement”

If you truly BELIEVE in Jesus you will TRUST Him and put your faith in Him, and you will RELY on HIM.

How can you trust, put your faith in and rely on someone, but never obey them or listen to them?

James is telling us that you can’t have faith but not have your works follow.

He uses the example of someone coming to you for help and they have no clothes or food and you just say, “Go in peace, stay warm, be well fed”.

What good does that do?

They aren’t interested in your best wishes to them. They need some ACTUAL help!

He says in the same way if your faith is not accompanied by works it is DEAD!

In verse 18 he says, “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.”

It’s like James already knows how people will respond to what he’s saying.

And I LOVE what he says, show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith BY my deeds.”

I can hear the sarcasm in James’ voice.

“Show me your faith without deeds”,

WHY? Because you can’t!

But then my favorite part of this passage is the point he makes in verse 19.

Verse 19 “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

What’s important to understand is that twice a day the Jewish people would recite what’s called the “Shema”.

This is a prayer based out of Deuteronomy 6 where it starts like this.

Deuteronomy 6:4 NIV “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one”

So James is saying, great you believe the Lord is one, he is the one true God!

That’s great!

Here’s the problem…

Even the demons believe and shudder!

So what’s his point?

If “believing” in God, or acknowledging that He exists is good enough to be saved then what about demons?

Demons “believe” in God

As a matter of fact they KNOW he exists

They KNOW Jesus is the Son of God

Look at a story in Mark when Jesus encounters a demon possessed man and the demon sees Him and starts to say this...

Mark 5:7 NIV “He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!”

The demon recognizes Jesus and admits that He is the Son of the Most High God.

To our standard of salvation we would think that demon is saved.

Why aren’t demons saved then?

Because they are NOT obedient to how God has called them to live.

They live their lives in rebellion to the Word of God.

Their WORKS don’t match their belief.

He goes on to use people in the Old Testament as examples of this.

He talks about Abraham and how it was his ACTIONS of being willing to sacrifice his son that made him righteous before God.

Genesis 22:12 NIV “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son

God was testing Abraham to see if he had true faith in Him.

So God asked him to do something crazy.

Abraham didn’t argue or disobey, HE DID IT!

His actions PROVED his faith and trust in God.

He goes on and mentions Rahab and then is verse 26 says

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

One commentator explained it this way…

“ A body without spirit (or breath) is a corpse. Jews were aware that it was when a person “breathed his last” or “gave up his spirit” (the words for breath and spirit being identical in both Greek and Hebrew) he was dead. A dead body is a liability that must be buried. Likewise faith that remains intellectual belief is dead. It cannot save; it is a liability, for it can deceive a person as to his or her true spiritual state. Only when faith becomes full commitment and is joined to actions does it have value.”

But some will act like the “actions” of what we do are something extra that we are adding to what salvation is.

I like this quote, “Action (obedience to Christ) is no more an “added extra” or a higher optional level of sanctification than breath is an “added extra” to a body.”

You need to be able to breathe for your body to work.

It’s not “extra” it’s ESSENTIAL!

Just like our works are essential to our faith.

So naturally whenever I talk about this topic people right away have questions and concerns about what I’m saying.

They put the pieces together that maybe they relate to or someone they know relates to.

In the fact that there are people who maybe started off their relationship with the Lord really strong and were living for Him.

So then the question comes up, “Are they still saved?”

Basically, the common question of is there such a thing as “once saved, always saved”?

This is a question that has been debated for hundreds of years.

It’s the question of is it possible to “lose” or walk away from your salvation?

And I think it’s important that I address this question because it naturally comes up when you talk about this topic.

And I’m not sharing this to try to start a heated debate or to tell someone that they are wrong if they disagree with me.

But I feel it’s important to share my thoughts and my interpretation of what the Bible says on this topic.

However, I don’t want you to just take my word for it.

I want you to go back and study this for yourself.

But when it comes to this topic or any topic in the Bible, I love what John Bevere says.

He said, “Don’t read what you believe, believe what you read.”

So many of us read the Bible through the lens of what we believe or want to believe is true.

Or through the lens of what we were taught growing up.

So we read the Bible and if we read something that we don’t like or agree with, we try to twist it to fit our narrative of what we want to be true.

But instead we should just read the Bible and believe what it says!

And it’s important that we look at the WHOLE counsel of the Word.

It’s really easy to take one verse and build a theology on it.

There are verses, especially with this topic, that when you read them it’s easy to think the Bible contradicts itself.

But we know that God would never contradict himself.

So when we come to these issues, we need to keep reading and understand that maybe we are just misinterpreting one of the verses that seem to be contradicting.

So before I give you scriptures on this point I will start off by just answering the question which is no I personally do not believe is once saved always saved.

I believe we have free will and we can CHOOSE to walk away from God.

I heard a Pastor who believes in eternal security use the example of a family walking in an airport.

The problem is at some point your kid gets old enough where they can see, “see ya later. I don’t want to obey you and follow you anymore!”

And I believe scripture makes it clear about this.

Let’s start in the Old Testament

Ezekiel 18:24 NIV “But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die.”

So if a “righteous” person TURNS from their righteousness, none of the righteous things they have done will be remembered.

Now I know the first response to this from a lot of people will be, “that’s the Old Testament”

I just want to show you that this theory is in the Old Testament but let’s look at the New Testament.

The New Testament talks a lot about in the last days people will fall away from God.

1 Timothy 4:1 NKJV “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,”

For you to depart from somewhere you need to be there first.

My family goes to Florida quite a bit and my wife is going there in July.

She is going to depart from the GR Airport.

She can’t depart from that airport UNLESS she is IN the airport to begin with.

So my question is, how can someone DEPART from the faith if you weren’t in it to begin with?

James talks about wandering away in chapter 5.

These are the last two verses in his book.

James 5:19-20 NLT “My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, 20 you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.”

Again how can you wander from something that you aren’t in to begin with?

Notice he makes the statement that if the friend did not bring him back, his punishment was death.

That’s not physical death.

Whether we believe in Jesus or not, we are all going to physically die.

He’s talking about spiritual death which is separation from God.

You wander from the truth by living in sin and disobedience to God!

That’s why the writer of Hebrews gives us this warning.

Hebrews 2:1NIV “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

If we aren’t careful and study what the Word of God says, we can be deceived and drift away.

Let’s look at some more scripture.

The Bible talks about the Book of Life\

Philippians 4:3 NLT “And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life.”

Revelation 20:15 NLT “And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Revelation 3:5 NKJV “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”

So John is saying that people who overcome, stay true to God, that God will NOT blot their names out of the book of life.

So if he is saying that if you overcome He won’t blot your name out, doesn’t that mean that He can and will blot peoples name out of the Book of Life?

Some will say that’s not possible

That was a response of someone when I shared a verse in Hebrews with them.

I shared that with someone who is very smart and knows the Bible but does not believe you can fall away.

So their response was just, “it’s impossible to be enlightened and taste the goodness of God and fall away”.

So then what was the purpose of this verse?

Because that’s a dangerous game to say that the Bible has verses in it that aren’t possible to come true.

Church I say this all to you not to scare you.

You’re not going to wake up one day randomly and not be saved anymore.

If you sin and make a mistake you are not going to lose your salvation.

If you love the Lord and are living for Him you don’t have anything to worry about!

BUT this is a challenge to reflect on your life and if you TRULY are following God.

Because if you are choosing to live a life of sin and disobedience to God you might not have the relationship with Him that you think.

John 14:21 NIV “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

The good news is God CAN help you stay on the path that He has for you.

He can keep you from wandering.

Jude 1:24 NIV “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy”

The beauty of God’s grace is that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done before this moment.

Whether you flat out didn’t believe in God or whether you did but you weren’t living it.

Because of God’s grace and what Jesus did for you on the cross you can be forgiven!

All you have to do is repent and you can start fresh in Him today!

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