James 2:10,14-18 What Good Is It?
Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of breaking all of it. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Such “faith” cannot save him, can it? If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it? So also, such “faith,” if it is alone and has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (EHV)
In 1861 in a small town in Serbia, a French poodle named Trixie died, and the world will never be the same because of it. That poodle belonged to a boy named Dane Tesla. He accused his brother Nikki of killing it and never forgave him. A week later Dane died falling down the cellar stairs. Nikki was afraid his parents believed he had pushed his brother because of their argument over the poodle. The day of the funeral, he heard his mother say, “Why did it have to be Dane who died?” And he thought she meant she wished it had been him.
“How can I make my parents love me like they loved Dane? How can I get them to forgive me and be proud of me and be thankful that they have me around?” When his father made the comment that Nikki wasn’t like Dane, Dane was a genius, Nikki set out to prove he was even smarter. He started inventing things. People tended to look at his inventions and say, “Interesting, but what’s it good for?” One day he went to Thomas Edison with an idea for a new way to generate electricity, alternating current, which is much more powerful and flows much farther than direct current. He envisioned wires stretching miles across whole cities. Edison laughed at the idea. “What good is it?” he asked. “It’s too expensive; it’s dangerous putting that much power in people’s homes. It’s just not good for anything.” But Edison hired him anyway. And today the wires carrying Tesla’s alternating current connect all our homes with power.
Now if that’s all the current did, just flowed through those wires, you’d still have to ask, “What good is it?” But it’s when those wires are attached to lights and motors and machines that we see what it can do.
I suppose some people might ask the same thing about faith, “What good is it?” Like electricity, faith flows deep inside you, in your heart. You can’t see it or smell it or taste it, and it cost God a very high price to provide us with this faith. James asks us today, if faith only flows around in your heart, what good is it? But if that power is attached to your hands and feet, if it moves you to help your neighbor, then you’ve got something.
When we’re troubled by the same sort of questions that plagued Nikola Tesla, and we ask, “How do I make God love me again? How do I get him to forgive me? How can I ever convince God that I’m worth keeping around, maybe forever with him in heaven?” we tend to think first of the law. What can I do? What must I do? But we’ll never be good enough. God says, “Look at my Son, my only-begotten. You’ll never be as good as he was.” If I focus on the law, then I have to admit he’s right. I’ve broken the law. That makes me a law-breaker, which Jesus never was, and I’ll always be a law-breaker in God’s eyes as long as I live. I’d have to conclude that God even blames me for his Son’s death on the cross, and I wasn’t even there.
But we know better. We know we are saved by faith, not by works. It’s our fault that Jesus died, but it’s his death that removes our fault, our guilt, and all our sin. And our Father loves us. We never have to ask, “How can I make him love me again, after what I’ve done?” He already loves me and will always love me, after what Jesus has done on my behalf.
I have faith. That’s all I need. Right? Now James comes along and says, “You have faith? Interesting, but what good is it? What’s it good for if you just have faith and it sits around doing nothing. It’s useless.”
Actually, the point he is trying to make is not that faith by itself is useless, but that faith by itself is dead, it’s not faith. James was talking to people who claimed, “I have faith, I have that power. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to have it. All we need is faith, and I have it, so leave me alone.” And James said, “Show me. Plug into that power and do something with it. If you can’t show me, if your faith is all talk and no real love or power or action, then what good is it? It’s no good to anybody else, and you’ll find it’s no good to you either; it won’t save you.”
James understood that we are saved by faith. The doors of heaven are open to everyone who simply trusts in Jesus as their Savior. But James wants to know, “If you never show love, if you never do good, how can you have faith?” Think of it this way, if you turn on a light switch and the bulb stays dark you might suspect it’s just one burned out bulb. But if not a single light in your whole house will turn on, you have to consider the possibility that maybe there’s no electricity.
If there are times when you fail to do God’s will, if there’s a little corner of darkness in your life occasionally, well, that’s a burnt out lightbulb. It happens to all of us. We sin. I don’t want to minimize even a single sin—even one sin makes you a lawbreaker as guilty as the worst of felons. But sin can be forgiven, a lightbulb can be changed. But if there’s no light at all in the way you live, the only possible conclusion is that there’s no power, no light, and no faith in your heart. The heart is connected directly to the hands, the feet, the tongue. If there’s faith, if there’s power flowing in the heart, there has to be light in your house somewhere. And if you have faith, you’ll never be satisfied until light fills every single corner of your house.
James says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Such ‘faith’ cannot save him, can it? If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it? So also, such ‘faith,’ if it is alone and has no works, is dead.”
We are saved by faith alone. The Apostle Paul has told us that. But James wants to know, how can faith ever be alone? How could anyone believe that Jesus gave his life for me, Jesus suffered the pain of hell to rescue me, and then not show some sign of thankfulness?
Do you believe in God? Well, that’s not really the question. James says in the next verse after our text that even the demons believe there is one God. They know he exists. They know who he is. The demons believe and shudder. They tremble just thinking about God. So would we if we just think about who God is, perfect, holy, with a glory that burns, that destroys anything sinful that should come into his presence. Think about who God is, and who we are, lawbreakers, nothing but worms in his presence, who deserve hell not just for every sinful thought, word, and deed we’ve ever done, but for every good thing that we haven’t done. Think about eternity, being cast out of the presence of everything that is good. And you’ll shudder, too. And repeating to yourself, “I believe in God. I believe in God,” won’t stop the shuddering.
It’s not believing in God in that bare sense that saves us, but faith, trusting in God, relying on God’s love and mercy for the forgiveness of your sins, knowing that when we finally have to stand before the all-glorious, all-powerful, absolutely righteous maker of heaven and earth and the judge of all flesh, he’ll say, “Come, my dearly loved children.” Faith sees God as our loving Father. Faith sees God’s ways as good and right. Faith sees our neighbors as brothers and sisters who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus just like us. Faith without works just doesn’t make sense, that you could love someone and not show it, that you could cherish forgiveness and not hate and avoid evil. Faith without works is dead; faith alone isn’t faith.
How about works without faith? What good are good works alone? They might be good for something, if they really were alone. If there was nothing but good works in your whole life, without one single bad work accompanying them. But James said, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
One sin, and all your good deeds become the works of a lawbreaker. Without faith, a person could give everything he has to the poor, sacrifice his own life to save a friend, and God would say, “Not good enough.” You can’t give the judge a list of all the bad things you didn’t do, when he’s judging you for the one bad thing you did do. “For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”
If good works alone are useless, and faith alone is useless, then what good could faith and good works together possibly be? The very best good. A life of faith, love, and holiness, working together, will glorify God and accomplish his will in the world, it will bring help to all who are in need, lift up the fallen, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the sick and the lonely. It will freely share the forgiveness you’ve received from God with anyone who sins against you, with anyone who feels the despair and weight of their sins. These good works won’t save you. They can’t cancel out your many sins or earn a place in heaven. But they will be good and pleasing in the sight of God who has already forgiven your sins, by the sacrifice of his Son, and prepared a place for you in heaven. Faith alone, simple trust in our Savior, is what receives salvation. But faith is never alone. Amen.
Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of breaking all of it. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Such “faith” cannot save him, can it? If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it? So also, such “faith,” if it is alone and has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (EHV)
In 1861 in a small town in Serbia, a French poodle named Trixie died, and the world will never be the same because of it. That poodle belonged to a boy named Dane Tesla. He accused his brother Nikki of killing it and never forgave him. A week later Dane died falling down the cellar stairs. Nikki was afraid his parents believed he had pushed his brother because of their argument over the poodle. The day of the funeral, he heard his mother say, “Why did it have to be Dane who died?” And he thought she meant she wished it had been him.
“How can I make my parents love me like they loved Dane? How can I get them to forgive me and be proud of me and be thankful that they have me around?” When his father made the comment that Nikki wasn’t like Dane, Dane was a genius, Nikki set out to prove he was even smarter. He started inventing things. People tended to look at his inventions and say, “Interesting, but what’s it good for?” One day he went to Thomas Edison with an idea for a new way to generate electricity, alternating current, which is much more powerful and flows much farther than direct current. He envisioned wires stretching miles across whole cities. Edison laughed at the idea. “What good is it?” he asked. “It’s too expensive; it’s dangerous putting that much power in people’s homes. It’s just not good for anything.” But Edison hired him anyway. And today the wires carrying Tesla’s alternating current connect all our homes with power.
Now if that’s all the current did, just flowed through those wires, you’d still have to ask, “What good is it?” But it’s when those wires are attached to lights and motors and machines that we see what it can do.
I suppose some people might ask the same thing about faith, “What good is it?” Like electricity, faith flows deep inside you, in your heart. You can’t see it or smell it or taste it, and it cost God a very high price to provide us with this faith. James asks us today, if faith only flows around in your heart, what good is it? But if that power is attached to your hands and feet, if it moves you to help your neighbor, then you’ve got something.
When we’re troubled by the same sort of questions that plagued Nikola Tesla, and we ask, “How do I make God love me again? How do I get him to forgive me? How can I ever convince God that I’m worth keeping around, maybe forever with him in heaven?” we tend to think first of the law. What can I do? What must I do? But we’ll never be good enough. God says, “Look at my Son, my only-begotten. You’ll never be as good as he was.” If I focus on the law, then I have to admit he’s right. I’ve broken the law. That makes me a law-breaker, which Jesus never was, and I’ll always be a law-breaker in God’s eyes as long as I live. I’d have to conclude that God even blames me for his Son’s death on the cross, and I wasn’t even there.
But we know better. We know we are saved by faith, not by works. It’s our fault that Jesus died, but it’s his death that removes our fault, our guilt, and all our sin. And our Father loves us. We never have to ask, “How can I make him love me again, after what I’ve done?” He already loves me and will always love me, after what Jesus has done on my behalf.
I have faith. That’s all I need. Right? Now James comes along and says, “You have faith? Interesting, but what good is it? What’s it good for if you just have faith and it sits around doing nothing. It’s useless.”
Actually, the point he is trying to make is not that faith by itself is useless, but that faith by itself is dead, it’s not faith. James was talking to people who claimed, “I have faith, I have that power. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to have it. All we need is faith, and I have it, so leave me alone.” And James said, “Show me. Plug into that power and do something with it. If you can’t show me, if your faith is all talk and no real love or power or action, then what good is it? It’s no good to anybody else, and you’ll find it’s no good to you either; it won’t save you.”
James understood that we are saved by faith. The doors of heaven are open to everyone who simply trusts in Jesus as their Savior. But James wants to know, “If you never show love, if you never do good, how can you have faith?” Think of it this way, if you turn on a light switch and the bulb stays dark you might suspect it’s just one burned out bulb. But if not a single light in your whole house will turn on, you have to consider the possibility that maybe there’s no electricity.
If there are times when you fail to do God’s will, if there’s a little corner of darkness in your life occasionally, well, that’s a burnt out lightbulb. It happens to all of us. We sin. I don’t want to minimize even a single sin—even one sin makes you a lawbreaker as guilty as the worst of felons. But sin can be forgiven, a lightbulb can be changed. But if there’s no light at all in the way you live, the only possible conclusion is that there’s no power, no light, and no faith in your heart. The heart is connected directly to the hands, the feet, the tongue. If there’s faith, if there’s power flowing in the heart, there has to be light in your house somewhere. And if you have faith, you’ll never be satisfied until light fills every single corner of your house.
James says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but has no works? Such ‘faith’ cannot save him, can it? If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it? So also, such ‘faith,’ if it is alone and has no works, is dead.”
We are saved by faith alone. The Apostle Paul has told us that. But James wants to know, how can faith ever be alone? How could anyone believe that Jesus gave his life for me, Jesus suffered the pain of hell to rescue me, and then not show some sign of thankfulness?
Do you believe in God? Well, that’s not really the question. James says in the next verse after our text that even the demons believe there is one God. They know he exists. They know who he is. The demons believe and shudder. They tremble just thinking about God. So would we if we just think about who God is, perfect, holy, with a glory that burns, that destroys anything sinful that should come into his presence. Think about who God is, and who we are, lawbreakers, nothing but worms in his presence, who deserve hell not just for every sinful thought, word, and deed we’ve ever done, but for every good thing that we haven’t done. Think about eternity, being cast out of the presence of everything that is good. And you’ll shudder, too. And repeating to yourself, “I believe in God. I believe in God,” won’t stop the shuddering.
It’s not believing in God in that bare sense that saves us, but faith, trusting in God, relying on God’s love and mercy for the forgiveness of your sins, knowing that when we finally have to stand before the all-glorious, all-powerful, absolutely righteous maker of heaven and earth and the judge of all flesh, he’ll say, “Come, my dearly loved children.” Faith sees God as our loving Father. Faith sees God’s ways as good and right. Faith sees our neighbors as brothers and sisters who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus just like us. Faith without works just doesn’t make sense, that you could love someone and not show it, that you could cherish forgiveness and not hate and avoid evil. Faith without works is dead; faith alone isn’t faith.
How about works without faith? What good are good works alone? They might be good for something, if they really were alone. If there was nothing but good works in your whole life, without one single bad work accompanying them. But James said, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
One sin, and all your good deeds become the works of a lawbreaker. Without faith, a person could give everything he has to the poor, sacrifice his own life to save a friend, and God would say, “Not good enough.” You can’t give the judge a list of all the bad things you didn’t do, when he’s judging you for the one bad thing you did do. “For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”
If good works alone are useless, and faith alone is useless, then what good could faith and good works together possibly be? The very best good. A life of faith, love, and holiness, working together, will glorify God and accomplish his will in the world, it will bring help to all who are in need, lift up the fallen, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the sick and the lonely. It will freely share the forgiveness you’ve received from God with anyone who sins against you, with anyone who feels the despair and weight of their sins. These good works won’t save you. They can’t cancel out your many sins or earn a place in heaven. But they will be good and pleasing in the sight of God who has already forgiven your sins, by the sacrifice of his Son, and prepared a place for you in heaven. Faith alone, simple trust in our Savior, is what receives salvation. But faith is never alone. Amen.
