In James 2:14, the message centers on breakout | faith that moves to action. Explore James 2:14 and the relationship between faith and action, discovering why genuine belief should produce a life that moves and serves. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The message presses toward an active response to the gospel. Faith is presented as something that reshapes priorities, decisions, character, and obedience, not simply something we affirm intellectually. Listeners are challenged to examine whether their lives are increasingly aligned with what they say they believe and to respond to God's grace with courage, humility, and faithful action.
Along the way, the message engages themes including James 2:14, breakout | faith that moves to action, james 2, 14 relationship between faith action. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does James 2:14 teach about breakout It also considers faith that moves to action?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does James 2:14 teach about breakout | faith that moves to action? | How should breakout | faith that moves to action shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply James 2:14 in everyday life?
James 2:14, breakout | faith that moves to action, james 2, 14 relationship between faith action
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I have two thoughts for you today. So, if you're if you're taking notes, um the the first verse I want to hit is actually John 7. This is actually from last week. Was so excited um to share. I I felt like last week for me was just like an explosion of all of the things that I feel like God has been pouring into me uh for this past summer. Everything from Ephesians to the the biatitudes um what it looks like to ascend the hill of the Lord. And if you if you hadn't watched the service yet, go back on YouTube and watch it. Um there was so many things that I I I wanted to be able to unpack. And so I I'm going to take this time to unpack something. In John 7 um 37-38, Jesus stood and he shouted to the crowds, "Anyone who is thirsty may come to me. Anyone who believes in me may come and drink. For the scriptures declare, rivers of living water will flow from his heart. Isn't that awesome? And and John goes on after that to to share that he's referring to that river of living water. He's referring to is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit moving and active in every single one of us. And what I love so much about the Holy Spirit is wherever the river of the Holy Spirit flows, there is abundant life. There is full life. Hey, that's the name of our church, right? The Holy Spirit gives us divine energy that never weakens. We have all of the power that we could ever need because of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen. >> The Holy Spirit empowers us into holiness, sincere worship. It cultivates love, leads us into depths in prayer, and reveals the word of God to us. And so much more. It brings our faith to life. The Holy Spirit is that river of life. But here's the thing. When the river is damned up and isn't allowed to flow out of us, it dies. We uh we got to do some fall break things and went to some museums and we went to this like really awesome aquarium and you know aquarium there's lots of water. There's lots of fish everywhere. Okay. They've got the fresh water. They got the salt water. They got all the different things. And what's so amazing is the the fish that are living and and and breathing in this water. If if the water has too much mineral in it, if there's too much salt in it, everything begins to die. And when you look at uh a few years ago, I was in Israel and uh we went to the Jordan River. It was really cool. And we learned that the Jordan River actually flows down into the Dead Sea. Has anybody familiar with the Dead Sea? Have any of you ever taken a geography class before? Okay, great. Right. Right. We're all on the same page here, but there's this phenomenon around the world called Salt Lakes. Everybody say salt lakes. >> Okay, it's not we're not talking about Salt Lake City, although there are some salt lakes in Salt Lake City. Um, but really it's a this phenomenon where there's a body of water that is formed and does not have an outflow from that body of water. And what ends up happening is the water gets kind of stale, gets a little dirty, a little murky, whatever. And then the sun comes and begins to evaporate the water. And what's left behind are the minerals that were brought in from that river or brought in from the rain or however it might be. And so there's all these different salt lakes all around the world where if you go and try to drink that water, it's not going to be good. It's going to be extra salty. In fact, the Dead Sea has 34% salt in it. Whereas the ocean has 3.4%. So if you thought the ocean was salty, the Dead Sea is even saltier. So much so that if you swim, try to swim in the Dead Sea, you will float because the buoyancy is all different because there's so much salt in it, which I got to float in. It was very fun and it was very weird. I was just like this the whole time with my legs up and you you it's not swimming. You're just floating in the water. But here's what's here's what's so amazing. Even with fresh water, we think, "Oh, salt water getting caught somewhere." But even with fresh water, there are minerals within that water that when they come into this sea, into this lake, and begin to evaporate, it just gets saltier and saltier and saltier. But if there was an outflow for that water to go somewhere, it would just keep moving. And the water would keep refreshing that space again and again. And and so often times we can receive so much from the Lord. We can gather in spaces of worship like this and we can encounter him. We can get into the word of God. We can grow in knowledge and in wisdom and revelation and forgiveness and all these different things. But if the water never flows out of us, if the river of life be just becomes trapped within us, we will die. It's going to become stale. It's going to become salty. It's no longer going to be lifegiving. I mean, have you ever met a Christian who just sucks the life out of you? Some of y'all are quiet. It might be you. Hey, when we come in contact with people that just drain us, right, and they call themselves believers, is the is the river of life, is the Holy Spirit flowing out of your life today? Is it breaking out of you in such a way that it brings life to everything else around you? That's again, being in the aquarium, we're seeing all these big fish everywhere and and all the things. And what's so beautiful is they've got all these different pictures of how this river connects to this lake and then this lake connects to to this stream and it feeds life into all these areas and trees and all these different animals, alligators and and and fish and all this stuff. But if there was ever a body of water that stopped flowing, everything in that water would die. And as as followers of Christ today, we have access to so many things. the riches of his glory when we come into his presence. And it was never meant to just be for us. The mission of of of the gospel is that all of the world would be reached. That everyone would get to come and know who Jesus is. >> But how can anyone hear the gospel if someone is not preaching it? >> How is anyone going to encounter the Lord if we don't bring them into his presence? >> Listen, it's on us. Again, I love that that Kate, Garrett, and Kate were leading worship with us today. You should go follow them on Spotify and all the things. They're amazing. Uh just signed with Beth Bethl Music and I listen to them every day and they're awesome. But I love how Kate Kate mentioned and and and brought to that recognizing the first time you encountered God. And I don't know about you, but for me, it was my family and people around me that brought me into his presence. You may, it may be for you, maybe you were alone, you were by yourself, but there were definitely moments leading up to that where someone was a part of bringing you into the presence of God. There was an encounter, there was a conversation that made you curious, that made you desire, is there something more? And what if God is calling you to be that person for somebody else? It's not really a what if, it's a you are. We're all called to carry the great commission to carry this peace that God has given us into our homes, into our workplaces. Our spiritual life with God doesn't just stay within the believer, but it also becomes a source of blessing and life for others. And again, we've been teaching about it all summer, but in Ephesians 4, living that Axio life, it teaches us that we must embody the humility, gentleness, and patience of Christ and actively work to maintain the unity of the spirit in our communities through acts of enduring love, bearing with one another's failings, and striving for the bond of peace. Are you noticing the action words here? It's nothing that just happens, but it's actively pursuing unity. It's actively pursuing peace. It's actively coming together with others. It's active. It's moving. It's action. The walking worthy axios life is a demonstration of our salvation and is motivated by the love and grace that God has given to us. It's it's the love of Christ demonstrated through us that we would be a demonstration of his goodness and his faithfulness and his love that this wouldn't just be something for us, but we would live it out in such a way that it would give life to everything else. That it would be a river of life flowing not just in us but through us and into others. Is your faith does your faith look like this? Because if your spiritual journey and your practices in your faith are not creating more love and compassion for people and you're getting more and more isolated rather than connected to community and discipling people, your faith may not be as alive as you think it is. In James 2:14 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 sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of them says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and wellfed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accomp accompanied by action, is dead. Verse 19, I love this. Says, "You believe that there is one God." Good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. Verse 24, you see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. Verse 26, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Let me just say this because I think we can get really touchy with this scripture because we get so fixated on the deeds and the the action and all the things that we negate the heart and what God is doing within us. The deeds and the action is the evidence of what God is doing in the unseen places. Right? It's coming out of you into the scene from the unseen. And cuz let me tell you, I celebrate the deep things that God has been doing within this church. >> I continue to hear testimony after testimony of how I was this way before and now I'm alive and I'm a new creation. And I can't explain it, but God is doing something inside of my heart. I yesterday we got to celebrate a beautiful wedding with uh Nate and Hannah. They just got married. And uh Hannah's one of our worship leaders here and and Nate is the Jack Reacher here in our church. if you've seen him walking around. I don't I don't know if they're watching this morning. Um but it's it's so so amazing. And what I love is is the constant focus on look what God has done. >> And and I've been able to hang out with Nate for for for the last few years that we've gotten to know him and he will tell you, "Yeah, Hannah's great. She changed my life." But it was Christ that start that started that work in me. that began to shift things. And it's so amazing. He's even he's even going through stuff right now with me talking. He's like, I I so desperately want to see my friends and family come to find this the way that I have. And that should be again the the desire of our heart should be that God moves in those unseen places within us. That we grow in depth in faith and love and all these different things. But if that never translates to a demonstration of faith in our lives, if it never flows out of us, is it even real? And that's what the scripture is saying here. He's not saying, "Oh, you got to do all these things to prove your faith." He's saying, "No, if there was evidence of what God is doing within you, it would come out. If God is really moving within you, then we should see some kind of evidence that the unseen will become seen. Again, even the demons believe that there is a God. I believe that there's a God, but has he changed my life in a way that you can see it now? Am I making him the Lord of my life and serving him and walking in obedience? And again, our our belief must flow into evidence of righteousness. And if God has truly changed your life, where is the evidence? All right, that's my first point. Second point, here we go. Another great example of this call that God has for us, not just to be this river of life flowing out of us, but that it would break out of us. In 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6 it says for God who said let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure and jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. I love this because there's imagery of a jar of clay. It's something so fragile and and and here we we we see that he's describing the the glory of God as this powerful light. And he's really saying, "How can you as a vessel really hold and contain this light? You're just a you're just a fragile jar of clay so easily breakable. so so so easily cracked. And I love this too because again Paul is such a contextualized preacher. He knows his audience and knows that many of them would know the story of Gideon, would know the story of the of the 300 Israelites who carried torches in the night concealed inside of a jar of clay. And then when they they came to to fight the Midionites, they they circled the canyon and they smashed the jars of clay to reveal the light that was inside of it. And it's like us, we we think that maybe as as this jar of clay that we're we're holding this light so delicately and we need to be careful that we don't break because if we break then the light's not going to shine, right? If if if we start breaking, we start failing, then the light is no longer going to be bright enough to be seen by everyone else. But Paul is saying, you are this jar of clay, and you're going to be broken. >> You will be broken. And it's because of that brokenness that the light can shine within you. >> Again, they broke open the jars to reveal the light. There's victory when we let the light of God break out of us. even when it's uncomfortable. I love this. Again, the transformative power of the gospel, the light of Christ needs to reach the world and and be in every single facet of our life. Not just our Christian life on Sundays and Wednesdays, but in our jobs and our families. It needs to permeate into everything. And we carry this burden knowing knowing that we will be broken for the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 4, continuing on in verse 8, we are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair. Persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested within our bodies. It says you will be afflicted. You will be persecuted. You will go through difficult moments. You will be broken but not destroyed. >> See the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And he thinks if I can just break you, if I can just push you back, if I can afflict you just enough, you'll feel like you've been destroyed, but in reality, you've just been broken. Destruction is part of the devil's plan, but brokenness is part of God's design. Because it's when we're broken that the light can shine within us. I found this pot. Got it at Home Depot. It's pretty great. I did practice this. Some of you already know what's about to happen. Yeah. Bring them in. Bring the kids in right now. There's a hammer. Oh, yeah. >> Kick kick the lights down for me, Eric. All right. All the way down. All the way down. This little light of mine. >> Thank you. Here we go. We have the light. the light of the Lord, his glory, his presence, and we're holding it within this jar of clay. Can you see it? Yeah. You can't see it. You can't see it shining through. And again, it's it's so similar to the Dead Sea. When the water has nowhere to go, it's only going to create death. It's only going to take life away from whatever goes into it. And just like with this light, if this were fire and not just a flashlight here, if we put a cap on this right now and the oxygen was taken away, what would happen? The light would die. Right now, here's what's so cool. I did this outside, so I'm hoping that I can do it here. I can do it. All right. I'm thinking about just slamming this thing. Can you see the light? Yeah, I'm shining it right in your eye. I'm sorry. All right, you can turn the lights back up. Here's what's here's what's awesome. You may look at your life as broken. You may look at your past, your trauma, your story, all the things that happened to you or didn't happen to you, that has hurt you, that has broken you, that has cracked you, that from the outside you may think, I'm not beautiful anymore. I'm I'm not how I was designed to be anymore. But could we see today that the brokenness of your story and your life was all a part of his design so that his light could shine out of you? That it would break out of you. That your testimony because of what God has done is the very thing the breaking and the cracking and the light pouring out of you. That is the story. That is the glory of God. making what looks so ugly and broken into something beautiful. And and again, what I what I love so much is the more broken we become, the more broken we become, the more his light can shine out of us. The more we recognize that there is purpose in the breaking, there is purpose and and and destiny and design and in being absolutely nothing on our own, the more his light can shine within us. There is power in your story. There's power in your testimony. And today, I'm here to tell you, we need to break out. We need to allow the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit to move within us. We need to break the jar of our life and let him shine out. >> It doesn't matter how good you look on the outside. What is coming out of you? Are we living this life? Listen, I I I'm over time, but I got to hit this so hard. I want us to be a church where we are mobilized outside of this place into the marketplace. Let's go. >> What's what's happening here is too good to keep to ourselves. The peace that we are finding the the growth and the depth happening in the unseen places needs to come out of us where we're truly living as broken vessels shining brightly for God. Listen, whether you're a coach or you're in sales or some kind of a a tech field, you have the ability to call people higher in your workplace. If you're in construction, you're making blueprints, architecture, all the things. God's given you the ability to do things with excellence and even create systems and processes to create better businesses and steward projects. Well, I know we got many people here in the medical field, doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, nurses, technical roles. You have the ability to be the hands of God. teachers, childcare workers, you may not be able to share the gospel with your words without losing your job, but you can bring peace into children's lives that are in chaos. >> And many of you, God is burning inside of you a call to communicate the gospel and again, even create these systems and structures with and and starting podcasts, writing books, blogs, social media. You can step into this right now and begin to be used by God. It doesn't have to have some kind of spiritual title. You can begin to walk in it and watch God use it. Watch God create beauty out of the brokenness of your life. >> That his light can begin to shine out of you. Listen, God's not done with you if you're retired. >> That's right. >> There is so much more that that that needs to be poured out of you into this next generation. He's not done until you drop. >> Amen. >> He has so much more that he wants to to use us for. Again, maybe you thought that your faith and your career weren't allowed to connect and you've compartmentalized the things as as being separate. But we need to be willing to allow God's mission to invade the marketplace that our faith will be all-encompassing in our lives. There is meaning found in the mission of pursuing God and letting the light of God break out and burn brightly within us. Again, who cares? Who cares if you look like you have it all together when you're dead inside? Allow the brokenness of your life, your story to shine the light of Christ out of you. Again, don't lose heart. Let go of the pride and the perception of others. Let's give ourselves away so that we can be used.
