Faith Without Works Is Dead (James 2:14-17)

has her coffee. Let me pin myself. Pin. All right. Away we go. All right. Uh today we are going to be on uh we're going to stay in James uh and continue on in what we were talking about last week. So today we're going to be in James chapter 2 and we're going to be in verses 14 through 17. Um, and and these are these are some again I love James and and I'll I'll restate it again that if you're new in your walk, James to me is like the cliffnotes version of the Bible. It just cuts right to it. Uh James being the halfb brotherther of Christ. James didn't even believe his brother was the Christ until after his resurrection.

So talk about being near God and then following God. Two totally separate paths James has had. All right. So let me read this. So it says, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?" It's question mark. Verse 15 says, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food?" If one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and wellfed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

And I've I've covered this these couple verses a couple of different ways. And today I want to do it a little bit differently. Um, so so the first thing I want to I want to bring up is that James and Paul are not arguing. So Paul in Ephesians 2 and 8 and 9 says, "We're saved by uh we're saved by grace through faith, right? not of works. And then he also goes on to say in the very next verse that that um Christ created us for good works. And so he so James and Paul are not at odds here. They're not they're talking about something different. Paul is talking about the root of the tree being your faith.

And James is talking about the fruit. Same tree, different parts. Hope everyone gets that. Right. So what James is arguing here is that if you claim to follow Christ and you claim to have this faith, you claim to be a Christ follower, but there's no fruit, there's no deeds for what you're doing, then what James is saying is you might want to question your faith because from one should flow the other. And uh and I want to give you uh an all I can do is a testimony my my own walk. And so this is not many years ago, three years ago maybe. Uh my wife and I were not doing well financially.

Uh we were struggling in a in a in a really big way. And uh one of the ladies from our church came up to me um and handed me an envelope and said, "Hey, this is from one of our members." And I was like, "All right, cool." And I was ser I still am serving on their safety team. And so I took a moment. I was so curious. I went into the the men's room and I opened up the envelope and it was a a thank you card and had $1,500 in it. And I was like, "Oh, I just cried because what that $1,500 meant to me at that moment in my life was the difference between being able to pay the rent or not pay the rent." And so it was huge.

And and and I want to I want to tie this in because I'm going to I'm going to share with you later on. It's probably two years later I found out who actually gave me the money- which church member it was that wanted me to have that. And there's an interesting twist in that, but it ties into what we're talking about. So Paul says, "So suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. And and how often do we do this? You hear that a brother or sister is struggling. I'm going to pray for you." And maybe you even sincerely mean it. And maybe you pray for that person later on.

Maybe you don't even do it right then. Maybe you pray for them later on. But if you have the ability to help them in their need, which is what Paul is talking about, I mean, James is talking about right here, and we don't do it, what he's saying is there's faith on both sides of the equation there. And so, let me tie the story in. that that couple that gave me that $1,500, that's all they had. I'm not exaggerating. This is probably one of the poorest couples that we had at our church at that time. They literally gave me their life savings. What kind of faith is that?

That's that's the faith that says, "I know this is what God is calling me to do, and I'm going to give this money to this other couple who needs it." knowing that God is going to honor that and continue to protect them and honor them by doing what they did. That is real faith. That is standing on which think about where they were at. This is their life savings. I'm going to give this other couple this money and I don't know now where my rent is going to come from. How am I going to put food on the table? I just gave up every dollar I have. That is an amazing amount of faith.

I won't tell you who they are, but some of you on this call know them. And I found out about two years later who that was because they were in a in a financial spot at that time that they needed to help. And and then my wife and I were able knowing that to be able to to be able to step in where where God now get has honored us and our finances are completely different and I'm able to step back and take care of them. And so that's to me what real faith is, right? Um we we we do it all the time. We say, "I'm going to pray for you." And then a lot of times we don't even stop right then and pray.

And so what I've tried to make a point in my life is that when someone says that to me that I don't I stop saying I'll pray for you and I say let's pray. Why are we putting it off? Is it where we're at? Is it Is it the moment? Do we feel uncomfortable praying for someone in in a group of people? Uh I remember uh my wife and I uh taking another church family out to dinner. They've they've moved away now. And uh they had a real need. And so we literally prayed at the end of the meal right outside the restaurant door arm and arm, shoulder over shoulder, people having to walk around us to get in the building and around us to go around the building.

That's not showing off our faith. They just said I asked them what what they needed for prayer and they said it. So I said, "Then let's pray. Why why am I going to leave? You need this right now. Let's pray right now." Uh so James in this passage is talking about uh he he says he makes the comment faith without works is dead. He says sh show me show me how it works any other way. He uses example he goes on in the chapter to talk about Abram when he was called to go sacrifice his son. He went he didn't just go well God's going to take care of this.

I know he is. He raised a knife. He was g he was gonna act. And so we have to remember as Christians, as Christ followers, that that our our faith is one thing, but it has to have fruit. There has to be some evidence that your faith is alive inside of you. And if you don't see the fruit of your faith, then then I'm not here to judge you. I'm not here to condemn you. No one is. That's your salvation. And you need to work that out. and you need to go take a heart look at, do I really have this faith that I claim to have? And this is what James is doing.

He's saying, here is the here's the check. Here's the checkup. Do you have fruit of your faith? And if you don't have fruit from your faith, then you need to go back and check your faith. All right. So, thoughts, comments, suggestions. Let me unpick quick. Yeah. God can do way more with your 90% than you could ever do with a 100. Oh yeah. Way more. Yes. Anyone else? I I I went through a situation. I don't know. I'm going see try to correlate it in the sense of giving cuz sometimes we put the the faith giving part of it in value. And um I was at a um at a men's conference.

I was at a conference and there was a preacher that came and a lot of everybody started sewing into his life and every time it comes around everybody sews good dollars amount into his life. And I only had $3. And you know, I'm starting to be a new Christian at that moment. And I only had $3 in me. And and I felt the spirit tell me, "Go give him, you know, go sew into his life." And I said, "I only got $3." He said, "Well, that's what I want you to give him, the $3." And and there was I was so hesitant cuz everybody I know was giving him a lot more money than that.

And I just actually went up to him and and said, "Bless you." And I just put the money in his pocket and I walked away. But, you know, when he gets home, he probably realize he only got $3. But I mean I I just I felt I had to just do that and I felt that's the faith part in the sense of sometimes it ain't the value is something just obeying. Well and that's a great point that you bring up Jimmy is that when when you when you operate your faith and you have that fruit, it may not have been the $3. He he may have gone home and just recognized and realized that this guy probably just gave me all he had in his pocket.

I'm like, that that that that's a tremendous uh that that's a that could be a tremendous moment for him knowing that God touched you to be able to do that for him, right? That's being obedient. That's the fruit from your faith. And that's what James is talking about. And and we used money. It doesn't have to be money. You know, we had we had a we we had a uh I had there may be even some of you guys on here that helped this weekend. We had a we had a a church member who needed to move and it was a pretty far move. He moved an hour away and we had 10 guys show up to help this guy pack a truck, load everything up and move him and his family an hour north.

That's fruit. That's faith with works. Doesn't have to be money. Just be of your time. You need someone needs something, help them out. Right? That's what James is talking about here. That's the heart of Christ. That's what we're that's what we're to have. All right. It's 9:29. 12 seconds. Anybody else? I do actually. I have a friend who uh was sharing his testimony and he said that um him and his wife were completely broke. He lost his job. She was a waitress. They had $20 for gas for the next two weeks. And he went to church that Sunday while she worked.

And God kept telling him, "Put that 20 in the offering." And he's like, "And as I'm sitting there, I'm tug I'm playing a tugof-war with God saying, "Well, that's all I have. My wife's going to kill me. That's our gas." Anyways, he did it. And he was he felt good but bad because he had to tell his wife that they don't have any more money. At the end of service, some random lady said, "Hey, God told me to give you this." And when he opened the package, there was $3,000 in the envelope. That's Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's So, we can't put God in a box.

You have no idea what what he has in store for you. The moment you become obedient, the moment you listen to that still small voice, what what he can do is absolutely incredible. All right, let's uh we got time. Let's bow our heads. Let's close this out in prayer. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for these testimonies. Thank you that we can see that that faith uh is accompanied by works. Um Lord, that's that should be in each of us. Uh Father, I I pray that no one on this morning's devotional feels uh condemned in any way. uh but rather motivated rather motivated to know that if they don't feel like they've got any fruit in their life to to take an inward look to figure out where they might be.

Father, I pray for that, not for condemnation. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. And so Lord, we just ask that you walk with us today. give us an opportunity to exercise that faith in some deed, in some work, whatever that might be, and helping a stranger and opening a door and and and making a phone call to someone who hasn't been at church for a while to let them know that you that they're missed. Whatever that work is, Father, we know it doesn't have to be money and it doesn't have to be a physical labor act. It could be a phone call.

It could be a prayer. It could be a a postcard, Lord. Just something that says uh that we have the heart of Christ in us. So, Father, I just pray that we would do that. I thank you for where we're at. I thank you for this day. I thank you for waking each and every one of us up. We love you. We praise you. And it's in your son, Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, all see you guys tomorrow. Have a great day. Have a peaceful day. Everybody have a blessed day. Yay. Thanks, Dwayne. Thanks.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.