A Faith That Works

Please remain standing for the reading of the word from James in chapter 2 and begin reading in verse 8 this is

God's holy and infallible word If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself

You do well But if you show partiality you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors

For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point He is guilty of all for he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder

Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder you have become a transgressor of the law

So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of Liberty For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy mercy triumphs over judgment

What does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith, but does not have works?

Can faith save him? 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? Thus also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead

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

You believe that there is one God you do well Even the demons believe and tremble

But do you want to know Oh foolish man that faith without works is dead

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?

Do you see that faith was working together with his works and by works faith was made perfect 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 You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only

Likewise was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way

For as the body without the spirit is dead So faith without works is dead.

Also Please pray with me. Oh Lord, we want to be those who have a living faith a

Faith that produces good fruit as good trees And oh

Lord, I pray that you would grant this to us That we would not trivialize faith, but we would see the depth and breadth of it

And that we would walk in it and ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen Please be seated We have a couple of guests here today the fireworks in the text happened next week

So we're not going to get to the most exhilarating and controversial Parts of the text we know there really is no controversy the seeming paradox or contradiction between James and Paul And Lord willing we'll take that up next week

Today the message we consider would be concerned primarily with verses 14 through 20 and I've titled the message faith that works

And as a theme or a thesis kind of statement that might help you with the where we're going in this

Like you to write down we work because God has been at work in us

We work because God has been at work in us

There are three points of outline that will help you organize your thoughts first It's a very simple saying

Number one saying and they'll make more sense in just a moment number two is showing

The second point of the outline is showing and third is

Substance The substance of faith saying number one

Showing and substance The substance of faith

James has been exhorting his readers and us to a life of Christian maturity

He wants us to be mature and complete in every respect he wants us to honor

God with our lips and with our hearts and with the entirety of our lives

I can imagine in the preaching of grace in that early days of the church that there would be a controversy that would emerge because This grace seems so free and so easy and we should preach grace that way because it is in one sense but when grace comes upon a man woman or child there is a transformation of life that happens genuine saving faith transforms a man

And that's what James is saying in our text today Let's look at it again

James chapter 2 Beginning at verse 14

What does it profit? my brethren and That language of profit is advantage help or gain

James I think is confronted with either a false teacher or now a false

Idea that is beginning to swirl around in the church that it all you have to do is believe and it's true

But not the way this false teacher is teaching it What does it profit what is the advantage to you?

What is the gain? What is the help my beloved brethren if someone says?

He has faith But does not have works children there is a hermeneutical key here that you can see in the pages of your scripture that really shape

The whole of this section it really helps us and we have to pay attention to the words of Scripture sometimes as Mark mentioned in Sunday school

We can become very analytical and can parse out each word and each verb and and we can make things very technical

And we can isolate it from the rest of the context But sometimes a simple phrase will

Steer our ship in the right direction We have that in our text today It's very exciting because these things are hard to understand for us in some ways because we're the people of justification by faith alone

And it sounds a little different than that. It's not but it sounds different So, how are we to understand what what

James is saying? I want you to look Particularly you children because you're gonna become excellent hermeneutical interpreters of Scripture today.

It says What does it profit my brethren? if Someone says he has faith

That's the key The man says he has faith

But he doesn't have works now when you read this text you think I thought we believed in justification by faith alone

I believe in Jesus Christ. We've been told to shed that Abominable idea of a works -based salvation.

I say yes stay there continue to do that but a faith

It doesn't yield or produce works There's no faith at all.

It's a dead faith But we must put things in the right order We're not working

To achieve the blessing of God the blessing of God has been showered down upon us in Christ The application of his redemption by the

Holy Spirit to our hearts Then we work God has been at work in us

Therefore we work we have a faith that works

The doctrine of justification by faith alone is not attacked in James chapter 2 a

Dead faith is a Faith that doesn't produce good works that's under attack in James Well another question that has to be answered another

Interpretive little key that unlocks something for us is this idea of faith

What word is more familiar to us than faith in Greek pistis?

Faith is Belief it's confidence its trust

Its fidelity and as I always like to say and people don't seem to love as much

There is no difference between faith and faithfulness in my understanding of language

To have real faith means to be faithful in antiquity faith referred to Something like a warranty or guarantee and we we hear about this about the

Holy Spirit, don't we? And in Scripture faith is

God's warranty certifying that the revelation

He birthed in us will come to pass And at the root of faith is this idea of persuasion we believe the argument about Christ and who

God is as Creator and who Christ is as Redeemer and we believe

There's two texts of Scripture. I'd like us to consider today to help us the most important and I'd like you to turn there with me

Ephesians chapter 2 Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2 we're wanting to have

The right view of faith Faith is the substance of things hoped for is that The evidence of things not seen it is that But it's something else

And this is another critical piece another critical link in this chain that we'll be considering the next couple of weeks sorting out faith and works

Ephesians chapter 2 Begin reading in verse 8. I want you to listen very carefully

The Calvinists in us we're gonna just gonna be leaping for joy But the antinomian in us is going to weep for by grace you have been saved through faith

That not of yourselves. It is the gift of God Saving faith we have to understand does not come from within Wicked desires

James has taught us has come from within we do not gin up saving faith

So this man who's misguided about his faith. He's looked upon the facts and there's some

Intellectual assent to the truth of those things and how important is truth to us Are you one who has?

Embraced the truth of the Christian gospel and the scriptures and God as creator and all those

Implications but not had new life wrought in your heart, then you wouldn't have faith

You wouldn't have this genuine faith of which Paul and James speak

So we're excited Calvinism. Yay, Presbyterian Westminster. Yes It's the gift of God.

It's not of works verse 9 lest anyone should boast

But now the other shoe drops For we are his workmanship poema

Created in Christ Jesus for good works So notice the argumentation

You've been saved by grace through faith. It's not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God Silence, everyone. There is no contradiction between Paul and James We'll learn more next week.

That is the order of things But if there be saving faith if the grace of God has been rained down on you as his gift

And you are his workmanship We work because God has been at work in us

You were created in Christ Jesus for good works

Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them

That settles it Paul and James settle it real saving faith

Produces real works good trees bear good fruit

Now I'm going to forego The other reference in John 2 you can check that out later

When they saw all of the signs and the miracles that Jesus did many believed on his name

But Jesus knew what was in the heart of every man and he did not commit himself to them

There's a surface level belief that you can have That isn't the gift of God It is not real belief and confidence and trust and fidelity in Christ alone for salvation

It's not really a belief that God and his mercy has Drawn you in to himself

Let's look at our text again What does it profit my brethren?

If someone says he has faith But does not have works

Can faith save him now whenever you see save you obviously think of Eternal salvation it's right to do that and next week we're gonna

Really struggle with the idea that Abraham was justified by works

So the Bible says I'm gonna really struggle with that. Not really, but it's gonna seem like we're going to can this man who professes a faith and and maybe it's it's filled with orthodoxy

It sounds the part and wouldn't he be esteemed in our churches that what's our marker, isn't it?

Do they talk rightly about God and about the scripture and about Christ And so this faith has there's a qualitative element to it.

It's a matter of kind not degrees We need the faith the kind that comes only from God We can have a an ascent of knowledge and progress by degrees and our knowledge of God and how the world works and be absent the kind of faith that only

God brings and gives Can faith save him the answer rhetorically is an obvious no

And again the context of chapter 2 shines through again

They've been respecters of persons That's how we started and how it's gone in James chapter 2

They they said if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings well, of course, you're going to jump and you're going to make him feel right at home and What about the poor man who comes in and you know, so you dirty stinky man sit over there

Contrary to the spirit of God and his character and his revealed will and his word

Do not show partiality The man in question

Possibly the teaching in view in chapter 2 Says I have no duty or obligation to my brother in need so Considering last week.

There's a failure in love in his heart and in his actions If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food

It should be pointed out there that this nakedness would be exposure to the elements

Maybe having only the undergarment not having a tunic So it's not about fashion.

It's about being warm enough to survive The food is they're starving.

They have no food to eat and there's nothing No prospects of them getting food and the

Christian comes along and says to them Departed peace be warmed and filled

I'm praying for you. I think that's what we do a lot

How many of us when we hear a prayer request from our brethren immediately say Well, I've now

I'm obligated. I have to do something. This one has asked me to pray for them about this issue That'd be a good response a very vibrant body life if our we would take on the responsibility of our brethren in their need

This man who has an illegitimate faith Doesn't think that way

I'll pray for you brother depart in peace be warmed and filled

James argues that this would testify to the illegitimacy or The lack of efficacy in this man's faith if you don't give them the things which are needed for the body

What does it profit? That's also faith by itself.

If it does not have works is dead There's another little hermeneutical lesson

Sometimes our cherished doctrines We we try to hide them from other verses of Scripture We shouldn't do that We say with James in wholehearted agreement verse 17

Thus also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead

We agree wholeheartedly We are not interjecting a works -based salvation

But we're saying legitimate genuine from on high faith produces something

God has been at work in us. Therefore we work Consider the second point in the outline now in verse 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 your works

When I have you turn back to the

Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7, please turn there this has already been

Expressed a couple of different ways, but we're gonna read it here in Matthew 7 again showing a strong connection

Between the epistle of James and Jesus's Sermon on the Mount Matthew 7 17 even so every good tree bears good fruit

But a bad tree bears bad fruit I think maybe one of the best illustrations of this principle for us because I think of The Christian life and I think of the failures.

I don't know about you, but I saw omissions and commissions galore and are praying through the

Ten Commandments in My own life and your life there were great

Sins and transgressions there And when I thought about this idea of a good tree bearing good fruit

I thought it back to a house that we used to live in that had ancient and I mean really old

Grapefruit and orange trees on it One of the cool things about this is that the gentleman who who planted those trees was a very old man in the middle of the last century and he grafted together different kinds of Grapefruits now my boys my older boys used them primarily as projectiles to throw at one another and suffered injuries

But if you cut open some of these grapefruit you would see that it was not only a red regular kind of grapefruit it was also a

Red grapefruit you could see both colors and they called it a fireworks Grapefruit because the ruby red shown through the regular white.

Let's call it But but this this idea of good trees bearing good fruit.

I say how does this reckon with the Christian life? Because on that tree which so masterly produced those good fruits.

There was also some bad fruit the Overwhelming evidence was good fruit good tree

And it occurred to me that There can be some bad fruit on a good tree, but it's got to be isolated

It's got to be a smaller part of the tree And in fact, we saw trees that only bore bad fruit and they just withered away and died

Their root was bad. And so their death ultimately manifested itself

And I find some encouragement in that for us Our good tree bearing good fruit is not diminished by our failures

Because the root of our faith is grounded in Christ and and we have nourishment from him and all the means of grace

We are going to produce good fruit And some branches are going to be have to be lopped off Some fruit is going to need to be discarded because it doesn't pass muster but in Christ our fruit bearing is assured

Verse 18 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

And here's the principle again Therefore by their fruits you will know them false prophets

Wolves in sheep's clothing their bad fruit is going to come out But he continues and this is the hard part of the lesson today

Not everyone who says to me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven We love the perfect justice of God as part of our rich Calvinism, isn't it?

Who gets to enter into the kingdom of heaven he who does the will of my father in Heaven Many will say to me in that day

Lord Lord. Have we not prophesied in your name and done many wonders in your name

Can you imagine being a miracle working preacher who turns?

staffs into snakes and heals people Say Lord You gave me all of this power.

Look at all of that. I have done And then he declares to them.

I never knew you Depart from me you who practice

Lawlessness, there's danger and disobedience

Now I'm going to turn back here just because of the time it's not actually the order That I want to do but I want to put this in now just because we're here turn back to Matthew 5 and the same

Sermon on the Mount and This is going to echo a principle for last week, but but there's going to be a sharper edge to it for us today

Matthew 5 17 Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

I did not come to destroy but to fulfill For surely

I say to you till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle

Will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled

Remember last week Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men.

So shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven Whoever does and teaches them he shall be great called great in the kingdom of heaven

Now, here's the hard part Imagine sitting and hearing these words

And we're thinking about faith in works, okay these ideas Jesus says for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes in the

Pharisees You will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven the most scrupulous the most externally pious

The ones who are the caretakers of the law of God. There's only 6 ,000

Pharisees in the land They let you know that they were holy and holier than you and you had a long way to go and their outward performance seemed exemplary

But Jesus elsewhere calls them a brood of vipers and he warns them of the wrath that is to come

Who warned you to flee the wrath that the wrath Justly falls on you now

I'm a if I'm a scrupulous Jew trying to to sort this out and I want to be obedient I want to be faithful to God.

I want to walk in his ways and he says to me You have to have a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the

Pharisees I might be want to despair but as Saving faith is the backdrop for for all of this particularly in James You and I have a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the

Pharisees Do you know what that is children? We have the righteousness of Christ And part of what

Christ is saying is You need someone who will fulfill the law and all of its demands and I have come that that I might be the one to do that and the qualitative character of your faith and your works is so strong because they find their origin and purpose and fulfillment in the person and work of Christ So my feeble attempts at obedience are now sanctified

My striving is improved because it comes from saving faith the gift of God We are his workmanship

He's created us to walk in his works That he's provided for us in advance

We need to show it Come back to James That's how our righteousness exceeds

The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and I think they had the inverse problem of the man in our text

They had an outward appearance of works but no faith They didn't really believe they didn't love

God. They love themselves. They love to be called teacher They love to hear men praying they love to have the honor of of the nation as the righteous ones, but they didn't love

God We must be sure to not have the sin of either side of that coin as we have thought about in Paul's own writings this idea of Imitation at first makes us think that are they being prideful and we learn that they are not

Because they are following Christ It's not their virtue. It's their obedience and faith that we're trying to model or follow

He says you have faith and I have works Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works

Brethren, how many of our friends do we know went to a summer camp at a church in eighth grade?

Sometime in that window of life and there was a compelling speaker and compelling music and compelling emotion and the pastor said

Pray these words after me and and you'll be saved I so worry about them because they're told to never ever question the legitimacy of their commitment

And reciting words after someone else is not salvation my friends

If you believe and it's a gift from God, it's salvation. But if you just say the words

How many of those people took that card and wrote it in their Bible? Went home went and lived their debauched life and their whole life.

They said but I'm saved The pastor told me that to never let anyone doubt

The legitimacy of my faith and decision I made Oh what shaky ground? Do not have fruit worthy commensurate with repentance

Look at verse 19 drives the point home You believe it's the believing right?

You believe there is one God you do well Even the demons believe and guess what they tremble there's no salvation for them

They have greater orthodoxy in many respects than many people in the church they understand who

God is they understand who Christ is and they understand what's happened and and they believe there's an ascent to the truth, but They don't really believe

They have a surface level belief He says but do you want to know a foolish man?

That faith without works is dead we need to demonstrate not as Performance and you know, there's a lot of performance in the church

We shouldn't be performing for one another to show how spiritual we are. We should be that thing.

We should be a praying people We should be a worshiping people we don't want to put on the costume of Christianity we want to be something that that comes out of our pores

In Christ A couple things on the third point and then we'll get some application

Negatively stated this idea of substance the substance of faith Faith without works is dead to take that principle and to try to make a positive statement an affirmative to posit something that to help us to to latch on to Faith with commensurate works is alive if you love the brethren if you hate your sin, and if you

See in Christ your only hope for salvation. I would say you should have great confidence today if you see a lack of fruit in your life, and we talked about the blessings of obedience go get a a very

Fruitful tree in your yard Start laboring in service to Christ and his people that your good fruits

Would be evident to all the Pharisees were

Whitewashed tombs the otter

Marble or whatever material those things were the mausoleums they were clean and ornate

But can you imagine if we cracked those babies open? the rotting bones

You and I could perform and try to have an exterior kind of Righteousness That people say isn't that a holy man?

Oh what knowledge he has in theology how well read he is in philosophy and theology and Wouldn't it be terrible if that we were split open in our faith.

We'd find not life but death Necrosis of our organs

That would be terrible well a

Couple of words of application here, and we'll close You and I need to seek the advantage

The profit of a living active

Demonstrable everyone can see it Christian life secondly

Faith is belief. We have no faith in faith. We we have faith in a person

Christ This belief is a belief that is acted upon If you say you have faith, but you do not act upon it your faith is dead

Some of you mark you mentioned an adult conversion some of you. I know other friends here were converted as adults

There's something about this principle of faith without works being dead that new

Believers are have a better handle on than it seems that mature ones do What happens when people come to Christ They naturally begin a process of sanctification with great zeal and energy and joy in putting sin to death

And they show it by putting off the old desires They they throw away stuff and they say

I'm not going to go with those people anymore. They do radical things Why do we lose that?

Revive that zeal even if you didn't have to go through that because you were a Christian from a young age

Get some of that zeal in your own hearts To be eager and zealous and earnest to put sin to death and to walk with Christ with whatever it cost you

Is that the the tenor and the flavor the aroma of the new believer?

Let's let's recover that in our maturity third love is the grand outworking of Christian faith

And as James has cited the

Christian who has genuine faith would want to Clothe and feed the brother or sister in need

It was a big theme of last week

And I hope this week too that that you will see the privilege the duty the obligation and the opportunity to show love to the brethren

There's something else. I think we are different things to different people and I don't mean in the

Pauline way I'm asking you today to show your faith in every environment and in every relationship

When someone cuts you off in the car, what kind of Christian are you there? You would never say that in the church, but what do you say out there?

How do you act out there in? Every environment that means every place that you are

Every relationship. I am a faithful Christian and I'm walking in his ways

I'm seeking to be salt and light that I might glorify him and Bring the loss to a saving knowledge of him that they might be discipled.

It's your you're the ambassador For Christ out there wherever you are and I want you to take that more seriously again.

We renew the commitment to that and finally

We like to we like to talk about nouns in Relation to our

Christian faith. There's some great nouns, but who we are in Christ We need to celebrate those nouns we've you preached on this

To a great degree recently Made the verbs of our life be equally prominent

On display in our lives loving serving

Being long -suffering being patient all these verbs

Putting off the old man putting on the new maybe

James would be pleased with us if we were to take this and as Result of being reminded of these very basic truths that that we would possess a genuine faith that would be marked by maturity and completeness and A striving to that greater end that God Is filling our lives with actions?

Consistent with real genuine saving faith and brethren so exciting

I Love the dead theologians in my library and they are alive

Because they have faith in Christ Brethren it's so exciting.

It's such a great adventure To have faith in Christ is to truly be alive

Let us live life to the fullest in Christ No obedience to his holy name

Why do we work? Because God has been at work in us

What a glorious truth, please pray with me now Oh Lord you are

More beautiful More glorious in our eyes

We thank you that real faith has divine origin Oh Lord help us to not be intimidated by the the concept of works, but to see it in its proper place

Oh Lord, whatever your Scripture requires