Faith Works

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If you have a copy of the Bible, I'd like for you to open it with me and turn to Genesis 22 and James 2.
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If you'll hold your place in both when we read, we're going to read one and immediately go and read a portion of the other.
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And I want to confess as I go into this message that I have labored, I always labor over my messages, but I've labored over this message more so than normal because this is a subject which is, well, it is one of the most controversial subjects in the history of Christian discourse.
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Because today we're going to be discussing the relationship between faith and works.
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And this morning Brother Mike came in, I asked him to come over.
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He was walking back that way.
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I said, Brother, I want to talk to you.
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And I'm so thankful for Mike and Andy.
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We have a wonderful relationship.
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And I said to Mike, I said, you know, I have so much to say today.
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I really just my heart's been torn over this.
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I really think there's a lot here that we need to address.
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And I just I don't want to rush.
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And he goes, take another week.
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And I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot.
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I'm still going to be here next week.
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So so instead of trying to cram everything into this week, I'm going to make this two parts.
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And we're going to focus today mainly on the exegesis of James two, because that was the part I thought was really going to slow me down.
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And I didn't want to rush through that because what we're going to do next week, which was was going to be half of this week, is look at the paradox between James two and Paul.
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And what is the paradox? Well, come next week, you'll find out there's no contradictions in Holy Scripture.
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But there are times where you read one passage and you read another passage.
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And if you don't understand both of them within their context, they can seem to conflict.
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And that's what I mean when I talk about the paradox between James and Paul.
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And and that is something that as a believer, we need to be able to articulate, because here are the two things that we have to battle in the Christian life.
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And why this discourse is so controversial is because there are two ditches in which it is easy to fall.
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Some folks proudly fall into the ditch of works based salvation.
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I am going to heaven because of what I do.
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Jesus paid it some, I shall pay the rest.
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You know, that's the idea is my works are going to accomplish my standing before God.
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That is a dangerous ditch in which to fall.
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But on the other hand, there are those who believe that even the mere mention of works makes someone a legalist.
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And what we find ourselves in is we find ourselves in two ditches.
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We have the ditch of legalism.
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Legalism says our works contribute to our salvation.
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And then the other and you maybe have never heard this term.
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The other ditch is what's called easy believism.
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And easy believism is this.
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Our faith in Christ can be genuine even if it produces no change in our life.
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Ever heard somebody say that? Now, you may not have ever heard him say it just that way.
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But it is very common today to hear people say, Yes, you can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and there be no change in your life.
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If you think I am exaggerating, I have spent time.
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My heart is torn up about this because I see this seeping into the Reformed faith.
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They declare that it's a right expression of sola fide, but it is not the historic expression of sola fide.
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And I fear the danger of what's going to happen.
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Is we are going to have men and women who are happy in their sins and saying Christ is my Savior.
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Happy without repentance and saying Christ is my Lord.
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I mean look at the church.
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Look at the state of the American church and tell me that is not what we see.
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We see a church that has abandoned.
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I know pastors who say you cannot preach repentance because if you preach repentance you are preaching works based salvation.
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The very first words of Christ.
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I haven't even read the text yet.
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My introduction is going to be the whole sermon.
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But the very first words of Christ in his sermons.
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Mark tells us he came about saying what? Repent.
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If we don't have repentance in our gospel, we do not have the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And so, we have to be careful not to fall in the ditch of legalism.
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Or in the ditch of easy believism.
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But we need to understand the proper relationship between faith and works.
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How do we understand both of those things in regard to salvation? And again, I want you to understand that there are those who today if they heard this message they would argue that I was confusing faith and works, that I am confusing law and gospel, that I am conflating or that I am deconstructing sola fide.
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I am not.
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I believe I stand on the scriptures.
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And you know what? As much as I think creeds and confessions are important, and they are.
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And I believe they agree with me by the way.
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But if somebody brings me a creed or confession and says, see this creed or confession it disagrees with you.
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As long as I stand on the word of God, that is where I am going to stand.
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Creeds and confessions are important.
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They are frameworks, but they are not the scripture.
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We must stand upon the word of God.
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And if your theology cannot stand the test of scripture, then it needs to change.
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Alright.
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We are going to read, reminding ourselves.
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By the way, this is our, we have been giving an exposition of Genesis.
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So we are in Genesis 22.
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We are going to read the narrative.
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I have preached it two weeks in a row already.
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So this is the third week.
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I have already given an exposition of the text.
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But I do want to read it to remind us where we are.
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And then we are immediately going to go to James chapter 2.
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And we are going to see how James looks at Genesis 22.
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And he uses Genesis 22 as an example of the relationship between faith and works.
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So let's do that.
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Let's stand.
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Give honor to God's word.
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After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here am I.
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He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains on which I shall tell you.
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So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering.
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And it arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
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And on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
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Then Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey.
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I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.
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And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son.
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And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
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So they went, both of them, together.
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And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, My father.
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And he said, Here am I, my son.
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He said, Behold the fire and the wood.
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But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.
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So they went, both of them, together.
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And when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.
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Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
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But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
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And he said, Here am I.
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He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.
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For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
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And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his thorns.
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And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.
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So Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-Jireh.
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The Lord will provide.
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And as it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.
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James chapter 2.
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The context begins in verse 14, but for the sake of this we're just going to read verses 21 to 24.
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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 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 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.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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Lord, your word is true.
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Let your word be true, though every man a liar.
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Father, let us trust your word more than we trust ourselves.
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Let us trust your word more than we trust other men.
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Father, as I preach your word today, I pray that you would keep me from error.
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For I am a fallible man.
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I am capable of error.
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I pray that you would protect the people and protect my heart.
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And I pray God that you would use this time to draw men and women to yourself.
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Lord, for those who know you, that they would be confirmed in their faith, encouraged, edified, challenged, and spurred along to good works.
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But Lord, for those who do not know you, that they would see the cross of Christ as beautiful, and the salvation which comes through faith alone and Christ alone as even more beautiful.
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In his name.
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Amen.
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Currently I'm teaching hermeneutics to our academy students.
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Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible.
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And it is not always easy.
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It requires diligence and work.
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And the three steps that I use when I teach hermeneutics, drawn from the late Dr.
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Howard Hendricks, are observation, interpretation, and application.
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Observation, what does the text say? Interpretation, what does the text mean? Application, how does the text work? That's it.
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That's all.
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I mean, there's more to each one, but that's the outline.
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And I mention that now because honestly, if you think about the last three messages, that's really what we have done.
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In week one, when we looked at Genesis 22, three weeks ago, we observed the text.
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We walked through the text, and I made mention of the historical situation and all of that which was going on around Abraham at the time, and human sacrifices and all those things.
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We observed the text verse by verse.
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Then last week, we interpreted the text because we looked at the theology of type and fulfillment, the theology of substitution, and the theology of providence.
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That was interpreting, what does this text mean? Not just what does it say, but what does it mean? But today, really, if you think about it, we're following the same pattern because now we're going to ask, how does it work? How does this text apply to us? Now, we could say it applies to us in how we understand God, type and fulfillment.
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It applies to us in how we understand substitution.
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Christ died for me.
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That is the gospel.
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We could say it helps us to understand the providence of God.
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All of those things are true.
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But the great thing that we have in this text, that we don't have in every text, is we have a Holy Spirit inspired application because that's what James does.
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James takes this text, this awesome historical moment in the life of Abraham, and he says, here is how you can apply this text to your own life.
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So really, today, and because I have Brother Mike's permission, just kidding, next week, we're going to be applying this.
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And here's the outline.
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This is for something else.
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I want to show you guys something in a moment.
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I don't always use the whiteboard.
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I don't always go professor on you, but today I will be because I need to show you something that's not in English.
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It's something that's in the original language that you need to see.
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So I pulled my whiteboard up.
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But today, we are going to be outlining the text in this way.
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First, we're going to look at the use of Abraham by James, and that's really what today is all about.
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Next week, we're going to look at the paradox between James and Paul, and then finally, the proper relationship between faith and works.
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Hopefully, you'll see that as we go.
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So let's go and let's talk about James for a moment.
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Who is James? Anybody know? Most likely the half-brother of Jesus.
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He doesn't say that in the text.
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He doesn't say, James, a brother of Jesus Christ.
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He says, James, a servant of Jesus Christ.
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But yet, if we go back to the book of Galatians, we find James mentioned there.
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He's one of the elders.
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He's a pastor in the church at Jerusalem.
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And in Galatians, it tells us James is the brother of Jesus.
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Now, what do we know about the brothers of Jesus? One, we know they were all younger than him because his mother was a virgin when she had him.
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That's called deductive reasoning.
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We know they were all his younger brothers.
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Number two, we know that during the ministry of Christ, they weren't following him because there's moments in the life of Christ where the brothers of Jesus would come and say, Hey, he might be crazy.
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Now, that's the key standard version.
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But that's exactly, I mean, it's sort of, you know, there were some times where it seemed like they weren't really on board with what he was doing.
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You know, come on back home, Jesus.
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You're going to get yourself in trouble saying these things.
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But by the time that Christ gives himself on the cross, is buried and rose again, by that time, we know of at least two of his brothers who became ministers in the church.
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His brother James, who wrote the book of James, and his brother Jude, who wrote the book of Jude.
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Both of them are the brothers, half-brothers.
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Why do we say half-brothers? Because they would have been the sons of Joseph and Mary rather than God and Mary.
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And so this is James.
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And if you read James' book, James' book is filled with wisdom for living the Christian life.
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In fact, James has been compared to two other parts of Scripture.
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James has been compared to the Proverbs.
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Because one of the things about James is he says so many different things about so many different subjects, like the Proverbs.
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He almost seems to change subjects in mid-chapters sometimes because he's dealing with very practical things that the church needs to deal with.
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And sometimes it seems like what he says next isn't really tied to what he says before.
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There's a consistent theme, but it seems like it's hard to sometimes follow that theme because he's giving us wisdom for living the Christian life.
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But also, James has been compared to the Sermon on the Mount.
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Because if you read through James and you read through the Sermon on the Mount, you'll see many consistent overlaps, which tells us that James was very influenced by the preaching of Jesus.
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Of course he was.
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He's a Christian.
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Shouldn't we all be influenced by the preaching of Jesus? But aren't we often not? A lot of people want to run to other passages, but they're very uncomfortable with the things that Jesus had to say.
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I'm going to tell you something.
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A lot of what I'm going to talk about, when I start comparing faith and works, and I start talking about the fact that, and you'll notice the title of my sermon, Faith, Works, a lot of it can be found in the words of Christ.
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You know, oftentimes when he talked about faith, he talked about it in what we do, that we show forth our faith in our life.
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Who said that? James! We're going to read it in a moment, but James is really echoing our Savior throughout his book.
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The most controversial section of James is James 2, beginning at verse 14.
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From verse 14 to 26 has, and I will admit, some of the most difficult words in the New Testament, especially for the Reformed Christian, because we hold to a doctrine called sola fide.
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Sola fide is Latin for justification by faith alone.
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And we do believe that.
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I believe that.
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I will go to my grave holding to justification by faith alone.
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And yet, there's only one time where the phrase faith alone is used in the Bible.
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When James says you're justified by works and not by faith alone.
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Isn't that just a sock in the gut? It's the one thing we say we hold to, and it's the one thing that it seems like James would be like, nope.
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And that's why I say this is a struggle.
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And if we don't understand how these things fit together, we will be consistently confused, ever more confused.
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So what I want to do today is, again, I want to look at James 2.
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I know we read verses 21 to 24, but if we don't go back up to verse 14, we're not going to understand 21 to 24.
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So go back up to verse 14.
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James asks a question.
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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him? Now just stop right there.
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Because in some Bibles, particularly the King James, it simply says, can faith save him? I'm correct about that.
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Who's got King James? Am I correct? It says, can faith save him? But did you notice the distinction in the ESV? It adds a word right here.
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It adds what is known as a definite article.
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It adds the word that.
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ESV, I know, says, can that faith save him? Anybody got NIV? Wow, okay.
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That was outrunning the King James for a while.
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Nobody has NIV.
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Okay, anybody got a New American Standard Bible? What does it say? No, no, no, verse 14.
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It says, what good is it, my brothers, if somebody says, and then there's another sentence.
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It should be right after that.
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Can that faith.
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Okay, thank you.
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That's the part.
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This word is important, and you'll see why in a moment.
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Such faith.
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Thank you, my brother.
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I knew somebody had one.
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Oh, you looked it up.
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Oh, you phone people.
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You know what? You used to hear Bibles turn.
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This doesn't make noise.
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I like to hear the Bible.
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Okay.
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It did work, though.
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Can such faith.
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Can it make anything different? I promise you I have a point, because I believe a right understanding of James requires that we understand that James is making a distinction between two types of faith.
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He is making a distinction between living faith and dead faith.
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And when he says, can that faith save him, that faith is dead faith.
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And by the way, I said I was going to mention it.
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I will.
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In the Greek, just so you know, the Greek at this particular point says, Now, I know that didn't matter to most of you, but let me show you what does matter.
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In the King James, it says, can faith save him? In the ESV, it adds the word that.
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In the NIV, it adds the word such.
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Are these words in the original language? Yes, they are.
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The word is hey.
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I know that doesn't look like hey, but that is the Greek letter, which is pronounced hey.
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And the word right after it is pistos.
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Hey, pistos.
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That faith.
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That is important, because it's indicating a certain type of faith.
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You follow me? You understand why this is important? Because if this is allowed to stand, can faith save him? And we say no, because by the way, in the Greek, there's a little word at the beginning called may, and that word may is the adversative, which means no.
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It answers itself no.
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Can faith save him? Well, most of us would say yes, holophedic.
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Faith can save him.
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But James is not asking can faith save him.
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James is saying can that faith save him? And what kind of faith is that faith? It's what he just described.
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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? What is that faith? It's the faith that has not works.
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Now, I'm telling you something.
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If you can't get on board with this, then why? I believe I'm making my point.
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I'm glad I got to do two weeks, because now I'm so, like I said, I didn't even think about it.
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But this is so important.
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I was going to rush through this.
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But boy, I love whiteboard time.
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This is good time.
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Because this is important.
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Because notice what he says afterwards.
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He gives an example.
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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.
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What good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is what? D-E-A-D.
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It's dead.
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So what is the type of faith that James is describing? Dead faith.
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And he's giving a distinction between dead faith and living faith.
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In the example he gives, he says, imagine a person comes to you.
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And they are hungry.
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And they are lacking in their clothes that they need.
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Let's say it's cold.
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It's starting to get cold.
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Praise God.
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It's starting to get cold outside.
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But imagine you saw one of your brothers and sisters in Christ.
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And they were shivering in the cold.
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And you said, Ricky, I see you're shivering.
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I'm going to pray for you.
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I'm going to put on both of my jackets and walk away.
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I mean, that's the picture, right? Go back to Matthew 5.
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Jesus said if somebody needs your coat, you give it to them, right? I've got both of my coats on.
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Ricky's cold and he's freezing.
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But I'm just going to say, I pray for you.
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I pray somebody give you a coat.
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I like both of mine.
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That's the illustration James gives.
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He says, what good is that? What good is that to tell you I'm going to pray for you if I don't do anything for you? Oh, he's preaching works righteousness.
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No, I'm not.
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I'm preaching the Bible.
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What good is my faith if it doesn't change my life? How is that hard? How is that hard to figure out? Why is that controversial to say? Because we want to see people who don't have changed lives but say they believe in Jesus and we don't want to think they're going to hell.
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That's why.
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We want to find a back door so that people who live in sin can say they're happily in the Savior.
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We want to be able to go to every funeral and say yes, they're with Jesus rather than know that most of them that we attend go in peace, be warm, be filled without giving them the things needed for the body.
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What good is that? So also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead.
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Now, verse 18 is very important because James, the consummate apologist preacher anticipates an objection.
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By the way, if you ever spend any time with many preachers you'll learn that one of the things that we like to do is anticipate objections.
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I do it all the time.
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When I'm writing my sermon I write what is somebody going to ask me? Brother Mike talked about it when he talked about interpreting the Bible.
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The other night, Brother Mike gave a great class on how to interpret the Bible.
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He said there's the problem.
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The problem with the text is often the question you get asked, isn't it? Somebody will come up to you afterwards and say, brother, I don't know if I understand this.
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And it's almost always that problem in the text.
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And so James, Paul does this too.
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If you read Romans chapter 9, it's great.
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Paul anticipates the argument.
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Bam, he gives the response.
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Well, that's what we're about to see in verse 18 because here's the, he says, but someone will say.
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Who's the someone? It's the disagreeable person.
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It's the person who's disagreeing.
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You hear me say this, but someone will say.
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Someone will say what? You have faith and I have works.
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Now before we even go to the next part, just think of that.
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What is he saying? He's saying somebody would come up to him and say, listen, James, you're a works righteousness guy and I'm living by faith.
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That's the point.
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Now that might be a modern take on it, but that's really the point.
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Somebody might, he says, some of you might come up to me and say, you have works, I have faith.
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Show me your faith apart from your works.
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I honestly, I want to tell you something.
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That portion sat on my gut for about, well, I can't even, I woke up last night thinking about this, went and sat in my chair, fell back to sleep in my chair because I couldn't get it out of my mind.
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Show me your faith without works.
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Because I was really thinking, how could you do that? That's what James is asking.
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He's asking the question, how is it, how are you going to do that? Because people say, I believe.
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Yeah, but you live like the devil.
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But I believe.
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James is saying, show me your faith apart from your works.
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How? How can you? He says, and I will show you my faith by my works.
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You see, he is not denying, by the way, just keep this in mind because I'm going to make this point more next week.
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James is not denying that we're saved by faith.
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He's denying that faith is only something we say.
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Faith is something we do.
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That's the difference.
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That's really it.
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Because when he says to somebody, show me your faith apart from your works, what is he saying? All you would have is mere words.
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I will show you my faith by my works.
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Oh, he's preaching works righteousness.
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No, he's not.
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God wouldn't let it in here if he was.
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Because this is God's word.
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This is not the words of James.
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Hate it when people say, oh, that's just James.
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Like Luther.
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I love Luther.
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Understand this.
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I love Luther.
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But early on in Luther's ministry, he had some real harsh words to say against James's epistle.
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In fact, he not only called it, in his preface to his 1522 edition of the New Testament, he not only called it the epistle of straw, but he believed that it shouldn't even really be included because he said it lacked the gospel.
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He said James did not include the gospel.
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Interesting.
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Now, he would later come around to a different understanding.
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But Luther's early theology really didn't have a place for what James is saying.
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And here's what we have to choose.
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Does our theology have a place for what James is saying? Or does our theology say the canon is wrong? And we really don't have a place for James either.
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Because that's where a lot of people get.
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By the canon, I mean the list of books that we have.
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James maybe shouldn't be in there.
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I'm going to tell you something.
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There's books of the Bible, never get preached.
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Now, James gets preached a lot, but this particular section usually gets preached around rather than preached through, like what we're doing right now.
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A lot of people don't preach 1 John 3 either because it says a lot of the same things.
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They like Romans 3, 4, 5.
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They like Galatians 1, 2, and 3.
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They don't like this.
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I'm going to show you next week.
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No contradiction.
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But let's go back to the text.
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Show me your faith apart from your works.
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I will show you my faith by my works.
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You believe that God is one.
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You do well.
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Even demons believe and shudder.
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Isn't that interesting? Demons believe.
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I had a great question.
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I get questions.
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People email me questions sometimes from other churches.
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There's a wonderful friend of mine down in Keystone and she sends me questions a lot of times.
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And she sent me recently a question because someone wanted to know if the word believe here for demons is different than the word that Paul uses for believe in his writings.
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When Paul says we're saved, he who believes in the Lord will be saved.
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And they were saying is it a different Greek word? No, it's the same one.
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It's pistis.
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It's this word.
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Pistis is the root of faith.
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It's the word of the word believe.
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Pistou, pistouon, all of these are different endings for the word for faith or belief.
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So it's the same word.
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So do demons believe in God? Well, they know God's there.
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That's the point James is making.
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They don't have to believe like we believe in something we cannot see.
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Faith is evidence of things unseen.
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They've seen him.
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They know him.
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They know he's there.
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They live in the spiritual realm.
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There's no question.
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Demons know God exists.
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But the point James is making is they, in knowing God exists, they have no doubt of his existence.
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Therefore, they believe in his existence.
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And if all you do is believe that God exists, your faith is no real different than a demon.
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Let me tell you something in the fishing hole.
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I can't tell you how many times, not this weekend, but over the years, and probably I'm going to hear it before the end of the week.
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Somebody will come up to me and say, of course I'm saved.
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I believe in God.
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I say, well, good.
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You've got the same faith as demons.
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And I don't say that to be ugly, but it's the truth.
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Believing in God will not save you.
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In fact, Romans 1 tells us this.
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Everybody believes in God because everybody knows God exists.
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The biggest liars in the world are atheists because they're lying to themselves.
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The Bible says they know God exists and they're suppressing that truth in unrighteousness.
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When you lay in bed at night and you can hear your heart beating in your chest, the one thing you need to understand and know is this, in your heart of hearts, that heart that's beating, you know that God is the one that's keeping it beating and you're responsible to him.
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And what you're going to do is you're going to do one of two things.
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You're either going to submit to him or you are going to continue to rebel and suppress what he has already put in your heart, but you know he's there.
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So, somebody says, I'm saved, I believe in God.
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No.
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Believing in God is not faith.
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Believing in God is the default setting of humanity.
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This is why everywhere you go, every country you go to, you will find somebody who's carved a tree or they've laid a bunch of rocks on each other or they have melted down some precious metal and formed it into something because we are, as we've heard the term homo sapien, means the wise being.
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We're also known as homo religiosus.
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We're the religious being.
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There's nowhere you will go where you will not find people trying to worship something because they know God exists.
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They know.
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So, somebody says, I believe in God.
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James says, you do well.
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Even demons believe.
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And shudder.
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They fear God in one sense.
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But do you want, verse 20, do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Now he's getting to the nitty gritty.
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You want me to prove it to you, is what James just said.
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You want me to go to the text, is how do we prove things? From the Bible.
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You want to be proven that faith without works is useless? Verse 21.
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Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? Now, this is a difficult thing to consider.
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Because as I said already, we believe in justification by faith.
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And James just said, Abraham is justified by works.
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But in what way? And I must say to you, we must understand the distinction that's being made here.
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Because when we talk about justification, the word justification means to be declared righteous.
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That is what the word means.
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But it also has a way of understanding in how someone is being declared righteous.
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So for instance, if I say we are justified by faith, what I mean is that by faith we stand before God having the sacrifice of Christ made on our behalf.
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Our faith is in that sacrifice and it is the standing by which we are declared righteous.
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And that is typically how Paul uses the term.
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Paul says we're justified by faith apart from works.
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That's what he's saying.
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He's saying, because why are you justified by faith? You're justified by faith because what your faith is in.
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Your faith is in the Savior.
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Your faith is in Christ.
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This is why we call it sola fide, sola Christos.
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Here, why? Because we're justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
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Your faith...
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Oh, get close.
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Your faith doesn't save you.
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Christ saves you.
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Your faith is in Him and He saves you.
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And when you say justified by faith, that's theological shorthand for justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
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If you leave the in Christ alone out, the faith doesn't matter.
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Because if you place your faith in Buddha, you're going to hell.
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If you place your faith in Muhammad, you're going to hell.
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If you place your faith in any other person than the Lord Jesus Christ, you are going to hell for there is only one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
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And at the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Right? So your faith is in Him.
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You're saved by faith but it's not that your faith is not what saves you.
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It is what your faith is in that saves you.
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Okay.
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So you come back to this thing about Abraham being justified by faith and you say, okay, so how is the word justified being here used? The word justified being here is saying that Abraham's faith was declared righteous.
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His faith was declared to be genuine by what he did.
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And you say, wait a minute, how is, I don't understand.
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Let me explain.
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In the Gospel of Matthew, in fact, let's go look at it.
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Go look at the Gospel of Matthew.
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Matthew chapter 11.
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Jesus is talking about the difference between Himself and John the Baptist.
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What's the difference between Jesus and John the Baptist according to Jesus? John came neither eating or drinking and you called him a demon-possessed man.
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I came both eating and drinking.
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You called me a glutton and a wine-bibber.
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Right? So Jesus is like, I can't make you happy.
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Either we live a pietistic life like John or we live a life that is engaged with the world like Christ.
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He wasn't in the world but He engaged the world.
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He said either way it doesn't make you happy.
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But notice what He says.
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Verse 19.
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The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, look at Him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
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Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.
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Notice the word justified.
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How is that word being used there? It's being used to declare this.
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Wisdom is shown to be righteous by what it does.
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It's shown to be righteous by what it does.
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Somebody says I'm wise and acts like a fool.
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You say you're not wise because it's not being vindicated by what you do.
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And again, the word justified can be translated vindicated in certain places.
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I think this would be one of them.
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So now, taking that concept back into the heart of what James is saying and we look at Abraham and we say, what did Abraham do? Abraham offered up his son.
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His only son, whom he loved to God.
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Why? Because he had faith.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Were there moments in Abraham's life where his faith was weak? There were moments where he said, yeah, she's my sister.
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You know, we remember.
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That happened on a couple of occasions.
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There were times where Abraham's faith failed the test.
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But when the ultimate test, in fact, in your mind, you don't have to turn there.
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In your mind, go back to Genesis 22.
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What does it say? And God did test Abraham.
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What was God testing? His faith.
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How did God test his faith? Take the thing that is most precious to you.
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Take the thing you have waited for for more than 25 years.
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Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him up as a burnt offering.
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Not only do you have to slaughter him, but you have to burn him to ashes.
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And Abraham didn't say no.
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In fact, Abraham didn't even argue the way he argued for Sodom.
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Abraham was told, I'm gonna destroy Sodom, a city filled with wicked men.
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And he said, but what if there are 50 righteous? What if there are 45 righteous? What if there, remember that bartering situation with Abraham? He bartered for the life of wicked men.
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But he did not barter for the life of his son.
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Somebody says, why? I don't know why, except that maybe he knew it wasn't gonna happen.
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God had made up his mind.
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Take your son, your only son, whom you love.
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And so James looks at that.
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And James says, you want to know that faith that's real faith demonstrates itself? Look at Abraham.
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And I want you to see something in James.
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Don't miss this.
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Because in verse 22, he says, you see, and by the way, how do you see? You see faith by what we do.
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I can't see your faith.
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I can only see what you do.
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So a lot of what we see in James is the demonstration or the visualization of faith.
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And it's by what you see.
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He says, you see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works and scripture was fulfilled that says, notice this, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Let me ask you a question.
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When was that quote stated? Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him as righteousness was stated in Genesis 15, verse 6.
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When did Abraham offer up Isaac? Genesis 22.
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How many years separate Genesis 15, 6 and Genesis 22? At least 25 years, if not more, probably more because Isaac probably would have been a little older at this point.
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But we're looking at a 25 year distinction between the moment Abraham was justified by faith and the Bible does say he was justified by faith.
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It says he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness in Genesis 15.
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But when was his faith shown to be genuine? When he took his son, his only son, whom he loved, and he offered him up.
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Now let me ask you a question.
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Did he get saved again? Did he get justified again? No.
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But was his faith demonstrated to be true? Yes.
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So what is James telling us? James is telling us that a faith that does not demonstrate itself is not a living faith.
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And that's why he says you see, you do see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone because that's the only way I would know or you would know or anyone would know that another person is in the faith.
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One of the most damnable things that we have done in the modern church is we have made salvation nothing more than a tip of the hat towards Jesus.
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We have said, used to be, come, receive Christ and be baptized.
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Then that became too hard.
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Then it was just we put the benches down, we say come and pray and then you receive Christ.
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That became too hard.
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Then we took out the benches and we said stay where you are but stand up if you receive Jesus and you stood up but that became too hard.
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So then we were like stay seated and raise your hand but that became too hard.
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Then it was close every eye because nobody gets to see you receive Jesus because it's just a personal relationship between you and the Lord.
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Find the verse that says your salvation is a personal relationship between you and the Lord.
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I'll wait.
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No, it says we are justified by faith and faith that is true will demonstrate itself in living and active obedience to the Savior.
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And the fact that I even have to cringe when I say that in fear that one of you may come and argue with me is sad for the state of the church because nothing I have said today should be controversial.
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I want to quote to you from a book.
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This is James White's book.
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This was really his magnum opus.
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It's The God Who Justifies.
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It's a book on the doctrine of justification that's this thick.
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And if you've never if you don't have it I recommend getting it even if it takes you 10 years to read it.
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It's worth it because it's a thick long book.
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But it goes over the doctrine of justification.
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And on verse 21 he says this speaking about Abraham's faith he says this he says quote even God's own words point to this demonstration of faith in the act of obedience for surely what else could God mean when he says do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me than that Abraham had given evidence of the faith he possessed decades later in Genesis 15-6.
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So what's James White saying there? He's saying even if you just read Genesis 22 you can see that what Abraham's doing is giving a demonstration of his faith.
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And according to Genesis 22 who's he giving the demonstration to? God! Even though we know God knows all things.
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I'm not for a second saying that.
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But God gives him this opportunity to test his faith before him.
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Who else is there? The two guys that came with him they're way away, right? You could say Isaac was there he witnessed it but the one person who mattered was God himself because he says now I know.
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You've been saying all this time that you believe in me but now I know because you have not withheld your son your only son.
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So what was Genesis 22? Genesis 22 was a test of faith an opportunity to show that his faith was real.
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Beloved, has your faith ever been put to the test? Now I'm not going to tell you we ain't never going to fail the test follow Abraham's life.
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He failed the test a few times.
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But here's the thing and this is where I'm going to draw to a close because I know I've went way over and boy aren't you glad I didn't try to do the rest.
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But here's the thing if our faith isn't ready to be put to the test is it even faith at all? If we say to the world our faith is all in here our faith is all in here our faith is all in here but our faith is never out here James would say show me your faith and I'll show you mine by what I do.
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Does your faith show itself? If not, why not? I'm not asking for sinless perfection and I certainly am not preaching it but I am saying this if Christ has not changed your life then maybe the Christ that you think you believe in is not the Christ of the Bible.
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Let's pray.
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Father I so thank you for your word.
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I thank you that we have an opportunity now to remember what Christ has done and I do pray the gospel has been preached.
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We have clearly proclaimed today that faith alone and Christ alone saves but we cannot deny the scriptures which tell us our faith will demonstrate itself and if it does not James tells us our faith is dead and dead faith cannot save.
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That faith cannot save.
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So Lord give us a living faith.
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Give us a faith that demonstrates itself in seeking obedience.
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We know we won't be perfect.
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We know we won't have perfect obedience.
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We know we will fail but Lord give us hearts to seek.
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Give us hearts to knock.
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Give us hearts that stand at the door and say Lord please change us.
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Let us not live in sin and happiness.
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Lord let us live seeking obedience to Christ in His name.