Dead Faith | Travis Waltner

If we're all going to sit at that table someday, who would you be uncomfortable sitting by? A conservative, a progressive, someone that's extremely poor, someone of a different race, someone of a different language, someone that's messy or smelly, struggling with addiction, someone who's hurt you, someone who annoys you, someone that you just don't like. Here's the deal, and I think this is super important. If there are people you don't want at your table, you might struggle with who Jesus wants at his. We have been in a series over the book of James. And if you haven't been here, if you weren't here last week, I just want to give you a little back, a backstory about what James is about. James was written by, surprise, a guy named James. But James, this is kind of a cool fact, James was actually Jesus's brother. But while Jesus was on the earth, while he was doing his ministry, James didn't believe in Jesus. We're told that none of his brothers or sisters believed in him. But then something insane happened, right? Jesus died, and then he came back. And after that happened, James was all in. He was a believer, so much so that he became one of the leading figures of the church, especially in Jerusalem. Now, the book of James, it reads almost like the Proverbs. It's like practical wisdom after practical wisdom. It's very straightforward. James is straightforward, but I'm telling you, this book will knock you on your butt. James doesn't hold back any punches. He wants us to know, if you say you believe in Jesus, this is what your life should look like. Last week, we gave out 2,400 copies of the book of James. They have some of Adam's notes in there. Hopefully, if you got one of those, you brought it with you today. If

you didn't get one of these, you can go online to imembrace.com slash James, and you can download a PDF of them. But here's the deal. Every time we do a series like this, where we go through a book of the Bible, we hand out these little books like this. The whole hope of this, like even more than you listening to me today, and I hope you, too, listen to me, but is that you would read this for yourself. Like we have access to God's words, and we can read them every single day. And so our greatest hope is that you would read this for yourself. Five little short chapters, read them over and over again, and let God's word change and transform you. So looking ahead to today, we're going to continue on James chapter 2. Now, there is two big topics in this chapter. One of them is favoritism, and the other is faith. So there's two big topics that we're going to look at, favoritism and faith. And I'll be honest, when I started reading through James chapter 2, the whole favoritism thing kind of threw me for a loop, and I didn't really know what to do with it. You know, when I think about favoritism, I think about the idea that parents are never supposed to have favorite children. You know, you would be an awful, awful parent if you had a favorite child. I have five kids, and I for sure do not have a favorite, but it is my daughter. It is my daughter. Based on the sole fact that she does not leave a trail of destruction everywhere that she goes in our house. Any other moms have boys, and it's just like trail of destruction everywhere? This is the craziest thing about my daughter. I'm not even sure how she learned this, but when she eats something off of a plate, you know what she does? She takes the plate and puts it in the sink. It's crazy, crazy advanced stuff. Another

thing, when my daughter goes to the bathroom, you know what she does? There's this little metal flapper. She pushes it down. She flushes the toilet. I'm not sure how she learned that. And this one, this one's next level stuff right here. We have a lot of granola bars in our house. My daughter, do you know what she does when she eats a granola bar? I mean, I don't know where she learned this, but she takes the wrapper and throws it in this thing called a trash can. Like, I mean, the floor is so much bigger. Why would you just throw it on the floor, right? That's what everyone else does in our house. So that's my daughter. My boys are like a wild pack of rabid dogs, like legitimately. Destruction wherever they go, never flushing the toilet. Now, I'm just joking. I love all my kids the same. Each one of them have so much value. They have their distinct personalities and I love them all the same. And yes, my wife told me to say that. Okay, continue on. So what does James have to say about favoritism? Well, in your books, if you would turn to page 14, that's where we get started. If you don't have a book, you can open up the Bible to James chapter 2. verse 1. Let's see what James has to say to us about favoritism. My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes to your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing the fine clothes and say, hey, here's the good seat for you. You say to the poor man, you stand there or sit on the floor by my feet. Have you not discriminated amongst yourselves and become judges with evil intent? So James, he's given us a picture of what favoritism

looks like. He says, if you're throwing a party, this is the image he gives us. If you're throwing a party and a rich man comes in, he's well-dressed, looks good, all put together, and you say, hey, why don't you take the best seat? He does a lazy boy with the massager on it. You get that seat. Then another man comes in and he's poor. He doesn't look too good. He's kind of clothes are all, you know, looking kind of rough. And you say, why don't you go sit in the corner over there on the floor? James is saying that's favoritism. Giving the rich man the good seat because he's rich and the poor man the poor place on the floor because he is poor. And James says, this is what we've done. Have you not discriminated amongst yourselves and become judges, and here's the key part, with evil thoughts? Evil thoughts. By showing favoritism, you are judging that person with evil thoughts. Now here's where this gets interesting. It would be easy to read these verses and have no nuance whatsoever and just to think, well, we got to treat everybody equal, no distinctions, and everybody's exactly the same. I don't believe that's what James is saying. And the reason why I don't believe that's what James is saying is because that's not what Jesus did. So Jesus, he had thousands and thousands of followers, but he chose 12 to be his disciples. And then out of that 12 disciples, he chose three to be in his inner circle, Peter, James, different James, and John. And then out of that three, he chose one, Peter. He said, Peter, you're going to be the rock that I build the church on. You're going to be the person who starts the church for me. So out of thousands, he chose 12. Out of 12, he chose three and out of three, he chose one. Now, if you didn't know anything about Jesus, you're just looking at that from the

outside, you might say, well, that's favoritism. He gave some people the good seat and others the floor, but we know that's not Jesus's heart. He did not judge with evil motives. So what was Jesus doing there? Jesus was using something called discernment. Now, there's a big difference between favoritism and discernment. Discernment judges ability. Discernment judges ability. Now, why did Jesus choose those 12 people? I honestly don't know why he chose them. But for some reason, he thought that those 12 had the ability to take the gospel to the whole world and they did. So discernment is good. Like we use discernment every single day. You'd be unwise to not use discernment. Like if you're putting together a band, it would be good to discern that I want a guitar player who can hit the right notes. If you're at a hospital and you're hiring a doctor, you'd want to discern, hey, this guy's passed all of his tests and, you know, he's got good references. You know, if you're coaching a team, it's good to discern who are the best players so that I can play them so I can win the game. Like discernment is good. And that's not favoritism. Discernment judges ability. But favoritism is different. Favoritism judges worth. Favoritism judges worth. Favoritism looks at someone and says, you matter less. You don't belong here. You're not as valuable as this other person. And maybe you're here today and you experienced real favoritism before. There's few things that can cut more deeply. It makes you feel unseen. It makes you feel unheard. It makes you feel less than human. Now James in this chapter, he takes 13 verses, 13 verses, like almost half this whole chapter, talking about favoritism. And I'll just be honest with you. When I was reading it, I'm like, why is he spending so much time on this?

If I'm thinking of the big damaging sins in life, I'm not thinking about favoritism. So why is this so bad? Well, James gives us a few hints. He says, Has God not chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised? James is saying that the poor are rich in faith and they will inherit the kingdom of God. Or another way of saying it is saying those that the world overlooks are extremely valuable. Now James is using the poor as an example, but really this extends to all kinds of favoritism. The reason why favoritism is so damaging is because people are extremely valuable. The reason why favoritism is so damaging is because people have incredible worth. We are made in the image of God. I know, man, you've maybe come to embrace, you've heard that before. We are made in the image of God. We're made in the image of God. It just sounds like white noise. We have to get this in our brains. Every single person you lay eyes on. Every single person, the person at the gas station, the person downtown, in the slums, the person that you don't like. Every single person you lay eyes on was crafted by the Creator. It has just as much worth as you and I do. Now I love that he says that the poor are rich in faith. So he's saying that they're valuable, but he's also saying that people that have been overlooked, they have something to teach us about God. They have something about them that can enrich our faith. I remember I was in Haiti a few years back, and it was right after there was a major hurricane that had kind of just devastated most of Haiti. And I was talking to a man down there who was in his house when the hurricane hit. He was telling me, he said, I was laying on the floor of my house, which was more like a hut, when the hurricane came by and it ripped off the roof of my house. And I just stood there looking up into the hurricane, trusting God that he would save me and my family. I walked away from that conversation thinking, I learned something about faith in God that I did not know before.

I saw a facet of faith that I had not seen before. That man gave me more than I could have ever given him. Favoritism keeps us from seeing who God is through his people. So you think that'd be enough, but then James delivers a last blow, and he says this. He says that if we show favoritism, we are breaking the royal law in Scripture. The royal law, and this is the royal law. Oops, sorry. Love your neighbor as yourself. The royal law is love your neighbor as yourself. Now, this is kind of cool. Nowhere else in Scripture is that called the royal law. So what does he say? He's saying that love your neighbor as yourself is the ruling law. It is one of the laws that is over all laws. And if you break this law, if you show favoritism and break this law, you're breaking one of the most important commands that Jesus has ever given us. He goes even further to say this. He says, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. That's awesome. For he who says you shall not commit adultery also said you shall not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a law breaker. James is saying if you show favoritism, it is not a small sin. And he even compares it to two sins that we would probably consider more damaging ones. He compares it to murder and adultery, which I think is insane. But the reason why he is doing it is because this is about the value and the worth of people. We as followers of Jesus have to understand that every human being has incredible value in the eyes of God. Every single one. So what does that mean for us? Like what does that mean for us today in our our lives? I was thinking about this passage and it got me thinking about an image that we see at the end of the Bible.

We were told at the end of the Bible that when all things come together, we will all who are in Christ who have received Christ in their lives. We will all from every tribe and every tongue and every language. We will all sit together at the same table and share a meal with Jesus. Listen to what Revelation says, the wedding of the lamb has come. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the lamb. At the end, there will be one table, one meal, and we will all share it with Jesus. And if that is true, here's a question I have for you. If we're all going to sit at that table someday, who would you be uncomfortable sitting by? If we're all going to sit at that table someday, who would you be uncomfortable sitting by? A conservative, a progressive, someone that's extremely poor, someone of a different race, someone of a different language, someone that's messy or smelly, struggling with addiction, someone who's hurt you, someone who annoys you, someone that you just don't like. Here's the deal, and I think this is super important. If there are people you don't want at your table, you might struggle with who Jesus wants at his. Let me say it again. If there are people you don't want at your table, you might struggle with who Jesus wants at his. Favoritism, it reveals our heart. Okay, continuing on in chapter two, here's what James says next, and this gets a little confusing and stuff, so we're going to really kind of work our way through this.

James says, what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose your brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, then what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. But some of you say, you have faith and I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God, good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. And then hopping down to 26, as the body without spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Now, there's a lot going on there, and at first glance, it can be a little bit confusing, so we're going to dig in a little bit and try to unpack this, so just stick with me for a second. But, you know, if you read the Bible a little bit, you'll know there's a bit of a tension with what James is saying and some of the other parts that are written in the Bible, especially by a guy named Paul. Paul was a follower of Jesus. He wrote most, about half the New Testament. And Paul, when he writes, he talks a lot about how we need faith alone. And James is saying, I don't know, we need faith and works.

Let me just show you a little bit of the contrast. James says this, you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. Got that? Paul says this, for we maintain that a person is made right with God by faith apart from what we do, apart from the works of the law. And James says, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action or works, is dead. Paul says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not by your actions or not by your works. At first glance, it seems like they're almost saying something different, like Paul's saying that we need faith, and James is saying that we need faith and works. But the truth is, they're actually on the exact same page. Paul, he's speaking to people who think that they can be right by God, right with God by doing good works, by doing good things. And James is speaking to people who think that they are right with God, but nothing has ever changed in their life. They have no works. James is speaking to people that might have taken Paul's words just a little too far. They're like, I got faith. I believe. I'm good to go. Nothing in my life needs to change. James is like, no, that's not the faith that I'm talking about. I'll be honest, right?

Now, nowadays, it's actually becoming, this is kind of crazy actually, it's kind of becoming cool to follow Jesus again. Celebrities are talking about Jesus, sports people are talking about Jesus, podcasters are talking about Jesus, people are sharing Instagram reels about Jesus all the time. It's kind of cool to be a Jesus guy again. But here's the deal. It's not enough to be cool with Jesus. Jesus has to change your life. That's why Jesus, I'm sorry, James, James says this. If you ever thought there was no sarcasm in the Bible, you're about to see it right now. James says this, you believe there's One God? Good. Even the demons believe that and they shudder. You believe that there's God? Good, good, good, good. Yeah, the demons even believe that and they shudder at the fact that that's true. Those are strong words. Just believing in God is not saving faith. You can believe in God and still act like a demon. And you may be witness someone like that before someone that said they follow Jesus, but their life look nothing like Jesus at all. Okay, so let's bring it back now as we kind of dug into that for a second. So how does this work? Like how does faith and works? How does this play out in our lives? Well, I think for me one of the most powerful images that helps me understand this is the image of a seed.

So my son Cruz, he came home last spring from preschool and he came home with a pot with some soil in it and he said they planted a sunflower seed in there. Well, I couldn't tell if they actually did or not, but I just believe that that's what happened. So we put that potted plant up in the window and waited. Here's the deal. My son Cruz, he was crazy about this plant. Every morning he woke up, he would water the plant and then every moment he got, when he got back from preschool, he would take that plant and he would take it out of the window because that wasn't good enough sunlight. He would put it outside so it could have direct sunlight. He did that over and over, day after day, and guess what happened after a couple weeks? This little green shoot started coming out. There for a few weeks after that, sure enough, a sunflower bloomed. And some of you are really confused right now because anything you ever planted died. So I'm just saying even a preschooler can do it. So what is this? What does this mean? How does this work with faith and works? Okay. First, the seed is God's message. It's the message. Sometimes we call it the gospel, the good news. It's the message that Jesus died for you and was raised from the grave.

It's the message that if you believe in him, you can be saved. The seed is the message. What is the planting? The planting is the faith. It's not enough to just hear the message, right? We have to take it and we have to plant it in our souls. We have to embrace it. We have to receive it into our lives. The planting of the seed is the faith. What's the growing? The growing is just God's work in our lives. Convicting of our sins, changing us from the inside out, leading us into all things that are good. Then what's the flower? The flower is the works. It's the good works. It's our actions in the world, sharing Jesus with people, loving the least of these, loving our neighbor, forgiving those that have wronged us. It's this visible evidence that James is talking about. Does that make sense? So what James is saying, and this is hard to hear. He's saying if there is no flower in your faith, if there is no fruit on the tree, you might want to question if a seed was ever planted. If there is no flower in your faith, if there is no fruit on the tree, you might want to ask yourself if the seed was ever planted because faith without works, faith without evidence of faith, James says that kind of faith is dead. Now, here's the part of the image that I skipped over.

So when my son brought that flower home, what did he do? What was his part? You know, he didn't just let it sit there. He watered it every day and he took it out into the sunlight every day. He nurtured that plant. Nurturing is our obedience and discipline. Nurture is kind of our part. It's our obedience and discipline. Just like that sunflower would never grown without water or light, without the light, our faith will never grow without obedience and discipline. And I understand those are two of the most unappealing words in the entire world. Nobody likes those words. But they're so important. Obedience, obedience is just doing what Jesus says, listening to Jesus and doing what he says. And discipline is practicing the things that shape you into a follower of Jesus. Practicing things like reading our Bible, prayer, going to church every Sunday, serving other people. Now, you know this, but nothing in life grows without obedience and discipline. You know, you can have a business idea, like a seed of an idea, it gets nowhere without obedience and discipline. You can have motivation, like, I'm going to want to work out, I want to get in shape. You can have the seed of motivation, but it goes nowhere without obedience and discipline. You can be a dad or a mom, you're like, man, I want to invest in my kids more, I want to be more in their lives.

You can have this, like, seed of desire to do that, but it goes nowhere without obedience or discipline. The exact same thing is true of our faith. If there's no obedience, and there's no discipline, all we have is a seed stuck in the ground. And James says that seed is dead. So that's chapter two. But I want to end with, where are you today? You know, some of you are here today, and you have heard the message of Jesus. You may be been in a church a bunch, or maybe just a few times, but you've heard the message of Jesus, that Jesus died for you. And that if you put your faith in him, you can be saved. You've heard that message, but you're just holding on to a packet of seeds, you've never implanted it into your soul. If that's you today, I want to invite you to take that step. Christ died for you. And if you take that message, and you agree with it, if you accept it, if you bring it into your life, if you plant that in the soil of your heart, you will be saved. Take that step. Other of us are here today, we're like, I made that step. I made that decision. I've embraced God's message. But the truth is, there's no growth. I did it when I was five, I did it when I was 15. I did it last year. There's been no growth. If there is no growth in your life, I'm telling you, you're not nurturing your faith. You're not being obedient to what Jesus has said. And you're not being disciplined, putting yourself in those, those spiritual disciplines that will grow you and form you into a follower of Christ. So my question for you is, what step do you need to take? What step of obedience? What step of discipline do you need to take to start nurturing your faith? As you came in, you should have got one of these

cards. And what I want you to do is I want you to write down on this card what you think your step is to nurture your faith. And I'm gonna actually list a bunch in just a second. But if you know right now, just write it down. Like what is the step that you need to take? So here's some examples. I need to forgive blank. I need to forgive my ex. I need to forgive my father. I need to forgive my mother. I need to confess the things I've been hiding. I need to talk to someone about my porn addiction. I need to read my Bible every day. I need to go to rehab. I need to pray every day. I need to start tithing. I need to have that hard conversation. I need to tell my spouse what I did. I need to respect my parents. I need to invite that person to church. I need to stop gossiping. I need an accountability partner. I need to attend church every Sunday. I need to stop posting divisive things. Amen in the house of God. I need to get into a small group. I need to take a bold step of faith. What is that for you? Write it down on that card. I know for me, back in January, I was really convicted that I wasn't spending every single day in the word of God. And so in January, I just said, my step was like, I'm going to read the Bible every day. I mean, this might sound weird for a pastor, but I'm like, I'm not going to go a day without reading the Bible. Whether it's five minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes or five hours, I'm going to read the Bible every day. What is your step to nurture your faith, that step of obedience, that step of discipline? Write that down. What we're going to do now is a little different. We're going to take an offering, but this is not the offering you're used to. No money is involved. What I want you to do is when you've written something on this card, I want you to drop that on the baskets that go by. And the

reason why is I want you to offer this back to the Lord. I don't want you to just keep it with you. I want you to offer it back to the Lord and say, Lord, This thing that I wrote down, I am going to do this. I'm gonna take that step, just like my son watered that plant every day, I'm gonna take this step to nurture my faith. So as those baskets go by, just drop that card in there as a way of offering this to the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we just thank you so much that you, when we plant that seed in our life, we're thankful that you save us regardless of what we do. But now, if we have that seed of faith in our heart, God, just help us to nurture it, to help us to take those steps of faith that we need to take to make that seed grow into the sunflower, the fruit that you always wanted it to be. God, we love you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey friends, it's Adam from Embrace. If today's message encouraged you, be sure to hit the subscribe button to our YouTube channel to see all new messages as they drop. Also feel free to click here and check out more of our videos. Thanks so much for watching.