James Part 5: Faith Leads to Obedience

I want to tell you a story. From that story, I want to paint an analogy that I think is really helpful for the Book of James.

A couple of summers ago, actually, probably three or four summers ago, my family and I took a road trip. We try to do that every summer. This particular road trip took us through Colorado. We went through Colorado Springs, and then we started climbing the Rocky Mountains outside of Colorado Springs. We camped outside a little community on the backside of a mountain called Pikes Peak in Colorado. We camped in a little community there; there was a campground called Cripple Creek, a nice little campground on the side of the mountain. Outside the campground was a hill.

As we were checking into the campground that night, the campground host mentioned that there’s a nice little hike right outside of camp. You can take the trail up the hill, and there’s a little peak on the side where you have a great view of all the surrounding country. So, we thought, "Oh, that sounds fun." The campground where we were camped was about 9,500 feet. The top of Pikes Peak is about 14,000 feet, and the little hill or knob that we were hiking to is like 11,500 feet. I think there is one mountain in Oregon that is that high. I think Mount Hood might be the only peak in Oregon that’s as high as 11,500 feet, but I might be mistaken on that.

So, we started going up the trail. We got about 100 yards from the campground, and there’s a gate that you have to go through. This gate probably had 10 signs on it and surrounding it, talking about how you should behave in bear country. That was the wrong thing for Shannon to see. Every muscle in her body started to tighten at that moment. But, I said, "It’s going to be fine," and we walked through the trail. We started hiking up through the trees, up through the woods, up the hill. We got about halfway, and Adri and James started experiencing what we will call altitude sickness. Not so much in their stomachs, but they were getting dizzy and headaches, and they started lagging a little bit. As the good father that I am, I said, "You’ll be fine. Let’s keep going."

We kept going, and it continued and worsened to the point where we were maybe four or five hundred yards from the top. I looked behind me, and they were both crawling on their hands and knees, saying, "Oh, Dad, we’re in so much pain!" I was like, "Let’s go! We’re this close. We have to get to the top!" So, we finally did. We made it. We have a picture—I wish I had given it to Jordan to put on the screen. You can tell on some of our faces that this is kind of fun, and then I’m having the time of my life.

But, then we thought, "Okay, it’s going to be dark soon, so we need to hustle back down." We started hustling back down, and it started getting to dusk. In the hustle and the low light, we lost the trail. Now, I’m one of those people that has an internal compass in my head. I was like, "Camp’s that way; let’s go straight line. It’ll be quicker anyway." But Shannon still had bears on her mind. At one point, we spooked a herd of elk, and they made a really loud noise running off through the woods. Shannon was deathly afraid and thought we were all going to die from a bear attack before we got back to camp. Adri and James were slowly recovering as we went down. I was thinking in my head, "I know my wife; she’s a fighter." I looked into her eyes, and at one point I thought, "If we get attacked by a bear, I’m afraid for the bear because I know what’s going to happen. She’s not going to run; she’s going to tear that thing to pieces." But, the whole time, I was like, "It’s fine. Camp’s right there." We got back to camp, and everything was fine.

Now, that story actually has nothing to do with my sermon or the analogy I’m about to paint for you, but the analogy that I’m about to paint for you has to do with Pike’s Peak, and it made me think of that story. That was a really fun day, so there you have it.

Listen, I didn’t know this, but I found this out this week because we didn’t actually have time to drive to the top of Pike’s Peak. You can drive all the way to the top. Here’s what I learned this week: I don’t know if they still do this, but at one point, if you drove to the top of Pike’s Peak and were driving back down, about halfway down they made everybody pull over. They would come by every car with a laser temperature reader and measure the temperature of your brakes. Most people, when they got to that point, thought their brakes were fine. But, if their brakes were above a certain temperature, they made them pull over for 15 minutes before they could continue down the hill. Now, why might they do that? It’s pretty clear because if your brakes overheat, they stop working. If your brakes stop working when you’re driving down a great big mountain, what happens? We don’t even want to talk about it—catastrophe.

So, what I want us to think about as we’re walking through the Book of James is that I want us to not hear his words as accusations or judgment. I want us to hear his words as a brake check. Do we understand? Because here’s the thing: as we go through, and some of you have probably already experienced this, our response to hearing difficult things like what James just said to us is sometimes one of fear: "Oh, I’m dead. I’m not good enough," or, "Yeah, I’m good. It’s everybody else that has a problem. I can think of four other people that need to hear this," right? Far too often, our response is one of these. The invitation here is to stop, pull over, and let James, by the power of the Holy Spirit’s words, aim at our faith, check it, and give us a little feedback. There’s an invitation there that if the temperature is too high or if our faith is lacking in any way, then there’s an invitation to grow, to repent, and, as always, according to the Gospel of Jesus, to enter into deeper and greater grace and find more faith. So, that’s the structure and framework through which I want us to see this book. James wants to test our brakes, and he’s doing so again through love and compassion because if we go through life never allowing this to happen, far too often, how does it end? Catastrophe. You guys know this; you’ve seen it, maybe you’ve experienced it. Your faith shatters on the rocks at the bottom of a hill because you couldn’t stop. You thought you could; you maybe assumed you could, maybe resisted accountability, thinking that everything was okay. Then, all of a sudden, everything wasn’t okay anymore, and you were like, "Why, God?" This is an invitation, and I want every single one of us to respond to this invitation.

James starts with a question, right? He repeats this question throughout his writing: "Do we have faith?" Or, in this case, I would rephrase it: "How is our faith doing? Let’s check the temperature." How is it? Most of us, like I said, would say, "Yes, we do; we’ve got faith." Okay, he assumes that’s how we answer the question because then he goes right into his thesis in verse 14, right out of the gate: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Will that faith work when he hits the brakes? Will anything happen?" That’s the question he’s asking, and that’s the question we have to ask ourselves.

So then, he presents a person who says, "Yes, I have faith," but has nothing in his life as evidence—it’s words only. In verse 15, he says, "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in 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." Now, here’s what James is saying: he’s drawing a comparison, and I think we can all get this comparison. He’s not saying if you have true faith, you’ll give everything you have to the homeless. That’s actually not what he’s saying, though that’s how we typically apply it. He’s saying in the same way that no one will believe you love a person if they come to you in dire need and you say to them, "Yeah, go, you’ll be fine," no one’s going to believe we love that person. In the same way, if we say we have faith and don’t have anything—no outward working of that faith—the faith that we say we have is useless. Faith, James is saying, always results in action or works.

But, this flies in the face of what many of us have experienced in what we will call American Christianity. There’s a phrase that gets thrown around sometimes in pastoral circles; it’s called "easy believism." The basic idea is that to become a follower of Jesus, all you have to do is pray a little prayer: "Dear Jesus, I’m a sinner, save me." You’re a follower of Jesus, and that’s the end of it. You’re good. Now, the sad reality is that far too many people who have prayed that prayer, that’s the only connection they have to Jesus, ever. And what James is saying is that that’s not faith. He’s going to say, "I’m sorry, but you’ve been misled. If that’s the only connection you have to Jesus, you’ve missed it." James isn’t the only one saying this; this is all over the New Testament. James, as we know, is not opposed to Paul. They’re actually good friends, co-pastors of the same church in Jerusalem. Paul says, "Yes, we are saved by faith alone, but true faith never remains alone. It always, always, always results in a life that is different, a life that is producing fruit."

What James is saying is if you prayed that prayer and there was nothing after it, it was useless. That was not a genuine prayer. That prayer did nothing. Now, here’s the thing: many of us have also experienced maybe seasons where that’s been true. So, we’re not making a broad judgment or casting it on every single one of us. But, if that’s been the reality of your life from the day you prayed that prayer, you should take note. That’s what James is saying. He’s saying faith always produces change. Now, the question we always ask is how much change? How fast? James doesn’t answer that. That’s up to the Holy Spirit. But he is saying that faith that doesn’t change us is useless. It’s a person who tries to drive down the mountain, and they pull over and check their brakes, and they realize they’re not working, but they just keep going anyway. That’s what James is saying.

He doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say in verse 18, "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." James is saying if you think that these two things can exist apart from one another, you’re wrong. Then, he goes on to say in verse 19, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!" This is what he’s saying: you believe in God; great, so do demons. You believe in Jesus; great, so do demons. You believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to die on the cross for your sins; guess what, so do demons. Demons believe all that; they know it to be true. But here’s the difference: their belief doesn’t lead to worship. Their belief doesn’t lead to repentance. Their belief doesn’t lead to relationship with Jesus. Their belief is knowledge without transformation. So, James is saying to us that if we have knowledge without transformation, it’s useless. It’s not faith.

We live in a culture, especially if you were raised in the church in America, that has separated those two things, hasn’t it? We’ve said, "Hey, if you’ve got the right knowledge, then you’re good." James is saying, "No, if that knowledge hasn’t changed your life, then you don’t have faith. You don’t have it." Now, remember, this is not a judgment. This is an invitation to examine our hearts and our lives and to step deeper into faith.

Then, he goes on to present two examples that I think are really helpful for us to hold on to: Abraham and Rahab. Now, the only thing these two people have in common is that they were both justified by faith. Beyond that, nothing. Abraham is a rich man, blessed by God, a father of the people of Israel, and a friend of God. Rahab is a pagan prostitute who was most likely poor, living in a pagan city that God had destined for destruction. She’s an enemy of God in the beginning, but they both have one thing in common: their faith in God results in a changed life.

For Abraham, the faith he had was so transformative in his life that he was willing to give up his son to obey God. In other words, the most valuable thing in his life was his son Isaac. He was the son of promise, and God said, "I want you to go and sacrifice your son." Abraham said, "Alright, I’ll do it," because he had faith that God would provide another way. So, he goes through the entire process. He’s actually bound Isaac to the altar, has the knife in his hand, ready to take his life, and God says, "Stop, Abraham, now I know." Abraham was justified by his works. What James is saying is his faith was not just knowledge. Abraham didn’t say, "Yes, God, I know you will do this for me," and then not obey. His faith was true and full, and it resulted in obedience.

Now, Rahab’s story is different. Rahab is an enemy of God. She’s living in a pagan city that God had destined for destruction. But, she’s heard what God is doing for the people of Israel, and she believed. When the Israelite spies came into her home, what did she do? She said, "I’ll hide you. I’ll take care of you, but promise me that when you come to destroy the city, you’ll save me and my family." They said, "Sure." But she’s taking a huge risk because if her people find out that she’s harboring Israelite spies, she’s going to be executed. But, she takes the risk because of her faith, and that faith saves her.

What’s the point? The point is this: true faith always results in a changed life. Now, does it mean it always results in perfect works? No. Rahab is still a prostitute. She hasn’t figured everything out yet. She doesn’t know all the laws of Israel, but she has faith, and that faith results in action. Now, does Abraham always get it right? No. Abraham screws up big time throughout his life. But his faith results in action, and God justifies him because of that. The point is that faith without works is dead. But, true faith is never without works. It’s never alone. It always results in a changed life.

Now, I know some of us might be feeling a little bit of tension in our hearts because we’re thinking, "I don’t know if my life has changed enough. I don’t know if I have enough works." Here’s the good news: you don’t have to have perfect works; you don’t have to have it all figured out. What James is inviting us to do is to examine our lives and ask the question: is my faith leading to a changed life? Is my faith leading to transformation? Is my faith leading to greater obedience? If the answer is yes, even if it’s slow, even if it’s not perfect, then you’re on the right track. But if the answer is no, then James is saying, "Let’s stop. Let’s pull over. Let’s check the temperature. Let’s see what’s going on."

And here’s the thing: if you find that your brakes aren’t working, don’t keep going down the mountain. Stop, pull over, and ask for help. Because we have a Savior who is ready and willing to help us, to give us what we need, to transform our lives, and to lead us in the right direction. That’s the invitation today. It’s not an accusation; it’s not a judgment. It’s an invitation to examine our lives and to step deeper into faith, deeper into grace, and deeper into the life that God has for us.

So, as we close, I want to invite us into a moment of reflection. Let’s take a moment to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to examine our hearts. Let’s ask Him to show us where our faith is strong and where it needs to grow. And let’s ask Him to give us the courage to respond in obedience, to step deeper into faith, and to allow Him to transform our lives.