This past Sunday millions gathered together to watch the epic finale of the 2015-2016 football season, Super Bowl 50 (“50” because our society struggles with Roman Numerals and “50” in Roman Numerals is simply “L”… and that’s boring). On Monday, hundreds of thousands of those fans took to social media to debate the best commercials, the bad calls, the half-time “show”, the quarterback’s attitudes… and the list goes on and on and on. Simply put, we are ALL Monday morning “experts”… or at least we talk that way on social media. It reminds me of what we are going to be studying this week in our #MechanicalChristianity series.
I could get on social media and claim to be a football expert. I could give you accurate stats (as long as I have access to Google). I could even pull up my pee-wee football 8mm films from the early 80’s to prove my credentials. I could get on social media and proclaim that I’m the best football player there ever was or ever will be…and then someone will undoubtedly say, “Ok, tough guy. Prove It!”. James tells us in James 2:14-26 that you might be able to talk a big Christian talk and you can probably even quote a few Bible verses. You may even own several Bibles… BUT, do you live it? Can people identify you as a follower of Christ simply by observing your fruit? Why is that important? Because faith, without works to prove it exists, is dead. Dead means… dead. There’s nothing good about “dead”. There’s nothing hopeful about “dead”. So, my question for you is way more important than your opinion of a game that most have already forgotten about. Is your faith dead? Join us this week as we look at James 2:14-26, “A Fruitless Faith”.