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3-minute Sermon
 
Official Service Sermon > Official Service
Official Service
Title
   Faith without deeds is dead    
Speaker
   Rev. Jaerock Lee
Bible
   Jas 2:14-26
Date
   



God showed His love by allowing his begotten son to be crucified on the cross. So, God wants His children to realize what the true love is and to share love truly with Him. God is pleased when we love Him not only with words and tongue but also with action and truth without without sparing our lives.
Now let’s look into what the true love that God is pleased with and wants, is and the correlation between the faith and love.

1. Love with deeds is true love
Nowadays many people confess, "I love you". However, the confession from the true and unchanged heart is more important than the confession of just lips. Who would believe if you said that you loved someone with doing what he hates? If you truly love someone, you will do what he wants at any cost. So the true love is followed by the action naturally.
It is the same as the relationship between God and us. It is useless before God that if you don’t do the action even though you confess, "God, I love you" with lips many times. So, it says in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." Here, we should realize that God doesn’t love us only with words but with deeds.
Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God showed such a great love by letting His begotten son to be crucified on the cross to save us. We should know that He also proves His love by answering, blessing and showing miraculous signs.

2. The correlation between faith and love
James 2:14-17 says, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ’Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
This principle of true faith is also applied to the true love. 1 John 3:17-18 says, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."
Therefore, we should understand well the correlation between faith and love. To understand God’s love, the spiritual love, we firstly should meet the living God, the basis of love. It’s because only with the faith, we can meet God in the four-dimensional world, spiritual world from the three-dimensional world.
Only with the faith we can believe unseen God and we can meet or experience the living God through this faith. Also with the faith, we can live in truth hoping for eternal heaven.
The more our faith grows, the more we hope for heaven, understand God’s love and we can’t not stop loving God.
We could see through our religious life. When we go to the church at first, we learn that Jesus was crucified on the cross for our sins, and God created the heaven and earth and sent His begotten Jesus to us, etc. We can’t become children of God and feel the love of God and the love of the Lord in deep heart until we believe in this fact.

3. The depth of love related to the growth of faith
When we have a faith at first, the love which we feel is different from the love which we feel as our faith grows and we know the living God well.
When we feel the love of God at first, we give thanks to God and shed tears endlessly because we realize the love which we have never known. But it is not because we fell the love of God completely in deep heart. As our faith grows and we know God’s heart through our religious life, we could feel the love of God all the more.
Men can’t feel the love of parents well until they give birth to babies and become parents. Likewise, we who were born again in the Lord can realize the love of God and feel it when our faith grows from faith of children to one of father(1 John 2:12-14).
Paul apostle said in Galatians 4:19, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you." So those who give birth to a spirit through the Holy Spirit can realize the love of God completely.
We can know that God gave the measure of faith to everyone as it is said in Romans 12:3. If our faith grow, we love the Lord more than anyone in the world with unchanged faith under any circumstances and environment. As our faith grow, namely, we can resemble the perfect love of God because we realize the love of God all the more and is overflowed with heart of love.

4. Deeds of faith is the evidence of love
Love along with the growth of faith become perfect by actions because faith become perfect by deeds. So, what I showed any deeds of faith is a measure to show how we love God.
It says in James 2:21-22, "Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Issac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did". Abraham didn’t think his own way but obeyed God because he feared God. God saw his actions and considered his faith righteousness. Because actions of faith of Abraham was evidence of love for God.
God said to him, "... Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." and acknowledged love of Abraham.
There were many ancestors of faith who loved God through actions of faith. There was Antipas, faithful witness in Revelation 2:13. When he died where Satan had his throne, he didn’t renounce his faith. It was evidences of love for God that he didn’t renounce his faith. It is very impressive to hear about martyr of Antipas.
An Rome officer seized Antipas and placed him before an image of a deity and forced him to bow to an image of the Roman Emperor. But he answered him, "There wan no king of kings, lord of lords except Jesus Christ. So, I never bowed anyone". An Rome officer lost his temper and cried out, "Didn’t you know that the world was against you!".
At that time, Antipas boldly confessed with faith, "If so, I was against the world and admitted Jesus as lord of lords". An Rome officer, who got angry, put him in the burning brass kiln and killed him.
If we love God like this, we will show the actions of faith that we are not afraid of dying.

5. God showing the evidences of His love to us
The faithful people sometimes take disadvantage in the world for a while because they loved God. They would be persecuted and to keep his faith before God. But if God doesn’t show any love to them, how would they do?
Of course, the salvation is the greatest expression of God’s love. In other words, God allowed his begotten son to be crucified on the cross to break walls of sin between God and us. Which could be compared to God’s love, who prepared beautiful places for us in the eternal heaven and reward our deeds with prizes and bright glories?However, if there is no answer from Him though we did with faith in the world and prayed to God or If He didn’t bless us and we still lived a hard life, although we lived by words of God, we can’t feel His love deeply in our heart.
There could be those who give only thanks to God under this environment. But many will not be able to do so. But we don’t have to worry because God shows His love to those who loves Him when they show their love to Him through actions of faith.(Proverbs 8:17).
God saves those who are destined to death or to heal those who suffer from illnesses and diseases. Also, he helps those who are in need and answers to those who pray to himself. He even explains the secret of the spiritual world and His words to those who love Him very much. Likewise, God surely shows any kinds of love to those who love Him.

Dear brothers and sisters,
1Corithians 13:13 says, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love". Faith and hope are needed in this earth until we enter to the heaven, but love will be eternally in heaven. So the greatest of these is love.
However, we should keep in mind that faith plays a role of root until we bear fruits of love. In parable of a tree, faith is the root and hope is a trunk and love is a fruit.
Therefore, we can’t have hope for heaven or love of God without faith.
God expresses His love to us. So if we show our deeds before God, he acknowledge them as the evidences of love and He surely answers to us. We have a bigger faith through this and can believe words of God without any doubts and be overflowed with hope for heaven. Also, we can realize the delicate love of God who answers to our prayers and desires and we can love Him all the more. Therefore, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you can show your deeds to God and resemble perfect love of God and love Him sincerely and receive God’s love.

 
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