Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 17 – May 1990

 

Good Works: The Fruit Of Repentance

 

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 33.

Reading: Psalm 19:7-14; Matthew 21:28-32

 

When the tax-collector went up to the temple to pray, he was very careful not to show off, as did the Pharisee.  The tax-collector was not even sure that God would ant to listen to him and he did not dare look up to heaven.  But he prayed anyway and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13).

This man did not look down on others which the Pharisee did, for he felt himself very much on the bottom rung.  But this tax-collector had what the Pharisee did not have: true repentance.

Repentance, you might recall, is a heartfelt sorrow for sin over against God.  With such repentance, the sinner wants to break with sin and turn to God.  We don’t know what happened to the tax-collector other than what Jesus told us, which is that he went home justified before God.  Yes, God had accepted him because he humbled himself and said he was sorry for his sins.

Such turning around to God is clearly visible in another of Jesus’ parables the one about the two sons.  Their father had asked both of them to work in the family’s vineyard.  The first son he approached bluntly refused but the second son said he would work.  However, the second son never showed up.  He was all promise and good intentions but it was all froth and bubble.  The first son who had refused made a U-turn later on.  He had a change of heart and was sorry he had been disobedient.  He returned to the vineyard and got stuck into the work.

There you have another case of repentance and here you see clearly that it bore fruit.  There was a result.  He wasn’t just being sorry for what he did.  No, he went a step further and made amends, he did what he should have done from the start – work in the vineyard.

This morning/evening we are directed by the Catechism to look at the fruit of repentance.  It’s not enough to merely regret the wrong we did before God.  There are thousands who will readily admit to have sinned against God but how many of those who say they are sorry will also prove their repentance with good deeds?

Let us look then to the teaching of God’s word about:
            Good Deeds – The Fruit of Repentance.

            1.  The changes that have occurred.

            2.  The source, norm, and purpose.

1.  When we talk about good deeds being the fruit of true repentance, then let us first note the changes that have occurred.  We are not now talking about the Pharisee who still needed to be born again and converted, notwithstanding all his good deeds of tithing and fasting.  Nor are we going to spend time on the son who said he would do good deeds but somehow never got around to it.  Those two men represent many sinners who will face certain death under God’s punishment unless they truly repent.

The people we have our sights on this morning/evening are those who have sincerely repented of their sins and are putting to death the deeds of the sinful human nature.  They are the ones who are alive in Christ.  They have a wholehearted joy in God through Christ and delight to do every kind of good as God wants them to.  It is the Christian believer we are now talking about.  The saved sinner, the one whom Jesus has cleansed from the guilt of sin and set free from the tyranny of the devil.  We hope that we are talking about you.  Yes, that you are among those who are redeemed and who look to God to see how they can best serve and obey Him.  So, it’s the tax-collector – now justified – and the son who made a U-turn and became busy in his father’s vineyard.  They’re the kind of people the last part of Lord’s Day 33 has in mind.

To have you take proper note of the changes that have taken place, let me just take you back to the first section of the catechism which deals with mans’ misery.  There that awful question was asked: “Are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil?”  And uncompromisingly the answer came back: “Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.” (Q&A 8).  Now there the inability to do any spiritual good was pointed to.  And if you know the biblical doctrine of sin then you know that this stress on inability is not one bit overdone.

But note what the question has now become; “What do we do that is good?”  Yes, God through the Saviour Jesus Christ has taken the sinner’s inability to do good away and made him able to do good.  By the renewing power of God and through the Word and Holy Spirit, God had restored our ability to do good.  That now is the blessed state of the sinner who believes in Christ, has truly repented of his sins and has turned back to God.  By God’s wonderful grace. which is able to make the dead live, the Christian is one who is now able to do good.  The fruit of repentance is there.

And isn’t that really the goal of election?  Listen to what God says to the Christians at Ephesus.  “For he chose us in him (Christ) before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (1:4).  And to the believers at Rome God’s word says: “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” (8:29).

So a God-given ability to do good is one of the wonderful changes that have come to the sinner who has repented and is converted.

We may just point to one other change that has come to the repentant sinner.  His understanding is changed.  The Christian who has tasted the sweet forgiveness of God, who is assured that God will forever keep him because there is just no other power greater than God who can undo his salvation, he will look to God with thankfulness in his heart.

No longer will the sinner, now saved, try to score points by trying to impress others, and perhaps God, by being outwardly good.  Not even will the believer want to do good deeds in order to earn God’s favour.  Why should he?  He is not his own saviour, Christ is.

The repentant sinner who now stands in a whole new relationship to God is not one who goes about as a slave, careful to avoid the wrath of his master and keen to stay in his good books.  The Christian is a son who is set free.  He is free to obey with a song in his heart.  Yes, thankful for so rich a salvation, for a wonderful loving and caring Father in heaven, and knowing that whatever work needs doing in the vineyard, that is, God’s church and kingdom, he will receive the needed strength and guidance for it.

Fundamental changes, then, have taken place in the sinner who has repented and returned to God.

2.  But now in the second place let us look at the source, norm and purpose of good deeds which indicate that the repentance was real.

The Christian is able to do good deeds and he does them out of thankfulness to God for saving him, but what is the source of these good deeds?  Where do they come from?  Where is that well from which the good flows to the surface?  Well, it is not the heart, not even the heart of a born-again Christian.  People might say of a kind person that he has a good heart, and even of those who have done wrong, that basically they have a good heart.  But ask anyone of whom it is said that he has a good heart, and he, if he is honest, will tell you that he is also capable of some pretty mean things.

No, the source of goodness is not the human heart; it is God!  God is the overflowing fountain of all good.  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father, says the Bible (James 1:17).  Nobody has or does anything good unless it comes from God.  But as the vine brings life to the branches enabling them to bear fruit, so also does God enable the Christian to do good.  And as it is said that the branches must remain in the vine, so also must the Christian remain in Christ.

So God works the good in our heart and the Christian begins to work with that good given to him.  This working by us with the good God puts in us is what we call faith.  The good deeds the Christian does arise out of true faith, says the catechism.  Faith is but a responding of the Christian to all that God is doing to his heart and life.

You see congregation, Christians are not just robots which God has programmed to work in a certain way.  No, Christians are people whom God has made in a remarkable way.  We are able to think and are able to decide to do one thing and not another.  God has enabled us to have knowledge and to trust.  Yes, the non-Christian has all these things too, but it is in the Christian that all those human characteristics function as faith.  With his mind and will the Christian knows the good God has worked inside him.  He knows God has made him able to do good and is thankful for all that.  He therefore wants to please God (Heb.11:6).  He knows that God likes it when good deeds are done in response to the whole work of Christ in the Christian.  This response, this mind-set, this attitude is what we call faith.

Faith characterises the Christian’s relationship to God.  It also explains why the non-Christian has no relationship to God, for there is no faith.  And without faith one cannot please God.  What does not come from faith is sin, says the Bible (Rom.14:23).  You can see, therefore, that good deeds done out of faith by the Christian speak to God a great deal more than good deeds done by a non-Christian who has no faith.

The Christian then decides in faith to do good because he stands in a wonderful relationship with God.  But how will the Christian know when something is good in God’s eyes?  We all know that many people in society will approve of some things and not of others.  It’s okay to gamble and famous tennis players remain popular even when they do not marry the mother of their children.  But it is not seen as good when a worker in one trade decides to give a helping hand to a worker in another trade.  In the eyes of the trade unions that is not good at all.

To know whether a certain deed is good we will have to look to God’s law.  That is our norm, the rule to go by.  The things God has spoken of in His word are the only reliable guide we have in knowing what is good.

Feelings play an important part in our lives as Christians and to ignore feelings would be to the hurt of others and ourselves.  But they are not a reliable guide.  King Saul knew for sure he had not obeyed God’s commands to the letter only after the prophet had told him.  He had to destroy everything of the enemy which in this particular case were the Amalekites.  But Saul spared the king, the best of the sheep and cattle (1Sam.15:9).  His feelings told him that it was a good thing to keep the best.  Why destroy the good with the bad?  Saul’s mistake was that he acted on his own insight.  And reading about all this in Scripture, one cannot help but feel sorry for Saul.  He did a humane thing and still God rejected him.  But Saul had forgotten what the Amalekites had done to Israel many years ago.  And God was not just interested in getting even.  With the advantage of having the whole Bible at our disposal, we can see how Satan was behind the Amalekites’ attempt to wipe out God’s people.  The stakes were much higher than a mere squabble between two nations.  It was a struggle between good and evil, heaven and hell, light and darkness.  Maybe Saul did not realise all this.  But that’s why it is so important not to go by one’s own feelings.  God knows all things and therefore we need to obey His will.  His will alone determines what is good.

Neither is conscience a good norm to go by.  Our conscience is shaped by those who train and educate us and however good that may be, it is not one hundred percent reliable.  No, the norm is God’s law.  The good we do must conform to what God has revealed in His word.

If you look at the next page of the catechism.  then you will see that the Ten Commandments are quoted and the following Lord’s Days will deal with each commandment separately.

We do not want to see these commandments as they were first given to Israel after they came out of Egypt.  We must see them as the New Testament does, which means, in the light of Christ’s teaching about them.  Christ did not change the commandments, of course.  God’s norm for good deeds is the same for all ages.  But Christ made more clear to us the real intent of each commandment.  In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord opens up the very heart of God’s law.

When seen in this way the commandments of God are to the Christian what a good road map is to the traveller.  The map points you in the right direction.  And that is the function of the law of God.  With it we know what makes a deed good in the eyes of God.

Please don’t think from all this that in the Old Testament the law of God was only there to cut you down.  On the contrary, Israel received God’s law after they were delivered from Egypt.  Like us they were on the way to a new future, a new land.  First came deliverance and salvation and then the law as a guide to do good in God’s eyes.  The Lord has set us free from the power of sin and Satan.  But in the new freedom we enjoy we need a structure, a rule to go by.

Listen to the Psalmists having a right view of God’s law:

 – “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps.  19:7).
 – “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of God (Ps.119:1).
 – “I rejoice in following your laws, as one rejoices in great riches” (Ps.119:14).
 – “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Ps.119:18).
 – “Oh, how I love your law!  I meditate on it all day long” (Ps.119:97).

The Christian of the New Testament is no different.  He too sees the law of God as his helper and the light on his way.

Good deeds are the fruit of a true repentance.  When these deeds of good arise out of faith and conform to God’s law, then God is truly glorified.  To live to God’s glory should be the purpose of every Christian.  It’s not so hard to do when we willingly respond to all the good God has done for us.  He who has tasted the goodness of the Lord and is living out of the fullness of Christ, he will want to have a faith-relationship with God and walk according to His good and wise laws.  When all that is happening then our good deeds will honour and glorify our wonderful God.

Today we talked about the Christian.  Not the unsaved sinner so much but the sinner who has repented and turned to God.  So it was really the church of Jesus Christ that received the attention.  Yes, God always gives His attention to His church; it’s the love of the bridegroom Jesus Christ to His bride, the church.  The Saviour loves His people and wants each one to experience well-being.  That blessedness or well-being will be present among us when we do good deeds.

So the good we do must not merely be based on what we think is right or on established human tradition but on God’s will revealed in Scripture.  In fact, in the light of God’s law we so often have to admit that what we thought was the right thing to do wasn’t so right after all, and the tradition we followed not so God-glorifying.  And to make those humbling discoveries in our lives of faith is to be brought to repentance before God time and again.  The Christian’s life is a continual heart-felt sorrow for the things we do wrong and a continual turning to God.  But in repenting and turning to God we also experience the joy of forgiveness and the gracious acceptance of God.  The Lord in His goodness puts us back on our feet, time and again, and motivates us to do good and be good, and all along He guides us with His Word and Spirit.

To God be all praise and glory, forever.

AMEN