Rev. David D. Reedy 2002
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Dayton Tennessee
423.775.4253
Prince of Peace is a LCMS congregation located in Rhea County Tennessee, serving the entire county of some 32,000 people.
Do I have to do good works to get to heaven?
Why do Christians do good works?
First I want to share with you some words from the Augsburg Confession article 6.
"It is also taught among us that such faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded, but we should do them for God's sake and not place our trust in them as if thereby to merit favor before God. For we receive forgiveness of sin and righteousness through faith in Christ, as Christ himself says, "So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants'" (Luke 17:10)."
What is the relationship between faith and good works. I like to describe it by two metaphors that I will share with you.
Imagine the Christian life as a tree. Christ plants the seed of the word in our hearts. He nurtures it with His Spirit and it comes to life. Faith is God's gift to us. Ephesians 2:8-9. The tree grows and matures and produces fruit. The fruit does not produce the tree, but rather the tree produces the fruit. But trees by nature produce fruit. So a Christian is born entirely by God's grace. John 1 talks about this: to those who believe in His name he gave the right to be sons of God born not of human will or human decision but born of God. I do not think it an accident that Jesus uses the terms "Born Again" to describe becoming a Christian. Ask yourself this, how much did you have to do with being born the first time. Rebirth and salvation is a gift of God. But once we are alive, we must live. Faith without works is dead just as a body without life is dead. Christians will produce good works.
My second metaphor: Scripture tells us that we are completely dead in our sins. Ephesians 2:1. Imagine that you have had a heart attack and your heart is stopped. You are dead on the floor. There is nothing you can do about it. It is too late for you to help yourself. But suppose someone comes along who knows CPR. Then they start your heart. You are transported to the hosptial, taken care of, and recover. You are alive again. But now how will you live. Will you continue in the ways that brought on the first heart attack? Or will you mend your ways so that you prosper in this "new life" you have been granted.
So the Christian. We were dead but Christ has made us alive. The challenge for all Christians is the daily battle with sin. The battle between sinning and not sinning or "doing good works". And it is a struggle. Even St. Paul himself knew the struggle. Romans 7:14-25. After rebirth will we choose the path of sin, abdicate the gift of life that is ours in Christ, return to our old ways, and be lost? Or will we live out our new life in healthiness, holiness, and spiritual prosperity.
Think about the 10 commandments for a minute. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Remember that God is God. Honor your parents. Don't become so desirous of something that does not belong to you that you are lead to harm them and do evil to get it. Tell the truth. When you think about it these are not just what God wants from us, these are what God wants for us. Any father wants a great life for his child. Likewise God wants great and prosperous lives for us. Think how wonderful it would be if we did not sin and harm one another. If all we did was "good works".
But we don't and there is the rub. We hear words like faith without works is dead. We hear words like "do good works". We hear Jesus warn that those who are apathetic are about to be cast away because they are lukewarm. And they make us afraid. And they should. We all need a healthy reminder of who we are. We aresinners. 1 John 1:8 tell us if we say we have no sin we decieve ourselves and the truth is not in us.
We all remember times we have sinned. We have responsibilities to our spouse, our children, our church, our work, some of us are trying to care for elderly parents, some of us have trouble in our relationships with our parents. Some of are having trouble even making our marriages work. We know we have sinned. As Christians we have done good works as we should.
Jesus has something to say: After warning me and making me look at myself John goes on in verse 9 to say: that if we confess our sins God will cleanse it away because He is faithful and righteous. God has promised to cleanse our sin away because of the cross. And nothing will lead Him to be unfaithful to that promise.
God's commands cannot make us right with Him. We cannot follow them perfectly. We will never reach a point in this life that we can say we have no sin. Romans 3:19-20 talks of this. That is why God made a way for us to be with Him through the cross. He loved us so much that HE was unwilling to loose us. Rom 3:21-31.
But God's forgiveness is real. We are reborn. Inside of us is what the Bible calls a new Adam. True the old sinful self is there and we will battle with it. Soemtimes we will battle harder sometimes lesser. But there is a new life. We are not told we can continue sinning. We are encouraged to fight our sin. Romans 6:1-4. We are reborn into Christ. It is a real new life and a real power we have from Him.
But how much must we do? It has nothing to do with being saved or a child of God. One either is or is not. One either is alive or is not. A living person will create good works. A dead one will not. But how many good works will a living person create. What will he do? What will his service be? How well will he carry it out? There is no measure. It depends on the stage of the fight the person is in. And besides, the good works we are called to do are not so keep salvation nor to earn it. They are merely a response to salvation. They are the new Christian life just plain living. God knows the old Adam is there too. That is why HE will sometimes use the law to remind us so that we never forget we need to take our sins to the cross and confess them. God reminds us that not matter how far we get in life or in this process of becoming a little better at good works each day, that we still depend on Christ and Him crucified adn risen to have our promise of life with God. We never outgrow that.
Good works are not so much about what God wants from us as what God wants for us. It is a wonderful thing when God's people love and serve each other. And it is a most wonderful thing when the blood of Christ cleanses away the times that we do not.
Anytime we focus on what God encourages us to do, it will remind us of our sins and our shortcomings and could sound like our relationship with God is conditional on our response. Our relationship with God depends on one thing alone: Christ crucified and risen. But our relationship with God has some very real consequences: loving and taking care of one another. Again our sinfulness complicates matters. But God is always calling us to the foot of the cross. He is always nuturing His tree with His Spirit.
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Dayton Tennessee
423.775.4253
Prince of Peace is a LCMS congregation located in Rhea County Tennessee, serving the entire county of some 32,000 people.