Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Hey there, everybody. It's Pastor Chuck Allen. And welcome back. Grab another cup of coffee and let's spend a few minutes together on the weekday podcast. Today we want to talk about what faith looks like when its sleeves get rolled up in James Chapter two. So on Monday and Tuesday, we were in James chapter five. Yesterday we were in James chapter one, today in James Chapter two, and tomorrow in James three.
[00:00:32] Have you ever been to a restaurant where the menu just looked absolutely stunning? The pictures were just right, the descriptions made your mouth water, things like slow roasted, hand crafted, all those good words. And then the food shows up and it's. Well, it's just not all that. It's Luke. Room Luke, you know, lukewarm, room temperature, a little sad. And you think, well, the menu had a lot of promise.
[00:01:02] Yesterday we started in the book of James, today in chapter two. And James is concerned about something like the menu.
[00:01:09] He's concerned about a faith that says all the right things but never really shows up on the plate. He starts with a scene that would have been familiar to his readers.
[00:01:20] Chapter two, verses two and three, he says, for example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who's poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, you can stand over there or else sit on the floor. Ooh, ouch, right?
[00:01:45] Well, most of would never say that out loud. We'd never tell somebody, go sit on the floor.
[00:01:51] But I guess if we're honest, we know how to do it in quieter ways. We know who we gravitate toward at a party.
[00:01:59] We know whose text we answer right away and whose we let sit.
[00:02:04] We know who gets our full attention and who gets the polite nod while we look past them for somebody more important or more interesting just to say that out loud. Kind of gross.
[00:02:17] James calls that favoritism, and he says, it doesn't fit the faith we claim in Jesus.
[00:02:24] In verse 8, he points us back to what he calls the royal law.
[00:02:30] Love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:02:33] Say it again. Love your neighbor as yourself. Not your impressive one, not your useful one. Your neighbor, whoever God puts in front of you.
[00:02:46] Mmm, let's say that one more time. Whoever God puts in front of you.
[00:02:53] Then James takes a step a little further. In verses 15 and 16, he says, suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say goodbye and have a good day. Stay warm and eat well. But then you don't give that person, any food or clothing. What good does that do? I can almost hear James saying that with a raised eyebrow, like, dude, stay warm and eat well.
[00:03:16] I mean, that sounds nice, kind and friendly, maybe even polite, but it's useless to the person who's cold or hungry.
[00:03:26] Here's the line that kind of wraps the whole thing up in verse 17. So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds. It is dead and useless. Now, I want to be super careful here because people sometimes hear this and get nervous. Is James saying, we earn God's love by doing good things? No, no, no.
[00:03:49] That's not his point at all. He's not talking about how we get faith. He's talking about what real faith does once we have it.
[00:03:58] Think about it like this.
[00:04:00] A living tree produces fruit. The fruit doesn't make the tree alive. It proves the tree is alive. In the same way, our good works don't make our FAI real. They show that it is real. James gives us a pretty good example in Abraham. In verse 22, he says, you see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete.
[00:04:27] Faith and actions working together, like two hands on the same job. And then James surprises us. Right after Abraham, the great father of the faith. He brings up Rahab, a woman with a weird past, someone a lot of people would have sent to the back of the room.
[00:04:47] And James holds her up as an example of living faith because when it counted, Rahab acted. She hid those messengers and helped them get home safely. I love that God's list of heroes includes a person that we've overlooked. Someone who's, well, got a story or had a past or made a few bad choices.
[00:05:12] Ring a bell?
[00:05:14] Maybe it's the co worker who eats lunch alone. Maybe it's the neighbor who's standing in the back of your room.
[00:05:20] Maybe it's the young couple at church today that nobody knows.
[00:05:25] Maybe we're quietly saying, stay warm and eat well.
[00:05:29] Faith with its sleeves rolled up doesn't have to be dramatic, y'. All.
[00:05:34] It can look like a meal dropped off on a porch, a phone call you've been putting off, pulling up a chair and saying, come sit with us.
[00:05:42] Or just paying attention to the person everyone walks past.
[00:05:47] Remember that menu.
[00:05:49] God isn't asking for a better menu. He's asking for a faith that actually shows up on the plate, warm and real and generous, so that the people around us can taste and see his goodness and through us.
[00:06:03] So today, pick one person, just one, and let your faith show up for them in a way.
[00:06:09] Well, in a way they can actually feel.
[00:06:12] I'm Chuck Allen. Thanks for being with us here on the weekday podcast. Go roll up those sleeves and I'll see you back tomorrow for James Chapter three. God bless you. Bye.
