Good Works To God's Pleasure

In Sunday’s sermon we discovered in Philippians 2:12-13 not only that joyful followers work, but that this work is something that very much pleases God. Since Christians who are taught that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone often conclude salvation-produced, God-pleasing good works don’t matter all that much, I want us to look at more biblical evidence.

 1. Good Works In The New Testament.

To begin, let’s look at how much the New Testament emphasizes good works and what those good works are.

 ·   Genuine repentance brings about fruit, which is the same as saying good works (Mt. 3:8).

·   Those who are genuinely part of the kingdom of God and thus have eternal life are those who do the will of the Father—another way of saying they do good works (Mt. 7:21-24).

·   Good works demonstrate one has trusted Christ for salvation. This would include desiring God’s glory and honor, along with immortality (Rom. 2:6-10).  Since works either demonstrate the presence or absence of salvation, God will judge men by their works (2 Cor. 11:13; 2 Tim. 4:14).

·   Good works involve obeying governmental authorities (Rom. 13:1-4).

·         Paul clarifies that faith, hope, and love are part of the work to which God calls us (1 Thes. 1:3).  Here “work”, “labor,” and “patience” are parallel.  These also, in context, are part of the way the Thessalonians demonstrated the Spirit was working in them in response to the gospel (1 Thes. 1:4-5).

·         Paul speaks of the “work of Christ” which in context consists of ministering to the needs of the fellow believer and evangelizing in the process (Phil. 2:30).

·         The ministry of Christian leaders (1 Thes. 5:13; 1 Tim. 3:1; 5:17) is part of the work that God brings about in some saints.

·   Good works include helping those in need, especially fellow believers (2 Cor. 8-9).

·         The fruit that is produced by the Spirit (and this is opposite the works of the flesh, so fruit=good works) includes: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control (Gal. 5:19-23). 

·   Good works involve all that God calls us to do.  All these works flow from the grace-giving saving work of Christ in us and the work of the Spirit (2 Cor. 9:8; Gal. 2:20; 5:22-23; Col. 1:12-13) and bring glory to Him (Col. 1:10; 3:17).

·         God sovereignly planned and prepared ahead of time that our grace-filled, Christ-bought salvation would bring about good works (Eph. 2:8-10).  Such good works are so important to God He reveals through Paul those who are rich in this life should be rich in good works—including being generosity and sharing what one has (1 Tim. 6:18).

·   Our carrying out of Christ-bought, God-glorifying good works leads to increased knowledge of God and joy (Col. 1:10-11), which also proves to us the goodness of God’s will (Rom. 12:2).

 2. God’s Pleasure in Good Works.

Paul affirms that God is pleased in obedience to his moral will (Rom. 8:7-8). More specifically, elsewhere it is clarified that God is pleased in the good work of sexual purity (1 Thes. 4:1-3). Hebrews 11:5 also emphasizes that walking with God in faith and obedience pleases God. Finally, the New Testament affirms that God the Father is pleased in his Son because he obeyed him perfectly (Mt. 3:17; Luke 3:22; John 5:30; 2 Peter 1:7).

Conclusion.

Given this thread of New Testament teaching, we should not be surprised that Paul affirms in Philippians 2:12-13 one of the results of God’s gracious working in the Christian is that he desires to please God by doing his will—i.e. by working out his salvation.

Pleasing God With You As A Joyful Follower,

Tom

Team Work

Last Sunday I preached on living and loving like Jesus, and we delved briefly into some of the implications. As we continue through Paul’s letter to the Philippians, one essential we will repeatedly discover is that if we are to go against the flow of our own sin nature, the world system around us, and that of our ultimate enemy, Satan, we need the help that comes to us on our team in the form of mid-range groups (Bible Fellowships) and our smallest groups (Iron Man/Woman Teams). And we need this help for two main reasons.

To begin…

1. We Need Help In The Means Of Grace God Has Given Us

In other words, if we are to use the tools God has given that help us grow, keep him first, and keep us living on purpose, we need people coming along side us, praying for and with us, encouraging us, holding us accountable, and helping us to apply the gospel resources we have. Some of the tools God has provided for us and with which we need help include: Bible intake, prayer, worship, and disciplemaking.

What this means is that we must not only be in a Bible Fellowship and an Iron Man/Woman Team, but that BF and IM/WT should be largely focused on our helping each other carry out our purpose and to use the tools God has given us, those gracious means through which Christ transforms us.  

Without such a team we will most likely lose our focus.

This leads to the second main way we need the help of our team.

2. We Need Help To Say, “Yes” To The Best Things And “No” To Too Many Lesser Things

We all have only so many hours in a week. We also all have differing abilities when it comes to how much we can do in a given time.  We all will also have to say, “No” to some things for which we do not have time and “Yes” to the most important things. Some will have to say, “No,” to more than others.

One of the toughest areas where we must do this is with activities for our children in late elementary through Senior High. The demands upon them and upon us as parents who must take them and/or attend events can be very intense. And, if we are not careful, they can drown out what should be our most important priorities as Christ followers.

 The answer is not to take our children (or ourselves) out of all activities other than church. Participation in school, community, and other activities can be very important to our children’s maturity, as well as to our mission as Christians. The goal is to put Christ first (Matthew 6:33) and then fill in what holes are left in our schedule once that is done. So, ask yourself the following questions to assess how you are doing.  Are you too busy to:

a. Read, study the Bible, and pray?

b. Read, study the Bible, discuss it, and pray as a family?

c. Invest your time in discipling your children and others?

d. To gather together in corporate worship, a Bible Fellowship, and/or Iron Man/Woman Team?

If your answer is, “Yes,” then frankly you are too busy, in danger of dishonoring Christ through that busyness, and you are in danger of keeping Christ out of first place in your family, which means that whatever else you accomplish, you are about to fail your family!

“But, Tom,” you ask, “How do we deal with this busyness when our sons and daughters are in sports or other activities and frankly if they are going to succeed, it takes a lot of time?” I have the following responses to guide us in the right direction:

a. You will have to decide what is most important for your children—what they cannot really live without: Christ, or  ________?

b. You will have to decide what God does or does not say in the Bible about what makes a good parent. We often are far more in fear of what other people think about our parenting than God, and far more focused on cultural definitions of good parenting than God’s.

c. There is not one way to answer the question of, “How Much?” for all, nor is there a formula to give. Different families and individuals can handle different levels of activities, while keeping priorities intact.

d. Put Jesus and his priorities in place first and then decide what you have time left to do after this.

e. If you have to make hard decisions, such as to limit your children to the number of sports or activities in which they can participate, or you have to say, “No,” sometimes to coaches and what they are requiring by way of time commitments, this is where your team comes into play. Don’t try to do this alone. Ban together for discussion on what and how to do it, to pray together, to support one another, and to gain wisdom in how to approach this.

Paul tells us in Philippians 1:27 that we stand firm, “by contending together, side-by-side, as teammates, for the faith that emerges from the gospel.” If we do not stand together, then surely we will all fall alone.

Joyfully On The Team With You,

Tom

So, Let's Be Specific

In Sunday’s sermon we discovered we are to think and act like Jesus. Yet, if we do this, what will this mean?  Let’s be very specific as we provide an answer from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

1. We will make our main purpose in life to show how great God is (Phil. 1:11), which more specifically will require us to show how great our Savior, Jesus Christ is (Phil 1:20-21).

2. This purpose will be achieved by the following characteristics and activities:

·         We will do the things that please God (1:11; 2:12).

·         We will grow to be content and happy in our Savior (1:18-23; 2:14-15; 3:1; 4:4, 10-13).

·         We will learn to depend upon God in prayer (1:3-11; 4:6).

3.  In order for us to see those characteristics and activities in our lives, we will do the following:

·         We will grow in our knowledge of God and his will through taking in the content of the Bible (1:9; 2:16)

·         We will pray alone and with others often.

·         We will allow others to invest in us and we will invest in others—understanding that we cannot honor God and live on mission without the help of each other (1:5, 7, 27; 2:19-30). In our congregation, this means involvement in a Bible Fellowship and an Iron Man/Woman Team.

·         We will intentionally and prayerfully work to help family and others to know Jesus, grow to be like him, serve him, and share him. To put this in other terms, for all of us, this means we will pray for and invest in unbelievers to help them become believers, in believers to help them become those who win others to Christ, and in those who win others to Christ so they can become multipliers—those who turn around and help others do the same (1:5, 12f.; 2:5-11, 19-30).

·         We will look for the right niche in which God wants us to serve him and others as we use our spiritual gifts (1:1-2).

As we continue on through this letter of Paul to the Philippians, we will unpack each of these points mentioned above and discover how we should carry them out in relation to each of the mission fields in which Jesus Christ as placed us: Family, work, community, friends, neighbors, and church.

Glorifying God With You As A Joyful Follower,

Tom

Preach The Gospel To Yourself

In Sunday morning’s sermon I brought before us some of what it involves for us to live like Jesus from Philippians 2:5-11. This is a pretty tall order, especially since we discovered that it means we have to give up our desire to fit in with everyone else around us and we have to give up our excuses for why we are not helping people (including our sons, daughters, and spouses) know, grow in, serve, and share Jesus to the glory of God, all so they can help others do the same.

Two responses immediately come to mind for many of you. To begin, “But Tom I have failed at this!”  Some might even add, “…and it is too late for me to do this with my own family! It just feels hopeless.”

Second, some of you might say, “Tom, I am scared to start. It is so out of my comfort zone and I just don’t know what to do!”

To both responses I say, “Preach the gospel to yourself.” This means, on the one hand, we are reminded that in Christ we are forgiven for our sins and there is therefore now no condemnation (Rom. 5:1; 1 John 1:7). Our favor with God is not based upon what we have achieved, having the perfect record with discipling our children, or the perfect record with discipling anyone else. It depends upon Christ and Christ alone (Phil. 3:9). As such, we can stand strong and go forward with hope.

On the other hand, because the grace of Jesus Christ that is with us and in which we stand (Rom. 5:2; 2 Cor. 13:14) not only saves us (Eph. 2:8), but also transforms us (Titus 2:11-13), the gospel reminds us that we can do whatever God calls us to do (2 Cor. 9:8-10; Phil. 4:13, 19). If our children are still under our roof, we can begin to disciple them and pray for them. Our God will help us (Mt. 28:20)! If our children are already grown, we can pray that God would bring others along to disciple them and/or would give us opportunities to impact them positively. Additionally, we can invest in other people for their benefit and God’s glory. And the very God who has worked so powerfully in us has also promised to answer our prayers for this mission (John 14:12-14). So, pray, pray, pray. Depend upon God to show you the way forward and to bring you to the right person to give you help.

By all means follow the model of Jesus Christ, but also do not forget his main ministry:  To save us and also to enable us to live under the Lordship of our God and to experience his blessings.

So, wherever you find yourself in relation to Sunday’s sermon, preach the gospel to yourself.

Preaching The Gospel To Myself As a Joyful Follower With You,

Tom

Praying, Caring Sharing

In this morning’s sermon we uncovered the gem from Philippians 1:1-8 that if we are to experience joy in following Christ, we must live for the mission of gospel advancement. Yet, what should be our main action point? 

The Great Commandment

If we could choose only one action point from this morning, we could do no better than to say we must love others. After all, this is the first prayer request Paul offers up in behalf of the Philippians—that their love grow more and more (Phil. 1:9). Love also would be the one word description for how we are to relate to one another according to Paul’s teaching (Phil. 2:1-4) and Christ’s example (2:5-11).

And can we forget Jesus’ answer to the query, “What is the great commandment?” It is to love God with all we have and others as we love ourselves (Mt. 22:37-40). We do not have to search for Jesus’ view on what our greatest responsibility is to others. It is to love them. So, as we interact with our spouse, raise our children, go to work, attend the game, buy groceries in the store, visit with our neighbor, take a break with our co-worker, or enjoy our favorite restaurant, our first mission is to love. Our quest should be to learn what it means to love others and how to trust Christ to help us.

The Great Promise

What we should take with us every day as we seek to carry out the great commandment to others is a great promise by God to us. In a context in which Jesus calls us to love one another, he promises: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son…. I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit…so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you…. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 14:13; 15:16; 16:24).

I take this to mean in part that every day we should:

  1. Ask God to help us love others.

2. That we should look and pray for ways we can love others.

3. As we engage with others, we should realize the power of praying for them (especially that God’s grace would come to them) and the power of praying with them—as God gives opportunity.

4. We should share with others how Jesus has changed us and can change them.

This is the simple action point we should take away from today’s sermon: We should be a praying, caring, sharing people!

Practicing Hospitality

Alan Farlin had a great message for us this morning (Sunday, April 23) on blessing others through hospitality.

As I left, I was not only thinking, “what a great way to live as joyful followers of Jesus!” but I also had several other conclusions that may help us implement the message.

1. One of the ways to bridge the gap between knowing people as acquaintances and being able to bless them through hospitality is to pray that God gives us those opportunities. Jesus told the disciples in John 15:16 he called them for two purposes: To produce lasting fruit and to be able to ask and receive in the name of Jesus from the Father. The latter purpose (prayer) is the way to see the former fulfilled. If we truly are to love people in concrete ways (including inviting them into our homes), we must pray that God opens up those doors to do just that. And then we must be aware of when God is answering and we need to act.

2. Because hospitality is a lost art in our culture, there is the potential to make a big splash through this ministry. God has created us to be relational beings and whether we realize it or not, we need other people. When we bless others through the act of having them into our home, we are creating situations in which God can move in powerful ways. So, realize how significant a ministry this can be.

3. Remember the Nike commercial and “just do it!” Knowing that we would soon begin this conversation as a faith family on hospitality, I recently asked a couple who has been married ten years and has had a lot of people into their home in that time, “What advice should we give?” The husband’s answer was to repeat that old Nike commercial. As Alan suggested to us this morning, this is something we should treasure because the Lord has called us to this kind of lifestyle. So, we must make the decision to start, determine when we will ask someone to come, ask the person(s), put it on our calendar, and then enjoy the time. And then keep doing it.

4. In response to the question I asked that couple, the wife mentioned how important it is not to try and make it a Pinterest-worthy production every time you invite someone. For older generations, we might need to say it this way, “Don’t try to be Martha Stewart.” This doesn’t mean we cannot or should not care about how the food tastes or what the table looks like, but we should not fall into a mindset of such performance at a high level that it keeps us from practicing hospitality.

5. Finally, keep in mind that a simple tool like having people into your home helps us advance the gospel of Jesus Christ—either by encouraging fellow believers to live in a way worthy of and strengthened by the gospel (Rom. 16:25; Phil. 1:27; 1 Thes. 2:12), or by helping unbelievers eventually come to receive and rest upon that gospel for salvation (Rom. 1:16; 1 Thes. 2:13).

The homes of Christ’s joyful followers should be regularly filled with people loving one another by playing games, eating meals, listening, praying and studying together, laughing together, and crying together. What an impact that will have upon our town and ultimately our world!  I pray that it will be so!

Why I Will Be On A Two Week Semi-Sabbatical

My fellow elders here at the Minden Evangelical Free Church have graciously allowed me to take a semi-sabbatical for the next two weeks (Dec. 8-22). I know many of you will want to know what that means and why I requested this.

First, as to what this means, I will be working out of my study at home, spending very little time in the office, and trying to keep meetings to a minimum. I will still be preaching and will be available for any emergencies that arise.

Second, as to why I requested the semi-sabbatical, it is so I can get a chunk of work done on a writing project I have been working on the better part of two years. Most of my work has been very early in the morning and when I could fit it in at other times. Currently, I am done with research, I have the rough draft for six of ten chapters, and would love to be able to write the rough draft of the seventh chapter and do some editing in these two weeks. I chose this time of year because typically people in the church are busy with Christmas preparations and family and so it would most likely afford the opportunity to write without taking away from needed pastoral duties.

Finally, you are probably curious what the topic of the book is. So, let me give you a brief overview. I am addressing a view of how God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility fit together known as Molinism. Please don’t worry if you have never come across this label. If you are generally familiar with the history of the debate, Molinism falls into the Arminian family of stances and it has grown in popularity over the past couple decades. My desire is not only to display the deficiencies of Molinism, but also along the way, to help readers understand the topic more clearly. And, by the way, I also will show where Molinism is a good stance and where my stance comes close to it.

That is the very brief overview, now here are the bullet points of what I have discovered and which make up the meat of the book:

(1) The Bible never argues that one of the purposes God had in permitting sin was so he could preserve a view of human freedom that involves humans being the originator of their own choices—a kind of freedom that would make humans' love for God genuine. The Bible does affirm that God allowed sin so that he could put on display his manifold attributes and, at the same time, heighten the glory and radiance of his saving mercy against the darkness of mankind’s sin. The Bible is clear that God has done this in a manner that mankind is responsible for his sin, God is not responsible, and God is responsible for salvation (it redounds to his glory). This understanding allows us to see the remaining points—especially #2.

(2) The Bible teaches that God governs the world in such a way that he is not dependent upon or limited by human choices. Another way to say this is that God is absolutely sovereign and he exercises this sovereignty through his providence that encompasses all things in the world. The result is that God is bringing about all that he has decreed he would either cause or allow in accordance with his eternal purpose.

(3) Though God governs all things as set forth in #2, nevertheless, he does not govern all things in the same manner. Through an immeasurable (from the human perspective) combination of active and passive governance on the part of God, all righteous acts ultimately come about because of God’s gracious work and all unrighteous acts are the moral responsibility of Satan, demons, and/or humans. Related to this, God brings about what he has determined would take place through responsible secondary agents—and not by-passing their own wills.

(4) Scripture teaches that a truly free human choice is one that a person desires to do. Such a free choice is in accordance with the strongest motive at the time and these motives are shaped by previous circumstances, decisions, and a person’s character. This view of human freedom allows God to govern things as described in #’s 2-3 and so God is absolutely sovereign and yet, at the same time, humans make real, responsible, and free choices. This kind of freedom, along with how we have described God’s sovereignty, allows for humans to be able to change their minds, change the directions of their lives, respond to reason, and overcome habits—even though all that a person will do has been decreed by God.

(5) The kind of human freedom described in #4 reflects how God’s will works. God’s will flows from his nature, his character—and this perfectly and with absolute freedom. Though man’s decisions are not always absolutely consistent with his character and though not all his decisions are absolutely free, nevertheless, as created in the image of God, man’s will does reflect how God’s will operates.

(6) The kind of human freedom described in #4 allows for God to have decisive influence upon the will and yet the resulting decisions are truly the free decisions and movements of the person’s will.

(7) One reason #6 is so important is that Scripture is clear that God must initiate the saving process with anyone who trusts Jesus Christ as Savior. In other words, he must change the heart so the person sees their need for Christ, desires him, and can and will trust in him. The fact that Scripture teaches this is also another verification for the view of God’s sovereignty and human freedom we have described.

(8) Another reason #6 is important is because God’s transforming work must precede a person’s relationship with Jesus Christ. To word this in another way, the New Testament over and over again tells the Christian that he/she has been transformed into a new person and so they must live out the change that is there. This necessitates that God can and has changed their desires and will so that they want to and can choose to follow him. The fact that Scripture teaches this is also another verification for the view of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom we have described.

(9) Finally, the reality that Scripture teaches that in the new heaven and new earth saints will always and forever choose freely what is right and never choose to sin again is one of the greatest verifications that the view of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom set forth in this study is what the Bible teaches, as opposed to how the Molinist and the majority of Christians set forth the interplay of divine sovereignty and human freedom.

So, there you have it. My desire is to write more of an academic version of this book that makes the case with a great deal of source citation and strong, detailed proof of every point. Then I would like to write a version that would be more similar to how I preach and could benefit all kinds of Christians. I also hope eventually to enter perhaps into some public forums with a friend of mine who is a Molinist—so we can increase people’s understanding in these issues and also display how to disagree in a civil and loving way.