Developing a Dynamic Faith

Starting the message, we're going to be reading from James chapter 2,

James 2:14–26

verses 14 through 26. If you haven't figured it out by now, my sermons have

moved from Philippians to James.

So we narrow in James. You can read through the entire book of James in one

sitting. It's only five chapters.

You could do that a couple of times if you'd like. But we'll be reading from

James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26. What good is it, my brothers and sisters,

James 2:14–26

if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?

Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well-fed,

but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions, is dead.

But someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds.

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

You believe that there is one God, good.

Even the demons believe that and shudder. You foolish person,

do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?

Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered

his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that his faith and his actions were working together,

and his faith was made complete by what he did.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God,

and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend.

You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

It's an interesting thought. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute

considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and

set them off in a different direction?

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Over the centuries, the human race has passed along a lot of wisdom from generation to generation.

And wise old sayings are part of everyday life, and we use them without thinking.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. What does that really mean?

Lots of great insight into life has passed through the centuries this way through old adages.

Now, I want to ask you a question. Which adage offers the best counsel about life in general?

Look before you leap, or he who hesitates is lost? first.

Raise your hand for one or the other. So in general, the best choice for philosophy

by which I live my life is, look before you leap. Raise your hand. Okay.

Or he who hesitates is lost.

Oh, interesting. Two opposite adages, yet it really does depend.

If you were speaking to a group of cliff divers, you might want to remind them, look before you leap.

If you were talking to a farmer whose harvesting equipment is broken this time

of year or his planting equipment is broken, you might want to remind him,

he who hesitates is lost.

There is some tension between these two things, and yet it all depends on the situation.

In the Bible, there are also opposing concepts that have a tension between them.

It doesn't make either one of them wrong.

It simply means that they are speaking for two different situations.

So Proverbs chapter 26, verses 4 and 5, do not answer a fool according to his

Proverbs 26:4

folly, or you will be like him yourself.

And then verse 5, answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be wise in his own eyes.

Why? Do not answer or answer. Kind of two different things.

But two statements that seem to contradict, but yet they're both true depending on their application.

Now, it's not too hard to overlook the tension between old adages and even a

proverb about how to answer a foolish person, but it's not always so easy to

overlook this situation when it strikes at the core of our faith.

You cannot ignore the issue when it is something as fundamental as your salvation.

But some have tried to say that there is a same kind of tension between whether

we are saved by faith or whether we are saved by what we do,

saved by faith alone or saved by works.

They say that there's a disagreement between Paul, who wrote Romans,

and James, who wrote this letter that we've been reading.

There seems to be a dichotomy almost between them, between the two of them.

Paul says, you are saved by faith. Martin Luther King said, or Martin Luther

said, we are saved by faith alone.

And James says, we're not saved by faith alone.

So what is it? Open your Bible to Romans chapter 3, verse 28, and you will read this.

Romans 3:28

Paul writes, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing law.

Paul says that a person is made right with God just as if they'd never sinned by faith alone.

It's the cornerstone of Christianity. That is, if we are to have a relationship

with God, it must be based on faith and trust in him.

Then we turn to James 2, verse 24. You see that a person is justified by what

James 2:24

he does, and not by faith alone.

So now over the years, some people have said that what Paul wrote and what James

wrote contradict one another, and they can't both be true.

As I said, Martin Luther found a solution to this problem, however.

When he read Romans 3.28, he wrote in the margin, sola fide,

which means faith alone or faith only.

On the other side of the margin, he said that James shouldn't even be part of the Bible.

There are many Christians who have followed Martin Luther not for throwing James

out of the Bible, but for saying it is simply by faith alone.

It doesn't matter what we do.

Well, much of Christianity believes Paul and ignores James, when in reality,

both James and Paul are looking at the same thing from two different angles,

two different sides of the coin.

Paul is saying, you can't work your way to heaven.

It takes faith to please God. and James is saying, you have to have faith to

please God, but the only faith that is pleasing to God is a faith that does something.

I mean, we can say we have faith, but if it doesn't do anything to us and in

us and through us, what good is it?

God warns us to have a dynamic faith, not a dead faith.

So I want us to spend a little bit of time digging into what James has to say.

The passage is broken down like this.

Verses 14 through 18 talks about James describing a faith that is dead.

Verse 19 describes a faith that's less than demons.

And verses 20 through 26, James points to faith that does what glorifies God.

So the first thing we see is that of dead faith, a faith that is dead.

When James is defining the different types of faith, the easiest one to define is dead faith.

It's a faith that thinks everything's okay. I went to the altar.

I prayed. I asked Jesus into my heart. I have faith.

It's faith that says, I believe in God, but never thinks about how that faith

might affect the way they live.

James didn't have to look very far to find an example of dead faith.

Do you notice what's going on here? Christian is standing arm in arm with another Christian.

They're talking like we would in the lobby. The one Christian doesn't have any

clothes and is starving.

The other Christian gives a standard goodbye like, see you later.

He says, go, I wish you well.

Keep warm and well fed.

Okay, so he's naked and he's hungry. Go, I wish you well.

It's kind of like one of those, what's wrong with this picture kind of illustrations,

isn't it? We call ourselves Christians, but what do we do?

Everyone can see it. Everybody knows that Christians are supposed to take care

of others, especially other Christians. Everybody understands.

You're not supposed to say something with your mouth that you don't mean or

that you aren't going to back up with your actions.

We call that hypocrisy.

What has happened is that the one who ignores the needs of the others has taken

the name of Christ but failed to adopt the character of Christ.

Believes in Christ, but doesn't act like Christ.

Often, however, people like this are exhibiting an attitude of,

I want the benefits of being a Christian, but I don't want any responsibility that comes with it.

When you became a member of any organization, you got the benefits of that,

but you also had the responsibility of supporting that organization and being

what their code of ethics wants you to live up to.

When you go to work and become a member of a working society,

you have the benefits of a job and employment and insurance and things like

that, but you've got a set of rules that you have to live by, right?

Dead faith is the kind that is nothing more than words on our lips.

It's a statement of faith without a lifestyle of faith, a lifestyle change.

What James is warning us about is that that kind of faith is no faith at all, really.

Show me your faith without deeds And I'll show you that you don't even have faith at all.

We don't want to be content with dead faith.

The second one is, to shock his readers, James really throws them a curveball.

In verse 19, he says, you have the right belief about God. Well, isn't that great?

And I'm thinking of, you guys are probably thinking it with me,

the church lady from Saturday Night Lights. Isn't that special?

You show me you have the right belief about God, but isn't that great?

You are in the same ballpark with the demons, except they're one notch better than you.

Their belief affects them. At least they shudder.

Have you ever gotten scared just by thinking about something?

Have you ever been sitting around the campfire and someone was telling a scary

story and as they're telling it, their voice gets a little softer and softer and softer?

Then all of a sudden, it sends a shudder down your spine. just like it did you, and you jump.

I like to do that to my wife when we're sitting in the living room and she's

watching her cop mystery things and all that.

And the music, you know, it always changes. The music changes.

It gets really dark and eerie. And all of a sudden, just y'all,

boom, because I like to see her jump. I still can make my wife jump.

But what do you think makes for a scary story to demons.

It is something about God. Read the book of Revelation out loud to the evil

entities, and they will flee from you, especially Revelation chapter 20, verse 7 through 10.

Revelation 20:7–10

Read this out loud when you feel like evil's coming over.

It says, When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison

and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth.

By the way, that means the earth is flat.

Gog and Magog, and to gather them for battle.

In number, they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth

of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people. The city lives.

But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

And the devil who preceded them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where

the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.

They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

So when evil seems to come around you and wants to torment you and deceive you

and all that, just say, listen, I read the back of the book.

You know what happens to you, Satan?

Read that to him and he will tremble. As Christians, we are going to cheer as

God triumphs over evil and Satan and the demons are thrown into the lake of

fire to suffer for eternity.

That's not a good story for demons.

When you read through the gospel accounts of Jesus' time on earth,

whenever he encountered demons, they screamed out and declared that they knew

who he was, the Son of God.

So if the demons know who Jesus is, and it makes them shudder,

shouldn't we know who Jesus is and make us shudder and want to become like him?

Jesus always told them to shut up, that he didn't need their testimony,

but they knew that they knew him, but they obeyed his command anyway and shut up.

Demonic faith is the faith that believes in the existence of God,

and that belief affects the emotion, but not the will.

You know, I've heard many people say that we're saved because we believe in God.

Well, according to this, even Satan and the demons believe in God,

but they're not affected by him, and they don't obey him.

James says, if you have dead faith, even the demons are a one-up on you.

They believe, and they shudder, and they're scared. If your faith is dead,

quite honestly, you ought to be scared to death that the demons whose eternal

destiny is hell are affected more by their belief in God than you are.

And then finally, James gives two illustrations of people of faith who lived

their lives according to what they believed about God. He first talks about Abraham.

Maybe you are familiar with the story. God promised Abram and Sarai that if

they followed him, this was their names before they were changed,

Abram and Sarai, that if they followed him, they would have a child that would

be the father of a great nation.

Abraham waited and waited and waited until he was 100 years old and Sarai was

90 years old to receive the promised child.

So there's still hope for some of us.

Finally, amidst Laster, and I'm sure a few tears, the child of promise comes.

It was a miracle of God for those two senior saints to have a child born to them.

But an incredible thing happened.

Not long after they had their child, they ended up trading in their walkers

for a baby carriage and they exchanged their Bengay for diaper rash ointment.

God told Abraham to do something absolutely outrageous,

God decided to tell Abraham to do something with this promised child.

He told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.

I don't know what kind of questions Abraham had at that time.

I certainly would have. Are you kidding me?

I'm a hundred years old. I can't do this again.

And certainly Sarah can't. So, but in obedience, Abraham loaded up his stuff,

traveled with his only son to the mountain, and with every ounce of energy he

could muster, he raised up the knife to kill his son of God's covenant.

But God stopped him just in time and provided a ram for an offering instead of his son.

Abraham proved that he was totally submissive to God.

And according to this scripture, it was credited to him as righteousness.

His faith in God that was acted upon was counted as righteousness.

In other words, Abraham was justified by his willingness to trust God completely.

The book of Hebrews says that Abraham had enough faith in God that he was sure

that if God had him actually kill Isaac, that God would raise Isaac from the

dead if that was necessary.

And then on the opposite end of the social scale, we have Rahab.

Rahab, who was included in the lineage of Jesus.

Rahab is not very high on the social scale.

She was not an Israelite, but a member of a pagan nation that God had commanded Israel to wipe out.

She wasn't even wealthy like Abraham. She was a prostitute.

Financially and morally, she was not a good person, not one you would think

of being one in lines of leadership.

But when the Israelite spies went into the land to scope out what they had to

do to attack the city, Rahab was there to help them, to hide them from their enemies.

Rahab was saved from the destruction. Rahab and her family was saved from the

destruction that fell on the city.

In fact, James said that in God's eyes.

Rahab was justified by what she did, and she also was credited as righteous.

As James concludes his discussion about faith, he ends with an image which he

wants to paint in our minds.

Verse 26 says, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Several years ago, a long time ago, the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong passed away.

When he did, some of the Chinese leadership was afraid of what would happen

to the nation without their legendary leader.

They called in his personal doctor, Dr.

Li Zhizhu, I'm not Chinese, to do an impossible task.

They wanted the chairman's body preserved permanently.

The doctor didn't want to do it. He had seen the dried-up, shrunken remains

of Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union. He was a doctor.

He knew that a body without life is doomed to rot.

But he had his commands. And so 22 liters of formaldehyde were pumped into the

dead chairman's body, and the result was horrifying.

Mao's face swelled up like a ball, and his neck was as thick as his head.

The pressure of the fluid in his body Caused

his ears to stick out at right angles And the

chemical oozed out from his pores A team of embalmers worked five hours With

towels and cotton balls To force the liquids down into the body Finally the

face looked normal But the chest was so swollen That the jacket had to be cut

in the back And his swollen body was covered With the red Communist Party flag,

Isn't that special?

There's absolutely nothing natural about a dead body I have been at all kinds

of funerals Preachers get to do that, you know And I've seen all kinds of dead bodies,

You can put makeup on them You can fix their hair You can dress them up in the

best clothes money can buy But there's something unnatural,

About a body with no life Why?

Because that person is no longer there I've also seen people Who have had death

faith Dead faith Try to give the appearance of life They go to church a few

times Sometimes they place a Bible on their coffee table And dust it off every once in a while.

I visited one family It's not who you think it is It's not in this church Visited

one family And when they open up their Bible Well they had to dust it off first

When they opened it up a roach ran out.

Sometimes, like I said, they place a Bible on the coffee table and dust it off.

Some people, if asked about their faith, will declare that they attend the Free

Methodist Church or some other church and maybe even pull out their baptismal

certificate as if that's their get-out-of-hell-free card.

But there's nothing natural about a faith that doesn't affect the way you live.

Is your faith better described as dead faith or dynamic faith?

Let me give you a couple of ways to check your spiritual vital signs,

and you might want to write these down.

First of all, how do you feel about worship?

Is it something that is a priority with you, or is it an insignificant ritual

that you just go through because you know you should?

Is worship something you perform on Sunday, or is worship how you live every day of the week?

Are you being the praise of God's glory, as Scripture calls us to be?

The second thing is, what kind of thoughts and goals do you have for your life?

When you think about the things you would like to do for the next year,

five years, ten years, are you at the center of those?

You know, when you go apply for a job, they ask, what's your goals for the next five, ten years?

Or are other people and God at the center of your goals and your thoughts?

Three, how do you feel about giving? Uh-oh. By the way, the offering boxes are

back there, just so you know. How do you feel about giving?

Is it a painful experience, or are you a cheerful giver?

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians. He talks about the cheerful giver.

Do you constantly seek to see how much more that you can give to God in gratitude?

Do you look for ways to bless God in what you give?

Number four, when you see someone in need, is your first reaction to cringe

and your second reaction to say a meaningless, go and be well, stay warm and well-fed?

Or do you instead act out your faith by giving them your time and your attention

as you give them the assistance they need?

Faith without works is dead. And number five, how often do you study your Bible?

And not just read, but study. Is it something that gets no attention in your

life, or are you actively pursuing a greater knowledge of God and his will for you?

Do you hunger for the word of God so much that it's a transforming power in your life?

Do you hunger so much for it that it's like a good book, because it is?

You read through a certain part, and you get to a point in it that you don't

want to put it down because the story is so good that you want to keep going

and keep going and keep going.

The word disciple means more than follower. It means someone who follows another

and does what the teachers does.

That's what Jesus meant when he called his disciples and said, come follow me.

He meant follow me and do what I do.

See, watch what I do and do what I do. At that point, the choice,

whether to follow Jesus rested on the disciples' decision, whether to trust Jesus or not.

If we're reading the word of God, are we doing what it says?

If the disciples hadn't trusted him fully they might have said sure Jesus I'll

follow you and then go on about their daily routine completely unchanged if

you look at the scriptures and

follow along and see what happened to these what did Peter, James, John,

and Andrew do?

What did they do before? They dropped what they were doing.

They put down their fishing stuff and went to follow Jesus.

They gave up what they were doing to follow Jesus.

If they had been unchanged, what would have happened to our faith?

But instead of that kind of empty profession of faith, the disciples walked

with Jesus daily wherever he went.

They learned from him, grew in their knowledge of him, and sought to obey him

every day as a result of their faith, They were even willing to die instead of renounce him.

In fact, Peter was crucified upside down on a cross because he could not allow

him, would not allow himself to be crucified the same way his master was.

The disciples did that because they trusted that even if somebody took away

their physical life, Jesus would own for them a life that no one could take from them.

Jesus gives us that same opportunity for life by promising, by sacrificing his life on a cross.

So here's some questions. Is your faith a powerful faith that does what glorifies

God's? Is your faith actively doing the will of God by serving God and others with the best care?

And is your faith lived in such a way that everything you do is blessing God

and being a blessing to others to draw them into a relationship with God.

Do you have a dynamic faith?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we close this time in service,

we give you thanks and praise.

And Father, James is like, you know, pointing the sword of the Spirit right into us.

And he's speaking to us and into us.

Father, we thank you for these words. Sometimes they're hard But Father we ask

that you would help us To have a dynamic faith That does what glorifies God

Glorifies God In Jesus name Amen.