Faith That Works

And it is good to be in the house of the Lord and in a place, as Reverend Mike said, that loves the Lord, loves to worship, and is believing God for more.

Amen.

It is such a blessing to just get into the Word of God today.

So why don't we open our Bibles?

Those paper things that are great to bring with you, I will just say.

I know.

You don't have to bring your paper Bible, but uh I will bug you now and again about it because you will get more out of the Bible if you read it physically.

Just like you will get more out of your whole life if you get out of digital and into physical.

How many of you know God put your spirit in a physical body to live a physical life?

And even one day He's gonna resurrect your body and glorify it so you can live like that forever.

So God's intention for us is to be very real, tangible, physical, in the now sort of creatures.

Amen.

Amen.

And without even really thinking about it, that leads in well to what we're gonna talk about this morning.

And we're gonna continue talking about faith, but uh faith is such a broad and a rich topic, but I want us to talk about a faith that works.

And so we talked a little bit last week about the Apostle Paul and some of the things he says about our father of faith, Abraham.

We're talking now about a man who seems to have a different perspective on faith, gives us a different light to this faith question.

So we want to look at that amazing little book, the book of James.

How many of you know about James?

When I began walking with the Lord as a young man, uh I think the two parts of my Bible that were falling apart the most was Proverbs and James.

Because they're so practical.

They just hit you square between the eyes, you know, buck up, do it right.

This is how it is.

This is not a joke, this is not a test, you know, this is real life.

This is how to live with wisdom, this is how to not get caught up in religious head games and nonsense, how our faith can really be lived.

And I love James for that.

James gets a bad rap because he really calls us to account that our faith needs to be a lived faith.

Amen.

Your faith is not just something that goes on in your head, and I dare say, not even just something that happens in your heart.

Because as long as it is just this invisible, you know, thought life, emotion life, spirit life, and it doesn't affect how we actually live in the body as human beings, it's really just a fancy religious game.

Hello.

Am I the only one who needs to be reminded of this this morning?

Because we're talking about faith, and we want to see increase in faith, and we want to step out into bigger things, greater things, into the invisible, into the impossible, just like Jesus calls Peter out of the boat onto the water.

These are things that only faith can do.

But what does James have to say about this in chapter two of his amazing epistle down into verse 14?

He says, What good is it, brethren, if someone says that he has faith, but he does not have works?

Now, one of the reasons that we get Paul and James kind of tied up in a knot, it's like Paul says, it's by faith alone and not by works, lest any man should boast.

Right?

But Paul and James, I will say this, they're using the word works a little bit differently.

Paul is using the word works in the sense that I must add something to my faith to truly be right in God's sight.

Like, it's great what Jesus did on the cross, but if I don't do X, Y, and Z, I'm not really saved.

How many of you know that that is not the gospel?

And that's why Paul is so adamant about this.

The gospel must be protected.

It is only by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection that we are saved.

Amen.

Where James turns around and he's running into some people apparently that are good talkers, they're good about talking about faith, but there's no evidence of their faith.

Uh-oh.

Don't get me wrong.

Sometimes it takes a while for the evidence to catch up to the spiritual reality.

Amen.

But if something has really happened to us, because if by faith we have been forgiven and we are born again by the Spirit of God, like this isn't just fancy spiritual language.

You are a new person if you have genuine faith in Jesus.

That is not uh I woke up on the bright side of the bed this morning and I'm feeling good about life.

You are a new person.

Your old man died, your new one came to life, you now are a child of God.

You were a child of sin and death.

You were a child of the devil.

Now you're a child of God.

This is not a mood swing, this is a nature change.

And at some point, our outside has to catch up with our inside.

Right?

And that nature has to begin to show itself.

And this is not the sermon, by the way, for you to begin examining everyone else in the room and whether or not they're living up to what you think faith is supposed to look like.

Right?

We're very quick.

The my, you know, we like to defend ourselves.

It's so subtle, it's like, yes, I know people just like that.

Yeah.

The guy I look at every morning in the mirror.

He can be a lot like that.

He can say a lot of good things, believe a lot of good things, but at some point, believing has to connect with action.

Again, we could jump right back to Hebrews chapter 11, where we read the definition of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Faith is the what?

Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In other words, when we have true faith and we're laying hold of unseen things, we begin to give evidence to the unseen.

Okay.

Every single person you read about in Hebrews chapter 11, Abel, Enoch, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, all of these people did physical, real things.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They sacrificed, they built things, they preached the message, they gave of their life.

They weren't just like, thank you, Lord, you came and spoke to me one time, and I had a fuzzy feeling in my heart.

Thank you, God, for all the fuzzy feelings that we have in our hearts.

I need them daily to keep me going, right?

But then I gotta get going.

And not just stop with the warm fuzzies.

All right, we better actually read the Bible.

James chapter 2, verse 14 says, What is it?

James 2:14

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he does not have works?

Can his faith save him?

Again, we do know.

Yes, we are saved.

Your soul, your spirit, who you are on the inside is saved through faith, but we need to put our faith in action.

Verse 15.

He just gives one of many examples because he just finished talking about how important it is to live out the royal law, which is to love your neighbor as yourself.

So, you know, how many in this room believe that we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourself?

Okay, we all believe that, right?

And Jesus even says, you know, we call it the golden rule that we are supposed to do unto others as we want done to us, right?

And I don't know about you, I grew up in a Christian household.

I usually heard that when I was not treating my siblings the way that I would want to be treated myself, right?

So I kind of always heard that in the negative.

It's like, don't hit your brother, don't hog all the toys, don't whatever, because you wouldn't want them to do that to you.

That's kind of the negative side of the golden rule, right?

Don't it, but that's not what Jesus says.

Do you notice that?

That would be Jesus saying, don't do to other people what you don't want them to do to you.

How many of you know that he said, do unto others as you want them to do to you?

One is stop doing the negative things.

And how many of you know that we usually feel pretty good about ourselves if we can just stop doing the bad stuff?

It's like, I didn't cheat, I didn't swear, I didn't, you know, freak out, I didn't hurt anybody, I didn't any of those negative things, so I'm pretty good.

That's a really good place to start.

Pat myself on the back, right?

But how many of you know ceasing to do the bad things means I if I only go that far, I have not yet begun to do the good things that I am supposed to do.

We live a life so much of the time where we're we're just trying to, you know, control our flesh.

By the way, you can't control the flesh, you have to kill it.

The Bible doesn't say tame the flesh, the Bible says crucify it.

Lord help us all.

But it's one thing to stop, I'm no longer doing to others what I don't want done to me.

Well, now I actually have to step into the action side of that commandment.

Can I say it again?

Commandments of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is I am supposed to love people and do to them as I want done to myself.

Because I can live a very insulated, isolated, selfish life and do no one any harm.

And isn't that the argument a lot of the times when you know different lifestyles and sins?

It's like, well, I'm not hurting anyone, but how many of you know our lives are supposed to be bigger than that?

You're supposed to be helping someone, you're supposed to be actively loving someone, doing good.

And that's the sort of stuff that James is talking about, the royal law.

Isn't that beautiful that he uses that term?

It's the royal law.

You want to live like royalty?

Start loving people the way that Jesus wants us to love them.

So he gives this example in verse 15.

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warm and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body.

What good is that?

This James guy, it's just like smack.

It's like nice little religious phrase, be warm and filled.

And you can almost picture some really spiritual people, like almost like shaking as they say it, right?

Like, hallelujah, praise you, Jesus.

May this person be warm and filled, and you got a pocket full of money, you got an extra whatever, and James is like religious words, living out the commandments, right?

So put your faith to action.

And so, poorly clothed, lacking daily food, and he says, Go be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body.

What good is that?

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

Not it is weak, not it is, you know, doing not as good as it should, it is dead.

How many of you know that there is a sad reality, your faith can die?

Oh man.

Room got a little quiet.

And should get a little quiet because we're so used to some of these phrases that they lose their power.

We need to step back and realize if I don't do something with my faith, it has the capacity to die.

Faith must be nourished.

And I we won't have time to get into it all today.

And some of you are familiar, there's little faith, there's great faith, there's, you know, all these different aspects of faith that gives me the understanding that faith can grow, but there are conditions by which your faith will grow.

And those conditions are not doing nothing with it.

Faith that is inactive, that is unused, gets stagnant.

It's like taking a plant and locking it in a closet.

It's got no sunlight, it's not getting any moisture.

Sooner or later, it's getting pale, it's wilting, it's dying.

Maybe if you pull it back out, you get it in the sun, you give it a little fertilizer, a little, you know, you water it, all of that, you can bring it back to life, but at some point that thing is beyond hope.

I don't believe anyone in this room is beyond hope for the record.

Thank you, Lord.

I don't want to have a dead faith.

How about you?

Verse 18.

But some of you will say, I have faith.

Or sorry, you have faith, and I have works.

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

These things are so closely connected.

Don't try and separate them, okay?

Again, don't try and pinpole against James and make it like there's two different things going on, two sides of the same coin.

Lived faith is powerful.

Full stop, right?

Lived faith, active faith.

I will show you my faith by my works.

Abraham heard a voice that said, I'm going to take you out of the land of your forefathers, and I'm gonna give you a land, and I'm gonna make your descendants great, and you will be the father of nations.

How many of you know that he didn't sit there in Ur just confessing some mantra of faith?

The Lord's gonna make me a father of kings, and kingdoms are gonna come from me.

He heard the part that said, I need to act, I need to go out.

By faith, he didn't know where he was going, and that's what faith can feel like a lot of the time, by the way.

Not knowing where you're going.

Oh, the day that you have this all figured out is the day it is not faith.

So we're all in this together.

We have all heard something.

We've heard it from the Spirit of God, we've heard it from men and women of God, we've heard it because we've got into the word of God, and we have responded, and we don't fully know what is out there, what lies ahead, but we trust the one who has called us.

Moses, uh Noah, you always get, am I the only one who in their mind they're the same guy?

Bearded Old Testament dude, you know, but Noah, he did not get a word from God that says, judgment is coming on the earth.

Prepare an ark so that you and your family could be saved, and again, sit there and just be like, you know, family, I had this amazing dream, I have this amazing vision.

Can you help me to pray about this?

No, he said, pass me a hammer, go get some wood.

They started to do something with the word, and this was unprecedented.

They lived in, I don't know what it was like before the flood came, but certainly they had never seen this sort of a catastrophe or this sort of thing happen before, but he was obedient for a hundred and twenty years to build a boat.

That is some perseverance right there.

I don't know about you, but if my neighbor was building a boat in their backyard, and I saw this project going on year after year after year, it's like I would wonder what's going on.

But anyway, faith without works is dead.

Verse 18, but someone will say, You have faith.

I oh, we already read that part.

So down into verse 19.

Again, you gotta love James here.

I love this letter.

I don't know if I would want to hang out personally with James.

I say that, and then I'm just like, no, he you do need people like James in your life, don't you?

That are just like, come on.

This is real life.

Let's do this thing.

He says down in verse 19, you believe that God is one, you do well.

Again, pat on the back.

Everyone in the room believe that God is real, that God there is only one true God.

You know, you're not an idol worshiper, you're not taken astray by some other false god or whatever.

You worship the one true God, good for you, says James.

You have correct theology.

How many of you know that having perfect theology is not the same thing as living by faith?

And just to put it really into perspective, good for you.

You know who else knows that there is only one true God, and they believe it to the core of their being because they can see it more clearly than you in your physical world could ever understand it.

He says this even the demons believe and they tremble.

It's like, good for you, your theology is catching up to the demons, right?

It's kind of funny when you look at it that way, but that's how James talks.

But we need that sort of wake-up call.

It's not enough to believe the right things in that sense.

Great, there is one true God, and his name is Father, and his son is Jesus Christ, and there is a Holy Spirit, and they are three in one.

Good theology.

But do you have a relationship with them?

Are you obedient to their voice?

Are you walking out this life of faith?

Come on.

Even in John, the gospel of love, right?

What does Jesus says that you are my friends, and you know, this is my commandment.

You will love one another like you love me, and this is how I will know that you love me.

You will do my commandments.

That's not in my modern Canadian definition of love.

How about you?

Like my modern Canadian definition of love aligns more closely with the hippies than with commandment obedience.

Its emotions, its flowers and rainbows, its warm fuzzies.

That's what it means to love.

Well, Jesus himself, my Lord and Savior, says, You love me?

Do what I say.

Do what I say.

Because here's the real deal, and this is what James is getting to the heart of.

You do not believe it if you don't do it.

I'm speaking to myself this morning.

I can believe all the right things about what it means to be a husband.

I can have all that right information, but if I don't treat my wife, should I stop?

There's a lot of laughter going on over there.

If I don't treat her the way that my convictions and my principles say that I'm supposed to treat her, then I can just forget about talking about love.

Right?

Lord help us get through this passage.

And you know, the other 10 pages of passages that I have.

That's not happening.

So the demons believe and they shudder.

I think just that statement, the way that he phrases that itself is a wake-up call.

It's just like, when's the last time you took a real close look at this God that you say you believe in and serve?

How many of you know that yes, he's a God of love?

Yes, Jesus has forgiven us, but it says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.

And the apostle Paul says, To the church, some will be saved as through fire, and everything in their life will be burnt up.

Thank you, Lord, for your grace that I got through the gate and my soul is saved, but I don't want everything that I build my life on to be burnt up.

Verse 20, do you want to be shown, oh foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

So first he says it's dead, now he's calling it useless.

Was not Abraham our father, isn't it interesting?

He's gonna talk about the very same guy that the apostle Paul talked about in Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

He says, Do you not see how Abraham our father was justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

Which is an amazing story, by the way.

Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

Put it just into context for a little bit here.

We referred to it last week a little bit, the struggle that Abraham and Sarah went through to see the promise come to fulfillment, right?

They they had some bumps along the way, they tried to figure it out in their own natural means, right?

But in the end, God visited Sarah.

Her womb was open, she conceived a son, Isaac.

This was the son of promise.

They finally had the promise in their hands.

And then God comes and he's just like, okay, very good.

Now give him to me.

Offer him to me as sacrifice.

And I'm not gonna say that God necessarily does this with every promise in our life, but I think it's very sobering that we need to realize, remember what we said last week?

From how we go from a lived reality and we step out in faith into the invisible, we it's like there's nothing there.

Of course, I'll be honest, you know the scene that's always playing into my head when I think about this stuff?

Indiana Jones.

You guys know the one I'm talking about, the Holy Grail movie, right?

And there's that doorway and there's a chasm, and he's looking out, and it looks like there's nothing there, and he just has to like step out, you know, and then all of a sudden when he steps on it, the camera angle turns, and you can see, oh, there is a bridge there, but it's just okay, anyway.

I can't be the only one who was raised on Indiana Jones, okay?

So we're saying that we go from our lived reality and we're stepping out, and then we're going to we're believing God for a promise, and so we step out, we don't understand how it's gonna work, but sooner or later we find ourselves standing again.

We've received the promise, whether that's our healing, or that's a financial breakthrough, or a relationship that's restored, or whatever promise that we've laid a hold of.

But then here's the thing: because God is a God of faith, he doesn't want to leave you comfortable in that place, he wants you to keep walking by faith because the just shall live by faith.

If you're righteous in the sight of God, you are called to live a life of faith.

So, some of the ways that this can work is like we're seeing with Abraham.

He went from, I'm living where I have a wife, we've been promised a child, this child is not coming, it's not working out, but then finally they had the son and they stepped into the promise.

Now, what's the faith step?

Well, now I have to give you the promise back.

How does that work?

And that's why in Hebrews, by the way, you can read in chapter 11 there, he refers, the author of Hebrews also refers to this very same story.

And he says, What?

That it's like he had given Isaac up for dead, he had died in a sense, and he received him back to life.

That's one of the beauties of our faith in God.

Your faith needs to get to the place where even if it costs my life, even if it costs all that I have, even if I have to give you everything, Lord God, and I have nothing left to stand on, we're stepping into that resurrection sort of faith.

Resurrection faith.

Anyway.

Active along with his works.

I looked that up.

Active along with that's that's one word in there.

And it's it's like the word that we get synergy from, if you've heard that term.

It's it's energy, it's it's this coming together, this active faith and works are inseparable, and there is a force, an energy, a life in them when they are working together.

That you dissect them, you separate faith from works, it's dead on the table.

And it says, faith was completed by his works.

In other words, when faith is inspired in us, as I referred to last week, and maybe you went and looked up during the week, is Romans chapter 10, verse 17.

Romans 10:17

We know that faith comes by what?

Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God or the word of Christ, depending on the translation.

So you hear something from God, and then how do you complete that faith?

Do you just say yes, have your heart cry out and say, I believe that, and then walk away and do everything the way you did before?

No, the calling, that promise that, oh, this is who Jesus is, this is who God is.

I'm now moving towards you, God.

I'm moving towards your kingdom, I'm moving towards your promises, and so I am adding works to my faith, and that energy comes in, and I'm going to complete my faith by works.

I'm sorry.

Some of you are like, I just don't like that word work.

I know.

Can I clarify something for you?

Work is not a dirty word.

I know it's a four-letter word, but it's not a dirty word, okay?

How many of you know that we still had work to do even before sin entered the world?

I always remember this.

We were working, it's physical work.

I grew up on a farm.

We had to hand weed fields of three to five acres at a time.

Me and my three siblings.

Thank God for getting some work ethic from a young age.

And so we were out there working one day, and I remember my older brother, you know, he was reading his Bible more and starting to think about, you know, things, and he's just like, if it wasn't for sin, I wouldn't have to be out here doing this.

He was upset because it was sin that brought, you know, work into the world.

Well, thorns and thistles, sure, maybe the weeding situation would have been better.

But Adam and Eve were still called to cultivate the garden, to shape it, to do God's will, right?

And to, yeah, bring his will into effect.

There was still work to do.

But it's not work alone, it's not work to stand righteous before God, it's work to partner with what the Spirit of God says.

Because another thing I need to say, I was thinking about this, is that there's a lot of talk out there today, and I haven't really dug deep into it because I'm not interested, but there's a lot of language going on today, even outside of Christian circles, and it's starting to creep in more and more to Christian circles, this idea of manifesting things.

Now, don't get me wrong, the word manifest in itself isn't a bad word, but it's kind of like this idea, whatever I will, I look deep inside of me, I find my true self.

And I mean, some of the new agey type people, my inner whatever, my inner goddess, my inner, my inner Christ.

Some people mix it up with, you know, Bible type stuff, and they're looking in to try and find God inside, and then when they see their own carnal desires wrapped up in spiritual language, then they begin to just, I'm now going to manifest, right?

I'm gonna speak this forward, you know, and there is a place in the Bible for positive confession, right?

But it's the confession of the word and the will of God.

Why am I saying this?

Because our faith life attaches, you know, we're putting the word that he speaks, the faith that he gives, that that voice from heaven, we are partnering with it to bring it into effect on the earth.

As it is in heaven, let it be done on earth.

That's our prayer, right?

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

Your kingdom, your will, not my will, not my kingdom, not my you know, innermost desires or whatever wrapped up.

You are not just I have to say this, people, because there's a lot of people that grab hold of they cherry-pick verses of the Bible, and all they're trying to do is manipulate spiritual things to get their own way.

The heroes of faith of Hebrews chapter 11 had a word from God, and they partnered with that word with their actions.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They partnered with that word with their words.

Yes, I believe, therefore I spoke.

We looked at that last week, right?

And there's a lot of power in our words.

As I said last week, there is life and death in my tongue, right?

And Jesus says to his disciples, you know, there's the whole story of the fig tree that was withered up.

You guys know that story, right?

He's going into Jerusalem, he's looking for fruit, there's no fruit, he curses the fig tree, and the disciples are like, okay, noted.

And they go into the temple and they're there, they come back, and the fig tree is all withered and dried up and dead.

And they're shocked, they're amazed.

How is this possible?

And Jesus says, Well, let me ask you, what did Jesus say?

Okay, if you're brought up in word of faith circles like I was, you really know Mark chapter 11.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

That if you speak to the mountain, right?

Be moved and be cast in the sea, and you do not doubt in your heart, then the things that you say will be done.

Yes and amen.

How many of you know that there's a neat little statement before he talks about how powerful our words are and how powerful our faith is?

He says, Have faith in God.

In other words, you can't detach faith to be some sort of force for your personal achievement, your personal just making your life into what you wanted, you are partnering with who God is and what he wants.

So, I mean, that's why when we read these stories, James is challenging us because if God was really walking in the midst of the congregation and he saw the needs amongst us, and he knew that we could look after some of those needs, then he would not expect a bunch of religious, faith-filled language to fulfill that need.

He would expect action.

Because if you really believe you love somebody, you're not gonna let them suffer.

Anyway, I told you I wasn't gonna get far here.

I told myself that anyway.

Verse 22, you see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

He was declared righteous in Genesis chapter 15, when he walked out and he saw the stars and he believed God.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

But isn't it interesting?

James is showing us that you know, from chapter 15 to chapter 22, 20 some odd years later, his faith is still being shown to be real because he continues to live what God is asking him to live.

Faith starts with a prayer, right?

But it doesn't end with a prayer.

The Christian life is more than the sinner's prayer.

Thank God for the sinner's prayer.

Jesus, I believe, I have faith that you died and you rose again.

Come, be my Lord, be my savior, wash me clean, give me new life.

That's the beginning of a story.

You have a whole life of faith.

Will your faith continue to partner with the Spirit of God and put it to work?

Is there evidence of our faith?

The world should be able to look at the church and look at what we do and say, that's what faith looks like.

Not just that's what faith sounds like, not just another theological argument, but that's what God wants done on the earth.

Look at his church, look at what they do, look how they live, look how they love, look how they give, look how they serve, look how they Jesus said, You they will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another.

Real love.

Abraham was called a friend of God.

I love that.

That kind of reminds me again of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It's getting towards the bottom, it's listing off all of these different people, and it says that the world wasn't worthy of people like this.

These are the friends of God.

The friends of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

In the same way, also, Rahab, the prostitute, gotta throw that in there, do you was justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way.

You know, Rahab actually gives us an interesting little window into the reality that was going on in Jericho when the spy showed up.

It said, everyone is freaked out, everyone knows that the God you serve is doing supernatural stuff and your enemies cannot stand against you.

Everyone had that understanding in Jericho, only she was saved.

Because she partnered with the will of God, she partnered with what was going on, she put her faith to work.

The others, like the demons, had the right theology and trembled and they went off to destruction.

She had faith and was saved.

And then it makes it clear, emphatically clear at the end of the chapter here in verse 26.

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, you stop breathing, your spirit leaves your body.

Flatline.

As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

I don't want a flat line faith.

Not for me, not for you, not for faith alive.

I want living faith.

That means that I need in the presence of God and humbling myself to his will, to his word, to say, God, how much of this do I confess to believe, but it has no bearing whatsoever on how I live.

Because if I believed God is my healer, like the Word of God says, He is my healer, then I would respond difference to sickness in myself, in my household, and in this church.

And if I believe that God is my provider, then I would respond difference to unexpected bills that come my way and other things that emergencies that arrive, then I perhaps currently do.

If I really believe, what is it?

Have faith in God.

In God.

Don't have faith in faith, like some sort of spiritual power.

Have faith in God and begin to live out what it is that you believe.

So I'm gonna ask us to stand to our feet.

I'm gonna ask the band to come up.

And when I read this verse, I can't help but think about how the prophet Ezekiel saw a bunch of dead bodies.

And no, I'm not looking at bones.

Out there.

Okay, I thought someone would laugh.

But I feel today to simply speak that word of life, to prophesy over the dead bones of our faith.

Like, because what does it say here?

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, or the breath, those are very closely connected words in your Bible.

So faith apart from works is dead.

What did God do?

He took Ezekiel to the valley, and he saw a bunch of bodies that had no breath in them, had no spirit in them.

And God said, Okay, you do something, you say something, you prophesy over these bodies.

We're in Ezekiel chapter thirty-seven.

Lord, show us where the dry bones of our faith are.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Faith comes by hearing the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.

And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and to cover you with skin, and to put breath in you, as the body separated from the breath is dead.

I will cause breath to come in you.

You shall live.

You shall know that I am the Lord.

We will have faith in God.

And we will have that breath of life in our lungs to partner with your word, to speak to whatever mountain, whatever tree, whatever valley of dry bones, Lord, for mountains to be renewed, for those trees, Lord God, that are unfruitful to be uprooted and taken out, for that breath and that life to come back into our faith, into our soul, Lord God, that those things that have been dry and put aside would now come to life again.

So I prophesied, and as I was commanded, and I prophesied, and there was a sound, and behold, a rattling of bones that came together bone to bone, and I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come on them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath.

And then he said to me, Prophesy the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on thee slain that they may live.

So I prophesied as I was commanded, and breath came into them, and they lived, and they stood an exceedingly great army.

God, we take authority today.

We take authority in the name of Jesus, and we say, faith, come alive.

Breathe upon your church, breathe upon our minds, expose the lies, the deceptions, the pride that says, I know, I know, I know all the right things.

Yeah, I believe, but it's a lie.

It's not our life, it's not who we are.

Lord God, may we join our faith to action.

May we join our conviction to our feet, our hands, Lord God, our wallets, our homes.

Lord, may we connect, Lord, real life to the things we say are true.

God, make us bold to step out into the unknown.

Lord God, not to say that's great.

I like that, I believe that.

No, to say if God's speaking that by the man of God, if God is speaking that through his word, if God is speaking that through the prayer warrior, then I receive it.

It is mine, and I'm gonna step into that life, that reality in the name of Jesus.

Jeez, Jeez.

I know you're already playing something, but before, as we were, oh dry bones, oh now you're really tempting me to just let you go with it.

But earlier we were saying shout of victory.

But there's the other part of that song The enemy has been defeated.

I want us to shout in this place.

But just before we go into that, I I don't know, I just I think a word for somebody.

Silver tarnishes.

I was walking and I saw a silver necklace that was tarnished, and God highlighted it to me, and I just feel like somebody needs to hear that you feel like that.

You feel like there's a film, that there's there's a gray, there's a just the beauty is gone, the life is gone, the joy is gone, there's this film over you.

You maybe see yourself, I don't know.

Maybe it's physical, maybe it's internal, just like it's not beautiful, I'm not beautiful, I don't know.

Just there's this uh this grayness.

And I looked at that necklace, and it was God was speaking to me, and it was like, you know, the value has not changed because it's tarnished, the silver's still there, it just needs to be touched, it just needs to be polished, it just needs to be used, it just needs to get into somebody's hands, it needs that rubbing down to bring the shine back, bring the luster back, bring the life back.

So I don't know if that's for one person or many people or maybe this congregation, Lord God, that you would polish us, that you would, Lord, refine us, that you would take the film and the gray and the dullness away in the name of Jesus, Lord, and that we would not look at how things are and say, Oh, I'm not worth anything or it's not worth it, but we would, Lord, get into your presence, Lord, to have that film wiped off, and that our true value, Lord, and our true essence would shine forth in the name of Jesus.