1. (SHOW 1) So you see, it isn’t enough just to have
faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all—it is
dead and useless.
Quite
often, particularly in the course of visiting families who are suffering the
pain of bereavement I meet people who will say things about the person who has
died like… “…she never talked about it but she had a strong faith.” Or people will tell me..
“I don’t go to church, but I do
believe.”
Maybe
it’s not surprising that people say things like this because we have got into
the habit of wanting to define faith in a way that the Bible doesn’t.
Here
is a typical; dictionary definition….
Faith (fāth), n. 1. Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.
We
have got into the habit of thinking that Faith is something that goes on in our
heads.
Whereas
the bible talks about faith as something that goes in our hands, or our legs, our whole bodies as well as in our mind.
It’s
important that we understand that because the bible says… Ro
Ro
So
we need to have a right understanding of what Faith is.
2. Problem is sometimes
we have mixed up the meaning of two words… FAITH and BELIEF.
That also seems to be a danger for people in
the church that first received the letter that James wrote to them.
Sometimes we use the word faith to describe a set of beliefs. I sometimes describe myself as
a minister of the Christian Faith… and there faith is being used as a shorthand way of referring to a series of
statements that contain the truth about who we are, the truth about our human
condition, truth about who Jesus is,
and about what he has done for us.
We often use the word faith in this way.
We link this word FAITH
to the word BELIEF…
so that by it we mean
our assent to a certain set of statements about God or Jesus.
So when People say to me “I believe” they are saying they agree with some of the statements
they have heard. They believe that they are true.
So if you ask people “Do you believe there is a God?”
Most people will say yes.
“Do you believe that
Jesus is the Son of God?”
Most people will still say yes.
Many
people may have this sort of “faith”
this sort of belief.
But…
Simply believing a series of statements is not what the bible
means by Faith.
It is not enough to believe in the sense
of giving intellectual assent to a statement of the truth.
Don’t take my word for it… that’s what the James
said…
You believe that there
is one God.
Even the demons believe that… James 2:19
The demons believe
in God !
The devil believes in
God…
the problem is the
Devil does not love God
and he is not willing
to be obedient to him
- and that is often a problem that people have
as well.
People say they “believe in” God…
they just don’t want anything to do with him!
The Bible gives an accurate description of
this sort of faith - the sort that is just a belief… an intellectual
agreement to the idea that there is a God and that Jesus is his Son.
Faith
that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all—it is dead and
useless.
(James 2:17)
Just as the body is
dead without a spirit, so also faith is dead without good deeds.
(James
2:26)
3. Maybe there were some people in the church that
James was writing to who were thinking just like many people do today. Thinking
that it was possible to “believe in Jesus” and then not let it make any
difference to the rest of their lives.
AND so James says… if faith for you is something that goes on in your head but doesn’t
show itself in the words you speak, in the things you do, in the life you lead…
in your deeds… then it is a DEAD and
USELESS belief.
Now it is not surprising that James should
say that. Because that is what Jesus said.
Maybe you remember how in Matthew’s Gospel at
the end of the passage that we call the sermon on the Mount.. where Jesus lays
out the lifestyle, of those who call themselves his followers.. he says…
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
(Matthew
7:21)
Yes, the way to
identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.
21 ¶ "Not
all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’
but they still won’t enter the
Or what about the picture of the day of Judgement that
Jesus gave in the parable of the sheep and the goats… ‘Lord, when did we see you
hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and
did not help you?’45 "He will reply, ‘I
tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
did not do for me.’ 46 "Then they will go
away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew
25)
4. As I said last week. James was writing to a
congregation that could probably teach us a few things about commitment to
Jesus, about being prepared to take risks for him, about being prepared to
count the cost of being a disciple. After all they belonged to a generation of Christians
who knew what it was to suffer for the sake of following Jesus. So if James
thinks they need teaching to help them to understand what “FAITH in Jesus” really means… then maybe there are lessons here
that we need to learn as well.
You remember how we were saying last week
that the Bible is like a mirror. We can hold it up to examine ourselves. In
this passage James invites the followers of Jesus to examine themselves in one particular
area of their life as followers of Jesus
1 ¶ My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim that
you have FAITH in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favour some people more
than others?
Prosopolepsia
If you
pay particular attention to people because of how they appear to you… how can
you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus.
What do you think? Is James writing to a
church that was getting things terribly wrong… or is he giving some guidance to
a church that is beginning to get some things right?
There were rich people coming to the church.
Perhaps the Planned Giving Officer was being especially nice to them in the
hope that they would fill in a covenant form for their tithe... or whatever.
….if you pay special
attention to the rich, you are committing a sin –
Actually it’s good to know that the church
had this problem. The fact that James is addressing this issue is a sign that
the church was learning to be the Church that Jesus wanted them to be.. a radical
new community of people united only in Jesus.
Jesus calls all people to live as his
disciples.
He is not bothered about whether or not you
have a degree, about what your job is, about where you live, about the sort of clothes
you wear, the sort of music you like, the sort of political views you have, he
calls conservative supporters and labour supporters, he calls Rich and poor.
He doesn’t just call people like me… or you.
Now the Church that James was writing to was
already discovering that they were a fairly unusual community. Slaves were
worshipping alongside free people, tradesman were worshipping alongside local
dignitaries, poor people were breaking bread in the communion service with rich
people.
James says.. that’s great but don’t start
treating some people differently to others just because of how they appear in
your eyes. Are we members of the body of
Christ, inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven because God was impressed with us.
No - it’s simply because although we did
not deserve his love at all, although we had done nothing to impress him, Jesus
called us to become his disciples. Remember we are all the same in God’s eyes. We
are all brothers and sisters of Jesus if we belong to him.
So how
can you make a fuss of someone who is well off, says James.. and then
ignore the needs of someone who is not? And simply say to those of your own
congregation who are hungry or lacking clothing…Go, I wish you well; keep warm and
well fed,"
The
equivalent of us simply saying…
I’ll pray for you.
Maybe there is a reminder for us here that as
Christians we should be very intolerant.
We should not be prepared to tolerate seeing another brother or sister in
need. In the church that James was
writing to they had to learn that lesson in a situation where wealthy
well-dressed people were coming to worship alongside half-naked starving
beggars. I bet some folk found that a bit uncomfortable don’t you?
Now I suppose we could read this letter and
say to ourselves. We wouldn’t do anything like that would we? Or maybe we can
hold up the mirror of God’s word and examine ourselves and say…
Do I
sometimes tolerate situations where the needs of brothers and sisters in Christ
are not met, and where we could do something to help?
Do I
sometimes choose to be friendly to those who I want to be friendly to.. and not
go out of my way to befriend those I don’t particularly feel attracted to?
Are we
half as welcoming as the church that James was writing to? Wouldn’t it be good to be a congregation
where people came from such radically different backgrounds and positions in
society that it was obvious to everyone that all we have in common is Jesus.
Do we need to learn how to love and value
each and every member as a brother and sister in Christ? Without distinction.