04/09/2021
Zoom Bible Study 3/31/21 “Faith is dead without works.”
by Stan Shacklett former VP of FSMM
presented to First Biker Church of America
Before I begin, a little bit of a back story on why I'm teaching in the first place: several weeks ago, pastor Cecil thought it would be interesting if he had different speakers leading the lessons so there would be a different point of view each time. Two speakers had preceded me and he asked me if I would like to do it. My knee-jerk reaction was “ohhh nooooo!” I had never thought about doing such a thing, much less aspiring to it. Then I thought that maybe God had something in mind, after all I have been in the Christian community for 50 years, so maybe I could contribute—so I agreed. Well, He did have something in mind, Holy Spirit taught me how to teach with taking an old text with old ideas and making it current to this day and time. It must have worked—I got applause!
So, the following lesson is my second attempt at teaching, hope you all get something from it:
Intro: Interesting how all this came about...the book Servolution by Dino Rizzo, was given to me by my former pastor of 10 years. It spoke to him and since he knew that I was given to 'service' he wanted me to read it. Well, that opened up a floodgate of emotion, so I wanted to teach on it. I wondered if there was a section on “faith and works” and there was in Session 4 in our study guide. I volunteered to teach on it but with the emphasis on serving since that's what Servolution is ALL about. I was taking a break from reading Servolution and watching television and the Holy Spirit was talking to me about which scriptures to use—there were three. Mind you, I hadn't read beyond “faith and works” scripture in the Session Guide. After reading the Session, Holy Spirit kept the first one, omitted the others listed in the Session, and added two more.
The next night, again while taking a break, the Holy Spirit told me what to call the three scriptures using a modern day vernacular, which I'll get to later. I thought that it was really amazing that He would use a modern day expression to make His point!
1- (Faith is dead without works) James 2-14-17 “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.” The key to this verse is that when you do a work, your faith moves from (death to life).
And now the two scriptures that God added:
2-(God loves a cheerful giver) 2 Corinthians 9:7 “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” The key to this is realizing that when you do a Godly work you feel good and thus become a (cheerful giver).
3- (receive the reward) Colossians 3:24 “knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” The key to this is being rewarded for your service either by a spiritual 'high' or something tangible. You will (receive the reward) either way.
With the first scripture, “Faith without works”, basically, anything that you say or do that blesses someone is a good work. It can be very simple and without deep intent, but as long as it blesses, it is good. By doing this work, our faith moves from death to life.
And now a story about a very simple remark being a blessing: I was leaving the gym last Friday and telling the manager to have a blessed weekend and his response surprised me. “Stan, you don't know what that does to me to hear you say those words, thank you.”
And with that reaction from the manager, I felt good that I made a difference in his life. That brings me to the second verse, “cheerful giver.” I was definitely feeling good and cheerful. I refer to that as a euphoric experience from God. I believe that He designs us to have a 'high' from blessing others. See how these two verses are tied together?
On a story about the 'work' of salvation, a few of us from a previous church met for lunch at this restaurant in the area after service. There was a certain waitress who always served us and we saw the opportunity to build a relationship with her. This went on for a few weeks.
The former pastor stopped by one time to attend a service and he and I ended up having lunch since the others were tied up in a meeting. When we had the same waitress, I briefed him on her and that the group had been prepping her for salvation. As it turned out, he had to leave immediately after eating, but he said to me, “promise me that you will ask her if she would like to accept Christ before you leave.”
“How do you know that she is ready?” was my shocked reply.
“I sense it,” was his response. I told him I would even though my previous attempts at other quests usually fell short.
When she brought the bill, I did ask and she surprised me with, “yes, I do.” I was flabbergasted!
I had her sit across from me at the booth and had her repeat-after-me and she asked Christ into her heart. I was so pumped (cheerful tie-in) that I went back to church to see if the meeting was over. It wasn't; I went home. I told everybody later.
On another story about the 'work' of salvation, my special guest for tonight is one of my sisters who has an interesting tale about an attempted salvation followed by a completed salvation: she begins, “I attended a service with a friend and there was a 'salvation' message given, but no altar call. I even went down front, because I felt the draw of the Spirit, and asked the preacher, and all he did was apologize.”
“Why didn't he lead you right then and there?” was my shocked reply!
“I don't know, I just left there puzzled,” was her response.
Later, the salvation work was completed as the Gospel was preached to our whole family by our cousin and my sister was first to receive Christ; and I was second to receive Him. One could say that the seed was planted deep for my sister at the previous church service.
On a larger scale, when you know of a need and you can meet that need, it will obviously be a blessing. The book, Servolution, is a detailed account of a church in Baton Rouge, La who had a vision of serving the community with no strings attached and how it met the needs of the hurting and impoverished. It began with visiting the widows, which grew to about 300.
Another experience involved a church yard sale. A little old lady wanted to barter with the price of a 50 cent wind chime; she wanted to pay a quarter. Others were doing it too with different items and this caused the pastor to throw up his hands and announce that everything was free with limitations on how many items per family. Everyone went nuts with excitement and there was even newspaper coverage on the “free yard sale.” This showed the church that doing things for free was what the Lord wanted all along. He was going to show His plan for blessing the community and for the church to follow suit with everything they did to meet the needs of the community, the city, the state, and the country. They were even involved with sending workers to NYC after 9/11. They were really tested on service when hurricane Katrina hit.
The original name was Trinity Christian Center and after serving the community for six years, God changed it to Healing Place Church. It grew exponentially when people could testify that the church really cared about their needs and met them by any means necessary. Can you imagine the Godly euphoria brought on by meeting the bigger needs? (cheerful tie-in)
This now leads us into the third scripture, “...receive the reward...” This is why HPC grew exponentially. God was rewarding them for their service which was above and beyond the basic call of duty that the average church does for the community.
I'm sure that we all have stories about how God has blessed and rewarded us for blessing others. The euphoria cannot be calculated when you are doing the will of the Father!
I mentioned earlier that after Holy Spirit told me the three scriptures to use one night while taking a break, I wondered why he told me while my mind was on something else. I came to this conclusion: He wanted to stress to me that it was His idea and not mine.
And, on the following night, He gave me the modern day vernacular to refer to these three scriptures, again while my mind was on a television show. Holy Spirit said with regard to the first two scriptures, “you're familiar with a win-win situation (first two—death to life and cheerful giver), well this is a win-win-win situation involving all three.” (death to life, cheerful giver, and receive the reward)
Well, I told Holy Spirit, “look at you, using modern day terminology to make your point—how cool is that!”
