Chapter 2 of James from the New International
Version.
My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord
Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing
a gold ring and fine clothes, and a
poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.
If you show special attention to the man
wearing fine clothes and say, here's a good
seat for you, but say to the poor
man, you stand there or sit on the
floor by my feet, have you not discriminated
among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen
those who are poor in the eyes of
the world to be rich in faith and
to inherit the kingdom he promised those who
love him?
But you have insulted the poor.
Is it not the rich who are exploiting
you?
Are they not the ones who are dragging
you into court?
Are they not the ones who are slandering
the noble name of him to whom you
belong?
If you really keep the royal law found
in scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you
are doing right.
But if you show favoritism, you sin and
are convicted by the law as law breakers.
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet
stumbles at just one point is guilty of
breaking all of it.
For he who said do not commit adultery
also said do not murder.
If you do not commit adultery but do
commit murder, you have become a law breaker.
Speak and act as those who are going
to be judged by the law that gives
freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown
to anyone who has not been merciful.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
What good is it, my brothers, if a
man claims to have faith but has no
deeds?
Can such faith save him?
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes
and daily food.
If one of you says to him, girl
I wish you well, keep warm and well
fed, but does nothing about his physical needs,
what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if
it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But what 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.
You believe that there is one God, good.
Even the devils believe that and shudder.
You foolish men, do you want evidence that
faith without deeds is useless?
Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for
what he did when he offered his son
Isaac on the altar?
You see that his faith and his actions
were working together and his faith was made
complete by what he did.
And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham
believed God and it was credited to him
as righteousness and he was called God's friend.
You see that a person is justified by
what he does and not by faith alone.
In 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?
As the body without the spirit is dead,
so faith without deeds is dead.
And may God help us to understand that
very challenging passage of scripture.
Now if you'd like to turn back to
chapter one just for a quick review of
what we looked at last night so that
you get the context for this second chapter.
We looked for a few moments at the
background of the epistle and we came to
the opinion that it was James the natural
brother of our Lord Jesus Christ who was
the author of this little epistle.
And James was very probably a late convert
to the Messiah.
It seems from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that
it wasn't until the resurrection appearances of our
Lord that James was finally convinced that his
natural brother Jesus was in fact the Messiah.
But if he was a late convert then
he certainly rose to a position of great
prominence in the church very very quickly and
soon became the recognized leader of the main
congregation in the early days of the church,
the congregation at Jerusalem.
From that position of importance and authority James
wrote this letter.
It's not a letter to an individual Christian
or even to an individual church.
It's a letter for all Christians.
It was a circular letter.
It would be read by one fellowship and
then passed on to the next.
And I said last night that it seems
obvious that James had perceived that there were
great difficulties ahead for Christians and in fact
that was to be the case.
James himself the author would be martyred within
18 months of writing the letter.
The city of Jerusalem would be destroyed 10
years later in the great destruction of Jerusalem
in AD 70.
Massive problems were ahead for these early Christians.
James perceives this and so he writes his
letter to prepare Christians for suffering.
And we saw in the first chapter James
showing how we should appropriate difficulties, how we
should handle suffering.
So instead of destroying our faith it actually
proves to be a blessing in our experience.
And then we get to the real key
of the whole book in the last two
verses of chapter one.
Because James moves to his central theme, the
theme of genuine faith.
What is really important in days of difficulty?
Well of course the answer is, is my
faith genuine?
If I have real faith in God then
whatever the difficulty, whatever the problems, that faith
will be standing firm.
But if my faith is unreal, if it's
just superficial, then the day of difficulty will
find me out.
And so throughout this epistle you'll see James
challenging the Christians.
I want you to check your faith.
I want you to examine your faith.
Is it the real article?
And when the day of difficulty comes will
your faith endure?
So James in the last two verses gives
us three great proofs of genuine faith.
One is the control of the tongue in
verse 26 of chapter one.
And secondly verse 27, concern for those who
are in need such as the widows and
the orphans.
And thirdly in the same verse, a desire
for holiness, keeping oneself from being polluted by
the world.
Now we're going to see tonight and in
the next two evenings that what James does
in the next three chapters is take in
each chapter one of these proofs and he
explains exactly what he means.
And so tonight we're going to see from
chapter two that if we are genuine Christians
meeting here in Sandhills Lane, what do you
call it now?
Brethren Church, isn't it?
That's that right?
Yes.
They're all confused.
Used to be the Gospel Hall, didn't it?
Sandhills Lane Brethren Church.
It was never the Gospel Hall somebody tells
me.
Well wherever we are, meeting here this evening
is our faith genuine?
If it is, well one proof is going
to be a real concern for those who
are in need.
Now the way James makes his point is
very very simple.
First of all, he gives us in the
first seven verses a very challenging illustration.
And then from verse 14 to verse 26
he gives us a very challenging doctrine.
And we're going to look at those two
things.
First of all, the challenging illustration.
It's actually contained in verses two and three
and the remainder of the first section is
an explanation of the illustration.
The illustration itself is very much a real
life situation.
I don't know about you, but I find
it hurts just to read it.
It's the old story of course of judging
people on face value.
Looking at the outward appearance.
Judging people by the standards of the world.
Treating rich and powerful people well simply because
they are rich and powerful.
And poor people poorly simply because they are
poor.
Says James, imagine that two men were to
walk into your assembly.
One has a pinstripe suit, a rolled umbrella
and a Schofield Bible under his arm.
The other is a vagrant.
He's just walked in off the street.
You can smell him long before he enters
the doorway.
What do you do?
You go across to the man with the
pinstripe suit and say, good evening brother.
Please come and sit here right beside me.
And then keeping your distance, you point to
the far corner of the church and you
say to the vagrant, look there's a really
comfortable seat right over there.
If you do, what are you guilty of?
Well look at verse four.
James says, you have made distinctions among yourselves.
You have become judges with evil motives.
Now the New English Bible is slightly more
accurate there I think.
This is how it translates it.
Do you not see that you are inconsistent?
And that's the great key.
You are inconsistent and you're judging by false
standards.
The real point of the illustration is the
point of inconsistency.
It takes us back to chapter one and
verse six, doesn't it?
That graphic illustration of the surf of the
sea.
You remember from last night, one moment it's
beating against the rock as though it was
going to destroy the rock.
But then the tide changes and the sea
goes back.
The dread sin of inconsistency which so often
brings us down as Christians.
Well, having given us the illustration, James then
gives us four very, very powerful arguments against
behaving in this way.
Look at them with me.
First of all, if you behave in this
way, says James, you're going absolutely against the
example of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what he says in verse one.
My brothers, as believers, or if you are
believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't
show favoritism.
Now I think you can see what I
mean here when I said that in this
epistle, James is challenging the believers.
Is your faith real?
What he's really saying in verse one is
this.
How can you say you're a Christian, a
follower of our glorious Lord, who though he
was rich, became poor?
How can you say you're a follower of
such a man and have such attitudes towards
the poor?
It's true of our Lord, isn't it?
That he gave his life to the needy.
Jesus was concerned for the weak in society.
You remember how he said, those who are
whole have no need of a physician.
I am looking for those who sense their
sickness, who know their need.
Right from the commencement of his ministry, Jesus
identified himself with the poor.
You remember his message in the synagogue, quoting
from the prophet Isaiah, the spirit of the
Lord is upon me to bring good news
to the poor.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus identified himself with the
lowly.
It was the common people who heard him
gladly.
He has legion.
He's kept chained under guard in the tombs.
No man can handle him.
He's a maniac.
And he's exactly the kind of person who
draws the attention and the sympathy and the
ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All right, says James, you're a follower of
this man.
You're a Christian.
You're following Christ, who though he was rich,
became poor.
Now you can't distinguish between people in the
way I've suggested in the illustration.
That's his first argument.
His second argument is as follows.
If you distinguish between people in this way,
you're not only going contrary to the example
of the Lord Jesus, but you're going contrary
to your own experience and to the will
of God.
Look at verses five and six.
In these verses, James is really saying, if
God had had your attitude in the sphere
of salvation, you would have been forever damned.
And that's true, isn't it?
It was when we were without strength that
Christ died for the ungodly.
It was when we were helpless and without
hope that God moved in to save us.
So how can we, who have been delivered
from such a position of utter destitution, now
turn around and be respecter of persons, treat
the poor and the rich in a different
way?
To do so would be to go against
our own experience.
But furthermore, it would be to go against
the will of God.
Though God has not exclusively limited his choice
in history to the poor, it's a matter
of history that the poor are normally God's
first choice.
Remember Mary's song, Luke 1, 52.
He has put down the mighty from their
seats.
He has exalted them who are of low
degree.
You remember how Paul underlined that in 1
Corinthians chapter 1.
He said to the Corinthians, you see your
calling, brethren.
There are not many wise according to the
flesh.
There are not many noble.
God has chosen the foolish things in the
eyes of the world to shame the wise.
He has chosen the weak things of the
world to shame the things which are strong.
The base things of the world, God has
chosen.
The things that are not, he has made
to nullify the things that are so that
no man can boast in his presence.
Thomas Menton, in his great commentary on James,
writes the following.
The first choice that God made in the
world was of poor men.
Therefore, we often read that the poor received
the gospel.
Not only poor in spirit, the poor in
purse.
God chose fishermen to preach the gospel.
He chose poor people to receive it.
Only very few were one who were of
any rank and quality in the eyes of
the world.
This was partly that we might not think
that the wonderful increase in the spread of
the gospel was due to the advantages of
human power.
So, to discriminate between the rich and the
poor in the way the illustration suggests is
not only to go against the example of
Jesus, but it's to go against your own
experience, and it's to go against the will
of God in history.
And then, fourthly, James argues that it's total
madness to treat the rich and the poor
in this way.
This is what he says in the second
half of verse 6 and verse 7.
He says, the very people whom you are
flattering, the rich, are the people who are
actually dragging you into court.
Now, you can see more of this in
chapter 5.
If you'd just like to flick over and
read verse 4, you'll see what the rich
were doing in these days to the poor.
James says, behold, the pay of the labourers
who mowed your fields and which has been
withheld by you cries out against you.
Then, verse 6, you have condemned, he says,
to the rich.
You have put to death the righteous men
because he does not resist you.
This is what the rich were doing to
the Christians, and yet the Christians were treating
the rich in a manner much better and
giving far more position to the rich than
they were to the poor.
It's total folly to do this, says James.
Now, it's obvious from the Acts of the
Apostles that the rich often found it in
their interests to oppress the early Christians.
For example, in Acts 4, in the first
three verses, you read that it was the
rich Sadducees who laid their hands on Peter
and John.
Acts 13, it's the chief men of the
city who stir up persecution against Paul and
Barnabas.
And, of course, the spread of Christianity led
to a decline in prophets in certain industries.
You can imagine the anger of the owner
of the slave girls with the spirit of
divination in Acts chapter 16 when Paul delivered
her from that evil demon.
You can imagine the anger of the silversmiths
of Acts 19 as their prophets were destroyed
because no longer was there any worship of
Artemus, the god of whom they were making
silver effigies.
And these were the very people whom these
Christians were giving special honor and respect to.
Says James, you're not only going against the
example of Jesus, you're not only going against
your own experience, you're not only going against
the will of God, but you're doing something
absolutely foolish.
I think it's important to see here that
James is not just suggesting tit for tat.
He's not saying they are oppressing you, so
you oppress them.
Not at all.
He's already shown that all flattery is wrong.
It's inconsistent.
He's merely adding now that in that particular
position, it's utter folly as well.
And then, fourthly, his final argument contained in
verses 8 to 13 is that their actions
in treating the poor in this way is
against the law of God.
This is the most basic argument of all.
We should not be respecters of persons because
to be so is against the law of
God.
That law, he refers to in verse 8
as the royal law.
It's the law that we must love our
neighbor as ourselves.
Why does he call it the royal law?
He calls it the royal law because it
was given by the king of kings.
And it's the law which rules in this
king's kingdom.
The citizenship of heaven is a kingdom where
this law rules.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
So says James.
If you're a Christian and you've become a
citizen of the kingdom of heaven, how can
you live contrary to the very law which
rules the kingdom you claim to be a
member of?
So there's the challenging illustration.
You mustn't distinguish between the rich and the
poor in this way because it's against the
example of Jesus.
It's against your own experience.
It's against how God has worked in history.
It's totally foolish and it's utterly contrary to
the royal law of the kingdom of heaven.
Now before we look at the challenging doctrine,
just look at verse 10.
Because here James deals with one possible excuse
before it arises.
It's a well-known verse.
We often use it in gospel preaching.
Whoever keeps the whole law, says James, and
yet just offends in one point, he has
become guilty of everything.
You see, James is seeing that someone might
try and excuse themselves.
They might say something like this.
Well, we all have our strong points, don't
we?
And we all have our weak points.
We can't be perfect, can we?
We can't keep the whole law.
And it just happens that I fail in
this matter of caring for the poor.
I find the poor so difficult to deal
with.
I was talking to a lady like this
a few months ago.
She looked me in the face and she
said, you know, it's my upbringing.
I'm different from these people.
I just can't relate to the poor.
I don't feel any concern for them.
It must be my upbringing.
And she was trying to excuse herself.
She was saying she had strong points and
weak points.
And this was one of her weak points.
I says, James, the law isn't like that
at all.
I think Machia's illustration is magnificent.
He says the law is not like a
heap of stones.
You don't pick up some and leave others.
He said the law is like a sheet
of glass.
If it's broken, it's shattered.
That's the law of God, isn't it?
You can't pick and choose the law as
Christians you're going to live under.
You either accept the whole of God's law
or you offend in every point.
And it's a solemn thing to realize as
verses 12 and 13 show that the Christian
is subject to judgment by the law.
Now this is important and it's often misunderstood
and neglected.
We rejoice, of course, that we're not going
to be condemned by the law.
There's no condemnation.
We are in Christ Jesus.
But every one of us is going to
stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ.
That verse was not written for the non
-Christian.
It was written for the Christian.
Every one of us is going to stand
before the judgment seat of Christ.
The law of God will be there.
The issue will be, since we came to
know Jesus Christ, have we lived under his
law?
Have we fulfilled his law?
To do so, James argues, leads to perfect
freedom.
That's right, isn't it?
If you get a new machine, what do
you do?
If you have any sense, you look for
the instructions.
If you want that machine to operate effectively,
you look after it according to the instructions.
And God made you and God made me.
And if you want to really live in
this world, what do you do?
You get the maker's instructions.
And the maker's instructions are the law of
God.
If you want to know life, if you
want to know joy, if you want to
know true freedom, says James, get the law
of God.
Live under it.
You'll glorify your father and you'll know the
perfect freedom because that's how God intended your
life to be lived.
Well then, that's the challenging illustration.
And I think you'll agree, it really is
extremely challenging.
But let's move on to the challenging doctrine.
It's in the second half of the chapter,
commencing with verse 14.
And it's the doctrine of true faith.
Verse 24 is, at first reading, an extremely
startling verse, isn't it?
You see, says James, a person is justified
by what he does, the authorized version, I
think, has by works and not by faith
alone.
Now, we have to admit that at first
reading, it seems to be directly contrary to
other scriptures.
Let me just quote Romans 3.28 to
you.
Paul says, we conclude that a man is
justified by faith without the deeds of the
law.
And some people would say this is clearly
contrary.
James says a person is justified by works.
Paul says a man is justified by faith
without works.
And it was this difficulty which caused Martin
Luther and many of the early reformers to
want to rip the epistle of James out
of their Bible completely.
As they were emerging from the darkness of
Catholicism, and they'd just come to realize the
marvelous truth of justification by faith alone, they
just couldn't understand what James was saying.
And no one can blame them when you
consider from whence they came.
Now, I think much of the confusion has
arisen from the last phrase of verse 14.
It's the verse or the phrase which in
the authorized version is translated, can faith save
him?
This is the fundamental question of the chapter.
And if we're honest, James seems to be
saying, no, faith cannot save him.
There must be works as well.
But the true translation of the question which
James is asking immediately deals with the problem.
The question is not, can faith save him?
But the question is, can that faith save
him?
That's how the revised version has it and
the New English Bible has it.
Can that faith save him?
The RSV translates it, can his faith save
him?
The New English Bible, can such faith save
him?
So the question is not, can faith save
a man?
The question is, can such faith, which doesn't
produce works, save a man?
And the answer of the chapter is quite
obviously and definitely no.
Now, the Lord Jesus Christ taught this as
well, didn't he?
The Lord Jesus said it's by their fruits
that you know the true Christian.
Even the Apostle Paul taught the same truth.
You remember 1 Corinthians 13 verse 2.
He's speaking there of faith which can remove
mountains.
And he says a man can have that
kind of faith but if he doesn't have
love, it's absolutely worthless.
So after posing the question, James proceeds to
give the answer.
And he does this by using a number
of examples.
First of all, he gives us two examples
of faith which is obviously not genuine.
The first example is in verses 15 and
16.
A brother is naked and hungry and a
Christian goes up to meet him and says,
good afternoon brother.
Please go and get warm and have a
good meal.
And yet the Christian doesn't do anything to
help him.
Is that a sign of a man with
genuine faith, says James?
And the answer is, of course not.
Verse 17, faith if it has no works
is dead.
Now it's vital that we in the body
of Christ do not sidestep the challenge of
this illustration in verses 15 and 16.
Faith exposes its true nature.
Faith can truly be seen not by our
words.
Don't judge my Christian life by what I'm
saying to you from this pulpit.
Faith exposes its true nature, not by our
words, not by our testimonies, not by our
smiling faces or our hearty singing or our
attendance at assembly meetings.
Faith, says James, exposes itself by its reaction
to human need.
When a Christian meets someone in need, what
does he do?
You can see his faith by what he
does.
If you find James challenging, then the apostle
John is going to absolutely blow your mind,
as our American friends like to say.
Listen to 1 John 4 17.
Whoever has this world's goods and sees his
brother in need and his heart doesn't go
out to him, how dwells the love of
God within that man?
Now you remember that all of this is
a commentary on that statement at the end
of chapter 1.
This is pure religion.
This is undefiled, undiluted, genuine religion before God.
It's that religion which produces concern for the
widows, for the orphans, for the needy in
our society.
If faith does not result in such compassionate
action, then we have to question whether it's
genuine.
In a world of one billion hungry people,
this is an enormous challenge for 20th century
Christians.
I wonder if you've read Ronald Sider's penetrating
book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger,
and let's realize every one of us in
the Western world is rich.
You might not feel it, but in terms
of world economic position, we in the West
are rich.
In his book he presents the facts of
our one billion hungry neighbors.
David Watson, in the forward to his book,
writes the following.
Certainly there are numerous issues that call for
our attention at the present time.
There's confusion amongst evangelicals over basic doctrines, over
questions of church government, over the role of
women in the church, over the unity of
the church, over the place of spiritual gifts,
over methods of evangelism.
These and many other matters hammer insistently on
the doors of the church.
Nevertheless, whilst we continue to have our internal
theological dialogue within our ranks, the harsh inescapable
fact is this.
Every day while we talk, 500 million men,
women, and children throughout the world are literally
starving, and double that number are badly undernourished.
It's a challenge which every evangelical Christian must
face, because James says, if your faith is
genuine, and you see your brother in need,
and you do not respond, then something has
gone sadly wrong.
That then is the first example of spurious
faith.
Look at the second much more briefly in
verse 19.
It shows how utterly foolish it is to
believe that a faith which does not result
in works will ever save a man.
What does James say?
He says, even the demons have such faith.
Yes, the devil has faith.
He believes in God, but he trembles.
Now there in passing is another evidence of
genuine faith, and that is peace.
The demons believe, but they shudder.
The Christian believes, and a glorious peace floods
into his life.
Romans 5.1, therefore, being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
So those are the two illustrations of spurious
faith.
Let's have a look in closing at two
illustrations of genuine faith.
The first is the faith of Abraham, recorded
in verses 21 to 24.
And in this passage, you can see further
reasons for the confusion and the charges of
contradiction which have raged over the years concerning
the teaching of Paul and James.
Let's just turn back to Romans chapter 4
for a moment, and to verses 20 to
22, Romans chapter 4.
If you look at those verses, you'll see
that when Abraham was given the promise concerning
a son to be born to him through
his wife Sarah, even though she was barren,
Paul says, Abraham staggered not at God's promise,
but was strong in faith, giving glory to
God.
And then look at verse 22.
Therefore, it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Now that's the argument of the apostle Paul.
Abraham believed the word of God concerning a
child, even though all the signs were against
it.
And because he believed God's word, Paul says
he was justified.
Now let's just look back to verses 2
and 3 of the same chapter, Romans 4.
If Abraham was justified by works, he has
something to glory about.
But not before God, because what does the
scripture say?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to
him for righteousness.
So Paul is absolutely adamant.
Abraham has nothing to boast about.
There were no works involved whatsoever.
It was sheer faith which justified Abraham.
And then you come to James, and what
do you find?
Well, of course, he takes exactly the same
example to prove that a man is justified
by works.
He too takes the example of Abraham.
He says, So you get the problem.
I hope you're clear.
Paul says, look at Abraham.
He's an example of justification by faith.
James says, look at Abraham.
He's an example of justification by works.
It seems to be contradictory, doesn't it?
But of course, it isn't in any sense.
What you have to realize is that Paul
and James are talking about different incidents.
Paul is talking about Abraham believing the promise
of God concerning a child.
James says, Abraham took that very child whom
God had promised, and he was willing to
sacrifice him.
James is saying we can only see that
the faith of Abraham was genuine, because he
actually took the child, and he was willing
to sacrifice him.
He so believed the word of God that
he was willing to sacrifice his own son,
believing that God would raise him from the
den.
So it's not contradictory at all, is it?
It's complementary.
It's what James is saying throughout the second
chapter.
He's saying faith will save a man, but
if it's real faith, it will show itself
in works, such as being willing, in Abraham's
case, to sacrifice his only son.
In fact, it takes us back to chapter
one, doesn't it?
What a crisis it must have been in
Abraham's life, when God said to him, take
now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom
thou lovest, and offer him up as a
burnt offering.
Can you imagine the challenge?
Can you imagine the pressure, the promised seed
of Abraham, in whom all Abraham's desires and
future, it was all in that young man.
But in the crisis, Abraham's faith stood firm.
It was genuine faith, and that's all about
chapter one, isn't it?
Genuine faith is seen in the crisis.
Then you have the second example of genuine
faith, and this time we have a lady.
Rahab, verses 25 and 26.
Now there's one interesting difference in this example.
Mattiah explains it like this.
Abraham's faith was productive Godward.
Because of his faith, he was willing to
hold nothing back from God, even his own
son.
But Rahab's faith was productive manward.
Because of her faith, she was ready to
put herself in a position of grave personal
danger, in order to rescue the messengers.
Whenever you come across faith in the Bible,
there's always that two-way result.
Faith does two things in a man.
First of all, it makes him totally available
to God.
If you're a man or a woman of
faith, you've put your life in God's hand,
and you've said, I am willing God to
be taken wherever you want to take me,
to do whatever you want me to do.
That's faith, and that's seen in Abraham.
But faith must be more than just Godward.
If you're a man or a woman of
faith, then you're also willing to put yourself
at personal risk for the cause of Christ.
Just like Rahab, she was willing to risk
her life because of the cause of God's
people.
If you're a man or a woman of
faith, you'll be willing to take the step
of faith, willing to go into areas you
may never have gone into before.
You're fearful about them, but your trust is
in God, and for the sake of the
lost, you're willing to take such a stem.
I wonder how many of us tonight are
living, if we're honest, comfortable Christian lives.
We can handle our Christian life perfectly well.
I sometimes feel that that's why our prayer
meetings aren't throbbing with life very often, because
we can handle everything we're doing.
We've been doing it for years, and we've
got into the way of it, and there's
no real sense of needing God.
Many of the assembly in Carlisle would tell
you of how our fellowship was greatly affected
by the Dick Saunders crusade a few years
ago.
All of a sudden, the assembly was out
on a limb.
It had £9,000 to find for this
crusade, on top of its normal expenditures.
It had hired a huge tent.
Would the people come, or would it be
the biggest flop imaginable?
And as the day drew near, the fervency
in the prayer meeting grew.
I wonder if we're living too comfortably.
I wonder if God is not saying to
us, why don't you take a step out
for me?
A step into an area you might not
be sure about.
You wonder if you'll survive.
Will you have the ability?
Will you have the courage?
Will you have the stickability?
God says, I want you to trust me.
I want you to put your reputation on
the line.
I want you to put yourself at risk
for the cause of my people.
That's faith, isn't it?
Making yourself totally available to God, as Abraham
did.
But like Raham, being willing to put yourself
at risk for the cause of God's kingdom.
That's genuine faith.
If you're a real Christian, says James, it's
going to be seen in a very, very
practical way.
It's not just meetings.
It's not just prayer.
It's not just Bible study.
All those three things are essential.
But Christianity is much more than that.
It's a very, very practical thing.
The Christian is a man or a woman
with both feet on this earth, in one
sense.
He sees a world in need.
And his heart, inspired by the love of
God, goes out to those in need.
And one consequence is that that faith results
in works.
It doesn't allow the man who is cold
and hungry to pass by with a pat
on the back and say, go on your
way, brother.
But where we have the resources, because of
love, we respond practically, sensibly, to meet the
needs of the person in difficulty.
That's the first proof of genuine faith.
Tomorrow, we'll look at another, which is potentially,
for many of us, even more challenging, certainly
for me.
And that is the control of the tongue.
That's what chapter three is all about.
And I hope you can be with us
to look at that tomorrow evening.