Hello and welcome to the sermon podcast from Logos Community Church. Good morning. Let's try that again now. Good morning. Glad to see you this morning. Delighted that you've chosen to come and worship with us this morning. My name is Chris Elliott. For those of you that are new, Chris Elliott. I'm one of the pastors here at Logos Community Church. And we're gonna dig right in. I've titled the sermon this morning, Genuine Faith Always Produces Righteous Works. Let me pray, we're gonna jump right in. Lord Jesus, we know that we are completely incapable of understanding you. Lord, apart from the Holy Spirit helping us to understand, we are very, very needy people. And so, Lord, we humbly come before you this morning, admitting our need, our dependence upon you. Lord, give us understanding this morning. Help us understand your word. Lord, this is a very important message. Lord, challenge us, encourage us. Lord, reveal the lies that we've bought into, the deception that we're mired in. Lord, we ask that you would come this morning, do a mighty work in the hearts of your people. We ask this in Jesus' precious name, amen. So let me ask, what is the single most important question that's ever been asked in the Bible? Think about that a second. The single most important question that's ever been asked in the Bible. Anybody got an answer? Pretty good, pretty good. In Acts chapter 16, we find Paul and Silas. They have arrived at Philippi. And like was their custom, they immediately began to preach the gospel. So they're going around the city and they're sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. And the city was stirred up so much that the crowds actually charged them. An epic beatdown ensued. And in order to protect them, the officials in that city, they grab them and they put them in jail. Now, they weren't being punished. It was actually for their own safety, because if they hadn't done so, they probably would have been killed. And so while in prison, later that night, what do you think Paul and Silas are doing? Are they singing, woe is me? No, they're actually praying to God. They're praising and worshiping Jesus. And apparently they were so loud that everybody in that prison heard them. And then suddenly in the middle of the night, a great earthquake occurred. And it was so strong that it actually shook the foundations of that prison, and boom, all of the doors were opened in that prison. And when the jailer, when he woke up, he assumed, seeing all the open doors, he just assumed that, man, everybody had escaped, and so he thought the worst. And so he knew he was responsible for all of the prisoners, and knew that it was going to cost him his own life if they had escaped. And so he grabs his sword, and he begins to kill himself, and he hears this voice yell out, He says, hey, don't do that. Wait. Don't kill yourself. We've not gone anywhere. We're all here. And so the jailer, he grabs a light. He immediately rushes in. He falls at the feet of Paul. And what's the first thing that he asks? Had that been you? And you were the jailer. And in one moment, you're thinking, oh man, my life's going to end because These guys have escaped under my authority, my responsibility, and now all of a sudden you hear, hey, we're not going anywhere, man, you don't got to do that. You rush in and you see the guy who said that and you look around and everybody's there. What's the first thing you say? Well, the first thing this jailer said is, hey, what must I do? Acts 16 verse 31. What must a man do to be saved? That's the question that he asks. So how do Paul and Silas, they respond? They said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Now notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, hey, you gotta go do a bunch of stuff to be saved. You just need to believe in Jesus. Believe in the Lord Jesus. Salvation is by grace alone. It's through faith alone, and it's in Christ alone. By grace, through faith, in Christ. There is no other mathematical equation that you can put together that's gonna give you the same result of salvation. If you take one of the links out of that chain, the whole thing falls apart. And so the moment that we say that salvation is no longer by faith alone, faith that rests fully on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, hey, that we somehow, that we've got to bring something to the table, that we've gotta add something to that formula so that we can either earn or maintain through our performance what we've in essence done, it's that moment that it's no longer grace. It's merit. It's also the moment, whether we realize it or not, that we're saying that everything that Jesus Christ accomplished and provided on the cross and in his resurrection, that it's not good enough anymore because I've gotta add something else to it. And you know what that's called? That's called heresy. That is not a very good place to stand. Listen to what Paul says to the Ephesian church. Ephesians 2, verses eight and nine. He says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. Listen to that, he says, by grace you've been saved through faith. It's by grace, we didn't do anything to earn it. There's no merit on our behalf, no performance on our part. It's by grace. And that's what grace is. Grace is God doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. So it's by grace through faith. That's the vehicle. That's the mechanism that God has established. He says it's not of your own doing. It has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God from start to finish. He's the one that's done everything. It's not a result of work so that no one may boast. Again, Paul's just reinforcing the point that, hey, our salvation, it's not based on what we can offer. It's not based on what we can bring to the table. We can't earn our way into His good graces, and we can't earn His mercy. I'm gonna warn you ahead of time that as we come to our passage in James chapter two this morning, it's one of the most challenging and it's one of the most important passages, I think, in the entire Bible. And unfortunately, I also believe that it's often misunderstood. And so what we've seen so far in the first couple chapters of James is that for James in his mind, there's only two kinds of people. They have two different responses to trials, to difficult times when they come. Two different responses to temptation. Two different responses to the word of God. They have two different responses to those that are suffering and need around them. And so what James is doing, James is bifurcating people into two different categories. In one category, you've got a genuine Christian. In the other category, you've got a counterfeit Christian. What he's not doing is he's not saying this is what the world looks like and this is what a Christian looks like. He's talking to Christians and he's saying this is what a genuine Christian looks like and this is what a counterfeit Christian looks like. The genuine Christian, he's able to triumph during difficult times with joy. The genuine Christian, he's got an eagerness to respond to the Word of God with obedience. The genuine Christian examines his own heart for sin because he longs for purity. He longs to be cleansed from his filth that he now sees. He's able to control his tongue because his heart's been captured, his heart's been changed by the gospel. The genuine Christian, he's got compassion and he loves on those around him that he sees in need, those that are suffering. But the counterfeit Christian, he's not like that. The counterfeit Christian, there's no brokenness over sin. His character and his behavior, they remain just like the world around him. There's no real desire to want to obey. There's no compassion for those in need. No love for those that are suffering. Bottom line is that there's been no real transformation. And this morning, what we're gonna see is that the counterfeit Christian, hey, that although he may claim to have faith, James is gonna call it dead faith. It's the kind of faith that can't be verified by any fruit. You know, they may come to church. Sure, they may tithe. They may even teach a Sunday school class. They may be exposed regularly to the teaching of God's word. They may even believe in God. They may know all about the life of Jesus. They may even understand all the tenets of the gospel, but it's all superficial. It's never manifested itself into a transformed life. It's the kind of faith that doesn't produce any righteous fruit. And James is gonna say that the counterfeit Christian has dead faith, and catch this, the counterfeit Christian is not saved. Now let me be clear up front. James is not teaching that, hey, we've gotta go out and we've gotta get to work. That's our natural instinct. We wanna go work, we wanna go do stuff. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying that we've gotta go out and we've gotta add works to our faith, that we've gotta go out and work really hard at trying to produce this righteous fruit so that we can be saved. What he's doing in this passage is helping us to diagnose the condition of our heart. He's given us a spiritual checkup, as it were, as to what kind of faith we really do have, whether or not it's saving faith, living faith, and whether or not we're really a Christian. What he's saying is that you can know who you are, you can know whether or not you're really saved, you can know whether or not you do have living faith by looking at the product of your life. He's saying that, hey, real faith, genuine faith, Living faith always produces righteous work, always produces work. It's just a natural byproduct of the work that God's done in our hearts. And all that those works do is they simply give evidence to the kind of faith that we really have, whether or not it's living faith or dead faith. And James says exactly the same thing that Paul said. exactly the same thing that Jesus said. All three of these guys teach exactly the same thing, that we are justified before God, that we are made right before God by faith, by faith alone. And all three clearly teach as well that faith isn't alone. It doesn't exist by itself. Faith is not alone. Living faith produces works that are visible and verifiable, works that validate the veracity of our profession and claim of faith. Does that make sense, that distinction that I've made and where we're going this morning? So before we dig into our passage, I've done enough counseling and talked to enough people that it's really, really important that you are operating on the same page when it comes to, hey, what do things mean? So when we toss around terms like faith, we toss around terms like work, what does it really mean? So when we're talking about faith, what is faith? What is faith? Everybody stand up real quick. Now sit back down. That's faith. What you just demonstrated is biblical faith. You didn't just say, yeah, I believe that chair will hold me up. There was action. It was a verb. Faith is active. It's to put the full weight of our hope and expectation into something. Nobody sat down in that chair thinking, man, I'm looking forward to embarrassing myself, or I think that this chair is gonna fail me. No, you put the full weight and hope that that chair was gonna hold you up this morning so that nobody else laughed at you. And so as we walk through our passage this morning, I wanna define faith this way. Faith is trusting God and obeying God. Let me repeat that. Faith is trusting God and obeying God. What about works? When we talk about works, what are works? Is James, is he saying, hey, we gotta go out and we gotta do all the Ten Commandments, we gotta go work really hard, and all the 613, the expanded list that the rabbis came up with, and we've gotta follow all those? Is that what James is talking about? Is that how we're gonna define works? No, I don't think so. Let's define it this way. Works is loving God and loving others. Listen to how Jesus boils it down. Matthew 22, verses 34 to 40. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. He said, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. So Jesus says, love God, love others. And when you are really loving God, not perfectly because none of us love God, anybody love God perfectly this morning when they woke up? I know I didn't. I'm assuming none of us did as well. So it's not about perfection, it's about direction. When you really love God, that love's gonna produce some things in your life. It's gonna show evidence, it's gonna bear fruit, things that can be seen. And when you're really loving others, again, not perfectly because none of us do, but when we are really loving others, that love is also gonna produce some things, unmistakable things in your life. So let's dig into James chapter two, verses 14 to 17. 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 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 that does not have works is dead. So what is James asking right out of the bat in our text this morning? What kind of faith saves a guy? What kind of faith saves a person? And so track with me for a second. If there's a kind of faith that can save, there's also gotta be a kind of faith that can't save. Right, does that make sense? So we can have faith, we can possess a certain kind of faith and still not be saved. You catch that? We can possess a certain kind of faith and still not be saved. So if someone claims to be a Christian, if someone claims to be saved, but their life does not have works, doesn't have any fruit, doesn't produce any evidence to verify the claim that they're making, the profession that they're making, is that person really saved? That's really what James is asking this morning. He continues, if a brother or sister, and so this is somebody that's in the church, somebody that's in the Christian community, somebody that professes faith in Jesus. So if this person is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and the idea is that, hey, this person's destitute. It's not that this person doesn't just keep up with the latest fashion fad. This person is destitute. He's naked. He's exposed to the elements outside. He doesn't have what he needs to survive. Basically, this guy is homeless. He's living on the streets. He's starving to death. And James says, hey, what good is it if you see somebody like that, you see somebody in that condition, and all you do is give them lip service? What good is that? There's no love, there's no compassion, there's no provision. There's no sacrifice for the one in need. What good is it if all you do is respond with the latest Christian jargon? Hey, I'm praying for you, brother. Hey, may God bless you in your time of need, sister. I'm praying for you too. Hey, all you gotta do is let go and let God. Hey, if you'll just meet him halfway, he'll meet you the rest. What good is it if that's the extent of our response? And the answer is, hey, absolutely nothing. That is absolutely of no value to you. That's absolutely of no value to the one in need. I read this quote from the New American Commentary, and I thought it was really good. This is what it says, a word of blessing without the act of blessing is like the promise of salvation without the saving act of God in Christ. Man, that hurts. A word of blessing without the act of blessing is like the promise of salvation without the saving act of God in Christ. James's point is, hey man, this guy's all talk. That's all he is. He may claim to have faith, but there's no action to back it up. It's unmistakable. All you gotta do is look. As a genuine Christian, you've come to know and you've come to experience, you've come to see God's love in your own life. Why? Well, one of the reasons is so that you can love others. God's shown you compassion. Why? One of the reasons is so that you can show compassion to others in need. God's shown you grace. Why? One of the reasons is so that you can extend grace to others. If God has given you an abundance, it's not so that you can hoard it. It's so that you can provide for others in need. That's how it works. The Christian life isn't a stagnant pond. The Christian life is a flowing stream. This is what it looks like when the gospel is flowing out of your life and into the world around you. James is saying that, hey, how you respond to a person in need is an indicator to what's really going on in your heart. You just can't escape that reality. And so what does James say about this particular person? What kind of faith do they have? He says they have dead faith. What do dead people do? Nothing. That's the whole point. Dead people, they don't do anything. And they can't help it because they're dead. That's the comparison that James is making. He says it's obvious, it shouldn't surprise us. This guy might claim to be a Christian, he might claim to have genuine faith, but when it came down to it, his faith proved to be dead. It was empty, there was no substance there. He failed the test. At that moment, nothing in his life demonstrated that his faith was the real deal. There were no external, visible signs of life. James continues in verses 18 and 19. 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. I love the sarcasm there. Even the demons believe and shudder. And so what James is doing, this may seem a little bit strange if you're reading this and you don't understand what's going on, what James is doing is he's using an imaginary opponent. He's got this antagonist that he's gonna have a conversation with over the next few verses, and he's gonna use this antagonist so that he can make his point crystal clear. He says, but someone will say. Now he didn't call anybody out by name. Maybe he's got somebody in mind as he's writing this letter to these Jewish Christians. We don't know. So it could be kind of like, you know, and we've all done that when we ask a kind of an embarrassing question. You know, I've got this friend that wants to know Or maybe it was, I've got this guy and his name begins with a C and sounds like Chris. We don't really know if he has somebody in mind as he's writing this. All we do know is that, hey, there's this antagonist and he's gonna use this antagonist in a very powerful way. But someone will say. So the antagonist, he says, hey, hey James, he says, you have faith? I have works. And so this guy is saying, hey James, I don't really need works. I have faith, that's all I really need. That's good enough for me. And so this is the antagonist way of trying to disconnect faith from works, of arguing that works aren't necessary. And so how does James respond to that? He says, show me. You say you have faith, show me. Let me see it. Oh, by the way, I can show you what I believe. All you have to do is look at my life. All you need to do is follow me around and you can see the evidence. You can listen to how I talk. You can look at what I do. You can look at how I respond. You can look at the totality of my life and you'll be able to see the evidence. Should be obvious. You say you have faith, show me what you got. Let me see it, I hear what you're saying, let me see it. And the problem is that he can't. And so James has completely disarmed this antagonist, this guy, because without works, there's nothing to verify this guy's claim. Listen to what Paul tells Titus in Titus 1, verses 16. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. So Paul is saying, a little more forceful, he's saying the exact same thing. It doesn't matter what you claim, it only matters what you demonstrate. It doesn't matter what you profess, it only matters what you practice. You can claim anything you want, but those claims aren't really valid unless they're producing fruit, unless they're producing works. Something tangible, something that others are gonna be able to see. Something in your lifestyle that matches what you say that you believe. And so look at what James says about the someone that believes that faith can be disconnected from works. He says, you believe in God, you do well. Again, sarcasm. Even the demons believe in shudder. That's a huge gut shot right there. I don't know about you, those are very sobering words when you understand what he's really saying. He's saying that it's possible, it's really possible to be spot on theologically about God, to be spot on about who Jesus is, about what the gospel is, and still be dead spiritually, still have an unregenerate heart. James is saying, hey, don't be deceived. Making a claim to have faith is not enough. Knowing the facts about God, knowing the facts about Jesus, knowing the facts about the gospel is not enough. Don't be deceived into believing that that's all that it takes. As a matter of fact, if what James described is you, that perhaps you are very theologically sound, you profess faith in God, but there's no fruit to back it up, there's no works to verify your claim, then James says that what you actually have is demonic faith. Because in the end, all that's waiting for you is destruction. All that's waiting for you is God's wrath, eternal judgment. It might be hard to believe, but demons are far more orthodox in their theology than we are. They know exactly who God is. They know exactly who Jesus is. They know He's the Son of God. They know what He did on the cross. They know He resurrected from the dead. They have no misunderstanding about the gospel. And James paints these guys in a more positive light, these demons in a more positive light than this antagonist. Because he says, hey, at least they're in a state of panic because they know what's coming. They shudder at what they know. You do nothing. There's not even an emotional response from you. Demons are terrified. This guy is actually worse off. because it's been revealed to him that, hey, it's been nothing more than an intellectual exercise. It's just been mental assent to the facts about something, but he's been deceived into believing that his faith is real, but it's been proven to be empty. It's been proven to be dead. So living faith is kind of like the wind. You can't really see the wind, but its effects are unmistakable. And so for the rest of our passage this morning, what James is going to do is he's going to take a look at two biblical characters and he's going to show us what living faith really looks like. He continues in verse 20 to 24. 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. Notice that he describes this guy's faith a little bit differently than he did before. Earlier he called this guy's faith, he called it dead. You know, dead doesn't do anything. It's dead, it's completely unresponsive. Now he calls this guy's faith, he calls it useless. He's saying, hey, it's sterile. It's barren. It's never gonna be able to provide what you're hoping for, salvation. It's not gonna be able to do it. Now we all know that, hey, if you're in a debate or you're in an argument or you're in a discussion with somebody, and you want to give an example, you always want to give your best example up front. You always want to play your ace in the hole, right? Because it just makes your case stronger. And so who better for James to offer up than Abraham? I mean, Abraham is the great patriarch. I mean, he is highly esteemed, not only among the Jewish people, but among Christians as well. He's the classic illustration of saving faith, a faith that is both alive and active. And so what James is trying to do is demonstrate that the kind of faith that Abraham possessed went much further than an intellectual exercise. It was much further than mere mental assent. And so if we go all the way back to our first introduction of Abraham in the Bible, we wind up in Genesis chapter 12. And Abraham's probably about 75 years old at this point. And so God, he goes to him and he calls him out of that pagan land that he was living and he tells him, hey, Abraham, I want you to pack up everything that you own and your family and I want you to start moving. I'm gonna tell you when you get to where I want you to go I'll let you know when you've arrived, get to stepping. And so off he went. And the only thing that he was holding onto was the promise that God had just made him, that he was gonna make him into a great nation. He said, hey, look at the stars of the sky. I'm gonna make you into a great nation with descendants as many as the stars in the sky. And so Abraham followed by faith in the one true God. And so now decades later, We now find ourself in Genesis chapter 21. God provided the very thing that he desperately longed for. God provided him a son. And so God had opened up the barren womb of his wife, Sarah, and she miraculously conceived and Isaac was born. How long did Abraham have to wait on God? I'm impatient if I gotta wait 15 minutes to drive in for food. He waited 25 years for God to fulfill His promise with the Son. 25 years. Now skip ahead. Another 10, maybe 15 years, and we now find ourself in Genesis chapter 22. Isaac is now a young man, maybe even a teenager at this point. And God puts Abraham to the test by telling him, hey, now what I want you to do is I want you to take your son, I want you to go up on Mount Moriah, and I want you to offer him as a burnt offering. Let that sink in. We don't wanna dehumanize Abraham at this point. Well, he was just a great, great man of faith. Let that sink in for a minute. God was now asking Abraham to sacrifice the very child that he had miraculously provided him. For some 40, maybe even 50 years, Abraham had walked with God. He had come to know God, he had come to experience God in his life, and God was asking him to do something that was completely outside the realm of anything that he knew to be true about God. Nothing that he was being asked to do seemed to reflect anything that he knew about God's love. None of it made sense. It didn't seem to reflect anything about God's grace. Why would God want me to kill my own son? Hey God, what about that promise about all the descendants making me into a great nation? What happens to that promise? What are others gonna think? Maybe even a more important, how in the world am I gonna explain this to Sarah? You know, nothing about this makes sense, at least from a human perspective. And so how does Abraham respond? Does he argue with God? God, you know, I don't think that's a really good idea. Does he make any excuses? No, he doesn't. We see immediate obedience. There's no hesitation at all. Early the next morning, he gets up and he heads to the mountain with his son. I wonder what the conversation was like with Isaac along the way. I mean, Abraham knows what's coming. Isaac doesn't. I wonder what that conversation was like. We know that Isaac asked about the animal. Abraham said, hey, God's going to provide. You think there was any resistance when Abraham put his hands on his son and he began to bind him and tie him up with the rope? You think there's any crying going on here? You think Abraham thought that, hey man, at any moment I'm gonna be the first guy in all of human history that's gonna witness a resurrection? We don't know. What we do know is that Abraham trusted God. He was obedient to what God called him to, and when the time came, at the last possible moment, so his son is on the altar, the last possible moment, Abraham's got his knife in the air and he's ready to lay it into his son to do what God asked him to do. At the last possible moment, God stopped him. And so back in our passage in James chapter two, When does James say that Abraham was justified by works? It says when Isaac, when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar. He's saying, it was at this point that Abraham was justified by his works. My question is, but justified to whom? Justified to who? To God? Well, that can't be the case, because we're told that he was actually justified before God way back in Genesis chapter 15, verse six. I think a better way to understand what James is trying to say, instead of the term justified, I think James is trying to say verified. In Genesis chapter 22, Abraham's faith was actually verified, but not before God. God knew the contents of his heart. His faith was verified before men. It's at this point that by faith he completely trusts God. He trusts that God is still gonna make good on his promise. And then he acts out on that faith by doing what God asked him to do, which was offer up his son Isaac on the altar. James continues, he says, faith was completed by his works. James is saying, hey, his faith was brought to its proper conclusion. It reached its ultimate goal. Being justified before God will always, always, always manifest itself visibly to the world around us through our works, through loving God, loving others. And we see this here, Abraham loved God and it was made evident and visible for all to see. Think of it this way. The reality of Abraham's justification before God was now being demonstrated through his life, was now being made visible for everyone to see in his works. And this is what it looks like when the gospel works in us and then works through us as a genuine Christian. James continues, he says, he was called a friend of God. This was the result of his faith being proven to be real, of his faith being proven through his works to be genuine. And what an honor that was. Abraham is my friend, a friend of God. What a distinction. Look how Jesus says it in John 15, verse 14. He says, you are my friends if you do what I command. This honor, this distinction is only reserved for those who trust God and obey God. James continues, he says, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Again, he's teaching, he's not teaching a works-based salvation here. All he's doing is driving home his point that faith and works, hey, they're connected. You can't disconnect them. Faith and works are connected. It was designed that way by God. Genuine faith can't be separated from works. We're saved by faith, absolutely. We're saved by faith alone, absolutely. But faith is never left alone. It doesn't, that's not how it exists. We're justified, made right before God through faith alone. That's how it's always been, but living faith is demonstrated through our works. That's when our faith reaches its ultimate goal. That's when faith is proven to be real. Do you see that? That's when our faith is proven to be real. James continues. Verse 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. So James, now he's moved from Abraham, his first character that he looked at to prove his point, now he's going to Rahab, his second character. And I don't think he could have chosen... I mean, Abraham, yeah, we can rally around that. Abraham, go, yeah, he's awesome. Rahab, really? I don't think he could have chosen a stronger contrast to Abraham than Rahab. I mean, Abraham was a Jew. Rahab was a Gentile. Abraham was a man and considered by everyone to be a good man. Rahab was a woman and known by everybody to be filthy and wicked because she was a prostitute who had used and abused and sold her body to earn a living. Abraham was a great patriarch. Rahab was just a lowlife. But despite all that, she still finds herself listed into the Hall of Faith of Hebrews 11 because of her beautiful example of faith in action. So the story of her life is found in Joshua chapter 2. And so she's a resident of this great city called Jericho, which was considered to be one of the most fortified cities in existence at that time. It was really thought to be impenetrable by any kind of invading army. And so the inhabitants of that city, they really thought that they were invincible because their city had stood for hundreds of years. And probably through her interaction in her business, as she was selling her body, she began to hear rumors. Hey, there's these Jewish people that are coming! They brought total destruction on everybody that stood before them, and they're on their way to Jericho. And these rumors began to get louder and louder. And then one day, two guys show up, two spies. You've never met these guys before. They show up, they're there to scout out the land, gather the necessary intelligence so that God's people can bring about destruction on Jericho and annihilate everybody and everything that's there. Somehow the king got word that the spies were hiding out at Rahab's house, and so he sent maybe a security team there so that he could arrest them. And when Rahab hears the knock at the door, what does she do? She hides the spies and lies to the officials. I don't know where they are. They probably went that way all the time they were hiding out in her house. So listen to her conversation with those two spies after the officials left. Joshua 2, verses 9 to 14. I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all 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 two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction and 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 earth beneath now then please swear to me by that Lord As I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and mother and brother and sisters, all who belong to them and deliver our lives from death. And the men said to her, our life for yours, even to death, if you do not tell this business of ours and when the Lord gives us this land, we will deal kindly and faithfully to you. Now in that moment, it wasn't enough for Rahab to just have mental assent. Yeah, I hear what you're saying guys. That wasn't enough to cognitively agree with what they're saying. That's not the takeaway that we should get from this passage. What Rahab had just done was commit treason. It was serious. The punishment for her and her entire family was execution. She had just committed treason against her own people by her actions. And she was willing to risk everything. Why was Rahab willing to risk everything? Because she saw for the first time in her life that rescue was on the way. Salvation was coming. And she was able to see and able to understand. Now she didn't know much about God at this point. She's not a seminary graduate. She knew very little about God. She was very limited in her understanding. But what she did know had penetrated her heart. It had given her a holy fear. It had given her hope in God's instrument of salvation. And it had given her the strength to risk everything and completely trust in God. What was God's response to Rahab? Grace. It was grace. That's always been God's response to genuine faith. She didn't deserve to be rescued. She didn't deserve salvation. She was as filthy as they come. She was a very wicked woman. But when she had the opportunity to demonstrate her trust in God, she was willing to risk everything and put her own life on the line. And it's at that point that her faith was made visible, that her faith was verified to be real. That's living faith. And so both Abraham and Rahab, were deeply committed to God. Their stories aren't mere professions of faith. This is not just shallow religious activity. Both of their lives were characterized by their willingness to risk everything, regardless of the cost. Their lives, to borrow from Jesus's language, their lives were characterized by their willingness to offer up the most important things in their lives, to trust him above all else. And James closes out the chapter by reiterating his main point once again. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. So when the spirit is missing from the body, what do you have? A corpse? Death? You've got a body that is rotting. The stench is horrible. It's nasty, it's disgusting, it's absolutely worthless. There's no substance there. And so when works are missing from faith, what do you have? That's the comparison that James is making. You have something that is disgusting, nasty, rotting, absolutely worthless. No substance. And I think what James is doing by closing out chapter 2 in this way is he's saying, hey, what about you guys? He's not asking, hey, what does the profession of your faith sound like? What he's asking is, hey, what does your life look like? You say one thing, but you do something else. Your lip service, it's not backed up by your lifestyle. Your professions, it's not validated by your practice. You say you really believe in God, but you don't obey him. You say you really love God, but when the opportunity comes to demonstrate that love, to demonstrate that faith, to demonstrate that trust, you aren't willing to pay the price. The cost is just too much. You're not willing to pick up your cross and follow Him. And if that's you, if that's you, James is talking to you and that's you, that's where you find yourself this morning, Then your faith is empty, your faith is dead, and your faith is useless, and it will not save you. That's the message that James is getting across. It's not gonna be able to save you from the wrath to come. Paul, he administers a very similar challenge in 2 Corinthians 13, verse five. And so as our communion team gets ready, I wanna close out with this this morning. He says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test. Now notice what Paul's not doing. He's not saying, hey guys, I want you to remember back to a special time when you prayed this special prayer to ask Jesus to come into your heart, or I want you to remember back to this date when you walked an aisle He's asking them, hey guys, I want you to examine your lives, examine yourselves. I want you to take a spiritual inventory. Take a look at the product of your lives. What is your life producing? What's your life revealing about what kind of faith you really have? Why? Why, why is he doing that? Because they were making claims just like the people that James was addressing. This church in Corinth, some of the people that were making claims, they were professing faith in God, but they didn't have any works to verify, to validate those claims, that profession of faith. Sure, they were coming to church, much like James' group that he's addressing. They were singing songs of worship like we did this morning. They were still sitting under and hearing the preached word, but their lives were completely devoid of any evidence of living faith. And so undoubtedly, Paul was deeply concerned about these guys. And so he encourages them, hey, examine your life. And what about you this morning? As you examine your life, what do you see? When you do a spiritual inventory, what do you see? Do you see a life that's characterized by living faith, or do you see a life that's characterized by dead faith? Do you see a life where your works betray your profession of faith, or do you see a life where your works confirm it? Let's pray. Wow, Jesus, thank you that you love us enough. We can read the Gospels and we can see the caveats that you provide. You've done that in James, you've done that in Paul, that you love us enough, that you don't want us to be deceived about the true condition of our hearts. God, my prayer this morning is that the message that Your Holy Spirit has brought to bear on our hearts, Lord, it would either encourage us, affirm the fact that we do have living, saving faith, or Lord, that it would destroy us this morning, everything that we've built our life around and reveal to us that we have dead faith and that we desperately need Jesus. Lord, I pray that nobody would leave here this morning with that question unanswered. And God, as we celebrate communion, and that's what we do, we celebrate it knowing that your body was broken, your blood was shed so that we could have life. So Lord, we say thank you. As we come and we take communion and we celebrate what you've done on our behalf. It's in the mighty name of Jesus we pray, amen.