Are Good Works Good Enough?
If you want to boast in your works, or even in your work of faith, James reminds us that you must keep every point of the law, since even one miss justifies our condemnation for the entire law (see Gal. 5:3-4). And there is only one man who kept the law perfectly, the man Christ Jesus (Heb. 4:15).
Works—they are what we do—our actions. But what does it mean if we add “good?” What makes a work good?
Some may answer that they know a good work when they see it; others may say it is anything that is helpful or loving to another person. But who determines what is good? Does each person decide for themselves? No, it is only God. He is our Creator who has revealed to us what is a good work. Let us consider what he says.
How does God define good works?
When we look at God’s definition of good works in the Bible we find three criteria. A good work is an act that:
Any work we do that fails to meet God’s criteria of what constitutes a good work is sinful and cannot please God (see Mark 7:6-7; Titus 1:15).
What about works done by people who do not believe in Christ Jesus?
Surely some of what unbelievers do can be deemed a good work? No. By the biblical definition of good works, the reprobate—that is, those who are not in Christ Jesus by faith—cannot do good works. Their works may appear good and even be in accord with God’s law and of benefit to others; however, because they do not proceed from a heart purified by faith, they are sinful and cannot please God nor merit anything from him (see Mark 7:6-7; Titus 1:15).
The point the Lord is making is that good works are not merely external. In order to be good, they must proceed internally from a heart purified by God with an internal motive that aims at God’s glory.
What about works done by people who do believe in Christ Jesus?
We must first understand that even as redeemed sinners we are still battling sin. Perfection does not come to us in this creation, but only in the new creation (see Job 9:20; Gal 5:17; 1 John 1:8). Apart from Christ Jesus our works are like filthy rags (Isa. 64:5-7), and even when we have done what was our good duty, we are still unworthy servants (Luke 17:10).
Yet, God sovereignly created us in Christ Jesus for good works, having saved us by grace through faith, not by our own works, so that we cannot boast in anything we have done (Eph. 2:8-10). It is only in Christ Jesus that we do anything that can be called a good work, for such acts proceed only from the Spirit of Christ.
In John 15:4-6, Christ Jesus reveals that any fruit (i.e., good works) that comes from us is only because Christ abides in us and we in him; apart from Christ we can do nothing good—absolutely nothing.
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What is Spiritual Leadership at Home?
Leadership really IS influence. Spiritual leadership in the home is the ability to get your wife and children to follow you in your love for Jesus. My favorite Leadership proverb is, He who thinks he is leading when no one is following is only taking a walk. Successful spiritual leadership at home is creating a desire in your wife and in your children to WANT to follow you as you follow Christ.
Christian men know that God has appointed them to lead their homes. But what does that look like? We don’t want to fail in this role. But how can I succeed at what I know is one of my most important tasks when I can’t actually define what that task IS? In the next two episodes, our goal is for us to come away with a concrete picture of the three components of spiritual leadership in the home and how they work together to maximize our leadership impact in our families.
As I wrestled this week to consider WHERE our God-given calling as men slams against the strongest headwinds in our culture, I realized that it might be in being the spiritual leaders of our homes that Jesus wants us to be. The gale forces pushing against progress in leading are powerful: 1) the busyness of life, 2) a culture that undermines godly manhood, 3) our own sense of inadequacy (our wives are more spiritual—and don’t get taken down by images on the Internet). Perhaps the strongest headwind of all, though, is the question, Where do I start? What do I actually DO so that one day I hear my Commander in Chief whisper, “Gary I entrusted Sandy, Kim, Karen, Brian, Tim, and Josh to you to lead to me. You have done that well! Yes, only I can make them spiritually alive—but you have led them well.”
The most valuable truth I’ve learned about leadership is that leadership is much bigger than authority. Authority is a vital subset of leadership. It needs to be used consistently, and fairly. Our followers, especially when they are young, cannot learn character apart from painful consequences when they violate God’s moral and creation laws. Scripture is clear, For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons (Heb 12:6-8).
In an egalitarian culture where autonomy is the highest value, the biblical worldview counters, “authority is a good thing.” God punishes sin, the boss has the power to fire, God gives the state power to punish wrong behavior, and parents need to exercise firm discipline to train their children. Our race’s fall into evil has sent a desire for autonomy into the core of our being. Hearing that sin has consequences is not enough. For our character to be shaped by a hatred of evil, we need to experience pain when we disobey the moral law written on our conscience. If we deprive our children of painful punishment for disobedience, we never allow their character to be properly formed. They will never learn the pain of controlling their impulses—and they will continue to be as all children come into the world–self-centered. That is why Proverbs warns tender-hearted parents, Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Prov 13:24).
But leadership is BIGGER than authority. You might say, authority is the power to COERCE obedience. When kids are young, in our house, we use AUTHORITY (discipline) to get the behavior we want (which also trains them). But when our kids are older, away from the house, if the child still chooses to do what you would want him to do—that’s LEADERSHIP. Authority uses force to coerce obedience, a good, necessary thing not only for order but to train a child to control his impulses. But leadership goes further. It accepts the responsibility of wielding authority but goes beyond it to INFLUENCE. Influence causes your child to want to obey you. The greater your INFLUENCE the less you need to use authority.
In fact, leadership really IS influence. Spiritual leadership in the home is the ability to get your wife and children to follow you in your love for Jesus. My favorite Leadership proverb is, He who thinks he is leading when no one is following is only taking a walk. Successful spiritual leadership at home is creating a desire in your wife and in your children to WANT to follow you as you follow Christ.
Authority, again, is a God-ordained structure that we must teach children to respect. But effective leadership (especially with adults and teens) must go beyond authority. Harry Selfridge, the owner of a London department store chain, shows his managers the difference between seeing themselves as bosses or leaders.The boss drives people, the leader coaches them.
The boss depends upon authority, the leader depends upon good will.
The boss says, “I”; the leader says, “We.”
The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how it is done.
The boss says, “Go!”; the leader says, “Let’s go!”Let’s formulate a concrete picture of how leadership works. There are 3 COMPONENTS to leadership: the leader, the followers, the objective to be reached. Leaders are taking people somewhere.
A. The Leader. This can be the one assigned leadership by God in the family, or filling a leadership role at work, in the church, in the classroom or on the athletic field. Being a leader is not synonymous with being an upfront person. A dad who is terrified of speaking upfront can be a great leader to his kids—building that influence through time together looking under a car hood or throwing a ball.
B. The Followers. For dads, it is our wife, kids, and grandkids. But followers can also be those I lead in my Bible study, those I serve in church leadership, a friend who has drifted from Christ that I am seeking to bring back, or a work associate I am trying to lead to Christ.
C. The Objective: Leaders are taking their followers somewhere. There is a goal to achieve, a mountain to climb, a destination to reach. When we talk about spiritual leadership, i.e. influencing those around us towards Christ, we could define the goal as spiritual maturity.
The above three arrows are the 3 fundamental PROCESSES to leading.
1. Orange arrow across the bottom: This is the arrow between the leader and the goal of spiritual growth. The leader must, himself, FOCUS upon and MODEL his own commitment to spiritual maturity. He must lead from his life (MODEL). However, here is a key point for men: What you model is DIRECTION not PERFECTION. The gospel is that we all get knocked down by our own sin. Our kids know we fail. It does NOT help them to see us try to hide our failure; what they need is to see us fail and then get up, get back into the race, and follow after Christ even harder.
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Read God’s Law for Maximal Application
Written by William B. Fullilove |
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
The Divines provide us a powerful biblical training that forbids us from adopting a merely privatized faith. Their call on our lives is to emulate their patterns of interpretation and to apply God’s law to every area of life. This is what godliness looks like.When we confess our sins in worship, we confess both the wrong we’ve done and the good we’ve left undone. In so doing, we follow a long Christian tradition that deeply considers the full implications of God’s commandments, reading them expansively—never narrowly—to search out both the positive and negative implications of each commandment for the Christian life.
It’s this maximal reading of the law, a thirst to apply the principles—not merely the letter—of God’s commands into every area of life, that we see modeled throughout the Bible and with great depth in our Reformed tradition.
In the Law Itself
We see this model envisioned in the way Leviticus 6 works out the implications of the eighth commandment:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the LORD by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt” (Lev. 6:1–5).
Leviticus makes clear that “stealing” is far more than simply taking something from your neighbor.
Deception in issues of a deposit, oppression of another, finding something lost and avoiding returning it, misleading others —all these, and by implication even more, would count as violations of the spirit of the eighth commandment. The law itself indicates the commandments should be read expansively, not narrowly.
By Our Savior
We see the same model in the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions (Matt. 19:16–22).Christ’s point, of course, was that the young man’s piety was not as exemplary as he would have hoped. True piety doesn’t simply end with avoiding sins of commission, being able to say, “These I have kept.” Keeping the law includes avoiding sins of omission as well.
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True Compassion and LGBTQ Weddings
Those who suggest that a Christian can and should attend an illegitimate, sinful “wedding” have suggested that attending the wedding of a friend or loved one is the compassionate thing to do so that we as Christians do not appear judgmental and that it is sometimes necessary for preserving the relationship. True compassion, however, does not approve of sin or give the slightest appearance of approving sin. It is never compassionate to approve of, silently bear witness to, or celebrate the very sins that are the grounds for eternal damnation for those who refuse to repent.
True Compassion in the Parable of the Prodigal Son
Perhaps no parable is more beloved than that of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32. It speaks to universal concerns and experiences. We all can feel the heartache of the father in the parable as we consider the sadness and pain of having a wayward child or friend, longing for our loved one to return in repentance and faith. We can also relate to the Prodigal Son because of our sin. We are like him when we turn from our sin and to our heavenly Father, knowing that He does not forgive reluctantly or give us mere table scraps, but rather that He celebrates our repentance. Moreover, many of us have known professing Christians who are like the older brother in the parable and who look down on repentant sinners with resentment because our heavenly Father has forgiven them. Maybe even we ourselves have acted like the older brother at times.
It is a good thing that this parable is so familiar and beloved for both its insight into the heart of God for the lost and because it addresses different kinds of human responses to God’s grace. At the same time, our love for this parable can make us miss all that the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching us through it. Further, our good and proper desire not to act like the older brother can make us susceptible to emotional manipulation from people who may be motivated by compassion for lost sinners but fail to make certain that their compassion is biblically consistent, being founded firmly on the unchanging truth of the whole counsel of God.
To understand what the parable of the prodigal son teaches us about the true compassion of God and the biblically grounded compassion that He calls us to have toward sinners, we must first look briefly at the immediate context of the parable in Luke 15:1–10. The parable of the prodigal son is the third in a series of parables about lost things—the lost sheep (Luke 15:4–7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8–10), and the lost son (Luke 15:11–32). Jesus tells these parables in response to the scribes’ and Pharisees’ grumbling that Jesus would receive and eat with sinners (Luke 15:1–2). From Jesus’ remarks in verses 7 and 10 over the joy in heaven over repentance, we can conclude that the scribes and Pharisees did not understand the extent of God’s mercy and grace. The actions of the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep and the woman in the parable of the lost coin confirm this. God receives and rejoices over those who were once lost in their sin but are now united to Christ, having turned from their sin and trusted Christ by God’s grace alone. Jesus also teaches us about the compassion and care of God, who will do all that is necessary to find and rescue His lost sheep and bring them into His sheepfold, much as the shepherd and the woman stop everything else that they are doing to find the lost sheep and coin (Luke 15:3–10). God rejoices when people repent (Luke 15:7, 10), and it is His kindness that leads us to repent (Rom. 2:4). The Pharisees and scribes were wrong to grumble because their doing so meant either that they did not want sinners to repent or that they thought that those who repent of egregious sins do not deserve to receive the same warm, gracious, and celebratory welcome from God that those who repent of less heinous transgressions receive.
That brings us to the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son is a picture of those who sin grievously against the Lord. His asking for his inheritance from his father before his father died was tantamount to telling his father, “I wish you were dead.” To make things worse, the son did not remain with his family once he received his inheritance, but he abandoned them, fleeing to a far country where he squandered his inheritance in “reckless living” (Luke 15:13). The depths of his fall are further illustrated in his having to go to work feeding pigs once his money ran out. Pigs were unclean to the Jews, and no Jew would be around them, let alone care for them, unless he had become thoroughly unclean himself (Luke 15:11–16).
The younger son was finally humbled and became broken and contrite over his sin and his situation, and he resolved to go home and confess his sin to his father. The younger son was repentant—convinced of his sin and misery and eager to seek his father’s mercy and forgiveness. He thought that his father would receive him back as a mere servant and not as his beloved son; instead, the father threw a party for his son, giving him the best robe and ring and preparing the most expensive food. He spared no expense in celebrating his son’s return home (Luke 15:17–24). The lesson here is clear as well—God’s grace and mercy are so abundant that He celebrates when sinners come back to Him in repentance. As Dr. R.C. Sproul comments on this parable: “This son who had disgraced the father coming home in filthy rags was greeted by his father, who fell upon his neck and kissed him. That’s what God does for every sinner who repents. He runs to you and He hugs you and He kisses you in your filth. That’s the way God works.” The father doesn’t hold a grudge against his son when he repents and returns home.
If we are not careful, however, we will miss what the father does not do in the parable. He does not go into the far country with his son. The father does not encourage the son in his sin, and he does not fund his son’s sinful exploits. In his rebellion, the son cuts off the relationship with his father, and, in his compassion, the father wants his son back. The picture in the parable is of a father who, while he does not go into the far country with his son, stands ready to receive him when he turns from his debauchery and returns home. The father waits on his front porch, as it were, looking and hoping for his son to return. He is so eager for that return that he is able to see his son coming back toward him while the son is yet far off (Luke 15:20). He recognized his son and had “compassion” on him, the parable says. This compassion was a readiness to receive a repentant son even while refusing to encourage, silently bear witness to, celebrate, or fund his son’s egregious sin. If we are to be imitators of God, as Paul instructs us to be (Eph. 5:1), the lesson is clear: We are to be ready to receive anyone who repents, but we are not in any way to encourage, silently bear witness to, celebrate, or fund the person’s sin. If our refusal to do these things leads them to cut ties with us, the fault is theirs, not ours. Christians are to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). A willingness to love and embrace a wayward sinner does not entail affirming or embracing their sinful waywardness, lifestyle, or decisions to maintain a good relationship with them. As Christians, we are to be the most gracious and compassionate people the world knows as we pray for sinners to turn from their ways through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet the Word of God is clear that we are not to do anything that might demonstrate an approval of sin to maintain our relationship with our loved one or friend, for “[love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6).
The last part of the parable concerns the response of the Prodigal Son’s older brother, who resents his father for celebrating his son’s return. The older brother had not claimed his inheritance prematurely or used it to engage in egregious debauchery. Thus, thinking that his brother got something that he the faithful son deserved, the older brother refused to join the father’s welcome-home party for his brother, choosing instead to accuse his father of unfair treatment. The elder brother’s attitude, which was akin to the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes to whom Jesus first told this parable, exemplified a hatred for the father that was masked by outward piety. In response, the father explained that the older brother’s heart was not in the right place. The older brother had every good thing from his father while the Prodigal Son was away and even after he returned. His receiving of his repentant son did not mean that the older son would lose out (Luke 15:25–32). The lesson is plain: God’s grace and mercy are enough to receive back wayward sinners without taking anything away from those who have been comparatively more faithful (see Matt. 20:1–16). The older son should have known that and should have known the father well enough to understand that the right response to repentance is celebration. The response of the older brother calls into question how well he really knew his father and thus how well the Pharisees and the scribes knew God. We are not to be like the older brother but should celebrate even when the most heinous of sinners turns to God in faith and repentance.
The problem with the older brother was not that he disapproved of his brother’s past sin. Jesus isn’t suggesting that the proper response of the older brother would have been for him to approve of his younger brother’s sin. The older brother’s problem was not that he thought it wrong to do things that might indicate or be construed as approval of sin. Rather, his problem was his refusal to receive back his brother with joy when he repented.
The True Compassion of Christ
It is clear from the above exposition of Luke 15:11–32 that God is full of compassion and grace and that He celebrates the repentance of lost sinners who turn to Him through faith in Jesus Christ. God’s compassion for lost sinners is grounded in both His mercy and His righteousness. In His sovereign providence, He permits sinners to go their own way, and sometimes He gives them over to their sin, but He never does anything that in any way signifies approval of their sin. Jesus ate with sinners, but He never encouraged or celebrated their sin. Jesus was a friend of sinners with true compassion for them, and it is precisely because of this that He called them to repent and believe.
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