A Living Faith

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

How do you protect yourself from something dangerous that you can’t touch, taste, smell, hear, or even see? Something like carbon monoxide? It’s a danger with no evidence that you can personally identify. You need an alarm, something outside of yourself to know it’s there.

The letter of James is dealing with that kind of danger.

He is not writing to pagans. He is writing to church people… people who know the language of faith… who know the right things about God.

But for some of them, it was a kind of faith that exists in confession but not in conduct,
in words but not in love, in doctrine but not in obedience. And James is sounding the alarm.

The question he forces us to ask is not whether faith saves —
but whether the faith we have is the kind of faith that saves. James 2:

[14] What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

This question provides us with important context for the rest of the argument that follows. James is telling us that there is a kind of faith that is not an instrument of salvation. There is a faith that is not accompanied by good works. There is a kind of faith that is counterfeit.

James continues by illustrating this kind of faith.

[15] If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,

[16] and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

What kind of faith looks at a person with basic needs and offers only words? This a very specific example, and it suggests a particular problem James sees in the early church.

The kind of faith that speaks without acting is counterfeit, especially when it comes to serving the poor.

We’re about to engage in a theological dilemma as we keep reading, but don’t forget the context here. James is concerned with something very practical in this letter. If your Christian faith isn’t propelling the Church into active ministry for the poor, then it’s phony.

[17] So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Not just any faith… It’s this counterfeit version of faith he’s talking about. If your faith is not accompanied by good works, it is visibly dead. It has no signs of life.

How does a doctor decide if someone is dead? They check for vital signs… Are you breathing? Do you have a pulse? Is there any movement?

A faith with no vital signs is no faith at all. Active ministry is the heartbeat of the Christian. It proves we are alive.

[18] But someone will say, “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.

What is he saying? He’s saying that faith proves itself by good works. Evidence. And he’s forcing us to ask ourselves, is there a kind of faith that doesn’t provide evidence? Yes. There is.

[19] You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

That verse is a sledgehammer. Consider carefully what James is saying. Good theology without good works is a demonic faith. In other words, it is possible to agree with the truth and not be changed by it.

There are beings in the universe that know the Bible better than we do. They know exactly who God is and why God should be feared. But they don’t love God. They don’t trust Him. They hate Him!

You can have perfect information about God and still be God’s enemy. That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? You can go to church your whole life, listen to good sermons, attend good Bible studies, even memorize Scripture and end up in the same category as demons.

And James doesn’t take his foot off the gas.

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

[21] Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

Speaking primarily to Jewish Christians, James draws their attention to the story of Abraham. Specifically, he’s using an act of faith that comes at the very end of Abraham’s story.

God gave Abraham this command:

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…”

And Abraham was prepared to do it! Hebrews 11 calls this an act of faith, saying that Abraham must have believed that God had the power to raise Isaac from the dead. Otherwise, God would be breaking His own promise.

What did this action prove? It proved that Abraham trusted God and, at the last moment, God provided an alternate sacrifice. The whole story points to the Gospel – that God would provide His only Son as a sacrifice for our sins.

But we need to talk about the word “justified”. What does James mean when he says that Abraham was “justified by works”? Let’s keep reading.

[22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;

That’s an important explanation. The kind of faith that matters is an active faith. It’s a tested faith. It’s a living faith.

[23] and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

That quote comes from Genesis 15, much earlier in the Abraham story. And the order matters. God gave Abraham saving faith – the real, active, living kind – which Abraham demonstrated 7 chapters later.

Not only that, but he was also called a friend of God, because true faith looks like a relationship. It grows into a trusting, active relationship.

And James knew the whole story. He knew that Abraham had some major failures between Genesis 15 and Genesis 22. Saving faith is not perfect faith. There were moments of doubt and great personal sin along the way. But the relationship grew and persevered and led to an act of deep commitment and trust.

With that in mind, we now come to the most difficult verses in the letter of James, maybe the whole Bible – James 2:24:

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

This single verse has led a lot of people to reject the doctrine of sola fide – justification by faith alone.

The trouble here is that the Apostle Paul, writing some years later, will clearly teach that Christians are, in fact, justified by faith alone. And Paul doesn’t teach it in one verse, it’s THE central doctrine of Paul’s letters by far.

Put James 2:24 side by side with Romans 3:28:

[28] For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Is this a contradiction? On the surface, in English, of course it is. And that’s why we need to be careful here.

There’s actually a very simple explanation and it doesn’t require any twisting or theological hoop jumping to make sense. Paul and James are using the word “justified” in different ways.

This is something that happens with words all over the Bible. Consider the word “world”.

In John 3:16, Jesus says that God loved the world. In Acts 17, Paul says that God made the world and everything in it. God loves the world and God made the world.

But in 1 John, we are told not to love the world or the things in the world. And later in James, he says that friendship with the world is enmity with God.

What’s the simple explanation? They are using the word “world” in different ways.

We can do the same thing with the word “flesh”. John 1 tells us that Jesus became flesh. But Romans 8 tells us that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. If the word “flesh” always means the same thing in the Bible, then you end up with serious heresy.

If you apply the same principle to the word “justified”, then it eliminates any contradiction. James and Paul are using the word justified in different ways. They are dealing with different questions entirely.

Paul is asking the question, “How is a sinner made right with God?” He then uses the word “justified” in a forensic or a judicial sense. God declares a sinner righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness, received by faith alone. Just as he did with Abraham in Genesis 15.

James is asking the question, “What kind of faith actually saves us?” He then uses the word “justified” in a demonstrative sense. A person’s faith is demonstrated or validated by its fruits. Just as it was with Abraham in Genesis 22.

Jesus actually uses the word “justified” in this way in Matthew 11 – “wisdom is justified by her deeds”. It’s proven or demonstrated by her works.
James is not denying what Paul teaches, that faith alone justifies. He’s saying that a faith with no evidence is not a saving faith. You can’t separate true faith from obedience and still call it a saving faith.

There’s a helpful diagram about this in Dan Doriani’s commentary of James. There are four ways to view the relationship between salvation and works:

1) Works alone  Salvation
2) Faith + Works together  Salvation
3) Faith alone  Salvation
4) Faith alone  Salvation + Works

I’m not aware of any professing Christians who teach the first view, but the second view is very common. Catholics, Orthodox, and many other traditions teach some version of the second view. The third view is sometimes taught by Protestants who are trying to protect the church from works-righteousness, but it is incomplete. I believe the fourth view is correct and keeps us from the errors that both Paul and James are concerned with.

Paul and James were concerned with different problems. Paul saw people trying to produce fruit on the wrong kind of tree. James saw people claiming the be the right kind of tree but producing no fruit.

I hope this is helpful. Now, James offers one final example to clarify.

[25] And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Considering this example, it would make no sense if James was intending to contradict Paul. Every time Rahab is mentioned in the New Testament, she is called “Rahab the prostitute”. The Bible is clearly not trying to highlight her personal righteousness!

Instead, the Bible is highlighting Rahab’s faith in God. Even though she was a Gentile prostitute, she acted in faith that the Israelite God would save her.

If James is teaching that faith plus works equals salvation, then Rahab the prostitute is a horrible example! But if James is teaching us about the kind of fruit produced by saving faith, then Rahab is a perfect example.

And now we come to this final statement:

[26] For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

A body is only living if it has breath. Likewise, faith is only living if it has works.
We can summarize what James is teaching us in this way:

The Christian faith is not an empty affirmation. It’s not just a collection of beliefs that we agree with. It’s a life-changing, life-defining relationship with a good and holy God.

It leads us to worship. It compels us to love one another. And it moves us to serve our neighbors. Remember the context. James is concerned for the poor.

And as a church, we don’t want to be the kind of church that only offers words to people in need. We want to love and serve our neighbors.

I want to encourage you by saying that Christ Fellowship is already doing a good job of this in many ways. A lot of beautiful things are happening organically in this church and have been over the past 12 years.

Many of you are part of this church because you’ve been loved well.

But the elders and deacons also want to do a better job of equipping you to do ministry. For that reason, we are organizing Serve Teams to help facilitate ministry inside and outside the church. And we thought, what better time to announce that than James 2?

We are putting a QR Code on the screen that goes directly to a survey. It will help you think of ways to serve. Even if you’re already serving in some way, I want to encourage you to fill out the survey and put what you’re already doing. The deacons want to create a database and make sure everyone has a place.

You also might see something you haven’t considered before, and it might be a better fit than what you’re doing now. Read over it. Pray over it.

For all of us, James 2 is a good look in the mirror. Is my faith living and active? The people whom God has called me to love and serve – am I offering them more than words?

Jesus gave His life for ours and calls us to follow Him into a new kingdom. Because that is true and because we believe, it will change the way we use our time and energy in service to Him. And may He get all the glory!