"BECAUSE OF GOD’S GRACE IN CHRIST, WE NEED NOT SEEK TO IMPRESS GOD."

62. Q. But why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?
A. Because the righteousness which can stand before God's judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God,[1] whereas even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.[2]
[1] Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10. [2] Is. 64:6.

63. Q. But do our good works earn nothing, even though God promises to reward them in this life and the next?[1]
A. This reward is not earned; it is a gift of grace.[2]
[1] Matt. 5:12; Heb. 11:6. [2] Luke 17:10; II Tim. 4:7, 8. 64.

Q. Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.[1]
[1] Matt. 7:18; Luke 6:43-45; John 15:5.

Scripture Reading:
Matthew 19:16-20:16

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 19:4,5
Psalm 56:4
Psalm 18:6,7
Psalm 130:2,3,4
Hymn 24:1,2,3,4,5

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Idolatry: others do that, not we in our sophisticated western world. Idolatry: we think of the sacrifices on the footpaths of Bali. We think of the Roman Catholic infatuation with the mass. We think of the Buddhas of South East Asia…..

Idolatry. Lord’s Day 34 defines idolatry as having or inventing something in which to place our trust instead of or in addition to the only true God. Idolatry: it has to do with trust.

We have before us today Lord’s Day 24, about the role our good works play in our relation with God. That is: can we trust our good works to form a positive contribution in our relation with God, so that God is happier with us on account of the things we’ve done?

In theory we know the answer. It’s negative: our good works help nothing to impress God. But in practice our minds travel along different routes. The thought sits deep within us: God is not pleased with me because … - and you can fill in the blank. I don’t pray enough, I don’t read my Bible enough, I don’t do enough visits in the congregation, I don’t spend enough time with my children…. So we pray more, read the Bible more, visit more – because we want God to think well of us, be pleased with us….

But, congregation, trying to impress God, trying to win His approval or to keep His approval, is idolatry. Sinners cannot impress God, no matter how hard we try! This is the point the church confesses in Lord’s Day 24. In fact, sinners do not need to seek to win God’s approval – for God has already given His approval through Jesus Christ. That was the good news of Lord’s Day 23.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Lord’s Day 24 presents us with a surprise. For the focus of Lord’s Day 24 is on ourselves, our efforts, our possible good works. In other words, Lord’s Day 24 directs our attention to earth, to the creature. I say that’s surprising, for Lord’s Day 23 had directed our attention to heaven, to the Creator, and had been empathic that salvation comes from God alone. That is: though we creatures had fallen into sin and so offended God, God did not wait for us to make good what we had broken. Says the church in Lord’s Day 23: we have nothing to contribute to God, nothing with which to impress God. Question & Answer 60: "I have grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, have never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil." That’s a very dismal and condemning picture of myself! Me offer something to God? Me succeed in impressing God? Not with that sort of a track record!

Exactly because of that condemning description of personal bankruptcy, Lord’s Day 23 was so glorious in spelling out the gospel. For, continued that Lord’s Day, "God, without any merit of my own, out of mere grace, imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ!" To be righteous before God, to have His favor, His smile, is not something we bring about; to be righteous before God, to have His favor, is instead God’s gracious gift given to the unworthy! Lord’s Day 23 was emphatic: salvation comes from heaven to earth. Sinners do not reach out to God to impress Him; rather, holy God in mercy washes sinners’ transgressions away and makes these evildoers righteous through Christ. That’s the gospel: salvation travels from heaven to earth.

But if that’s the glorious gospel of Lord’s Day 23, beloved, surely there is no need to ask the questions of Lord’s Day 24! If salvation is God’s grace to the unworthy, to people who have grievously sinned against all God’s commands and never kept any of them and are still inclined to all evil, what is the sense of speaking in Lord’s Day 24 about our possible good works! In the light of Lord’s Day 23, surely, it makes no sense anymore to ask Question 62: "why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?" Salvation travels from heaven to earth; why then discuss what contribution there is from earth to heaven?!

Yet the question is there. Historically, that’s quite explainable. The Catechism was written directly after the Great Reformation, while the Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation-through-works was still heavily on the minds of the Reformed. After all, many of those who joined the Reformation had grown up in Roman Catholic homes, had been taught from childhood that your actions make or break your relation with God. Many of the Reformed still had family members embracing and pushing this idea. So, in that context, to put a Lord’s Day in the Catechism on the point makes good sense. But that’s years ago! Do we today really need a catechism that puts Lord’s Day 24 directly after Lord’s Day 23? Do we today really need a Lord’s Day that discusses earth’s contribution to heaven’s pleasure?

I put it to you, brothers and sisters, that Lord’s Day 24 cuts closer to the bone for each one of us than we think. That’s because the heresy embraced by our Roman Catholic fathers so many generations ago and rejected in the Great Reformation sits close to the heart of each one of us. To live by grace alone runs so contrary to our natures; we want to contribute something to God, we want to do something to ensure that God is happy with us. We wake up in the morning and recall to our dismay that we fell asleep last night before we prayed. So what do we do? We pray a bit extra in the morning –why?- because we don’t want God’s dissatisfaction upon us today. Or: we conclude at a given moment that we don’t do enough in the communion of saints, and so we make a point of inviting another around or making an extra visit, and when we do so we feel better in ourselves, feel that God is happier with us, now His favor is upon us again. You see: we feel there’s a connection between the things we do and God’s disposition toward us. As if in some way our actions determine God’s thoughts concerning us.

And with that thought in mind, we open our Bibles and lo, there’s plenty of supporting evidence! The Bible is full of it: there is a link between what we do and what we get! Ps 18:20: "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me." David is righteous, David makes sure His hands are clean, and God rewards him. Prov 13:13: "He who despises the word will be destroyed, But he who fears the commandment will be rewarded." Prov 25:21f: "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For so you will heap coals of fire on his head, And the Lord will reward you." You find the same link in Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5:11f. "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." The angel says the same in the Revelation shown to John on Patmos: "And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work." I can give you so many more texts, but the point is clear: the Bible lays a clear link between our obedience to God and the reward we get. To our minds the conclusion is obvious: do what God wants, obey His commands, and He will bless you. Flip side: disobey God’s commands, and He will withdraw any blessing, will curse. That is: your conduct determines God’s thoughts toward you! What you do determines what you get. So the onus is on you to make sure that God has reason to be happy with you…. And that feeling deep inside, that our actions and contributions determine God’s thoughts about us, speaks louder and louder so that we are sure that Yes, our works in some way influence God’s thoughts about us. To say it in the words of Q 62: our good works form our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it….

In reply, there are two things we need to have straight in our minds. The first is this: what does God actually think of our deeds? The Lord is very clear about our sins and transgressions: He hates them. We understand that, and I don’t have to spend time this afternoon drawing that out. But what does God think about our obedient deeds? We came to church this afternoon – surely, that pleases God, makes Him smile upon us? We strive to live as godly husbands and wives in our marriages, deny ourselves for the sake of the other. Surely, that impresses God? We give our contributions liberally, we spend time with Bible reading and Bible study: surely, that has a positive impact on God’s thoughts about us?

The answer, beloved, is No. God is too holy, says Habakkuk, to look upon sin (1:13). And every thing we do is covered with sin. True, our sin-filled eyes may not see how much our best actions are still plagued with sin, but holy God sees it! The prophet Isaiah explains it this way: "we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (64:6). With the phrase "filthy rags" we are not to think of something that fell in the mud, but we’re to think of garments stained by menstruation. As such bits of cloth are repulsive to us, so our best works are repulsive to God. If we come to Him with a bloody rag, will He reward us with His smile? That is Isaiah’s point: "even our best works … are all imperfect and defiled with sin" – as A 62 has it. So we need to do away with the thought that our efforts impress God, impact positively on God’s thoughts about us. They don’t.

There’s a second element we need to bear in mind here. The Bible is clear on the fact that there is a link between our works and God’s reward, between what we do and what we get. The question, though, is this: just what is the nature of the link? It’s our second point:

From our experience in daily life, we automatically explain the link in terms of what you deserve, what you earn. After all, in our capitalist society you don’t get anything for nothing. You want a reward; you have to earn it. You want money; you need to work. You want good marks on your exams; you have to study hard. There’s a link between what you do and what you get, we all understand that, and the link is caught in the word ‘earn’.

Yet exactly on that point, congregation, the Bible disagrees with us emphatically. Before God, the link between what we do and what we get cannot be described with the word ‘earn’ simply because what we do is offensive to God; "all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" before Him.

What, then, is the nature of that link? Jesus answers that question in the passage we read from Mt 19. The rich young ruler desired eternal life, and he knew from his Old Testament that there was a link between doing and getting. Hence his question: "Good Teacher, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life?" Jesus didn’t dispute the fact that there was a link. Instead, He told the young man to keep the commandments. And when the young man said that he’d kept these commandments since his childhood, Jesus urged him to sell what he had and give it to the poor. Then, said Jesus, "you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." In truth, there’s a link between what you do and what you get.

But to give everything away in order to gain eternal life: that’s so very hard. If fact, it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God…. Peter pursued this element of a link between what you do and what you get. Vs 27: "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" It’s true, Peter’s fishing boat lay idle. He was a married man (had a mother-in-law), but seems to have left his wife and children. James and John were fishermen too, but left their father’s business to follow Jesus. Matthew ran a tax office, but he boarded it up to follow the Lord. Yes, they’d sacrificed…, and what would they receive in return? Says Jesus: "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." You see, beloved: there’s the reward for the twelve, a clear link between what they did (left all to follow the Lord) and what they’d receive. Then Jesus broadens His instruction to include also you and me. Vs 29: "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." That’s the promise for all God’s own: leave your boat, leave your business, leave your bike, leave your family for the sake of God and His kingdom, and you will receive a rich reward in this life and the life to come….

But what, now, is the nature of that link? Is the hundredfold one receives in this life, and the eternity one receives in the life to come, the wages you earn on your sacrifice? That’s the question Jesus answers in the parable that follows. You know the parable, of the landowner who went out early in the day to look for workers for his vineyard. He found some men and hired them for a denarius a day – which was the normal daily wage at the time. At nine o’clock he found more men, and again more at 12 and at 3 and at 5. At six o’clock he lined up his workers, from newest to oldest, to pay them out. And see: each received one denarius. Was that equitable? Was that their fair earning? We tend to agree with the workers of vs 11, and complain that there’s something unfair about paying the workers who labored one hour the same amount as those who worked 12 hours. And again, from our capitalist point of view, it is unfair. But this is now Jesus’ point: the link between what we do and what we get cannot be described in terms of earnings. Vs 15: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?" The Lord God is free to hand out His rewards as He wishes. If He wishes to give good things to unworthy sinners, does any sinner have the right to complain? This is God’s goodness, this is God’s grace. Here’s the point: the link between our works and God’s reward is to be described in terms of grace, not in terms of earning.

What, congregation, is the implication? This: you do not have to do good works in order to earn God’s reward! That’s true on two counts, true because your best works are repulsive to God and therefore cannot earn a thing, true also because the link God placed between what you do and what you get is not caught in words like ‘earn’. So, brothers and sisters, do not try to earn anything from God! It is futile. Do not think in terms of there being something attractive in yourself, some little something that could catch God’s eye favorably, that could win His favor. Such an attractive thing in yourself simply does not exist. I refer back to Lord’s Day 23: "my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all God’s commands, have never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil." That’s me: depraved to the core of my being, and therefore repulsive to God. I may forget to pray last night, but prayer extra this morning is not going to regain God’s approval. Even my best works, yes, even that extra praying this morning, are like stinking, bloodied rags to Him. I need to be humble before God, with no pretensions within myself that I can impress God.

That sort of self-awareness in turn compels me to cast myself fully on the Lord. Yes, there is a link between what I do and what I get, but that link is not caught in terms like ‘earning’; it is caught in terms like ‘mercy’, ‘grace’. Seek to impress God? Think in terms of God being happy with me because I prayed four times yesterday for 20 minutes each time? Think in terms of God being happy with me because I gave my tithes so liberally? No, beloved, let me not stand beside the Pharisee in the temple and assume that my deeds have impressed God. Let me stand beside the tax collector, acknowledge my brokenness, and plead on God’s mercy: "Father, have mercy on me a sinner!"

And yes, God is merciful! That was the material of Lord’s Day 23: we are righteous before God despite all our sins, because God in mercy imputes to us, though we don’t deserve it, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ. What have I to offer God? How shall I impress Him? (Micah 6). I can’t! And I don’t need to! I am righteous before God not because I do good works, but I am righteous before God before I do good works! That’s a glorious gospel preciously because my good works are offensive to God, my good works earn me nothing! So I can get my eyes off myself, and fix them fully on the God who saves in mercy for Jesus’ sake!

Now a new question arises. For if my works don’t help a dot in winning God’s favor, why shall I bother to do the right thing? If my going to church does not keep God happy with me, if my praying doesn’t keep God happy with me, if my obeying God’s commands does not make God happy with me, if my being sorry for sin and repenting doesn’t keep God happy with me, why shall I bother going to church, praying, obeying, repenting? It’s our last point:

Here I can be brief, for we shall talk more about it when we get to Lord’s Day 33. The point is this: with our fall into sin we became totally corrupt, able only to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. So, in the words of Lord’s Day 23, "I have grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil." Yet God, in boundless mercy, has taken such sinners and washed away their sins in the blood of Jesus Christ. These persons, then, are righteous before Him, righteous without any merit of their own, righteous by God’s grace alone.

But what happens now? Are these sinners-made-righteous still dead in sin, totally depraved? No, says the Scripture, No! These persons who are made righteous through Jesus’ blood are also changed through Jesus’ Spirit. The church in Corinth was made up of persons who once gave themselves to sins of adultery, drunkenness, theft, homosexuality, etc. But, as a result of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, these members were changed. Says Paul of these former adulterers, drunkards, thieves, homosexuals: "such were some of you" (1 Cor 6:11). His point: those who are justified through the blood of Christ are also sanctified through the Spirit of Christ.

This change, this sanctification, cannot be hidden, cannot remain secret. Recall Jesus’ words: "do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit" (Mt 7:16ff). Exactly because the Lord God has chosen particular unworthy sinners to righteous in Jesus Christ are these sinners changed so that they invariably bear good fruit. This is the point of Question & Answer 64: "it is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should fail to bring forth fruits of thankfulness.

Need we do good works in order to impress God? Do we find encouragement for ourselves in the works we do, on the understanding that our works earn us God’s approval? Let no one, beloved, let no one be so conceited as to think that his deeds will earn him anything with God! To trust that one’s deeds will impress God is idolatry. So too: let no one, let no one seek through his works to win points with God! Such efforts are futile, idolatry in His holy eyes.

At the same time, let each of us examine ourselves. Good works are inevitable for those renewed by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. So then: is your life characterized by good works? Including sorrow for the sins you still commit against your will? Or do you find it OK to sin, aren’t much bothered by sin, as long as you do an equal amount of good to compensate for the evil?

Let it be clear: salvation is from heaven alone. And so complete is God’s saving work in Jesus Christ that His people on earth invariably do good works. So the Christian can be recognized by the marks of the Christian: "they believe in Jesus Christ the only Savior, flee from sin and pursue righteousness, love the true God and their neighbor without turning to the right or left, and crucify their flesh and its works. Although great weakness remains in them, they fight against it by the Spirit all the days of their life. They appeal constantly to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of Jesus Christ, in whom they forgiveness of their sins through faith in Him" (Belgic Confession, Art 29). Amen.