10/23 Sermon on James, Part 5

The series of Sunday-morning sermons about the book of James continued at my local non-denominational church this week covering Chapter 2, Verses 14-26.  The topic was "true faith" and Pastor Philip Griffin discussed how such a faith is reflected not in "talk, good intentions, or knowing the right things"...no, it is revealed and made complete in how we act upon it, i.e. our deeds.  Here are those Bible verses, in the New International Version courtesy of Bible Gateway:

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
²⁰ You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? ²¹ Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. ²³ 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. ²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
²⁵ 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? ²⁶ As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Pastor Philip, throughout his talk, emphasized something he has repeatedly covered in the past: as believers, we should aim for inner transformation through Christ...with our actions following from that change...instead of the often held belief that we must keeping trying and trying harder to do good things in order for God to approve of us.  In other words, it is "being into doing", not "doing into being".  Furthermore, the "shuddering" by the demons in verse 19 refers to their actions, which are motivated not by their love for God, but rather by their fear of his wrath upon them...this idea of avoiding divine retribution through acts of goodness is also "motivation by shuddering".   The point of this passage in James is not so much to make people go around "proving" their faith by going around helping others...although the deeds themselves might be laudable...but rather to make them inspect their own faith and whether they feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to manifest that faith in their lives...

There are Old Testament references to Abraham and Rahab to illustrate that these two were known by their faith because they followed it up with obedient action.  Pastor Philip also mentioned that Abraham might have raised the value of his beloved son Isaac to himself above that of God: this command to sacrifice him...rescinded when Abraham demonstrated his obedience...returned God to the ascendancy in his life.  And the theme of the father giving up his son as a sacrifice carries strongly into the Christian faith, with Jesus replacing Isaac as the offered sacrifice and God as the father...

You can watch this sermon, as well as others, on the Family Church YouTube website.  Here is a link to it [link]...