Dr MJ du Plessis Reformed Church Bellville Date: 20 November 2005 (evening)

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: 33:2
Prayer
Psalm 73:12
Scripture reading: Ezra 9
Scripture text: Ezra 9:6; Catechism Lord’s Day 24

And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. (Ezra 9:6 King James version)

Time and again the Lord wants to bring to our attention the matter of our salvation.

He wants to emphasise the meaning of the new covenant. He is the New Covenant.
Hence He calls us to sit down at his table for Holy Communion, or to present a child to the font.

This new covenant in which we are included through the Lord Jesus Christ is not only a physical matter; it is also a spiritual matter.

We should embrace his suffering and death spiritually when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
To be able to do this we must sit down before the Lord with a sincere confession of guilt because of our sins. We should always remember that our lives are filled with wrongful acts. This is one aspect of the matter.
When we present a child to the font, we must believe that this child dies and is buried with Christ by baptism, and just as the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead this child has eternal life.

However, Holy Communion is a meal of grace, and hence we should also remember the other aspect of the matter: We must remember that we belong to a very special group of people, because even before the beginning God chose us to be his people.

This is why the Lord revealed Himself to us by coming to the earth to live here and speak to us and perform miracles and signs.
He physically died on the cross in the presence of so many of our people who witnessed it.
After his resurrection and ascension He again appeared in our midst through the descent of the Holy Spirit, and this is how He Himself guides and leads us through all times.

One should expect that people who have come through many centuries with the Lord and who have again and again experienced the administration of Holy Communion and baptism would be able to really do good works for the Lord.

But we all know this does not happen.
We are very much the same as the believers of whom we’ve just read in the Scriptures.
Therefore when we appear before the Lord we should also confess as they did:

. . . “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. (Ezra 9:6 NLT)

Or like Isaiah did:

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall. And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6 NLT)

None of the works of any one of us are really good. Hence the image that before the Lord our sins are like filthy clothes on our bodies, or like a heap of garbage piled sky-high.

The following question should crop up instinctively: If we, who have always been so much aware of the guidance and the presence of the Lord, do so poorly with regard to good works, what is going to happen to us?

Beloved brothers and sisters, always remember that we are living in the New Testament period, the time of the new covenant.

This is why the Lord says the cup that He hands to us at his Holy Supper is the new covenant, sealed by the shedding of his blood.
The New Testament teaches us that our good works cannot be our righteousness before God – Jesus Christ freed us by taking away our sins through sacrificing his life.
For this salvation we need faith – not good works in the first place.

Then, if this is so, every believer could ask:

If I have to believe, why do I also have to do good works?
Another question that often bothers the faithful is: If I have already been freed from sin by the Lord Jesus, why do I have to do good works? They do not contribute to my salvation!

When we read the Letter to the Romans we see:

that all people sinned before God, and
that there is only one wage of sin and that is death.

This puts the matter in the correct perspective: Every person’s life earns for him the violence of hell.

We are all very far from being perfect.
Even our best efforts are not perfect before the Lord.

When we apply this to ourselves, it simply means that we cannot pride ourselves on being saved in Christ while our lives show that we do things like people belonging to the devil.

You do not do good works to earn righteousness before God.
You do good works to reflect the image of your Saviour.

To what extent do our lives show that we belong to the Lord? Remember the expert in religious law who asked the Lord what the most important commandment was (Matthew 22:36)? Then the Lord Jesus replied:

You must love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39)

Test your own life against this. Do we love the Lord that much? Surely the answer is: No! Any believer who says “yes” is arrogant, because our lives attest to the fact that we do not love the Lord that much.

We must do good works, because the Lord Jesus says in John 15:5 that those who remain in Him, will produce much fruit, like branches joined to a good vine.

With this the Lord very clearly says why He requires from us to do good works: We do good works because we are grafted into the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hence we should produce his fruit. Our good works are therefore simply a result of God’s mercy granted to us.

Let’s put it differently:

If you expect the Lord to reward you for your good works, then you imply that the death of the Lord Jesus was unnecessary, because then you can go to heaven according to your own merits – your good works.
Or you claim that the work of Jesus was insufficient and you have to make a personal contribution to complement his redemptive sacrifice.

Both views are completely wrong. God grants complete salvation in Jesus Christ.

We are obliged to do good works, although God gives us salvation and eternal life. In Isaiah 64:8 we read:

And yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter.

In the New Testament Paul quotes this text in his sermon in Romans 9.

He depicts God as a potter who makes various objects out of clay.

One lump of clay is used to make jars and another to make different containers.
Some of the clay is used to make objects of honour to worship God.
Out of another lump of clay objects are made that cannot honour God and that are destined for damnation.

And then we read this remarkable sentence: The clay cannot blame the potter for having made him the way he is! An urn cannot be a pot or vice versa. The potter has carried out his will in the creation of each object.

God’s grace lies in the fact that He lets us live as believers who glorify Him with our good works.

Because we have been made like this through Christ, we must glorify our God every day through the works we do.
We do not do good works to earn salvation. We do good works because through Christ we are already on our way to heaven – and now our good works simply show it.
Our good works are merely a result of our gratitude.

Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked and let them forget about their responsibilities? The answer is: Everyone who truly believes will not spoil his faith by irresponsible behaviour. He will be extra careful to live in a responsible way and will fight even harder to do good works to honour and worship God.

This is why we attend public worship.

In public worship the Holy Spirit makes us stronger by reminding us of propitiation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the message of grace and salvation is preached to us, we physically experience that the Lord changes us from being members of the kingdom of the devil to being members of the kingdom of his Son.
This means to physically experience that, by his grace, the Lord receives us in his kingdom.

Then persist in doing good works joyfully. We know our good works cannot earn salvation, but we also know that we need not earn salvation because we have already received this gift of grace.

We do good works to show our gratitude to Christ for his redemptive sacrifice. Let’s read together Catechism Lord’s Day 24.

62. Q. But why can our good works not be our righteousness before God, or at least a part of it?
A. Because the righteousness which can stand before God's judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God,[1] whereas even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.[2]
[1] Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10. [2] Is. 64:6.

63. Q. But do our good works earn nothing, even though God promises to reward them in this life and the next?
A. This reward is not earned[1]; it is a gift of grace.[2]
[1] Matt. 5:12; Heb. 11:6. [2] Luke 17:10; II Tim. 4:7, 8.

64. Q. Does this teaching not make people careless and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible that those grafted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness.[1]
[1] Matt. 7:18; Luke 6:43-45; John 15:5.

Amen.

Closing prayer
Closing hymn: Psalm 92:2, 3

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: 20 November 2005 (evening)