WWUTT 276 Justified By Works?

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Jesus said to his disciples in John 14 -15, If you love me, you will obey my commandments.
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So if you don't obey the commands of God, then you cannot say you actually love God. And if you don't love
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God, you are not saved when we understand the text. Many of the
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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt
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.com. Now, here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. And greetings, everyone. Thanks for joining me again to spend time in the
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Word as we are in James 2, starting in verse 14. We'll read this whole section to the end of the chapter.
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James 2, beginning in verse 14. And you are welcome to follow along with me in your own
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Bible. If perhaps you're driving or doing something else where you can't read along with me, I would just encourage you to find some time later today that you can open up the
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Word and read it for yourself and spend some time with the Lord. James 2, verse 14.
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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
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Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
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So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works.
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Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works.
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You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe that and shudder.
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Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that apart from works, faith is useless?
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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
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You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works.
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And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God.
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You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also
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Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
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For as the body apart from the Spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
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This is one of the more debated chapters in Scripture because by what James says here, it appears as if he is contradicting the
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Apostle Paul because Paul says that it is not by works that we are saved. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
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But here, James is saying, verse 24, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
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Ephesians 2, 8, Paul says it is by grace alone, through faith alone that a person is saved. Well, let me tell you that the
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Apostle Paul and James are not in disagreement. These two men were brothers who ministered together.
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We see that in the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15 and then when Paul was on his way to Rome in Acts chapter 20, he stopped by Jerusalem to meet with James who was the head of the
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Jerusalem Church and encouraged the brothers that were there. So these are two men that ministered together over the course of those early years of the church in the first century.
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These were two men that were not in contention with one another in their theology. So what James says here is still every bit as much in line with what the
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Apostle Paul says, even though, even though, James says, was Abraham our father justified by works?
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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? And then you have the
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Apostle Paul saying in Galatians chapter three, that Abraham was justified by faith. In Romans chapter four, he says it again, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
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And both of them quote Genesis 15, six, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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You see that quote also in Romans chapter four and in Galatians three, where Paul says that Abraham was not saved by his works, but by faith.
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And here, James is saying that he was justified by works. So which is it?
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Well, the word justification means something a little bit different than saved, because there are a couple of different ways that justification could be applied.
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Justification and sanctification are really the same thing. Justification is the event, sanctification is the process.
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So sanctification is justification in action. It's that process of being made holy by God.
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We've been declared righteous before God by the work of Christ. We are justified.
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So we stand before God justified. But then there is that verification of justification and that we go through sanctification.
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Okay, makes sense. So if a person has been justified, they are being sanctified. If a person is not being sanctified, then they've never been justified.
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So if we're growing in this process of holiness and righteousness, we will display by our works that that event of justification was legitimate, really took place.
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But if we only say that we are saved in Christ Jesus, yeah, I prayed a prayer at such and such a time, at such and such an age and whatnot, but nothing in our lives demonstrates a growth in an understanding of God's word, a love for God, a love for his people, maturing with the people of God.
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If those kinds of things are not seen in our character, in our lives, a progressive growth in holiness, then it's very likely that that claim that we make about the day that we are saved means bupkis.
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We were never actually saved. We don't stand justified before God because we cannot show by our works, by our actions, that that justification ever took place.
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I remember hearing about George Whitefield during the first great awakening and many of the sermons that he preached along the
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Northeastern portion of the United States. There was a big rally that he did. Thousands of people showed up.
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Sometimes 30 ,000 people would come to these rallies of his and this was a time before amplification, yet his voice would be able to carry to all of those people who had gathered to hear him speak.
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And after delivering one of these moving messages in which people repented of their sins and came to know
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Christ, there was a person that approached George Whitefield after that and said, how many people do you suppose came to know the
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Lord at that big message that you preached last night? And Whitefield said, I don't know. We'll find out about six months to a year from now.
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See, Whitefield realistically was pointing out that a person can respond to that kind of a message in a moment of goosebumps or responding to a certain feeling, but whether or not that was legitimate has yet to be seen.
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Now, I don't think that means that we should not take a person at their word when they said that, hey, last night,
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I repented of my sins and gave my life to Christ. We should rejoice, but whether or not that really happened, whether or not that truly took place, that they had repented before God and have been justified, we are not gonna see immediately in their lives for a certain period of time.
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So we should pray for that person. We should continue to encourage and admonish them so that we would see that in their lives, their faith is indeed legitimate.
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The apostle Peter called us to this as well, that we would confirm our salvation in Christ Jesus, confirm your election is the way that he puts it.
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And so I'm gonna go here to 2 Peter 1. Peter says this in verse three, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
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For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self -control and self -control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.
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For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And let me pause for a moment here to say that if you are ineffective and unfruitful, then you are not actually part of the vine of Christ Jesus because you are not producing fruit.
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So if you are on the vine, Jesus says that I am the vine, you are the branches.
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So if you are a part of the vine, you will be producing fruit. If you are not producing fruit, you're not part of that vine.
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That's part of what Peter is saying here. So now verse nine, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
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Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.
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For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Peter is saying right here, the exact same thing that James is saying in James chapter one.
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We are not saved by our works, but it is by our works that we will show that we have been saved.
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So when a person makes a statement of having been saved in Jesus Christ, do their actions show that that faith is real and is genuine?
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Or do you see them continue to live in sin and debauchery, chasing after their passions and their sinful desires, still living in sexual immorality, still greedy, still short -tempered, not able to control their tongues?
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Because what James is saying here is very closely linked to something that he said in chapter one.
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James chapter two, verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
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Can that faith save him? Remember what James said in James one, verses 26 and 27.
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If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, that person's religion is worthless.
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So part of one of those indicators that we will show that we are truly walking with Christ is we don't talk like the rest of the world.
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We talk like a citizen of the kingdom of God. By our words, Christ who lives in our hearts, who has changed us from our very core out.
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By our words, we will be justified. As Jesus says, it is by our tongues that we will be condemned and by our tongues that we will be justified.
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Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if we have been changed in our hearts by Christ Jesus, then what comes out of our mouths will be words that are honoring to God.
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Now that doesn't mean when you come to Christ that you will do this perfectly, but there should be a growth.
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There should be a progression in the advancement of holiness as you grow in righteousness and in the faith.
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So though when you come to Christ, you won't perfectly bridle your tongue, there should still be some indications that that progress is being made.
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Okay, I am a pastor of a church that is primarily military. Over 60 % military in my church.
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And so you can imagine the kind of language that most of the members of my congregation are around every day of the week.
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There was one time that I was helping a new family move in and they were moving on to post, in fact.
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So they had the U -Haul truck there in front of the house and we were in the back of the truck moving off the big pieces of furniture, washer and dryer, those kinds of things.
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And I was helping the fellow that was moving into this house move a big dresser. I believe it was his wife's dresser.
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We're moving out of the U -Haul truck into the front door and neither one of us were really paying close attention as to what we're doing.
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We're kind of looking toward the ramp, making sure we're getting the dresser lined up on the ramp and we weren't paying attention to where we were in the truck.
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So at one point the dresser kind of veers to one side and the young man got his hand slammed between the dresser and the wall of the truck.
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And so he jerked it back real quick and out of his mouth flew a certain word. Won't tell you what that word was, but you can use your imagination.
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And then he looked at me totally mortified, realizing what had just come out of his mouth and going, oh my goodness,
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I just cursed in front of the pastor. Now, and I said to him,
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I said, look, you should feel bad about what you said because that kind of language is not honoring to God.
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And we are told in Ephesians chapter 4 that we are to always be encouraging with our words, never tearing down.
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So you should feel bad about that and repent before the Lord. But I mean to tell you, don't be embarrassed in front of me as though I've never heard this kind of language before or you're that much more condemned because you had cursed in front of the pastor.
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That's simply not the case. If you are a believer in Christ, you are growing and you are submitting your thoughts continually to Christ.
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Second Corinthians 10 5, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. So this needs to be the same with our words and with our languages.
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And so I just encourage the young man continue to make progress in that area. But again, don't feel like that it was more sinful just because you had done so in front of the pastor.
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So again, we've got members of our congregation that are around that kind of language all the time and it is extremely difficult for them, especially being surrounded by those kinds of words to be even more mindful of taking their thoughts captive and making it obedient to Christ.
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But if a person is in Christ, they will desire to speak words that are honoring to the
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Lord. And so if they don't bridle their tongue, if it's just the sort of a thing of, well, God will forgive me anyway.
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And so then they just go on speaking whatever words they want to speak. That person's religion is worthless, according to James here.
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If anyone thinks he's religious, does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
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He's deceived himself because he's convinced himself, I can do whatever I want and the grace of God, by the grace of God, I will be forgiven.
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No, we have been declared righteous by Christ before the Father. We stand before him as justified.
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And so now as citizens of the kingdom, having become fellow heirs with Christ, we will talk as citizens of that kingdom, just like you would identify a person by their accent according to what part of the
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United States they live in. And that's something else we experienced a lot of in my church because of the military people move to and fro out of Junction City.
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And so we get a mixture of accents in our church. In fact, we just interviewed a new couple yesterday from Tennessee and we were talking about how much we enjoyed their accents, those
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Tennessee accents that they came to our church with. So you can identify where a person lives by the way that they talk, not just the accent that they have, but even some of the words that they use.
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Like when you're referring to soda, right? In the Northeast part of the
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United States, it's soda. Where I'm from here in Kansas, it's called pop. If you go down to Georgia, which is actually at the time that you were listening to this program,
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I'm on my way there now. I'm going to Atlanta for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. If you go down to Atlanta, everything's
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Coke. So even words get used in different parts of the country and you can identify where a person is from by the words that they say and the accent that they have.
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And so it should be the same with us as citizens of the kingdom of God. You know where we're from, who we belong to, who our king is, because we talk like the king, because we desire to please our king.
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We want to be worthy citizens of the kingdom of God. So let us be able to act like citizens of his kingdom, talk like citizens of the kingdom of God.
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And James goes on in James 1, verse 27, religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
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So once again, James is presenting here that if we have been saved by Christ, we will show in our actions that justification has occurred.
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And here he presents it as caring for those who are the less fortunate, who cannot care for themselves, that we love everyone just as God loves us.
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The way that Paul puts it before the Galatians in Galatians chapter six is we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially the household of faith.
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So we pay attention to the members of our church first, but then we also show love and kindness to people who are outside the church.
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This is James encouraging us from the first chapter that we need to show by our works that we are truly in the faith that has been given to us by Christ.
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Hebrews chapter 12, where it says that Jesus is the author and the perfecter of our faith. He gave it to us and he is growing us in it as well.
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And so if we have that faith and we're growing in that faith, we will show by our works that we belong to Christ.
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Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction, caring for those who cannot care for themselves and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
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So once again, walking in the righteousness of God and not in the rampant wickedness of this filthy world, we are showing by our works, by our actions that we are in Christ.
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That's very simply the argument that James is making in James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26.
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Now the Roman Catholics will completely abuse this passage to say it is by works that we are saved and they are taking this out of context from the rest of the
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Bible and not paying attention to the context by which James presents this and comparing it to other arguments made by the apostles like Paul and Peter who we've just read from.
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Paul explicitly says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, saying this once again, because it bears need to be repeating.
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It is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God, not of works so that no one may boast.
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But Paul goes on to say in verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared beforehand for us.
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So we are supposed to work, but it is not by those works that we are saved.
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It is by those works that we verify the salvation that we have in Christ.
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Understand the meaning and understand the context. James is in no way contradicting Paul and it is an essential statement that Paul says there in Ephesians 2, 8.
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It is by grace alone that you are saved. Through faith alone we attain salvation no other way, not of works.
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No one can say that they have been saved by anything that they have done, for it is not of ourselves, it is from God.
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But I want to continue to encourage you, my brother and sister, that you walk in the righteousness of Christ that you have been given, that you confirm your election as Peter says, by growing in righteousness, in matters of holiness, in faith, that you are maturing in your understanding of the word of God, that you are loving the brotherhood and you are avoiding doing the regular platitude things that we tend to do in the church.
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When somebody is in need, you say to them, oh, well, I'll pray for you. Don't do that. Pray for them right there on the spot, but then also care for that person by helping them with the need that they have.
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Show, confirm. What good is it if you say to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving the things needed for the body?
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Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. It is not enough for you to sit in your chair and chat on Twitter and Facebook and have sound doctrine and be able to make sound doctrinal arguments and be able to stand on a certain principled position that you believe is written down in the scriptures.
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If you are not getting out from behind your desk and walking in the world and declaring the gospel to those that you meet and seeing those who are in need and helping them with those needs and showing love to the brotherhood of the saints, growing with the church, attending church, encouraging and admonishing others, receiving their encouragement and their admonishment in return, being matured, growing all the more with the body of Christ, not being tossed to and fro by every shifting wind of doctrine, but together with the body of Christ, growing into him who is the head, as it talks about in Ephesians 4, verses 11 -16.
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If you're not doing these things, you are not saved. And it would actually be wrong of you, wrong of me to appeal to you as a brother or sister because if you're not in Christ, you are not my brother or sister.
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And so you have to be careful about internet theology. And that's as far as your doctrine goes, being able to declare it on the internet.
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We must show by our works the authenticness of the faith, the authenticity,
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I'm making up words now, the authenticity of the faith that we have in Christ, that it was given by Christ and it is being grown by Christ.
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Jesus said to his disciples, you show the world that you are mine in the way that you love one another.
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And you know the old hymn, they will know that we are Christians by our love.
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And so let us show love for the brotherhood, extending charity also to those who are lost, so that they might hear the gospel, repent of their sins and believe.
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Our great God, you have shown such great mercy and patience to us in that while we were yet sinners, while we were enemies of God, you sent your son
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Jesus to die for us. It is by Christ that we have been given this faith.
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There is nothing that we can boast in, no claim that we can have to the faith that we have, except that it was given to us by Christ.
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And it is by Christ that we are being grown in this faith as well. And so Lord, we ask that you mature us.
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We ask to be convicted. If we can't say amen, we say ouch. That we are convicted in our hearts toward growing in matters of holiness and righteousness, growing in love for the saints, growing in our love for God and your word.
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But we don't just sit in our chairs and have a theological position. There is legs under this faith that we claim that we have and we are walking in this world, doing the things that Jesus did.
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By his example, loving others and declaring the gospel. Work these things in us so that by our works we show
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God's work in our lives. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the
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Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean.
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Available in paperback or for your Kindle. Found at our website at www .utt .com.