07 What James Means by ‘Justified by Works and Not by Faith Alone’ (James 2:21-26)

Speaker: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. And our teacher is Krisan Marotta. You can find more talks in this series on our website at wednesdayintheword.com. Speaker 2: We are in James chapter two, and we're going to finish it today, so we're going to look at 22 21 through 26. And I'm going to start with a joke. I know you're impressed, because I almost never do. But Ronald Reagan told this joke. A farmer was going down the road and he was taking his grain to market when he had a head-on collision with an automobile. And he was seriously uh and permanently injured. So later he was seeking some redress through the courts, and the imposing lawyer was examining him and he said, Isn't it true that after the accident you said that you never felt better in your life? And the farmer thought for a minute and he said, Yeah, yes, that's true, I did say that. So on redirect, his lawyer asked him to explain why he made that comment. And he said, Well, I was lying there in considerable pain after the accident when the sheriff drove up. And first the sheriff got out of his car and he went over to my horse who was lying there with two broken legs, writhing in pain, and he took out his gun and he put the horse out of its misery. Then he went over to my dog who was whimpering with a broken back and and he did the same for my dog. And then he came over to me and said, How do you feel? Context is everything. I love that because that's context makes all the difference. So we're going to finish James chapter two today. And as with my joke, context is everything. So we're looking at the prob the so-called problem passage where it looks like James and Paul contradict each other. And my contention all along is that the context resolves that so-called disagreement. So just to review a little bit, you'll recall that some people think that James is a kind of random collection of wise sayings, or similar to the book of Proverbs, that he just jumps from one subject to another with these kind of wise advice on living. And I don't take that view. I think he's got an organizing principle in chapter one where he states it and then he begins applying it through the rest of the letter. So just to review that principle from chapter one is considerate joy when you encounter trials, because trials test your faith. And that process of testing your faith brings you into maturity, makes your faith mature, makes you a mature person, and makes us the kind of people we should be. And then in chapter two, he begins applying that and arguing that if we have faith, then we will begin to live and act in certain ways. And so he's argued that if we believe the gospel, we'll show no partiality based on external factors like wealth, because the gospel changes the way we think about ourselves and what's important and what's important about others. So last week we began the problem passage where it looks like James and Paul disagree, and we're going to finish it today, and we're going to hit the verse, James 2.24, which people point to and say, see, that directly contradicts Romans 3.28. So James 2.24 says, You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith, uh, faith alone, and Romans 3.28 says, For we hold that no one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. So they're l it sounds like James and Paul contradict each other because they're both talking about faith and works and justification. Did I read that right? We hold that one is justified by faith. I think I read no one. I think I read that wrong. Let me just so I don't, you know, get the Bible wrong on tape. For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from works of the law. Okay, that was Romans. So, now that we've established I can read, let's go back to James and Paul. They're addressing different problems and different questions. So in Galatians, James uh James, what is with my mind today? Paul is addressing the question raised by the theology of the Judaizers. Must I keep the law in order to be saved? So do my outward acts of obedience gain me any favor by God? And Paul strongly asserts, no, that I cannot gain favor with God by what I say and what I do, that our outward acts of obedience are not sufficient to earn us salvation because we cannot keep the law both inside and out all the time. James is answering a different question. He's saying, once we have that right relationship with God, so once we are justified, will works or will our behavior necessarily change? And he says, yes, it will. So that's the context that makes the difference. So James is saying, what does it look like to be saved by faith alone? And we remember he gives us four illustrations, and we looked at the first two last week, and we're gonna look at the last two today. So the first two were uh in verses 15 through 17, the poorly dressed hungry Christian and how we respond to them. The second one is in 18 through 20, the demons with correct theology. We're gonna look today at 21 through 24, which is Abraham, and 25 through 26, which is Rahab. And just to remind you, James concludes each of these illustrations with a summary statement, very helpful in understanding them. And you'll find those in verse 17, verse 20, verse 24, and 26. And remember, his first two illustrations were negative, so they show us what faith is not. So that was the the uh poorly dressed, how we treat a poorly dressed, hungry believer and the demons. The two we're going to look at today, Abraham and Rahab, are positive, so they show us how genuine saving faith does act. And then finally, in each pair, one is a horizontal relationship and one's a vertical relationship. So the the first and the last, so the hungry Christian and Rahab are directed at how we treat other people. The middle two, the demons and Abraham, are how we respond to God. So we looked at the first two last week. The first one was what I called invisible faith, where if I fail to respond to a reasonable, obvious need from a fellow believer who's perhaps even my friend, then my faith is invisible and it's it's in fact doesn't exist. It denies what I claim I believe, and it's no faith at all. The second one I call barren orthodoxy, which is where I may have all the right theological beliefs, and I could pass a theology exam with flying colors, but it makes no difference to me. I fail to respond it to it or acknowledge that God is God. So faith submits to those beliefs as true and humbly acknowledges them and bows before God. So it makes ought to make a difference. So we're gonna look at the last two examples today, uh, Abraham and Rahab. But before we do that, I want to review justification because that's really the issue he's he's both James and Paul point to. So I want to make sure we know what we're talking about when we talk about justification. And it's really the critical, important question of the Christian faith, because the Bible claims that faith in the blood of Jesus is the basis for our justification. So knowing who it is that is justified before God is the most important problem we have. So if James and Paul disagreed on that issue, we would be in really bad shape. But thankfully they don't. So let me just review this. This is my famous hands analogy. Some of you have seen this before, but uh uh you can review it again here with me. So before the fall, we start out face to face with God. So if my left hand is us and my right hand is God, we're my palms are facing in. We have fellowship with God, and we are before the fall, we are in communion with Him and in a right relationship with Him. The problem is we rebel. So in our rebellion, it's as if we turn our backs on God. So I'm turning my left hand away, and that's our sin. So now we have rebelled. We've said, thanks God, I don't want you to be God, I want to decide what's right and wrong, I'm gonna decide all that for myself. And the Bible claims there are two consequences of that rebellion. So the first consequence is now we experience death in all its forms. So not just that our life will end and our hearts will stop beating, but now we have a world filled with strife and bitterness and brokenness and loss and pain and anger and frustration and war and office politics and all that stuff. So that's the first consequence. Now we are experien now we experience sin and death, but there's a second, more serious consequence, and that is God turns his back on us. And I've turned my other hand away. So he says, You want death, you got it. And as Paul says in Romans 1, he gives us over to our sin and death, or makes us a prisoner to it. So it's not just that our rebellion was unfortunate, it was morally and legally wrong. So now we have a debt to justice. We have broken the law and there's a criminal penalty that must be satisfied. So until that penalty is satisfied, God turns his back on us. So that if we could, I don't think we can, but if we did turn around and somehow solve the problem of our co of our bondage to sin, it wouldn't do any good because this problem of God's wrath still has to be solved. So the legal consequences must be dealt with. So justification is solving this problem of God's back turn to us. So justification is what does it take to solve my debt to the my legal debt, my criminal debt, so that God can turn around and bless me once again. And that's what we mean when we talk about justification. It's the forgiveness of our debt to justice which now qualifies us to receive God's blessings. So to be justified is to be in a position where God's justice has been satisfied. And that's the question Paul was dealing with is how do you get there? How do you get this problem of God's wrath solved? Can you keep the law well enough to solve that problem? And he says, No. What James is answering is this problem. He's of me turning back to God. So he's saying, once my debt to justice is solved, can I continue to live with my back turned to God and rebellion? And he would say, No. If you have saving faith, you will necessarily turn back around and begin pursuing righteousness. You will not continue to pursue rebellion and sin. So the to be justified is to be in a position where God dictates to justice have been satisfied. You owe no, you've the penalty's been paid, you owe no more debt to s to justice. And we get there by the blood of Jesus, and then what happens is God gives us saving faith and forgiveness, and we turn back to God, and we are now back in a right relationship with Him. So this helps me a lot to remember who's say asking what question, because Paul is answering the question, how do you get solved the problem of God's wrath? James is answering the questions, once that problem is solved, what happens in my life? And he says, you will turn back around, you will begin to see a change in your life. So if we could summarize Paul's question as how do we become justified, we could summarize James as, how do I know that I have been justified? And he says, you will see your life change. You will see works in that sense. That is, you will become the kind of person who is pursuing the things of God, who values the law, who wants to obey the law, and you will see your life change. Now, interestingly enough, both James and Paul appeal to Abraham as their example of what they're saying. So we're gonna look at that today. In fact, they both quote the same verse in the Bible about Abraham to make their point. So I'm not gonna review too much of what Paul said in Galatians. If you want, you can look back to the uh your notes on Galatians 3 or listen to the MP3. So let's look at James then. So we're gonna start in verse 21 today. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteous, as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Okay, so you may know the story of Abraham, but I want to make sure you know all the details of the story of Abraham. So we're gonna look uh uh spend some time in Genesis. So if you have a Bible, turn to Genesis 12. If you don't have a Bible, there's a whole shelf of them and in the bookcases in the back. So we're gonna look at Genesis 12 and make sure we know exactly what happened with Abraham and what James and Paul are referring to. So I'm gonna start in twelve, verses one through seven. Now the Lord said to Abram, this was his original name, you'll recall that God changed it, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abraham went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was seventy five years old when he departed from Haran, and Abraham took Sari his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they sent out to go to the land of Canaan. And when they came to the land of Canaan, Abraham passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak at Mormoreah, and at that time the Canaanites were in the land, and then here's the promise. Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. So note that the promise starts with Abraham's offspring. He says, To your offspring I will give this land. So God's going to make Abraham a great nation through his descendants, and the promises for the promises to come through, Abraham has to have a child, and right now he has none. He's seventy-five, and his wife is barren. So flip over to Genesis 15. And I'm going to read you one through six. After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, for I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childness, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abraham and Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the Word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward the heavens and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he he counted it to him as righteousness. Now that's the verse both James and Paul quote. But notice what's going on here. God says, I'm going to reward you greatly, and Abraham says, Okay, God, you may not have noticed this, but I don't have any kids. And that's the problem, because if my offspring are going to be blessed, I don't have any offspring. My heir is Eliezer of Damascus. And God says, No, he's not the one. You will you will have a child from your own body, and that child will be begin the fulfillment of the promises. And then Abraham believes him, and God counts it as righteous. Now Paul argues, at this point, Abraham has done nothing. He has not been circumcised, he has no child, he has not done anything, he hasn't built an altar, he hasn't accomplished a quest, he hasn't done anything to merit God's promises. He just believes, even though it looks like it's impossible, that God will do what he says he's done. And that's Paul's point. Abraham believed, and it was that faith that solved the problem of God's wrath that made him righteous. And he and Paul says, we're in the same position. God has promised to free us based on the blood of Christ. We don't see the full fulfillment of that yet. We just see the down payment of it, but we are justified because we believe, not through anything we've done. So the question we want to answer is, does James disagree with that? Does James think, does he understand Abraham differently and think that something else is going on, that Abraham did something to gain his justification? And I would say no, that James and Paul completely agree. In fact, you'll notice that Paul quotes this part of the story, but James is going to quote a different part of the story of Abraham. So the part of the story Paul refers to is what we just looked at. God made a promise to Abraham that required a biological descendant. Abraham had no such child. It was physically impossible for him to have a child, but God tells him, it will be so, and Abraham believes him. So look how the story goes on. So Sarah, Abraham's wife, despairs of ever having a child. She's too old by this point. She's barren. So she suggests that Abraham take her Egyptian slave, Hagar, as his wife, and that Hagar's children be considered hers. So this is in, I'm going to start in Genesis 16, and just look at the end, 15 and 16, and then go on into 17. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abraham. To Abram. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into a nation, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Then he reaffirms the promises and skip down to seventeen. God says to Abraham, As for Sarah, your wife, you shall not call her name Sari, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations. Kings of people shall come from her. Then Abram fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abram said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you. And God said, No, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear your son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. Okay, so at this point in the story the situation's changed. Abraham has a child from his own body. It's his mother his Hagar, and his name is Ishmael. And God says, Ishmael is not the one. So Abraham essentially asks in verse 18, Well, isn't Ishmael the son you promised? Isn't he the one who is going to fulfill all this, the promises to my offspring? And God says, No, it won't be Ishmael. It will be a son by Sarah. She will have a son, his name will be Isaac, and he will be the one to whom the covenant is made with. So notice how specific God is. He tells Abram the child's mother, the child's name, and the year in which the child will be born. So he is very specific. This promise cannot be fulfilled by any physical descendant of Abraham. It must be fulfilled by a very particular descendant of Abraham. Okay, so now we get to the part that James quotes, and this is in Genesis 22. So flip over to 22, we're going to look at 1 through 3. After these things God tested Abraham. Notice testing is a big theme in James. After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on the mountain of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place which God had told him. You're probably familiar with the story. Abraham takes Isaac and offers him as a sacrifice to the Lord, and at the last minute, as Abraham has raised his knife, God calls out to him, stays his hand, and provides a ram instead. Now there's a lot of things going on in that passage we could talk about, but what I What I want to focus on is this concept that God is testing Abraham, because that I think is central to the argument that James is making. So remember how James started the letter. Consider it joy when you encounter these trials that test your faith. And throughout the letter, he's been talking about how embracing the gospel will change the way you think, the way you act, the way you live, and that you will respond differently because you have faith. So this is a test. This test strengthens and matures your faith. Now I deliberately went through all the circumstances that led up to the event because I wanted to make sure you realize that God made a very specific problem, promise to Abraham. He said, I will make you a great nation through Isaac, who will be a child of both you and Sarah, who will be born in a particular time of year, and Isaac is the heir. So it's not that Ishmael is the spare, and if Isaac dies, then Ishmael is available to take his place. That won't work. God has promised to make good on his promises through Isaac and Isaac alone. And notice if Isaac dies, and Abraham and Sarah have another son, say we call him Isaac 2.0, he doesn't work either. He can't be the heir, because God has been very specific and said, this Isaac and only this child is the child of promise. And now God is saying, give him back to me. I want you to kill him and give him back. So the question confronting Abraham is, do I still believe the promises of God? So God has told me that Isaac will live long enough to father a great nation. He must live long enough to at least have a child for any of these promises to come through. So do I believe him or not? That's the test. So the test is more than will I obey God in a difficult circumstance? The question Abraham is really facing is the God who promised me that Isaac will live is asking me to take his life. Do I trust that God knows what he's doing? Now I call that a particularly difficult test of faith. Because everything he says, all his experience says, this is impossible. This cannot be true. Now, fortunately, Hebrews 11 gives uh sheds some light on how Abraham passed this test and what he was thinking. So if you look at Hebrews 11, 17 through 19, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises, when in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named, he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. So the author of Hebrews tells us Abraham believed that God would resurrect him, that Abraham had the promises before he was offered asked to offer up Isaac, and that's the nature of the test. He had the promises, he knows Isaac is the one, he's being asked to kill him, and the test is do I still believe, or does Abraham still believe that God will keep his promises? So now we're in a situation where all the promises are in jeopardy. It's beyond human ability to fit, to influence, or control in any way whatsoever. If Isaac dies, humanly speaking, there's no way Abraham can fulfill the promises. So if they're going to be fulfilled, it's up to God to do it. And the question for Abraham is, do I believe he will do it? He has said he will do it. Do I believe him, even when it looks impossible? And Hebrews tells us, yes, he did. He believed that God would resurrect him, so he was willing to offer up Isaac because he believed God would keep his promise. So the test is not, will you follow me to the point of killing your own son? The test is, do you believe the promise I made to you? Do you believe the promise, even when from a human standpoint, it's completely impossible to fulfill? Okay, now we have the information, I think, to understand James. So we're headed back to James with this. And think through as we go through these verses, I want to show you how that fills out what James is saying. So was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was counted him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. So, does James believe that Abraham was justified by faith? Yes, he does. I think his whole argument depends on that fact. He's saying we know Abraham was justified by faith, and we know he had genuine faith because look, his actions prove it. From a human standpoint, his actions were crazy. There's no reason you would do this. But they make perfect sense if you believe the promise of God. So we can see the nature of his faith by the choices he makes. The actions he took to being willing to offer up Isaac proved he believed that God was uh would keep his promises. So in verse 22, when he says faith was uh faith was working with his works, I think he means why didn't Abraham take this action? Because he had faith. He believed. That's the point Hebrews makes. Abraham took this action because he believed that God would keep the promises that he made. He genuinely believed that God would resurrect Isaac, and he would have to do that to keep his promises. So then in 22, when he says, and faith was completed by his works, that's the same word group that we looked at in chapter one, where he talks about your faith will be matured, it's the same idea. His faith was tested, shown by the test to be real, and was brought to a greater level of maturity by this test. So it was completed, it was made more mature and perfect and grown and strengthened as it as the test was designed to do that. So the trial comes, and faith there's a as we talked about last week, there's a difference between understanding the theological concept and living it out. So when I'm faced this situation where I have to act, faith matures when it moves from my head to my heart. When it moves from what I say I believe to what how I actually live and changes what I do. So that's the perfecting. Faith moves from this internal reality and matures into action, into an external action. So Abraham had to confront the issue directly because God made a very specific problem to him, and Abraham had to respond. He had to make a choice about what action to take, and the action he took depended on what he believed. Did he believe God would keep his promises or not? So then 23 then he says, and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteous, and he was called a friend of God. We often think fulfilled means predictive prophecy, and it can mean that, but frequently the word often does mean it was filled up. So we see it in its fullest sense. And just for your hint, Matthew in particular you likes to use the word this way. So I think that's what James means here. Scripture was fulfilled, it was shown to be true. So we have the most complete picture of Abraham's faith. So it said that Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteous, and now we have this picture of him offering Isaac, which in the fullest sense put his faith on display. His faith was demonstrated in this act and shown to be real and and strong. So his claim to faith in Genesis 15 is shown to be real by him offering Isaac. So I think that's what he means by the scripture was fulfilled. It was verified, it was shown to be accurate because Abraham acted in accordance with his faith. So you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. It's, I think, James saying what I started with, that when you are justified, you will see a person's life change. You will see them turn back to God if they have real saving faith, and their attitudes and actions will begin to change. So he's asking the question throughout this letter, I think, can you be saved by a claim to faith that never shows itself, that never makes a difference in your life? So can I just give all the right theological answers but leave it there when I walk out the door? And he's saying, No, that type of faith faith won't save you, it is not faith at all. Real faith makes a difference. Actions speak louder than words in that sense. If you say you like me but you treat me like dirt, I don't really believe your claim. And common sense tells us that sooner or later what I say will uh or how I act will reveal what if what I say is true. Now, I don't know about you, but I find it kind of terrifying to think that my actions are an indicator of my faith. Because I look at my life and go, okay, I'm in trouble. I've fallen off the bridge. You know, I I can look back and see hundreds of examples just yesterday of where I didn't um wasn't as loving as I ought to be, or didn't say the right things, or uh not loving God with all my heart, or not loving my husband with all my heart, or you know, I don't do any of that perfectly or even half perfectly. And I look at my actions and I see, okay, selfishness, pride, sin. Um so my actions tell me I fall short of righteousness in many, many ways. You know, I I know theologically that I don't belong in the center of the universe, but I have a hard time getting out of that spot. So I don't know, but if you're in that same spot, think about what we know from Scripture. Abraham had the same problem. We see Abraham make mistakes. They're recorded for us in Scripture. We see him sin, we see him fail. Um remember our study of David in in 1st and 2nd Samuel. We saw him sin and we saw him fail. And but for both of them, when push came to Shove, when it came down to a rubber meets the road, do I trust God to give to fulfill his promises? For Abraham, it was the that Isaac wouldn't live long enough to have a descendant. For David it was that he would inherit the throne. Both of them chose to wait on God and trust God to fulfill his promises. So I think part of the encouragement is if you're in that boat, is this doesn't mean that from now on, once you become a believer, you will have perfect obedience. That's pretty much a given that we will not. Remember the encouragement for chapter one. James said, if you look at your life and you go, Oh what, wait, this isn't true of me. I'm not the kind of person James is describing. I don't have that kind of strong faith. What should you do? He says, Ask God. Ask God for it. Ask him for that wisdom, and he will give it to you. You can ask him without fear of reproach because he delights in answering that kind of prayer. So remember too that this is a process. James is talking about this process of taking our faith from this real but immature thing that we have into a strong, mature, and visible thing that affects our whole life. And it happens through trials, and we shouldn't expect that we're going to be perfect right out of the gate. You know, when we start this process, it's a process. So we will learn and we will grow and we will fail, and eventually it will become obvious what governs us, who our Father is, and that faith is what I'm counting on. So trials force us into that. It makes force us to make those difficult choices. Sometimes choices I would rather not face, but at least they wake us up to the issues so that our faith has to come out in the open and we deal with it. So in some ways we can fake good works. You know, we can the tsunami hits and we can all rush out and step up to the cause, or a child goes missing and everyone in the community turns out for the search, or you know, a hurricane hits and aid and money and labor come pouring in. And we can do that for a while. It doesn't mean that suddenly everyone turns into a believer because we tend to pull together in major difficulties. That's not, I don't think, the issue he's talking about so much as will the gospel change the direction and destiny of my life? Will it change me in a very fundamental way? So it's not just that I'll do some nice things for folks now and then, but am I living my life in such a way that it's clear who my father is and who my savior is and what direction I'm counting on to save me? And that's I think what James is is saying. Now I would argue that Paul makes this same argument. So remember back to um chapter 5, which Terry taught us when Galatians were facing the challenge of the Judaizers, uh, who said you have to keep the law to be saved, and Paul said, and this is Galatians 5 2, look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. So Paul is saying, your outward actions reveal what you claim to believe. And if you're accepting circumcision, then what you must actually believe is I am capable of keeping the law, and that I am morally able to get there, and that's what I'm counting on for my salvation. So I would say Paul's essentially using the same logic. He's saying, I don't think Paul would say circumcision in and of itself is bad, but the action in that context can reveal what I'm counting on for my salvation. And if I'm counting on circumcision, then I'm not counting on faith and I haven't understood the gospel. So that's why he says if you do that, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Your actions reveal that what you say you believe is not actually the case. So I would say James and Paul are exactly on the same page. Ultimately, you have to live out your life in a way that verifies your faith. Okay, so let's look at Rahab. Sorry, I went a little too long on Abraham, but we won't shortchange Rahab. So 25 and 26. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. Okay, so we meet Rahab in Joshua 2. You can turn there if you want, or just listen. This is as the Israelites are beginning the conquest of the promised land under the leadership of Joshua. And they come to Jericho, and Joshua sends spies in. So this is Joshua 2, 1 through 7. And Joshua, the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, Go view the land, especially Jericho. And when they went and came to the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land. And the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Bring out the men who have come to you who have entered your house, for they have come to search out the land. But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof, roof, and hid them with stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords, and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out. So Rahab is the local prostitute in Jericho. Joshua sends two men in as spies to assess the situation to see how they can take the city. And when strangers enter the city, where else are they gonna stay but with the local harlot? So the king finds out that the spies are in town and he questions them, and she lies to save them. And that's the work she did. She lied about where they went. So we have to figure out how that is a good example. So look at uh we're gonna go on with the story. Look at eight through Joshua eight, two through Joshua two, eight through eleven. Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all and that all of the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the kings, the two kings of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan, to Shihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. So she makes a deal with them, where they will spare her household when they come and take the city. So her house is on the city wall, and she lets them out uh with a rope out the window so they can climb down the outside of the wall. And then in a scene very sim very symbolically reminiscent of a Passover, she ties a scarlet thread in her window, and when the Israelites come to Jericho, her she and her household are spared. Now, Hebrews 11 again gives us some insight into this. This is 1131. By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. So, why would why would these people hold her up as a good example? I think the clue is in what she says in 211. She says, For the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth believe. So she claims your God is the one true God. He's the one that's ultimately going to win the day, and then her actions back up that claim. So she said she believes the God of the Israelites was the one true God, therefore she showed kindness to the people of God and she gave them aid when they needed it. So when it came to a battle between the people of God and her people, she says, I choose the people of Israel, I choose them. Their God is the one true God. So she claims belief, and we see her acting in accordance with that belief and protecting the people of God. So, and I think that's what James was pointing to. Her actions back up what she claimed to believe. She looked at the situation and said, This is the one true God, and I want to be on his side. Now, I don't want to get into a theology of lying in those situations, except that there are repeated examples in the Bible of when someone's life is at stake lying to the evil person who's out to get them. And I've that's never condemned. And that's exactly the situation she was in. But I think what James is pointing to is she believed that the God of Israel was who he said he was, and then she acted as if that were true. And then James sums up this whole section with I think pr the a brilliant and very concrete analogy. He says, when you look at a dead body, you can see that it's just a shell, that it's got an outward form, but the inner life has gone. The person is no longer there, and if you've seen a dead body, you you recognize this immediately. There's something inherently different, there's no life in it. And he's saying, similarly, a claim to faith without letting it change your life is like a dead body. It's just a shell. Without the inner reality animating and changing the way I act and think, it's no real faith at all. So if I actually believe the gospel, it will have an impact on my life the way a soul animates a body. So the body is shown to be alive through its actions, its movements, its spark, its joy, and we know the person's really there in the same way. Faith will be shown to be real by the way it animates and changes my life. Which I think is just actually a brilliant analogy. So to summarize this section, he says, Abraham showed that he really believed God would keep his promises by his actions. Rahab, who had very little theology, uh, showed her beliefs by how she treated God's people. And then the picture he gives us is that a dead body is a like a claim to believe, it's just the outward trappings, and the difference between a dead body and a live body is the animated movements and actions. So it's the testing of our faith that shows our faith to be real, a living, breathing kind of thing. So, why do we count it all joy when we want to, when we encounter trials? Because we really don't want to stay fools all our lives. We want to have faith. We want to, we hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, for the blessings He offers, and the tests force me to confront how weak or how strong my faith is. So the test takes my faith from this invisible reality hiding in my heart and works it into my life to make me a wise and mature person with real strong faith. And I would claim this side of heaven, giving us that strong, mature faith is the greatest gift God can give us after the cross. So having justified us, having solved the problem of our debt to justice so that he can once again bless us, then the next most important gift is to actually bless us, to turn us, to free us from that bondage to sin and begin making us in the people who long for him again. So part of faith then is believing that God both intends to and will in fact make me that kind of person. So when you look at your life and you say, oops, I did it again, remember Abraham. So he was looking at a situation that was humanly impossible to fix, and maybe you're looking at your own life and saying, I just can't get over this hurdle, this struggle, this circumstance, fix this broken relationship or whatever it is, and from a human standpoint it may be impossible, but part of faith is believing God's promise to fix all those things. God's promised to redeem even the darkest situation and turn it into something good, bring some light from it, some purpose and some great gain. So when I lose the battle with my sin, say I get angry or I get selfish or I uh say something awful to someone, that can be part of the test. God has promised that he will change me. So when I look at myself and going, I c I'm not able to change myself or my progress is too slow, part of the test can be, do I believe him anyway? Do I believe that he has promised to do this and he will in fact do that? So I would say your sin can even give you evidence that you have faith, because the redeemed person responds differently to sin than the unredeemed person. So the person of faith, when you sin, what's your first reaction? Brokenness. You you cry out, well, maybe it's not first, but eventually. Sometimes we have to get hit with a two by four, but eventually we get to the point where we say, I don't want to be this kind of person anymore, and we cry out to God to change us. So I we say, you know, Lord, I want to believe, help my unbelief. I want to be righteous, and I am not in this situation. I want to be free from my sin, and I'm not, I can't do this by myself, and I'm counting on the blood of your son to save me. So even our response to sin can reveal that we have faith because unredeemed people don't have that response of grief and remorse. They they may be sorry, but they're sorry they got caught. Or they may be sorry that they now they have to experience the consequences of their sin. But ultimately there's not a turning away from the sin there's itself. There's usually a well, if I could have my sin and no consequences, I'll take the sin. And that's a response that is missing in the person of faith. So once you are saved, your attitude towards sin changes. You don't like it, you don't want it, you don't, you begin to hate it and long to be freed from it in a way that was not true beforehand. So all of that is to say, the response to this, remember what we talked about last week. Don't fall off the horse on either side. Don't fall off into self-righteousness into thinking, ooh, I'm really good at this, look how good I'm. God must be pleased with me. That's that's a problem. And don't fall off into despair of I will never get there. I'm not that kind of person because God isn't finished with you yet. We're on the path He has for us, and He's promised those results will come. They do come through trials and they are hard, but there's a purpose and a great purpose to them. So let me stop there. Next week we will dive into chapter three. Uh my favorite passage starts out, let not many of you become teachers. And the very first time I taught, I was feeling extremely nervous, and I was my husband was there and he said, Oh, I have a encouragement, word of encouragement for you. Guess what verse he put in front of me? Let not many of you become teachers. Thanks. Now I really feel better. So he has a sarcastic streak. So what can I say? I knew it when I married him. So um so we will look at that next week, another uh challenging in its own way passage. So let me pray for us and um we have some time for questions.