Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.11 – March 1999

 

Saved by Grace, but what about Works?

 

Sermon by Rev Dr K. V. Warren on Ephesians 2:8 & 6:8

[It will be advisable to read these texts somewhat in the context, so select a few extra verses to read, before and/or after these two verses]

Scripture Reading: James 2:14-26

Suggested Hymns: BoW 176; 433:1,5,6; 32:1,3,5; 416; 367:1,4; 525

 

Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You arrive in church one Sunday morning, have a quick glance at the bulletin after you have found a seat, and all of a sudden you realise that you completely forgot that this morning there is a special offering for World Relief.

A quick look in your wallet – a $2 coin and a $50 dollar note!  Half an hour later, and the offering bag comes past.  What do you do?  Put in the two dollar coin?  That’s a bit cheap, isn’t it?  The fifty dollar note?  But that’s a little too much right now – can’t really afford to give that much!  So what do you do?

Suppose that after all you decide to put the fifty dollar note in the offering bag.  The question I want to put to you is this: Does God love you more, now that you’ve put in the fifty dollars, than if you had put in that two dollar coin?

Maybe the first reaction for some of us is: Yes, I suppose so.  God would love you more when you are more generous to those in need.

Doesn’t the Bible say that God loves the cheerful giver?!  The more you give, whether it’s money or anything else, the more God loves you in return.

Now if that is your first reaction, think again.  Does God love you more when you give more?  That certainly is not the teaching of the Bible – it is not the gospel!

When you belong to Christ, the love of God towards you is not measured by two dollars or fifty dollars.  Whether you give both amounts, or whether you decide to give nothing, does not enlarge or diminish the love of God for His child.  The Word of God clearly says that nothing will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38), and that also includes the amount of money we give for people who are in need.

But, you may well ask: Does God then not care at all about what we give, and how much we give?  Is God not really interested in what His children do with their money, or the things they do in this life, or the thoughts that go through their mind every day?  We will have to come back to that question later, but as for now, let me state it again: There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less!

You’ll find that sentence printed on the cover of one of Philip Yancy’s books, with the title, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, and how true it is!  Every true child of God can say with conviction: There is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and there is nothing I can do to make God love me less!  Why is that so?  For the reason that in Christ Jesus God’s love for His children is eternally secured!

The apostle John has put it so gloriously clear: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”  That’s it!  Children of God!  And God – being a perfect heavenly Father – does not stop loving His children, or loves them more one day and less the next day.  No, not at all!

Think of our own families.  Does a mother ever stop loving her child?  Does a father ever tell a child: This is the end of my love for you!?  It’s finished!  Absolutely!

No, parents go on loving their children.  Even when at times these children are the cause of much grief.  When a teenage daughter comes home with an unwanted pregnancy.  When you find out that your son is on drugs.  But such very unpleasant things do not mean that the love of parents comes to an abrupt stop.  For the love of parents is: unconditional love!  That means: no child needs to meet a certain standard to qualify for his parents’ love.

A normal parent will never say: “I will love you, but only as long as you measure up to my expectations.”  When a parent holds a little child, whether it is born to them or adopted by them, that parent says: “Nothing you could ever do and nothing you could ever become could disqualify you from my love.”

Children may choose values which their parents strongly disapprove of; children may turn their back on the church, turn their back on the Lord; but does our love for them stop then?  All the agony and all the pain that children may bring to their parents, cannot make love disappear!

Now what is true of parents in a human way, imperfect, flawed, is gloriously true of God, and then in a perfect way!  Unconditional love!  That’s why the text says: “By grace you have been saved.”  God’s undeserved kindness, for you!  God’s unmerited favour, for you!  This amazing and wonderful gift of the forgiving love of God is free, totally free!

Now you and I are quickly suspicious when people offer us things for free.  We say to ourselves: I’d better watch out, there must be a catch somewhere!  That must be the reason why, when you ask people what they must do to get to heaven, most will say: “Be good!”

But that, of course, is not true at all.  That surely must be one of the biggest lies the devil has put into the minds of people.  Who will ever get to heaven by being good?  Do you know, boys and girls, young people, what you have to do to get to heaven?  All you have to do is cry: Help!  Help!

Look at the text again: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith!”  Through faith.  And that is: crying out for help!  Having faith is crying out for help.

Faith, the empty hand by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness.  Faith, keeping us linked to Christ, and all His benefits.

Read the text again, Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works.”

It is not by works that God comes to love you!  No, but it is like this: God loves Jesus, His dear Son, and when you embrace Jesus, by faith, God loves you too!  Not because of works.  Not because of a $50 note.  Not because of 50 million dollars!

Look at some of the statements the Heidelberg Catechism makes:

Q and A 62:

Why can’t the good we do make us right with God, or at least help make us right with Him?

Because the righteousness which can pass God’s scrutiny must be entirely perfect and must in every way measure up to the divine law.  Even the very best we do in this life is imperfect and stained with sin.

No, it is not by works, but by faith.

That is so clearly summarised in Q and A 61:

Why do you say that by faith alone you are right with God?

It is not because of any value my faith has that God is pleased with me.  Only Christ’s satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness make me right with God.  And I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone.

Faith alone!  And even faith, says the text, is a gift of God.  Grace!  Nothing else but grace!

Do you ever doubt the grace of God?

Do you ever question God’s grace?

Look in the Bible and see the kind of people who receive the grace of God, the kind of people whom God loves.

• A murderer, an adulterer, a wife-stealer, and yet – the greatest king in the Old Testament, a “man after God’s own heart.” His name? David!
• A disciple, who cursed and swore that he had never known Jesus, yet he becomes a fearless leader in the early church. His name? Peter!
• A cruel man, who loved torturing Christians, throwing them in prison, destroying the church – yet he becomes the greatest missionary ever. His name? Paul!

Like David, like Peter, like Paul, you, too, have been saved by grace – grace alone, unmerited, undeserved.  That is: if you have embraced Jesus Christ!  In faith!  By faith!

“My Jesus, I love You, I know You are mine.”

Oh, the glory, the wonder, of the grace of God!  And God’s grace in Christ means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less!

*  *  *  *  *

But now, what about works?  Don’t they fit in anywhere then?

Elaine and Don have been married a little over seven years now.  They don’t have any children.  They both have good jobs.  Nice neighbourhood, and all that.  But when you have a close look at their relationship, it’s actually amazing that they’re still together, for there is so much unhappiness there.  Why is that?

Well, the simple fact is that Don says that he loves his wife (he often says it), but he never shows it in what he does, or what he does not do!  Don is a totally selfish guy, spends far too much money on himself, spends far too much time with his mates, fishing, pub, sports.  When he’s at home, he watches telly most of the time, the programmes that he likes.  He doesn’t really care about Elaine’s life, the course of study she’s doing, her desires, her dreams.

And Elaine has lost courage, she’s ready to drop her bundle: “All this total nonsense about saying that he loves me, but it’s all words, words!  Empty words!”  All talk, and no action!

Now we can draw a line to the Christian life here.  Faith, without works – works to back it up, works to prove that faith is real – that kind of faith is dead!  We read it earlier in the service, in James – faith without works is a fake, it is useless, it is dead.

Let me ask this question again: How is a person saved?  Only in one way!  By grace!  Through faith in Christ Jesus.  No one will ever be saved by good works.  Not by all the fifty dollar bills in the world!  Never!  No one will ever be saved by doing good works.

And yet, at the same time, we will not be saved without them!  That’s the simple Kingdom arithmetic!  For if I do not do any good works, whatever these may be – works out of love for God, works that please God, works that honour God, works that help my neighbour to blossom, if I don’t do any of those, it is clear proof that my faith is make-belief!

Not saved because of good works, not saved without good works.

And the Bible teaches clearly that good works are rewarded by God, at times even in this life already, and certainly in the life-to-come: see our text, Ephesians 6:8, “The Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does.”

God stimulates us to do good works, by promising rewards.  Isn’t that thrilling?  Doesn’t that excite you?  Maybe you never think about it.  Maybe you didn’t know that the Bible teaches it.  But it is true, gloriously true!

Listen to just a few Scriptures:

• Psalm 62:12, “Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.”
• Mark 9:41, “Anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”

And listen to this:

• Matthew 19:27-29, “Peter answered him, ‘we have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters of father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life?’”

The very last chapter of the Bible:

• Revelation 22, “Behold I am coming soon, my reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”

There are many more such references in the Bible, at least thirty, or even a few more.

Sure, all Christians go to glory, to be with Christ.  Not one Christian will miss out.  But-listen well – some Christians are getting rewards, which other Christians do not receive.  All God’s people will go to heaven, but there’s a difference in rewards!

That’s actually true in this life already.

Let me tell you about two sisters in a family, Carol and Becky.  And they are both Christians.  Becky is moody, grumpy, easily given to criticism, quickly irritated; helping other people is not her strongest point.  Carol is just the opposite, always on the lookout for good works.  Affirming people, serving, encouraging.  Now God loves both these young women; they both believe in Christ Jesus.  God doesn’t love Carol more than He loves Becky!  Oh no, definitely not!  In His dear Son Jesus Christ God loves both of them fully!  But Carol is getting more rewards, already in this life!  Not necessarily great health, and a great bank account, and a great car.  No, God rewards in His own way.

But I ask you: who of the two women would be the most peaceful and content, the most fulfilled?  Who would be the more joyful one?  Who would better reflect the loveliness of Jesus?  Carol, right, Carol, yes!

Rewards!  Already in this life.  And rewards later, after this life, at the judgment: 2Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

There will be degrees of reward in heaven.  The Bible does not say what that will be.  Greater honour in heaven, maybe?  Closer to the throne of God, maybe?  And other things, maybe.  But the Bible gives no details here.

A warning though: let’s not make the mistake of thinking that some people will be happier in heaven than others.  That is certainly not true!

The joy of each person will be full and complete, for eternity.  Full and complete!  No jealousy.  No competition.  Not this attitude of: he or she has more than I have!  Every child of God, in glory, full and complete.  But: differences of reward.

The apostle Paul, I think, received more rewards than the thief on the cross.  But, both in heavenly glory, and God loving both of them fully!

Would it not be a great thing for us to think much more about rewards than we do?  We’re on safe ground here; the Word of God talks much about it.  And helping one another, encouraging one another, that we all may increase our heavenly reward – isn’t that a wonderful motivation to work wholeheartedly for the Lord, whatever He gives us to do?

Not of course with the idea: We have done that much, now God must deliver!  That would be a worldly kind of bookkeeping.  That would poison the gospel of grace!  For even all the good works we do, says Ephesians 2, God prepared them in advance for us to do.  It will always remain grace!  Grace upon grace!

Think again of the $2 coin and the $50 note.  When you’re a Christian, even if you keep both in your pocket, God does not stop loving you.  Yes, it is true, God could well be somewhat sad, somewhat grieved, like a parent can be sad about something a child does, but that parent still goes on loving, just the same.  In all that we do: living, working, talking, thinking, eating, drinking, playing, loving, let it be our desire to hear one day the Master’s voice, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Come and share your Master’s happiness!”

Amen.