Faith and Works Go Together

And James says, “this faith which you profess must be seen in godly living and deeds and the deeds are so essential”, says James, “they are so real and they are so inevitable – just as a real apple tree must produce apples, real Christian faith must produce deep change. James says if you don’t have the works and you don’t have the deeds and you don’t have the Godly living, your faith is false, it’s dead.
So people have positioned James against Paul because Paul says again and again, “works are useless”. And James says “works are crucial”. So who is right? And the answer is – they are both right. They are not saying opposite things, they are saying two different things. They are friends – they are working together and we are going to see this as we study the passage for a few minutes this morning.
I have two points – the first is that faith and deeds cannot be separated (verses 14-19). The second is that faith and deeds must be joined (verses 20-26).

Faith and Works Cannot be Seperated

First of all, faith and deeds cannot be separated. Now there are two types of people in verses 14-19 who are trying to separate faith and deeds. The first I am going to call: “Mr Head-Only”. Please don’t despise the simplicity of this as it is actually very profound. This is the person who is able to ‘say’ Christian things but there is no change of heart. It’s a global and a terrible problem in churches. See in verse 14, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man, a woman, claims to have faith but has no deeds?” Claims to be an apple tree but has no apples? Can such faith save?
So the person says:

• I am an apple tree but there is no apples.
• I am married but I live on my own.
• I am converted but there is no conversion.

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