JAMES 2:14\u201326<\/b><\/p>\n
Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead<\/i><\/p>\n
(James 2:17).<\/i><\/p>\n
Anytime you teach about the priority of righteousness in the Christian\u2019s life, anytime you exhort believers, as Paul did, to keep in step with the Spirit, and anytime you warn people of the dangers of falling into sin, the question of assurance inevitably arises. Keeping the balance between urging believers to pursue righteousness and remaining faithful to our total dependence on Christ\u2019s righteousness for our salvation is probably one of the most difficult tasks of the Gospel minister. People either stress the need for righteousness so much that they become burdened with \u201cearning\u201d their salvation, or they stress their freedom in Christ, their reliance on His righteousness so much that they neglect the Christian\u2019s responsibility to \u201cwork out his salvation with fear and trembling.\u201d When the need to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers is stressed to the point that we forget that we have been justified by God\u2019s grace, we will inevitably lose our assurance of salvation. But if we focus so much on justification by faith that we forget that those whom God justifies, He sanctifies (which is a life-long process of putting on Christ and crucifying the flesh), we can become presumptive about our salvation.<\/p>\n
When the Reformers declared that we are justified by faith not by works, the Roman Catholic Church called the Reformation leaders \u201cantinomian.\u201d The Catholic Church was concerned that if it were taught that we are saved solely by God\u2019s grace then the motivation to pursue holiness would be lost. The Reformers were sensitive to the Catholic Church\u2019s concern, and they declared that we are \u201cjustified by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone.\u201d In other words, you are saved by the grace of God from first to last, you are justified by faith alone; but God works out your redemption by transforming your life from one of sin to one of holiness.<\/p>\n
This was the point James was trying to get across in his epistle. His audience had fallen into the antinomian trap, thinking that once they were justified by faith, it did not matter how they lived. James wrote against this error by saying that true faith is active faith, it produces good works. You are not justified by those works, but your faith is not true unless you are working out your salvation just as Abraham did by offering his son on the altar.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
1 Chronicles 7\u20139<\/p>\n
John 11:1\u201336<\/p>\n
Consider your own tendencies. Do you neglect God\u2019s commands to pursue holiness because you have a distorted view of freedom in Christ? Or do you tend to be so self-absorbed and consumed by your sin that you forget that it is by God\u2019s grace you have been saved? The balance is hard to obtain. Pray you will find that balance.<\/p>\n
For further study: Phil. 3:12\u201321 \u2022 Col. 2:6\u201323 \u2022 1 Peter 1:3\u201325<\/i><\/p>\n
thursday<\/p>\n
may<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JAMES 2:14\u201326 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:17). Anytime you teach about the priority of righteousness in the Christian\u2019s life, anytime you exhort believers, as Paul did, to keep in step with the Spirit, and anytime you warn people of the dangers of falling into sin, … Continue reading “KEEPING THE BALANCE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}