Let’s start this meeting with God by openly professing to one
another and to God:
Our help is in the Name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Psalm of praise: 33:1, 2
Prayer
Psalm 8:1, 4, 5
Scripture reading:
2 Peter
1:1-15
Scripture
text:
2 Peter 1:10; Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 32
So,
dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are
among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you never stumble or
fall away. (2 Peter 1:10 NLT)
In everybody’s life three things are linked inextricably.
These are:
- Misery
- We’ll only want to serve the Lord and wish to lead a
pious
life if we believe and understand that we sin every day and that we are
so miserable because of our sins – and what the actual
results of our sins are.
- Redemption
- We can
only live a godly life because the Lord Jesus delivered us from our
misery.
- Also, it
can only be done if we accept and profess Him as our only God and
Saviour.
- A godly
life will be the result of our profound gratitude for our salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Gratitude
- And then
gratitude is only possible if we realise the magnitude of
God’s grace, because our misery is so immense.
This is why it happens that a person, who is intensely aware of his
misery, does good works.
- He is not trying to be deserving of eternal life through it.
Christ
already earned it for him.
- He’s just trying to be grateful. This is why he’s
doing good works. This is why he tries to obey and live according to
God’s commandments.
- We therefore do good works for the sake of the blood of the Lord
Jesus
Christ that was shed for us.
Just consider from what Christ delivered us. It’s quite easy
to say, He delivered us from all our sins. But think again:
- It’s not just a matter of being delivered from our sins.
- We are completely unacceptable before God. We are plodding on in
sin,
and if we righteously get what we deserve, we should go straight to
hell as a result of everything we are up to.
No one of us deserves by any means to be accepted in heaven.
As the
Scriptures say, “No one is good – not even
one. No one has real understanding; no one is seeking God. All have
turned away from God; all have gone wrong. No one does good, not even
one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
Why would God allow us into heaven?
- Only He knows why, because He decided to love us.
- And for that He let his Son die for our sins, so that we would be
acquitted when we appear before God on Judgement Day.
Why then did Christ die for us? There are three reasons.
·
Firstly, God’s love for us. We cannot explain it. God in his
supreme wisdom decided that He loves us, and therefore Christ died for
us.
·
The second reason is that God wants to keep us. The Lord wants to
preserve us forever. He doesn’t want us to eventually become
the property of Satan, although we deserve it.
- In the third place He wants us to praise Him.
- We are
saved so we can be obedient. In other words, to live in gratitude to
the honour of God.
- Consider
how Jesus saved us. He became poor to make us rich.
- The Lord,
who reigns over life and death, died in order to save us.
- God, who
lives in heaven, descended to earth to be humiliated like this. It is
unthinkable, because not one of us would do such a thing.
We don’t even like to be scolded, and Jesus Himself became a
curse in order to sanctify us!
- We should continuously jubilate – like the slaves in
ancient
times when they were released – because we were
Satan’s slaves and have been redeemed through Jesus Christ!
- We cannot be but moved by this. Gratitude should be present
permanently. And then, of course, we’ll live a life that
speaks of our gratitude.
Let’s have a closer look at this:
- Christ not only did something FOR us; He also did something
INSIDE us.
- He gave us a new heart and a new life – a new life through
Christ!
- The Holy Spirit lives inside us, and works in us.
- He
changes our disposition.
- He builds
our faith.
- He speaks
to us when we do wrong.
- It simply
means that God the Holy Spirit teaches us to live in gratitude, and to
feel remorse when we sin.
- The Spirit of God renews us to resemble the image of God.
- He grants
us insight and righteousness to enable us to experience the work of
Christ and to apply it in practice.
- This
means that we are spiritually renewed.
- The Holy Spirit changes us so that we no longer look like
children of
Satan on our way to hell. We now look and live like dwellers in heaven:
- People
who live a life of happiness and bliss.
- People
who know God, and therefore live according to his will.
This is a new life and new
gratitude. Of course our Heavenly Father
only wants to live in pure hearts, and own irreproachable believers.
Against this background we know for sure that if it depended on us, we
wouldn’t have dared to appear before the Lord.
- But this doesn’t mean that we should forever have doubts
about what is going to happen to us.
- A converted person knows for sure that he will enter the kingdom
of
heaven because of Christ’s redemptive death on the cross.
- This is a sure knowledge: Christ already opened the gates to
heaven for
me. He has locked me inside his heaven. No one and nothing can take me
away from my salvation through Him! This is firmness of faith.
But then your life should be proof of this firmness of faith!
- Any person, who says that he is chosen and that God is reconciled
to
him through Jesus Christ, but is living like an angel of Satan, has
reason for distress.
- He should repent. Because his life shows that he is not one
redeemed.
- One redeemed does not only say that he is redeemed.
- He cannot
do enough to praise and thank God for the fact that he has been
delivered from the powers of Satan and the hell.
- Therefore
he does good works. His entire life is a song of jubilation and
gratitude.
For believers good works mean something totally different from what
they mean to false believers and unbelievers.
- The value the Roman Catholic Church and certain charismatic
churches
attach to good works, namely that you can earn your salvation through
them, are completely null and void.
- In fact, gratitude is in direct opposition to merit!
- We are then grateful because Christ delivered us and gave us
eternal
life. We are grateful because we have been grabbed away from hell.
Therefore: good works!
Although we do not and cannot earn our salvation through good works, it
does not relieve us from all responsibility.
- Gratitude is also a responsibility! Gratitude is not to be
expressed
only when it suits you or when you feel like showing it.
- Gratitude is a duty by which you prove something!
- In our daily lives a fine life proves that we have been brought
up
well. In our religious life it proves that we are redeemed and truly
children of God.
We should guard against reasoning that we can blame our weakness for
the sins we commit.
- In other words, we are in any case too weak to hold our own
against
Satan and his temptations and therefore we are allowed to sin! With
such an argument we cannot appeal to our redemption through Jesus
Christ!
- In fact, our redemption through Christ increases our
responsibility to
do good works.
- In simple terms: a person plodding on in sin is not one chosen.
He
serves the devil by being too slack to fight against evil. And at the
same time he dishonours the Lord Jesus Christ.
We should rather abandon all worldly pleasures and focus on a lifestyle
regarded by God as perfect and good.
- Our good works should bear testimony to our salvation and
gratitude to
God.
- We should do it in such a way that we give direction to life!
That we
in fact be religious leaders in whichever area we function.
- Encourage
those who become weak so that they can regain hope.
Let your good works be a call to those around you, leading them to
Christ. Then your life does good to everybody; encourages all the
faithful, and at the same time puts the unbelievers to shame. Then you
honour Christ and also the church of God.
Let’s read together Catechism Lord’s Day 32.
86. Q. Since we have been delivered
from our misery by grace alone
through Christ, without any merit of our own, why must we yet do good
works?
A. Because Christ, having
redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by
His Holy Spirit to be His image, so that with our whole life we may
show ourselves thankful to God for His benefits,[1] and He may be
praised by us.[2] Further, that we ourselves may be assured of our
faith by its fruits,[3] and that by our godly walk of life we may win
our neighbours for Christ.[4]
[1] Rom. 6:13; 12:1, 2; I Pet.
2:5-10. [2] Matt. 5:16; I Cor. 6:19, 20.
[3] Matt. 7:17, 18; Gal. 5:22-24;
II Pet. 1:10, 11. [4] Matt. 5:14-16;
Rom. 14:17-19; I Pet. 2:12; 3:1, 2.
87. Q. Can those be saved who do not
turn to God from their ungrateful
and impenitent walk of life?
A. By no means. Scripture says
that no unchaste person, idolater,
adulterer, thief, greedy person, drunkard, slanderer, robber, or the
like shall inherit the kingdom of God.[1]
[1] I Cor. 6:9, 10; Gal. 5:19-21;
Eph. 5:5, 6; I John 3:14.
Amen.
Closing prayer
Closing hymn: Psalm 96:1
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.
Dr
MJ du Plessis
Reformed
Church Bellville
Date:
23 January 2005 (evening)