A Faith that Serves Well

Let's go to the to the Lord's Word in the book of James James chapter 2 Will be in verses 14 Through 26 James chapter 2 Verses 14 through 26 Now for the young folks who've not been here, this is a series entitled a faith that works this is right from the book of James and So in the book of James it is a very much a very practical book Some have even called it a handbook of Christian living and for those of you young people who are Brand-new believers. This is a book that you're gonna want to really bookmark You're gonna want to visit and revisit this book because it is literally New Testament wisdom literature.

It's a handbook for Christian living and even seasoned mature Christians need to get into this So last week The week before last we discovered that a faith that works well is a faith that loves well And there is a sin that kills a loving fellowship and that's the sin of partiality We can all have preferences for Certain types of people typically the people that we think are like us people that make us feel comfortable people that we think Even we can spiritualize this that challenge us spiritually and so what this does is this creates division and James tells us this leads to a judgmental spirit.

In fact James tells his readers you become judges with wicked thoughts when we show partiality even more so We dishonor the poor James says that you dishonor the poor when you have favoritism And the last time we open James I challenged the adults Favoritism is not just in monetary poverty We can show preference to people of intellectual poverty people that maybe we don't perceive to be as smart as us or What about physical poverty people with that we don't think are physically attractive? Or what about social poverty people that might be a little rough around the edges socially So favoritism comes in many different shapes and sizes.

We even spiritualize this We have our theological camps and we can show partiality and I've seen this with my own eyes The people of our own theological persuasion come in and we gravitate towards them the people that we think are not as theologically Knowledgeable we give them what James calls a seat at our feet And so we have to be on guard to love well and this means That we need to get into the word and actually live it out And so tonight we're gonna see that a faith that works well Is a faith that serves well? Our message title is a faith that serves We're gonna see that a faith that works.

Well is a faith that serves And a person who doesn't serve their brothers and sisters in Christ Is not a true Christian if you can turn a blind eye to the serious needs in the local church If that doesn't disturb you and unsettle you Then you don't have a saving faith. That's the argument that James is making so let's read verse 14 Chapter 2 of James 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 be filled without giving them 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 Will show me your faith apart from your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works Well you believe that God is one you do well even the demons believe and shutter 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 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works When she received 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 I Want you to see that saving faith is a serving faith Saving faith is a serving faith, and I'll read 14 through 18 What good is it my brothers if someone says he has faith but has not works this is actually not a new problem in The Hebrew community if you go back in Israelite history Isaiah actually Called God's people to repent of this same sin If you wanted to study this Isaiah 58 verses 7 through 9 Isaiah says this share your food with the hungry Provide the poor wanderer with shelter and clothe the naked Then God would answer when they called So James here is Speaking a call that the Hebrew people have needed to hear before in fact any time you have God's people We think of compassion as a no-brainer Right, but seriously compassion especially of those claiming to be believers of God Seems to be Christianity 101 a Professing Christian with no concern for the well-being of those in the body Only has a profession of faith.

They don't have a possession of faith I Want you to see that we are saved to surrender so first if we are going to have a faith that works Saving faith must be a serving faith and first we must be saved to surrender the context is that James Refers to himself as a due-loss slave our young people heard our preacher for the week Donnie Singleton Brother Donnie gave us this word In one of the first messages about what it means to be a due-loss Slave some translation translations say bond servant bond servant is actually a little weaker a due-loss the word due-loss means slave James is the half-brother of Christ church history would give him a couple of nicknames.

They called him James the righteous or James the just and church history Knew him as James the just The local body of faith knew him as the half-brother of Jesus But how did he see himself when he looked at himself in the mirror he looked at himself as a slave of Christ Young people as I explained to the adults he did not say in the first verse of this book James the half-brother of Jesus He doesn't say James the righteous James the just he says James a slave of Christ and I'm bringing this up again Because we will never have a serving faith if we're not first surrendered to Christ You see if we have things in our life that we're not fully laying on the altar Our finances our compassion our time There will always be something that's off-limits So I want to ask you the question that we sang is you're all on the altar You know that you might have Something that you're holding back If someone comes into the fellowship and you have a hard time Being excited about that or you have the opportunity to go do a certain ministry and your heart's just not leaping for joy We will constantly as Christians have to be in our prayer closet and ask the Lord to search our motivations to purify our hearts We constantly have to be asking this question to ourselves Lord is my all on the altar of Sacrifice, but James is a surrendered doulas slave Douglas moose says this Saving faith naturally produces works Saving faith naturally produces the work of surrender John Gill says the meaning here is that faith which does not produce good works Which would not produce holy living Will save no man if you have difficulty surrendering Then you're not a bondservant a doulas slave a born-again Christian You could say it like this that profession without possession is a perversion It is a faulty faith We are saved to surrender and we're saved to serve Again Douglas moose says a faith apart from deeds is a dead faith a faith that produces no fruit is A barren tree we learned about the fruit of the spirit The fruit of the spirit is actually God's Production when you are in Christ you will bear much fruit Brother Donnie did a fantastic job of explaining that love joy peace patience kindness gentleness Self-control are like clusters of a grape.

They're one cluster and every Christian has those fruit of the spirit Now your grape of patience may be a little bit smaller Than someone else and I loved how he explained even natural disposition You know some people Have maybe more joy just in their own DNA and as a Christian When the Holy Spirit saves them and the spirit fills them with joy Their fruit of joy is just beautiful, but we constantly have to grow in Our grace we have to grow in the spirit But the word here to speak to A dead faith that produces no fruit is necroce Necroce in the Greek means dead That someone who's claiming Christ Who doesn't have the fruit of the spirit they don't have a servant heart and they have no desire to grow in that grace Actually has a necroce faith dead faith Let's look at the example here in the text in verse 15 if a brother or sister is Poorly clothed and lacking in daily food the word here is gymnast.

It means naked or ill-clad There's another word shit on it means daily food So James is using an exaggerated example it basically means if someone from your church shows up to your door and It's cold and they are ill-clad They are naked you think of someone wearing the equivalent of a very shabby bathing suit in 30 or 40 degrees and you think of rain that's the illustration ill-clad and they are starving and they come to your door and literally James is using the word that means keep warm and be well-fed Essentially, this is the professing believer who opens up their door to the ill-clad person and says Have a good meal be warm be safe.

Good luck with that Basically take care of your own needs Now what compassionless person would do that a person with a necroce faith and What James is saying is that if we are going to profess faith? We must possess a faith that serves We are saved to surrender and to serve and We're saved to show Let's look in verse 18 of chapter 2 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 And what James is saying is that we are saved to demonstrate our faith If someone has a faith that you can't see They have no faith John MacArthur says this The genuineness of a profession of Jesus Christ the Savior and Lord is evidenced more by what a person does than what he claims a Person who professes Christ who does not live a Christ honoring Christ obeying life is a fraud And we Can look to Scripture in 1st John 3?

1718 if you're taking notes 1st John chapter 3 17 and 18 We are to love not with words or speech only but with action and with truth So a faith that works is a faith that serves And the saving faith So serving faith Secondly tonight a saving faith is a sincere faith Let's look in verses 18 and 19 from the text 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, but even the demons believe and shutter Saving faith is a sincere faith I Want you to see that the demons James says has a faith the demons have a faith They know that Jesus is the Lord They not only make a profession of faith they actually kneel before the Lord but this demonic insincere confession Is not a possession?

They do not possess Jesus as their Lord Young people there are a lot of people at your school who know Jesus is the Lord, but he's not their Lord Adults you have people at work in the Bible Belt who know Jesus is the Lord The good Lord the man upstairs They know Jesus is the Lord, but he's not their Lord That's a demonic faith That's the same faith that the demons have It's insincere faith This person must have a faith which produces another effect altogether John Gill says that's a holy life You know that a person has a sincere faith when their life is Growing in grace they are pursuing holiness and their lives over Many years of walking with the Lord will approximate holiness means they will walk closer and closer and closer and They will repent better and better Which means when they fall and when they sin their heart breaks more I?

Want you to see four characteristics of an insincere faith? Four characteristics of an insincere faith I Gave you the first this is demonic James 219 People with a demonic faith Know Jesus is the Lord, but he is not their Lord. He is not their boss Insincere faith is not just demonic. It's disobedient Titus 116 Titus 116 people with an insincere faith Remain in their sin But this is also a detestable faith again in Titus 116 These folks not only remain in their sin.

They actually love their sin I spoke to a man one time not too Long ago, and he looked at me and he said I don't know that the Lord can even forgive me He said I've sinned so much And my sin is so grievous. I just don't know if the Lord Can forgive me of my sin? Does anybody heard someone say like that right just a show of hands if you've heard someone say that Well, I call this bluff and I said this I Said I don't think that's the issue my friend I Really don't think you doubt God's loving ability to forgive you I Think you love your sin.

I Think the real issue is that you love your sin and you're staying right there And it's a lot easier to put the buck on God and to say he can't forgive me In actuality you are limiting God's forgiveness to which the man very humbly received that a Demonic faith a disobedient faith a detestable faith and a doomed faith back in James 2 19 You believe that God is one you do well even the demons believe and they shudder Why do the demons shudder?

Why are they fearful Let's look in Matthew 8 29 when demons confronted Jesus This was shortly before they would be cast into pigs And they would run off the cliff listen to what the G what the demons say and behold they cried out What have you to do with us? Oh Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?

This is the doomed shuttering fate of the demons I Had a a Man who I met this week who was a chaperone from Grace Life Church and Muscle Shoals We're having a faith faith-filled discussion and he told me of someone that he witnessed - he said this you know the demons One-third of the demons were cast out of heaven, and they never got an opportunity to repent And so if the demons who didn't have an opportunity to repent are Going to look at you one day after all the opportunities you've had to turn to Jesus and you have it What rage is going to fill them towards you? and This friend of mine who I just met this week Told me of the encounter where he he presented that man with truth Look at the grace that we walk over every day when we do not repent to the Lord when we do not turn to him We don't run to him It is like we take for granted grace that demons had no opportunity for For angels who are not fallen first Peter tells us that these are truths they long to look into the saved Believers saved saints on earth we have something that the angels can't ever have They can't ever know what it's like to be redeemed by the precious blood of the lamb And how often Do our friends and family who remain unsaved?

Come into our presence and we don't weep for them And we don't pray for them and we don't witness to them All the while knowing they have a doomed faith they have a demonic faith and a disobedient faith See if you are saved here tonight you have a faith that Must serve and your faith is sincere Saving faith is also finally tonight. It's fruit producing faith Saving faith is fruit fruit producing faith Or read verses 20 through 26 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 The scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness He was called a friend of God You see that 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 Neck-cross so also faith apart from works is dead Just a bit of context on this last portion of scripture You know some suggested that James is arguing that saving faith Comes through works and works alone.

That's actually not what James is arguing James proclaims that we are saved by faith alone, but that saving faith is a fruit producing faith And that's what we can't miss John MacArthur helps us here. He says James is obviously not in conflict with Paul about the basis of salvation Some interpreters have maintained this Paul and James are not standing face to face confronting each other But they're standing back to back fighting two common enemies Paul opposes works righteousness or legalism and James opposes easy believe ism.

I Think this quote helps us and if you look at that imagery The Apostle Paul is saying we are saved by grace alone Through faith alone not by works lest any man should boast the reformer Martin Luther actually didn't like James because He misinterpreted James He downplayed and diminished the book of James James is not arguing that we're saved by works. What he's saying is that if you're genuinely saved You're gonna act like it If you're genuinely saved your life is going to produce fruit So from this text let's look at what are some things that faith produces Four Things that faith produces just from this text.

This is not Exhausted this is not a systematic theology But let's take a look faith produces obedience verse 21 Was not Abraham our faith justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar See Abraham had a faith but his faith was called to do something extremely difficult Adults young people sometimes obedience is extremely costly I Would say if it's not costly obedience, then it's not really challenging But when the Lord calls you to obey in some specific capacity that is possible for you Then only saving faith can work in your life Faith has to produce obedience Or to ask you the question we sang earlier is you're all on the altar What is the hardest? thing for you to obey in Our young people were asked that question pertaining to Daniel Daniel lived holy in Babylon and in our quiet time Sheet the young people wrote this out and many of them said it's the hardest obey at school When I don't have any friends who who even act remotely close to being a Christian But if you are born again You can obey Now you're not going to obey perfectly you're going to make mistakes But when you sin the Holy Spirit will not let you be at peace with this as a lost person You can be okay With listening to that music and not be quenched or grieved in your spirit.

You know that music I'm talking about When you're a lost person you can be okay with that show on Netflix You know what show I'm talking about When you are a lost unconverted Adult you can be okay with the people making that inappropriate joke in your work But as a saved child of God Obedience It's not something that you do it's something that is produced from the spirit in your life. You've got to obey Abraham Somehow some way had to take Isaac on a three-day journey With Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice.

That's a picture of Jesus who walked To Golgotha carrying the wood for the cross on his shoulders Faith produces obedience and faith produces sacrificial obedience in verse 22 Let's read that you see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works The faith that Abraham had was completed as he bound his son to the altar Thankfully though We don't end here God provided a ram just as Abraham was about to slay his son The Lord stopped him and said Now I know that you love me more than your son Praise the Lord that the ram and the thicket is a picture of Jesus Dietrich Bonhoeffer said what is of great cost to God must not be cheap for us Faith produces obedience sacrificial obedience in verse 23 faith produces a fellowship with God Let's read this in verse 23 Scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness He was called a friend of God Young people what other friend you need besides Jesus?

I Talked to a young person this week She got saved She knows following Jesus probably means That her best friends may no longer be her best friends Scripture says that when Abraham put what was precious to him on the altar. He got a friend in God What better friend can we have When you are saved the faith that God gives us in regeneration produces a fellowship What is your prayer life like adult? You find yourself gravitating towards prayers for your own needs Or can you get past those? moving into the holy of holies and you can concentrate on just who God is Who are some of our adults who've been reading the attributes of God?

AW pink anybody reading that If you just learn a little bit about God's omnipotence That's enough to go into the holy of holies and to thank him that he knows all That he is omnipresent that he is everywhere and when we have fellowship with God around The eternal holy attributes of God that can deepen our faith the last thing that faith produces just from these texts Faith produces fellowship with the people of God.

Let's look at verse 25 in the same way Was not also rehab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out? by another way I Want you to see that Rahab prostitute is a picture of conversion But this is also a picture with her having biblical fellowship with God's people Think about this Scripture says right here That Rahab was justified because she received the messengers of God. I Want to ask you do you receive the messengers of God?

God may not send spies to your house in the middle of the night But the messenger that God has sent you is the person preaching the word Are you going to receive the word of God when it's preached are you gonna receive it with joy? You can't receive the word of God from God's messenger if you're not here Did you hear me If you're not a church, you can't receive the word of God from his messenger But I'm asking one step beyond that. Do you love the messengers of God?

Rahab heard that God's people were coming When the Lord took the River Jordan He walled up the water in something that looked like a five-story building Everybody knew that God the God who delivered his people from Egypt Everybody knew that they were coming She received God's Word It was a word of warning and she received God's messengers with joy and If we are born again, and we have a saving faith. We love church We love the word of warning that would come to us. We receive God's messengers and we receive God's people Do you love God's Word? Do you love God's messengers?

So an application I want to give a brief update on camp our theme was grow and go the first message brother Donnie Singleton said you can't grow if you're dead and Out of first Thessalonians he gave the picture Paul saying I know you're converted because you ran from idols To serve the living God and you became imitators of us And in counseling I young people I think I asked every single people every single person in our youth group I asked them what idols have you turned from?

Unless you're still loving and serving those idols One after one our young people told me the things that they were leaving And the question is Can you remember the time when you turned from idols and you started serving? Who did you imitate? Praise the Lord young people if you got saved this week this church is filled with people that you can imitate It doesn't matter if someone is 28 38 48 58 68 or 78 it doesn't matter when you're a Christian it no you no longer care about age You no longer care about style what you care about is Where are the people of God?

Give me a saint who's been walking with Jesus a long time and let me get to know them And maybe they can share something from their life If you've been born into the kingdom this week young person You will always have a testimony of the idols you ran from You will always Have somebody in the church to imitate Then we learned that fruit as we grow is produced by the spirit Then we learned that as a church we are a golden lampstand It's beaten out of pure gold the lampstand in the tabernacle and the temple That's a picture of Christ who was beaten on the cross Savagely brutally beaten for us and as a Christian, it's our responsibility to trim that wick The the high priest had to trim the wick And if you don't trim the wick Then what happens is just fills the whole tabernacle with smoke and it's there's no light And as a believer if we don't trim the wick in our own quiet time in our own bible reading in our own prayer Then we don't have a very clear light To fill our high school to fill our workplace adult And the last message about the cross brother donnie shared about the three hours of darkness He said that in this experience The punishing presence of god visited jesus and he poured out the undiluted wrath of god On the son of god For the people of god And if you are saved then every sin of yours past present and future Was known by jesus in that moment and jesus became that sin And it pleased the lord to pour out his wrath upon jesus And jesus paid it all And all to him I owe you see the blood-bought believer Is not perfect But the lord produces something in them A love for the church A love for the word of god a love for the messenger of god for the people of god I want us to conclude with a prayer I pray that you would evaluate your life I would ask you adult the same thing i've asked our young people What did the lord save you from?

Do you remember your life without christ? In your testimony, how have you seen god develop a costly obedience? Let's give thanks to him for who he is and what he's done in us. Let's pray