Turn to James chapter 2. James chapter 2. Faith and Conduct. Let me read starting in verse
14, down through verse 26. What doth it profit, my brethren, Though a man say he hath faith,
he believes God, he believes that Jesus Christ died on the
cross, he may even believe that Jesus Christ died for him. Isn't
that what the religion says? Accept Jesus as your personal
Savior. He died for you. Believe that He died for you.
Salvation is not believing that He died for me particularly.
It's believing Him, whether He died for me or not. is to believe
God, is to take God at His word. What doth it profit, my brethren,
though a man say he hath faith, and hath not worth? Can that
faith, or can faith, that kind of faith, save him? I wrote out by that verse, no,
no. The brother or sister be naked
and destitute of daily food, and one of you saying to them,
Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding you
give them not those things which are needful to the body, what
does it profit? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I remember, and this is something
that bothered me years ago before I heard the gospel, before I
came down to 13th Street when Henry was preaching there. I
had been going to a place, and a lady, there was a woman down
the street from the church there, and she had come and asked for
some help. The first time she'd ever come and asked for some
help. She was broke. I knew this person, and they
lived down the street. I couldn't believe it. The men
had a meeting over it, had a meeting over whether to give her any
money to help her, and they didn't. They said, well, no, this is,
they had to come up with excuses not to do it, but they didn't.
And I was just 20 years old, and that bothered me. It just,
that just troubled me. You know, he said, no, you, we
pray for you. We depart now, depart in peace. We hope the best for you. Be
warmed and filled, but we're not going to give you anything.
We're not going to help you. We're not going to do a thing for you.
He said, What doth it profit? Nothing. Nothing. Even so, faith,
if it hath not works, is dead. It is dead faith. It is not of
God being alone by itself. 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
that same thing, and they go further than you do, they tremble.
But wilt thou know, O vain man, he's speaking here to a vain
man, wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith that works is dead,
it's useless, it's empty? Was not Abraham our father justified
by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, how they went
together? That's why he's saying they are together. One's not
without the other. By works was faith made perfect,
and the scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed
God. And it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he
was called the friend of God. You see then how that by works
a man is justified and not by faith only. Likewise also, was
not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received
the messengers? That is, her works proved her
faith. And she sent them out another way. For as the body
without the spirit is dead, so faith without works, he says,
is absolutely dead also. Faith and conduct go together. True faith is evidenced It's
evidence by obedience. The fact that I believe God is
proved by obedience. We'll see this here in a little
bit. We are what we do, not what we say. I want you to turn over
to Romans chapter 6. This is one of those verses after
I heard the gospel, believed the gospel, I never forgot this
verse. In Romans 6, 16, I was in chapter 7. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness.
I've never forgot that verse. Whoever you obey, that is who
you belong to. That's what Paul says. Now James, back to James, he
says, we say we have faith. Now what is faith? What is faith? Well, simply put, it is to believe
God. It's to believe God. It says in verse 23, Abraham
believed God. He believed what God said to
him. He believed Him, took Him at His word, and acted on it. Later, whenever he offered up
Isaac, it proved that he believed God. His conduct proved that
he believed God. To believe God is more than believing
in the existence of God. The devils, James said, the devils
believe that God is. They believe that. He said, thou
believest that there is one God? All the Jews, the Jewish religion,
is built on one God. They believe one God. Well, he
said, you do well, because that's right. But that's not salvation.
You're right, there is one God. That's not salvation. If it was,
the devils would be saved. Because he said, the devils also
believe. They believe one God. They believe
there's one God. They know it. They know it. And they tremble. But they're
still lost. They tremble. They believe there's
one God. They tremble. You know, when our Lord came,
they said, have you come to torment us before our time? They knew.
They knew one God. They knew who Jesus Christ was.
They knew He was God. And they knew they was going
to be under torment. And they trembled. Yet they're
lost. They're lost. Faith is more than
agreeing with the right doctrine. You can take all the five points
of Calvinism and just agree with them, believe them, and still
be lost. Still be lost. All the Pharisees, those who
wanted our Lord to be crucified, wanted Him nailed to the cross,
every last one of them believed election. The high priest who condemned
the Lord Believe particular redemption. He believed it. Yet they died
lost. They died lost. Faith is to believe
God. I tell you what, it's to believe
God whether He saves me or not. It's to believe Him. It's to
take Him at His Word. God's a just God no matter what
He does with me. If He saves me, it will be to
the praise and glory of His grace. If He damns me, it will be to
the praise and glory of His justice. That's so. It's to take God at
His word, and it's to rest on it. I mean, lean on it, rest
on it, and act on it. When one believes God, it shows
up in their conduct. It will show up throughout their
life. When God called Abraham to leave his family and his country,
you know what he did? He packed his bags and left. He left his country, his family,
and headed out. You know, Scripture says he didn't
even know where he was going. He had no idea where he was going.
God said, Abraham, pack your bags and leave. And he acted
on that. He packed his bags and left.
When God told Abraham that all nations would be blessed through
his seed, he believed God. He was an old man. Old man. Sarah was an old woman, but he
believed what God said to him. He believed it. He took God at
His word. And then when he was told to
offer up Isaac, his only begotten son, the one through whom the
promise was going to come through, You know, God said all nations,
I'm going to populate all nations and your seed is going to be
like the sand of the seashore. And then he says, now I want
you to offer up Isaac. I want you to kill him. He didn't. You read nowhere where
he questions God. He did it. He took Isaac. He said, come on, son. And for
three days journey, he walked and thought. walked and thought,
but he never turned back, because he believed that God was able,
it says over in Romans 4, that God was able to raise him up. He received it, it says, in a
figure. He believed that when he killed Isaac, when he offered
him up on that altar, God was going to raise him back up, because
God was going to fulfill the promise that he made, and he
believed God. He believed God. Abraham's faith was proved by
his conduct throughout his life. Faith is to take God at His word
and trust Him to do just as He said He would. It's to take Him
at His word. It's to trust Him. It's to believe
Him. Look over in Acts chapter 27. Here it is. Here's a good example
of it. In Acts 27, verse 25, Paul says,
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer. They're in a boat that's about
to be shipwrecked. This boat is going to come apart.
They're in a storm. And God has told Paul, stay on
the boat. And those who stay on it with
you, you'll all be saved. And Paul says to you, Wherefore,
sirs, Be of good cheer, for I believe God. I believe God. Now here it is, that it shall
be even as it was told to me. I believe God. And what did He
do? He stayed on that boat. And that
boat came apart. And some of them got on the boards
that were floating and stuff and finally got to shore. But
you know, no one was lost. No one drowned. If one of those men had jumped
off that boat before it broke apart, if they said, Paul, I'm
swimming to shore, I guarantee you that man would have drowned.
Paul said, you sirs, stay with me. I believe God. I believe
God. And every one of them landed
on shore alive. It's to take him at his word.
Faith also is a work of the Holy Spirit. It's not me. convincing you to do something
or to believe something that I've given you. It's when God
speaks to you out of His Word and you believe it. I mean, from
your heart you believe it. It's the work of the Holy Spirit,
it says over Colossians 2.12, buried with him in baptism, wherein
also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God who hath raised him from the dead. Faith is an operation
of God. Now, you who believe God, you
believe the gospel. I can look at this crowd, and
this crowd has believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God
from the time you can believe anything. You believed that Jesus
Christ died on a cross to save sinners when you were able to
believe anything, but you were not saved. You weren't saved
then. I mean, I can remember a lot
of things that I believed, but one day I heard the gospel and
I believed God. God spoke. God spoke. It wasn't just a man
standing in a pulpit preaching and believing what he had to
say. It's like that woman at the well. Those people came and
said, you know, We came because we heard what she said, but now
we've heard him ourselves and we believe because we've heard
him. We've heard him. And this faith is also the gift
of God. It says in Ephesians 2,8, for
by grace are you saved through faith, and that is not of yourself. That faith, that saving faith,
it's not of yourselves. The human mind and heart will
not lay hold of God, of Christ, of truth. It just won't do it. But when God gives a new heart
through the operation of the Spirit of God, you can't help
but believe. You cannot help but believe God.
You can't do it. And then faith is an act of grace.
It says over, look over in 1 Thessalonians 1, 3, remembering without ceasing
your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father.
But faith is an act of grace. It's not just coming here and
being here for an hour and a half, two hours in the morning and
we go home and then, no, it's active. It's active. Your whole life surrounds it.
Your whole life is conducted by it. And if faith is always
attended with repentance, a broken heart and a contrite spirit,
God will not despise. Not despise. Repentance. You know when repentance happens? True repentance happens when
you believe God. That's when it happens. When
you hear the gospel, when the gospel comes to you in power,
as I read to you in 1 Thessalonians, it comes to you in power and
you believe God. What did they do? It says they
turned from their idols and they turned to God. True repentance happens when
you believe God. And the evidence of that is this,
it produces true humility. It produces true humility. Nothing
will call a person to walk humbly before God and men like a broken
heart over sin. And no heart, no heart has ever
been broken over sin that did not believe God. That's when the heart is broken.
When you believe God, you see who He is, that's when your heart
is broken. The Armenians say, repent, accept
Him as your personal Savior, then God saves you. That's not so. That's not so. When God does a mighty work of
grace in the heart, And He enables you to believe Him. That's when
repentance will happen. That's when you will mourn when
you look on Him whom you've pierced. That's when it will happen. And
then where faith and repentance is found, you will find love.
You will find love. Love to God who first loved us.
Love to the brethren. It is impossible To have faith
and repentance and not have real love to God and to the brethren. It can't happen. It can't happen.
And where these three exist, you're going to find obedience. You're going to find obedience to the Lord.
You're going to find obedience to His command. He said, this
is my commandment, that you love one another. And I guarantee
you this, you'll do it. You'll do it. If you believe
God, you'll repent and you'll love the brethren. You'll love
them. And then it's not only that,
it'll be obedience to the powers that be. You know, when God saves a rebel,
He saves him from his rebellion. whether it be civil government
or pastoral authority. It's not possible to believe
God and remain a rebel. That's not possible. That is
not possible. Faith, repentance, and love are
life-changing experiences. Life-changing experiences. A person who has a love of God
shed abroad in their hearts. That's what happens when God
saves a sinner. Their love of God is shed abroad in their heart.
And a person who has a love of God shed in their heart cannot
be a bad employee. Oh, you may do something stupid
from time to time. I mean, that's still in us. But
you cannot be a bad employee. You cannot be a bad employer.
You cannot be a bad wife or a bad husband or bad children, not
if the love of God is shed abroad in the heart. Does not the Scripture say, greater
is He that is in you than he that is in the world? Does it
not say that? Does it not break the power of
indwelling sin? Does that not go along with salvation?
What good would it do to be saved from the condemning power of
sin and not the reigning power of sin? If there is such a radical change
made in salvation, then something is missing when a person knows
no change. A person who claims to know God
and knows no change is still a rebel. Something is missing. Now, I know we still sin. I know
we have sin in us and we still sin. But sin, the Scripture says,
will not have dominion over you. It will not rule and control
you. It will not do it. It will not
dominate you. You will feel like it at times. You may feel like it. Well, you
will feel like it. You feel like it does dominate you. But not
a believer. It does not dominate a believer.
The Lord will not allow it. He that is in you will not allow
it to control. He won't do it. When the strong
man of the house takes over, the weak man has to leave. Where there is real faith, there
will be real commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and every one
of His children. Real commitment. Paul said in
Philippians 3, 8, I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but done, that I may win, that I may have Christ. There'll be a real commitment
to God, to Christ, to His people. There'll be real sacrifices made
for Christ's sake. I believe that. I believe that. I heard Henry say this once,
a person cannot be committed to Christ and uncommitted to
everything else. It can't happen. Now along with the work of the
Spirit of God, faith, love and repentance comes the power. Comes the power to live a spiritually
fruitful life. Listen to Ephesians 2.10. For
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Now, if God ordained that we should walk in them, you think
we're going to walk in them? I say we are, if God ordained
it. He's going to see to it. He's
going to see to it. Now this godly life, this godly
walk is not without its warfare. We do struggle with sin, within
and without. Yet the tenor of our lives is
after godliness. It's after godliness. It's after Christ. It's a desire to be conformed
to His image now. in this life, not just when we
leave, but now. Paul said there in Philippians
3, And to be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may
know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship
of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death. Christ is more than a religion
to Paul. It was his life. For me to live
is Christ and to die is gain. Paul wanted to experience the
power of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ in him daily. Daily. He wanted to know that
daily walk with Christ in his life. Enoch, it says, walked
with God. Enoch didn't know some facts
about God. Enoch walked with God. Noah walked
with God. Abraham walked with God. And
the evidence of it was their life. It was their life. Now the person who has this spiritual
life has this desire that they might know Him. They might be
found in Him. Matthew says, Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. You know, to hunger and thirst
after righteousness can be read this way. Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst after the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our righteousness. The reason they're blessed, it
says, for they shall be filled. When God saves a sinner, He gives
that sinner life. He gives him a new nature. God
gives him a righteous nature. He imparts spiritual integrity
and he puts truth in the inward parts. He puts truth in the inward parts. It says in Philippians 1.11,
it says, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ. This comes by our union to Christ.
We are filled with fruits of righteousness because He is the
vine and we are the branches. What flows through Him flows
into us. One of the ways that God uses
to enable us to grow and produce this type of fruit is through
the ministry of the Word, the Gospel, sitting here Sunday and
Wednesday and Sunday and Wednesday, hearing the Gospel. Hopefully, prayerfully, hearing
the Gospel in power. In power. Not in word only. Do you remember when you were a
kid, how you could not wait to grow up and become an adult? Become an old man or a young
woman? Of course, we wanted to do that
so we could have a lot more of what we thought liberties, you
know, get out from under mom and dad. We ought to desire the same
spiritually. To grow up. To grow up. Become young men
and women, old men and women in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh,
to desire to grow up spiritually in Christ. The heart must be
filled with Christ. If not, it will be filled with
something else. I assure you that. That's why David said in
Psalm 51, Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit
within me, O God. Paul said this in Galatians 4.19,
My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be
formed in you, that you be filled with Christ. If a person, if
a sinner is filled with Christ, there's no room for anything
else, is there? Oh, to be filled with Him. Now
in closing, if Christ is in you, he's in
me. It will be evidenced by works
of faith and labors of love. Conduct. It will be evidenced
by our conduct. Faith without obedience is not
of God. He said, James said, it's dead. It's dead. True works is nothing
but the obedience of faith. That's all it is. It's the obedience
of faith. I want to read, in closing, I
want to read to you Hebrews chapter 11. Now when he speaks of faith,
I want you to notice how their conduct went right along with
their faith. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it
the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear. Now by faith
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death, and was not found,
because God had translated him For before his translation he
had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is
impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, that he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him. Not just that he is, now notice,
not just that he exists, but that he's a rewarder, that he'll
do just what he said he'll do. You see, it's one thing to believe
that there is a God, there is a God or that God is. But it's
another thing to believe that he'll do just what he said. Paul
said, Sirs, I believe God. He'll do just what he said. By
faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen, as yet he
moved with fear and ran to a cave. It doesn't say that. He prepared
an ark. He did what God told him to do.
He prepared an ark to the saving of his house by which he condemned
the world by his own obedience. and became heir of the righteousness
which is by faith. By faith, Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing where
he was going. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise, as in
a strange country dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the same promise. He looked for a city
which had foundations, who built and made her as God. Through
faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and
was delivered of a child when she was past age, even though
she laughed." You remember she laughed? She got behind the door
when she heard that and she laughed. He said, why did she laugh? She
goes, I didn't laugh. Yes, she did. Yes, she did. But you know what? She still
believed God. She still believed Him. Even as full of sin as we
still are by nature, When God grants faith, we believe Him,
because He judged him faithful who had promised, and therefore
sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many
as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the
seashore innumerable. These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,
and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they
that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country,
and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they
came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned,
but now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly,
wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he
hath prepared for them a city. By faith, Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises,
offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that
in Isaac shall thy seed be called. that in Isaac shall thy seed
be called. Then he said, Go kill him. And he did. I mean, he went to do that, accounting
that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from
whence also he received him in a figure. By faith, Isaac blessed
Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when
he would die, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped
leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he died,
made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and
gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith, Moses, when
he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw
he was a proper child. And they were not afraid of the
king's commandment. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's
greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he had respect
unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not
fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured it, seeing him
who is invisible." All the way down through here,
they believed God, and it was evidenced by their conduct throughout
their whole life. Yes, they sinned. Abraham sinned,
Isaac, Jacob. Paul, us, but they believe God. That is
going to be just as he said it would. It's to believe God, to believe
him. And a person's life will be evidenced,
their faith in Christ will be evidenced by their conduct.