Sermon Transcript
Thank you for the voice that he gave you and the way that you use it for his pleasure. Wow, we so appreciate it. Well, the celebration we’re having this morning is the same celebration that hopefully every one of us will have someday when we finish this life and we enter heaven. I think the greatest shock that could ever happen to a person would be to think— and maybe just as an American you might be led to think this— it would be to think That you’re going to have salvation, that you’re going to inherit heaven, and yet to find out at the pearly gates that you’re not accepted in. Jesus actually spoke about that shock that would come on actually many people of faith when He said this in Matthew 7.
We find these words, 21 to 23, not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers! Can you imagine that?
These are people, people of faith who expected heaven, but when they get there, they’re going to ultimately be locked out. And of course, that could be anybody. That could be one of us that’s here or many of us that are here. It could be family members. It could be friends.
It could be acquaintances that we have. It could be people all across America, good people, church people, church people who maybe came to concerts like this or attended worship services or sang songs or hymns or praise choruses or whatever it was or figured out how to go to Reggie Coates concerts or whatever, you know, whatever. It could be anybody. It could be a person that came to these church events and drank year after year tons of red punch and put up with that. But in the end, it’s just all for nothing because their faith, Jesus said, will have been useless to save them.
And we want to ask the question this morning, why would that be? Why would a person think they have faith, and yet when they get to heaven, the fact is, is that the faith they had was not saving faith? So we’re going to speak about that this morning. We’re going to think think about that together because we’re in a series on James throughout the summer months here. And today we come to James chapter 2, which is a very interesting discussion about faith and saving faith and works and how it all works together.
And James gives us some very important answers to questions that hopefully we’re asking, or we can help others ask and get some sufficient answers to these questions. What kind of faith saves anyway? Because not all faith saves. And even to make this more personal, will the faith that I have save me? I mean, that makes it very personal.
Will the faith that I have save me? Because as Jesus said, there are going to be people at the end of this life who stand before him and they’re not getting into heaven because they had the wrong kind of faith. It was not saving faith. So James chapter 2, And verses 14 to 26 address this subject, and James just jumps right in and he begins this way, verse 14: What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
And of course, the implied answer is what? No, that kind of faith can’t save a person. I mean, not everybody who claims to have faith will be saved by their faith. Their faith may do a lot of other things for them, They may get some pleasure out of it, some satisfaction, that sort of thing, but the one thing that faith needs to do, it will not do. It will not save them.
Why will some people’s faith not save them? James says it here. It’s because their faith is devoid of deeds. And of course, you ask the question, well, what kind of deeds? Well, keep on going.
Verse 15, suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it’s not accompanied by action, is dead. What kind of deeds is he talking about? Well, deeds that are connected to needs, we could say.
People that come across others who have needs, but specifically in this case, another member of God’s family, a believer, a brother or sister in Christ, And these brothers and sisters in Christ, they have legitimate needs. I mean, these are very basic needs. They need clothes. They need daily food. And if they have these needs and you’re a person who claims to be a person of faith, and you know about that need, but you don’t do anything to meet the need, but instead your response is kind of a verbal, have a nice day.
Don’t worry. Be happy. Take care of yourself. Be warmed. Be filled.
Wear warm clothes, eat plenty of food. I’ll pray for you. There’s a common one we oftentimes say in the church. We find out a person who’s in need and we say, oh, I’ll pray for you. And James says that if your faith is just limited to words like that, guess what?
Your faith is dead. It’s dead faith because saving faith is more than nice words. Saving faith is more than giving people good Christian advice. It translates into action. This week I participated in my first scarf circle.
It’s similar to a knitting circle or sewing circle, I guess. It was a scarf circle. We at our missional community, uh, had one of our members bring a bunch of scarves, you know, the winter kind of scarves that you wrap around your neck, you know, those kinds of scarves. And the deal was is that they needed some help, and I guess they’re preparing 80 of these scarves for some homeless people. And so they needed some help in tying knots to the ends of the scarves.
And I don’t know how to describe this, but you know the frayed ends, those ends where you’ve got this ragged end on the end of the scarf? You know those? Some of you get this. I never would have known that people sit around in scarf circles and tie knots together. But anyway, so, so we sat there together and we tied knots in, I don’t know, hundreds, it felt like, probably only 4 scarves.
And I thought, this must be what it’s like to be a part of a knitting circle or, you know, a sewing circle or something like that. So it was my first experience with a circle experience, scarf circle. But as I was sitting there, I was thinking, you know, what’s behind this is that there’s a person or people who have legitimate faith that heard about some legitimate needs, and they decided to do something to meet those needs. And what James is saying here is that if we are people of faith, when we come across legitimate needs, Our faith will manifest itself in some kind of actions, in appropriate actions. If it’s food that person’s need— person needs, we’ll do something to help them get the food that they need.
Or if it’s clothing, we’ll do something to help them get the clothing that they need. So we’re talking about basic needs. Maybe it has to do with, you know, having a place to stay or just getting the help that they need. You remember the story of the Good Samaritan? And how Jesus painted this picture that there were a couple of people that walked by and saw the need that this man was in where he had been beat and robbed and left beside the road.
But these couple of religious people, even Jewish people, you would expect that they would stop and help this person, did nothing. But there was this Samaritan of all people. You would not stop— you’d expect the Samaritan to stop. And meet this person’s need? I mean, there was kind of a difference there, but yet it was the Samaritan that stopped to meet the need.
And it’s very interesting how he met the need. He didn’t bring the person home, but he did take the person to an inn, and he paid for his bills, and he took care of him. But the thing was is that as a person of faith, he did the right thing. And so James is saying that if we have genuine faith, it’s going to go beyond nice words or nice advice. It’s gonna translate into actions.
That’s why James then says, verse 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 what I do. And I think the best way to understand what he’s saying here is you have 2 different people. There’s one person here who has faith, and that’s it. There’s another person here who has faith and, and deeds.
So one with faith without deeds, one with faith and deeds. And this one with faith out deeds, there’s no way this person can prove they have faith without those deeds, because a lack of deeds reveals what? It reveals, in James’ language, it reveals dead faith. It reveals a lack of love, you could say. But the person with deeds reveals saving faith.
So there’s something that’s shown through this person’s life that is an indication that they are genuine in their faith. This is a faith professor. This is a faith possessor. And if our faith is genuine, if we possess faith, it’s going to show up in more than just words. It will show up in actions.
And specifically when we’re meeting other people’s needs. It’s showing up in loving actions. It’s just kind of like around the home where a husband might hear his wife say, if you love me, honey, do something, you know, show it in some way. I mean, it should show up, right? Maybe we could say that we have homes of love, but if it’s just words, guess what?
There’s something missing there. Saving faith also is more than just knowing the right words to say or giving the right advice. He goes on and he says in verse 19, you believe there is one God? Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder.
Did you know that the demonic world believes in God? That’s what he’s saying. They’re not atheists. They’re not agnostic. I mean, even the demons believe there’s God.
They’re orthodox in their God beliefs because there is a God. They’re like most people who believe there’s a God. They intellectually— demons intellectually believe that God exists. But the question is, have they embraced His lordship? Have they surrendered their will for His will?
Have they come under His leadership? No! And they haven’t yet done that or will never do that, even though they shudder. Notice the word shudder that’s used there in verse 19. Even though they shudder at the thought of what’s to come.
And what’s to come? Judgment. There’s a day of judgment coming, but their intellectual belief in no way is translated into how they’re living or their lifestyle choices, their choices to surrender themselves to God’s will above their own. You see, many people have this kind of belief as well. They, they, they know the right things to believe, kind of like eating.
Most of us sitting here this morning, we know what it takes to eat right. We could— we got that. It’s up here in our minds, right? We know what it takes to eat right. It’s up here with our minds.
We know that we should be eating these things and we should not be eating these things. But if this knowledge translates into action, there’s, there’s something deeper there, isn’t there? It’s not enough just to know. It’s something that’s got to translate into action. And James is saying saving faith is more than just intellectual belief.
You could be schoolled in all orthodox truth. You could know ecclesiology. You could know eschatology. You could know soteriology. You could know Christology.
You could know the gamut of theology and still not be saved because it’s just an intellectual thing with you. You just know all the stuff, just like you know all the stuff is right when it comes to eating, but it’s not translated into your life in a specific personal way. You know anybody like that? We just recently went back for a reunion of the choir that we were in in high school in our church. I think we’re going to have one here if we haven’t already have one, but I understand something like that’s going to happen here.
It is connected to our church this summer. Well, we got together as our group was called the Eternal Trip. Some of you have heard that before, the Eternal Trip. Some of us are still on trips. But anyway, so we had this wonderful experience growing up together, and we learned how to witness, and we learned all the facts about soteriology and Christology, about salvation and about helping people come to faith in Jesus Christ.
And we studied bibliology, the study of the Bible, and all of that. In other words, all of us learned the same things about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and sin and and the Bible. But the fact of the matter is, is that room that we sat in together when we went back for this reunion, that room is not filled with all Christians, even though we all have the same information or had the same information. There are some believers there and others who have never come to genuine faith in Jesus Christ. They’ve got it intellectually, but it’s never translated into their lives.
They’re just like so many people in America. Which is tragic. You see, words count. Beliefs, yes, are important, but neither one in itself is enough. It’s not enough.
We could say all the right things. We could even believe all the right things, but that alone is not enough. You could walk down the aisle at the end of this service today and pray a prayer, a prayer of salvation, and still not be saved even though you said the right words. You could have come to church forever. You could know the Bible much better than I know the Bible.
I’ve gone to seminary. I’ve gone to graduate school. I’ve done a doctorate in this and still not know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior even with all of that information. And James would say, is if it’s just limited for you to nice things that you say and it doesn’t translate into action, and if it’s limited to the knowledge that you have and it doesn’t change your life, guess what? That’s dead faith.
Dead. That being the case, then James goes on and he says, verse 20, you foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Do you need some more proof? Well, he gives us proof. He gives us a couple of individuals that we can think about, 2 people of great faith whose faith was useful.
It wasn’t useless. And I want you just to notice, by the way, before you go on from verse 20, the word useless. See, there are a lot of people today who have faith, but James is saying if their faith will not save them, they are just wasting their breath. There’s no point of that. See, part of the value of a message like this is to save us from wasting our lives with faith that’s not going to save us.
It’s useless. There’s no point in that. So what can we learn from these examples of faith? First, Abraham, verse 21. Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar you see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.
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. You see, verse 24, that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. That verse has made a lot of people upset. A person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. Now, what’s James getting at here?
Well, work this through with me. What do we know about Abraham? Well, we know that he believed. Look at verse 23. We know that he believed.
Let’s start there to understand what’s written here. We know that Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That comes from Genesis 15:6, that statement. What did he believe at that point in time? Well, he believed God’s Word to him.
What was God’s Word to him? That he and Sarah in their old age were going to have a child. They were going to have the Son of Promise. And the day that God made that announcement, Abraham believed that, and his sin account, instead of any longer having written on it debt, debt, debt, debt of sin, was credited instead with righteousness. The book of Romans develops this whole concept that when a person comes to believe in God, place their faith in God through Jesus Christ, their sin account, which has a ledger of debt, is completely canceled, and instead now righteousness is written on that account.
Well, in that day that Abraham believed, Genesis 15:6, God credited his account with righteousness. His sins were forgiven.
He went on to live a life of faith, and he went on to— Abraham and Sarah went on to have a baby. The baby’s name was Isaac, and Isaac grew up, and about 20-some years went by. And 20 years after he was credited righteousness, Abraham’s faith was tested in a huge test. When God came to Abraham and he said, I want you to take your son, your only son, the son that you love, Isaac, and I want you to sacrifice him. So Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son because God had commanded him to do that.
And as he was about to sacrifice his son, Genesis 22 says, verse 12, that God spoke and said, do not lay a hand on the boy. 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. And then verse 18, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. Now what do you have there?
You have a demonstration of Abraham’s faith were his actions in obedience at a time where this just doesn’t make sense. I mean, this is my only son, and this is the one that God said that all nations would be blessed through. That just didn’t make any sense. But his actions in trusting God, even to the point of sacrificing his son, proved that he had faith. Having said that, then go back to verse 21, James 2:21.
It tells us that the day that Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar— in other words, he came to faith, Genesis 15. 20 years later, his faith is tested when he offered Isaac on the altar. And when he offered Isaac on the altar, his faith, he was considered righteous, and his faith, verse 22, was made complete. It was perfected. His faith grew.
His faith on the day that he almost offered Isaac translated into living faith. It wasn’t just saving faith, it was living faith. Let me say it differently. It went beyond belief. It It went beyond words to actions.
And his actions proved his justification. Verse 24, he was justified, or he was declared righteous, by his faith, yes, but also by his acts of faith. Listen, it’s not that his works saved him, it’s that his works proved his faith was real. It’s that his works proved he was saved. Now don’t miss the point.
Nobody is saved by works. You agree with that? Nobody is saved by works. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it’s the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. So nobody’s saved by faith.
Excuse me, by works. Let’s get this right. Nobody’s saved by works. We are saved by faith. Titus 3:5 says he saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness.
So we’re not saved by our deeds. But what James is pointing out here through Abraham is simply this: if we have the faith that saves, then that faith will translate itself into action.
Now, why is he bringing that up here? Because he’s writing to some Christians that had this Pentecostal experience. They had this mountaintop experience. Anybody here had a mountaintop experience in their life spiritually? Yeah, many of us have had that kind of an experience.
We can go back to a retreat center or something that happened to us where, wow, we made this incredible decision to be a person of faith. And we said we placed our faith in Jesus. Maybe it was at a crusade, whatever it was, but it was, it was a significant event in our life. Well, all of these that he’s writing to are these believers that have been scattered abroad. They were in Jerusalem evidently at the time when the church was born, and they had this incredible mountaintop experience, but now they are away from home.
And now as they are away from home, the proof of whether or not they are saved is going to show up or not.
Just like so oftentimes, and I think about this with students, and I think about this with college students who go away for the first time, and they get away from the home, and you hear about them, oh, they lost their faith. Well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe they never had faith.
Maybe it was just words. Maybe it was just intellectual belief. Maybe that’s all it was. Because if faith is genuine faith, it’s going to translate into actions even 20 years later. In fact, 20 years later, what’s going to happen is there’s going to be such a great faith then that you could even go so far as if God asked you to sacrifice your son, your only son, the son that you love, you would be— you would say, yes, I’ll do it, as an act of worship to him.
See, what this is expressing is a vertical love for God. If we love God, if we love him, we will obey him. We won’t just obey him when we had the experience of salvation, but that obedience will show up year after year after year after year, and our life will be changed by it.
That’s saving faith. Then he gives the example of Rahab, James 2:25. 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? This is an amazing story found in Joshua chapter 2. Don’t have time to set the whole context, but It’s an interesting story because it’s centered on a harlot.
I mean, can you imagine having a reputation like that your whole life? I mean, even here, as she’s mentioned, Rahab the harlot. Man, when am I going to get over this, you know, kind of thing? But the trajectory of her life, it changed. And it no doubt changed the day that God gave her an opportunity to provide shelter and safety for these spies that were being sent back into the land to check the land out before God’s people were to come back into the land of Israel.
And so she provided for these spies’ safety and shelter, and she even risked her life by covering for these spies as they escaped. Her belief followed by her actions— that’s what James is getting at here— her belief that there is a God followed by actions which validated her faith demonstrate, he says, the fact that her faith was genuine. It was more than nice words. It showed up in her actions, risky actions. Yet that was the right thing to do.
Some of you know exactly what this is like. You found yourself in experiences where for your faith it was risky. It was risky for you to go on record and announce you are a Christ follower. It was risky for you to go to Guatemala. It was risky for you to go to Club Das down in Mexico last year.
It was risky recently for Bernice and me when we helped a woman get out of harm’s way by going over to her apartment. And loading up our car with all of her possessions so that she could get away from a man who was harmful to her. We didn’t think it was going to be all that risky because at the beginning of the whole thing she told us that a police officer was going to give us an escort. Well, that never happened. And so here we are standing there and time was counting down and we’re thinking, what are we going to do?
Well, let’s just go. Sometimes faith is risky, but maybe not in, you know, crazy ways, but still it’s just risky. And the point that what, what he’s making here is, is that if we have genuine faith, it’s not going to only show up in our vertical relationship with God where we demonstrate love to him by obeying his commandments, but it’s going to show up in our horizontal relationship with each other, right? Where we show love to each other. And she demonstrated her love for God by loving these followers of God by providing shelter and safety for them, even though it was risky.
See, saving faith is validated by what you do. That’s what he’s saying. If you have saving faith, it’s more than nice words, it’s more than intellectual belief, it’s validated by what you do. So you come across a believer in Jesus Christ and they have a need, you don’t just say, oh, be warm, be filled, I’ll pray for you. No, you’re moved to action.
Your heart is moved to action as an expression of love for God, an expression of love for others. You willingly do his commands. See, this is the heart of this whole series in James. Faith does— faith translates into actions. We’ve already talked about some of those actions.
It translates into endurance and perseverance. In the midst of trial. It translates into purity where we resist temptation. It translates in obedience to God’s Word. It translates into impartiality where we allow for others’ differences and we extend mercy to them.
We’re going to see in the future how it’s going to translate into hope and our prayer life and our finances and matters of pride and humility and wisdom. It translates. So James concludes this little section this way, verse 26, as the body without the spirit is dead, So faith without deeds is dead. That’s it. The Message translation says it this way: The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse.
No more spirit. It’s a corpse there. Separate faith and works, you get the same thing— a corpse.
They go together. So the question we ask ourselves this morning is very simple. Do I have the faith that saves? Is my faith more than nice words? Is my faith more than intellectual belief?
Is my faith dead or alive? 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5 says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. And what James has done is he’s given us an examination. He’s, he’s given us a test.
And, and of course, the desire here is that all those that he’s writing to, and now us, would pass this test.
Is my faith more than nice words? Is there any indication of that at all? I was recently driving out of the fitness center parking lot And as I was driving out, I saw this man walking around in the parking lot. He’s wandering, and you could tell he’s looking for something. And so I kind of paused there for a minute, and I could still see he was wandering, and I thought, he can’t find his car.
So I started to leave the parking lot. Good Christian thing to do, right? This is oftentimes how it happens for me. Usually for me, I don’t like get it right away. I got to go about a block down first and then turn around, you know, after my conscience is really heavy with, shouldn’t you go back?
I thought you were a Christ follower. I mean, come on, pay attention here. What’s going on? That person has a need. You could probably do something.
So I came back in the parking lot and started doing laps in there, you know, looking up and down for him. Didn’t find him the first time. I said, oh good. He’s It’s not here. So then I started to leave, and there he was.
And I rolled down my window, and I said, hey, do you need some help? It looks like you’re looking for your car. Can you find it? He said, I can’t find it. I said, okay, get in.
So he got in the car. Now we’re doing laps together. I’m not telling you this is the best thing to do. I’m just telling you what I did, okay? He got in the car, and now we’re doing laps.
And we did 2 sets of laps through all these rows. He can’t find his car. And I’m thinking, you know, did you put your car in this lot? And as we’re circling, finally we come by a car and he said, that’s it. Good.
And I thought to myself, you know, not that I always get this right, but that was a right moment. Why? Because I paid attention to my heart. Isn’t that it? We’re not trying to do something that we’re not.
We’re just trying to do something that we are. And if we are, there’s gonna be something that clicks in our heart when we come by somebody who’s in need, whatever that need is. And you gotta be careful how you do this, but the point is, is that you’re gonna be moved to meet the need because our faith is more than nice, than nice words. Is my faith more than intellectual beliefs? I mean, is it just something we talk about?
I can still remember the day where I actually started giving to the church. I used to stand up on Sunday morning and tell people to give an offering, and I wasn’t giving one. Pretty hypocritical, right? And I remember thinking, this has got to change, and it began to change. Is my faith translated into appropriate actions?
You know, the worst thing would be at the end of this life to think when we get to heaven, I got a ticket in. Only to find out we never did. And what James is trying to prevent here is the ultimate shock from happening to any of us, and not just us who’s heard this message, who’ve seen these verses this morning, but to our friends and neighbors and families, others. That should not happen. It doesn’t have to happen among us.
We can have legitimate, genuine faith, and genuine faith is the faith that comes to believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and that faith begins then to transform our lives so that our lives match up with our faith. It’s more than words, it’s more than beliefs, it translates into actions. Let’s thank the Lord for that. Father, thank you for this passage this morning that causes us all to just pause and to reflect. Am I a person who will be saved because I have the right kind of faith?
My prayer would be that if there’s anybody here right now that have never come to the place where they’ve truly embraced you, I pray that they would even now, in Jesus’ name, I pray that they would receive Christ as their Savior genuinely from their heart, want to become one of his children, one of his followers, and their life would begin to change. And those of us who are your followers, Lord, may it continue to be translated into our life in such ways that our lives show more and more of the love that we have for you and others. In Jesus’ name, amen. Well, let’s continue to worship as we conclude our service this morning. And as we bring our service to a conclusion, we want to say to you, if we can in any way minister to you, be an encouragement to you, stick around after the service.
I, as well as one of our deaconesses, will be over here on this side to pray with you. We’d love to pray with you, talk to you further about the message this morning, or just what God’s doing in your life, if we could be an encouragement.
