Faith that Works:What good is your faith if it sends you to hell?
Faith that works • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 4 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
The truth beneath the costume
The truth beneath the costume
We are about to enter the Halloween season. Kids will dress up in costumes to pretend to be something they are not. When Elias dresses up as Spider Man, I know he is pretending to be Spider Man. My neighbors know he is pretending to be Spider man. For a small amount of time, a matter of a few hours, he will put on a “false face.” And because he is a child, everyone will indulge his fantasy of being something he is not. As his daddy, however, I will love him enough to have him put the costume away. I say love him enough to put the costume away because it would be unloving to have him continue in his belief that he is Spider man. What matters to this life and the life to come is the truth beneath the costume.
In a similar way, James through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, may confront you like a good daddy who is telling his son to take of the costume, and he will do it by exposing the truth beneath the costume of your Christianity, namely your faith. James has been hammering the notion of genuine faith. He opened the discussion in
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Doers are those who remember God’s commands and do them. That is, they express their love for Jesus through their obedience. The James says true religion is physically caring for orphans and widows and living a holy life.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
With the distinctions he makes between hearers only and those who hear and do, James is developing the truth that genuine faith in Jesus will always manifest itself with works. By the time you reach chapter 2, Jesus is heavy into his argument that faith without works is a useless and dead faith. And in doing so, he sets the tone of warning to his readers.
There is a danger for the Church goer who believes their faith is genuine but they have no works in their life that show their religion is true. They are hearers of the word, but they are not doers of the word.
You catch this warning in our text this morning in three verses. James warns
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?
For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
James’ warning feels like the same warning Jesus gives in Matthew 7:21
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
They called him Lord. Jesus is speaking to religious people who thought they knew him. Something, however, was deficient in their understanding of Him. Something was deficient of their faith. Notice, in Matthew 7:21, who enters the kingdom of heaven. Only those who “do” the will of my father in heaven,” says Jesus, will enter the kingdom of God. You believe. That is well and good. But are you doing?
There is a warning that must be heeded this morning in our discussion on faith. James warns you and I,
Deceptive faith is a dead faith that does not express love in action and will send you to hell.
Deceptive faith is a dead faith that does not express love in action and will send you to hell.
Deceptive Faith (James 2:14)
Deceptive Faith (James 2:14)
James opens this section with an earth shaking question. What good is your faith if your faith does not have works? Then has asks an even bolder question, “can that faith save him? What James reveals hers it here is a faith that can send you straight to hell. It’s a dead faith that deceives you, or a deceptive faith.
Think about the trap of easy believism. For fifty years, maybe more, the told people they just needed to say a prayer to be saved. Then we baptized them and gave them little expectation of being doers of the word, living unstained by the world. So they lived worldly lives, even stopped coming to church, reading their bible, doing the work of ministry. They have “faith” but do not have any works to show they have genuine faith. That describes seventy percent of Americans. To add injury to insult, the church has the audacity to say, those people who said a prayer and live pagan lives are saved. James says to you and I this morning, that is deadly nonsense.
What about the church goer who comes to church on Sunday. But seem to pay little attention to the gospel or have cold affections toward Jesus. They come. They sit. They listen. Then they leave, and leave they will if they hear the pastor speak of doctrine, sin, and expectations. They will find a church that tells them what they want to hear will little expectations. They have “faith” but no works that verify their faith.
Years ago, John Newton seemed to put his finger on the pulse of the problem, why so many in the church fall into deception.
Newton says,
“in church at the summons of the bell, to repeat words because other[s] … do the same, to hear what is delivered from the pulpit with little attention or affection, unless something occurs that is suited to exalt self, or to soothe conscience, and then to run with eagerness [back out the door and] into the world again.”(John Newton, “Of a Living and a Dead Faith,” John Newton The Works of the Rev. John Newton (London, 1808), 2:559.)
Alister Beg sums Newtons words up well when he says,
“It’s amazingly up to date, isn’t it? Here he is hundreds of years before, saying, “The thing that I’m facing in my congregation is this: that I have a vast crowd of people who come. Many of them listen with very little attention and very little affection. The only way you can get them to listen,” he says, “is if you will exalt their self-esteem or if you will seek to soothe their conscience”—in other words, in twenty-first-century terms, if you will tell them that they’re great and if you will tell them that they’re okay.” Alister Begg
So many people in the church fall into the deception of thinking they are right with God because the “profess faith” in Jesus but have no works in their life, no bearing of good fruit from love driven obedience to back it up. Why? Because they have little to no affections for or give little to no attention to Jesus. They only want the sermon to tell them how great they are and to soothe their self-esteem. Sadly, too many preachers in the Western church are eager to give them the self-help gospel they want.
Alister Begg goes on to say,
“Why are there arenas this morning in the continental United States with thirty thousand people in them listening to preaching? I’ll tell you why: because the preaching says two things over and over again: “You are great, and you are okay!” And James says, “No you’re not, and if somebody tells you that you are, you’d better beware of that individual. Take the test,” he says. “What good is it if a man claims to have faith and there is no evidence in his life? Can that faith save him from hell?” It’s a rhetorical question, and the answer is categorically no, it can’t, and no, it won’t!” Alister Begg
James says, “What good is that kind of faith? It is a deceptive faith that leads to eternal hell. So Paul says to you and I this morning,
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Take a moment this morning to check your faith. How are your affections for Jesus? Red hot? Luke warm? Cold? What kind of attention have you given to Jesus this week? This morning? The next several verses will reveal more of your heart. James is going to elaborate on living through an illustration first, and then showing you that faith can only be revealed by your works, and that your justification requires your faith to have works. He will show this through the faith of Abraham and Rehab. But first, James gives you and illustration to help you see the difference between living faith and deceptive dead faith.
Living Faith Expresses Love in Action (James 2:15-17)
Living Faith Expresses Love in Action (James 2:15-17)
James moves his argument forward by using an illustration of a desperate member of the church community. He describe the person as a “brother or sister” in verse 15. This brother or sister has fallen on hard times.
You see them without clothes and and food. Its not that they are naked, but they are poorly dressed . The word for clothed is the word we use for gymnasium or going to the gym. So, think about what you wear to the gym: loose fitting clothes like shorts and a tee shirt. In Jame’s context it would be like wearing under garments.
In our context, you would’ve seen them in the same pair of dirty shorts and tee-shirt for a week strait. You walk by them in the foyer and you think to yourself, good grief, it was 37 degrees this morning, why isn’t that person wearing a jacket or at least a hoody? And why are they wearing shorts? So you feel compelled to say to them, “Didn’t you get the memo this morning? It’s cold. You need a jacket or a sweat shirt, or something.” Then you try to turn to go to your seat, but the brother or sister says, “I’m sorry to to bother you, but I have not other clothes. And I have not eaten in the last three days. I got laid off from work. Most of my money has gone to keeping the lights on and the mortgage paid.” You look at them sincerely and say, “Don’t you worry one bit. The Lord will provide for you.” Then you turn, walk away, and sit down in your seat.
That is the picture James paints in verse 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?
Go in peace means have the well-being and blessedness of walking with Jesus. In other words, poor brother or sister, go in faith and be blessed in your poverty.
James asks you, “What good is that?” What good is your faith if you see your brother and sister in need and you are not compelled to help them? James says thats not living faith. It’s deceptive faith, dead faith (James 2:17).
How do you know its dead faith? It’s is not loving your neighbor.
There is strong connection between love and faith, and I think John expresses it well in his epistle.
In 1 John 3:7, he warns the church to not be deceived. Those who live rightly belong to God. Those who don’t, or those who do the works of the devil, belong to the devil. Joh then elaborates on what it looks like to do the works of God. It is love in action.
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
John makes a distinction between those who love the world, who belong tot he devil, and those who belong to God, those who love. In verse 16, he says,
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Jesus gave his life as an act of love. His love looked upon your helpless state with compassion. His love moved him to act, toward the work of the cross. Everyone who loves, who has his Spirit inside of them, John says, should feel compelled to lay down their lives for the brothers and sisters.
In verse 17, by asking a negative rhetorical question, John describes how your sacrificial love should look toward your brothers and sisters in need. He asks,
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
If I were to phrase this positively, I could say,
“If you, Christian, have the world’s goods and see your brothers and sisters in need, and you open your heart to help them, the love of God abides in you.”
You have genuine living faith. We know that God’s love abides in you when you love your poor brothers and sisters by expressing your faith with good works of sacrificial love for your neighbor.
You prove your love for Jesus is genuine by the fruit of your sacrificial work. jesus commends this in,
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
John further connects your faith and love for Jesus and neighbor in
And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
Jesus commands that we have faith in him and that we do the work of loving one another. Love is expressed by both word and deed, amen? I don’t merely tell you I love you. I show you that I love you with my works.
I can tell my wife I love her. But if I ignore her, close my heart toward her, show her no affectionate attention, and speak ill of her, my words will mean nothing to her. She knows I love her by actions toward her.
Looking back at James 2:15-17, James says
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
What does dead faith look like? It looks like a lack of compassion for your poor brother or sisters. Or to put it in a positive way, living faith looks like love in action toward your poor brother or sister. Love in action looks like having an open heart that has compassion and exercises compassion by working to help alleviate the burden of poverty.
The test for you this morning is does your faith reveal life to those around? Taking James illustration as a case study, does your faith reveal an open heart of compassion toward the poor, the weak, the vulnerable in the church, community, and home? If you were to die right now and stand before Jesus, would he accept your faith? Heed the warning. There is a day coming where Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats. The difference between the sheep and the goats is living faith verse dead faith.
Turn in your bibles to Matthew 25:31-40 or you can look on the screen above. Nuanced in James 2:15-17, is a sense of Jesus’s warnings in Matthew 25:31-36
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’
The the righteous will be like, when did we do this? And Jesus will say
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
The least of these are the poor, weak, vulnerable of the church, community, and home. Jesus identifies with them. The righteous prove their faith is living by the work of ministry toward the least of these.
To those on his left, he says
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
And those on his left will be baffled by Jesus’s condemnation. And Jesus will explain to them,
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
Those on the left called Jesus Lord. They had “faith,” but they did not have works. They were deceived.
What good is your faith if it sends you to hell?
What good is your faith if it sends you to hell?
For some of you, it is time to take the costume off and deal with the truth beneath the costume.
Living faith can only be revealed by works (James 2:18-20)
Justification requires living faith and works (James 2:21-26)
Faith and Works Row The Boat Home
Faith and Works Row The Boat Home
An old Scotsman operated a little rowboat for transporting passengers. One day a passenger noticed that the good old man had carved on one oar the word “Faith,” and on the other oar the word “Works.” Curiosity led him to ask the meaning of this. The old man, being a well-balanced Christian and glad of the opportunity for testimony, said, “I will show you.”
So saying, he dropped one oar and plied the other called Works, and they just went around in circles. Then he dropped that oar and began to ply the oar called Faith, and the little boat just went around in circles again—this time the other way around, but still in a circle.
After this demonstration the old man picked up Faith and Works and plying both oars together, sped swiftly over the water, explaining to his inquiring passenger, “You see, that is the way it is in the Christian life. Dead works without faith are useless, and “faith without works is dead” also, getting you nowhere. But faith and works pulling together make for safety, progress, and blessing.”