Faith and Work (Faith Series - Fifth Episode)

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Praise the Lord! Everyone! 

Here is our outline of “Faith and Work”  sermon,

Introduction : In this fifth episode of Faith Series we will be having clear understanding about the concept of "Faith and Work". Our faith is complete in our action. We must express our faith in our daily activities and in our action. According to James in New Testament,  'Faith without work is dead Faith' but there are certain things from God that we cannot earn by our own deeds (Ephesians 2:8-9), for which we need faith. That is true. God wants our faith to be expressed in our action. He permits tests and trials in our life, so that, we can express our faith into action. God test Abraham in the Moriah and when Abraham did what God actually told him, God says “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:12). Did you see there, when we let our faith to express in our works, it lets God that we are really faithful and trust on Him.

Paul presents us as,

2 Timothy 2:3-4 "Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer"

 2 Timothy 2:3 "The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops"

2 Timothy 2:15 "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth"

In the first episode in this series we looked at "without faith it is impossible to please God."  Now we are going to look at the very nature of faith, in other words, "without works, faith is dead" 

Faith and good  works go together. It is good combo like daal, bhaat & achar (nepali typical food). Faith and work is Godly combo.

Remember the Scottish row boat owner that took people across the lake. One oar in his boat was labeled, "FAITH" and the other was labeled "WORKS."  He would ask his riders this question, "Which is more important, faith or works?"  Then he would proceed to demonstrate how they are both equally important by taking only the oar marked "FAITH" and rowing hard, causing the boat to simply go in circles thus going no­where fast!  Then he would take the other oar marked "WORKS" and do the same, this time going in circles in the other direction, again going nowhere fast!  Finally he would proceed to use both oars marked "FAITH" and "WORKS" and show how quickly the boat moved through the water to the destination on the other shore, saying to his riders, “this is how faith and works must work together, it is not one without the other, but both!”


Faith & Work : An indivisible elements
 We love salt - it is the most used substance on earth; it is a necessity for our lives! it is made up of two elements : sodium and chlorine. If these two elements are consumed separately you would die! Sodium is a horrible poison; it can be burst into flames when exposed to water and air. Chlorine too is harsh poison, and if ingested will kill quickly. Ironically however, if you combine these two poisons together they make an ingredient we can't live without! together these ingredients act as a wonderful seasoning, as a disinfectant, as a preservative etc.
This is the way Faith and Works are, separately they can damage; together they are God's power at work in our lives! Listen, faith and works are as inseparable as sun and sunlight. Faith is the sun; good works are its rays.

Believing is not enough. As James says, "Even the demons believe that—and shudder" (James 2:19).They've seen Him, they know what He can do, they know what He's going to do. If believing in God's existence made you a Christian, then the devil would be one of the best. He believes: boy does he believe! He's seen Him, His glory and power. He really believes, but he's not a Christian.

And for a human being to believe in the existence of God, just means that they are probably not a complete and utter fool, since the evidence is all around us. That's why the Bible says that it's the fool that says in his heart, 'There is no God' (Psalm 14:1). Saving faith is different from just acknowledging the existence of the Creator. Saving faith changes our heart, and the evidence of that change is our works - what we do, what we say.


Work proves our Faith :

The word of James, they point us to a faith that works, right? Because here is another deal: I can tell you just about anything, can’t I? I could say I am Napoleon Bonaparte, or I could say I was a great baseball player in my childhood, or I could even say that I can walk on the water! But where the rubber meets the road of my life, there exists no evidence whatsoever for the truth of any of those statements, right? And so what James is saying here in our passage is that it really doesn’t matter what you say; because we can say anything. It really doesn’t matter how much we prattle about how much faith we have in Jesus–if our lives are as distant from His as an unbeliever’s life then we really need to reexamine our faith, because something is just not right with it!


Relationship between Faith & Work:  Faith, Salvation and Works 

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?" - James 2:14

James insists faith without works is good for nothing because it cannot save us, (James 2:14). Now some of you might wonder, why then Paul taught salvation is by faith alone and not by works (Ephesians 2:8-10). But James isn’t saying we are saved by works. He is saying we are saved by faith verified by our works! (James 2:15-16). The primary purpose of salvation is not to take us heaven but to establish Godly kingdom in earth by doing the God's purposeful work in our life.

Example : Difference between Sympathy & Empathy

James asks some questions here that he intends on answering in the remainder of the passage; and they are questions that can haunt us at times. 

What does faith look like? 

What profit, or what good is a faith that just sits and does nothing? Is it real? 

Is a faith that merely sits and observes the real deal? 

And ultimately these questions bring us round to a couple of final questions that James implies but does not ask outright: 

Am I saved? How can I know if I am saved?

Ephesians 2:8-10 'We are saved through faith by the grace of God for good works'

Philippians 2:13 "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose"

We don't do good works to get salvation but we got our salvation by grace of God and to express this salvation and happiness, we do good works.


KR MINISTRY

      

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