good works

Friday, May 2, 2008

Psalm 85, 86; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Ephesians 2:1-10; Matthew 7:22-27

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
(Eph. 2:10)

I have said, half-joking, a lot lately that my calling is to redeem "works" for Christians. To help us not cringe or immediately backpedal with caution whenever we hear the word. Clearly, Paul states that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works - which is interesting because it's Paul's writing elsewhere that has led to the theology and preaching that, in a nutshell, faith is good, works are bad (because you will trust in them, not in the Lord...).

For example, even this verse immediately follows his classic statement that "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship..."

So,
saving faith, that boasts in the Lord,
this grace that is a gift from God,
this deliverance by God alone out of the way of sin and death,
is all to work a new creation in us,
the purpose of which is good works.
That is, to be like God. To be like Jesus.

[These good works, I believe, include how we do our jobs today, our work... no matter how mundane, how "secular," how seemingly unrelated to anything particularly Christian...]

Our other Scriptures today do bring balance to this verse:
Psalm 85 says that steadfast love and truth meet, that righteousness and peace kiss. There is this beautiful tension - love and truth, righteousness and peace. Seeming opposites coming together in fruitfulness.

Hannah prays in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 declaring the goodness and greatness of God in raising up the poor and bringing down proud princes. God's goodness and greatness is seen in God's good works. The works flow out of who he is.

Finally, in Matthew 7, we hear Jesus warning people that their "mighty works" done in his name are meaningless (they are not good works, but bad and condemning) if they don't know him. If they haven't built their whole lives upon his teaching, and were only punching a ticket to present one day.

Again, we see that it's all of a piece. There is clearly a wholeness, a unity of life in God that God has designed us for. From the motivations of our hearts to the words of our mouths, from the meditations of our minds to the works of our hands - one reinforces the other, or flows in and out of the other.

Saturated by the Spirit, invaded by the Word, living and dancing in the community of the Trinity - God, give us grace to walk out that which we've been baptized into, to nurture the life you've planted in us, to follow you in the good works you still design and desire to do through your people to touch and change your world. Amen.