Sunday Service on James 2 by Andrew Rappaport

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

service. And that brings me to just announce that we do have Andrew Rappaport here to bring the Word of God to us today.

00:05

He is with Striving for Eternity Ministries. He was here doing our training last year in October for our evangelism conference, and he has a table with some resources at the back that he would like you to buy, and I would like you to buy them too.

00:18

Turn your Bibles to the book of James, to chapter 2. We're going to read the passage that Andrew's going to be preaching out of,

00:24

James chapter 2, and we're going to read verses 14 through the end of the chapter. This is the passage that deals with the relationship between saving faith and good works.

00:41

James chapter 2. We'll start reading at the beginning in verse 14 and read through the end of the chapter.

00:49

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

00:56

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?

01:07

Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, you have faith and I have works.

01:15

Show me your faith without the works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one, you do well, demons also believe and shudder.

01:24

But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?

01:30

Was not 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.

01:41

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.

01:50

You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

02:00

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. We stand with me as we pray.

02:12

Our gracious God, we thank you that you are faithful and just and merciful and great and true. You are our rock, our redeemer, our comforter, our friend, our guide, our kinsman redeemer.

02:24

You are all of these things to your people and we thank you for the grace that you have shown us in making us your children and your people.

02:31

We thank you for the grace that has been extended to turn us from our sins and to redeem us, to grant us the faith to believe, to open our eyes that we may behold

02:40

Christ and see him as wonderful and precious and alluring. We thank you that you've drawn us to your son that we may have eternal life.

02:47

You've delivered us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We thank you that all of this is your gift to us by a living and saving faith in the

02:55

Lord Jesus Christ and in all that he has done on our behalf. We give you praise for these things. We thank you for these things and we ask that you may empower us and strengthen us to worship you in a way that you are worthy to be worshipped.

03:08

Help us to lift our voices and sing. Help us to lift our hearts to you in adoration, worship, and praise that you, our great

03:15

God, our great triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be glorified amongst us in the presence of your people both now and forever.

03:24

We ask this in the name of Christ our Lord, amen. Good morning. It is a blessing to be with you guys again.

03:33

I really enjoyed the conference this weekend. If you were here this weekend, I know you were blessed.

03:39

At the sake of getting myself in trouble with your pastor, I'm going to say some nice things about him. You know, it's not easy putting on a conference like we had this weekend and just really the amount of time and energy that he puts in.

03:56

I organize conferences. I know what it takes. I told him this last night. There's people who

04:02

I could tell right off the bat because of my podcasts and stuff, I could tell who prepares for interviews and who doesn't very quickly.

04:11

He is well -prepared for the speakers that come. I know from last time being the speaker, and then

04:17

I got to see it now on the other side to see, I know he puts in a lot of time and energy into the people that he has come to know a lot about them.

04:27

It shows. The time and energy he puts into every detail really adds to the whole conference.

04:35

It really was a blessing to be able to be here and to enjoy it. If you weren't here, what were you thinking?

04:44

Okay, Scott Klusendorf is going to be coming in the fall. Don't miss it.

04:51

If you don't know Scott, he deals a lot with pro -life issues, but not just pro -life issues.

04:57

You'd really be blessed. You do not want to miss that. I would strongly suggest you be here.

05:06

I know next year will be Paul Taylor. If you don't know with him, it'll be the 40th anniversary of Mount St.

05:13

Helens. That's where he works, out of Mount St. Helens. He's just a blessed brother.

05:19

You really want to make sure that you sign up and get involved in those conferences.

05:30

I've been working through a passage of Scripture that we just heard read because I've been noticing a lot of...well,

05:40

a lot of Roman Catholics would believe that you have to work your way to heaven. Unfortunately, I've been noticing that there's a lot of Christians, people that claim to be

05:47

Christians, that have also been promoting this same thing. I do a live apologetic show, and so we get a lot of people that call in with questions and, okay, sometimes challenges.

06:01

We've been dealing with this issue a lot with people that say they're born -again believers, which makes you wonder what they're being taught.

06:08

And so I've been working through James chapter 2 on the issue that's addressed here.

06:13

So why don't we begin with a word of prayer and then dig into this passage. Lord, as we come to Your Word and we see what

06:23

James speaks on, we realize that there are some who think

06:29

Your Word has contradictions, but You, being the author of this

06:34

Word, cannot lie. Because of Your integrity, we know we can trust it.

06:40

Because of Your nature, we know it cannot have contradictions. And so we look to Your Word and we want to dig in because we realize there may be apparent contradictions that we might see, and there's times we must dig in to understand.

06:57

Lord, may You give us a heart's desire to know Your Word better. I ask,

07:04

Lord, that no one would enter this building and leave the same way, that every one of us, whether it be through the praising of You in song, whether it be the worship to You in the reading of Your Word or the proclamation of Your Word or even in the fellowship, that in all of this we would leave this building more in awe of You, lifting

07:28

Your name up on our lips, that we would be amazed that You have anything to do with us, that we would be like, say with the psalmist, what is man that You are mindful of him?

07:44

You are a great and holy God. Lord, we are so unworthy of being called

07:53

Your children, and yet You sought fit to take us who were once Your enemy and call us

08:03

Your child. It's an amazing thing, Lord. We ask that Your Word would be, by the power of the

08:13

Holy Spirit, brought to illuminate our minds that we would have an understanding of it, an application of it, and that we would glorify

08:21

You at this time, in Christ's name, amen. Well, there are some people that look at this passage in James that was read, and they come to think that there must be contradictions in the

08:36

Bible, because it just seems that what was read here and what we hear from Paul just seem to be different.

08:45

When we look at what Paul says, just looking at the book of Romans, Paul says in Romans 3 .20,

08:52

therefore the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

08:59

In Romans 3 .28, he says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

09:08

4 .3, he says, for what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, and then two verses later he says, but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

09:28

Chapter 5, verse 1, he says, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace from God through our

09:36

Lord Jesus Christ. It sounds like Paul is saying that we're saved by faith, and yet so many people think here that when we look at what

09:44

James says, it sure looks as if James is saying that we're saved by works.

09:51

He's saying that if you have faith without works, he calls it dead. And so many people focus on verse 18, which says, but if someone says, you shall have faith and I shall have works, show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

10:11

And they love that verse because they think that that says that you must have works with faith to be saved.

10:22

And that's actually true, and it's not. Because the thing is that the first thing we have to understand is that our language sometimes is, well, not so precise.

10:34

What does it mean to be saved? Now, many of you are thinking of that time when you were once an enemy of God, and God redeemed you, he justified you, and you now became a child of God.

10:48

The Holy Spirit indwelled you. All these things that happened, and we think of that moment in time in our past, for some of us, that we were saved, and we speak of it that way.

10:59

But that's not the only way the Bible speaks of the word saved and salvation. You see, because it says not only at that point are we saved, but it also refers to saved as that process of sanctification, that process after we're regenerated that continues until the moment we die, where we're being made more saint -like.

11:23

Now, some of you look a lot more saint -like than me, I understand, but we all are in a progression, and we should all be looking more saint -like, in other words, the word saint, if you're here for Sunday school, it is to be sanctified or set apart.

11:36

We should be looking holy. God should be making us look more and more like Jesus Christ.

11:44

You say, well, I don't feel that way. Well, as you continue with your walk, I hope that you look more like Christ today than you did maybe five or ten years ago.

11:53

If you've been going on for 5, 10, 15 years and you're not looking more like Christ, maybe you got to go back to that first stage.

12:00

But when we talk about salvation, that also includes that process of sanctification that happens after what we sometimes say is when we got saved.

12:10

So saved is also a thing that's current. It's a present thing. It's also actually used as a future.

12:19

See, salvation is also refers to that moment we die and we're glorified. Suddenly we no longer have the body of sin.

12:26

We can't wait for that day, can't we? Oh, that's great. A great thing to look forward to. You know what's even better to look forward to than being in a body without sin, without aches and pains?

12:38

Seeing Christ. That's what we should as believers be looking forward to.

12:45

But when we talk about being saved, all three of those are in play. So you have to ask when we see this idea of faith and salvation, what's being spoken of?

12:56

Well, if you pay attention to the book of James, which

13:02

I hope you do, and you look, the first thing, especially if you were here in the last hour, is you would want to first know what's the purpose of a book, because that's going to help you in understanding the book.

13:14

Now, James has an audience. In the very first chapter, he says that he is writing to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.

13:23

Now, that refers to the nation of Israel who was in Jerusalem, and James was the pastor of Jerusalem, and they fled, and they're basically having some questions as they've gone because of the persecution to these other areas, and James is writing to encourage his flock.

13:40

And the overarching theme of this book is what does genuine faith look like?

13:49

He actually gives you thirteen different tests of how to identify genuine faith.

13:56

How do you use your tongue, your language? How do you use your money? Do you show favoritism? And here he's dealing with one of works.

14:06

Now, as we look at this test, we have to remember the overarching thing

14:13

James wants us to realize is that he wants these believers to know how to identify true faith from false faith, and there is a difference.

14:25

There are people who will be walking the streets, they sit in churches, they claim that they are believers, and on the day of judgment, they're going to hear what

14:35

Jesus says in Matthew 7, 21 to 23, I never knew you, because they had a false faith.

14:44

And James doesn't want any to have a false faith. He wants them to be able to examine themselves to say, is the faith that I claim genuine?

14:56

Because I think the worst thing, the harshest thing is to live a life thinking you're a believer, that you're going to see

15:02

Christ only to realize you were serving yourself all along and be cast out. And James doesn't want that.

15:12

Now, though many use this, especially the Roman Catholics, use this verse to try to justify that works salvation is necessary, and they try to say that there may be some sort of contradiction here.

15:28

They see, if you look in verse 24, he says, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.

15:38

And they say, see, it's not faith alone. Or in verse 26 where he says, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

15:51

And they say, see, that must be a contradiction between Paul and James.

15:58

And great men have struggled with this. You know, Martin Luther actually coming out of the Catholic Church struggled with this so much he wouldn't include the book of James in his translation because he was so indoctrinated with the

16:09

Catholic view that he couldn't reconcile it with what he read in Romans and said, there's got to be something here.

16:19

So Martin Luther in his struggle just said, no, this must not be inspired. What he really should have done is just taken a step back and done some study.

16:28

Not that he wasn't a man of study, but the thing is he didn't question the presuppositions that were drilled into him.

16:37

And sometimes we need to take a step back and examine a text of Scripture. And so as we do this, we want to look at this and see that people who try to use this to say that we are saved by works have a problem because they're using the idea of salvation the wrong way.

16:58

This is not speaking of, in a sense, so much of how someone gets saved, in other words, the redemption part as much as the sanctification part which follows that regeneration.

17:13

Why do I say that? Well, let's look at the first in verse 14. What good is it my brothers?

17:20

So first off, who is he talking to? People who profess Christ, his brothers.

17:28

But let's see if he continues with that. If someone says he has faith, okay, so now right there, is the person he's speaking to somebody who already claims to be a believer or is it someone that's looking to be a believer?

17:44

Well, it says here he says he has the faith. So he's speaking and asking the question, you have someone that claims to be a believer in Christ, but as it says here, but does not have works.

17:58

He's speaking about a question that he's asking hypothetically that you have someone in the church that says that they have the same faith that you have, but their life has not changed at all.

18:12

They don't do the works that we would see a Christian do.

18:18

And so right there is the hypothetical he wants to ask and he's going to address this question.

18:26

Now, what I find with most people that want to try to argue that this passage teaches that you can work your way to heaven, that works are necessary for salvation, the funny thing

18:35

I always notice is they never ever start in verse 14. They always start in verse 15.

18:44

Why would that be? Could it be that 15 and following is actually answering a question that's asked in verse 14?

18:54

Just maybe. A funny thing called context kind of helps in understanding the

19:00

Bible. You know, sometimes you don't have to work very hard.

19:07

I had a Catholic that called into our Apologetics Live show just like two or three weeks ago, and literally he was like, well, the

19:13

Bible says you need to be baptized to be saved. I said, what verse is that? He gives me the verse. I read the verse.

19:19

I said, it doesn't say that. He says, well, you have to imply. I said, no, no, no. You said the Bible says that.

19:25

I don't need to imply your theology to see that if the Bible says that, it should just say that.

19:30

I literally for an hour just kept reading the verse over and over and over. I was like, the

19:37

Bible doesn't say that. I didn't really have to do very much. It wasn't very hard for me. I just read the

19:42

Bible in context. It frustrated him a bit. Why should we read verse 14?

19:49

Because verse 14 sets up the rest of this chapter. If you skip verse 14, you don't understand what he's trying to answer.

20:01

He's answering the question of a person who claims they already have faith.

20:08

Now, if they claim they already have faith, then these works can't be something to earn it, can they? Because you've already passed that point.

20:18

You see, works can't be necessary to earn the salvation if this verse is saying that they already have it.

20:24

The works he's speaking here can't be works to earn it if he's speaking of someone who already has it, the son that proceeds after regeneration.

20:37

So he says, if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?

20:48

Now the issue here is this, again, the distinction of what type of faith does the person have.

20:59

Throughout the book, he's talking about a genuine faith and a false faith, and he's giving tests for us.

21:07

And the thing that we see here is he says, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed, now right off the bat what he's doing is he's giving us a way of explaining the works in extreme example, which is a good way of argumentation.

21:26

When you want to argue, and by the way, argument is not a bad thing, logically.

21:32

When we talk logic, we create a logical argument. That doesn't mean you're always angry, okay?

21:40

So I know in our culture, everyone thinks argument's like this bad thing. I get into arguments all the time, and I don't yell at anybody.

21:49

The thing is, is an argument is when you make a, you're going to basically make a premise, you're going to give support, and you're going to have a conclusion.

21:59

Kids do this all the time with parents, right? We all did this with our parents. You want to go somewhere? You give a reason why you want to go?

22:06

You give the support. I cleaned my room. I'll be back before dinner. Can I go?

22:12

Right? So you have an argument. Now, sometimes that turns into a different kind of argument, but what you have here in his argument is he's now giving the support for what kind of works he's speaking of.

22:25

He's giving an extreme example, which is a great way to make an argument, because when you take the extreme, we were talking last night at dinner about an article that someone wrote trying to make an example of abortion,

22:39

I'm trying to remember the name of that article, why to legalize murder, or murder for hire.

22:46

Why to legalize murder? It was complete satire. Basically taking all the arguments for murdering a child in the womb for murdering a husband instead, and they use the same arguments, and say, well, we should just legalize this.

22:59

Of course, Justin Peters and I were kind of thinking afterwards, like we're searching online for how to legalize murder for hire just before we leave for the

23:07

Philippines tomorrow. If we are not back in the country next week, you know why.

23:14

But what is that doing? That satire is making an argument by going to the extreme, right?

23:22

Take the extreme case, something that people would be like, there's no way anybody would ever say that, and using the same argument.

23:31

So with that in mind, this is what James does. He's taking an extreme case that the believers would be like, there is no way that this would ever happen.

23:42

So what's his case? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of them says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

24:03

Now, as we look at this, this idea that we have here of where it says in some translations naked or being poorly clothed,

24:12

I think poorly clothed is better. It's not the idea of being completely naked. It's the idea of being insufficiently clothed, not having enough to keep yourself warm.

24:23

The idea of needing of food or not being filled, not having or lacking in what

24:32

ESV says daily food, in New King James, I think it's destitute of daily food.

24:37

It's the idea of not that you're completely starved to death, but that you have an insufficient amount that you're malnutritious, that you are barely getting by.

24:48

So the thing is, you picture someone that is saying, here's someone that I call a brother in Christ or a sister in Christ, and they're barely clothed, they're barely eating, they're barely getting by, and I'm saying, go in peace, be warmed and filled.

25:02

They can't be warmed because they don't have sufficient clothing. They can't be filled because they don't have sufficient food.

25:10

So the thing he's saying is there is nobody in a situation like that that has genuine faith that would walk and say, go in peace.

25:17

They would take care of that need. So he's saying here if there's somebody in need and where they're in desperate need, a believer that has the

25:32

Spirit of God in them would never just walk away. It's an extreme case.

25:38

Basically, what would happen in their culture would be a little bit different than our culture. Okay, I'm from the

25:44

New York area. Okay, when we see homeless, we just keep going. And they're all, by the way, they all claim to be

25:49

Christian. They do. It's amazing. Almost every homeless guy I know is a believer.

25:56

He just can't explain the gospel. He doesn't understand the basics. But you know, it's amazing.

26:01

They know who's going to give for them, right? They know which group of people are going to be the ones to give.

26:11

Who is it that's the first one in when all these natural disasters happen? It's usually the Christians. The world knows that.

26:19

But this is a culture where it was a requirement. It was part of the culture to take care of those less fortunate, to take care of those in need.

26:30

Actually, in Acts chapter 6, if you're familiar, it was a cause of quite a dissension within the church because what ended up happening was that there were these

26:39

Hellenistic Jews, those are kind of Greek Jews, let's call them the liberal Jews. They were the Jews that didn't speak

26:45

Hebrew, so they were looked down upon. And then you had the Hebrew Jews, you know, the more religious ones.

26:52

So you had a distinction going on where the widows, the Greek Jewish widows, were not being cared for.

27:02

They had a need. And it became such an issue. It was like, no, as a church, we take care of the need. Why? Because in the

27:07

Jewish culture, that's exactly what was part of the synagogue. See, in the synagogue, that's what they would do.

27:12

They would take care of the poor within the synagogue, within their community. They would take care of the widows.

27:18

That's why the church was doing that. So, by the way, who came up with the welfare system? It wasn't the government.

27:25

It probably would run better if the church still ran it, I'm just saying. But the thing that you see here is that he's giving an example that every

27:36

Jewish person would say there is no way that would ever happen.

27:45

So he goes to the extreme. And so he's saying that if somebody is saying that they are a believer in Jesus Christ, they have faith, and they can walk to their brother or sister who's poorly clothed, poorly fed, and say, hey, go in peace, be warmed and filled.

28:01

He says, so what good is that? They're not taking care of their brother.

28:09

So basically what that's saying is they would say that that's not someone who is showing love. That's not someone who's taking care.

28:15

Those are the works that should naturally follow someone that is a believer.

28:22

So he says, so also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

28:29

Now, keep in mind, this is the faith not leading to salvation, right?

28:37

Because he's saying they're brothers. They claim to have the faith. They claim to be a brother or sister in Christ.

28:44

So this can't be a faith that brings you into faith. This is a faith that you'd already have if you have faith.

28:54

So this is what we call the sanctification. These are the works that are done in sanctification.

29:02

One of the things you'll notice if you ever study world religions or cults, you will often find a confusion between regeneration and sanctification.

29:16

Regeneration again is that part where someone was once dead in their sins, became alive to Christ when the

29:22

Spirit indwells them. They're now justified before God. Sanctification being that process of works that occurs where, by the way, who does the works?

29:34

Scripture says God does the works through us. Do you know when we do good works as a Christian, we can't even take credit for that?

29:40

Because Scripture says God does that. So that's the works being spoken of here, the works that make us more in the image of God.

29:50

And so we see here in verses 14 to 16, there is a reason for faith and works.

30:01

And the reason for faith and works is to show us or to reveal to us what genuine faith looks like.

30:09

Genuine faith looks like someone who sees someone in need and gives. Some of us, by the way, have a pride problem.

30:19

We don't receive gifts so well. Some of you know my history, but my wife and I met because I was, at the time, or just before we met,

30:33

I was homeless and had no food. You know what's funny about that? I was in charge of the deacon's fund in church.

30:40

I had $5 ,000 in the bank that I was going to shop right to get gift cards for people in need.

30:47

I was going without food. You don't want to talk about pride problems. My wife gave me four groceries.

30:54

She wasn't my wife at the time, obviously, but when we met and she found out I was hungry, she didn't think. There was no question.

31:01

She said, here's someone that confesses to be a brother in Christ in need. She went out and got groceries. Why? That's the natural thing to do.

31:11

And so you end up seeing that that reveals the genuine faith, the way we behave toward one another.

31:18

Now this is following a passage, if you look at the first half of James 2, where he's talking about favoritism, about people who come in the church and you start showing favoritism toward one versus the other.

31:33

And now he's going in and saying, well, wasn't that exactly what you'd have here, favoritism? If you can say that someone's a believer, you're a believer in Christ, you see someone else that you say is a believer in Christ, they're in desperate need, and you could just say, hey,

31:46

I got the resources, but see ya. By the way, I should say that my pride was so,

31:52

I wasn't going to take the groceries for my wife. She knew me so well, having just met me for like two, three days, she left a verse,

32:04

Acts 2, 44 and 45, and it fits in very well to this, because Acts 2, 44 and 45 says, it talks about them selling all that they had to give to those in need.

32:17

So after Peter preaches the gospel, many people get saved, what's the first thing they do?

32:26

They sell their possessions to give to those in need. That's the natural response.

32:33

That's what James is saying. James would have been at that church in Jerusalem where that happened. He would have understood that.

32:39

This is like this extreme example. You would never believe that someone has genuine faith if they can walk past someone they say is a brother and say, be warmed and filled.

32:52

You see, so right off the bat, we have to recognize this is not talking about regeneration. Now it is, but it isn't.

32:59

It is because the person is claiming they are regenerate, and the question is, are they?

33:04

That's the question that James is asking. Is this person truly regenerate who says they have faith, but does not have works?

33:14

That is the question that he's actually asking in our vernacular, and he's basically going to answer no.

33:23

Why? Because works proceed from regeneration. There's a relationship, we'll see this in verses 17 to 18, there's a relationship between faith and works.

33:40

In 17 and 18, it says, so also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead, but someone will say, you have faith, and I have works.

33:52

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

33:59

Can any of you see my faith? No, you can't, can you?

34:06

And I can't see yours. I mean, boy, wouldn't it be easy if like God just, you know, for all of his elect children, he just put a big

34:13

E right on their forehead, I mean, make evangelism so much easier, right? You just walk up to a guy with an E on his head, hey, do you believe in Christ?

34:19

Not yet? Okay, well, let me tell you about it. I mean, I could just ignore all the others, right? It'd be so much easier if we could just see that, but we can't.

34:30

What can we see? We see the fruits of regeneration.

34:38

John MacArthur always says, time and truth go hand in hand. When people say they're a believer, you give them enough time, and you can see whether the fruit is there.

34:51

Sometimes it does take time. Years ago in church, we had a young man who came to church.

34:59

I admit we were a little bit concerned. He liked a young lady in the church who was single.

35:05

By the way, single girls, never trust guys. Just trust your dads.

35:11

They know better, just saying, because they know what guys are willing to do, anything.

35:18

This guy was willing to do anything. This was a guy you would never have questioned his belief. This guy came to church, and from day one, he professed that he got saved that first week in church.

35:29

He never missed church. In three years, he never missed church.

35:34

He was there for Sunday school. He was there for morning worship. He was there for evening worship. He was there for midweek

35:40

Bible study. He attended everything. He was looking to serve in any way, even when this girl wasn't around.

35:48

Amazing thing, it was announced that she was getting married. We never saw him again in church.

35:56

Now I'm not the kind of guy you want to ask for accountability if you really don't want accountability.

36:02

He made that mistake. He wanted me to keep him accountable. One night, he went back to work at the bar where he used to work before.

36:10

He professed to be a believer. The thing you don't want to see at three in the morning after getting off a night of work at a bar is me sitting by your car.

36:19

That's exactly what he saw. He admitted to me. I said, what are you doing?

36:25

He said, you know, I'll be honest. I just thought if I acted like a Christian, I can get Suzanne. Now, he seemed like he had all the works, but given enough time, it was revealed he was not a believer.

36:39

His fruit didn't pan out. And that's all we can look at. Really what

36:44

James is telling us to do is to be fruit inspectors. We have to be careful with that, you know, because not all of us grow at the same rate, you know.

36:58

I mean, all of us would love to be as mature and humble as Justin and never complain about anything like ever.

37:07

Sorry, I put you on the spot. He's going to hate me for that. But not all of us can have the maturity that your pastor has.

37:15

We're all going to grow at different rates. But the reality is that we should be growing.

37:24

If we're not growing, if there's no continuing of...maybe it's just small steps.

37:30

But James is saying if there's nothing, there's no works, then you have to question whether there was a regeneration that occurred prior.

37:41

You have to question the regeneration if you don't see the works that follow regeneration. There is a process we see in Scripture of maturity.

37:52

There is unhealthy growth and there's healthy growth for believers. There's some churches that just feed milk.

37:59

Paul talks about this, right? They should be eating the meat by now. They're like babies that just are fed milk.

38:07

And so what you end up seeing is that that is unhealthy. We had a woman in our church years ago who adopted a child who the mother, a single mother, kept this child in a crib and just gave this boy a bottle of milk and said, what's the big deal?

38:30

He was five years old, still in a crib, still eating just milk, couldn't speak.

38:38

He was very abnormal. With some love and care, he's now normal.

38:43

Why? Because they started to feed him what he needed. A believer that is still on milk, still saying they're just doing the basic thing, oh yeah,

38:51

I'm still going to...I'll grow, I'll grow. If they're not showing the works, James says, you have to question whether their faith was actually genuine.

39:03

Because there are works, he's saying, that should follow. So we end up seeing here, and it's important to see that he's not...in

39:11

verse 18 he says, someone will say...that's an important word. They will say they're a

39:17

Christian. They will say they have faith. So you...they'll

39:23

say, you have faith and I have works, so you show me your faith apart from your works.

39:29

Can you show faith apart from works? The argument is no. There's no way to see faith except for works.

39:36

That's what he's saying here. You cannot see another person's faith other than seeing the things that they do.

39:41

That's the relationship between faith and works, that I can't see your heart, you can't see mine.

39:47

Only God can see the heart. So as we look at this, we have to realize that faith can only be visible by the works that the

39:56

Scriptures say would naturally proceed from them. Does that make sense? So what we end up seeing is that if we're looking to see if someone is a genuine believer, then what we're looking to see is, okay,

40:07

Scripture says as a believer you should be like this, this, this, this. You should have the fruit of the Spirit. You should be having these characteristics.

40:19

If you don't see those changing, you don't see those works, or in an extreme example, you have resources and you have a brother in Christ or a sister in Christ that's a destitute and you're just saying, hey, have a nice day.

40:33

That's not the works that a Christian would do. So he's saying if someone is like that, you'd have to question the faith that they were claiming.

40:43

Why are you questioning the faith? You're questioning the faith not because the faith when they got saved weren't with works.

40:51

You're questioning the faith when they got saved because there's no works that followed it.

40:58

And that's the distinction being made here. The sanctification process is a process where we do work, but we're doing that because we're saved.

41:12

So apparently in James' day, just like in our day, there were people who were claiming to be

41:18

Christian, but they weren't manifesting any of the fruit that we would expect to see of a

41:24

Christian. And James states that that kind of faith is a dead faith.

41:33

Now, it doesn't mean that it's dead because it didn't have works in the beginning, it means it's dead because it didn't have works that followed it.

41:42

So he's saying that that kind of faith cannot save a person.

41:49

Why? Because whatever faith they had, if it didn't follow with works that should naturally follow, then he's saying that that faith was not a genuine faith.

42:03

It was someone that wanted to come to God on their terms. Maybe they wanted a get out of hell free card. And they just said, okay,

42:09

I'll raise my hand, I'll walk the aisle, I'll say the prayer and I'm set. And there's no change in their life.

42:17

There are people like that. Going door to door, I don't know, you guys do door to door?

42:26

When I got saved, I went into an IFB church, so they're big on going door to door. And so what you end up having is,

42:34

I'm knocking on a guy's door, come to the door, it's ten in the morning and he's completely drunk.

42:42

Maybe he was still drinking from the night before, I don't know. And he's saying, oh, I'm a Christian? He pulls out of his wallet some card that he signed.

42:50

He goes, see? As he could barely stand straight, my friend

42:57

John just turns to him and goes, yeah, I'm looking at your life right now, having just met you, and something's telling me

43:03

I'm not buying it. Right? Because that's not what you'd expect from someone that says he was a

43:10

Christian for twenty years, right? You expect to see that fruit. This is no different in James' day than in ours.

43:25

It may actually, in some cases, be worse. Because in James' day, you had people that were...the

43:35

synagogue was a way of life. You go to synagogue regardless. It's just something that the

43:41

Jewish community would do. Now many of these people became Christian, they go to church. This is sort of like what it would be in the

43:46

Bible Belt. Like everyone is a Christian, everyone goes to church. It's just expected that you go to church, even though nobody...okay,

43:53

not nobody, but most of the people in those churches don't have a clue what the gospel is. They don't believe the gospel message, okay?

44:02

And so what you end up seeing is that there are cases, and maybe it's not...this is definitely not the case in like where I live, you know, in New Jersey, New York area, yeah, okay, we don't have a

44:13

Bible Belt there. If you profess to be a Christian, it's like, okay, you got a pretty good chance of being one just because no one's going to profess that there, all right?

44:24

I mean, we're not even allowed to carry those funny things that you guys are allowed to carry in this state, you know, that have those little things that you put in and they pull a trigger.

44:32

I don't know what they are. Your pastor likes to bust on me for living in a communist state.

44:41

I did tell him I was looking to move and he was all excited, but I'm only going to Pennsylvania, but I can carry there.

44:50

So what we end up seeing though is the faith that he's speaking of is the person who attends church week after week, maybe for 50 years, but you don't see any growth.

45:05

There's that relationship. Now, lest you think that Paul doesn't believe that there's a relationship with works, he actually says there is.

45:16

Oh, many people know Ephesians 2, 8, 9, but Paul in Ephesians 2, 10 says,

45:23

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which are prepared beforehand that we should walk in him.

45:33

So right after he says that we're saved by faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast, he says that we are created for works.

45:44

So right after we're saved, he's saying you should have works. That's saved, then works is what he says.

45:53

You can also look up, I don't have time, but you can look up in 1 John 3, 7 to 10 and you're going to see the same thing.

45:58

John also puts a connection between the relationship of works and faith.

46:07

And the reason that we end up having to look at this is because we do not want to be self -deceived. Some like this, like the gentleman

46:14

I mentioned earlier who liked the young lady, he was not self -deceived. He knew very well why he was pretending.

46:21

But there's many more that are self -deceived. They think that because they grew up in a church, because they were raised in the church, because they attend a church, that they're

46:29

Christian. Because they know intellectually the gospel, that they're a

46:35

Christian. And what James wants us to do is to examine our faith to ask, do we have the works that we see in the

46:43

Bible that a Christian should be doing? And if we do not, he would say that whatever faith that we thought we had, well, he says it's dead.

46:54

That's not too good sounding, right? He goes on, and we end up seeing the reality of faith and works in verses 19 and 20.

47:07

You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder.

47:14

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

47:23

So that's an interesting thing. You know that the demons have faith? Does their faith save them?

47:31

By the way, demons are probably more theologically minded and more theologically correct than most

47:37

Christians, even most pastors. They study it. I mean, they're around God.

47:43

They understand it, but they don't have a saving faith, do they? He's basically saying to these people that sit there and say that they have faith, but don't have the works that we had seen in sanctification.

47:58

He's comparing them to demons and actually praising the demons over them.

48:03

That's bad news. When a demon is better than you, that's not a good thing.

48:10

He's saying the demons have faith, but at least they shudder. So what is that saying about these people?

48:19

It's saying that they say they have faith that's a dead faith and they're not even scared. They're not even worried.

48:25

He says that's a worse condition. That's a worse place to be. The reality of faith and works is that if you're not concerned that there's not growth in your life as a believer, that you're not seeing the fruit that a believer should have, he says you should be scared.

48:45

There'd be reason to be concerned there. And so when we see the reality of faith and works, it is the fact that our faith should cause us to look at our works and say, am

49:04

I growing more and more like Christ? If not, I should be afraid, very afraid.

49:13

Lest you think you're wise, James calls these people fools. It's not my words, it's his.

49:21

By the way, God inspired it, so that's what God thinks of them. Why would they be fools? It's got to be the most foolish thing to sit in church under the

49:29

Word of God, especially if you have a godly pastor like you guys have, to sit under the Word of God being proclaimed week after week, being exegeted, being explained, and then not change.

49:42

To think that I have faith, I don't have any works,

49:48

I haven't changed a bit, but I go to church, it's expected of me, I go, I sit,

49:54

I do my time, I do my duty, I leave, and catch that thing that they watch on TV where they throw that pigskin around.

50:04

I don't watch football. But the thing is, what you end up seeing is, if you can walk out of a building week after week, unchanged, at the

50:15

Word of God, then the only question that has to be asked is, does the Spirit indwell you?

50:21

Because the Spirit indwells a believer, and what the Spirit of God does with the Word of God is illuminated to our minds so we have an understanding of it.

50:32

And if that's not happening, God says that's pretty foolish, because that person will stand before God and have to give an account of judgment someday.

50:41

Now, people will turn and say, they try to use the rest of this, and I wouldn't have time to go through this, but as you look continually on the passage, he gives two examples, one of Abraham and one of Rahab, and people will say, well see,

50:54

Abraham was saved because he offered Isaac. That's not what James is saying, if you read this in context.

51:01

He's saying it was accounted unto righteousness. How do we know he was accounted unto righteousness? Because he offered

51:06

Isaac. If he didn't have faith, as we see in Hebrews that you'll eventually get to in about four years from now, in chapter 11, oh, five years, sorry.

51:23

What Abraham knew that God was going to, he didn't know what, I mean, was God going to, you know, resurrect

51:30

Isaac? Maybe. We don't know what his thinking was, but he had the faith beforehand.

51:37

Rahab had the faith beforehand. She was justified, but where's this justification?

51:43

Was this justification before God? No. What he's talking about is justification among men.

51:50

He's asking a question, how do you and I know if another person has genuine faith?

51:57

Remember, what's the question being asked? In verse 14, if someone says they have faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?

52:06

That's the question. How can I look at you or you look at me and see faith? How can we look at Rahab and see faith?

52:13

Because of what she did, and by the way, this is not a justification of lying, okay?

52:19

She did lie. It's not a justification of it. She was praised for the faith that she had, but she was still a new believer, maybe.

52:28

She had a little bit of growth to do. She wasn't as sanctified yet, and she still told a lie. It encourages me sometimes, you know, as a new believer,

52:35

I told a lot of lies, now I tell a lot less lies. Sometimes I lie and tell Pastor Jim I like him, but I'm teasing.

52:47

For those of you who weren't here for the conference, I wasn't even speaking and I was being ridiculed. It was bad. But what we end up seeing here is that he says and concludes for, in this verse 26, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also our faith apart from works is dead.

53:09

So what he's saying, he's saying that these two should be joined. When someone is born, right, and let me rephrase that.

53:19

When someone's conceived, because I want to be more technical, right? When there is a new creation of a human being at conception, they have body and spirit.

53:29

That's the natural process. When a person is born again, the natural process is faith and works.

53:40

Now some works are immediate. I could tell you for me, when I got saved, and I didn't recognize this until like a year later, that the day that I became a believer in Christ, I stopped using foul language and I didn't even realize it.

53:56

It was like a year later that someone said, you know, you don't curse like you used to anymore. I didn't even realize

54:01

I cursed that much before, but I guess I did, but it was noticeable. But I didn't even notice that that changed.

54:07

There were other things I was working on and things I'm still working on, but there was some immediate growth.

54:16

There was some change that happened immediately, and it continues. That's what he's saying we should see. So when people try to use this passage to say that we cannot be saved without works, we need to look at this passage in context and say, no, this is saying that if someone claims they have faith, but they don't have works, we have to question it.

54:36

That's the question being asked. We have to be careful because the flip side to James, what he's also saying is that in every church,

54:47

I mean, I speak around the country, in every church, I never want to think that everyone who's sitting in a pew or in this case a chair is a believer.

54:57

You could have been in church all your life. You could have grown up in the church unlike me. You could have had that and you could be thinking that, well,

55:07

I go to church every week, but examine your own life and say, do

55:12

I see a progression of works that Scripture says? Do I see the fruit of the

55:17

Spirit in me? Do I have love one for another? Is that how I'm described?

55:23

Do I love the fellowship with other believers as 1 John would say? If those things are lacking, and they've been lacking all along,

55:31

I've never had those, then my challenge to you is that maybe you should be very afraid. Maybe you should question your own salvation and say, maybe

55:42

I need to get right with God. Just a thought. Let's pray.

55:53

Lord, we're grateful for the things that you have done in our lives. We are grateful for all that you do, and we ask,

55:59

Lord, that you would take this to help us for those who may not know you, those who think they have salvation, that they might question the works that they have and examine their own hearts.

56:14

We don't want anyone to leave this building not knowing you genuinely. We also don't want anyone to teach falsely that works are necessary for salvation, for we're saved by grace alone.

56:24

We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Real quick before they – I know they're going to sing. I just like having them stand behind me.

56:31

Real quick, I asked Pastor Jim if I could explain some of the books in the back. I, in no way, trust

56:36

Josh Comstock behind me. Got to keep an eye on that guy.

56:42

Real quick. I brought some books because we'll be going – do pray for Justin and I.

56:48

We'll be leaving tomorrow for the Philippines for 10 days. We'll be doing a radio interview like 12 hours after we land, after like,

56:58

I don't know, a really long flight, I don't know. But we're going to be speaking to a bunch of pastors and then we'll be leading a team of people on the streets and then we're doing a sermon conference in two islands.

57:10

I have a book – if you're interested in world religions, I have a book, What Do They Believe?, where I've written from different world religions and that basically covers six of the major Western religions.

57:20

I did a follow -up on what Christians believe called What Do We Believe? This is actually a lot thinner than MacArthur's biblical doctrine or, you know, any of the other systematic theologies.

57:30

And you can actually read through this. It's not that intimidating. And I have a couple of pictures too. We're going to talk evangelism this afternoon.

57:37

I have two resources for evangelism. One is Dr. Silvestro's book. This will cover – for those of you who were here yesterday and heard about presuppositional apologetics, this will cover – and you also heard creation science.

57:48

This is the only book I know that covers presuppositional apologetics, creation science, and evangelism together and shows how they interweave.

57:53

Also in the back we have – we resell flash drives from Living Waters. It has five movies, like,

58:00

I don't know, like 80 hours of MP3s of movies of – or MP3s and movies of them doing evangelism, so if you just want to learn from there.

58:10

I know you guys have lots of Mormons in the area. This is a book, 20 different authors explaining how we – different ones of us evangelize

58:17

Mormons. And so that's back there. If you want to evangelize Mormons or just learn ideas to evangelize because it doesn't do – some of the things are not just for Mormons.

58:25

And then we have quick reference cards. One is on the attributes of God. One is if you want to see if your pastor's qualified – no, these are just the qualifications of pastors and deacons.

58:36

Hey, realistically, this is a list of qualifications we should all be growing in. Last is what

58:42

I call my rules of Facebook. It's a process of reconciliation, something that you don't see on Facebook. Most people know

58:48

Matthew 18. This is everything you should do before Matthew 18. That's Matthew 18. This is what you should do before.

58:55

In other words, we should be – like, as Christians, one of the signs of a Christian or fruit of a Christian is that we should be men and women who are reconciling with one another.