Saved without works, to do works

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 6

Exodus 20:1-17 + Ephesians 2:4-10

God’s Law is good, if one uses it lawfully. That’s what the apostle Paul said, that’s what Jesus taught, and that’s what we explored on Sunday morning. The Law is good. I mean, which one of the Ten Commandments that you heard a few minutes ago could anyone call “bad”? The Law forbids evil thoughts, words, deeds, and desires, while demanding only good thoughts, words, deeds, and desires. It commands love—true, genuine, heartfelt love for God and for one’s neighbor. It commands a person to fear God above all things, to revere Him, to respect Him, and, above all, to trust in Him with an unwavering trust. Who can argue with that? I’ll tell you who tries. It’s the one who doesn’t want God to be God. It’s the one who wants to answer to no one, the one who wants to be God. Man in his arrogance, like the devil in his arrogance, doesn’t like to be told what to do, doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong about anything, that he shouldn’t have something he wants, that he shouldn’t desire something he desires. Man, at his worst, believes that God has no right to be God, and so he hates God’s commandments. Man, at his best, knows that he should keep God’s commandments. And yet, he doesn’t.

This is what it means to be “dead in sins and trespasses.” It’s the moral state, the twisted shape of the soul, that we’ve all inherited from fallen Adam and fallen Eve. The Law cannot help such people. It cannot improve them. It cannot make them acceptable to God. It cannot even serve as a useful guide for them. When the Law reveals the path of goodness and righteousness, the sinner who is dead in sins learns from the Law which way he doesn’t want to go. As Paul once wrote to the Romans, Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. In other words, when Paul’s old, dead, sinful nature learned that coveting was wrong, it made him covet all the more! To the pure soul, forbidden fruit is detestable. But to the soul that is dead in sin, forbidden fruit is especially sweet. And so the natural state of man is dead in sins and trespasses, hostile to God, hostile to the Law. That was your state and my state by nature. We were, as Paul says, objects of wrath, just like the rest of mankind.

Then God’s grace came along and said, to those who had been crushed by the condemnation of the Law, “Don’t be afraid! I will rescue you. I will give you life. More than that, I will give my Son’s life into death to pay for your crimes against My Law. For His sake alone, I will forgive you. For His sake alone, I will accept you! Be reconciled to Me through Him!” And that simple promise, that good message, that “Gospel” brought dead sinners to faith, and to life.

It’s all grace. It’s all gift. By grace you have been saved. It is the gift of God. The forgiveness, life, and salvation that God has given to you who believe, and that He promises to give to all who believe, is not something you won for yourself by doing something right, by being a good person, by doing the works that the Law requires. No, God makes no demands on the dead. He doesn’t require that the sinner fix himself or his life first. There is no such thing as self-redemption in God’s sight. No, God is the Redeemer, and He offers the gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who know their need of it, and who will seek it in Christ. In other words, He offers it to all who believe. He offers it by grace, through faith.

And that, too, is a gift, not something you or I can take credit for or boast about. The powerfully persuasive Spirit of God persuaded us to believe the promise and to seek refuge in the Lord Jesus. To God alone be the glory, if you do indeed rely on the Lord Christ.

But God is not done with the believer after bringing him to life. No, being brought to life is just the beginning, the beginning of a brand-new life. When God raises a person to life, He gives a second birth to that person. He sets the believer free from the slavery to sin. He creates a new man, with new attitudes, new thoughts, new goals, new purposes, new powers. For we are God’s workmanship, created, in Christ Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. We were brought to life by God, without any good works on our part, without any merit, any worthiness, any incentive for God to act on our behalf. Now that we’ve been brought to life for free, we learn from Christ and His apostles that God did not bring us to life just to leave us in the gutter of depravity, in the ghetto of sin. No, before He brought us to faith and to life, He had already prepared a whole lifetime’s worth of good works for us to be doing as those who live no longer for ourselves but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

How do we know what these good works are in which we are to walk? Again, the Law of God is good, and the believer uses it lawfully when we use it as the Holy Spirit’s inspired guide for goodness. The Ten Commandments are a summary, but so is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. So is the “Golden Rule” (which is part of the Sermon on the Mount), “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” So are practically all the Epistles of the New Testament as the Holy Spirit reveals to us which things are good and pleasing in His sight and which things are to be avoided, because they’re contrary to God’s will. If you’re looking for those good works that God prepared in advance for you to do, you never have to look far. Look at God’s commandments, and then look around you, wherever you are. Are there people there? You have instructions about how to treat them, or not treat them, according to their needs and your vocation. Is there a Bible handy? You have instructions about reading and studying God’s Word. Is there time to pray? Is there time to give thanks to God? Is there an opportunity to speak His praises to those around you and to let your light shine before men? The fact is, there are endless opportunities for the believer to do the things that are pleasing in the sight of our Father. So keep your eyes open, and pray for God to open up even more opportunities for service in His kingdom. Serve the Lord with gladness, and do it, not to earn a place in His kingdom, but because it is by His grace that you have already been saved, through faith, to do good works. Amen.