James Week 5 • James 2:14-26

Show Notes

Sunday, October 9th • Beau Bradberry

"So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." — James 2:17

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Beau Bradberry

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Well, good morning.

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to James chapter 2.

That's where we'll be.

We'll start reading here in just a moment in verse 14.

We've got a lot of stuff going on at the church.

I believe as I sat back there and listened, we've got something for almost every different

age demographic that we have.

And so I want to invite and encourage you to join us on those.

I want to focus just real quickly, our Harvest Hangout on October 30th.

That's been just an annual event that we've been able to do in some different locations

in the last several years.

And it's been just a wonderful opportunity for us to gather as a church, but then also

to build some relationships in our community.

And so if you're thinking about it, I want to encourage you to join us.

We need lots of candy.

And I promise we're not sampling any of that, not too much, during the week at the church.

There is a safety inspection that we walk through.

Dave and I volunteer for that.

But other than that, we need candy.

We need cars.

Give you an opportunity to decorate and just have fun together.

And so please make sure you connect with that.

And then Man Camp, just an awesome time.

Years ago, we had this.

We've been able to bring it back this year for our church.

Wonderful opportunity for men to gather together, to fellowship together, to have a lot of different

activities that we do together.

But one of the most important things of there is the Christian fellowship and the message

of Christ that's shared through that.

And so I just want to challenge this for the guys that are out here.

And maybe you're thinking about going and being a part of it.

I want to encourage you to do that.

But maybe you've got a buddy at work or a buddy that's a part of your hunting club or that

lives in your neighborhood or something like that.

And you could not get them to come to church, right?

They're not going to step foot in here.

But they'll go fishing, right?

They'll go out and do those type things with you.

I want to encourage you.

Maybe you grab a ticket for them and give great opportunity to connect them with some other

men who are believers and to hear the message of Christ and how Christ is working in the

lives of his people.

And so I want to encourage you to be a part of that.

Tracy Williams will be back here to my left at this back table, back here selling tickets

afterwards.

And so we'd love for you guys to come and connect there.

Well, we'll start reading James chapter 2.

Let's jump right into verse 14.

James writes and says,

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Can that faith save him?

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to

them go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body,

what good is that?

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, you have faith and I have works?

Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works.

You believe that God is one.

You do well.

Even the demons believe and shudder.

Verse 20.

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

Was not Abraham our father justified when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works.

And scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness.

And he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

And in the same way was not also Rahab, the prostitute, justified by works when she received

the messengers and sent them out by another way.

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, to also faith apart from works is dead.

Over the last several weeks, we've been diving through and walking through the book of James.

And we've talked about this all the way through.

James is one of the most practical books.

James doesn't hold any punches.

He dives straight in.

108 verses and 59 commandments are what constitute James.

So there's a lot of in this, do this, do this, do this, don't do this.

James is very blunt.

It's hard to walk away and say, well, you kind of hid that from me.

James is being very upfront with everybody about the expectations, not that James has,

but the expectations of the Lord.

Here's what Christ is calling us to.

Here's what a life in him looks like.

And over the last several weeks, we've been seeing some very clear standards and examples

of the problems that James is attacking.

A few weeks ago, he says, be doers of the word, right?

God's word is not there simply for an intellectual debate or for simply for knowledge.

But as we read this, our, our mind is activated.

Our, our heart is changed.

And what comes from that is we do what God tells us to do.

God gives us commandments, not suggestions, right?

This is what we find in scripture.

And then last week we looked at the sin of partiality and how we're to view people and

see people the way that God calls us to.

And we're not to show preference over anything that we see or that the world may define for

us.

And so this morning we're going to look at verse 14 and we're going to see what the problem

is.

Here's the problem that James is addressing.

He says, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have

works?

Can that faith save him?

So James comes and offers two questions to give a statement, to give the problem that

James is addressing with the believers in which he's writing this letter.

And so for us then, and for us today, meaning believers in Christ, we see that this problem

exists.

He's saying that there are those among you who claim Christ as savior and Lord.

You gather in church functions together.

You say religious things.

You have all the, the, the somewhat outside showing of a religious person and fulfilling

the duties that are there.

But there is a lacking of a work.

There's a lacking of a true.

When you walk out of here, you may check all the boxes of signing up.

You may register for every Bible study that's there.

You may be the first person to drop candy in a bucket for the harvest hangout and bring

the hats and gloves for the coats for the city.

You're the person that maybe you're doing those things in religious context.

But when you walk out of here, there's a lack of evidence of faith that is there and

specifically works of love is what we're going to see in his example.

And so, so this is the problem that James is addressing, but I also want to address maybe

the problem that people have had and accurately interpreting and teaching and preaching this

scripture.

James is not saying you are saved by works.

All right.

James is not saying we're going to walk through this because if this is the first time that

you're reading this, you might go, no, no, no, no, time out.

Like this is, this is what he's saying.

And that's not what James is saying.

James is not saying you are saved by works.

Apostle Paul writes this in Ephesians chapter two, eight through nine.

He says, for by grace, you have been saved through faith.

And this is not of your doing.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

So, so Paul and writing this to the church at Ephesus says, here's how you're saved.

You're saved by grace through faith in Christ.

The grace of Christ through the faith in Christ is what saves you.

And it's not you.

You don't do it.

You don't earn it.

You don't deserve it.

It's the free gift of God.

And if you could do it, then you'd have room to boast in your self-righteousness, but you

can't do it.

So there's no self-righteousness that's there.

It's not a result of your works.

So here's the question that we got to come to and wrestle with.

Is this a contradiction of scripture?

Does James two and Ephesians two contradict itself?

Now, if we were to take those passages of scripture and isolate them apart from one another,

then we may can come to a conclusion, an uneducated and inaccurate conclusion that the Bible contradicts

itself.

But the truth is the Bible does not contradict itself.

The Bible does not contradict itself, but rather it complements and it completes itself.

So the Bible works in and of itself to answer the questions that come through scripture, right?

And then completing the entirety of the work.

It's a picture of what comes together.

It's why you can't remove things.

It's why when there are struggles with scripture, what we say oftentimes is let's go to scripture.

Let's allow scripture to answer scripture.

But the problem is oftentimes we read isolated text and we draw our conclusion from an isolated

text.

And that's not what we're to do.

Text is not meant to be read.

Scripture's not meant to be read.

Pull this out, isolate it, set it over to the side and say, I like this, right?

Like scripture's not like Moe's, you know?

All right.

Scripture's not Moe's, right?

Do you like to go to Moe's?

I love to go to Moe's, right?

Because everything's custom.

You don't like steak, but you like chicken, go to Moe's.

You don't like jalapenos, but you like onions, go to Moe's.

The beauty of Moe's is you get what you want, right?

It might be $45 for a burrito by the time you're done with it, but you get what you want.

And the danger is a lot of us apply scripture the same way.

Well, I like this.

I don't like this.

I like this.

I don't like this.

And so we isolate the passages that we want.

We're quick to speak to the reference of the things that rest and settle with us.

And when we do that, we can take them and manipulate them to be what we want them to be.

And there's groups of people who have done this with James chapter 2 and Ephesians chapter 2.

And they say, well, this is what I want this to mean.

And so I'm going to ignore and I'm going to isolate and do that.

But text isn't meant to be isolated.

Let me give you an example of this.

Philippians chapter 4, verse 13.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Probably the number one Bible verse spoken by football players at all times, right?

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What is this verse not saying?

This verse is not for the defensive end to walk up, put his hand in the ground.

And as he's going to sack the quarterback, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So I'm going to just take him out, right?

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me is not the Bible verse that helps me as an overweight 43-year-old man claim that I can dunk a basketball, right?

It doesn't happen, right?

That's not what this text is talking about at all, right?

This text does not mean that I can do these things because God is on my side.

That's not what Philippians 4, 13 says.

You see, this text is meant to be read in context.

And when we read it in context, we will read in the entirety of the scripture to see what it's saying.

So look back at verse 10.

It will be on the screen.

Paul writes and he says,

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

And so Paul writes to the church at Philippi and he's thanking them for a gift that they've sent him as they sent a gift of caring for him.

And he says that, that I know you wanted to do this earlier, but, but you couldn't.

And now that I've received this, here's the blessing.

And so he's thanking them.

And then he goes in and gives like a little biblical lesson of the sufficiency of Christ.

And he says that while you've met the need that I have, God brought me through a wonderful season of being in need.

And that through this season that Paul has learned what it means to be content in every situation in which he finds himself.

And so whether he's in need or in abundance, he knows that Christ is sufficient and that Christ is his source of strength.

So Paul says, I know what it's like in both of those.

And I can praise the Lord because verse 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Whether locked up in a jail cell of need and I've heard from no one or proclaiming the gospel out and receiving the gifts that you've given me.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, right?

We see the context of what this is talking about.

So when we look at James and we look at Paul and the context and the entirety of the Bible, here's what we see.

James is not saying you were saved by works, but James is saying that you were saved by a working faith.

And in this, he and Paul agree.

Galatians 5, verse 6.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Right?

And so we see this concept of continuing to build on that faith is not just this mental agreement.

That faith is a transforming faith that produces something in us.

And Paul says in Galatians 5, 6, only faith what working through love.

So this is what he says you can hang your hat on.

This is what he says what matters.

What does saving faith look like?

Faith working through love.

And so James is addressing those who claim faith, but they show no love.

They show no faith working through love.

And so what James is doing is he's addressing the problem of counterfeit faith.

He's addressing the problem of counterfeit faith.

People who say Jesus, people who show up for church, they slap their bumper stickers on their cars.

They quote their Bible verses at convenient times.

But when the fruit and the evidence of their life is examined, it's not there.

And so as James has been doing, he gives a hypothetical that's not a hypothetical.

Right?

He gives a hypothetical.

Like if I gave the hypothetical of speeding to church this morning and rolling through a stop sign, chances are one of you did that.

Right?

It's a hypothetical, but it's not.

And this is what James addressed.

Verse 15 and 16.

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

So here's the setting.

A fellow believer in Christ, a brother and sister in Christ.

You see them, and in the Greek, they're poorly clothed or they're naked.

Clothes fallen off, ragged, busted up, can't protect themselves from the elements that they face, and they're without basic nutritional sustenance.

They have nothing is what James wants you to get.

And when you see them, in the translation, here's how you see them.

Here's how you greet them.

Have a good day.

Maybe someone else will take care of your problems.

Have a good day.

Maybe someone else can get you some clothes and food.

But I'm not interested.

And then you keep journeying on, right?

What have you shown?

You've shown that they do not matter, and you do not care.

And James says, if there's one of you in there who claims faith in Christ, but yet you have this counterfeit faith, that one of you can see this,

can that faith save them?

No.

No is what James says.

You can say all you want, but if that's the evidence of faith in your life, James says you have counterfeit faith.

It ain't real.

It's getting rejected.

It may look similar at times.

There may be pieces that people can cling to.

You've maybe been a really good hearer of the word, but brother or sister, you're not doing it.

That's what James says.

And then he describes counterfeit faith.

He doesn't just leave it at, this is what this looks like.

He begins to describe what counterfeit faith looks like.

And the first thing that he says is that counterfeit faith is a dead faith, not a living, not a growing faith.

Look back at verse 17.

So faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

It's dead, right?

When something is living, it produces something.

Right?

And we, when we are living in Christ, we produce something.

We talked about this this summer.

What do we produce?

We produce the fruit of the spirit.

This is the evidence of Christ in us, that the spirit of God rests in us.

And he's working in us and changing things about us and molding us more and more into the image and likeness of Christ so that this is who we are.

But James says counterfeit faith doesn't produce that.

What it produces is death.

So it's a dead faith.

It's not a living faith.

It's not a growing faith.

So if you say that you have the intellectual faith by itself, but you do not have the works, then what you have is you have death.

You have death.

You're not growing.

He continues on.

The second one that he shows us is he says counterfeit faith is demonic faith.

Demonic faith, not surrendered faith.

Look down at verse 19.

You believe that God is one.

You do well.

Even the demons believe and shudder.

Now, if you're partial to sarcasm like I am, you really enjoy verse 19, right?

This is some great sarcasm that James gives us.

If you believe that God is one, he quotes what's called the Shema, right?

You have this basic layer of faith of knowing who God is, that God is one, then you do well.

Even the demons believe that.

Even the demons believe that and shudder.

And here's what he's saying.

Demonic faith knows who God is.

Demonic faith knows who Christ is.

Their belief even produces something in them.

They know who God is.

They know who God is and they fear him.

They shudder from him.

But they live their life in rebellion against him.

Not surrendered to him.

Not changed by him.

And so what James says is you believe things about God, but you don't surrender to him?

Faith of a demon.

See how that ends up.

And this has got to hit home for us.

This has got to hit home for each and every one of us.

Do we have the faith of a demon?

Well, I know a lot of things about God, but I'm just not ready to lay down these things in my life yet.

I believe in God, but these are just the things of me that I like to have, that I like to do.

You mean to tell me that I have to surrender, to surrender, to lay these things down?

No, don't sign me up for that.

But I have faith.

I go to church.

We're good people.

Great, so do demons.

The third type of counterfeit faith, as he describes, is useless faith.

Useless faith, not working faith.

Verse 20.

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works?

Is useless?

So, this term for foolish, it means empty.

It means empty.

Do you want to be shown, you empty person, not filled with the spirit, that your faith is useless?

That it's not working?

That it accomplishes nothing?

Then continue to work through this, James says.

James says, can you have counterfeit faith?

Sure, sure.

You can have dead faith.

You can have demonic faith.

You can have useless faith.

And that faith does not save you.

It doesn't.

We're not going to stand before the Lord and say, well, I believed.

I believed, but there's no evidence.

There's no evidence in my life.

There's nothing that I can hang my hat on where the knowledge of who Christ is and the power of the transforming work of the spirit of God dwelt in me,

but I'm the same piece of garbage that I was before I got saved.

James says, can that faith save him?

Absolutely not.

And so James says in verse 18, we skipped over it, we're coming back to it, that what matters, what counts is saving faith.

He says, but someone will say, you have faith and I have works.

Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works, is what James says.

So James says, some people will separate these and say, well, you can have faith and I can have works and that's just what we're going to do.

And James says two things.

He says, you cannot show me your faith apart from your works, which means this.

If you have counterfeit faith, your works show that.

If you have counterfeit faith, your works show that.

Who you are, this is what lives out in your life.

But if you have saving faith, right, the second part is it becomes a visible faith.

It's seen.

It's tangible.

You can touch it.

You can hear it.

You can sense it.

You can see it.

Right?

My men's group that meets on Thursday mornings, we're going through the book of Genesis and looking at the life of Joseph.

And Joseph, not to recap everything that we've gone through, right, but Joseph, as he's in Egypt, it says several times throughout Scripture that those who are not believers know that Joseph is a believer of God because of who he is and what they see.

Joseph's not walking around with scrolls, slapping bumper stickers on the inside of his prison cell, right?

Saying, I believe in Jesus.

But from tangible evidence in his life, this is what they see and who his faith is.

So true faith, a saving faith, it's a visible faith.

In the practicality of James, what James does for us so graciously and kindly is James gives examples of this faith.

And the first example that he gives us is Abraham.

He says, was not, verse 21, was not Abraham our father justified by works?

When he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was kind to him as righteousness as he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Genesis 15, 6 says, in the account of Abraham, and he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

So Abraham believed in who God was and what God said to promise to Abraham entered into a covenant relationship that he would do,

that God would bring a great nation and lineage through him.

The redeemer would come through his son Isaac.

This is, this is, this is the promise.

And Abraham placed his faith in that God, the one true God.

And then life got complicated.

Life got tough.

It had to become more than an interaction in a moment that Abraham had with God.

And we see this account in Genesis chapter two, and I'm going to read, start in verse one.

We're going to read all the way through, let me see what we got here, through verse 14.

And it says, after these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am.

Verse two, the promise that God gives him.

Verse two is going to come into some conflict.

He said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of those mountains of which I should tell you, right?

Sacrifice him, kill him.

Verse three.

So Abraham arose early in the morning.

I don't know if you're prone to procrastinate.

I am.

If God says, go sacrifice your son, I don't know that I'm getting up that early for that, right?

Faith.

Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.

And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

And on the third day in this journey, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

In verse five, I love verse five.

Then Abraham said to his young men, this is faith, people.

Stay here with the donkey.

I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.

Faith.

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son.

And he took in his hand the knife, the fire and the knife.

And so they went, both of them together.

And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father.

And he said, here I am, my son.

He said, behold, the fire and the wood.

But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

So they both went together.

Verse nine, and they came to the place of which God had told him.

And Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son,

and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

In verse 10, then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

But we pass by and say, I don't have money to feed you.

And he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.

And he said, here I am.

And he said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to harm him.

For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

And Abraham lifted his eyes and looked.

And behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.

And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham called the name of that place.

The Lord will provide.

As it is said to that day on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.

So Genesis 15, Abraham declares his faith.

Genesis 22, we got to see how this works out.

Do you really believe what you claim?

And Abraham believed and it's seen.

Was Abraham's faith dead?

No.

No.

It was working and it was growing.

And it was difficult.

Was Abraham's faith demonic?

Was it in rebellion?

No, it was surrendered.

God, you tell me what to do with the things that are most precious to me.

And Lord, I will obey.

I will obey in every step that he took.

He obeyed.

Was it useless?

Was it empty?

No, no, no, no.

It was working.

It was working in his life.

Look at verse 22 in James 2.

You see that faith was active along with his works.

And faith was completed by his works.

James says it was active with.

His faith was active with his works.

And his faith was completed by his works.

But then there's another illustration.

There's Rahab.

And if you're thinking like Abraham, okay, there's Abraham.

Like Abraham, big deal, right?

Big, big deal.

But there's Rahab.

Rahab can oftentimes be a forgotten character in scripture.

But look at James 2, 25 and 26.

And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

So Rahab, here's who she was.

She was a prostitute in the Canaanite city of Jericho, found in Joshua chapter 2.

And Jericho was a fortified city that was directly in the path of where God told the Israelites to go as they crossed the Jordan.

And they were to take it.

But before they entered into the land, Joshua sent two spies over into Jericho to get a lay of the land to figure out what was going on.

And the king of Jericho heard that they were two spies and ordered that the spies be brought to him.

Now these men had stayed at Rahab's house.

And Rahab, instead of turning them in, she hid them and helped them with a plan because she had heard about their God who would become her God.

And in Joshua 2, verses 8 through 13, we get this story.

It says, behold, the men laid down as she came up to them on the roof and said to them,

I know that the Lord has given you the land that the fear of you has fallen upon us and all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

Verse 10, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt

and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to Sion and Og, whom you devoted destruction.

And in verse 11, we're going to hear Rahab's profession of faith.

And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted and there was no spirit left in any man because of you.

For the Lord your God, here it comes.

He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.

Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you,

you will also deal kindly with my father's house and give me a sure sign.

And that you will save alive my father and my mother, my brothers and sisters, all of whom belong to them and deliver our lives from death.

She laid her life on the line to save them and said, as we share common faith, not racial connections that's there.

She's not an Israelite.

But as we share this commonality of faith, remember me.

And they did.

And when they took Jericho, her family was the only one saved.

The writer of Hebrews talks about her also in Hebrews 11 31.

And he says, by faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

There have been a lot of questions about Rahab's faith.

Why she's continually known as Rahab the prostitute.

And here's what I'll land on about Rahab this morning.

Rahab's faith was young.

Rahab's faith in a lot of areas could be argued that it was weak.

And with some sinful tendencies.

All right.

But it was living.

It was surrendering.

And it was working.

And her faith saved her.

Rahab's faith, Abraham's faith was a saving faith.

And so faith alone unites us to Christ for righteousness.

And the faith that unites us to Christ for righteousness does not remain alone.

It works.

It works.

And it produces something in us that then comes from us.

And so I want to close with this.

I want to end with the verse we began with.

What good is it, Willow Ridge Church?

If someone says that he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?

This morning, I want to ask you this question.

What kind of faith do you have?

What kind of faith do you have?

Do you have counterfeit faith?

Dead faith?

Rebellious faith?

Useless faith?

Or do you have saving faith?

Faith that is alive?

Faith that is surrendered?

Faith that is working?

All right.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, I thank you for the difficulty of this passage of scripture.

Lord, I thank you for the hard exam that it creates within us.

Are we simply hearers of the word?

Or are we doers?

Is our faith simply something that we know?

Or is our faith who we are?

Do we have saving faith?

Faith by grace in Christ and Christ alone.

Not merited by our own works, by our own deeds, but in our own account.

But faith by grace through Christ and through his work and through his perfection and through what he has done.

But a faith that is working.

A faith that is alive.

A faith that is surrendered.

A faith that desires obedience.

A faith that hates sin.

A faith that loves people.

A faith that is deepening and growing in you.

All right.

Lord, is this the faith that we have?

Lord, as we gather in here.

Lord, so many times this message, this passage of scripture is not for the person who this is their first time hearing about Christ.

But it resonates the most in the man or the woman who for years has heard about Christ.

Who has made an intellectual decision about Christ.

Who's given Sunday morning to Christ.

But who holds Monday through Saturday for themselves.

Who holds the works of their faith for themselves.

Lord, may we be the people who embody a living faith.

A true faith.

A saving faith.

That's not found in what we do in and of ourselves.

But is found and is evident by the work of the Spirit living in us.

So, Father, speak to us.

Those of us this morning, Lord, who need to come recognizing our faith in Christ.

But, Lord, seeing maybe we've become stale.

Maybe we've hit the cruise control.

Right.

And, Lord, you're working in us.

Saying, ah, today's a good day.

Just fall before me.

And repent.

Or maybe today is that day when we recognize that our faith has never been saving faith.

It's always been counterfeit.

And today is the day when we say, Jesus, I want the saving faith that only you can provide.

God, work, draw us near to you.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.

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