James 2:14-26

Tom Shrader examines James 2:14-24, addressing the relationship between faith and works in the Christian life. He explains that while salvation comes by grace through faith alone, genuine faith will always produce visible works as evidence of God's transforming power in a believer's life. Using Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as an illustration, Tom shows that true faith demonstrates itself through obedient action, not as a means to salvation but as its inevitable result.

“Works are really important. Not as a means to redemption, but as a result of redemption.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)

Recorded: 2011

Duration: 42 min

Themes: faith, works, salvation, obedience, grace, transformation, evidence, action, new believer, struggling with doubt, questioning salvation, seeking assurance, pastor, teacher, mature believer, seminary student

Scripture: James 2:14-24, James 1:22, Ephesians 2:8-10, Genesis 15, Genesis 22, Romans 1, 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 4

Theological Themes: sola fide, faith alone, sanctification, spiritual growth, justification, saving faith, antinomianism, legalism

Full Transcript

If you have Bibles, open them to the book of James. This is our eighth week in the book and we are finishing up today the second chapter of James. We keep coming back to it time and time again. It's really important to understand not just who's writing, but who he's writing to.

James is writing to an audience of Christians who are Jews who are now dispersed. They are traveling or have moved out of Jerusalem. They are in the midst of all sorts of trials and difficulties and circumstances. We also get a sense that there is a problem within these churches. That's what James is addressing in terms of faith and works.

Defining Our Terms

There are some terms that we're going to define upfront today. When we talk about faith, we're talking about faith in Christ and Christ alone for salvation. We're talking about believing in Jesus, who He said He was, who He says we are, and the remedy for that, which is Christ's death on the cross.

At that moment, when we believe, we are saved. Saved or rescued or delivered from what? That's what we looked at last week. The effect of sin in our life is that it separates us from God. All of a sudden, we don't understand God. We turn to other gods. We try to find satisfaction, fulfillment, significance, our identity in something.

So we ask questions like, where do you go when you're looking for comfort? What are the things you're afraid of? Those would tend to reveal the things that you're turning to for security, for really what you are worshiping in your life. That's a result of sin.

When God sends His son Jesus to come live and die for sinners like us, when we repent, we're saved. We're delivered from the effects of sin. We still live in these bodies. We still struggle with the world and the flesh and the sin and the demons. We still have those, but our heart is changed. We now have the ability to do good, where before we couldn't do good at all.

When we talk about works, we're talking about our efforts. I hesitate to use the term, we'll just use the term deeds. Our works, our efforts. So that's what James is addressing.

The Key Issue James Addresses

We said that the key verse in the book is James chapter 1 verse 22: "Prove yourselves to be doers of the word, not merely hearers." When you look at that and you look at the partiality, you look at some of the other things, there's a general drift that believes that what had happened among some of these Jewish believers is that they had moved from the rigid legalism that they found in Judaism to almost a sense of antinomianism, meaning I can go ahead and sin, do whatever I want to do, it doesn't matter either.

James is addressing the fact that it's not just that I'm saved by faith alone, though I am. I'm saved by grace. That's it. But when I'm saved, it doesn't just come into my life absent a transformation.

Christianity is Different

This is a wonderful little book that goes in print and out of print and in print and out of print. I don't know if it's in print now, but it's called The Glory of Christmas and it's the writings of Chuck Swindoll and Max Lucado and Chuck Colson. In this little book, they do excerpts from their other writings.

From Lucado's book In the Grip of Grace, Lucado writes this: "Please note, salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, God-originated. The gift is not from man to God, but from God to man. Grace is created by God and given to man. On the basis of this alone, Christianity is set apart from any other religion in the world. Every other approach to God is a bartering system. If I do this, God will do that. I'm either saved by my works, what I do, or by my emotions, what I experience, or by knowledge, what I know. By contrast, Christianity has no whiff, no whiff of negotiating at all. Man is not the negotiator. Indeed, man has no grounds from which to negotiate."

God Doesn't Negotiate

So you put your house on the market for a hundred grand, you get an offer for thirty. You take the offer and you go, "I don't think I'll take thirty. Let me counter. I'll counter at ninety," and they come back at thirty-one-five. Then you go back and forth, back and forth, and ultimately you end up at forty-seven and you say, "Okay, I give," and you have what we call meeting of the minds. We negotiate.

You're walking down the beach in Mexico, guy wants ten bucks for the ring, you say, "I'll give you a quarter," and you start. We negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. That's what you hear all the time: this is a great time to negotiate a deal.

We come to God and we want to do the same thing. God said, "Here's my terms," and we go, "I understand that, but do you have any sense of what the market's doing? This is what I will do. You do this, then I'll do this, then you do this." But God doesn't negotiate. He's not negotiable in this.

Saved by Grace, Sustained by Grace

I am saved by grace, through faith, and that's not of itself. It's a gift of God. What is? The faith is a gift of God, and it's not a result of works, not a result of anything that I would do or I would boast. That's Ephesians 2:8-9.

In verse 10, Paul writes, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them." I'm saved by grace, but I'm sustained by grace. The works that I do are works that He does in me.

This almost sounds like a fortune cookie, and I know that. It's just weird to say: I can't do anything apart from Him. Everything I do, He produces in my life. The only thing that I do that I produce is the sin. The good that comes, He's done it. Now, if you're not a Christian, that almost makes no sense to you at all. But we understand that.

Yet, what James is saying is, works are really important. Not as

a means to redemption, but as a result of redemption. Get that? It's not what saves me. It's not what delivers me. That's religion.

The world is obsessive about its religion. You've got religions all over. Everything other than biblical Christianity is a religion. It's about me doing something. Even if we say in these religions, "Jesus died for my sin," we still go, "But here's what I need to do. He contributed His part. For sure, He's the general partner. I'm the limited in this, but I still bring something to it."

Biblical Christianity says, "No, no, He did it all and you walk. You're the recipient of that grace that He sheds upon you." But now, works are really important. Works are important in a variety of ways, not the least of which is for us to know that indeed our hearts have been transformed. That's what we talked about last week. Our hearts are transformed, our mind is informed, and the result is a radical life.

The Question of Faith and Works

So James poses a question in chapter 2 verse 14: "What use is it, my brother, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?"

You've got to understand over and over again, James is not suggesting for a second that works or our activity is what generates the faith. When you talk to somebody, I'll talk to people from certain denominations, and it's very interesting. They'll go a lot to the book of James, and they'll go a lot to these verses, and they'll go, "Look it, my faith isn't any good without the works. It's the works and the faith." No, the works and the faith come together, but it's not the works that contribute to my salvation. That is huge.

What James is addressing are people that go, "I got the grace part figured out, so I'm just going to do what I want to do." And James is going, "You can't do that. There's a connection that takes place between the grace in our life that God sheds on us and the inevitable change that takes place."

Saved by Grace, From God's Wrath

I'm saved by grace through faith. Through saving faith. That's what James is describing here as compared to false, useless faith. I'm saved, and that's what we get from grace. I'm saved by God. He does it all.

I'm saved by God, from God. Sometimes we miss that part. I'm saved by God, from God. I'm delivered or rescued from what? His wrath, His judgment. God is a God of love, and we're into that, we love that, all that great stuff. But we edit God if all we talk about is His love and miss His wrath.

You cannot read Romans chapter 1 and not see that the wrath of God is poured out on sin. All sin must be judged. That's what made the crucifixion so horrific, was the outpouring of God's wrath on Christ at that moment. Not just the physical anguish of it.

James's Illustration of Empty Words

Now James goes, "Let me give you an illustration." "If a brother or sister is without clothing or in need of daily food, and one of you says, 'Go in peace, be warm, be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?"

I will tell you, that's tough right there. What he's saying is you have needy people all around you. He's clearly talking about a physical need here, but it could be far greater than that. He's saying you have people around you that are needy, and yet you don't do anything about it. You've got people that are coming up to you saying, "Can I have a minute? Can we talk about this?"

You have people, and you can see them. You go into any church 15 minutes before the service starts, and you'll see somebody sitting there reading a bulletin. Nobody reads those things. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of these. I want to get rid of them, but I don't know how to get rid of them. They say they're important to communicate.

Recognizing the Needs Around Us

If somebody's sitting there reading a bulletin with their head down, they're either new, they're hurting. Somebody's sitting there with a Bible by themselves. You can walk in, if you have any sort of perception at all, you can see hurt all around you. You can see it in somebody's face. You can see it in the office with the people you know. You can tell when somebody's discouraged. You can tell when somebody hasn't slept well. That doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem. It could have been anything.

What James is saying is, if you see somebody who's got a need, and he's talking about physical needs, and you're not meeting that need, you have the capacity to meet that need, then you have to look and go, "What's going on in you internally?"

Here's where that gets really difficult. I don't know how much that means. That can riddle you with guilt, and I'm not trying to relieve that guilt at all. But clearly, there are people that we know that have needs, and clearly we have the ability to meet some of those needs, and yet we don't. How much of those needs, I don't know. That becomes a matter of conscience in the heart. I don't lay a law down for something like that.

Called to Be Visibly Different

But James has said, "I want to pull you up short here. I want you to see that you've got people who have desperate needs all around you, and if you aren't meeting those needs, then you've got to go back to that faith you say you have, because you were saved, and you are His workmanship created for good works."

Jesus said it even more powerfully, I think. He said, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works." I'm supposed to be able to look at you and see something distinctively different about you. Visibly different.

The way you look at the world, the way you look at art, or movies, or the radio, the way you read the newspaper, the way you approach sports, or money, or raising kids, or work, whatever it is, whatever I'm doing, I should be engaged in such a way that somebody looks at that and they see something that's really distinctive and different about us. That's what He comes to again and again and again. And He just won't let up. So it's a key moment.

When People Question Their Salvation

We are at a key moment here. At this point frequently, people start going, "Man, I wish Bill was here for this. Boy, I wish Betty was here to listen to this." Well, let's forget them for a second and talk about something uncomfortable. Let's talk about you.

Rather than have this be something that becomes a tool for us to look at and judge everybody else, let these words be a mirror that I put in front of me, and I hold up and I look at them and say, "Is that me?"

I'll sit down and have somebody come to me and they'll want to meet and they'll say this: "I'm not sure that I'm saved." So when I hear something like that, there's two approaches. There's the approach that I see in the general Christian populace, and I go, "Well, what do you mean?" And then they'll say something like this: "When Billy Graham was at Sun Devil Stadium, I went forward at that." Or "I went to a luncheon and checked a box." Or "I went to a Good Friday breakfast and wrote my name down." Or "I was in a church and prayed a prayer," or whatever it is. "But I'm not really sure about it."

The Wrong Approach to Doubt

A lot of Christian people, well-meaning I believe, sit down and go, "But here's a lesson on assurance of salvation. The Bible says that if you do this, you're saved."

If somebody comes to me and says, "I don't know if I'm saved, I'm not really sure I'm delivered," here's what I'll say to them: "Why are you saying that? What's the motive there?" People don't just randomly wake up one morning with that thought. There's some reason. And almost always, you start to unpack it, and what you're going to see is somebody who's walked an aisle or prayed a prayer or something, but their life isn't matching up and they instinctively know it.

So then we'll stop and immediately try to discern, is this a discussion about evangelism or discipleship? Is this where we need to go through the gospel again and you've never responded to the gospel? Or is it just somebody who's living out the gospel and that is a life that just struggles?

God's Purpose in Our Struggles

I talked about it last week. I am convinced that God wants us in a constant struggle. There are moments of relief, to be sure, but there are continual struggles in our life. For this reason, what God wants more than anything else is for you to want Him, for you to love Him, for you to respond to Him.

You will respond best when the stock is at $2, not when it's at $20. You'll respond best when the report comes back with a spot on the lung, not when it's clean. You just are more acceptable. Are you telling me God would cause these things? Yeah, sure, absolutely. Everything that comes into my life, He either causes or allows or He isn't God.

God is going to come into a life, I believe, and He's going to do whatever it takes to work on our heart, work on our minds, for our own good. That's how we started the book: count it all joy when you encounter various trials because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Becoming a Display Case

Or, so we now become a display case, a testimony. Second Corinthians 1, I can now comfort you with the comfort with which I've been comforted. Now I can come to you and say, "I may not know exactly what you're going through, but let me tell you what God did in my life."

We have this group of church, 20-somethings, 7-10. And through the summer, on the third Tuesday of each month, so three times, we're going to separate, even though there are 25, I still call them boys and girls, we're going to separate the boys and the girls. And I teach the girls. I'm comfortable with the girls, had girls, married a girl. I sometimes need to be clear. We had girl dogs, we had girl gerbils, we had girls, everything.

Teaching Young Women

So we sat down and they said, "What are we going to talk about?" And when you're with these 20-somethings, it doesn't take long to just go back. So here's what I said I'm going to do. The last one we're going to do is about when your life is off track, how to get on track. And the second one we're going to do is, what does God, your Father, your Heavenly Father, what does He say to you?

But the one I did the other night was, "I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to tell you what your dad told you and you didn't listen, or you never had a dad to tell you this, nonetheless you need to hear it."

Though there are 25 or 30, I talked to them about how you dress really matters. It really matters. It says a lot about what you think about yourself and what you want others to think about you. It just really matters. And so then we talked a lot about guys and what guys are like and this is what they think about and this is what they're like and how they operate in a relationship and guard it.

The Number One Principle for Relationships

But there's an overriding principle. Here's the number one principle, I'm going to give you this. This is free, not directly involved in the lesson, but this is something you can use all your life. When somebody's talking about getting married or dating, here's the number one thing.

The number one thing a girl should look for in a guy and the number one thing a guy should look for in a girl is you want, if you're a guy, a girl who loves Jesus more than you. And if you're a guy, you want a girl who loves Jesus more than you. That's what you want, more than anything else.

And so I really illustrated for them because if I love Susan more than I love Jesus, here's the problem with that: she's going to change. I'm really candid about it. The very things that attracted me to Susan were physical things. The answer is how I am. I'm the most superficial human that's ever occupied the planet, and I'm comfortable with that. But when I met her, she was a size two. Well, now she's filled with stuff. She can't control that. She had this cute little figure. That's gone. She had parts that are gone.

The physical part of her that I fell in love with doesn't exist anymore. Yesterday was our 31st wedding anniversary, and I love her. I probably started falling in love with her about the third year, something like that. But I love her, but I love Jesus more.

Now I'm going to tell you something, and you could easily misunderstand this and think that I'm a huge jerk. There are days where if I didn't know Jesus, I'd leave. I don't need this. I didn't sign up for this. This isn't what I said I wanted. This isn't the deal.

The Problem with Love Based on Feelings Alone

See, that's the problem. If you just love her or you just love him, he's going to change. I fell out of love. Yeah, yeah, I got that. You fell out of love with him. I got it. But if I love Jesus more, I'm in a relationship. I'm not going to fall out of love with Him. And so in the midst of this, with these young ladies in particular, so many of them want to be married.

So what I added is an interview. There's a little girl, a cute little thing, 32 years old, she wants to be married so badly. And so I interviewed her. And she said, "There are nights where I will cry myself to sleep, going, God, I so want to be married." She's cute, she's terrific. But she said, "Jesus, here's the deal, but I want you more than any guy. So I'll take you, even though you haven't brought the guy."

And then there was this guy that's been there, but he's not quite right. There are some things that are wrong. And her friends and all this stuff, you know, and you waited so long. She goes, "But he's not, no, he doesn't measure up." How do you handle that? And then now we question and answer. What about desires? What about my heart? And she just starts to answer and go, "I got this desire and I struggle in this area."

Life as a Believer Includes Hardship

Here's what I'm saying to you. That life you live, even as a follower of Christ, is not just filled with bliss. There's hardship and difficulty and suffering. That's what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 4. "I'm crushed, but not destroyed here. I'm perplexed." I have all of these things around me, persecution.

Well, what James is saying is, there are works in your life and they are evidence of God's transforming of your heart. And if these works, this is what he's saying here, if these works aren't present, you need to at very best inventory your life because you may not be a believer at all, or just as flat evidence you aren't a follower of Christ. You cannot not be changed. That's the whole point. Your life will change. How? Your heart, your motive, and then the actions and what you do. And it then becomes evident to the people around you, probably to you first, and then to the people around you.

The Evidence of Real Change

So we were talking about last night, we went to our favorite place to go eat, and we got our favorite table, it just worked out that way, it was perfect. Nobody has any money to go eat, so it was perfect. Could have had any table, I think. So we got our table, and we were just talking about 31 years, what it's been like.

And in this place we go, that was just telling somebody, they changed out all the light bulbs in the restroom. The restroom light bulbs are all blue now. I look so good in blue, I couldn't believe it. Oh my gosh, I'm going today to get blue sunglasses. Everything's going to be blue from now on.

Well, we were just talking about our life and what it's been like. When, and we were laughing. People will come up to Susan, because I'm not high profile, but I'm fairly public, so they'll come up to her and they feel like they know her. And they'll say things like, really stupid things to her. But you know, "I feel like I know you," that's perfect, you know, and everybody, that's fine. But then they'll say just things, but they'll say this is her least favorite thing. "I'll bet you guys just sit at home and laugh all the time. Tom must really be funny." And she'll go, "Oh, he's a riot, you know. There's nothing funnier than him throwing his shorts across the room. It just makes me laugh and laugh."

My Wife's Testimony of Change

Well, somebody the other day said, "How did you get, were you saved" and they didn't know us? She said, "No, no," because that's kind of a typical thing. The gal gets saved, drags the guy along. She said, "No, Tom got saved first." "Really? What happened to you?" She said, "I don't want any part of it. Never been to church, don't want church. And he came home and he told me what had happened to him. And I thought, well, I'll watch this for a while."

And then after a couple of weeks, she said, "This is, you know, this is weird, because he's the guy with three pairs of running shoes that are still in the box." And I never, the only thing I've ever done, I've told you this in my life, the only thing I've ever done in moderation is work. Everything else I've done to excess. So if somebody says, "Do you want to stop on the way home and have a drink?" I'll say, "Not really, I'll get drunk or I'll go home. Why would I have a drink? That doesn't make sense to me." So that's just kind of the way I view it.

But she said, "He just hit, everything kept going this way and going this way and going this way. And then he started on me." Now, I don't remember this, but he'd come home and say, "You better respond. You're going to go to hell. You're going to go to hell." And I do remember her one time, I must have said, "You're going to go to hell" because she said, "Are you going to be there?" And I said, "No." And she said, "Well, then it won't be that bad." Okay. I do remember that. But finally, I know. And finally, she's a hard, bitter woman, that girl.

But finally, she said, after about four months, "I couldn't deny the change in his life. And I had to say to him, what's done this?" That's what James is saying. I'm supposed to see this in my life.

Witnessing Transformation in Others

I'm with a guy yesterday. I know I'm telling story after story. I'm sorry today, but it just is. I'm with a guy yesterday who doesn't know hardly anything, who started coming to church in a study about three months ago, who couldn't answer hardly any question, who his friends are

All saying to him, there's something different about you. There's something different about you. There's something different about you. And he's saying, well, it's Jesus. And they're saying, where did you get this? And now he's got like a little cubby of quail that follow him around to these things that are going, I want what he's got. Well, that's the spirit of God.

Faith Without Works is Dead

James goes on and he says in verse 17, "Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself." It's stillborn. It was never the real deal. But if someone may well say to you, "You have faith and I have works, show me your faith without works and I'll show you my faith by my works."

You believe that God is one. And that would be interesting because they're in this polytheistic world. They got gods for everything. You believe God's one. You do well. The demons also believe and they shudder. Larry used to always say the demons believe and it scares the snot out of them, but that's a loose translation. That's what he would always say.

Demons Have Correct Doctrine Too

So when Jesus is walking around, He encounters these demon possessed men or these demons, the demons will always say, "You're Jesus, the son of the living God." They got their doctrine down. So here's what he's saying. If you're saying you got faith, you got no works, you got great doctrine, you're demon qualified. That's what he's saying. That's all. Because these two go hand in glove.

But if you are willing to recognize, you foolish one, that faith without works is useless. He said, are you willing to look at this? Those of you who are foolish, the term has the idea of being empty or defective. Do you get this? Do you understand it?

Abraham's Example

And then he says, I'll give you an illustration. Again, remember, who's He writing to? Jews. Well, they all go back to Father Abraham. So He said, let me give you an illustration. Verse 21. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?" You see that faith was working with his works. As a result of the works, his faith was perfected or matured. Verse 23. "The scripture was fulfilled, which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.' And he was called a friend of God."

Understanding the Apparent Contradiction

Now, this has been a source of a lot of confusion. I had been a Christian months, and Larry said, you need to be in a small group. And I couldn't find a small group. He said, just start one. Well, I'm not qualified to start a small group. So we start this small group. Out of the whole Bible, got all 66 books we can pick. We picked the book of James. I mean, that's not the best place to start.

At the same time that Larry's teaching the book of Romans. So I'm hearing Larry teach the book of Romans, and we're studying the book of James. So as we're working our way through the book of James, we come to the fact that Abraham was justified, verse 21, by his works. Right at the time that Larry's teaching to the book of Romans that says, Abraham was justified by his faith.

Now, I haven't been at this very long. I know the Bible's infallible. So I call him up. I said, hey man, that thing you taught this morning is different than in James. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but this one says you're justified by faith, and that one says you're justified by works. I think there's a contradiction here. And I'll never forget. He just said, man, that sounds really complicated. You better figure it out, and he hung up. All right?

Two Types of Justification

I thought, all right. Well, it takes a little work, and it takes a little digging. When you look at these three verses, now, I'll probably communicate this poorly, so that means you're gonna have to really listen closely. They are in reverse chronological order. So verse 23 leads to verse 22, which leads to verse 21. James is building his case here and simply saying, when you see the word justified, the word justified is used to mean acquittal. It's also used in a way that says justified, visibly justified, before God and before men.

What Paul is talking about is the justification that took place between Abraham and God, what James is talking about is the justification among men who look at Abraham and can see his faith. So Abraham has this moment in verse 23 where James refers back to Abraham He goes back to Genesis 15 and He talks about here was that time of righteousness here's where He was declared righteous and then there was a promise that was given to Abraham He'd be the father of many nations many descendants and then some time progresses like 40 years in there and this promise isn't being fulfilled.

At this point Abraham's wife Sarah comes to him they're having this conversation and they say obviously we've mistaken this and Sarah says what you ought to do is sleep with my maidservant Hagar and Abraham said oh I could never do that which one's Hagar now I put that in there but but that's how He would do it not one so they have this relationship out of this comes Ishmael but that's not the son so now when Abraham's a hundred and Sarah is 90 and probably drives and appeal and everything else are gone now they have this son Isaac.

The Ultimate Test of Faith

When James talks about the justification by works He talks about a scene that we see in Genesis 22 that is where God appears and speaks to Abraham and says go sacrifice your son this is very important now He doesn't just leave it at that because if He said go sacrifice your son what would Abraham have said hey Ishmael we're going for a ride okay go and sacrifice your son your only son He doesn't leave it at that the one whom you love Isaac take him take him up.

And so Abraham what He does He does exactly it says immediately early the next morning He takes off with two of His guys a donkey firewood and Isaac and heads for the mountain when they arrive at the mountain on the third day so there's a long trip you can't even can you imagine the emotion of that I'll bet as Abraham looked over and He saw Isaac Isaac never looked better what a boy I can see me in him the apple of my eye Abraham

Then he said to the young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the lad will go there, and we will worship and we will return to you." It's an amazing picture of faith. He knows—because we know what comes next—he's willing to kill him. He knows he's going to kill him. That's the reasonable assumption he assumes he's going to kill him. But somehow he also knows he's the vehicle for the promise, so he's got to live. He may not understand how, but he understands God.

He may not understand how this is going to happen. There's almost an implicit belief in some sort of resurrection or something here. He doesn't have anything other than God's Word. God's given him a command. God's given him a promise. They look to be contradictory. He doesn't have the foggiest idea how it's going to happen, but it's not his job to figure out how it's going to happen. His faith is unshakeable in God at a demanding moment. What Abraham loved more than anything else on the whole earth was that boy, but he loved God more. That's the point.

Faith Contagious Between Father and Son

Up they go, and as they're walking along, I think this faith is contagious. We don't really know—people vary a little bit. Some will say Isaac was 17, some will say he was like in his mid-twenties. It's really irrelevant. Here's what we know: let's say, let's split the difference, let's say Isaac's 20 and Abraham's 120. My suspicion is Isaac could outrun him. That's all I'm trying to get at.

The faith is contagious. I'm sure Isaac's heard all about this God and this living God, everything that goes with it. Now they get there and Isaac's saying, "You know, I noticed something. We got the wood. We got the fire. We don't have a sacrifice." Abraham said, "Jehovah Jireh—God will supply." Up they go. Somehow, amazing as it is for Abraham, it's amazing to me for Isaac. He voluntarily—there's a picture really here of Christ is what this is—he voluntarily goes, willing to die. Abraham's ready to kill him, and then God intervenes. That's the picture.

The Kind of Faith God Is Looking For

There are all sorts of ways to apply it, and you can get kind of mushy and emotional, and I don't want to move too far out of this. But I do think it's fair to say to you that's the kind of faith God's looking for in our life. Anything, anything, anything in our life that's between us and God—anything in our life that is a source of satisfaction or significance or worth or comfort beyond God—He wants out of there. That's tough, man.

My flinch is comfort. I just don't want to hassle. I just don't want to hassle. Susan and I were talking last night, and you always have these conversations: "Would you like to go somewhere? You want to travel?" I said, "I don't want to go any place I'm sorry. I don't want to go any place that needs a passport. It's just not my deal. I love this country." You know, it's starting to feel like France more and more, so I mean that's good. I mean, it's hard to—I feel like I'm in Paris without even going. I can go sit in Vegas and have all the social benefits and the Eiffel Tower all the way. I don't want to go. I got no interest in it. That's just me. That's not to put anything down—I just don't want hassle in my life.

I try to make my life really simple. We live in 1800 square feet. I'm not saying you should live in 1800 square feet—1800 square feet may be way too much. I don't want hassle. I needed a phone the other day. My phone was—all I wanted was a new phone. Susan said, "Your life—you have no hassle in your life." I said, "That's by design. I don't want hassle. I don't want aggravation."

God Brings Hassle to Root Out False Comforts

So what's God going to do? He's going to bring me hassle and aggravation. He's going, "You're trying to find comfort. You're trying to find comfort in a smooth transaction with AT&T"—which, by the way, isn't going to happen. "So you're trying to find smooth comfort in a transaction with AT&T, but I want you to find smooth comfort with Me. You're trying to find comfort in your beauty?" He said, "That's fine, whatever. Look good, look the best you can, but I want you to come to Me. You're trying to find comfort in that money?" He said, "No, but you were—it was your little god. The other thing you want to—when you had it, you always knew it was there." He said, "That's fine. Whatever it is—your health."

Not because He's a vengeful God, but because He's a jealous God. He doesn't want you messing around with some other things. He doesn't want you messing around with His other stuff. He wants your heart. He wants you to love Him and Him alone. It's not that He doesn't want you to have these things—He's a God who richly blesses. The problem is we fall in love with the gift rather than the giver, with the blessing rather than the one who's blessing us. Always these things get in the way.

The more He blesses me, rather than be filled with thanksgiving and praise, I tend to be self-absorbed and want to know how I can now hoard the blessing. He's saying, "You know what? I tried, My friend. I tried to bless you, but you wanted the blessing more than Me, and I love you too much to let you be comfortable with anything other than Me." That's all He's saying. That's a beautiful picture of how God deals with us.

Faith Must Be Visible

What He's saying again, if we go back into the book of James—and it's really simple, we ought to have it, it's not complex at all—what He's saying is if this is the way that you say you're going to live, I ought to be able to see it. He says in verse 24, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." Now you see how Martin Luther hated this book when you read that verse. But again, you need to put it in context.

We want to be really clear—we got about five minutes—we want to be really clear what moves me from sinner to saint. "Saint" is God's term for us. What moves us from sinner to saint? What changes our destination from hell to heaven? It's God's grace—God's marvelous, wonderful grace. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." That's grace, not religion. What James is saying is not contradictory to that.

The Life Application of Faith

What he's saying is now here's the life application of that - it is Ephesians 2:8, 9, and 10. If we don't get to the works part, then all we are is walking around with a bunch of doctrine like a demon with the right doctrine but no transformation of our life. You should be living a different life now.

Can I give you that? I know it - I sound like the fiddler on the roof. On the other hand, on the other hand, on the other hand. You can't live that life if He doesn't give you the strength to do it, and it's not a call to legalism. It's not a call for us setting down a bunch of standards and becoming rigid.

Avoiding Legalistic Standards

Let me be real practical. If I mentioned an 1,800 square foot house, some of you have more than that, some of you have less than that, and you think now I'm making a judgment. I'm not making any judgment. Here's my point: I'm comfortable with the 1,800 square feet for me. I don't care if you got 5,000 or 500. It doesn't matter.

See, we immediately want to do that. We immediately want to set down a law. I'm going to go to dinner and have a glass of wine. I'm not going to have wine. I don't care - have it, don't have it. Why do you care whether I do or don't? See, that's how it is with everything.

Y'all love this. We have a real dilemma on our hands here. Huge issue. We're getting ready to do a marriage retreat. Saturday night is just a social dessert time, and the guy that comes in is a DJ. So here's the moral dilemma we have - huge dilemma. Do we dance or not dance? I don't know. It's just plunged us into the word of God. I don't know.

The Balance Between Freedom and Standards

That's the old Baptist. Remember the old Baptist pastor where the guy comes in and says, "Is it okay to have sex standing up?" And he said, "No, it might lead to dancing." Remember that old joke? So we can't have any dancing.

That's what I'm saying. I don't want to be so bound in this. And yet God has a standard. You know what? This is between you and God. This is not saying we don't deal with sin. If you've got somebody in the church that are involved in adultery, we know it's wrong. We judge that. That's not what we're talking about.

But in most of the areas of our life, there's these areas of preference. What the music is. Whether there's more liturgy or less liturgy. Here's the thing, for today only maybe: quit judging that and judge your own heart.

Looking Ahead: The Tongue

Now a great revealer of this is in James 3 - the tongue. The longest contiguous passage in the Scripture dealing with the tongue. So next week, the topic is the tongue. Speech. Cynicism. Sarcasm. We may have a guest speaker the more I think about it. But we're going to tackle it next week.

Closing Prayer

So let's do that. Let's pray together.

Father, help us see these amazing, wonderful truths, would You? And apply them to our heart. Help us take the word that You lay before us and hold it up as a mirror. God, let us resist the temptation to judge and beat up the people around us. This is very personal. Do we know You? Yes. And if so, has our life been changed, transformed?

Are we walking around saying, "Look at all my works," but there's no faith? That's no good. Or walking around saying, "Look at my faith," but there's no works? That's no good. This is a hand in glove. They go together. They're inseparable. And here's the deal: God, help us understand that You produce both - the works and the faith.

Thank You for this amazing, wonderful truth. I pray that You'll take it and apply it to our hearts and our minds. That You'll change our lives. That people around us will see that there's something unique and different about us. And it will give us an opportunity to say, "It's not that we're so great. We're not. We're great sinners. But we serve a great Savior."

God, do that work in our life. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.