Faith That Works

Faith isn’t just something you believe in — it’s something you live in.

You may already hold the key to everything God has promised, but without action, the door remains closed.

In this episode, we explore how faith, when put into action, goes beyond logic, defies natural limitations, and brings the impossible to life — through faith in God and our Lord Jesus.

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
- James 2:26 NASB2020

If this message speaks to you, share it with someone who needs a reminder to move in faith today.
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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Foundation Of Faith
• 0:50 David’s Heart And God’s Choice
• 4:22 Faith Defined In Hebrews 11:6
• 6:01 Jesus Enters Capernaum
• 7:35 The Centurion’s Word-Only Faith
• 10:03 Why That Faith Pleased Jesus
• 11:28 Faith Without Works Is Dead
• 14:05 The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
• 18:11 Touch That Drew Power From Jesus
• 21:08 Turning Faith Into Action Today
• 24:20 Leaving Battles At God’s Feet
• 26:05 Prayer And Commissioning

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

The last week we heard about David and Goliath. And today we know that the battle is not ours, it belongs to the Lord. We just need to stand back and see the salvation of the Lord. Just as David knew it. Hallelujah. And today I want to start directly with a passage of scripture that backs up what happened in that situation between David and Goliath. Hallelujah. And I'm getting straight into it this beautiful morning because it's important. And as I said, most of us know the story of David and Goliath. And let's just say I'm starting with the foundation. And I'm going straight into it from the book of Hebrews, the 11th chapter, the sixth verse. Hebrews, the 11th chapter, the sixth verse says, But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Hallelujah. Hebrews 11:6. So without faith, this passage of scripture says it's impossible to please God. For whoever comes to God must believe that he is. And then he's a rewarder of them who diligently seek him. Hallelujah. And I'm going back to the beginning when David was anointed by Samuel, and I want to tell you, those of you who remember the story or don't, God asked Samuel to take anointing oil. And he said that from the line of Jesse will come the future king of Israel. And Samuel calls out all this, you know, the ten sons, but none of them are it. And then he calls out to David, who's in the field, a ruddy boy with a reddish complexion, the Bible calls it, and beautiful eyes, calls him, I'm sorry. And when he comes in there, Samuel anoints him, and God says, He tells him when he saw the previous son, who even Samuel thought should have been the king or would have been anointed as the king. He said, I don't look at the external appearance, but I look at the heart. Hallelujah. And I want to tell you this morning, God knew David's heart. God knew David's heart beats with faith toward God. And that was clearly visible when he took on Goliath being a shepherd boy. Hallelujah. And in case you didn't get that, let me just tell you, the statements that he made are clear evidence of it. Who is this Philistine who stands in front of the living armies? Who is this person who dare defile the armies of the living God? God has saved me from the paw of the lion and the bear, and he will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. Hallelujah. So in case you didn't get it, these are all statements from a boy who's a shepherd who has a very different heart towards God. And for those of you who are wondering why David was picked to be the king of Israel, let me tell you, it was his faith. And in case the story of David and Goliath has not done it for you, go and read the Psalms when you have some time. Read the Psalms of David, and you will understand the amount of faith that David had. And he was the most successful king of Israel. There never has been, and there never will be a time as peace in Israel as was seen at the time of David, because God had his hand over him because of the faith he had in God. Hallelujah. So today, as I said, I want to give each of you a firm foundation on faith. And fortunately or unfortunately, I want to tell you that the walk of faith is an individual's walk. From all the stories that you know of the Bible and on the names that you know that are mentioned in the Bible, the only reason why they are mentioned there is because of their walk of faith with God. And that's where they're mentioned by name. Or it's or it would have just they'd just be called a man or a woman. But they're called by name because of their faith. And today, as I said, I want to build that foundation with you on faith. And as I said, the rest after that is on you. Your faith walk is on you. Because without faith, it is impossible to please him. And I'm going to take this statement and I'm going to take you back to a time when Jesus is on this planet. Because anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists. And he's a reward of those who diligently seek him. And I'm taking you to a time when Jesus is on this planet now, and he's walking, and most of you know of the Sermon on the Mount, or the Sermon on the Mountain, or the Beatitudes, as people call it. And Jesus is speaking and he's spoken to the crowds with authority. He's speaking about the kingdom of uh heaven, the kingdom of God, as the Bible refers to it. And now he's got multitudes following him, and his fame is spreading. And the Bible says, immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, he enters a city called Capernaum. And just as he enters, I want to tell you these are different times. So the city is under the rule of the Romans. And just as he entered, there is a man who comes up to him, and the Bible refers to him as a centurion, which means this person is of Roman descent. He is the authority in the city. And a centurion clearly means he has hundred soldiers below him. And the Bible says the centurion comes to him, he just walks up to him. It just says that Jesus enters Capernaum and a centurion came to him and he said, in fact, the centurion pleads with him. I want to give you a background. Romans believed had a very different belief system. They didn't believe in the living God, they believed in elements. And I'm not going to get into those names today. So basically, the centurion does not believe in the living God. But Jesus is there and he walks up to him and he pleads, the Bible says, saying that he has a servant lying at home on a bed who's paralyzed and dreadfully tormented. Those words itself are scary. He pleads with Jesus, saying, I have a servant at home who's lying at bed, paralyzed and dreadfully tormented. And Jesus only replies one thing, I will come and heal him. And then you have to listen to what the Bible says as a centurion's response to what Jesus just said. Jesus says, I will come and I will heal him. And the centurion answered, and here's I'm here's when I'm reading it to you from the word of God, from Matthew the 8th, chapter the 8, verse onwards. The centurion replied, Lord, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. Hallelujah. Lord, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. Hallelujah. And then he goes on to tell him, For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. If I say to this one, go, he goes. If I say to that one, come, he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. And Jesus, at this point of time, listen to his reaction from Matthew, the eighth chapter, the 10th verse on was when Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those who were following him, that means he looked at everyone who was following him and said, Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in the whole of Israel. Hallelujah. Number one, because he's a centurion, he doesn't believe in the living God, and which is why he probably thought, Lord, I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof. I'm not worthy, Lord. So just say the word. What faith? Just say the word. And you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take the word of Jesus, who stopped, who was amazed, and he looked at all the crowds that were following him, which included all his disciples, and probably quite a number of Roman soldiers, along with the centurion who were there, and the crowds that were there saying, Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in the whole of Israel. Wow, hallelujah! And then he goes on to say to the centurion, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed. Hallelujah. Jesus didn't even say a word, he just said, Go, it's been done for you as you have believed. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hebrews 11:6 says, It without faith, it's impossible to please him. I want to tell you, this is him, and he's on this planet. And the centurion pleased him. The faith of the centurion pleased him so much. If Jesus says that this man has so much faith that I've not seen in the whole of Israel, you can only imagine the amount of faith he must have seen in the centurion. Hallelujah. Jesus is pleased by his faith. Just say the word, Lord. You're not worthy. I am not worthy that you come to my home. Just say the word, Lord. Hallelujah. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And I won't tell you this morning the centurion's faith pleased him so much that he had to call out that the whole of Israel he had not met anyone who had faith as such. Hallelujah. And as I said, today is a day where I want to give you a foundation. Today is a day when you'll understand why David beat Goliath. And you should mark down this passage of scripture in your Bibles. And I'm taking to the crux of the subject this beautiful morning, James, from the book of James, the second chapter, the 26th verse. From the book of James, the second chapter, the 26th verse, it says, For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Don't be alarmed by the scripture, I'll explain it to you. For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. And I'm not going to get into the first half of this passage of scripture this morning because that's a subject for a whole new day. But I will get into the second half of the scripture, and I will tell you this morning, faith without works is dead. Also, you can have faith and you can be alive, but without any works, faith is dead. This is a very deep, hard-hitting scripture if you read it and you meditate on it. Faith without works is dead. So I'm on this planet and I have faith, but if I don't put it into works, my faith is dead. What does this passage of scripture actually mean? I'll tell you, I don't have bad news for you. I always have good news for you because Jesus came on this planet to give us good news. Faith without works is dead faith. Is that what this passage of scripture is trying to tell us? What is the meaning of works? What do I have to work? I have faith, I believe in Jesus. What is the meaning of works? I have a wonderful example, and I will share with you today. And I will leave you with that beautiful example. And it'll make you understand what is the meaning of faith with works. What is the meaning of this passage of scripture when it says or it refers to the word works? Faith without works is dead. And I'm going back to a time when Jesus again is on this planet. And the story, just for you, if you'd ever want to refer to it, is there in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And some of you know the story, and some of you don't. But I will share it with you this morning. And I'm specifically sharing the one from Luke. But as I said, it's available in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There's a time when Jesus is walking through the city. He's actually going somewhere else. He's going to do something else. And there is a woman in that city who has an issue of blood for 12 years.

unknown: 14:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 14:26

And the Bible says that uh let me just tell you, this is the only time in the Bible that this woman is even mentioned. She's not mentioned anywhere else. Neither does her name crop up any any other time. A woman with an issue of blood for 12 years, and she gets to know that Jesus is passing the place. And she thinks to herself, if I may just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. I said some of you know the story and some of you don't. For those of you who know it, it's a deep, hard-hitting one. And for those of you who don't, hear it for the first time and understand it. So if she had an issue of blood, I can tell you this much, she probably didn't have a husband. The Bible says she spent everything she had, all her livelihood, the Bible says, on physicians, and she could not get any better. And in fact, made her worse. So she was an outcast, she couldn't go to the place of worship. She was constantly bleeding, which means she wasn't, she would have probably been an outcast in the whole of society. She probably lived at the outskirts of the city, just as the lepers did. Because she was at that time considered as what they would call unclean. But she gets to know about the Messiah walking through the city, and she thinks to herself, if I just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. And some of you have a wonderful imagination, and you should actually take some time and imagine the situation where Jesus is walking to do something else. He's actually going to heal somebody else's daughter. And because he's in a hurry, because that person comes to him and says, Lord, my daughter is very unwell, he goes in a hurry, the Bible says. And the disciples are following, and the crowds are following him, and everyone is just chaos, and everyone is squeezing against him. You can only imagine the pandemonium when Jesus is moving quickly among crowds. So the Bible beautifully puts it, and there's crowds thronging with him, uh, thronging against him, and his disciples are probably pushing people away and crazy. And the Bible says that he's walking and he stops, and he looks around his disciples and he says, Who touched me? And the reason why I said I'm referring to the story from the book of Luke is Luke only talks about this passage which says Peter looks at him and he says, Jesus, Master, do you see the crowds around you? And you are asking, Who touched you? And Jesus turned around and tells Peter, Someone touched me for power has gone out of me. Oh, hallelujah. Some of you can feel the presence of God. Jesus stops and says, Someone touched me. And Peter said, Master, do you see the crowds around you? And you are asking who touched you? And Jesus said, Someone touched me because power has run out of me. Hallelujah. And as the story goes, the lady trembling falls in front of Jesus and explains the situation and tells him that she is healed. And beautiful Jesus. He turns to her and he says, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. I told you these two passages of scriptures will tie into this one story that I'm sharing with you this morning. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. I want to ask you this morning, did she have faith you think that pleased God? Let me tell you something. She had such faith that Jesus did not even have the intention of saving her or healing her. He was just walking by. But she had such faith that if I touch the hem of his garment, if I just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. Such faith that she crawled. And if you ask me, I know she crawled in my spirit. I know she crawled because she was unclean. There would have been there would have been people who would have kicked her away when she came, went next to them. If you understand the time that she lived in. But she crawled, and the hem of the garment is the edge of the stitching. And she would have crawled, she would have been stamped on, trampled upon, people would have kicked her, but she made it. And it's because of that. That power went out of him. It was not his intention to save or heal her, but because of the faith. He just had to. Faith without works is dead. What was the work? I want to tell you she put her faith into action. And she crawled through the crowds. That is faith with works. That is the meaning of faith with works. And if you didn't if you didn't understand what this means, it means that no matter what your situation is, no matter what point you are in right now, no matter what situations are staring down at you. Has something made your faith dwindle? Is something happening with you? Where your faith is being badgered? I'm here just to tell you one thing through the word of God this beautiful morning. And from these two beautiful passages of scripture that will tie into your situation today. That you need to know that without faith it is impossible to please him. And just as the centurion pleased him, by his faith, just say the word, Lord. Just as the lady with the issue of blood for twelve years. Faith without works is dead faith. Oh, but she had faith that is alive. She had faith that was so strong that she knew that if I just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. Such faith that power went out of the living God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I'm here just here for that reason. This beautiful morning, God's kingdom works in very different ways. The Bible says, He tells Prophet Isaiah, My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord. Hallelujah. We might see our situations at a particular way and a particular path that we wanted to take, or a particular way we wanted to pan out. But I want to tell you this beautiful morning. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. When you go to him, you should believe that he exists, he is the creator of heaven and earth. When you go to him, you should believe that he can do the impossible. The Bible says, with God, nothing is impossible. And if you believe that, then you need to put your faith into works and you need to do something. And this beautiful morning, I want to tell you that you need to look at your own circumstances and your own situations because all of us deal with different things. And this morning, I'm just here to tell you these two passages of scripture that tie in through your action, it's only your action that will bring God into your situation. Please understand, we walk by faith and not by sight. If you're looking at your situation through the eyes of the world, then you will see a ten-foot giant. But if you are looking at your situation through Jesus, then you will see that there is no situation. Because the battle, as David knew it, belongs to the Lord. The battle does not belong to you or me, it belongs to the Lord. And if you leave it at his feet, that is you with works. That is you believing that he will take it. And then when you take a step towards it, which will seem impossible, it will seem impossible. But I want to tell you, the Bible says he's not a debtor to man, he is watching over his word to perform it. If you take a step of faith towards your situation and what I'd like to call a bit of work towards it, he will come through like you can't even imagine it. Amen. He will come through just as he did with David, just as he did with this beautiful lady who had the issue of blood for 12 years, who had no hope, no outcome. She probably had nothing to look forward to. Can you even imagine her situation? She probably had nothing that she could do. But she just thought, if I can touch the hem of his garment, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, oh, I'll be made well. I know I'll be made well. And that step, that faith with work, that was a lot of work to crawl through that crowd, to be kicked, maybe kicked deliberately, maybe not just stamped upon unknowingly, but even kicked deliberately, but still went on and then reached Jesus and then touched the hem of his garment. So much so, such a strong touch of faith that power went out of Jesus. He was not even intending to do anything, he was walking to do something else. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'd like to pray, dear Lord. I thank you for this beautiful time. Thank you for your beautiful word, your double-edged sword that does not go back until it has achieved what it has been set out for, Lord. I thank you, Lord, this beautiful day that we leave everything at your feet. We leave all situations at your feet. As your word says, without faith it's impossible to please you, Lord. That anyone who comes to you must believe that you exist and you are a reward of them that diligently seek Him, that seek you, O Lord. And I thank you this beautiful morning that we leave everything at your feet. And Lord, today, as your word says, as fake faith without any works is dead. I thank you, Lord, that you're giving people the faith to take a step towards all these situations, Lord. They will take a step towards it, they will put work towards their faith and they will leave it at your feet. Lord, as your word says, this battle does not belong to us, it belongs to you. They will see your salvation, Lord. Thank you for this beautiful time. Thank you for your double-edged sword, Lord. Thank you, Lord. For some people have left things at your feet in faith. And just as a woman with the issue of blood, touch the hem of your garment, Lord, they're touching you in the same way. And as your word says, ask, and it shall be given, they are asking you. And I thank you, Lord, that you are giving. When they seek you, Lord, they will find. As they knock, you will open the door unto them, Lord. Thank you for this beautiful time. Thank you for your beautiful presence that people can feel. Thank you, most of all, Lord, that those collides that they have left at your feet, those situations, those mountains that they've left at your feet have been destroyed. In the name of Jesus. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.