Is Your Faith For Real?
James 2:14-26
6-8-08
Intro
Text: James 2:14-26
James opens this discussion with two rhetorical questions in verse 14,
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?” or more accurately the NIV asks, “Can SUCH faith save him?” In the Greek there is an article before faith. James is confronting a kind of faith that does not end in salvation. On the surface it may look like James is comparing faith and works. But in reality he is contrasting superficial faith that is not the real deal verse saving faith, biblical faith. Is my faith the kind of faith that pleases God and ultimately saves my soul? Or is it a faith that looks similar to real faith on the surface, but in the final analysis is inadequate and ineffectual?
James has already introduced the alarming possibility of a person in the congregation thinking he or she is a Christian on the way to heaven, when in reality there has never been a conversion—the person has never really committed his or her life to Christ. In Chapter 1: 22 James addresses the very real danger of self-deception. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Deceiving yourselves—how does that happen? It happens when at a superficial level truth is assented to; but somehow that truth never changes the basic direction of the person’s life.
The philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, tells the story of a make-believe country in which only ducks live. "One Sunday morning all the ducks came into the church, waddled down the aisle and into their pews, and squatted. Then the duck minister took his place behind the pulpit, opened the duck Bible and read, ’Ducks! You have wings, and with wings you can fly like eagles. You can soar into the sky! Use your wings!’ All the ducks yelled ’Amen!’ and they all waddled home." That’s the kind of hearing that goes on every Sunday morning in multitudes of congregation across America. The self-deception crosses denominational lines. It happens to young people and it happens to old people. People encountering truth but responding to it in a way that never changes them--James asks, “Can such faith save him?”
Look with me at James’ description of this anemic, ineffectual faith that offers false hope and ultimately damns the soul.
It claims to be a disciple of Christ (it makes a profession of faith) but the person’s lifestyle is not consistent with the profession.
In John 15:14 Jesus said to his followers, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” He asked the question in Luke 6:46 "But why do you call Me ’Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” There is a kind of faith that says all the right things, calls Jesus Lord, goes to church, runs with the right crowd but when it comes right down to doing the will of God it just doesn’t happen. There are people in churches everywhere who live openly in immorality and think it doesn’t matter. There are church people who gather on Sunday mornings and say a lot of amens—like the ducks in Kierdegaard’s story, they agree with the Scripture and the preaching. Then they waddle out of the church just like they waddled in. “Pure and undefiled religion...,” says James “is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). The lifestyle reflects the reality of the faith.
In verse 15 & 16 of our text James illustrates his point.
“If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” So you’re aware that a brother or sister is in serious need. At one level you care. Isn’t it a shame the hard time brother so and so is going through, I hate to see that happening. It all sounds pretty nice; but in reality you have done nothing to help that person. It’s all talk and no walk. The conversation ends with nice platitudes and pretty words, “Well I hope things get better for you. See you later.” The expression, “go in peace” is a Jewish expression for good-by which wishes the person well. The expression be warmed is either in the middle or passive tense. So it either means warm yourself or hopefully someone will warm you.
There is a profound fundamental difference between the carnal, unregenerated person and a new creature in Christ. What is that fundamental difference? Is it church membership? No. Is it orthodox doctrine? No. Is it saying all the flowery, churchy things? No. The fundamental issue is love verses selfishness. Love responds with compassion from the heart and does something practical to help the other person. It’s not just a sentimental feeling. It’s faith in action. Selfishness sacrifices nothing for the other person. It doesn’t mind saying nice things. That may even make the selfish person feel a little better. But it’s all part of the self-deception. If I say nice things then I’ve done my duty. Not according to James and not according to the Apostle John. 1 John 3:16-18 “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
Genuine faith is manifest in what we do! 1 John 3:7 “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” Both James and John were dealing with a serious misunderstanding of Christianity that also exists in the church today. It is called antinomianism. It twists the doctrine of justification by faith to mean something like this. “I’m saved by faith—not works. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what my works are since Jesus has given me salvation. I am on my way to heaven because of what Jesus did on the cross. So don’t press me about how I should live. Don’t tell me what I should be doing for the Christian community. I’m saved and I will live my life however I want to.” That kind of thinking has an element of truth in it. It also has enough self-deception in it to ultimately damn a person. A professed faith that does not express itself in godly, unselfish living is worthless according to James. Look at verse 17 in our text, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
So how do we know whether a person’s faith is a saving faith or just a superficial belief in God that has not really resulted in a change of heart? We only know it by the way that person lives. Where there is smoke there is fire. We may not see the fire itself; but the smoke shows us that there is a fire. James 2:18. “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” It is impossible for us to show our faith without the expression of our works. Faith is an abstract, invisible thing. Some have likened it to the wind. You can’t see the wind itself. The way we know the wind is there is by observing it affect on other things. I see the branches of trees bouncing back and forth. I feel the pressure of the wind on my skin. That wind is affecting things and it’s possible to know whether it is there. But we know it by it’s affect on other things. Real, biblical faith will cause people to obey the commandments of the Lord, to love in deed as well as in word.
Jesus taught this in Matt 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me,’Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ’Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ’I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Just doing my own thing—even if it’s religious—even if it seems real spiritual—is not adequate. I must do the will of the Father. I must live in obedience to God. I am not at liberty to just live my life for myself or live it any way I please. I am bought with a price. I belong to the Lord and I do what He tells me to do. I know a lot about how I’m supposed to live simply by reading the Bible. He convicts me and directs me personally. When that happens I can shrug it off, justify my own desires, maybe even attribute those desires to God—or—I can do what He tells me to do.
James transitions into our text with these words in verses 12 & 13, “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” The law of liberty is the law of love. I am liberated by Christ to love God and love my neighbor. His divine life is available to me to operate out of that love. But James is trying to wake up some apathetic, self-deceived people in the church. He’s saying, “Live like people who will one day stand before God at the Judgment Seat of Christ and give account for the deeds done in this body. Take this seriously because it is serious business.”
A few years ago an evangelist wrote a book about this very subject. In his book he shares a vision God gave him concerning the deception many people live in concerning their relationship with God. Are there people in churches today who think they are saved because they said a quick prayer—they walked through an external, evangelical ritual? But their heart was never transformed by the grace of God. The author of that book is a part of this congregation. Dave Turner wrote that book in deep concern for deceived people. The book is called Message in the Night.
Is your faith the real deal or is it a surface faith that has left you fundamentally unchanged? In the Parable of the Sower Jesus described four kinds of soil. Only one out of four represented those with saving faith. The other three did not prove to be adequate for salvation. Some of the seed which represents the word of God fell by the wayside. These are people who hear the word; they may even agree with that word; but the truth is lost before it is ever applied to their lives. Another group is represented by rocky, shallow soil. The word is embraced and the person even begins to live the Christian life. But when trials, hardship, temptations come that person decides to back off on his commitment and live as he did before. The other group is represented by ground full of weeds and thorns. The person meant well but the cares of life choked out their commitment to Christ. Instead of doing the will of God and serving others, that person is occupied with taking care of himself. How many American church attendees fit that category? They are good people and have good intentions. But the bottom line is this—almost all their energy and financial resources are consumed upon themselves and their own family. Only one group out of the four in the Parable of the Sower produced fruit for the kingdom of God.
Some people think there is a contradiction between what Paul says about justification by faith and what James is saying in our text. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are dealing with the same subject from two different angles. They are ultimately saying the same thing.
Paul is talking about the source of justification, the source of our salvation. It is a gift from God. No one can earn it. It’s not a result of works but of God’s grace. Rom 3:28 “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.” Justified means make right before God. The only way I can be made right with God is to turn to God, throw myself upon His mercy, ask forgiveness of my sin based upon what Jesus did on the cross, and commit myself to the Risen Christ as my Lord and Savior. When I do that in sincerity, from the heart, I receive the gift of eternal life. Paul hammers that truth to people who think they have to earn their way to heaven. Paul is dealing with the root of the matter.
James is addressing people who have decided that they can receive God’s gift of eternal salvation and then just live selfishly without consequence. Their argument is “I received Christ—I received His gift of eternal life, now get off my back. I don’t have to work to please God; I’m saved by the grace of God and it doesn’t matter how I live.” James is saying, “It matters a lot how you live, because the way you live reveals whether you received the real deal in the first place.” Was your experience just a mental ascent to truth or did that truth grip your soul and transform your life? Was the Christianity you received just a superficial add-on to your selfish life or did it utterly change your values and orientation in life?
How do I know that you’re really saved? The only thing I can do is inspect the fruit. If the tree is bearing fruit it must be a fruit tree. If it’s bearing no fruit, maybe it’s not a fruit tree. Matt 7:17-20 “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
So when Paul talks about justification by faith he is referring to the root of the matter. Faith in Christ is source of righteousness. Righteousness is given to those who receive it by faith. James is looking at the fruit of that and saying from my perspective I have to see works that are produced by that faith. A so called faith that does not produce good works in a person’s life is not a saving faith.
We see both truths in Eph 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We are not just saved from hell but for good works. The real Christian will bear fruit of repentance. The real Christian will live different from the world and will do the right thing—not just talk about it.
James 2:18 “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You can’t show me your faith without your works. That’s impossible. God can see it but man cannot. Your faith and my faith are revealed by our deeds.
In reality all our actions are a result of what we really believe. If I really believe that Jesus is Lord and one day I will give account for every idle word—then I will watch my words carefully. But if deep down I don’t believe that then I’m not going to be as concerned about what I say about somebody. If I really believe there is poison in my food, I won’t eat that food. My unwillingness to eat the food demonstrates what I believe. Our actions are a reflection of what we truly believe.
The problem is we console ourselves with generalities. If I asked this morning, “How many believe we should put God first in our lives” I suspect everyone would raise their hand in agreement. But when we get our paycheck, what is the first check we write? Is it our tithe check? Is my first thought when I get paid, “Praise God, I have something to contribute to His work? I can tell myself I believe in putting God first. I deceive myself with a nice, abstract belief in general. But when it comes down to action I give God the leftovers. In the specifics, where the rubber meets the road, I do not live consistent with the generalities I profess.
Over and over James reminds us in this text, “Faith without works is dead.” There’s no life in it and it is useless. Accepting truth at a superficial level is inadequate for salvation. That truth has to penetrate our hearts deep enough that we change the way we live. James says even demons have a certain kind of superficial faith. They believe there is only one God. They acknowledge that truth. But they do not repent of their rebellion against God. Their response to truth is characterized by James in verse 9, “You believe that there is one God . You do well. Even the demons believe -- and tremble!” The truth terrorizes them. But it does not produce a change of heart.
In contrast to dead, ineffectual faith James gives two examples of living, faith that produces salvation.
First, he refers to Abraham’s obedience to God when he offered Isaac on the altar at Mt. Moriah. The story is told in Genesis 22 and begins with these words, “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham....” Is James speaking to people whose faith is being tested? Yes, we learned that in the first chapter. The test brings out the true character of the metal. If we heat metal enough we will expose its true nature. Abraham endured the test. Abraham passed the test. By his works of obedience he demonstrated that his faith in God was for real. The sincerity of your faith is not revealed in the easy times; it’s revealed in the furnace of affliction. The sincerity of your faith is not revealed when people are giving to you; it’s revealed when you’re called upon to give to others. Faith is revealed when God tells us to do something we would not otherwise choose to do. If we are simply living our lives selfishly and doing whatever we want to do with our time and money, there’s no demonstration of faith in that. Even the world lives that way. But if I see a need among the community of believers and instead of investing my time or money in what I want, instead I meet the need—then faith is being expressed.
The whole book of James could be viewed as an exposition of what real faith is all about. Like 1John the whole epistle gives tests that reveal the true nature of our faith. In chapter one there is the test of enduring a trial, resisting temptation. . There is the test of how we respond to the word. Do we obey it or are we hearers only. There is the test of how we treat orphans and widows and whether we remain unspotted from the world. In chapter 2 there is the test of how we treat rich people and poor people and how we respond to the needs of others. Chapter 3 will talk about how we use our tongues and what kind of wisdom we exercise in our relations with others. Chapter 4 will deal with our attitudes toward the world and toward one another. Chapter 5 will talk about our prayer life. All these areas reveal what’s inside. If I have faith I will pray, I will expect God to help me with my needs. Real faith behaves in certain ways.
Abraham obeyed God when it looked like it would cost him everything if God didn’t work a miracle. Abraham’s life bore the fruit of obedience. In Romans 4 Paul deals with the root of Abraham’s faith. Rom 4:1-5 “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.” Paul is examining the origin of Abraham’s righteousness. When God told him to leave Ur, he believed God. What was the evidence of that? He went where God told him to go. When he was 99 years old God told him his offspring would be like the sand of the see and the stars of heaven. Abraham took God at his word. God declared him righteous as a believer. Righteousness is given by God to those who receive it by faith—that’s the root. The righteousness received from God bears fruit in our lives—that’s obedient action.
The picture of righteousness that James gives is a man named Abraham who trusts God so much he obeys when nothing makes sense to him. It makes no sense for God to tell me to sacrifice Isaac when God has clearly said that is the one who will bear my offspring and fulfill the promise that I have lived for. But if I obey God He is able to even raise him from the dead if necessary in order to fulfill his promise to me. The evidence of Abraham’s faith is his obedience. It was not just what was going on inside of him; it was what he physically did.
James says the same thing about his second example, Rahab. He identifies her as “the harlot.” This woman could have never earned salvation; she was a whore. James is not saying her life was so nice that she was righteous. No, she was saved by grace and God declared her righteous because of her faith. Of course, that is true of all of us. But James says the faith in her caused her to take the right action. She didn’t just say to godly spies be warmed and fed, go in peace. She risked her own life to save them. She so believed that the God of Israel was the one true God that she received the messengers and helped them escape. The end result of her faith was righteous deeds. In Matthew 1:5 we find her in the linage of Christ. She is the mother of Boaz who married Ruth. Their son was Obed, King David’s grandfather.
Abraham and Rahab were two very different people. They had different backgrounds and lived in a different context. But they had this in common. Both demonstrated the authenticity of their faith by what they did. Genuine faith will always result in godly action. A faith that produces no good works is a sham; it is not a saving faith. James closes this chapter in verse 26 by reiterating the necessity of works as evidence of true faith. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” A body with no spirit is dead. You put a mirror to the mouth and there is no breath. You know its dead. Faith without works is a dead faith. There is no life in it and there is no value in it. It’s good for nothing.
So James brings everyone of us face to face with a significant eternal issue. Is the faith that I profess a saving faith? Is it going to stand up on Judgment Day as the real thing? How do I know it’s the real deal? According to James I can only know it by my lifestyle—by the way I live. I would not want to risk my eternal destiny on some half-baked theory that in the end it isn’t going to matter how I lived. There is too much at risk for anyone to think that way. Nothing would be more tragic for me as a pastor than to smooth talk this congregation, only to discover in the final judgment some of you were not saved. I have no way of measuring that except by your works. You have no way of measuring that in me except by my works. Knowing the danger of self-deception, it is imperative that we all examine our own lives to make sure we are in the faith. Paul, the great proponent of justification by faith closed his 2nd epistle to the Corinthians saying, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? -- unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Cor 13:5). If you’re not sure let us pray with you until you are sure. God’s will for every person in this house is that we be saved—that our faith be real and that we stand justified before Him in the final judgment.
Invitation
For Footnotes/ sources go to www.crossroadsnixa.org
Richard Tow
Gateway Foursquare Church
Nixa, Missouri
www.GatewayNixa.org
TEXT: James 2:14-26
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe -- and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. NKJV
