Active Faith

Introduction

A. Sometimes we come to scripture and we need explanation. Sometimes we come to scripture and we just need to let it filter into our hearts and act on what we hear. In many ways, the letter of James to scattered believers is like the latter. James is not difficult to understand in most verses. What is difficult is allowing the message to impact us so that we are motivated to respond appropriately. Our text this morning doesn’t require a lot of explanation. It does require all of us allowing the words to affect how we engage this world.

B. As we begin today — we would agree that we are people of faith and that we want our faith to be evident to others. James says the evidence of our faith is seen in actions. Soren Kierkegaard tells the story of a make-believe country in which only ducks live. One Sunday morning all the ducks came into the church, waddled down the aisle and into their pews, and squatted. Then the duck minister took his place behind the pulpit, opened the duck Bible and read, “Ducks! You have wings, and with wings you can fly like eagles. You can soar into the sky! Use your wings!” All the ducks yelled “Amen!” and they all waddled home.

C. I’m trusting that today we are not going to “waddle” out of here, but with new resolve try to be people who actively demonstrate our faith. I’ve asked Randy to lead us in songs affirming our faith as we begin. Let’s be encouraged.

Demonstrating Faith

A. The point of this section isn’t in doubt — Real faith acts. Someone who claims to have faith and doesn’t act in faithful ways is not genuine. Go back to 2:1 — as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, our faith must be seen. It is interesting to me that James choose to illustrate this point by having a conversation between one who is rich and one who is poor. But in reality if we go back to chapter 1:27, he has already instructed that we are to care for the poor and the orphans as a demonstration of our faith.

B. Then in the first part of chapter 2, he illustrates favoritism by using a scenario of rich and poor. It seems that James is very concerned about how the rich are treating the poor. Having been scattered because of persecution there would have been many believers who have been forced to go without needs being met. Genuine faith acts on behalf of those in need. This seems to be James’ first point about active faith.

C. Joseph Stowell is the President of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Moody is right downtown and so he will often walk right past a Starbuck’s coffee shop, get coffee and walk on down to Moody Bible Institute. On this particular cold, winter morning, he’s walking by and there’s a homeless lady out there selling newspapers. Maybe you’ve seen them. The newspaper is called Streetwise. They sell them in every major city in the United States. They charge a $1 for them. He reaches in and gets a $1. Hands it to the lady and she says, “Do you really want the paper or can I keep it and sell it to somebody else?” He decides for at least a moment, he’ll engage her in a conversation. He says, “No, you can keep the paper.” And he says, “Well, how are you anyway?” And she said, “Well, to be honest with you, I’m really cold and I wish it weren’t so nasty out here today.” He turned around and said to her, “Well, I hope the weather gets better and it gets easier for you.” And he said, “I walked off down the street holding my hot cup of coffee warming my hands.” He said, “I got about a block and a half away when it dawned on me what I had just done.” He said, “I probably should have turned around and taken the coffee back to her but I didn’t. I walked on to work and it has haunted me ever since.”

D. Some of you may have heard of Tony Campolo. Campolo is a sociologist who is famous for rather strong sermons. He showed up on the World Day of Prayer in order to preach to a group of ladies, maybe a thousand or so ladies at a church. When just before he was to get up and speak the hostess read a letter from a missionary that needed $5,000.00 to buy some medical equipment in order to carry out this mission and she turned to Campolo and said, “Would you pray that God provides what this lady needs?” And he said, “No, I won’t, but I’ll tell you what I will do.” He took all the money out of his pocket. He said, “I’ll give all the money I have with me today. I’ll put it right up here. I’m going to ask you to do the same.” He had $2.25 by the way. Pretty safe thing to do. And he turned to the hostess and he said, “Okay, put all your cash up here.” And she did. And then he turned and said, “Now ladies, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to give all the money we have here and if there isn’t enough then we’ll ask God to write out a check for the rest.” Nobody moved. So he looked down at one lady and he said, “I’m serious, bring your offering up here.” And so, reluctantly they moved through a whole crowd of a thousand people who started bringing money up to the stage. When they got all done they counted it. They had $7,000.00 lying there on the stage and he said, “Why in the world would you ask God to do something when he’s already given to you the means to get it done.”

Application

A. What are some illustrations of the application of this truth?

1. A person shares a need with us and we say, "I'll pray for you," but we don't pray, and we do nothing further.

2. A single parent is obviously having difficulty making ends meet and caring for his/her children, and we say, "Oh, I'd love to help you," but we don't.

3. An abused person begins to remember their past. We say how sorry we are for the traumatic events of their life, but then neglect them and don't help them find a place or a person to bring them to healing/counsel.

4. An elderly person, e.g., a grandparent, a church member, has the necessary food, clothes and shelter, but indicate they would love a visit or an invitation to go out and we say, "Isn't that sad. Somebody really ought to stop by and see them." But we don't.

B. What does genuine faith look like then? James gives two more illustrations Abraham and Rahab. Both acted in faith when their actions didn’t make any sense. Abraham offering his son Isaac and Rahab going against her own culture in order to preserve spies from Israel. Both went against the norm. Both trusted God for the result. Their actions speak about our own.

C. In the early church, in Acts 2, there was genuine concern for the needs of brothers and sisters. No possession was held back. If there was a “genuine” need and it was in their power to supply it, they met the need. A description of Christians to the Roman emperor Hadrian in the second century is as follows: “They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home, and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don’t consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers, instead, through the Spirit, in God.”

D. We are people of faith. Will we leave today to soar in faith or will we waddle home to be safe and comfortable? Invitation.

Follow Jesus

If you’d like to respond to this message or learn more about following Jesus, please reach out.