Saving Faith • James 2:14-26
Teaching begins 22:01
Notes
Ever since he began his letter James has been talking about faith.
Today he speaks about faith that saves. That’s the faith you want. What use is a faith that doesn’t save?
Some people want a faith that doesn’t save because it makes no demand on your life. It’s easy. I believe this and this and this. Lovely. Who cares?
The faith that saves is not easy because it makes demands on your life to respond in a visible, useful, costly way. Anything less is invisible, powerless, insensitive, dead.
Only faith in Jesus that is put into practice saves. We’re reading in James 2 from verse 14.
1. Faith is useful because it produces good works.
A. You have to ask, what are works? They are the results of believing in Jesus.
1. Faith begins by hearing the word of God. This is what God says, this is what He is saying to you. You believe that it is God speaking, and because it is God speaking, you respond to that word with obedience. You do what God says to do.
2. So it begins with the gospel and our response to it. Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again from the dead. He is coming to judge the earth in righteousness. The response to this word of God is that we are to turn from our own way, receive Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, and flee from the wrath to come.
3. And then we are to be doing what God wants, not what we want. James has just talked about the royal law of liberty, Matthew 7:12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. It’s because we believe the word of God that we do things.
B. Here’s a situation: a fellow believer is without clothing and daily food. Paul says in Galatians 6:10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
C. This is useful to everybody involved.
1. Obviously this relieves the immediate physical suffering of cold and hunger. It relieves the mental suffering of shame and worry.
2. But it is also useful for the one who gives. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about the offering he was collecting for the poor believers in Jerusalem. He says, 2 Corinthians 8:13-14 For this is not for the ease of others and for your affliction, but by way of equality— at this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality. What abundance did poor believers in Jerusalem have? What was the need of the Corinthian church? They had a spiritual need to lay up treasures in heaven. The poor believers in Jerusalem had a supply of opportunity for the need of the Corinthians.
3. You meet their need, they meet your need. That works out great for everybody. Everybody wins through faith in Jesus being applied practically.
D. Doing nothing is of no value to anyone.
1. The believer keeps on suffering.
2. You keep your money or clothing and food, and you use it eventually, but you miss on opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven. What will be waiting for you when you get there?
E. James asks this uncomfortable question: can that kind of faith save you? The expected answer is “no”.
F. Faith is useful to everybody, to others and to myself.
2. Faith is alive.
A. I looked up the word “dead”. It means, inactive, unresponsive to stimuli, non-operational, inert, idle, unproductive. Where there is no action, no response, that’s death.
B. Faith is alive, active, it does something in response to changes in the environment, effective, it does something.
3. Works apart from faith are dead, too.
A. Here’s an objection to what James is saying. Someone is going to say, “You have faith and I have works,” as if you could separate works from faith and these are standalone concepts.
1. Well, James, you’re one of those religious guys. You pray a lot and you study your Bible and you think about theology.
2. I’m not a book-kind of guy, I’m a doer. Listen to me, padre, I’ll lay the bricks to build and I’ll shoot the guns to protect you. You keep outa my way and just pray for me.
B. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you can do good things to be saved. Doing good things are not a replacement for depending on what Jesus did to save you. You can’t come to God and say, “Well, I did this and this and this good thing. I hope you recognise the value of these things and accept me.” All our good works are like filthy rags before God. They don’t count.
C. All these works that we do so that God accepts us are called in Hebrews 6:1 dead works.
D. So there is no separation of faith and works. Faith is primary, works come as a result of faith. Because I believe, therefore I do.
4. Faith is visible. You can see faith, and you must be able to see faith.
A. James’ response to this separation of faith and works is, show me your faith without works. Let me see your faith. Without something to show, faith is invisible. And an invisible faith is like no faith at all.
B. We have a number of invisible things to deal with here.
1. We believe in a God whom we read about. But we have never seen Him.
2. We believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the dead. We’ve never seen any of that.
C. The proof of these invisible things is your life. Your life changes when Jesus comes to live in you.
1. You believe that your sins were judged on Jesus. Therefore there is no more condemnation for you. You are in Christ and when He comes again you are going to be transformed into His image. You will be immortal and glorious. The visible work you do is you are happy. Anybody can see that nothing gets you down. You have hope. You can see that. You’re not faking it to look like you’re really somebody. You have a genuine joy and hope.
2. More than that, you stick up for people, share your belongings with them, help people in trouble, you love people all around you. You persevere even when people oppose you, slander you. You talk about Jesus even when people don’t want to hear. You do good things, and when somebody says what a good person you are, you say, “It’s not me, it’s Christ in me, I’m not that nice a person.”
3. All that is visible, audible. You make the invisible Christ visible.
D. If there is no Jesus visible in your life how would you show anyone your faith?
1. It’s possible to say, “I am a person of faith.” If you don’t act in a way that shows that faith, what difference does it make?
2. I heard some of the vice- presidential debates in the United States. That’s what Kamala Harris said: “I am a person of faith.” Okay, so what? Does her life point to anything about God? Do you learn anything about God looking at Kamala Harris’ life? If her life shows no influence of God, then what is her faith worth? Is that faith going to save her?
E. On the other hand, James says I will show you my faith by my works.
1. I will make what I believe is true visible to you, so you can see that Jesus is alive from the dead and living in me.
2. Jesus said, Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
F. Anyone can say that they are a person of faith, but biblical faith in Jesus Christ is the only faith that makes a visible difference in a person’s life.
5. Faith is right content and the right response to that content.
A. That sounds a little awkward. Let’s rephrase that. Faith believes the word of God and acts upon it.
B. James says, you believe that God is one. Good for you. That is the word of God. That’s from Deuteronomy 6, the declaration of faith. Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!
C. That’s the right content. Our faith has facts and history and ideas and concepts. If you don’t have these right, your faith is not biblical.
D. Then you have to act upon that word of God. You have to respond rightly to that truth. In Deuteronomy 6 the right response is Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
E. The demons believe that God is one. They have the right content. But then they have the wrong response. They shudder in terror. They continue to do what they want to do in rebellion against God. They know that they are going to hell for their disobedience but they continue in stubbornness. That’s the wrong response.
F. If you say you believe but you do not obey your faith is the same as demons who are going to hell. That faith cannot save you.
6. Faith is only made complete as it is used. James gives two examples of people in the Old Testament who believed God and acted upon it.
A. The first one is Abraham, the father of all those who believe.
1. Notice, he offered his son Isaac to God in response to the word of God. He did not think, oh, I will offer to God a good work: I think God would be happy if I killed my son and burned him in a sacrifice. It would never have entered his mind to do that. But the word of God came to him and told him what to do.
2. This was not the first time in his life that he obeyed God in response to His word. God told him to leave Mesopotamia and go to Canaan. He said I will give you this land and give you a son and descendants and I will bless the whole earth through your descendants.
3. Abraham is seventy-five years old and God hasn’t given him a son. What are You going to do about this? Look at the stars, so shall your descendants be. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. That is where God declared Abraham righteous. That is justification by faith, being declared righteous by God on the basis of trusting in what God would do.
4. Twenty-five years later God gives Abraham a son. Paul says in Romans 4 what Abraham was doing during that time. Romans 4:19-20 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God. On the basis of what God promised Abraham practiced his faith every day in giving thanks and worshipping. I’m going to have a son!
5. God called Abraham to offer Isaac thirty years later! So Abraham’s obedience to God was the result at least 55 years of putting his faith into action, depending upon God and obeying Him.
B. The second person given as an example is Rahab the harlot.
1. She was justified by works because she believed the word of God which she had heard and she acted upon it.
2. She didn’t hear much, only that God had delivered Israel out of Egypt by miracles, and that God was going to deliver Canaan to Israel. The whole city of Jericho heard about Israel, all of them were frightened, but only Rahab acted on what she heard and made a deal with the spies. She believed that she was a dead woman if she didn’t switch sides.
3. So acted upon the word which she heard. She hid the spies and said please save me and my family. And they did.
4. She had nothing in her favour. She was a woman, a harlot, a foreigner, no relation to God’s people, no reason for God to save her. But she believed what she heard and acted upon it. As you go further in the Bible you realise that she married into the tribe of Judah, her great grandson is David, and she is in the lineage of the Messiah! But she heard the word of God and acted upon it. Her faith saved her.
7. James’ conclusion is: faith, put to practical use, saves.
A. If you believe but do not act upon that belief, that faith is dead.
B. If you believe and act upon that belief you will be saved.
8. So what?
A. What is our big problem when it comes to faith?
1. One problem is we don’t know what to believe.
2. The other is we know what to do, we just don’t do it.
B. This is a big problem because if we don’t act upon our faith and obey God, our faith won’t grow. It’s kind of a Catch-22: We are afraid to obey God, and our faith won’t grow if we don’t. So what do we do?
C. Learn what God says and do it anyway.
1. You have to think of what the worst case scenario is: If God doesn’t come through, I’m dead. But then, if I die, I die. And then you obey God.
2. The amazing thing that happens is God does what He says He would do. And then you get to know that God really is faithful.
3. You start like Abraham: See those stars? That’s how many descendants you will have. And as you put your faith into practice, you grow in your experience with God and you can trust God more and you can obey Him more.
4. Until God says, now I want you to offer your only begotten son to Me. And Abraham says in his heart, “God wouldn’t fulfil His word and then not fulfil His promise, ”Through Isaac your descendants will be named.” Isaac has to have descendants. God will have to raise Isaac from the dead to accomplish that. And he goes to obey God. And that is when God says, Genesis 22:16-18 “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
5. That was the promise that God made 55 years before. But now that Scripture is fulfilled in Abraham’s faith and obedience.
6. This is how you have saving faith. Hear the word of God and do it.
Let’s pray.