But we're gonna continue that study in the book of James and uh James is a book that the title of the message is faith in Action, but the entire book of James is about faith in action. In in fact, um, AA groups, the, the founder of AA basically said our material that we're gonna use, um, to help people change their life and change patterns in their life, he, he used two sources. Two biblical sources were his source for inspiring people to change. One is the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 56, and 7, and the other was the book of James. And he would call the people who got into these recovery programs to be reading and spending time in the book of James because it's a book about faith in action. Here's how we change our lives so that they're consistent with a follower of Jesus. And, and so the big idea this morning is real faith shows up in real life, real faith. Shows up in real life. This week I had a project I wanted to do and um I needed my jigsaw and and I have a jigsaw and I looked around and I couldn't find it um. I also have 3 adult sons who live in the valley. So I think it's somewhere in the valley here, um, but the only jigsaw I could find was my grandson's. It makes a really cool sound, um, but when it came to completing my project, it was of no value. It was no help at all. And so when we talk about real faith, um, being valuable in real life, um, a real jigsaw is valuable for real projects, but real projects take a real jigsaw. This was worthless. This was of the correct value whatsoever. Uh, and sometimes as people who are followers of Christ, we think that the opposite of real faith is weak faith or immature faith, but Jesus told us that if you have just a tiny bit of faith. That the, the faith of a mustard seed, I imagine that the smallest little seed there is. If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can say to that mountain over there, mountain, move over there and it'll move. You're going, no, that's little faith. See, the opposite of real faith is not little faith. It's dead faith. And, and I fear, I just really need to tell you this honestly, I fear that a lot of us who call ourselves Christians and we come to church and we talk about faith. Our faith isn't a real faith. Our, our faith is a convenient faith. It's a pretend faith. It's a, it's a faith when I'm around other Christians, but it's not a faith that's real when I'm out there on the golf course with my buddies where it's not a real faith. You kinda have to set that aside when, when you get to work and you have to do real work. Family and I, or when I'm with my family, I, you know. I, I, I got a tough family and I, I, my faith really isn't part there. Guys, that's not little faith, that's dead faith. That's what James calls it. He says that's not faith at all. It's useless when the real issues of life come up if your faith is a faith that you just kind of pull out of the bag when you need it, sort of for entertainment. Or for a show, it's not a real faith. And, and because of that, we can get confused and think what what it's good enough. It's just not. In the book of James, and James, he is writing about that and saying, you know, faith is our, our real life is evidenced. By what we prioritize. If I wanna know what. You are really like, I, I look at what you prioritize what's important to you. Uh, in, in the old days long ago, one would say that to see what, uh, was important to a person you would just have to look at their checkbook. Well, now let's just look at the bank account. What, what do we spend our money on? That's what's important to us. And, and so in our lesson today there's 4 areas that James is gonna talk about that he says faith sets the priorities of your life. And, and so, how? We practice how we prioritize our resources. In James chapter 2 verses 14 to 17, it says this, what good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? What, what do you think he expects the answer to be? What value is it? That's not a rhetorical question. James is a rhetorical question because he expects that people are going to say it's of no value. What value is it? If a man claims to have faith but has no, uh, no deeds, can such a faith save him? There's your question. If you have faith with no actions, can that faith save you? His question expects a negative answer. He expects you to say, no, it can't save you. And then he gives an illustration. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? Answer none. In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions, is dead. Faith without the actions is dead. So in the first area it's our, our resources. How are we using our resources that that phrase, um, be warmed and well fed is was a religious saying in in early the early Christian faith, um, that people would say that to each other. It was kind of a greeting. It was a, uh, instead of saying goodbye they'd say hey be warm and be filled. Um, we, we have a. We have a saying today. That we use when we find out that a person is going through a tough time we get. Very spiritual and religious. And we go. I'll pray for you. The question is, if I have the resources to make a difference in a person's life. And all I'm gonna do is pray for them. All I've been is religious. That's all I've done. You know that's one of the reasons why John here at Mission Grove has prioritized generosity, um, and, and he encourages us to be generous, generous when, and the reason is, is because it, it is if we are generous with our resources, it is a demonstration that we have a real faith. It's an opportunity. Uh, I was having a conversation this morning with a, a guy who says, you know what, I always work better by myself. Don't you find that, Dan, that you work better by yourself? And I go, You know what? In, in the church community where there's all of these resources, gifts and talents and all of these abilities. If I do all the work myself, I'm wasting an ample of the gifts that God has given you. That really we, we try to emphasize all the time with staff that it's not important to do all the work it's important that all the work gets done, but it's better done often through people who are way more gifted. So when we talk about our resources, it's not just our finances that's just one area. If you find out about a person who has a need and, and you say, well I have my resources, but, uh, I, I don't, I'm not gonna help, um, that's not positive. But if you have gifts that God has given you and you feel like he's calling you to do some ministry, some service, some area to work in. Um, and you choose not to, we are not using our faith to accomplish the works of God. Does that make, does that make sense? I mean, we're just, God has given us resources to use for His glory. And when we huddle them, we get them together and we don't share, we're not living out the faith that God called us to live out. And, and so evaluate how am I stewarding the gifts God has given me. How am I utilizing my own resources? And, and by the way, it doesn't always mean just giving needs. A person comes to you and says, hey, you know what, uh, I'm really hurting financially. Um, I really don't have anything to eat and I, um, we don't have a place to stay. If, if you could just kind of help our family, we could need to do that. You may need to say, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna take you to lunch and we're gonna have a conversation, and I'm gonna tell you I'm looking at your lifestyle and if you continue to live the way you're living. The result you're getting is what you're always gonna get, and so you gotta make some changes in your life for yourself, for your family, for the work of God you need to make some changes. And lots of us. Lots of us would say that conversation is so uncomfortable. That here's what I'll do instead. I'll tell them, I'll pray for you. And you haven't helped them a bit. I, I really share that with you. That if you know, if you're being prompted by God, you need to intervene in this person's life and you need to be real with them. And that's the message that God's giving you and you choose not to use it. That's not real faith either either. Don't fall back on religious jargon. Don't fall back on the simple and the easy because it's easier. I've shared with you before. That in my experience in business was real easy. It could, you could rally people around business because the currency of business was crystal clear. It was cash, you know, is this gonna help us with cash? You know what the currency in churches are is? It's feelings. I don't wanna do anything that hurt somebody's feelings. This makes me feel uncomfortable. Friends, that's real. Those of you who are parents, have you ever said anything or done anything to your kids that made them feel bad? I, I hope so. For what so. Because sometimes they need to feel bad for for what they're doing. It isn't. I want you to feel comfortable all the time and, and so I just share with you the idea that our resources, the second thing that I see here is our commitment, um, how we prioritize our commitment to God. James 2:18-19, but someone will say you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God? Good. Even the demons believe that, odd chatter. Do you get that? Our, our commitment to God is our commitment to God reduced to um just I believe in God. The devil's in heaven, in heaven. The Bible tells us. The devil's in heaven rebelling against God. Believing in God. He's looking and saying, God, I believe in you, and he's in rebellion and not being the, the, the angel that God created him to be. He's choosing not to be there and he says, but I believe in you. And God says, and you're going to hell. Hopefully that shocks us. It, it, it does. Jesus said there's all kinds of people who in the last day will come to him and say, Lord, Lord, and he's gonna say. I don't know you. I don't know you. There's nothing about your life that would indicate that I know you, and, and I share that because I, I don't want us to get conned into this sense that you have to, have to do is say I believe, you know, that's all you have to do. James says. That if all you do is believe, then your faith. is fake. Your faith is pretend. And so what when we think about our commitment to God, what's our commitment like? Is it a demonstrated commitment, something that we can, we, we, we say this is how I live my life. I'm fully committed to God. He then gives us a couple of illustrations of individuals where he talks about how we prioritize what we value. Listen to what James says. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the earth? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does, not by faith alone. You, you gotta grab the picture of Abraham. What was the most important thing to Abraham at at the time of this description? It was this young son of his. Abraham was probably, probably at this time about 110 years old. He had prayed and talked to God over and over about having a child, and God promised him. He says, I promise you, I'm gonna give you an heir, and through that air you're gonna have more relatives than the stars in the sky, than the sands on the sea. More than all of that, you're gonna have that many relatives. And Abraham believed God. And then one when he was about 100 years old, he, he was looking over at his hot 90 year old wife. And he said, let's have a kid. And she laughed. And 9 months later, they had a kid. And this kid was so important to Abraham. He'd been waiting his whole life for this kid. He loved this kid. He cared about him, he took him everywhere he did. And then one day, God said to Abraham, You know that child that you love so much, that you care about so much, that is so important to you. I want you to take him. And bring him up on that hillside over there and I want you to sacrifice him and it says that Abraham. Got together. Some wood and his knife, and he took his son and he headed up the hill. And and his son said, Dad, what are we what are we where are we going? And Abraham said, oh, we're we're gonna have a little sacrifice service up on the hill. And Isaac's looking around and going, Dad, what are we sacrificing? And Abraham said, God will provide. And they got to the top of the hill. And Isaac finds himself on the altar. Going, Dad, something doesn't seem right. This doesn't seem OK. And as Abraham is about ready to sacrifice his son, God provides that a ram, and so he sacrifices him instead because Abraham was faithful and obedient. That which was the most important thing to him, he was ready to sacrifice. That was faith. In action. And we have to evaluate our own lives and say, what is it that we go, oh man, you know, I, I'd give anything up for God. Except that relationship at work that I shouldn't be involved in. Except that living situation that I'm in right now that I know God's not pleased with. And instead of that habit that I, that I have, besides that, I'd sacrifice anything. You know, one of the things that we have to remember about this verse is that I will uses the very same Old Testament passage to say that we're saved by what we believe, and there's people who say, whoa, they contradict each other. Paul says this and James says this. Is any of you have more than one child? OK, a few of you. OK, um, do you have to treat them differently sometimes? Are they, are they, are their, their personalities and their behaviors and the things they do different sometimes than the other and one needs one kind of shaping up and the other needs something else. I have, um, I mentioned 4 kids, um. My, my, uh, middle of the three boys, um, it's just a really good, big, strong athletic type person who loved life and enjoyed life and really want to get the maximum out of life. Uh, in a moment by moment basis, but he had zero discipline whatsoever. He was like, Yeah, party over there. Let's go. Oh, let's go. And he was, at any time. He very little discipline. You, you're. So in high school, I said, you know what, you're gonna go out for football. You, you're athletic, you're all those things, you're gonna go out for football. And he goes, well, why? I said, you know what? You need somebody besides me talking about the importance of discipline in your life. Then my youngest son was the most disciplined nutcase there was. Uh, he is rigid. He just did these things and, and I remember. Going to a, uh, parent teachers conference. Some of you, um, have recently been to those at the beginning of the school year. So I'm, I'm in one and I'm in his math class, my son's math class as in the math teacher also happened to be the football coach. And, and he says in front of everybody, he says, uh, Mr. King, I'd like, um, your son to come out for football. Um, I've seen him throwing the ball out on the field with his friends, and I, I think he should be out for football. And without looking up, I, I said. Coach, the only purpose of football is to hurt kids. And uh he didn't agree with me, but I didn't need him to be playing football. He was a disciplined kid, um, and, and I think that there was, it was two different audiences. One needed discipline, one didn't. Paul was writing to one group of Christians, one audience of Christians, and the audience he was writing to was a group of Christians were predominantly Jewish but lots of Gentiles, but the Jews knew all the Jewish rules they knew all of them. We, we know when the holidays are and we know what we can wear we know what we can eat we know when we have to eat we know. When we do this, how we do that, we know all the rules. And by the way, we're teaching the Gentiles now that that's how you get saved. Here's all the rules, you know, we're gonna start out with circumcision cir we're all highlighted on that. They were just jazzed, um, says we're gonna do circumcision, and then after circumcision, here's the holidays you keep, and then you eat this food, and they said, and then you're saved. And Paul's writing to them and going, no, it doesn't, it doesn't have anything to do with works. You can work your tail off. It's not gonna make any difference. And so James is writing to a different group of people, different group of Christians. And, and this group is the Jews are getting influenced by the Gentiles who are going, I love this new Christian religion thing. This is so cool. You just believe and then you don't go to hell and you can still live your life any way you want. It is so cool. And James says, no, that's not how it works. You, you make your commitment to Christ, and then he impacts your life so much that you don't want to live life. And so they're writing to two different audiences. Do you, do you get that? The the goal was the same. The goal was that by the way, we're not saved, we're not saved by faith. We're not saved by works. We're saved by that's, that's not a pretend pause that was a you're gonna react we're saved by. Grace, we're saved by grace and grace isn't the name of Wendy's daughter. That's not how we're saved. We're saved. By the fact of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, and we can work our ever loving tails off, and if Jesus doesn't go to the cross, it doesn't make a difference, and we can have all the faith in the world to move mountains and to, to call fire down and we can do all those things and if Jesus Christ doesn't go to the cross, it doesn't mean anything, get it? But if we have that grace, we believe that grace, it's gonna impact our lives and it's gonna impact what we value. And for Abraham, it meant he was willing. To sacrifice his, it was, God doesn't call us to sacrifice our sons. It was a valuable thing. It talked about it before. A rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, Man, I'm, I'm all in. I am following you. This is the most important thing for me. And Jesus said, that's so cool. Go sell everything you have and follow me. And he goes, I can't do that. Can't do that. Another person says, I'm ready to follow you. I'm ready to go wherever you want, when you want. I, I just need to take care of. My parents till they die. Me and Jesus says, let the dead bury the dead. You follow me. Nicodemus said, you know what? We know that you are from God and so we just, we're coming to you and asking and Jesus says, you know, all those documents on your wall. All of, all of those degrees that you got. All of those, you raised yourself to this position. Yeah, Nicodemus, you need to be born again. You need to start all over. See, what do we value? Because if there's something that we value more than we value God, it's highly likely that he's gonna challenge us to give it up. There's a final area, and that's our security. How we prioritize our security. James 2:25-26 says this in the same way was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. If if in the book of Matthew and you have the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, who Joseph was James's father, you go through it, you discover that 26 grandmothers back. 26 is this woman named Rahab. Rahab the prostitute. was his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. And and rehab had been. In the city and the spies had come. And and they encountered her and she said, do you know what? I believe that your God is the only true and real God. I believe that you are right, she, he is God. He is your God. And I want him to be my god. But you know what, if I hide you guys, I'm gonna be a doo doo. So, uh, good luck. I'll be praying for you. Is that what she did? Most of us who know the story go, nah, that's not what she did. She said, here my security is not important right now. What I need to do is take you up on the roof and I need to hide you on my roof and then I'll come down and when the people come looking for you, I'll tell them you went out a different way and I'll send them that way just remember me when you come back because I believe in your God. And so Rahab acted. She did something. Do you, do you see how behavior matters, actions matter. Lots of times. Uh, it as followers of Christ hear the message that our actions don't matter. They, they just do. It's throughout Scripture that we're taught that if we have faith, it shows itself up in works. In fact, one of the most famous passages used to show us 9 that we're not saved by works is Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9. But I want us to read Ephesians 2:8 and 9 and 10, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. The last time I spoke, I emphasized that Jesus Christ often call us to be Christians. He calls us to follow him. We just sang a song this morning. And, and many of you are, I'm looking around, you're singing the words and it's so cool and the words that you sang. Was your wounds are the proof. Your wounds are the proof. Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane and he was praying. And he says, you know what, God, I wish I didn't have to carry the sins of the world. I have never known sin on me. And now you want me to carry the sins of the world, um. Yeah, I think I'm not gonna do that cross thing. We're we're not going that direction. That's way over the friends there's no salvation. Jesus doesn't go to the cross and pay for our sins. There's no salvation, and yet his wounds are evidenced. That he paid the price for our sins and our lives become evidence that we're saved, do you get it? So I have faith to believe that God is God and my actions demonstrate that. The early church Jesus set up that they would do communion. He says, as often as you eat and drink of it. They did it regularly. And, and the first time they did it was at a Passover meal. You know, Passover is the religious holiday, probably would be equivalent to Christmas or Easter. And, and at that time, the, the whole Passover story was told. And so when Jesus took the cup and he's there with his Jewish Jewish disciples who had heard the Passover story all their life, every year for their whole life they had heard the story and so they knew what was coming. And Jesus took the bread and he said, this bread is, and they went, I, I, I know what the bread is. It's a symbol of the unleavened bread that we had to, had to eat quickly. We couldn't wait for it to rise. We had to eat it quickly so we could, and Jesus said, this bread is the new, it is my body which is broken for you. And the disciples had to go, uh, uh, that's not the way the story goes. I know the story. It doesn't go like that. And then Jesus took the cup. And, and he took the cup and he says, and this cup, and they go, we know the story. The cup represents the blood that was put on the doorposts. And, and so we, the angel path, we, we know what the cup stands for. He says the cup is my blood. It's the new covenant in my blood, and the disciples have to be going, that doesn't make any sense. That's not the way the story goes. It's not your body, your blood, and it wasn't until after the resurrection they went, oh. It's about his body and his blood and and so this morning what we'd like us to just is the band is gonna play a little music behind but I would like us to just take, take a moment, take. A minute and a half. To, to just sit and reflect. On your faith Are you living your life? With faith that It's like a toy jigsaw. Really has no power. It has no value. It can't accomplish anything. And when you face difficult times in your life. You look just like a person who has no faith. Or is your faith real? And, and with everybody's head bowed and eyes closed right now, we'll take communion together in just a moment, but I encourage you just to reflect for a moment. On your personal faith, not worrying about the person next to you. Just is your faith or real faith? To the people at work. Know that you have a faith. So your extended family see your faith in action. Are you using your resources? Just take a moment to think. As we take the cup. I remind you that. The disciples before the cross. Saw this as just a religious activity. If you don't have a cup, we have ushers who have come forward and you just raise your hand and they'll. Make sure you get one. But it was, it was just a religious activity that they went through. But after the resurrection, after Jesus had been to the cross. They they would celebrate communion each time they gathered to eat or drink. And they would remind themselves of what Jesus did for them. And it empowered that that reminder empowered them to go live their life for him. So as we take The bread right, no. I just remind you that on that night that Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. And he passed it to his disciples. And he said, this is my body. Which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And then he took the cup And it says he blessed it. And he passed it to his disciples. And he said, this is my blood, the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's stand and close in prayer. And if you're here this morning and there's something that's Going on in your life and you're just saying, you know what, I wanna be fully committed to Christ. I need, I need. Pray for me. We're gonna have people up in front who, who are ready and really desire to, to meet with you and pray with you so they'll they'll be up front. Please, please come up if you're looking for that kind of prayer. But I would remind you also. The communion was called a celebration. It didn't make them sad that Jesus had died for them. It gave them life so that they were excited to walk out the doors and face the world after they had had communion. Father, I thank you for this congregation. I thank you for to be their love and faithfulness. I thank you for their desire. To be used by you. That so many in this room right now, Lord, just want to follow you. And so I thank you for that. What an incredible gift. For others, Lord, they need to, and they want to know how to follow you, and I pray that they would come forward and, and just talk to somebody about that. But right now, Lord, we wanna thank you for your willingness to follow through. In action to die for us and to now give us the boldness and the courage to follow through in action to live out our faith. It's in your name we pray, Jesus. Amen. Thank you. Have