Romans chapter 4 and verse 3. And the Scripture says, For what
saith the Scripture, Abraham believed God... Let's read verse
2 first. For if Abraham were justified
by works, he have whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture,
Abraham believed God, and he was counted to him, to righteousness. Now, if you would, flip over
in your Bibles to James. James, chapter 2, and look at
verse 21. Here in the book of James, the
apostle says, Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works? when he had offered Isaac, his
son, upon the altar." You see here what there is a
seeming, and I'm telling you it's only seeming, difficulty. I've entitled this message, Justified
Without Works and Justified By Works. Justified Without Works
and Justified by works. Now, as by way of introduction,
I want again to seek, I want to seek to plainly set forth
the truth as the apostle has laid it out in Romans 4 for us. We clearly see the depravity
of man. Without exception, we see the
depravity of man. That there is none righteous,
no, not one, none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God.
They are altogether become unprofitable. None that doeth good, no, not
One, therefore, conclusion, therefore by the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. What he says is the purpose of
the law is what? That every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God. So we know now who
we are, we know then the purpose of the law is that our mouth
should be stopped, that we should know what sin is, And next, we clearly saw that
this justification of sinners is by two things, by the obedience
of Christ and the blood of Christ. This is what justifies the sinner. The sinner is justified by the
obedience and blood of Jesus Christ. Look at that in verse
22 of chapter Chapter 3, even the righteousness of God which
is by the faith of Jesus Christ. So how's the righteousness of
God come? By the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Unto all and
upon all them that believe there's no difference for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God being justified freely by
his grace. How? Through the redemption.
There's a second thing. Obedience and Redemption. Obedience
of Christ and the Redemption of Christ. How are we justified?
The obedience of Christ and the Redemption of Christ. It is very
clearly stated, isn't it? This is how a man is justified. But this justification and So
then we are saved by His Word, we're justified. But I want you
to know what this means. When I say He's justified, I'm
talking about sanctification, I'm talking about righteousness,
I'm talking about redemption. Can a man be justified and not
be sanctified? Is that possible? Can you be
justified without being holy? You can't be. It's impossible.
You can't be justified unless you are just. And see, Christ has accomplished
all those things. The Apostle says in Hebrews chapter
10, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 9, he said, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, he
may establish the second. Listen, by the witch will, by
the will of the Father, we are sanctified. Means how? Through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ. How many times? once. You were
sanctified once by Christ. And then there was a time which
you received this sanctification, but you were already sanctified
in Christ. And so how then does this justification
come to us? It comes to us by faith. Look back at your text. See it
in verse 22 again of chapter 3. Notice where this righteousness
comes. It says, unto all and upon all
them that," what? Believe. Who does this redemption
belong to? Verse 26, to declare, I say at
this time, His righteousness and He might be just and the
justifier of," who? Him which believeth in Jesus.
So how does justification made and how does justification come
to us? It's answered all right there. Justification made by
Jesus Christ, justification comes to us through faith in Christ. And then the next thing we saw
is there are three things, three things that are true of everyone
justified by faith. Verse 27, where is boasting?
It's excluded. That's true of everyone justified
by faith. There is no boasting. Why? Because faith, even faith
is not of ourselves. It is a gift of God's grace.
upon us. So what? There's no boasting
at all. Excluded. Completely excluded. What makes it excluded? The law
of faith. Not the law of works. Not the
law of Moses. There's boasting in that. If you're able to keep
that, wouldn't you be able to boast? Yes. But there's no boasting
in faith. And secondly, we see this, that
all men are saved the same way. Everybody that's justified by
faith is justified the same way. Why? There's only one God who
justifies. And He justifies Jew and Gentile. Notice what Paul says, verse
30, seeing there's one God which justifies the circumcision by
faith and the uncircumcision through faith. So how does the
circumcision and uncircumcision justify? Faith! Faith. And the third thing is true is
this, everyone who is justified by faith has already established
the law. When God created the holy nature
inside of every one of us, He established the law in our flesh,
in us. And so all who believe, listen,
you've satisfied the law. The law has no requirements for
you, none whatsoever. You're not under the law. We've established the law, how?
By the merits of our representative and by the giving of a holy nature.
Therefore, Paul says, therefore, there is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. because the law has been fulfilled
in us. So see the verses. Now, in Ephesians 2 we can see the
capsulation of that truth, right? Everything I've just told you,
Ephesians 2 verse 8, for by grace you are saved. That encapsulates
everything needed for salvation. How are you saved? By grace.
By the grace of God. I was dead and he gave me life.
Why? By grace. By grace you are saved. Notice the means. Through faith.
Never apart from faith. Through faith and that. Faith. Not of yourself. No boasting. See that? No boasting there.
That faith is not of yourself. It is a gift of God and not of
works. Why? Lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. And listen, which God before
ordained. So even your good works, do you
get any credit for it? No, God already ordained the
good works that you would accomplish. And so then salvation, as we
mean justification by faith, is 100% of God. It is by the power and grace
of God in us. Now, so in chapter 4 again we
see that the apostle uses the figure Abraham in order to positively,
absolutely nail down proof. This is not just an ethereal
doctrine that's out there. I'm going to show you a real
live evidence. And he uses Abraham as his proof. And what does he say? Look at
our text. For if, hypothetical statement
here, if Abraham were justified by works, what does he have? He has room to glory. But not before God. Now before us, sure, none of
us would have taken our children and sacrificed them. None of
us have ever done any of half the works Abraham had done by
faith. And yet we know this, that none of those works Abraham
did justified him before God. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God, faith, in Christ, and it was counted
to him for righteousness. Now, I'm doing this tonight because
some have expressed that this passage in James seems to bring
some difficulty. James chapter 2 says, was not
our father Abraham justified by works? Wait a second. Didn't
Paul spend three chapters and then use Abraham as proof that
justification is without works? How then is this text not contradicting
what Paul had stated? He said, seest thou how faith
was wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect?
And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed
God, and it was imputed him for righteousness, and he was called
a friend of God. Now, I want to set this out there
because it's vitally important you understand that both James
and Paul wrote these things inspired by
the Holy Spirit. I know that some people get on
James' side and say, well, Paul's mistaken. And some people get
on Paul's side and say, no, James is mistaken. No, you're mistaken. They're both right. If you understand
who they were writing to, you would understand why they're
both right. They were both inspired by the Holy Spirit, and there
is no contradiction here. Now listen, if a man would just
honestly take the context in which these things were written,
they would see that they are talking about two different things. They're talking about two distinctly
different things. They were declaring separate
truths concerning the matter of faith. The Apostle Paul was
speaking of justification before God, while James was speaking of God's
justification or rather the manifestation of true faith. Paul was speaking of justification
of Abraham's person, while James was showing the proof of Abraham's
faith. the proof of Abraham's faith.
Paul was dealing with self-righteous men who trusted in their own
works and seek to merit salvation by obedience to the law. James
was dealing with a whole other situation. The Apostle James
was speaking to those who only make assent to the gospel truth. Those who give lip service to
the doctrines of grace, but really have never experienced the grace
of God in their hearts. And James says, look, it's manifest
by your lack of obedience. Therefore, tonight again, I'm
going to set forth these two things, that all believers are
justified by faith without works, I want you to see that we are
blessed by the grace of God to have the righteousness of Christ
imputed to us. We are blessed to have all our
sins forgiven, listen, through faith apart from works. You are justified, listen, before
God without your works. And secondly, I will show you
in the text of James, is not contradictory, but rather complementary. That all God has justified by
faith without works, their faith will be manifested by their works. Their faith will be evidenced by God as they walk in this world. Okay, so first of all, let's
deal with justification by faith without works. Abraham was not
justified by his works, but rather by God. That's my first point.
Now, the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ was
imputed to Abraham. It was imputed to Abraham through
one means and that is faith. Abraham believed God's result
and it was imputed to him for righteousness, to righteousness. And even so it is with everyone
who believes. You that believe tonight, what is true of Abraham
is true of you. What is true of Abraham is true
of you. Abraham could never be justified
by his works. Why? He was a sinner. He was a sinner. Do you realize
that 70 years of Abraham's life, he was a pagan. You got that?
He was a pagan. Geron watching his show about
these Vikings and their gods, they carve out these big wood
figures and they bow down to them and they think they have
some kind of power. I've seen one guy pick one up
and throw it over there across the room. But that was Abraham. Abraham
was a pagan. For 70 years of his life, he
worshipped false gods. He, like all of us, was dead
in sins. And so what did Paul say? If
Abraham were justified works, he'd have wear of the glory.
But look, before God he doesn't. Why? He was a sinner. He said if it were possible,
he might have some glory. But seeing God as just and holy,
Paul says he has no room to glory in his works. The hope of Abraham
was not his works. Abraham did not trust his works. What did the scripture say? Abraham
believed God. Now what did he believe God about?
He believed God concerning Christ. He believed God concerning Christ.
And so there you have Abraham, he was a pagan for 70 years,
and out of nowhere, for no reason in Abraham at all, God came to
Abraham. What reason? Grace. He came to him with grace. And
what's the first thing God did when he came to Abraham? This
is what he did, he preached the gospel to him. He preached the
gospel to him. If you look over in Galatians
3, you can see that. In Galatians 3, in verse 8, it says, The scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, what
do you do? Preach before the gospel to Abraham. And listen
to his gospel. Listen to how simple this was.
In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That was his message, in thee,
in thee. What did he mean by that? He
testified, Paul later says this, he's talking about Abraham's
seed, Abraham's son, in thee, in thy seed, speaking of Christ,
Christ is going to come from your seed. And in Him, in the seed, shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed." God testified to
Abraham of His work, of His salvation that He would do for Abraham.
God didn't come to Abraham and say, listen Abraham, this is
what you're going to do for me. No, He came to Abraham saying, look,
this is what I'm going to do for you. Isn't that how God came
to you? God came to us as sinners. came
to us out of nowhere and preached the gospel to us. Now, we'd heard
the gospel for decades. I'd heard it for decades before
the Lord actually came to me and preached the gospel to me. And this gospel message was originated
from Genesis 12-1. He says, In thee and thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Then what happened? Abraham believed. Abraham believed. Well, how do you know Abraham
believed? And this is going to tie in later on. Abraham left
because God told him to. Abraham believed God. How do
you know he believed God? Because when God said, get up
and go, he got up and went. That's how you know he believed. Scripture says, by faith, Abraham,
when he was called, what did he do? He went out. Went out
from the place that he was, his family. Why? He was promised. He had a promise
of inheritance. And he went out, listen, not
knowing where he was going. Behold, the faith of Abraham was by the
power of the Spirit of God through the gospel as it was preached
to him. What moved Him to leave? The seed. Faith in Christ moved
Him to leave. Even so, when Christ was preached
to us, when the power of the Spirit came to us, we were moved. When Jesus said, Come unto Me,
what did you do? You came to him. You came to
him. This is always the way of the
gospel. When he calls, when it's an effectual call, we come. We come. In coming, we come by
the power of God. That's the evidence of it, isn't
it? I like that scripture, thy people
shall be willing, when? In the day of thy power. When
you put forth the power, your people are going to be willing.
That's how it happened to Abraham. Abraham was not willing to go
until God, what? Made him willing to go. And so it is with us, and by
faith We went to Christ. We believed on Christ. And I'll
tell you this, we still come to Christ. We still believe on
Christ. We still desire to be found in
Christ, don't you? I have more need to be found
in Christ now than I did yesterday. We come to Christ. We find all
we need in Him. I believe. Lord, help thou my
unbelief. So Abraham was a sinner, Abraham
heard the gospel, and the result was faith. His faith. He believed
God. And what was the object of his
faith? That's the third thing. What was the object of his faith?
When it says Abraham believed God, it was not a general belief
in God, was it? It was very specific. His belief
was in the seed. He was trusting his whole inheritance
on the coming seed on Christ. That's what he was trusting.
So when he said, go out to receive the inheritance, you bet. How
do you not? Why are you going out? Because
God promised. I believe God and I believe his
promise concerning the seed. His faith was specifically focused
on Jesus Christ. Abraham believed that all his
salvation was to come from Christ. And then in our text we read
this, in verse 3, Abraham believed God in what? It was imputed to
him to righteousness. He was made righteous. How? Through faith. Through faith. Now did Abraham go and then believe,
or did he believe and then go? Which came first? And when he believed, he was
made righteous. So he was righteous before he
left. And it was because he was made
righteous that he left. And so it is that God gave the
gospel to him concerning his son, concerning the redemption
that should come. Go to Genesis 15. Read what God
says to Abraham here in this passage of Scripture. He's gone a little apart from
chapter 12 when he first sets out. Now here he is in chapter
15. This is after the battle of the
kings there, and God delivered them to his hand. And notice,
it says, after these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham
in a vision. Now listen, it's not talking
about a voice from heaven. Who is the Word? What did John
say? John says that Jesus is the Word.
So this text clearly makes sense. The Word of the Lord came to
him. Christ came to him. And what did Christ say to him?
He said two things. I am thy shield. Now you that believe, you have
been justified by faith in Christ. You listen to what Christ said
to Abraham? He's saying to you, listen to
this, I am thy shield. Another word to this, I am thy
refuge. Often when I think of a refuge,
I do think about the cities of refuge, but I think about the
ark. What a beautiful picture of a refuge, isn't it? There
they were, under the judgment of God. Noah did not escape the
judgment of God. He was under it. But the only
reason he lived is he was in a refuge. Tonight, you who believe,
you are in a refuge. Jesus said that to you. I'm your
shield. I endured the wrath of God in your stead. Notice the second thing, I am
thy exceeding great reward. What is the reward? And our text, it said, David
tells us the blessed reward, the blessedness of the man. What
is it? That God won't impute sin to
you. God won't charge sin to you. Isn't that astounding? I really feel the guilt. You
can look at my sin and you could pin it down at this time, at
this date, he sinned. And I'd have to say, man, you're
probably right. You caught me. Guilty. Well, how can God not
impute sin? God says, I will not impute sin
to you. Why? Because it's already been
imputed to your Savior. It's already been charged to
Him. As I made Him to be sin, He endured the wrath of God for
you, and now I'm going to charge you with His righteousness. Not
only charge you with it, God can't charge you with something
that you aren't. Please understand that. God doesn't pretend like
we do. You're guilty, and I write it
in a book that you're not. What am I doing? I'm pretending.
God doesn't pretend. God imputes to you that you're
righteous because He's made you righteous. Got it? He made you
righteous. He is our exceeding great reward. Look at verse 2. In Abraham,
verse 2, Verse 2 through 5, Abraham begins to complain here.
He said, yeah, you promised me a seed, but you know what? I
don't have one. I've been following you, I believe you, but you know
what? I don't have one. And the only
one I got is Eliezer of Damascus in my house. And Abraham said in verse 3,
behold to me thou hast even no seed, and lo, one born in my
house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord
came. Christ came again and saying, this is not your heir. He that
be he that shall come forth from thine own bowels shall be thine
heir. And he brought him forth abroad.
And he said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if
you be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. And what? He believed God. And
it was counted to him for righteousness. He believed God. Over in Galatians chapter 3,
where I just read earlier, the apostle said this was the gospel
preached to him. When he's talking about that
seed, when he's talking about in thee, in thy seed, shall all
the nations of the earth, he's talking about Christ. The gospel was preached to him,
and by faith in Christ, He blessed Abraham. Now did this blessing come by
his works? Did his blessing come by obedience
to the law? No. No. Go to Galatians. Go to Galatians. I know I'm making
you flip quite a bit, but just look at Galatians with me because
it's in the same vein here. Because he's talking about that
gospel that you just read, that we just read concerning the seed,
Paul speaking about this gospel given to Abraham. Look at chapter
3 again, the gospel was preached to Abraham. And so then they that are of
faith are blessed with faith of Abraham. Remember, I'm not
shield, I'm not exceeding great reward, you're blessed with those
things. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse of the law. So then what do we
say about the law? Was Abraham justified by the
law? No, and neither are we. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. We are not justified by the law.
The law only brings a curse. But our justification comes not
by law, but rather, what? By faith. He said, but no man
is justified by the law in the sight of God. It's evident. For
the just shall live by faith. And notice this sentence here,
the law is not of faith. The law is not of faith, no matter
how much men want it to be. How much men desire to mix faith
and obedience to the law. Now they can say, well, I'm honoring
God's law. OK, name when you've honored
God's law. Now, you're just saying you honored God's law, but tell
me in an actual specific deed when you honored God's law. Now,
you're just mouthing. You're just mouthing. Platitudes,
that's all it is. Oh, God's law is so wonderful.
God's law is so great. It's so good. It is. But when
have you obeyed it? Never. No matter how men want
to try to mix these two, there's no mixing. It's either law or
faith. It is either grace or works. There is no mixture. The law
is not of faith. But behold the object of our
faith. Verse 13. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. How? Being made a curse for us.
For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.
You see why we were justified? We were justified by Him being
made a curse for us. To what end? Look what He says.
That the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through
Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, how?
Through faith. How do we receive that promise
of Abraham? Through faith, the same way He did. Through faith. And how was this covenant given?
Now Paul begins to talk here about covenants. He said about
a man's covenant. If we make a covenant, would
it be right for me to just change it? Can we just change it along
the way? We've already signed the pact,
we've already signed the contract, and I want to come along later
and alter it. Is that just? No. No. And so it is when God gave this
covenant of promise to Abraham, it was not altered by the law.
It was not changed. When the law came 430 years after
the promise was given, the law did nothing to change the promise
or the covenant. In fact, if the promise is by
the law, it is no more a faith. That's what Paul said. He says
it's not faith. But God gave it, he said, to
Abraham by faith. This is exactly what he's saying
in our text. So we who believe, we who believe
God, we believe this, that God who made him a curse for us,
that killed our Savior on Calvary Street, we believe this, that
God raised him from the dead. Now what does that mean? We believe
God raised him from the dead. We believe that God was satisfied. That's what we're saying. When
I say He raised Him from the dead, He did literally raise
Him from the dead. But what that spiritually means
for me is this. There's no more sin. He paid
it all. It's done. God cannot demand
more. We believe He raised Him from
the dead. And the justice of God is forever satisfied. God raised up Christ and there
is no more sin because of the holy righteousness of God. And
this righteousness then is imputed to us the same way it is to Abraham. That's the whole point of this.
That Abraham was justified by God through faith. Through faith. Without what? Without works.
None of his works had anything to do with this covenant or the
justification before God. Now, let's get to the second
part. What does James mean then? Flip
over to James. Paul said, Abraham's not justified
by his works, but justified by faith without works. Now, James
says this in verse 21. He said, was not Abraham our
father justified by works? When he had offered his son Isaac
upon the altar, Now James, I'm going to give you an outline
kind of quickly through the book of James and please take the
time to read this. This is vitally important that
you understand the context in which this was written. The book
of James was written for the purpose of exposing pretenders. How many people have we ever
met walking through this come into the church and they hear
of the doctrine of election and they're so excited. They're so
excited. The grace of God is so wonderful.
I love this. They go out there and they start
preaching it to people even. I mean immediately. You know,
I always want to have the best hope for them. I really do. I
want them to be true believers. I know that. But by and by, tribulations
come, trials come, difficulties come, and then what happens?
They're gone. What were they? Pretenders. Pretenders. So what is James going to do
is he wants to expose the pretenders. And I want you to get this. The
book of James is not for you or me to look out there and try
to find pretenders. It's not what it's for. James is asking this question,
are you a pretender? Is your faith real or are you
just playing? That's what the book of James
is about. Are you just pretending? those who make professions of
faith, who consent to the doctrine that salvation is by the grace
of God through faith. Now I want you to know, those
who consent to the gospel, this phrase is used twice in the book,
the perfect law of liberty. In this book, James is not talking
about the law of Moses. He mentions the law of Moses
in this, if you've disobeyed one, You're guilty of them all. That's the time he mentions the
law of Moses in this book. So he's not talking about walking
after the law of Moses. What James is talking about is
walking after the law of liberty, which is what? The gospel. The
law of faith. That's the law of liberty that
James is talking about. But some who consent to this
law of liberty with their mouths, yet they refuse all practical
obedience to the rule of Jesus Christ. He's speaking to those whose
faith does not endure tribulation. Look at James chapter 1. Get
a sense of what's happening here, please. Get a sense. Look at
verse 2. He said, My brethren, count it
all joy when you fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that
the trying of your faith worketh patience. So what's he set out
here to do? He's talking to believers letting
them know that they're going to experience trials. The trial
of what? Your obedience to the law? The
trial of your faith. The trial of your faith. When
you fall into these diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. And that word patience means
endurance. Endurance. In verses five through eight,
the apostle says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God
to give it to all men liberally, abrading not. It shall be given
to him, but let him ask in faith, not wavering. For he that wavereth
is like the wave of the sea, driven by the wind, tossed. Let
him not think he should receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways. What is he talking about, the
wisdom? Who is the wisdom of God? Is that not Christ? A double-minded man is one who
professes to believe salvation is by grace, but then turns back
to the law. That's a double-minded man. Don't
let that man think he's going to receive anything of God. Isn't
that exactly what Paul said in Galatians chapter 5? He said,
if you are circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Same
thing James is saying. If you're double-minded in this,
if salvation is by grace, and then you turn it back to works,
what? God's not going to listen to you. Don't let him think he's going
to receive anything. Look at verse 17. He talks about the
gift of God. He said, For every good and perfect
gift cometh down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no
variableness or shadow of turning. What perfect gift is he talking
about? What's the good and perfect gift? It's the salvation of God. And it comes down from a God
who doesn't change. Isn't that great? That's a wonderful
message right there. James is preaching. Wherefore, my beloved brother,
let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
Listen, if we, oh I'm sorry, verse 18, of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth. How are you born again? Of his
own will? Of God's will? He begat us with
what, the gospel, the word of truth? That we should be a kind
of firstfruits of his creatures? And what does he say to such
people? To such people are born of the Spirit of God, born by
the will of God, given this great and perfect gift of salvation.
How should you conduct yourself? Now, is this not just reasonable
what he says? Let a man be swift to hear. Isn't that reasonable? Swift
to hear what? The Gospel. Be swift to hear
the Gospel. Be ready. Listen. Anybody say, slow to speak. Is
this not one of our troubles? Slow to speak. It is mine. Man,
I have a difficult time with that one. By God's grace, give
me grace to be slow to speak. Slow to anger. The wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God. And he's talking about laying
off evil. Nothing's wrong with this. Verse
25, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberally continueth
therein. Isn't this what Paul says, the
just shall live by faith? You look in the gospel, don't
you continue by living and looking to the gospel? You do. He being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. True believers are not only hearers
But our faith does work. Our faith does work. And it has
one motive. Love. And what Paul said, faith
worketh by what? Love. Works by love. So as we look into the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the law of justification by faith, not being forgetful
of it, What's going to happen? That faith will spill over into
love and kindness. You see, faith sees all men,
regardless of status, regardless of wealth, regardless of position,
faith sees the truth that all men are sinners and need Christ. Don't be forgetful of that. That's
what James is telling us. And so in chapter 2 verse 17,
he begins this line of thought. Then faith without works is dead.
If faith works, and it does, if faith works by love, if faith,
we look into that law of liberty and we are moved by it. If you look into the law of liberty
and you are not moved by it, something's wrong. Something's
wrong. So he says, if your faith does
not work, if it's not motivated by the
love of Christ, by the offering of Christ, by the suffering of
Christ, if it's not motivated by the love of Christ to do those
things that becometh the gospel. And what does James say? Your
faith is an illusion. Your faith is just an illusion. And then he uses Abraham as an
illustration of what true faith looks like. You see, he has a different motive
here. He's not talking about justification before God. He's
talking about, look and see this. Is this your faith? And so in verse 27, he uses Abraham
as the illustration. What if Abraham, consider this,
what if Abraham said this, okay God, I believe you. But then
he sat at home and didn't go anywhere. The illustration of the work
that he's talking about is really Isaac. Now, what if he received
a promise, he makes a confession, I believe that Christ is coming
and He's my Savior. And then God says, OK, now take
Isaac, your son, and kill him. And Abraham begins to consider,
says, well, you know, I don't think God really said that. I
think that that's, you know, logic and reason say that, you
know, that wouldn't be right. And so he doesn't. Could you
say Abraham had faith? Could you say he believed God?
No. His faith would have been nothing
but a mere act of his foolish will, an illusion of his mind. It would have been manifest that
his faith was false. But behold how Abraham, who believed
God, his faith was made known and manifest to be true, how? By his obedience to God. Isn't
that just reasonable? If Christ is your King, is it
not reasonable to obey? Is it? Does that really make
you angry that you should have to obey Him? Or is it joyful? Is it something that stirs your
heart? Do you desire to obey Him, to
believe Him? Abraham, who believed God, his
faith was made known by what he did. Go to Genesis 22. I know
I'm moving. and move along real quickly,
Genesis 22. All right, it says that it came to
pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said,
Abraham, He said, Behold, here am I. And he said, Take thou
thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee to the land
of Moriah, and offer him there a burnt offering on one of the
mountains, which I will tell thee of. God here did try Abraham's
faith. Do you not suppose this was a great
trial? Do you suppose Abraham, I know this, Abraham could not
reconcile what God promised and what God commanded him to do.
Couldn't do it. Wait, didn't you say that this
was the one? And now you want me to take him
and kill him. These two things didn't seem as though they were
right. How often does God try our faith
like that? Can you not say He tries your
faith like that? You see the things before you and you say,
this doesn't seem right. This don't seem right. Everything's
backwards. God promised peace. He promised
joy. He promised love. He promised
unity. And everything is the opposite.
I don't have any peace. My joy is gone. Everything is
destroyed that God promised to give. Everything seems and appears
opposite of what God promised. What is He doing? Trying your faith. Listen to this. He's proving
it. It's not like God's trying you
and say, well, does he have faith or not? I don't know. Let me
try it. That's not what God's doing. Why? God gave you the
faith. He's showing you. Isn't that what you want to know? Tis a point I long to know. Oft
it causes anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I his or am I not? Do you not long to know if your
faith is real? Would any of you like to wake
up in eternity and find out that your faith was a lie? Anybody? If you are to know your faith
is real, you listen to me, God will try it. He'll test it, just
as He did Abraham. But notice what true faith does.
Look at verse 3. And Abraham rose up early in
the morning. True faith does not question
God's command. It don't Abraham believed God and to him,
you listen as Paul tells us in Hebrews, to him Isaac was dead
already. True faith clings to the promise
of God. True faith clings to Christ regardless
of reasoning or the views of circumstance and providence.
True faith believes God completely. Abraham believed God so much,
when he got to that mountain, you know what he told those men
he was with him? He said this, he said, me and the lad are going
to go yonder and worship, and listen to what he says, and come
again to you. He said, I know when I go up
there and kill him, he had so much, he believed God so promised,
so much, that he knew God was going to raise him from the dead.
He just knew it. If I kill this boy like God commanded, I know
this, He's going to raise that kid from the dead and we're going
to go back down that mountain together. That's how sure Abraham
was because he knew the promise. He knew that that was the one.
He knew that Christ was going to come from that boy. And he
trusted God regardless of what he felt or thought or what the
world thought. And so in this trial, in whom did Abraham trust? Was
Abraham looking at his work? Was Abraham saying, man, you
know, I'm really good. I'm going to go offer my son
to God. I must be really holy. No, he wasn't trusting his work.
He was doing his work based on the promise he believed. believe the promise, the Lord,
and what was the end of it? What was the end of his experience
here? The Lord will provide. That's
what he told his son as they went up there. He said, son,
God will provide himself a lamp. Believer in your trials, in your
afflictions, do you look to yourself? If you do, now you know why you
doubt. Now you know why you fear. You're
looking to yourself. If you look to yourself, you
should doubt. You should fear. Will you turn your eye from Christ
and trust in your work? All the while Abraham was obeying
the command of God, his hope was in Christ. He did not trust
God would save Isaac based on his obedience. He trusted God
would save Isaac based on his promise. What is your hope God will save
you? Is it based on anything you've
done? Can you find something that you're going to trust in
and say, OK, God's going to save me because of this. No. We believe God, the promise of
God. So what does real faith do in
trials? It does not praise itself. It
does not promote its own work. True faith does whatsoever God
ordains it to do. You got that? People, I don't understand what
people want. They come to me and they say,
well you don't preach enough application. You don't preach
enough application. No, what people want me to do
is facilitate your good works. That's what people want. They
want me to get a program together and have a program tell you when
to go out, when to do this. No, listen to this very carefully.
You know what God commands you to do? Listen to this. Whatsoever
you find in your hands to do, Do it with all your might, as unto the Lord. Okay, go do
that. Whatever that is. God commands
you to preach, go preach. God commands you to witness,
go witness. God commands you to feed the hungry, go feed them.
If God commands you to clothe the naked, go clothe them. Do
it with all your might as unto the Lord, but don't trust in
it. Do it because of the promise,
not to obtain the promise. Do it because of the promise.
That's what Abraham did. He offered his son because of
the promise. If he didn't believe that promise,
I guarantee you he wouldn't have offered his son. But because
he believed the promise, what did he do? He offered his son. So what's the result of all our
trials is this. It's the same thing. What did
Abraham, when he got to the end, look at this. I think it's verse 14. Look at this. And Abraham
called the place Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide. The Lord
will provide. He didn't call the place Abraham
will provide, did he? No, the Lord will provide. And so then, let us by faith,
let us show forth then the same faith as our brother Abraham. Faith given by God, by which
we receive justification of Christ without works. That we are not slothful, but
rather followers of Him who through faith and patience inherit the
promises For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could
swear by none greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely, blessing
I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. So after
he patiently endured," How? By faith. He endured by faith.
What is your God commanding you? He's commanding you to believe
Him. After he endured by faith, what
did he obtain? He obtained the promise. And what was the promise? This, that he was justified by
faith. So what is Paul saying? Paul
is saying that our justification is by Jesus Christ and given
to us through faith. James is saying when that justification
is given to you by faith, when you are tried, you continue to
live by faith. And all that comes out of true
faith is obedience to God. That's what James is saying.
Don't be a pretender. A pretender is one who just uses
lip service. A true believer does those things
that the Father commands, which is what? Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. and love one another. Is that
not a command enough? Have you fulfilled those two things enough?
No. May God give us grace to grow
in those things. And I know this, when God causes
us to grow, those things that are presented before us, that
God moves us to do, we'll do them. But after we've done them, we're
not going to put trophies on the wall for them. Why? Because they don't have
anything to do with that promise. That promise is justification
by God without works. Therefore we live by faith unto
what? Good works. And listen, every
good work you're going to do is ordained already of God. So
even your good works are ordained of God. I do pray that this clears it
up. I do pray that God would use this to show you that this
is not a contradiction, but rather complementary scriptures. One, speaking of justification
before God, the other is justification of true faith. See if your faith
is genuine. I pray God will bless this. Let's
stand and be dismissed in prayer. Our gracious Father dismisses
with your mercies and please be gracious to teach us these
things. Instruct us in the things of Christ and help us to do those
things that become the gospel of Christ. Give us such grace,
Father, that we should endure the afflictions of this life
looking to Christ, only to Christ, always to Christ. Loving and
serving in meekness one another as you've given us commandment.
Fathers, you give us grace to do these things. Give us the
ability never to look at any of these things as our whole,
but only Christ as all our justification. I plead that you do this in the
name of Jesus and for his sake. Amen.