-Transcript-
00:28 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:31 Welcome to KJV Cafe. So good to have you with us here today. Amen.
00:34 Today we are in the book of James 2 looking at faith without works and how faith without works is dead.
00:47 There’s no real faith if you don’t have any works to show and how conversely you can be a profitable Christian for God by having faith so deep that it inspires and drives you to do things for God. And not everyone’s called to the ministry.
01:09 Maybe your mission field is work or school, right? Maybe what God wants you to do is very different than what God would have me to do.
01:18 And God’s, I believe, called me as my primary ministry to preach on the radio and to do it with all my heart, soul, mind, body, everything I’ve got for him till he calls me home. That’s what I believe he’s called me to do.
01:33 I pastor a small congregation because my wife said this small congregation needs a pastor. And truly they’ve just blessed me to be there.
01:42 And I don’t believe Lord wants me to pastor some big congregation or go out and do all these things that he may want you to do, but he’s called me to this.
01:56 And if I were to turn away from it, I wouldn’t be showing the proper faith. Maybe he’s called you to go into the mission field, say, in a foreign land. Maybe he’s called you to go to school, a certain school.
02:12 Maybe he’s called you to get involved in the homeless ministry, the helps ministry, the abused women ministry, the rescue mission ministry, the ministry for addiction and recovery, the ministry for the pre-born, the pregnancy ministry.
02:33 I know I didn’t say that right, but you know what I mean. On and on, maybe God’s calling you to do something.
02:37 Maybe he hasn’t yet, you’re wondering what he’s going to call you to do. All of this comes down to having faith in him.
02:48 And what we’re talking about here is not that if you do things, you’re saved, okay? That’s a false gospel.
02:51 We don’t believe in a gospel of good works. The Bible tells us that none are righteous, no, not one. And so we’re saved only by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
03:05 We’re saved by believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that he was on the cross, he was buried three days, and he was resurrected the third day, according to the scriptures,
03:12 as 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 explains it. That’s the gospel. When we believe that Christ died for our sins, as in we had a sin debt that we couldn’t pay, and so Christ being perfect was punished brutally on the cross for those sins.
03:27 And that when he died and was risen again, and as we believe in that, that our sin debt’s forgiven, that we are now made new, we are reconciled to God. Now the Bible says we have peace with God through what Christ did on the cross.
03:41 So what did we do to get salvation? We just believed, right? And so we have a belief, we have a salvation from believing by faith alone, by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
03:52 Now, if you truly believe, what are you doing? You’re making him Lord of your life, you’re putting him first in your heart, you’re not having any idols in your heart, you are believing that he did all of that just to forgive your sin debt, you’re believing in a sovereign God with a plan, you’re believing in an all-powerful God.
04:18 So when you believe, it’s going to compel you, I believe, to study his word, to get to know him. You’re going to want to get to know him.
04:25 Anyone that says, I believed in the Lord, I got saved, I want nothing to do with him. Well, that doesn’t make sense, right? If you believe in God Almighty, you’re going to want to know who he is.
04:35 And as you get to know him, then you’ll be inspired to do works for him.
04:42 And you’ll have the courage to do those works, and those works proclaim that you’re a believer.
04:48 And that is profitable to you as the believer, it’s profitable to others in the ministry and so forth and those that are receiving those works, and it’s profitable to God because you are showing God through your actions that you believe. So let’s take a look at this.
05:02 We’re in James 2, we’ll start at verse 19, Now believe us that there is one God, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble. Verse 20, But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead.
05:18 And so we see here that James is writing that even the devils believe in God, but they don’t act in a way that is reverencing God, right? They aren’t certainly doing good works for God.
05:32 And so the fact that you could intellectually see the complexity of the solar system, or you could look at animals and see all their incredible instincts, or you could look at the tide and how it is working with the moon, and you can look at gravity,
05:50 and you could look at water and the idea of air from the trees being reproduced, and all of these cycles, and you could say, well, life is so incredible, it testifies of a creator.
06:01 So you could do that, and you could believe essentially there is a creator, you know, and the devils believe there’s a creator, right? But to say, I trust God, I have faith in Him, He’s called me out,
06:13 He’s the one that saved me, He has a plan for me, He suffered for me, I should live for Him. I believe that my eternal home is more important than this temporary home.
06:26 I believe one day I’ll have a resurrected body. I believe that one day I’ll be with Christ for an eternity. I believe that heaven is real.
06:35 I believe that God’s ways are the best ways. You understand that those kinds of beliefs are going to fuel a change in your life. And James uses Abraham as an example.
06:44 Abraham, verse 21, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
07:01 And so now what we’re seeing here is Abraham did something incredible, did he not? Remember, Abraham was justified by faith. Abraham had that chosen son, the beloved son, the actual son, literally a hundred years old, he has Isaac, and he believes the Lord’s leading him up to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.
07:15 And so they go up there, amen, on the mountain.
07:19 And as I understand it, and I believe as Paul writes, Abraham thought that he was going to sacrifice Isaac and that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead.
07:23 And so he gets ready to sacrifice Isaac, and the angel shows up and says, don’t do it. And there’s a ram caught in the thicket, and that ram is a picture of what Christ did, the substitutionary death.
07:32 And so Abraham doesn’t have to kill Isaac. But the fact that Abraham was what binded his son up on the altar, brought him up there, was ready to kill him, believed that God would resurrect him.
07:43 The fact that Abraham had that level of faith showed his belief in God, not by thinking it, but by doing it.
07:51 And so by his works, he showed his faith, right? And how much so did Abraham show his faith? He showed his faith that’s now in God’s word for an eternity.
08:01 The Bible says God’s word never dies, amen. So for an eternity, we can understand what Abraham did.
08:07 He showed his faith to us as believers, that we say, well, if Abraham was willing to do that. I remember a youth preacher was preaching at youth camp, just reading this depiction of what Abraham did at youth camp,
08:19 and tears were just streaming down my face, imagining what great faith it took, and imagining my little son on the altar. I couldn’t even, I couldn’t even imagine it, but Abraham did it because he had faith.
08:32 And that pleases God because it shows God that Abraham believed in God. And by the way, it also shows what God did for us when Christ died for us.
08:42 And so if we know the pain and suffering that we would experience, right, for having to give our son, right, God says, no, I’ll do it, but understand how much it hurts and how hard it is.
08:55 And then you understand how precious salvation is. And so we see a little bit earlier in James 2, but wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith that works is dead. That’s verse 20 of James 2, the word vain, which means improper use.
09:07 And so a vain man will be living not as how God wants them to live. They’ll be living a life that is about themselves, trying to please themselves or make themselves comfortable or in pursuit of worldly riches, when that’s not what God’s called them to do. God’s called them to live out their faith.
09:25 That doesn’t mean you may not have comfort. You may have comfort. You may have wealth.
09:32 You may have these other things. But the most important thing is that it comes from God, by God, by living for God, by living for God. Amen.
09:46 And so we go on here and we see in verse 23, and the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God.
09:52 And so we know the Bible says that in Hebrews 11, 6, that it’s impossible to please God without faith.
09:59 So if it’s impossible to please God without faith, and Abraham showed great faith, then Abraham was a friend of God. He was pleasing to God. Well, why can’t we be pleasing to God? And I don’t hear a lot of preaching on this, and it surprises me.
10:09 We can be pleasing to God. We can please God with our faith. We can please God by living for him.
10:17 And now you tell me, would you please God by saying, I sort of believe, but I don’t believe enough to do anything about it? Would that please God?
10:26 I doubt it. Would it please God if you said, I believe so much that I’m willing to follow God, no matter how difficult it may be? You know, that blesses God. Amen.
10:35 You know, God may take someone important out of your life, and God may want you to live for him alone. And it may be hard for you. Maybe it’s a relative, a friend.
10:41 But you want to please God, you may have to go that route. It may be a job. You love that job, and God may call you into something else, and you have a choice to make.
10:45 Do you want to have faith? Do you want to please God? Because the idea is this. We’re not saved by our works, right? But if we’re not living for God, then what are we saying to God?
11:05 You know, if you’re saying, well, I believe, but I don’t really want to live for him. I want to live carnally.
11:12 I want to live in the world. I want to do what’s popular in this world. What are you saying to God? I think, I believe, God helped me, that you don’t fear him.
11:18 You don’t fear him. And we understand that the fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom and understanding. The fear of God is what would help people to understand who he is, right? And if you don’t fear him, that’s a problem.
11:32 And we have a lot of Christians walking around today that just could care less. They just want to tick the box. They want to say, I went to church Sunday morning.
11:36 Oh, it’s a big week. I went on Sunday night. I went to church and I put some money in the offering.
11:45 These things, that’s not faith. That’s just ritual, right? What is faith? Faith is saying, I’m going to do more than that. Faith is saying, I’m going to have church in my house every day of the week until he calls me home.
11:50 That’s faith. Faith is doing things that don’t make sense to the world. The Bible talks about how the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the world.
12:02 And so us having faith as believers is very important to the Lord. And he’s called us to have a deep and committed faith to him. Justification, verse 24.
12:18 You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. And so we’re justified by our works in the sense that when we live for God, amen, it shows our faith. It helps everyone to see that we truly believe in God.
12:33 And so we understand the principle of justification in terms of salvation. We are justified by what Christ did on the cross, right? And so Christ dies for us on the cross. We believe in him.
12:45 Our sin debt is forgiven. We are justified. We are made whole.
12:51 We are reconciled to God. And now it comes time to live that life. And so we see justification by living out our faith.
12:57 And if we’re not living out our faith, then, you know, are we truly living for God? Amen. I don’t believe we are. You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only.
13:09 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. That’s James 25 and 26.
13:24 And so we see another example of having faith. Rahab the harlot, she acted on her faith. I looked up the definition of treason.
13:31 She was probably committing treason. Amen. She was believing in God, putting herself at risk.
13:37 And she believed. She said, look, I believe your God is a true God and you’re going to come and wipe us out. Please save me and my family.
13:44 And they did. And what is the body? What is the spirit without the body? What is works to faith? The spirit to the body is what makes us alive in Christ. Works is to faith as what makes us true believers in Christ.
13:57 The act of believing, acting it out. The Israelites were delivered from the Egyptians. They had to step into that red sea as it split open.
14:07 They had to believe. You understand we have to believe here today. And as we believe, as we seek the Lord and believe he will lay on our heart works to do for him.
14:16 And as we do them, we show our faith to him and we profit, we gain from it and grow closer to him. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.
14:23 I thank you so much for listening today. Take care. God bless and amen.