Full Transcript

If you’re a first-time listener, welcome to Share the Word. And to all of our loyal listeners who keep coming back week after week, thank you, thank you, thank you. Today, Paul brings you the big idea of James chapter 2, and I can’t emphasize it enough to say that the message in this chapter is a critical one that we all need to hear time and time again. Let’s get started. James chapter 2. So prove it.

I’m afraid the next big plague on mankind is going to be the misuse of artificial intelligence, AI as it’s called. Are you familiar with the term deepfake? Saw an ad come across my Facebook feed recently of the singer and TV host Kelly Clarkson selling some kind of weight loss product, I think. It seemed off to me for some reason, so I watched it for a moment or two, and I noticed a couple brief times something seemed out of sync, like the voice inflection wasn’t right or it wasn’t matching the body movement. So I checked, and sure enough, this had already been reported. Her movements and voice were cloned by some scammers to make a sales pitch for some pretend product.

I wonder how many people seeing that got out their card and gave their credit card information to these scammers. We’re just getting started with this stuff too. Soon the fake ads will be beyond most people’s ability to even tell. Pictures and video don’t really prove anything anymore at that point in this brave new world of artificial intelligence. Have you ever heard of someone use the term fake Christian? I bet you have.

You know what they mean by that too, right? They mean someone who professes to be a follower of Jesus who probably goes to church every Sunday and votes the expected way come election time. But up close, too many things seem off. They see things that don’t add up. But even if someone could fake being a Christian and fool everyone, what would the point be? Because I’m certain of this: God cannot be deepfaked.

On the very same day, another story came across my feed that made me wonder if it was real too. Very aware that we Christians are sometimes the most gullible people on earth, easily susceptible to confirmation bias, for example. By that I mean, we readily believe things because we want them to be true. In this case, it was a story I really wanted to be true. It was about something that happened at a church service, one of those things where, you know, if it wasn’t true, I sure wish it had been. It went like this.

A new pastoral candidate disguised himself as a homeless man and went to the church where he was to be considered for the lead pastor position. He was supposed to be introduced that very morning to the congregation, in fact, and to speak in the service. He walked around his prospective new church for about 30 minutes or so while people were filing in from the parking lot to the service. Only a few people said hello to him. Most looked the other way, doing their best to ignore this person who seemed pretty out of place there. He asked a couple members if they had a few bucks to buy some food, saying he was very hungry, but no one gave him anything.

Eventually, he went into the sanctuary and sat down in the very front row. As people readied for the service, he was still the topic of whispered discussions. When the service started, the elder in charge had other things on his mind. He was wondering where in the world the pastoral candidate was who was supposed to be there that morning. Again, he was supposed to speak. He’s feeling a little panicked because he’s slated to be the speaker in a few moments.

The service commenced with an opening song and after that a call to greet one another, you know, tell those people near you that you’re happy to see them in the Lord’s house. But no one reached out to greet the homeless-looking man in the front row, although people nearby hugged and greeted their friends. After a few more songs and a prayer, the elder in charge stepped to the podium and apologetically said, You know, we were supposed to have our pastoral candidate here this morning, but it seems like he’s not here yet. There was an awkward pause then as the disheveled-looking man in the front row stood up and walked up the steps to the platform.

He whispered back and forth to the elder in charge of the service, who looked very puzzled, and as an uneasy murmur crossed the congregation, in a few seconds the elder stepped aside and the pastor who disguised himself as a homeless man opened the big pulpit Bible and read from the scripture in Matthew chapter 25. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. When I needed clothes, you clothed me.

When I was sick, you looked after me. When I was in prison, you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we do any of these things for you?’ And the king will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it for the least of one of my brothers or sisters, you did it for me.’ After he read that, many in the congregation bowed their heads in shame. And he then added, I came this morning hoping to meet a group of real followers of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been disappointed. Now I’m not sure if I’m to be your pastor or not. Don’t think I’m just here to shame you. I’m not. I’m here to discern God’s will for my future. But I only want to lead this church if together we’re serious about following Christ.

Ouch. The auditorium was very quiet for what felt like a long time. Then although the service hadn’t run yet a half an hour, the elder in charge came back to the podium and said, I believe we’ve heard a needed message from the Lord this morning, and he dismissed the congregation with a short prayer. Maybe you’ve heard or read some version of that story. If it’s not true, wow, it should be true. It’s something that could well have been played out with great effect in thousands of churches any Sunday morning.

It would be one of the most challenging sermons most of us have ever experienced. When I read that story, it reminded me so much of these opening lines from James chapter 2, where he writes, My brothers and sisters, don’t hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and is dressed in bright clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the bright clothes and say, You sit here in a good place, and you say to the poor man, You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool here, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives? James was picturing an assembly of early Christians, like a worship service, we’d say.

They often met in homes, but sometimes in other larger buildings they gained access to. And there were only so many good seats in either case. Did they treat everyone who came in with the same kind of respect? Remember, when Jesus was growing up in Galilee, James knew this well, of course. They grew up at best lower middle class, we’d say. During his public ministry, Jesus chose to surround himself with fishermen and a few others, but almost no one from the upper classes.

He himself traveled very light, never had his own home as an adult. He seemed drawn more to the poor and outcasts than to the upper crust of his society. That reality is what James is asking his readers to reflect upon. In Christ’s kingdom among his subjects, the kind of favoritism that treats people differently based on how they look or dress, or we might say what they drive or in what part of town they live, that’s just wrong. This is one application of Jesus’ summation of God’s law to love our neighbors as ourselves. Favoritism might seem quite natural.

I mean, who doesn’t want the local bank president or the hospital’s chief surgeon to feel welcome in your church if they come and check it out, compared to, say, an obviously needy or a homeless-looking person who wanders in? But James says showing such favoritism is an example of breaking God’s law. It’s also showing you don’t really understand God’s mercy and grace, because God’s love and grace are not extended to people based on what they earn or how they dress. God is not a respecter of persons, he says. He doesn’t show favoritism, and so neither should we. I remember one big reason that I wanted to work at the first church I served as a pastor when I was fresh out of graduate school was really having to do with this very thing.

When I was there as a candidate for a few weeks, getting to know people in the congregation. I learned that the leadership board of the church was made up of a steel company vice president, but also a factory laborer. There was a high school administrator, but also a retired janitor from the same school system. And I liked that. It told me the congregation was not about favoritism. No, we’ll make you a leader because you’re a big shot, but more about choosing leaders based on their character and their faith, and that’s the way it should be.

This idea about favoritism, showing partiality to people based on status or wealth, leads to something James really underscores in this section of his letter. He wanted to be sure that the early Christians did not misunderstand God’s grace. Grace is, after all, the basis of our salvation, the basis on which God offers us forgiveness of sins and his acceptance, meaning that he offers these things to us as a free gift. It’s free to us not because it’s cheap, but because Christ’s atonement on the cross fully paid for it. We’ve emphasized this over and over from many passages in our studies so far. But be sure you understand that being saved by grace does not free us to subsequently live however we want, does not free us from an obligation to keep God’s moral laws, for example.

That’s a wrong conclusion. That’s a twisted application of what grace means. To refer back to an analogy Paul used in Galatians a couple lessons ago, just because God has adopted us as his children and we are no longer slaves to sin does not mean we are now free to dishonor our Father and flaunt his rules. On the contrary, someone who really understands and has experienced God’s grace and God’s mercy will want to please their heavenly Father out of gratitude and to make him proud. I can remember growing up wanting to do well at school, wanting to do well in sports and so on, for one reason, because I wanted my father to be proud of me, to be pleased with me. I didn’t do it in order to become his son.

I already was his son. Thinking about my own children, they know how much I love them, but I sure hope that doesn’t lead them to think, Hey, Dad loves us so much, how we behave doesn’t really make any difference to him. Something is really off when someone responds to love and grace that way. But apparently, James must have heard that some people were teaching and influencing others to think just that way, and he was concerned to nip that kind of twisted thinking in the bud. And so he continues here, What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but has no works? Can that faith save him?

If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed, be filled, yet you don’t give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. Someone may say, Well, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. When James uses the term works here, he is referring back to the idea of obeying God’s moral laws, or honoring our heavenly Father through our actions, or loving our neighbors as ourselves, and so on. He’s saying, Can a claim to faith in Christ that produces none of those things be real?

Can that kind of faith save anybody? It’s a good question. He goes back to the example of someone in your church who’s obviously in need. They legitimately need food or clothing, but only get platitudes or worse, get ignored. Does such a response indicate our faith is real, that we are really God’s children? James is saying, No, it doesn’t.

If someone insists they have faith but are not showing obedience to God and not showing love for others, James is questioning, Are you sure your faith is not just so many words, just in your own head? James is arguing, If you’ve really experienced the grace of God and really turned in faith to Christ, your life should give proof to that. Your love for others should give proof to that. Your desire to obey God should give proof to that because you’ll want to make Him happy, your heavenly Father, pleased with you, proud of you. So be sure you’re clear on this. Saving faith is more than knowing the correct answers to the ultimate trivia questions about Jesus and who He was and what He did.

Saving faith produces a new creation, a new heart, followed by growing evidences of that in our lives: changed values, changed behavior, showing that we are now God’s children. Paul also urges the very same things in Galatians 6, and this is what James is insisting on here, over against those who apparently were teaching otherwise. Mere words are not actual commitments. You know that, right? A man or a woman can dress up and stand at an altar before a pastor and say, I will love you all the days of my life, and I will be faithful only to you, and I’ll be there for you in sickness and in health, and so on and so on. But if it’s not from a heart of sincerity, if it’s not an intentional, real commitment, what are those words worth?

James points out in verse 19 that the demons in hell know the facts about God. They know all about Jesus too. They could teach a class on these subjects. But just knowing the facts, even believing they are true, is far different than having saving faith, he is arguing. Real faith produces real results, what James calls here good works, that is, wanting to please God, loving others, keeping Christ’s commands, and so on. These things are the actual evidence, he says, that our faith is real and more than just a shallow profession.

In the last section of his chapter, James gives a couple Old Testament examples illustrating this point. He’s writing to people, for the most part, familiar with the Old Testament characters. I hope you are as well, but if not, Abraham, the first one he mentions, was the father of the Jewish nation, and this is an extreme example. But he says Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own son in obedience to God if he was required to do that, believing that God would raise him up again. He certainly proved his faith in God was real. And a woman named Rahab, a non-Israelite from the Canaanite city of Jericho, she risked her life when the Jewish people, coming out of the Exodus, entered the Promised Land, surrounded her city.

She decided then to cast her lot with God and his people, regardless of what it might cost her. Rahab, who James recalls here was up until then a prostitute, Rahab’s willingness to risk her own life proved her faith in God was real. In both these cases, James’ point is that real faith will manifest itself in observable ways. Our good works, our actions, our behavior, things that please God, these are the things that prove our faith in Christ is real. To James, there’s no such thing as real faith without such proof, without such evidence. Such a thing is a fantasy.

That’s why he writes at verse 18, Try and show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. This may well bring up a question in your mind if you’ve been following Share the Word lately. We just finished thinking through the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he insisted, unmistakable terms and repeatedly, that justification, being made right in God’s eyes, is only by grace and through faith, apart from human merit, apart from our performance. So, how can what Paul preached and wrote be reconciled with what James is writing here? Actually, that question is why I wanted to address Galatians and James back to back. Do you remember a past episode of our podcast titled The Big Decision?

It was from when we were working through the book of Acts, the history book of the earliest church, and it came up at chapter 15. The way I know that Paul and James were not at odds on this crucial question is because they had discussions, more than once actually, but specifically at a meeting we call the Jerusalem Council that happened in 49 A.D. And the council was called over this exact question. At that meeting, the apostles agreed that the gospel of grace through faith that Paul was preaching, apart from law keeping, was the only true gospel. And realize this meeting took place between James and Paul, Peter, John, other apostles were there as well, and it happened very close in time to when both James’ epistle here, as well as the one Paul wrote to the Galatians, were both written. You may want to go back to that episode or just review Acts chapter 15 to see what I’m talking about.

What you will find is both these apostles, James and Paul, concurred at that important meeting that salvation is by grace and through faith in Christ alone. I am certain there was no real conflict in their understanding of this crucial question: How exactly are people saved? So let me conclude with this reconciliation. What I believe we have is Paul and James looking at the question of salvation from two different angles, like two people looking at the same coin, but one is describing for us the front while the other is describing for us the back. In Galatians, Paul was concerned with clarifying the cause of salvation. That is, that no meritorious works, no efforts at obeying God’s law can cause salvation to happen in us.

It’s only on the basis of God’s grace and on the condition of our believing into Jesus that causes salvation. James, on the other hand, is looking at the results of salvation, what results from a genuine conversion. He’s stressing that real faith, saving faith, will produce real results, observable changes in a person’s life. It’s not merely acknowledging a bunch of historical facts about Jesus. It’s a life-changing encounter with Him, being born again, as Jesus called it, that produces a new heart that now wants to please and obey God. Jesus taught both of these ideas.

They’re complementary ideas, and I’m sure He was not contradicting Himself when He taught these two different ideas, like two different sides of the coin. He was always challenging people to believe into Him, to put their faith into Him, who He really was and what He was going to do on the cross in order to be saved. But he also said that his real disciples would actually obey and follow him, and that good trees will bring forth good fruit. He knew there were those who would claim to be his followers, that it was only so much talk for them. And that’s what James is warning against here. He’s exposing the wrong idea that being a Christian just means making a profession of words.

He’s challenging his readers to be sure their faith in Christ is real. And Paul did the very same thing in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, where he writes, Examine yourselves to see whether you really are in the faith. Test yourselves. So let’s remember this: saving faith is more than knowing the correct answer to the ultimate trivia questions. It’s believing into Jesus as our Savior and making a sincere commitment from our hearts to follow him. That’s the big takeaway from James chapter 2.

Although good works are never the cause of salvation, they certainly are the evidence of it, and they will always accompany it. We can profess our faith with our words, and we should, but we can’t prove it except by our actions. So prove it, James is challenging us. This is Paul for Share the Word. Thank you, Paul. You have faith and I have works.

Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. This has been my life verse for as long as I can remember. Is your life producing good fruit and evidence of your faith? And as Paul said, although works are not the cause of salvation, they certainly are the evidence of it. What evidence are your actions showing? Is there favoritism in your life?

And what did you do the last time you saw a homeless person? All good questions. We can put on a front for all of those around us, but you can’t hide the truth from God. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.