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Short and sweet;
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Or…
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Thanks, Pastor Mark.
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And thanks to flickr and dmapt, for the photo.
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Filed under: Audio Snippet from Pastor Mark Anderson, Good Works | 3 Comments »
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You’ve heard it said:
1. Faith gives power for works.
2. Faith reveals what God wants you to do.
To the contrary:
“Firstly, it is usual to regard the relation between faith and works – and for that we can now also say, between what God does and what man does – in the first instance as a relationship between power and performance. Faith is supposed to give the power for works. This way of speaking requires to be very critically examined. The basic relation of faith and works isnot the communication of power for works, but the communication of freedom for them – that is, freedom to do the works in their limitedness as works and therefore also in the limitedness of the powers that are at our disposal for them. Just as faith too does not, though it is easy to misunderstand it so, primarily receive the revelation of what is to be done; but faith gives the freedom to perceive the right, because faith assigns works to their due place” 1
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1. “… faith … is not the communication of power for works, but the communication of freedom for them….”
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Faith is not a psychological push to do good works. In other words, faith is freedom from having to do good works, now that Christ has done it all, so that I don’t have to deal with sin, death, and the devil. I am free to be myself, living for others.
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2. “… faith …does not …receive the revelation of what is to be done….because faith assigns works to their due place.”
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Where is Christ working in the world and in my life? We are told that if we live “a centered life,” we will be able to see how the work we “do everyday contributes to God’s work in the world.”2
And yet real life doesn’t seem to work out this way. The life I live is ambiguous and broken. Where is God in our lives and in the larger world? We cannot dial up a list of what God is doing.
How do Lutherans sort this out? Faith is hidden. Apart from Word and sacraments, Christ is hidden. Contrary to the popular Bible Camp song – you cannot tell Christians by their love – and every attempt to do so leads to pride, hypocrisy, or despair.
To think that we can identify where God is working in our lives and in the larger world is a temptation. Luther frequently cited 2 Cor 11:14: “Even the devil disguises himself as an angel of light.” And Paul, when pressed by his opponents, declared:
“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor 4:3-4).
Like being humble, we all know that if you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it. All of which is to say that we live by faith, not by sight, by forgiveness, not “by seeing how God is sending me to do God’s work” (See footnote 2, #49). We trust him to know how to build his kingdom. Let God be God.3
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1Gerhard Ebeling, “The Necessity of the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms,” Word & Faith (London: SCM, 1963), p. 404. 2See “Centered Life: An Initiative of Luther Seminary” and the following survey statements:
•#44: I can easily see how the work I do everyday contributes to God’s work in the world.
•#47: I see how the tasks of my every day work connect with God’s work.
•#49: Each day, I am able to see how God is sending me out to do God’s work.
3 What about bearing fruit? That will have to be dealt with in another post, in which we would take up 1 Cor 4:3-4 more extensively.
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Thanks to CrossAlone-Lutheran-District .
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Filed under: CrossAlone Lutheran District, Faith, Good Works | 5 Comments »
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s true.
We are inveterate ‘doers’. The law is wri
tten upon our hearts. We want to justify ourselves if it kills us.
Ignorance of, or inability to distinguish God’s law from God’s gospel is a plague in the church.
“Well, it says right here in 2nd Macedonians 11 that we really ought to be doing good works to please God.”
So, then why aren’t you?
Why are we so consumed with what the Bible has to say about good works and then utterly ignore them unless it is to tell our neighbor to do them?
Have you noticed that? The do’s and don’ts of the law are never really taken seriously by the one who speaks of them. But the accusing finger is wagged in every direction but back at the self.
There is law language all over that Book. And there is gospel language all over that Book.
Should we, as Christians, ignore the law and ignore the needs of our neighbors?
Of course not! We ought jump in with both feet! We ought do all we can!
But not to aqcuire anything at all for ourselves. We already have all that is needful…in Christ. We have put on Christ in our baptisms! (Gal.3:27)
How can doing good works make you any better of a Christian than that? They can’t!
But if you mix up doing good works for the neighbor and doing good works to gain some elevated status in God’s eyes, then you may be a modern day Pharisee, and you may be in the process of cutting yourself off from God’s grace.
“We’ll then, how am I to know that I’m really a Christian?”
Remember 4/4 … Romans 4:4&5 , that is. “Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.”
Grace trumps Law… and it trumps it every time.
By the way, you are now free (because of Christ) to go out and do all the good works you want, without having to fear messing up in any way.
Your friends, family, neighbors, homeless people, old folks in nursing homes, young people in cancer wards…they could all benefit from your desire to do good works.
So…have at it!
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Are you a godly worker? Or are you an ungodly truster?
Sometimes it is a hard thing to admit. But when he hung on that cross and asked the Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do”, he was speaking about you and me, also. Not just those there in front of him.
Filed under: Good Works, Law and Gospel | 37 Comments »
The Old Adam Lives! 