Sunday Morning with Pastor Michael Hopkins Jehovah Saints 08/23/2026

Faith That Feeds: A Sermon on Living Out the Gospel

A message prepared for Pastor Michael Hopkins, Jehovah Saints

Opening Prayer

Let us pray.

Jehovah, our everlasting strength, we come before You today as a people hungry not just for bread, but for Your Word. Open our hearts to receive what You would have us hear. Soften what needs softening. Strengthen what needs strengthening. Let every word spoken bring You glory, and let it move us — not just to feel, but to act. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, we pray. Amen.

Introduction

Good morning, church family.

I want you to picture something with me for a moment. Picture a man walking along a road. He's tired. His feet are cracked from walking barefoot. He hasn't eaten today, and he's not sure he'll eat tomorrow. He passes by a group of people gathered outside a building — people singing, people praying, people lifting their hands to heaven. And he keeps walking. Because in his experience, the songs don't come with bread. The prayers don't come with shelter. The lifted hands don't reach down to lift him up.

Now I want you to picture something else. Picture that same man walking down that same road — except this time, someone from that gathering steps outside. They don't just wave. They don't just say "God bless you, brother." They walk over, and they say: "Come. Sit. Eat with us. Let me get you something for your feet."

Church, that is the difference between a faith that talks and a faith that walks. And today, I want to talk to you about the second kind.

Scripture Reading

Turn with me, if you have your Bibles, to James chapter 2, beginning at verse 14. This is the King James Version:

"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone."

Let that sit with you for a moment. Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

That is not a suggestion. That is not a footnote to the gospel. That is the gospel lived out.

I. The Danger of a Faith That Only Speaks

Let's be honest with one another this morning. It is easy — it is so easy — to have a faith that lives entirely in our mouths and never makes it to our hands.

We say "I'll pray for you," and we mean it, and then we never do.

We say "God bless," to a man on the corner holding a cardboard sign, and we keep driving.

We come to church, we sing the songs, we raise our hands, we say "amen" in all the right places — and then Monday comes, and somebody at our job is struggling, somebody in our neighborhood is going without, and we do nothing, because it's inconvenient, because it's uncomfortable, because it might cost us something.

James doesn't let us off the hook for that. He says if you see your brother naked and hungry and all you give him is a nice word — "be warmed and filled" — and you don't actually warm him, you don't actually fill him — what doth it profit?  What good is that faith doing anybody?

I want to say this plainly, because I love you too much not to: a faith that never costs you anything has probably never really cost you anything. And I don't mean that to condemn anyone in this room. I mean it because I need to hear it too. We all do.

II. What Does Jehovah Actually Require?

Turn with me now to the prophet Isaiah, chapter 58. This is one of the most convicting chapters in all of Scripture, because it shows us a people who were fasting, who were praying, who were doing all the religious things — and God says, essentially, that's not what I asked for.

Verse 6 and 7:

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"

Deal thy bread to the hungry. Bring the poor that are cast out to thy house. Cover the naked. Do not hide thyself.

That last one gets me every time. Do not hide thyself. Because that's what we do, isn't it? We hide. We look away. We take a different route so we don't have to see the man on the corner. We scroll past the need instead of sitting with it. We hide from our own flesh — because that's what the poor are, church. They are not a project. They are not a statistic. They are our own flesh and blood, made in the image of the same God who made us.

And look at what Isaiah promises if we don't hide — verse 8:

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward."

When we stop hiding — when we actually deal our bread, cover the naked, bring in the outcast — Jehovah promises that His glory will be our rearguard. He will cover what we cannot cover. He will provide what we cannot provide. We are never poorer for having given. We are only ever poorer for having hidden.

III. The Sheep and the Goats — Who Did Christ Say He Was?

Now I want to bring us to the words of Jesus Himself, because this is where the whole matter is settled beyond argument. Turn to Matthew chapter 25, verse 35 through 40.

Jesus is describing the day of judgment — the separating of the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous. And listen to what He says is the deciding factor. Not how loud we sang. Not how long we prayed. Not how much doctrine we could recite. Listen:

"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

And the righteous ask Him — when, Lord? When did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked?

And Jesus answers in verse 40:

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Church, do you understand what that means? When you hand a plate of food to a hungry child, you are not just feeding a child. You are feeding Christ. When you give a coat to a man sleeping outside in the cold, you are not just clothing a stranger. You are clothing the Lord Himself. When you build a shelter for someone who has nowhere to lay their head, you are building a house for Jesus.

This is not metaphor. Jesus did not say "it is as if you did it unto me." He said "ye have done it unto me." He identifies Himself, personally, with the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the imprisoned, the poor. Every time we walk past someone in need without stopping, we are walking past Christ. And every time we stop — every time we feed, and clothe, and shelter, and visit — we are, in the most real sense the Bible gives us, ministering directly to our Savior.

IV. The Measure You Give

There's a promise I want to leave with you, from Luke 6:38:

"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

I want you to notice something about this verse. It doesn't say "give, and God will pay you back exactly what you gave." It says good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over. That's the language of a marketplace, of a grain merchant filling a basket so full and packing it down so tightly that it overflows the sides. That is how Jehovah gives back to those who give.

This is not a prosperity gospel. I am not standing up here telling you that if you give a dollar, God will hand you a hundred. That is not what this ministry is about, and that is not what this text means. What it does mean is this: generosity is never wasted on Jehovah's economy. What you give in faith, out of love for the poor and the outcast and the forgotten, God sees. God remembers. And God, in His own time and His own way, pours back into your life more than you gave away — sometimes materially, but always spiritually. Your soul does not shrink when you give. It expands.

V. What This Looks Like For Us

So let me bring this down to the ground, church, because a sermon that stays in the clouds is exactly the kind of faith James warned us about.

What does this look like for us, right here, right now?

It looks like the child in Pakistan who eats today because someone in this room decided a meal mattered more than a new pair of shoes for themselves.

It looks like the family in Kenya who now has four walls and a roof instead of a tarp and a prayer, because people who will never meet them decided to give anyway.

It looks like you, this week, noticing the person you normally walk past — and not walking past them.

It looks like picking up the phone and calling someone who is struggling, instead of just thinking about them.

It looks like opening your home, your table, your wallet, even when it is inconvenient — especially when it is inconvenient, because that is when it costs something, and faith without cost is the dead faith James warned us about.

Brothers and sisters, Jehovah Saints was not built to be a place where we simply talk about caring for the poor. It was built to be a people who do it — who deal their bread to the hungry, who bring the outcast into the house, who cover the naked, who refuse to hide.

Closing Charge

So here is my charge to you this morning, and I say it to myself first:

Do not let your faith die in your mouth. Let it move to your hands. Let it move to your feet. Let it walk out of this building and into somebody's actual life this week.

You do not have to fly to Kenya to live this sermon. You do not have to fly to Pakistan. The person Jesus is asking you to feed, clothe, and welcome might be sitting three seats away from you right now. They might be your neighbor. They might be your coworker. They might be the person you drive past every single day without seeing.

See them.

Do not hide yourself from your own flesh.

And when you give — give it pressed down, shaken together, and running over — because that is exactly how our God gives back to us.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray together.

Father Jehovah, forgive us for the times our faith has lived only in our words and never made it to our hands. Forgive us for hiding from those You have called us to see. Give us courage to give — not out of guilt, but out of love. Give us eyes to see You in the hungry, the naked, the stranger, and the poor. And Lord, multiply back to this church, and to every hand that gives this week, good measure — pressed down, shaken together, and running over. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who first gave everything for us. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.