Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.15UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.59LIKELY
Sadness
0.58LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.71LIKELY
Confident
0.07UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.89LIKELY
Extraversion
0.14UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.85LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.65LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
“Help Me I Am Drowning!” “Help Me My House Is On Fire And My Child Is In There!”
“Help me I am out of work and cannot feed my family.”
“Help me I am struggling to feed my children as my spouse died last year.”
“The orphans are starving will you help?”
Imagine just responding to these cries of help with this, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled.”
This is the old version of “I love you and I will be praying for you.”
Yes, prayer is important and we should pray for people.
Yes, prayer is necessary and appropriate.
But, we can do more than just pray.
People always need help.
We help many different people in many ways, and this is good.
But, we many times resort to saying I will pray and then we never even do that.
That is what this section of James is about.
It is about fulfilling the royal law.
It is about how we save our soul-lives by performing what the law of liberty/royal law says.
We are not people who just know God’s word but people who embrace His word and do what His word says.
That is the pure religion of Jas.
1:27.
That is not showing partiality, and it is loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Which leads us to what James says in James 2:14-26
The first thing we see is that...
Words Are Useless Without Action (14-17)
We have seen that for our lives to have meaning, for our salvation to be blessed and without discipline, or loss of reward and blessing at the judgment seat of Christ, being doers of the word is important.
We see here in verse 14 that if someone says he has faith, in the royal law, the law of liberty, but does not put that to work, can faith save him?
He is pointing back to those who have only heard the word and believed it but never perform what they heard.
Eternally saved, probably because he calls them brethren, but they can lose much at the judgment because of their failing to act.
James is saying to them can believing God’s word save at the judgment that he spoke of in 2:12-13.
Can believing the royal law save one at the judgment of a believers works according to what the royal law says?
The answer is no.
We see the clear connection of this in the next verses.
In 15-16 we see a brother or sister in need asking for help and the Christian telling them to be warmed and filled.
This tells us that James is still talking about the believer needing to be a doer of the word because if they are not then they have failed to fulfill the royal law.
They have become useless.
One commentator says that James is not talking about whether someone is saved but about their fulfilling the royal law.
He further states, “Everyone agrees we are supposed to love God and love others, but how many are genuinely living out that truth day by day.
And the warning is NOT that unloving people are fake Christians.
The warning is that being a hearer only of God's Word will be no benefit at the judgment.
And why is that?
Because the judgment determines whether we just heard (believed) the royal law or humbly welcomed it as God's implanted word, so that like a seed it germinated and produced good works in our lives.”
(Smelley, Hutson.
Enduring Storms: A Mission 119 Guide to James .
Hutson Smelley.
Kindle Edition.
Loc.
1093).
That is why he next says that faith without works is dead in verse 17.
This dead is spiritually deficient.
It is a life of you believe but you do nothing and you stay as a baby Christian and never seek to do the good works we were created in Jesus for.
We are not good to God in this type of life.
Much like my pickup one time.
It was back in the “blizzard” of 09-10 when we had like 18 inches of snow in Windthorst.
I had been trapped at home and just at home because I had nowhere to go for like 10 days.
I was going crazy.
It had melted off some so I decided I would drive around.
I got out and drove around some back roads and they were good.
Life was good again.
Then I got into a spot that had snow banks still.
I nearly made it through but got stuck.
I tried to get out but it was no good.
I sat there until a friend came who got stuck and then a tractor happened along and they got us out.
Now, my pickup was still a pickup.
It was a good vehicle.
It had a lot of promise.
But when it was stuck, it could do nothing for me.
It was just there.
That is what James is saying about a dead faith.
It is no good to anyone until we use what we believe to help, much like that man with a tractor did for me.
We can do this when we look at what the royal law says.
It says love your neighbor as yourself.
We see the need they are in and we act in a manner that we would want.
When we look at people like that, we can become strong people of faith and serve them well.
We can because when we do our...
Faith is Demonstrated by Works (18-25)
Here we see a proposed objector in verses 18-19 and James’ response to him in 21, and then an example of why works along with faith matter.
In 18-19 the proposed objector says that there is no relation between faith and works.
When we see that the text is pointing back to believing God’s word the word of the royal law here, that this description of the demons believing has no impact on salvation.
It is him saying that you believe and do good, great, but demons believe too and all they do is shudder.
His conclusion is that faith and works are unrelated.
He is trying to say that works are unnecessary in the life of a Christian that being a hearer knowing the truth is enough.
(Smelley, Enduring Storms, Loc.
1214).
If this was about salvation and a supposed false faith, then James would have responded that demons had a wrong type of faith.
He may have also said that good works will inevitably follow true faith, but he did not.
(Smelley, Storms, Loc.
1217).
He did not do that because someone can be saved and be unfruitful.
Is that good?
No and that is what James is driving at.
That is why he uses Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Israel.
He was a faithful man.
He believed God and was counted as righteous.
But his works in his going to sacrifice Isaac made his faith complete/mature.
Working for the Lord builds us towards that maturity that James spoke of in the beginning of the writing.
When we have a strong and enduring faith it is because we have not only believed and trusted God but put what we believe to action.
Just think about Abraham.
He was called out of his home when he was 75 and told to got o a land where I will show you.
He went faithfully.
God then met him again and made a covenant with him to bless him with a massive family.
He had no children and his wife was barren and too old to have a child.
Abraham believed and knew God would do what he said.
Finally at the age of 100 God provided Abraham and Sarah with this little boy Isaac.
They loved him and were so proud of him.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9