"The Lords Work in You until He Comes"
I Thessalonians 3:9-13
12/6/06
Back
So the Lords coming back and youve got to get movin
and make sure youve got enough good works in your collection, so that
the Lord is pleased with you when He returns on the Last Day and takes
you to heaven with Him and His saints. Right? Wrong!
But when people are thinking about preparing for the Lords coming, they
often times think in these terms. The Lord has saved me, but I
have to work to maintain my salvation. He may have died for my
sins, but now Ive gotta work out my own holiness. Its all up to
me from here on out to live a holy life. Right?
Wrong! Not only is your salvation all Gods work by His grace
alone through Jesus Christ, but even your subsequent life now as a
Christian is all Gods doing by His grace alone through Jesus
Christ. God doesnt get you started and then leave the rest up to
you. From beginning to end, both your salvation and the
subsequent holy living that follows is all His work.
The Apostle Paul shows that this is the case here in
the epistle text for this evening from I Thessalonians. He
writes, May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one
another, and for all men, just as we also do for you, so that He may
establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Notice whos
doing the verbs; its the Lord. The Lord is the one who causes us
to increase and abound in love for one another, and the Lord is the one
who establishes our hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and
Father. Neither your salvation nor your holy living is your work;
they are both Gods work alone. To Him alone goes the glory for
both our justification and our sanctification.
This is a hard thing for us to accept, because we
want to contribute in some way to our righteousness. If we dont
get to participate in our salvation, we at least want to participate in
our sanctification. After all, do we not do good works? And
will not Jesus draw attention to our good works at the final judgment
and reward us for those good works? Yes, but heres the thing -
according to the Apostle Paul, we cant take credit for those good
works, because the fact that we are doing any good works at all shows
that God is at work in us. It shows that His Holy Spirit has been
working in us through His Word and His Sacraments to cause us to live
holy and godly lives. So, what do you know! We cant even
boast in our sanctification, because its Gods work, not ours.
Luther gets this right when he explains in the
catechism what Baptism indicates. He says, [Baptism] indicates
that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be
drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and again a new man
should daily come forth and arise, who will live before God in
righteousness and purity forever. It is God, as He works through
our Baptism, who brings us to repentance and faith, who drowns our Old
Adam with its sins and lusts, and who causes us to live according to
the new nature Hes created in us to live before Him in righteousness
and purity forever. Simply put, God is conforming us daily to
Jesus Christ as He works in us through His Word and His Sacraments.
Christians get the wrong idea, when they talk about
being saved by Gods grace and then they live as if they were subject to
the Law, as if the Law is now the driving principle behind our holy
living. Its not. It can only guide us as to what is
God-pleasing. What causes us to live holy lives isnt the Law; its
the Gospel. As the Holy Spirit continues to deliver the gifts of
forgiveness, life, and salvation to you through His Word and
Sacraments, as He continues to deliver Jesus and the benefits He won
for you through His sacrifice on the cross for your sins, then you will
begin to live holy and godly lives. Your sanctification is all
Gods work, not your own. You will increase and abound in love
towards one another and remain unblamable in holiness before God as His
Word and Sacraments have their way in your lives.
This is the difference between the good works of an
unbeliever and the good works of a believer. The good works of
believers are the fruit of Gods work in our lives through His Word and
Sacraments. Though unbelievers good works might look the same on
the outside, they have not been wrought by the Holy Spirit, and
therefore, they are not even considered good before God. Isaiah
writes, All our righteous deeds are as filthy rags before God.
Even the things which look righteous and godly to us, if they are not
attached to Christ, if they are not done through faith in Him, if they
are not worked by Him in us, they are no good works.
This is why nobody will be saved on the basis of
their good works, because nobody can do good works in Gods eyes apart
from faith in Jesus. Jesus work alone is what saves us.
Only His perfect obedience to His Father and His sacrificial death on
the cross is what has saved you. Before even our good works were
stained with sin. Even now we still sin and are in need of living
under Gods grace and forgiveness for not living holy lives as we ought
to. But now that He has washed you in Christs blood through holy
Baptism and cleansed you from all unrighteousness, your works are
acceptable to Him, and He no longer sees the sin that clings even to
your good works. He continues to forgive your failure to live a
holy life and He continues to work the holy living in you that He
desires by His Holy Spirit.
What a weight off our shoulders this is! Here
we thought our holiness depended upon us, and all along its been Gods
work in us, so that anything good at all that we find in ourselves has
all been Gods doing and none of ours. This should give us
confidence as we look forward to our Lords coming, because we dont have
to worry about whether were going to be holy enough to meet Him on that
day. Hes going to establish our hearts unblamable in holiness
before our God and Father at His coming with all His saints.
Holiness is not something you have to strive for;
its something that is given to you. You cannot get any more holy
before God than you are now in Jesus Christ, because Jesus is your
holiness, as the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, By [Gods]
doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. When God looks
at you He sees Christs righteousness and holiness, with which He
clothed you at Baptism. Even though you are still a sinner in and
of yourself, God has declared you holy and righteous in Christ.
You cant add to this holiness; youre good works wont make you more
holy, nor will your sins make you any less holy. You are
completely holy in Jesus.
What, then, is the place of our good works? If
they arent done to make us more holy, then who are they done for?
They arent done for God; He doesnt need them. They are done for
our neighbor. The only ones who benefit from our holy living are
our neighbors. They need our good works; we dont. The way
we should look at our works is simply as the response of thanksgiving
to God for all Hes done for us in Christ, and as a way in which we can
help our neighbors. To trust in them for our salvation or for our
holiness actually takes away from Christ and His work.
And so we let God have all the glory alone, because
it belongs to Him alone. Our salvation from beginning to end,
including our subsequent holy living, is all His work alone. And
as we look forward to the coming of our Lord, we can look forward in
hope and joy, knowing that He will preserve and keep us in the faith
into which He has brought us until that day, because as Paul writes, He
who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ
Jesus. And Jude says, Now to Him who is able to keep you from
stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless
with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our
Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and
now and forever. Amen.