James chapter 2 and verse 14. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

James says to us in verse 18, Show me thy faith. Show me thy faith. And that is the title of our sermon today. What is faith? And how can we tell if a person has true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? How do we know if a man or a woman is a genuine believer. Men can say a lot of things. It's an easy thing for a man to claim that he is a Christian if it suits his purpose to do so. and multitudes tell us that they have faith and that they have hope of eternal life.

But we all know it is not profession of faith that saves a sinner. We can enlarge on that because nor does mere possession of faith reveal genuine salvation unless it is true faith. There are many false religions in this world. We speak of the Muslim faith or the Buddhist faith or the Jewish faith and their adherence in their millions and tens of millions Their adherents certainly practise their faith and they believe what they are doing is pleasing to God. They believe it. But we cannot say that these men and women are saved. It's not faith in itself that saves a sinner. It is he who is the object of faith. And there are many vain imaginations as to who God is and how to approach him. Believing in a false God is idolatry. We saw that with Ahaziah. Believing in a false God, believing in a God of your own imagination is idolatry. Believing a lie does not save a soul.

But supposing we speak only of Christianity and not these world faiths. One of Satan's greatest tools, one of his greatest deceits is counterfeit religion. And I'm sure we all know men and women who genuinely believe themselves to be heaven-bound Christians because of their church membership, because of their frequent attendance at services, because of their dedicated service to the church, or perhaps just even their family history. Under the umbrella of Christian, we could speak about Roman Catholics, or Protestants, or Seventh-day Adventists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or even Mormons who call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and claim to be Christians. All of these people are following a counterfeit religion, claiming it to be that faith which will lead them to glory and to God.

Within Protestantism and the churches that trace their origins back to the 16th, 15th, 16th century Reformation, we have many, many denominations in this country and throughout the world, many denominations. I'm going to mention a few just so that we know what I'm talking about. Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Brethren, Quakers, Amish, Mennonite. I met a group of people called Hutterites when I was in Montana. And most of these groups have 99 flavors of belief and practice within them. All claim to be the true faith and they're members, true believers who are going to heaven. And yet many openly contradict what the other groups believe.

I ask again, how do we know if a man or a woman is a genuine believer? There are two great errors made in matters of faith and religion. Many people imagine that they can do something to obtain salvation, that what we do somehow affects our justification before God, or our sanctification, or our reward in heaven. Many, many people imagine that what we do somehow affects our justification, our sanctification, or our reward in heaven. It does not. Be absolutely clear, a person's justification, their sanctification, and their reward in heaven is entirely due to what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for them. It has nothing to do with what they do for Him.

However, there is another error as well. Many people live as though faith has no impact or bearing on their daily life in the world. And this too is a grave mistake. Don Faulkner, he used to say, what I do does not in any measure determine my relationship with God. but my relationship with God does in great measure determine what I do. And he's right. That is what the book of James is telling us. James shows us how our relationship with God affects our lives and all that we do. He teaches us how we are to live to live by faith in Christ and to live to the glory of God in this world of sin.

The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 1, verse 12, he tells us that a believer knows whom they have believed. I know whom I have believed. and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. A believer knows whom he has believed. A believer in Christ knows the Lord Jesus Christ as a living personal experience. Not simply as a name, not as an historical example, but as God They know Christ as God who has both accomplished and applied their salvation and bestowed faith as his free gift of grace. A believer knows that. And because of this faith, that true believer can, to some extent, And to quote Peter, give an answer to every man that asketh, a reason of the hope that is in them. 1 Peter 3, verse 15.

We know Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. We know that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4. And a believer's knowledge of these things comes by faith. A believer consents in his heart and in his mind, to trust in the being of God, the existence of God, and to trust in the promises of God revealed to the church in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what it is to know Christ as our Saviour. But also, there's something else here. A believer lives on Christ, lives in Christ, and lives for Christ. This is what James is telling us here in this passage.

When a man is made a new creation, the new man possesses new desires. He has new motivation and new ambitions. and they cannot help but show. That man, that new creation, knows the spiritual gift of true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows his sins forgiven. He knows peace with God. And that knowledge changes who he is and how he lives his life in this world of sin and death. A believer is one who has been converted from what he was to what he now is and enabled to follow Jesus Christ.

James has been warning his brothers and sisters in the Lord against exercising partiality. That's what we read in the earlier part of this chapter. He has been warning them, he has been teaching them against exercising partiality in their gatherings. Jeopardising the poor for the sake of the rich. The reign of Christ in a believer's life, the rule of Christ in a believer's heart converts the soul. It transforms the conduct and it shapes the motives by which that believer lives. That's what James is telling us.

That doesn't mean that we inherently know how we should act and what we should do in every situation. We begin our life as babes in Christ with a need to learn, but it's the Holy Spirit that teaches us. And it is through the revelation of God, feeding and nourishing that life of faith in the new creation that we grow in grace and a knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit teaches us. He writes the law of God on our hearts, and we long to live for Christ. We long to glorify God. Every believer feels what David professes in Psalm 40. where he writes, I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. And yes, I know it is a fight. It is a battle because the flesh fights against the spirit. But it is the heart desire of the new man to honour and serve the Lord.

And James is speaking to men and women who have by grace, been set free from the condemning law of sin and death and who desire to follow Christ and to emulate their Saviour according to the perfect law of liberty in Christ. When the Lord Jesus told his disciples, follow thou me, he was speaking to all his church and he was speaking to you and me to whom the gift of faith has been given. He says to us, follow thou me. And all who bear Christ's yoke seek to follow their saviour.

It is not merely that we should seek to follow him, we do. John 10 verse 27 says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. The new creation with its new desires seeks to follow Christ. And it seeks occasion to follow his example, to serve the Lord. out of love for him and out of gratitude for the salvation that he has given to us.

All who have faith in Christ honour the Lord in practical ways. And here James is teaching the church concerning the proper relationship between faith and works. True faith is living faith. and living faith is exercised following the pattern of life left to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. A transformation of life follows conversion of the soul.

And nor is this teaching peculiar to James. John says much the same thing when he is writing his little epistles. In 1 John 3, verse 3, we read, And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Little children, John continues, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. Then in the next chapter, he goes on to say, herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

There is in every redeemed soul a diligent desire to do good. This is not to say that a believer can make himself pure and live righteously in the world or that we are as holy as Christ who knew no sin. We feel the effects of sin in our flesh constantly. It's like a great chain and ball that we drag around with us. But it does mean that we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, reckon ourselves pure and holy in Christ by imputation, and live like the people we are. the sons and daughters of the King.

Paul says in Romans 6, 11, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And in so doing, we endeavour to live outwardly to God's glory, by God's grace, and with the help of God to live in a manner that reflects the inward transformation that has been effected in our souls.

Speaking thus, and speaking in this way, James is not in any way contradicting or even challenging Paul's teaching on the unique role of faith in the method of a believer's salvation. I don't use the phrase readily saved by faith because we're saved by grace. Faith is the vehicle, faith is the channel gifted to us by which the benefits of our salvation, our gracious salvation, are learned and understood and received. When Paul says in Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9, James agrees. James says, I'm into that. Paul is emphasising the free, gracious justification of a sinner before God in the Lord Jesus Christ. When James says, even so faith, if it hath not works is dead, being alone, Paul agrees with that and he cries, Amen.

Because James is speaking of the evidence of transforming grace in a believer's life. If a man is to be justified before God, if a man is to be made right with God, then justifying righteousness must be imputed to him by God. It is impossible for a man to make himself righteous in God's sight by his own works. Every saved sinner is saved by God's free grace. We are not saved by works of righteousness which we have done, says Paul to Titus in chapter 3 verse 5, but by mercy and by the grace of God and by the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross in our place.

Thereafter, knowledge of our free justification with God and by God, knowledge of our full acceptance in Jesus Christ is enjoyed and experienced by faith alone. Faith is the key to our relationship with God and faith is God's gift to us. Faith is the enabling gift by which individual sinners are first called, then empowered to see, understand, and believe what has been effectually accomplished for us by Christ and in us by the Holy Spirit. Faith convinces us of our interest in Christ's death. It conveys, it communicates God's spiritual blessings of love and mercy to the believer's soul and to our personal experience. We know Christ, we know God, we know what he has done because of the gift of faith that he has given us. Faith is the channel of blessing.

But there's more. The same faith, the same gift of faith, it provokes a reaction in the one to whom it is given. It provokes a reaction and it provokes a response. Faith reacts to God with gratitude and worship. It is because we have faith that we are able to worship God aright. It is because we have faith that we have this feeling of gratitude towards God for what he has done for us. We understand the significance of the salvation, the cleansing, the forgiveness, the reconciliation, the blessedness of our standing before God in Christ. And we are grateful for it. We are thankful and we worship God in spirit and in truth.

Faith reacts to God with gratitude and worship, but it also responds to men by revealing Christ to them through that transformation of conduct and is manifested in acts of love and kindness, the fruit of the Spirit, if you like. that is seen in the life of a believer, the transformed life of a believer. James isn't denying the uniqueness of faith in knowing and receiving Christ. He's addressing, he's explaining the attendant outworking of faith when each saint is called to worship God and serve the body of Christ, the church.

In the Old Testament, Joseph was called a fruitful bough because of the good that he did to his brothers. Primarily, although he did great good to the whole of Egypt because of the wisdom that God gave him. But he was called a fruitful bough

And Christ, the Vine, into whom every believer is engrafted, makes his church fruitful, his people fruitful, in good works and Christian service to one another and to the world. Faith without works, especially without works of mercy, is of no profit to use James's word. It's of no profit. It's of no good. It's of no usefulness. It is of no profit and no advantage.

Remember in Luke chapter 19, the master, the lord of the house who gave his three servants each a pound and told them to go and use that. Well, This is like the foolish servant who hid his master's pound in a napkin instead of investing it for his lord's benefit. It's a foolish thing to do. How can faith that has been implanted, that powerful, that knowledgeable, that faith which is lively and trusts in Christ. How can it be covered in a napkin? How can it be bound up and hidden? How can its light be hidden?

Faith must be exercised to profit the believer and to benefit those around us. And the Apostle James here gives a striking example. The example of a naked and destitute brother or sister being sent away empty with a mere shallow blessing. This poor soul come into the fellowship and those who are there say, depart in peace. The person's hungry, the person's impoverished, the person's hardly clothed. Depart in peace, says this sanctimonious fellow. Be ye warmed and filled. James says, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? How do pious sounding words do any practical good if they are not accompanied with practical support and assistance? James asks us.

Every believer has shared in the common wealth of spiritual good secured by Christ and freely given by God. The Lord Jesus Christ has obtained every blessing that God desires lovingly to give to his people. Christ has acquired, Christ has secured every blessing by his death. And that is to be our example. Freely ye have received, freely give, says the Lord to his disciples in Matthew chapter 10. It would be shameful indeed for one who has received liberally from God's spiritual store thereafter to deny practical assistance to a needy brother where help was possible. There's no point in such conduct and there's no profit in it.

It is wrong for one who has received God's spiritual riches, when he himself was spiritually naked, to then withhold material help from a needy brother or sister. It just doesn't compute. And once again, we see the beauty of James's practical emphasis coming to the fore. The apostle is teaching believers how we should live. I mentioned yesterday, it is certainly true that men and women of the world can do many good works, so-called, and demonstrate charitable motives towards their fellow creature on humanistic grounds. Such works of charity and kindness are to be encouraged and supported. We are not saying them, we are not speaking ill of them.

But James is not discussing the motive of unbelievers. He is, however, exposing the hypocrisy of an empty profession and a careless faith. True good works before God are works of faith done for the glory of God in love for the brethren and generally to care for those in need. How can we tell a true believer?

A true believer hears and receives the gospel of sovereign grace by faith. That saving word of power is confirmed in the soul with signs following. Paul says in Romans 10 verse 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

I like that. He didn't just say, if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. He says that we confess it with our mouth. noticeable, it's evident, it's revealed. There is living faith that breaks forth, making confession, making itself known.

And that is a stark contrast to that dead faith, that vain faith. which dwells alone. Such is the faith of devils. It's not saving faith, it's not true faith. Thou believeth that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble and they are not going to be in heaven.

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead. May God grant us each personal experience of living faith, the gift of spiritual, lively faith, of which Christ is the author and finisher, faith that saves to the uttermost. and may he grant us occasion and opportunity in our daily lives to live and serve him in this dark and evil world. Amen.