Faith & Works

September 13, 2009

James 2

Faith & Works

Desired outcome: To understand that Faith & Works can not and should not be separated.

Two little girls were on their way to school one morning. Having been detained in starting, they were very much afraid that they would be late. One said, "Let us kneel down and ask the Lord to not let us be late." The other said, "No, I think I will run as fast as I can, and pray to God while I am running to help me to get there on time."

This morning we are going to take part in the age old discussion between faith and works. It is one of those struggles between what can be seen and what is unseen.
And it has been going on ever since the Fall of Man when mankind has wrestled with a right relationship with God.
Before the fall of man, Adam & Eve didn’t have to concern themselves with a right relationship with God. It just came naturally. They had complete confidence and trust in God and they served Him wholeheartedly with His actions.
But since the fall, it has been a battle for us. And this is true even now in our every day lives. Every day we have to live our lives somewhere between two extremes.
On one side is the extreme of faith. If we believe enough, pray hard enough, trust God enough, then it will all be OK. “Name it & claim it” is the motto in this camp.
To the other side is the extreme of works. God is too busy or too disinterested in our lives to really have much to do with us, so if we want something done, we’ve got to do it ourselves. “God helps those who help themselves” is the motto in this camp. But most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We ask, “Am I doing too much and not trusting God? Or am I doing enough?”

History of faith and works

Let’s pick up where we left off in history after the fall. Mankind has been struggling since to figure out what it means to have a right relationship with God- trusting in Him and doing what He says.
Fast forward now to the time of Jesus. The religious authorities of His day, the Pharisees, had rules. First you start with God’s law. But to make sure that they didn’t break God’s law, they built what later became known as a “hedge” around the law. To make sure we don’t go anywhere near displeasing God, the Pharisees made up a whole list of more rules for our own protection and safety. Now Pharisees often get a bad rap, but take a minute and look at their intentions and you’ll notice that their motivation was to please God. It’s just that they lost the relationship in the midst of the rules.
After Jesus’ death & resurrection and after the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the church started out small and grew quickly. After a few centuries, it happened again. This time, instead of it being the Pharisees, it became the organized church that was overemphasizing works to get to heaven.
They had things like the selling of indulgences. In order to have your sins forgiven, the priest would give you an indulgence. At some point in history they started selling these. You can’t get much farther away from grace than that. This is one example of many corruptions that found their way into the church after many centuries removed from Christ.
Then, along came Martin Luther and the Reformation. Luther, after reading through the book of Romans, came to the realization that it was grace alone and not any thing that we could do that would save us. Luther was so convicted on this point that he really didn’t like the book of James. To him, James emphasized works too much and he tried to get it removed from the approved list of scripture.
During the social gospel movement, works again became the focus of the gospel and spreading the good news was done through good works. While this is good as a whole, the unfortunate consequence of the social gospel movement was that people felt they had to pick sides. Either they were concerned about social justice and the poor or they were evangelicals and were concerned primarily about proclaiming the gospel through words. The problem is that this is not an either/or equation. To help us sort through this paradox, I’ve come up with 3 different math equations

Faith Minus Works = Empty Words 0 Zero Nothing- Saying, “I believe” but then nothing comes of it. James says that faith without works amounts to nothing. Actually, it’s worse than that because Satan himself has faith in God. He believes in God and shudders! And yet nothing good comes out of it.

Works Minus Faith = Dependence on my goodness or myself. James describes this as useless (v.20). There are lots of people in this world just trying to be good people. Trying to do the right things and stay out of trouble. If our kids do that, then we’re happy. But I believe that world view is missing the bigger picture. Why are we trying to be good? Where are we headed in this life? What’s our motivation? These are questions that can’t be answered with works alone, but faith in God must be involved to give our lives meaning, direction, and purpose.

Works Plus Faith = Action Here we find the winning equation. We have action, but it is tempered with a keen dependence on God. We are co-laborers with God. Here is the winning combination: Pray as if it all depends on God; work as if it all depends on us.
Really, I don’t know if “works” is the right word. Perhaps a better word in place of “works” is “obedience.” Not any works, but the works God commands from us.
Imagine a construction site where the foreman says, “Today we are going to dig out a hole for the foundation, and get the foundation set and poured so we have a sturdy and square surface to build this house on.” The workers go about their assigned tasks except for this one guy who’s in the hole, nailing shingles into the dirt wall. The foreman says, “What in the beep are you doing?!” And the worker says, “Well, it looked like rain, so I thought I should get some shingles on this house to keep us dry.” Every one of you here could tell me how useful this guy is and how long he’ll stay on the job! We are co-laborers with God, but He is the foreman. We can’t just go around and do any work that suits our fancy, but we must go about the work we’ve been assigned.
Doing the right work- that’s obedience.
Listening to the foreman- that’s faith.

That’s how faith & works fit together.

There are other things that go together for life that seem to be opposite much like 2 paddles on opposite sides of a rowboat. If you only have one, you just go around in circles. You need both to reach your destination.

v.26 mentions Body & Spirit. Our body is the part we can see. The vessel we have to take us through this life. Our spirit is the part we can’t see. That is the vessel we have to take us to the next life. To neglect one or the other is a serious problem.

Both a man and a woman are needed to create a new life. Anyone who is married or grew up with a sibling of opposite gender can tell you just how opposite men and women are. God could have chosen so many different ways to create life, and yet putting opposites together is the one He came up with.

Both Hydrogen and Oxygen are required to make water- a key element to life. You may be able to explain to me how it is that two gases make up a liquid when put together, but it will continue to boggle my mind.

In the same way, faith and works can be seen as opposites. And yet, both are necessary to reach our destination.

Having one without the other is like:
slaw without dressing
or a truck without fuel
or any recipe missing even one ingredient.

Here’s what we see in Scripture this morning:
Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness after he acted on his faith and was obedient to God’s command to sacrifice his son- even though he didn’t understand it. And he was called a friend of God (v.23)
In our other reading this morning, Zaccheus showed his faith in Jesus by paying back all those he had cheated. He didn’t just say, “Jesus, I believe in you now. Let’s get on with life!” No, what came out of his new found faith was a work of obedience.

The works are simply how we live out our faith with our whole being.

The book, CHRISTIANITY REDISCOVERED, portrays this well. It tells of a Roman Catholic missionary, Vincent Donovan, who shares his discoveries as he worked among Masai people in Tanzania. Donovan had been working among the various communities of the Masai for many months. It was difficult work, and at times, his faith faltered. At one point, Donovan spoke with a Masai elder about the agony of belief and unbelief. In their conversation, the Masai elder pointed out that the word Donovan had been using in Swahili to convey the word "faith" was not a very good word in their language. The word they were using for "faith" meant literally, "to agree to." Donovan acknowledged that he knew the word was not a good one to translate the word "faith." The Masai elder said that to believe like that was similar to a white hunter shooting an animal from a great distance. Only his eyes and his finger got into it. The Masai elder then said that for one to really believe is more like a lion going after its prey. The lion's nose and ears sense the prey. He sniffs the air and locates it. Then he crouches, and slithers along the ground virtually invisible. We have never seen lions do this, but we have seen our cats. Same lineage, apparently. A cat thinks it becomes invisible as it stalks the prey. The lion gets into position, and when everything is optimum, the lion pounces. All the power of his body is involved and as the animal goes down, the lion envelopes it in his arms, pulls it to himself, and makes it a part of himself. This, said the elder, is the way one believes, making faith a part of oneself! Donovan nodded in complete agreement, almost overcome with the elder's wisdom. But the elder was not done yet. The old Masai became thoughtful. Then he said to Donovan: "We did not search you out, Padri. We did not even want you to come to us. You searched us out. You told us of the High God. You told us we must search for the High God. But we have not done this. Instead, the High God has searched us out and found us! All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God!" From a sermon by Norm Lawson, Central Protestant Church, Richland, Washington

We tackle faith with our whole being and respond to what God tells us. But from the very beginning, we are justified by Christ’s sacrifice alone. The lion of Judah has sought us out and found us! However, James tells us that our response to Christ’s work is an important part of the equation. Faith & Works should not, indeed, they can not be separated. May God grant us the faith to trust in Him and the willingness to be His hands and feet for the world. Amen.

Main Objective: To understand that Faith & Works can not and should not be separated.

Serve your God with patience and passion.
Be deliberate in enacting your faith.
Be steadfast in celebrating the Spirit’s power.
And may peace be your way in the world. Amen.