‘Strictly come preaching?’

In my bimonthly slot in the newspaper, we have been looking at how the apostle James uncovers some rather unpleasant ‘respectable sins’ in us Christians.

Last time we saw that, in order to root out our deep-seated adulterous pride, we need to become enslaved to God’s law of love by listening and receiving the word of truth with meekness, humbling ourselves, remembering and acting on what it says – not just listening but doing…

So here is the test: Do you show your faith by what you do, not just by what you say?

James continues in 1:26-27: ‘If anyone considers themselves religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on their tongue, they deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’

Paraphrase: Stop talking and do something. To use the old cliché: Walk the talk! Rather than risk condemning ourselves with our empty words, we should quietly get on and do the stuff that God accepts. We should act like Jesus and care for the weak and vulnerable around us.

James expands his argument further: Chapter 2:14-18 says: ‘What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 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 says – words without actions is dead faith. I’m not saved by my actions… but my actions show I’m saved.

As we have seen before – we ‘Hot Prots’ may be in grave danger here. We may be very hot on ‘The Truth’. We love our Bibles. We know our creeds. We love a good sermon (and complain bitterly about bad ones…).

And yet, our churches are merely like ‘Strictly Come Preaching’ or ‘The Great British Preach Off’ if we just sit and listen, give the preacher marks out of ten, and then don’t act on what we hear.

We may be very ‘cold’ when it comes to actually physically, materially sacrificially caring for people in need.

‘Ah – but what people need is the gospel,’ we say. OK, true enough!!

But actually, people need both! They need their daily bread and the Bread of Life. And, says James, look who I’m talking about in verse 15. Your brothers and sisters who already believe the gospel; are you going to sit back and let them freeze and starve because they are ‘safe in Christ’?

Well, James says: ‘I’ll show you my faith by my good deeds!’ It’s got to be both… faith in action.

It’s what Jesus did – He got His hands dirty. He mucked in. He helped people in the mess and hurt of their lives. He lived out His message. He was a servant. We too are called to be servants of God. We are saved to serve.

We must adorn the spoken truth with actions that do other people good. Otherwise, listen – James says we are no different from the demons who can also say the creed; 2:19: ‘You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.’

So: Our ‘respectable sin’ – in this case our adulterous pride – may be our scary ability to speak about our faith – participate in Bible studies; lead Bible studies; indulge in a bit of Sunday lunch sermon dissection – and yet do little to demonstrate our faith in action.

Are we play-acting at loving God and His family? We may fool others, but we certainly won’t fool God. We prove our faith in God not just by our correct words but by living a risk-taking, knife-edge, Jesus-demonstrating life that generously benefits those around us.

Will you, with me, take a good hard look this festive season at how we are sacrificially serving others week by week. Not just throwing money at projects but humbly getting our hands dirty…?