Chronos: James #5 Series

A few weeks ago, we started a year-long journey chronological study of the New Testament today. Hence the reason we are calling this message series Chronos. It's a word that means “time.” We will be journeying through time back to the start of the early church. We will be doing this by walking through the books of James, Thessalonians, Galatians and Corinthians. We will take a few detours along the way for the major Christian holidays. However, we will be opening up our bibles each week to unpack the scriptures as they were present in the early church.

We start with the book of James because it is the earliest writing determined by present day scholarly dating.

It is the first book or letter written to this new ‘church’ or gathering.

It was written by Jesus to his first half brother, James.

It was written to the messianic Jews who had come to believe Jesus was the Messiah and those first followers who weren't Jewish called Gentiles who had become aware of and believed in Jesus.

It was written to the first bad actors and their practices that were stunting the movement’s growth.

Jennifer last week did a good job of challenging us to look within ourselves at our own prejudices. It’s never easy to point out spiritual blind spots while being convicted of our own at the same time. This week we will continue the journey by diving back into James.

We live in a day when in many cities Christianity is losing its place of respect and influence. While many church members are quick to say they are people of faith, the world shouts back with a nagging question, “What good is it?” Because the Christianity has lost its voice in so many communities, our whole nation is involved in an ethical dilemma.

Ethical paradoxes or moral dilemmas, are situations in which an idea stands under two (or more) conflicting moral requirements, none of which overrides the other.

The conflict between faith and works is just such a paradox and is as old as faith itself. The whole argument revolves around the question: can one person have faith without actually bringing a little heaven to earth? James reveals to us that a faith without fruit is false, futile, and fatal.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

By asking, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?” James is laying the groundwork to answer a question coming from within the new church plant. Just as we learned last week we all have biases and somebody or a group of somebody’s judging whether or not you can be a Christian just because you claim to. James makes it clear when he writes about a man who “claims to have faith.” Then James rhetorically asks, “Can such faith save him?” The answer to the big question of the day is that a saving faith is never one that is just a statement said once or repeated in worship but a witness to personal transformation that could not happen without a major shift from self to unselfish.

Lawyers and judges will be quick to tell you they look for evidence- cold hard facts. The key to understanding this paragraph is to understand James is not talking about a faith with works but a faith that works!

INSERT: Personal story of person who does good for their own benefit

Faith with “works” is a sign of an unhealthy relationship. Healthy relationships do not include manipulation in any form. They especially do not include actions done out of guilt, ingratiation, deceit, love bombing, gaslighting, threats or silent treatments. In a healthy relationship we act out of our desire to return the love continuously given.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

At first James 2:18 appears to contradict Paul’s statement in Romans 3:28 when he says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” In reality, they are complementing one another, not contradicting one another. When we examine these statements in context we find that James and Paul arrived at the same point with a different emphasis.