Words and Works

Have you ever encountered a person who seemed to have a chronic problem of giving their word but never following through? Maybe its someone who promises to do something, but never does it, or promises to be somewhere but doesn’t show up. When people fail to follow through on their word, we can’t help but lose trust in them.

In fact we all know people whose word means something because they always honor their word. When they say something, there’s weight to it. And we all know others whose word really doesn’t mean much because they rarely, if ever, do what they say. This is why we say that actions speak louder than words. Because words alone don’t mean much if they are not accompanied by actions that demonstate their genuineness.

On Sunday we saw that the same is true when it comes to our faith in Christ. The central point of James 2:14-26 is that when it comes to our faith, our conduct will either confirm or contradict our confession.

In other words, its not only important that we profess faith in Christ with our mouths, but that our lives bear witness to the truth of that confession through the works that we do.

James’ main concern is with people who verbally profess faith in Christ while continuing to persist in a lifestyle that contradicts his will. Basically, is Jesus really our Lord and God if we persistently refuse to submit to his leadership and live for him? Our words may say one thing, but our actions may reveal something quite different.

The best way to bear the fruit of good works in our lives is to be connected to Jesus. Just like a fruit tree does not need to work hard at producing its fruit, so a genuine believer will produce the fruit of a believer by being connected to Jesus, the one who ultimately produces that fruit in our lives.