01-20-2019 – Chuck Northrup – Faith (AM Sermon)

So I can see you not look through it. It is certainly my privilege to be here this morning and to be a part of this congregation, I didn’t know what we would find over here, you know, and as far as ice and those kinds of things, basically the first mile away from our house and our subdivision and getting out toward the highway,

it was, it was pretty bad. And I thought, well, I’m not sure about this, but we got through the highway and it was pretty well clear from there on out until we got into town over on this end. So anyway, it was pretty clear as most of you probably know that my work has changed. The, my work with the Bible Institute of Missouri actually ended last Wednesday with the giving of the finals.

Although I did some other work on Thursday for, for them to kind of help out a little bit. But anyway, my work with them has ended and I have taken on the responsibility of being the administrative director of the online Academy of biblical studies. Brother, Ted Thrasher has been struggling with health problems for a really a couple of years. And they tried to work it out,

work, maintain that, but it has not been able to be done. And so they asked me to actually, when I resigned from BIM, they got word of that. And then they ask me to go full-time with the online Academy of biblical studies, I was actually planning on retiring, although a preacher never really retires. He just slows down a little bit,

but we were planning on retiring, moving over to Claremore, Oklahoma, where our daughters live or near our daughters. And, and then they gave me this responsibility. So I’m not retiring anymore. In fact, what I found I have every Sunday through February book, I have every Sunday in a made book and I have already two Sundays in, in March and April,

but I have other places I need to arrange to, to get those books as well. So, so I’m going to be out preaching quite a bit. And then plus the responsibilities I have with the school and taking care of that. But I do appreciate this congregation, you know, when you switch from one job to another or one responsibility to another one position to another,

you just never know who’s going to follow you, but, but I appreciate you that you’re going to maintain the support that we have and that you’ve provided for us through the years. I don’t know how long we’ve had a good relationship. I feel like this is one of those congregations that I’ve had a really good relationship over the years, and I truly do appreciate that.

And I appreciate you supporting our work. And I promise you that I will do my best to do the work that I believe that I’m not only to the Lord, but to those that support me to do the work that I’m involved in. And so I truly do appreciate that. And maybe one of these days I can get back over here and maybe a Sunday evening and give you a report of the online Academy of biblical studies yesterday.

W I just noticed on part of the website and just before I started teaching my class yesterday evening that we had 104 active participants on Oh, abs yesterday. No, that’s, I mean, you know that now it includes the instructors and the teachers and all that, but 104 to me, that’s that is exceptional. And it’s not only just in the United States.

I have had students from California to New York and from Texas all the way up to Minnesota and all over the United States and, and to have numerous students through in various places. But I’ve also had students from overseas. I know that we have, I think, three students from India presently. And so, you know, we have had, I’ve had students from Africa,

I’ve had students from China, Ukraine where we worked at one time and different places like that. So all kinds of different places all over the world. And, and really the potential of all abs is unbelievable. It just takes an internet connection and anybody in the world that speaks English can do that. And we are expanding upon that. We have a fellow down in Mexico right now that that are teaching classes on Tuesday and Thursday night,

a couple of hours each night. We are also going to actually set up a curriculum for a, either Monday or Tuesday night class, three hour course that they can get at some type of certificate at the end of that. So we’re ex we’re expecting to expand that with the work in Mexico, in the Hispanic world, right? So when you think about the Hispanic world,

you’re talking about a major chunk of the population of this world. And so, you know, that expanse right there will be great. And there are other changes that I have envisioned, but that’s okay. That’s for another day and we’re not covering what we’re really ought to be doing right now, but I do appreciate your, your labors and appreciate your support and our labors.

We thank you. So, so very much one of the things that I’ve noticed over the years is the misunderstanding of what true faith is. In fact, I, as I was thinking about, Oh, abs I had a student several years ago and it appeared that he was a member of the church, but he started dating young lady from the denominator nation.

And suddenly he misunderstood what faith was in the nomination of world. They about what’s called A leap of faith. And what that simply means is that here you are on the unbelief side or the, without faith side, and you just simply take a leap. And all of a sudden you’re over here on the faith side and you believe something that cannot be proved or you believe something,

or you have faith in something that cannot be substantiated. In fact, one person and the nomination world defined it this way, that faith is knowing something that is, is simply not the truth. Really. I can’t even, I hardly even imagine why anybody would believe such thing. I believe that we have the substance for faith. In fact, in Hebrews 11 in verse one,

faith is the assurance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. And so we have a perfect description of faith. And then when we look at that particular idea, I think a lot of it stems on the fact that they really don’t understand either what faith is or what works are. And it really all boils down to that. Now we’re going to be looking at James chapter two in verses 14 and to the end of the chapter here in just a moment.

And when we get a good foundation for our lesson, but in that particular passage, he deals with both, but we all have heard of different ones like Martin Luther, who said that James was that quote white, right? Straw epistle, Martin Luther, that he didn’t understand what faith was. That was his whole problem. He met him total misunderstanding.

He had that understanding like faith is that thing that you take that leap across. And either you don’t have it or you have it, and there’s no one way or the other about it. But we looked through the scriptures and we really find a niche, different levels of faith from our text here in just a little bit, we have dead faith, which is the faith of the demons,

which is the faith of the devils. There’s the lowest type. It is dead faith because it does not act upon what they believe. Then we have those of little faith. Jesus on three different occasions, talked about his own disciples. And he said, Oh, ye of little faith. I’m most of us can identify with that. But the one that I think about,

or the example I think about is in the sermon on the Mount. Now we know that Jesus was talking to his disciples in chapter five in verse one, there, the text says that that when he saw the multitude, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him and he taught and he opened his mouth and taught the insane,

blessed are the poor in spirit, et cetera, et cetera. But within that discussion in chapter six of the book of Matthew toward the end of it, he talked about ye of little faith. He said, if God, so take care of the grass of the field, which is closed today. And tomorrow, will he not much more clothe you?

Oh, ye of little faith. And so then we have that dead faith. The next level would be that little faith, but then we can go on up from there to the great faith, again on three different occasions. And I’ve always found this interesting that he said that, Oh, you have little faith three times. And he said, Oh,

ye of great faith on three occasions. And he, interestingly, when he said that statement on those three occasions, none of them were two Israelites. You realize that One of them was to a Centurion. The sanitarian had come to Jesus and he requested Jesus to heal his servant. His servant was somewhere else. I don’t remember where he was, but his servant wasn’t with him.

And the, and Jesus said something about that. And the, and the Centurion said, now, remember, the Centurion is a Roman soldier over basically about a hundred men. And the Sid Tyrian said, I understand that when I command and I say, do this, or do that those in lesser authority than I am, they are required to do that.

And basic basically what the Syrian was saying is that Jesus had authority over the healing. And all he had to do is say it, and the man would be healed. His servant would be healed. And Jesus Said that he had great faith And he healed his servant. And you remember that<inaudible> and even ask about at what time Was the servant healed.

And it was exactly When Jesus said he would be healed. He was a man of great faith, another example of a person of great faith with it Was the, the Phoenicia and<inaudible> lady. And she was wanting to have her daughter healed. And there were other examples of that. And of course, Abraham was that kind of an example in Romans chapter four,

there it talked about Abraham was not weak in faith, but he was strong in faith. Well, there you go. There’s more examples of growth as far as faith is concerned. And then we get to the greatest faith of all. And that’s that living faith that James talked about. So it’s not a matter of either we’re in faith or out of faith rather,

or in faith. It’s a matter of growth. Faith is something that we grow into. And so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10 and verse 17. Now in our text in James, we must understand that there are different levels of faith. And there’s the level of faith that the devils that was a dead faith and a level of faith that Abraham and Ray have had.

And when we look at this particular passage, we understand those levels of faith, but do we understand that there are different types of works as well? Now, when I think about that, I tried to get it down to a practical level and we understand that works are different, are motivated by different things. We think about the person, maybe he works for a,

an office building or maybe a school, or even, I don’t know, it could be any number of different things. Maybe they, they are working as a janitor in a, in a mall and their responsibility is to go around, to pick up trash. And so they take their little being around and, you know, usually a larger bin and they’ll go around and pick up the trash and put it in into that bin and carry it back.

And then finally, ultimately in the end of the day, they take it to a larger dumpster outside and they remove that. But then that person, you see, why did they go to work on Monday to take out trash? I mean, I kind of remember what Jeremy, our son used to say, we’d say, Jeremy, you need to take out the trash.

And he would say, Well, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it Well, can you imagine this person going to work every day? And his job, his or her job is to pick up trash? Well, that’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it, but why does he or she go to work on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday?

Well, they do it to get the paycheck on Friday. That’s why they do it. And most of us would do things like that in order to get the paycheck. At least some of us would be willing to do those kinds of things in order to get the paycheck on Friday, rather than that’s meritorious Works. You, you go To work on Monday and you work through Friday in order to merit the check on Friday,

because you’ve labored for it all week long. And it’s a trade off merit. You merit that paycheck because you’ve earned that paycheck. But now this same person, He goes home or she goes home and someone says, honey, maybe the wife, maybe the husband she says, or he says, honey, we, we need our trash taken out. Would you do that for me?

What does the person do? Picks up the trash and takes it outside. Did he do it to merit something? Probably not. Although I could imagine, I remember this older couple and I know this was just, just teasing one another. But I remember I was riding in a carpool at this particular time. This has been years and years ago. And so this man walked up to the car and we were already in it.

And the, the, the lady of the household, her was outside and she locked all the doors before he got to the car. And, and then he, she rolled down the window Just big enough to Get the paycheck. And she says, hand me the paycheck and all unlock the door for me. Yeah, well, yeah. So We lived about 25 miles away.

So needless to say, he handed her the paycheck and he got in. So, but I know that was all A joke, but you know, we don’t, we don’t work that way. We do those things that we do at home In order to, because we love our family, not to inherit Or to receive or to merit a paycheck. Think about It from a standpoint of a mechanic.

He goes to work day after day. He earns his paycheck at the end of the week, but then he sitting at home relaxing little bit After working on people’s cars all day long, and his mother says, Sonny boy, would you work on my car? Now? What son that loves his mother would not get up and work on her car after he’d been working on it all day long or other people’s cars all day long.

And what son that loves his mother would say, yeah, mom I’ll work on it, but I’m going to charge you $20 an hour. Yeah, really. You know, I mean, really can a person that loves his mother even do such a thing. I mean, I’d love to work On my mother’s carpet. She’s been gone for so long And it’s not possible.

Well, you know, that’s the fact is we do works out of merit, But we also do works that are motivated by love and that are motivated by faith. Well, the works that James dealt with In James chapter two, our works motivated by faith and love. That’s what he’s dealing with in this particular Chapter. Now this, this particular reference of James chapter two verses 14 through verse 26 is divided in three parts.

And we know that the three parts are easy to pick out because the conclusion is the same in all three parts. Look at verse 17. At the conclusion of the first part, the first part would be verses 14 to 17. And in verse 17, he says, so then, or even so faith, if it half not works is dead being alone.

Then look at verse 20. The next part is verses 18 to 20 in verse 20 is the same conclusion, but without no vain, man, that faith without works is dead. And then finally look at verse 26. And the last part is verses 21 through 26. And in verse 26, he wrote for as the body, without the spirit is dead.

So faith without works is dead also. So three times he came to the same conclusion and he used three different arguments to come to that same conclusion that faith and works go hand in hand. They’re not mutually exclusive, they’re mutually inclusive. In other words, they go hand in hand together, you cannot have faith or biblical faith and without works of obedience or works of,

Of motivated by love And faith. So now what are the three arguments that he made? Well, the first argument I titled the first part of it is simply asking the question, what does it profit? He started with that concept. He ended with that concept. And so in verses 14 to 17, he said, what death it profit my brethren though,

a man say he has faith and have not works. Can faith save him if our brother or sister be naked or destitute of daily food. And one of you saying to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, not withstanding you give them not those things, which are needful to the body. What does it profit even? So faith, if hath not works is dead being alone.

Now think about the situation or the scenario that has pictured for us. James is a master at using illustration. And this is really a argument based upon this illustration here, it is a person that comes to you. He doesn’t have proper clothing. It doesn’t mean he’s buck naked. It means that he just didn’t have the proper clothing and on this kind of a day,

isn’t it important that we have proper clothing? Well, yeah, obviously so and so this person doesn’t have proper clothing and he’s cold. He has also hungry and you just simply say, Be warmed and be filled, go in peace. And what’s that going to do for him? Nothing at all. I remember years ago, and this has been a long,

long time ago. In fact, we were living up in Kansas city at that particular time. And this fella, I was getting ready to go overseas over to Latvia. And this fellow said, brother in Christ. He lived about a block away from us. And he said, if you need anything, or if Jody needs anything, just call on me and I’ll take care of it.

Well, you know, at that particular time, this is one of the early trips. And at that particular time, it seemed like something broke down every time I left. And I think it was the devil working at us and wanting me or trying to get me not to go to those different places. Well, sure enough. One of the, one of the old washers they used to have in,

in faucets, and this was actually in the bathtub, it exploded. And so the water was just running constantly. And so Jody went down or sent one of the kids down to ask him, said, come up and help us. And he said, well, If you can’t find anybody to fix it, let me know Really, you know, that’s when I found out about it,

I was a little hot under the collar, but you know, I mean, what good is that? And that’s the very scenario that you’re finding here. What good is it does just simply say to somebody that doesn’t have proper clothing and it hasn’t had a meal and you just simply say, be warmed, be filled. It doesn’t profit anything. And so faith without works is the same thing.

It is profitless it has no value whatsoever. The second section that he gave is verses 18 to 20 is a little shorter section. And I titled it, the devil’s faith. And in this section, he said, yea, a man may say, thou has faith. And I have worked so me that I faith without thy works. And I’ll show you my faith by my works they’ll believe us that there is one God that I’ll do as well.

The devils also believe in tremble, but will thou know all vain, man, that faith without works is dead. Now let’s begin with the beginning there of this particular section, there must have been an objector in the audience and the, the recipients of this particular letter that James wrote to, and this man was saying, well, it’s all right. You have faith and all have works.

Now, wondering what in the world that mean, you know, the picture of works that at least the picture that I see of works, that, that this man would have had is that as long as my good works, outweigh any bad that I do, then salvation is mine. And so you can have faith and I can have works and we both can be saved.

Well, you know, that’s really the attitude that a lot of people in denominational world has. And especially when you’re talking about those large organized religions that have headquarters like in Rome and other places like that, that’s exactly the attitude that they have. As long as my good works, outweigh my bad, then I’m going to receive heaven. And so that’s,

that’s that idea of works there. Well, how many people do we know that really have that attitude? And so they’ll, they’ll come and they’ll, they’ll do whatever they want through through the week. And they’ll live like the world during the week. And then they come and they put a large paycheck or large contribution. And then I think my good works have outweighed my Bad.

You know, how much It takes a sin to cause a person to be lost. Enrollment Chapter six in verse 23, Paul said for the wages of sin is death, but the gift God is eternal Life through Christ Jesus. Our Lord, the wages of sin is death. It just takes one sin to be lost. That’s all. And we are going to be Lost with one scene.

If we don’t repent of that sin and don’t turn to God for his forgiveness and submit to the will of God, it just takes one. And we can labor all of our life and build great monuments to ourself with great work, But it’s not going to get us to heaven. It is only salvation is only through Jesus. You remember acts four in verse 12,

Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men Whereby we must be saved. And you remember John, the 14th chapter in verse six, I am the way the truth and life. No man, listen to what he said. No man, cometh unto the father. But by me, salvation is not by works and we cannot earn Vacation.

But salvation is by the forgiveness that we have through Jesus. So the objector was mistaken And James then said, I’ll show you my faith by my works brethren. The works that we do in obedience to Jesus Christ declare our faith. And we cannot separate our faith from that. Now he illustrated with that, with this. He said that I believe us that there is one God thou do as well.

The devils also believe now, one of, one of the things that a lot of people have concluded, and I think it’s such a horrible misunderstanding. And again, it goes back to the domination of world because in the nomination of world, they’ll talk about the difference between belief and faith. Do you realize that in the original language, in the coin,

a Greek, what’s the same word, It’s a pistol or pistis or pistis, it depends on the ending or a piss day or something Like that. Their endings mint It’s difference of verbs and nouns and different things like that. Different parts of speech. And in the, even in English, faith and belief are nothing more than different parts of speech. It has the same concept.

And so don’t think about it in different ways. So James, in this particular passage is talking about you believe that there is one God, you have faith. That there’s one God, well you do well. The devils also have faith in such matters. The devils also believe in such matters. And in fact, do you not think that the devils have a better understanding of such matters than we would?

I mean, the devils are spiritual. The devils even are able to approach the very throne of God as we defined in the book of job. But so they would probably have a better understanding of such things. But does the devils act upon their faith? No, they have dead faith. Yeah. They don’t act upon it. And that’s the whole point there.

And so it says the devils Leave and Trimble, you ever thought about why they tremble because they know their ultimate end. They tremble because they know where they’re headed and where God’s going to ban them for all of eternity. So now will no vain man, that faith without works is dead. The same conclusion in the third part of our passage, there is I called it examples of faith and he use two examples of faith in the first is Abraham.

The second is rehab. And in verse 20 through or verse 21, rather through 26, the text says was not Abraham. Our father justified by works. When he had offered Isaac, his son upon the altar, see us now how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect. And the scriptures was fulfilled, which says Abraham believed God.

And it was imputed unto him for righteousness. And he was the friend of God. You see then how that by works, a man is justified and not by faith only. So with this example of Abraham, he specifically used one of the great trials of Abraham. Now, when we look at the book of Genesis, we find that there were three great trials of Abraham.

The first is found in Genesis chapter 12. And there, it says that that God said to Abraham get the out of my country. And from that Kendra and from my father’s house into a land that I will show thee. And so Abraham left, that was a trial of his faith. Remember Abraham had been in that land most of his life. And he we’re talking about more than 50 years.

He’d been in this land and God says, you leave and I’ll just show you where you’re going to go after you leave. But Abraham left, He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew who sent him. And he had the faith to do that. That was the first trial, the first test of his faith. The second test of his faith was the birth of Isaac and Abraham passed the test.

And in fact, we mentioned in Romans chapter four, a little bit ago, verses 15 and following. And that’s what that passage is about is the fact that Abraham was strong in faith. He believed that he would have a child. And even though he himself was past procreation and Sarah was past procreation as well, yet he, they still believe that God would provide a son for them.

They were strong in faith. And then the final test was the offering up of Isaac. And you could imagine here it is, this son of promise is born to you. And then God says, you take them up until a mountain and I’ll show you that mountain. And you offer him upon that mountain. And we know that mountain was Mount Moriah,

which is probably most likely the temple Mount of Mariah, where the temple was built. And he took Isaac upon that mountain. And even though there were incidences that were played into this, but we’re not talking about an obedient frenzy, we’re talking about a three-day journey. And Abraham probably, and Isaac probably thought about that sacrifice that was going to be made.

And God put Isaac upon that altar. And he was going to kill him and he drew his knife to cut his throat. Like you would a, a sacrifice and God stopped him. But don’t you. I Find it interesting. Both the Hebrews writer and Hebrews 11 and Jane James Said, he offered past tense. Isaac. He considered it a finished action.

Why? Because if God had not stopped him, he would have done it. Now with that in mind, it’s interesting because We don’t find this information in the old Testament, but in the new Testament, in the book of Hebrews, again, Hebrews chapter 11, we have an insight into Abraham’s mind. Abraham thought of a resurrection. He thought he would kill his son,

but he believed that God would raise him back up. Now that’s an interesting insight to me Tells you the determination that Abraham was willing to sacrifice, But he had faith and he acted upon that faith. God, didn’t say Abraham, you offer your son, Okay, God all do that. But I don’t think this is the right time. And I’m just not going to act upon that right now and then put it off and put it off and put it off like many of us do and never really act upon it.

That’s not the kind of faith that Abraham had. He was willing to act upon it. And the second example that he gave was that of Rahab the harlot. And we would think that a harlot would not make a good example of, of faith, but she was a woman of faith. And there’s no doubt about it. She must’ve understood that Jericho belonged to Israel.

She must have understood that Jericho and the nation or the mass of, of what would become Israel belong to the Israelite people. And when they crossed over the Jordan river, she must have not understood that they crossed over on dry land. They knew, or she knew that God was with Israelite people and she was willing to take those various actions. She took by hiding the,

the spies and the, the ribbon and calling her family to her house. And her house was the only one that stood and Ray have acted upon her faith because she knew, and she believed God said concerning the Israelite people, She acted upon her faith. And so the conclusion then is verse 26 for as the body, without the spirit is dead, which takes us all the way back to the book of Ecclesiastes,

chapter 12, what happens all ultimately in the end of this world Or in the end of this life rather? Well, you know, the body separates itself or the spirit rather separates itself from the body and the soul Spirit returns to God who gave it and the body returns to the ground Around. And so there’s a separation of body and spirit now Understand that I,

we probably, most of us, maybe not the kids that are here, but as far as adults are concerned, we’ve been to funerals. We’ve seen that Lifeless body lion in that casket. And we know what’s going to happen. I remember one time, this is again, when I was preaching up in Kansas city and went and there was a, a couple and I preached both of their funerals and they were from Arkansas.

And so we drove down 71 higher the old 71 highway all the way down into Arkansas. And the second time went down there and it was the lady’s death and the man died first. And then she died later, but I rode with the mortician on the way down to Arkansas. And he was telling me all the different deals that the had as far as the caskets were concerned and the volts.

And they say, we guarantee one to, to last a thousand years. And I literally laughed. I didn’t mean to, but you know, sometimes some, some things just humor you and I laughed out loud and he says, well, What’s so funny. I said, well, who’s going to be around To, to back the guarantee in a thousand years.

I mean, give me a break. I mean, you know, but anyway, he was a little bit offended and he finally, he just kind of shook his head. Okay, well, you know, I’ve got me on that. Well, you know, the fact is this old body ultimately is going to return to the ground And it’s, and there’s a separation of the body and the spirit faith without works,

being together, being separated are just as dead as a dead body. So here it is. And the question really becomes this. What kind of faith do you have? Do you have a faith that just simply believes God or believes in God, or do you have a faith that acts upon what God says? There’s a difference between believing God and believing in God,

do you believe God has given us a promise? And that promise is if we’re obedient to his, will, he will provide for us eternal life. Are you obedient? I hope that you are. And most likely you are because you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t, but if we could help you in any way, we invite you to come as together,

we stand and sing to encourage you to the invitation.