Work’s Justification James 2:14-26 Delivered on: 6-14-2009 Would you pick me as your nutritionist if I had a Ph.D. in nutrition and diet but weighed 800 pounds? Why not? I have the knowledge. I have faith in proper nutrition, I believe the right things about nutrition and diet. Would you pick me as your marriage counselor if I were properly certified and trained, having even written a few best selling books on the subject. But I’ve also had two failed marriages and my current marriage is ending. Care to become my client? I have the knowledge. I have faith in marriage, I believe the right things about marriage. Would you believe me if I told you that I believed the entire Bible, had been to growth groups my whole life, had even graduated from a Bible college, but when you look at me you see that I live my life like any other person who has never read the Bible, never been to church and could care less. Would you believe that I am a Christian? I have the knowledge. I have faith in God, I believe the right things about God. In verse 14 James asks a penetrating question, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?” This morning, James’ concern and ours will be the question of salvation. What is saving faith? I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I do want you to answer honestly in your minds. How many of you think that believing the right things about God or saying the “sinners prayer” or some other “prayer of salvation” is enough to forgive your sin and get you into heaven? Is saving faith simply saying a prayer and I’m in, or is there something more to saving faith than that? Asked in another way, is discipleship to Jesus Christ about adhering to a set of beliefs and doctrinal positions concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ, or is there something more to Christian discipleship than that? In addition to James’ probing question in verse 14, in verse 24 James makes a statement that may be approaching outright heresy. In verse 24, James says without hesitation, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” As we get into more of the heart of James’ thoughts here, we must first do a little theology. Verse 24 is the key to understanding this passage, so we will begin there this morning. Looking at the text of the Bible, words matter. Word order, a word’s usage, and the meaning words have matter significantly, and we must pay careful attention to them if we are going to truly understand what God wants us to know and what God wants us to do. We cannot come before the Bible in a lazy manner, we must come as students, we must come seeking to understand. In verse 24, James uses phrases that we must understand clearly if we are going to understand what God is teaching us through James in this passage. A primary belief of orthodox Christian faith is justification by faith alone. This idea comes largely from the teaching of the apostle Paul in the New Testament. As Paul teaches on this subject in the letter to the Romans, we learn that justification by faith alone is the doctrine that God's pardon for guilty sinners is granted to and received through faith or belief alone, to the exclusion of all human efforts or works. At the risk of gross oversimplification, think of a person before a judge. The person is convicted of a crime, say they stole 40 billion dollars. The evidence is conclusive and the person is guilty. The punishment is life in prison. The judge reads the verdict, smacks the gavel, and calls for the bailiff. But before anyone moves, the jude stands, takes off their robe, stands beside the convicted person and lays pays back 40 billion dollars. The persons debt has been paid. The judge then returns to the bench, puts back on their robe, and smacks the gavel down saying, “Paid in full, justice has been done, you’re free to go.” This is not the sense in which James is speaking about being justified by works. James is speaking about justification at the end of time, what the Bible calls the final judgment. What James is that the ultimate vindication of a Christian in the judgement is based on, or at least takes into account, the things that person has done. So ‘justify’ in Paul refers to how a person gets into relationship with God while in James it connotes what that relationship must ultimately look like to receive God’s final approval. The second phrase James uses is “faith alone”. Simply put, James is railing against faith that is a mere intellectual exercise. For James, as we will see in a moment, faith that works is the active, and tangible response because of what God is doing in and through our lives. To say then that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone, brings us back to our original question - What is saving faith? James answers very clearly to say that saving faith is faith that works. Saving faith is not BASED on works, or contingent on works, rather saving faith works, saving faith responds in living, active, and tangible action that demonstrates a congruence between or intellectual beliefs and the impact these beliefs make in our lives and the lives of others. Don’t miss this. James is not contrasting faith and works, as if these were two alternative options in one’s approach to God. James is, rather, contrasting a faith that, because it is inherently defective, produces no works and a faith that, because it is genuine, results in action. If you haven’t noticed, James enjoys illustrating his points as clearly as he possibly can. In this passage James provides four illustrations, two negative illustrations, and two positive illustrations, to buttress the statement that he makes so often in these 12 verses, that faith that does not work, or to use James’ actual words - faith without deeds is dead. This morning we are going to focus briefly on two of James’ illustrations to see how we can avoid succumbing to a floundering, lifeless, dead faith. So if your still hanging with me, and you haven’t do so already, please turn to James 2 which can be found on page _____ of the sanctuary Bible. In verses 18-19, James says that Knowledge of God without 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 that there is one God. Good! even the demons believe that - and shudder.” It is a heinous lie that much of the evangelical world has bought into that simply believing the right things about God, having knowledge about the Bible, or knowing the right answers to spiritual questions is indicative of saving faith. This is simply not the case. In a powerful picture James’ imaginary debater states that he has faith, and James has deeds. James asks him to demonstrate his faith without deeds. The debater states that he believes that there is one God, to which James acknowledges that this knowledge about God is good. But a devastating critique is leveled against the person who clings to their knowledge of God as grounds for saving faith - the demons also have knowledge of God - and that knowledge makes them shudder. What James is saying here is that knowledge is good, but knowledge for knowledge sake, knowledge that puffs up, knowledge that does not lead to response but is simply gained for the sake of gaining it is totally useless, dead, and not saving faith at all. Even demons have knowledge and belief in God, yet this does not posses for them saving faith. Quite the contrary, their knowledge of God makes them shudder and cower for they know that God is not to be trifled with. For the person who trusts in their knowledge. Knowledge about God in and of itself is worthless, James says, is dead, when it does not prompt us to act upon. The point here is not to abandon knowledge, quite the opposite, seek to know God, seek to know God deeply, but do not make the acquisition of knowledge about God the end goal. Knowing about God is great, but this knowledge must be translated into our daily lives and lived out in obedience before others, if it is to have any saving power. God has not given us his word so that we can simply know it. He has given us his word so that we can know it and practice it. Saving faith is faith that works, and the second way saving faith works is to live out what we know to be true about God. The second illustration is a positive one from the life of Rahab. In verse 25, James briefly references Rahab as an illustration of the principle that saving faith is faith that works by showing that change without action is dead. Verse 25 says, “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 a different direction?” Rahab is a rather interesting figure on the pages of the bible. She is mentioned 4 times in the Bible, three times in the New Testament and once in the Old Testament. What we know very little about Rahab’s background other than that she was a prostitute. I find this interesting in as much as prostitutes are not normally seen as righteous people. However, it is difficult not to change when someone has an encounter with the living God. Rahab is clearly a testimony to this. Rahab appears in the Bible for the first time in Joshua 2. As the Israelites are preparing to go into the promised land, they send spies to scope it out. The spies come to Rahab’s house and she hides them from the king of Jericho’s men. What James assumes is that we know why. But I’m not going to assume that. In Joshua 2 we read this about Rahab, “Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.” Rahab’s courage along with the rest of her people failed as she heard what the God of the Israelites was doing all around them. The gods of Rahab’s people had ever divided a sea for them to cross, the gods of Rahab’s people did not fight their wars for them, the gods of Rahab’s people did not proactively seek their redemption and freedom from tyranny. The God of the Israelites was not like any other God that Rahab had ever known of worshipped. And when the moment came for her to make a decision instead of cowering in fear and dread of what was coming, Rahab changed her allegiance to stand with God and his people. When Rahab was confronted with God she had a choice. Change her thoughts and actions on what she had been trusting in and live, or continue to believe and act on what she had known to this point in her life and die. What James wants us to see here is that when we encounter the gospel, when we encounter the life giving message of Jesus Christ, change is demanded. Change for change sake, change without action is dead. Jesus demands change to his way of living, change to his way of thinking, change to his way of obedience. This is what it means to be called to Christian discipleship. When we encounter the gospel of Jesus Christ we are faced with a choice: remain as we are - self-reliant, proud, and dead in our sins, or change into something new - setting aside our pride, recognizing our need of a savior and entrusting ourself to what God wants to do in us and through us. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? James’ forthright answer is no - faith that in a mere mental exercise, faith that does not express itself in tangible, active obedience to God’s word is not biblical saving faith. Saving faith is faith that works. Let’s pray.