TELL AND SHOW
James 2:14-
Two country fellows that met on a back road one afternoon. One had a possum-hunting dog with him. The other said, “How much will you take for that dog?” The owner said he would take $100 for it. The other fellow pulled out his checkbook and wrote him a check. The owner shook his head and said he would not take a check. The fellow said, “The checks good. I’m a trustee in the Methodist Church.” The owner took the check and handed him the dog. A little later he was talking to a friend and asked him what a trustee in a Methodist Church was.” The friend said, “I’m not sure, but I think it is something like being a deacon in a Baptist Church.” The fellow said, “Ah, shucks, there goes my dog.”
In these 13 verses James speaks of faith and works 13 times. He speaks of a real faith and a revealed faith. He speaks of a false faith and a fruitless faith. He speaks of the difference between a profession and a possession. He speaks of one that says he has faith and one that shows he has faith.
Favorite cookbook. Find the recipe to your favorite dish in there. Now read it. Doesn’t do much for you, does it? It doesn’t do much for you, because all you’re looking at is the facts of the recipe. And facts don’t make your mouth water. But wait till she starts cooking it. Then your mouth will water. That’s what James does in this passage. His point is really a very simple one. It’s as simple as reading a recipe card.
Which old adage offers the best council about life in general?
A. “Look before you leap.”
B. “He who hesitates is lost.”
Raise your hand for the one you think is in general the best choice for a philosophy to live your life by. Two exactly opposite adages, yet it really does depend. There is some tension between these two ideals.
Martin Luther rejected the book of James calling it a “right strawy epistle.” Luther felt James taught that man was saved by faith and works. He simply misunderstood what James was saying. Luther believed and taught the very thing that James is saying.“Yea, it is impossible to separate works from faith, as impossible to separate burning and shining from fire.” James is not saying that works is the path but rather the proof and product of salvation. James declares that the absence of works is very revealing.
DEAD FAITH
A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION: 14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
George Barna found that most Americans believe that salvation is an outcome to be earned through their good character or behavior. 57 % believe that “if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their lives, they will earn a place in heaven."
Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
SPURGEON: The grace that does not change my life cannot save my soul
LITE CHURCH: 24% less commitment-5% tithe-15 min sermon-45 min service-8 commandments-3 spiritual laws- everything only less
Greek scholar A.T. Robertson says that in the case of both questions, the expected answer is a negative one. The grammatical form of the questions calls for a negative answer.
In the Greek there is the definite article “that” which means that James is asking, “Can that kind of faith save him?” What kind of faith? It is the kind of faith that has no works. Can that kind of faith save a person? The answer is absolutely not.
John Calvin said, “It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies is never alone.”
AN IMPORTANT EXAMPLE: 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," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
I John 3:17-18 “But whoso hath this world’s good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”
give them what is necessary MAN ON 11th STREET
17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
A young boy, on an errand for his mother, had just bought a dozen eggs. Walking out of the store, he tripped and dropped the sack. All the eggs broke, and the sidewalk was a mess. The boy tried not to cry. A few people gathered to see if he was OK and to tell him how sorry they were. In the midst of the works of pity, one man handed the boy a quarter. Then he turned to the group and said, "I care 25 cents worth. How much do the rest of you care?"
Words don’t mean much if we have the ability to do more
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."
DEMONIC FAITH 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
1. James say you are no better than a demon when you believe but don’t act.
Shudder – hair on back of neck bristle/high degree of terror
Jesus was confronted with man of Gadara that was possessed with demons.
The demons in him cried out when they saw Jesus, “And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God?” (Mark 5:7).
20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
Foolish – hollow, life built on emptiness
Useless – barren, w/o interest
DYNAMIC FAITH: 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
1. James uses the Father of Faith as his illustration
Hebrews 11, “by faith” uses 18 times in 31 vs
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 RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God. SEE THREE THINGS ABOUT WORK & FAITH
1. Works justifies or proves the genuiness of our faith.
2. Faith is perfected or made what it was meant to be by our acting upon it
3. Faith with works is the root of our relationship with God. FRIEND
The place to know God is in the arena of active faith.
24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
Luther just rolled over with that one
25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 1. The opposite end of the spectrum from Abraham might be the harlot Rahab.
No respecter of person. Also God’s friend.
26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
In the Christian life faith and works go together like inhaling and exhaling. Faith is taking the Gospel in; works is taking the Gospel out.” -Billy Graham
Some years back the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong died. When he did some of the Chinese leadership was afraid of what would happen to this nation without their legendary leader.
They called in his personal doctor, Dr Li Zhisui to do an impossible task. They wanted the body permanently preserved. The doctor didn’t want to do it. He had seen the dried up shrunken remains of Lenin & Stalin in USSR.
Twenty-two liters of formaldehyde were pumped into the dead chairman’s body.
The result was horrifying. Mao’s face swelled up like a ball, and his neck was as thick as his head. The pressure of the fluid in his body caused his ears to stick out at right angles and the chemical oozed from his pores.
A team of embalmers worked 5 hours with towels and cotton balls to force the liquids down into the body. Chest was so swollen that the jacket had to be slit in the back and his swollen body was covered with the red Communist Party flag.
There is absolutely nothing natural about a dead body. You can put make-up on them. You can fix their hair and dress them up in the best clothes money can buy, but there is something unnatural about a body with no life.
I have also seen people who had dead faith try to give the appearance of life. They go to church a few times. Place a Bible on the coffee table and dust it off every once in a while. But there is nothing natural about a faith that doesn’t affect the way you live.
Let me give you a couple of ways to check your spiritual vital signs. OTHERS?
1. How do you feel about worship? Is it a priority with you, or is it an insignificant ritual that you just go through because you know you should?
2. What kind of thoughts and goals do you have for life? When you think about the things you would like to do for the next year, 5, 10, are you at the center, or are other people and God in the middle?
3. How often do you study the Bible? Is it something that gets no attention in your life, or are you actively pursuing a greater knowledge of God and his will for your life? 4. How do you minister to the lives of other?
The church is too often populated with Spiritual Zombies who know nothing about what it means to be excited and challenged by the joy of dynamic faith. People outside the church see things that keep them from wanting to become a part of what they view as a sanctified costume party where people dress up and talk like they have faith, but they don’t do anything that looks like Jesus.
When Jesus called out to the men that he had chosen to be his disciples, he said, “Come, follow me.” “Sure Jesus, I’ll follow you!” and then gone about their daily routine, completely unchanged. If that had been the case, that kind of lip service would have been what James terms “dead faith.”
But instead of that kind of empty profession of faith, the disciples walked with Jesus daily, wherever he went. They learned from Him, grew in their knowledge of Him, and sought to obey Him every day. As a result of their faith they were even willing to die instead of renounce Him.
