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Now, here's today's message from Pastor Skip. The scripture was fulfilled, which says Abraham believed God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend. of God.
Now, this is the part of the book of James that bothered A guy by the name of Martin Luther. It bothered him because he seemed to read that James was saying. We are justified before God by our works. Little background. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk.
Who was trained and raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and he believed and taught the Roman Catholic dogma of salvation by works. And Martin Luther traveled to Rome and he witnessed people, very devout people, crawling on their knees. Up these steps of a church called the Sancta Scala, and they would bloody their knees as they went up the steps. And it bothered him that they were doing this to earn favor with God. And he had been reading the book of Romans, which is all about.
Faith alone's Grace alone. Romans chapter 3, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
So when Luther read James, A fresh He thought, well, this is a contradiction. And I'm here to underscore again, this is not a contradiction at all. James is not talking about the means of salvation. James is talking about the result of salvation. Faith without works is dead.
is his point. What's interesting is that both Paul and James used the same guy, Abraham. to prove their theological point. Paul uses Abraham to prove that salvation is by faith. and not by works.
James uses Abraham to prove that works are the evidence of true faith. Same guy. Talking about two different things.
Now, Back to our text here. James is referring to two different events in the life of Abraham. The first, well, actually, he talks about the second event first and then the first event second.
So, the first chronological event that happened in Abraham's life is in Genesis chapter 15, when God took him out stargazing. Remember that? Abraham was 86 years old, had no children. I was kind of pouting about it, and God says, come on outside. Look up.
You see all those stars?
So shall your descendants be. And it says Abraham Believed God. And it was accounted unto him for righteousness. In Hebrew, it's Abraham said amen. That's all it was.
He looked up. God said, Your descendants will be more in number or as numerous as the stars. And Abraham said, Amen. He just made that statement of faith, like, yes, may it be so, I believe. And God said, That's enough.
I now regard you as being righteous in my sight. It was accounted unto him for righteousness. By the way, Next time you are worried about your life. worried about your future. Worried if God has you covered, go outside on a nice dark evening when there's no rain.
And no clouds. And look up. And consider That is The universe your God created, and ask yourself, and you look at the vastness of the universe. How big is your God? You see, when Abraham looked up at the sky and he saw the vastness of the universe, he didn't understand how big it is like we understand it.
But he knew enough that it was pretty big, but that the God who was making him a promise that he said amen to was even bigger if he made that.
So think about that next time. In Isaiah chapter 40, it says, That God measures the waters of the earth in the hollow of his hand, and he measures The heavens with a span. This is a span that's between thumb and your last finger. There were two spans to an ancient cubit. This was a span.
So God says that's how big the universe is, which is pretty amazing because.
Well Here's a little perspective. What's the name of the galaxy we live in? The Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy, you know how big it is? It's 10,000 light years.
by a hundred thousand light years.
Okay. A light year is The distance that Light can travel in a year. Light travel, the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.
So here's just a little perspective on that. Light travels so fast That if you were going the speed of light, you could go around the earth seven and a half times in a single second. If you were traveling the speed of light, you would sail past the moon. In one and a half seconds, you would make it to the sun in seven and a half minutes. But if you were going 186,000 miles per second, And you wanted us Traverse your neighborhood, the Milky Way galaxy, it would take you 100,000 years to do so.
And that's one of, they say, two hundred billion. Other Galaxies. And you go, that's unfathomable. That's just so big. Not to God.
God says, it's only that big. It's only that big.
So The question isn't how big is your problem. Ask, how big is the universe? And then, how big is God in comparison to the universe? And that God has made promises to me. And I'm going to believe them.
Abraham did. He walked out and he said, Amen, I believe that. And God counted it to him for righteousness. But then there was There was a second event that James mentions. And it says was Verse 21: Abraham, our father, justified by works, when he offered.
Isaac His son, on the altar.
Now that's an event that happens 20 years after the stargazing event. of Genesis 15. Yeah. God gave Abraham a command to take his son Isaac. To go to Mount Moriah.
and to kill him. in a sacrifice to God. Abraham heard that command, and it seemed to contradict everything Abraham understood about God and about this promise. Why would God have me kill the very son? That's miraculous.
The son of promise. Human sacrifice is against God's commandment. Why would he do that? Made no sense. And yet, And yet, He got up early the next morning, saddled his donkey, put wood on the donkey, brought his son with him, and went up to Mount Moriah to do exactly what God had said.
But he said something to his servants as he was going up. He said, Stay here. The lad and I will return to you. That's a statement of faith. The lad and I will return to you.
Now, why would he say that? If God said, You're gonna kill your son, you would think that Abraham had said, I'm going up there, we're going up there. I'll be back. He didn't say I'll be back, he said we'll be back. Why would he say that?
Hebrews 11 tells us why. Abraham believed that if necessary, God would raise his son Isaac from the dead. Because he made him a promise.
So, God made him a promise. He said amen to it. 20 years later, he proved that he believed in God by his willingness to give up what was nearest and dearest to him. That's what James is saying. When he says he's justified by faith, it doesn't mean justified before God, it's justified before us, before the world, before people.
He proved it, in other words. He validated his faith. That's the illustration.
So we have a question, the illustration.
Now we have the amplification. He goes further. He goes now to the opposite end of the spectrum. Probably just to rattle his audience a little bit. In verse 25, likewise.
Was not Rahab the harlot? Also justified by works, When she received the messengers, and sent them out another way. Rahab was a prostitute. You know, I A few years ago I did a series called Jesus Loves People. I was frankly surprised.
By how rattled people got When I called one of my sermons, Jesus loves people. prostitutes. People got mad that I would dare say that Jesus loves prostitutes. Let me ask you a question: Does Jesus love prostitutes? Does Jesus love terrorists?
Does Jesus love every kind of sinner there is in the world? Absolutely, yes. Resoundingly, yes. But these people are different from one another. Abraham.
Is a patriarch. Rahab A prostitute. Abraham was a moral man. Relatively speaking. Rahab was an immoral woman.
Abraham was a noble Chaldean. Rahab was a naughty Canaanite. Abraham was the top of the social ladder, Rahab was at the bottom of the social ladder, and yet. Both Abraham And Rahab make it into the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. By the way, Rahab even makes it into the genealogy of guess who?
The Lord Jesus Christ. Because she was the great-grandmother of King David. She Was the mother of Boaz and thus the great-grandmother of David, and thus in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1. This is Knectbeskip-Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, have you ever wondered what it really means to grow up spiritually?
In Adulting, a study through the book of James, Pastor Skip Heitzig walks you through 21 powerful teachings that show you how to live a mature, Christ-centered life, one shaped by conviction, consistency, and character. This practical and encouraging series is yours when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heidzig and share teaching like this one today with more people around the globe. Request adulting as a C D package or digital download at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Let's return now to today's message. What happened is she put her faith in the God of the Hebrews very simply, very profoundly, like Abraham did.
And She acted on what she said she believed. You know her story. She lived in Jericho. In Joshua chapter 2, and she heard reports. That there was an army on the march and coming toward them, and they were very victorious, and nobody had vanquished them.
And as she heard these reports, she came to the conclusion that the God of that people, the Hebrew nation, was the true God. It was a very, very simple statement of faith, very simple faith like Abraham, that brought to her an imputed righteousness like it did to Abraham.
So, when two spies from the Israeli army came to Jericho, she befriended them. She Housed them and she hid them, risking her own life in the process. If she would have been caught, she would have been accused of treason and executed, no doubt. In doing that. See, she believed, she made a statement, she believed in God, but in hiding them and risking her own life, she proved the genuineness of her faith.
I want you to listen to her faith. I'm reading to you now from Joshua chapter 2. In verse 8, I'm beginning.
Now, before they lay down, these are the two spies, she came to them on the roof and said to them, I know. that the Lord has given you the land. That the terror of you has fallen on us. And that all the inhabitants of the land are faint-hearted because of you. For we have heard how.
The Lord, and she uses the word Yahweh. The name they called God. For we have heard that Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea. For you when you came out of Egypt. And what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og.
whom you utterly destroyed. As soon as we heard these things, Our hearts melted Neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God. He is God. In heaven above and on earth beneath.
Now, therefore, I beg you, swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown you kindness. that you will show kindness to my father's house and give me a true Token. Her faith was very simple, very rudimentary. She certainly did not understand salvation the way a Christian would understand salvation today. She just believed this God was the true God.
She made this statement of faith, and then she proved that she believed it by hiding the spy. She acted outwardly. visibly to prove the invisible faith that she had inwardly.
So to sum it up so far in all that James is saying, Dead faith. produces nothing. Demonic faith. produces nothing. Dynamic phase will produce dynamic behavior.
If it's real. It will be seen.
So we have a question and illustration. and amplification Now a conclusion, verse 26. Four. In conclusion, for as the body without the spirit is dead.
So faith without works Is dead also.
Now, this is his closing statement on the entire section beginning in verse 14 down to verse 26. And then this closing. Concluding remark, he's making a comparison. He compares faith to a human body. He compares works.
to the human spirit. The word he uses here for spirit is pneumatas. Pneumatas means breath.
So Faith without works is dead, just like a human body without breath. Without its life-giving spirit, is also dead. It's a corpse. Then faith without works is like a corpse In a morgue. You can dress it up.
You can paint it up. You can put a peaceful smile on its face in the casket. It's embalmed, it's beautiful, but it is decaying and powerless. And so it is when people have just a statement of faith. Here's my statement of faith.
I'm glad you have a statement of faith. You should have a very clear, cogent, powerful statement of faith. But if it's just, if you embalm your faith in a statement of faith and you don't live it, it is like a corpse without breath. Dead faith is all in the head. Demonic faith is Correct doctrinal assertion and even a Emotional response, as we have seen.
Dynamic faith is faith lived out.
So, his whole point, and he keeps circling back. He does it three times. He says, Faith without works is dead. His whole point is that faith and works. are inseparable.
and the first always produces the second. If you have real faith, it will produce works. You're not saved by works, you're saved by faith. But if you have real faith, the faith will work. That's his whole premise.
So the big picture The big picture of James so far, chapters 1 and 2. is he is giving tests to determine if we have real faith that leads to maturity. The first test, How do we handle trials? The second test, how do we handle temptation? The third test: how do we handle the Word of God?
And the fourth test: how do we handle others? And all of those tests are outward works. that show Demonstrate, prove, validate, justify that our faith is real.
Now let me go to the smaller picture as I'm bringing this to a close. Both Abraham and Rahab trusted God Listen to this. No matter what it costs them. They trusted God not when the cupboards were full, not when life was good. but when life was bad and it seemed impossible.
Both Abraham and Rahab trust to God no matter the cost. They put everything dear to them on the line. Abraham put his only son the son of promise, Isaac, on the line. on Mount Moriah. He was willing to do that.
Rahab put the life, her life, and the life of her entire family on the line when she became a traitor to the laws of Jericho because she believed in Yahweh. You might say, if we were to phrase this or frame this from a New Testament perspective. Both of them were willing to take up their cross. And follow him. The question for us is this.
Am I willing, like Abraham, to offer up the dearest thing in my life to God if he so requires it? And then, secondly, am I willing like Rahab? Am I willing, like Rahab, to be a traitor to this world that I might be loyal to Christ? That's the example of both of them.
Now something else as we bring this to a close. You notice now, this is the second time I said I'm bringing this to a close. This is what preachers do. You've discovered this by now, right? It gives you hope, and then you go, well, that was a little bit of a false hope, but no, we are bringing, we are going to land the plane.
Both Abraham and Rahab did something that foreshadows The New Testament foreshadows Christ in the New Testament. Abraham took Isaac to Mount Moriah. When God said, take now your Son. Your only son. Whom you love and offer him on this mountain.
It's an amazing scene. First of all, he said, Take your only son. He didn't have an only son, he had a different son first named Ishmael. He had a second son. Named Isaac.
But Isaac was the son of promise. Ishmael was the son of. His own efforts. Hagar's own efforts. God only recognized one son, and that is the son of promise.
But listen to the language. Take your. Only son. Whom you love, the very first time the word love is used in the Bible, it's used in Genesis 22: the love of a father in sacrificing his only son. On a mountain.
Mount Moriah. Which fast forward a few thousand years happened to be the exact same spot. That God would indeed sacrifice His only begotten Son. It's an amazing foreshadowing. of Calvary.
Then we have Rahab, and Rahab, in proving her faith, hung something out the window. As a sign. Do you remember what it was? It was a scarlet thread, a scarlet rope. Blood-stained scarlet rope hanging out of the window, so that when the army came into Jericho, they would spot.
That's the lady who believes in God. And she proved it by hanging out that Sign of her faith, a carlet scarlet cord. It served as a sign, just like the blood on the doorposts and lintels of the house in Egypt, served as a sign for the death angel to pass over them. Both of them foreshadow what we enjoy in the New Testament. in the finished work of Christ.
Now finally, Faith. Faith is only as good as its object. You heard people say, just have faith, man. In what? In whom?
Or they'll say, I believe. Ah, be a believer. In what? See, they sort of use it generically. Faith is only as good as its object.
You have a man in the jungle bowing down to a stone statue. will do him no good. Because That's not real. That's not a real deity. There's only one true living God.
A person who prays to a different god, or an apparition, or a saint. Those things accomplish nothing because they are not real. They are powerless to do anything. Faith is only as good as its object. Our faith Is in God.
The only true living God revealed in the scripture. And in the promises that God makes.
So we are not saved by faith in faith. We are saved by faith in Christ. Faith in Christ alone. and dynamic faith will produce Dynamic behavior. We're so glad you joined us today for Connect with Skiff Heitzig.
Before we go. Don't miss this opportunity to request Pastor Skip's series Adulting, a study through the book of James. This 21 message series dives deep into what it means to live a spiritually mature life. full of faith, character, and Christ-like purpose. Adulting is our thanks for your generous gift of $50 or more to help share God's word with more people.
Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. And while you're there, sign up for Skip's weekly devotional emails and get a free download of a chapter of Skip's The Biography of God. Thanks for spending time with us today, and we'll see you next time on Connect with Skip Heidzig. Make a connection! Make a connection, let the food.
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