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This is Glendale Presbyterian Church, People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman titled, "Formula for Fantastic Faith." At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number two for the remainder of the message. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are

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reserved. Any public or commercial use, in full or in part, requires the advanced written permission of Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. The private use of this material for the spiritual gain of yourselves or others is heartily encouraged. And here for a personal word before the message is Dr. Thielman. Hello. For the last few weeks I have been talking with my friends here at the Glendale Presbyterian

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Church about the steps to Christian maturity. We have talked about being born from above, about living the life of faith. We've discussed what it means to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in your life through confession. And we have also talked about how the Christian resists temptation. Today I want to talk about another step toward Christian maturity and that concerns

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the expression of one's faith through loving works directed to others. I want to explore the relationship between our faith and the living of our faith. These are the thoughts I'll be sharing with the folks here and it gives me great personal pleasure to be able to share them with you also. I hope that you will be as blessed in the hearing of these words as I have been in my

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study of God's Word in preparing to bring these words to you. Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the letter of James, the second chapter, beginning at the verse numbered 14. "What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith and has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill

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clad and in lack of daily food and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith.' You believe that God is

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one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by works and the scripture was fulfilled which says Abraham believed God and

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it was reckoned to him as righteousness and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead. And may God bless to us and

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to our understanding this reading from his word. Let us pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. He probably would never have noticed her had she not been crying. It was her weeping which attracted his attention. She was a black girl being sold on a slave market in the southern part of the United States a little over a hundred years ago. He went

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to her and asked her why she was weeping and she explained that until this time in her life she had always been the property of but one family and now she was being sold and was quite anxious about what her new situation would be like, indeed was terrified. He went and inquired as to her price. When he was told he hesitated a moment for it was a great deal, but then he went and bought

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her and going to her said, "I have bought you and I set you free." She was unable to comprehend the meaning of that having been born into slavery and been a slave for all her days, but when the moment came for her to sign the document which indeed made her free, she began to weep again for the knowledge of what had occurred became very clear to her and she said, "I shall serve you all the

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days of my life." Her friends said, "That's just exactly the opposite of what you must do. You're free now. You can go where you want to go and do what you want to do." But no matter how they counseled her, she always answered with this single phrase, "But he redeemed me. He redeemed me." She went with him to his home. She worked in the fellowship of that family and became a part

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of that family. She spent all the days of her life there in devoted service to this one who had set her free. And years later when people would see this devoted service and compliment her on the way in which she offered herself totally to this man and his family, even then her response to those people would always be the same, "He redeemed me. He redeemed me." That story is historically

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true, but it's not only true out of history, it's true out of today. For any Christian who has had the experience of being set free by Jesus Christ, who is able to say in his heart or for all the world to hear, "He has redeemed me." Anyone who is so able to proclaim his faith naturally offers himself or herself in devoted service to that one who has set them free. It is important, I think,

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for us to recognize once more that no one of us is capable of gaining or earning our own freedom. There's a wonderful little story about a man who died and went to heaven and there was met by St. Peter at the gates of Pearl and told that he had to have 50,000 honor points to enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, he said, "That shouldn't be so hard. I have a 40-year perfect attendance record

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at Sunday school." And St. Peter said, "That's excellent and that's worth two points." Two points, two points. "Well, I've been a Presbyterian elder for 21 years." "Superb," said St. Peter. "That's worth one point." One point, one point. "I've been a tither all of my life. I was brought up a tither and have never failed to tithe and in more recent years have been more than a tither." "Now, that's

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really outstanding," said Peter. "That's worth two points." "You mean all of these things together are worth only five points and it takes 50,000 points to enter the kingdom?" "That's right." "Well, on that basis, no one will get in there but by the grace of God." And St. Peter said, "That's right." It's a good story because it points out we can't earn glory, but it's a bad story in that it suggests

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we can earn even a few points when in point of fact the whole testimony of Scripture is that none of us can earn our way in or even earn our way toward the kingdom of heaven. It is the free gift of God given to us in Jesus Christ who sets us free. We have sinned and gone far from him. Like that prodigal and the story he told. There was a little boy who was told that story of the

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prodigal son and then before the story was finished when the boy was on the way home, they asked him this question, "Now, what do you think his father will do when he gets home?" And the youngster replied without any hesitation, "He'll probably bash him." And I think the world thinks like that. But the glory of the gospel is that by reason of the fact that we go home with

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our hand in the hand of Jesus, by the confidence which we place in him, offering our very selves to him, in that act you see, we are accounted righteous. We are justified just as if I'd never sinned. We stand before God forgiven. Like that slave girl, we cannot earn our freedom, but it is given to us and we stand free because we have been redeemed. Not because of what we have done,

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but because of what has been done for us. I think it can best be understood in terms of a formula. There are many people you see who believe that it is necessary for one to have faith and then add to faith a certain number of good works. And on the basis of the faith plus the works, they will be justified and stand pure before God. This is not the testimony of scripture. There is no

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suggestion within its pages that we are capable of any works which will earn for us in any part our freedom before God. On the contrary, what the scriptures teach is that if a man has faith, that is holds fast to the Christ who reaches to him. As a result of that faith, that man will be justified, stand before God forgiven, and in that new relationship with God will express the faith

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which is his by offering himself to God in devoted service. This is the formula for a fantastic faith. The formula which understands that the faith that saves is alone in its saving us. But the result of that faith inevitably is not only our standing pure before God by the blood of Christ, but also our offering ourselves, our saying like that black girl to whom I referred moments ago, "I will serve

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him all the days of my life because he redeemed me. He redeemed me." Think of it in these terms. Suppose that I go into a store to buy a necktie for $5. I give the man a $5 bill. He refuses to give me the necktie because he says the $5 bill is a counterfeit. Now why has he not given me the tie? Not because the tie costs more than $5, but because the $5 which I have offered is in fact

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not a genuine $5 bill. It is a counterfeit. Now James speaks in exactly these terms in the passage of Scripture which I just read. He says faith without works is dead, but by saying that he is not suggesting that works must be added to faith in order for us to be saved. On the contrary, he is saying that the faith that is offered must be a genuine faith, not a counterfeit faith. And any

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faith which is genuine will inevitably result not only in our being one with God, but our offering ourselves in total service to Jesus Christ. He gives two illustrations of this. Abraham was called the father of the faithful, but his faith demonstrated itself by his willingness to offer his son Isaac. That was a work. Or he refers to Rahab. Rahab was known as a faithful woman, but

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her faith is demonstrated by the fact that she shielded the Israelite spies. Jesus puts the whole concept in other terms. He says, "Do grapes come forth from thorn trees? Good trees bear good fruit. Bad trees bear bad fruit. They can't do otherwise. Now trees that don't bear good fruit are to be cut down and thrown into the fire. It is by a man's fruits that you will know the man." Just so, if a

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person is authentically demonstrating faith and offering himself to Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ to the Father, the fruit will be works that demonstrate the depth of his commitment. James says, "Why claim faith if your actions don't correspond with it?" It's desperately important that we get hold of this because there are so many who are making a perilous mistake because

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they have not. I think of a businessman in the church that I served back in the East. You can describe this man's business practices with only one word, crooked. He was dishonest and he admitted that he was dishonest. On more than one occasion, he came to me during a nine-year unsuccessful ministry toward him. He came to me and said, "I realize that the life I am leading is a dishonorable

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one, but I am not saved by my own works but by the works of Jesus and I am depending upon him to save me." Now that is a blasphemous comment. Oh, it's true his own works would not save him and it's true only the works of Jesus will save him, but what is untrue is that one can have a saving relationship to Jesus Christ and then not have the fruits, the vital, vigorous, crucially important

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fruits of that faith evident in one's Christian experience. It's like the song which the children sing in the primary department. "If you know you've been saved, shout amen. If you're saved and you know it, shout amen. If you're saved and you know it, your life will surely show it. If you're saved and you know it, shout amen. Your life will surely show it." This is what John means when he says in

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his epistle, "If anyone has the world's goods and sees a brother who is in need and closes his heart against that brother, God's love is not abiding in him. My little children," he continues, "let us love not in word or in speech but in deed and in truth." And what is love? Love is faith demonstrating itself in action, faith at work. Now as Christians we are not given the authority to judge one

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another. However, we are given the authority to be fruit inspectors and as I look at some Christian lives, I wonder really whether they're really Christian or really Stoics. Stoicism was an ancient religion which had a doctrine called apatheia. It's from that word apatheia that we get our word apathy. Basic to the Stoic conception of faith was that you must never permit anything to move you.

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You must never permit anything to touch your emotions. You must never show pity or compassion or any kind of mercy. You must never let yourself be gripped down inside. Remain above everything on your own level of completeness and wholeness undisturbed. Well, I look at some people's Christianity. Individuals who at one time or another made a confession of faith, walked down

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an aisle or signed a card or threw a branch onto a fire or stood up before a session or a congregation and gave their testimony of commitment. In some way or another, they have asserted themselves to be disciples of Jesus Christ and when they talk about this, they often talk about it in the most unctuous phrases about spending time in the Word, about sweet hours of meditation.

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They're ready to expound at length about their bitter battles with the devil and about the silent times which they have and all of that is good. But there must be more than that. For the Christian faith is like your television set. It has both a vertical and a horizontal hold and if either one of them are out of line, you can't watch the picture. So that if you have only that

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vertical hold of quiet times, of Bible times, of bitter battles in your heart with the devil and you have no expression of love reaching out to others, well then you're what Jamie Owen said, nothing. And she was but echoing Paul. His words were these, "Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could move

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mountains and have no love," and love is faith at work, "and have no love, then I am nothing." When some individual comes to me having made some affirmation of his belief and tells me that he spends his time seeking the fruits of the Spirit, I think of that list of fruits as it appears in Galatians. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

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And I notice that six of those nine fruits can only be experienced when you're ministering to someone else, not when you're ministering to yourself. There has to be this outward reaching. In the Congo, they have a serious problem today because when they take a black man from some village and educate him, put an understanding of the truth into that man, he goes back to the

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village. And instead of then devoting his new knowledge to the service of the village, he becomes very proud of the fact that he's so smart and sits down and waits for everybody else to serve him. Exactly the opposite of what should be happening. And what so often happens in the Christian faith is that an individual makes a commitment to Jesus Christ. They spend a lot of

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time with other Christians, open the doors of the church and they're here. They're great in discussion groups. They're ready to confess their sins at the drop of a hat to you or to anyone else who happens to ask. But it stops right at that point. It never goes beyond that point to a meaningful ministering, serving relationship, the kind of devoted service which is inevitably

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the fruit of one who has been bought and who says from his heart, "I shall serve him all of my life because he redeemed me. He redeemed me." And to serve him is to serve others. Back in the church that I served in the East, there were two very famous stained glass windows, huge windows, much larger than the ones that were in the sanctuary across the street. And unlike those

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windows, they were not copies. They were originals. They were made in Germany. People come from all over the country to see them. And these windows magnificently depicted the transfiguration of Jesus. And one Tuesday afternoon in a wintertime, I walked into the sanctuary and the sun happened to be at such a position that its rays were coming directly through the picture of the

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transfigured Christ and then going in splendor across the sanctuary and landing in a puddle or a pool of light right on the communion table where the golden offering plates were stacked. And I saw that picture and I sat there and meditated on it until the sun went down. For here was the transfiguration experience. Jesus went up into the mountain with the A team among

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the disciples, but he didn't stay there, though they wanted to. It was not enough for him to have only the vertical hold. He did not lose himself in some pious dream. It wasn't just faith. Out of this, you see, came a journey into a valley where he ministered to a father who was upset and a little boy who had epilepsy. There has to be, you see, the mountaintop, yes, but

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then out of this faith must come work, the work which is the expression of devotion to God and the faith that does not have works. Well, James says of it, faith without works is as dead as a body without a soul. It is not enough just to believe. James says, even the devil believes and trembles. Short-sighted man, don't you see, he continues. It's not enough only to have faith,

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for faith without right actions is useless. When you make an initial commitment to Jesus Christ, other people may not notice that. When you start to spend more time with Christians in the fellowship of the family of God's people, other people may or may not notice that. When you confess your sin to some other Christian and thus open the channels of your life so that the power

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of the Holy Spirit given to you in baptism can flow into every atom of your being, well, other people may not notice that. And you might be engaged in a constant conflict with Satan, resisting temptation, however it comes to you, and other people may or may not notice that. The one thing which they will notice invariably and without exception is this, if all of these previous

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things are real, then your life should be so changed that you are going out in acts of love to all men in the name of Jesus Christ. And that no one can miss. Charles Sheldon wrote a remarkable little book, they sold millions of copies of it, called "In His Steps," about a minister who one day encountered a tramp and pushed the tramp aside because he was hurrying

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to write his sermon. And the next morning during the service, right at the end of the sermon, this tramp, who was in fact an unemployed printer, staggered down the aisle, had a serious heart condition, and he said, "What is the matter with you? And what is the matter with this fellowship of God's people that you claim to belong to God, that you claim to belong to each other, that you

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talk about your good works, that you mouth phrases about your fighting with temptation, but when someone has need you walk by on the other side of the street? What kind of faith is that?" And having asked that question, he falls to the floor in the grip of a heart attack. That much of the story occupies only the first two chapters of the book. For certain members of that congregation are

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so touched by this experience that they decide to walk the rest of their lives in his steps, in the steps of Jesus, serving as he served. And the rest of the book is the record of their experiences. If you want to read a book which will force you to examine your own life, to look at the kind of fruit that is coming from the branches of your Christian experience, get hold of that book. It's

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out at the book table. "Are you walking in his steps? By their fruits ye shall know them. Faith without the works that prove it is dead." [silence] Greatest barrier to effective evangelism in the world today is faith which never changes lives so

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that they become active testimony to the love of God. In Braithwaite, England, some years ago, there was a fire. A father and a son were in the little house that caught fire. The father got out, the son didn't. Trapped in a room on the second floor. A man by the name of William Dixon ran to the house, climbed up the outside of the house using the drainpipe, got into the house and saved the

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boy. But the heat of the fire was such that that drainpipe was red-hot and he burned his hands hideously when he climbed up and down that pipe. About six years later, the boy's father died and the boy was put up for adoption. Three people offered to adopt him. The local schoolteacher who admired the boy because of his excellent work in school, an aunt of the boy, and this William Dixon

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who had saved him from the fire. The court heard the testimony of the schoolteacher and knew that the schoolteacher was best qualified to be the boy's parent. Then the court heard the testimony of the aunt and knew that the aunt by relationship was closer to the boy than anyone else. And then William Dixon came to the stand and William Dixon was given the boy. Yet he never uttered a word of

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testimony. He simply held up his hands. People don't believe till they see your hands. And why should they? For faith, as James says, is like a body without a soul until it demonstrates itself in love. There's a man named John Sergeant Cram who lives in New York City. He's turned over his house and all of his property to the service of men in the name of Jesus Christ. And he has quite

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a house and quite a property. He's a millionaire, a graduate of Princeton University and of Oxford University. He was interviewed by a major newspaper and in the course of the interview he said, "Most people say I'm eccentric, but I understand this to be my reason for living. I have no other reason." And in the neighborhood where John Cram does his ministry, he is called by the Spanish-speaking

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people "Papa Dio." Well now, has anyone ever called you Papa Dio? Has anyone ever called you Father God? Has anyone ever seen in you the kind of works that will so touch lives? I know a Presbyterian elder in San Diego who shall go unnamed, who is vigorously opposed to any social action on the part of the Church. The Church should not be involved in any of these social activities which

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are part of so many churches' ministries today. Just preach the gospel. That's it. Just the gospel and nothing other than the gospel. And he puts his whole effort as an elder into the propounding of that theory and that idea. Then about a year ago, his teenage daughter disappeared. He got one letter from her telling him that she had gone into the drug culture and she went the whole route, ruined

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her mind and her body and her spirit. But she was picked up off the street, off the refuse pile of life in Seattle, Washington, by a street minister of a Presbyterian church there who is engaged exclusively in a ministry to social outcasts, not our kind of people. And he brought her to her father God through Christ and to her father back in San Diego. And now that Presbyterian elder has

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a different view about what the ministry to society really is. For you see, it becomes faith, lived out in action. It is vitally and crucially important, for faith without that kind of action is not faith at all. I think this morning of a church that's engaged in a low-cost housing ministry for older citizens. And as soon as that plan to build housing for older folks who can't

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afford the kind of housing that they would like was brought forth, there were those who opposed it. They said the church shouldn't be in the housing business. That's what they said when the church built the first hospital. The church shouldn't be in the hospital business. That's what they said when the church built the first school. The church shouldn't be in the education business. That's

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what they said when the first church bought the first camp and recreation center. The church shouldn't be in the camping business. Every time there is an authentic, genuine, exciting outreach into the world to demonstrate faith in terms of the works that transform men, there are those who say the church shouldn't be in that kind of business. And if the church of Jesus Christ isn't

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to be in that kind of business, who in the name of God is? The faith is not something that you can put into a bottle. It is not something that you can hoard. It is not something that is done in a corner. It is something that is displayed and spread and offered as you offer yourself in the name of the Christ who has offered himself. You have listened to these steps to a fabulous future

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which I have outlined in the last weeks. And some of you, I am sure, if we had a moment of privacy together would say I have done all those things and it has profited me nothing. Well, hear me. First, you receive the gift of God's grace and are born again from above. Second, you move into the family of the faithful ones. You live with them. You learn from them. You know the fellowship

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of love and that experience and you lift your life and the lives of others in devotion and praise. Third, you confess your sins to one another, keeping yourselves cleansed that the power of the Holy Spirit might energize you, that dynamo of the deity might pour his power into you and send you. You resist temptation in step four, standing with sobriety and care, resisting the devil and

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casting your anxieties upon God. But the inevitable result of these four steps must be an outreach in love, must be this formula if it's to be fantastic. Faith, making oneness with God and oneness with all men in service. And it's when you get into that last step that other men see and behold and when they see and behold, turn and offer themselves to the same God to whom you've offered yourself.

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What will it be like, this fabulous future? Well, I shall tell you what it will be like. One day there will come an angel who will stand before God and he will have beside him a mortal man and God will say, "Who is this man and what are his claims?" And the angel will say, "He claims Christ and this man is a great inventor who has shed much light upon the pathways of men." And

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God will say, "Let him enter into the kingdom of heaven and stand beside the angel Uriel, for Uriel is the angel of light." And then another angel will come and he will have a man by the hand and God will say, "Who is this man and what is his claim?" And the angel will say, "This man claims Christ and he was a noted philosopher who, Father Almighty, thought by thoughts after thee." And God will say,

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"Let him enter in and stand beside Raphael, who is the angel of reason." And yet another angel will come leading a man by the hand and God will say, "Who is this man and what is his claim?" And the angel will say, "This man claims Christ and he is a great composer and with his music he has thrilled the hearts of thy disciples." And the music which he wrote echoes still throughout the

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corridors of the church. And God will say, "Let this one enter in and stand with the angel Gabriel, for Gabriel is the angel of song." And then another angel will come leading one more by the hand. And this one will not be a singer who's noted, or an inventor who's famous, or a philosopher who's been able to think even some of the deep thoughts of God. Yet there will be something about this

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man which will be distinguished too. And God will say, "Who is this man and what are his claim?" And the angel will say, "He claims Christ and he comes bringing to thee the souls he has by his work, his loving faith, won." And in that moment, you, for you will be the one with the angel by the hand. You will not hear what God says in response. For at the announcement that you have

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brought by your loving works, the souls of believers to the throne of Christ, at that announcement, every angel in heaven will sing. And the cherubim and the seraphim will take up the song. And there will be a rejoicing in the kingdom of heaven because of one who has believed, and because of you who through your love have led them to belief. A rejoicing which will thrill you.

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No future can be more fabulous than that. And that kind of fabulous future can begin for you. Today, to be a part of the chorus that sings, "I shall serve him with all I am, for he redeemed me, he redeemed me. Praise God, he redeemed me." Let us pray. Oh, blessed Redeemer, mold us, make us, use us. Make our faith a faith that works. And because of this faith, and because of this working,

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may men come to know thee, and come to be with thee for all eternity. And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you and to all those whom you love, and to all those whom nobody loves, his peace.

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