Faith and deeds

 Do you have your “ducks in a row” for 2015?

Epistle of James 2: 14-17, 21-24 (NIV)

Faith and Deeds

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

²¹ Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

These verses have been catalyst for controversy over recent centuries, perhaps unnecessarily. For what seems to be key to the writer’s intention in verse 14 is the phrase “claims to have faith”. Claiming to have faith can be very different from holding a deep and abiding faith in God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and in manifesting that faith by living in total obedience to God’s will.

The question, “Can such faith save him?” is seen then to refer to faith such as this: a faith that is claimed to be real and strong and true but is contradicted by attitudinal or behavioural indicators of a life of self-centredness.

According to R. V. G. Tasker, “where loving action is conspicuous by its absence, there is irrefutable evidence that real faith is lacking” (The General Epistle of James: an Introduction and Commentary, IVP, Leicester, 1983).

Perhaps as he wrote this letter the writer had in mind words of our Lord: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7: 21).

The writer’s use of Abraham’s willingness to offer his son as a sacrifice to God as an example of faith in action may challenge us but let us note which passage is quoted in verse 23. “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”, from Genesis 15: 6, refers to a situation long before Abraham had become a father. The demonstration of faith, when Abraham was about to offer Isaac back to God, is recorded in Genesis 22: 15 and following verses. The writer of this epistle would have been fully aware of this chronology.

We realise that God knows every heart and the sincerity of a person’s proclamation of faith. God does not rely on the outward signs whereas the manifestation of faith through acts of justice and mercy is one of the ways in which our faith speaks the gospel to fellow humans.

Loving God, protect us from any falsehood in our demonstration to the world of our trust in you. Keep us focussed on you and on what you are calling us to be and to do. Help us to respond in total obedience, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Amen.

 

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Holy fear

 Tidbinbilla River ACT

Psalm 111 (NIV)

¹ Praise the LORD. I will extol the LORD with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly.
² Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.
³ Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures for ever.
⁴ He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate.
⁵ He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant for ever.
⁶ He has shown his people the power of his works, giving them the lands of other nations.
⁷ The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.
⁸ They are steadfast for ever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness.
⁹ He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant for ever – holy and awesome is his name.
¹⁰ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

 This is a truly magnificent psalm in so many respects. Find a good commentary on the Psalms and read about this one (and Psalm 112) to begin to appreciate its literary merit. The remarks that follow can point to only a few of its other features.

Psalm 111 begins and ends with “praise”. What a splendid example for us all: so too should every thought we think, every work we undertake, every day we live and every word we utter.

The focus of this Psalm from beginning to end is on God; mention of his creation and of us, his creatures, is made only to reflect back onto him. This is how the focus of our lives also should be – away from self; instead, first and always towards God.

Its final verse addresses a theme woven through the Old Testament: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”. We find this statement or words very like it in Job (28: 28) and in the Book of Proverbs (1: 7 and 9: 10). Implicit in this is that Godly wisdom should be keenly sought by each of us.

It is helpful to pursue the psalmist’s meaning of “fear” in the context of verse 10. Perhaps we could interpret the word “fear” to mean “reverential love” and to describe one’s willing submission to the Lordship of God and to his commands (“precepts”). Picture the situation where Jesus, in the boat with his disciples, rebuked the wind and the waves, stilling the storm. According to the Gospel of Mark the disciples “were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this?’” (Mark 4: 41, emphasis added).In Matthew’s account (8: 27) the disciples were “amazed” while Luke’s Gospel describes the disciples as being in a state of “fear and amazement” (Luke 8: 25). That depicts for us a valid sense of holy fear.

How far-sighted is the verse that precedes it: “He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant for ever …”. Until the time of Jesus, the redemption provided by God was bought through regular temple worship and sacrifice. Redemption was granted by God in response to God-mandated actions repeated by a human priesthood. We are blessed to live under a new covenant which guarantees an even better redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, effected once for all (Hebrews 7: 27; 9: 12; 9: 26 and 10: 10).

Praise the LORD. To him belongs eternal praise.

Return to the spring of living water…

 Waterhole, Aranda ACT

Jeremiah 2: 9-13 (NIV)

⁹ “Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the LORD. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children. ¹⁰ Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: ¹¹ Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. ¹² Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD.

¹³ “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Newly commissioned by YHWH as his prophet (Jeremiah 1: 5), the young Jeremiah nevertheless boldly delivered to the people of Judah the words given him by the LORD. God used a rhetorical device to make a point: “Has a nation ever changed its gods?”

Such would have been unheard of among the pagan nations surrounding Judah (and nearby Israel before the exile). Yet it is clear that God was holding his own people guilty of apostasy. His chosen people had exchanged faithfulness to the LORD for worthless idols. They had committed not one sin but two: they had forsaken YHWH and had then fabricated idols that were no gods and had preferred to place their reliance on these!

In the same way that this timeless passage spoke to Judah before the exile, it speaks to so many Western democracies today. Our nation has been built on Christian principles and has developed as a consequence of a rich Christian heritage. The roots of this heritage date well before colonisation; they are evident in the institutions of law and governance introduced by the colonising authority.

Today, a large proportion of the people of this nation has forsaken the God of our forebears, preferring instead to devote its attention to other pursuits. These pursuits, including self-indulgence, materialism, individualism, even devotion to the created order rather than its Creator, are a form of idolatry. People have forsaken the spring of living water. They have preferred to draw contaminated water from polluted sources in the faulty belief that human imagination, reason and will can exercise some “control” over these ineffective sources.

Implicit in the declarations of the LORD pronounced by the prophet Jeremiah are calls to repent and return to the “spring of living water”.

Today we who trust in Jesus as our Lord recall his metaphors referring to the same “living water”:

• Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 13-14).
• On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7: 37-38).

Remain with, return to, the source of this living water, regardless of the phony temptations of this world.

O Lord, we gratefully accept the salvation you have given us in Jesus through your divine grace. Preserve us from any temptation to try to work out our own salvation through idolatry or the works of man. Amen.

Epiphany

 Eastern Spinebill – first day of the new year

Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians 3: 4-11 (NIV)

⁴ In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵ which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

⁷ I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. ⁸ Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. ¹⁰ His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹ according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We servants of Jesus Christ who are not children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by birth are reminded, in this season of Epiphany, that we are recipients of God’s grace in more respects than one. Because, and only because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he has overlooked our sins and he has made us, even though we are Gentiles, heirs together with Israel in the promise in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul wrote of this to the churches. “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3: 6). He compared Gentile followers of Christ Jesus to wild olive shoots grafted onto the root of a cultivated olive tree, by which he described the elect of Israel. Moreover, Paul saw a time when those of Israel who did not persist in unbelief would be grafted again into this cultivated olive tree. He also warned those represented by the wild olive tree grafts (Gentiles) not to revert to unbelief for, if God did not spare the natural branches, he would not spare Gentiles either (Romans 11: 17-24).

Paul reveals God’s intention for all who are servants of Jesus Christ “that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3: 10).

This is an awesome role! The riches of God are to be revealed and proclaimed to the world through Gentiles. But this revelation and proclamation is not only to the physical world! This is a mission, wrote the Apostle Paul, not only to proclaim the gospel of Christ Jesus to other nations. This is a mission to demonstrate the gospel of Jesus Christ to the spiritual powers and especially to those now hostile to God.

Our behaviour, our conduct, our speech and our attitudes are to be so much like those of Jesus that even the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms become totally convinced of Jesus’ kingship and of the all-surpassing wisdom of God.

As we enter a new year let us resolve to take up this challenge wholeheartedly, strengthened by God through his Holy Spirit.