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Today's talk comes from Pastor Louis Gaglio.

The chapter that we're reading today, chapter 2, really, I believe, is an expansion of the end of chapter 1.

In chapter 1 ends with this verse, the very last verse, verse 27.

And when James uses the word religion, he's not using it in a contemporary sense that we would use it in, like one of the religions of the world or how you act, and so you hope that you can be okay with God.

He's really talking about true faith, would it be to be a true Jesus follower?

And so he ends chapter 1 by saying, religion that God, our Father, accepts as pure and faultless is this.

So this is what God's looking for in a true Jesus follower, in true faith.

This is what is at the heart of that kind of faith, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

And then I believe James takes all of chapter 2 to unpack that.

He says, for example, that would look like not showing favoritism to the rich when a rich guy or rich family shows up saying, oh, you can sit here, but you poor people, y'all can just go sit over there.

He says, oh, and it would look like not giving empty hope to a person that's struggling like, we're glad you're here. God bless you. Be well and be fed and be warm.

Knowing that they're going to walk out the door and not be fed and not be well and not be warm.

He said, that is not the kind of true faith that God is happy with.

And then he says, to unpack it even further, it's a kind of faith that actually produces works.

But all of this chapter, he's expanding on the idea that the kind of Christianity to put it into our language that God is happy with today is the kind that treats rich and poor alike and isn't concerned about the possessions that people have or their external situation.

That doesn't simply offer empty hope to someone by saying, I'll pray for you and I don't know where you're going to sleep tonight.

You can work that out, but God bless you. I'll be praying for you and the kind of faith that is simply faith in the context and the pretext of what I believe but isn't visible in the way that I live.

And James brings all this home, I believe, in his big axiom and it's found in verse 24 of chapter 2.

And when you were reading along and doing your soap journey, if you didn't take a big gulp at this verse, then maybe you were paying enough attention to the text.

Because he says you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

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