In this powerful and challenging sermon, I aksed the question every Christian needs to face: Is your faith dead or alive?
Drawing from James 2:14-26, this message calls us to move beyond mere belief and put our faith into action. It’s not enough to say we believe in Jesus — our lives must show it. This is a radical, counter-cultural call to live for Christ daily as the Holy Spirit transforms us from the inside out.
If your faith feels stagnant or superficial, this sermon will stir and challenge you to make it real.
Key Themes
- Dead Faith vs. Alive Faith
- Dead faith is mere talk: saying “I believe” or “I’m a Christian” without any evidence in daily life.
- It is compared to:
- Telling a needy person “be warm and filled” without helping them.
- Claiming to be a passionate football fan but never attending games or showing support.
- Demons who “believe” in God and shudder, yet remain unchanged.
- Alive faith is proven by its fruit — it naturally results in action, compassion, obedience, and good works.
- No Contradiction Between Paul and James
- Paul (e.g., Ephesians 2:8-9) stresses we are saved by grace through faith, not by works (to prevent boasting).
- James focuses on the outworking of that salvation: real faith produces good works as its natural result (Ephesians 2:10).
- They complement each other: Paul addresses legalism (works to earn salvation); James addresses license (claiming faith while living unchanged).
- Context matters — James writes to a Jewish audience emphasizing practical obedience.
- Biblical Examples of Living Faith
- Abraham: His faith was “completed” by offering Isaac. He didn’t earn salvation through the act, but his obedience proved his preexisting trust in God.
- Rahab the prostitute: Despite her sinful lifestyle, her faith led her to hide the Israelite spies at great personal risk. Her actions demonstrated genuine belief in Israel’s God.
- Both were “justified by works” in the sense that their deeds validated and completed their faith.
- Evidence That Convicts
- If you were “on trial” for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
- Others should not be surprised to learn you follow Jesus — your life should naturally reveal it.
- Superficial Christianity (slogans like “Christ is King” without lifestyle change) is exposed as empty.
- The Transforming Power of Real Faith
- True faith involves an inner work of the Holy Spirit that leads to outward change: compassion, integrity, boldness, generosity, and speaking out against evil.
- Examples include helping the needy, serving the church, giving financially, confronting issues like abortion and assisted suicide, and living counter-culturally.
- It shifts priorities — from self-centered living to God-centered obedience and mission.
- Counter-Cultural and Radical Call
- Christianity is not about ticking religious boxes (like other religions) but about what Jesus has already done for us.
- It demands we “occupy until He comes,” be salt and light, and refuse to stay silent or blend in with the world.
- The devil uses busyness, excuses, and fear of consequences to keep faith inactive.
- Personal Challenge and Invitation
- Direct question: Is your faith dead or alive today?
- Call to self-examination, repentance, and immediate action.
- Invitation for those who have never truly surrendered to Jesus — He offers free grace, forgiveness, assurance of salvation, and a transformed life.
- Closing prayer for inner transformation “from glory to glory” and for believers to step up in obedience.
You can read the full transcript of this sermon here:
Father, we thank you for bringing us here this morning. And, Lord, we just ask as we open your Word this morning and look at this particular subject which you’ve placed on my heart. Lord, I pray that it would speak to people here. Lord, I pray, Jesus, that you would open our ears to receive from you and open our hearts, that this word would bed down deep within us, Lord. And it would speak to us, it would prick our hearts, and it would cause us to assess where we’re at with you, and if we need to make changes, to make those changes in our lives. Lord, I pray that you would speak to us this morning. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would anoint my lips, Lord, and that no word would leave my lips that doesn’t come directly from your throne room. Lord, we just commit this all to you now in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
If you’ve got your Bible with you, would you turn with me to the Book of James chapter 2. Whilst you’re turning there, James, for those of you that are familiar with me, is my favourite book of the Bible — not least because one of my middle names is James. My other middle name is Gavin. I’m sure if there was a book of the Bible called Gavin, I’d probably like that one as well. But it’s probably just coincidental.
James itself is a practical book. It covers very practical subjects. It’s got a very direct style, and so some people don’t quite like it because it’s not nice. And because it’s very direct, it’s easy to understand but difficult to implement because of the content that it goes over. It’s easy to get it. You can’t come away from James not understanding it. And because it’s a general letter that’s not written to any one particular group or church or place, you can’t take it out of context. And so you will never find a liberal Christian — so-called, I think the two are totally opposite, but anyway, it’s what they call themselves — you will never find a liberal Christian really quoting from the book of James because it’s so direct. They can’t put their heretical apostasy theology together from the book of James. They go to other places where they can sort of pick and choose bits and pieces, but they can’t do that from James, so they don’t. And that’s one of the reasons why I like it.
James chapter two and verse 14, we’re going to read here through to the end of the chapter.
“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 a 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, 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.”
I did warn you, it’s a very direct passage in a very direct book. But I believe God has got a clear message for us here this morning.
Whilst we see that James is this very direct book that’s therefore easy to understand relatively but harder to implement because it’s so direct, we can’t skirt around the edges. We can’t try to make excuses for ourselves. It’s pretty black and white. You either are or you’re not. And it’s very straightforward.
Paul’s writings, Romans and Ephesians, where he talks about how we are saved and he talks about faith — his writings are harder to understand because of the way it’s written, but it’s easier to implement because once you’ve understood something that’s hard to understand, the implementation is much easier. But something that’s really easy to understand cuts you to the core, and you’re like, “Oh no, surely that should have been more complex.” And you try and find ways to make it more complex, and that’s what religious people do. They try to make theology really complex. They would take a passage like this and overcomplicate it totally unnecessarily. It’s not. It’s very direct.
And all we’re going to do today is we’re just going to look at these verses really one by one and just see what they say, and then what are the implications for our lives. What do we need to do in our lives as a consequence of reading this scripture?
On the surface, we see that Paul says that salvation is through grace alone. But James appears to say that works are required. So what’s going on here? Is there a contradiction between the two? Well, some have claimed so. Luther, back in the early Reformation, actually disregarded the whole book of James on this basis because he had failed to understand the basic theology that was going on. He said, “No, no, no, this stands at odds with what Paul says. Paul says that faith is by grace alone, and therefore if James is saying that actually you need works in order to be saved, then therefore it’s not right. And so we’ll just discard that, put that to the side, and we’ll focus on Paul’s teaching.”
So is there a contradiction? Well, we know that James was written actually quite some time before Paul’s writings, so it was hardly a response to Paul. It was hardly an argument going on. Folks, there is no contradiction. Why is there no contradiction? Because both focus on the need for salvation. Both focus on being right with God. And both focus on faith through grace alone, despite the words that we’ve read.
We have to understand the context of it because both are saying the same thing but in a slightly different way. Why? Because they’re speaking to different audiences.
James is speaking primarily to a Jewish audience and teaching against the license or liberty of the Gentiles and focusing on the continuous outworking of the faith, whereas Paul was writing primarily to Gentiles. Totally different audience, different people, and he’s teaching against the legalism that the Jews were trapped in, and he’s saying that faith is not gained through works but through the grace of Jesus alone.
So what he’s doing is he’s leading people away from being trapped in legalism, whereas James is saying, actually, grace is the freedom not to sin, not the freedom to sin. Because the same thing is being said to two different audiences, therefore it comes across in different ways, and we have to be careful that we understand things.
Paul has this focus on how to get saved. James has this focus on the outworking of that salvation. So actually the two, apart from being contradictory, are actually complementary of one another. They go together, one next to the other, and that’s basically why it’s all there in the Bible.
We can’t just go saying, “Oh well, I don’t like this book. It doesn’t sit well with my theology. I don’t think I understand it, and therefore I’m just gonna discard it,” or “I’m just gonna go and read the nice bits that I quite like and it’s comfortable to go for.” No. God calls us to read the whole word of God and for it to challenge us. And if you feel pricked in your heart in parts here, well then that’s because you need to make changes in your life. That’s that ongoing part of inner transformation.
I’ve been a Christian over 30 years. I’m still discovering stuff every single day, and I’m still sitting there going, “Oh my goodness, what is this?” You know, I nearly broke down in tears a few weeks ago in the kitchen, washing up, not because I saw the sight of how many dishes there were to wash up — although maybe that was partly to do with it — but simply because I said, “Oh Lord, let not my unbelief, let not my hesitation be holding back the advancement of your gospel.” And I realised there are times where I’ve hesitated, there are times where I’ve held back, and maybe that has held back the work of the Lord that he wanted to do through me. Now God will always establish his purposes, but I came to this point of needing to really repent from that and saying, “Lord, let me not hold back. Let me just go for it — full-fat gospel, full throttle.”
The key point here, just in setting the scene, is that we need to always understand the audience, the context, and the purpose.
I studied history, and I remember, even before I was at university, a history teacher at school once said to me, “Every source is useful, but not every source is reliable.” And what does he mean by that? Even the most unreliable biased source out there tells you something. You can still use it. Everything is useful. And the Bible tells us that all scripture is useful.
So I want to ask you today, right from the start — it’s a direct question, don’t blame me, it’s in the word of God there — I want to ask you a direct question from the start today: Is your faith dead or alive today?
And you know, when the Lord gave me this subject to speak on, I asked him and I said, “Jesus, why this topic and why now?” And he says he wants to draw people closer to him. He wants to draw people closer to him. The Bible says that if you draw near to him, then he’ll draw near to you. Actually, he’ll meet you halfway. So what Jesus is asking us to do today is merely to just draw closer to him, to actually reach out and just stretch out your hand and you’ll find that his hand is stretched out to you as well.
So I want to ask you: Is your faith dead or alive today? Will you allow yourself to be challenged through what this word says here in order that we draw closer to Jesus and get things right with him?
Many of you know that I’m a bit of a football fan, and it’s not going very well for one of my clubs. They’re now in the relegation zone, so you can probably work that out — Premier League in England. And that’s a real test of faith. I’ve supported them all my life, and now you see this realistic prospect of relegation and you kind of think, “Oh my goodness.” And there’s posts online: “Are you still gonna support them if they get relegated?” Well, yeah, of course, because it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. It’s just like being married. “Oh, she came down with the flu.” You’re not just gonna decide, “Oh, that’s it. We’re no longer married because she came down with the flu.” Right? It’s for life. It’s the same thing with football.
But let’s look at this in the context of football. What happens if someone was to come to you and say that they were a football fan of a particular club, and they have been a fan for years, and they know everything that there is to know about this club, and they’re the biggest supporter — in fact, even if you search for the rest of your life, you’ll never find a bigger supporter than this guy. And he knows everything that there is to know about this football club and indeed everything that there is to know about football more generally. And yet, that was the first time they had ever mentioned football. You never saw them talk about it. You never saw them post online about it. No one was ever aware of it. Their wardrobe doesn’t contain a single football shirt — even one kept that’s now a bit moth-ridden from their childhood or anything like that. (That’s the case with me. I don’t quite fit into them anymore. I don’t know why.) Would you believe them? Would you believe them if they told you that this is so important in their life, and they know everything there is to know about this football club, and it’s the be-all and end-all, and it’s the centre of their life — but they’ve never actually been to a game? They’ve never actually displayed any outward support of that club?
You know, Tony Blair, the former prime minister, when he was in 1997 running for election — and by the way, he’s got a lot to answer for, for the state of this country, but that’s a different story. In an effort to relate to the people because he didn’t want to appear aloof and distant, he said, dressed in a Savile Row suit, “Oh, no,” because his constituency was Sedgefield, going up towards Newcastle, and he says, “No, no, I’m a big Newcastle fan.” He had no prior connection to Newcastle. He said, “I’m such a big Newcastle fan. In fact, I’m such a big Newcastle fan, I used to watch… I remember watching Jackie Milburn on the terraces.” The only problem is Jackie Milburn retired from football when Tony Blair was 4, whilst he was living in Australia. Furthermore, Tony Blair claimed to be seated in a stand that at that time had no seats because it was a standing-only stand.
Do you see? In an effort to claim this support for a football club to appear to be a man of the people, he overstepped himself, and it became a term of mockery.
Well, I just wonder — let’s look at that with our faith. If you were to tell someone that you’re a Christian and that you follow Jesus and that He’s my Lord and my Saviour and the be-all and end-all of my life, He’s the centre of everything, and everything in my life revolves around Jesus — would they believe you, or would they be surprised to learn that? Because the answer to that question says a lot about whether your faith is actually dead or alive.
Should other people be surprised to learn that we’re a Christian?
James asks in this opening here in verse 14: “Can faith alone save someone?” The proposition put forward here by James is that actually the answer to that is no. Faith without action is dead.
So really that’s actually my only point today: Faith without action is dead. But let’s unpack that a little bit.
We see here that in verse 14, when we look at superficial faith lacking action, it’s basically dead. It’s important to understand that if someone says they have a faith, if they profess a faith in Jesus, that we should actually see the evidence. We should see the proof of that in how they go about their lives. People should see that in the evidence of how we go about things in our lives.
I remember when I was a teenager, and I misbehaved only once — why are you laughing? It’s not a joke. So I misbehaved on one particular occasion, and I remember my parents telling me off afterwards. They didn’t really need to tell me off much because I knew I had done terribly wrong. But I remember my father saying, “Do you think this is actually a really good witness? Do you think this is how you display your faith?” And that really pricked me because it caused me to think, “Well, maybe not so much.”
James is addressing here those who have a mere profession of faith, but there’s no other indication of any active faith itself. And it says, “Can that faith save him?” Can that type of faith, can that mere empty, just a mere profession of faith save him? James is propositioning here that, well, no, actually, because that’s not a real faith. It’s superficial at best, false at worst. It’s just all talk when faith is actually a lot more than that.
There’s a lot of people going around today chanting various slogans and saying that they’re a Christian. I come into contact with them regularly. But where are they? Where are they actually when it comes to a Sunday morning? Are they actually in the church? And where is the evidence of their faith being outworked? Because all I see is terrible language being used. All I see is hatred being put towards people like Muslims. All I see is hatred being directed towards outsiders.
And sure, it’s absolutely disgraceful what’s happening down on the southern border with all these small boats and the invasion that’s happening in this country. It’s utterly appalling, and our government has sold us down the river, literally on it. But that doesn’t mean that we hate the people that are involved in it. If we’re gonna hate anyone, our hatred should be turned towards the people that have enabled this absolutely disgraceful situation to come about that results now — let me tell you — in women struggling to be able to walk home on a dark night without fear of getting attacked and even raped. What a disgraceful situation we’ve come to in our nation.
But you see, it’s no good just saying, “Well, I’m a Christian,” and having nothing else to back it up with.
Let’s think of a court case. We have due process in our country — sometimes I wonder whether we do, but most of the time we do. The judge can’t just say, “Well, you’re guilty.” There has to be the evidence put forward to the court. They have to look at it, and if it’s a jury case, they need to establish, on the balance of probability, does this evidence show that this person definitely committed this crime? Not might have done, not possibly, but definitely. And they’re always instructed: if there’s any doubt in your mind at all, it’s a not guilty verdict because the evidence has to be clear, it has to convict.
So I wonder — if we were on trial for being a Christian, would there be evidence to convict us as actually being a Christian? Think about that in your life. Would there be evidence that would be able to stack up against you? Or is there a lack of evidence? Would the court just find your faith to be superficial and perhaps even fraudulent?
When we put a Christian label on ourselves, we must expect others to judge us by those standards. The minute people know that you’re a Christian, I can tell you, I’ve sworn a couple of times at work in a moment of heatedness, and people know that I’m a Christian, and they stand back. It’s like a child: “He said a swear.” But they’re so stunned because they know that you don’t normally. And so instead of it being the normal that everyone else is swearing, all of a sudden you said a swear. So they start to hold you to the standards that you have told them that you’re holding yourself to. And it’s absolutely right.
I think the greatest insult we can get is people learning of our faith, not seeing our faith. Learning of our faith because we tell them rather than actually just seeing it in action.
We can’t just go around chanting lines like “Christ is King” and going to a rally and going through random city centres and chanting “Christ is King” and holding a little wooden cross, but not really actually living for Jesus. It’s just a slogan. Is Jesus really Lord of your life, or is he just a convenient slogan? Is he just the latest hashtag online?
Let’s remember, folks, Jesus himself was cheered one week, and the next week he was jeered, and they called for his execution. Same people. Things can flip.
And what we see here is that believing is the first step, but then learning to live out that faith through action is what follows.
Let’s turn to Ephesians chapter 2. We’re gonna read verse 8. It says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” That’s really important, that verse there, verse 9. Verse 10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
So verse 9 — not as a result. We’re not saved as a result of doing works. It’s not like ticking a box in order to get saved. It’s actually accepting that free gift of salvation. If we skip back to verse 8, Paul says that by grace you have been saved. Not as a work of our own, not by anything that we’ve done, but it’s something that Jesus has done for us. What is it that Jesus has done for us? He’s died on the cross, and he was resurrected to new life for us. It’s a free gift that is given to us.
And so what it ends up being is that if we want anything more than just a superficial faith, that actually those good works — or a better translation would be “action” — is what happens naturally as a consequence of a real faith in action. Salvation is the first step. It’s the starting point, but then it needs to be followed up. We need to undergo that inner ongoing process of transformation that happens when the Holy Spirit comes in us. And that should result in that outward change.
Remember Arthur said last week, after a year of being a Christian, he wasn’t sure whether anything had really changed in his life, and then he bumped into an old friend, and he said, “What happened to you?” You see, other people could see the change in him even if he didn’t necessarily think there was much change. And sometimes we can be our own worst enemy sometimes and beat ourselves down. But don’t underestimate the change that God is doing in your life that will actually be seen by those around you if you allow him to actually change you.
And we see right here at the beginning of verse 14 back in James that if we profess a faith, then it must result in action. In short, those who profess a faith but who don’t really believe are not actually saved because all they’re just doing is some good works. And the Bible clearly says there that that’s not how we get saved. If they believed and then they profess, then they’re changed, and it motivates us to action. Well, how can you be motivated to action if you don’t believe in the first place? For what purpose would you be doing these wonderful things?
Then in moving along to verse fifteen and sixteen, there’s this wonderful stark example that’s used of clothing someone that is in need of clothes. And James really uses this to make the point that he’s already made in the preceding verse really, really obvious. In case you didn’t pick it up, he’s making it really obvious and putting it into terms that we’ll understand. If someone’s in need of clothing and you just say, “There, there, there, I can see you need clothing, so go and get some.” Well, that person has no means to actually go and get some. So your job is to actually help them to get that clothing. If we have a real faith, we would help them. The superficial faith would say, “Oh, I can see that you need clothing. Go down the shops and get some.” Rather than, “I can see you’re in trouble there. Clearly, you would have clothing if you could. Therefore, you probably cannot for whatever reason, so come with me. Let me help you there.”
Do you see how one is just superficial, whereas the other is an outworking of a faith? There’s a compassion that rises up within as a result of a faith. The transformed person then sees the person for the need and doesn’t stop there. They then go on through to action itself.
And then as we move to verse 19, we see that mere belief is underlined yet again. Mere belief in God is not good enough. You can’t just believe and go, “Oh, I believe in God.” How many people do you meet outside, you know, if you ever share the gospel, they say, “Hey, you know, do you believe in God?” Yeah, many people believe in a God figure because anyone basically with a brain would be able to see that everything that we see around us couldn’t just possibly have happened by accident. I think it was C.S. Lewis who actually said, “It takes more faith to believe that there is no God than to actually believe there is a God.” And I admire atheists sometimes because I think it’s quite hard to believe that there would be no God. I think it’s easier to just actually say, “Well, yeah, clearly God created all of this.”
See, just walking around saying you’re a Christian but not actually doing anything about it, or worse, refusing to address the problems in your life is how it works. And it doesn’t even necessarily need to be problems that you’re aware of, but just things that don’t come in line with God. If your life is operating in one way and then you become a Christian, but then there’s no change that results, there should be the change. The person that gives their life to Jesus, it should result in change. And if it doesn’t, then you have to question whether they actually have made that step properly.
The Bible says that faith without action is dead clearly here. It says it several times in this passage, and it says it elsewhere.
So what then, going on to verse 17, jumping back a couple of verses, we’ve got the good and the bad examples given, but both are saved. And I think sometimes people focus on this word “works” too much, and then they misunderstand the rest of the text. But really, the better translation instead of “works” is “acts” or “deeds.” It’s about action. Because “works” sounds like a checklist and ticking boxes, and then you present it to Jesus and say, “Hey, my checklist is complete. Now I can be saved.” Whereas actually, it’s about saying, “Come just as you are and let me change you.” Real faith demands action.
And in verse 18, we see here that the comparison is used in order to hammer the point even more, as if he hasn’t made his point clear enough yet. “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 see, others will look at us and say, “You claim to have faith, but where is the evidence of it? Where is the outworking of it?” The greatest witness we can actually have for Jesus is the outworking of our faith.
Do you know something today? There’s so much fakery around there, whether it’s Instagram filters or the Boots back catalog that some people have got slapped on their face walking out. You look at it and you think, if you dragged your nails down some people’s faces, it would create a serious crater. It’d probably be able to be visible from space or something. But the people are doing this to create a false impression of who they actually are because society has told us this is what perfection looks like. And so they spend all this money, and they get all these products in order to adhere to this situation when God is actually saying, “No, no, no. I’ve created you to be who you are, just exactly how you are.”
Well, you might not like that. Hey, if you don’t like your body, then do you know the good news? Soon you’re gonna go to heaven, and we’re gonna get a new body, right? I quite like my body, so I’m hoping I can keep it with me. Because obviously my body’s perfect, right? Hmm. You seem less convinced of that.
Superficial works by themselves, if you’re just motivated to just do the works, well, it will all come to an end eventually because it’s not motivated by a deeper faith. It doesn’t save. Superficial works do not lead to faith. They themselves don’t save, and you can say, “Well, there’s plenty of nice people out there.” Hey, there’s plenty of nice people out there. I wanna tell you something else that might not sound particularly nice. There’s plenty of nice people in hell today because they refused to bow the knee to Jesus. Don’t run that risk.
Proof of our faith being alive and active is the showing of works.
And then we’ve got these two people introduced, don’t we? Verse 20: “Do you want to be shown, you foolish person” — That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? No hiding the terminology used there — “that faith apart from works is useless.”
And then we go to verse 21 to 23, he introduces Abraham. Most of us have probably heard of Abraham. We probably think Abraham’s a pretty good guy. Hey, he had faults, right? He tried to second-guess God and ended up creating a bastard child that ended up with basically what we see as Islam today. And the Bible actually — if you ever look, by the way, as a side note, if you ever look at why Arabs are such wild people, you only need to look at the Book of Genesis, and it says that Ishmael, who is of that line, “Your descendants will be as wild as a donkey.” It says it. It’s a curse that was put on their people. And so now, you ever look at the difference between a Jewish funeral and an Arab funeral in exactly the same part of the world, you know, one is actually pretty well organized, and the other is just a rabble. Why? ‘Cause it’s a spiritual thing.
So here we’ve got Abraham, verse 21 to 23, and we see here that his faith existed prior to his going on to this point where he was gonna sacrifice his son. Massive thing, and you’re sitting there thinking, “But Stuart, hold on. Why would God call him to do that?” No, it was a test of faith. God was never gonna allow him to go through with it, which he didn’t. He provided the lamb at that last minute. But it was a test of faith of Abraham. Where is your faith? Who is your faith in? How far are you gonna trust me here, Abraham? You see, his faith was proven to be real through the actions that worked out, that he was prepared to go through with what he probably couldn’t necessarily understand himself in sacrificing his own son because he believed in God, one, and two, he had total and absolute trust in his God. Why? Because of the preexisting faith that was present within him. He didn’t try to gain a faith through carrying out or nearly carrying out a sacrifice of his own son. “Oh, well, God, I’ve done this for you. Now will you save me?” No, he knew he was saved already.
And then we’ve got the bad one, Rahab the prostitute. Ostensibly, objectively a bad person. Here you have Abraham, a good person, and here you have Rahab. If you line the two up, one you would say would be good, and one you would say would be bad. Prostitution is not a good thing. It’s a high level of sexual immorality, and it’s continually going on in that as well. And yet here we see that Rahab the prostitute is used in example here as someone who had faith. Oh, my goodness, my mind is blown.
You see, the thing is, verse 25: “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?” You see, Rahab had already — when you read the story of Rahab elsewhere, you see that what happened is she saw the armies of the Israelites advancing on Jericho and she said, “No, I know this army. I know that God is behind them, and I know that we face certain defeat, so I’m gonna choose to believe God.” You see, she had already chosen to believe God. She had already chosen to put her faith in the truth that this army was actually gonna overwhelm them. And so she had already decided what camp she was in at that point.
Oh, but she’s still a prostitute. Yes, she is. And that’s maybe a really obvious thing that was wrong in her life, but how many of us, if we searched our own hearts, could genuinely say that we’re totally clean? How many of us could today — I can’t. I’m gonna put both my hands in my pockets to save them accidentally going up. I can’t say I’m clean at all.
But you see, the helping of the spies, the hiding of the spies, and then letting them down outside the wall was evidence of a faith that was already in place, a trust that she had already placed in God, and then there was an outworking there. The actions were a demonstration of the faith.
In both cases, we see here evidence of a faith already present before the outworking of it, and the preexisting faith motivates people to action. Essentially, it’s a heart issue. When our heart is changed, when we come into alignment with Jesus, that we should therefore want to put that faith in action. If you become a Christian and you give your life to Jesus, the first thing you should want to do is run around the whole of town telling everyone about it.
You see, we know Abraham is a good person, and no one doubts his faith. But Rahab, she’s operating in this sexual immorality. She knew it was wrong and carried on doing it, and so you sit there and think. But then she had this encounter with the truth, and she decided to believe the truth, and then she actioned it. And when the time came, she hid the spies and she got her reward. The Bible says that she was found to be righteous as a result.
Now, here’s a big question. Rahab’s operating in this sexual immorality and carrying on in this life, but she chooses to believe, and then she chooses, at great risk to herself, to hide these spies. Now, don’t get me wrong, would be used to having men in her house, I suppose, and so that wouldn’t raise any suspicions. But it would be a great risk that she’s running of hiding people, especially if they found out who she was hiding. But yet she chose to still go with it. Why? Could it be that actually, in the midst of all of this, Rahab actually had more faith than many of us do today? Rahab maybe, just maybe, had more faith than we do today. Because when I look at it, I’m constantly working out not the consequences of taking action for Jesus. I’m looking at it and I’m saying, “Well, actually, I should just be taking the action.” But so often I end up focusing on the “what if.”
We see that video of Steve there that got arrested. What if he just said, “Oh, well, I might get arrested today, so I won’t go and preach the gospel”? You see, what you don’t know is that he was out for hours before that point. How many people heard the gospel? How many people could possibly have been saved as a result of hearing the gospel prior to that? “Uh, well, I’ll just stay at home today because it’s raining.”
Both were justified. Even though one’s apparently good and one’s apparently bad, both were justified through the actions of working out the faith.
And then we see here in verse 26, clear as day, that the conclusion leaves us in this passage without any shadow of a doubt whatsoever that faith is proven through action. You know, it says in the Bible elsewhere, “You shall know them by their fruits.” And basically that means that you shall know someone if they’re actually serving the Lord by how they operate their life. It’s relevant only for Christians. I know some people try and use that for people that don’t profess a faith in Christianity and in Jesus. That’s a different situation.
But you see, when we die, the spirit’s separated from the body. The spirit goes on, but the body withers away. Its usefulness is finished with. And that’s why James says here in verse 26, “For as the body is separated from the spirit and it’s dead, therefore, also faith separated from action is also dead.”
I saw this most starkly with my own grandmother a few years ago when she got dementia and it reached a point where she could barely even know who you were, and every conversation you had, you were basically going back to the beginnings, and it gets very frustrating. Those of you that have had loved ones that have gone through that, it can be very hard and very trying and testing on you. But I want to tell you something. There was a day when we had family over, and when they were leaving, they wanted to pray before we leave. And of course, my grandmother’s just all away with the fairies and I ended up kind of having to be quite stern. You treat them like a very young child. And I said, “Nanny, these two are going home now. But before they go, they want to pray.” And it clicked something in her spirit and she suddenly sat bolt upright, put her hands together like she was a little child, and said, “Everyone close your eyes. We’re gonna pray.” And then something even more amazing happened. As everyone around the room said bits of prayers about different things, she came out with this incredible prayer. This is a woman who, for the entire day, had barely known who was sitting in the room with her, barely able to hold conversation and communicate, and barely able to take anything in or communicate anything outwards, and yet when the time came, she could give the most eloquent prayer that made me question whether I was even a believer. Why? Because faith is so much deeper than mere flesh knowledge. The spirit goes on, the body dies, and so without action, our faith is empty.
What does this action look like? I’m gonna try and rattle this along ’cause I look at the clock here.
Well, we see in Acts 2:42 and 47 what happens when people give their lives to Jesus, and they give themselves over to Jesus and they say, “Actually, here’s where the change is gonna come.” You can look up that passage in your own time and find out what that looks like. But basically, you wanna see how the church should be — Acts chapter two and the latter part of it is where you should be looking at it. Basically, when people get saved, they change, and when they change, they start to have an impact in changing things around them.
If you claim to be saved and yet you’re not changed, then you’ve gotta really consider whether you’re really saved. But if you are, this action, this outworking, you’ll find yourself doing things that formerly you had no interest in. If you used to care about yourself only, then you’ll probably start finding yourself caring for others, helping those in need, offering a hand up, not a handout. It’s not an excuse for people that can’t be bothered and being lazy, but it’s about helping those who cannot help themselves. You’ll find yourself speaking out on issues. I’ve seen people become Christians almost all of a sudden. They only ever posted about football and other tittle-tattle, and all of a sudden they’re posting a petition for this and that, left, right and centre. You think, “My goodness, it’s overload.” But praise God, it’s a total transformation. Their whole perspective on what they prioritise has totally changed.
You see, the gospel of Jesus and what he does in saving us compels us to speak up against the evil that we see in our nation. It compels us to speak up because we can’t remain silent. Something bubbles up within us that says, “No, this is wrong. I’m gonna do something about this,” whatever that something is that I can do in my life in whatever small or bigger way.
You know, we need to do so much more as a church to be speaking out against things like abortion and assisted suicide. The reason why assisted suicide got so close to becoming a reality in this nation just recently was because the church has evacuated the public square. The church has been totally silent, and so we’ve allowed the narrative to become, “Oh, well, people are suffering, and you don’t want to encourage people to suffer, and we don’t want to encourage people to be in pain. So isn’t it better that they could just be released from pain?” Well, no, of course, nobody wants to be added into suffering. But you see, what we’ve done is in the process of removing the objective value of life that God places because he created us uniquely in his image, we reduce it down to a mere emotional, subjective feelings. “I feel like this might be the right thing to do.” Well, actually, what is the right thing to do? There is a right, there is a wrong, and we need to be standing for what is right in this hour because there’s a whole world out there, there’s a whole nation out there that is totally confused. They know things are not right. Just look at people. Their heads are buried so far down, and their necks have basically become part of their torso. They’re hanging their head so heavy because they know the weight of the pressure of the world and the life around them is so much. But yet it’s so easy for us to just keep calm and quiet and be nice. No, we need to confront the evil.
We’re in a situation right now in our society where people are spending thousands of pounds on their cat and their dog to keep it going for another couple of months while simultaneously thinking that it’s better if Gran is just put down. What sort of warped nonsense is this to the point where we’ve reached the point in our society where people are literally placing a greater value of life on their cat, who’s gonna die anyway, over the value of their grandmother? What a disgrace.
Folks, it’s an evil spirit that is marauding across our nation, and we need to stop it by rising up against it and proclaiming the truth of Jesus, which is the better way, for he is the only way. He is the only truth and the only life.
Maybe before you were having a faith, lying was just part and parcel of what you did, whereas now integrity is gonna matter to you. And if you do lie, suddenly something’s gonna thud in you and go, “Mm, I need to put it right.” I’ve had people at work just lie right to my face, and I know for a fact they’re lying to my face, but they can think nothing of it. But the minute that person comes into a place of faith, there’s something bigger, there’s something more important. That something is Jesus in their life, and all of a sudden they understand, “Oh, no, integrity matters a bit.”
But then what about the other outworking of our faith, the giving of time and money? Instead of it all being about us and looking inwardly, we start to look outwardly at other people’s needs. We give our time to the church and to other people. We serve the church. I mentioned earlier on about joining a serving team. We don’t come to church. It’s not a show that we just put on. It’s something that we’re part of. We’re a family.
And what about giving financially? Do you know something that’s a really important principle here? God doesn’t need your money. So many people sit there and say, “Oh, the church, they just want your money.” God doesn’t need your money. God operates in a totally different economy. We’re doing a one-point-five-million-pound transformation of the Raise Our Hope building up the road there. We’re spending nowhere near that amount of money because God operates in a different economy. You see, when you give, he’ll bless you back. Why? Because your heart is in the right place to begin with. We’ll go into more on that in a future sermon.
You see, the devil wants to keep us quiet. The devil wants to keep us pushed down and squashed down. “Oh, it’s all too much. I don’t know. Oh dear, let’s leave it to the experts.” No, actually, what we found over the last few years is that a lot of the experts were not maybe quite so much as experts as just paid puppets, paid to spout a certain line classified as expertise. You want expertise? Here it is. It’s all in the Word of God.
And we need to be countercultural. No longer going along with the flow. God calls us to operate in the world, but not take part in the things of the world. To be salt and light. What does salt do? It gives flavour, it preserves. What does light do? It exposes the darkness. Has anyone ever tried to switch a light on in a room and maintain the darkness? If you manage to achieve that, please let me know. I don’t think it’s possible.
Jesus tells us, “Occupy until I come.” You see, when we come into line with Jesus and we have this real faith, the natural outworking of that is that our priorities shift. Instead of reading Hello and OK! for the latest tittle-tattle gossip in the celebrity world, we start reading about how Paul confronted evil in his age, and that motivates us to confront evil in our age as well. We pray instead of having endless mindless chat or just scrolling forevermore on social media.
What about healing? We start to see faith in action by walking in healing rather than identifying in sickness and disability labels that they put themselves under. What about working itself? Having a positive and productive attitude towards work itself. Do you know God created us to be people of work? We’re not designed to just lounge around and just sit there and say, “Oh, is that the time? Maybe time for tea. Oh, maybe time for dinner now. Oh, I can’t have dinner, didn’t wash up from lunch.” And just sort of drifting. No structure, no purpose.
You only just need to walk out down Johnston Road there and you’ll see plenty of people without purpose, trudging along with a little blue carrier sack. Standard issue for the person without hope, it seems. What a tragic situation. We’ve got the answer. It’s our job to bring that answer, bring that hope, bring that light, bring that truth of Jesus to people’s lives so that all of a sudden they have purpose.
But when it comes to work, we should — when we’re working, we should have a good attitude towards that work. We shouldn’t be lounging around. We shouldn’t be expecting handouts left, right and centre. Now, hear me carefully. I’m not talking about there are people who need that help, absolutely, and a compassionate society is a society that supports those who are in need who cannot support themselves. But only insofar as we cannot support ourselves. That’s the emphasis. That’s the focus here.
Maybe today you need to step up in your life, in various areas of your life, to start being more productive and being less busy. You see, the devil wants to keep us busy so that we don’t even have any time to read the Word of God. “I’m too busy.” And then you’re so busy that you’re too tired, and then you’re too tired and you’re too busy. I said before in a previous sermon, at every single stage in your life, the devil will put excuses in front of you in order for you to make an excuse for not making the changes in your life, for not putting your faith in action.
You see, Christian faith, in rounding up here, is radical and counter-cultural. The call is to be radical. Think of Justin Welby, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury. He was all just about being accepted and reconciliation. I thought, well, reconciliation is a lovely idea. It sounds nice, but first you need some reckoning in order to get to that point. He was just going with the flow. He was not seeking to be counter-cultural.
Let’s look at Nicky Morgan, former Education Secretary. A Christian lady who operated as part of a church similar to our own, gets into the highest level of government and immediately adopts all of the LGBTXYZ alphabet soup nonsense. You might as well just have an avowed atheist in there. God put a Christian there to make a change. She didn’t bother making a change, so get rid of her, and that’s what happened.
You see, if we are not gonna dare to go against the flow when that flow is going against God, then we are abandoning and rejecting the calling that God places on our life.
You see, the doctrine of being saved by doing things, ticking boxes, completing that checklist, jumping through hoops, whatever analogy you wanna use, is what you see in every other belief system. It’s what you see in every other religion. It gives no peace. It brings no reassurance. It gives no assurance of salvation. Just some kind of vacuous, empty hope that you might be on the right track, but no guarantee that you actually are.
Years ago, I came into contact with a Muslim in London. I was on my way home, and truth be told, I was buried scrolling on my phone on the escalator, and this guy walks past me and sort of said some kind of greeting, and it was Eid at that time. And as time went on, he sort of said, “Oh, I’m just giving you a greeting ’cause it’s Eid.” And I said, “Oh, well, that’s good for you.” I said, “I’m a Christian, I don’t celebrate it.”
You see, the world would tell us, “Hey, join in. Join a local iftar meal. Go down your local mosque. Take your shoes off. Bow to Allah.” No. We’re told to bring the full-fat gospel to people so that they can hear the truth, and the truth will set them free, whether they’ve got no faith or another faith.
And you see, at the end of that train journey, I was able to reach a point where I said to that Muslim, “Hey, what happens, what happens to you when you die?” And do you know, he said something like, “Well, you know, the good will be weighed up with the bad, and if there’s more good than less bad, then it’ll be great, and if not, it’s not so much.” I said, “Okay, great.” I said, “So how are you doing on that? Well, how do you know what’s good and what’s bad?” He says, “Oh, well, that’s for God to decide.” You see, they’ve got no assurance. You can’t have a peace. You can’t live right now knowing that you’ve got any assurance. You can only have that assurance of everlasting life and getting a ticket to heaven through Jesus Christ.
You see, every other religion, every other belief system that has ever existed, exists, or will exist is all about the do, do, dos. Christianity, following Jesus is all about what He’s done, done, done for you. It’s the opposite. It’s counter-cultural. It goes completely against the flow of the world. It’s about allowing Him to come to us, not rather about us ticking boxes in order to get to Him.
So instead of doing things to get somewhere, we allow God to come and live within us. He gives us a peace, he gives us a hope, He gives us assurance and a reassurance. In a world that says, “Prove yourself, and chase after the latest fad in order to be something,” following Jesus is about being accepted for who He created you to be. It’s about recognizing that we’re actually really significant. We’re not an accident. We’re not random blobs of cells that happen to be wandering around. It’s about recognizing that we’re secure in Him, and our response to Jesus is to live our lives for Him. It means putting our faith into action every single day in all sorts of ways.
What we’re driving home here is that action is an outworking of faith. It starts with faith, and everything else follows from there. Real faith causes us to rise up and to be radically counter-cultural.
So I asked at the start, is your faith dead or alive today? And it’s a stark question, but what, I wonder, is your answer now in light of what we’ve looked at? Has your answer changed? Maybe you said, “Yeah, of course, my faith is alive,” at the beginning, but now you’ve looked at it and you think, “Well, actually, maybe I’ve got some work to do here.” Maybe you found actually your faith is lacking a little bit of action in it, maybe in places a bit superficial. Perhaps you then therefore need to step up, whatever that looks like in your life. Maybe you’ve allowed yourself to get caught up in works, and you’ve forgotten, as it says in Revelation, you’ve forgotten your first love. It’s time to return to Jesus.
Maybe folks, you’ve had a private faith, you’ve kept it to yourself. Well, it’s time to make it public. Maybe you’ve stayed quiet, you’ve sat down. Well, it’s time to stand up and speak out.
Jesus wants to challenge us today to put our faith into action. He wants us to get closer with Him. He wants us to get closer with Him.
Do you know, I was once told by a colleague at work that they were surprised to learn I went to church, and I was a Christian because they just thought I was a nice person. And do you know honestly, it was one of the most cutting things that has ever been said to me. Hey, it was nice to be told I was a nice person. Okay, great. But I had to query my own faith at that point. Was I hiding the light under a bushel? Because he didn’t know. He should know.
You see, no one you ever come into contact with should be under any illusion as to where you stand when it comes to faith. They should not be surprised. It should be naturally woven into everything that you do, so that you’re known as Dave, the Christian.
See, there’s plenty of nice people out there, but as I said to you earlier, there’s plenty of nice people in hell because they’re not saved. We have to bow the knee to Jesus. We have to turn to Jesus. He’s the only way. And when we do, we become a holy people. We become a chosen people. We become a royal priesthood. We’re called out from the world, and we’re given an amazing inheritance. We didn’t deserve it. Why? Because we messed up. We’re the ones that willfully chose to go against God. But He came running after us. He came out of heaven, and He came for us. Why? Because He loves us.
And Jesus is saying to us today, “I love you, I love you, I love you, and I want you to love me back, and I want you to show that love and the outworking of your faith that you’ve put in me.”
And maybe you’re sitting there today, and you’re sitting there thinking, “Well, you know, yeah, I’ve heard about this Jesus, but I don’t think I’ve even actually ever put that faith in Jesus. I don’t think I’ve ever made that step to follow Jesus, that first step that everything else follows from. But I don’t think I’ve ever actually made — there’s not a single point in time where I’ve decided to say yes to Jesus.”
Well, I want you to know, if that’s you sitting there today, Jesus loves you. He’s got an amazing plan for your life, and He came on a rescue mission for you. He came just for you. He came for everyone else as well, but He came just for you. And He wants to start a relationship with you today. He wants you to come back into right relationship with Him. Sin separated us from the ability to have that right relationship, but God, in His wonderful grace and mercy, enables us to come back into right relationship with Him. And you can because of what He did on the cross. It’s an amazing gift. It’s a free gift. It’s a free offering. Not of our own achieving, not so that, as it says there in Ephesians 2, that we could boast of it ourselves, but so that we can see God’s work, His power at work in us.
Let’s bow our heads in prayer.
Father, I thank you that you wanna be involved in our lives. I thank you, Jesus, that you wanna be so close to us. And Lord, I pray that you would draw us closer to you. I pray, Lord Jesus, that as you’ve challenged us here this morning, Lord, to be more active in the outworking of our faith, I pray, Jesus, that you would help us to examine our hearts, to examine where those areas are that we need to respond to you, to examine, Lord, how we need to respond to you. Jesus, I pray, Lord, that you would help us to determine to make those changes today. Not wait till tomorrow, not wait till this evening, but to leave from this place and to make those changes. Lord, impress on our hearts what are those areas. Maybe we need to step up in speaking out the truth more. We need to be less quiet. Maybe we need to spend more time with you. Maybe we need to stand for truth more. Maybe people need to see the light of Jesus in and through us more. Maybe we’ve been hiding that light. So Jesus, I pray that you would help us in that endeavour, and I pray that you would continue to transform us from the inside out, that we would be transformed from glory to glory. Lord, I pray that you would take us, Lord, from the miry clay and set our feet to be upon the rock that is higher than us, the rock of Jesus Christ.
Father, we thank you for the amazing gift that is salvation through Jesus Christ. We thank you for your grace and mercy, and we thank you for your word to us here today. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
