August 16 2020: Faith Without Works Is Dead James 2:14-26— Sunday School Made Simple

[Music] how do you know that your faith is genuine hi i'm dr laverne tober welcome to sunday school made simple your online community of christian education teachers and students of the word and thank you for joining us as we continue to shelter in those of you who are still sheltering in as we explore the word of god using our precepts for living commentary which is based on the international uniform lesson series remember to ring the bell at the bottom of the video to subscribe to our show so that you don't miss out on any new lessons and teachers and serious students of the word why not subscribe to preceptsforliving.com for complete lesson plans videos the word made simple and additional resources when you subscribe you have precepts on your tablet phone or laptop so go to preceptsforliving.com and get those resources today each week we make sunday school simple with an easy to understand format the text for you students of the word and teaching tips for those of you who teach are you ready let's pray father for the wisdom that says our words and actions must match we ask you to help us apply your word today in jesus name amen we're concluding our summer quarter entitled wisdom focusing on wisdom's many dimensions in proverbs the gospels and the epistle of james this final unit of lessons highlights some new testament insights about wisdom from bishop james today's lesson is titled faith without works is dead which explores the necessity of godly works to demonstrate faith let's explore the text with our lesser name by the end of the lesson we will compare and contrast faith that is more than empty talk with faith that is proved by actions reflect on the power of abraham and rahab's examples of faith in action and decide to demonstrate faith with tangible works let's read our first set of verses from our scripture lesson in james chapter 2 verses 14 through 19 and i'm reading in the new living translation what good is it dear brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions can that kind of faith save anyone suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say goodbye have a good day stay warm eat well but then you don't give that person any food or clothing what good does that do so you see faith by itself isn't enough unless it produces good deeds it is dead and useless now someone may argue some people have faith others have good deeds but i say how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds i will show you my faith by my good deeds you say you have faith for you believe that there is one god good for you even the demons believe this and they tremble in terror oh my goodness what's important to know from these verses that we read there are two key points to know from james chapter 2 verses 14 through 19. we must do faithful works to demonstrate our faith and there is no authentic christian faith without works of righteousness we reviewed the context of the epistle james in the last two lessons and so for those of you who are not familiar with james i'll just give you a brief overview this is james the half brother of jesus who's called james the just or james the righteous he's also he was also a bishop and he's writing this epistle to the early church that is undergoing persecution he wants them to be wise because they are dealing with the roman government and they are being scattered because of the persecution and they have to survive so james gives practical wisdom similar to the wisdom and proverbs which everyone is familiar with as they as he writes this letter it's important to remember too that there are many challenges in the early church and there that includes the disparity between the rich and the poor believers the spreading of false doctrine and first facing persecution i need to slow down a bit don't i persecution started with the martyrdom of stephen and you'll recall that's in acts chapter 7 that happened soon after after the church was born and there's been a debate and confusion about whether or not james and the apostle paul disagree on the relationship between faith and works but paul explains the doctrine of salvation that faith is not based on works in other words there's nothing we could do to earn salvation it's not how much how good we are or how many people we helped or anything that we do that can earn salvation only faith we only earn we receive salvation through faith by believing who jesus is james on the other hand says that because we have faith there should be works in other words if we say that we know the lord and we have faith there should be an example of it we should see some evidence of that faith by the way we live so paul is talking about we don't have to earn salvation through works but james says once we are saved there should be works evident because of our salvation there's also a mini parable in verses 15 and 17 and i'm going to just read that again so he talks about i won't read it i'll just paraphrase it to you james gives the example of a brother or sister someone who is hungry or they don't have clothing and we say oh bye be well hope you get something to eat stay warm but we don't do anything to help them what does that prove absolutely nothing and so he is saying that faith is nothing if it's not married to works doing works that demonstrate our faith and this is what we should be how we should be living as followers of christ james chapter 2 18 indicates that james understands this whole argument between paul and and what believers are are thinking the faith and works doctrine is as we discussed earlier and he's not talking about the superiority of works over faith but he says there's no authentic christian relationship without works of righteousness or right living that might be a little repetitive because i'm looking at my notes and i know i covered it before but it's worth saying again is it well faith that has nothing to show for it is worthless it's like that of demons who say they believe in god and they even tremble but they don't obey god so what good is their belief well let's read the last set of verses from this lesson from james chapter 2 verses 20 through 26 and i'm reading again in the new living translation how foolish can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless don't you remember that our ancestor abraham was shown to be right with god by his actions when he offered his son isaac on the altar you see his faith and his actions worked together his actions made his faith complete and so it happened just as the scriptures say abraham believed god and god counted him as righteous because of his faith he was even called a friend the friend i should say of god so you see we are shown to be right with god by what we do not by faith alone rahab the prostitute is another example she was shown to be right with god by her actions when she hit those messengers and sent them safely away on a different road just as the body is dead without breath so also faith is dead without good works there are two key points to know from these verses we just read james shares examples of faith in action and james says faith without words is dead in this section james proves his point by alluding to their ancestors abraham the father of faith and rahab the prostitute these are examples of those who back their faith with words they are two examples of opposite ends at opposite ends i should say of the spectrum they're both part of israel's story of faith abraham is at the beginning of the history of israel he's a wealthy man who has faith in god god calls abraham and says that he's going to make him the father of many nations and through abraham he was going to bless the world so abraham has a son finally at age 100 and when he has this son god tells him to sacrifice that child and abraham goes up to the mountain to build an altar and sacrifice isaac and justice he's about to sacrifice isaac god says no no no don't don't do that abraham now i know you fear god now i know you believe me look there's a ram in the bush and so they get the rem and that is the sacrifice for god you know in in the old testament times there were actual sacrifices were offered up to god and new testament jesus christ became the sacrifice i just thought i'd throw that in and now rahab is at the other end of the spectrum for israel's history she was there at jericho when joshua sent the spies into jericho to spy out the land as they were beginning to enter the promised land and jericho would not originally allow them to pass through but a rahab hid the spies they went back and they gave joshua the information that was needed and the israelites were able to continue moving towards the land that god had promised them the walls of jericho flat you know all that go read those portions if you're not familiar with that wonderful wonderful portions of scripture to read well the people to whom james is writing they're very very familiar with abraham the father of faith and rahab the prostitute he knows that they are good examples and so he is demonstrating by referring to them that they did something with what they believed now rahab may not be the role model for us in terms of her profession because she was a prostitute however she was bold she was strong she was confident she was fearless oh my goodness that's how we want to be yes and we want to demonstrate our faith by our works that's what's important to know what's important to feel it's important to feel encouraged that works that demonstrate our faith can take a variety of forms we don't have to feel condemned because living out our faith looks different than someone else's abraham and rahab are two very different examples of what faith looks like in action and they're just two of the many different examples in the scriptures the bible is filled with accounts of people who did not act as others expected or anticipated but they demonstrated their faith and we too are the benefit of all the diversity all the examples and we have our own testimonies of faithful works as we follow jesus so let's receive this wisdom of encouragement to not devalue our own faith because it doesn't look like someone else's be encouraged that god is working through you and your faith your life is just what god wants it to be you're demonstrating your faith by how you live well that's what's important to feel what should we do in response to today's lesson we should do faithful works it doesn't get any more simple than that we should recognize that our face must look different in action and we should recognize that our face our faith excuse me must have action that brings glory to god we can simply say we believe in god or that we follow jesus and not show that we love him and trust him by actually doing what jesus tells us to do you remember i believe it's in john and jesus says if you love me keep my commandments so we can flip that around and say if i don't keep his commandments i must not love him it means that we have to do what the word of god says we have to practice justice we have to help one another help those who are struggling we have to help those who are hungry those who are homeless we need to feed them provide homes help widows and orphans we can say that we're wise and not do the word of god demonstrate wise living by obeying god's word amen let those who have ears to hear hear what the spirit is saying to the churches amen so that's our text for today now let's talk about how to effectively teach this lesson don't forget to pray pray that your students would have receptive hearts and minds to be obedient to god's word that you'll be creative especially in this digital age if you're still teaching digitally to use a variety of methods to help your students understand and pray that your students will apply what they learn to their lives especially in light of today's lesson and pray for wisdom hook or open this lesson by asking students to give an example of a time when you demonstrated your faith by an action in other words that you did something because of what you believed give us an example of what that was like or download the in focus video from preceptsforliving.com and answer the question at the end of that video and then once you've gotten the hook so the hook or open the scriptures i'm sorry the hook or open the lesson is the way that we get our students attention remember this teacher all right and now transition into book or present the scriptures invite volunteers to read the entire portion of the scriptures and it would be excellent if you can scroll the scriptures have the scripture scrolling on your screen as you're reading them out loud and ask them what stood out with you or resonated with you as you read these verses or as you listen to these verses then read the in-depth paragraph teachers be sure to study that and because that explains the scriptures and now if you're teaching children ask them how do you show mom that you love her what do you do or to your garden that you appreciate your guardian taking care of you how do you demonstrate that or to your grandma how do you show your grandma you love her or your grandpa and then just get them talking about what they do at home that should be a fun discussion and now you transition into look or explore the meaning and that means once we completed our bible lesson we're pulling back and looking at today what's going on in our world today what does it mean to us in our 21st century context so answer the questions in the lesson there are many many questions in in depth and search the scriptures and discuss the meaning one of those great questions from this lesson is this how can believers demonstrate their faith in a society where a tight budget governs spending if we were writing those questions a few months ago we might say how is our faith demonstrated when we go to buy toilet paper okay now let's transition into look or next step for application by asking a volunteer to read the liberating lesson and then to activate for application for activation ask those students ask each of your students to read those paragraphs silently and then journal and that's the kinesthetic activity to write down what the holy spirit is saying to them what a great lesson this is going to be god bless you as you teach and now let's talk mailbag and welcome to mailbag and once again we have minister allen also i know so many of you mentioned that you enjoy the wisdom that he shares for with us and we're so grateful to god for this millennial theologian he's just a wonderful wonderful young man of god so minister alan we referred a little bit in the lesson to the conflict or the discussion i don't want to say conflict but it actually was between faith and works which paul discusses and james faith and works and i explained a little bit would you elaborate on that please and share with our listeners the full picture of what was going on in those times absolutely so this is something that's really important for us as believers today and people a lot of time get confused or they get disoriented um thinking about works based righteousness right um and that is a false doctrine that comes up so often it's so easy for us to slip into that what that means is that there's some way that we can work to earn our salvation right that's works based righteousness that what god is looking for is us to do certain things or to make sure that we keep the law perfectly or to be the perfect christian quote unquote and that's how we earn salvation um but that's not what paul believed that's not what james believes it's not what we as christians believe we believe that salvation is through by grace alone from god through faith in in jesus christ the lord um and so that is important for us to recognize um what james and paul's difference is and really you they they do marry well together when you understand the context paul is trying very hard to be the missionary apostle who's spreading the good news the gospel of jesus christ just like all of the other apostles are and what his major concern is is making sure that people come into relationship with god right relationship again right they repent come in the right relationship with god uh by faith by grace through faith right that they're gonna believe in jesus and then they'll be saved from the penalty of sin which is death uh and so he spends romans galatians you know we get it in corinthian all of his letters he's talking about this salvation is by grace alone um it's through faith it's not by works uh unless any man can boast right that's what paul says we don't want anybody to claim that they earn their salvation james on the other hand is talking about something that happens after we get saved right after we've repented after we've come back in the right relationship with jesus then we should demonstrate our faith with good works right we should live out our faith and paul actually agrees if you keep reading on in romans we can't stop it you know we love you know we we receive salvation only by grace through faith you know unless any man troubles what he says after that is so should we say that the law is dead or of no effect no you know the law is still important we need the law uh christ fulfills the law and then invites us to be able to keep the law by the power of the holy spirit not so that we're saved but so that we demonstrate what it means to live a godly life that we live out our faith right james is trying to do the same kind of work when he's writing his epistle he's saying all right church and again he's not a missionary apostle right his focus is different he's the equivalent of a bishop right so he's trying to make sure that churches and christians live well right that you you demonstrate faith well and just like a pastor would make sure their congregation is growing and maturing that's james's focus so now that we are saved we need to live right and so it's not faith or works it's faith and works right and the way that i put people to make it really really simple is that james says in 220 james 2 26 that faith without works is dead is a body without a spirit if you think about a body that doesn't have a spirit it's not alive right but he says that faith is like the body not like the spirit so the analogy is that we put works into our faith not faith into our works so let me say that again we put works into our faith to make our faith living rather than putting faith in our works to save us right which is what paul advises against that was excellent oh my goodness i love that the way you summarize that at the end that was so so beautiful and um i often when i was teaching bible study i would give an example and i said if i said that this building were on fire and you believed that the building was on fire you'd be out of here you wouldn't stay in your seats and that's what it means to do something because we believe something if we believe it we should live by it oh my goodness thank you thank you thank you so much and as we were studying this lesson i couldn't help but think about your grandmother because i know that you lost your grandfather throughout through this entire time the beginning of this um covet 19 pandemic and so i want to ask how is she doing it and i know that she's being cared for as a as a as a widow so how is she doing she's actually doing really well um you know um we i appreciate your prayers and your thoughts um and she's getting both right the action she's such a faithful woman every time i talk to her she's just you know god is in control and um you know she's still got my mom checking on her and my you know her other children checking on her so it's it's good and she's doing well thanks for asking that's good and and uh i know that there may be many in our listening audience who have lost loved ones during this time i know you're checking in on them and making sure people are being cared for and that god is able god is able to bring us through let's be prayerful and attentive to what the holy spirit is saying to us through in these times and now we're going to close our lesson with minister alan reading our keep in mind verse indeed in this keep in mind verse is another one that you could have seen coming which uh is james 2 26 and it is in the new living translation it says just as the body is dead without breath so also faith is dead without good works dear believer if you truly believe something with what you believe we're going to see it faith without works is dead god bless you as you study and as you teach this lesson may god bless you have a wonderful week

Channel: Sunday School Made Simple

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Id: a3Tp3o8355c

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020