Are You Just a Fan of God? James 2:18-19

Are You Just a Fan of God?
James 2:18-19

“But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.  You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that ...and shudder.”

These next few verses can seem somewhat confusing on the surface so first let us re-read the section in a more modern translation.  Quoting from the “Message Bible” we read:  “I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department."  Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.  Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That's just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?”   What we have here is a problem in James’ church where some of the people were trying to separate faith and the deeds into two categories. 

James understood the difference between believing in God with a head knowledge as compared to believing in God with your heart.  He challenges the person who claims they can have faith alone while another person can have faith in action with this statement: “You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Even the demons believe that...and shudder.”  Remember James is writing to the people in his church...a Jewish church made up of converted Jews who had been raised and taught in Judaism.  To claim there is only one true God was the centerpiece of the Jewish thought.  They uttered a prayer every morning and evening called the “Shema Yisrael”.  This prayer was one of the commands of Moses to teach to their children found in Deuteronomy 6.  This was so important that many of the rabbis made what were known as phylacteries, small leather boxes, they would tie on their left arm or foreheads (Duet. 6:8).  Inside these leather boxes were four different Scripture references...one being our topic of discussion here in James where the Jews declared the Lord as the one true God.

James uses one of the most important verses the Jews would know...a verse they would recite twice a day, every morning and every night.  A verse given to them by God himself through Moses, one of the greatest leaders and figures of Jewish history.  Do you see how important this is to James?  He is not worried about offending these Jewish Christians...but he is worried some of them only have a head knowledge of God, so he sarcastically says to them, “You believe that there is one God.  Good!  Then he drives his point home further by reminding them even the demons believe in the one true God, but at least they shudder...at least they tremble with fear.

I hear people say today how they are not “gifted” in this area of ministry.  I am sorry to inform you that “good deeds” is not one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Good deeds flow naturally from “real” faith.  Did you get that?  Just as an apple grows from an apple tree… good deeds are the natural result of the believer’s saving faith.  They are inseparable. 

This is why James says “...and I will show you my faith by what I do.”  I like sports and I feel an athletic example coming to me right now.  It goes like this: You cannot claim to be a part of the team if all you are doing is sitting in the stands cheering.  Fans are not part of the team.  They want to be.  They can wear team jerseys, they can know all the names of the players on the team, and who the coaches are.  They can have a deep knowledge of the sport and understand all the rules.  They can even know all the statistics of the players… but THEY ARE NOT ON THE TEAM.  They are not on the field and not in the game.

This chapter is called “Testing Your Faith”… so how is your faith?  Have you examined your life in respect to James’ teaching on the subject?  Ask yourself the hard questions so you can grow into the mature believer God wants you to be.  Are you in the game?  Are you living out your faith by demonstrating good deeds?  Or… are you just a fan making a lot of noise?