Jewels From James VII and VIII

And you're a pastor, you're in serious trouble. Thanks. No, if you don't have a Bible, ask the person next to you if you can read along with me. And I want you to follow this. It's a very important passage this morning. I've referenced just a part of it in your outline. And all of you should get your teaching outline out of your notes. It's days, I believe, today. And you can at least read the first few verses. Let's read James 2, 14 through 26. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, and if one of you says to him, Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs. What good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, You have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. Do you believe that there is one God? Good. Even the demons believe that, and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his own son Isaac on the altar? Do you see that his faith and his actions were working together? And his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he was called God's friend. You see that a person who is justified by what he does, and not by faith, alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. I feel a particular need this morning for the Lord's anointing. I want you to pray with me right now. Lord, as I break this word and share it with your people, I pray that your Spirit would direct my very words and reveal the very heart of God. And that everyone, Lord, who particularly needs to hear what's to be shared today, would open their hearts in this moment in Jesus' name. Well, our fascination with polls and surveys in America is well documented by now. We want to survey for everything. In fact, many people believe that most public policy is now dictated by polls and surveys. Should Michael Faye be king? An X number of Americans say yes, an X number of Americans say no, and political pressure will be adjusted accordingly. Should Michael Jordan be a professional baseball player? An X number of Americans say yes, an X number of Americans say no. How about this one I recently saw? What percentage of Americans care about the president's underwear? I sure don't, but that was a big deal. They took a survey on that. Now, one of the most recent polls, that's been repeated several times, so I have authenticated a number of different sources, George Gallup being the most recent and the most highly recognizable, said this. Listen, 59% of Americans in 1993 said religion plays a very important part in their lives. 36% of Americans, listen, 36% claim they are born again. They are born-again believers. Now, one in three, that is. There's a little bit more than one in three. I just want to throw a poll here just for my own assurance. How many of you would say, if you think about where you work and the people, you know, one, two, three offices down, or one, two, three chairs down in the classroom, or one, two, three houses, how many would say every third house, every third person, is a born-again Christian? That's your norm. Great. Works in a church. Anyone else? Okay. How many of you would say that number seems a little high to me? I mean, I think it goes, I go a lot farther down the line. I mean, either that is true, or there's some explanation why America is on a slippery slope of moral decadence and a loss of value. I can't explain either way. But the surveys make it clear, and what I want you to know today is that James is going to give us the reason why those surveys don't tell the whole story. More importantly, listen, James is going to speak to some of you today about your faith. He's going to talk to you about the validity of the faith that you hold as your own. Now, I really struggled with the tone of this message. It's quite frankly, folks, an alarming passage. I feel it's extremely relevant to where we are as a church, and most especially to us in America. I could preach these words with passion. I could spell out my arguments systematically and leave it in your hands and let you deal with it. And I could even thump this little old music stand a little bit, but I'm not going to do that because I feel very pastoral about this. I feel that some of you hearing me today are like a friend that I have in whom I see physical signs about their health. You know, you may be 50 or 60 pounds overweight, and you're smoking, and you're drinking, and your blood pressure's high, and you have all these external warning signs, and I want desperately to be able to tell you, hey, take care of your body so it'll take care of you. That's how I feel about this spiritually. I mean, this was brought home to me just a few weeks ago. I had my first barbecue this spring. How many of you already had your first cookout? Anybody else? Well, I went out on the deck and cranked up the old barbecue and dumped the coals in and put the lighter fluid on and threw the match on. The big flames went up, and, wow, this is going to be great, you know, chicken and burgers and the whole thing. Put the lid about halfway on so the wood wouldn't blow out. Went back in, you know, prepared the stuff, everything ready, watched some of the news. Twenty minutes later, I go walking out, you know, with this little plate of goodies to put on the grill. Lifted the lid off, and guess what? No fire, no heat, nothing burning. It was, you know, no dinner. I mean, that's the way it was. Nothing had happened. It had gone out. That big flame had gone out. And, folks, it's been a picture to me ever since then about the condition of the faith of some of us here today. We started with this raging fire of passion for God, and right now the fire's out. And some of us think that the fire is burning when, in fact, there's no heat coming from it. I want to share with you today about what James has to say about a living faith. There's a twofold purpose. I want to bring assurance to those who need it today, that their faith is genuine. And I want to bring some challenge to those who are living in a condition where you think everything's fine, but, in fact, you're living in what the Bible calls false assurance. And I want to talk to you about this pastorally. And then, listen, even if you're real comfortable today, and this doesn't really seem to speak to you, I'm sure that you all, collectively, we know thousands of people that I'm going to describe today that maybe need you to speak to them about it in the coming week. All right, James talks about three kinds of faith. He talks about dead faith in verses 14 through 17, and then demonic faith in verses 18 and 19, and then dynamic faith in verses 20 through 26. Let's look at it first. Dead faith. James 4, 2, 14 through 17. Look what it says. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith? That's the key word. Claims, but has no need. Can such faith save him? That's the question of the hour. Does he, in fact, possess saving faith? And then James uses an illustration. He says, suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, go, I wish you well, keep warm and be well fed, but does nothing about it, what good is it? In other words, if your good intentions don't result in concrete actions, he's saying that faith is useless. It is dead. It cannot save you. And this reminds me of a whole lot of conversations I've had here at North Way over the years. I'll come up after a service. I'll be down here or out in the hallway. Someone will stop me, a man or a woman. Let's say a woman in this case. This is just illustrated. And she'll say, oh, Pastor Jay, it's just so great to be here. And I can tell she loves the Lord and she's excited about worshiping and she's alive in Christ. And then she makes some reference to her husband. And I say, well, where is he, by the way? Well, he's home. Is he a Christian? Is he a believer? Well, of course, yes. Well, why isn't he with you? It's Sunday. And she says, well, you know, he just kind of, he finds it sort of hard to worship here at North Way. Oh, he has his own church that he goes to then? Well, not exactly. Oh, well, let me ask you some more questions. Can I? Well, sure. Well, does he pick up his Bible then, you know, each morning and spend some time with God alone and just sort of get into what? Come again, she says. Bible. What? He never reads his Bible. Oh. Well, does he spend time with other men? Does he find other believers that he can go out with and maybe just sort of share together about the things that God knows? No, he doesn't really know any other Christians. Well, does he look forward to ways that he can serve the body of Christ and give his own contribution uniquely out of thanksgiving for what God has done? Well, no. No, he doesn't really ever do anything like that. Oh, I see. Well, does he share his faith then with people who ask him about? No, I've never heard him talk about it. Well, does he give his tithe and does he give his offering? Boy, he gives me a lot of grief when I give mine. Well, wait a minute now. You say he was a Christian? Now, here's what they say. Listen. They say when he was 13, he walked down the aisle at junior high camp and he gave his heart to Christ. And I've believed ever since then he really was a Christian. But there's not a shred of evidence to see in his life. And I have to, at that moment, take a deep breath and say, I pray this woman realizes how serious this condition is. Now, someone's thinking right now, wait a minute, Jay. I thought we're saved not by words, not by what we do, but by grace through faith. I thought it was our faith that saved us. Doesn't the Bible say that somewhere? Where does it say it? Where does it say it? Let's look at Romans chapter 3, verse 28. Bump your neighbor and wake him up and tell him he better hear this, okay? Romans 3, 28. Are you ready? Here's what it says. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. And I've had people say, it seems to me Paul and James are contradicting each other. It seems to me they're not saying the same thing at all. Here it says, the works of the law don't matter. And James says that works of the law do matter. Which one is right? In fact, this is such a serious problem. How many Lutherans are here? Old Lutherans. You can confess that here. No cameras, no. All the old Lutherans. You know Martin Luther called James the weak apostle over this whole thing. Because he just couldn't figure this one out. But as Alex Ross says in his commentary, Paul and James are not in opposition. Rather, they're not antagonists facing each other with cross swords. They are standing, look at this, back to back, facing opposing enemies. You see the picture? James is facing one enemy, and Paul the other. And I want to use this platform to just describe for you for a few moments what those enemies are. Paul is addressing the enemy, in Romans, of legalism. Legalism. Paul is saying here in Romans 3 and other places in his writings, that the idea that through good works we can achieve a right standing before Almighty God, is wrong. Paul is saying that's not possible. You cannot do it that way. It comes only by faith. It's called justification. Everyone say that. Justification. Everyone say it. Justification. What is justification? It's the most important word that you'll ever hear about your destiny is what it is. How many of you know what it means to be justified? It means that you, you might want to write this down, are declared righteous before a holy God based on the merits of someone other than you. And that someone is Jesus Christ. You see, dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless, I'll stand before the throne. We already sang that hymn this morning. On Christ the solid rock, I'll stand. Paul is saying, it's not your work, it's not what you do, it's not your religious activity, it's the person and finished work of Jesus Christ upon which you stand for your righteousness before a holy God. And anyone who thinks they can add to this by going to church or giving money or serving or trying harder, is missing it. And Paul writes his words to counteract the idea that by keeping the law you'll improve your standing before God. It doesn't work that way. Listen, church, God made a decision. It's a phenomenal thing. Think about it. God made a decision that He would supply the sacrifice for the sin that you and I have committed in our lives. He said, you and I are never able to work our way up some ladder of righteousness, but rather, if we'll trust in His Son, if we'll put our faith, our confidence, our trust in the work that Christ did on the cross, then you will be justified and you will be forgiven of your sin. And you will be declared, and I don't really understand this, as righteous as Christ Himself. I don't stand up here this morning proclaiming this because I've been a pastor and a good guy, a great dad, or a husband, or any of those things. In fact, all of those things are like filthy rag. And in God's eyes, He knows I've failed at them all. But I stand up here today clothed in the robes of righteousness of Jesus Christ, the same robes that He extends to you to put on you as a garment of life, in which alone you stand before His throne. And you can say, praise the Lord, that's the gift of God. That's what He supplied to you. That's what Paul wants you to know. And this doesn't happen progressively. You are not saved over a period of time. You are saved the moment you put your trust, your faith, your confidence in Jesus Christ. It's called justification. It's instantaneous. No matter how mature you become, no matter how many acts of obedience you perform, you cannot improve your standing before God. Because it's based not on what you do, but on who Jesus is and what He did for you. And you can't ever be better than Jesus. He did it all for you. Legalists argued otherwise. They said, do this, and keep these laws, and follow these ceremonies, and do these rituals, and you'll gradually get more and more like God wants you to be, and you'll be more and more accepted. I just have a question. Is this relevant today? How many of you know somebody who goes to church, who serves as an usher, who sings in a choir, who gives money, or time, or volunteer effort, or whatever, in order somehow in their mind to prove to God that they're sincere and they ought to be saved? Do you know anyone who just goes to church because they hope that God will accept them in the last day? They're doing what they know how to do. I remember years and years ago when I was a young teenager, I remember going to my mom and saying, Mom, I want to be a missionary. And I had my fingers crossed. I didn't really want to be a missionary, but I thought, I need to be a missionary. Why is that? Because I can't imagine God saying to a missionary, you can't come into heaven. I thought, if anyone was going to make it into heaven to be a missionary, you know somewhere out in Bula Bula Land they're serving and giving up their whole life, God would never say to a person like that, well, you can't come into heaven, so I'm going to be a missionary. Because you see, I wasn't all that dumb as a kid. I realized early on that no matter what the cost, it was worth it to get to heaven. If I had to crawl on my hands and knees from San Francisco to New York, I'd do it, because I know this life is short compared to eternity. So I'll be a missionary if that's what it takes. And you know what? I was 16 years old when someone told me it wasn't by my works of righteousness. I understood it now. But it was by the free gift of life that Jesus Christ gives to me. And I was, in that moment, justified. I didn't understand it all then, but I sure do thank God that he opened it to my understanding. Now James, on the other hand, he's standing this way, and he is battling the enemy of license. Paul is battling the enemy of legalism. James, the enemy of license. James is saying this, Those who say, yes, I have faith that I have been justified, and therefore, what I do doesn't really matter. James is saying, wait a minute, that's not right. In fact, James is saying, the only way that you can know that what you have as faith is alive and is saving faith is by the works that you do. Because faith without these works is dead. James is not saying that the works save you. James is saying that the works very much verify that the faith that you say you have is alive. Entirely different thing. He's making a very strong point. Paul is addressing pre-conversion work. James is addressing post-conversion deeds that give evidence of your faith. Paul is saying that the works of the law can't save. James is saying just professing that you have faith, that doesn't save you either. Church, listen, please listen, listen, listen, listen. It isn't enough to sit here every Sunday and say, well, I believe in Jesus and when I die I'm going to believe in Him. And have no evidence in your life that truly that faith is alive. James expounds the way to justification. And Paul does and James, he describes for us the lifestyle to justify. If you're truly justified, this is what your life will look like. Paul tells us how justification is experienced. James tells us how justification is expressed. Justification by faith alone, but if it's genuinely faith, it won't be alone for long. Works will be right behind it. It'll always be there. There's never an exception where someone can say I'm saved and somehow there's nothing to show evidence. It never works that way. As much as some people would like to think it would. Genuine faith, saving faith is built on Christ alone, but we'll always have with it discernible life change. Now listen, please listen. I wish I could sit there and write in your faith and share this with you. You need to know that what you possess is saving faith. I don't want to confuse anyone or put fear into you. I don't want to make you doubt what is true, but I do know this. In a crowd this size there are quite a number of you who mistakenly believe that you have saving faith. And you are about to wake up one day to the most horrific reality you could imagine. This false assurance will not satisfy a righteous and holy God. And many of you will drift through your entire life assuming that because twenty years ago you walked forward at a meeting and said I believe in Jesus or ten years ago or three days ago you lifted your hand up and raised your hand and looked at me and prayed with Billy Graham on TV or did some such thing. You are going to believe that that somehow was enough. And it's not. It doesn't meet the criteria. There is no evidence. There is no time in your day when you say Lord this is entirely up to you. There is no sacrificial concern for others and need. There is no desire for fellowship. You don't spend any time a day like this. It's a great day to go golfing or play in the garden or wash your car. It's not a day I have to go to church. You see the problem is that people begin to go on in a pattern like this thinking all along that because of something twenty years ago they are just fine. And they are not. They are not. James says can such faith save him? If it's not accompanied by action it is dead. I was at a funeral this week. I looked at a corpse. It looked like a person but it was dead. And some of us have a faith that looks like a faith but it's dead. Now I know this isn't popular. You won't be hearing this at many secret services anywhere today. I took the offering before the message. Why? Because people want you to assure them that they are fine. They want you to say to them hey look we are all kind of stragglers and strugglers here and as long as you are somewhere in the middle of the bell curve everything is fine. And that's not what the Bible says. James says no. Faith without work is dead. And I know that too because I was one for a while who kind of believed everything was fine just because I believed. And that's why 80 million Americans can call themselves born again and we can see the problems that we have in this country. Because it's not fine. I don't need to tell you all that one of the most sobering verses in all of scripture has to be Matthew 7 21. Let's turn there please Nancy if you'll put it up. Read this with me. These are the words of Jesus. Not everyone who says to me read it with me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles and then I will tell them plainly I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers. You know what's scary about that? That sounds like a charismatic Christian to me. How about you? That sounds like a Christian who believes in the power of miracles and the Holy Spirit and all that kind of stuff. And Jesus said I never knew you. I took the liberty to get the copy of this in the new translation called The Message we've been reading. Listen maybe this will communicate a little more clearly. Same verses. Knowing the correct password saying master master for instance isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience. Doing what my father wills. I can see it now at the final judgment. Thousands strutting up to me and saying master we preached the message. We bashed the demons. Our God sponsored project had everyone talking. And do you know what I'm going to say? You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. Folks add to my own struggle to know of my own saving faith this one other dimension. And that is the frequent knowledge I have that one day it's possible that some of you will stand before that psalm. And you'll hear those words from Jesus. And I see you in my spirit turn and look at me and the other pastors and elders of this church and hear you say why didn't you tell me? And so I am. And I'm telling you your faith must have evidence or it is not saving faith. It's so important. I pray you'll let it sink into your spirit today. Now someone's got to be thinking well how can you judge that? I mean who's going to judge? Didn't Jesus say judge not? You know it's sort of the talk show credo. Everyone talks to Oprah and everyone. Well how do Christians are so judgmental? Well how can you judge? Well remember Jesus when he said judge not that you do not judge was talking in context don't be hypocritical don't be self righteous don't be nitpicky. But he never says don't use discernment and don't be one who takes a clear judgment of the situation. In fact 1 Corinthians 6 2 says do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And so dear ones listen don't necessarily worry about your neighbor but worry about you. Look at your life today and judge with discernment. Is there evidence that your faith is alive? Now there is a bright side to this I believe and that is this. Did you know that the greatest survival in America called the great awakening about 200 years ago started at a time just like we were in? A time when hundreds of thousands of people thought they had saving faith and when they received the preaching of Jesus Christ they were stirred in their spirit, they repented, their lives changed and a great what was called the great awakening spread throughout America and it changed the fabric of the culture. I want to declare today that if we will get this message and God will allow it to run through this church and other churches and around this country there can be another great awakening in this country. We are poised for that. I believe that. Because there are so many people who have false assurance. The gospel has been so preached, so saturated here, yet so few people really own a faith with the evidence of the works that go with it. Someone said to me the other day, did you know Tanya Harding became a Christian? Tanya Harding! I guess they expected me to say that's wonderful, I feel better about being a Christian now that Tanya Harding is gone. I said no, well let's just see if Tanya Harding really became a believer now. I hope she did. I think it would be wonderful. I hope Nancy comes to the Lord too. I think they both probably need to just like we all did. But I won't believe it until I see the evidence. You see, 20 years ago when Charles Colson came out of his whole situation with President Nixon and the whole Watergate thing, and he became a Christian and everyone said oh he's just trying to hide, and no one really could figure it all out. And then one day, a couple years after he was allegedly born again, he walked into a courtroom and said I'm guilty. That was the evidence I needed to believe that he truly was born again. And that man now, 20 years later, evidences, you see, through his service and through his heart and through his demonstrated work that he truly is born again. I pray that there will not be one person today with dead faith. Second, James talked about demonic faith. I just want to mention one thing here. See an objector rises up and says well wait a minute here James, you have faith, I have faith, verse 18. And I love James's response. You believe there's one God? And it's kind of like yes. And he says good! And I can just see this objector saying well finally James is softening, he's hearing me, good! And James is getting positive now. He said even the demons believe in God and shudder. Now where did that come from? I mean he just gets that somewhere and brings that home and wham! Even the demons believe. Know what that says to me folks? Listen. It says there are no atheists in the demonic realm. It says to me you can search the whole universe and you're not going to find one demon who doesn't believe in God. And more than that, every demon believes in God and shudders at the sense of his presence. Do you want to know what whips me up right now as your pastor? It's the times in the last week, it's the times in this service today when I sense the presence of God in this realm right here. And I look out in this audience, I look in the back and I see people just nodding and looking at their wives and oh man I just can't wait to get out and I catch up on my sleep. And I think even the demons believe in God and I think what's it going to take? I don't want to have a demonic faith. What could be more important than what we're talking about today? Getting to North Park before the crowd? I don't think so. Literally in a few moments we're going to dismiss this service and some of you will try to pretend that you didn't hear what you just heard. And you'll try to just convince yourself that everything's fine, that you don't need to change, that you don't need to be involved in any fellowship, that you don't need to serve in any way, you don't need to give anything, you just need to occupy your seat every week and everything's fine. And I'm fully aware that most of you aren't that way but I know there are some of you and I know that most of the people who need to hear this aren't here to hear it and that's always the case. But if you are hearing this today for your life then by the grace of God do something. The final kind of faith we seek very quickly is dynamic faith. These last verses James spells out what faith with evidence looks like and he uses two illustrations. He first of all talks about Abraham, verse 23, who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. I'll never forget my first course in seminary. It was about the kind of faith that Abraham had and verse 6 of chapter 15 of Genesis says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And that verse, Genesis 15, 6, points us to the cross. You see, Abraham was saved and is now in heaven not because he was a good guy, but because he looked forward by faith to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. You and I, we stand on this side of the cross and we look back towards it and our faith is in the person and work of Christ on the cross 2000 years ago. Kind of converging in the middle. But notice that it says here that James tells us that Abraham gave up his son, Isaac, verse 21, as evidence of his faith. And if you read Genesis 22, that was the time that Abraham had a choice to make. Is my faith alive? God said, if your faith is alive, give me your son, your only son. Time doesn't permit me. I've done whole sermons on that verse. But I want you to know there will come a time when God will say, if your faith is alive, you've got to lay your most precious possession on the altar. And I can tell you from first-hand experience, it doesn't happen just once either. It may be your family member, it may be your career, it may be that boyfriend or girlfriend you have, it may be the dream you have for some kind of exalted ministry. I don't know. I can tell you that 14 years ago, I had an Isaac. And it was a church in the North Hills that was alive in the spirit and moving in the things of God. And I can't get into the whole story because I've told it before, but let me just tell you this. God said to me in the fall of 1980, give up your Isaac. And he said, And those of you who've been around, Grant and others who've been around all 13 years know how I had to make a commitment to leave Pittsburgh, to go to New York City. I had to say, God, I'll walk away from this. And did that. And I accepted a position in a church in New York City, put my house in the market, said goodbye to some of my family, left the other church I was serving, and waited and God then miraculously, supernaturally closed that door. And I'll never forget someone gave me a prophecy that said that was your Isaac. God had said, now just turn around and here's the ram and the thicket and you offer that and now I want to give you what your dream was. So trust the Lord. When he puts you through that test, trust him. He'll take care of you. So James says, look at Abraham. He is an evidence. And then look at Hagar. She was a prostitute. Why did James give us quite a range like that? Here we have up on this side, we have Abraham, the father of the faith that every Jew would identify with. And down here is Hagar, the prostitute. I believe this. James wants you to know that no matter how low you may go on the rung of righteousness or how highly exalted in spiritual means you may think you are, all of us in between, that's everybody here today, we all evidence our faith with works and deeds of love and compassion. Whether we be lowly on the totem pole or very high, we all are justified by faith with the evidence of works. Let me conclude with this. Just a simple four-point test. One, two, three, four. Here we go, Nancy, number one. How can you know that you are truly a possessor of saving faith? Number one. And all of 1 John is about this. All of 1 John. Just a couple of pages down from James. Listen to 1 John. You can read this on your own later on today. 513. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Father, the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. Folks, I said earlier, God doesn't want anyone to leave here not knowing. He wants you to know. Assurance is available. So number one, there's a doctrinal test. Number one. What do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus was the sacrifice for your sins? And do you believe that he is to be Lord of your life? There's no separating that in the Bible. You can't have him as Savior and not have him as Lord. That's a joke. It's a cruel joke. Those of you who today think, well, yeah, I've acknowledged him, but I don't need to follow him. You're mistaken. Look at 1 John chapter 4, verses 1-6. You can read it. 1 John 2, 18-27 talks about it. A doctrinal test. Number two. A moral test. Look at 1 John chapter 2, verse 3. We know, go ahead, turn there, we know that we have come to know him if we obey