Dead Faith

We are in James chapter 2 obviously and we're continuing our study verse by verse. We are calling it good works flow from good faith out of the very practical and wonderful book of James. Now as you're turning to James chapter 2, I want to call your attention to something from church history. I would assume that most of you have heard about the Protestant Reformation. You might not know many details about the Protestant Reformation, but I would imagine most of you have heard about it sometime or another.

But many people believe that the Protestant Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther, he posted his protest, they call it the 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. Now actually there were others who were in the business of protesting several years before Martin Luther. What I mean is if you study church history, even secular historians will acknowledge this. There were others who were in this business. I'll give you an example. The Englishman John Wycliffe, he lived in the 1300s and he was noted for his desire to translate the word of God into the common man's language. English.

The common man did not have the word of God and those religious leaders of the day and that church in Rome did not see fit to put the word of God in the common man's language. And John Wycliffe made it his life's end to give the people the word of God. He was a reformer and a protester. He had a big influence on a man named John Huss. He was a European priest who stood for the justification of grace by faith alone. They say that had a big impact on Martin Luther and others. Now what am I trying to show you? There were other men besides Martin Luther who were protesting the religious practices of the day.

Some before Martin Luther and some during his time as well. Now we understand that there were men who were in this business when we study church history. They went back to the Bible. They went back to the word of God as the guide for Christian life. They were opposed to church traditions. They did not care what the pope might have said. And they stood for fundamentals of the faith, these truths that are timeless in their protesting of the church practices. Now some of the fundamentals that they stood for were things like justification by grace and faith alone. They stood for the priesthood of the believer.

They stood for the importance of the people knowing the word of God above and beyond what church traditions might say. They stood against false teachings like purgatory that the sacraments were necessary for salvation. They stood against the false teaching of the pope having supremacy over what the word of God said. And there were many, many church practices that they stood against. Now what am I trying to show you? These men protested the false teachings that were in the life of the church in their day. Now in James chapter 2 we are starting to see that there is a terrible fallacy within these fellowships that are represented here.

There were those who held to a form of cheap grace. These were mostly Jewish Christians we've already talked about. They had come from Jewish legalism. Remember they were scattered because of the great persecution there in Jerusalem. And they went here and there and they took their form of Christianity with them. But these Jewish Christians came from Jewish legalism. What that meant was it was more than just adhering to the Ten Commandments. The rabbis, the teachers of the law, they had put upon the people rule after rule, law after law that ensured that they kept the law of God and the word of God. This was a heavy, heavy burden.

And it never brought about freedom. It never brought about forgiveness. It was just burden after burden. And many had gone from this extreme of legalism to another extreme. They had moved over to the extreme of just claiming verbally faith in Christ and it really doesn't matter how you live. They had really just gone from one ditch on this side of the road over to the other ditch on the other side of the road. When James addresses this terrible error and he becomes a reformer in their lives, he protests this form of faith that is in Chapter 2.

And I was reminded in my study this week of what the famous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said. He said, "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church." That's just what James was combating, cheap grace. Now the title of the message this morning is Dead Faith. I'm going to put our main truths on the screen like I did this past week. But we're going to look at the subject of dead faith out of Chapter 2 starting in verse 14. So let's look at the scripture together. James Chapter 2. James says, "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

If a brother or a sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warm and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is it?" Verse 17. "Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself." Now you can see on the screen, we're going to look at two main truths out of these verses. First, or number one, or Roman numeral one, we're going to look at a powerless confession, a powerless confession. And then number two, we're going to look at no compassion. That's out of the two middle verses, verses 15 and 16.

And then we're going to look at a dead Christianity and that is in verse 17. And like I said, James is protesting this form of faith which has infiltrated the church. And we're going to see how he gets very direct and very bold as he addresses this problem. So taking notes, if you're going to write these truths down, number one, James, he reveals that some had a powerless confession. James, he reveals that there were some who had a powerless confession. We see that in verse 14. He says, "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works?" Question.

Then there's another question, "Can that faith save him?" He is attacking what we would call a powerless confession. And he asks two questions right here in verse 14. And this tells us that this is a very serious situation. James is very direct in his questioning. And he is showing us that they are powerless in their confession. So let's break this verse down and I want you to see some truth out of verse 14. First I want you to see that there were some, there were some, they said that they had faith. Go back to the verse. "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith?" This is a profession of faith as we might call it.

They said that they had faith. Now the content of this faith that is professed, it is the basics of the gospel. It's not necessarily that there are specifics that are listed, but this faith that is confessed, it would have comprised of the basics of the gospel that we would have been familiar with. Second, I want you to see that they obviously had no works. Go back to the verse.

"What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith?" "But has no works." What we see right here if we look at the study of the language, the verb form of this phrase, he has no works, it describes an individual who continuously lacks evidence to support their claim of a possessed faith. What is that saying? They continuously do not have works. It is an ongoing habit. It is an ongoing practice. It's not that there was just one day in their life or one week in their life or that there's just a particular time of struggle. No. The language indicates that this is an ongoing problem of having no works.

Third, I want you to see that James questions the validity of their confession. "What use is it, my brethren, if a man has faith, but he has no works?" Can that faith save him? This verse is comprised of two questions. No matter what translation you read, many of us have the English Standard Version. I have the New American Standard. Many of you have the King James. Some of you have the New International Version. Every version that I've ever pulled up, it gives us two questions.

But see, real faith, true faith, Bible faith, saving faith is not questioned right here by James, but it is this specific form of faith, this workless form of faith that is in their life. See, they had a profession of faith, but it was powerless because they did not have any works behind that faith. And that is the faith that James questions. Not real biblical faith. Not works-based faith. Now the first question in the literal literally means or reads, "What is the prophet?" What is the prophet? Let me go back to the verse and read it that way.

The New American says, "What use of it?" But in the original it says, "What does it profit?" In other words, he says, "What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works?" In other words, there is no prophet. And in the structure of the language, it calls for an obvious negative answer. What that means is there was no room for a positive answer. Even if they would have never opened their mouth to give an answer, it was obvious that James saw a negative answer. The only answer to the question was negative. No, it can't say. So what's the picture here? Just in this one verse.

James is pointing out that in their fellowship. See, they scattered here and there. He's not writing to just one church. These Christians scattered. And what we see here is a picture that James is pointing out that in their fellowships there were some who had a confession of faith, a profession of faith. But they obviously had no works in their life. It was a continual life of no works that backed up that profession of faith. And James says that their confession, it is powerless and it has no prophet whatsoever. It's just words. It's just a profession of faith. And that faith would have represented the gospel, but there were no works.

You might say, "This sounds strange. This sounds a little judgmental. This sounds a little harsh." We can see this same truth identified or addressed in the book of Corinthians. In the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 13, you don't have to turn there. In verse 5, Paul says to the Corinthian church, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail the test?" What is Paul doing? That Corinthian church was full of people who had problem after problem.

They confessed faith in Christ, but Paul is saying, "Examine yourself to see if you have a working faith." So James isn't the only one that deals with this problem of a profession of faith, but yet there are not true Christian works that follow behind that confession, that profession. Paul dealt with the same problem. I thought about an example like this. I meant to grab some at home, but I just, because of time, I did not. Is anybody familiar with the board game Monopoly? I think we are. We grew up playing Monopoly. You know, Monopoly is one of those games you got to carve about two or three hours out to play that game. Isn't it right?

I have played my fair share of Monopoly through my years, especially on student trips and things like that. But you know, in the game of Monopoly, there is always somebody that has to be the banker. You know, they have to divvy out the greenhouses, the redhouses, and the money. Isn't that right? And they have to be honest and they have to be fair, right? But in the game of Monopoly, we have Monopoly money. But you know outside of that game, that money is worthless, powerless. You can go down to the convenience store, the hardware store, you can walk in the bank and you can have a pocket full of Monopoly money and put it on the counter.

And you know what it is? It is just paper. There is nothing behind it. It has no power. It has no power to buy. It has no power to be invested. Why? Because what it is, it is just paper printed to look like money. It has no power. You know that is what kind of faith these people had? It was empty. It was just a profession. I mean it was as frivolous as cheap paper money. And I want to ask you, do we have people like that in our churches today? Yes, we do. Our churches are full of people who have a profession of faith, but yet they do not have Christian works. They never have had Christian works that continuously follow their profession.

I like how John MacArthur attacks it. He says the genuineness of a profession of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is evidenced more by what a person does than by what he claims. A person who professes Christ but who does not live a Christ honoring, Christ obeying life is a fraud. See if you went in the bank in the morning and you had a fistful of monopoly money, they would laugh at you and they would say, "That is fraudulent money." I mean the best counterfeit, it would be fraudulent. That's what James is saying. You have a powerless confession. It's fraudulent.

Let's move on and I want us to see that James, he reveals number two or Roman numeral two that some had no compassion. There were some who had no compassion. Let's look at the verses. Verse 15, "If a brother or a sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and no one in one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?" It seems that James is again using a hypothetical situation. We know that previously in verses two and three that it seems like James used a hypothetical situation to teach.

But it is obvious that he is addressing a real problem. James reveals a condition in the life of the people that they had no compassion. Now again, let's look at some more truth in these verses. First I want us to see that these are brothers who were in need. Go back to the hypothetical situation, the verses. If a brother or a sister is without clothing, these are brothers who were in need. Now the construction of the language shows that there is a need at hand and it was not temporary, it was ongoing. What that means is these are brothers and sisters, they have an ongoing need.

But also the language does not communicate that they were naked and starving, but yet they did have legitimate needs. What we see here is these are brothers, these are sisters, they are in need and they do have legitimate needs that are ongoing. It's not just temporary. Second I want you to see that James reveals their response. Look at verse 16. And one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary. James is revealing their response. Their response was heartless, their response was selfish. Their response was really, it was much like what we throw around today.

You know that term that everybody uses? Well God bless you. See that was just words. Their response was simple and it was just words, but yet they overlooked, they ignored their legitimate ongoing needs. They just had words and those words were worthless. Third, I want you to see that James questions the use of their response. He questions the use of these words. A brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food. And one of you says to them, "Go in peace and be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give him what is necessary for their body. What use is that? James questions the use of these words.

And see this is the third question in two verses. This indicates to us just how direct James is, just how he's trying to expose and protest their behavior. He exposes, he questions their response. He proves that it is just empty words. Now again, was this hypothetical? Many people believe that it was. We don't know. But we know that the sin of no compassion was real. James is addressing a real problem that is really in their hearts and the seriousness of the sin is revealed. You know how? These were brothers and sisters. These weren't outsiders. Look how serious this sin is.

They had no compassion for the people in their fellowship that were true brothers and sisters in Christ. That is the depth of this problem of no compassion. The only story or the only scripture that I can think about that relates to this is the familiar story of the Good Samaritan. You don't have to turn there but in Luke chapter 10 we have that story that Jesus used to teach. Luke chapter 10 verse 30 and Jesus replied and he said a certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers. And they stripped him and they beat him and they went off leaving him half dead.

Verse 31 "And by chance a certain priest was going down the road and when he saw him he passed on the other side." What is Jesus saying? He had no genuine compassion. And likewise a Levite also when he came to the place saw him and he passed on the other side. What is he saying? He had no genuine compassion. And notice this was a priest. This was a Levite. Only what Jesus was saying is there were two guys who were church staff members and they saw this guy indeed and they had no compassion. And James is identifying this real problem that is in the life of the church.

When I was studying this I could not help but think about times in my life when God moved me to have real genuine compassion. Let me tell you about one. Before God called me in the ministry a good friend of mine, a good friend of mine, we were in the single Sunday school class together and there was an older gentleman in the life of the church who taught that single Sunday school class who had for years gone down to the local drug rehabilitation center and brought those people to church. People who had lost everything. Some were rich, some were poor, some were black, some were white. You just had all kinds and Mr.

Ray Moffitt would bring those people to church. They trusted him. Well my friend Andy and I kind of fell in line with Mr. Ray Moffitt and we would go on down to the drug rehab and we would minister because there were people sitting in our Sunday school class. We'd go down there and visit them. Well lo and behold we found ourselves being trusted by the people at the drug rehab and we started picking up some of these individuals and bringing them to church. And then lo and behold some of them began to trust in Christ and then we found ourselves having to help them in life.

And see it was a test of whether or not we were going to have compassion on these individuals. I'll never forget there was a guy in drug rehab, his name was Joel. We were in that drug rehab facility. We were visiting over here with some people who had come to our Sunday school class. We were talking to him about coming to church and Joel was sitting off to the side and he said hey man can I go? We said sure come on. Joel started coming to church. There came a time when Joel professed Christ. Joel got out of drug rehab. We helped Joel get an apartment. We helped Joel round up towels and sheets and bed and furniture. We helped Joel.

We helped Joel get a job down at the local McCoy's building supply. We helped Joel get a bicycle so he could drive across town to work. We helped Joel. But you know before he got that apartment he came to me and he said Chris I got a problem. He said they found out I'm coming out of drug rehab and they're going to double the amount that I need for a deposit. He said I saved up the $150 for a deposit. And I said I'll tell you what Joel I'll own you the money. And I gave him $150 and he smiled ear to ear and he paid that deposit.

And I'll never forget I'd swing by those apartments going to Sunday school going to church every Sunday and I'd pull in there and Joel would get in my brown for by brown miles to pick up and Joel would open up the ashtray and put money in there and close it every Sunday. I never opened it up. I never questioned him. I never asked him how much it was. But then after church I'd take it and I'd count it and I kept up with how much he was paying me back and I'll never forget the last day he put money in there and he closed it and he said I think that makes sense square. What am I expressing?

See I had compassion because God had done a work in me and I had genuine works that backed up my faith and when God brought someone in the church it didn't matter what he looked like. Look I didn't care that Joel was a black man. I didn't care that Joel had tattoos all over his arms that represented his gang life in the previous part of his life. I loved him because God loved him. You know that's been years ago and if I happen to bump into him in Laurel, Mississippi he'll grin ear to ear and he'll chase me down and bear hug me and he'll reminisce. What am I showing? Compassion.

These people did not have genuine compassion and I'll read you a Matthew Henry quote. He says love or charity is an operative principle. Now listen to that. If we have love for somebody it must operate. That's what he's saying. If we have charity or we say we have charity that is operative and he goes on to say that not only is love and charity operative but so is faith. If we have faith in God, if we have been born again that will operate and it will operate in good works and one of those good works is compassion. And look let me tell you something.

If we cannot have compassion for the people that God brings in the door of this church, how in the world can we have genuine compassion for those down the street or those on the other side of the world? He revealed that they had no compassion. The third thing I want you to see is that James reveals that these, they had dead Christianity. These that he's speaking of, they had dead Christianity. Go back to verse 17. Even so if it has no works. Now what is this it? It's this faith that he's speaking of. This profession of faith that they are speaking of. He says even so faith if, if that faith has no works is dead being by itself.

What is James saying? James does not ask a question here. He just makes a bold, blunt statement. He leaves no room for misinterpretation. No Bible scholar, no theologian can read that verse and twist it any other way than what James is saying. Now let's look at what James is saying. First, first I want you to see he's talking about the faith at hand. The faith that is at hand. Now again the content of this faith would have been the basics of the gospel. This was not some foreign gospel. This was not some false gospel. They would have made a profession of the gospel story. So the content of this faith would have been the basics of the gospel.

That's the faith that he's questioning. That's the faith that is at hand in verse 17. But also second I want you to see that this was a faith that had no works. Again going back to the language construction. In the verb form this phrase he has no works describes an individual who lacked evidence to support their claim to faith because they lack continual works. And third I want you to see that he boldly says that this is a faith which is dead. Now the word dead right here in this verse, in verse 17, it had a simple meaning. It just meant dead. It could be applied if you said that this man is dead naturally.

I thought about the story of Lazarus. Remember he was three days dead in a tomb. Isn't that right? Remember his sister sent word to Jesus and said your friend is sick but yet Jesus was slow in coming and Lazarus died and when Jesus came on the scene, what did they say? They said Jesus he is so dead he has been in the grave three dead days he is so dead he stinks. That is what James is saying dead here. This is a completely dead faith to borrow the words of Matthew Henry. It was inoperative. It could not work. And what we see here is James exposes this dead faith. He protests this dead faith that has infiltrated this fellowship.

You know death is a part of our culture but yet death has been covered over these days. I mean you go to the funeral home and they make that dead body look real alive in that casket. You know they show pictures on the screens a lot of times. What am I trying to show you? In our culture we try to cover over softened death. Our friend Luke called me yesterday and Luke said he was going to see a minister friend. I don't know this friend. This minister friend that he called his name. His name was Mac. He said Mac was 29 years old. He was a student minister. He had done ministry with him. He was single, no children.

But he had cystic fibrosis and Mac was in the hospital. There was nothing that they could do and family and friends were there and they were going to take him off all of the machines because he was long past having a lung transplant and they were going to see how he made it without the aid of the machines. Luke text me yesterday. He said I've never watched someone die. This is not fun. And when I was coming into church this morning I looked at my text message before I turned my phone off and Luke said this morning we were reading scripture over him as he passed. Now Luke, he watched a body go from having life to being dead.

See that's what James is saying. That's what he's describing here. He is saying right here in verse 17, "Even so faith, this professed faith, if it does not have works, it is dead because it's by itself." It is dead. And I want to ask you church, do we have this type of, let me use this word loosely, Christianity in our midst today? Do we have this form of Christianity that is on our church pews today? Do we have people among us who have this kind of faith today? And I want to tell you yes. Warren Wiersby says any declaration of faith does not result in a changed life and good works is a false declaration. That kind of faith is dead faith.

All Warren Wiersby is doing is agreeing with James. What is he saying? It is a false declaration. And what James does is he says yes, your faith is dead. Now as I begin to conclude we're going to move from the scripture. And I want to go to some language that I used earlier. In our church circles, in our culture, we are used to the phrase profession of faith. You know we've been raised in church and we've heard that you know, "Ms. so-and-so" or "my neighbor" or "my son" or "my daughter" they made a profession of faith. See that's what James is attacking here. He is attacking a profession of faith that does not have works.

And he says it's dead. And I want to tell you our churches, in our culture, our churches in our Southern Baptist Convention, our churches in Lincoln and Lawrence County, Southwest Mississippi are littered with people who have a profession of faith but they do not have works. I ran across some information this week in some of my study that really backs up what I'm going to share with you. I think my wife got tired of hearing me complain about it because this is very disturbing. I ran across the annual church profile statistical information that was published by LifeWay Christian Resources.

LifeWay is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now what I have in my hand is official Southern Baptist statistical information that was published in 2013. Let me explain what I mean. In 2012 within our convention there were over 46,000 local churches. In 2012 those churches were comprised of 15,872,404 members. I guess if I could just round that off, that's almost 16 million members that have their names on a church roll in just over 46,000 churches. But yet for 2012 it gives weekly worship attendance numbers. And listen to the weekly worship attendance numbers. Five million, 966,735.

So what that tells me here that in the year 2012 there were 9,905,669 church members who were what the military would call AWOL. Missing in action. Gone. It gets worse. Because they compared the 2003 numbers to 2012. Now the number of churches in 2013 it dropped by 91. And then the total church membership it dropped by 136,764. And the official church attendance for 2013 was 5,834,707. So what that tells us in 2013 there were 9,900,933 Christians. Or wait a minute, church members who were AWOL missing in action. But you know I ran across something else.

Southern Baptist put together a task force to investigate some of the problems that are in the lives of the churches that are, that the convention wide are being faced. This is the Southern Baptist Convention, Evangelistic Impact and Declining Baptism's Task Force. But as I studied the report, you know what was the most alarming for them? Declining membership and baptisms. Now listen to baptism statistics. You got to listen close to get these. 25% of Southern Baptist churches reported zero baptisms. 60% reported no youth baptism ages 12 to 17. 80% reported zero to one young adult baptisms. That would have been ages 18 to 29.

The only consistent growth in age, the only consistently growing age group in baptisms was age five and under. And as I studied the report, what they said was extremely alarming. They said we acknowledge that we have a spiritual problem. I agreed with this. We need a sense of brokenness, repentance over the spiritual climate of our churches and our nation. But then one of the acknowledgements said this, we have a next generation problem. Although our churches have increasingly provided programs for children, students and young adults, we are not being effective in winning and disciplining the next generation to follow Christ.

And what I thought was you've not read your statistics. We haven't won the ones that belong to us. They're saying we're not reaching the next generation when the door is flung wide open. And where are they? Here's what I'm trying to show you. When I look at the scripture and then I go to statistical information like this, my conclusion is we got a whole lot of people on our church rolls who have dead faith. I don't say that arrogantly. I don't say that being rude. Look, it's no fun to stand up here and say that we have husbands and wives and sons and daughters and neighbors and friends and coworkers who possess a dead faith.

And see what I'm afraid is some of these leaders have made the mistake that the old prophet A.W. Tozer said people make. I tried to find the quote last night and I couldn't find it. The old pastor A.W. Tozer said it like this. The mistake that modern ministers make today is they take man and they begin with man and then they go to the scriptures. That's what these men did. They looked at the statistical information. They looked at the next generation and then they tried to address the problem. But Tozer said it like this. You start with God. You start with what the word of God says and then you go to man.

Because when you look at what James says and you hold the word of God and you exalt the word of God, it is preeminent in your thinking. You let it assimilate into your thoughts. You let it assimilate into your heart. Then you apply the word of God to the problem at hand. That will help you deal with the problem accurately. And you know in my notes, I just couldn't help it. I wrote down when they addressed these problems. What about the fact that the baptism numbers tell us that we've lost the gospel. We've lost biblical conversion. We don't understand justification. I mean that tells me, look, the Bible's church is a red letter church.

I mean we're setting the bar high because according to these stats, 80% of the churches reported no adult baptisms. We baptized three. It tells me we ought to be on the front page. But we're just getting started. We just got upright in this thing. And what this tells me is they've lost so much. What about prayer? I mean I think that we need to be, some of these people need to be in sight, cloth and ashes. I mean prayer and fasting. In the word of God, God show what's wrong. And I'm going to tell you, if we got into the word of God and we let the word of God tell us what's wrong, we would discover what James says. Faith without works is dead.

And I'm going to tell you, you know why so many million are on our church rolls and they don't darken the door? It's dead faith. You know why so many young people are going out the door of the church, they graduate from high school, they graduate from God and they never come back? It's dead faith. It's not saving faith. It's dead faith. And look, it is a profession of faith. And look, I want to tell you church, the profession of faith is killing us. The profession of faith is killing us. The profession of faith isn't in the scripture, but being born from above is. Being born again is being saved from your sin.

I was having a conversation with one of the men of our church and he was telling me that when I say to someone that I was saved, they always stare at me, but yet that's biblical language. And I'll tell you this, if we will address the fact that we have so many people who are in our churches that they possess dead faith, then we can start reaching them with the gospel. So the title of the message this morning is dead faith. James protested it and James was about reforming these fellowships that he dearly loved. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you will give us a very, very sober heart.

I pray that you will help our understanding, that you'll help our ability to see the time times, see the days that are at hand, help us to not be pretentious, help us to shake out of our apathy and to see that those who are around us, many of them have a profession of faith, but it's a dead faith.