1/27/2002

Let’s bow in prayer

We are grateful Lord that you are a God worthy who sits on your throne. You don’t just sit there though you are active with us in our lives. You said before we think a thought you know it from afar. Before we say a word, before there is a word on our tongue, you know it. You know the days of our lives before there is even one of them. Father we know the end of our life before we even have the beginning of it. So Father we thank you that you above us, above your creation, your stand about time and all of the universe. We thank you Father that you are worthy of that. But on the other hand you have decided to be with us. You are Emmanuel, God with us, who came in the form of Jesus Christ to live a life here on earth, on this earth upon which we walk. And to suffer the pain of injury and of shame and of death on the cross for us. Father there is no other God like you. You are God. Father we thank you for that. We thank you that you are a God who can sit there and appreciate us laying our crown before you. You appreciate our concerns, you appreciate our needs, you appreciate our desires to follow you and to serve you. Father even though we often say we want your presence to be here, Father we know that you are everywhere present. So it is really that we pray that we would sense your presence, we would know your presence. That we would get to know you personally as our Savior, as our God. We thank you for that privilege. In Jesus name, Amen.

Turn if you would to Ephesians 2: 8, 9, and 10. There are three verses there I want to highlight and talk about the concept that is there. Some of you have been doing the listening to the New Testament on tape. We were to have finished up by the end of December so if you did it you went all the way through the New Testament on tape or CD. As I was listening, I began to catch a phrase in there that I hadn’t noticed before. I have been reading through the New Testament aside from listening to it and a phrase began to pop off the page in a sense, I just begin to notice it that I hadn’t seen it in the same light before. I begin to look at it more seriously and began to do some studying on it. Found some really interesting things about this concept that I hadn’t known before, guess I hadn’t put together before. It has to do with good works. Good Works. Doing good things for people. There is a difference between good things for people because I get some credit for it because there is something they can do for me in return and just doing something that is good by the very nature of the act. And because there is a need there and so we step out and do it. Sometimes it is sacrificial, sometimes it takes time, effort and money. And we don’t get any credit for it. That makes a work truly good rather than doing a good because we can get some benefit from it. Jesus said when you invite somebody for dinner, invite somebody who doesn’t plan to invite you back. Or doesn’t have the resources to do so. It is not wrong to have friends over for a fellowship time but also make sure once in awhile you invite people over that can’t pay you back. That can’t invite you back. That kind of puts it in a different category, makes it so you are doing it for there benefit and not your own benefit so that we can receive some return.

Good Works. We either tend to undervalue them or overvalue them. People who are outside the faith in Christ, tend to overvalue them. Those of us who are in Christ tend to undervalue them. If a person believes that they can be saved because of their goodness, or their good works, they obviously overvaluing their good works because the Bible says our righteousness is as filthy rags. It doesn’t count for salvation. In fact the verses you have before you in verse 8 and 9 it says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, lest anyone should boast.” So he says our salvation is not based upon how good we are, what good works we do, how nice we are, how wonderful of a neighbor, how many nice things we do for people. He says, those works don’t save us. It is not like God has an eternal scale, or infinite scale, up there saying ok you did enough good works so finally you get to have heaven. And if you don’t do enough you don’t get to go to heaven. That tends to be the way we think. But that is wrong because God says it is not on the basis of good works that we do. We can never do enough good works, for one thing to outweigh the bad plus even if we do enough to outweigh the bad, the bad ones are still there. So they just need to be forgiven. So our good works don’t obtain salvation for us. It says it is a gift of God on the basis of our faith and God’s grace. God’s grace means he offers it to us, he paid the price, we don’t have to pay the price anymore so in Christ we can have forgiveness not based upon our works.

The Book of Romans and Galatians, and other places Paul makes the argument, it is not based upon our own righteousness based upon our works of the law or doing good things, it is on the basis of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. He paid the price for our sins, we accepted by faith, we received eternal life because of his offer of grace. It is not because of works. So people outside the faith tend to overvalue works thinking that they earn salvation for them. Those of us inside the faith tend to devalue them because we think since they don’t earn anything for us then they don’t count as much. Boy, as I was reading the New Testament and listening to it again I realize that I had gotten it all wrong, at least our understanding, our overbalancing or over weighing or devaluing it is wrong.

There needs to be a balance in understanding because if you look at the very next verse in Ephesians 2. In verse 8 it says, ‘By grace you have been saved by faith; not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.’ So he says, we are not saved by works, we know that but verse 10 says, ‘For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.’ So he says we are not saved by good works; we are saved for good works. Isn’t that interesting? We are not saved by them, they don’t benefit us in terms of salvation but they are the purpose of God’s work in our lives so that we can do good works. Good things for people. In fact Jesus said the greatest commandment is this, To Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. We love God first and then he says now go do good works. He says, you have been saved, you are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. We are not saved by good works; we are created for good works. They don’t save us but they accomplish great things.

Let me share a few of the things I discovered as I was studying this because this isn’t a new concept but it took on new value to me as I began to study it because Paul says we are not saved by works, but we are saved to works. In the Book of James, Chapter 2, ‘Your faith is evidenced by your works.’ When a person says, I have faith but doesn’t have works, that faith in dead. There is no faith unless it is backed up and confirmed by the works. The good deeds that we do confirm that we do have faith. So faith comes first, then works follow because of our salvation. In the Book of 1John. Johns says at least three times, ‘if you say that you love your brother, and you love God and yet hate your brother the love of God is not in you.’ It is not there. Therefore he says your faith, your love for God, should result in love for everybody else. That is why Jesus said the greatest command is love God and then love those around you. Act in there behalf. So he says in 1John, What good is it if you say you love God and your brother, your neighbor, has needs and you have the wherewithal to help them and don’t. What kind of love is that? He says, that is hate because you withhold the good thing that you could do for them. He uses pretty strong words actually. He says, if you have the world’s goods and your brother is in need and you refuse to give it to him, you are actually hating them because you are withholding the good that they require and you could give them. John uses pretty strong words there.

Works don’t save us they are the evidence of our salvation. In John 15 Jesus says, ‘By this God is glorified if you bear much fruit’. The fruit is the evidence of his life in us. So he says, when I live in you and you abide in me, you will bear much fruit and by this God is glorified.

Let me show you a few things that I found really interesting about good works. One is that it is God at work in us. In Phillipians 2:13, ‘It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure.’ A truly good work originates from God. He puts it in our hearts to do good things, for our neighbors. And so it truly originates from God. Says it is God who is at work within you both to will and to do his pleasure. Remember there are things that we can do nice for people but they may or may not be truly good. Because Jesus said the Pharisees when they do good things they call attention to themselves. They gather a crowd around when they are going to give money to the poor. They gather a crowd around when they fast and make themselves look all disheveled and bedraggled. They would make sure everyone knew they were fasting by looking really bad. They would put sackcloth on and things and say look how righteous I am I’m fasting. They would give alms to the poor and call people around so they could see them give money to the poor; when they prayed they would gather people around, blow trumpets in the corner and say hey I am so spiritual watch me pray. Jesus said they have there reward because they were truly after the attention of people. They were not really honoring God. In fact he said, when you give alms don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Don’t tell people you are giving. Using you for my benefit, then I am just using you for my benefit. So a truly good work is one that God urges me to do and I don’t need attention for it. I don’t even need thanks for it. I don’t even need anybody to know about it. In fact I don’t even need for you to know about if it is a truly good work. Because the purpose is not for you to honor me because of it but for me to be able to do what God prompted me to do for you. And so a truly good work sometimes gets no attention. Sometimes it is private in such a way that nobody even knows it is done, it is just something that gets done. If they response to others, remember Jesus at one point said he looked at the crowds and they were like sheep without a shepherd and he felt compassion for them. Then he healed their sick, he fed them, he did things for them because he saw the need, he felt compassion, and responded to meet that need. And so good works are often times the result of our noticing somebody else’s needs. They are unselfish by nature sometimes they are sacrificial by necessity, sometimes we need to give of ourselves in such a way that it hurts. We may need to take time that we would be doing something else that we enjoy so somebody else can have the benefit of our effort, of our time. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 25, ‘Part of the judgement that we get between the good and the evil, the righteous and unrighteous will be the things that they did. They said what do you mean, when we did good things? Well, remember when I was thirsty you can me water, when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was sick you came and visited me, when I was in prison you visited me. So they said when did we do this and he said when you did it for any of the lest of these you did it unto me. So often times, it is an act that is not very big, in fact he said, if you give a cup of cold water in my name, you do it unto me. So it puts an eternal value, an eternal mode, when we do things unselfishly because somebody needs it. So he says, we are not saved by good works, we are saved for good works. Because we are the practical arm of God. We are the hands that God uses to benefit people around us. And we are to do it unselfishly, unnoticed often times, thanklessly, because by very nature we don’t need to be thanked because God is the one we serve. In Colossians Chapter 3 says, ‘In everything you do in word or deed, do all in the name of Jesus Christ for the glory of God’.

So if we get thanks fine, if we don’t get thanks, fine. We didn’t do it for the thanks, we did it response to what God is doing in us. That is why he says, ‘Do the work in you both to will and desire and to do. So he gives us the desire and the energy and the resources to do his will because we are his hands, we are his feet, we are his mouth in many ways. So whether anybody notices or not is not an issue. Jesus said, ‘you are rewarded because you cared to come’. So sometimes it is in response to a persons needs, sometimes just because it is the right thing to do.

James says it proves our faith. Jesus says, it is a part of your act of worship. He doesn’t say it quite that way. Matthew 5:16 says, ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify God who is in heaven’. Your father in heaven. So he says our good works which are unselfish, prompted by God, and may or may not received thanks, it may be sacrificial but good by there very nature, not because they get some reward, your good works cause people to glorify God, which is worship, isn’t it? They exalt, they glorify, they magnify, they honor God because of the good works that we do. So he says our acts of worship are often our acts of kindness, our good needs that we do. We tend to think that worship is when Scott and the crew get up here and lead us in songs and pray and we repent and ask God’s forgiveness, they are all parts of worship but Jesus also ask that the life we live out of here, that maybe nobody ever notices except the person that benefit by our good deed and they are the one who notices it and they glorify God.

II Corinthians Chapter 9 says the same thing, Paul says if you give to those who are in need, I will give to you more so that you can give more and he says the results of thanksgiving to God is given to you. Prayers on your behalf and God is glorified. God is glorified when we do things that are good prompted by him in us. We are not saved by good works, we are created for good works. We also find out in 1 Corinthians 3 Paul says, ‘that the rewards are good deeds are the basis of our rewards.’ A person may be saved but Paul says when you do good things that is God’s basis for judgment. Not just judgment but for rewards. Some people do things that are like wood, hay, and straw or stubble. Those things will be burned up. But some people do things of eternal value, of gold, silver and precious stone. You will receive a reward based upon how you live your Christian life. Doesn’t mean you will or won’t get into heaven, means once you are there, there are things God would love to give us based upon how we acted as Christians. So our good deeds are very important, in a sense that people say I hope God notices that and I’ll get more rewards in heaven for that one. I think we probably just lost our reward for that one. If that was the reason we did it. Cause he says the Pharisees who do good things for notice, they got there notice and that was all they were looking for. So if we say God may sure you notice that we may have just got our reward, which was his notice. So we do them unselfishly anyway.

It is also very interesting, I found this in 1 Timothy. This is what makes women attractive. It says, ‘Ladies don’t let your adornment be the costly things you put on,’ the makeup, all the those things. He says ‘Godly women are adorned by good works’. So the first question is not how do I look, the first question is what do you want me to do Lord? It is amazing, you know there are some very beautiful women in all the world, and some of them are also do good deeds. But some of the most attractive women in the world are those who have a quiet gently spirit and do wonderful things unselfishly. Paul says this is how Godly women are adorned. The first question when you look in the mirror isn’t to say ok how do I look on the outside, if should be how do I look on the inside?

‘Rich people’, Paul tells Timothy in Chapter 6, ‘have lots of resources but they should be prepared for every good work.’ God has given great resources, so there should also be preparedness to use those resources when he prompts to benefit other people. Not just with the money but also with the abilities that we have.

You know has anybody noticed that it is tax time soon? You may have heard about taxes, death and taxes, we have both of them in our life or someday anyway. Well, we got our taxes done the other day and we begin to look when we added up all our resources, we thought you know what, if I had understood that my wife and I together would be making the amount we make, before taxes are taken out, I would have said we would be rich people, but we don’t see ourselves as rich people we think we are just regular old people. But if I were twenty and making the money we make now I would think, ‘Man I am in the upper echelon of all society because look at how much we make’. Then we look at the bills and the bills and our income are about the same. And we have amazing resources, in fact we talked about this last Sunday evening. If you happen to notice we have been talking about money and like tonight it is how to find the best buy. How do order our money according to God’s word. Have been finding some very interesting principals of finances in God’s word. It is full of them.

My Dad wrote a history of his life and also my Mom’s and then our family just kind of to let us know some things that happen in the past, just kind of keep us up to date and we were reading about there early married life and they got married in my Mom’s home, my Mom’s parents home, and the only ones present were my Dad’s Mom and Dad, my Mom’s Mom and Dad and the Pastor and his wife and she had a nice clean dress on and they didn’t get married in the church because only rich people got married in the church. And so they got married in the home and there were only seven or eight people present and that was normal in those days. They went to an ice cream social at the church and didn’t have enough money for an ice cream cone. And so they said it was find of a fun occasion but on the other hand it was a little sad too cause they couldn’t have ice cream at the ice cream social. It is like our biggest concern about ice cream is when the Schwann man is coming next and if we need a $50 bill or $100 bill to pay for our ice cream. And I joked the other day that sometimes we decide on which car wash to go to whether it has a blow dryer or not and whether it whips the stuff off your car or shoots it off with spray. Cause we don’t want that thing to whip around and hurt our mirrors, right? Well, we have amazing resources and I don’t know that we are always ready to give to needs because we tend to think we have no resources. We have tons of resources and sometimes God may say I want your resources for somebody else today because they need it. We should be ready to give when God says give. We should be ready to give of our efforts when somebody needs it too.

Hebrews 10:25 says something really interesting. ‘We should consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds’. How do we stimulate each other to love and good deeds? How do we encourage each other to love and to do good deeds? I’m not really sure by the way. That is not a rhetorical question because I am not really sure how we do that sometimes. Except I guess we need to notice. We need to notice when people have a need that we can meet. Sometimes it is just a kind word, I was at a funeral last week I attended a funeral home where my wife’s, sisters father-in-law had passed away and we went over there just to visit. Our visit was a part of our effort to help. And then Wednesday, I conducted a funeral for a family who were in desperate need of comfort and so my effort there was to bring comfort to the family. So sometimes just a visit, sometimes it is a cup of water, sometimes it is time spent, sometimes it is just a kind word. One of the families in our conference, the Pastor who is now at the church where my wife and I pastored before we came here years ago now. His daughter was in a car accident a number of weeks ago and is still in a coma. It has been almost three months now and she is still in a coma. And I saw the Pastor and his wife at the conference yesterday, we had Mid-year council, and I said how is Kim doing? And they said doing fine, still unconscious but responding so hopefully she will come out of the coma before to long. And they said how are your parents doing? I said they are fine, they are down in Florida and talked to them yesterday and the Dad, Jerry, said well when you talk to him to tell him how much we appreciate him because when Kim first went in the hospital they called at least every other day and in Florida they called at least twice a week to see how Kim is doing. You can not know how much we appreciate that. So how much effort does it take to do a good deed? Dialing the phone, just noticing somebody is in need, praying for them. They will never know that we pray for them but Paul says in 11 Corinthians 1 that your prayers help. And so we need to pray, our prayer chain, does that. We need to just say how can I help? If somebody is moving tables and chairs in the fellowship hall, quit talking to somebody else and go help move tables and chairs. If somebody is stopped along the highway and you can help, stop and help them. If somebody you don’t even know needs your help, help them anyway. Because it is a good thing. You are not saved by those good works, we are saved for those good works. That is why I believe God puts us on this earth with resources, with eyes so that we can see the need and he can meet the needs through us.

Now think about it. How can you be stimulated to do good deeds? That by the very nature of them are unselfish, maybe nobody will ever notice, may take time and effort, and for the ladies it will adorn you. It will make you much more attractive. Better than Oil of Olay! Can you believe that? Let’s have prayer.

Father we thank you that you have created us for good works. They don’t save us, they don’t get us to heaven, they are what we have been created for. You said we are saved not by works but by grace through faith. And it is a gift of God, not as a result of works lest anyone should boast. We can not claim that we got to heaven because we were good people. We can’t claim we got to heaven because we did good things for people. We can only claim that we did good things after we were saved because they were truly unselfish, they were truly prompted by you. They were truly for the benefit of the other person not myself or truly for the benefit of glorifying you. Father help us to understand what good means. Good doesn’t mean for us it means for you, for the other person. Truly prompted by you and even thankless and even sacrificial but you know how to reward, you know how to notice, you know how to give us benefits as a result. You say you bless those who hear and observe your word. So as we prove our faith through good works, you know how to bless and we will thank you for that blessing. But help us to do it just because we love you. Jesus said the first greatest command is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the love your neighbor as yourself. Help us to do that Lord, help us to be people who are noticed by there good deeds and you are glorified as a result.
In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

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