Christian Works
Ephesians 2:1-10
Introduction
In just a week and a half, it will be Reformation Day. This is the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg church. That act is considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, a tradition that we belong in as Baptists. One of the concerns that Luther had was the idea that our salvation is dependent in some way on our works. This emerged, not just out of theological interest, but in Luther’s own attempts to earn God’s love through his works. He tried and tried to be good enough and to do enough and he never seemed to find that connection with God. Luther rediscovered the concept of faith, and that became one of the central tenets of the Reformation. By faith alone.
But there is one problem with this. The church has a long history of valuing good works and on an instinctive level, we recognize certain acts as being godly and praiseworthy. Surely these things are not worthless.
The church has long struggled with what to do with works. Some churches fall into legalism and they will give lip service to salvation by faith but then will demand that you do certain things and avoid certain things, often things not mentioned in the Bible, otherwise you are not saved. Others go to the other extreme when it comes to grace. If there is nothing that we can add to our salvation, then God really does not care what we do or don’t do. I have seen both of these things.
I believe that Paul gives the clearest explanation in this passage. He puts everything into the proper categories and demonstrates how it all fits together.
Saved by Grace
People have been trying to please God for as long as there have been people. It only makes sense that in order to please God, we must do certain things. If I were to ask you to create your own religion, you probably would start with a list of rules, those things required, and those things forbidden. In our capitalist society, we are taught that nothing really comes free. If you want something, you need to work for it. The person that we respect the most is not the one who had everything handed to them but the one who rolled up their sleeves and earned everything they ever received. There is something in military circles in which people wear medals that they did not earn and it is called “stolen valour.” It is not tolerated. Why should religion, even Christianity, be any different?
I have shared bits and parts of my spiritual journey. I grew up attending church but left when I was in my mid-teens. While in university, I regained faith in God and eventually came to believe in the truth of Christianity. But believing in the truth of the facts about a faith does not make one a believer. My challenge was to figure out how to get from believing that Jesus was the way to becoming connected to God through Jesus. Surprisingly, the church I was attending at the time never spoke of this. I concluded, reasonably so, that if I wanted to be a Christian, I had to do Christian things. And so I began to work hard at being a Christian, hoping that God would recognize that hard work and approve my efforts. Not to compare myself with Martin Luther, I found a similar frustration as my efforts left me without any spiritual satisfaction. It was only after watching Billy Graham preach on television that I began to understand that concept of salvation by faith. I do not think that there is anything magical about the so-called “sinner’s prayer,” but that was a part of my experience of handing over my life to God.
This is what Paul is talking about when he says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8) There was nothing wrong with the works that I was doing, but it was not works that God was looking for. God was offering a free gift, forgiveness of sins and adoption into God’s family, and I just needed to receive it. For all the work that I did leading up to that, I was no more deserving than the person who had never stepped into a church or who had never read a page of the Bible.
We are going to see that works are still important, but there is a reason why salvation cannot be based on works. How could we ever know if we had hit the required level? Assuming we lose points for bad things and gain points for good things, where are we when we die? Even if it came down to just following the Ten Commandments, based on what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, it is not as simple to obey as we might think.
It is grace that salvation is offered to us and it is by faith that we receive it. It is different from the way we do things in society but the kingdom of God has always been different from the world.
Saved for Works
It is a freeing experience to realize that we do not have to earn God’s love and that we do not have to be anxious about whether we have accumulated enough points at the end of our life. But then we are left wondering about the role of works in the life of the Christian and the church.
What does Paul say? Paul says that we are not saved by our works and that we have no reason to boast as if our salvation was based on our own effort. But then Paul says: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:10) This is so interesting. Paul emphasizes that we are not saved by works, but he also states clearly that we were created for good works and that is who we are in Christ Jesus.
But doesn’t this put us right back into that place of self doubt about whether we are achieving enough to please God? It can, if we look at it from the wrong angle. If we are seeking to earn God’s love through our works, it will always be unhealthy. This should not be surprising. Is there any relationship that we value that works well when we seek to earn their love by doing enough. God is not our employer but our Father and that posture should be what shapes our relationship.
We are not saved by works but we are saved for works. These works should not be a burden but rather the natural outgrowth of discovering who we are. This is seen elsewhere in the New Testament in the theme of family resemblance. If we are adopted into God’s family, we should resemble in some way our Father and Jesus, who is in a sense, our big brother. We look to what they value and what they do and then discover what that looks like for us in our context.
I would like to address three mistakes that people make when it comes to our good works. The first is comparing what we do as individuals or as a local congregation with others. Some Christians teach that there will be special awards in heaven for those who were the best Christians here on earth. I do not believe that. Getting into a competition with others gets our eyes of the reason we are to do good works. We love God and we want to live out the kind of life he designed us for. That’s it. Not to accomplish more than the next Christian or congregation.
Related to this is the second mistake. Some people believe their purpose is to burn out for Jesus. They take no time for self-care or to enjoy their families. Every moment must be spent in doing something for God or else it is a waste. They will give lip service to saying they are not trying to earn God’s love, but it is there under the surface.
The final mistake is about the content of our good works. Some people think that Christian good works must be focused on evangelism. If it is not about getting people into heaven then it is not worth doing. Some see anything not directly to evangelism as a distraction. And yet the good works described in the Bible are far more general and rarely are tied to evangelism. In fact, the good works that Paul speaks of more than anything else in his letters, is the collecting of money to help the poor in Jerusalem. When we do something such as feeding high school students or collecting for the food bank, we do not have to justify how that will directly relate to a person becoming a Christian. A good work is a good work and it is what we were created for.
Conclusion
The role of works for the Christian can be confusing. Are we trying to work as hard as we can so that we can earn God’s love? Or are we so fond of the doctrine of grace that as Christians we have no interest in lifting a finger to help another person? Both of these extremes are wrong.
One way to think about it is to imagine what people in our community think of our church. What is our reputation? Do we have the reputation that we set such a high bar for being approved by God that few can meet it? I hope that our reputation is that we are normal people who are aware of our weaknesses. But I also hope that people see us as more than just people who believe in God and read the Bible. I hope that people recognize that there is good work being done by this congregation, not for our glory but for the glory of God. The things we believe and the relationship we have with God in Christ should lead to good work on our behalf.
