James 2: 17
Sermon – Faith without works is dead
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth …..
What do we have to do to get to Heaven?
– FAITH.
As the writer of Hebrews put it in chapter 11 verse 6:
“Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God”.
What is FAITH?
To Christians FAITH is more than saying we believe in something,
like the Loch Ness Monster, or the existence of Flying saucers,
faith means taking God at His word and trusting Him
to meet all our needs, for today, for tomorrow, and throughout eternity.
In Ephesians 6:16 St Paul describes FAITH as a SHIELD
with which we defend ourselves against the flaming missiles of the Evil One.
In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 – FAITH is described as
the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction that things exist even though they
cannot be seen with our physical eyes,
or smelled or touched.
Christian faith is different from faith or trust in a person or thing,
because it concerns where we will spend eternity.
Christian faith is the belief that Jesus Christ is the Messiah,
the Christ, the Son of God,
who was born a human, taught God’s word, performed miracles and signs,
died for our sins and rose from the dead.
This ties in with the words Jesus said in John 3:16 “For God so loved ….
that whosoever believe, will not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Having faith does not mean that life will be a bed of roses,
but that all things, good or bad, will work out well for those who love the Lord.
How do we get this FAITH?
According to Romans 10:17 it comes by hearing the Word of God,
and this is why Christians are commanded to spread it,
because if the Gospel is not preached
then how will anyone hear it
and how else will they ever come to Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.
How important, then, is FAITH?
John 3:36 says we cannot be saved without it
Romans 5:1 says we cannot have peace with God without it
Romans 10:1-4 says we are made righteous by it
James 1:6 says we cannot pray without it
1 Peter 1:8 says we cannot have joy without it
1 John 5:4 says we cannot live a victorious life without it.
And James said in his Letter that if a person’s FAITH is real and live,
it was not to be an abstract, invisible, personal thing,
it has to be shown in our lives and actions.
So, if faith without works is DEAD,
how do we show we have a FAITH that is ALIVE?
By doing good works, by practicing what we preach,
and by putting into effect Jesus’ command to
“love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength,
and loving our neighbour as ourselves”.
But it is important to remember that we DO NOT do good works to get saved and earn God’s love,
we do good because we are saved and want to pass on or show God’s love.
This is a very important point and makes Protestant Christianity
different from every other religion.
Hindus believe in reincarnation, and are supposed to be good,
so that when they die they will die with a good Karma,
so they will be reborn in a higher form,
because if they die with a bad Karma, they will be ‘demoted’
and reborn as an animal.
Jews must keep the Law contained in the Torah;
not only the Ten Commandments but the whole 613 laws and rules
because they believe the teaching in the Old Testament
that says to deliberately break one law
is the same as breaking them all,
which would mean they would not spend eternity with God.
They must pray 3 times every day in the direction of Jerusalem,
and ask God every year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement
to forgive them for all the sins they have committed in the last 12 months.
Muslims believe that they are watched every second by two angels
who keep a record of their good and bad deeds, words and even thoughts.
Muslims must pray five times every day
and they must pray in Arabic when they do it.
They must memorise the Qur’an or as much of it as they can.
They must fast from all food and drink during daylight
for the 28 days of the month of Ramadan.
They must give 1/40th of their wealth to charity,
and they must go on a pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca once in their lives,
and they must hate Jews and Christians,
or else they will not be allowed to enter Paradise.
Roman Catholics must go to Mass, must confess their sins to a priest
and say the Rosary to Mary, to atone for their sins,
or they will go to Purgatory for a length of time, when they die,
unless their good works outweigh their bad.
They believe Jesus only died to open the gates of Heaven,
not to take the punishment for every sin.
Jehovah’s Witnesses must sell a certain number of ‘Watchtower’ magazines
or they will not be counted among the 144,000 ‘Elect’
who will rule with Jesus following the Battle of Armageddon.
Mormons must not drink tea or coffee, and must give a tithe of their money
to their church or they will not be counted as true ‘Latter Day Saints’.
Now there is nothing wrong with doing good things,
we should obey the Ten Commandments,
and we should love our neighbour,
and we should give to charity,
and pray regularly,
and faithfully attend our local church,
and we should share our faith.
BUT we do these things,
because BY GOD’S GRACE, AND BY FAITH
we are going to heaven.
We don’t do good things in order to get there.
What James was getting at in his Letter is this –
that we should do good works, but NOT because we have to,
as people under the Law,
but because we want to,
because we’re under Grace.
What works have Christians done because of their FAITH?
Saints like Ninian and Columba sailed in small boats to Scotland and the islands
to bring the gospel to heathen Picts and Scots,
risking drowning to get here, and death by the sword when they arrived.
By faith Martin Luther made his famous STAND
against 1,500 years of church tradition, politics and corruption.
Elizabeth Fry brought about prison reform.
Dr Barnardo set up orphanages for homeless children.
William Booth set up homes and workshops for homeless adults.
Father Damian set up a leper colony on the island of Molokai near Hawaii.
John Newton worked for the abolition of slavery.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer helped Jews in Nazi Germany.
Martin Luther King agitated for civil rights for Black Americans.
Mother Teresa worked with lepers and the destitute in Calcutta.
Some in this church have ran races to raise money for charities.
There is so much that needs to be done,
And there are many, thank God, who are doing it,
Working out their FAITH, by doing GOOD WORKS.
But we don’t have to do good things in order to earn the love of God,
to buy a place in Heaven,
because through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross,
we already have it.
If we had to earn our way to heaven, we few could afford it.
If we had to do good works to earn eternal life,
how could we ever know that we done enough,
and as it says in Ephesians 2,
it would result in people boasting of how much good they had done.
I’d like to close with a story.
One day a man was walking his dog along a beach
and he noticed a boy going ahead of him along the seashore.
There were hundreds if not thousands of starfish that had been washed up.
The boy bent down and picked one up and threw it into the sea,
then another, then another.
The man caught up with him and asked the boy what he was doing.
I’m saving the lives of these starfish because if they are still here
when the sun starts to heat up the beach, they’ll die.
But you can’t save all of them, the man said,
there’s too many, you can’t make any difference.
Well, I can make a difference to this one, the boy said,
and he threw the starfish in his hand into the water.
The problems of the world, of East Kilbride, the street where we live,
our family, our workplace,
might be pictured or imagined as a large bucket.
We might only be able to put one drop of GOOD WORK into the bucket,
but if we were all to put in even ONE DROP,
one day that that bucket might be full.
As you know I am now in the 3rd and final year of my Westfield House study programme,
and it just happens that I have been reading the Formula of Concord in some depth.
The Epitome, Article 4, is about Good Works,
and makes the following point, I quote:
‘Good works, like fruits of a good tree, certainly and indubitably follow genuine faith – if it is a living and not a dead faith’, and
‘We believe, teach, and confess further that all men, but especially those who are regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit, are obligated to do good works’
and that even though ‘good works are not strictly necessary for salvation,
no one in whom the Holy Spirit indwells will deliberately fail to do them’.
The message for today is that we should practice what we preach,
do good, and love our neighbours;
read our bibles and pray;
give as much as we can afford to God’s church,
and share our faith as often and as clearly as we can.
‘Faith without works is dead’ wrote James,
so let us show God and show those around us
that our faith is very much alive.
I think this is what St Francis of Assisi meant when he said
“Preach the gospel, and use words if must”.
Amen and the peace .............................
