Faith is demonstrated not merely by intellectual assent to doctrines, but by a volitional commitment to Jesus Christ that results in obedience. The sermon distinguishes between believing 'that' certain facts are true and believing 'in' or 'on' Christ, emphasizing that true faith requires the latter, a personal commitment. This volitional faith is evidenced by one's actions and obedience, as James' epistle highlights. The message also explores how trials, when viewed from God's perspective, become opportunities for spiritual growth and reproduction, leading to joy not in suffering itself, but in God's work through it.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.66 → restored 4.17
Let's pray. Our Father, it's with joy we come before you this morning in the fresh realization of our relationship to you and of your goodness and grace and kindness to us. We pray that as we think and study together, our hearts may be open to your word and what you want to say and that we will receive help in living more the way you want us to live. that our lives may bring pleasure to you and be a blessing to people around us. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now, to me, this is a whole lot better than being at the chat, but I'm much more at home than you said. Sorry, I didn't think of a black boy in his family when I flew without him. And if I get going too fast, don't give you time to say anything or ask questions, just interrupt me. Do you do that? This is hopefully a conversation, but I don't give you time to have conversation. But just stop me. If there are comments you want to make or questions, don't go ahead and interrupt. If you just pick up something in the first chapter of James, And the Episcopal change, without going either to reveal how we should or try to outline it, gives us, as I was suggesting last week, a test of faith, as First John gives us this test of love.
First John shows us what love really is. James gives us this test of faith and shows us what faith really does. And it might be swell if this is one of you from a little time to talk about faith in the Scripture. And I want to begin by using the term believe in two ways that it's used in New Testament, or whatever, the stuff on the blackboard that if you want to jot down a couple of things it may help. There's what I would call the intellectual use of the word believe. The way you can tell that in the New Testament is that the verb believe is followed by the word that.
For instance, in John chapter six, fear responds to our Lord, we believe and are sure that thou art that of Christ, the Son of God. And the verb believes, followed by the word that. That gives the intellectual content of what I accept as truth. That's what I would call the intellectual use of the word. believe. It's the content of what I accept as true. Paul Reuters in Thessalonians says, if we believe that, Jesus died in Rosiania, those are statements that I accept as fact.
Jesus died in Rosiania. I believe that. Now you'll find that construction frequently in the New Testament and surprise me quite frequently in the Gospel of John. We believe that. I believe that. If you believe that, that's the intellectual content. That's the fact content that I accept as true. So if I were to ask you this morning, what do you believe in? You can go down on this statement and you would use the word belief followed by the word that. I believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God. I believe that he was virgin born. I believe that he lived a sinless life. I believe that he died for my sins upon the cross. I believe that he rose again on that day.
All those are statements that I accept as true. I believe that. That kind of faith or that aspect of faith is always inadequate. It's a beginning point, but it's a necessary point. We have to begin there. There isn't, in my chapter, there really isn't any such thing as blind faith in the New Testament. There is always a minimum of intellectual content. There isn't such a thing as blind faith. That's a starting point. But it is never enough to itself.
And if this is a problem, James was facing in James chapter two. You believe that there is one God. That's fine. That's a good starting point. That's not enough. The demons believe that in terms. So I find the second use of the word believe in the New Testament. And I would call this the volitional use of the word believe. Verses in which what I accept is true. The second is volitional, the commitment I make on the basis of the intellection.
The construction of the New Testament is the verb believe, followed by the word in, or on, or upon. Now I am dealing with a response on my part. what I have access to this truth. It's possible to have the first without the second. And that's the problem James is facing. I think all of us, at least many of us, experienced that. Some of us knew the gospel long before we presented ourselves to Jesus Christ. And if you had asked me, what do you believe, I would have given you a list of orthodox doctrines but I had not committed myself to the person about whom those doctrines spoke.
So you come to our well-known passages at John three sixteen. Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is the response I make on the basis of what I believe. It is a volitional In my own will, I commit myself to Jesus Christ. I receive him as my Lord and Savior. Okay, and see, that's turning up so far. So you look for those two grammatical constructions in the New Testament in the word believe. Believe that, or believe in, on, or upon. And salvation does not occur until I have come to the original faith.
I can believe that and be absolutely correct. But until I believe in Jesus Christ, I am not a Christian. I do not have eternal life. And the content I believe that is to give me a basis on which to act, on which to commit myself. Now, the second aspect of faith, believe in or on, what I call a volitional faith. equipment or works out is obedient. John three thirty-six before we get to James.
John three thirty-six, which you know well, he that believes on the sun has everlasting life, and he that believes not the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God abided on him. Does anyone have a different translation or a marginal reading? He that believeth not the Son. Is that a marginal reading or a translation? I'm not asking for an English translation. Anybody has a different English translation? Yeah, what is it? Whoever believes in the Son is and whoever rejects the Son.
Well, the new international is. Whoever rejects the sun. Okay. Any other translation of that? Everybody agrees on the first part, if we believe we have eternal life. But whoever does not obey, that's the word. That's the Greek word for obey. Whoever does not obey the sun shall not be like the rest of our body. Now, do you see the parallel? What is the opposite of believing? disobeying. What does it mean to believe? It means to obey. And this volitional faith, this commitment of myself to Jesus Christ, this receiving of Jesus Christ, works out as obedience.
Hebrews chapter three. Here again, I'll need help with other translations. it as the author is talking about the experience of Israel and not getting into Caliph. He says in verse seven, people, but who must he grieve for the years? What is not with them that has sinned and scarceth its own wilderness? And to whom swore he that they should not enter into Israel, but to them that believe not, he then said. Disobedient.
to them that were disobedient. Now look to contrast in verse eighteen. So we see that they could not enter into God of unbelief. Unbelief and disobedience go together. Belief and obedience go together. Chapter five our Lord is a high priest who gives eternal life to all that, obey Him. So the committal of myself, did Jesus pray? For even though he didn't say you're believing in Him or believing on Him, as the New Testament puts it, works out in obedience.
Now that's what Jesus is talking about. I don't see His obedience. What does that tell me? You have stuck at the intellectual content the orthodox doctrine, you have not taken that other step of committing yourself, volitional faith. That's what James is wrestling with in chapter two. And it seems to me unless we see the two uses of the verb believe in the New Testament, we may run into problems when we come to James chapter two. Faith and work. All James is saying is this kind of faith, of commitment to Jesus Christ, works himself out in obedience to him.
If the obedience isn't there, the faith isn't there. Hebrews three, his name is anything about Israel in the wilderness. If the obedience isn't there, the faith isn't there. You may have the intellectual faith, I believe that. But the volitional faith, the commitment, the receiving of Jesus Christ, the personal relationship with him is not there. And when I take that act of my will, in receiving him, committing myself to him, I believe in him or on him. That commitment, that receiving of him, brings me into a personal relationship with him, which is absent from the intellectual context.
Now don't rush to the volitional without the intellectual. too often we do that. We try to get people to make commitments when they have no information on which to make the commitment. Or in evangelistic meetings we get everybody all emotional and they make an emotional commitment but without any strong intellectual content the root Jesus is what's going on. We need both of them. We don't want to stop short on the first but using what have I had. We believe that in order that he may believe in. Okay?
Now, this is what James is talking about when he comes to his epistle. And we've got the test of the faith. And what it means test is, whether or not I have believed in Jesus Christ. And that's really what he's talking about, as I understand it, in James chapter two. But I want to come to James chapter one. Now, are there any questions about that? You look to those two constructions following the verb fully when you're reading through the New Testament. Believe that or believe him or on. You'll find it quite frequently. I had a list, but I was talking this way with a group of young people, and I had gone through the Greek concordance and just brought down a whole list of verses where folks, you know, we have those two constructions and somebody wanted to buy our copy and I never got it back.
So I got through it all over again, but I don't have it with you this morning. But you must go through the New Testament, and you can see that even in our industry in place. Let's go to James, James chapter one. Other questions or comments? Do you want to fill in there? Add to it. Straighten me out, whatever it is. No? All right. Let me show you another contrast, by the way. We sometimes talk about believing with the head and believing with the heart. I would rather say the intellectual and the volition. The real contrast in the New Testament is not between the head and the heart, but between the lips and the heart.
What I say, Father, we believe. If thou shalt confess with thine mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart. that God has raised into the dead. Because too often there's a contradiction between what I confess and what I really believe, what I've committed myself to. This people draw as near to me with their lips, but their heart is far from you. That's the contrast in the Scripture. Not between head and heart, but between lip and heart. What I say may be quite different from what I have committed myself to. And what I have committed myself to shows up the way I live.
You say the other night, it's not by their words that you know, but by their deeds, what they do. That shows what a man is committed to. Not what he says, what he does. That's the evidence of that volitional faith. So you get past all the words. What is going on in the life? That's the evidence of this commitment to volitional faith. I accept the person on the basis of what he says. It's hard. He tells me the truth and I accept that. But whether or not that volitional faith is there will show us in the works what I do, not what I say, but I do.
That's the real test. That's the real danger of preachers' faith. It's so easy to come out with the word. The real test is not how he preaches, but how it is. That's the real test. So we won't go into that. James chapter one, verse one. Let's read through the first eight verses. James, the servant of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the twelve tribes, which are standard of law, and greeting. My brethren tell you all joy when you fall in the various trials or dire temptations, knowing this, that the temptings on your feet are more deceitious, but let patience give her perfect work that she may be perfect in entire, lacking nothing.
If any of you might wish Let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and art greateth not, and it shall be given you. But let him ask his face, nothing wavering. For he that wavering is like a wavering of the sea could not forgive his harm. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Now, again, I don't want to go into the background of the letter who James was and to whom he was writing. I just want to try to help us in what James would say. One word out of verse one. He's writing to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.
Their marginal reading will say in the dispersion. And you know, primarily it goes back to the dispersion of the twelve tribes of Israel. So the Gentiles took over the land of Palestine. When Syria conquered the Ten Moabites he was embattled in Jerusalem and two southern tribes in Israel scattered throughout the entire world. We can think ourselves that way, since God's people are scattered all over the world. And the word for dispersion, or I couldn't translate it literally, it's one word that would form the two other words, but it's the idea of the being scattered.
The diaspora. The early Jewish diaspora. The second part of that narrative is in this receipt. How does God use his people to get around the world? You see who might see. So the farmer goes out in the springtime, he scatters. And they get it by hand. He scatters the seed. Why is he scattering the seed for our pet peeves? Don't look at me. I don't see a fellow. I don't know anybody there. Why do you fellas have to have gardens or farms to scatter seeds?
All right. What's your purpose of scattering? Don't grow. Reproduce. That... When? Multiplication. Multiplication. So when God looks at this the diaspora, He sees it as an opportunity. He's got his seed, Catherine, all the world to reproduce. We look at it as a tragedy, unless we have God's viewpoint. God looks at it as an opportunity.
The early church saw that. The persecution that arose about Sikhs. What happened? As those Hellenistic Christians were driven out of Jerusalem, driven out of their home, trying to escape this persecution in Judea. What did they do? Remember? But everywhere from Judea. They fought something. of the opportunity. We're driven out of our home. Oh, what a tragedy. You can look at it that way. Or you can say, oh, what an opportunity. And if those early Christians saw it as an opportunity, then you had other Christians all over that part of the country.
Because these early Christians were scattered at sea. And they reproduced. And the church multiplied and grew. And I wonder if this is in James' mind as he's writing that book. You're a scattered at sea. You reproduce and multiply wherever you go. And the harvest increases as a result. So the scattering wasn't just a tragedy. It was an opportunity. All depends on how you look at life. Won't it? I can look at it from the selfish point of view, or I can look at life from God's point of view.
I can see life in what it gives me, or I can see life in what I give to it. And by the way, that point of view is going to determine the kind of people we are. And it's going to determine whether or not we are happy in life. I don't like the word happy, but that's what it's going to determine. If I see life or what I can get out of it, I'm going to be miserable, because it never gives me what I expect, including Florida. You know, we came out of here with certain expectations of what Florida was going to be like.
It's a really cold. You sit around grounds and miserable. Or I can see coming to Florida as an opportunity to help other people to serve God. And then it doesn't matter what the weather is like. It all depends on your viewpoint. Whether you're scattered in peace or not, you see it as an opportunity to reproduce the life of God. And that's what James is saying. And, okay, this is good. My brethren, verse two. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
I have often wished that James hadn't written that. Count it all joy. But then as I began to look at it, I didn't realize very much. chains did not say, I'm supposed to enjoy suffering. Oh, thank God I'm so miserable. I don't even say that. And when we talk that way, we take the easy example and praise God for suffering. I don't think he said that. Maybe I better hurry on and make myself clear and we'll come back to it tomorrow.
What does he say? First, he uses the word count. So talk about that word tomorrow. Count it all, joy, when you fall into various trials. What period is it? Knowing that. Ah. How is it I am able to count it as joy? Not the trial, but what can be produced from it? That's where the joy lies. Knowing that, the testing of your faith for an institution, there is where the joy lies, not in the trial, but in what God can work out of the trial. Now, to me, it's important to see those two things.
People go around talking about, oh, they really praise God for their suffering. Then I get thinking about myself, what kind of Christian are you? I can't do that. No, what James is talking about is what God produces out of it. That's what I rejoice in. Love you, Christ. Well, I say, we make all kinds of easy things. Don't we pray God that Lazarus died? You can't. Martin and Mary didn't. Well, look, your brother. That's easy. And Jesus didn't refute them for weeping.
In fact, he was good then. But the glorious resurrection. I know you would rejoice in the resurrection. That's what it is. These are Paul writers of Thessalonians doesn't say we don't sorrow. But we do not sorrow hopelessly. Now, when people talk this way that, oh, we praise God for our suffering, I am right on edge waiting to give them some examples and find out how in the world we're supposed to rejoice. Let me give you one. We had in our assembly of Florence, this is not being recorded in a Bible.
We had in our assembly of Florence a lovely ninety-year-old woman. absolutely the kicker who had lived in the home for over four and fifty years. Even when she went out to sleep, her front porch, she dressed as though she were going to church, just as a delightful woman, who refused to live with her children in the morning because she pried very little to the delightful Christian woman. One morning, about four o'clock in the morning, someone broke into her home and put in a spell with her. feet her up terribly and late. She never recovered.
And she died. She was the only witness. The man who did it is walking the street before him today because she was the only witness. Now, am I supposed to rejoice at that moment when I said that? Now, am I supposed to rejoice? on your way, on your way. And James isn't saying, we rejoice because we are in trial. No. We rejoice because of what God brings out of it. Now, distinguish between the two.
Please. I don't rejoice in sin. I rejoice in the grace of God that brought the Savior. I don't want to be called sin. I want to be called to praise God. I don't thank God for sin. I thank God for His grace in responding to my sin and bringing His Savior into the living room. I thank God for what He can bring out of the church. And to me, I must make that distinction. I can thank Him for His grace. by thanking for what he works out of this.
That I can thank you. It is making my intellectual decision to you, but it is a very necessary decision to me if I go through the scripture. Now, Jesus counted all joy. Yes? you get all of you put together for good. So then that's not God. Yes, let me re-translate that. God is at work for good in all things, for them that love God. I thank him for his work, but not for the all things.
God is at work in all things. And that takes the totality of my life. Where is God going in all this? One day to present me before himself. In the likeness of Jesus Christ. That's his goal. That's where he's bringing me. And in all of life, that's where God is directing us. That's where God is bringing us. For that I thank you. I thank you for his works. God is a good one. And if I will respond as in James chapter one, I will see through that verse of God. Yes, God is at working all things where I would.
Okay? I'm talking about a joke. What about a joke? Oh, that's a joke that's not a good answer. I say God for the end. Does Job never think he was a doctor? A person's name was born. Yes, yes. He was a... What was it, by the way, that finally brought Job out of war with him? The answer to these questions, the restoration of his health or his wealth? No. I don't do that again.
God changed. And that was before his health was restored, before his wealth was restored. All his questions disappeared from God changed. Amen. I have none of them. Oh, yes. You know, you're going to start making comparisons that way. But when you sit down with me, hold you. I had a brother come the other day.
I know him quite well. He and his wife. I don't have any problems. I want to say, brother, let me sit down with you five minutes. I'm going outside and looking at him now. But you don't look that way. You don't compare this person with this person and say, this person has more trouble than this person. You only go through parishes. Every heart knows its own bitterness. And so I believe some people are relatively free, and nobody's free they may be. But if that person begins to open up his heart to you, if you have that kind of relationship, provide that every heart may be concerned.
Right. Now that we'll be speaking this person's selfish world and that person in God, one of the things I've got to tell my kids, they've told me, well, it's not fair. It's not being fair. Well, who in the world said, life isn't going to be fair? Or it's not fair. The only place where everything's going to be straight down is heaven. Or hell. And there everything won't happen to the judge. Not here. So yes, there are. I don't account for that. I can't. How do I account for that? I can't. How do I account for James being beheaded and Peter being delivered?
I can't account for it. Why? I don't know. I don't know. But there it is. My response, go back to where it came up last night, is trust God. I'm not trusting to do something trust you. Agreed. Whether you're like James, you get beheaded, or like Peter, you get delivered. That's out of our control over that. We trust God. Okay, I'm over past time. But I want to get to that word count tomorrow morning because we have to teach it.
Count it all joy. Joy is not something that comes automatically. It is something you control. Count it all joy. So we'll look at that word count tomorrow and we want to see what James is saying about the outcome of our trial. Let me pray. My Father, we thank you for your grace toward us, your kindness, your presence with us. One thing we can say there is never a trial that we go through, that we go through alone. We thank you, you are with us. We thank you for what you are building into our lives.
We thank you for the lesson. We thank you for the fresh evidences of your grace. We thank you for every way in which faith has been strengthened. Patience has been increased. We thank you for your goodness. And we pray, our Father, that increasingly our desires will be brought into line with you. And we will want to be the kind of people that you want us to be.