What Are Your Works of Faith?

James, the leader of the Jerusalem Church in the first century, half-brother of Jesus, famously wrote that, "'Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.' Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." As we start today, let's turn over and read that in the book of James, verse 14, and let's read the context of that statement.

Two weeks ago, we talked about being steadfast, about having grit, true grit, is what we talked about. And a determination to stand firm in the face of obstacles as we pursue the kingdom of God. And a key aspect of steadfastness, of grit, is faith. Seeking God's will and then having the faith to follow through on what we know we should do.

Let's look in James 2 and verse 14, and let's read these words ourselves together. "'What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.'" Let's understand this here. What James is saying is that faith, which is a spiritual concept, right? Faith is spiritual. You don't touch faith. It's not something that you feel with your five senses in some way. It is seen by works. Now, that's a physical thing.

This is really profound. A spiritual concept is seen or made manifest by physical actions or behaviors. Your faith, my faith, is seen by behaviors. And James gives an example of a behavior here. The example that's being expressed here is an entire sermon in itself in terms of how you help somebody in need. That's an entire message, and that's not my point today. But the example here is a person who has a bodily need. This is somebody who is starving. This is somebody who is in tatters such that the shame of their nakedness is shown. And they need help. The Good Samaritan, when he was going by the way, didn't make a judgment about the person. He probably should have been more careful. No, he just went and acted. He just took care of that person. He didn't make a bunch of judgments about that person. He just went and took care of that person because that person was going to die. That's what's being discussed here. A lot of times people who you see asking for money today, they've got cell phones. That's a fact. So let's not get confused about how we help people who have a quote-unquote financial need. That's a very complicated question. What he's talking about here is somebody who is starving and in tatters. And you don't ask questions. You just go and you help. That's what the person is saying. Because if you're the Good Samaritan or you're the Samaritan walking by the road and you see somebody who is about to die, and you say, well, you know, that's too bad. I've got some things to do. That's not a work of faith. That's not an action. And that kind of faith is dead. The mega point here is that our physical action is accompaniment to our faith. Now as you're pondering this, let me introduce another concept because I want to tie two concepts today together here. Over in 1 Corinthians 12. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 12. Because the other thing about faith that we read in Scripture is that faith is a spiritual gift. I don't know if you've ever really thought about that, but faith is a spiritual gift. It's listed among the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to us. If you look over in 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 1, let's just read the context. He says, now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. And so he's going to now discuss spiritual gifts. And down in verse 7, he says, but the manifestation of the Spirit, that is, this is how the Holy Spirit works, God's Spirit works, is given to each one for the profit of all. So God, through his Spirit, gives gifts to us for the edification of the body. And in verse 8, 4-2-1 is given the word of wisdom. So that's a spiritual gift. Wisdom is a gift. Solomon asked for wisdom, and he was given this gift of wisdom. To another, the word of knowledge.

Some people can keep things in their head and they can bring things together. And it's just remarkable. It's a gift of knowledge through the same Spirit. To another, faith by the same Spirit. Faith. Think about that. Faith is a spiritual gift. It is a gift of God's Spirit. And a little later in this same letter in chapter 14, we won't turn there, but you can look in chapter 14 verse 1.

Paul tells the Corinthians that they should pursue spiritual gifts. So we should be pursuing the spiritual gift of faith. That's what we're commanded to do. So there is our faith. That is our belief structure. We have a faith. We understand the reconciling power of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that reconciles us to God.

And allows God's plan for humanity to march down to its inevitable outcome. That is our faith. What I'm talking about here and what's being described in verse 8 with faith is the Greek word, pistis. P-I-S-T-I-S. Pistis. And it means trust. It means confidence. It means belief.

So I believe, for example, that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. I have faith that He does that. I trust in God that if I keep His commandments from a pure heart, that I will be with Him in His Kingdom. That's faith.

I have confidence that when I repent of the mistakes that I've made in my life, that God will blot out those sins, those errors, because of the death and resurrection of His Son. That's faith. Those are examples of trust and confidence and belief. These statements do not come from us working up our faith.

You're like, I've really got to work this up. It doesn't come from working it up. It's a gift. It's a gift from God. It's a spiritual gift. So today I want to explore faith as a spiritual gift, this concept here in 1 Corinthians 12, and works physical actions as a manifestation of that spiritual gift.

I want to talk about these two together. I want to ask a fundamental question that I asked of myself and I'm going to ask of you here today. What are your works of faith? What are your works of faith? The title of this message is, What are your works of faith? Because if you're pursuing faith as a spiritual gift, then you're going to be showing works.

The behaviors of faith. What are your behaviors or works of faith? Hopefully through this discussion, our awareness of our behaviors are going to be heightened because as a body of believers, we have to move towards a greater spiritual focus. What are your works of faith? Are those works a significant part of your life?

Or are they just in the corners, kind of, as you get a jolt? Oh, wow! I've got to get my act together. Something happens.

We're going to look at examples of faith in Scripture to kind of flesh out this question a little bit. We're going to look at what the Bible calls elementary principles versus principles of what it means to be a teacher.

And when you walk away today, if you can't write down three of your works of faith, then I think you've got some homework to do, and certainly homework before March 29th when we all come together to take the Passover. So let's start in Hebrews 11, and let's look at this concept of works of faith through examples that we read here in Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11, we'll look at these examples, but first let's look at this famous definition of faith in Hebrews 11 and in verse 1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. You know, hopefully before I die, I'm going to really get this. I mean, this definition just always just...

Wow, what does this mean? I look at it like I've read this so many times, I've heard so many sermons, what does this mean? Now the first part of this statement speaks to the concept, I think, of vision, the substance of things hoped for. Some people have an incredible sense of vision, right? Some people are just a little bit better. Some of us are like, I know what I've got to do today, and that's just what I'm going to do, right? And I can't even think about tomorrow, right? And other people, it's like, hello, be with me here, because they're just like, you know, they're like way in the future, right? They have got a vision of something. Some people have an incredible vision. Now, just because somebody has an amazing vision of kind of some future hope doesn't mean that they have a spiritual gift of faith. That just means they just happen to have maybe a natural aptitude for that.

If you take the Johnson O'Connor test, they have a certain aptitude of that, right? So that's a natural gift. So some people just have that natural gift, and that's not necessarily what we're talking about here. But I'm going to quote a few famous people who I think have or had great visions of a future, just to try and get our hands around what this means to have substance of things hoped for. Because I think when the Scripture speaks of substance of a future hope, that's what it's saying, but it's a substance of a future hope, my understanding of this is kind of like a dream, right? You've got this dream. You've got this hope of something in the future. And you can feel it with your hands. You can feel the corners. You can feel the texture. You just know what that thing is, because it's just so real to you.

You know, when Martin Luther King Jr. got up on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a quarter million people, and he said, I had a dream, or I have a dream, right? I mean, you can just feel it in his words. You can feel it in how he describes it. This was very real for him. That he believed that God would make this dream a reality, and he could articulate it down to the finest points.

It was an inspiring speech. That is vision. That is an example of someone experiencing a substance right now of some future hope. And I think when Dr. King rises in the resurrection, and he comes to a full understanding of God's plan for humanity, I think we can learn some things from his sort of natural aptitude that way.

You know, when Ronald Reagan talked about America as a shining city on a hill, I don't know if you've ever heard that speech, very moving speech, I think he had a vision of what the United States stood for, and he was able to articulate that vision of the shining city on that hill. For him, it was something spiritual. America was something more than just the divisions and the contentions that he saw around him.

Oh, if we can only have that vision now, right? We are living in such a divided country. And again, I think Ronald Reagan was a gifted man when it came to being able to express these things. He had an incredible gift of persuasion, an incredible ability to articulate a vision. That doesn't mean he had a spiritual gift of faith. That just means he had a natural aptitude for that. But again, the idea is that if you think about a substance of something hoped for, Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King were able to feel that. They were able to convey that, and they were able to offer to those people who were listening a sense of some future hope, a sense of what the world could be like.

And then it says here, the evidence of things not seen. There's an evidence. There's an evidence right now. You can't see it, but there's an evidence.

One of the greatest French writers of the 20th century was a man named Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You might know his book, The Little Prince. People read the book. It's been translated into many languages. And in there, he has a very famous quote that you might have heard of. It says, he says that it is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

And this goes to this concept that the true things of life, the true things that really matter, the essential things in life, you can't see with your eye. And that's what he's talking about here. This is evidence of things that we cannot see.

Saint-Exupéry was a French aviator during World War I. He was an early aviator flying these biplanes during World War I. And he saw firsthand the horrors of war. At that time, they would have a man holding a bomb. And they would sort of fly over people and literally just let it go. It wasn't quite as personal as being on the battlefield itself, but he nonetheless saw these horrors of war. And he turned to writing. And like many great thinkers of his time, he saw that our issues were not physical, but they were spiritual in nature. And during World War II, he was older, but he decided to sign up. And he fought for France in the resistance, or not in the resistance, but as part of the Free French Army. And he died at the age of 44 on a mission in North Africa. These are imperfect people, as we all are. These are imperfect examples of when we try to get behind what it means to have faith. But hopefully we get to the point that we're not talking about some natural ability here. We're talking about something that comes from God. Something that if we're really going to grasp the kingdom of God, if we're really going to grasp the vision of what God has in mind for us, it is going to be a spiritual gift. Because not all of us are going to have the ability like Exupéry or Reagan or King to be able to kind of get our heads around this stuff. God is going to give us these things as a gift, no matter where we come from and no matter what our natural gifts are. And then in verse 2 it says, For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. A good testimony with who? Well, with God. They maintained a good testimony or obtained a good testimony with God because their actions showed that. And then it says, verse 3, By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. You know, that's faith that allows us. Now, you know, some of us might look at the Big Bang, right? And many great thinkers now look at the Big Bang and say, That's probably one of the greatest arguments against atheism. But fundamentally what it says here is that it is through faith that we understand that God created the world. It is a gift. As much as we want to try to go down and get into physics and astronomy and so forth, the fact is for us to accept that God created the world and that we're not here by some random set of accidents that occurred over billions of years. That's faith. That's faith. That's what it says. And then in verse 4 now we begin to see these physical behaviors or manifestations of faith.

And what we see over and over is some physical action. By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. See, that's a physical action based upon a spiritual belief, a spiritual concept of faith. By faith, Enoch was translated so that he did not see death. So there was something going on where Enoch had to understand what God's purpose was for him. Verse 7, By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear and prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

A hundred and twenty years of physical action as a manifestation of his faith. And you can read the list. Each of these people showed their faith by their works. And I don't think it was them working up their faith. I think it was that spiritual gift. Now, if God added a verse in Hebrews 11 for you, what would it be? By faith, Tim Pebworth and then fill in the blank.

What is your work of faith? If you say, what was Abel's work of faith? Well, he offered a more excellent sacrifice. What was Noah's work of faith? He built an ark for 120 years. What was Abraham's work of faith? He sacrificed his son Isaac. Even though God didn't allow him to go through with it, he was mentally there. You can go through this list and ask that question of every single one of these people, except at the end, he doesn't go into as much detail.

We'll talk about that in a moment. But you can see what their work of faith was. What is your work of faith? What is your verse in Hebrews 11? By faith, fill in your name, and then there's your work of faith.

Look at Hebrews 12, verse 1. Hebrews 12.1, after going through all these things, says, Therefore we also... That's it. We also... See, we need to have a verse in Hebrews 11. By faith, Tim Pebworth, and fill it in. Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. And then it says, verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

This is interesting if you think about faith as a spiritual gift, because in my Bible, when it says looking to Jesus Christ as the author, there's a little one next to that.

Maybe that's in your Bible, but it's in my Bible. There's a little one, and if you go in the margin, it says originator. So you can think about Jesus Christ as the beginning of our faith. He's the originator. He's the author. He wrote the book. That's where we start. And then in my Bible, next to finisher, there's another little number. It's number 2, and if you go in the margin, it says perfector. Perfector. That is, He is the one that perfects it, matures it. So He is the beginning and the end as it comes to establishing our faith. We look to God to give us the spiritual gift of faith, and then we look to God to help us to mature in that faith as we run our race.

And as we run our race, we are going to come up against things where we are not going to have necessarily a clear vision of what we're supposed to do, and we're going to step out in faith. By faith, Tim Pebworth kept the Feast of Tabernacles, even though his boss didn't want him to go. That was an experience that I had. My boss said, please don't go. There's a lot at stake. He called me at the feast and said, please come back.

Maybe some of you had those experiences, but you fill in the blank, because you're like, there's a lot at stake here. By faith, we step forward and we do these things. And then, just to even put a finer point on it, who, verse 2 continuing, Jesus speaking out here, who for the joy that was set before him, the joy was not the crucifixion. It was not torture. It was not all the things that the Romans did to him.

The joy that was set before him was the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for. It was the kingdom of God and sitting on God's right hand and reconciling all of us to God. That was the joy that was set before him. For that joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, the shame of being crucified, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Sat down at the right. Jesus set an example for us of somebody who had the vision. And that's why he's the author and finisher of our faith.

And we can go to him and say, God, I don't get this evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for, and give me the joy to see what is set before me. Now, it doesn't mean that we're perfect. It doesn't mean that we're perfect. In fact, if you just look back at Hebrews 11, verse 32, I made mention of this. Hebrews 11, verse 32 says, And what more shall I say, for time would fail me to tell of Gideon?

See, it doesn't actually say by faith Gideon and then fill in the blank. It just basically says there's so much to say. I'm not going to say it. Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, and also of David and Samuel and the prophets. Does a name stand out on that list? Samson. Go back and read the story of Samson, okay? He was a troubled man. He was a troubled man. His parents, you know, when he went off and married this woman, his parents were not happy.

He did some things that weren't very good in his life, and yet Samson was faithful at his death. Samson made mistakes, but he repented of those mistakes, and he is in Hebrews 11. And I think that each of us can be in Hebrews 11, and it doesn't matter the mistakes that we've made up to this point. We can be in Hebrews 11, just like Samson is in Hebrews 11.

So let's consider some examples, okay? We've looked at this, now let's look at some examples. Let's start with some basic principles, okay? These are basic principles of God's law. Let's go over to Malachi 3, verse 8. Malachi 3, verse 8. The language in here is pretty clear, but this is about faith. Malachi 3, verse 8 says, Yet you have robbed me, but you say, in what way have we robbed you? And then he says, in tithes and offerings.

For you are cursed with a curse. For you have robbed me, even this whole nation. And now, verse 10, look what he says. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove me in this. Now, again, there's a little margin and notation in my Bible. It says, test me. Or other translations say, try me. Put me to the test. Step out in faith and trust me. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you such blessings that there will not be room enough to receive it.

He says, test me. Step out in faith and see whether or not I will come through on my promise. Tithe. This is a physical action that reflects a spiritual concept of faith. Now, let me be clear. If you aren't tithing, and you walk out of the sermon today, and you just start paying 10% of your income in tithe, and another 10% that you set aside for the Feast of Tabernacles, to go to God's feast, you might be heading to financial ruin.

Because it's more than just saying, okay, I'm going to go write this check. No, you have to look into your finances. You've got to evaluate your financial condition. You've got to look at your expenses. You've got to look at how much you're making. You've got to do a budget. You've got to see, maybe I'm spending too much. Maybe I need to cut back. And what you say is, okay, I'm going to pay my tithes first, and I'm going to pay them first because I've done this budget, and as long as I stay on this budget, then I can afford to do that.

Because God's not interested in you taking out credit card debt to pay your tithes. That's not paying tithes. That's going into debt. God's not looking to us to go into debt. He's looking to see your actions, though. Because if you're lazy and just want to write a check, and then after a year, like, wow, where'd all that credit card debt come from? Well, it's because you just added another 20% or whatever it is after tax amount.

No, you've got to do the work. That's a work of faith. That's what's called a work of faith. I hate this. I can't stand it. I can't get it. You know, yeah, that's right. That's painful. That's hard. Some people, it's easy. Oh, yeah, it's no problem. And if you're not one of those people, you don't like those other people. They make it look so easy. It's not that easy. It's hard.

You go to a credit card counselor. You go to Financial Peace University. You take the time. It's like, okay, tonight I've got to... Tonight's my night where I pay bills and I see how I'm doing on my budget. If you don't have a night like that during the week, you're probably not managing your finances. But that's a work of faith. And so you step back and go, okay, why am I doing this? I'm doing this so that I can maintain my financial condition and I can honor God according to Malachi 3, verse 8, because He says to test me if I will not be so blessed that, you know, I could be stressed out because I'm so blessed, right, with these things.

That's a work of faith. Now, that's a very basic...that's an elementary thing. This is an elementary principle we're talking about. So you can say, by faith, John Smith...I'm going to use John Smith. There's John Smith. Hopefully there's not. By faith, John Smith, not being good with money and struggling with debt, his whole life went and got counsel and created a budget and kept track of his spending and made hard decisions about his spending and honored God with a tenth of his increase. There it is. That's John Smith, Hebrew 11, work of faith. And that might be yours. The same could be said about observing the Feast of Tabernacles in the eighth day.

For eight days, as described in Nehemiah 8, verse 18. We won't read there, but if you want to put it down, Nehemiah 8, verse 18, makes it clear that in the restoration of God's law, when they, you know, Josiah, during this time, and they realize, wow, there's this law, look at all this, and we haven't been doing this, right? In the restoration, and they realize they need to do things, they kept the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days, and on the eighth day they had a holy assembly.

And we should be saving our second tithe to have enough for the feast in September. So it's February. Hopefully everyone has been faithful in saving their second tithe so that they will have enough in September to keep the feast. And if you have had a problem saving your second tithe, there is no shame in confessing your sins one to another. There's no shame in that. Samson is in Hebrews 11. He had some problems. Come forward. I have not been saving my second tithe since last feast. I'm not sure I'm going to have enough.

Could you please help me? There's no shame in that. We have that for people who want to turn around their lives. We should repent and start to change now. We're all in this together. And going to the feast is a wonderful thing. Now let's talk about some more challenging areas. Now again, if you're not good with money, I just described a very challenging area. So that's fine. But these are elementary principles, right? Keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Holy Days, tithing. These are elementary principles. Let's go to one that's a little more complicated. Psalm 34 verse 14. Psalm 34 verse 14.

These are physical actions and behaviors that we take because we step out in faith and we test. We try. We prove. We put God to the test whether or not He is going to be faithful. We take Him at His word.

Psalm 34 verse 14.

Okay, this is a little bit harder. Seeking peace. If we've been wronged, if we've been hurt, especially by someone close to us, it is really hard to seek peace because what we want to do is we want to seek justice for ourselves. We want to make it clear that we were in the right and that we were wronged. And let me outline this for you here. Exhibit A, right? We want to put that forward.

That doesn't mean we're carpet, right? That doesn't mean we're in a neighborhood. I'm not talking about... I'm just talking about a simple situation, right? Where somebody has harmed us or done us wrong in some way.

And we have to pursue peace. And that might mean saying, okay, that person did this. I've tried to articulate why that was not good. That person is obviously not getting this. I'm going to let that go. I'm going to seek peace. I'm going to pursue it. I'm going to forgive. And I'm going to move on. That's seeking peace. When Paul says that husbands are to love their wives, that means that we seek peace and we realize that we may just be blind to the reality of our own bad behavior in our relationship. And so our wife might be telling us something. We might not be getting it. And we might just say, you know what? I'm obviously not getting this. And maybe in the future I will get this. So I'm going to seek peace. And I'm going to look at myself and I'm going to say, you know what? I might not get it. But I'm obviously doing something wrong. And I'm going to apologize.

I'm going to say, I'm sorry. I don't quite get it. But she's telling me it. And therefore I'm going to believe it's true. Whoa, that's hard. That's very hard.

And the same thing could be said for the ladies to respect your husband, right? To respect him. Even when he makes a bad decision, right? Let me try this one. Jane Doe. There's no Jane Doe's, right?

By faith, Jane Doe, when confronted with her stressed out husband, respected his wishes and supported what turned out to be a bad decision for the sake of peace in the house. And in time her husband came to see the error of his ways.

That might be your verse in Hebrews 11.

By faith, you supported your husband in a bad decision because you sought peace, because you followed Ephesians 5, said, respect your husbands.

Seeking peace means intentionally looking at the spiritual issues beyond the emotions, beyond the fear, beyond the anxieties. Seeking peace means we're focused on what the eye cannot see, the evidence of things not seen.

The evidence is in, but I can't see it. And I'm going to trust that if I follow God's law and seek peace, if I love my wife, if I respect my husband, I'm going to do this, even though I may not see it right now.

Look over at Romans 13, another example of a physical action that follows faith, spiritual gift of faith.

Hebrews 13, verse 1 says, All right. In the United States, we are seeing a level of division and partisanship that has not been seen for generations. I mean, you have to go back. If you study U.S. history, you go back to the beginning of this country. It was pretty partisan, right? I mean, you know, people, you know, people shot each other in a duel, right? I mean, it was pretty bad. And we're seeing sort of a return to this high level of partisanship. And we can sit and we can watch the news and we can become obsessed, right? We can look and we can see the President of the United States just dogged every, every turn. Like, every thing he does is just like, just, you know, put down, right? And we can say, wow, this is terrible. What's going on? How can this country function if, you know, the President just like, there's just never the benefit of the doubt. There's never any opportunity. It's just criticism, criticism, criticism, right? We can look at that situation and we can become discouraged. We can become anxious, right? We can start getting sucked in to that whole environment. But if we look at Romans 13, verse 1, says that all authority that exists are appointed by God. God is in charge. He'll decide what happens and what doesn't happen. And if we disagree with the President's policies, we can become upset at his tweets. Oh, there's another tweet. You know, we can get so sucked into that, depending on which side and how we feel about these things. But the fact is, no matter how we feel about it, God sets this up. He has established who the leaders of our countries are. He established Barack Obama. He established Donald Trump. He's down to Ronald Reagan and Andrew Jackson and George Washington. He set up all these people for a purpose. You know, in the United Church of God, we say that voting for elected officials is a personal choice. It's a personal choice. And that God doesn't teach that voting is a sin. But you know, the teaching of the church is that we should not be wrapped up in the affairs of this world. That's the teaching of the church. And if we start getting all wrapped up in the, you know, all the things that are going on in this country, that's not a work of faith. A work of faith might just be saying, you know what? I can be upset about this, but I'm not going to be upset about this because I know, Romans 13, verse 1 says, that God is in charge. And verse 2 says, therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. So if we don't want to bring judgment on ourselves because we're like, how can you get away with that? Right? How can the press be? You know, you know, turn CNN off. Turn Fox News off. Just turn it off. We don't need to get sucked into that. We are in, but not of, the world. And that may be your faith comment. By faith, he turned off, filled in the network, right? Moved on with his life. So those are physical manifestations of faith. Let's go back to James 2. Let's read just a little bit more about what James said. James 2. And let's now continue in verse 18. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Now that's an interesting thing, isn't it? You have faith and I have works. So that's actually getting to a point that there's actually works apart from faith.

Anybody? I'm not going to ask you to board it out here, but maybe something comes to mind. There's a very famous example of this in Matthew 7, of a bunch of works that didn't come from faith. Go over to Matthew 7. Keep your finger there. We'll come right back. Go over to Matthew 7, verse 21. Because we've got to make sure we're doing these works from the right place, right?

And this is where that spiritual gift becomes so important because the works have to spring from faith. They are the response to seeking that spiritual gift. If we are working up our faith, if we are kind of, you know, doing a bunch of things, or maybe we've got natural aptitudes, right?

We've got natural talents or gifts, and we're using those gifts to do things for the church. We could be in Matthew 7, verse 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Right?

We can have good speakers get up and say really insightful things, but if it's coming from a space of just natural ability and, you know, not from a space of a spiritual gift, that doesn't mean that they have faith.

Cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness. So, what we're talking about is not working up faith or doing a bunch of works to try to get these things. It comes from faith. It starts with the spiritual gift of faith, pursuing faith. And when we pursue faith and we do God's will, which we've talked about what that means, we do God's will, then the works naturally flow from that. Go back to James 2 again. James 2, verse 18. Again, someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Okay, well, we know that doesn't work. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. By my works. So, the spiritual gift is going to lead naturally to a set of works. You believe that there is one God, you do well, even the demons believe and tremble. So, believing that God exists is not enough. The demons believe he exists. We have to go beyond that. But do you want to know, oh foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? That was his physical manifestation. That was truly the hardest thing that Abraham had to do.

And yet, we also see that by faith, he left his homeland. So, he's mentioned there, there's two mentions of what Abraham did. Verse 22, do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works, faith was made perfect? And so, what we see then is there's a virtuous cycle that starts. It starts with faith. It leads to works. The works then reinforce, or make perfect, as it says here, faith. It matures the faith. And so, we get that virtuous cycle going. We step out in faith, test me about tithing. Malachi, we read that, test me. We step out in faith, we tithe, we're blessed, and that reinforces our faith.

It's that virtuous cycle. Sometimes, we're not blessed right away, and we have to move past another layer of insecurities and doubt and worry. And that's another test of faith, and we keep going down those roads, and eventually, we have that reinforcement of faith.

This is the virtuous cycle. Talk is cheap. We have to act. We have to take those steps. What's keeping us from taking those physical steps based on faith? What are your works of faith? Are you asking God to give you the spiritual gift of faith?

As you confront all the different things that come up, whether it's on the job or in the family, whether it's, as I said, those elementary principles of Sabbath keeping or keeping the feasts or tithing, or whether it's those harder and more difficult aspects of being a teacher, of setting an example in your family, in your community, of practicing peace. God's people should show examples of peace. People should look at us and go, wow, that person's at peace. That person has a sense of who they are and where they're going. There's not an anxiousness that we see. And if we don't have that, then again, there's a need to seek peace. There's a need for that spiritual faith to trust God that when He's forgiven us, we can move forward. We don't have to keep going back to those types of things. Are we giving our time in service to the church? That's a work of faith. It could be a Matthew 7 situation where we're doing it out of duty. We're doing it because somebody said we have to do it, right? But hopefully not. Hopefully it springs naturally from our desire to serve.

Hopefully it springs naturally from our desire to be part of this community and contribute to this community. You know, one of the problems we have is that we live in this highly focused consumer society. We're used to consuming things instead of producing things. So today, we're going to produce something, right? People are going to perform in a talent show. That's a production. We're not going to go out, you know, we're not going to go pay to have somebody perform for us, right? We're going to produce this. And if you're not participating in the talent show, maybe you can participate in someplace else. Without realizing, sometimes this consumer society can rub off on us. And we're just so used to having everything outsourced for us and everything done for us. And we're just like, oh, I just kind of pay that and then, okay, now I'm entertained. No, we're producing something. We're contributing. So hopefully we are giving of our time.

We're figuring out, you know, how can we serve this community better? Hopefully we're giving of our monetary livelihood, right? And ties and offerings. Hopefully we're giving our mental energy. That gets to that complicated question of how you help a brother in need, right? Because, you know, when the brother in need has a financial need and they have a cell phone and they have all this and that and the other thing and they can't make ends meet, well, there's something else. But that doesn't mean that they don't need help. And so there's a mental energy that goes into listening and talking and being patient and having a relationship, you know, and if the person asks for a little help, giving a little help, and then when they don't follow it, being patient, that's a mental energy that we have to give to one another. Hopefully our prayer list is a good, robust list.

Hopefully our Bible study is focused on the types of things that we need to be looking to and not just sort of randomly opening the Bible. Hopefully we're moving from the physical to the spiritual. Hopefully we're looking at our actions and saying, does this physical action spring from a spiritual issue or concept, right? If I'm spending my time once a week managing my finances, it's not just because, you know, it's something you do. It's because I have faith that God is going to bless me if I follow his examples. If we call somebody to encourage them, it's coming from our desire to serve. It's a spiritual issue. And so if we're focusing on those spiritual issues, our actions spring from that. And it's not just for our own entertainment. It's not just for our own fun. It's because we want to serve God. It's because we want to move from physical to spiritual, from darkness to light. I have a dream that one day I, along with all my brothers and sisters in the church, will love our Heavenly Father more than we hate our brother in the church who offended us.

That's just the reality of my time in God's church of the last, you know, I don't know, 35 years that I've been aware, right? That is, unfortunately, what those 35 years have represented. Now, maybe if this was 1960, right, and we were looking back 30 years from 1960, maybe that was a different situation.

But we're here in 2018, and we look back 35 years. That's unfortunately the unfortunate situation that I've seen. So I have a dream that we will love our Heavenly Father more than we hate our brother in the church who offended us, and that we might all come to the unity of faith, a maturity of understanding who Jesus Christ is, and that we might develop into His likeness. That's something I don't necessarily see, but I think there's evidence that it can happen. I think there's some substance to that hope. And I hope that we can all have faith that comes from that spiritual gift, from the Holy Spirit, and that our actions will reflect that faith, and that our works and our faith will work together to perfect us into the image of Jesus Christ.