James 5: That's why Sam and I usually throw the scriptures out, but you handed me that one. I didn't. It's all me. Sam's away, we shall play. Okay, okay, okay. Now, James chapter 2, verses 14 to 26. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, Go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, You have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good, even if the demons believe that, and shudder. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in different direction. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. This is the word of God. Thank you, Beth. Don't tell Sam I did that. You may be seated. Good morning, Church. I have one announcement for you this morning. And that announcement is all the announcements are in your bulletin. So you receive those and you're looking for the announcements. Trying some out here. Well, recently I have had the realization that there are certain things in my house that I could buy with my own money, but I do not actually own. Maybe your house has some of these. For me, the sticking point has been decorative towels. Anyone got decorative towels? I do not understand decorative towels whatsoever. Right? To me, a towel has a very, very clear purpose. There's not a lot of mystery surrounding the towel. Something is wet, the towel, you scoop it up and it makes it less wet. That's the whole business model of Shamwao, right? Apparently, there's another category of towel that I have found out. These towels hang perfectly in the bathroom. In our case, the kitchen, the one that I messed up. They're folded correctly, they match everything that's around. Sometimes there's even a little towel over top of that towel, which feels excessive. Right? Because now we're decorating the decoration. But if you're a husband, at some point you make the mistake of actually drying your hands on that one. There it is. Yeah. You win, Megan. and you find out very quickly that this is not a towel. It looked like a towel, it was hanging where the towels hang. It was made out of towel material, but somehow you were supposed to know that this particular towel had transcended the normal purpose of towels and become art of the house. Okay. And we have other things too. Don't think I'm leaving those out. There are pillows that apparently you don't sleep on, right? That nobody is supposed to use, but they sit on the couch or my recliner at that point, right? There are dishes that spend forty years in a cabinet waiting for an occasion enough, important enough to justify their existence. And that does not mean chicken nuggets at ten o'clock at night. All of those I have done. But I started thinking about how strange it is for something to have the appearance of a thing while completely disconnected from the thing's actual purpose. See, because the eventual question becomes: if the towel can't be used as a towel, what exactly makes it a towel? And believe it or not, it got me thinking about James. Because James almost asked that exact question about faith. Not towels, thankfully, but faith. And he used, he, he asks it in a way that that has made Christians super uncomfortable for a very long time. See, Pastor Sam has been reminding us each week that James does not exactly ease into things. Right? James is very direct. And by the time we reach the middle of chapter two, he gives us the most direct question in the entire letter. In verse 14, I'll read it again. What good is it, my brothers and sisters? If someone claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such faith save them? And why I wanted to read it again because I wanted you to notice the word there. Claims. Claims. James isn't beginning with somebody who rejects Christianity or doesn't know Christianity. The person claims their faith. They know the language. They would identify themselves as somebody who believes in Jesus. So James here isn't asking whether faith saves. Right, the New Testament is abundantly clear that we are saved by grace through faith, right? But James is asking something more uncomfortable. What kind of faith are we talking about? And so before we go any further, I want to show you why Christians have wrestled and argued with this passage for centuries. The first one comes from Romans 3, verse 28. It says a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And the second one is in James 2, 24. A person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. Both of those are in the Bible, if you have your Bible with you. And that seems like a problem. And if you've never read the New Testament and I handed you one of these two sentences on separate pieces of paper and just sat them in front of you, you might reasonably assume that Paul and James need to get together and work some things out, right? Paul says faith apart from works, James says, not faith alone. So which one is it? And I think this matters because Christians still lean, tend to fall towards one or two extremes on one side. Christianity becomes almost entirely about doing. Serve more, give more, go on mission, help more people, volunteer more, be a better person, work harder. And if I'm doing enough Christian things, then God must be pleased with me. See, but there's a problem with that. Because the problem is that you can spend your entire life doing religious things and never trust Jesus. Right? You can feed somebody because it makes you feel good about yourself. You can serve because you like being needed by someone. You can give because you want the recognition of everyone around you. You can become very good at playing church while your heart remains far from God. See, the gospel is not do good enough things and maybe Jesus will accept you one day. Right? But We can also swing the completely to the other side. The side of, I believe in Jesus. I know I'm saved by faith. I read my Bible. I pray. I go to church consistently. I know theology. What happens outside of that is almost treated like an optional upgrade, right? My faith is private, it's between me and God. And as long as I believe the right things, what does it really matter whether that belief changes the way that I treat people, spend money, forgive, serve, love, or live? See, James looks at both sides and refuses the choice. You cannot earn salvation through your deeds. And according to James, you also cannot separate a saving faith from a changed life. Those aren't competing ideas. They're the gospel working in the right order. See, Paul is confronting people who think that their works can make them right in front of God. James is confronting people who think claiming faith is enough, even if that faith produces absolutely nothing. See, Paul asks, how is a sinner made right with God? And James asks, What does that faith look like when it's alive? And James doesn't answer with a theology lecture. Right? He gives us a situation. I want you to put yourself in that situation. Right? He talks about a brother and sister without adequate clothing and daily food. Put yourself there and go fifteen minutes down the road where that is a thing. And you go by and another Christian sees them and and you go up to them and you say, Go in peace, stay warm, eat well. Sounds wonderful, very spiritual. Sure, they felt encouraged for maybe a second, right? But there is one small problem with that, and that is they are still hungry. They're still hungry. See, James says that you can stand in front of a hungry person and say all the correct, compassionate words that you have learned, but if you possess the ability to help and refuse to do anything about their actual needs, then your words have accomplished absolutely nothing. Nothing. Look at verse seventeen. In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Right, James could have used a lot of different words there. Is weak, right? It is immature, is incomplete, is struggling. No, he chose dead. And that changes the entire conversation in here. Because something can have the appearance of life without being alive, right? A body can have every part that a body is supposed to have and still be dead. And James is saying there is a version of faith that can have the vocabulary, the information, the appearance, maybe even the theology, and still be dead. Then James takes it even further in verse 18: Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. And I love that James says, show me there. I mean, think about the problem with that request. How do you show somebody's faith? Faith itself is invisible. Right? I can't open up my chest and say, hey church, look here. Here, here's my faith in Jesus, right? I can't put my faith on a picture on the screen, right? you can't weigh it, you you can't photograph it, you can't hand it to someone. And so James says, okay, show me. Show me. Right? And then suddenly we realize the only way invisible faith becomes visible is when it begins to move through a human life. Right? I can stand up here every Sunday and tell you that I believe in Jesus when He tells me to forgive, and you should too. But eventually that belief encounters somebody that I don't want to forgive and who has cut me so deep. Right? I can tell you that Jesus cares for the poor and wear this 2540 shirt that represents that. But eventually that belief encounters someone with a need. I can tell you that I trust God with all my resources financially. And eventually that belief encounters my bank account. I can tell you that every human being bears the image of God and preach it here every single Sunday, but eventually that belief encounters somebody who irritates me, disagrees with me, has nothing to offer me, or can't re cannot repay me. See, that's where belief becomes visible. Then James says something that is almost funny because of how brutal it is. That verse 19. You believe that there is one God. Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. Right? James again does not lift off the gas. Right? Imagine you coming up to Pastor Sam and I and being like, hey, I finally believe in God. He is the one true God. And we go, good. Even the demons do. Right? And James there says, Congratulations, so do demons. But there's actually something deeper happening here. See, where James, when James, as Sam, Pastor Sam always says, context, context, context, and look into it, right? When James says, you believe that there is one God, okay, he is echoing one of the most important confessions in Judaism. It's from Deuteronomy 6:4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's called the Shema. For a Jewish Christian reading James, this isn't some vague statement that a higher power exists. No, this is an orthodox belief about God. Correct theology, and James says good, but correct information about God by itself is not saving faith, right? The demons have information. Right? Read the Gospels, go back to Matthew. Sometimes the demons recognize Jesus faster than the people do, they know who he is. They know that he has authority. They know that judgment is real. They know that the time is coming where they're be put under. They know enough to shudder. Their theology isn't the biggest problem. They know things about Jesus without loving Jesus. And I think that's one of the most uncomfortable distinctions that James makes. Because especially if you've been around church for a very, very long time, you can get really good at knowing things about Jesus. You can learn the language, you can learn when to say amen. You can know all the stories, you can know the songs, you can know what to write in the blank when we hand you a piece of paper, right? And none of those things are bad. Hear me clearly on this. Truth matters. What we believe matters enormously. But James says there is a kind of belief that never gets beyond information. It reaches the head and then it stops. Saving faith doesn't merely acknowledge facts about Jesus, it entrusts your whole life to Jesus. And now James knows somebody is going to push back, right? And so he gives evidence. Right? The first witness, who better? Abraham. But watch this, see, this is where things get really interesting. James says Abraham was considered righteous for what he did when he offered Isaac on the altar. And if you know Abraham's story, then that's in Genesis 22. But then James quotes something from Genesis 15. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Don't miss the timeline, right? Genesis 15 comes before Genesis 22. So long before Abraham places Isaac on the altar, scripture already says that Abraham believed God and that the belief can credit it to him as righteousness. But here's what's crazy: that's the same verse that Paul uses when Paul teaches justification by faith. So James isn't correcting Paul. James quotes the same scripture that Paul does. What James wants us to see is what happened to Abraham's faith after Genesis 15. I mean, look at James 2 22. You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. That's it. Working together. James does not say Abraham had faith and then eventually stopped needing faith because he became good enough at all the works that he was doing. No, he says that faith and action were working together. Right? And then his phrase, his faith was made complete by what he did. Right? The idea about being made complete is something being brought towards its intended maturity or its purpose. So the action didn't purchase Abraham's faith, it revealed where his faith had gone. Abraham believed in God in Genesis 15. Then later, when that trust was tested in Genesis 22, his faith moved. Right, that's why John Wesley, when commentating on this exact passage, said, Works don't give life to faith. Rather, living faith produces works. And that's such an important distinction. Works are not the roots of our salvation, they are the fruit from it. Right? A tree isn't alive because fruit is tied on to the end of the branches, right? No, fruit grows because the tree is alive and it's rooted in the truth, right? And that's why the two extremes we started with can both miss on this. If I say, look at everything I do, surely God owes me, then I have misunderstood grace and you guys need to fire me, right? Because I think we all know God owes us nothing. Jesus did not go to the cross on Calvary because I had finally accumulated enough of good deeds to qualify for him. No, Christ died for sinners, as Paul writes, of whom I am the worst, right? And salvation is grace. I receive, we receive what we can never earn. Right? But on the opposite side, if I say, I've received grace, therefore it does not matter what my life becomes. I've misunderstood grace again. Because grace doesn't merely change my destination someday. Grace begins changing me right now. See, and this, I'm gonna share something personal. This actually became very personal to me two weeks ago. two weeks ago marked seven years of sobriety for me from drugs and alcohol. And thank you. You know that the older that number gets, the stranger it feels to say. Because I remember a version of my life where seven years sounded impossible, and I was sitting right in the back row back there, first time coming to church here with my mom and Megan and dad. You know, I don't tell you that because being sober for seven years earns me anything from God. I'm not telling you that. It did because it doesn't. Seven years sober doesn't make Jesus love me more than he loved me when my life was an absolute chaotic mess. And I didn't clean myself up enough for Christ to finally decide that I was worth saving. That's not my story. Grace came first. Jesus met me when I needed grace. See, but I also can't stand here seven years later and tell you that Jesus changed my life while insisting it doesn't matter whether my life actually changed. Right? Those seven years aren't the aren't the price of grace. They're evidence that grace has been doing something all along. And please don't hear me saying everything became perfect. Okay? It did not. Ask my wife, don't do that. But when I look backward, I can see places where Jesus, and maybe you have these, where he has changed desires, has changed habits, relationships, decisions, priorities, things that I could not see all at once while they were happening, right? And that's what I love about James. He does not give us Christianity where you have to earn your way to God. But he also doesn't give us Christianity where meeting Jesus leaves everything else untouched in your life. Grace meets us exactly where we are. And grace begins leading us somewhere. Right? That's why James gives us one more person. And I think the person he chose is brilliant. Rahab. If James wanted to make his argument easy and wipe his hands from it, he could have stopped with Abraham. Everyone would have been like, yeah, he's got a point, right? But Abraham is the patriarch, the father of Israel, right? The giant of faith. But James says, let me give you someone else. Rahab. A Gentile woman, a prostitute living in Jericho. Right? If heaven had a NFL Hall of Fame, we would imagine Abraham first on the list, right, with the gold jacket and everything. But Rahab is a person that nobody would expect to ever even sniff it. Yet when Israel's spies enter Jericho, Rahab protects them. Why? And I want you today, if you do anything else, go back and read in Joshua 2. Because Joshua 2 tells us she has heard what Israel's God had done. And she believed that he is truly God. And notice what happens. Her belief moves. She takes the risk. She receives the spies. She hides them. She helps them escape. Her faith becomes visible through what she does. And James puts Abraham and Rahab side by side. And that is not accidental. The respected patriarch and the gentile prostitute, the insider and the outsider. Two radically different stories. And James says living faith can be seen in both. And let me tell you, that's good news for us. Because it means that there isn't one personality type that God is looking for. There isn't one background that qualifies you. There isn't one perfect Christian resume out there. Abraham has his story. Rahab has hers. I have mine. You have yours. The deeds look different because the people and circumstances are different. Right, James isn't handing us a checklist, right? Where we get it, like well, you walk out the door, and I'm like, here's a checklist for the week. Feed three people, volunteer twice, give this percentage, go on this mission trip, visit the elderly. All right, you got it done, now your faith is finally alive. No. That would take us right back to performance. No, James is asking us something deeper. He's asking as trusting Jesus begin to affect the way that you actually live. Not on just on Sunday, but through the week. See, because sometimes I think we can ask the wrong question in our head of how much do I have to do to prove that I'm a Christian? That I have the outward appearance of one? Right? James isn't interested in helping us locate the minimum requirement. I mean, I want you to imagine asking that question in marriage. What is the absolute minimum amount of love that I have to show Megan for this marriage to still count in the state of Ohio? Conversation is not going to end well for me or if anyone else asked it. But it's because of this. It's because love doesn't ask. It doesn't ask what's the least I could possibly do and still technically qualify. Love moves towards somebody. Trust moves. Faith moves, not perfectly, not consistently, not so that God will finally accept us in the throne room, but because something alive behaves different than something dead. And James finishes with an image that nobody can misunderstand in verse 26: As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. That's where he lands. A body and a spirit belong together. Faith and life flowing from that faith belong together. Separate them completely. And James says, something is wrong. And I think this passage gives us a question that is much more challenging than: Am I doing enough? Right, because I don't know what enough would even mean. And I don't think James wants us spending this week anxiously trying to collect Christian points to reassure ourselves that we're saved. The gospel frees us from that. Jesus has already done what we could never do, has lived a perfect life, right? Lived a life that we cannot live. He went to the cross for each and every one of our sins in this room and around the world. He rose from the grave. Right? We are not saved because we performed well enough for him to say, good job. No, we are saved by grace. But the Jesus who saves us is also Lord of Lords. And when we entrust our lives truly, when we entrust our lives to him, eventually that trust starts showing up somewhere. Maybe it is in generosity. Maybe, maybe in forgiveness. Maybe in how we speak to our spouse. Maybe when it's what we do when no one's looking. Maybe it's in serving someone who can never give you anything back. Maybe it's in the way that you use your money. Maybe it's in sobriety. Maybe it's in repentance. Maybe it's admitting that you were actually wrong. That's why I paused. Mm. I was waiting for one. All right. And it's not, it's not because any of those things makes Jesus owe you salvation. It's because living faith moves. And this is where I think James brings both kinds of people back to Jesus at the center. To the person exhausted from trying to prove yourself through good works, hear this: stop trying to earn what Jesus gives by grace. And to the person whose Christianity has become information, church attendance, Bible knowledge, and private belief with no effect on the rest of your life, James says to you, show me. Not because everyone around you needs to be impressed, not because you need to prove yourself worthy, but because if Jesus is actually becoming Lord of your life, there ought to be places where his fingerprints begin appearing. Maybe slowly. Maybe in places nobody else has noticed yet, but alive things grow. And that's why I don't think James 2 should leave us staring at our works and looking what more we should do. It should leave us looking at Christ and asking him whether we've merely learned to agree with him or whether we're actually trusting him with our very own lives. Because again, friends, demons can acknowledge who Jesus is. They know who he is. But a Christian faith says, My life is yours, Jesus. And once your life belongs to Jesus, there is eventually no part that he doesn't care about. Your beliefs, your relationships, your habits, your money, your words, your time, your wounds, your neighbors, your enemies. Right? The the part of the story that you're proud of, the part of your story that you wish nobody ever knew. All of it. That's why for me, seven years means something different to me through this passage. Seven years ago, I needed more than better behavior. I needed Jesus. Today I still need more than better behavior. I still need Jesus. 14, 21, whatever many years, that is not going to change. Because of Jesus, I don't want to be the same man seven years from now that I am standing here today. And I don't want anyone else to say the same. I I I want grace to keep working. I I want faith to become visible in each and every person. And it's not so one day that we could all be lined up in heaven as a point church with our you belong shirts on, and God looks at our record and says, You did it. Come on in. No. But because God has already been far more gracious to us than we ever could deserve. And when grace becomes real to you, really real to you, eventually it gets difficult to keep it theoretical. Right? James refuses to let us, right? Show me your faith. And maybe that's a question we need to sit with today. Not how religious or Christian am I? Not how much do I know? Not How much am I doing compared to somebody else? No, no, no. I think it's something more personal. And so each week we have, Pastor Sam has left a question up to kind of resonate over why Casey plays, and and the question is this today. If my faith became visible, if it did become visible, what would people see? I don't want you to answer that for the person sitting beside you. I just want you to take that question to God through prayer. Where is my faith alive and moving? And where have I become comfortable merely saying, I believe Jesus? I believe you, Jesus. But am I actually trusting you, Jesus? So as she plays, just wrestle through that question with God, and then we'll stand and we'll worship. Amen.