Blue Jean Theology Part 8
Tom Shrader teaches on the crucial distinction between real and false faith from James 2:14-26. He emphasizes that genuine saving faith inevitably produces works as evidence, while faith without works is dead and cannot save. Using Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as an example, Shrader challenges listeners to examine their own faith for authentic transformation rather than mere intellectual belief.
“Christianity says salvation is by grace through faith, and that separates Christianity from every other religion in the entire world.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 1996
Duration: 42 min
Themes: faith, salvation, works, evidence, transformation, belief, obedience, eternal, questioning salvation, new believer, doubting faith, spiritual immaturity, religious upbringing, intellectual belief, lacking assurance, examining heart
Scripture: James 2:14-26, Genesis 15, Genesis 22, Mark 1, 1 John 4
Theological Themes: soteriology, saving faith, dead faith, justification, sanctification, genuine conversion, false conversion, eternal security
Full Transcript
We are in about the eighth week of our look at the Book of James. If you haven't been with us and you're here for the very first time, you have picked the singular most important day you could have picked to be here. The reason is this: the issue today is of paramount importance.
It's fascinating to me to watch, predictably now, and I've been watching them since 1968, the presidential campaigns. Every election in every four years is, by the candidate's own admission, the most important election we've had in a long time. This is no exception. Well, this may or may not be an important election. I have no idea. But I will tell you this: in the life of, for the sake of discussion, assume Bob Dole gets the nomination, and in the life of President Clinton, what they do in that election, whether they win or lose, and what they would do as president, pales in significance to the importance of this chapter. Because this chapter deals with their eternal destination.
Today we look at the singular most important issue you're going to ever have to get your hands around, and that's the issue of where you spend eternity. It is a section of James' book that has been somewhat misunderstood, and therefore it's been a source of a lot of really awful teaching. That's why it's so important for us to understand the context James is writing.
The Importance of Context
We've said this to you before. If I'm selling real estate, the three most important things are location, location, location. If I want to understand Scripture, the three most important things are context, context, context. Who's writing to who about what?
James deals today with this issue of real faith. You'll see today what James is going to do in the second chapter, that's where we are, James chapter 2, verses 14 through 26. James is talking about what does real faith look like, what does false faith look like? What is a real, genuine, authentic faith? How can I tell it? How do I know it? And what's the phony thing?
It is very important for us to remember what we've been looking at for the last five, six weeks. James is writing to a group of new believers, Jewish Christians, and the charge evidently that was levied against these people is that they had become hearers, not doers of the Word. Remember, that's what he looked at. He said, don't you just be a hearer of the Word, but you be a doer also. He's not saying hearing isn't important. He's saying hearing inevitably results in doing. I can't separate those.
What Is Salvation?
Now he comes to this issue of saving faith. Let me spend just a second on this, because this is what separates Christianity from every other religion in the entire world. Christianity says salvation, and I've got to stop because there's terms in here. Again, many of you know what these terms mean, and you understand what we're talking about when we use them. But those who may not are the ones, very honestly, that I'm most concerned about today. I want you to understand what we mean when we say certain things.
When we talk about saved or salvation, what are we talking about? What am I saved from? What am I saved to? Here's what we mean. We are saved from eternal damnation in a place called hell. You're telling me, 1996, we're sitting here in this resort, and you're going to talk to me about hell? Yeah, I am. And here's why.
All of us will die, and the question is, what happens then? Heaven? Hell? Annihilation? What happens then? The Scripture is clear. There is a heaven to be gained, a hell to be shunned. Here's what the Scripture is also clear on. There is no spot in the middle called purgatory where I go and ding out the dents and scrape up the thing and make the paint and get me into heaven. I've got these two options, and these are the only two options I've got. When I die, that is determined before that point where I'll spend eternity in heaven or hell.
The Path to Heaven
Well, if you are bright and you are, I want to know, what do I have to do to go to heaven? Boy, I want to know. I tend to be, I'm not much for a lot of the fancy, so we don't net it out. What's the bottom line? What do I got to do to go to heaven?
Here's what the Bible says. The Bible says, I am saved by grace through faith. That faith is not of my own. I didn't conjure it up. It's a gift from God, not a result of my effort, because if it was a result of my effort, I would boast about it. But I'm saved by grace through faith for a reason, for good works.
That's what separates Christianity from every other religion. Every other religion says my heaven destination is determined by either works alone or faith and works.
Common Misconceptions
So if you go to Fashion Square today, and you interview the first hundred people that come in, non-employees, and you say to them, what do I have to do to go to heaven? The vast majority will say, well, I go to heaven because I'm a good person. So what they're saying is, I can do something that will satisfy God, that will convince Him that I'm a good person. Now what they have to mean is this. They don't mean I'm all good, for no one would say that they're perfect. What they're saying is, I've got more good things than bad things. And that's what they're trusting.
Some who've been around different various religions will say, well, it's really not that. It's more like a joint venture partnership, where God's the general partner, and God does the Christ thing on the cross, and He does that, and I've got to believe that, but I also have to do these other things. If I don't do these other things, but I believe that, but I don't do these other things, well, then here's what happens is then it wouldn't work because it's a joint venture. I have to have faith and my efforts or my works combined to get to heaven.
Christianity says, absolutely not. In a sense, it's not even faith. I'm saved
by grace, and the very first manifestation of God's grace in my life is my faith. It's the very first work that happens in my life. God saves me through grace. I speak that as truth, and then the ongoing evidence of that is a transformed or a changed life. See how that progression takes place. It separates Christianity from everything else. That's why this is so critical. It's so essential to understand that.
So those are the words we're going to use today. We're going to talk about what does it mean to be saved or salvation, and that's the context of it, and then we're going to talk about faith, and in that we're going to talk about real faith and false faith. That will become very clear to you. Then we'll talk about this idea of works, and works will be something you do, not necessarily a specific category of works, but just things that you do that would be considered, I guess in most conversations, good things. That's the background, and if that sounds confusing to you, it's because I didn't do a good job, and I'll take ownership of that, and I'll bet it clears up for you in the next few minutes.
James' Opening Challenge
Let's not just go ahead and read it. Let's just dissect this dog right from the beginning. Verse 14, here's the lead in. He says this, "What use is it? What good is it? What difference does it make, my brother, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?"
Now, it's a rhetorical question. Obviously, he doesn't answer it, and he doesn't answer it because the answer is self-evident. James is not here trying to give you a prescription of what you need to do to go to heaven. That's not what he's doing. He's writing to these people who say they're Christians. Remember, they're hearers of the Word, but not doers. He says, if somebody says to me, I'm a Christian, but there is, in their life, no evidence of it, can that faith save him? In other words, is that real faith? Is that genuine faith? Now, the resounding answer to this is, absolutely not.
The Problem with Modern Evangelism
Here's the equivalent in our language, and boy, is this important. Somebody says, wait a minute. I was at Sun Devil Stadium 20 years ago when Billy Graham was there, and I walked an aisle, and I stood in front of him, and I prayed a prayer. That's that act of faith. Or someone says, I went to a CBMC luncheon, or I went to some sort of an outreach that was attached to the Super Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl or some bowl, or I went to someone's home Bible study, or I did something, I walked an aisle, I prayed a prayer, I checked a box, and they told me, if I did that, bingo, I was in heaven.
See, that's the fallacy of the evangelism that we use. We kind of sit down across from a guy, and we sell Christ just like we would a vacuum. We do a cost-benefit thing and say, wouldn't you want to go to heaven? And you say, sure. And then you say, your pen or mine? And boom, we say, this guy's in heaven. But we never talk to this guy about what it really means.
Of the last eight testimonies that I've heard, seven of them never mention the word sin. How can I come to Christ in repentance and faith if I've never acknowledged my sin? And then here's what we do that compounds the issue.
False Assurance and Its Consequences
So now, let's use Dan. Dan seems more vulnerable at this moment. So we'll use Dan. So I come to Dan, and I say, Dan, wouldn't you want to go to heaven? And he says, you bet I want to go to heaven. And I say, well, what do I got to do? And he says, oh, you don't have to do anything. All you got to do is believe this. Don't you believe in Jesus? Yeah, you bet I do. And he signs this, and he says, I'm in.
Then about two weeks, nothing really happens. There's no change in his life. There's no evidence. There's no nothing. So about two weeks later, Dan comes back, and he says, you know, I'm not sure about this. Here's what we do. Even in our organized follow-up, what we do. If we say, we're going to take you through eight weeks of study, what's the very first lesson that we give this guy? What is it? I heard somebody say it. Assurance of his salvation. So the very first thing we do is, now, you really prayed that prayer, didn't you? Boom, then you need to know you're going to heaven.
That's exactly the opposite tact I take. If some guy calls me up and says, listen, I'm not sure I'm a Christian, I presume he isn't. And I say to him, what is it in your life that makes you think that? So Dan comes and says, hey, you know, we did that deal. We prayed that prayer. I tell you, there's been no life change. There hasn't been anything else. Everything else is the same. He doesn't need a lesson on assurance of his salvation. He needs to go through that process again in terms of understanding it, and he needs to be assured not of his salvation, but of the cost of discipleship and what it means to follow Christ. See, that's where we go wrong.
The Tragic Result: False Converts
So we got a bunch of people running around, and they say, I prayed a prayer. This is an awful thing we do in Sunday school. I'm part of a group that kind of started a church, and in that group, in those places, I tell those elementary school teachers, force no kid to make a decision for Christ. Present the gospel, but don't push them for a decision, because anybody can get a decision from a five-year-old or a first grader.
So now I minister in a marketplace here of a bunch of people who go back to some Sunday school experience that they're supposed to have had when they were eight years old, but there's been no life change, and there's no sense of sin in their life. These people aren't Christians, and the worst thing you can do is make them think they are, because now they think they are, and you can never reach them. Give me a good old puky derelict. That's the guy we can reach, because he knows he's lost, see? But you got these other little people, and they look so good, and they're so sweet, and they're so terrific, and they say, hey, I prayed a prayer when I was a...
But wait a minute. You're involved in drugs, you're involved in alcohol, you're involved in sin, you cheat in business. "I'm a carnal Christian." No, you aren't. You're a pagan, and you need to come face-to-face with that.
Your greatest spiritual indicator is not what happens in church, or not what happens in your quiet time, or not what happens when you're sharing your faith, or you're at a Michael W. Smith concert. The best indicator of your faith is what happens when you sin. When you sin, how do you respond?
James Addresses False Perspectives on Faith
That's what James is writing to. James is writing to people that say, "Hey, listen, boys will be boys, girls will be girls." James is writing to a group of people that say, "Hey, lighten up, it's 45 A.D., and this is the way things are going to be. People are always going to sin, and they're always going to be like this. Get off my back."
James says, if that's your perspective of faith, you need to understand something. That faith won't save you a lick.
I know this is repetitive, and I apologize for the repetitive nature of it, but it speaks to how important it is. James is not addressing for us a means of salvation. He's explaining to us the result of salvation. This is a huge difference. James is not saying your efforts or your works contribute to your salvation. He's saying they are the inevitable result of your salvation.
The Mirror of Self-Examination
Now, at this point, you are doing what I would do. You're running down in your mind a list of people who should have been here today. "When will this tape be out? I want to get this tape for them." I don't give a rip about them. I want to talk to you about you. I want you to hold the mirror up.
It may be that you've been in church all your life. It may be that you've taught Sunday school. You may sing in the choir. You may be a pastor. That does not mean for one second you're a Christian.
I was reading a great story the other night of Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon was telling the story of a pastor down the street. He was converted under his own preaching. He was preaching along one day on sin and repentance. All of a sudden, it became clear to him he wasn't a believer. As the story goes, someone stood up and said, "I think the pastor's been converted." Another person stood up and said, "Hallelujah, the pastor's been converted." The next week, the pastor gave his testimony.
So I'm telling you and me, all of us, this is a mirror for every one of us. I don't care about your experience. I'm convinced as I deal with men and women, there are a lot of people who've been around this stuff all their life who are going to be some of those people at the end who He's going to say, "Depart from me, I never knew you." That scares the snot out of me.
Can Faith Without Evidence Save?
Here's what he says. If you've got, if you're saying, "I'm a Christian," but there's no evidence of it, can that faith be real? Can that faith save you? Is it authentic? Is it genuine? No.
Here's an illustration. "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food..." Now, understand the picture he paints. Very important picture. This is not somebody who says, "This old filthy rag I've had for almost six months now, the spring line is out, and I want new stuff." It's not somebody who says, "My palate has been numbed, and I need to get to restaurants to refresh my palate before I can go back." This is somebody who barely has food enough and is scraping around on a daily basis. These are people without clothing.
Now they come to you and you say, "Go in peace and be warmed and be filled," and yet you don't give them what's necessary for their body. What use is that? Is that living faith?
The Picture of Empty Words
Here's the picture. There are people, and he says brother or sister. He does not mean kin in a blood sense. He means those in the body. So a fellow believer, someone in the church, someone you know, comes to you and they have a desperate need, and the implication here is you can meet that need. Instead you say, "You know what? I'll be praying for you. Go. Be warmed. Be filled."
Don't get hung up on the clothing and the food and miss the illustration, because rarely do you come face to face with that. Here's what he's saying. There's somebody across from you that has a need. It may be physical. It may be an emotional need. It may be that they're hurting. It may mean that there's really something in their life that they need and you are numb to it.
Here's what's tragic. You've learned to spiritualize it. I'm going to throw up if another person starts a sentence to me with, "I've been praying about this." I presume you've been praying about it. You don't need to tell me about that. So here's what we do. A guy's got a need, but you don't want to spend the time, energy, effort, or money to solve that need, so you say, "I'll be praying for you, brother. Go on. Be warmed." That's a joke.
The Nature of Real Faith
All of a sudden, you and I have to come face to face with what he's talking about when he's talking about real faith, saving faith, living faith. He's not saying, let me add this parenthesis right here, that everybody that's around doing works is a Christian either. He's not saying the faith part isn't important. It's critical. If I don't know Christ, if I don't believe in Him, if I don't acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior, it doesn't matter what I do, I'm never going to be saved.
You've got a bunch of people running around really trying to do good work, but they have no faith. The presumption here, let me say it again, the presumption here is that I have faith that results in my salvation, and it manifests itself so that everybody around me ought to be able to see this.
It's interesting to watch people when Susan's there because they really try to work her over to find out what Tom is really like. In fact, one of the gals said something the other night that was particularly stupid. She said, "Oh, I'll bet he's really fun to live with. I'll bet he's funny all the time." She hates to hear this because I'm not that funny. Susan said, "Oh yes, he's funny all the time."
They said, "Well, how did you become a Christian, Susan?" She told the story, and I had forgotten, frankly. They said, "Did you become a Christian and then Tom?" She said, "No, it was Tom. Tom became a Christian, and I could not deny the change in his life."
Here's what happened. She said, "He came home and he started talking about this stuff, and I thought to myself, this has got to pass. This is the guy that's got three pairs of running shoes still in the box, and they'll never get out of the box because this guy's into everything that comes along." That is my life. I've said to you many times, the only thing I've ever done in moderation is work. Everything else has been to excess.
Guys used to say on the way home, "Let's stop and get a drink." I would say, "Here's what I'll do. I'll stop and get drunk with you, or I'll go home. I have no interest in getting a drink. That sounds dull to me. Let me know how it turns out."
The Inevitable Transformation of True Faith
Susan was pretty confident that this Christianity thing wasn't going to last. But here's what happened. It lasted a day, and then a week, and then a month. It began to infiltrate all the areas of my life, and she looked at me and said, "I cannot deny that this is a different person than the one I was married to two months ago."
I didn't sit there and say, "Okay, I'm going to be a different person." I'm telling you, to a large degree, it just happens. That's why I use the word inevitable. If you're truly a Christian, it's not like you've got to sit and grunt and grind to make this work. It becomes the deepest desire of your heart.
Does that mean you never sin? Obviously not. But it means there's a transformation in your life that becomes visible to everyone around you. You can't stop it any more than you can stop the reflex when I hit your knee. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control—the fruit of the Spirit—begin to just come out of you.
If it isn't there, James says, that is dead. Somebody will say, "Hey, I have faith." You say, "I have works." He says, "Show me your faith without works, and I'll show you my faith by my works."
Even Demons Believe
Verse 19: "You believe God is one. You do well. That's what the demons believe." Interesting. In Mark 1, Jesus comes to Capernaum. He goes to the synagogue, and He sits and He teaches. In comes a man who's indwelt by a demon, by an unclean spirit. The Spirit begins to speak and says, "What do you want, Jesus of Nazareth? What have you come to do? We know you're the Holy One of God."
As Jesus encounters these demons through His life, over and over again they say, "We know you're of God. We know you're the Son of God." If you're here today, and you believe that Jesus is from God, maybe He died on the cross—do you believe? That's a fact. All that qualifies you to do at that point is be a demon. The only thing you're ready for is demonship. You're a demon apprentice.
It's a transformation of that knowledge from my head to my heart. Now, I want you to understand the order there. We've got a bunch of flaky people running around who are trying to transfer it from their heart to their head. This is a head deal. My faith is not some stupid leap of faith. It's based on fact.
Faith Must Be More Than Intellectual Knowledge
We're coming up on Easter. There is no way intellectually you can deny the resurrection. The evidence is overwhelming—secular evidence, religious evidence, scriptural evidence, eyewitness evidence. It's everywhere. The only reason you will not believe is because you will not believe.
But you can even believe, "Yeah, the resurrection happened." But if you don't apply that knowledge of belief to your heart, you don't have saving faith. In other words, you believe it occurred, so you've got to ask—to me, the $64,000 question—so what? I ask that all the time. So what? Jesus rose from the dead. So what?
The "so what" is saving faith. He did that so we might believe in Him. Paul says, "If I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead, then I am saved." That's the "so what" of that.
James's Two Tests for Genuine Faith
What James is saying is, "I'm not concerned about the so what. I'm not concerned about that application. I'm saying, how does that manifest itself? What does that look like?" If I were to look around and understand what a Christian would be, James says, "I've got two tests. I've got a doctrinal test and a moral test."
The doctrinal test is to believe the right thing, and if I truly believe it, James says there's a moral test that means I'll begin to live it. So he says this: "But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that your faith without works is useless?" The Living Bible would say "dead."
Here's what he's saying: You're sitting here saying, "I believe this, and I believe this, and I believe this," but it has not manifested itself in your life in some meaningful way. James says you have no reason to believe that you're a Christian.
Abraham as Exhibit A
Now we need an Exhibit A, and James picks an Exhibit A that is perfect for these people, but maybe not for us. I say that because, remember back in the very first verse, he's writing to Jews. These Jews knew the Old Testament inside and out. When you talk to the Jews and you talk about Old Testament, they knew it, and they certainly knew the fathers of their faith, and one of those guys they knew well was Abraham, Father Abraham.
So he said, "Let me give you an example from your own faith that you would know. Let me talk to you about Abraham." What we're going to do is read these three
Verse 21 says, "You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, his faith was perfected." That does not mean perfect. That means maturing, growing, not without flaws, but developing, becoming more and more whole. And the Scripture was fulfilled.
Understanding the Chronological Order
I know it's 7:30 in the morning. I know it's a rainy day. I know this is tough sledding. You only got to gut out 13 more minutes of this, but I think it'll come together if you can hang in there for 13 minutes.
Chronologically, these verses are in reversed order, and I think that demonstrates the validity of what I've said to this point. James is not focusing on how to be saved. He's focusing on the results of that salvation. So we have to take verse 23 first, 22 second, and 21 last.
Abraham's Conversion and Maturation
Here's what he does. Verse 23 is from Genesis 15. That's the point in Abraham's life when we would say he was converted. That's the point in Abraham's life where he became a believer. That's the point where he put his faith and trust in God. At that moment, in Genesis 15.
Understand what He's talking about in verse 22. He's not saying that his faith and his works came together to equal his salvation. That's already happened. Now his faith has manifested itself in his works, and the time that's involved has begun to mature him. That's a period in the storyline of Abraham's life of about 40 years.
It's in those 40 years that Abraham has begun to live. It's that time where he was promised a son. Sarah is past childbearing years, and he takes in Hagar, and they have this son Ishmael, and God says, that's not the son I promised you. Then he sees the fulfillment of that promise. Abraham is circumcised, certainly a traumatic thing for this guy. He sees Sodom, Gomorrah. He sees major failure in his life as he gives his wife, presents her as his sister to a king because he's fearful of his own life. He sees many successes and many failures.
The Ultimate Test of Faith
But the crowning moment in the life of Abraham that you and I identify with him is the time he was called to sacrifice his son. And what James is saying is, in this moment in verse 21, which happens to be in Genesis 22, 40 years after this verse right here, in that moment we see the manifestation of his belief in God.
God comes to Abraham and He says, I want your son. But He doesn't just leave it there, does He? He said, I want your son, your only son. See, if He said, I want your son, I guarantee you, here's what Abraham would do. Ishmael, come here a second. Ishmael, I need to see you now. That's why God says, because He knows him. That's what you do. He says, I want your son, your only son, and that would be the Isaac one. And I want you to take him, and I want you to take him up to the mountain, and I want you to sacrifice him to me. I don't want you to withhold anything from me, and I want that son.
Abraham's Immediate Obedience
And here's what happens in Abraham's life. What a picture for us. He doesn't wait a day or a month or a year or begin to pray about it. He moves promptly. He's obedient immediately. And that obedience is sustained over a period of three days. In the course of this, he is worshiping God. There's a peace about this, and his obedience is contagious.
Here's what happens. Isaac and the servants and Abraham arrive at the point where Isaac and Abraham will depart to go up to the mountain for the sacrifice. And Isaac carries the wood. And Abraham says to the servants something interesting. He says, wait here, and what? He will return. He knew in his heart that he was going to go and sacrifice. There was nothing he was going to do. He was going to sacrifice this kid. But he also knew God had made promises to him through Isaac. And he knew those promises had to be fulfilled. And somehow in Abraham's life, in some mysterious way, vague way, he already was believing in the resurrection of Isaac. Already.
The Journey Up the Mountain
And up they go. Isaac at this point, 35, 36 years old, 30 years old. Abraham 130 or whatever that number is. And up they go. And they're walking along, and Isaac says, Father, this is interesting to me. We got the wood, we got the fire, we got the altar, but we don't have the sacrifice. And that's when Abraham says, Jehovah, Jireh, God will provide. God will take care of it. Don't worry about it, Isaac. God's got it under control. God's there.
It Always Works Out
I was with a guy about six or seven weeks ago, and he was having a lot of just difficult times. And I said to him, and he's looking to me, and I feel so inadequate at those moments because people are looking for me to either have some sort of magic fairy dust that you throw on the situation, it gets better, say something really profound. And I said to him, you know, it always works out. And this guy just looked like I shot his dog. I mean, he just sauntered off. I could have gotten that from a fortune cookie at Golden Gate, I think is what he thought. And he left.
And so I felt bad that he felt bad, and I started thinking about it, and all of a sudden I realized that those aren't just words. That is true. It always works out. In fact, it does. It always works out. Some of those things that two years ago, you had your gut in just a knot, and you had the prayer chain fired up, and all your friends are praying about it, and you can't even remember today what it was. You know why? It always works out. It may not always work out exactly like we want, but it always works out.
See, and Abraham, because, now here's the sequence, because he believed, and at this point he'd seen God work for 40 years, he knew that it was going to work out. He didn't know how it was going to work out. He knew that it would work out. So up they go. And I said to you, at the beginning of this story of Abraham, and this is contagious, for whatever reason, this young stud Isaac crawls up on that altar. And there seems to be, at least in the account we have, an incredible sense of peace in both players at this
moment. Abraham raises that knife, and he's ready to plunge it into his only son when God says, "Stop." There's a ram in the thicket, and away they go. It's also a beautiful picture, a foretelling picture, of Christ and God the Father and His sacrifice. The only difference is, when those soldiers raised their hands to pound those nails, no one said stop. When they took that spear to shove it in His side, no one said stop.
Here's what James is saying to those people, to us, through the illustration of Abraham. Abraham was declared righteous, not guilty. He was a believer based on that faith. That's the day it was counted to him as righteousness. But because of that faith, there was in his life radical change. There was a belief that was alive, and it was vibrant, and it manifested itself. So much so, that the most important thing in his life, that son that he had prayed for, and wished for, and craved for years, he was willing to say, "So be it. God will figure it out somehow." That is real faith.
Faith Alone, But Never Alone
Just as, and here's his conclusion, verse 24: "You see, a man is justified by works, not faith alone." Justified before men. I'm saved by faith alone. That's very important to understand. John Calvin said it this way: "I'm saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone." I'm saved by faith alone, it's accompanied by works, and here's the practical illustration.
"Just as a body without a spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." Just as a body, when the spirit is gone, is dead. It may even look the same, it may even have some of the same characteristics, and in some sense, some of the same needs, but it's dead. Faith that's merely proclamation, that doesn't manifest itself in the area of works, it too is dead.
The Supreme Issue
Men and women, that's why I started by saying, this is the most important issue you're ever going to deal with. I don't care how old you are, or how young you are, or how long you've been around this, this is the supreme issue. If you miss this, the rest of this doesn't matter at all.
Let me say it one last time: we go through this, not so you can figure out who in your circle of friends needs to hear this. We go through this so you can come face to face with your own reality. I pray that you'd be honest. Maybe you've been around here a long time, and maybe you've been a Sunday school teacher, but you've never been broke.
The Evidence of Real Faith
See, here's what he says: if I have faith, I will begin to love. If somebody has needs, I'll meet it. For me to love, I have to have a spirit of humility and unselfishness. God hates the proud. God hates pride. And sometimes the most difficult thing to see in my life is pride.
Now, I'll help you out here. God's given you little spies. They're called wives, or husbands, or kids, or real friends. They'll tell you when you ask them, "Hey, do you think I'm proud?"
We had a guy in one of our studies who ultimately ended up going to Larry Wrighton. He said, "Larry, I have not sinned in three years." Well, that's the wrong person to go to with something like that. Larry said, "Well, why don't you and your wife come over for dinner and we'll talk about it." It's interesting. It was just a few weeks later, I believe, that this man's wife divorced him.
How proud do you have to be to say, "I haven't sinned in three weeks"? Days? Three minutes? Three seconds? If the most important commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your body, and love your neighbor as yourself, you haven't done that for one second you've been on this earth. But praise God, my salvation is not based on my works, but based on my faith. But that faith will produce a transformed life.
What's Coming Next
Well, that's all theory. Give me something practical. You might want to stop by next Thursday morning as we talk about the tongue. We'll talk about your mouth. We'll see how that shakes out from here.
There may well be a guest speaker next week. Let's pray and we'll get you on your way.
Father, thank You for the truth of Your word. Thanks for the men and women that are here on a kind of a cloudy, cool morning. How comfortable those sheets and that pillow felt. And yet for whatever reason, God, You allowed them or caused them to be here. I pray that this time was useful in their lives. I pray that You touch their hearts in a meaningful and in a real way.
God, give us eyes that will allow us to look into the mirror of Your word and see indeed if we're first and foremost truly men and women who have made a real profession of faith. I pray that Your Spirit would allow the scales to fall off our eyes and see the truth and the reality of that. Help us understand that we are to be lovers. By that we mean selfless and humble as we begin to deal with one another in our lives.
God, let also some of us be encouraged as we see that indeed we have made a proclamation of faith and there is evidence and You are working in our life. God, we give You the praise and the honor and the glory for our salvation through Your grace. We ask that You would continue to work with us and in us and through us in a mighty and a powerful way. Father, thank You for all that You've given us, especially for Your Son Jesus Christ. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.