Faith and Works – Part 2

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Introduction
James 2

So we are in James chapter 2 looking very closely at this relationship between Faith and Works because, because, as we have come to discover, having a faith that works is in fact the only kind of faith. There is no other kind. A faith that doesn’t change a person, is in fact, no faith at all.

James is looking for that change. He’s looking for that fruit, the evidence of that internal transformation. He’s poking, prodding, pushing. He’s trying to upset you a bit to see what spills out.

Let me illustrate it this way. Let’s imagine I’m holding a coffee cup and you come up behind me and smash into me and my coffee goes flying all over the ground. Here’s the question, "Why did I spill coffee on the ground?" I might say, well obviously because you bumped me. But the question is more fundamental. The reason I spilled coffee on the ground is because I had coffee in the cup. If there were tea in the cup, then I would have spilled tea. If there was water in the cup I would have spilled water.

James just wants to know, “What’s in your cup?”

He’s testing for it. And so to get at that, last week we looked at three tests of saving faith. These are three historical tests of saving faith that came out of the reformation. And they are represented by three Latin words.

We noted that true saving faith must have a knowledge of God. You must understand who God is. That is an act of the mind.

We also noted that you must agree that those things are true. And when we agree with true things, there’s always an emotional response.

But then we noted what James said, that it’s possible to have information about who God is (understand him with the mind), it’s possible to agree with who God is (assent to that information and feel), and still have achieved a rank no greater than a demon.

Demons have notitia (mind) and they have assensus (emotion - shudder) but they do not have saving faith. In order to have saving faith there’s one key piece remaining. Fiducia.

You must trust.

And we used this analogy last week. You can understand the claim that this rocket can travel into space (you can have notitia). You can agree it’s true, you’ve watched other astronauts do it. You have listened to their eyewitness testimony. (you can have assensus). But you don’t have faith until what? Until you get on the rocket. In order for you to travel to space, the rocket must act on you. And you must place your life in that rocket. That’s trust. That’s fiducia. And until you do, you will never experience the wonder of space.

And similarly, you and I can understand the claim of who God is, we can agree that God is who he says he is but God will always be outside of us until we trust him. Saving faith cannot exist apart from genuine trust.

So these were the three tests of saving faith. We said last week that if you answered yes to all three of these questions, “Yes, I know, agree and trust God” then you possess genuine saving faith.
Examples of Faith
Now given the importance of question three, this key question that ultimately separates demons from Christians, let me ask you a question, “Did you pass the test?” Do you trust God? Are you willing to submit your entire life to him? Do you have fiducia?

Here’s how an honest person answers that question, “I’m not sure.” Why is that an honest answer? Because this is not a test question that can be determined on paper. It’s a test question that has to be revealed in life. Only life can really reveal if a person trusts.

For example, if I asked you a question, do you think you have the guts to jump out of an airplane with a parachute. I’m guessing a lot of you would answer, “I don’t know.” You’d have to actually be in the plane with the door open, and you’d have to just decide in that moment. You’d have to actually be in the situation. Can I do it? Only the real life pressure situation could reveal that.

When it really came down to it, when you really had to assess the risk, when you had to explain to your spouse what you were planning on doing, would you do it. Only real life could test for that. The only way to test for that is to live it.

Now your uncertainty becomes certainty, when what? When you jump. Now you’ve proved you can do it. The test revealed what you did not know.

That is precisely why James says,

If your claim to have great faith never reveals itself in works, you don’t have great faith. Here’s what he’s saying here. Don’t tell me you are brave enough to jump out of an airplane with a parachute by ticking a box on a multiple choice test. Don’t just talk. Show me you are a jumper by jumping. And in a similar way, show me that you are a Christian by Christianing. Any other test of faith is incomplete and incomplete tests aren’t very helpful. James is simply questioning the effectiveness of a written exam without a practical.

A good test functions as a filter to separate those who have complete mastery of a subject from those who do not. So if a good test is able to discovers those with genuine mastery, what’s the definition of a worthless test? A worthless test is a test that an incompetent person can pass. James is simply saying, “Claiming to have faith without testing that faith by examining ones works is a worthless test. It’s a dead test.” Why? Because you can pass it and not be saved.

Testing this way will give people false assurance that they are Christians.

That’s why he says,

It’s ridiculous to test a person based on claims alone. Let me ask you, "Would you board a plane and trust your life to a pilot who claimed they could fly plane but had never demonstrated that? Trust me. I can do it. That’s crazy.

But listen guys, he’s pointing out something even more ludicrous then even that. He says faith APART from works is useless. He’s saying, faith WITHOUT works is dead. So the person has already demonstrated they have no works. They’ve already failed the works test.

So to make the analogy parallel we would have to say that the person has already demonstrated that they have NO ABILITY to fly an airplane. They’ve crashed the plane over and over again. They actually have already demonstrated that they CANNOT do it. And yet they claim to be a pilot. Would you call that person a pilot? That’s insanity. That’s crazy.

That’s what he’s saying.

How foolish can you be? James says, stop calling them pilots. Your giving licenses to pilots who crash planes? Why would you do that? Do you know how many dangerous pilots you are going to let into the skies. Do you know how many people they are going to kill because you are giving them that title? Your insane. Your foolish. Your confusing everyone. That’s the definition of foolish. In the same way that calling people who don’t know how to fly planes, pilots is foolishness and insanity, so calling someone a Christian who has genuine faith but does not have any works that demonstrate that faith, that’s insanity.

Your going to hurt people. Only a foolish person would believe someone’s words of faith without examining the test of life. People can say anything. Yes, for sure, we need them to say they have faith. But is it genuine faith? Examine the works!

And that is what today’s passage is all about. It’s not the written exam. It’s not a multiple choice test. It’s the real life test of trust. *It’s the jumping off a bridge. As Martin Luther said, “A genuine faith is faith that throws itself entirely on God.” You justify yourself as Christ clinger by clinging. You are justified by your works.

So let’s look at the examples he gives of these real life tests. He starts with Abraham who did exactly that.

Was not Abraham’s faith proven to be genuine faith when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? And the implied answer is yes. Yes of course he was.
And so he’s saying it was not until Abraham raised the knife that we knew, ahh, there’s genuine faith. That’s what demonstrated it. That work justifed the claim. Could you have ever said, Abraham had great faith without that event. No knife, no faith. It’s that simple. Don’t try to separate Abraham’s faith from Abraham’s knife. It’s foolishness

Now why? Why was this act of raising the knife evidence of fiducia? We get incredible insight into why if we turn to Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 is often called the hall of faith because we remember the events which revealed the great faith in men and women of old. Faith can have degrees, right. Not all faith is created equal. And these men and women had heroic degrees of faith. And Hebrews 11 remembers the key testing event which revealed that faith.

Abraham is listed in this chapter for works he PERFORMED. He performed a feat of faith in the real world that revealed his faith and God records it in this hall of faith in Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11

Now what God was doing here was testing his faith. He was testing it. Abraham, is your faith genuine? And so to determine that, He’s testing for that component of faith you can’t get to on paper. What makes faith, faith is the fiducia. Only real life can test for fiducia. That deep ultimate trust.

And so here comes this test for Abraham. It’s the real life test. And of course, tests are no fun. Tests are terrible. Tests are like vices that squeeze you and whatever is inside comes out. They’re very unpleasant. Therefore, they’re effective.

He’s squeezing Abraham and here’s what comes out. Three things come out.

The first thing that comes out of Abraham in this test is obedience. But this is a type of obedience that can only come out in a vice-like squeeze. What makes this obedience different than the run of the mill everyday obedience is the “even though” component. He obeys, even though.

Here’s what is meant by that. Look at how the NIV translates verse 18.

You see it’s not faith to trust God when it seems reasonable to trust him. Faith, TRUST, Fiducia is all about the even though. I trust you EVEN THOUGH it seems like you shouldn’t be trusted.

You see you have to be able to TRUST God when it doesn’t make sense. This didn’t make sense. Because on the one hand we have this promise:

I’m going to bring out of Isaac a great nation and a messianic descendant through whom all the world will be blessed."

And alongside that promise you have this command.

Take out some rope. Bind your son. Lift a knife. Ignore his screams. Raise it up. Plunge it into his heart and and kill your son.

Do you see how difficult this? Imagine what it would like to be Abraham? How do these two things go together? I don’t actually know. But I will obey EVEN THOUGH.

Do you see what the EVEN THOUGH captures? You have a command to obey that seems to contradict the promise. In other words, a test happens when we find ourselves in a situation where to obey God looks like foolishness and possibly even wrong. The command to obey God flies in the face of reason, it flies in the face of common sense. But Faith doesn’t care.

EVEN THOUGH my mind tells me,
EVEN THOUGH my experience tell me,
EVEN THOUGH my friends tell me,
EVEN THOUGH my intuition tells me,
EVEN THOUGH my fears are telling me,
EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING is telling me this a bad idea…..

God I TRUST you above all of those things. And so I obey. That’s why it’s a test. Because it pits all other trust references against God. You have the all these voices in this ear chattering away. And you have God whispering in this ear. Who is it going to be? Me or them? The whole situation is setup so you are forced to make a decision.

We are often put in situations like this all the time. We have these situations where it seems like the promises of God are at odds with our experience. God you say you love me. You promise you will never leave me or forsake me. You say that all things work together for good to those who love God.

Then why is my son dying of a brain tumor. Why is my son or daughter being cut down in the flower of her youth? Why was my spouse taken from me? Why have I been so mistreated?

That’s a test. It seems that to obey, to trust God in a situation like that, is leading you completely out of the path of blessing. I’ve been so abused, so mistreated, so hurt and now you are asking me to love my enemy? Can’t do it. How is that going to anything other than enable? It’s a test because God’s commands seem to contradict either your reason or his promises or both.

Tests occur any time your feelings and your wisdom are pitted against God’s feelings and God’s wisdom. Which is going to win? That test will squeeze you and something will come out.

What happens when you squeeze Abraham? He obeys. He obeys “even though.”

So fiducia obeys. Here’s the second thing fiducia does.

God asked Abraham to sacrifice not just his son, but his one and only son.

Faith sacrificies EVEN the one and only.

Now think about what is being asked here. The request of God was to offer up Isaac as a whole burnt offering. In the OT there were 5 different types of offerings. Some of those offerings were partly given to God and partly given to the worshiper. So for example in the peace offering you would give a portion to God, but you would eat a portion as well.

But a whole burnt offering was not that way. In a whole burnt offering you give God the whole. You get nothing. You give it all away. I give it all to you without reservation. I give it all to you and I receive none. There is no remainder. It’s all consumed.

So God here is asking Abraham to give him his one and only son. God you get it all. I get nothing. That’s a big ask. To give up any son would be difficult. To sacrifice a son on an altar with a knife and fire would be more difficult still. But to sacrifice this one and only son? That’s far beyond even that which is incomprehensible. Think about it. Abraham had waited and waited and waited for years for this son, because God had said, "I will give you a son through your wife Sarah who will be your heir." And finally, he came, in his gray-headed old age. This son represented the faithfulness of God to his promises. Isaac was literally the embodiment of God’s precious faithfulness. The son he’d waited for his entire life. The Son he thought he’d never get. The son that was an answer to his prayers. The son that was such a blessing to him and his wife. The beautiful, wonderful, blessed son.

And now what does God say? Abraham, take your son and sacrifice him? No, it’s far more intimate. He says, “Take your son, YOUR ONLY SON, whom you LOVE, and offer him up as a burnt offering.”

Fiducia gives God the one and only, the one that you love. Trusting God means giving him THAT ONE. And I want you to observe very closely that giving up Isaac was not the giving up of some secret sin. It was not the giving up of some evil thing we are withholding from God. Isaac was a good thing. Isaac was God’s gift. Isaac was a blessing.

Some of the hardest things in life to give to God are not the evil things, but the good things. The blessings from God.

Would you not agree that a weekend is a gift from God. After a hard work week, who doesn’t look forward to God’s gift of a weekend. But what if God wants you to give up my weekend? It’s my one and only weekend this month to do what I want?
God you want me to give up my peace and quiet? It’s the one and only time in the day when I have time to just think and pray. I was going to read my Bible.
God you want me to give up my extra money? It’s the only and only bit of money that’s not allocated.

Giving up our one and onlies is tough.

It’s hard to give up our one and onlies. But faith does it. Faith says, God, you are worth more to me than the sum total of the most pleasant blessings. When Abraham was squeezed, because he TRUSTED GOD, because he had fiducia, he did it. He obeyed “even though”. He sacrificed his “one and only” who he loved. Here’s the third thing it does. It accepts.

Listen, when you read James, you realize, James is kind of a cynic. He’s a little jaded on people who talk, talk, talk talk. I’m tired of people talking.
If Abraham were to come to James and say, “James, I fully trust God." James hears Abraham and says, "I used to say that too. Anybody can say anything. Justify that statement. Demonstrate that you trust God.” And Abraham raises the knife. Now I’m listening. Okay now you are putting your money where you mouth is. Abraham YOU TRUST God.

How would you describe this type of fiducia? How would you describe this kind of trusting faith? Would you call it blind faith?

I think that’s either helpful or very unhelpful depending on how you look at it.

God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, EVEN THOUGH it seemed to contradict what he had said earlier. So did Abraham obey God blindly?

Here’s the distinction I’m after. He could EXPLAIN with laser precision the character of God. He could EXPLAIN why God should be trusted. He could EXPLAIN what the promises of God were. He had a REASONED EXPLANATION for all that.

But here’s what he could not explain. He could not explain how it would work out.

He could see the who. But he was blind to the how. He knew who. He did not know how. It’s okay to NOT have the how if you have the who. That’s faith. That’s fiducia.

And we read of his inability to see the how.

Even though he didn’t know the how, he knew the who. He knew he could. God was ABLE, EVEN to raise him from the dead. I don’t know how God is going to pull this off. But let me go worse case. Let’s just say I kill him, I throw him up on the altar. His body is burned and consumed. Fine. God will not break his promise. I have come to trust him. I love him. I don’t know how he will do it. But if he has to raise him from the dead, if he has to reconstitute his body, so be it. I know is ABLE. He WILL do it. It’s not an option for God to break his promises to his children. PERIOD.

God is faithful. That is fiducia, friends. That is trust.
Application
Now let’s take a moment to apply this. I want you to realize something about the story of Abrham in this passage. Faith comes in degrees. The Bible talks about Christians as those who GROW in faith. That means that the faith you have now is smaller than the faith you will have when you grow older. It’s not a binary concept where you either have faith or you don’t. You learn to trust more over time as something proves to be trustworthy.

You see the faith of Abraham was not always so strong. Abraham’s faith started out very weak. It was very small. And perhaps your faith is quite small. You look at your life, and all you see is failure. Listen, God, even now, may be using your failure to grow your weak faith.

Consider the life of Abraham. If you feel like a failure, there’s plenty of failure here to relate to. The call of God to sacrifice Isaac on the altar was an event that happened when Abraham is like 100 years old. He’s ancient. This is his final exam. And he passed. But he wasn’t always such a great warrior of faith.

Do you remember when he was traveling in the land of Cannan and the lord of the land saw his wife and thought she was beautiful. And so not once but TWICE he lied about Sarah being his sister because he didn’t trust God to protect him? He was a freakin coward. That’s not faith.

God promised to give him a son and heir. But didn’t happen in the timing he thought and so he slept with his slave woman, Hagar, and had a son by her, and because of that, he created this giant familyl mess where all sorts of problems plagued him for the rest of the life. Now you’ve got this messed up polygomous marriage with infighting. It was a nightmare.

But now he comes to the end of his life. After a string of failures. And here’s what he says,"

Every time I have tried to put my wisdom up against yours, I’ve lost.
Every time I’ve thought I was wiser than you, I’ve screwed my life up.
Every time I tried to save my life, I lost it.

But on the other hand,

Every time a trust you instead of me, I won.
Every time I though you were wiser than me, my life got untangled and filled with joy.
Every time I thought I was losing my life, I was in fact gaining life.

I’ve found only joy by trusting you. I’m tired of trusting myself. YOU GOD are trustWORHTY. I will not be fooled again! This obedience, though it looks like death, will lead to a resurrection I cannot foresee.

I want you to learn that phrase. God trusting you looks like death but I believe that it will lead to a resurrection I cannot foresee. That’s faith. That’s fiducia.

That is TRUST. And you know what that did for Abraham and his relationship with God.

What are all friendships built on. TRUST. God calls you a friend when you trust him. Do you want to be God’s friend. Trust him.

Abraham was counted as righteous and called a friend of God because of what he did. He was able to say, “Makes no sense to me, but I’ll do it because you said so. I know your good. I know you will never leave me or forasake me. I know a resurrection is coming.”

And the whole point here is that what proved he had faith was his works not his words. It was the squeeze. And the juice was worth the squeeze.

That’s the context for verse 24.

Abraham was justified by the juice. You have not been tested until you experience that critical moment where to obey God looks like it will lead to a kind of death and you have no idea how God will keep his promises. You have to give it all up. You have to surrender your one and only, your one and only that you love. You have to give it up EVEN THOUGH you cannot possibly understand how it will work out for good.

**Abraham was walking along and he was saying, “If I obey you, this will mean death.** How in the world can death bring blessing? But I must obey which means, there is a resurrection I cannot forsee.” Whenever you get into one of these situations your being squeezed. Faith is being revealed. Faith is refined. Faith will grow.

What comes out of these situations is always the same. Lord, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. That’s fiducia. Even if I die, I believe that this will lead to a resurrection I cannot foresee.

You see God doesn’t give you the blueprint in advance. Otherwise it wouldn’t be faith. Fiducia is casting yourself onto God without knowing the results in advance. You know the who, so you release the how.

Listen, do you know where this event took place? Do you know where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac? Where was that provision given so that Isaac would not need to die? It was Mount Moriah. Do you know what Mount Moriah is? It was the exact same place where the temple was built. And the temple was built right next to the place where Jesus himself, the ultimate lamb would be slain upon the altar.

When Isaac asked, “Here’s the wood. And here’s the fire. But where is the sacrifice.” How did Abraham respond. Essentially he said, I don’t know the how, but I know the who. *He said, “I don’t know how God will provide.* I just now that he will.” God will provide. And guess what. Centuries later, he did. Centuries later, God would walk up to those same mountains with his Son. Like Abraham, we see God putting the wood for his Son’s sacrifice on his back. Like Isaac, Jesus cried out to his Father. “Where’s the lamb? Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me.”

But instead of saying, God will provide, he says to his son. You are the provision. You are the lamb that was promised from the beginning of time. You are the lamb of God who John the Baptist foretold, would take away the sin of the world.

When Jesus cried out and said, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" God kept going. There was nobody there to say to him, "Stop your hand. And the knife was raised. And the screams were ignored. " Because God offered up his firstborn as a sacrifice for sin, Abraham didn’t have to offer his. I don’t have to offer mine. None of us has to go up there.

Listen this is why we can have faith. This is why we can board the rocket and entrust our entire lives to Christ without knowing the how. Because we know the who. "We know the God of promise. We know that God loves us because he did not withhold his Son, HIS ONE AND ONLY SON, who he LOVED. Even though we might not know how, THAT IS WHO. And that kind of God can be TRUSTED.

Don’t say before I trust you, "I want the script. I want to know exactly what’s going to happen up there on the mountain. If I’m going to face death, I want to know how the resurrection is going to come. You want to know what Mt. Moriah means in Hebrew. It means, the place of instruction. It is in this very uncomfortable place where we trust the who without knowing the how. It is then and ONLY THEN, that our faith can grown. Mt Moriah, the place of instruction. In the mountain of the Lord, it will be revealed. In the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

You have to go up to the mountain of obedience to get instruction. It’s only as you obey, not before you obey, that the wisdom comes. It’s only as you OBEY, EVEN THOUGH you don’t understand, that wisdom comes. It’s only as you OBEY and sacrifice the ONE AND ONLY who you love that wisdom comes. It’s only as you obey, not before you obey, that the resurrection happens. Don’t demand something that would destroy the test.

That’s faith.