"Can Faith Save You?"

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  18 But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. ¹⁹You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. ²⁰Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? ²¹Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²²You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. ²³Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend of God. ²⁴You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? ²⁶For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.(James 2)

Huuuuummm

The first thing that caught my mind here is the question about being “saved.”

                        Can faith save you?

That word, saved, is over loaded with the human mind’s interpretation; and most often judgment.

Now, I grant you, that question is just a tiny tiny part of James’ dissertation here.  But at the same time it is a phrase that gets thrown around, a whole lot, in order to put others down. Make them feel less faithful, less worthy.

So, in my excellent Lutheran understanding. I have rightly learned the answer, to that over used question, is yes. 

Yes. You can be, and are, saved by your faith no matter how tiny it may be.  

I quote the mantra of all ELCA Lutherans:

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—  (Eph. 2) 

Paul also writes a bit on this subject in Romans: chapters 3 and 4.

It is also true that the ELCA Lutherans are often accused of using that mantra to avoid living by faith.  Doing!

Meaning that we believe in “cheap grace” — doing nothing.

There is most certainly a misunderstood balance here; that needs to be clarified.  

As with most faith related issues there is a, tissue-paper-thin, line between doing work for the sake of work -- doing work to look good before others.  Or doing things for our neighbor because we want to help them have a better quality of life.

Our faith prompts us to live, on this earth, in caring and compassionate ways.  Ways that allow others to feel our empathy for them; through our God given ability, our God given faith.

We also believe that God, by his amazing grace, has given us this faith.  And in our gratitude we are asked, to live out the call of Jesus, to be servants to our sisters and brothers.   

Faith prompts doing.  That often does mean work.  Sometimes hard work.

¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. ¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ ²⁰He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’(Matt. 17) 

For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”,…

Through the gift of faith we often do things that we think we can’t.  

We do things that we may not even want to do. 

We sometime think that we are not good enough, or strong enough. or capable enough, or smart enough to do what is called for.

Moving mountains is no easy task (; 

However what we learn, over and over again, is that even those things that seem insurmountable can be done by God through us.

That grace — God’s activity — working in and through us, makes the work possible. 

The confusion is that some think that if they work hard enough, or perfectly enough, or any another adjective that measures their action, that that is what gets them to heaven.  More specifically, what gets them saved.

It is a common confusion people have; that it is the quality or perfection of what they do that earns them a place in God's realm --  God's heart. 

The God I believe in does not judge us by our ability or intelligence.  God does not evaluate us by how we do something -- or how much we do.  There is no better, or most right, or most capable in this faith life.  

What God is clearly interested in, is where our heart is in the living out of our faith. 

So no, we are not saved by our works. 

We are saved by our faith in an extraordinarily gracious God.  

Who, I think, loves it when we simply try to follow his original design for taking care of all he has made.