Faith Without Works and the Loyalty That Makes Faith Alive
- James declares that faith without works is dead because true belief must move into action.
- Rather than earning salvation, works become the visible fruit of grace and real allegiance to Jesus.
- John’s stories of Nicodemus and the woman at the well show that active faith leads to bold discipleship and evangelism.
What is faith without works? Well, according to James—that’s Jesus’ half-brother, the one who wrote the letter of James, the leader of the church of Jerusalem—according to James, faith without works is dead. And you know that if faith is just in your head, something you think, then you can have faith in a lot of things that you never act out on. But if faith moves the 18 inches from your head to your heart and then into your hands, then faith implies that you will work out that faith. You will express that faith in how you live.
But if you’re married, you know this. If your spouse says, “Oh, I love you, you know I love you,” but they don’t come home at night, that’s a problem. If you say to your kids, “Oh, I’m loyal to you, I’m going to give you my allegiance,” but you never go to a game, you never tuck them into bed, you never pray over them, then you’re not showing allegiance to that child.
Same thing with a team, a boss, a friend. If we say that we believe in someone, it’s not just what we think in our head. It’s what we feel in our heart. It’s what we express with our hands.
James was very clear: faith without works is dead. And that makes perfect sense if faith is not an intellectual assent or even a feeling, but an expression of loyalty, allegiance, or fidelity.
“James was very clear: faith without works is dead.”
I want to give you an equation. Why this has been such a large question in Christendom is that Paul says in Ephesians 2 that we’re saved by grace through faith.
So people are really kind of touchy when you start adding things to grace, and they should be. Like, “I’m going to earn my salvation by doing something for God.” That’s heresy. It’s not Jesus plus your works equals salvation. It’s not Jesus plus your behaviors. It’s not Jesus plus your past. Jesus alone saves you.
However, the works are an important element of our expression of faith. So rather than eliminating works altogether, what if we put works on the other side of the equal sign: Jesus equals salvation plus works. It’s not that we earn our salvation in any way by what we do. But true salvation in Jesus, true relationship with him, will demonstrate itself in loyalty. 
So let’s be very clear: we are saved by grace alone. But that salvation works itself out not just in what we think, not even in what we feel, but in how we live our lives. In that way, faith without works is dead.
In the Gospel of John, we see a character sketch that is super interesting to me: Nicodemus versus the woman at the well. Nicodemus is in chapter 3; the woman at the well is in chapter 4. Usually they’re read separately from one another. I think that’s a mistake. John wanted us to see them as two parallel but different expressions of faith.
“The works are an important element of our expression of faith.”
Nicodemus, on the one hand, came to Jesus at night, and he said, “Master, we’ve heard that you’re a teacher come from God. Would you like me to join you? I’m on the Sanhedrin.” And what did Jesus say to him? “You have to be born again of water and the Spirit.” In other words, Nicodemus, if you want in, it’s at ground level like everybody else. You come as a newborn child.
The woman at the well, on the other hand, was quite different from Nicodemus. Nicodemus was this powerful religious figure. She is scandalous and a woman. He’s a Jew; she’s a Samaritan. He’s wealthy; she’s not. They couldn’t be more different.
Let me ask you this: who was the true disciple of Jesus?
We see Nicodemus three times through the book. The first time, in chapter 3, he comes to Jesus at night. Jesus goes to the woman at the well in the middle of the day. Jesus told Nicodemus, “You have to be born again in water.” He told the woman at the well, “I will give you living water.”
You see the difference. Nicodemus was a stunted disciple of Jesus, and at the very end of his life, he buried Jesus. If, like Nicodemus, you believe in Jesus in your head and even in your heart, but you don’t express it with your hands, the closest you can come is being a caretaker of Jesus.
“If, like Nicodemus, you believe in Jesus in your head and even in your heart, but you don’t express it with your hands, the closest you can come is being a caretaker of Jesus.”
This woman, however, expressed her faith in a real way. Regardless of her past, regardless of her problems, she ran to the town and said, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.” And because of that, the whole town comes out. Because of that one woman, Jesus was made famous in all of Samaria. In fact, nowhere in the Gospel is anyone a better evangelist than the woman at the well. You see, they confess something of Jesus that no one had confessed to him and wouldn’t for years: he is the Savior of the world.
If you want to be an effective disciple of Jesus, it requires faith, true faith. Not just in the head, not even just in the heart, but in the hands. Because, as James said, faith without works is dead.
