James 2:14-26 Growing in Jesus – Show Your Faith

21-03-07 – Growing in Jesus – Show Your Faith – James 2:14-26

HBI - Our faith needs to show in the way that we live our lives. In all areas of our lives our faith is to be made evident. 

James 2:24 (ESV) You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

There needs to be evidence of our faith. If we are meeting together as the body of Christ, if we claim to followers of Jesus then our faith will not be mere words but rather action

Intro

A nun who works for a local home health care agency was out making her rounds when she ran out of gas.  As luck would have it, there was a station just down the street.  She walked to the station to borrow a can with enough gas to start the car and drive to the station for a fill up.

The attendant regretfully told her that the only can he owned had just been loaned out, but if she would care to wait, he was sure it would be back shortly.

Since the nun was on the way to see a patient, she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.  After looking through her car for something to carry to the station to fill with gas, she spotted a bedpan she was taking to the patient.  Always resourceful, she carried it to the station, filled it with gasoline, and carried it back to her car.

As she was pouring the gas into the tank of her car, two men walked by.  One of them turned to the other and said: “Now that is what I call faith!”1

Faith is a key doctrine in the church and the next step I want to talk about in what it looks like to grow in Jesus is what Faith and works and what that is supposed to look like.

We are told that as Christians we are saved by faith, that we must live our lives by faith, that we are to walk by faith. We are told that without faith it is impossible to please God. 

We are told that faith means that we are going to obey despite the consequences that we may face. 

But I think one of the aspects of faith that we miss is that faith and works work together. I think for fear of preaching a works-based faith, we have sometimes gone too far in the other direction. 

What we are often taught in the church, which is not false, is that we are saved by faith through turning from our sin (repentance) and turning to Christ putting our trust in Him (faith). 

Knowing Jesus is a requirement for faith, having a personal relationship with Him but that does not make faith complete. 

Knowing the facts and approving them are also not enough. To know what it means to be saved and saying, ya I agree with that are important but not enough either. 

But faith also includes action, it means stepping out in what you believe trusting that Jesus has saved you and will do what He said He will do. 

What we are going to learn about today is that Our faith is not just something that Justifies and saves us but something that is to be made evident in all area of our life including our actions. 

Faith without works, is it possible? (14-17)

Growing in Jesus means obedience, growing in Jesus means that we are no longer alone but that we are to be unified as that body of Christ for the glory of Christ. 

Growing in Jesus means that we have faith in Jesus. But what exactly does this mean? We so often miss the point that faith and works go together. So, for that reason I want to read through go through James 2 today. 

Read James 2:14-26 – Pray

What is faith anyways? That is the first thing I want to go through. James 2:12 talks about faith James 2:14 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?

Strong’s concordance defines Faith as moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation2

The Oxford dictionary says something similar but says in religion it is based on spiritual apprehension rather then actual proof. 

We know then that faith is the absolute conviction that what the word of God says is true and will always come to pass. 

In the past there have been churches that teach and still do that works is vital to faith and so we went off in the other direction, sometimes I think to an extreme. 

We start out with the question that can faith without works save you? Is it possible to have faith then without works? 

I did some searching when it comes to this idea of faith and works as it has been a source of contention in the church for many years. 

First, we have saving faith. The scriptures are clear that Ephesians 2:8 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—

This is where Conversion comes in. Conversion is our willing response to the gospel call in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Jesus Christ as our saviour. That is turning from sin to Christ.

This involves two parts. Turning from sin is what we call repentance and urning to Christ is what we call faith. Neither one can happen without the other, we need both repentance and faith for true conversion to happen. 

It is this saving faith that we will look at though a little bit as we have already gone through most of it. Saving faith includes Knowing Jesus. 

This is not just having a knowledge of the facts about Jesus and what He did,. Merely knowing the facts is not enough though, one must know of the facts the scripture has presented about Jesus and agreeing with them or approving them. 

Though even knowing the facts about Jesus, approving of them is not enough. We must use the knowledge we have approved and make a decision to depend on Jesus to personally save us. 

Wayne Grudem defines saving faith as Saving faith is trust in Jesus Christ as a living person for forgiveness of sins and for eternal life with God3 All of these are important in order to have a faith that saves us. Faith grows stronger as we grow older seeking Christ and are attitudes of the heart that continue as we grown alder as well. 

But then there is another side to all of this and that is what we are going to learn more about today. The evidences of faith. There is faith that saves us and the other side to the coin is the evidence of faith in our life. 

To say that we have faith but there is no evidence of that faith is wrong. Continuing in the Christian life in faith and the works that Jesus has called us to do are evidence that a person is truly born again. 

You can say that you have saving faith, but in less there is evidence in persevering in the faith, or unless there is evidence of the fruits of the spirit in your life then you do not have faith. 

So back to the question then can a faith without works save you? James 2:15–17 15 If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

Why is it that a faith without the physical outpouring is dead? Because it is not true faith. Faith that saves does not include works but also a faith that saves well lead to works. For as it says here, what good is it then? 

A useless faith – 18-20

It is useless James 2:18–19 (CSB)18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.

I have always loved that statement, belief in God is not enough, as I have proven and as this goes on to prove the outpouring of faith is seen in the works that we do. 

I see this as kind of like a joke. I can just picture James with his arms crossed asking someone “you show me your faith without your works, go ahead I am waiting!”. 

It is a useless faith to not have works. “It is that kind of faith which would lead a man to take a bottle of medicine from his medicine cabinet. Looking at the instructions on it, he says, I’m sure they’re correct. I have all confidence in the source of the medicine. I know who wrote these directions. I believe everything about it. I know this will relieve my headache, if I just take it.” But he takes the medicine bottle and puts it back on the shelf. He doesn’t lose his headache. It continues on. Yet he can say I believe that medicine. I believe all about that medicine. But still he won’t take it. That’s dead faith.”

I see it like Holiness. We become holy upon salvation but it is also a lifelong process, becoming more like Jesus. 

We have saving faith, but the other side of this is that works will come out of that. Jesus told us that if we truly love Hi, then we will love others as well. Peter was reminded that if He truly loved Jesus then He was to feed His sheep. Works is the outpouring of true saving faith.

Be a doer, not just a hearer – 21-26

We need both sides of the coin and we are given examples of what this looks like. In Verse 21-22 we are reminded of Abraham, how he showed his faith by his works. 

Faith and works it says are active together and by the works that Abraham did his faith was made complete. 

James goes on to quote Genesis 15:6 to say that Abraham’s faith and the way that it was lived out in His life was credited to him as righteousness. 

Verse 25 talks of Rahab who had belief in the God of the Israelites and showed that faith in the works that she did. 

Faith and works go hand in hand. We are saved through faith alone, through repenting, Knowing who Jesus is and trusting in Him as Lord of our lives but that faith is seen in the way that we live our lives. 

Earlier on in the book of James, He talks of doers and hearers. James talk here on afith is a continuation of that. We are to be doers of the word. Our faith is not to be something we just say that we believe. 

This is important, but to have faith means that we will be doing what the word of God requires of us as well. 

He likens it to someone that looks in the mirror and sees that there is a big grease stain on their face, shrugs their shoulders and goes away and does nothing about it. 

Well, that is a paraphrase, but you get the idea. Faith without the outpouring of that faith in the works that we do is like looking in a mirror and then quickly forgetting what it is that the mirror showed us about ourselves. 

Being a hearer of the word of God is vital to growth but the next step to that is doing what it is that we are hearing in the word of God. 

To go to someone in need and say go, be fed stay warm even though it is freezing cold out and walk away and do nothing may make us feel better about ourselves but is useless. 

So What? 

Saving Faith and evidence of that faith go hand in Hand, faith without works is useless so what does this mean for our lives? 

The first question that comes to my mind when figuring out what this means for our lives today is what happens when someone says they have faith in Jesus but there is no evidence in their lives to prove it? 

This is a dead faith. A true child of God will be showing by the way that they live their lives that they are saved. If this is not the case, if you are just a hearer of the word or if you just say you believe and that is it then I would question whether you have a saving faith. 

Has there been a change in my life? Do I maintain good works, or are my works occasional and weak? Do I seek to grow in the things of the Lord? Can others tell that I have been with Jesus? Do I have a desire to share Christ with others? Or am I ashamed of Him? Do I enjoy the fellowship of God’s people? Is worship a delight to me? Am I ready for the Lord’s return? Or will I be ashamed when He comes for me?4

These are good questions to ask ourselves as we look into this. And also a reminder that it is not to late. Whatever the case may be for not showing our faith it is not to late to ask Jesus to examine your heart and change your life. 

If you have saving faith then works should be coming from your life. By this people will know that we are children of God, that we love those around us and show them by the way that we live our lives that we are true children of God.