2021.10.31 GP Sermon - James 2:20-24

Faith that Works: What Good is it?

Good morning GracePointe. It is a joy to come before you today and look at God’s Word together. I was reminded this week that God’s word as mentioned in Psalm 19 helps to make wise the simple, to enlighten our eyes. His word endures forever.

When we look at James, we find so many applications for things to do. The book of James feels like it was written by a drill Sargent or a football coach....over and over again, just relentless in how this letter encourages to keep the faith, and to live it out. There are encouragements and warnings....but just as Psalm 19 points out in verse 11, a servant is warned by God’s Word....and in heeding those warnings…there is great reward.

That reward, that profit is something James refers to in chapter 2 verse 14. He says what Good is it. What does it profit? That is a question that echos through out this book and should echo through out your day in your actions.

It is important that as we go through the book of James, we remember that we are to heed God’s instructions. To follow the path He has laid out before us in His word. But it also requires careful and contextual study.

Remember this book was written to Jewish believers. It is important to note that there were very few Jews, if any, who were Biblically illiterate. Almost all Jews knew the Old Testament and were schooled and trained in the Old Testament, and so

whenever we read a book of the New Testament, like Matthew, or Hebrews, or James that was written specifically to Jewish believers, we must make sure we keep this context of the Old Testament also. We will see how this plays into James 2.

Pastor Michael and Pastor Sid have been doing an awesome job walking us through James. Up to this point, we have seen exactly what issues the Jewish believers were dealing with based on what James is pointing to. Each week it is good to reread the verses we have gone over already.

Issues facing New Christians

This week I read the verses as if the people that James was writing to....those people were able to interject with questions. Early in the letter, New Christians are asking “What do we do with persecution?” James says count it all joy for it develops steadfastness…a sustaining faith as seen in Verses 2-3.

Other christians start chiming in “we have trials. Is God tempting us?” James responds...”No you are being lured and enticed by your own desire.”

The New Christians respond “But I don’t want to listen, we are angry, people are not cooperating.....” James responds be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. That kind of anger referred to won’t allow you to do the good things God desires you to do.

I like to imagine so many people getting ahold of James and telling him all their problems…and he responds with “if you think you are religious but don’t bridle your tongue and instead deceive your heart…your religion is worthless.

The new Christians blink a few times…that seems harsh. Well James…what is the valuable religion? James says “It is pure when you do this “visit orphans and widows in their affliction. Help those who are hurting. Keep yourself unblemished from the world”

More issues come up....what about people trying to gain power and prestige by showing favoritism. Love ALL your neighbors as your self…not just the ones you might gain something from.

Finally, James comes to what does a faith in Christ look like. Pastor Sid reminded us that the faith James is referencing is the sustaining faith of those supposedly already Christians.

Sustaining Faith

In Ephesians 2 Paul points out that we are saved by grace alone through faith....the faith that Paul references here is the regeneration…the new birth…the gift of grace. Being saved from Sin. Conversely, James is reminding Christians in chapter 2 that faith leads to works…This sustaining faith is one in which our desire to love God and love people in action word and deed results in heavenly award.

Our sin is already covered. You and I, when we put our trust in Jesus Christ....we were saved by heartfelt trust in Jesus. But God also created us for action.

Created for Action

Look at Ephesians 2:10

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

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

We didn’t create ourselves. We had nothing to do with our new creation in Christ aside from acceptance of the free gift. I have said it before and I will say it again…many myself included have had to repent of somehow thinking we are pretty good on our own. We did nothing to create ourselves.

We were dead in our sin. We were rescued by Christ and when we authentically put our hope and trust in Jesus Christ, we become new. The old is gone. We shout out amen and hallelujah for that.

But we were created for something. Ephesians here says we were created in Christ Jesus for intellectuall superioritie (spelling on purpose), theological soundness, argumentative battle tactics....?

We were created for good works!

Deeds that show, that provide proof of validity.....as Sid pointed out. Without works, Faith doesn’t have a foundation in reality....and James asks the question that we must all use to self-examine.

What good is it? What good is it? Is how I am living love God? Does it love others? What good is it? Are there areas of my life that are word only with no action? What profit could there possibly be for anyone to claim they have saving faith when there are no good works to demonstrate its presence?

Today I hope for each one of us to ask that question as we hold up our lives and ask about our actions, our words, our works....What Good is it?

Let’s look at James chapter 2 - starting in verse 18. If you don’t have a bible, please raise a hand and someone will come and bring you one to keep.

James 2:18–24 ESV

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Humble

One of the aspects that has stuck with me in the last 6 months is remembering that each one of us as followers of Christ must keep proper alignment with God. In other words, we should be humble. God is god and we are not. Do we ponder that? Do we calculate just how big God is…and in turn…how feeble, temporary, and truly weak we are?

God demands response.....but too often, we can all be guilty of being lukewarm and nonchalant to the creator…the Lord of Heaven....the Holy One. Even saying God created the heavens and the earth…the light, the foundations of all that we know and don’t know....

Do we just shrug? Yeah…wow. Pretty big. I mean I don’t know though. I watched a netflix special on the Earth and feel like I have a good handle on it. Of course God is beyond compare but....the netflix special was pretty good…it was in 4k!

This response to God and Christ is actually seen in other ways by beings you to wouldn’t expect. Right away, James is referencing the old testament in 2:19. Hear o Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”. This is referred to as SheeMA

Shema

The SheeMa refers to a couple lines from the book of Deuteronomy (6:4-5), that became a daily prayer in Ancient Israelite tradition. Some have likened it to the Lord’s prayer (“Our Father in heaven…”) in Christian tradition. It gets its name from the first Hebrew word of the prayer in Deuteronomy 6:4 “Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”

The English word “listen” renders the Hebrew word shema. In traditional Jewish prayer practice, these lines from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 were combined with other passages from the Torah and were prayed in the morning and the evening. This prayer has been one of the most influential traditions in Jewish history and functioned both as the Jewish pledge of allegiance and a hymn of praise.

Yet James is making a statement with this traditional pledge. Making this pledge that God is the only God is correct theology absolutely.... but without works....there is nothing to commend it. He says, you say the right things.

Good for you! You do well. Most commentary points to this being amazing use of sarcasm and snarkiness. This is the same “You do well” that he uses in verse 8....If you fulfill the law of loving your neighbor as yourself, good for you. Whoohoo.

Once when I was in college, I stayed up way to late playing video games while eating pints of Ben and Jerrys. I don’t mean that I only did this once, this is a story about one of the many many times I did that. I stay up most of the night....I finally went to bed at 3:00. The next morning I woke up and checked the time....oh no I am supposed to be in my spanish class right now. I groggily filed my way through the hallway and quickly arrived at the door. My warm and friendly spanish professor, Professor Gomez, was standing at the door. I ran up and started talking about 200 miles a min while simultaneiously being so tired that every third word felt like spanish…but it was supposed to be english. Somewhere in my rambling, i said I am so sorry. I would still like to attend class if possible. I meant this. I really did. But I also was thinking that this would earn a point or two. Like hey…I tried real hard. I am saying what I know needs to be said…I mean it whole heartedly. Professor Gomez smiled and says “Mr Brockett..I appreciate your willingness to get here. But our class ended an hour ago! I would imagine you are not feeling well and need to go get some extra rest. And he kind of pat my shoulder like....”Good for you for thinking that was all it took. Rush down here. That’s adorable”.

James is telling us....great. You claim that God is above all other Gods. Good for you. Way to go little buddy. By making an ungrounded but accurate claim with no good deeds to back it up, James is reminding us....you know who else has great theology marked in Scripture....DEMONS!

Some of the highest responses comes from the mouths of demons who encounter Christ. Mark 1:24, a demon comes across Jesus and blurts out...”I know who you are - The Holy One of God. Later in chapter 3, demons shriek “You are the Son of God.....each time these demons shudder, they quake with fear. They don’t utter claims non-challantly. These demons did not have faith, they were not saved .... but they knew God, they knew of Jesus.

James again is reminding us that a sustaining faith is not one that is intellectual only.....theology only....it is marked by deeds. Living things grow, change. Remember early in chapter 1, we are to be hearers AND Doers of the word. And let us now look at what James wants us to hear and do in verse 20.

James 2:20–24 ESV

20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

James is laying down the gauntlet here. Remember James is writing this letter to jewish Christians who are extremely familiar with the Old Testament. James begins this by pointing out the foolishness of a claim. What good is a faith without the profit or value of deeds that demonstrate the goodness of God and his transformative work in each one of our lives?

Useless and Lazy

He says do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless. These are such strong words. The greek word used here for foolish is Keve and means empty, vain, ineffective, foolish, worthless, (c) false, unreal, pretentious, hollow. The word used for useless in this verse is Argos defined as “lazy, shunning the labor which one ought to perform.” James is saying that the thought of a faith that is void of any justified action is useless just as the person who thinks so.

James is now going to respond to this idea by using the premier figure of faith in the Old Testament, the father of faith and the father of all Jews. Abraham.

Abraham

James 2:21–23 ESV

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

This section is often seen as a contradiction between Paul in Romans Chapters 4 and 5 and Galations 2 and 3. Paul says in Romans 4:2-3

Romans 4:2–3 ESV

2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Abraham was justified by faith, a saving faithPaul, in saying that Abraham was justified by faith, refers to the events in Genesis 15 where God promises to Abraham that he will be the father of many nations and that the Messiah would come through Abraham.

And we read in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham believed God and his faith was credited to him as righteousness. He was declared righteous in the sight of God. He was justified before God. And this is exactly what we read in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6. How do we get eternal life? How are we justified? The same way Abraham was. By faith alone.

Galatians 3:29 ESV

29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

So Paul has referenced Abraham. James is making a different reference. James says that Abraham was justified by works. But do you notice when James says this happened? …when he offered Isaac his son on the altar. When was that? This was 15 years later in Genesis 22!

Abraham was justified, or declared righteous by God in Genesis 15, but then he was also justified, or declared righteous again in Genesis 22. Only this second time, it was not by God, but by men.

Some have thought that Paul and James are at odds or contradicting one another but scripture reveals they are talking about two different kinds of justification. The Scripture contains two different kinds of justification. The first is the kind we are most aware of. It is justification through faith alone in the sight of God.

Galatians 3:11 ESV

11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

talks about being justified in the sight of God. This type of justification means to be declared righteous or just, free from guilt. This is something GOD does. Remember that God is god and we are not Him. Other people are not God.

We are justified, not by ourselves or what others think of us. But by what Christ did for each and every one of us on the Cross......his act declares a believer in Him righteous. I am so thankful that we celebrated communion today and remembered this justification.

The other kind of justification though, is not through faith, but is through works and is in the sight of men. It means to vindicate oneself or prove oneself of righteous. This is something that humanity does. This type of justification is expressed by what a believer does in front of others, that shows they have been justified or declared righteous by God.

This is the kind of justification James is talking about here and the kind of justification Abraham received in Genesis 22. Paul hints at this second kind of justification in Romans 4:2. Remember, we were created in Christ to do good works. James here is reminding us that our works verifies the justification done by God through Jesus Christ. Christ reminds us how to show our love,

John 14:15 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Jesus didn’t say, if you love me.... just say it. If you love me, just post it. If you love me, just attend. If you love me, just do what is easy. If you love me, here is the minimum do that.

He said “keep my commandments”. Do what you were created to do. And today, as we gather together to carry out what Hebrews 10:24, we encourage another.

Hebrews 10:24 ESV

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

We are engaging in spurring one another on to love and....nice thoughts? pleasant sayings? Good intentions? good positive energy? No it says we are to consider how to spur one another on to love (verb) and good works (more verbs).

I will ask the question again....What good is it? What good is it to be saved but not showcasing that you were saved by growing?

How does our faith grow? Sid talked about it last week…the growth principle. If you want to see your faith grown, do what God commands. Obey the Lord. James is saying that Abraham obeyed the Lord in Genesis 22. Let us look at that story in genesis 22

Abraham

Genesis 22 tells the heart wrenching story for any father to imagine. God tested Abraham and told him to take his son, Isaac, his only son and go to the mountains in the land of Moriah along with some servants. God told him to offer his son Issac on the alter.

When he did all that he was told, he standing there holding a knife about to slaughter his son when the angel of the Lord called to him and said Abraham don’t lay a hand or do anything to the boy for now I know you fear God.....seeing you have not withheld your son from me.

Abraham was obedient. He did the next right thing that God asked him to do. Even if he didn’t understand it. What made it a right thing? Because God asked him to do it. God asks us to do right things. Not easy things. Not always fun things. But they are always right things. James points to the scriptures being “fulfilled” in verse 23.

James 2:23 ESV

23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

I love that last little part. Friend of God. He was called a friend of God. Was he called a friend of God in Genesis 15? Abraham was not perfect. He experienced ups and downs. He doubted God for a while. (Gen 15:7)

He got involved in sexual immorality with his maidservant Hagar. (Gen 16)

He lied about his wife in chapter 20.

He had some serious father parenting issues in chapter 21

Abraham had some serious sin issues. But his faith was maturing because even though he had numerous failures, he was trying day by day to walk with God.

Not only was he called a friend of God by God but others notice as well. For 15 years those around Abraham were watching. Examining. Assessing if the God he claimed was truly powerful enough to change a man’s nature. And we get to chapter 22 where Abraham reflects obedience through sacrifice of what he holds dear. James says he was called a friend of God because of the next right thing he did in obscience to theLord

Do you want to be known as a friend of God? Jesus tells us how in John 15:24. He says there, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” We have been saved by faith alone in Christ alone. We are headed for heaven. We are the children of God.

But faith alone in Christ alone does not make you the friend of God. And what does it take to be the friend of God? Jesus said, “You are my friend if you do what I command.” Abraham did what God commanded, and he was called God’s friend. Faith alone gave Abraham justification in the eyes of God. Works gave Abraham justification and verificationin the good deeds he was obedient in.

I will remind us of our original question. What good is it? What good is it to be called a friend of God?

The answer is it is amazingly good. It is good to be doing what we were created to do. Our faith is energized and put into action when our actions match what we say.

Practically speaking:

When you put your faith and hope and trust in Jesus Christ, you are justified through Jesus Christ. You are in right standing with God. Just like Abraham was counted as righteous for believing God.

When you do that, the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of truth, goodness, power, light and joy makes a home in our hearts. Constantly reminding and directing our attention on and back to God.

The Holy Spirit’s presence pushes the believer to do good works- not to be saved but because you have been saved and wants to do the will of God.

Religion says “You must do this to be saved”. A relationship says “Do this out of gratitude for being saved”.

We go from feeling obligated to do good works to feeling compelled out of gratitude to do good works to please God. This is the life that God desires for each and every one of us to have in Him. It is perfect.

Complete

Jamaes points to this perfection…this completion of faith.

James 2:22 ESV

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

The word complete in greek here is tuh li ah o means mature. Our faith, our relationship with God through Jesus, matures and grows and develops only as we live in obedience to Him. I will fully admit that I have struggled to own that reality. We all keep wanting a shortcut. But there is not shortcut to deep mature relationships in any capacity. Living in obedience matures, grows, and develops our relationship with God.

Have you felt recently like your faith is stagnant? Cold? Part of the issue could be that you are not doing what you were created to do in working for the Lord…doing what He asked. There are times where each of us will grow through seasons where we must be obedient in something that is difficult. For many of us, it could be many times. But choose God in those times. Choose to engage in growing your faith in the Lord. Choose to work so that your faith is alive, vibrant, thriving....and complete.

Let us pray.