How to Have Real Faith

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

What does it mean to have real faith?  An issue that again has been around, we’ve all heard it before.  How can people who profess to believe in God do the things that contradict that belief?  How could people in the church do that?  How can that pastor, elder, deacon run out his wife or her husband?  How can that person do that and say the things they believe?  This is an issue that James faced as well and one that he addresses, talking about what it means to have real faith. As we listen to what James tells us you need to understand some things.  One is that this passage I will read to you today may be one of the most controversial in the Bible.  Certainly it is one of the most misunderstood.  Every cult misunderstands it and they try to use this passage to prove you have to work your way into heaven.  Even many Christians do the same.  It is important that as we listen to understand that the entire New Testament, indeed the whole Bible, has one message.  That we are saved, that we have our right relationship with God through faith alone.  It is by grace through faith that we are saved.  It seems that James comes along and says something quite different.  He says, “It’s not just by faith but by faith and works.”  What in the world is he talking about?  That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Listen carefully to the word of God as it comes to us from the second chapter of James.

12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment! 14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. 25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. 

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Please pray with me.

Father we pray for ourselves as we listen to your word now.  We pray that James’ words would strike our hearts and minds, that we would examine our faith, that we would see ourselves as we should.  Lord, may your Spirit be upon us.  In Jesus name, amen.

It seems like today that if you use the word “real” you sell more things.  Over the years we’ve seen that.  Coca-cola used to be called “the real thing.”  And today we of course we have “reality” television, of course its anything but reality.  People are so interested in the genuine article.  Maybe they use it because it attracts folks.  Today we are going to continue in a series talking about how to have a faith that works.  The title today is “How to Have Real Faith.” In some sense it is a play on words because for James faith is real when it works. 

What about this thing with Paul and James?  I want to start out by saying again that the message of the entire Bible, Old and New Testament, that our right relationship with God is based on grace.  Grace is God’s unearned and undeserved favor or blessing.  Even the Old Testament, a lot of people have the misconception that the Old Testament is about judgment that it’s about law.  It has all those things in it but from the very beginning it’s been about grace.  When Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden after they sinned, the first thing God did for them was a very tender thing.  He made clothes them and then he promised them salvation.  That One would come who would bring it by grace on earth undeserved.  A little bit later Abraham is plucked out of Haran, the place where he lived, minding his own business, worshiping who knows what.  God appears to him and says, “Come I’m choosing you by grace and taking you to Canaan.”  And we see a man that lived by grace.  He did believe God and it was credit to him as righteousness.  His righteousness was credited because he believed in God, evidenced by his works later. We see the entire history of Israel like this.  It starts with Abraham; goes on to Isaac, we see the promise, the grace; then we see Jacob.  Now you ought to go read about Jacob.  I’ve said this several times.  Jacob was the kind of man you wouldn’t trust in a dark alley and yet he is chosen by God above his brother by grace, he didn’t do anything he was just chosen.  Then on and on it goes. God blesses Joseph by making him the king of Egypt.  Not because of what he did, because it was part of the plan.  And then the Israelites, again and again and again they fail and again and again and again God sends a judge or a prophet.  It goes on and on throughout the Book of Judges and goes on and on throughout Samuel, throughout Kings, its all by grace, they don’t deserve it.  They didn’t earn it. It’s all by grace.  Jesus comes along and says, “Do you know what salvation looks like?  Believe in me.” God so loved the world that he gave His one and only son that who so ever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  Jesus is in a conversation with the people around him who say, “What works must we do?”  He says pointedly, “The work of God is this, to believe in the one he sent.  That’s the work and I’m the one, believe in me.”

Along the way there was a problem, it got lost.  Somewhere along the line they began to believe that in order to be right with God you had to keep the rules.  You had to keep all the laws outwardly.  Paul brings biblical correctness that has been true all along, that our relationship has as its foundation grace through faith.  You and I are related to God rightly by grace through faith.  We can’t be good enough.  The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” if you keep trying to do it, you’re just going to keep falling down.  Give your life to him by faith and you’ve go it.  That’s what Paul is trying to do.  He’s dealing with that situation.  He’s dealing with a legalism that had grown up, correcting something that had gone wrong. James on the other hand, is facing a little bit different situation.  He’s facing an established congregation who already knows all this.  James is very interesting.  He’s a preacher and he’s a very good preacher.  Now good preachers will always do something.  They will always try to get your attention before they speak.  Like the pastor who walked in, got up for his sermon and yelled out at the top of lungs, “SEX! Now that I’ve got your attention I want to say a few words to you.”  James does this.  He’s already got their attention quite a lot by talking about a very hard issue.  About why do people suffer?  He’s already talked a lot about temptation.  He’s already talked about how to talk to others.  Now he’s talking about something even more hard.  Like a good preacher he’s starting to step on toes a little bit.  He is dealing with a very tough issue.  He’s dealing with Christians who say they’re Christians but not acting like Christians.  He’s talking about easy believe-ism.  He’s talking about laxity.  He’s facing a very different situation.  It’s very obvious if you read James that he has read the writings of Paul.  It’s very obvious.  He uses the very same language Paul uses in Romans.  Paul uses the example of Abraham to prove that were saved by grace through faith he says, “Now consider Abraham.  What does it say about Abraham?  That he believed God and it was credit to him as righteousness.”  James comes along and uses the very same language and says, “Well, yes that’s true but he proved it later by his works.”  I can almost see James kind of laughing as he does it.  Its very obvious that the audience is very familiar with Paul as well.  He is getting their attention.  He’s almost saying something that sounds like heresy but its not.  Its addressing a very serious issue, that faith is proved by what we do. 

What is faith? What can we say that faith is?  Maybe we have to start with what it is not.  Faith is not just what we say.  Faith is not what we say.  James says, “What good is it if we claim faith without deeds?”  A gallop poll was taken quite a few years ago.  That gallop poll showed that there were fifty million Christians or people in the United States that claimed to be born again.  The question that’s left unstated is, “why hasn’t that made a difference?” another poll was taken by a man named George Barna just a few years ago that asked a question of Christians, “How much does your faith, how much does the Bible, how much what you believe influence your decision making process?”  Only ten percent said that it did.  Christians who say they are Christians but not acting like Christians,  making decisions about who to get married to, where to go live,  What house to buy with no inkling of saying a prayer about it, or reading the Bible, turning on Oprah, or Dr. Phil or somebody, anybody, any kind of self-help book.  Christians saying their Christians without acting like Christians.  It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?  Kind of what James is doing.  He’s saying that, “real faith is not just how you feel.”  Feelings are a good thing.  I like to say that you if have no passion in your marriage you don’t have much of a marriage.  If you have no passion in your faith you don’t have much of a faith. We all know that feelings sometimes have to do more with what we ate that day.  Sometimes they have to do with whether we’ve been sick or how we have been treated or whatever they happen to be.  It’s not how you feel. James gives the example he says, “you may feel pity for someone.  To go out to someone who is cold and hungry and pat them on the head and say ‘be well, it’s okay’ then walk off.  If you haven’t helped them, you haven’t done anything.” 

In a Peanuts cartoon we see that very scene played out with Charlie Brown and Linus.  It’s a very cold day, its snowing outside, and Snoopy is out on his dog house just shivering.  Charlie Brown and Linus walk out and go up to Snoopy and say, “Be warm and well,” then they walk back in. 

Real faith is not just how you feel.  It’s also not just how you think.  There was a headline recently that said, “Anthony Flew....is now a theist.”  You may not know who Anthony Flew is but he is a fairly well known philosopher of the twentieth century who was a leading atheist.  He would argue with Christians and theists all the time and do quite well in some ways.  It’s big news for someone like this to say, “I think there’s a God now.”  And he did.  He’s become an old man and in his thinking he is has decided there must be some kind of god out there.  I say that’s a great start.  But there are other questions:  Which god do you believe in?  what is your relationship to that god?  how does thinking that God exists affect you and your actions?  Many people think that there’s a God, acknowledge there’s a God and even many people think Jesus existed.  Many people think a lot of things but it has no impact on how they live.  Many people have an intellectual thing or belief.

That’s the next thing.  Real faith is not just about what you believe.  Now we are getting a little closer to home.  James says this, he says, “Even the demons believe in God and they shudder.”  So what if you believe in God?  So what if you believe in Jesus?  How does that make you different from demons?  That’s what James is saying.  So what?  If you haven’t shown what you believe by what you do so what?  It’s much more than that.  Another survey was taken of some prominent areas of our country.  The headlines read, “This suburb has many believers but not many people who act on their faith.” That is true in our day.  There are many, many people who claim to be Christian but never go to church.  I’m not judging them. They might be genuine Christians who just go fed up.  There are a whole lot of folks out there for whatever reasons in and outside of the church who claim to believe and yet have very little impact on their lives.  The question for all of us here is what impact does it have for us?  Real faith has to do with what you do.  Now James is not saying anything about profession because having real faith is also a process of growth. 

Many of us don’t remember when we became Christians and that’s okay.  Some of us do, some of us had to get kicked in the head, I remember the day.  I remember walking in one way and walking out another.  It was like a light going off in my head.  Here is my analogy for it, as a non-Christian it was like I was walking down a tunnel a dark one, toward darkness, walking along bumping into things, without knowing where I was going.  When I became a Christian I literally turned around and walked the other way and at the end of that tunnel was a light.  In many ways, when I became a Christian I was in the same spot, I still had a lot of pagan things rolling around. A lot of bad ideas, a lot of problems, still do.  Throughout thirty years I’ve been walking toward the light and hopefully I’m a little further down the path.  If you’re like me as you’re walking down the path there are a lot of side paths. And as we get off on these paths God keeps saying, “Get back on the path, walk toward the light.”  So it’s a process.  Having real faith doesn’t mean you don’t mess up.  Having real faith doesn’t mean we don’t get off the path some times.  But what James is saying to us is that our deeds are a good barometer for us.  They may mean that we’re not Christians, if you’re doing nothing.  If you’re just plugging along if your faith means nothing to you other than just that you believe maybe you should question yourself.  But it may also mean that you’ve gotten off the path a little bit.  It may be that you need to repent, that’s a hard word.  It may mean you just need to step back and evaluate where you are, what are you doing?  Faith without works is dead.  What is your faith like?

Last thing that faith is that it is a relationship.  It is a loving relationship, a trusting relationship.  That’s what faith means in the Bible.  The Greek is about a trusting relationship one in which is like getting married.  You give yourself to that person, totally and fully.  That is what our relationship with God is supposed to be like.  Max Lucado tells a wonderful story about his little girl when she was little.  The story is about how his little girl would play a game with him.  She would get up on the bed and say, “Daddy, Daddy catch me.”  She would take a running start off the bed and literally fly off and expect him to catch her.  There was no thought in her mind that he would drop her.  There was no thought at all that he would fail to do what he was supposed to be as her father.  Complete trust, complete joy.  She knew she had a loving father who would catch her.  She trusted in him.  That’s what faith is.  That’s what real faith is.  What is your faith like?  Ask that question of yourself.  Not to beat yourself up but to just to ask and God will show you where does your faith need to be. 

Let us pray.

Father, thank you that we are saved by grace.  No matter how many times we’ve messed up that you’re there to catch us that you’re there to love us.  We pray that we would have a faith that is beyond simply feeling and thinking and mere belief one that trusts, one that does.  We pray that we could grow   a little further down the path toward your light.  We’re each in a different spot Lord, meet us where we are.  Grow our faith and our trust in you.  In Jesus name, amen.