For the last three weeks, we have been talking about who we are as a church; who God made us to be. Hearing the basic idea each week is good, but sometimes we need to dive a little more fully into the ideas to make sure we are all on the same page together. We have so far talked about being a people with whom anyone can connect, and growing in Christ together. Both of those are necessary and important parts of who God made us to be, but they aren’t the end of the journey. Having a faith in God that means something means reaching out to advance His kingdom. That’s what we are diving into this morning as we complete this journey. Let’s dig in together.

Real Faith Reaches Out (James 2:14-26)
October 4, 2026 

I loved doing worksheets when I was in school. I loved them. Yes, I have long since owned my nerdiness. When teachers would start handing out worksheets—especially in math classes—while all the other kids would groan (often loudly), I would be secretly celebrating. I could sit there and do those for hours. When I was in eighth grade, I had a science teacher who was a very nice man, but not a very organized teacher. He handed out these enormous packets of worksheets about the various systems of the human body, but then he decided not to actually assign them and made them just extra credit. I did every single one of them anyway. I think the reason I loved them so much is the perfectionist in me. I could get them done, I could mostly do them right, and when you got to the end of the worksheet, that job was finished. They delivered me the same dopamine hit that accomplishing objectives in a video game gives you. 

But as much as I loved worksheets, I hated word problems. Give me endless pages of math problems all day long, but don’t give me word problems. Oh, I hated those. I never understood them. I usually got them wrong. My brain just didn’t work like that. Taking all of the numbers of a problem and trying to put them in some sort of a real world setting messed up the nice, neat perfectionism they made possible when they were harmlessly sitting there by themselves on the page. I think that’s why I always hated labs in college, which made me the black sheep of the chemistry department. Sitting there for hours waiting for a small sample of something to be nuked nearly out of existence in a bomb calorimeter, and then comparing the mass of whatever was left with what I had when I started meant absolutely nothing to me. 

I am glad every day that the whole trend of a STEM-focused educational path didn’t exist when I was in school because I would have absolutely hated it. But I’m sure glad it does now because it is so much better than the rote-memorization approaches that were more common in all the places I went to school. That worked for me, but that’s just because I’m weird. It is better to actively teach kids how to put into practice what they are learning than it is to just let a wave of facts wash over your brain only to have it soon thereafter ebb back out into the ocean of information in the world around you. Putting into practice what you know is the best way to make sure you actually know it. 

This morning we are in the third and final part of our vision refresh series, Going Somewhere. Every single week I greet you from this podium and remind you about the fact that here at First Baptist Oakboro, we are a people with whom anyone can connect to grow in Christ and reach out for His kingdom. I hope some of you have heard that phrase frequently enough that you have it memorized. I hope that phrase comes to mind first when you think about this church. It’s who God made us to be. But hearing that phrase over and over again and actually understanding the ideas behind it are two different things. Because of that, we take some intentional time each year to be reminded together what it all actually means.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have done deep dives together into the first two pieces of our God-given identity as a church—connecting and growing. With a couple of different passages from the apostle Paul as our guides, we have talked about the fact that as a church, we are to be actively creating a culture that allows for anybody to connect. This is because the Gospel is for everybody, and it’s our job to help them receive it. And as that quote I found in my desk a couple of weeks ago reminded us, if the Gospel is for everybody, then the culture of the church can’t exclude anybody. But connecting with a church, while an indisputably good thing, also cannot be the end of our journey with the church. We have to grow. Well, God made us to be a people with whom anyone can connect to grow in Christ. And, as we talked about last time, this growing happens both when we are poured into by others, but also when we are actively pouring into others what we have learned. It’s a both-and process. Growing in Christ is a team sport. 

And yet, even this growing process is not something that happens for its own sake. Just as connecting with the church can’t be the end of our journey, growing in Christ can’t either. If we just become repositories for all the great information about Jesus and the Scriptures and the Christian worldview we are gaining as we grow, all of that knowledge will flow into us and stagnate. We will become little more than Bible know-it-alls who love nothing more than espousing knowledge so that everyone is impressed with us. Let me let you in on a little secret: nobody likes a Bible know-it-all. Not even Jesus. The Pharisees were Bible know-it-alls. Jesus loved them and gave His life for them, but He didn’t like them. All of that knowledge is intended to come into us and then flow back out of us as Gospel-directed, Jesus’glorifying action. When someone takes what they know—especially about Jesus—and puts it actively into practice to bless and benefit the lives of the people around them, that’s the real sweet spot Jesus was aiming to get us to land. When we reach out to advance God’s kingdom just like Jesus did, that’s the place He is aiming to get us to go. And that is fundamental to our being the church He made us to be. We are a people with whom anyone can connect to grow in Christ and reach out for His kingdom. 

Now, there are many places in the New Testament we could go to explore and be encouraged in this idea, but there’s one passage in particular that really packs a punch on this point that I’d like to take a look at with you this morning. This one comes from the Spirit-directed pen of Jesus’ brother, James. And don’t let it be lost on you that in reading James we are reading something written by Jesus’ own brother. There aren’t many better affirmations that Jesus really did rise from the dead than the fact that we have a letter written by His believing brother who was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. And here’s why: What would your brother have to do to convince you that He is the Messiah? Short rising from the dead, is there really anything else? And don’t forget, James tried at one point to force Jesus to come home to Capernaum in order to shut down His ministry so He wouldn’t bring any more embarrassment to the family. He thought his brother was nuts—until he sat down and had a conversation with his resurrected brother. 

In any event, James’ letter is sometimes referred to as the Proverbs of the New Testament. It is filled with practical wisdom for taking Jesus’ vision for life in God’s kingdom and putting into concrete action in the world around us. And his writings were deeply influenced by Jesus’ teachings—especially in the Sermon on the Mount. James has a ton of references to things Jesus said throughout his letter. James really was not one to pull punches either. He’s got several sayings in here that really pack a punch when you pause long enough to take in what he is saying. One of the hardest hitting of these comes in the second half of the second chapter. If you haven’t already found your way there in your own copy of the Scriptures—and, by the way, it’s always a good thing to have your own copy of the Scriptures for this time so you can follow along and make notes if you learn that way—join me in James 2:14. 

James doesn’t waste any time getting to his point: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?” Now, let’s clear up a common misperception here. Various interpreters over the course of church history have tried to set James and the apostle Paul at odds with each other. It’s easy to see why. James puts an enormous emphasis on the importance of good works as a positive expression of our faith in this section whereas Paul was absolutely emphatic that salvation is by faith alone, and that works not only did not but could not play even the slightest role in the process. The great reformer, Martin Luther, famously wanted to remove James from the New Testament entirely. 

The truth, though, is that the two New Testament contributors weren’t nearly as far apart on this point as it might seem. They were talking about faith and works, respectively, through two different lenses. Paul was focused on works as a means of salvation whereas James was focused on works as an expression of it. Both were in lockstep on the idea that salvation only comes by faith. But for someone to claim faith and then not live in such a way as to demonstrate it clearly and compellingly was to bring into question the legitimacy of that claim. If you tell me that you love C.S. Lewis, but then can’t name any of his books or quote anything he wrote, I’m going to be pretty suspicious that you’re not telling me the truth. If you tell me you think Jesus is Lord, but then don’t live your life in obedience to anything He commanded, I’m going to be pretty suspicious that you are not telling me the truth. A faith in Christ that has no supporting evidence—in other words, a faith that is claimed but not actually lived out—is not a faith that is going to save anybody. 

Rather than leaving us to wonder about what exactly this means, James offers an example. “If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,’ but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.” Now, let’s clarify that James is not telling us here that if we don’t throw money at or get immediately and heavily involved in helping every single homeless person we see on the side of the street that our faith is dead. That’s not wise, for starters, but more importantly here, he uses the phrase “brother or sister” to describe this person in a hard situation. That is a reference to a fellow member of the body of Christ, not merely a random stranger. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get actively involved in mercy ministries if that’s something God calls us too, but neither do we need to get taken in by attempts to guilt us into action we don’t think is wise. 

The problem for James is people who claim to believe in Jesus and profess to have accepted Him as Lord, but who don’t follow that claim up with the appropriate actions. Verse 18 now: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works,’” as if those were two separate things. Around the turn of the 20th century there were two strands of expressions of Christian faithfulness in our culture. One was the Fundamentalists, and the other was the Social Gospel movement. The Fundamentalists for a host of good and important reasons focused a great deal of their attention on theological purity and faithfulness to historically orthodox doctrine. The Social Gospel movement, also for some good reasons, gave all of their attention to various mercy ministries, especially in big cities. Both tended to leave out the emphasis of the other. The Fundamentalists got so focused on belief that they forgot to love people and earned themselves a pretty bad reputation culturally. The Social Gospel folks, on the other hand, got so focused on actions that they eventually lost the Gospel that motivated those actions, and finally quit having any meaningful Gospel impact. 

What James is talking about here is not an either-or proposition. “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.” Simply believing in God isn’t enough. Right belief by itself doesn’t save anyone. As we talked about a few weeks ago, the real difference is in the doing. At the same time, if you try to have works alone without faith, you’ll soon find that the faith was the thing that was motivating and inspiring the works. Without that foundation, the works will eventually lose their focus and their effectiveness, and they will soon drift into irrelevancy and nonexistence. The very thing you were striving to do to God’s glory you will quit doing when you stop trying to glorify God first. You’ll be trying to advance only your own kingdom then, and that never goes very well. But if you say you believe something without doing something about it, your claims will be revealed to be little more than self-aggrandizing nonsense. 

From here, James goes on to offer a couple more examples, but this time specific examples from Jewish history. He starts with Abraham and moves to Rahab. “Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?” Are you? Don’t skip over questions like this in the Scriptures. Pause and give them the thoughtfulness and attention they invite. 

In any event, “Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar?” This is where James is often set against Paul who made the point in Romans 4 and Galatians 4 that Abraham’s justification came by faith, not works. But stay with James here, and you’ll see this is not the contradiction it appears to be. “Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete, 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. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” 

Are you following James here? Abraham was justified by works in the sense that his obedience to God’s command demonstrated the validity of his faith. His faith led directly to his works, and those works proved his faith. He couldn’t be accused of being all talk. He brought his walk and his talk fully into alignment with one another. His faith saved him. Paul was right. But that saving faith was demonstrated in a way we could actually see it and know about it by his works. James was right too. 

The same was the case for Rahab. “In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” Same song here; different verse. Rahab believed the right things. She had faith in God. But no one knew it until she did the things that she did. Until she started reaching out to advance God’s kingdom in practical ways, her faith was just unsubstantiated claims. You can and I can claim to have faith in Jesus all we want, but until we start reaching out for God’s kingdom, putting it into active, visible, practical action, all such claims are meaningless. Real faith reaches out. 

Well listen: God made us to be a church that reaches out to advance His kingdom. This is part of the culture of this group of Jesus followers. And, frankly, a lot of this happens in ways that nobody sees unless they are on the receiving end of it. I don’t even hear about much of it until long after the fact or in side comments that I have to pay close attention to in order to pick up on what is being expressed. Part of the culture of this church is that we love one another in practical, meaningful ways. There are folks in this congregation who are always on alert for who needs a meal or a helping hand or a visit or prayer. Nowhere in this body is the idea that only the pastor can do the ministry. If you are still just connecting with this body, this is the culture of the church you are connecting with. If having a group of people who will love you in practical and meaningful ways and who you get to enjoy the blessing of loving back in practical and meaningful ways doesn’t sound appealing to you, then this probably isn’t the church you want to be a part of. If it does, though, then what are you waiting for? 

But, reaching out to expand God’s kingdom by definition can’t be something that only happens within our community. Real faith reaches out. We have to be conscious and intentional about turning the healthy, loving culture we have here out into our community and beyond. And let me tell you: the opportunities for you to do this are numerous. They are out there just waiting for you to take the first step to get involved in them. 

Perhaps, though, you are sitting there thinking to yourself: What are they? How can I get involved in them? I’m glad you asked. You could start with something like joining our Meals on a Mission team. They exist to support and extend the work of the County’s Meal on Wheels program. That program is great, but it doesn’t do weekends. So, each second Saturday of the month, we have a group of folks who fix a meal and deliver it out to a whole bunch of folks in our community who need it. They don’t just drop off food and run, though. They take time to love the folks who are receiving the meal with the love of Jesus by stopping to visit with them and praying with them and making sure they don’t have other needs that might be falling through the cracks. If loving on people who are often forgotten by the culture gets you excited, I can get you pointed in the right direction. You can put your faith into action this way. Real faith reaches out. 

Let me let you in on a little secret about churches. Churches can’t do everything. An individual church can do a few things, but if it tries to take on too much, none of it is going to get done well. We have a few things that we do really well as a church. But we can’t do everything when it comes to ministering to the needs of our community. Thankfully, we don’t have to do everything because we are surrounded by great local ministries who are already involved in doing more than we could possibly conceive of doing on our own. And, as it just so happens, we are specifically partnered with five of these organizations, creating an easy pathway for individuals in this church as well as groups who want to reach out for God’s kingdom together to engage in practical, meaningful ministry to do just that. Real faith reaches out, and there are manifold opportunities for you to do just that because of our partnership with these ministries. 

One of them is West Stanly Christian Ministries. Their director, Robert Britt, has a passionate love for Jesus that gets translated every day into a passionate love for people. They do all kinds of mercy ministries in this area from a food pantry to financial assistance with immediate needs to providing wood for heating in the winter to a clothing closet to financial literacy classes to worship nights for folks who might not be willing to walk in the doors of a regular church and beyond. They are always looking for volunteers to help keep those ministries thriving. I would love to put you in contact with Robert, but I can do you even one better than that. Our very own Rachel Lewis is on staff with them, and she can get you plugged into projects if you are interested. 

Another of our local partners is Faith Alive Ministries. Taylor and Jordan Whitely, the directors, are absolutely convinced that when James wrote a bit earlier in his letter than we looked at today that real religion is focused on looking after orphans and widows in their distress that he meant it. They have a variety of ministries locally focused on that very thing as well as opportunities in Africa and India that all give you the chance to reach out to advance God’s kingdom in incredibly impactful ways. Real faith reaches out, and with FAM there are always opportunities to reach out. 

Our third local partner is the Coalition for Christ, led by Brandon King, and which is the official missions arm of our local Uwharrie Baptist Association. Brandon is passionate about the Gospel and sharing the Gospel with people who have never heard or experienced it by word and deed. They do a huge food delivery ministry at Thanksgiving as well as an even bigger Christmas ministry for families in need in December. (West Stanly Christian Ministries does the same, and the two organizations work together to make sure they are not repeating each other, but keep their collective reach as broad as they possibly can.) The Coalition is also involved in building ramps and partnering with churches to produce their own food to get to folks in need and doing evangelism training in local churches. Brandon’s goal is not to simply do the work, but to work with churches to equip them to do the work so they are reaping the benefits of it. Real faith reaches out, and Brandon and the Coalition for Christ want to help us reach out more and more all the time. 

Speaking of the Uwharrie Baptist Association, we have a growing partnership with a group called Neighborhood Ministries in New England. The Association sends multiple groups up each year to encourage and support them in the variety of ministries they are engaged in in one of the most spiritually dark places in the entire world. New England—that’s part of the United States…you know the nation some people still like to think of as Christian—has a smaller faithful church presence percentage-wise than China. If you want to be a part of taking the Gospel to people who have never even heard of Jesus, you don’t have to go around the world. You just have to go twelve hours north. 

And as if all of that weren’t enough, through our partnership with the North Carolina Baptists on Mission (which is funded entirely by the offering we spent the last month collecting for) through the Baptist State Convention—the group of Baptist churches from all over the state we are partnered with to reach out for God’s kingdom—the opportunities for you to get involved in advancing the Gospel and growing God’s kingdom in practical ways are multiplied many times beyond these four organizations. There are multiple different missions camps across the state—and especially up in the mountains—where you can plan short term trips to contribute to the ongoing impact they are having. Baptists on Mission gives us access to medical and dental ministries, church planting opportunities, and more than a dozen national and international mission trip locations. Real faith reaches out, and as someone who is connected with this church you have an absolute wealth of opportunities to do just that. The only real question is: Are you going to take them? 

Listen: I can’t do this for you. I can put the opportunities before you. I can cheer you on. I can join you in the work. But you’ve got to take the step to reach out for God’s kingdom. If your faith means anything to you beyond a convenient label to claim in a cultural context where that still has some social capital associated with it, you’ve got to take that step. Real faith reaches out. I know that for so many of you, your faith is real. If all of us who are there together started reaching out for God’s kingdom in practical, meaningful ways to take the Gospel to people who need to hear it, the results of what God will do with that faithfulness will leave us absolutely staggered. Church, God made you—He made us—to be a people with whom anyone can connect to grow in Christ and reach out for His kingdom. Let us commit to being that church together and more fully all the time as we continue following our faithful Lord into the incredible future that lies before us. Real faith reaches out. Let’s make ours real, and grow God’s kingdom together.