Sermon Tone Analysis

A Faith That Works

(James 2:14-20)

Introduction:

The title of our message this evening is . . . .

and while most of us know, and most of us love, the great truth of salvation being by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are not really all that crazy about the equally true Biblical statement on holy living.

God demands holy living from those that belong to Him, doesn’t He?

In 1 Peter 1:16, But as it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Peter is writing his epistle to Christians, right?

And he is telling believers to be holy!

James is writing to Christians as well, and in our passage this evening we will run straight up against one of the most ignored passages in Scripture.

By ignored, of course, I mean not lived out.

We read the verses from time to time, but we seldom live out in love the commands made here.

James makes a bold statement in these verses, doesn’t he?

On a superficial level, he might even seem to contradict what the Bible teaches elsewhere.

But properly understood, I think we will be able to see that there is no contradiction between what Paul teaches in his epistles and what James teaches in his.

They don’t contradict, they complement.

And here is the deal, folks.

It’s really pretty simple, isn’t it?

If you and I are going to stand before men and women, and more importantly stand before God, and name the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and call God our heavenly Father, we better act like it!

Amen!

But the sad truth is, it is very difficult to tell the difference these days between Christians and unbelievers.

And apparently, it wasn’t all easy to tell the difference back in the Apostle James’ day either.

We talk a mean game sometimes, don’t we?

But you know what?

Real Christianity, real faith, is not just something to be talked about, is it?

It is something to be lived, and something to be acted upon.

Listen to these verses from 1 John: 1 John 3:17-18 (KJV)

17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

This passage from 1 John, and the verse from 1 Peter, coupled with the verses we will read from James form part of what it means to be a Christian.

They point us to a faith that works, right?

Because here is another deal: I can tell you just about anything, can’t I? I could say I am Napoleon Bonaparte, or I could say I was a great baseball player in my youth, or I could even say that I can walk on the water!

But where the rubber meets the road of my life, there exists no evidence whatsoever for the truth of any of those statements, right?

And so what James is saying here in our passage is that it really doesn’t matter what you say; because we can say anything.

It really doesn’t matter how much we prattle about how much faith we have in Jesus–if our lives are as distant from His as an unbeliever’s life then we really need to reexamine our faith, because something is just not right with it!

I. Faith, Salvation and Works (James 2:14)

(1 Now, lest there be any confusion on what we are talking about this evening, listen to these two well-known verses.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Is this truth in contradiction to the truth found in James?

No! There is certainly a tension between the two, but not contradiction.

As I said earlier James and Paul complement one another just as faith and works do!

Look back at verse 14.

(2 James asks some questions here that he intends on answering in the remainder of the passage; and they are questions that can haunt us at times.

What does faith look like?

What profit, or what good is a faith that just sits and does nothing?

Is it real?

Is a faith that merely sits and observes the real deal?

And ultimately these questions bring us round to a couple of final questions that James implies but does not ask outright: Am I saved?

How can I know if I am saved?

(3 You see, one of the things that we don’t seem to understand anymore, if indeed we ever did, is the relationship between faith and works.

I quoted Ephesians 2:8-9 just a moment ago, that wonderful passage about grace, that passage that tells us how we come to saving faith in Christ.

But the very next verse is just as relevant to the Christian as the verses that preceded it.

Listen as I read it to you: Ephesians 2:10 (KJV)

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordainedb that we should walk in them.

And if you put these three verses together from Ephesians and think carefully about them, I believe you can clearly see that grace is the fundamental characteristic of both works and faith.

We are saved by God’s grace through our faith, but we also live our Christian lives out by God’s grace through faith as well.

And when we gain a better understanding of this truth, we will gain a better understanding of what James is talking about in the passage we are studying this evening.

(4 Let’s turn to the book of Roman for a moment.

Romans 8:28-31.

Now we are not going to discuss every aspect these three verses this evening, that would take several sermons to do justice to it, but what I want us to see is the end result of justification, of salvation.

I want us to see why God saved us.

And I think that it might surprise us a bit when we find out why God did.

It is not so that we might escape punishment, or so that we might have eternal life: those are things that a gracious and loving God has added as gravy.

God saved us so that you and I might be made holy, so that we might be made more Jesus Himself, thereby bringing glory to Himself.

that is why God saved us!

For His glory!

Look at your Bibles, Rom.

8:28-31.

(5 God has glorified us so that we might glorify Him!

And we glorify Him by being displays, or trophies, of His grace and love, and by our growing in Christlikeness!

Chapter eight of Romans is one of the favorite’s of a great many Christians.

And rightly so.

It has been said that if the book of Romans could be likened to a great cathedral then chapter eight would be the highest spire of that cathedral.

The sheer breathtaking scope of its language and its power and its deep theological truth is breathtaking.

(6 But what I want us to see right now is what God is doing in the lives of every believer.

All of us are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

We are being made over into the very likeness of God’s own Son!

In other words we are reflections of the very character of Jesus, right?

And what was Christ’s character like?

In the Gospel of Luke we find one of the more interesting revelations of Christ’s character in the NT.

In Luke 5 Jesus is on Peter’s fishing boat and the miracle Jesus performed, that of filling two boats with so many fish the boats nearly capsized, caused Peter to recognize that this man he was with was just not the same as other men.

Peter recognized the holiness of Christ.

Listen to what Peter said after the miracle: Luke 5:8 (KJV)

8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

(7 Listen, the character of Jesus that you and I are supposed to reflect is one of holiness, people.

We are supposed to so mirror our Savior’s life that when others see us they see Jesus! That’s right!

They are not to fall at our feet and worship–we are reflections of Christ, the image, not Jesus Himself–but they are to see something in us that makes them hunger for the real thing, that points them to the cross!

(8 Paul wrote that we are being conformed to Christ’s image.

James wrote that faith without works is dead.

Paul wrote that this transforming of our lives is a supernatural work done to us.

We submit to the Holy Spirit and He works in our life producing good works.

What does your life look like?

Go back to James with me.

II.

An Example of Faith (James 2:15-16)

(1 In one of the most significant verses in this Epistle, James tells Christians something of such overwhelming importance that we must take it as the command that it is.

He wrote in James 1:22 (KJV)

22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Listen people, we really need to see these words in James as on a par with the great doctrines of grace taught by the Apostle Paul.