So you have faith. Well, I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works, vv. 17-18.
Yes, Faith Without Works Really is Dead
James 2:14-26
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to James 2:14-26. We are going to be studying James 2:14-26, and as you are turning there, I want to share with you some rather odious labels that people have tried to stick on me over the years. They are horrendous accusations. They are untrue, but they are also sad cases of sheer godless slander. One that particularly shocked me was muttered by a man who visited our congregation. The man came up to me and said that he noticed that the women in our midst did not have their heads covered. My initial reaction was that I quickly glanced around to make sure he was right. Visions of fainting females with various kinds of items covering their heads--suffocating from lack of oxygen--filled my mind. Thankfully, the man was correct--not one female's head was covered with anything other than hair, and an occasional hairpin, or bow. Anyway, the man went on and told me that it was Biblical for women to have their heads covered, and that because I did not dictate such activity, that I was
a liberal.
Now folks, I have been called many things in my life. I have even been called a conservative, but to my knowledge, up to that point, I had never been called a liberal, and in fact, as far as I know, I have not been called that name again since that time. I must say that when called a conservative, I hardly notice the praise, and barely blink an eye at the accolade, because after all, it is true. You see, though it may offend some folks, I stand before you today, and I must confess my burning thoughts to you--My name is Kerry, and I am a conservative Christian. But when this young man accused me of being a liberal, I felt as if he had punched me in the face. After regaining my composure, I assured the man that I would make sure that the females in our midst never wore head coverings without at least having a source of oxygen available. The man, by the way, was taking his stand upon a section of scripture that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11. (I will conservatively exegete that section in a future sermon when we go through 1 Corinthians, but right now, I do not have time to get into it this morning. It would take the whole morning. Just let me say this, from a conservative hermeneutic, the whole issue of woman covering their heads is not as cut and dry as that young man wanted to think that it is.) Anyway, we move on in life; so did I, and eventually I recovered from the shocking encounter. This leads me to share with you the next pejorative label I had the unfortunate honor of receiving. It shocked me even more than being called the L word. I was branded a cult leader, and Bridgeway was, in fact, called a cultic sect of fringe heretics. Again, I looked around to see what kind of people would look like such a thing, thinking that maybe while I was not paying attention, things could have gotten out of hand, you know, and somehow we switched from being Christ's church that we are, to being a cult that we are not. I am happy to say that what I saw was, well, a bunch of conservative Christians, and of course many of them happened to be females with their heads uncovered, except for the occasional hair pin and bow. Relieved, I inquired why someone would mistake us for a cult. It turns out that it was because we teach that God is sovereign in His grace in salvation--yes we recognize and believe that great flower that supposedly is the official cultic bloom of Calvinists, the TULIP. Well, I decided to live with it and just let the accusation slide on by, and it did. Later, I heard that those people apologized, and now they no longer call us a cult. In fact, I have heard that some of them have since embraced the doctrines of grace themselves, and they are now enjoying the beautiful aroma of that great flower along with other conservative Christians. This morning I can look back upon those name calling experiences and I can smile, and obviously I am able to joke about it, but initially I was not very amused. This leads me to mention one more thing I have been called that absolutely was one of the most painful. I have been called yet another L word. I have been called
a legalist.
Ouch. That one really does hurt, especially since I am an advocate of New Covenant Theology, and believe in justification by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ and His work alone. What happened was that some years ago, I was going verse to verse in my usual preaching manner. I was working through 1 Peter and had come to the passage,
"3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing orgies, drinking parties and abominable idolatries" 1 Peter 4:3
My sermon was meant to edify the saints with the fact that the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing orgies, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. It seemed logical to me to preach God's word, according to God's word. That is what I have always thought I was supposed to do. When I finished, a man bee-lined to the pulpit and called me a legalist. He took issue with me for preaching about sensuality. I stood there in amazement that somebody would have such a distorted view of grace that they would call 1 Peter 4:3 legalism, and because I preached it, I was supposed to be a legalist.
All of this kind of name calling is typical now-a-days, especially the use of the nebulous, and rather esoteric indictment of calling someone a legalist. Usually when you ask someone to define what that term means biblically, they have a very difficult time explaining, according to Scripture, what they mean. As we get into our passage this morning, I want to ask you if you have ever been called a legalist. Maybe you have wondered if you are a legalist. Maybe you are the one who calls other people legalists when they preach God's precepts, decrees, and urgings toward wisdom, and sanctification. Maybe you call people legalists when they preach to you that you need to look at others as being better than your self, and you must love others like Christ loves you--all of which are New Testament commands. I'm not talking about someone who thinks you can be saved by doing good works. That is the definition of legalism that is what I am talking about, and it saves no one. I'm not talking about someone who is trying to bring you under the Old Covenant Law of Moses. I'm also not talking about people who are looking down on you because you do not follow man made religious practices and human traditions as if they are God's will. That activity is not legalism. Instead, its extra biblical ritualism. The question I want each of us to consider is:
Is it legalism to expect certain works from Christians who claim that they have faith in the New Covenant words of God?
Do they believe God? That is the question? The question is not whether they believe you, or whether they believe me; but do they believe God? The reason why I bring all of this up is because this is the exact issue that James addresses in our section under study. Keeping all of this in mind, we read, starting in 2:14,
"14 What use is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 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? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18 But someone may well say, 'You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.' 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23 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. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 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? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." James 2:14-26
Please prepare your heart as we work through this passage this morning in this sermon titled appropriately,
"Yes, Faith Without Works Really is Dead"
[pray]
Coming into our passage, it is important to recognize a few things. One is that this is one of the most controversial portions of Scripture in the Bible. The controversy has to do with wrong interpretations of what James is saying where people think James is preaching human works of merit to attain salvation, and so what they have done is given James that repulsive label that makes every head nod in self assured agreement among the culture of carnal cool, and yet causes good conservative Christians to swoon. They call James, (I'm talking about a son of Joseph and Mary, head of the Jerusalem church, Jesus' half brother; led by the Spirit as a writer of part of the New Covenant Scriptures according to God's choosing)--they call this James, a legalist. We are going to see why that is a false indictment as we explore what James is really encouraging us to understand. As we do this, it is important to recognize the flow of teaching coming into our passage. James has been teaching on proper love actions toward other members of the body of Christ. The concern has been to act as those who are governed and judged by the royal law of Christ, the law of liberty, the law of love. It is New Covenant commandment orientation, which means that we are to do something, and so James goes on and says,
"14 What use is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" James 2:14
This is a great question. It's the big question, and it puts forward a very important set of facts to contemplate for anyone who claims to be a Christian. We hear this question and we are stimulated to consider things like easy believism. We are pushed to think about Lordship Salvation. We are moved to contemplate conviction that comes from the Spirit through His word; about repentance, about sanctification, about doing the saved life from the saved life, or as we learned last week, doing love according to the law of love, and so on. It also motivates us to consider that ominous category called, legalism. But, this also brings up a very pertinent question:
Is someone saved simply because they claim that they have faith?
I mean, if I confess that I have faith in the gospel, does it really mean that I am telling the truth? Anybody can say that they believe the gospel. It is just a sentence. But, are they telling the truth? This leads to another question;
Is someone saved because they really do have faith?
We would say that someone is saved because they really do have faith, and we would say this because this is the Biblical answer. But there are more questions;
Why is it that we just assume that someone is saved because they claim that they believe in Jesus?
Think about it. Someone says that they are a Christian, and we typically think;
Praise God, or, how wonderful--wow that's great news,
and there is seemingly an instantaneous acceptance that their declaration is true. How many of you have noticed that this is the way it typically is now-a-days? I think there are a couple of reasons for why this happens. One is that in the back of our minds, we know that we must not judge people in respect to their eternal spiritual damnation or glorification based upon our own subjective criteria; right?--and so when someone says,
I'm a Christian. I've trusted in Christ as my Lord and Savior,
we don't typically say,
No you haven't. Don't you know that liars have their place in hell?
Well, at least most Christians don't respond that way. Further, we all realize that the word of their testimony is something that we know is vitally important. After all, our confession is such an integral part of our faith, as is found in Romans 10:9-10, and Revelation 12:11 and so forth. But what James is telling us is that it doesn't really stop there with a confession. James is saying that we really must consider something that is not very popular in our day to consider. Evidently, it was not very popular to consider in the time of James either. God says that we are also to consider works, and we are to do this in such a way as not to condemn people to hell in our own subjective kind of unbiblical judgment, but nevertheless, God wants us to discern the actions of people in light of His word. God wants us to inquire into their life concerning whether they are truly saved--not whether they simply say that they are saved. In fact, God wants us to look, to some degree of judgment, at their actions. God want us to look for the fruits of faith. God wants us to recognize any cases of unrepentant, continuous sin that seems as if the person is trying to justify their actions; like living in an immoral relationship of homosexuality, or adultery, or living with someone outside of marriage in a fornicating relationship, or being a thief, a swindler, and any of that kind of thing. God wants us to discern, (with the mind of Christ) according to God's word and the details, whether people are simply being foolish and unrepentant as true Christians, or are people being fruitless and unregenerate because they are not true children of the Father. Again,
Are they being foolish and unrepentant as Children of God, or fruitless and unregenerate as children of the devil?
And in our inquiry, (which is ministry by the way), we should remind such a one that yes, we all fail, and because we all fail, we all need the covenant of grace in Christ, but along with this eternal truth is the other truth that God gives us here, and so with it, we should encourage such a one to question whether their lack of works in respect to faith, may in fact, be a lack of salvation. But, this can be one of the hardest things to do. It is hard to do because we are so readily willing to accept that someone is saved simply because they say that they are saved. But there is something else. It is that other very real sense, where we do not want to be guilty of diminishing grace, do we? After all, we are not legalists, and we do not want to be legalists. What we want to be is correct in recognizing someone who is a true miracle of God in salvation. The consequences are many. The consequence has to do with who we fellowship with. It has to do with who we marry, or who we allow our children to marry. Paul says don't become unequally yoked with an unbeliever. So, your going to have to judge that person's salvation status before you yoke with that person. It's Biblical logic 101. It also has to do with who we consider as spiritual leaders. Fundamentally anyone who attempts to be a leader of God's children, must first be saved. That is step A. After that, God has laid out a whole litany of qualifications that follow. So you go from A to Z, but you have to start at A first. You must be a Christian to begin with, and people need to be able to confirm to some degree of their ability that you are saved.
So, we see that James' first question has to do with salvation and claimed faith that has no works. What use is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? The answer is no, but James wants to press the point in various ways, so next he asks,
"15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 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?" James 2:15-16
To fully get James' point here, we must look back in the contextual flow and see that he is exhorting us Christians to act as if we are judged by the Law of liberty. The Law of liberty is the Law of love for God and for one's neighbor. James is talking about how Christians treat other Christians and this reflects a manifestation of our faith. James is not talking about feeding the world in some grand social scheme, or some lofty political agenda. What we are supposed to do is love our brothers and sisters in Christ by doing the things that show that we love them. This is the ministry focus that James says we are to be about making an effort to accomplish. We are to love the body of Christ in accordance to living faith. Living faith is more than lip service, and this is what James' illustration means. Authentic Christian faith has more to it than mere words where you say to someone to go away from you in peace, warmth, and a filled belly. Real faith has something that goes out from you to the person along with the words. I can tell my wife I love her every day, but do I act like it? What love am I giving her along with the words? All of us sons and daughters here can tell our parents that we love them, but are we showing it by our actions. All of us parents can tell our children that we love them, but what kind of actions are they seeing that demonstrate that this is true. We provide for them. We care enough for them to raise them according to God's precepts for living. We want the best for them, so we try to help them get there. If we don't do those things, then we can rightly call it neglect. Is it not demonstrating a lack of love that God defines in His word? The same goes for children toward parents. If you say you hate your parents, maybe you truly do, but you don't have to say it. You can act it out. The big point is that you act it out by not acting in love toward your parents. Even if you claim you love your parents, where is the love in action? Isn't that what love really is? When someone says that love speaks louder than words, what they mean is that love is not the words themselves. Think about it. In the same way, real faith, (like real love), has something behind it that goes beyond mere words. The analogy that James gives connects back again to whether one has real faith; and so this is why James continues to preach,
"17 Even so [ESV--So also] faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18 But someone may well say, 'You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without [ESV--apart from] the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.'"
I think we all need to notice how much James belabors this point. James knows how easy it is for religious but wrong people to reason away how they are. So, James is giving another illustration, and he describes a particular kind of person for us. He wants us to think about this person very carefully. He wants us to think about what this person is saying, and how this person is thinking. The person is hypothetical, and the illustration is where the person is making a challenge, and the challenge is very real. Essentially, James makes it clear that you can easily demonstrate your true, authentic, living faith in what God says, by simply demonstrating that you are doing what God says. Let me repeat that again for clarity: You can easily show your true, authentic, living faith in what God says, by demonstrating that you are doing what God says. This is the show me theology of James 2:17-18. It is not a boast. It is not self righteousness, or legalism. It is not works for salvation. What James is telling us is that this is salvation demonstrated. Salvation demonstrated, is the fact that we are saved to do good works, but we are not saved by our good works. What this does is seals the principle that James is stating that our faith in God as doers of the word of chapter 1:21-25, is made evident in our actions that demonstrate our love and devotion that comes from being truly in Christ. James says,
"19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, [ESV--Do you want to be shown NET--would you like evidence] you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?"
Notice that James says, You believe God is one. To do so is to be doing well. What James is doing is referring to something that is known to Israelites as the Shema. Actually, James is pointing to the first part of the Shema, which is
"4 Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!" Deuteronomy 6:4
Israelites repeated this all the time. All Israelites were familiar with this. Everyone, even unsaved Israelites could repeat this. But, there is more to it. The Shema goes on to state what is part of the New Covenant royal law of liberty, which is part of the Law of Christ. It says,
"4 Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one! 5 You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." Deuteronomy 6:4-5
If you did not know this before, now you know that this is called the shema. The point is that this is the substance of what James has been teaching on from a New Covenant perspective in his whole flow in the last section of passages, and it is reflective of what Christ taught. But what is pertinent is that Christ added Leviticus 19:18 to the Shema for His Royal Law,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself" Leviticus 19:18
James teaches all of this in the first two chapters of James. Keeping this in mind, when we put our minds back to ancient Israel, we remember those caustic confrontations that Jesus had with the Scribes and Pharisees. We remember that in one of those confrontations, Jesus explained it well when a Scribe asked,
"... 'What commandment is the foremost of all?' Jesus answered, 'The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'" Mark 12:28-31
So, taking this over to our James text under study, we recognize that James is preaching to the early Christians of the 12 dispersed tribes concerning something that they readily understand in respect to the shema and Christ's law. But James knows that even though someone quotes the first part of the shema, that Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one, that quoting this in apparent belief that God exists isn't sufficient by itself. Sure, you do well to believe that God is one, but it is not enough to believe that God is one. The point is that even demons believe this fact. Big deal. Demons are not saved just because they believe in God. Demons are not true followers of the Messiah. Demons do not reflect the royal law of love for people in the body of Christ. Demons reflect the law of hate for the body of Christ. In fact, demons are not doing very well. So, you do well to believe this, but there is more to James' point. What James means is that simply believing that God exists is not some kind of merit point for you, just as it is no big deal of merit for demons. If the issue, then, is not believing in God, then what is the issue?
The issue is believing God.
Believing God is different than believing in God, and so this is the issue that James goes on to say in verse 23,
"Abraham believed God ..." James 2:23
Abraham already believed in God and was doing well, but the point is that he needed to do better than that, and doing better is to believe God. Abraham demonstrated that he did this in his actions. So, anyone is a foolish fellow who doesn't recognize that faith without the works of doing God's word, is useless. Only the Israelites who actually have real faith in the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, and follow Him as the way, the truth, and the life, are those who follow Yahweh and are doing what Yahweh says. All others are in opposition to Yahweh, made evident in their lack of works that demonstrate true saving faith. There is a principle here. It is the principle of disobedience because of disbelief. And interestingly enough, as a principle, it even touches us who are authentic Christians because this shows us a principle that goes into the area of the law of love. What I mean is that only Christians who are doing the law of love are acting like they believe God's word to them to actually do so. Anyone who is not doing the works that manifest the law of love have nothing to show for their supposed claimed belief in what God says. This is serious stuff folks, and so this is why James gives another analogy in the form of a question,
"21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23 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.'
This is where James identifies more thoroughly what we, as those who claim to be Christians, are to be concerned with. The concern is not failing to believe in God. We already believe in God. But rather, we should be concerned with doing what comes with believing God, as James says in verse 23. We know that Abraham was justified by faith alone, James 2:23; and as Paul tells us-- there is no work that earns merit with God. James and Paul (by the Spirit) both recognize and preach the same truth. But James has a different point here (by the same Spirit) to explain that Abraham is justified by real faith alone; yes, and real faith is demonstrated in believing God, and the way we demonstrate that we believe God, is by doing the good works that salvation produces in us. It is really that simple. And so what does this tell us about how to look and act like we don't believe God? The answer is: by not doing what He says. Like Abraham, to express being God's friend, people must believe Him, so when God says that Jesus is Messiah, we believe God by believing that Jesus is Messiah. When God says that we are to love one another in actions according to the great royal law of liberty, then we believe Him, and we demonstrate that we believe Him, by the fact that we are really doing it. Paul says,
"I know Whom I have believed." 1 Timothy 1:12
Paul declares two distinct things here. We need to declare both things too--in both word and action. Paul knows God. To Paul, believing in God is already a given. But Paul also believed God, and Paul's works in His Christian life demonstrated this fact. This is also what Abraham did, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. But by the same token, we have to be careful. This is what this sermon is all about--being careful. We have to be careful because unrighteous actions can occur in our lives while believing in God but yet, not believe God. Think about this; Adam and Eve believed in God. They knew God existed. You and I know that God exists. But what was their problem? Adam and Eve did not believe God's word. Eve believed the evil lying serpent. Adam succumbed to evil lying Eve who had become evil in falling into sin. Adam and Eve could have said that they believed God all day long, but when they ate from the tree, they showed faith without works, and so they demonstrated that their faith in what God had said was dead. Adam and Eve did not have Christ, but Adam and Eve demonstrate what it means to be someone who walked with God, yet, someone who did not take God's word seriously in living vibrant faith that is demonstrated in actions. Unlike Abraham, Adam and Eve showed that they were not friends of God. We, who are Christians, are friends of God in salvation where we believe God for salvation by believing in Christ as our Lord and Savior. He imputes the righteousness of God to His elect in Himself. As such, we want to be doing the things that friends do. In other words, we want to act like friends of God in respect to our daily actions while in our salvation. We want to express the friendship that we already have through living faith, out to others in living faith--at work, at home, at play, everywhere--all the time. To do this, God urges us all through His word, to demonstrate that we believe Him by what we do in being doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude ourselves, and being doers of the law of love, and not merely those who simply say that they love. This is how we demonstrate that we believe God. This is what the people of Nineveh did. In Jonah 3:4, we read,
"And the people of Nineveh believed God." Jonah 3:4
Okay, and so what else happened? Works accompanied their faith. Everyone focuses on Jonah all the time in the account. But let's rejoice in those pagans who became people of God in repentance which demonstrated faith with works that was alive. We are going to see those folks forever and ever in glory.
We must remember that James has been talking about the word of truth, and being doers of the word and not merely hearers only who delude ourselves. Being a doer of the word is to have faith with works. It is alive faith. To be mere hearers of the word and not doers is to be having a claimed faith without works, which is dead faith. So to believe God, is to believe what God says, and what God says is God's word. Paul says, in 1 Thessalonians 2:13
"And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers." 1 Thessalonians 2:13
You and I are people of the word. When we take in God's word, and we truly accept it for what it is, and we believe it, then it will do its work in us, which is work that is demonstrated by our works where we are working the word. So to believe God is the faith that James is talking about. This is why it is so important to read the word. Read it to your family. Read it to your friends. Read it to yourself. Quote it. Remember it. Trust it, which means to believe it, and do it. This leads us to what seems in a cursory manner to be a difficult sentence, but only if you highlight it out of its context, read it by itself, and then showcase it as James' point according to a statement that is orphaned from the rest of the flow of thought. James says,
'24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."
But we know, according to the whole contextual flow, that what James means is that a man is justified by believing God, where his actions demonstrate that the belief is real living faith that is not merely a claimed fake faith. So this really should all be making sense to us. And on the practical side of Christian living, we see how we should be applying God's word here to our lives. But God uses James to really press this point forward in a strong way. So, James goes on further to describe this in one last analogy,
"25 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? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."
This is an amazing analogy considering that Rahab, at one time, was a pagan Gentile of Jericho. She was also a prostitute. Neither of these attributes were revered by God or His covenant people. But we find here in James, and in Joshua, and in the epistle of Hebrews, that Rahab is revered as an example of someone who not only believed in the one true God, but also someone who believed God, and that is the point that James makes. The question is; Why do they say this about her? When we look at the story of what happened we see the details;
"Now before they [Israelite men] lay down, she [Rahab] came up to them on the roof, 9 and said to the men, 'I know that Yahweh has given you the land, [in other words, she declares that she believes God--not just believes in God, but believes God] and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. 10 For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. 12 Now therefore, please swear to me by Yahweh, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father's household, and give me a pledge of truth, 13 and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death." Joshua 2:8
Rahab knew that God had given the Israelites the land, and that Jericho was going to be defeated. She not only believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, she also believed God, demonstrated in the fact that she believed the promises of God. Really folks--we see that this is not so unusual. God expects the same thing from us. So when James ends this section with so also faith without works is dead, we need to be considering this as more than an admonishment, and exhortation to the 12 dispersed tribes of Israelite Christians. We need to be thinking about ourselves. We need to be thinking about more than just believing in God; we need to be thinking of the manner that we believe God. It could be the area of finances. Do we really believe that God will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory? He tells us he will in Philippians 4:19? This is a clear promise of God. The fist of life has pummeled so many of us in this area. I know folks here who have wondered how they were going to buy groceries for the week. The utterance, How are we going to pay our bills? is so common for a lot of us, that it sounds like it must be the line from an old familiar song that you just can't seem to get out of your head. I've been there too; way too many times to count. It could be in the area of a loved one. Maybe you are afraid for someone's life. It is a matter of believing God. Think about it. Do you believe that God cares more about people than you do? If so, then let us not act like we care more about his people than God does. Let us pray for those who have needs, whether in sickness, or in business, or in relationships, but let us pray believing God, that He is sovereign, He is wise, He is loving, and He will always do what is best with everyone even if what is best seems like something that appears to be the worst thing to us. Believing God applies to the area of sin. Think about it--We are all faced with temptations. They may not be the exact temptations that Adam and Eve, and Abraham, and so many others have gone through, but God says that there is no temptation that is not common to man that He will not provide a way of escape. But, the question is, are we going to choose to believe God? In his book, Battling Unbelief, John Piper speaks of the insidious deception of sin, where we believe a lie over believing God. I'm almost finished this morning, but I want to read something from that book. Think about your own life, and your own struggles, and your own temptations as I read,
"... faith is the power that severs the root of sin. Sin has power because of the promises it makes to us. It talks like this: "If you lie on your tax returns, you will have extra money to get what will make you happier." "If you look at this pornography you will have a surge of pleasure that is better than the joys of a clear conscience." "If you eat these cookies when no one is watching, it will soften your sense of woundedness and help you cope better than anything else just now." No one sins out of duty. We sin because we believe the deceitful promises that sin makes. The Bible warns "that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). The promises of sin are lies. Battling unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace means that we fight fire with fire. We throw against the promises of sin the promises of God. We take hold of some great promise God made about our future and say to a particular sin, "Match that!" In this way we do what Paul says in Romans 8:13, "By the Spirit...put to death the deeds of the body." John Owen wrote a book on that verse and summed it up with, "Be killing sin, or it will be killing you." We kill sinful deeds before they happen by cutting the root of their life: the lies of sin." (Battling Unbelief, Piper, pages 15-16)
When Piper says, "The promises of sin are lies" the question is are we believing the lies over believing God and His promises? The point is that we battle sin, my friends, by believing God over believing the lies of sin. So, in closing I urge us all to get a very real sense that sticks with us both now, and when we leave here this morning--Yes, faith without works really is dead. As we contemplate how real and relevant this fact is, let us draw upon God's grace by living out His word in faith. Let us believe in the God who spoke the worlds into existence, and then let us believe God when He tells us to live according to His word as effectual doers of it and not merely hearers who delude ourselves.
