September 10, 2024

Today's Reading: James 2:1-10, 14-18

Daily Lectionary: 2 Kings 9:1-13, 10:18-29; 2 Kings 13:1-18:8; Philippians 2:12-30

“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

St. James reminds us that there are no exceptions under the Law of God. Just as Jesus Himself says that even lust is adultery, and even hatred is murder (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28), so James says that there are no exceptions to the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” You could keep the whole thing, but if you stumble at even one point, if you fail to love even one person, you are guilty of the entire Law. The Law is whole, not divided. So, a failure to love one person is, before God, the same as failing to love everyone. Love, like the Law, cannot be divided up.

Our failures to love are failures of faith. There is no true faith that does not produce works. We cannot claim to have faith if it does not show itself in works. The reason such faith is dead and cannot save is not because it does not have works, but because it is not faith. As Paul tells us in Ephesians, the one who walks around in sin and trespasses is dead in those sins. But the one who has been saved by grace through faith alone walks around in good works (Ephesians 2:1-2, 8-10). Being dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus always produces love for those around us.

Of course, we still fail at love because we still have an unbeliever living in our flesh. The Old Adam refuses to believe, and so refuses to love. Jesus, however, completely trusts His Father, and so loved, and loves, completely. He loved us so completely that He would not leave us dead in our sin. “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7). 

Until our sinful flesh dies completely, we live as two because both Law and Gospel are entire: a living believer in the Father through Christ, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and a dying unbeliever, dead in sin, refusing to love. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:24-25).

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

O grant that nothing in my soul May dwell, but Thy pure love alone; Oh, may Thy love possess me whole, My joy, my treasure, and my crown! All coldness from my heart remove; My ev’ry act, word, thought be love (LSB 683:2)

-Rev. Timothy Winterstein is pastor at Faith Lutheran Church, East Wenatchee, Washington.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

The new Guiding Word series takes you through all the books of the Bible in six volumes. Starting with the Books of Moses—Genesis through Deuteronomy—you will explore every passage of every chapter of each book with the help of maps, diagrams, links between the testaments, and clarification points.