He knows and is known by his
sheep. Most importantly, he knows his
sheep. I read something or heard something
somewhere where someone was rejoicing in that fact because, you know,
folks, when we get older, it's possible we may forget him. We
tend to forget him anyway, don't we? But I'm glad that my security
is not in what I know, but in the one that knows me. He knows
me. If the time comes when I cannot
even remember his name, I'll still be in that hand from
which he said no man is able to pluck thee. And that's a great blessing. That's
a comforting truth. James chapter 2 this morning. We'll try to cover the rest of
chapter 2 this morning, but we'll see. But let's look at verse
14 to begin with. You know that in this chapter
and in this book in general, there's a theme of speaking of faith and how faith
behaves itself. He said in chapter two, verse
one, my brethren, the apostles tended to address God's people
that way. And I want to do that too. You're
my brothers and sisters. You can't truthfully say that
without it affecting what you say and the way that you say
it. My brethren, he said, have not
the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect
of persons. So he's talking about faith and
how how it behaves itself. And look at verse 14. What does
it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have
not works, if that faith is not evidenced in action? And remember
now, when we talk about works, people have different ideas about
that, but what he said is don't be hearers of the word only,
but doers. Works have to do with doing the
gospel, not the things that religion usually thinks of. Be doers of
the word, that's what he's talking about, works. If your faith doesn't
do anything, can that faith save you? That's the question. Is
there a saving faith without works? Can non-working faith
Save. And that's a good question, isn't
it? Can that faith save him? That gets to the heart of the
matter, because I'll tell you what we need, my friend. We need
to be saved. Paul said, my heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
I want the faith that saves. There is a faith that saves.
The Lord Jesus Christ said to that woman, thy faith hath saved
thee. That's the kind I want. And James
is asking, can a faith that doesn't perform anything at all, doesn't
do the word, can it save? Can that faith save you? This
question, let's see what Paul says about it. I believe Paul
addresses that same exact issue in Galatians 5. Turn there with
me, please. And let's learn this. This again,
we talked in, Bible class about something very controversial,
I think this is the same way. This is something that's very
controversial, talking about faith and works. And really more to the point
here, talking about faith that works and faith that doesn't
work. But look at Galatians chapter 5 and verse 1. Paul said, stand
fast therefore in the liberty of wherewith Christ hath made
us free. And be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Free from what? Free from the
law. Free from the bondage of the
law. Free from being in that most dreaded of all places before
God, standing on a footing of works, standing before God responsible
to keep his law, and having not done so. Stand fast in the liberty
from that. We're not under the law, he said
in another place, but under grace. Stay right there, is what he's
saying here. Stay right there under grace. That's your only
hope. And he said, behold, I, Paul,
say unto you, verse two, that if you be circumcised, Christ
shall profit you nothing. He just said, he talked about
liberty and bondage. Liberty from the law from the
bondage of the law. What is the bondage of the law
to say? I'm gonna do this that and the
other and God's gonna be happy with me and God's gonna save
me because I'm doing good Paul said if you do that Christ will
profit you nothing Does that frighten you at all The light
of the world the hope of this world the only hope for a sinner
Will do nothing for you For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. Does that mean everybody that has done that, that has
that physical distinction from other men, is a debtor to do
it? No, of course not. He's saying everybody that performed,
that's the first thing, wasn't it? When you're eight days old,
you gotta be circumcised. And if you're not, and you don't
even know, really, your parents took care of that for you. But
if you're not, you're not in conformance to the law. And so
that circumcision stands as representative of keeping the law. And Paul
says, if you're going to, before God, be a debtor to be circumcised,
if whether you do something or don't do something is your hope
before God, then you better be ready to do the whole law. You
better not fail. You better not be guilty of one
thing, because to be guilty of one is to be guilty of all. Christ,
verse 4, is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are. And here's the key. This is what
I'm saying. You might have thought, well, you're stretching that
first part. That ain't what he means by being circumcised. Justified
by the law. That's exactly what he's talking
about. If you're circumcised, if you
say, I'm gonna do what God said and God's gonna be pleased with
me, that's what he's saying. You're justified by the law and
you're fallen from grace. That's a bad place to be. You're out from under his grace
and you're under bondage to keep his law. You don't wanna be there
and I don't either. Now look at verse five. You might
be thinking right now, what in the world has this got to do
with what James has said? Sounds like the opposite of what
James has said. No, it's exactly the same thing. Look at verse
5, for we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. We conclude, he said in Romans,
that righteousness is by faith without the deeds of the law. Whether you keep the law or don't
keep the law availeth nothing before God. What avails with
God then? Faith. God-given faith. He'll have to supply you with
what He requires. He requires faith. What is it
to do? We want to do the works of the law. We want to obey God.
Here's the work of God. Believe on His sign. And this he gives you, tis the
Spirit's rising beam. This is the gift of God, faith
in his son. And what a gift it is. For in
Jesus Christ, either circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. Whether you're in conformance
to his law outwardly or not, it won't make any difference
before God. You try to preach that somewhere else around here. But what does avail? Faith. But not faith alone, not faith
by itself, not faith alone in this sense, where James said,
faith is, if it's alone, it's dead. It is faith alone, but it's a
certain kind of faith alone. It's faith which worketh. And
you look up that word worketh. I looked it up for you. It means
just what you think it would. It's faith that does things.
It acts, it performs. How does it do it? By the law?
Because it sees what God says that I better perform. No, it
works by love. What an enlightening passage
of scripture that is. Isn't it clear? Faith which worketh
by love. That's exactly what James is
teaching. Some have said, well, James and
Paul are opposing one another in the scriptures. Nonsense.
Read them again and ask God for light. He's teaching exactly
what James did. We must have faith from God that
works. So Paul concurs with James. Contrary
to common misconception, one thing is profitable. That's what
James is saying. One thing is profitable. Faith.
But like James said, not faith without work, but faith which
worketh. And this kind of faith worketh
not by law, but by love. Why do you worship God? In order to please him. So I'll
go to heaven when I die. Christ will profit you nothing. Because He said to. Well, that's
okay. But if you're doing it to please
Him, to work a righteousness before Him that He'll be pleased
with, Christ will profit you nothing. If your hope is in your
obedience to Him, you have no hope because you have no obedience. You may perform outward things
that you call obedience to God, they're sin, is what they are.
Because you did them, they're sin. Your pleasing of God had better
be Christ and Him only. Why do you worship God then? Because I love Him. Not perfectly, by a long shot. Not like I ought to. I'm ashamed
of my love for him. That's the only motive for worshiping
him. There is no other. No other good one. Not another one that allows any
hope for you. We don't love him like the law
requires when it says, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with
all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
We don't love him like that. But we're not under bondage.
We're under grace. And by his grace, we worship
him because we do love him. Our works are not motivated by
law, but by love. Fallible, fickle, feeble love. If our love was perfect, our
works would be perfect. And it's not, and they're not.
But such as it is, we have, by God's grace, this faith which
worketh by love. Now next, back in our text in
James 2, in verse 15, James illustrates what he means by this unprofitable
faith. It's a faith that doesn't do
anything for you. It's worthless. It's dead. He said, what doth it profit?
This faith that you can talk about, but you can't show. What
doth it profit? Nothing. It's unprofitable. And
here he explains it, verse 15. 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. That's nice, isn't
it? That's nice of them to say. No,
there's nothing nice about it. Notwithstanding, you give them
not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?
It's an insult, isn't it? It's an insult. Even so, faith,
if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. That's what I meant. That's the context of which I
said while ago, it's not faith that's alone. It is faith alone,
but it's not faith that is alone. What are your condolences worth if
you're not willing to back them up? They're an insult. It's a
mockery is what it is. And what are your prayers worth?
Let me put it this way. What are your prayers to God
worth if they're offered in this same unwillingness to do anything? Do you think God is fooled? If
you pray, Lord, I pray that you'd give old so-and-so a coat, you
know, and something to eat. He's destitute of daily food
and naked. I pray that you'd give him a
coat and give him a bite to eat. And you have three coats at home.
And some money, you know, you've been saving up for a rainy day.
But you don't help. What good is your prayer? What
profit is it? What's your prayer worth? If you truly love this
one that's naked and destitute and you care anything about him,
guess what? It's raining. It's raining. And this is how some people's
faith is. That's what James is contending
here. Their faith is that way. It talks big. It says, I love
God, but it doesn't worship Him. You're going to worship Him if
you love Him. It says, I'm a Christian. It's
not concerned with what Christ said or did. He said, if you
love me, keep my commandments. That's how you show that you
love me. That's not how we came to love
Him or be saved by Him. But you'll have a hard time showing
that you love him without doing what he says. In fact, if you
don't, you're showing that you don't love him. That's what James
is teaching here. That's not difficult to understand,
is it? Someone that I used to know was
having some trouble, you know, once, and wanted to talk to me
about it, and always wanted to talk to me about it, and kept
calling me, and it became obvious that they were, shall we say,
insincere about it. After talking to them for some
time, it was obvious that they were. And they wouldn't hear
anything I said. They wouldn't follow any of the
advice that I gave and lied to me over and over and over. And
so it became a waste of time. And so I told them simply, I
don't want to talk to you anymore. And they said to me, but you're
my pastor. The problem was that in a year's
time, I hadn't seen him in the worship services but three or
four times. Months would go by without a visit. And I said to
them, I'm not your pastor. That was probably a shock. You
say, I'm your pastor. Now you say, but who was I all
those dozens of times that I had prepared messages that the Lord
had given the gospel and you weren't interested in? Who was
I then? Who was I when I gave you advice that you utterly ignored? You know, there comes a time
when even God says, you'll cry to me and I won't hear you. And
I'm not God. That time comes a lot quicker
with me talking, saying things, but then
acting another way. It's worthless. All talk is worthless
unless there's action that corroborates it. And a faith, James says,
that talks one way and acts another is dead. It's not the faith of
God's elect. It's not the faith that God gives
to His people. Verse 18, Yea, a man may say,
and here's just talking. Somebody may say this, Thou hast
faith and I have works. You can say that. I could say
that. Thou hast faith and I have works.
One man has faith and the other has works. Show me, James says,
show me thy faith without thy works and I'll show thee my faith
by my works. There's no other way to show
faith. To say, show me thy faith without
thy works is a challenge that can't be met. Now notice here
in this verse the key to understanding this entire chapter. This is
important. Now listen carefully. James is
not contending for works over faith. He's not saying works
are more important than faith. He's not saying that works have
anything to do with salvation at all. In fact, and listen carefully
to this statement, he's not even talking about works. He's not
talking about works, period. You may say, how in the world
can you say that, Chris, that the word works is right there
in the text? Yeah, but he only uses the word works as it refers
to the faith that he's talking about. He's talking about faith
that works, not works. He does not say, show me that
faith and I'll show thee my works. What is being shown in both cases
is faith. Salvation is by grace through
faith, not works. There's one faith spoken of here
without works, and there's one spoken of that has works. He's not setting faith and works
against each other. He's setting two kinds of faith
against each other. And that is the key to understanding
this verse. Faith which worketh and faith
which does not work. Now let me ask you the silent
question that's demanded by this text. If faith without works
is dead, then what are works without faith? What's you doing something that
you call good that might be somehow, relatively speaking, an outward
conformance to God's law? What good is that without faith
in Christ? You know why He doesn't even
mention that in this passage? Because it's not worth talking
about. It's just not. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. And most people who study and
comment on this chapter, some of which have even discredited
it as part of God's Word. They all make this same mistake.
They see it as comparing faith and works. And this indeed would
make it contradictory to what Paul is clearly teaching in the
book of Romans. That we're justified by faith
without the works of the law. Without the works of the law.
without the works of the law. James is not talking about how
we're justified. Except that it clearly is implied
in the text that we're justified by faith because all he's talking
about is faith. He's talking about a faith that
can save. That's being justified by faith without the works of
the law. But He's not comparing faith and
works. He's comparing two kinds of faith. Paul is talking about
when he says we're justified by faith without works, he's
talking about how we're justified before God. When James says faith
without works is dead, he's talking about the kind of faith by which
we're justified before God. That's important. He's not contrasting faith and
works. He's contrasting living faith
and dead faith. He's not exalting works over
faith. He's exalting God-given saving faith, which worketh by
love over dead, hypocritical, professed faith that has no heart. Now, works are not even infallible
proof of faith. We know that. There are times
in the life of every believer that you wouldn't see their faith
at all. And the apostles did things at
times and said things at times that caused the Lord to ask them,
why is it that you have no faith? The thief on the cross that Christ
gave faith to see Him at the end of His life How was that
thief able to say, this man has done nothing amiss? How was he
able to say, Lord, you're gonna be sitting on a throne soon.
Remember me then. How was he able to say that?
By faith. Where'd he get it from? Same
place you got it if you have it. From the one who hung there
beside him. But he had no works to justify
his faith. I'll tell you what he did have.
He had the promise of Christ that today you'll be with me,
and that's paradise. But this is a general principle.
It's absolutely true and important to remember. that where faith
is present, there's a heart to work. And indeed, those to whom
God gives faith, He also ordains that they walk in good works.
Ephesians 2. Now look at verse 19 in our text. He continues to clarify and illustrate. He says now in verse 19, Thou
believest that there is one God, You say you have faith. What
do you mean by that? Well, I believe in God. I believe
there's one God. Well, that's good. Satan believes
that. And all of his devils believe
that. And they tremble. Most people, when they say that,
don't tremble. The devils have one up on you.
They at least reverence God in some form or fashion. They at
least fear God. The indictment against natural
man is there's no fear of God before their eyes. The devil's
got one up on you, if that's all your faith is. It's a knowledge
of things, that there's one God. In fact, I'll tell you this,
I'm pretty sure, I don't know, if we're absolutely certain,
I'm pretty sure that Satan is a Calvinist. Don't you imagine? You think he believes that God's
sovereign? You think he knows that the one who has to give
him permission to do anything before he can do it is sovereign? You think he knows that God has
a chosen people? That's the ones he's after. He's
already got the other ones. He's looking for you. You think He knows that God has
an elect that He has hedged about with His favor and protection
and grace? I guarantee you He's aware of
that. But His is an intellectual knowledge only. In His heart,
He hates this God that He knows. Just like you do by nature, where
Paul said in Romans 1, when they knew God, they didn't glorify
Him as God. What about you now? Do you believe
in the sovereignty of God? You know, I know those that believe
that God is sovereign and that they say they believe in the
electing grace of God and these doctrines and the limited atonement
of Christ, and yet they'd rather argue with God's people than
rejoice with them. Something wrong with that. Something
wrong with that. Are you a superlapsarian or an
infralapsarian? If you're either one, I'm worried
about you. I'm honest with you about that.
If you're either one, I fear for you. There is a belief, a faith that
is in facts only. There's one God. He's sovereign. He's on the throne. He elected
a people. He sent his son to die for those
people. He has an elect that he chose
before the fount. Facts, good facts, true facts,
glorious facts. But you can have facts and no
heart. You can have knowledge and no
love. That's what Paul said. He said, knowledge puffeth up,
but knowledge with love buildeth up. It's all the difference in
the world. There's a belief that is in doctrine
only, and I love doctrine. But do you love doctrine because
you love the one that taught it, or do you just love doctrine? And the reason I make this distinction
is because I know some folks who are stiplers for correct
doctrine, who show no evidence whatsoever that they love Christ
who taught the truth, or his people. Remember that Satan believes
what you do and hates God. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
ask Peter, do you believe in election? He asked him, do you
love me? If you love him, you believe
in election because he said it. He said, I lay down my life for
my sheep. If he said it, I believe in limited atonement, don't you?
because my master, my savior, the lover of my soul, hath declared
it." Faith works by love, true God-given
saving faith that is. False faith, facts-only faith,
does not work because it does not love. And then I'll be brief. The remainder
of this chapter, James gives two examples of folks who showed
their faith by what they did. Abraham and Rahab. You think Abraham would be insulted
to be compared with Rahab? the father of the faithful and
a harlot. He wouldn't be insulted because
he knows he's a harlot too. People say that James and Paul
are teaching opposing doctrine, and yet isn't Hebrews 11 teaching
this exact same truth? We've been studying Hebrews 11.
Isn't Paul teaching there exactly the same thing that James is
teaching here? That faith does. It works. By faith, Abel offered
a more excellent sacrifice. By faith, Enoch walked with God,
and he was not. For God took him. By faith Moses
chose the reproach of Christ and esteemed him greater riches
than all the treasures of Egypt. By faith. Is Paul not teaching
exactly what James is here? Faith worketh by love. Faith is seen and defined by
what it does. Do you believe Christ when he
says, come to me and I'll give you rest? If you do, you know
what you'll do? You'll come to him. Have you
come to him? If not, then you don't believe
him. Not with this faith that does. This faith which worketh
by love. If you have that faith and Christ
says, come to me, I'll give you rest, you're coming for rest. Do you believe that his blood
is effectual? That he is able to save to the
uttermost all that come unto God by him? If you do, then come. You will
come if you believe. Are you resting in him if you
believe you are? If you believe that His righteousness
is perfect, if you believe He's the Holy Lamb of God, if you
believe that His blood is worth enough to pay for all of your
sins, then you rest. Faith does. It does. True faith never looks to works. Faith is not in works. Faith
doesn't look to what we've done and say, oh look, you know, there's,
you know, all is well. No, faith looks to Him and says
all is well and then works. James gives Abraham here as an
example of true saving faith and quotes the instance where
Abraham offered Isaac upon the altar. You remember that at Mount
Moriah. God said, I want you to offer
your son, your only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest. And Abraham went up Mount Moriah
and he told his servant, me and the lad, we're going up to worship
God, you stay here. And they took the fire and the
wood and a torch of some kind and some wood were about to offer
a burnt offering. And Isaac said to Abraham, my
father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for
a burnt offering? Now you think about this. This
is the example that James gave of faith that works. What did
Abraham say in response? Did he say, son, it's going to
be okay because I'm doing what God said do. He said, my son, God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Faith doesn't rest in works.
Faith doesn't trust works. It trusts God and rests in Him. It rests in His redeeming blood
and righteousness and acts like it. True faith doesn't boast in its
ability to provide what God requires. True faith obeys God, trusting
that He will provide what He requires. I think about what James taught
here. Faith without works is dead,
and he encourages us to act upon what we believe. Think about
this. I think of those words that we
saw in John, I think chapter 14 or 15, where the Lord had
said, I'm only going to be with you a little while. And he talked
about himself being the vine and us the branches. And if we
abide in him, we'll bear fruit. And any branch that doesn't abide
in him is not worth anything but burning up. And then he said,
he made this statement, and let's close with this and think about
it today. He said, herein is my father glorified, that you
bear much fruit. May he give us grace to do so.
He hath ordained us unto these good works, or we wouldn't do
them. He's given us a new nature, or we wouldn't do them. He's
the vine, and we branches are in him, or we wouldn't bear any
fruit. By His grace and power, may He give us the blessing of
bearing fruit unto Him, and that the Father would be glorified.
Let's bow in prayer.