Faith and Works [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. We are part of the redemptive story because we're telling the whole world about the love of Jesus.

I'm telling you, it's one story from Genesis all the way to Revelation, and it's all woven together by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I love the Word of God. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Word and Spirit, The Beauty of Balance, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this resource, today's special offer. Contact us at pastoralan.org. That's pastoralan.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Your faith, Christians, your faith is not dead, it's alive. A true Christian's faith has life to it.

It does the stuff that life does, moves and acts and feels and thinks and works. And so faith without that would be dead, but faith, it's real faith, real faith that you have in Christ, it's something that is powerful. Faith works, we say. And by this nuanced meaning, I mean in the first place, faith works in a sense of like there's a factory for faith, like a faith works place. And it's in the Word of God, it's in the testimony of our lives, it's in the fellowship of the saints, it's in the worship of God that our faith grows and is built. And so there's a way in which our faith, that there's something working that's building our faith. But there's also a sense in which faith works in the sense that it is effective.

But I want to talk today about how it is that faith is demonstrated by the way that it works. And the place to find this message of this mystery of the balance of faith and works is in James chapter 2. James chapter 2, and I turn you there. This is an epistle that lovers of grace and of the gospel of grace may not turn to as often, but I hope that I'll be able to demonstrate for you today that James is not in conflict with Pauline gospel. He's not in conflict with the whole beauty and notion and power of being saved by grace through faith, but that he's looking at this from the angle of what real faith is all about. So James chapter 2 at verse 14.

James 2 verse 14. 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 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'll 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 so faith works is the message. I read this week about an Amish man he had made his first trip with his family to a shopping mall never been one of those places before with all of the decorations and lights and electricity and all these things never seen before and he came into a strange sight saw these two metallic doors that were flush up against the wall and they were there and have seam in the middle of these two men and there were circles over each of the doors that one they would light up sometimes one said a g and a one and a two and a three and over on the right hand side on the wall there were buttons you could light up arrow pointing up a arrow pointing down and he just sat there with his his son and he was just staring at these these things what might it be and a woman walked up she was unkempt and it wasn't she was not an attractive woman and she came over she pushed a button on the right hand side and the doors magically opened up and she stepped in and the doors closed and a few moments later some lights up top flashed and there was a dinging sound and the doors opened back up and the most beautiful 35 year old woman you ever seen stepped out an Amish man turned to his boy and said son go get your mother that's that's not what we mean by faith works okay yeah that's uh faith uh is something that is so on the one hand mysterious and on the hand so simple um any child can understand what it is to have faith believe something faith works in its effectiveness in the sense that faith in it of itself has an effect the basketball player who's got the game on the line with one second left and a free throw in his hands to win the game if he has faith if he's confident the word we use if his confidence that he's going to make the shot then he's more likely to make it in other words faith works it's effective just in and of itself right like life works uh like that faith is um effective in the sense naturally but also somehow mysteriously spiritually god says it's impossible to please him without faith it's what he loves he he loves a trust relationship with him and so the essence of the gospel is that we that we are not saved by our works we're not saved by our merits but instead god did something absolutely extraordinary that even the angels longed to look into and no one could have ever guessed even with all the prophetic visions and all the shadows no one could have foreseen that god would do something so extravagant and so remarkable that he himself would take on human flesh to be a human being so that he could represent fairly all of humanity and live a life that we could never live and pay a price that we could have never paid so that god could be at the same time just and that is punishing sin which just what justice does but also justifier demonstrating that he's a god of love and mercy so through the cross of jesus christ god is both just and justifier and therefore we who are in christ find ourselves into a whole new position the cosmos in a whole new posture of our relationship with god that has now been reunited not because we did something but because god did something and when we believe that we have faith and faith is a mystery and it's a marvel and it's a gift and it's powerful and what james is saying is i want you to see what this faith is really all about the great reformer martin luther called this epistle epistle an epistle of straw he'd have soon done away with it there have been some scholars who said well james and paul just don't agree with each other here's james saying we're justified by our works and paul saying we're justified by some have said just throw this epistle out of the book and others but what i want to show you today is that um this is james giving a perspective or a definition an angle to tell us here's what real faith looks like in other words we're saved by faith but real faith looks like this faith works they're so closely together that you can't just separate this theologically we separate it but what i want to show you today is and this is what james is trying to demonstrate here and throughout his epistle that there is such a deep deep connection that you could say things that he is saying that's alan ryan we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series if you've ever thought that if you've ever thought that being filled with the holy spirit meant shutting off your mind you're in for a wonderful surprise god's word and god's spirit were never meant to be separated embrace the fullness of god's word and his spirit and grow like never before with word and spirit you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well and remember when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries you'll be broadcasting the love of god to thousands every day now we are in our final days of offering this special product call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastorallen.org today's teaching now continues here once again is alan wright let me first just address uh the question when you come if you're a lover of grace like i am and you're a lover of the gospel and you come to a text like james has here in chapter two and you read lines like this how do you interpret something like this sometimes people who have had a fresh encounter with god and have especially those who have heard so much of the message that we preach of grace and it's like you can be baptized in this you can just be immersed in the gospel and realize oh i've lived so much of my life under shame and legalism and to come into the glorious revelation of the finished work of jesus and the burdens that lift off of us and the joy that comes and the freedom and sweet savor of oh such amazing grace and yet sometimes we'll come to a verse like this and go oh no and i've had people actually come to me and just say i i was feeling so wonderful about all the revelation i was getting from god and everything but then i read this verse and it feels like it's just unraveling the whole theology it feels like it's just it's just taking it taking it apart and the first thing to say about this is that to understand any portion of scripture you must interpret that scripture in the context of the whole of scripture now if you've heard me preach much you you'll pick up on this and i want to reiterate it over and over with you the bible is one great story this is one of the things that's so amazing about the word of god how could it be that people who have different pens and different cultures and different era of time are writing down scriptures that then compiled from all of these different eras of time protected in astounding ways with their accuracy and then come together in this one book that has in it narrative literature and has wisdom literature in it and apocalyptic literature and has instructions in it and has stories in it and has all variety of of manner of of cultural influence that might have come in through these writers but you put it all together and it's absolutely mind-bending to me as a student of literature how anything like this could come to pass when right from the very beginning on page one you begin to see shadows and types of understanding what will actually be fulfilled in christ himself so that the whole of the word of god comes together in this amazing seemingly seamless tapestry that has been woven together it has to have been orchestrated by an author who is beyond it and above it and transcend it over the marvelous thing about the bible is that it is one great big meta narrative telling the redemptive story of a god who made a beautiful world and made people in his own image and how those people in their rebellion against god found themselves by their sin separated from god in a gulf a chasm so great that no one could ever climb over it or get through it no one could ever pay a price that was dear enough an infinite price an ultimate price no human being was righteous not one of them so no one could come or climb their way back to god so this god this god this creator of the ends of the earth had so much love and so much compassion and so much longing that he did the unthinkable he came in his only begotten son a god who became flesh who'd ever heard of such a thing and this human being jesus of nazereth lived the sinless life he lived a life that we couldn't live he paid a price that we couldn't pay he was a hero he was a hero who'd come to rescue the damsel in distress and this hero was not just a heroic character he was a real man in real history and yet he is god himself and he's ascended on high and he's made us to be his bride forever and forever and so it is that we've been given a great commission in this world and we are part of the redemptive story because we're telling the whole world about the love of jesus i'm telling you it's one story from genesis all the way to revelation and it's all woven together by the inspiration of the holy spirit i love the word of god and so when you read a text you read that text saying where does this fit into the story where does it fit into the story and if you don't read it like that the with this primary hermeneutical principle scripture interprets scripture have you ever come to an unclear text is unclear to you don't don't get worried about it the more clear scriptures interpret the less clear scriptures we know this god is love if you read the bible one thing you know for sure god is love the steadfast love of the lord endures forevermore his loving kindness is new to us every morning god is love so if you come to a prophetic verse that says the lord says esau i have hated you don't all of a sudden go oh no everything's wrong it's not you guys where does this fit into what i know to be true about who god is see let me give you a kind of a natural example in the natural you could see something like this maybe make sense of how we also look at the spiritual things our daughter abigail 18 wonder if my wife went to abby and said abby we need you to clean up your room and let's say abby responded and said which she would not do but if she responded and said see there you just had me so i could work for you i'm nothing but a slave around here i'm just cinderella and the ashes i'm just sick of it i think i'm going to run away from home because that's all this is about but this whole time there's nothing else about here just work work work that's all anybody cares about right here that's all anybody wants for me that's all you care about and i've had it with you well she wouldn't say that the reason really she wouldn't say that is she might say i don't feel like cleaning my room but the reason she wouldn't say that is because there's a whole story that if you try to sum up our story by abby go clean your room you'd miss the story if you're going to understand this story you're going to have to go back to that delivery room and watch my wife labor and bring that child into the world and see the love that started then if you want to know the story you'd have to see the see the father stand there with tears rolling down his face you'd have to know the story included a time that it was a terrible car accident that could have taken that child's life and angels were there attending so she was not harmed you'd have to know 18 years of parents sacrificing for her and loving her and speaking blessing over her life every day so that it would go well with her you'd have to understand from a parent's perspective what love really is and you'd have to know that that father would be willing to lay his life down for her how foolish it would be to say it sums up the story of this household by the verse abby go clean your room you see what i'm saying i love god's word you don't pull out a little text from james and go oh no this unrivals it instead you look at the text and you say well what is god saying to us through this text since we know that god saves us not according to our own merit well the first thing that you do is you understand that well the first thing that you do is you understand the nature of god our theology arises out of the word of god and that theology arises out of the understanding of the wholeness of the word of god right so in the end our theology matters and what you understand about who god is and why he came to justify us through his grace by the mechanism of faith as you understand that this god who created us in his own image loves us so very very much that he would rather come and be insulted and persecuted mocked tortured suffocating and dying on our behalf rather than to simply annihilate us god wants people in heaven god wants fellowship with his people it's who he is he's not trying to keep people out some people have this idea of god it's like he's like sitting up him like you're so it's like well he messed up that was it you didn't have enough works you're out i went to the dixie classic fairs who do always this year and i went over to play my regular game that i always win i have hidden talents and one of them is the small basketball toss at the dixie classic fair it's a small basketball and a very small rim the ball will barely fit into the rim but the rim's not very far away and i win it every year i win a stuffed animal or a basketball prize or something like that i win every year and so i went over this year and i gave him my five dollars which entitled me to play three games you get two tosses and you got to make both of them no problem and i went up and i started my procedure i'm going to go ahead and clue you in this is for free the secret to the small basketball toss at the dixie classic fair you must do it underhanded if you try to do it overhanded what happens is that the arc and the height increases the level of difficulty to which you'll probably never make it any little mistake it'll hit the rim and it'll bounce violently out but if you toss it underhand with a gentle backspin on it i win it every year and now you know alan wright a few tips along the way here on the program it is faith and works part one of a three-part teaching series as we wrap up the entire bigger larger series of the beauty of balance hey alan is back in a moment maybe with an underhanded basketball shot an additional insight for this in your life and a final word today if you've ever thought that being filled with the holy spirit meant shutting off your mind you're in for a wonderful surprise god's word and god's spirit were never meant to be separated word and spirit always belong together the key to abundant life in christ isn't knowing your bible the secret isn't being filled with the spirit the answer is both word and spirit though some traditions emphasize studying scripture and some traditions emphasize the spirit the path to real christian growth is the fullness of both word and spirit as someone once said all word no spirit you dry up all spirit no word you blow up both word and spirit you grow up when you make a gift of support this month we'll send you alan wright's newest audio album on cd or digital download titled word and spirit it's about the beauty of balance embrace the fullness of god's word and his spirit and grow like never before with word and spirit you'll grow up and you'll be helping someone else grow as well and remember when you partner with Alan Wright Ministries you'll be broadcasting the love of god to thousands every day now we are in our final days of offering this special product call us at 877 544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org so alan i i love that illustration there at the fair and you've got the games and this is this is the strategy right this is the way to win and uh so often we can take that in a spiritual sense and and we can take that and and that can be contorted i guess into into a works-based theology that goes again to that extreme but where about the beauty of balance in the series it is a wonderful statement to say faith works because what it means is that in many levels through our faith god is working and when you have faith everything within you is energized to work and yet it is not works righteousness that says faith works because the faith that works is a true faith that we haven't got and so uh that's what we're learning about is really when when faith is alive in god how much it absolutely moves us on behalf of everything that we believe faith doesn't sit around and and be lazy and idle it is a faith that changes the world today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries