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Sunday 07/06/25
Title: Faith & Good works Pt. 3
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Faith & Good Works Pt. 3
We left off in James 1:20, so we will back up to the beginning of that thought found in James 1:12 and move forward.
Remember we are still talking about Maturity & Ministry which has us focused upon ‘Good Works’ for the time being. James just took us through the need to not be tempted away from our place of knowing Jesus more intimately.
As Jesus told us in His ‘Parable of the heart soils’, when the word is sown or deposited into a human heart -the devil comes immediately to take it away. Now in Jesus’ teaching, this is said to specifically occur in the ‘Wayside Heart’, but it is clear that in some measure it happens in all of the hearts save the last one – the good heart. The ‘Wayside Heart’ simply offers no resistance since it didn’t truly receive the word in the first place, while the others did. In the end, satan seeks to gain advantage and stop the effectiveness of the word in each heart and is triumphant in all but one. That alone should get our attention! Using Jesus’ parable the odds are 1 to 3 against. It is in our best interest to encourage those odds in our favor by heeding His teaching. Some of that may be covered today.
James 1:12…
“(12) Happy is the one who endures testing, because when he has proven to be genuine, he will receive the crown of life that God promised to those who love Him.
(13) Let no one say when he is tempted,
“I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one.
(14) But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. (15) Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.”
Address Jesus’ ability to be tempted as a human.
“(16) Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters.
(17) All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change.
(18) By His sovereign plan He gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.
(19) Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters!
Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. (20) For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.
(21) So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls.
(22) But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.”
Living out the message would be ‘good works’.
Continue reading in verse 23…
“(23) For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. (24) For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was.”
“Gazes” is a word implying careful scrutiny making the failure to act or remember all the more condemnable.
Guzik says,
“A healthy person looks in the mirror to do something, not just to admire the image. Even so, a healthy Christian looks into God’s word to do something about it, not just to store up facts that they won’t use.
To take comfort in the fact you have heard God’s word when you haven’t done it is to deceive yourself.”
“In the ancient world, it was common for people to hear a teacher. But if you followed the teacher and tried to live what he said, you were called a disciple of that teacher. Jesus is looking for disciples – doers, not just hearers. ii. Jesus used this same point to conclude His great Sermon on the Mount. He said that the one who heard the word without doing it was like a man who built his house on the sand, but the one who heard God’s word and did it was like a man whose house was built on a rock and could withstand the inevitable storms of life and eternity. (Mat 7:24-27)”
Continue reading in verse 25…
“(25) But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out – he will be blessed in what he does.
(26) If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile.
(27) Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
Again, examples of ‘good works’.
James 2:1-26,
“(1) My brothers and sisters, do not show prejudice if you possess faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
(2) For if someone comes into your assembly wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes, (3) do you pay attention to the one who is finely dressed and say,
“You sit here in a good place,”
and to the poor person,
“You stand over there,” or “Sit on the floor”?
(4) If so, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?
(5) Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that He promised to those who love Him?”
Guzik says this about these verses…
“Though it is easy for man to be partial to the rich, God isn’t partial to them. In fact, since riches are an obstacle to the kingdom of God (Mat 19:24), there is a sense in which the poor of this world are specially blessed by God.
They are chosen . . . to be rich in faith because the poor of this world simply have more opportunities to trust God. Therefore they may be far more rich in faith than the rich man.
They are chosen . . . heirs of the kingdom, because Jesus said that being rich made it harder to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Mat 19:24).
Has not God chosen: In the sense that the poor more readily respond to God in faith, having fewer obstacles to the kingdom, we can see how God has chosen the poor.
“Church history demonstrates that comparatively more poor people than rich have responded to the gospel.” (Hiebert)
Continue reading in chapter 2, verse 6…
“(6) But you have dishonored the poor!
Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts? (7) Do they not blaspheme the good name of the One you belong to?
(8) But if you fulfill the royal law as expressed in this scripture,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.”
– another example of ‘Good Works’
(9) But if you show prejudice, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators.
(10) For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
(11) For he who said,
“Do not commit adultery,” also said,
“Do not murder.”
Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law.
(12) Speak and act as those who will be judged by a law that gives freedom. (13) For judgment is merciless for the one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.
(14) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him?
(15) If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, (16) and one of you says to them,
“Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it?”
It is a real danger especially in our present “feels good” world where true substance is substituted with intentions and pleasant platitudes to substitute prayer for action.
Prayer is good and should never be laid to one side but it was never intended to be a replacement for ‘good works‘ or cloak for selfishness to hide behind.
Guzik says regarding the phrase, “What does it profit?”
“Real faith, and the works that accompany it, are not made up of only “spiritual” things, but also of a concern for the most basic needs – such as the need for comfort, covering, and food. When needs arise, we should sometimes pray less, and simply do more to help the person in need. We can sometimes pray as a substitute for action.”
Continue reading in verse 17…
“(17) So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself.”
This is a unique phrase in scripture and one that needs to be taken seriously. Both careful introspective thought and meditated on it for the sake of purity of our personal faith.
James here calls this kind of faith “dead”.
To the child of God death and life are radically different concepts than they are to the world. They speak more of connectedness with God or disconnectedness from Him rather than a simple cessation of existence. So “dead faith” would be a faith outside of an intimate connection with God.
It is the kind of belief which can arise from intellectual learning and acceptance as academic fact. It can even be ardently stood up for and defended, but if it is not accompanied with actions springing from submission to Christ in obedience then it is a non-relational faith and therefore devoid of intimacy and life.
Ergo “dead faith”.
“Where there are no signs of a new life, there never was genuine, saving faith.”
Charles Spurgeon is reported to have said it this way:
“The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul.”
This is a good summary statement:
“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone!”
Blessings!
Tri
