Sermon Title: How Faith Works
Scripture Reading: James 2:14-26
How Faith Works
Understand the continuity between Genesis 15:6 and Genesis 22:18.
Antinomianism: The word comes from two Greek words: "anti" which means "against" and "nomos" means "law." Antinomianism means "against the law" (God’s moral law; imperatives) or lawlessness.
1) Faith and works may be distinguished, but never separated.
The distinction between faith and works is the difference between Heaven and Hell. If you get this wrong, you get the Gospel wrong. If you get the Gospel wrong, you are hopeless in your sins. Are Paul and James talking about the same Abraham?
The distinction:- “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:10-13b).
- “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14). “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). “Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?” (James 2:20).
James 2:26 is a perfect illustration. If I am alive I breathe. Am I alive because I breathe? Was I made alive by breathing? What if a dead person (Ephesians 2) was dependent upon breathing to live? He would never live if he were dead and relied on breathing to live. However living and breathing are inseparable.
There is a HUGE difference between necessary outworking and earning. Am I saved by works? Yes. In this way: Does heat earn fire? No. Does breath earn life? No. Must I breathe to live? Yes. Must it be hot to be fire? Yes.
Separating faith and works results in eternal separation from God.
Why was 1 John written? “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).
- 1 John 1:6, 2:3-6, 29, 3:3-10, 5:2-4, 18-21.
- "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith” (1 John 5:3-4).
- What does it mean to overcome the world? See 1 John 2:15-17.
- How does our faith overcome the world? See #2 below.
Since James and Paul use Abraham as an example of how faith works, let us return to Genesis 22. Some key verses in Genesis 22: 5, 8, 13, 14 – God will see to it or God sees it. God will see to what? God will see to Genesis 21:12b. Genesis 22:5, 8-10 and Genesis 21:12b seems to be at strongest odds with one another. Genesis 22:8b says it best, “they went both of them together.”
This is how faith works “theoretically”:
- “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:17-19).
- 2 Peter 1:3-5a, 16-19.
- Philippians 2:12.
No comments:
Post a Comment