Fool's Gold Faith - [James 2:14-26]

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How many people know J. Vernon McGee, when you hear him preach? Did it take you a long time, like it took me, to figure out that he died a long, long, long time ago, but he was still alive?
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He's had a way of explaining the truth, and he told a story, almost like screw tape letters, of how some demons got together and they wanted to try to deceive humans into thinking
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God didn't exist. One said, well, you know, let's just tell people that Jesus never existed, and it was simply fiction.
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Another demon came up with this idea, when you die, that's it, you don't need to worry about life after death.
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But the most intelligent, the most conniving demon, according to McGee, said, let's tell everyone that Jesus exists, that believing in him saves, but that you can get to heaven by simply professing faith in Christ, and then go on living in sin as you used to.
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There are people walking around in this world, there are people walking around in this church, who have faith in Christ, but it's a faith that does not save.
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It is a counterfeit faith. When I first moved here to New England 10 years ago, we were driving on the 2
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Freeway, and it says, Lemonster, home of what? Two things.
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Lemonster's home of many more things, I'm sure, but two that I remember. Home of Johnny Appleseed, and home of Plastics, hot tourist spot.
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Plastic means fake, it means counterfeit. If you have a plastic bowl, it's not a china bowl, it's a fake bowl, it's molded, it's plastic, it's fake.
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And today, if you'll open your Bibles to James chapter two, we want to look at this topic of faith, true faith and counterfeit faith.
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And it is my desire this morning, friends, that you have the real faith, that you have faith in the real object, but you also have a real faith.
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You can have the right object of faith, yet not have real saving faith, according to the Bible. And you can have faith in a wrong object as well, and I want the people today to be stirred up.
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I want you to be helped in your evangelism as you talk to people and you say, you know, they talk a lot, but their life doesn't back up their profession, so you would know how to evangelize them better.
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I want you to look at your own life and say to yourself, by the grace of God, I do have works that go along with my faith, and thank you,
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Lord, for giving me those, because that gives me assurance, that gives me security, because I can see my faith work itself out.
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There is a faith that sends people directly to hell, and I don't want you to have that.
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If I had to guess how many people are here, and now we have a stage there and a balcony, my guess would be maybe 20 % of the people in this auditorium today have a false faith.
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Either no faith at all, or a faith in the wrong object, or a faith that isn't the right kind of faith.
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Now, ultimately, I don't know, but I want to use the Word of God today to press it to your consciences so that you might, in fact, know, because the world is filled with deceit, deceivers, and deceiving ones.
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Did you know the Bible says there are false gods, Exodus chapter 20? You know,
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Jesus said there are false prophets and false Christs. I even watched the show the other day, Dateline, primetime, about De Jesus, that Puerto Rican guy who calls himself
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Jesus with the 666 tattoo. I'm refraining myself from going on a rabbit trail about how idiotic that is.
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His second wife just divorced him, and he said, you know, very flippantly, it's hard to be married to Jesus. Paul said in Galatians there is a false gospel.
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As Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he said there's another Jesus. There are false brethren, false teachers, and even false apostles.
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There is a faith that you can have that will not get you to heaven. And James chapter 2 helps us today.
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And I've called the message this morning, Fool's Gold Faith. Just to give you my testimony,
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I grew up in a Lutheran church, and I mean, I was the quintessential Lutheran kid. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for sinners.
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My sin, I believe he was physically and bodily raised. I believe he was coming back. I had water sprinkled on my head as a baby.
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I went through confirmation. I went through mission trips down to Galeana, Mexico, to tell people that Jesus Christ alone saved sinners.
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On the negative side, I didn't murder anyone. I didn't rape anyone. I tried to help old ladies across the street, et cetera, et cetera.
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And I am so thankful God arrested me, because if I would have died like that, I would have died having a false faith.
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It's one thing to be Marilyn Manson and have Marilyn Manson say, when I die, I'm going straight to hell.
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It's another thing to think you're going to heaven and then die and then end up. Could there be a more important message?
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And James chapter 2 is one of these books that just kind of pushes you along, even though you might not want to be pushed.
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James just fires with all these imperatives, and Jesus' half -brother writes in such a way that you can't just sit there and go, that was a nice message.
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James preaches for a verdict. James is pushing you up to the cliff, and you are forced either to jump off or to resist.
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A .W. Tozer said, and this reminds me of James. We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish goodwill between Christ and the world.
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We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, acceptable to the press, acceptable to the world of sports, acceptable to modern entertainment.
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Tozer said this, and it's like James or Jesus. We are not diplomats, but prophets.
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Our message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum. And James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26 will be our topic this week and next.
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And it will basically say this, that if you have real saving faith in the object of the risen
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Christ, the Christ who died on the cross for sinners and was raised from the dead to satisfy the just wrath of a holy
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God, and you trust in Him, you will be different. The God of the universe dwells within you.
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Do you think you could be the same as you were before you were saved? Absolutely not. Faith alone will make you right with God, but faith that makes you right with God works itself out in good deeds for others.
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I used to go surfing down in Southern California. We surfed right by San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. These two big things.
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I was wondering why the water was always warmer, and I was always wondering why I started to develop these little gills behind my ears.
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But sadly, it's an easy place to learn how to surf. They call it
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Old Man's, and so that's where I learned how to surf. And I just kept thinking, if one of those two power plants breaks open,
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I am undone. My skin is just falling off. I hope it creates a good wave for my final wave to ride into eternity, because I would just be dissolved by meeting nuclear waste.
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And what James is trying to do is he's trying to say this. When your life is interrupted by the
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God of the universe, you will be different. Exactly as if your life came into contact with nuclear waste, you are going to be different.
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You can't come to Christ and stay the same. God changes you.
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Now let's read the passage, and while we read it, I want you to see if you can find the five times
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James is driving home the point that a passive faith isn't a saving faith. That a dead faith doesn't get you to heaven.
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That there's a faith that is not Hebrews 11 kind of faith.
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See if you can spot the five, James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26.
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Many think this is a sermon, and it sounds just like one. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works?
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Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed, and be filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
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Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead being by itself.
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But someone may well say, you have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
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You believe God is one, you do well. The demons also believe and shudder.
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But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not
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Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.
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And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.
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You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way was not
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Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
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For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
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Let me give you today and next week five reasons why faith without works is dead.
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Five reasons why faith without some kind of action is counterfeit.
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I was studying on Wikipedia yesterday about fool's gold, pyrite.
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My grandmother gave me five nuggets of fool's gold when I was a kid. I wish I still had them. But I was learning in Wikipedia last night that if you scratch pyrite, fool's gold, a sulfur kind of odor comes out.
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If you have regular gold and fool's gold, if you scratch fool's gold or you crush it, it comes down to this powder and it smells like sulfur.
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So our outline today is going to be five ways you can smell out this fool's gold kind of faith and notice that it's counterfeit.
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So that A, if you're not saved, that you would cast yourself on the mercy of a gracious God. B, if you are saved, you could say, you know,
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I'm not perfect in my works, but I strive to work. I try to have good deeds flow out of my
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Christian faith. And God, thank you for giving me the assurance that I have a real faith. And additionally, maybe you have a family member that keeps on saying all the time,
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I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, and they never act like it. This set of verses should propel you to say, the most loving thing
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I could do is say to them, are you sure you have a faith that saves?
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The first reason why faith without works is counterfeit as we begin to scratch the surface of this fool's gold pyrite is number one, it brings about no salvation.
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And that's what I want you to understand today. If you've got to have five pegs a day of thinking properly about salvation, faith without works is dead.
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Number one, why? Because it doesn't save anyone. I've been saying that, I know. And if you look at verse 14, let's take a look at that.
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What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works, can that faith save him?
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I love James, what a preacher. He asks questions. You think 400 words a minute,
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I talk 100 to 200 words a minute. The difference is 200 words a minute that you're thinking about other things.
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And James is preaching and he wants all this attention to be focused on the topic at hand, so he asked two rhetorical questions.
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He's trying to get their attention. He's taking that,
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I wish I knew what they were called. It's like a putty knife. And he's scratching off that nasty old 30 -year -old shellac on top of that piece of furniture.
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And he gets their attention and he says, what good is it? What is the profit, not financially, but spiritually?
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Is there any profit to a person that is all talk? They've got all the right
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Christian ease. It is worthless to have all talk and no walk. It's an empty boast,
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James is saying. And in the Greek, the negative answer is anticipated. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but has no works?
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It's no use implied in the Greek. Can that faith save him? It can't save him in the
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Greek. And here's how it would read if I was a little more literal.
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Listen to this. What use is it, my brethren, if someone continually says he has faith, but he continually has no works?
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That faith in no way can save him. It's superficial.
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Changed life is necessary. I have four quick, let's make it five quick definitions of faith.
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If you try to write these down, you're not going to be able to do that, so you'll have to get them online. Five definitions of faith.
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First one by Vine's Expository Dictionary. To believe, to be persuaded of, to place confidence in, to trust, reliance upon, not mere credence.
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Number two by George Zemeck, a professor of mine. Faith is man's response to God, characterized by a total dependent entrustment, and demonstrated through a persistent commitment to obedience.
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Number three, J. Niebuhr, the conservative Niebuhr. Faith is a living, deliberate confidence in the grace of God, so sure that it would die a thousand times for its trust.
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Simon Kistemacher, number four. See, I told you you don't want to write these down, you just have to listen. You email me,
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I'll send you these quotes. Kistemacher, number four. Faith in God through Jesus Christ is a certainty that flows from our hearts, emanates from our minds, and translates into deeds.
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And number five by the scholar Mike Avendroth. Here's my definition, and you can write this one down. Not because I'm a scholar, but because it's short.
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And I have no original thoughts, I basically just take what everybody else has said and Avendroth -ize it and then preach it.
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The day I begin to preach new and novel things here is the day the shepherd's crook should come out. Mike Avendroth said, boy that sounds funny, faith is when you believe enough to follow
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God and obey Him. Do you believe Him enough to obey? Because if you don't, then it's not real faith.
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Do you believe Him enough to follow? What did Jesus mean when He said, follow me, was the question of the ages it seemed like in the 90s.
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And if you look at the text here, Columbo fans, TV detective of the 80s, look down in here and what is the key, what is the clue to interpret verse 14?
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The answer is, like with all epistles, like with all letters, go to the verbs. You want to be a good
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Bible student, go to the verbs. Action. And this particular action is all talk.
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The key to interpret this is the word says. They've got the right vocabulary, the right testimony.
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They can quote verses. They've got the cliches. God bless you.
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Lord willing. Grace and peace to you. WWJD. I mean, it is on and on and on.
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God's expanding my borders. I mean, you know, you just fill in the blank. God's wild at heart. I'm wild at heart.
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I mean, whatever the common terms are, people know it. And it's just like a fire hydrant that's been opened up and the water gushes out and so too the words gush out.
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After all, these people are in the church and James is preaching. He's not at Mars Hill here.
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These people are in the church, but they say, they say, they say. How haunting are these words by James?
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Do you think he learned them from his savior? When Jesus said in Matthew 7, not everyone who says to me,
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Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.
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Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles?
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And then I will say or declare to them, I never intimately knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
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How do you see someone's faith? Faith is invisible. So faith is manifest and fleshed out by good deeds.
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You say, oh, leaving the church. Somehow, Mike, you're implying that you get saved by doing good.
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Is that what I'm trying to say? Is that what James is saying? Look back at chapter 1, verse 17, and I'll show you that James is not teaching salvation by being good.
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James is not teaching salvation by works, merits, rosaries, paternosters, a church attendance, committee meeting attendance.
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Look at how James describes salvation, James 1, 17 and 18. He's already established this.
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Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above. Coming down from the
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Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadows. How is anyone and how is everyone saved?
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Verse 18. In the exercise of His will. It's God's will that saves.
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He brought us forth. We didn't bring ourselves forth. By the word of truth.
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How does God save people? He saves them in eternity past. He exercises His will then in time and He saves them.
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And now He says, if I've saved you, you just can't be all talk anymore. You're going to have works.
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We are created in Christ Jesus to do what? Good works, Ephesians 2, 10.
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We know that Paul has taught we are justified by faith apart from works. But the way you can think of it is this way.
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If there are two soldiers left and 5 ,000 enemy soldiers are coming to attack them and they surround them all.
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The one soldier stands this way and the other stands this way, back to back. Here you have the soldier
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Paul in Romans 4 and Romans 3 saying, God alone saves. And to his back
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James is fighting a different enemy and that enemy is, you know, you can say you're a Christian and live like hell.
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And James is saying, faith without works is dead. They're fighting two separate enemies. He's not saying that you get saved by works.
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He's not saying that you're perfect. But he's saying people that are all talk aren't going to heaven.
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And there's two kinds of those people. Either deceive people, they really think they're going but they're not. But there's another kind which are consciously aware of their hypocritical faith.
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Arthur Pink says, And the tragic thing is that in most places there is nothing in the preaching which is at all calculated to undeceive them.
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Instead, there is only that which bolsters them up in their delusion. There is a large class in Christendom today who are satisfied with a bare profession.
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I met a person a while ago and they said, Oh, I'm going to take a trip and I'm going to take a trip to this huge mega church in Houston.
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And when I watch this guy on TV, he makes me feel so good. I mean, his smile, his teeth.
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I mean, I already know it's a horrible church if the way you like your pastor is because of his smile and his teeth. I mean, don't ever describe me by my smile and my teeth.
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I don't smile that much seemingly when I'm preaching because I'm so intense. And, you know, all that, whatever
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I had when I was a kid, some kind of, not erythromycin, but some kind of, what?
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Tetracycline I had when I was a kid made my teeth yellow. And so, if you think this is a wonderful church because I've got nice teeth and a good smile, friends,
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I want to feel good, they said. And I said to this person, Is it your goal to always leave the church feeling good and feeling kind of warm and happy and peppy and just getting enough to get you through the next week?
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And they said, yeah. They thought I was trying to lead them on into the right thing. I'm thinking, no, this is horrible. I have to deconstruct this whole thing.
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I'm coaching your kid. I'm teaching your kid Latin terms from the Reformation and you don't even know it.
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But, okay, back to the parent. I said, friend, God loves us enough to tell us about our sin.
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He loves us enough to say, you know, you're running off that cliff blindfolded and the precipice is going to kill you forever.
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And I'm going to run out and tackle you, as it were, with my words, God says, and then you might lose your breath.
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You might hyperventilate. But I do it because I love you.
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My grandfather's on his deathbed and I went up to grandpa and I got Kim and my mom to take grandma to go get a coffee or something because I knew she didn't want me to talk to him.
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And I said, grandpa, I love you enough to tell you the truth that one day, if you don't die soon, you're going to die and stand before God and your
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Lutheran baptism isn't going to be enough to satisfy God's wrath. And I'm going to tell you what you're not going to like, but I need to tell you anyway because I love you.
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The people sitting there listening to James, we just reading this, we don't say, oh,
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I feel good. But friends, shouldn't there be a good feeling when someone tells you the truth? We want our kids to be saved.
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We look at them with eyes of love. Love believes all things, hopes all things. But if your kid says, hey,
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I'm a Christian, and they don't act like one, then you need to continue to press the gospel to them. I feel good after church, but sometimes
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I need to repent and forsake my sin and then I feel good. Frankly, I don't care what people do in Houston at the
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Compact Center. I just wish they wouldn't call themselves a church because as my old pastor used to say, that name's already taken.
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And sin needs to be addressed. Jesus was a sin bearer. He came to save us from our sins.
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And when God saves us from our sins, He does more than save us from our sins. He also gives us the righteousness of Christ.
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He gives us the spirit of God who dwells in us, and He will not leave us to our own devices. He will make us more into Christ's image as time goes on.
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Yes, there's baby steps. Yes, there's maturation. No, there's not perfection on this life, but there's a change.
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James says it. It is no good if you say you're a Christian, but you don't act like one.
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If that's you, you're not going to heaven. He gives another reason for counterfeit faith.
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Number one, it doesn't save. And as we begin to scratch and sniff this, number two, it doesn't assist others.
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Fool's gold faith is counterfeit because it doesn't help other people. Look at the illustration in James 2 .15.
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A brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food. I mean, it doesn't get any more basic than that, does it?
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They need clothes and they need food. Back then, you know, you had one set of clothes, and if you were rich, you had an extra pair.
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And if you were really rich, you maybe had some extra pairs than that. And here, there's no clothes. It could actually be translated they're running around naked or just having some undergarments on.
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Poorly dressed, it could mean, but they need clothes. That's the main thing. And they need food. And the person who says they're a
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Christian says, well, you know what, how can I expect to take care of them? They're smelly, they're dirty, they're kind of naked, and I'm too prim and proper for that.
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And you can't feed the whole world now anyway, can you? They can't have enough food for the day.
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And by the way, in the New Testament, this was a possibility. Stop and shop and shawls did not exist.
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And then here's how you treat them. And one of you says to them, it's almost like James knows somebody in the congregation is guilty.
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You meet somebody like this, and one of you says, I know who it is, but I'm not telling, so I'll look at everybody.
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And one of you says, go in peace, shalom. And then he says two things to the person commensurate with what their problems are.
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And so if you don't have any clothes and it's fall or winter, spring, you're cold.
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So he says, well, you don't have any clothes, but be warmed. And you don't have any food, so we'll say to you, what?
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Be filled. God helps those who help themselves. Must be some kind of sin in your life if you don't have any food.
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Be warmed, be filled. As a matter of fact, the tense is, do it yourself. Be warmed yourself, be filled yourself.
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You take care of yourself. And you know
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James is just thinking about how Jesus, his half -brother, acted on earth. He not only said,
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Lord, Lord, you know, people are going to say to me on that day, but he also fed the poor and hungry.
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Go in peace. You know, good luck. I'll pray for you. See you next Sunday. All words, no actions.
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Sarcastic almost. Insulting almost. God's sovereign.
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And yet, look, verse 16, you do not give them what is necessary for their body. What use is that?
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Answer? It's rhetorical. There's no profit to that. When we say this, we're not acting like someone who's been changed by the merciful
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God of the universe. God is merciful to the poor. He's merciful to the hungry. As a matter of fact, you can even think of the miracles of Jesus.
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Jesus could have done what? He could have said, you know, as my old pastor would say, I'm going to raise you up 1 ,000 feet in the air, and when you repent in your heart,
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I'll let you down. That's how I'll show you I'm a Messiah. But instead, with kindness and tenderness and care, he heals people, blind people, demoniacs, raises dead girls.
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He's merciful. Listen to what 1 John 3 says. Whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?
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Answer? It doesn't. John the Apostle said,
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Son of thunder, now with a tender heart, little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
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Well, there's another reason if we take a look at this fool's gold whites counterfeit. There's a faith that doesn't save.
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There's a faith that doesn't bring salvation, number one. There's a faith that doesn't help others, number two. And there's a faith that's not living, found in verse 17.
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Do you see that? Even so, kind of a summary statement of what's going on.
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If it has no works, it's dead being by itself. This is a verdict that if a faith is like this, it's by itself.
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It's not attached to any kind of works. The engine of faith is not attached to any kind of caboose of good deeds.
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It's by itself. It's dead. I looked up the word dead in Tabor's medical dictionary without life or life processes.
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The Greek word, though, is there's no sign of life or activity. Inert, inactive, useless.
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I've been in the operating room before and it doesn't happen very often. And when it does, as a sales rep, I would just quickly leave.
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But as they're working on maybe an older patient or some kind of heart surgery and they're going from bypass back to the regular heart, something doesn't happen and the patient goes into cardiac arrest.
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And then you just hear the crash cart come over and they begin with the defibrillators to try to get the patient revived.
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And the second that starts happening, it's usually a good time for the sales reps to leave. And so I just kind of looking like that and then off I go.
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Very beginning though, I didn't really know what was going on and they just would try and try and try to revive and that patient was dead.
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The insidious nature of this kind of faith though, the person looks alive but spiritually they're dead.
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If I see a dead person, well, it's easy for me to say they're dead. But here, the person looks alive, they're smiling, they're breathing, they're active, you're married to them, they're your children, they're your friends, they act alive and they do what alive people do but on the inside they're dead.
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Faith, he says, shouldn't be by itself. That's what he's trying to say. It's expected to have works.
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Martin Luther said, True living faith which the Holy Spirit instills in the heart simply cannot be idle.
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Workless faith, one man said, is a worthless faith. I have some questions
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I could ask you about this. Does your pattern of life show forth deeds that you're a
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Christian? You're not perfect, I know, but it's just your pattern of life. Jesus said,
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Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works. Number two, do you think that producing fruit is an option?
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Jesus is my Savior and when I'm good and ready I'll make him as my Lord. I loved what
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B. Larson talked about on the tombstone of an old cavalier soldier who lost his life in property in battle for the royalist cause said,
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He served King Charles with a constant, dangerous and expensive loyalty.
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It's not optional. And all of a sudden you say, you know what? Oh, I remember hearing that radio show.
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I can hear the guy. I can see his face. I've heard him preach it. God never calls you to be fruit in what?
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Specters. He doesn't. I don't know where that came from.
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God doesn't call you to be fruit inspectors. Looking at other people's fruit. I do it all the time.
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Matthew 7 says, you know, when you judge, you want to judge in a righteous way. You want to judge in such a way that you know it's not your job, our prerogative, our privilege to send anyone to hell.
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That's Jesus's prerogative. But when we want to discern and judge, when I meet people, if they act like a
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Christian, I don't give them the gospel. I try to encourage them. If I meet people that don't act like a
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Christian, what do I do? Well, I'd really like to judge you and judge what you say and judge what you do, but I really can't do that.
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Judge not lest you be judged. And I don't want to be a fruit inspector. If you're married to someone and you've got some kids that don't act like a
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Christian and you see that, you say, and I don't want to be too hard on them. And God has had mercy on me. And I'm not perfect either.
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But as the lifestyle that they have, the tenor of their life, they don't believe enough to follow God. I better what?
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Give them the gospel. My problem is when
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I see people like that, I just don't want to run around like I'm the gospel police all the time.
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But who else is going to tell them? Senator Barnes and Noble buying this kind of book on Europe and where to go and all this stuff.
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And the lady in front of me has got this book, 90 Minutes in Heaven. 90 years, 90 millennium,
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I don't know what it was called. I think it was 90 Minutes in Heaven. I said, do I or don't I? It was a long line.
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I thought if Kim were here, she would say, do it but be sweet about it because I would just do it.
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And I said, oh, I heard that's a popular book. She turned around and she said, oh, yes.
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I just lost a loved one. I lost an aunt. She was like a mother to me. And someone read the book and was encouraged, and so I thought
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I would read it. I said, oh, I'm a pastor and I know what it's like when you have to bury someone who you love and lost my mom to cancer.
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And I said, did you know the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 said that heaven was so great,
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God did not let him talk about it? And there is heaven. There is a hope of heaven through Christ Jesus. I hate to say it, but that guy has never been to heaven.
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It started off pretty good. It started off, she was nice and kind. I had like a baseball cap on or something.
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I said, I'm a pastor. She'd probably think, yeah, you're one of those emergent pastors, you know, kind of post -modern. What do you got tattoos next?
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And you ride a bike, you know. I don't have any tattoos. Like I said,
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I'm so glad I never got a tattoo because the thing is, you usually mature. You usually grow out of stages.
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And if I would have got tattoos when I thought tattoos were in and cool, I would have had a big Rolling Stones tongue right here.
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And as I've said many times, I like tattoos. I know friends in ministry with tattoos. That's not my point.
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Why am I talking about this? By the way, never use the verses in Leviticus to try to tell people tattoos are ungodly because it has nothing to do with that.
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Tattoos aren't inherently ungodly. I'm just spiraling down.
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If you're here today and you've got a tattoo, I welcome you. I'm glad you're here.
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I'm just talking about me. I'm just talking about Barnes and Noble.
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A few Sunday nights ago I talked on tattoos and talked about how we ought not to judge people if they get a tattoo.
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So I refer you to that tape. But anyway, I said I'm a pastor because I didn't really probably look like one.
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I don't know what pastors look like, but somehow I don't think I do because I didn't have the smile or the teeth. Your best life now.
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So anyway, we just got interrupted because she was called up to the clerk. I wanted her to be outside waiting for me to know the truth of God.
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But see, the truth of God, it's almost like a dentist, the spirit of God, because you go in for the checkup and then you end up with a root canal.
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Because God is not going to just let you be. He loves his people enough that he will conform them to Christ's image.
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So I thought, well, I'm on a roll. I might as well finish the story. So I went up to the Barnes and Noble lady and she said, just on cue, how are you today?
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And I retorted in my cue, compared to what I deserve, I am flying high today. She said,
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I've never heard anything so strange in my entire life. And I thought, well, there's a big line of people behind me.
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And I thought to myself, who needs an illustration book? Every Thursday I'm just going to go to a retail store and I'll find a good illustration.
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And so I said, well, I'm a sinner. I deserve hell and God has granted me heaven because of Christ. She said, oh, really?
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I said, yeah, really. She said, I've never heard anything so crazy in my entire life.
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I said, well, it is crazy and it's true. She said, that'll be $40 .36.
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I said, do you take Discover? I mean, what am I going to do? You are the ones who have been taught the truth.
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You are the ones who know. If the God of the universe who can create the world with a word indwells someone, they are going to be different.
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And if you don't see differences in people that you love, who's going to tell them?
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You're going to tell them because you've been taught the things of God. Because love tells the truth. Because 1
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Corinthians 13 says, love rejoices in the truth. Because you will manifest your hatred to them if you don't tell them the truth.
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Do you know what it says? If a mother and father in the Proverbs don't discipline their children, they hate their children.
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They want to have their children disciplined. They want to love them. But by their action of saying, no,
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I won't discipline, it's just as if they would treat them with utter hatred and contempt. We are to judge.
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I don't tell someone, you know what, you're going to hell. But I tell them, based on the way you're living now, if you die in your sins, you are going to hell.
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Without a Savior, you're going. Without the precious blood of Christ. That's why these people that believe in Jesus for hell insurance only, need to be confronted by someone who loves them like you.
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And I can even ask you the question, at the core of your being, do you want to love
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Jesus from your heart? God, I want to honor you. I fall short. I confess often that I don't love you with my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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But I want to for your honor. That is a sign of a Christian. Matter of fact, that is a sign of a mature
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Christian like Paul in Romans 7. This person said,
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I recommend you either believe God up to the hilt, or else not to believe at all.
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Believe this book of God, every letter of it, or else reject it. There is no logical standing place between the two.
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And friends, we live in a church atmosphere today that looks like some child in Africa that is emaciated on the outside, but with a huge distended belly.
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The belly of Christianity looks huge. The CBD sales. The mega churches, mega conferences.
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Some would tell us that 50 % of America is Christian. But they're starving on the inside.
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And this passage here pushes us to ask questions like this. How could Jimmy say he's a
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Christian and still live with his girlfriend? How could
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Sue say she's a believer and still... You fill in the blanks. How could
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Sid profess Christ and still be the most unscrupulous businessman in town? Answer, because maybe they're not
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Christians. Maybe they're modern day Judases. I'll push it as far as I can.
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The only way you can know you're a Christian is to ask yourself the question, what is my life like right now?
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What's my life like right now? If you base your Christianity on walking to the front of the church, getting slain in the spirit, speaking in tongues, studying the
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Bible, signing the card, raising your hand, getting baptized, you won't be thinking about your salvation biblically.
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And the biblical view is, God has saved me and the way I have my assurance and the way
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I know, yes, a historical fact that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was raised from the dead.
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Yes, maybe there was a time in my life where God... There had to have been a time in my life when I was a Christian that God made me born again and that I'm different.
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But how do I know that really was true? How do I know that in fact took place? Answer is because right now
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I'm a changed person. I'm different and I'm facing this way. I've said no to my past allegiances even though they still hearken and beckon.
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And I've said yes to this allegiance even though I don't perfectly love and obey God and honor Him. Even though I sin and fall short,
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I don't want to. And I'm not a man like Bunyan said, facing both ways. I'm a man facing one way.
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I want to serve God. And so then you say, well, I don't have assurance today. Well, maybe your assurance isn't today because you're not striving for godliness.
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And as you do, and you have deeds commensurate with saving faith, God grants you assurance.
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This person used to say, you know what, if you need assurance, quit searching for assurance.
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Quit praying for assurance. Quit running around buying every assurance book in the world. Serve God with all your body, with all your soul, with all your strength.
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Be concerned about the kingdom of heaven and the glory of the triune God and the dove of assurance will come and just float right down and sit on your shoulder and grant you assurance.
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I accepted Jesus in my heart. That's nice. Better than accepting
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Satan in your heart. But unless Jesus accepts you in his heart, you're not going to heaven.
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Unless you are acting like a Christian, you have no right to call yourself a
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Christian. I have to be very careful as I parse this out. Because sometimes Christians don't act like Christians.
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They're still Christians. But they shouldn't feel like Christians. You get it? When you are following God, God grants you assurance.
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It's subjective. Objectively, God has justified you by faith. You cannot lose your salvation.
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Can Jesus lose a Christian? No. You've been justified. God's righteousness exchanged for what?
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Our sin, as the song says. But when you're obeying, God gives you assurance that you're a
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Christian. It doesn't change the objective state, but it gives you the assurance so you can say, God, thank you. Your spirit is testifying to mine even while I'm suffering that I am in fact a
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Christian. When you're disobeying and you don't feel like you're a Christian, in fact you may be and you'll have a long record of showing that you're a
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Christian. But if you don't feel like it, then begin to act like a Christian and you will feel like it. James takes this mirror and he pushes the mirror right up to our face and turns on the lights and it's got like a big 10X on it.
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You ever seen those vanity mirrors? My eyes are getting so bad now, I need those mirrors. I remember my mom used to have one.
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It's got lights and stuff like this cosmetic mirror and it says 10X on it.
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And although I don't wear cosmetics, I like those kind of mirrors. Well, you know what cosmetics means, don't you?
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The world is the cosmos. It's arranged. The opposite of arrangement is chaos.
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So you've got cosmos and chaos. Chaos is disorderly. Cosmos is orderly.
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And so when you go to bed at night and your face becomes chaos in the morning, you get up and make it cosmos. That's where we get the word cosmetics from, cosmos.
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And you're like, who are you to tell me, baldy? I mean, grow some hair. Somebody said to me, well,
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I think you look better with hair. And I said, well, when I had hair, they said, I think you look better without hair.
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So what are you going to do? God's best life for you. James is taking that mirror, 10X, and he's pushing it up for your good.
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James isn't being mad. He's inspired by God. James is not trying to be angry. He's saying, here's the truth.
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Christians act like Christians. Faith without works is dead. If you talk all the time and you have no works, if you have no desire, if you have no impetus to try to obey
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God because of what he's done for you and how he's rescued you and redeemed you, then you should ask yourself the question, can
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I be a Christian? Could I be called a Christian? And even if you are a
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Christian in sin, those questions help propel you out of sin into obedience. Only God alone saves.
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Only the Christ on the cross saves. But when God saves, you are a different person.
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It doesn't take much scratching around to smell the sniff of sulfur in fool's gold.
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And it doesn't take much scratching around to try to, in love, encourage people to have faith that works.
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One more time so no one misunderstands. At the cross,
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Jesus said, it is finished. Payment in full. The wrath of God that is due us was poured out on Jesus as a substitute, as a lamb of God, who came with the intention of the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all agreeing that this would glorify the name of God as Jesus would buy out an elect group of people and a remnant for God's own glory.
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And God alone saves. God saves us and we respond with faith. Faith doesn't save.
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Faith doesn't cause God to save us. Faith is a result. It's a response. The baby is born out of the mother and it responds with crying.
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The baby crying does not force God to save. And when God saves and makes a new creature in Christ, that person has new loves, new affections, new desires, new hopes, new dreams, and then also says, you know, what
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I used to love, I don't love as much anymore. It's sometimes attractive and sometimes I go backwards a little bit, but I'm a new person.
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I want with all my heart to worship you. And if a person says that, that is a sign that God has saved them because unbelievers don't act that way.
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So my marching order is today before we get to next week. If you're a Christian and you act like it, praise
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God that He's given you works to help with your assurance because your faith is invisible. How do you know unless you see your life changed?
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If you've got family members or friends who aren't Christians, who say they are, but it's all talk, you're the one to tell them.
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And if you're a Christian who's struggling in sin, friends, unbelievers don't struggle with sin.
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Christians do. So in that struggle, say, I've manifest saving faith in my life before and even though I'm in a rut now and I'm sinning now,
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God strengthen me so I may walk in the newness of life and then you can grant me assurance because I know
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I'm saved. I'm just not feeling the assurance now because my life is not commensurate with my profession. And next week we'll see the rest.
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Let's go ahead and bow. Lord, I acknowledge this morning that salvation is from the
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Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. That you save us. But Lord, you have said in your word by the power of the
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Spirit, we would be different. James is no addition to the canon.
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James is not some book made up. But we understand faith without works is dead. Lord, we can see a live faith in Peter's life and in James and Paul, those in Hebrews in the hall of faith, different because you've changed them.
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And I pray for our congregation that if some are here today that have been coming in for a long time or just a short while, say they're
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Christians but they're not, use this passage to confront them. May you be glorified in that.
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Save them, Lord. Lord, for those who are here struggling with assurance, who are Christians and they've seen their life pattern over 20 years,
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I pray that you'd use this message to bring them out of that rut and have them follow you with fresh assurance.
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And Lord, lastly, so many churches in the area that teach anything goes.
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Everybody's going to heaven. It doesn't matter. Lord, but we've been taught differently, and I pray that this week may you help us utter the words that Jesus Christ saved sinners.
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May you help us to analyze and examine people with their professions of faith, with the heart that Jesus would have for sinners, and that is a heart of compassion and love and wanting to tell them the truth.