Speaker 1: Our faith and works would need to work together even when we mess it up. We just gotta keep moving forward, continuing to walk further into deeper obedience with him.
Speaker 2: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Life Tabernacle Church podcast. It's an honor to be with you today. This podcast serves as our church's weekly sermon archive. Tune in each week to hear what God is speaking in our community.
Be sure to follow and share with a friend. We hope you enjoy today's message.
Speaker 1: If you have your bibles, James chapter two will be verses 14 through 26. It will be on the screen behind me. Alright. James two verses 14 through 26. Alright.
My friends, this is God's word. Open up your hearts and your ears to hear what God has to say in his word. This is the word of the Lord. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds, can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God.
Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. You foolish person. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone? In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Let us pray over God's word this morning. Lord, we thank you that we get to gather into your house today. Thank you that as we have filled this place with your praise, you have come and met us and enthroned yourself on the praises of your people. Lord, help us to humbly submit ourselves to this word and help us to understand what this whole bit about faith and works or faith and deeds means to us.
Come Holy Spirit, the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen. Growing up, by show of hands, do you remember doing show and tell in elementary school? You may ever do show and tell.
I remember one time I convinced my parents when we got a new puppy. I said, I want to bring my puppy to Show and Tell. And I don't know why they said yes, but I did. And and it was one of the I thought it had the coolest thing ever, but I remember, it was very vividly, I had a friend named Jordan Perego and his his father was stationed in Afghanistan during a war. And I remember him bringing in pictures of his dad in combat, like doing different things in Afghanistan.
I'm like, this is the coolest show and tell I've ever seen. I haven't played show and tell in a long time. I you know, not something you do when you're older, but why not? I thought we'd do a little show and tell this morning. Okay?
So here we go. First up today, I need Chris West to come to the front. Chris West, get up here. Give it up for Chris as he comes. He said he ain't talking on that.
But listen up. Go ahead and show us what you got. What is that? This was my Father's Day gift for my son. Wow.
That's a precious gift. So what this is is the greatest football team in America is one of their helmets. Okay? Right? And so raise your hand or just say yes if you know Chris loves the Washington Commanders.
We know that, unfortunately, and we've been praying for him ever since. We heard that. Yeah. We know he loves the Washington Commanders. He can say it all day.
Speaker 2: He could pray about it all day. Even if Pastor Dallas, hey, they're
Speaker 1: playing the Cowboys this week. Can you pray and, know, put a good, you know, word in? You know, I'm not gonna do that. Okay? Right?
But the difference though is is that he not only says that he likes the Washington Commanders, here's something to show you that he does. This is an awesome helmet. And this would not fit your rather large head. No. Not at all.
And it's yes. So you need a bigger one if you're gonna wear that. Give it up for Chris. Thank you so much for bringing that. That's awesome.
That's awesome. That's awesome. Next, this morning, my wife. My wife has something to show you this morning. And it's not a child, don't think.
But give me that. Let me see this. Yeah, for sure. Spit up here. It just ain't gonna go nowhere.
Hopefully not. There you go. Yeah. I mean, give us a little rundown. She's gonna go ahead and sell the product too.
She makes commission off each one that's sold. Okay? Does it have a name?
Speaker 2: Should
Speaker 1: we name it today? What should we call this KitchenAid? Mixer? Martha. Martha.
That is bad. Because she'd be working and not sitting at the feet. I get it. I love that. I love that.
I love that. Let's call it Martha. Would you tell Martha goodbye? Thank you so much, M. You're welcome.
You wanna I'll I'll hold this for a minute while you set that down. That sounds bad. It's my child, so sorry. Alright. Brother Kenny, where you at?
Oh, he's back counting money. Brother Kenny was gonna bring his Thunderbird, but he's still working on it, you know, five years later. So he decided not to bring his Thunderbird for show and tell. But I actually do have another show and tell. Lewis Junior, would you come up here?
So this is Lewis Junior. Say hi, Lewis. Hi. Just just so that you're not confused, Lewis Senior's here and this is Lewis Junior. My some of my kids call him Greg.
Don't ask me why. But this is Lewis Jr. So do you want, what do you want to be called? Lewis or Lewis Jr? I don't care.
Jr? LJ? What's up LJ? This is LJ. So what what what I didn't, what what I what I have for LJ is that he has something to show you.
And he wanted to do show and tell this morning. He asked me, he's like I gotta do show and tell. So I said that's fine and so he said that he can lift really heavy weights. So go ahead and show us. Can you lift heavy weights?
No, you can't. Can you, you know, like you know, 25 pounders, could you lift them above your head or do some squats with them? Can you do that? Why not? Because I don't want to.
You don't want to? Can you show us though? Sure. No? You don't have them.
Where's your weights? No, you don't have any weights here. Why don't you have any weights if you came to show and tell? See, look how silly this looks. He came to show and tell and didn't even bring the weights he said he can lift.
Does that make any sense to you? No. I Chris brought a helmet. Thanks, Chris. And Emily brought her KitchenAid, Martha.
And he says he can lift big weights because he's a big, strong man of God who's looking sharp this morning. And he didn't even bring the weights. What's wrong with you? It was bad for a Sunday. Go sit down.
Get out of here. We'll give you a chance to maybe redeem yourself later. You know, that might be the worst or funniest part about show and tell. The whole bit about show and tell is that it's not just a tell. Right?
It's not no show and tell. It's you have to show and display what it is, and then your words back up what you believe in. Right? Chris had a helmet. We know he loves.
We know he loves the commanders, but he showed us. Emily loves to bake and she's good at it. She not only says that and does that, but she showed us. But LJ this morning apparently can lift weights, but he can't show us. And since you can't show us, we don't believe you.
I don't believe you because your words don't line up with your actions. And that's what today is all about in God's word. It is faith and works. Look at your neighbor and say faith and works. Faith Look, this is might be a tough word for you, but I just ask you to invite your hearts to open to what the Lord is saying.
Show and tell only works because you are able to display what you say you believe. This whole passage is about us having this faith in Christ. But it's not enough to just say it. It's not enough to just be a hearer of the word. It's not enough to just kinda do the thing and be around God.
No. It is about doing the thing in which we say we believe in. That is what it's about. It's about having a show and tell faith. Look at your neighbor say show and tell faith.
It's about obedience to Jesus and his teachings. And when we are obedient to what Jesus says, it really displays that really he is our Lord, our savior, and our master. It's not just words or confession, but concrete actions to display the truth that is in our heart. And that's what this passage in James is all about. Remember what we looked back a couple weeks ago, the main topic of the book of James.
James is wanting us to be not only hearers of God's word, but he wants to act us to act upon God's word and be doers of God's word. Right? So here in James verses 14 through 26, a thick piece of passage, this is all about faith and works and how they complement and depend on one another. But before we dig into this text, we need to define something. We need to define the word works.
Look at your neighbor and say works. Works. Works. Word works, deeds, or actions is used over 10 plus times in verses 14 through 26. You can find this word works or deeds or actions all over the New Testament, and this is what it means in the original language.
It means work, duty, or a task. It refers to a task or a set of tasks that is accomplished by someone. Alright? A good verse in the book of Mark to help you understand this is found in Mark chapter 13. Mark thirteen thirty four says this.
It says, it's like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their own assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Parents in the room have older kids in the room if you will, and younger too. By a show of hands, how many times have you given your kids a list of things to do before you get home? I can't tell you how many times my mom's like, this list better be done by the time I get home.
This list of actions, deeds, and works needs to be accomplished. And the problem was my sisters and I would sit on the couch and watch TV and eat bean burritos and not do any of the things, and then we would hear her truck pull up in the driveway. And what do you do? You begin rushing and you've been trying to put the forks away, you're trying to do all the things that that the person in charge of you told you to do. That's what this word really means.
It means we have tasks, works, or deeds to do that someone has given us. It indicates that each one of us has a certain task to accomplish while the master is away. And who is our master, my friends? It's Jesus. He is our Lord, our savior, and our master.
And when your master tells you to do something, you ought to do it. And we ought to do these things until Jesus returns. And my friends, he's coming soon. But we have to be getting our list taken care of to show that we are a faithful servant until he returns. We have works, deeds, and things to do.
Here's a few example of Christian works or deeds that we need to accomplish while the master is away. For example, what about loving our neighbors? Very simple. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's something that we ought to do until Jesus returns.
What about this? Preach the gospel. We are commanded through the scriptures to make to preach the gospel to all creation, to make disciples of all nations. What about this? Be faithful to our spouses.
We are called to be faithful to our spouses as Christ has been faithful to us. What about this? Do everything unto the glory of God. No matter what work you do or what work you've done, the scriptures say that we should everything we do in word or in deed should be done unto the glory of God. That's something that we ought to do.
What about giving generously? That's something that we ought a work or a deed that we ought to do. And lastly, very important is care for the poor. The scriptures over and over and over tell us and command us to care for those who are misfortunate and have less than us. And these are just a very small sample of the hundreds of different deeds and actions that we can do according to the scriptures.
These are the deeds and actions that James is talking about. But very importantly, hear me right now before we move any further. I am not. James is not. Not any orthodox preacher of the gospel is not telling you.
I am not telling you today that your works equals salvation. I'm not saying that. If you don't know Jesus and you think if I just hey. If I do enough good things for Jesus, I'll be okay in the end. You won't.
It's not about just being a good person. That's not enough. Works do not equal salvation. You cannot work your way to God. That's why Jesus came.
That's why I love how this passage so happens to be today when we did communion. My friends, if it wasn't for Jesus and what he accomplished on Calvary and raising from the dead, none of us would have a chance to know God. All of us are sinners in need of saving. Every single one of us. And it is only by the work of one man that we have a chance to be saved.
Do we got it? This is why we partially had a church split during the reformation in the fifteen hundreds. The Catholic church in many ways was basically preaching, you have to do enough of these good works and deeds in order for you to be saved. Martin Luther's like, you know what? It's not quite like that in the scriptures.
Because when he was reading this verse, everything came alive. Ephesians two eight says this, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Romans five one, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Works do not equal salvation.
You can only have salvation by your faith in Christ alone and what he accomplished. It starts there. Let's just lay that foundation wide and clear. Are we good there? With that frame, with that understanding of defining works, understanding that it's only by the blood of Christ that we can be saved, let us enter fresh into the passage again starting in verse 14.
Look back at the passage with me. James is going to give us a few different examples of different types of faith that people have. The first type of faith that we encounter starting in verse 14, if you're taking notes, is dead faith. Look at your neighbor and say, dead faith. He says this, what good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds or no works?
Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Or I like how the CSB puts it.
In the same way, faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead by itself. Let's say sister Kim comes to me. It's December, we've had a cold front come through and and she's like Dallas, I don't have a coat. I am very cold. Matt kicked me on the street for a little bit.
Just go with me. Thank you. Mine actually, don't do it, Matt. And and she's like, I'm cold, I'm freezing. I like, I don't like, and I'm really hungry.
And if I were to go to her and say, oh, sister Kim, would you come here? Come here, sister Kim. I know you're so uncomfortable. That's okay. If if she were to say that to me and I was like, oh my goodness, bless your heart.
I'll be praying for you. Have a good day. You're like, what? What the hypocrisy? You know, know, the whole bless your heart prayer.
Right? That it would be like, what? I I'm hungry and I need a jacket. I didn't ask for you to pray for me. I was praying you would bring me a coat and a jacket and something to eat.
That's what I need. And that's what James is trying to say because we look at that and that we look at that and we're like, that's like, that's stupid. Like, that that doesn't even make sense. And that's what James is saying. He's saying if there's those of us who claim to have faith in Christ, and when something like this happens and we don't do anything about it, we don't have any compassion for the person in front of us, and we don't do anything, he says, your faith is dead.
It's dead. It's of no use. It's not even alive. You're saying that you follow Jesus and you care for the poor, and he's your Lord, your savior, and master. But you're not even willing to give someone a coat or something to eat.
And if your faith's like that, it's dead. And the last time I checked, this is why he says that's what he says at at the beginning of passage. He said, can such faith save him? Can dead save can dead faith save you? The answer is no.
Dead faith can't save you. It's not enough to just proclaim Christ with your mouth and not do anything he says. It's dead faith. It can't save you. You convince yourself that you're saved.
In your mind, well, you know, I came to know Jesus, but there is no action to represent that reality. It's dead faith. Not only we have dead faith, as we look to the next verse, verse 18, we now see a form of demonic faith. Sounds weird, but just go with me for a minute. Look at verse 18.
It says, but someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God? Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder.
This is demonic faith. This is repentance. This is sorry. This is recognition without repentance. This is the generic person in society that says, yeah, I believe in God.
Yeah, I believe there's something out there. You know, it might be the God of the Bible. I don't know. We were discussing last night at dinner. We were praying and talking about the names of God, and and and Lewis Junior said, hey, let you know, God, thank you for this meal.
And his dad's like, which God is it? You know? And it just a very playful manner. His name's Jesus, Yahweh, Adonai, you know, we get the feeling. Right?
But but the point is a lot of people just say, God, we don't know what they mean. I believe in God. He's somewhere out there. Or the other person will say, well, I I don't believe in God, but I'm just a good person. And if I just do enough good things and it's gonna work out and end for me, I'll get to go to heaven because that's what it's all about.
Right? No. That's what James is not saying. This generic acknowledgment of God is not enough. It is not enough to acknowledge just that God exists.
That doesn't lead to salvation. Repentance from your sins and putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is what saves you, not acknowledgment or recognition at own alone. What's funny is is what he says. You probably didn't catch it. Look at verse 19 with me.
He says, you believe that there is one God good. Pause there. Remember James is talking to a group of Christians who were primarily Jewish believers. They were Jews who had converted to Christianity, come to faith in the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. And some of these believers, unfortunately though, are claiming, hey, that there's one God.
To us, we know that there's one God. Amen? We serve one God who manifests himself or exists in three persons, the father, son, and holy spirit. And it was well known in the Jewish community that there was one God. The most famous or one of the most important verses to a Jew is found in Deuteronomy six four.
Deuteronomy six four is called the Shema, and it says this, hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Every else, every other place in the world, people believed in lots of gods. Lots of little g gods. If you've seen the Odyssey recently, I don't know if anybody saw the Odyssey, but it bases itself off Greek mythology. In all these other systems and all these other nations and places, they believed in all these deities, and you'd have to make sacrifice to this god and that god and this one and that one and that one over there.
In order for you to have favor with the gods. They believed in polytheism, lots of gods. But what Jews and Christians believe in, there is one god. It's just him, and he's god. That one.
So Lewis was right last night. There's just one god. It's just him, The father, son, and spirit. But the problem is some of these folks are trying to tell James, hey, I believe that there's one God. Meaning, these people have the right theology.
They actually have belief in the right God. It's not some generic God. They got the right God in mind. The God of Israel, Yahweh, Jesus. But the problem is, there's nothing that moves them about it.
They're able to admit Jesus is Lord, but there's nothing in their life that says that that's true. And that's why he says, and he's very sarcastic here, he says, even the demons believe that and shudder. My friends, if you didn't know that there's demons in the world. There are demons in the world who seek to destroy your lives, to wreck havoc, to oppress you, to make your life hell, if you will. From the enemy, and they will be defeated.
But here's the funny thing about demons, they don't lie. They almost never lie. Because every time Jesus is getting ready to cast a demon out of somebody, he has to tell the demon to be quiet because I don't want them to know who I am yet because even the demons know who Jesus is. The demons have seen him for eternity. They know who God is.
They have right theology. They have the right beliefs. But they're prideful, and they're not going to repent and come to faith in Jesus. But at least they respond. It says, even the demons believe that.
And what? Shudder. Their response to who Jesus is, the one true God, is that they shudder. They are fearful of who he is. And he's saying in the opposite way, you Christians, you believers, you say that you believe in Jesus, but there's no repentance in your life.
You don't respond. The demons respond. How could a demon have better faith and response than you? Dead faith and demonic faith. And really both of these are forms of dead faith.
This type of faith, faith without action can not save you. And really, what he's saying here in verses 14 through 19 remind me of a very scary passage of scripture found in Matthew chapter seven starting in verse 21. It says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles.
Then I would tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. Certainly, James has been inspired by this passage of scripture. I told you at the beginning of this, a lot to what James says is inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, which Matthew seven, this is where it's found. And James is saying, it is not enough to just confess that Jesus is Lord if you don't have any actions to back up that truth claim.
And my friends, I do not want to get to that day where I stand before the Lord Jesus, and he looks at me and says, depart from me. I never knew you. Well, Jesus, I I preached many sermons in your name. I prayed for many sick people in your name. I gave a lot of money to you in your name and your house.
And he said, yeah, well, but you never knew me. I don't wanna be there, my friends. And there but the problem the scary part is there is people who do that. There's people in your lives who say they know Jesus, but they really don't. They know the idea about Jesus, but they don't really know him.
They have dead or demonic faith. My friends, in this church, we're not doing dead or demonic faith. We're not doing that. What we are going to do is what we see next starting at verse 20 is working faith. Look at your neighbor and say, working faith.
Working faith. This is that show and tell faith that I was talking about at the beginning. Starting in verse 20, I read it to you again. You foolish person, speaking of those who have dead or demonic faith. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. This is working faith. James is now at his main point. James doesn't want his hearers to have dead or demonic faith. He wants them to have working faith.
He wants them to have living faith. And this is what he begins to show us. He begins to lay forth a model of what genuine faith looks like by using two popular examples from the Old Testament. He begins displaying how faith and works work together starting with father Abraham. Does anybody wanna sing the song for us this morning?
Had many sons, had many sons. That guy. Right? You remember him. You know the song.
We're talking about Abraham. So this is what he says. He says he says, you know what? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? I don't know if you remember the story.
It's found in Genesis chapter 22. And remember, it was a long time before Abraham had the son of promise. Remember in Genesis chapter 12, God called Abraham out of his land and said, hey, I'm gonna take you to a land that I'm gonna show you, and I'm going to bless you and make your descendants great. Genesis chapter 15, they make a covenant. And then it's years go by that Abraham hasn't even had a son yet.
He eventually has a son named Isaac. And after he has the son of the promise, who was going to be his heir, who was going to be the descendant that was gonna carry this promise on and on and on? God tells him this in Genesis chapter 22 starting in verse one. He says, sometime later, God tested Abraham. Just mind you, God's gonna test you in your life sometimes.
You're gonna go through tests. It's a good thing. He wants to build you up. So if Abraham went through a test, you're going to too. Okay?
It says, sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham. Abraham replied, here I am. Then God said, hey, Abraham. You know that son that you finally had and you're a really old man, like over 100 and you're a dad again?
Can you imagine how tough that would be? You know, that'd be crazy. He says, you know that son you love? Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain.
I will show you. God tells Abraham, go kill your son for me. And Abraham's like, what? You wanna do what? This is the son of the promise.
This is the one who's going to carry the fulfillment of everything you've said to me, and you want me to go kill him? Abraham doesn't fight. He doesn't ask, well, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. He just does it. You know this how the story goes.
He he takes Isaac on the mountain. He makes Isaac carry his own wood that he's gonna get burned on. It's crazy. They get to the top of the mountain. Isaac's laying on the altar.
Abraham's about to drop the dagger into his heart, and then a voice. Stop. Abraham, don't do it. Then there's a ram in the thicket, and he's able to sacrifice the ram instead of his own son. And then God says, befahem, is this where Jehovah Jireh comes from?
He says, on this mountain I will provide. I will be Jehovah Jireh. And two thousand or not two thousand years ago, years later, that same Mount Moriah, that same region is where Jesus would be offered up as a one and only son as a sacrifice. But the point though is, is that back in Genesis chapter 12, back in Genesis chapter 15, it says Genesis fifteen six, it says, Abraham believed the Lord and credited to him as righteousness. Years before this happened, Abraham believed in God.
He had faith in God. He trusted in God. He believed in the one true God. But we get a display of this faith that it was made whole. It was made complete.
But when he was willing to be obedient even by killing his son, he was going to do it because God told him to. And that's why James says in verse 22, you see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did. It's a perfect example of faith in works working together. And look, when it says in Genesis fifteen six that Abraham believed the Lord, we have no real measure of knowing if he actually believes the Lord or not. Right?
Moriah, can you look into my heart and know what I really believe? No. Say like, can you look into my heart and know what I believe? Can I look into your heart? No.
Only God can look into our hearts. Right? But what we can do is display a certain type of lifestyle behavior of obedience to God that reflects what's in our heart. Can you say obedience? Obedience is a difficult thing, and obedience is a beautiful thing.
We can clearly see what is in people's hearts by what they do and what they obey. It is obedience to the Lord. His word and his ways is what proves that we have faith. Back in the nineteen forties, there was a wonderful pastor who was martyred for his faith named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a part of what is known as the confessing German church.
When Germany and Adolf Hitler were destroying the region, were killing minorities, ave and and the German church had went apostate. Much of the churches in Germany were doing whatever Adolf Hitler wanted, and he was pre they were preaching his book in the churches, Mein Kampf. Yet there was a small section of the German church called the Confessing Church, really led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that said, no. We're not gonna do that. We believe in Jesus.
We're not gonna put up with this stuff. And he would go on to write a book called The Cost of Discipleship. And this is one of the most famous lines from the book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who would be killed for his faith in Jesus not long after this. Killed by the Germans, hung to death, he says this. He says, only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.
Obedience and belief. What a simple, beautiful statement. The point being, if you're obedient to the word of God, that truly means you believe. And if you truly want to believe, you will be obedient to the word of God. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
I would love to. I would love to eat ice cream every night, which I do. But I know that's gonna catch up. That's a bad example. There's a lot of things we'd like to be able to do and not have any consequences.
If I eat ice cream every night for the rest of my life, it's gonna catch up with me. Am I right? I'm not gonna fit in my suits no more and that's gonna be an issue. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot have dead faith or demonic faith.
Our faith has to coincide with actions and actions have to coincide with our faith. Obedience, the one who believes is obedient and only he who believes, or who is obedient believes. And that's why this story of Abraham holds so much weight because he was a man who was obedient, who believed in God but was obedient and did the things that God asked him to do. And here's the thing, this type of working faith doesn't look like perfection. By a show of hands, would you just show me honestly if you've ever missed it and didn't listen to the Lord and obey him?
There's been times the Lord's told me to do something and I didn't do it. There's things in his word sometimes I didn't do them or believe in them. Does that mean I don't believe in him? No. That's why I love the verse in first John chapter two verse one.
If any one of you does sin, good thing we have an advocate with the father, Lord Jesus Christ. He's expecting believers not to sin anymore, but he's saying if you do sin, if you do mess up, if you do make a mistake, if you're not perfect, that's okay. Come back to the cross. So he's not asking for perfection. Because Abraham wasn't perfect, was he?
Before he had Isaac, he had a son named Ishmael. He he forced he he convinced his his wife to allow him to be with his servant lady and have a child from this woman that was the son of not the promise. The son of sin, if you will. He messed it up. He didn't always believe God, but there was a track record over the period of his life where he truly believed in the Lord, and those actions of obedience displayed that.
And on that topic of messing up, that's why I love what it says here about Rahab. Can you say Rahab? Story of Rahab's found in Joshua chapter two. After Josh Moses has died and Joshua has taken over as the leader of Israel, and they're entering into the promised land. And and and before they enter and they do the famous taking walls around Jericho, the march around Jericho and the walls fall down, it's an awesome story, Joshua sends a couple spies into this city called Jericho.
And when the spies come in, they go into the house of this lady named Rahab who was a prostitute. And even the king of Jericho knows that everybody knows that these men have come into our house, and the king of Jericho's like, hey, give me those guys. They're Israelites. We need to kill them. Because if not, their God and their people are gonna come here and they're gonna they're gonna destroy what we have.
And what Rahab does, she doesn't sell them out. She doesn't tell the king and people where they are. She even lies. She's like, hey, they were here, but they left. They went that way.
You should run that way and get them. All the while while they're hanging up out on the roof hiding under some straw. And Rahab's like, look, we've heard about your God. You serve the one true holy God. We heard what he did to Egypt.
We've seen what he's done in the region. I don't want that to happen to us. That's why I'm showing so much favor to you because I truly believe in the God of Israel. I truly believe in him. And they say basically, girl, thank you for taking care of us when we come back.
We're gonna not gonna kill you and your family. And even after the walls of Jericho fall down, Rahab and her family don't die. They're actually joined in to the nation of Israel. They're they're become foreigners, part of the family of God. They're the some of the first Gentiles in the body, in the Bible who get saved.
And what I love is this lady who is a prostitute, She now joins the community of faith. Hebrews 11 puts her in the hall of faith, commending her for her faith, and she even gets to be a part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. In Matthew chapter one verse five, it says, Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. This lady who was a prostitute, and she was probably forced into a not you know, she probably didn't want to do this. Right?
Yet, she was a lady of sin, of disobedience in her life, not doing what probably God wanted her to do. Yet, she finds faith in Christ and gets on the right path. And she's even the great great great grandmother of our Lord Jesus Christ. How beautiful that is that story of redemption. And that's why I just wanna paint for you today.
I'm not saying perfection. We're not striving for perfection. That's what we sang this morning. We're not striving for perfection. I'm telling you, it's only by the blood.
It's only by the blood of Jesus. Our faith and works, we need to work together even when we mess it up. We just gotta keep moving forward, continuing to walk further into deeper obedience with him. So James is able to use these two stories of Abraham and Rahab to show great examples of working faith. Abraham almost sacrificed his son.
Rahab was a prostitute, but she feared God and helped the spies. So my question for you today is, what about you? What do you have for show and tell today? LJ, get back up here. I'm gonna give the I'm gonna give you a chance again, okay?
So we bring this together. Abraham did that, Rahab did that, what about you y'all? Stay right here. So I I kinda did him dirty. I didn't tell him that he was going to be doing what he's doing.
So LJ, I hope you're ready. Oh, there they are. I got some weights for him. He's gonna work out for you this morning. He's gonna show you how we have show and tell faith.
He's gonna show you how you have working faith by working out for us. Alright? Good? These are twenty five pounds. Is that gonna be okay?
Alright. Stand right there. Look happy. Smile. Bigger.
Alright. Here we go. So this is what I'm gonna do. As we get to the personal or practical application portion of this, I'm gonna show you some practical things of what working faith looks like. Because we don't want dead faith, we don't want demonic faith.
We want faith that works. Right? Amen? So this is what it looks like. So as I begin naming and listing different types of works or deeds that we can engage in, what he's going to do is he's going to lift these up and he's gonna do a shoulder press with them.
Good. And then you can do a squat when you come down. Alright, let me see it. Let's see it. Let's just get a practice round.
Go ahead and Up. Yep. Yes, sir. Alright. You need a little deeper on that.
Okay, here we go. So here is some key actions and deeds and works that we must be engaging in and doing. Are you all ready? The first category is this, foundational commitments. Good.
We have foundational commitments. What are those? We have the great commission and the great commandments. Great commission? Good.
Work it out. Yes, sir. And then we have the great commandments. Good. Love it.
So what is that? The great commission, Matthew twenty eight nineteen through 20 says, what? Go into all the world and what? Make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit and teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you and lo, with you I'm always with you always even to the end of the age.
All of us have a foundational commitment when we come to Jesus, when we come to faith in Christ to preach the gospel and make disciples. We are all called to do that. Not just me, all of us. You're called to do that. You're called to do that.
You're called to do that. All of us are called to preach the gospel to the whole world wherever where we go. Not only that, but as really the main motive of why we do it. The great commandments, we're called to what? Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Those are the foundational commitments. Those are the foundational works that we need to be engaging in every single day of our lives to some degree. Those are the things that God has called us to do. Next category is this, relational obligations. We got loving one another.
That wasn't deep enough. Loving one another. We are called brothers and sisters. Over and over, James keeps saying brothers and sisters in this book. We're all called to what?
Love one another. Jesus says, the world will know you're my disciples by how you love one another. It's not about just loving the unbeliever out there. How do we love one another? Us, brothers and sisters in Christ.
How do we care for one another? How do we give to one another? How do we bless one another? How do we honor one another? The one anothers, we have a relational obligation to love one another even when it's hard.
Because we all know that relationships are messy. We get on each other's nerves. We sin against one another. I said something to my wife yesterday that I didn't know hurt hurt her feelings, and she said, Dallas, you hurt my feelings when you said that. And I was like, I didn't even know I hurt your feelings.
I didn't even know I sinned against you. But I'm sorry, can you forgive me? I could have been like, I didn't mean it like that. Get over it. You're being too emotional.
Right? That would be ridiculous because that would be showing me that I don't love her. I humbly love her. Another thing we need to do is serve and build up one another. They getting heavy yet?
We're to serve one another and just care for one another. This is an extension of loving one another. To serve and build, to prophesy over one another, to pray for one another, to give prophetic words to one another, to live life together with one another. The next section is spiritual practices. Go.
We're gonna go rapid fire, you're gonna get tired. Spiritual practices. Here's some works or deeds that we should be doing ourselves. We should be praying. Amen.
Jesus didn't say if you pray, he says when you pray. So we should all be praying, growing in prayer with God. We had a wonderful series about prayer at the beginning of the year. If you missed it, go back and listen to it. Prayer.
We should not only be praying, but we should be studying God's word. We should be reading God's word, not just to read it, not just to hear it, oh, that sounds good. God's telling me how good I am. No. You're to look at this in the mirror and say, you know what?
I don't look quite like Jesus yet in that area. I need to fix that. We need to engage in prayer, study, into fasting. Go. Fasting, everybody love fasting here?
Okay. No. No one likes fasting, but that's something Jesus calls us to do. He says, when you fast, don't be looking so dull. When you fast, do it with a whole heart.
We're called to live in community. You'll be alright. You're working your faith out. It's doing something. You're just doing something.
We're called to live life together, to do life together, to bear one another burdens together. And I'll make this easy on you. You want me to, like, wrap a few of these up? Are you good? Okay.
Here we go. The the next section is caring for the vulnerable. Go. So those who are sick, those who are poor, those who are widows, those who are in prison, those who have less than, those who are the the Samaritan, not the this good Samaritan example. Those who have need, we are called to love them.
And someone asked you this example I gave with sister Kim, if sister Kim asked for help, the right thing to do is to help her with however I can. Now look, not all of us can fix everybody's problems, can we? No. I would love to give everybody who asked me a bunch of money. I don't got a bunch of money to give, but I can do what I can.
Right? And even this week, I had a meeting with someone who was asking, hey, you know, this is my story and I have a lot of, there's some needs I have in my life, what can we do? And as sister Dream and I were meeting with this person, we were brainstorming what practical things can we do for this person. And we're making a plan where we can try to help this one particular person who's in need as much as we can. And actually next week, I'm gonna, if I'll talk to that person that has a need, I'm gonna put some stuff in the bulletin that we can all meet the need in some way in our own way.
The point is when people have a need, we gotta try to meet it. What about difficult relationships? You good? You keep working. Difficult relationships.
Right? How do we forgive one another? How do you forgive someone who hurts you? How do you forgive someone who cusses you out? How do you forgive someone who doesn't say they love you anymore?
How do you love your enemies? Those are some works that we gotta work out. Next, what about work in provision? I know some of us here are retired, but some of us still are still working our jobs actively. But regardless of the work you do, whether you work a job for a paycheck still, whether you do work around your house, whatever type of work you do, how do you do it?
Do you do it with a gladful heart and that you're not grumbling, or are you doing it unto the glory of God? That's a deed or action that we engage in. Two more. You're doing really good. Here we go.
What about this? Generosity in giving. I know the topic about giving money to the church or just giving generously can get a fuzzy. But here's the point, the Bible calls us to be cheerful givers to our community. The early church was radically generous because they had love for one another.
They were able to sell extra pieces of properties and things that they had as people had need. And they were dramatically generous with one another. And so something that we should be doing or engaging as as a work of our faith is to give generously. And lastly, you're doing so well, hold on tight, is civic responsibility. That was pretty good.
Civic responsibility. This is submission to our government leaders and all of us can agree here. No matter who's in the White House or whoever sits in our political offices, they don't always do things we like. However, the Scriptures call us to submit to the leaders that rule our land. Now your leaders ask you to do something that's directly against God's word, fight against it.
Right? And that's what part about being a good civic or a good citizen is to participate in the government around us. That's why it's important for us to vote. That's why it's important for us to advocate for different things that coincide with Christian values around our city. Not only that, we're also called to pray for our our our leaders that are over us, which is a weird thing to think.
Because many of them believe in things that none of us agree with, Yet the scriptures call us to pray for them. To pray for the what? The peace of the land. So that it may go well with you. These are just a small sample of all the works we're supposed to do.
You're not done yet. Do another one. Go for it. These are and more, are the works and deeds that we must be giving ourselves to. And it's not easy.
Look at your neighbor and say, not easy. It is a form of suffering. Are you suffering? Hurt. Good.
I'm glad your shoulders hurt. Because when you are doing things for God, when you're doing the works and deeds he's called you to do in obedience, it hurts. You get sore. You get wore out. But when you keep doing it, do another one.
When you keep doing it, it's producing something in you that everybody can see. Everybody can clearly see that LJ is getting stronger. And when you love your neighbor as yourself, when you forgive one another, when you give generously, when you do all these things God's called you to do, it makes it evident to everyone that you have a show and tell faith that's working. Do one more as we finish. Get it up.
Give it up for LJ. You just set them down right at their altar. That's fine. Kids, don't touch them. Alright.
Would you stand with me this morning if you're able as we conclude. No, today was a little bit longer. Communion, worship was great. Very simple. Faith without works is dead, my friends.
Can't say you have faith in Jesus so you don't have any works to back it up. Show and tell only works if you got something to show. And so thank you to Chris and Emily and to LJ this morning. My friends, I wanna have a show and tell faith that no matter who sees me in my life, they can clearly see that I'm a follower of Jesus by my actions. That's the type of Christians we need.
Because we can't sing enough pretty songs. We we can't have enough pretty churches. We can't do enough. We don't have enough to convince people to come to Jesus. But you know what will display who Christ is to them?
By how we live our lives. How we are obedient to Jesus and his teachings. Even if it's hard, even when we mess up, we still must continue to pursue after the Lord Jesus in obedience. Perhaps here today, as James says at the end of his passage in verse 26, he says, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Perhaps this morning, in your own heart, you're like, you know what, pastor Dallas?
I feel dead in my faith a little bit. Or I feel like I'm dying in my faith, and and my faith is not like it once was. I'm not walking out or doing the things that I used to do for the Lord. So this morning, I just wanna invite you to have a moment of repentance and bringing your heart back to God and say, God, I love you. I believe in you.
Help me to obey you and your word. Lord, I wanna have a show and tell faith, not a dead or demonic faith. Perhaps you're here today and you don't even know Jesus. You're like, Dallas, I've I've actually had dead faith and I've actually had demonic faith. I I think I'm saved, I'm really not.
I just say I love Jesus, but there's nothing to display that. And if you need prayer for that, if you're ready to repent of your sins and get right with God, I want you to come up here to the altar as we sing this last worship song. And perhaps you're here today and you've just grown weary of doing good works for God. The scripture says, do not grow weary in doing good for God, for you will reap a benefit or a harvest in the end. And so this morning, my prayer for you is Holy Spirit, empower them, Strengthen them.
Encourage them to continue to do the things you've called them to do. Whatever you need, whatever category you fall in this morning, I just wanna invite you to pray in your seat or come pray at the altar and just engage and respond to what the Lord is doing just for a few minutes. Come Holy Spirit.