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Saving Faith and Security
James 4:13-5:6
Each week we’ve approached James with this simple question: what does saving faith actually look like? How do we discern saving faith from false faith? For it is a frightening thing to build a life on something that, in the end, will fail us.
As many of you know, I grew up going to a little lake in Michigan. It was a beautiful and magical place. But there is a dark reality to it, that would wake me in the night with nightmares. On the far side of the lake there are sand dunes. On the other side of the sand dunes lies Lake Michigan. The wind can be fierce blowing from the West with nothing to stop it as it blows over the water. As a result, sand constantly blows into the lake. As the story goes, in a century the lake would be filled in because of it. In my dreams I would awake to find only small puddles where the lake once was.
What’s even more frightening is the living examples of it. There is a nice cabin next to the dunes that gets partially buried each winter. If you get there in May and early June you will find a large excavator moving sand off and away from the cabin, filling any vehicle with free sand willing to carry it away. It is a losing battle. There are already countless cabins buried to its west.
Someone invested a lot of money into that cabin, probably many decades ago. And soon it will disappear, never to be seen again.
What caused such a disaster? They built on the sand. It didn’t seem unstable when they built. There was a forest where the dunes were. But the timber industry, after the great fire in Chicago in 1871 triggered a high demand for lumber and the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan was an easy target. So they cut down the trees and the roots that held the sand in place slowly decayed and the sand began to drift.
This story highlights what James warns us against. Don’t build your life on things of this world. They may look stable but they are not. And when you do, whether you realize it or not, out of a desire to stabelize your own future, you risk destroying that of others.
You may recall a parable of Jesus that drives this point home:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)
Saving faith builds a life on covenant faithfulness rather than visible securities. As the prophets put it, we are to live by faith (in the invisible kingdom) and not by sight (of the worldly kingdoms).
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By James 4:13-5:6
Each week we’ve approached James with this simple question: what does saving faith actually look like? How do we discern saving faith from false faith? For it is a frightening thing to build a life on something that, in the end, will fail us.
As many of you know, I grew up going to a little lake in Michigan. It was a beautiful and magical place. But there is a dark reality to it, that would wake me in the night with nightmares. On the far side of the lake there are sand dunes. On the other side of the sand dunes lies Lake Michigan. The wind can be fierce blowing from the West with nothing to stop it as it blows over the water. As a result, sand constantly blows into the lake. As the story goes, in a century the lake would be filled in because of it. In my dreams I would awake to find only small puddles where the lake once was.
What’s even more frightening is the living examples of it. There is a nice cabin next to the dunes that gets partially buried each winter. If you get there in May and early June you will find a large excavator moving sand off and away from the cabin, filling any vehicle with free sand willing to carry it away. It is a losing battle. There are already countless cabins buried to its west.
Someone invested a lot of money into that cabin, probably many decades ago. And soon it will disappear, never to be seen again.
What caused such a disaster? They built on the sand. It didn’t seem unstable when they built. There was a forest where the dunes were. But the timber industry, after the great fire in Chicago in 1871 triggered a high demand for lumber and the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan was an easy target. So they cut down the trees and the roots that held the sand in place slowly decayed and the sand began to drift.
This story highlights what James warns us against. Don’t build your life on things of this world. They may look stable but they are not. And when you do, whether you realize it or not, out of a desire to stabelize your own future, you risk destroying that of others.
You may recall a parable of Jesus that drives this point home:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)
Saving faith builds a life on covenant faithfulness rather than visible securities. As the prophets put it, we are to live by faith (in the invisible kingdom) and not by sight (of the worldly kingdoms).