Sermon Outline 3.15.2026

Title: BECAUSE HE'S NOT THERE, I CAN'T STAY WHERE I AM
Text: James 2:14–26
Big Idea: The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a doctrine to be filed away — it is a force that moves people. A faith that has genuinely encountered the risen Christ cannot remain unchanged. Where there is no movement, there was never a meeting in the first place.

I. The Question James is Really Asking (v.14)

• He is not asking whether faith saves. He is asking whether that kind of faith saves.
• Three kinds of faith are before us: Dead, Demonic, and Divine. Only one of them is real.

II. Dead Faith is Still in the Tomb (vv. 15-17)

• A faith that produces no works has never been made alive.
• The words cost nothing and accomplish nothing. (vv. 15-16)
• Dead faith has not been united with anything. It is still in the tomb. (v. 17)
• 1689 LBCF Chp 16

III. Demonic Faith: Out of the Tomb but Going Nowhere (vv. 18-19)

• Correct theology without surrender is demonic faith, not saving faith.
• The objection: an either-or type of faith. (v. 18)
• Correct doctrine without surrender to the lordship of the one that doctrine describes is demonic faith. (v. 19)
• Judas's example
• The question James is pressing: has your faith ever actually moved you, or does it simply sit where it has always sat?

IV. Divine Faith: Moved by the One Who Moved the Stone (vv. 20-26)

• Witness One: Abraham (vv. 20-24)
• Witness Two: Rahab (v. 25)
• The Closing Argument (v.26)

Application
1. Have you encountered the risen Christ, or have you only learned about him? Many will say, "Lord, Lord" on that day and hear, "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:21-23). The word "knew" in Scripture is relational, not informational. Judas knew about him for three and a half years. Peter knew him. The difference was not information — it was surrender. Do you know him as Lord, or only as Rabbi?

2. Are you trusting in the finished work of Christ, or in your own performance? Works-driven righteousness (the attempt to put God in your debt by your activity) is what Isaiah calls filthy rags. Not because the works are bad in themselves, but because the motive corrupts them entirely. Cain and Abel both brought offerings. Abel brought the firstborn — his first and best. Cain brought leftovers. God accepted Abel's. The issue was never the offering's category; it was what the offering revealed about the heart.

3. If you are a believer, what has the resurrection moved you to do that you were not doing before? The empty tomb is a commission to be carried out. Romans 6 says that because we have died with Christ, we will also live with him, and that life is not static. The Spirit takes the Word like a hammer and chisel and works from the inside out. It does not make you look more Christian from the outside, but produces progress, not perfection.