What Good is it?

A lot of us know how to sound Christian. We know the right words, the right tone, even the right Bible answers. James 2 refuses to let us hide there. We start with a simple picture: “friendship” on social media can be all connection and no commitment, and faith can work the same way. So James asks the question that cuts through the noise: what good is it to claim faith if nothing in your life ever changes?

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs clarity, and leave a review so more people can find this teaching on James 2, faith and works, and what saving faith looks like in real life.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And James Reading

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Rest in your arms and God just look at you. Father, it's easy for us to try not to look at you because we feel ashamed so much. But Father, when you look at us, you see your grace, you see your righteousness poured out on us. So, Father, we can come boldly before your throne and worship. And this morning we just say thank you. Thank you for who you are. And thank you for what you have done on our behalf. All for your glory. And it's in your name we pray. And everybody said.

Facebook Friends And Real Proof

What Makes Someone A Christian

Faith Alone Saves Yet Not Alone

Dead Faith Versus Living Faith

Comfort Culture And Empty Religion

Pray Now Serve Now Love Tangibly

Assemble As A Church Family

Friend Of God And Final Invitation

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Amen. Amen. Well, good morning, church. If you have your Bibles with you, I invite you to turn me to the book of James. We're continuing back into our study in James. Today we find ourselves in James chapter 2. And as you're turning there, I'll pray for our time. Our sovereign and holy God, we come before you not in our own merit, but clothed in the righteousness of Christ and confessing that apart from your grace we are undone. But we praise you that you have called us by your word and gathered us by your Holy Spirit and invited us to draw near through the finished work of our Savior. And we ask, Lord, that you would quiet our hearts, fix our minds on your word, incline our wills to your truth, and that in this moment you would be glorified in our worship and we would be conformed more fully to the image of our Savior. We ask that your word would go forth with power, that it would strengthen and awaken the weary, that it would bring humility to the proud, that it would strengthen the saints, that it would draw the lost to you. And we ask all of this in the name of our risen Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. James chapter 2, starting in verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of them says and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 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 righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 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. This is God's word. Well, uh, according to Facebook, I have over 700 friends. I was expecting applause right there. It's funny, I actually find that really hard to believe because I don't even, I'm not, I'm not nearly likable enough over an extended period of time to have that many friends. I don't even I don't even know 700 people. But I have an accumulation, I guess we could say, of online acquaintances that apparently feel confident sharing intimate life details with me, although we are relative strangers. I don't dislike Facebook. I I find it helpful to stay connected to folks, especially those who are far off. But I get a lot of friend requests, uh, and I think it's it's because of ministry. I don't accept them all, but I I can like I'll get a friend request from a guy in Maine who's a pastor, a guy I've never met, uh, and he's just connected to a bunch of people that I know. I've never met the guy, but I don't mind connecting like that. But does that make us friends? See, social media has dumbed down a lot of things. And I think friendship is one of them. And I know that if I see that guy someday, if I recognize him, I'll have to explain to him how I know him. I'll be that weird dude that walks up and says, Hey, we're friends on Facebook. And he might pepper spray me before I even get that second sentence out. But what makes someone a friend? We don't really know anyone else's heart, do we? So friendship is proven by actions more than words. When I think of friendship, I think of someone who gives of themselves to another person that uh shows up when it costs them something, uh, they don't disappear when life gets messy. I mean, there's a kind of loyalty that marks true friendship, a willingness to remain when others drift. And a true friend, a true friend also tells you the truth. Not harshly or carelessly, but with love that's willing to risk discomfort for your good. They don't just affirm everything, they they help you grow. They see where you are and care enough to speak where it matters. So friendship is is deeper than surface level niceties, it's or even common interests. Friendship is about something in here, isn't it? But it it demonstrates itself in what we actually do. And I love the question that James asks here. What good is it? What good is it? What good is it to have a thousand friends on a computer screen but have nobody to trust and nobody to turn to? What good is that? So friendship means something. I mean, it's nebulous, but it's also very tangible. And I think we apply that same test to our faith. And this passage in James is one of the clearest warnings in all of Scripture that a merely verbal faith is not saving faith. He's confronting the empty claim of a person who says that he has faith, but his life remains untouched by Jesus Christ. So the issue is not whether works replace faith, but whether the faith being claimed is real at all. A faith that is only spoken or only intellectual and only external is not saving faith. It's a Facebook faith, if you will, like a Facebook friendship. A profession with no fruit is a it's a dead profession. So let's take a few steps through this passage this morning. Let's start with the obvious question: what is a Christian? Look at verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? So if we consider this testing framework that we just went through with the idea of friendship, we can apply that same thing to the word that so many people use, and that word is Christian. Asking the question, what is a Christian? What makes someone a Christian? I mean, our world is confused about what makes someone a friend, and so you can bet that the world and the church, sadly, does not know what makes someone a Christian. Worldly definitions of a Christian tend to be shaped by culture or behavior or identity markers that rather than the biblical gospel. And they often reduce Christianity to something external or social or moral rather than something rooted in regeneration and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In many circles, a Christian is simply someone who tries to be kind, moral, and decent. Now, we should try to be kind, moral, and decent people. But if a person is generous, if a person avoids major wrongdoing and treats others well, they're often labeled as that's a good Christian person. And this definition confuses morality with salvation and ignores the biblical teaching that righteousness cannot come from our goodness, but comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. And goodness and morality to the world is relative anyway. Many people define a Christian as someone born into a Christian family. Well, I was born into a Christian family, so I'm a Christian. I was raised in the church, so I'm a Christian. Or maybe they're even associated with Christian traditions. Friends, this is why this room that we're in right now fills up at Christmas and Easter. Amen. But the reason that churches fill up in that time of year, it's like, oh, I'm a Christian and it's tradition. I got to go to the thing, and my Mima's gonna be there, and Papa's gonna be there, and whatever other southern word for grandparents you like to use, I gotta go because they're expecting me to sit with them at church. So Christianity becomes inherited, it becomes a label of a background rather than a reality of a new birth. And for many, as long as you're like kind of like Mr. Rogers. Did they have Mr. Rogers in Kentucky? Hi, neighbor. I'm dating myself, I know. But if you can be like Mr. Rogers, then you're the perfect Christian. Just be externally nice and kind and smile. Which is ironic because if you know anything about Fred Rogers, he was a he was deeply shaped by his Christian faith. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, a strong believer in Jesus Christ. He said that his calling was to care for souls, the hearts of children. But the good news about Mr. Rogers is that his outward acts came from an inward conviction of faith in Jesus Christ. But at its core, what you do does not make you a Christian. It is the evidence that you are a Christian. What makes someone a Christian is not what they have achieved for Christ, but what they have received from Christ. What makes you a Christian is not what you have achieved for Christ, but what you have received from Christ. A Christian is someone who has been brought from spiritual death to life by the grace of God. Someone who has turned from sin and trusted in Jesus for salvation. And that's that begins with repentance and faith, doesn't it? Repentance is not just feeling bad about our sin, but turning from it, seeing it as rebellion against a holy God. And faith is not just agreeing with facts about Jesus, but personally trusting and resting in his life, death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient for your salvation. The Apostle Paul is clear, we're saved by grace through faith, not by works. And so now we see this intersection in these definitions of friend and Christian, although internal, there are internal realities, they are demonstrated by what we do. Friendship without action is empty. So is the term Christian, because repentance and faith produce a changed life. And so what we encounter in the balance of this passage are two ways, uh two, two ways to t to go here: the gospel way and the world's way. Verse 15. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and be filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. So James is not contradicting salvation by faith alone. According to both Paul and James, what saves you is faith in Jesus Christ, but that must be understood rightly. Paul teaches that we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, not by works, so that no one can boast. Our standing before God rests entirely on the finished work of Jesus Christ, received by faith, not earned by effort. Listen, the only ground of my hope is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The only ground of your hope is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. James doesn't contradict this. A kind of hollow profession that bears little resemblance to the saving faith described in the Bible. A lot of people can affirm the right truths, speak the right language, and even identify with the church, but there's no evidence of repentance, there's no growing hatred of their own sin, there's no desire for holiness, there's no tangible love for others. And so this disconnect here reveals a deeper problem of faith that rests in self rather than being wrought by the Holy Spirit. When there's no transformation, then there's no obedience and no movement toward Christ-likeness, it calls into question whether or not somebody is a believer at all. So the danger is not inconsistency, it's self-deception. Where people are convinced that they belong to Christ while remaining completely unchanged by Christ. Do you want to know what the most horrifying words in the Bible to me, anyway? The most horrifying words in the Bible are spoken by Jesus. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. And then he says, But only those who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform any miracles? And here's the horrifying thing. Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. I mean, I don't know if you know this or not, but the death rate is one per person. Everybody gets one. I mean, you can read all you can eat all the kale in the world. Still gonna die. You're just gonna be unhappy. Don't come at me. Here's what I read in scripture when I when I put it all together. You take your last breath here, whatever that looks like. Driving in your car, flying in an airplane, sitting at a desk, sitting on your couch, whatever it is. You take your last breath here and you your next breath you stand and you you're standing before God in judgment. On that day, the Lord Jesus says there will be many well-meaning, nice people, good church folk who will be cast into hell because they rejected him. Even though they claim to know him, even though they claim to love him. See, faith alone saves, but the faith that saves us is never alone. So Paul shows us the basis of salvation, Jesus Christ received by faith, and James shows us the evidence of salvation, a life that then bears fruit. And James illustrates this with the example of seeing a needy brother or sister and offering only words. I mean, that's useless. That shows a heart that's completely unchanged by the word of God and the mercy of God. You see, true faith never remains empty, does it? True faith never remains empty. It moves towards love, it moves towards obedience, it moves towards compassion, it moves towards sacrifice. Works are not the root of our salvation, but they are the fruit of it. You see, when Jesus truly saves a sinner, that life begins to show evidence of that grace. Sometimes it's slow. Amen. Sometimes it's painful. But over time you're like, oh my goodness, I am reacting differently, I am acting differently, I'm spending differently, I am giving differently, I am not, I don't have the road rage that I used to have, and you start to see all of this evidence in your life of that growing grace. Dead faith talks. Living faith acts. Dead faith talks, but living faith acts. Back when I was boxing much more than I am now, the more a guy talked about how good he was, the less concerned I was to spar with him. But when I would get in there and the guy was saying nothing, I'd be like, I'm in danger. Dead faith talks, living faith acts. That's why James says, even the demons believe that God is one, and they shudder. You see, you see, the devil is completely orthodox in his knowledge of scripture. He knows it better than us. He would fit in at many Bible studies as far as his knowledge of the Bible goes. Demons know the true things about God, but they remain in rebellion against God. So James destroys the idea that mere mental agreement with doctrine is enough. Saving faith is more than just believing facts. Demonic belief has knowledge without love and uh truth without surrender and awareness without worship. That's the world's way. That is striving for acceptance instead of living from acceptance. Saving faith is different because it produces that changed life. Now, is it possible for us, even as born-again believers, even those of us in here to say, yes, I am a believer in Jesus Christ, I know that I'm in Christ, is it possible for us to live in such a way that James could be describing us? The answer is, yeah. Sure it is. It absolutely is. And one of the most common ways is to reduce faith to words and have no action. When we reduce faith to words and we have no action, I mean, we can have words and we can confess the right doctrine, we can attend the right church, we can affirm the gospel, but if we show little evidence of love or repentance or obedience, then it's just words. James says a faith that only speaks but does not act is not a saving faith. Today you can look like someone who claims Christ but remained unchanged in your priorities, your habits, your affections. We can also demonstrate what James is talking about here if we ignore the tangible needs while offering spiritual language or being all talk with no action. It's super easy to say, hey, I'll pray for you. We need to stop saying that. Oh, hold on, go lay. We need to stop saying, I'll pray for you. And we need to start praying for people. And I learned this very early on in my walk with Jesus Christ. My dear brother Joe Hatfield from Rhode Island. If you think they're crazy in Connecticut, you should go to Rhode Island. Amen. Or New Hampshire, I guess. I'll never forget that one day I said to Joe, I said, Hey Joe, uh, can you pray for me about this thing? And I don't even remember the thing. And he scared me because I thought he was taking a swing at me, but what he was doing is he just grabbed my shoulders. And Joe was shorter than me, and he just grabbed my shoulders, and he just started praying for me. And he lifted me up to the throne of grace right then and there. And so, if somebody asks me to pray for them, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna slam my hands down onto your shoulder and go, Yes, right now. I don't like saying to people, I'll pray for you. I want to say, let's pray right now. Because if you're like me and you tell someone you're gonna pray for them, what happens two minutes after you walk away? Ego, friends, I The church, and this isn't a surprise to us, the church culture, by and large, in our country is about comfort, it's about convenience, it's about preference. Now, that's a whole sermon series, but the the problem is that our comfort and our convenience and our preferences begins to insulate us from the real needs of the people around us. When we come into a place like this and we demand our comfort and we demand our convenience and we demand our preferences, we are ignoring the real needs of the people around us. And what's worse, that makes us begin to rely on ourselves rather than relying on the Holy Spirit. We drift into a kind of self-sufficiency rather than and then we begin to ignore the needs around us or we attempt to address them under our own strength. Many people affirm true things about God, much like James says, even the demons do, but they resist submission to the authority of Jesus Christ. And that shows up in ongoing unrepentant sin, selective obedience, treating holiness as optional. You see, when faith doesn't lead to transformation in our lives, it reveals not just a lack of effort, but it deals a lack of dependence on the spirit who produces that transformation. James presses us to see that real faith works. Real faith works not perfectly, but genuinely, because it's spirit-empowered. And that brings us to the final piece here, that final heading. We move from the world's way, and then we need to consider the gospel way. Look at verse 21. 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. Our faith is vindicated by our action. Abraham was counted righteous in Genesis 15. And that faith was shown to be real what, seven chapters later in chapter 22, when he offered Isaac. In both cases, the works did not create faith, it revealed faith, it completed faith. And that's James's point, that faith alone justifies, but that faith that justifies is never alone. He calls us not to trust in a hollow profession, but to flee to Christ for a life that actually bears fruit for Christ. So the Christian life is not about striving to be accepted, but as believers, we are living from acceptance. If you're in Christ, God has accepted you, and God is never going to be mad at you again. Amen. God is never going to be mad at you again. And so a heart resting in Christ will begin to bear fruit. And that means we must continually return to the gospel, preaching the gospel to ourselves, remembering that our identity is in Christ, not in our performance. Charles Spurgeon said, faith and works are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God, and he that trusts God obeys God. That's the heartbeat of James. Faith is not just a statement that we make, it's a life that we live. Where there is true trust in Christ, there's going to be that growing pattern of obedience in our lives. The presence of works does not make faith real, but it proves that it is. And so from that foundation, we can walk by cultivating, we should be cultivating an active faith. We should be cultivating an active faith in our lives all the time. You say, oh, I've been following Jesus for 350 years. You should be the most mature Christian person that anyone has ever met. The longer you have been following Christ, the more mature of a Christian you should be. Now, I'm not trying to beat you up here. I'm just telling you that's what James is telling us. Real faith continually moves toward obedience. That looks like daily repentance, a growing hatred of our own sin, a sincere desire to honor Jesus in our lives. It's not perfection, it's direction. We begin to ask, instead of asking, what can I get away with, we start asking, what would please the Lord? Faith becomes that visible thing in how we speak, how we forgive, how we handle money, how we respond to suffering. And that living faith engages our whole life. And we also show this gospel by loving others in very practical and tangible ways. And James presses this clearly. If we see a need and don't do anything, our faith is empty. So we need to step into real needs and serving and giving and encouraging and bearing burdens. And this is very important, especially in the unseen places. Caring for the overlooked, showing hospitality, meeting needs without recognition. These works are not about being noticed, they're about reflecting what we've already received. When faith is real, love becomes active. And church, listen to me. This here's something that we as a church family really need clarity on. Is everybody waiting? Is everybody listen to say amen? Stop waiting for someone to ask you to serve. Now say amen again. Stop waiting for someone to ask you to serve. Somebody. How do I know? Because you've told me. Well, nobody asked me to serve. I'll tell you what, if you're waiting for that, you've lost the plot. Stop waiting to be asked to serve because obedience in the Christian life is not reactive, but responsive to the grace we already have. You see, the Bible doesn't call us to sit back until somebody notices us or invites us in. It calls us to see needs, to move towards them, and to love in tangible ways. When we delay and our pride gets in the way, and we're like, nobody's asked me to we're relying on convenience. We're relying on self rather than the leading of the Holy Spirit. And I gave I gave everyone a challenge last week. Pray for three people. And then text those three people and tell them that you prayed for them. And do that two or three times a week. Don't stop. Do it again this week. Because you know what I'm going to tell you to do next week? Same thing. Reach out to three or reach out to three new people. Or reach out to the same people and add a few more. Now, if you haven't gotten a text, it doesn't mean everyone hates you. It just means that they haven't somebody hasn't reached out to you yet. That's all it means. And I would also ask you, have you prayed for somebody and reached out and texted someone else? We need to keep up this momentum because I'll tell you, I've heard I've heard several really encouraging stories about this just from this week. Where people said, you know what? Somebody texted me and it was just the right time. And I really needed it because I was having such a hard moment. And then somebody texted me, somebody I don't know well from the church, and just said, Hey, I'm praying for you, and I love you, and I'm gonna keep praying for you. That's a simple way to love others in practical, tangible ways. And now, men, just for you men, listen to me. We started a pretty fun way for our men to stay connected. It's called the Marco Polo app. I'm not gonna repeat that because if you don't know who Marco Polo is, and if you have no idea what the Marco Polo app is, that's okay. I didn't until just a few days ago. It's just a great way to connect with other guys here. And we're gonna have a few special days during the week where we challenge each other. Uh Scotty and I have been on it. Will has been on it with us, and a couple other guys. I've seen you watching. Feel free to post something on there so we can interact with each other. It's just a great way to connect with other guys. And uh we're gonna have some challenges throughout the week, like I said, or or ask questions. It's all done in video form. So if you don't like looking at your face, tough, do it anyway because I have to do it with mine. So go download the app, it's free. Don't spend any money on it. You don't need to. The link is on, I think, my Facebook page, but we'll make it available to everybody. It's just another great way to connect in a meaningful way. And you say, well, what's the result of just praying for people and texting them or getting into the men's Marco Polo group? Slowly, First Baptist Church, we're taking that puzzle. We're taking that shiny box that's never been opened, and we're taking out a few pieces at a time, and we're assembling them piece by piece. We're gathered, but we need to assemble. If you remember, I read from Hebrews 10 last week, we're not called to gather, we're called to assemble ourselves together, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. You see, the writer of Hebrews is it and say, oh, you know, he's out playing golf on Sunday morning and he should be assembling with the other believers. No, this could be people in this room that just aren't assembling with other believers. And he says, and and so much the more as we see the day approaching. Is the day approaching? Sure is. And right now you say, Oh my goodness, there's so much in the world. Don't start digging a bunker in the backyard. Start sharing the gospel and exhorting each other. That's the instruction of scripture. You see, here's the point of all of this. When faith is real, love becomes active. When faith is real, love becomes active. A faith that does not result in works is a dead faith and it will never save anyone. It's not meant to drive us to despair, it's to awaken us. It presses us to examine ourselves, not to see if we are perfect, but to see if our lives bear the consistent marks of the living Savior. Do we see repentance? Do we see love? Do we see a growing desire for holiness for these things? These are the evidences of a faith that is alive. And that finally, here, that helps us to rely on the spirit, not on our own strength. We rely on the spirit. You see, our life in Christ isn't self-powered moral effort. It's spirit-enabled transformation, isn't it? As we abide in Christ through prayer, scripture, the life of the church, God produces fruit in us over time. Faith clings to Christ, and works flow out as the evidence of that union with Christ. And so the call of James is not just to believe rightly, but to live faithfully. Not to add works to faith as though Jesus was insufficient, but to see in our works the evidence that Jesus is, in fact, everything. And then here's the capstone of the whole thing. Look at verse 23. This should encourage all of us. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. This is this is from Genesis. Abraham did not earn righteousness, it was credited to him from God. This is the doctrine of justification by faith. God declares a sinner righteous, not on the basis of works, but on the basis of trust in his promise. That's why the offering of Isaac in chapter 22 didn't make him righteous. It revealed what he already was. His obedience was the visible evidence of that invisible faith. And then James, we get this remarkable title. That is the language of relationship, isn't it? Abraham was not just declared righteous in the courtroom of heaven, he was welcomed into fellowship with God, and the Bible says he was called a friend of God. That's what faith does, it brings us near. Abraham walked with God, he trusted God, he obeyed God. Was Abraham perfect? Mercy, no. But it was real, living relationship with the Lord. And that's the invitation that's held out to us in the gospel, isn't it? Through faith in Christ, we are counted as righteous, not because of what we've done, but because of what Jesus has done. And that same faith draws us into friendship with God, not a distant, formal connection, but a very personal, covenantal relationship. And just like Abraham, that relationship will be seen in the way we live. So, friends, let me end this way. The gospel never invites us to earn acceptance, it calls us to receive it. It calls us to that place of grace, to walk in a living faith. And so the invitation is simple and urgent. It is to come to Christ. If you've never trusted him, today is the day to lay down your striving and receive what he freely gives: forgiveness, righteousness, new life. And if you do belong to him, then hear the call of James to examine your life, not for perfection, but for the evidence of a living, growing faith. The invitation is real. The same God who counted Abraham righteous by faith calls us into that same relationship and that same friendship through Jesus Christ. And Mick's gonna come, we're gonna sing our final song. And I would invite you, if you need prayer, to come down. And the elders who are here, we're gonna come down and we'll be here to pray with you or for you. You're feel free to pray at the altar if you want to pray by yourself. If you want to make an offering, we we have our offering plates down here as well. You you can give online and plan it through your budgeting, or which is what we do as a family. You can give the offering boxes or during this time of response, you can make an offering. Whether you want to give or pray or be prayed for, we should respond and prepare for what the Lord has for us this week that He's shown us through James. Let's pray together. We thank you for your word and for the grace that has met us in it. And Lord, as we sing and prepare to go from this place, seal these truths upon our hearts and cause them to bear fruit in the lives of repentance and faith and obedience. Fix our hope firmly in Jesus Christ. Strengthen us by your spirit to walk in holiness, to love one another sincerely, and to bear witness to the gospel and everything that we do. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all now and forever. Amen.