Study of James: Saying & Actually Doing
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Peace to Live By Study of James: Saying & Actually Doing - Daniel Litton
(Tap to play podcast or right-click to download)
For full sermons without edits for time, tap here to go to downloads page.
(Tap to play podcast or right-click to download)
For full sermons without edits for time, tap here to go to downloads page.
[Transcript represents full sermon's text]
Today we come to our final section here in James chapter 2. This will be our stopping point before Holiday break, and I will be back in latter January to pick us up at James chapter 3. I hope everyone has been enjoying these messages, as I know I have. More important than even that, though, is that I hope you’ve discovered new things that you can work into living out your life, so that it is better. After all, that’s what the Bible is for: it is to train us in godliness. That’s not to become more and more like a monk in a monastery, but rather it is to give us practical, simple application that we can benefit from in our daily living. And my hope is that I have fallen in line with this kind of teaching.
We finished up last week discussing the verse in James were he talks about the fact that even demonic spirits, those evil beings which are aligned with Satan, that even they believe in Jesus Christ. They know he is God, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. And we said, though, that this isn’t enough. We said it’s not enough to just know about God. We can learn about any subject, I would image, perhaps study it all day, but it doesn’t mean we know the subject with hands on experience. I could, for instance, spend an entire day reading books about performing surgeries, the kind of books surgeons read when they are learning. Yeah, I could do that all day long, but that doesn’t make me a surgeon, does it? Well, maybe in the 1800s. But not here. Not now. And it’s the same way with knowing about God versus actually knowing God personally, first hand.
Let’s go ahead and read several verses here, grouped together, toward the end of this second chapter. So, let’s go to verse 20. James chapter 2, starting at verse 20: ““Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 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 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” (James 2:20-24, ESV).
First, I want to address of whom it is that James is talking to here. Who is the foolish person that James is so clearly pointing out of the crowd. Well, the foolish person is the one who thinks that he or she can just have faith, say, be a Christian in name only, and not have any kind of works (outward demonstrations) to back it up. James is continuing to tell us today that our faith needs to be real. It needs to be authentic. I mean, this is beneficial to us anyway. Don’t we want our faith to be genuine? Certainly a lot of us do. We’re not the foolish person. We are the wise person. Nevertheless, in James’ time, as is the case even in our time, unfortunately, there still are the foolish. There are those who want to hold on to stuff. There are those who don’t wish to give up control.
When we drive around town, we can see all kinds of gyms that are around that we can join in order to get into shape, or perhaps stay in shape if we are there already. Nonetheless, we can join one, two, or even three gyms. We can join as many as we would like. Is that, though, going to get us in shape? Well, that’s a stupid question you might say. Of course we don’t just join the gym, but we actually have to go there, and not only go there, but actually use the equipment in an effective way to get results. Yeah, a person could walk into the gym, grab a bottle of water, and just stand there. A person could come in and get on the treadmill. But if the treadmill is at a half of mile per hour, it probably isn’t going to do the person any good. They might as well of stayed home and played video games or watched TV.
We know that it takes action at the gym to achieve the results that we want. And so it takes surrendering, that of our minds primarily, to live out a successful faith. Yes, a lot of our faith is mental. Our minds have to be in a free state in order to manifest a good relationship with God in our lives. A lot of people don’t realize this fact. They think it’s all about jumping on the treadmill, going through a rigorous exercise, and then just getting of. And then repeat day after day. This, however, is also problematic because it is the reverse of the lazy person. This is just going through the motions without the heart coming along. It is doing stuff to stay true to rules. It is the works side, without any faith present. It isn’t surrendering, giving up control, but rather it is taking total control, thinking we know how to do it by our own effort. That won’t work either. That also is displeasing to God.
In either of these examples then, the lazy person who just joins the gym but never goes, or the person who actually works out, but who just follows a strict regiment day after day without the desire—either of these people isn’t what God is looking for. He’s not looking for the pretenders, the posers. He’s also not looking for the legalistic, the rule-keepers. So, then, you might ask, “Who is God looking for?” Well, this is what James tells us here in our text—it is the example he provides of Abraham from the Old Testament. He brings Abraham into the picture here to show us a man who actually did what God wanted, who was actually pleasing to God with both his faith and his work operating together.
So what is James example here? He points to Abraham, as the Apostle Paul did in his writings. For whatever the reason, Abraham seems to be one of the go to people when the Biblical writers needed a reference. Really, though, that makes sense since this epistle is being written to Jewish believers. Abraham was a good example to them, and he certainly is to us in various areas. We all know the story where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his very son on an alter. This scene from the Old Testament undoubtedly is an image of what God himself is going to do through sending his own Son to the earth to die for our sins.
God was what, in this example? He was testing Abraham’s faith. Now, why would God do that? He wanted to see if it was genuine like we are talking about here in James. God didn’t allow Abraham to harm his son. God’s not that type of God. Our God cares. He is reasonable, at least if we are on the Third or Fourth levels of Inner-Self. If we are on level one, we feel God is not there ( he’s abandoned us), or he is a misery to deal with. For the Level Two person, God is negative himself and asks perverted requests all the time of his people. There is a misperception of God. Yes indeed. He’s that old God we saw frequently in the 1700s.
James points to Abraham’s example here as the ultimate example of a person’s faith being demonstrated, really proven, through his or her actions. Abraham trusted God so much that even through he was probably trembling through the whole thing, he worked through it nonetheless. I’ve heard minister’s in the past state that Abraham must have come to the conclusion that God would be able to raise Isaac from the dead. Recall, it was through Isaac that the promise from God of a great nation was supposed to come. Without Isaac, this would be impossible. And, as the preachers have noted, Abraham carried right along with what God had told him to do. I probably would have myself assumed I’d heard from the other side, the bad side, and that Satan was telling me things to do which would mess things up. I’d figure this must be some kind of Joseph Smith moment.
I think the issue comes in understanding this passage with the word “justified.” It wasn’t that Abraham was made right before God because of a work he did (namely, attempting to offer Isaac up on the alter to be sacrificed). It was that Abraham’s faith, his belief in God, was shown to be real by his actions. It was his faith, his belief, that justified him. The action, though, of offering up Isaac to be sacrificed showed that his faith was real. We know that this action didn’t save Abraham because of the verse James cites in Genesis 15:6. This was before Isaac was even born that Abraham believed God that he would be. Therefore, it wasn’t the action at the makeshift alter that caused Abraham to become righteous. He was already righteous by the time this scene unfolds. It was belief in what God had said, not action, that made Abraham righteous.
Let’s not miss that little plugin there in the verse where James notes that Abraham was called a friend of God. This is pretty important. God is our only true friend—friend that can be counted on one hundred percent of the time. A human friend can be counted on, and is oftentimes very trustworthy for us. There’s no guarantee, however. With God, he is rock solid. Again, the lower we are on the Inner-Self scale, say, if we are in the Negative Existence, we are going to have a difficult time understanding the ‘God as friend’ concept. We’re too stuck looking at sin. For a person who’s in the Depressed State, even more so. That person sees God as flat out scary and very difficult to do dealings with. This person definitely doesn’t see God as his or her friend.
The truth is, is that God has our backs. He really cares about what we care about. He really wants what we want. It’s just, most of the time we are too blinded to see this. We just don’t believe it, no matter what angle someone presents it to us at. We just find that within ourselves, much to our own sheer blindedness, we don’t see God this way. Really, we can’t. We see a view of God such as this, a view of God as friend, a view of God as supporting, caring, encouraging, approving, promoting, aiding, helping, corroborative, we believe that if God is like this, this is a false view of God. We believe that this is Satan trying to deceive us, or that our minds have conjured up a magical view of God which doesn’t correlate with reality. And yet, if people look at the their own relationships with their children, they aren’t like they picture God. They act themselves better than they paint God acting, as interestingly confusing as that is. It just doesn’t make sense, or add up, that the human treats his or her children better than God treats his.
Our next verse in James states: “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?” (2:25, ESV)
James here is referring to an account from the Old Testament found in Joshua chapter 2. In that account, the two spies from Joshua had gotten into a pinch, and a prostitute named Rahab had helped them out first by hiding them from the men who were after them, then by misleading the King, and finally be letting the men out of her window. I want us to look at part of the text back there in Joshua chapter 2. So, go ahead and tap or turn there in your Bibles. Let’s go to verse 9, and pick up there:
“[Rahab] said to the men, "I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 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 Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. 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, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” (ESV)
Do you see what happened here? Rahab stated that she believed the stories about the Israelites, that what had been told about God actually happened. Sound familiar? This is the way a person believes in Jesus. And Rahab demonstrated that she actually did believe by helping out the men before she said this, and then by helping them escape afterward. James said, “she received the messengers.” This occurred before anything she had spoken. She was already demonstrating what she believed by her actions before she said anything to anyone. This is pretty amazing stuff. And it also goes to show that if Rahab can be saved, anyone can believe in and accept the truth. The Gospel isn’t for the righteous—those who’s lives look perfect—but it is for anyone who believes.
Notice all Rahab had to do was believe. That was all that was required, and that’s what she did. That’s all that is required of anyone—to believe in God’s message, as he outlines for us in the Bible, that our sin problem is taken care of through Jesus Christ. He came to the earth, died for our sins, and rose from the dead, so that all of us, no matter what we’ve done in our lives, no matter what we’re currently doing now, can believe in him and be saved, be counted righteous through his righteousness. That’s available to everyone today. And if we really believe that, if we really believe what God has told us, then we will what? We will show that by what comes afterwards, by how we help people and tell others about what has happened to us.
I think this mention here of Rahab provides us with a good test as to any self-righteousness we may be harboring, a characteristic of the Negative Existence, the Level Two person. I mean, if when you read this verse from the book of James, does it bother you? Do you wonder how James could have referenced a prostitute as being righteous? Or do you feel better about yourself when you read this verse? Again, as I’ve been saying all along, it is our self-righteousness that we need to look out for. If it bothers us at all that James has referenced Rahab here then there is a problem within us. It is the feeling that we are superior to others. Even if you’ve never done anything seriously wrong, that doesn’t mean you are inherently more valuable than a lot of people. Like I said last week, the cost to make us all righteous is the same for everyone.
Finally, James makes it clear for us, verse 26, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”
Anyone can say they believe in God. A person can say she believes in Jesus. If her life doesn’t match that, though, if nothing she does really demonstrates that, then James is calling your faith into question. He’s saying, “I don’t think you really have faith.” Our bodies die when our spirits depart. And so it is with faith. Faith dies when the works depart—really, when the works were never there to begin with. How can the body say it’s alive if the person’s spirit has departed and entered the afterlife? It certainly cannot. And our faith cannot say it is real—we cannot say we really believe in God—and then not do anything to back that up. I can say, “I really enjoy Coca-Cola. I like to have a can every so often.” But if you never see me drinking it, if a Coke is never in my hand, if I am saying pop is bad for you, then you have reason to question my original statement.
We can’t have it both ways. We either believe one thing and demonstrate that by what we do, (or we demonstrate what we believe and then say the reason why we are acting that way), or we say what we want to say and then do something totally different, something that doesn’t line up at all with what we have said. We don’t want to be a hypocrite. That doesn’t help anybody. If we are saying one thing, and doing another, that’s dumb. If you really don’t believe in Jesus, it’s best you say you don’t. If you do, however, then you need to examine your actions. Are you really behaving in a way, before or after what you say, that looks like, “Yes, you believe in Jesus.” This is important. No one wants to get shut out at the end. No one wants to find that they really didn’t have genuine faith.
A human body can either live with its corresponding spirit, or it cannot live at all. It’s just not possible for the body to be alive, and yet no spirit within it. This is one reason why I think, and not to get off topic, but it’s one reason I believe that animals have to have some type of spirit. Anyway, James parallels the body with faith, and the spirit with works. In a sense, like we’ve been talking about, we all have works. We all have bodies so we all have works. We only have an ‘alive’ spirit, a reborn spirit, if we have faith. Our spirit is dead without trusting in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us. As Christ was made alive from the grave, so also our spirit is made alive in our current bodies. The person who doesn’t believe, though, he or she has a dead spirit within their body. It is there, and when it departs the body, it goes into an existence which is separated from the one who created it.
The beautiful thing is, is that we can choose how we want to serve God, again, the Law of Liberty. God gifts us with spiritual gifts, and these drive our desires, the things we want to do for him and for others. We also have natural likes and dislikes that have been created in us. All of this being taken into account, this means we are free to do our ‘works’ how we see fit, with what aligns with what seems right. The person who is doing this or that because they think they should, rather than because they want to, isn’t following their heart. People build their who lives on following commandments from the Bible in a wooden fashion, with no heart behind it. And I often wonder if these people will get much when they die. There is the feeling on the part of the person, “I am doing this and that for God. I am really living up for what God wants.” And the person will tell this to God when they come into in presence. But what will be the response? The person who did less, but followed their heart, will definitely get in, and get more.
That finishes our text from James for now. Let’s review what we have gone over thus far, and refresh our minds to what we have learned:
- In first two messages of this series, I gave an introduction to the Book of James and then I went over the methods that I wanted us to keep in mind here as we study this book. These were: the Four Levels of Inner-Self, the practice of Giving Up Control, and third, the Law of Liberty. If you need to, go back and review these methods because they are essential things to our lives. They help us better understand ourselves and at the same time help us to better understand how we live.
- In chapter 1, of course, we discussed trials. We talked about what they are, how they come about, and how we can respond, or really, how we will respond based on what level of inner-self we are currently on. We also talked about being rich versus being poorer, and I think that was an interesting discussion. We talked about the Crown of Life, which we said we not only receive in the next life, but also experience in this life. Then, we talked about our desires, and how the true way to getting what we want is by giving those desires up. Finally, we discussed what righteousness really looks like.
- In chapter 2, we talked about how we are to interact with one another, whether we are rich or whether we are poorer, as pertains to church. Then we talked about the Royal Law, another Law, in the Scripture, which is basically the Golden Rule. And we saw how that is supposed to look for us. Finally, we went over James’ famous discussion on faith versus works, and the meanings and implications by what James was saying. We saw that the true Christian needs to have both for a feeling of assuredness in the faith.
Well, I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Years, and of course, I’ll be back in latter January for us to resume our study of the Book of James.
- Daniel Litton
Today we come to our final section here in James chapter 2. This will be our stopping point before Holiday break, and I will be back in latter January to pick us up at James chapter 3. I hope everyone has been enjoying these messages, as I know I have. More important than even that, though, is that I hope you’ve discovered new things that you can work into living out your life, so that it is better. After all, that’s what the Bible is for: it is to train us in godliness. That’s not to become more and more like a monk in a monastery, but rather it is to give us practical, simple application that we can benefit from in our daily living. And my hope is that I have fallen in line with this kind of teaching.
We finished up last week discussing the verse in James were he talks about the fact that even demonic spirits, those evil beings which are aligned with Satan, that even they believe in Jesus Christ. They know he is God, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. And we said, though, that this isn’t enough. We said it’s not enough to just know about God. We can learn about any subject, I would image, perhaps study it all day, but it doesn’t mean we know the subject with hands on experience. I could, for instance, spend an entire day reading books about performing surgeries, the kind of books surgeons read when they are learning. Yeah, I could do that all day long, but that doesn’t make me a surgeon, does it? Well, maybe in the 1800s. But not here. Not now. And it’s the same way with knowing about God versus actually knowing God personally, first hand.
Let’s go ahead and read several verses here, grouped together, toward the end of this second chapter. So, let’s go to verse 20. James chapter 2, starting at verse 20: ““Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 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 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” (James 2:20-24, ESV).
First, I want to address of whom it is that James is talking to here. Who is the foolish person that James is so clearly pointing out of the crowd. Well, the foolish person is the one who thinks that he or she can just have faith, say, be a Christian in name only, and not have any kind of works (outward demonstrations) to back it up. James is continuing to tell us today that our faith needs to be real. It needs to be authentic. I mean, this is beneficial to us anyway. Don’t we want our faith to be genuine? Certainly a lot of us do. We’re not the foolish person. We are the wise person. Nevertheless, in James’ time, as is the case even in our time, unfortunately, there still are the foolish. There are those who want to hold on to stuff. There are those who don’t wish to give up control.
When we drive around town, we can see all kinds of gyms that are around that we can join in order to get into shape, or perhaps stay in shape if we are there already. Nonetheless, we can join one, two, or even three gyms. We can join as many as we would like. Is that, though, going to get us in shape? Well, that’s a stupid question you might say. Of course we don’t just join the gym, but we actually have to go there, and not only go there, but actually use the equipment in an effective way to get results. Yeah, a person could walk into the gym, grab a bottle of water, and just stand there. A person could come in and get on the treadmill. But if the treadmill is at a half of mile per hour, it probably isn’t going to do the person any good. They might as well of stayed home and played video games or watched TV.
We know that it takes action at the gym to achieve the results that we want. And so it takes surrendering, that of our minds primarily, to live out a successful faith. Yes, a lot of our faith is mental. Our minds have to be in a free state in order to manifest a good relationship with God in our lives. A lot of people don’t realize this fact. They think it’s all about jumping on the treadmill, going through a rigorous exercise, and then just getting of. And then repeat day after day. This, however, is also problematic because it is the reverse of the lazy person. This is just going through the motions without the heart coming along. It is doing stuff to stay true to rules. It is the works side, without any faith present. It isn’t surrendering, giving up control, but rather it is taking total control, thinking we know how to do it by our own effort. That won’t work either. That also is displeasing to God.
In either of these examples then, the lazy person who just joins the gym but never goes, or the person who actually works out, but who just follows a strict regiment day after day without the desire—either of these people isn’t what God is looking for. He’s not looking for the pretenders, the posers. He’s also not looking for the legalistic, the rule-keepers. So, then, you might ask, “Who is God looking for?” Well, this is what James tells us here in our text—it is the example he provides of Abraham from the Old Testament. He brings Abraham into the picture here to show us a man who actually did what God wanted, who was actually pleasing to God with both his faith and his work operating together.
So what is James example here? He points to Abraham, as the Apostle Paul did in his writings. For whatever the reason, Abraham seems to be one of the go to people when the Biblical writers needed a reference. Really, though, that makes sense since this epistle is being written to Jewish believers. Abraham was a good example to them, and he certainly is to us in various areas. We all know the story where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his very son on an alter. This scene from the Old Testament undoubtedly is an image of what God himself is going to do through sending his own Son to the earth to die for our sins.
God was what, in this example? He was testing Abraham’s faith. Now, why would God do that? He wanted to see if it was genuine like we are talking about here in James. God didn’t allow Abraham to harm his son. God’s not that type of God. Our God cares. He is reasonable, at least if we are on the Third or Fourth levels of Inner-Self. If we are on level one, we feel God is not there ( he’s abandoned us), or he is a misery to deal with. For the Level Two person, God is negative himself and asks perverted requests all the time of his people. There is a misperception of God. Yes indeed. He’s that old God we saw frequently in the 1700s.
James points to Abraham’s example here as the ultimate example of a person’s faith being demonstrated, really proven, through his or her actions. Abraham trusted God so much that even through he was probably trembling through the whole thing, he worked through it nonetheless. I’ve heard minister’s in the past state that Abraham must have come to the conclusion that God would be able to raise Isaac from the dead. Recall, it was through Isaac that the promise from God of a great nation was supposed to come. Without Isaac, this would be impossible. And, as the preachers have noted, Abraham carried right along with what God had told him to do. I probably would have myself assumed I’d heard from the other side, the bad side, and that Satan was telling me things to do which would mess things up. I’d figure this must be some kind of Joseph Smith moment.
I think the issue comes in understanding this passage with the word “justified.” It wasn’t that Abraham was made right before God because of a work he did (namely, attempting to offer Isaac up on the alter to be sacrificed). It was that Abraham’s faith, his belief in God, was shown to be real by his actions. It was his faith, his belief, that justified him. The action, though, of offering up Isaac to be sacrificed showed that his faith was real. We know that this action didn’t save Abraham because of the verse James cites in Genesis 15:6. This was before Isaac was even born that Abraham believed God that he would be. Therefore, it wasn’t the action at the makeshift alter that caused Abraham to become righteous. He was already righteous by the time this scene unfolds. It was belief in what God had said, not action, that made Abraham righteous.
Let’s not miss that little plugin there in the verse where James notes that Abraham was called a friend of God. This is pretty important. God is our only true friend—friend that can be counted on one hundred percent of the time. A human friend can be counted on, and is oftentimes very trustworthy for us. There’s no guarantee, however. With God, he is rock solid. Again, the lower we are on the Inner-Self scale, say, if we are in the Negative Existence, we are going to have a difficult time understanding the ‘God as friend’ concept. We’re too stuck looking at sin. For a person who’s in the Depressed State, even more so. That person sees God as flat out scary and very difficult to do dealings with. This person definitely doesn’t see God as his or her friend.
The truth is, is that God has our backs. He really cares about what we care about. He really wants what we want. It’s just, most of the time we are too blinded to see this. We just don’t believe it, no matter what angle someone presents it to us at. We just find that within ourselves, much to our own sheer blindedness, we don’t see God this way. Really, we can’t. We see a view of God such as this, a view of God as friend, a view of God as supporting, caring, encouraging, approving, promoting, aiding, helping, corroborative, we believe that if God is like this, this is a false view of God. We believe that this is Satan trying to deceive us, or that our minds have conjured up a magical view of God which doesn’t correlate with reality. And yet, if people look at the their own relationships with their children, they aren’t like they picture God. They act themselves better than they paint God acting, as interestingly confusing as that is. It just doesn’t make sense, or add up, that the human treats his or her children better than God treats his.
Our next verse in James states: “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?” (2:25, ESV)
James here is referring to an account from the Old Testament found in Joshua chapter 2. In that account, the two spies from Joshua had gotten into a pinch, and a prostitute named Rahab had helped them out first by hiding them from the men who were after them, then by misleading the King, and finally be letting the men out of her window. I want us to look at part of the text back there in Joshua chapter 2. So, go ahead and tap or turn there in your Bibles. Let’s go to verse 9, and pick up there:
“[Rahab] said to the men, "I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. 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 Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. 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, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” (ESV)
Do you see what happened here? Rahab stated that she believed the stories about the Israelites, that what had been told about God actually happened. Sound familiar? This is the way a person believes in Jesus. And Rahab demonstrated that she actually did believe by helping out the men before she said this, and then by helping them escape afterward. James said, “she received the messengers.” This occurred before anything she had spoken. She was already demonstrating what she believed by her actions before she said anything to anyone. This is pretty amazing stuff. And it also goes to show that if Rahab can be saved, anyone can believe in and accept the truth. The Gospel isn’t for the righteous—those who’s lives look perfect—but it is for anyone who believes.
Notice all Rahab had to do was believe. That was all that was required, and that’s what she did. That’s all that is required of anyone—to believe in God’s message, as he outlines for us in the Bible, that our sin problem is taken care of through Jesus Christ. He came to the earth, died for our sins, and rose from the dead, so that all of us, no matter what we’ve done in our lives, no matter what we’re currently doing now, can believe in him and be saved, be counted righteous through his righteousness. That’s available to everyone today. And if we really believe that, if we really believe what God has told us, then we will what? We will show that by what comes afterwards, by how we help people and tell others about what has happened to us.
I think this mention here of Rahab provides us with a good test as to any self-righteousness we may be harboring, a characteristic of the Negative Existence, the Level Two person. I mean, if when you read this verse from the book of James, does it bother you? Do you wonder how James could have referenced a prostitute as being righteous? Or do you feel better about yourself when you read this verse? Again, as I’ve been saying all along, it is our self-righteousness that we need to look out for. If it bothers us at all that James has referenced Rahab here then there is a problem within us. It is the feeling that we are superior to others. Even if you’ve never done anything seriously wrong, that doesn’t mean you are inherently more valuable than a lot of people. Like I said last week, the cost to make us all righteous is the same for everyone.
Finally, James makes it clear for us, verse 26, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”
Anyone can say they believe in God. A person can say she believes in Jesus. If her life doesn’t match that, though, if nothing she does really demonstrates that, then James is calling your faith into question. He’s saying, “I don’t think you really have faith.” Our bodies die when our spirits depart. And so it is with faith. Faith dies when the works depart—really, when the works were never there to begin with. How can the body say it’s alive if the person’s spirit has departed and entered the afterlife? It certainly cannot. And our faith cannot say it is real—we cannot say we really believe in God—and then not do anything to back that up. I can say, “I really enjoy Coca-Cola. I like to have a can every so often.” But if you never see me drinking it, if a Coke is never in my hand, if I am saying pop is bad for you, then you have reason to question my original statement.
We can’t have it both ways. We either believe one thing and demonstrate that by what we do, (or we demonstrate what we believe and then say the reason why we are acting that way), or we say what we want to say and then do something totally different, something that doesn’t line up at all with what we have said. We don’t want to be a hypocrite. That doesn’t help anybody. If we are saying one thing, and doing another, that’s dumb. If you really don’t believe in Jesus, it’s best you say you don’t. If you do, however, then you need to examine your actions. Are you really behaving in a way, before or after what you say, that looks like, “Yes, you believe in Jesus.” This is important. No one wants to get shut out at the end. No one wants to find that they really didn’t have genuine faith.
A human body can either live with its corresponding spirit, or it cannot live at all. It’s just not possible for the body to be alive, and yet no spirit within it. This is one reason why I think, and not to get off topic, but it’s one reason I believe that animals have to have some type of spirit. Anyway, James parallels the body with faith, and the spirit with works. In a sense, like we’ve been talking about, we all have works. We all have bodies so we all have works. We only have an ‘alive’ spirit, a reborn spirit, if we have faith. Our spirit is dead without trusting in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us. As Christ was made alive from the grave, so also our spirit is made alive in our current bodies. The person who doesn’t believe, though, he or she has a dead spirit within their body. It is there, and when it departs the body, it goes into an existence which is separated from the one who created it.
The beautiful thing is, is that we can choose how we want to serve God, again, the Law of Liberty. God gifts us with spiritual gifts, and these drive our desires, the things we want to do for him and for others. We also have natural likes and dislikes that have been created in us. All of this being taken into account, this means we are free to do our ‘works’ how we see fit, with what aligns with what seems right. The person who is doing this or that because they think they should, rather than because they want to, isn’t following their heart. People build their who lives on following commandments from the Bible in a wooden fashion, with no heart behind it. And I often wonder if these people will get much when they die. There is the feeling on the part of the person, “I am doing this and that for God. I am really living up for what God wants.” And the person will tell this to God when they come into in presence. But what will be the response? The person who did less, but followed their heart, will definitely get in, and get more.
That finishes our text from James for now. Let’s review what we have gone over thus far, and refresh our minds to what we have learned:
- In first two messages of this series, I gave an introduction to the Book of James and then I went over the methods that I wanted us to keep in mind here as we study this book. These were: the Four Levels of Inner-Self, the practice of Giving Up Control, and third, the Law of Liberty. If you need to, go back and review these methods because they are essential things to our lives. They help us better understand ourselves and at the same time help us to better understand how we live.
- In chapter 1, of course, we discussed trials. We talked about what they are, how they come about, and how we can respond, or really, how we will respond based on what level of inner-self we are currently on. We also talked about being rich versus being poorer, and I think that was an interesting discussion. We talked about the Crown of Life, which we said we not only receive in the next life, but also experience in this life. Then, we talked about our desires, and how the true way to getting what we want is by giving those desires up. Finally, we discussed what righteousness really looks like.
- In chapter 2, we talked about how we are to interact with one another, whether we are rich or whether we are poorer, as pertains to church. Then we talked about the Royal Law, another Law, in the Scripture, which is basically the Golden Rule. And we saw how that is supposed to look for us. Finally, we went over James’ famous discussion on faith versus works, and the meanings and implications by what James was saying. We saw that the true Christian needs to have both for a feeling of assuredness in the faith.
Well, I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Years, and of course, I’ll be back in latter January for us to resume our study of the Book of James.
- Daniel Litton