Show Me: Faith and Works

Well, hello. Good morning. It is Columbus Day, which isn't really a holiday anymore. I don't. I don't remember the last time I got Columbus Day off of work and I do work for myself. So I guess I could take it off if I wanted to but all my customers are in business.

So they're in business. I got to be in business, I suppose. But anyway, I wanted to. I saw you always see this right around Columbus Day. You always see a few social justice warriors out there saying I don't.

I refuse to celebrate murderers rapists and colonizers. And then then they'll say happy indigenous people's day and I always found that so stupid it kind of presents this idea that Before Christopher Columbus got here.

Everything was like a utopia over here. I mean people were nice to each other and kind and just lending to each other. They make it seem like it was your see Pocahontas in the beginning when everyone's so lovely and they're singing.

They're just everyone's sharing everything's great and then the white people show up and then everything goes to hell and that's not how it is at All. I mean these people were barbarians. Let's just be honest about that.

The natives were barbarians. And this is I'm saying this as someone who has indigenous blood in his veins right now. They would eat each other. They would cut each other's hearts off sacrifice each other to the gods the wars constantly.

I mean if you're not gonna celebrate Columbus for being a bad guy. Why are you celebrating indigenous peoples for being bad guys? I know why because you're racist. That's why you're a racist. Look the history of all peoples is bad.

The Europeans used to be barbarians. They were bad Africans used to be barbarians. They were bad natives used to be barbarians. They were bad and guess what makes you civil guess what civilizes things?

Christianity that's right. Christian culture is superior to any culture even those Kindly little natives that lived here in the United States before Columbus got here. Even then Christian culture is far superior to whatever pagan nonsense.

They had praying to the spirit gods and all kinds of nonsense and things like that. How's that for a little a little hot take it shouldn't be a hot take this should be obvious. Obviously Christian culture is superior to all this pagan nonsense, obviously.

But I guess if you're racist you gotta can put that into your calculations and stuff like that. Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about today. That is not what I wanted to talk about today. Oh before I get into my real topic I wanted to say I hope you guys have have a good church to go to you.

I hope you have a good church family to go to you. I gotta tell you right now I have a great church and I just want to just I want to brag a little bit About my church. I the Sunday found out what the men's breakfast the men's Bible not Bible study the bit the men's kind of study group is gonna Be talking about for the next few months and I have to say We're gonna be reading the Tim Bailey book.

Daddy tried and it wasn't even my idea. I Am super blessed to be part of this church. I'm so grateful for it all the stuff that happened this past year with me and my own church and stuff like that and now.

That we're in this new church. It's all worked out for good and I'm just so blessed. Thank you for your prayers. I know a lot of you guys were praying for me during that whole kind of tumultuous time, but Huge stuff huge stuff that patriarchy has come to Vermont.

Faith and Works: What Real Belief Looks Like

Anyway believing and believing what's the difference between believing something and believing something. You know, here's the thing and many have said this is nothing new. This is nothing new. But if you want to know what a man believes You should look at what they do how they act what they act on.

You shouldn't really necessarily only listen to what they say now. Obviously what they say is important because that's part of your actions, right? So if you say you believe something we take that into consideration but the only way to really know if somebody believes something is to see how they act do they act on what they say they believe and I'll give you a perfect example of this, you know.

And last few weeks we've been talking a lot about climate change, right and how the world's gonna end in. You know a matter of decades if we don't do something about this climate change and we're gonna control the weather.

So what we're gonna do is if we don't do anything. What's gonna happen is that all the coastlines and stuff like that? They're all gonna be underwater because you see what's happened gonna happen is the world keeps heating up and up and up and it melts the ice caps and then the ice caps go to the water in the ocean and it raises the sea level and Eventually, it's gonna raise the sea level to such a point where?

The shorelines all the places we love to hang out with our families and have ice cream and all that kind of stuff. It's all gonna be underwater because of climate change. So if you don't do something about climate change all the coastlines are going to be Underwater and and a lot of people will even say we're past the point of no return.

You cannot save the coastlines anymore and that and they They act like they believe it. They say it loudly. They make a lot of noise. They want you to support their politics and all that stuff. And if you don't it is literally the end of the world for the coastlines.

So that's what people say to you, but the question is do they actually believe this doomsday scenario? That's the question. Do you believe this doomsday scenario? Liberal politicians and the answer is Most of the time you can clearly see that they do not and one way to know this is to see.

How many of these people that say that we're at the end of the world is coming due to climate change and the rising sea levels and all this how many of these people own beachfront property. Lots of them do in fact lots of them are buying beachfront property right now.

And you would think that if they really believed that the beachfronts were gonna be underwater that there's no way. They would spend millions upon millions of dollars to buy beachfront property. You see they don't actually believe what they're saying if they actually believe that there's no way that they would invest in that way.

There's no way that they would waste money in that way. You just wouldn't do it if you actually believed. That the glaciers were going to cause the sea level to rise to such a degree that all the coastlines are gonna be underwater.

You wouldn't do it. You just wouldn't do it. It doesn't doesn't work that way. That's not a good long-term investment unless you're insane. I guess you could believe it and be insane. But you know I don't know which is better the fact that they're saying something.

They don't believe or the fact that they're insane. I I don't know BC how you act and how you and how you believe they're connected right so you you might say one thing. But if you act contrary. Then you're either crazy, or you actually don't believe what you're saying.

You actually don't believe what you're saying now. This is actually a biblical principle. This is actually a biblical principle in fact. We've talked about this Recently with a with a chapter in James about faith and works right you show me your faith apart from works.

I'll show you my faith by my works of what James is challenging you is say look if you say you believe God you say you Believe in Christ. Well, you should have works because you should act like you believe in Christ.

You know a confession isn't really worth much without actions. That's what he's saying and the thing is God can see the heart right. God can see where you're putting your faith. He can see it perfectly so he knows if you have a true faith or not.

But human beings see we we can only we can only look at what you do and so we can see okay this guy over Here he's acting like he believes Christ. He says he believes Christ, so we believe that he believes Christ.

Then we have another person over here. He says he believes Christ, but he doesn't do anything that Christ says. And so that faith seems like it's dead now. We don't know for sure. But according to James, that's one way.

We can tell I'll show you my faith by my works. And so when you when you look at the climate change. You know hucksters, and they don't act like they believe what they say we can say I'll I mean show me your faith by your works.

You obviously don't believe this climate change stuff. You obviously don't believe it. You're jet-setting around the world telling us that we have to get rid of fossil fuels and stop flying in planes.

But yet you're flying everywhere. Obviously, you don't believe it. Obviously, you don't believe it. And so show me your faith without works. I'll show you my faith by my works. That's what James is talking about here.

That's what James is talking about here. Good works are necessary when it comes to faith because otherwise, how do we even know it's a true faith again? God can see the heart we cannot. God saw the man on the cross that died with with faith and he didn't have any good works after he confessed Christ.

Right. God saw the true heart there so he could say definitively you'll be with me in paradise today BC we can't see the heart. How we see your faith is by your works. That's how we see it. You can tell me all day long you love Christ.

But if you don't do the things that he wants you to do the things that he's told you to do. Do you really love him and see this is also a biblical principle to this comes from the book of John. Jesus himself says this we've talked about this before John chapter 14 verse 15.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. That's what Christ says if you love me, you will keep my commandments. In other words, if you love me, you will have works good works. It doesn't say if you love me, you'll have all the fields.

It doesn't say if you love me, you'll put a kissy face on your tweets a heart symbol next to my name on your tweet. It doesn't say that it doesn't say if you love me, you'll wear a WWJD bracelet. It doesn't say that it says if you love me.

You will keep my commandments. You'll have good works. In other words, and so this is the reality the difference between believing something and Believing something is how you act. It's how you act if you believe the economy is going to crash in the next year.

I would hope that your activities are different than someone who believes the economy is gonna boom in the next year. You have different things to prepare for begin and and and and depending on how you act.

I can know if you really believe it or if you're just blowing hot air. If you're just blowing hot air. So the reality is if you're truly Orthodox and you believe the right things about Christ and you really believe them, right?

I'm not talking about just Understanding orthodoxy in your head. I'm talking about believing. You know what I mean? Have you faith in Christ if you really have faith in Christ, then your orthopraxy is going to be right on.

I'm not talking about perfection. You don't need to have perfection. I'm not saying that but what we are saying is that you should practice good works, right? You should be practicing righteousness if you say you have faith and if you don't Nobody's nobody should believe that you have faith.

I mean, this is why this is why the other day when I did that video about Jamar Tisby and Kyle Howard. That was such a you know for me it was a it was kind of a Long time coming. But I mean look at the works of these people.

The works are just divisive. They're always divisive. No matter what it's always divisive. It's always racist. It's always prejudice. It's always partiality. And so you say you have faith. I see the kissy faces.

I see the heart symbols. I see that you say you're a Christian. But where are your works? Do you love Christ? I don't see any reason to think so. And so what do you really believe? That's the question.

What do you really believe? Well, James Cone, that's what you really believe and that's the reality, right? And so that's that's the thing here the difference between believing something and believing something is the works.

What do you do? You can say anything I could say I believe anything, but what do you actually believe? That's the question. You know this comes into play as well with some of the politics. You know, we're seeing a lot of this.

We're seeing a lot of people saying well Christ isn't a Republican or a Democrat. And so there's a third way the Christian way and okay fine granted I actually believe that too. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Republican or Democrat, right?

And so the question is I believe that there's a Christian way now, but what do you believe though? What do you believe? What are your works right? Because I'll tell you that when when Trump does a bad thing, you know I'll tell you that it's bad when Trump does a good thing I'll tell you that it's good and I do it based on the standard of Scripture.

At least I try to I mean That's that's my goal, right? But but when you are on Twitter, what do you do when Trump does a good thing? What are you saying? Anything or are you pretending that it's bad when Trump does a bad thing?

What are you saying? See a lot of you out there that are saying there's a third way are just all you're doing is Anti Trump anti Republican, that's what you're doing I'm not saying you're a Democrat. But most of what you do is anti Trump.

And so when you say well There's a third way we got to love women and we got to love children. Okay granted. Okay, so are you trying to end abortion? Are you trying to end abortion or are you? Ridiculing every effort to end abortion that you can see are you are you trying to criminalize abortion because if you're trying to protect women And children abortion should be criminalized death penalty offense if you kill your child I can say this definitively based on God's standard because I love Christ.

And so I'm trying to do and teach what he commands if you kill a child you deserve the death penalty. What is your solution because we got to love women right see a lot of y 'all are just saying well we got to love children and women and so social policies welfare and I say to you That's works of a different kind.

That's a different kind of fruit of a different kind of Bible. That's not my Bible. My Bible doesn't say anything like that. And so where your works your works are in lockstep with the Democratic Party.

In lockstep with the Democratic Party, you don't want to criminalize abortion and you want welfare for women. That's Democrats. So you say there's a third way the lie detector determines. That's a lie your works reveal.

You're a Democrat your works reveal. You're a liberal your works reveal that you've got another message. It's not the message of the scripture because Christ said if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

What were Christ's commandments? See Christ wrote the law of God. He wrote it. Not only did he write it, but he did it he accomplished it and he is our example. So if you love Christ, you better have works and they better be the right kind of works good works according to his commandments.

Otherwise, you might say you believe. What do you really believe? Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless. I was about to upload this video, but I wanted to Just mention one more verse from the Bible and this is this is so key because you know.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments how many of us keep his commandments perfectly. None of us do. None of us do all Christians are striving to obey Christ, but we know we're fighting a war.

We're fighting a war against our own flesh and guess what? A lot of that war is a fight against unbelief because when you disobey Christ, what are you actually saying there? What are you actually doing there?

You know when you sin when you sin you think that you're sitting privately got me God is everywhere. God is everywhere the other day my my pastor quizzed my four-year-old from the pulpit about the catechism questions and he asked him he asked my four-year-old son.

Where is God and my son? I was sweating bullets. Oh, no, he's gonna he's gonna and my son got it right on God is everywhere. And so when you sin you think you're privately sinning. That's it. That's a sign of unbelief, right?

So no one's gonna do this perfectly. But we got to look at people's behaviors and their patterns and their practice, right? And this is why this verse is it. When you read this verse you feel it, right?

It's mark 9 23 or 24 the father of the child who wants Jesus to Cure his child to heal him. What does he say? He says I believe. Help my unbelief. I Believe help my unbelief. So I just want to leave you with that because that's an encouragement man.

Because this is something that a lot of people feel. I believe but help my unbelief Lord. Help us to obey your law help us to obey your commandments and so demonstrate that we love you. Hope this is helpful.

God bless.