This week we have been answering the question “What is the
difference between Belief and Conviction?” We talked about the reality that our
behavior is not about our beliefs; our behavior is about our convictions. What
we really believe is revealed by how we behave. And it is our behavior that
often betrays what we say we believe to reveal what we truly believe.
And to experience a genuine and growing relationship with Jesus is
not simply about having beliefs about who Jesus is and what we ought to do.
Instead, to experience and genuine and growing relationship with Jesus is about
having convictions that drive us to do what we ought to do. We see this reality
revealed for us in a section of a letter that was written by the half-brother
of Jesus and is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, beginning in
James 2:14-26.
James revealed
the reality that to say that we believe in Jesus but do not behave in a way
that looks like Jesus may mean that we have not really been rescued by Jesus.
If our behavior looks nothing like Jesus, then a natural question that must be
asked is “Do we really know Jesus and have a relationship with Jesus?”
James anticipated the person who would say “Well you
think you are saved by trusting in Jesus. Well look at everything that I do for
Jesus so that I can be right with God. You go ahead and trust in Jesus; I trust
in what I do for Jesus" by revealing that a person’s belief in God cannot be demonstrated apart
from their behavior. A person’s belief in God is revealed by their attitudes
and actions.
James then began to unpack this reality with three
different examples. James used demons as an example because having all the
facts is not enough to have the faith that rescues us from our selfishness and
rebellion. The difference between being separated from
God and experiencing a relationship with God is not having the facts; it is
what we do with the facts.
James then gave a second example from the life of Abraham.
James explained that God tested Abraham
to prove his belief in God and His promise to him. The only way that Abraham
could prove his belief, however, was to behave in a way that demonstrated his trust
in God. Abraham had to act on his belief and trust that God would keep His
promises. The idea of Abraham being justified, or declared not guilty of having
a problem with God, in verse 21, is the idea that Abraham’s belief was
demonstrated and validated.
Abraham's belief was perfected, as it says in verse 22 by
his behavior. What Abraham did in Genesis 22 was the outworking of his belief
that was described in chapter 15. We see this concept of the interconnection
between belief and behavior in the third example that James provides in James
2:25:
In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified
by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
James points
the readers of his letter, and followers of Jesus throughout history to the
life of a woman named Rahab that is recorded for us in a section of a letter
that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of
Joshua. Now, in the letters that make up the Bible, there cannot be two more
different people than Abraham and Rahab.
Abraham was a
man while Rahab was a woman. Abraham was religious, Rahab was irreligious.
Abraham was respected as the father of the Jewish faith, Rahab was a
prostitute. In Joshua 2, Joshua sent two spies on a reconnaissance mission to
the city of Jericho.
However, as the
spies went in to the Promised Land before crossing the Jordan
Now before they lay down,
she came up to them on the
roof, and said to the men, "I know that the LORD has
given you the land,
and that the terror of you has fallen on
us,
and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted
away before you. "For
we have heard how the LORD
dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you
came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of
the Amorites
who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and
Og, whom you utterly destroyed. "When we heard it, our
hearts melted
and no courage remained in any man any
longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God
in heaven above and
on earth beneath. "Now
therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have
dealt kindly with you, that you also will
deal kindly with
my father's
household, and give me a pledge of truth, and
spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my
sisters, with all who
belong to them, and deliver our lives
from death."
A little
further, we pick up the story in verse 17-18:
The
men said to her, "We shall be free
from this oath to
you which you have made us swear,
unless, when we
come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the
window through which you let us down,
and gather to
yourself into the house your father
and your mother and
your brothers and all your father's household.
By referring to Rahab, James is revealing for us the
reality that what rescued Rahab was not believing a set of facts. What rescued
Rahab was behaving in light of those facts by helping the spies escape Jericho
and by placing the scarlet cord out her window. I mean, imagine yourself as
Rehab. Rahab was placing her life and the life of her family in the hands of
two strangers who said that they follow the God that she has just recognized as
the living true God. Rahab had to place her belief into action by having the
conviction to trust the promise made by these two spies who represented God.
James point here is that the difference between being
separated from God and experiencing a relationship with God is that the belief
that rescues is validated and demonstrated by the behavior that it produces.
And that behavior is only produced as a result of having the convictions to act
on that belief by trusting God and the promises of God. The belief that truly
rescues produces behavior that flows from deep convictions that trust in Jesus
and are the proof of a genuine relationship with Jesus, as James points out in
James 2:26:
For
just as the body without the spirit
is dead, so also faith
without works is dead.
And it is here,
in this section of this letter, that we see James reveal for us a timeless
truth when it comes to convictions. And that timeless truth is this: A genuine belief in Jesus will create the conviction to
live a life that looks like Jesus. Just as it was for followers of Jesus in
James day; just as it has been for followers of Jesus throughout history, a
genuine belief in Jesus creates the conviction to trust in Jesus in a way that
results in behavior that looks like Jesus.
The timeless
reality is that experiencing a relationship with God involves more than believing a set of
facts; it involves more than an intellectual agreement with the facts; a
relationship with God involves the conviction to trust Jesus by jumping in to a
life that is centered around following Jesus. A genuine belief in Jesus creates
the conviction to behave in a way that looks like Jesus by trusting in Jesus in
a way that provides the proof of a genuine and growing relationship with Jesus.
So here is a question to consider: Do you have beliefs or
do you have convictions? Do you have beliefs that tell you what you ought to do
or do you have convictions that result in you doing what you ought to do?
Because our
behavior is not about our beliefs; our behavior is about our convictions. What
we really believe is revealed by how we behave. And it is our behavior that
often betrays what we say we believe to reveal what we truly believe. It is not
enough to say that we believe something to be true. Instead, it is our behavior
that reveals what we really believe to be true.
And to experience a genuine and growing relationship with Jesus is
not simply about having beliefs about who Jesus is and what we ought to do.
Instead, to experience and genuine and growing relationship with Jesus is about
having convictions that drive us to do what we ought to do. And a genuine belief in Jesus will
create the conviction to live a life that looks like Jesus...
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