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Faith
That’s Worth Something |
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Pocket Paper ______________________ Message by Robert J. Morgan, Senior Pastor The Donelson Fellowship 3210 McGavock Pike 615/871-4769 www.donelson.org Recently we’ve been greatly encouraged by the reports of what our LifeGroups and our members have been doing in a benevolent way to touch this world by meeting needs in human lives. Recently, for example, three members of our church returned from a ten-day trip to the Ivory Coast of West Africa with The Hannah Project, the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that we support. This trip involved three members from our church and a number of people from other churches, including doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, builders, and volunteers. The stories of what they did are incredible. They treated one boy who had been crippled by a fall from a tree and who was suffering from large bedsores and infected feet and toes. They treated a woman who actually had a broken rib protruding from her skin. They operated on an elderly man who had been injured in a car wreck ten years ago and was still suffering from a severely twisted leg and knee problem. They removed a cyst from the face of a feisty little boy. Day after day in primitive conditions they performed operations, administered first aid, treated patients, diagnosed eye problems, gave out glasses, and even painted a local school and built a basketball court. And during all of it, they shared the Gospel and saw souls won to Christ. It was Faith in Action, and this is the kind of faith the New Testament talks about. We’re in a series of messages from the book of James, and today we’re coming to the last half of chapter 2 of this book. What James has to say in this chapter is that the faith that saves us must be an active faith, a real faith, a faith that demonstrates itself in good works. We aren’t saved by good works. We’re saved by faith alone; but the faith that saves us is a faith that demonstrates itself every day. The passage we’re studying this morning is at the very core of the book of James, chapter 2, verses 14-26: What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has
no deeds? Can such faith save
him? Suppose a brother or sister
is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and
well fed,” but does nothing about his 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
what I do. You believe there is
one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and
shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is
useless? Was not our ancestor
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 justified by
what he does and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered
righteousness for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent
them off in a different direction?
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is
dead. Now, it’s not hard to spot the main point that James is driving home. It’s the main point of this paragraph, and it’s the main point of the entire book. Notice how James repeats himself to make sure we don’t miss his emphasis: · What good is it if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?—v. 14 · Faith by itself if not accompanied by action, is dead—v. 17 · Faith without deeds is useless—v. 20 · Faith without works is dead—v. 26 Now, James is not staying that we are saved by works; we are saved by faith alone. The point James is making is that true saving faith will manifest itself by works. We are not saved by works, but we are saved by a faith that is active enough to produce works. We aren’t saved because we feed the poor and come to church and keep the ordinances. We can never work our way into God’s favor by our own efforts, for our very hearts are sinful beyond measure. We are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, which He accomplished when He died on the cross and rose from the dead. We are saved by the blood of the Crucified One. But it’s got to be real faith, and real faith is not passive faith; it’s an active one. Look at the way James unfolds this. It’s Not Enough to Verbally Believe
(vv. 14-17) First, in verses 14-17, he
tells us that it’s not enough just to claim that we believe:
What good is it, my brothers, if
a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? There’s the principle—it’s not enough just to claim that we believe. Lots of people call themselves Christians. Lots of people go to church and claim to be followers of Christ. But that’s not enough. If we have true saving faith, it will be demonstrated by our compassion for others, by our love, by our concern for the needs of others, by our charity and willingness to help those in need. Let’s read on: Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go,
I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his
physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action,
is dead. To most of us, this seems like common societal sense. We may not always live up to this standard, but it seems reasonable to us. It seems Christian, Christlike, and compassionate. But when James wrote this, his words represented a radical change from the prevailing attitude of Roman society. Many of us don’t realize how Christianity transformed western society into a culture of compassion. In the days of Jesus and of James, the world was a brutal place and human life cheap. The Greco-Roman world was cruel, and life was expendable. For example, the killing of babies was widespread. If a child was deformed or physically frail, that child would typically be killed. The Roman statesman Seneca wrote, “We drown children who at birth are weakly and abnormal.” They had no sense of compassion on a child who could not grow up to be, in their view, a productive member of society. In the ancient Greco-Roman world of Jesus and the apostles, there was no compassion or charity for the sick and dying. If you had a disease, it was better to perish and get out of everyone’s way, or else you’d be a burden to society. Even Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, said that when a poor man—especially a slave—was no longer able to work because of age or sickness, he should be left to die. In those days without sanitation and with crowded conditions in the cities, there would be terrible outbreaks of the plague, but there was no one willing to care for the sick. The wealthy would flee to their homes in the country and the sick would be isolated so as not to contaminate the rest of the population. And then there was the brutality of gladiatorial games. Great crowds of Romans gathered in their stadiums and watched people mauled and mangled and gored to death. One writer said that these games illustrate the complete pitiless spirit and carelessness of human life. The agonizing deaths, the flow of human blood, and the barbaric cruelty didn’t bother the crowd at all. Instead the crowd would cry, “Lash him! Brand him! Kill him!” And the crowds cheered to see people stabbed to death or torn apart by wild animals. Several years ago, Slavery was so widespread that the entire Roman economy was dependant on it. Torture was a way of life in the Roman legal system, and Josephus tells of mass crucifixions. The Roman roads were lined with crosses on which people were slowly writhing in agony, sometimes for days, before they died. And into this compassionless, corrupt, cruel world, Jesus Christ came caring for the sick, the aged, the lepers, the downcast, the outcast, and the castaways. He said that if we perform an act of compassion for the least individual in human society, we’ve done it unto Him. James drove home the advice by telling us repeatedly in his book to care for the widows and orphans, and to respond to those who approach us in need.
This was a new way of thinking. The early Christians shocked the world by bringing to it a care and a concern for widows and orphans and the sick and aged and needy and dying. Roman society was astounded that when the plague hit and the black death came that Christians would enter infected houses to care for the sick. In fact, one writer has suggested that this had much to do with the growth of Christianity. “The care Christians showed often did result in their succumbing to the plague themselves. But paradoxically, their compassion did not deplete Christian ranks in the long term—quite the reverse. Tending to the sick increased the disease survival rate by as much as two-thirds, and this witness attracted many new converts. By acting on the teachings of Christ, without regard to their own welfare, these Christians, against all expectations, progressed from being a small sect to the dominant cultural force.” (Charles Colson and Harold Fickett, The Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), p. 17.) We have the story of one Roman soldier in the army of Emperor Constantine, a man named Pachomius, who had been swept up and drafted against his will. All he had ever seen was brutality and hardness of heart. And then he observed some Christians bringing food to his fellow soldiers who were afflicted with famine and disease. He asked about these people and was told they were Christians, and that their faith caused them to care for those in need. He had never heard of such a thing. He had never seen such a thing. He had never imagined such a thing. He investigated these people, learned about their faith, and became a Christian himself. One of the most interesting statements
about this that I’ve ever read is in Dr. Alvin J. Schmidt’s book,
How Christianity Changed the Word: “When modern secularists
show compassion today upon seeing or hearing of some great human
tragedy—for example, massive starvation, earthquake, disasters, mass
murders—they show that they have unknowingly internalized
Christianity’s concept of compassion. Even so-called objective news
reporters often find it difficult to hide their emotions when they report
major calamities on radio or television.
But had those reporters not grown up under the two-thousand-year-old
umbrella of Christianity’s compassionate influence, they would probably
be without much compassion, similar to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and
others. As Josiah Stamp has said,
‘Christian ideals have permeated society until non-Christians who claim
to live a “decent life” without religion, have forgotten the
origin of the very content and context of their
“decency.”’” (Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World ( In Charles Colson’s new
book, The Faith, he tells about his
organization Prison Fellowship, which is devoted to reaching prisoners who
are incarcerated in prisons around the world and to caring for their
families. One of the adjuncts of
their ministry is what they call their Angel Tree program, which is very much
like the one we sponsor here every Christmas, but with a difference. They ask volunteers to buy gifts for
the children of men and women who are locked away in prison. Up in The pastor immediately knew who these children were. Their father was locked up in prison and their mother was involved in drugs and prostitution. “Of course you can see the church,” he said. “Come on in.” He gave them a tour of the building and the children seemed happy and were on their way. But fifteen minutes later, they were back at the door. “What time does church start?” “In an hour.” “We’ll be back.” And the kids scampered away once more. Fifteen minutes later they were back again, this time with another question: “Is is okay for a person to come to church if his socks don’t match?” “Of course,” said the pastor. “What about if he doesn’t have any socks? Mine don’t match. My brother, he don’t have any.” “You look more than fine to
me,” said the pastor.
“Let me find you a seat.” A couple sitting nearby helped the
children through the service, but they were puzzled by a brown paper bag the oldest
boy was clutching. It turned out
to contain one hot dog. The
children were worried the service would last too long and had brought a
lunch. They had planned to split
the hot dog among the three of them.
Well, the church informally adopted those children and they became a
permanent part of the congregation.
Christians found them in their need, reached out in love, and gave
them a structure and a message of hope in their lives. (Charles Colson and
Harold Fickett, The Faith (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), p. 157.) So James says, “It’s not enough just to claim to believe; but how do you treat someone who’s sick? How do you respond to a legitimate need? How do you endeavor to meet the needs of others? How do you care for the sick, the orphans, and the widows. It’s Not Enough to Intellectually
Believe (vv. 18-19) Second, it’s not enough
just to intellectually believe. But someone will say, “You have
faith; I have deeds.” Show
me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe there is one God. Good! Monotheism—the belief in one God—is at the core of both the Jewish and the Christian faith. It’s good to believe in one’s mind that there is one God. So far so good. But it is not enough. Even the demons believe that—and shudder. From time to time we read of surveys in the newspaper or magazines trying to chart the religious trends of the nation. A surveyor will ask a sampling of people, “Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus?” And a large percentage of Americans will say, “Yes, I believe in God and I believe in Jesus.” If our surveyor asked that
question of the devil or of any of the innumerable hosts of demons, the
answer would be, “Yes. We
believe in God. We believe in
Jesus.” If fact, there are
illustrations of that in the Gospels.
Do you remember reading about times when Jesus would approach someone
who was demon possessed, and the demon would cry out in fear, as in Mark
1:24: What do you want with us, Jesus of The devil and the demons are very religious in terms of their intellectual beliefs. But when the Bible talks about true faith and saving faith, it’s talking about more the mere intellectual assent or acknowledgement. It’s Not Enough to Passively
Believe (vv. 20-26) Third and finally, James said that it’s not enough to just passively believe. Look at verse 20: You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? And now he’s going to use two examples from the Old Testament, and he chooses two people from opposite ends of the social and spiritual spectrum—a patriarch and a prostitute. One is a Jew; in fact, he’s the father of Judaism. The other person is a Gentile. One is a man and the other is a woman. But both people were heroes of the faith, and neither had a passive faith. They had a faith that was demonstrated by their courage and actions. First, James brings us Abraham,
who was also Paul’s great example of faith in Romans 4: Was
not our ancestor 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. In other words, when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham believed that God knew what He was doing. Abraham believed that God had a plan. Abraham believed that God would fulfill His promises made to and through Isaac. And Abraham believed that God could raise the dead, if necessary. And so Abraham acted on his faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness. His second example is Rahab, from the book of Joshua, chapter 2. I don’t have time to tell the story, but suffice it to say that Rahab believed God and she believed that God was going to give the Promised Land to the descendants of Abraham as He had said. She also believed that God could save her and her family. And so at great personal risk, she hid the two spies and later tied a scarlet cord to her window as instructed. It’s not enough to say that you believe. It’s not enough just to call yourself a Christian. It’s not even enough to intellectually believe. It’s not enough to have a quiet passive faith that never manifests itself in obedience or good works. We need a faith that shows itself in courage, in obedience, in charity, and in good works. And it begins when we take a concrete step of making Jesus Christ the Lord and Master of our lives. Perhaps you’ve thought that you had faith in Christ, but it’s been a verbal faith, an intellectual faith, a passive faith, but not an active faith of trust and obedience. The Lord Jesus bids us come, to follow Him, and open the door of our hearts, and to say, “Now, Lord Jesus, out of sheer faith, I follow You; I commit myself to a life of obedience and service.” That’s a faith that’s worth something! Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office.Other messages are available from our website. Just click on the Pocket Papers link on our home page for a list of available messages. |
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