Can That Faith Save?

Faith is easy to talk about until it asks something of you. James 2:14–26 presses on the gap between what we confess and what we actually do, and we don’t get to dodge the tension: “faith without works is dead.” We start with a vivid picture of trust from a tightrope crossing over Niagara, then use James’s words to ask a blunt question. If someone watched your life for a month, could they see what you claim to believe? 

We also tackle why James sounds like he contradicts Paul on justification, and why the conflict is only apparent once you notice James’s target: the person who says they have faith while offering nothing but words. That’s where “demonic faith” lands with force. Even demons have accurate theology, but knowledge without trust, love, and obedience cannot save. Real saving faith shows up in effort, in choices, and in a life that actually moves toward Jesus rather than merely agreeing with facts about him. 

From there we learn faith through two stories that refuse to stay theoretical. Rahab shows desperate dependence, entrusting herself to the Lord when every other security looks strong but cannot ultimately save. Abraham shows obedience without full understanding, walking forward when God’s command feels confusing, painful, or like a loss. If you want a clear, biblical picture of Christian discipleship, faith and works, and what living trust looks like in ordinary life, this conversation gives you language and practical questions to carry into your week. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs clarity on James 2, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one concrete way your faith has become visible lately?

Transcript

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Scripture Reading From James 2

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And as they make their way down, I will invite the rest of us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which today comes from James 2, verses 14 through 26. In verse 14, the Word of God reads this way 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 warm 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 will 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. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

Tightrope Faith Over Niagara

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Charles Blondon was a French acrobat, and he was a tightrope walker in the 1800s. And his most famous feat came in 1859 when he did something that no man had ever done before. He crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope spanning about 1,100 feet over the course of the walk, and it was elevated about 160 feet above Niagara Falls. And one slip-up would mean certain death. But he traversed it successfully, which led to more complicated feats because he repeated this same act several times, all the while adding complexity. He crossed blindfolded, he crossed on stilts, he would cross carrying various objects and performing other stunts, and thousands gathered to watch the great Blondon cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope. But one of the most daring feats came later that year. Blonden's manager, Harry Colcord, had always believed in him. He was his manager, after all. But for this feat, Colcord's faith would be put to the ultimate test. His manager climbed on top of Blondon's back, and he would, and the manager was transported by his client across the gorge, riding on Blondon's back, and he had to follow very specific instructions. Mainly his instructions were to be as still as possible and not try to balance or to shift weight, but to completely trust the expertise of the great Blonden. Of all of Blonden's many supporters, it must be said that no one believed in him more than his manager. Clearly, right? And this was demonstrated in his manager's willingness to put his own life in Blonden's hands or on Blonden's back, to be more accurate.

Why James Sounds Controversial

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Today we arrive at the most famous and controversial passage in James' letter. And James tells us here that faith without works is dead, and that the only kind of faith that matters for James and for his brother Jesus, the only kind of faith that matters is a faith that actually impacts the way that we live. And he goes so far as to say that we are not justified by faith alone, but that a person is justified by their works. And if you if we didn't know that this was in the Bible, and I got up and read this in a Presbyterian church or in a Presbytery meeting, people might call me a heretic, but it's in the Bible. He says a person is justified by their works. This appears to contradict the message of Paul, who wrote that by works of the law no man will be justified. Once we dig into the details, we will see that there is no real contradiction. It is only an apparent contradiction. But what does James mean in this passage? What is he trying to get across? His main concern here is to describe what saving faith looks like in the life of the believer. And the point that he wants to make is this: that faith, real faith, real saving faith, is never simply something that we think, but it is always something that we do. Real saving faith is something that we do. It affects the way that we live. It's active and it is visible and it impacts our choices and our decision making. That's what real faith is. And in order to explain this, James gives us three examples that we will look at this morning more in depth. So he gives us the example of demonic faith, quote unquote. He gives us the example of Rahab's faith, and he gives us the example of Abraham's faith. So we're going to look at all

Demonic Faith And Empty Words

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of those. First, the example of demonic faith. The demons teach us that true faith is more than mere knowledge and words. One of the keys to understanding this passage is to realize that James is not pitting faith and works against one another. He's not contrasting faith and works. Rather, he is trying to make the point that real faith, true faith, is an active working faith, not mere words or mere knowledge. If you look at verse 14, he says, What good is it, my brothers? He doesn't say if someone has faith but does not have works. He says, What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Can that faith save him? So for James, the person in question does not have true faith. Rather, they claim to believe. They say that they believe, they say they are a Christian. But for in this instance, in this hypothetical example, there is no evidence in their lives that this claim is credible. They do not have a corresponding works, a lifestyle and effort. And James is asking, can mere words do any good? Can mere words do any good? And he gives an analogy, gives an example. In verse 15, he says, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, again the emphasis on words, one of you says, Go in peace, be warm and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body. His question is, what good is that? What does that do? How does that help? So notice again the emphasis on words. A rich brother pronounces a blessing upon a poor brother. Go in peace, be warmed, and be filled, and be prosperous and have lots of money. But it's just words. The rich brother does nothing to help the poor brother. And James's point is that those words don't really, as nice as they sound, they don't do anything, they don't do any good. And his conclusion in verse 17 is so also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. In the same way that well-wishing, without any kind of actual support, does not really help anyone, so simply claiming to believe that Jesus is Lord without any evidence to actually obey Jesus is not faith at all, but is simply empty words. And he also gives the example of demons. In verse 18 and 19, he says, But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works, and he says, Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe and shudder. In verse 18, James is making the point that faith and works really cannot be separated. They cannot be thought of as two different things. And what does he mean when he says works? The Greek word ergon is what stands behind that, and it simply means effort or action or energy. Whoever trusts in Jesus will strive to obey him. And of course, we will never obey him perfectly, and all of our, even the very best things that we do will be uh will be imperfect and stained with selfishness and sin. But striving and effort are a necessary part of faith. And he issues the challenge. He says, Show me your faith. Show me your faith apart from your works. How can you do that? The implication there is that there is no way to demonstrate faith other than to show me by your works. The obvious answer to this challenge is that that is the only way that faith can be demonstrated. You cannot demonstrate your faith by successfully acing a theology exam. It can only be demonstrated in the way that you live. Early in Jesus' ministry, he was teaching in a house in Galilee, and many people were crowded around him to listen, and there was a paralyzed man who had four friends, and they wanted him to be healed, and they sought to get him to Jesus, but they couldn't reach Jesus because of the crowds. And you know this story. So they climbed up on the roof and they removed, they were very bold, they removed the roof tiles, and they let the paralyzed man down in front of Jesus. And here is what Mark tells us, Mark 2, 5. It says, and when Jesus saw their faith, Jesus saw their faith. He said to the paralytic son, your sins are forgiven. Jesus saw their faith. These friends believed that Jesus could heal. And how do we know that? Well, that faith was demonstrated and it was made visible in the things that they did. You can see faith. It's a visible thing. Jesus can see it. In verse 19, James reminds us of the demons, and he says, You believe that God is one. You do well, that's good. However, even the demons believe and shudder. So knowing that God is one is good theology, the demons, for the most part, have pretty good theology. They know that there is one God, they know that Jesus is God, they know that Jesus is God's Son. They know Scripture far better than any of us do. They've been around for far longer than we have. They have a lot of the right knowledge, but the demons are still destined for eternal destruction, that their knowledge does them no good because they do not trust and do not love the one true God. They shudder at the idea of the one God. So the point is that a so-called faith that is mere words or mere knowledge will not do anybody any good. It's not effective to save. True faith is active and visible, and it necessarily affects the way that we live, and it is demonstrated in the way that we live our lives. A few weekends ago, not this past weekend, but the weekend before, I did another big push on Henry's bedroom. We've been remodeling all of our kids' bedrooms so that they have nice functional spaces to live in and to grow up in. And Henry's is the last one. And the work is squeezed in when I can get to it, and oftentimes it's nights and weekends, and so he has been kind of a nomad. He was sleeping in Harvey's room until he got kicked out, and then he was sleeping in the girls' room, and he's almost got evicted from there. But we were able to get we were able to get his bed finished. Uh this big built-in bed. And this time I had just finished a long work week and I was exhausted, but I devoted my Friday night and all day Saturday, all of my free time working on Henry's room and finally got that bed finished so he could have a place to sleep and move out of his sister's rooms. Praise God. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. And after I was all wrapped up and the bed was made and he had moved in and my tools were put away, I looked at Henry and I said, Henry, I love you. I love you, Henry. And those are words that we say all the time. They're easy to say. But on this occasion, it felt like it had a special weight because I had just devoted my whole Saturday and my whole Friday night slaving away to make sure that he had a place to sleep. Anyone can say, I love you, but when those words are backed up by actual sacrifices and actual effort that we have, an actual service that we have put in, uh, that love is demonstrated. That love is, those those words have an especial weight and meaning. So to make an application, let's return to James' challenge. In verse 18, he says, Show me, show me, show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. James says, You believe in Jesus. You believe in the Lord? Show me, show me. How would you demonstrate your faith in Jesus? What difference does faith in Jesus make in your daily life? You may be able to do very well on a theology exam or an ordination exam. You may do well at a Bible trivia night at a local pub. You you may be the captain of the team. You may have all the right words. And that's good. James says, you do well. Good. But what really matters is not the words or the knowledge, but how these things affect your life. So before we move on to our next points and really get into the meat of those things, I want to leave you just with a question to challenge yourself. What can you point to in your life during the past month? Just keep it simple, during the month of August, that demonstrates your faith, where your faith can be seen, where it is visible. What have you done differently because you trust Jesus Christ? Maybe it could be giving money to the church even though your budget is tight and you could really use that money, but you give out of obedience. It could be resting from work on the Lord's day, even though you're behind in your work schedule and you don't know how you're gonna get caught up, but you're gonna trust the Lord and you're going to rest in him and you're gonna obey him. It could be as simple as praying instead of panicking. Something unexpected happens, you get in a car wreck, uh, you you lose a job, you you lose an opportunity, something goes wrong at work, we're all tempted to panic and to make all kinds of rash decisions, and it could simply mean just stopping to pray and to rest in the Lord and to trust Him. That is a visible act of faith. James says, show me. And then he gives us two incredible examples of what this might mean.

Rahab And Desperate Dependence

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So let's turn now to the example of Rahab's faith. Rahab teaches us that true faith is desperate dependence upon God. James gives the example of Rahab's faith in verse 25. It says, 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. So this takes us back to the time of Joshua when Joshua led Israel into Canaan to begin the conquest of Canaan. The city of Jericho was their first major battle. And Joshua sent two spies to spy out the city before the battle would begin. But word got out that there were Hebrew spies in the city, and the officials were searching for them. Rahab was a prostitute who lived in Jericho, so already she has many things against her. She's a Canaanite, she is scheduled for destruction along with the other Canaanites, and she's a prostitute, not a worshiper of Yahweh. But she came to the aid of these Hebrew strangers. She took them in, she hid them in her attic. She lied to the officials when they came knocking and asking where they were, and when they came asking about their whereabouts. And all of this she did at great risk to her own life. If she would have been caught, she certainly would have been destroyed along with the Israelites for treason. Why did she do that? Why would she put everything at risk to help these Israelites? Well, we read in Joshua 2, verse 9, she says, I know that the Lord, Yahweh, I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan, Sion and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And then she says, This Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and my mother and my brothers and sisters and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death. So Rahab had a choice of what she was going to do here, of whom she would trust with her life. She could trust the king of Jericho and the armies of Jericho to protect her and her family from the Israelite invaders, but she had begun to fear the God of Israel. She had heard of what he had done and what he was planning to do, and she began to fear him. And she heard the report of the defeat of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, she heard the report of Israel crossing the Jordan on dry land. She heard the report of the defeat of the Amorite kings beyond the Jordan, and she began to fear the Lord, and in desperation she abandoned everything that she knew to put her life into his hands and to cast herself upon his mercy. We learn from Rahab that faith is dependence. Faith in the Lord means placing our lives in his hands so that we no longer depend upon ourselves or upon anyone else or upon any man, but our lives are dependent upon God. I've been reflecting on this a little bit. Small business ownership is an incredible journey of faith. When you are an employee, when you work for the man, and there's nothing wrong with being an employee, but when you're there, you are safely nestled under the umbrella of your employer, and you're insulated from many of the harsh realities of business. You don't know how much money there is, you don't know where it comes from, and you don't need to know. You're an employee. You can just do your job and then you can go home and be with your family and sleep at night. But when you're in the captain's seat as a small business owner, there is no insulation. You see the bank balance, you see the work schedule, you know that payroll hits on Friday, and you don't know when these other deposits are gonna hit, and there's no money in the bank, and you're probably gonna be negative $11,000 on Friday if that doesn't happen. There's no insulation. But when that's when you're there, it's an incredible opportunity for faith. Why? Because we have no one else we can depend on. We have no employer we can trust in, we have no corporate office that's gonna save us, we have nowhere to look but to the Lord. Psalm 145, 15 and 16 says, The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food. In due season. You open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every living thing. Psalm 12 or 121, 1 and 2 says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Those who are self-employed know this all too well. Having no one else to depend upon, you must do your best, but in the end, you must depend upon the mercy of God. Because even if you do your best, you still can't control all of the outcomes. True faith is dependence upon God. And this doesn't mean that everybody needs to be self-employed, but it does mean this. The more independent that we become in life, the more we must depend upon God. The greater you grow in independence, the more you must depend upon God. For example, the 25-year-old living with his parents, who does not have to work very hard, who does not have to make much money, who does not have much to worry about, does not have to exercise much faith in God. They do not have to trust God for much because he depends on his parents for so much. And that's appropriate for a child, or even perhaps for someone that's in between things, and maybe for a young man, but at some point we must put childish ways behind us and become adults. And when that young man takes on responsibility, and when he gets his own apartment and his own phone plan and has to pay his own bills and be independent, it is then that his faith has an opportunity to become very real. Paul told the Thessalonians that they ought to be dependent on no man. He said that he wants them to live quietly and work with their hands and be dependent on no one. The more we seek to be dependent on no man, the more we realize how dependent we are on God. And our faith can become very real. So the person who lives independently must depend upon God to provide opportunities and to provide work and income and to protect and to keep. And Rahab teaches us as she no longer depends upon Jericho and its kings and its armies. It means faith means dependence upon God.

Abraham And Obedience Without Clarity

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The example of Abraham's faith. Abraham teaches us that faith means obedience to God even when we don't understand. Abraham is very famously the father of our faith. He is in many regards the first believer in Jesus Christ. Paul teaches us that Abraham was justified by faith in God. So it can be surprising to encounter James' words here in verse 21. James says, Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? Now what does James mean by that? In verse 22, he says, 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 goes on to conclude, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. So James is spelling out how Abraham's faith was made visible in what he did. His faith was active, James says. His faith was completed by his works, James says. And his faith was fulfilled by his works. And if you look at the story that James is referencing, all of this is very clear to see. In Genesis 22, God calls Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering. And this would have been profoundly confusing for Abraham, because Abraham had waited his whole life to receive Isaac. Isaac was Abraham's most treasured son, his most, the most precious and treasured thing he had in his life was Isaac. God had promised that Abraham would have Isaac, and God told Abraham that it is through Isaac that all of the promises would be fulfilled, about Abraham's many descendants and about their ownership of the land. So the son of promise must live. God said so. Isaac must live. But God also now says that the son of promise must die. How do those two things go together? It would have been very profoundly confusing for Abraham. Abraham does not know. Abraham does not ask. At least we have no evidence of that from the story. He simply obeys in faith. And we can see his faith all throughout the story. Abraham takes Isaac and he takes some servants to Mount Moriah, and we read in Genesis 22, 5, it says, Then Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. It's harder to see in the English, but in the Hebrew, all of those verbs are plural. So Abraham is saying, We will go over there, and we will worship, and we will come again to you. I and the boy will return to you. Abraham does not know how Isaac will return, but he is confident in the faith that Isaac will return, even if Isaac should die. Then, on their way up the mountain, Isaac asks him, Father, where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham responds again in faith. He says, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. And again, we hear Abraham's faith. He does not know how this is going to work out, but he trusts what God said. He trusts that God said that the Son of Promise must live, and so he obeys, even though he does not understand. This obedience takes him to the very point of raising the knife, the last possible moment. And in that last possible moment, only then does God reveal his true purposes, and only then do things begin to make sense for Abraham. What a profound lesson on the nature of faith. Faith is obedience to God even when we don't understand, and an obedience that takes us up even to the last moment. Every parent knows a little bit about this. We all want our children to obey us, but often our children want to understand before they are willing to obey. Harvey, I don't want you to use my chisels to carve wood. Why not, Dad? I'm good at carving wood. Why? Explain it to me. It's not always bad to provide an explanation when we have time. But sometimes we don't have time to provide an explanation. June, get out of the road now. Why, Dad? Just get out of the road. Sometimes we don't have time to provide an explanation. Or even if we did explain, then they wouldn't understand because the explanation is too complicated. In many situations, they don't need to understand. They simply need to trust and obey. And only later, and only in the midst of their obedience, will they understand, or can they understand? And so it is with our relationship with the Lord. Many of his ways we do not understand. But if we wait until we understand, until we are willing to obey, then we will probably never understand, and we will probably never obey. God's ways, for example, with marriage, are mysterious. According to the Lord, we must commit ourselves completely and fully to someone that we don't really know, and we must keep getting to know them for the rest of our lives, even though they change and we change, and we must be faithful to them even though we are not compatible. That is God's ways with marriage. It's difficult to understand. But it's only after a lifetime of marriage and looking back on its many blessings and seeing the many pangs of those who did not obey God and his design. It's only then that we begin to understand why God said to do what he said to do. And many of God's commands are like this. The lesson is that if you really believe the Lord, you will obey him even when it hurts, even when it seems like obedience is a bad idea, even when it seems like obedience will lead to loss, even when you don't understand. If you only obey God when it makes sense, then you do not believe the Lord, but you believe yourself. If you only obey God when it makes sense. It makes me think of one who believed the Lord when it hurt the most. The Son of promise must die. Jesus Christ is the real son of Abraham, the real recipient of the promise, through whom all the nations will be blessed. He must live and he must reign and he must fulfill all of the promises of God. But what was so confusing to the disciples is when Jesus began to teach them that the Son of promise must die. That when he enters into Jerusalem, he must be rejected and delivered into the hands of sinners and crucified. But even though he dies, he will live again. Well, that didn't make any sense to anybody until it happened. And then it began to make sense. And that's the thing about faith is that it's kind of not supposed to make sense. Otherwise, it wouldn't be faith. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to trust anything about God if it all made perfect sense to us. Faith is more than knowledge and words. Faith is dependence upon God, a desperate dependence upon God. And faith is obedience to God even when we don't understand, and especially when we don't understand. That's what faith is.

Living By Faith This Week

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So, are you ready to commit yourself again to living by faith for another day and another week? Let's do that together. To this end, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for these challenging words of James, the brother of Jesus. And we pray that you would help us to hear them and to take them to heart. We pray, God, that our faith would be. We know that our faith is not perfect and it will never be perfect. And we thank you that even an imperfect and weak and trembling faith is something that you can take and you can bless and you can save by that faith. Because our faith or our salvation ultimately does not depend upon the quality or the strength of our faith, but it depends upon the quality and the strength of the Savior. So help us, Lord, even with a weak and trembling faith, to put our lives into his hands and be dependent upon him and also, Lord, to obey Jesus when it doesn't make sense, especially when it doesn't make sense, that we would obey and listen to him and trust him and say, Jesus, I don't understand and I don't get it, and this is painful, but I trust you. And Lord, as we step into that, we pray that you would give us the encouragement of your Holy Spirit and the fellowship of the saints. And all of this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let us stand and give glory to God.