But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds (James 2:18).

Happy Monday!  We’re in the middle of our Made on Purpose for a Purpose series, and gearing up for Chatham Serves on Sunday, April 21.  If you’ve not yet signed up for a Chatham Serves activity, please go to www.chathamserves.org.

“Deeds, not creeds!” is the cry of some.  Others proclaim that “we are saved by grace through faith, not works!”

And the major charge leveled against Christians by “nones” (whose “religious affiliation” is “none”) and “dones” (i.e., done with “organized religion”), by agnostics and atheists?  Hypocrisy: “You don’t practice what you preach.”

They have a point.

What is the purpose for which we have been made on purpose?  Is it to hold right and true beliefs about God, the Trinity, and other (important!) aspects of Christian faith?  Or is it to behave in accordance with those beliefs and truths?

Answer: yes!  One of our major problems is that we have insisted on an either/or answer to a both/and question.

In this week’s passage, James 2:8-18 (please read the whole passage now), James is focusing on what he calls “the royal law … to ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (verse 8).  One cannot really be a follower of Jesus without knowing and believing that our King calls us to love God with all that we are and have, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  So James’ point is not about “how to become a Christian”; he is addressing Christians, and exhorting them to live what they believe.  The issue that has James’ attention here is not an either/or question (are we saved by faith or by works?).

It’s a both/and issue.  The faith that saves (apart from “works”!) is the faith that expresses itself in and through works of love and service.  Why would we ever think that “faith” must be decoupled from faith-filled living?  How else could we show our faith, how could we demonstrate that what we believe is the center and core of our lives, apart from that faith rearranging and reordering every aspect of our lives?

We don’t work in order to; we work because: Because we have been reconciled to God in and through Christ alone, we get to work!  We aren’t working in order to deserve or earn something; we’re working because, having been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, we now get to live an entirely new kind of life.  

Hypocrisy is the inevitable fruit of twisting a both/and into an either/or.  If we have believed, we now get to learn how to behave!  The goal of our work is not perfection that earns us anything; the goal is obedience to the King who has saved us and made us his own.

What is one specific way you could practice doing what you believe?