“Proof of Life”
Rev. Dustin Largent
6/1/2025

I'm kind of into these TV drama shows, and every once in a while, I'll watch a show and they'll either kidnap somebody or rob a bank or something like that. But they'll kidnap somebody or a group of people. And then the negotiator gets on there and he's like, "All right, well, what do you want?" And they're going to tell him, "I want $100 million." And so, you're like, "All right, well, we can get you out. But I'm not doing anything until I have proof of life."

I need to know that there's proof of life. And so, then they have to get them on the phone, and you hear somebody go, "I'm here," right? And it's this whole big thing. But proof of life is really, really important. And in the same way, we don't want to live our entire life and there's no real proof of life.

You don't want to get to the end of your life and realize that you did all this work—for them, they negotiated, did all this negotiating—and did all this for something that was already dead. You want to make sure that when you get to the end, you are ready, right? You're negotiating because there's proof of life. And so here in chapter two, James is going to connect a couple things to show us how we can know that there's proof of life in our faith.

How do we know our faith is genuine? And we've been talking about that. We've given, I think, four of them so far. And we're going to dive into this section. This is a very controversial section.

Here's what I mean by that. The reason this town of Atkinson was divided so severely by Protestantism and Catholicism is primarily this chapter. The reason we had the Reformation—primarily this chapter. The reason why there's still disagreement between Catholics, because of Vatican II, because of the Council of Trent after the Reformation—is this passage. And so, we're going to dive into this because this passage is confusing. Martin Luther didn't like this passage. This was an enigma to him. He had a real problem with this passage because he was saved by Romans 1:17. He was saved that it's by grace that you are saved and grace alone.

It's by faith only, not anything else. And here we're going to hear James talking about works. So, you've got to tune in because I'm going to try to explain this to you and we're going to walk out of here, understanding really what this all means.

This is what it starts out. It says in verse 14 of Chapter 2: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? And here's what James is going to do. His argument is going to be no. His argument is going to be no.
You go, "Now hold the phone." This is why it's controversial—because Paul teaches that we're saved by grace through faith alone. And so, which is it? Are we saved by faith only? Or is it faith plus a bunch of other works and doing works?

Which is it? Is it the Catholic idea that we're saved by faith but we also have to do a bunch of works and we have to participate in things that are means of grace like the Eucharist and baptism and different things in order to add to that faith in order for it to be saving faith? That's the issue that we're dealing with here. And like I said, it's what caused the Protestant Reformation because Martin Luther looks at Romans 1 and he
says it's by faith alone. And he's a Catholic priest. And he says, "My whole life I've thought that it was by works. It's by faith and works, both." And so, this is interesting. How are we going to reconcile this?

That's the question. I want to remind both of you of something real obvious, but it's important to remind you of both James and Paul are in the Bible. They're both in the Bible, which means that both of them are speaking God's word.

You say, "Well, they seem to contradict." Well, if they're both in God's word, it doesn't matter if they might appear to contradict. We need to figure out why they don't contradict because God never contradicts himself. So, we have to walk down this road a little bit. We can't just throw our hands up in the air and say, "Well, you know what? The Bible contradicts itself." It doesn't.
Who are they writing to? Let's start right there. Who is James writing to? James is writing to a bunch of Jews in Jerusalem. He's the head of the Jerusalem church. He's writing to Jews who have been saved out of Judaism.

Now what's Judaism? Judaism is all about doing works. They are bound. They are under this heavy burden of doing good works—obeying this commandment and that commandment and doing this and that. Their whole life is under this strict burden of, "I have to obey all of these laws and obey them to the letter." And so, when a Jewish person realizes that they are saved by faith, what is their natural tendency going to be? Where is the pendulum going to swing? It's going to swing way on the side of, "I don't have to do anything anymore."
"I can just do whatever I want. I don't have to obey anything. I'm not saved by all the works I did. So, the burden is gone. Woo! Let's enjoy life." Right?

"I don't have to worry about doing any good things anymore." That's the way they would swing. What about Paul? Who's Paul talking to? Paul's talking to Gentiles. Totally different story. The issue Paul is dealing with, like when we go to the book of Galatians, is that the Jews are trying to tell the Gentiles and Paul that they're not saved by faith alone. They have to add circumcision. So, they have to add to it. They're completely different arguments. And so, Paul, when you read him, you need to understand who his audience is. And when you read James, you’ve got to understand who his audience is and who he's trying to communicate with. But I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt that James and Paul are in agreement that we are saved by faith alone and not by the things that you do. I can assure you that 100%. This is the issue that's at hand.  The issue at hand is whether you have a living faith or a dead faith.

Watch what it says here. Verse 14: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? That's the question. Can a faith—if you have faith but there's no good deeds that you're doing in your life, there's no good things that are happening in your life—can that type of faith save you? And notice how it says it. It doesn't say if you have that faith. It says if someone claims to have faith. Whoa, that's a whole different story there. I know a lot of people that claim to have faith. Just because you claim to have faith doesn't mean you really have faith. There's a lot of people claiming to have faith. And so, if someone claims to have faith and then there are no deeds or good works that accompany it, can that faith end up saving you? Can you be saved? Is your faith—or what you claim to be faith—genuine or not? Faith, you say, that isn't manifested by works—he's going to say—is dead.
It's dead.

 

Look at verse 15. We'll keep going. Suppose he gives us an example: 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.

So, James calls faith that doesn't result in good works—he calls that dead faith. It's dead because it's just words. I'm saying something, but it's just words. There's no evidence or proof that it's really genuine. If it was real faith, then there would be life coming from it. There would be life change from having God in your life. And as a result of that, you'd have good deeds.
Dead faith is in reality not really faith at all.

Here's what James is not saying. I want to clear up this too, especially for anybody that leans on the Catholic side. James is not saying that adding good works to your faith makes the faith alive. So that's the natural tendency. Because you're sitting here and you're going, "Well, wait a second. I have faith. I have faith." And then you're like, "Yeah, but there's no good deeds. I don't have any good deeds in my life." And then you're like, "Well, geez, do I really have faith or not?"

You're like, "Well, I know how to fix that and make sure that my faith is not a dead faith and it's a living faith. What I'll do is I'll add good works to it and then it will be alive." See what I'm saying? And that's not what James is communicating. What James is communicating is he's saying that your faith is genuine and living when there are works because that's the evidence of the faith. It's the evidence. Works is evidence of faith that already exists. And James isn't the only one that says this. It's not just James that's saying that works are necessary—that they have to be manifested as a result of your works. He's not the only one that says that.
 

Paul says that. If we look at the book of Titus: They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good (Titus 1:16). So, Paul is saying that somebody can claim to have faith, but their deeds and their actions show that they really don't have faith. That's what's going on here.
 

Now Jesus argued the same thing, didn’t he? He's talking to the Pharisees, right? Get the Pharisees out there. He comes up to the Pharisees and what's his problem with them? They talk all righteous. They talk all good. They talk like they're super religious. They claim to have great faith, and Jesus says to them in Matthew 15:7–8, *"You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'"

So, the key here is your deeds have to be connected to and the result of a changed and transformed heart. And the changed and transformed heart comes because of faith alone. Faith is the engine, and all of the action that comes out of that—all the turning of the wheels—that's all the result of the faith. It comes out.

So, I was thinking about this. You know what the main criticism people have against the church is? What's the main criticism people have of the church? It's that Christians make all these claims about God. They make all kinds of claims about faith and how we should live and what we should do. And then they don't do any of it, right? You claim to be holier than thou. You claim to be good. You claim to have this certain moral standard. You claim that God is all this. But when push comes to shove and when the rubber meets the road, you're no different than anybody else, right? I mean, that's really the issue. You don't live any different than anybody else. You still lie, you badmouth, you cheat, you swear, you live with each other before you're married. You name it, you're just like everyone else.

Is the problem that there are a bunch of Christians with true living faith that are on occasion making mistakes? Is that really the problem, you think? I don't think that's it because people are smarter than that. People around us that see us living—they're smarter than that.
People know that people make mistakes. No, the problem is that at least in America, the majority of people who claim to be Christian don't have a genuine living faith. Church after church after church is filled with people that don't have a genuine living faith. They've never really surrendered and said, "You're my Lord. I'm going to follow you. I'm going to be obedient to you. You are my Lord." They've never done that. They have this belief that they have a no-lordship type of salvation. There's no such thing. There's no such thing.
 

The problem is that their faith isn't real. You have churches full of people claiming to be Christian that don't have real faith. And so, what comes out of them is life without faith. They don't act any different than anybody else when they're out in the world. They might act like that in the building. They might act a certain way in the building, but when they're outside of the building and when they’ve got to make tough decisions, they don’t base those on Christ. And so, everybody's like, "Well, you know, they're just a bunch of phonies."

There's a great book by Brennan Manning. He was a believing Catholic, a Christian Catholic. He's a great, great writer. I'll tell you something about this guy—he just gets me excited. One time he made a deal with a warden so he could check into prison just to preach to prisoners, even though he hadn't committed any crimes. He wanted to preach to shrimpers—guys on the shrimp boats up north. And so, he became a shrimper just so he could preach to the shrimpers. This guy just knew how much God loved him. But this is what he says:

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

So, let's just get right into it. What is true faith? What does true faith look like?
The first thing we'll say—if you got your notes, you can put this down—is that it's more than words. Faith is more than words. Faith is more than a claim. You can't just profess to be a Christian. You have to live it out.

Verse 18 says: 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.
So, this is a guy giving a hypothetical question. He says, "Someone will say this." This hypothetical person sees faith and deeds as two separate, unrelated things. And James says that deeds are naturally the result of a life changed by genuine, living faith. That's what he's saying.
The problem with faith is it's in your mind. This is the issue with faith—anybody can tell you that they have faith. Anybody can tell you, "I'm a Christian. I love Jesus." How can I argue against that? I can't see in your heart. I can't see in your mind.

What's in my mind and what's in my heart and what I believe is invisible to everyone. It's invisible. So that's the crazy thing about faith—it's that you can't judge somebody by them claiming to have faith as to whether they are truly faithful. We don't judge that way because it's invisible. You can't know. And that's why somebody can claim to have faith and not have it.

You can claim whatever you want, but we judge faith by the results of it. You say, "Well, how do I know if it's windy outside? I can't see the wind." Well, I can see the result of the wind. I can see the leaves moving and I can see the flag dancing. I can see that, and so I know there's wind.
How do I know that somebody has a genuine faith? Because I can see the results of it. I can see how they live. I can see how they're upright and they're true. And not that they never make mistakes, but the general pattern of their life is this work toward holiness and growing and having a relationship with God. You can tell that there's evidence that Jesus lives in that person. And so that's one of them—that it's more than words. It's more than just a claim.

Here's the second one that we get from James in verse 19: You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
So, here's the second one: it's more than believing orthodox theology.
I don't know if you knew this, but did you know that the devil has better theology than you? That he knows the Bible better than you? Did you know that the devil knows all the stuff? You have false theology, false thoughts about God, but he is orthodox in his belief. The devil knows his eschatology, which means he knows about the end times. He knows exactly what's going to happen to him at the end times because he knows Scripture. And he knows that God has promised he's going to burn in hell for eternity. He knows that. He completely believes it.
You know that the devil believes that God is the Holy One. He knows that. That when demons are confronted by angels or confronted by Jesus in the New Testament, they bow down. Why? Because they have proper understanding of who God is. You know that demons know that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of every person on earth. That demons know that Jesus died on the cross specifically for you. And that by putting faith in Jesus, you are saved. Demons know that—and they are not saved. Their theology is good and right in the sense that they know the right things, but they're not saved.

You go, "Oh, Dustin, you're jacking with me now because I thought I was saved because I believed all the right stuff. I thought I was saved because..." And we get people all arrogant about the fact that they believe all the right stuff. "Well, I'm theologically correct and you're not theologically correct," and all of a sudden, it's this big whoop-dee-doo. Listen, man, that's not the issue. I mean, theology is important. We want to believe orthodox theology. But that is not enough according to Scripture. Are we saved by believing the right stuff? No. Because if we were, then demons would be able to get into heaven. I mean, they believe the truth about God. Here's the problem: they live in rebellion against God. Knowing the truth, they have not surrendered. They have not truly given up their selfish desire to live for self.

True saving, genuine saving faith results in a turn from living in selfish rebellion against God to living in God-centered obedience. And that turn is visible in the way you live.

Let me say that one more time. True, genuine, saving faith results in a turn from living in selfish rebellion against God to living in God-centered obedience, and it's visible in how we live. Some people mistakenly think that they're saved because they believe all the right stuff in their head, but others believe that they're truly saved because of the way they feel.

Let's keep going. It says in verse 19 again: You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
See, demons know the truth of God, and as a result, they have an emotional response to who God is. And so, here's another one: it's more than an emotional and charismatic experience. True faith, true genuine faith, is more than just shuddering before God. It's more than just showing up at a service and all of a sudden, the tears are running down your face and you have an emotional experience. A lot of people have that happen. Lots of people that aren't saved have had an emotional experience and a charismatic experience. And the next thing you know, they're thinking, "I must be saved," when in reality they have not turned from their selfish rebellion against God and have not turned to live in a God-centered obedience that shows a visible change in their life.

Verse 20 says: You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
 

Now James is going to give us two examples of faith proving that it is genuine. And the two people he uses couldn’t be more different from each other. One is Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith. The other is a repentant hooker named Rahab.Here's what it says. The faith—the faith that he had, that he believed God—it says it was made complete by what he did. If he didn't act out on his faith, it was the faith that saved him, but if he didn't act out on it, it wasn't complete because it wasn't genuine. Because it has to actually work itself out into how you live.
It says in the Scripture: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone (James 2:23-24).

Now that’s confusing, right? Let me back up a little bit. When did Abraham get saved? When did he become a believer of God and have eternal life? When was he, according to Genesis, credited with righteousness? When he believed. So, the moment that God makes a promise to Abraham and he believes with his wholeheart and begins to obey that, right? He says, "Hey, God's sending me to this new land," and he picks up and moves, right? Because he believes God, he acts in faith. The moment he believed in faith, he's considered righteous. He's credited with the righteousness of God. It's not until much later that he has this encounter where he's got to sacrifice his son, Isaac. That happens a lot later. He's already righteous. He's already been credited as righteous—Scripture’s clear about that—when he believed.
But that is played out. We see that it is real. It wouldn’t have really been real if he proved that he didn’t believe by not doing what God said and what God commanded, right?

 
So, you're seeing that the result of your faith—how you know that your faith saved you—is it's going to change the way you are and the things that you do, the way you act. That's what he's trying to say.

I'm going to give you one last identifier of Christian faith: it always has a cost. True faith always has a cost. If you claim to know Christ, if you claim to be a believer, and it has cost you nothing—it hasn’t cost you a change in your life, it hasn’t cost you losing anything—it’s just like, "You know what? I'm way better off now and I didn’t have to change. There was no difference in my life. And now I just get this little check mark that says I get to go."

Real faith cost Abraham. He believed God and he had to leave his home and go to follow God. It cost him his son. He had to be willing to sacrifice his son. Real, genuine faith will cost you something. Look at verse 25: In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? (James 2:25)
So, Rahab’s a prostitute, and she’s living in Jericho. This is the story. She’s living in Jericho. We just got done with Exodus. They wander around in the desert for 40 years and then they're going to go into the land. They get to Jericho and she’s there.
The thing about her is that she’s heard all kinds of stories about how great the God of Israel is—that He had opened the Red Sea. She's heard all this. She sees the power. And from hearing those stories, she truly believes in God. She believes that this is the true God. And this belief causes her to act in a certain way.

It’s her belief that caused her to risk her own life, to risk her own self, to side with the Jews and to hide these spies. And I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Well, how many good deeds do I have to do to prove that my faith is genuine?" You're like, "Okay, so I’ve got to have faith, but I also have to have good deeds. So, what’s the number? Are five deeds good? Do I gotta have 50?" You completely missed the point, right?

Let me finish with an illustration. I’ve adapted this from a guy named Stephen Cole. He’s a great pastor, and I like to read his stuff.
Imagine that I’m in Chicago. And when I’m in Chicago, I make a claim to everybody. I say, "You know what? I’m going to Atkinson." And they’re like, "Why?" No, I’m just kidding. They say, "All right, well, that’s good." So, I told them. I made a claim, and I start traveling west on I-80. And when I get about halfway there, I stop at a 7-Eleven because I need a Big Gulp. And so, when I’m there, there’s somebody that sees me, that heard me make the claim back there. And he says, "Hey, you aren’t going to Atkinson. You’re getting a Big Gulp." And technically, he’s right. Right now, I am not in the car going to Atkinson. Technically, at this very moment, I am getting a Big Gulp. But it’s because you caught me in this very specific moment. But that’s not a true representation of my journey. The true representation of my journey is that for the last hour, I’ve been traveling. I’ve only been here for three minutes.

Yes, I stopped for a minute. There is a section where you saw me in a couple of moments where it doesn’t look like I’m traveling to Atkinson. But if you look at the whole tenor of the last couple hours, it’s clear that I am moving toward Atkinson. I am trying to get there.
The true picture of who you are and whether you have faith and whether your actions are demonstrating that you have faith isn’t based on one event. Some of you get nervous. You’re like, "Well, wait a second. Maybe I’m not saved because I sinned yesterday." Well, no. Let’s look at the entire journey.
 

Your life is not going to be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness. It’s going to be an upward spiral toward holiness, but it’s not going to be unbroken. There’s going to be times where you fall off the cliff and times when people are going to watch you and say, "Oh, he’s getting a Big Gulp. He’s not going toward where he’s supposed to go. He doesn’t look like he’s where he’s supposed to be." And so, I may fall into sin from time to time. And on my faith journey, that’s going to happen. But the overall direction of my life should be toward holiness. The overall direction should be—we should see good deeds in our life. Deeds you wouldn’t have done before you had faith.
 

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God (1 John 3:9).

I remember that used to freak me out when I first got saved, because I was like, "I just sinned, so I must not be saved," because it said right here, No one who is born of God will continue to sin. And I just sinned. It’s not saying you’ll never ever sin again. It’s saying that you can’t continue in sin. The Holy Spirit in you will not allow you. Now that God lives in you, you gave your life to Him, He is at the center of your life—He will not allow you to start living in perpetual sin. You will feel guilty. You will feel a struggle.

Are you in a struggle? That’s good evidence. Are you fighting for righteousness? When you come to situations where you know, "Do I choose to do the right thing or not?" do you just forget it and say, "I'll do whatever I want. This isn’t even an issue. I’m not going to continue in sin. I won’t camp there." The Spirit of God within this person who is truly and genuinely saved by faith alone—that Spirit won’t allow it.
Are you saved by faith and works? You are saved by faith alone, which is manifested—the results of which—you will see that you are saved by faith alone by the way you act, by good deeds that come out. And that’s the difference between a Catholic theology and a Protestant theology: we’re not adding good works in order to earn anything. We are noticing good works that are proving, "My faith is real."
It’s real and genuine.

 

CLOSING PRAYER:
God, I thank you for your word. Thank you that we have some tests to do. You’ve been giving us tests for the last several weeks on whether our faith is genuine. You tested us on trials. You tested us with temptations. That’s going to be a test for us. We have how we deal with the Word of God—whether we listen to it or whether we obey You. And now we are seeing that a proof of our faith that shows it’s genuine is that we see good deeds as a result of the faith that we have. God, if there’s any of us in here that run through this test and we say to ourselves, "I don’t think I’m saved. I think it was just a claim. But I don’t see any results." God, for those that are in that position, we pray right now:
"God, I want genuine faith. God, I truly believe that You are God, that You love me, that Your death on the cross was for me. And I believe You did everything necessary for me to have a relationship with You, to be with You forever. And God, I surrender to You. I go the next step that often people forget. I tell You, 'You’re my God. You’re my Lord. You’re in charge of my life.' And I am putting myself under Your authority. God, lead my life, direct my life. And now prove to me by the works that You bring about, by changing my heart, prove to me that I am Yours and that I have eternal life." In Jesus’ name, amen.