Untitled Sermon (18)

Intro-

Story about the hike.

How do you know I’m not lying, I wasn’t just chilling and playing Fortnite the whole time?

Pictures!

Show pictures.

See we can say stuff all we want, but in order for us to know it is true we need to see some evidence.

That takes us to our main topic tonight, faith and works.

Context-

Go ahead if you have your Bible and flip open to James chapter 2 starting in verse 14.

If you have been with us the past few weeks, then you know that we have been walking through the book of James a week at a time as he answers the question, what does real faith look like?.

James is going to show us in this book that true faith is lived out, it means you pursue a Holy life.

Each week we are going to look at a different area of life where you need to live out your faith.

Two weeks ago it was the sin of favoritism.

This week we are going through probably the most well known section in this whole book, and we are going to look at the difficult question, are we saved by faith or by works?

So let's jump into James 2:14, it is a lot so we are going to read portions and then stop and discuss them.

Text-

14 What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

This vs Paul?-

So the thing about these verses is that they have caused a ton of confusion throughout Church history.

I myself have struggled with them a lot and maybe you have too.

The reason why is because in verse 17 James says, “17 In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

Later he will say a person is justified by works (Works means doing holy or righteous things, earning it) and not faith alone.

What makes this so confusing is that just a little further back in your Bible in Romans Paul says in Romans 3:28, “28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”

I don’t know about you, but that seems like a contradiction to me.

How do we reconcile that? Is the Bible bunk?

I struggled with it for a long while until I finally learned that it’s actually not contradictory at all, it’s actually 2 different sides of the same truth, let me explain.

First, it is important to know that James had to know of Paul and his teaching (he was head of the church in Jerusalem at the time and the church knew well of Paul), he likely had read some of his writings and teachings.

Yet there is no mention of him calling out paul for false teaching, and there is no record of the two not agreeing.

If James was intentionally contradicting Paul or the other way around, there would certainly be more record of it.

That leads to the second point, instead of contradicting each other they were simply talking to two separate audiences with two different situations.

Paul’s letter to the Romans was to an area where he had not been yet, meaning a large portion of the individuals there weren’t christian, they were probably Jewish.

His focus is on someone before they are saved, and he is emphasizing the fact that you cannot be saved by your works to a group who often believed that one must earn their way into heaven.

James, however, is writing to Jewish believers who had a tendency to have all this head knowledge about God but never lived it out.

He was also writing during a time where there was a lot of persecution and it was becoming easy to bend to the ways of the world to avoid getting punished or mocked.

While Paul was emphasizing the fact that you cannot be saved by works, only faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, James emphasized that the faith that actually saves you is always accompanied by good works after you are saved.

James isn’t combatting Paul, he is combatting those who had taken Paul’s teaching of being saved by faith alone and abused it, treating it as a license to go sin and do whatever they wanted.

I know this still probably sounds confusing, “how can you be saved by faith alone but still need works to truly be saved”.

I promise there is an answer, but to get there we need to look a little closer at what James is actually saying.

There is a worthless “faith”-

If we look back at the text you’ll see James start with some rhetorical questions.

He starts by asking, “is someone’s faith really any good if there is nothing to show for it”?

He then gives an example that goes something like this…

Imagine someone comes up to you starving and doesn’t even have enough clothing for the weather.

You’re standing there well clothed, maybe some designer stuff, jordans on.

You have plenty of food, in fact you are stuffed, you have some restaurant gift cards in your wallet, some extra cash.

But instead of helping them you simply say, “man go get some clothes and food, you look cold and hungry”!

Is that in any way useful? NO!

In the same way so is faith without works.

What he is saying here is that there is a useless faith that really isn’t faith at all.

It may look real, it may even look really good.

But in the end it shows itself to be false because it never gets lived out.

Jesus talks about it in the parable of the sower, Hebrews 10 talks about it.

This is important to us because we often think faith is just simply acknowledging, “yeah I ‘ll say I believe in Jesus. I’ll believe he died on a cross and came back to life”, maybe walk an aisle, sign a card, get dunked, and that’s it!

But the problem with that is that in verse 19 James says even the demons believe in Jesus, they know more about him than we do!

But they aren’t saved, why?

Because their knowledge doesn’t change their actions.

Look, you can know all the answers, you can show up to church 2-3 times a week, you can post the right stuff on your social media and impress people.

But if your “Faith” doesn’t actually change anything, if your “belief” doesn’t lead to change and difference in your life then your faith is worthless.

It isn't real, and it won’t save you whether you call yourself a christian or not.

Look, I know that seems harsh and scary.

It’s a tough topic but it is an important one, the goal of this passage is to warn us if our faith is looking fake because we definitely want to get that right, eternity is at stake.

Up to this point you may be wondering, “what do I do, what is real faith”?

That’s where James goes next in verses 18-19.

Text-

18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.

True faith is proven by fruit-

James introduces a hypothetical counter argument, “Well look you have a lot of works, I have a lot of faith, live and let live”.

He counters that by saying that faith is always proven by works.

Later the word perfected is used and it has the idea of being made whole, like something is missing with faith until it is lived out.

You want to know how you can know what true faith is, James said it is proved by your works, your fruit.

It is the same idea I introduced in the story about hiking.

How do you know I went hiking? Pictures.

How is faith seen to be genuine? Works.

Jesus himself says this in Matthew 7:20 when he is talking about how to tell false teachers apart from real ones, “You will know them by their fruits.

We know this is true because scripture says that as a Christian your destiny is to be made to look like Jesus.

Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

So if you aren’t becoming more like Jesus, then that should send up warning flags.

Think of it like the stock market.

Most of you probably don’t know or care much about the stock market but if you look at it over any 10 year period it is always going up.

Now it may have a down day, week, or even month, but over time it’s always going up.

It is the same way with your faith.

You may have a bad day, or week, but if you are a Christian the direction of your life will ultimately be pointed in the direction of Jesus.

If you look at your life and don’t see that, then you should be concerned.

Well you may ask, what do you mean by fruit, what type of works?

Well Galatians gives us the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

James also gives us two strong examples in the very next verses.

Let’s finish out starting in verse 20.

Text-

20 But are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED 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. 25 In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Example of Abraham-

So the first example is of Abraham, the patriarch of Israel.

He was called from his home to a strange land, God promised to make him a nation and give him an heir.

That’s where he began his faith, he made a confession that he believed God and entered into a covenant with him

But he had to wait until he was 100 years old before he finally had the son he always wanted.

But Isaac grows up and out of nowhere when Isaac is 12-13 God tells Abraham, is supposed to go sacrifice him.

I would have been like, what?

But Abraham believes God is going to provide and they get to the mountain he was supposed to sacrifice him and his servants ask what's about to go down and Abraham replies that they are going up and they will both come down after worshipping.

Even here Abraham is convinced that God is going to provide the sacrifice.

They go up and ultimately God does provide the Ram.

James says that it was this act that proved his faith was true.

It would have been easy for Abraham to follow God when he was promising to give him a nation, but what about when he asked for his only son?

While Abraham had truly believed God earlier when he received the covenant, it was this work that proved it was true, that made his faith complete.

Example of Rahab-

Maybe you say, well that’s Abraham, it was easy for him, he is the father of Israel.

Well the next example is of Rahab the prostitute.

She lived in Jericho during the time of Joshua when they were conquering the promised land.

Joshua sent some spies to Jericho to scout it out and they went to Rahab and asked for shelter.

She let them stay in her home and then when the king of Jericho came looking for them she hid them and ensured they got away safely.

Before she left she told them, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have despaired because of you. 10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 When we heard these reports, our hearts melted and no courage remained in anyone any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth below. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, 13 and spare my father and my mother, and my brothers and my sisters, and all who belong to them, and save our lives from death”.

Even though she had been caught up in so much sin she believed in God, and her faith led her to hide the spies even at great personal risk, had she been caught she would have been super dead.

So in both of these examples, they were saved by faith initially, they believed God and what he said.

However, that belief wasn’t proven to be complete and true until later it was confirmed by how they acted.

So to summarize what we have been talking about tonight,

While we are saved through faith alone, faith does not come alone, it comes with works, works that prove the genuineness of that faith. That's how you know it is the real deal.

I hope that helps us to understand that this whole question of faith vs works isn’t a contradiction, but instead it’s two things that go hand in hand.

Takeaways-

As always, before we close tonight I want to take the message of this text and apply it to us.

What are we supposed to do with what we just learned?

First, we are called to examine our faith.

This is what is called a warning passage in scripture.

Like I said the goal isn’t to scare or cause doubt, instead it is to cause us to reflect.

If our faith doesn’t look like true faith it is warning us, saying something needs to change big time.

A few ways you can examine is to ask yourself, is there anything you have done in your life that you wouldn’t have done if you weren’t a Christian?

Have you stepped out in faith before, put down a sin, confessed sin, shared your faith, gave generously, sacrificed your desires for someone else?

If not, there is an issue there.

If someone were to go and ask your friends at school would they know you’re a christian?

Are you more concerned with what people would think or what God would think?

Second, for all of us this points us back to Jesus.

If you find that you have had a faith without works, the answer isn’t to try harder to will yourself to good works, it is impossible.

You will be exhausted, burned out.

Remember we are saved by faith alone

So what you do is you run and place your faith in Jesus for real.

Trust him as Lord, not just heavenly grandpa.

Give your WHOLE life to him.

He is a much better manager of it than you are.

That’s scary because it means you need to obey, even if it’s not what you may want to do.

But when you do that he will give you the Holy Spirit and he will equip you to bear fruit, for every good work.

In Hebrews 13 it says, “20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is, Jesus our Lord, 21 equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

See guys with true faith you aren;t holding onto Jesus, He is holding on to you.

That is beautiful, that is the beauty of the Gospel.

So tonight all I am going to ask is that you would spend this song doing just that, examining.

Ask yourself those questions.

If you need to get right with God, do it tonight.

COme find a leader and talk about it, we want to walk with you.

Let’s be obedient.