series: Acting in grace together #
verse: James 2:18-26 #
Main Idea: #
Faith without works is dead. God calls us to be a community of love. And this can be achieved even with a group of people that share no interest or have similarities. All we need is God.
What are the two common pitfalls of faithless Christians? #
- Christians not doing good works.
- Christians that do good deeds for the wrong reason.
When does work have no power? #
When it is fueled by the flesh When we try to earn God’s favor. This happens when your attitude and thought process involves pleasing God. You are also serving others, and doing it out of selfrighteousness. When it for our own benefit, the work is dead. Some common symptoms:
- You experience stress
- Annoyed easily
- Criticize others
- Get burnt out It is definitely not easy to be sacrificial and serve others, but when it is fueled by God, it is definitely doable.
What kind of fruitful work is powerful and effective? #
Work that is produced by faith. Faith in God that makes you desire to work for God. Verse 18 says that even demons have the intellectual belief that God is powerful, but we would be just like them if we produce no works. Our natural response when we are faithful should be to do good works. Now if you don’t have any works, then that is a major testament to your faith. Do you fear God? if not, then you may need to reassess… we must fear and revere God. Most of us want to be characterized as the following:
- selfless
- merciful
- understanding
- loving
- sharing
- generous but this only becomes powerful when we do this out of faith.
How can we become people of faith? #
Verse 19: The overflowing love of Christ compels us to love on others. To do powerful and effective work, we must be overfilled with love. We need to especially pay attention to those in great need, those that are rejected by society. Orphans, widows, and the homeless. We should be serving outside of our comfort zone. We must rely on God, on his mercy, on his grace. Only through this can we visualize our brokenness and utter dependence on God. That we wouldn’t be prideful and rely on ourselves. This is what can lead us true work. True work doesn’t become burdensome, or stressful when it is based in faith.