So this morning, our first scripture begins in Galatians chapter 5 at verse 1. If you would turn with me in your Bible, please, and we will go through the 15th verse. Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ; you would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”
From Paul’s letter, we turn to the letter of James, chapter 2, beginning at the 12th verse. James writes, “So speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warm and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac at the altar? You see that faith was active along with works, and faith was completed by his works. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,’ and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”
This is the word of the Lord; thanks be to God. Let us pray. Father of faith, you are the one we trust in. We trust in your revealed self as written in your word. We sometimes hear things that feel like contradictions that cause us confusion or doubt, but we know that your word is true. We know that it is free of error and that it does not contradict itself. Give us your mind; help us to understand and receive your word as you intended to be heard. So in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
So Paul has firmly established that a person is saved only by faith in Jesus Christ alone; that there is nothing that we can ever do to merit, earn, or deserve the Lord’s gracious favor or love; that the inheritance granted to Abraham’s offspring, a place in the kingdom of heaven, is a most precious gift given by God the Father to God the Son and is freely shared with us, Jesus’s brothers and sisters, according to sovereign divine adoption. And that this salvation is received only by faith in, by believing on, by trusting Jesus.
So after our argument, Paul now brings us to the “therefore” of his letter. We have reached the “so what” concerning our faith in Christ: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” The point, the purpose, the reason for the Lord God saving us and redeeming any of Adam’s fallen race is for freedom. Now, freedom is a rather complex idea, especially in our American culture, and we will take some time to unpack both what Paul means by freedom and what we commonly believe freedom means, but that’s going to be on another day.
Today, however, accepting the truth that we are freed by faith in Christ Jesus, as Paul declares, we will focus on the “by faith” aspect, on what faith actually does. Closing out his argument against a person’s ability to depend upon their own good works or upon any works of religion for their salvation, Paul reminds us: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love.”
You see, being a good Jew, the elders do not count or matter for our salvation in Christ, just as not having been born and raised a Jew, despite eating bacon and barbecue or having never before darkened the doors of a church before a person comes to faith, do not count or matter in Christ. That which does count for our salvation, what does matter, is faith working through love.
This faith is working within us through God’s love of us, and this faith is working through us out into the world beyond us through God’s love of us and for his creation. But James is also correct when he says that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Now, this is not a contradiction against Paul, but together these are very difficult passages for us to reconcile.
If scripture is without error and cannot contradict itself, then there must be a reasonable, straightforward, and plain explanation. Perhaps James is more correct and we actually are saved by works. Guess what? He is; we are just not by our own works. We are saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, who fulfilled, who kept the whole law of God on our behalf—every jot and tittle, crossing every eye and dotting every “t.”
Obedient and faithful to the Lord through the end, we are saved through the work of God the Holy Spirit who regenerates us, giving us the faith to trust in the Lord, who replaces our hearts of stone and grants us new hearts of flesh, applying the righteousness of Christ to us and crediting our eternal account. And we are saved according to the just judgment of God the Father who declares, who justifies us because our debt of sin has been paid for us by Jesus. Our account balance is now at a net positive because the Spirit has given us all the riches of Christ.
It is these works which effect our salvation and are received by faith. Yet do not think for a moment that our faith is our own work, for it too is the gift of God. Because our faith in Christ the Lord is the very same faith possessed by Jesus—his trust in the Lord and his eternal promises—and is also now applied to us by the Holy Spirit, without which our whole and only inclination is to simply trust in ourselves and our own pitiful works.
This faith, by which the saving work of God is applied to us, is given to us in God’s grace by and through his great love for us. The entirety of Christ’s life is God’s gift of love for us—his grace and mercy—that is such wonderful good news for us, Charlie. There can be no greater understanding of the gracious gospel of Jesus Christ, which Paul preached, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of God and Father.
However, we would be remiss if we did not remind ourselves what love is, as some folks may be confused by all the banners surrounding us out in the world declaring not a definition at all, but a pure nonsense statement that lacks all substance and meaning. Love here, as in most of the New Testament, is translated from the Greek word “agape,” which is one of five ancient Greek words broadly translated as love. Each one of those five words covers very different and distinct concepts—meanings which our modern culture seems fit to blur and corrupt.
Together they have now become such a vague and undefinable mess that the word love is used to mean anything or nothing at all. Now, although only three of these words are ever encountered in the New Testament and are translated into English as love, by the context of their usage, it is clear that they are certainly not interchangeable, even as they overlap.
The first is “eros,” a word used to describe the feelings of sexual love shared between a husband and his wife. The second is “storge,” a word used to describe the feelings of familial love shared between parents and children or other relations. The third is “philia,” a word used to describe the feelings of friendly love shared between equals, whether siblings or comrades-in-arms— a word used to describe the feelings of self-love or the regard felt towards one’s own self—and “agape,” a word used to describe the feelings of self-sacrificing love, unrequited and unmerited love towards others without thought or expectation of reciprocation or return.
Agape is well-considered to be the purest expression of love, being the focus of Paul’s life vision in 1 Corinthians 13, and it is the Greek word used most often to translate the Hebrew word describing God’s love for his people, “hesed,” in the Old Testament. Lastly, according to the words of Jesus, “Greater agape has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
Thus, we may best understand the idea of faith working through love in the words of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Eternal life is received through faith in Christ, worked through the greatest possible act of love—this that is the only work which counts for our salvation: God’s work alone, because we do nothing except for needing to be saved.
So that is faith working through love—it and upon us. But that is not the end of the story. As the Holy Spirit works on us, sanctifying us and transforming us into righteous persons, as we’ve been declared to be, he also works upon the world through us and every believer by manifesting the love of God on all creation.
Paul admonishes us to use this freedom, which we have been so graciously given, to serve one another through love, reminding us with Jesus’ word and the word of Moses that we shall love our neighbor as ourselves. Freed by faith through God’s love for us, now we must live out faith in God through loving others for him. Christians love others because God has first loved us; God does not love us because we have first loved others.
That is the great error and fallacy that comes of stoichia-based thinking; that is the false gospel which the world preaches at us 24/7, teaching that people are just inherently good at heart; that everyone who tries hard—and since God—because anything else would be unloving. What did any of you understand what I just said? Because I don’t think I did, and I just said it.
There is no room in their god for holiness, righteousness, or justice; judgment the world, Satan detests and seeks to destroy. Is it any wonder that the people who claim to be the most loving, most tolerant, and most affirming are truthfully the least affirming, least tolerant, and least loving against any and all who do not wholly agree with everything that they proclaim in any given minute? That is not Christ-like love, and that is certainly not how Jesus called us to love others.
Claiming to love the words of Jesus, they then corrupt his teachings into unhelpful platitudes, trying to justify themselves. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is so much more than abiding by the golden rule of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” because Jesus said to agape your neighbor, not “philia” your neighbor.
We Christians are charged to agape others because the Lord has first agaped us. God agaped us when we were spiritually dead children of wrath by nature, wandering far away from his holy presence, lost in the darkness of sin and disobedience—recalcitrant sinners—well, we certainly did not and would not even want his love, much less reciprocate it. God agaped us at great personal cost, giving his only begotten Son, his perfectly righteous Son as a sacrifice of atonement for all of our sins, to cover the whole moral debt of our personal unrighteousness.
Going all the way back to the beginning, Genesis 1:27, knowing that we are made in God’s image—lesser reflections and representatives of him—we understand that since God loves us, the Lord our God, we must therefore love agape in the same manner and mode as he. He is the absolute type, and Jesus is the pattern and mold to which his brothers and sisters must be, and will be, conformed. He is the surest example of how we can faithfully live and love in like manner.
Thus, Jesus’ brother James calls us to live out our faith, asking, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” Let’s put this into perspective. Consider the word “might”—can that faith really be able to save? What are the works generated by those who try and live out that faith? Celebrating the victory of delusional men who believe that they are in fact women over those who are actually women in college or Olympic sports in the name of equality. Celebrating the regular murder of unborn children as a moral good in the name of reproductive health care or reproductive justice. Celebrating and enabling safe illicit drug use by providing users with free needles and a public space in which to get high in the name of tolerance.
Celebrating district attorneys’ discretion by not bringing alleged criminals to trial because they believe that the law itself is racist—all in the name of justice. Celebrating the executive branch of the U.S. federal government choosing to not enforce the nation’s laws, which is its expressed duty under the Constitution, by refusing to remove non-citizens who have crossed into this country illegally. By not working against the many disparate issues and forms of human trafficking which harms countless individuals and enriches predators of all stripes—all in the name of freedom and love.
Although arguments are being made by some people as to the philosophical or social good of those examples, each fails its own litmus test as being love because each example comes at a cost to someone else. This is why they add qualifying adjectives to those ideals: retributive justice, redistributive equality, reproductive choice, migratory freedom. Yet what do we notice about those adjectives? They emphasize the negative impact on others: retributive justice, harming someone else; redistributive equality, forcibly or coercively taking from one person to give to another; reproductive choice, choosing to end a pregnancy after first having made the choice to engage in reproductive activities, refusing to accept the natural consequence of their prior choice; migratory freedom, going through another person’s space despite someone already being there, literally trampling on the property rights of others.
That is not agape. It could barely even fit any of the five Greek types of love save perhaps “fallatia,” because the people who promote this nonsense only do it because somehow it serves their own self-interest or power. They do not even try to follow the golden rule anymore, twisting it into “do unto others because they have done unto you.” Two wrongs can never make a right, although three lefts can according to their own definition of love.
No supposed acts of tolerance, affirmation, acceptance, or mercy can be agape if it causes harm or is detrimental to another person, or is forced and imposed upon them, used or used against them, doing violence to their will and person. Surely, it’s obvious to everyone that it is not the people pushing these so-called acts of love who are paying the cost of them; they’re all for thee, but not for me.
Forcibly imposing compliance to your views and perspectives onto another is not love, but is instead a form of judgment because you have judged that your side is the most correct and the only valid or allowable opinion, and thus must be imposed. This is not the result of an active, living faith, and it is certainly not a person’s regeneration by the Holy Spirit, their having been saved and raised to new life in Christ.
This warning applies to both the pagan against the Christian and the Christian against the pagans as well, something which the church has sadly been guilty of in the past. Christians who are freed in Christ Jesus will be judged under the law of liberty, so the way in which we live and comport ourselves with others, both in and out of the fellowship of faith, matters greatly.
What we are being judged upon is how we now work out our faith in love. And since we still expect to be judged by the merits of our works for our eternal reward in the kingdom—not for our eternal security and salvation—James reminds us, “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Therefore, Christians will and must do the good works of agape, which the Lord has prepared for us to do.
How is the Christian supposed to live out their faith in love? Not in the way that the world has redefined love. James here encourages us to do tangible acts of charity—not just wishing someone well, not only offering them your thoughts and prayers when you are capable of doing something more to help.
We are charged to lovingly meet their needs as we are able and to be willing to do this sacrificially at a cost to ourselves and also without complaint. If we see a person begging for food or asking for money to buy food, then we should not pass them by assuming something uncharitable, but instead actually go and try to help them. Offer to take them into a restaurant to eat and then share a meal with them, break bread with them in fellowship, and hear their story, and then share Jesus with them if they’ll listen; or take them to the grocery store, shop, and buy them groceries; talk with them while you shop together, sharing Jesus all the while.
When we help people, we should always strive to go the extra mile. This is why our missions committee has found us this new opportunity in support of domestic violence, much as we have with the serial Sunday meeting, addressing different needs that they have. This is why our missions committee is starting our prison pen pal ministry, to offer words of hope, encouragement, and the love of Christ to men who have been forgotten by society, locked up with the key thrown away.
Because we have not been forgotten by our God; because we have not been forgotten by Christ, who has freed us from our own prison of depravity and sin. So we should not forget these men. We pray that these men will find some release for their souls, for forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ, as many of them will find neither in this life. This is a form of tangible agape, which almost everyone is capable of doing. Even though it only costs us time and postage, it will have a far greater effect than we can ever imagine if we only just open our eyes and look about us.
There are always plenty of ways and means for us to each serve the people around us in love, to serve them as we would the Lord. But surely, the pagans do the same in similar works, don’t they? So what’s the difference? The difference is entirely about the heart and motivation for the service.
Christians do these things because of our faith; out of our faith, we desire to do them because they are what we ought to do. We do these things because it pleases our heavenly Father; they give him joy and increase his glory and praise upon the earth. Pagans do them because they believe that their deeds might please a higher power or gain them accolades and praise from those who witness their deeds; that it may improve the esteem in which they’re held; perhaps they view it as a down payment for future favors, as in, “Do you remember when I did this for you?” as a means to increase the indebtedness of others and increase their influence among those others in society.
They all do it because it pleases themselves in some self-serving way, even if it is only to give them something to feel good about. It increases their own sense of glory. However, they and all those like them have, as Jesus said, “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Again, we Christians do not do these things in order to be saved; we do them because we have already been saved. This is part of why we were saved in the first place—to do good works of agape for the Lord. This is how we stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery—by doing what we ought because we want to do it instead of out of obligation. It’s all about the attitude, and that attitude is your choice: to freely and happily do in love for God’s glory or to begrudgingly and hesitantly do from obligation to no lasting benefit.
James says, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” What a person believes about God is evidenced by how they live and the things that they do. By doing all these things—living out our faith in through Christ-like love—we prove the value and efficacy of our faith; we prove that our faith is alive, a living, breathing, active faith and not a faith of the spiritually dead, soulless, and damned. None of what we do is truly for ourselves, even though we may still benefit.
Doing all those other things, those things which the world calls love, proves that a person’s faith is dead because it is done for something that cannot last: themselves. These works, which are done solely for the benefit of the finite and temporary self, for a mortal man doomed to die, have no lasting value because they too will be forgotten and their impact lost, dead and gone.
Consider the impact of giving a man a fish, where you may feed him and his family for a single meal, but they will go hungry later. But when you teach a man to fish, you help him to feed himself and his family for a lifetime, and then he may also teach his children how to fish, and they in turn their children, creating a lasting and generational impact.
So it is with all good deeds of agape, born of faith. That is how Christians agape their neighbors as themselves; that is how faith plus works proves that we are saved by God’s grace alone. Amen.