Good Works 

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, the radio. Ever listen to the band Kraftwerk? Kind of the first synth band, but I don't have them right here. I don't have any of that stuff. You can write me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com.

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How could I forget?

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They're ordered and coming to my house, and then I'll send them to you. So, that is that. If you don't listen to the Pactum with my brother, Mike Grimes, you should. Thepactum .org. And I think I'll be on that show again to talk about Law Gospel A Primer sometime soon.

Pat did a show just a while ago on Good Works. And now I'm going to do a show. He, the younger brother, is supposed to follow what I do, but now I'm following what he does. Not because the show is in competition with that, or anything like that.

But because I'm in Ephesians 2, working through these issues, and we come up to that famous passage. Ephesians 2 .10, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Classic, classic, classic passage on good works. We are not against good works. We just want to make sure they're in the right category. And earlier, Paul had said you're saved by grace in chapter 2, verse 5.

And he says it again, in case you forget, and we easily forget. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Then he says, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. So today we're talking about good works in the category of fruit and evidences of a Christian. I'm not going to say today, if you don't have enough good works, how can you call yourself a Christian?

That may be a different show that we would address that topic. Let me read to you what the 1689 says. And by the way, I have not listened to Pat's good works show. I started to, and then I got busy, and it's in my queue.

I listened to all his shows. I don't think I missed a one. I don't know, what is he up to, 200 or something now? Something like that. Of good works, sometimes you see that, 1689, it just says good works, chapter 16.

These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruit and evidence of a true and living faith. Through good works, believers express their thankfulness. And how often have we talked about that on this show?

Guilt, grace, what's the next one? Gratitude. Believers express their thankfulness. And kind of the rest, maybe we don't talk about as often, talk about as much as we should, but we'll talk about them today.

Strengthen their assurance. Right, you have the syllogism in the subjective realm of assurance that's secondary to objective, trusting in Christ, thinking about his person, his work, his character, his prayer life, his Bible reading, etc.

But also, there's the secondary, subjective. This is what Christians do, according to the Bible. I do them to some degree. I want to do them. I'm sad when I don't do them. I repent when I do the wrong things.

Therefore, I must be a Christian. So, that's building up the assurance. Build up their brothers and sisters.

That's Luther.

God doesn't need your good works, but your neighbors do. Adorn the profession of the gospel. Stop the mouths of opponents and glorify God. That is a great summary of good works that Christians do. Not to become Christians, but since they are Christians.

Believers, 1689, goes on to say, are God's workmanship, that's exactly what Ephesians is saying, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That's exactly from Ephesians. So that they bear fruit leading to holiness and have the outcome, eternal life.

So, we have a great section here that the 1689 echoes Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10. It goes on to say, their ability to do good works does not arise at all from themselves, but entirely from the Spirit of Christ.

To enable them to do good works, they need, in addition to the graces they have already received, an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit to work in them to will and to do His good pleasure. Of course, you're thinking about Philippians 2, are you not?

Yet, this is no reason for them to grow negligent, as if they were not required to perform any duty without special motion of the Holy Spirit. Instead, they should be diligent to stir up the grace of God that is in them.

You don't need to be prompted and, you know, liver shivers and liver quivers and all that other stuff. You should just obey out of gratitude and more. What else does it say in the 1689 that might be good?

Well, why is my pencil here not working? Disconnect Apple Pencil. How about that? Those who attain the greatest heights of obedience possible in this life—oh, here we go—are far from being able to merit reward by going beyond duty or to do more than God requires.

Instead, they fall short of much that is their duty to do. We cannot, even by our own best works, merit pardon of sin or eternal life from God's hand, due to the huge disproportion between our works and the glory to come, and the infinite distance between us and God.

But these works we can neither benefit... My daughter was texting me, and I looked over and I saw B-Y and said B-U-T. By these works we can neither benefit God nor satisfy Him for the debt of our former sins.

When we have done all we can, we have only done our duty and our unprofitable servants. Since our good works are good, they must proceed from His Spirit. And since they are performed by us, they are defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot withstand the severity of God's punishment.

Here we go. Nevertheless, believers are accepted through Christ, and thus their good works are also accepted in Him. This acceptance does not mean our good works are completely blameless and irreproachable in God's sight.

Instead, God views them in His Son, and so He is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, even though it is accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections. Well, what about people that are unbelievers?

Can't they do good things? The confession goes on. Works done by unregenerate people may in themselves be commanded by God and useful to themselves and others, yet they do not come from a heart purified by faith and are not done in a right manner according to the Word nor with a right goal, the glory of God.

Therefore, they are sinful and cannot please God. They cannot qualify anyone to receive grace from God, and yet their neglect is even more sinful and displeasing to God. That is amazing. It was R .C. Sproul that had the box with four mini boxes in there.

So, take a box, put it into four equal boxes.

Good, good.

Good, bad. Bad, bad.

Bad, good.

I think I got those right.

Good, good works are good works done by a Christian. So, the second word is, you know, the standing before God in Christ is good, and then they do good works. Christians can do wrong things, sinful things, so they can do bad good.

They're in Christ, so they're seen as good, and they do bad things. Unbelievers, their state before God is bad, and therefore they can commit crimes.

That's bad, bad.

And then they can do good, bad. Bad hearts, bad standing before God, but they do good things for other people.

So, there you have it.

We are His workmanship, Ephesians 2 .10. Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This walking language, we were walking according to the course of this world.

We were following the prince of the power of the air, and we were living in the passions of our flesh. And now we're walking in good works.

Wow.

We're to walk in good works. Created in Christ Jesus for good works. God creates. God makes the world. That's that world here. The word here is to create. Hebrew bara, God, His creative work. He alone creates out of nothing.

And since you're a new creation in Christ Jesus, old things have passed away, behold, new have come. Then you do things. Then you do work. And then when you do work out of gratitude, it gives God glory.

Does it not? Of course. You were made to do good works. Maybe if you got saved and no works needed to be done, you just get saved and you get immediately snatched up to heaven. We believe in good works.

Luther said it is not against works that we contend. It's against trust in works that we contend. That is the key. And of course, if you think about the Lord Jesus and watch His life, basically you just describe someone who goes about doing good works.

That's a perfect description of Jesus. Titus 2, Jesus who gave Himself that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. I think you could say Jesus was zealous for good deeds, honoring the Father.

And we're born again. We're ransomed. We're redeemed and purified. We're God's possession and we should be zealous for good deeds. We should be imitators of God in that way. We're not chosen because we did good works, but that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love.

We should be doing good works. And which is even all the more amazing is that these good works were prepared beforehand. Now the NIV translates it, for we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Perfect.

New living, which I don't quote very often for many reasons. We are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

Okay.

He prepared beforehand. He determined beforehand. This is language of predestination, is it not? God has prepared. God has planned. God has done everything, isn't it? Isn't it amazing? Even the good works, God has taken care of and God has done.

That is great so that we should then walk in them. Jesus said in John chapter 15 verse 8, Ephesians 2, we used to walk according to the course of this world and now we walk in good works. Isn't that nice?

We have a duty to obey, a duty to submit, a duty to do good works, and it is a response to God's gracious work. Now on No Compromise Radio, we put the pedal to the floor. I did autocross a while ago. I think I told you the story.

Pretty fun driving cars. Didn't really go that fast, maybe 50, 55 max, maybe up to 7, 8 ,000 RPMs. Sometimes first and second gear only, but sliding sideways a little bit, got the helmet on in the car.

I felt like somebody, somebody that didn't know what they were doing.

I know.

You want answers?

I want answers.

I want to drive fast.

I wonder if they're even making cars anymore with manual transmissions, maybe overseas, maybe a little, I don't know, Dodge Darts. What was the first car that you ever had? Well, Christian Harris, if I were going to guess, your first car was a Hornet.

Your first car was a...

My first car was a 1967 Nova II, Chevy Nova II, two-door, yellowish, off-yellow something. I don't know what it was. Got in an accident, sold it then to Mark Paulson after that. Wish I still had that car.

I saw Mark Paulson at Omo Bible Church the other day, the Factum Conference. Mark Paulson lived just over the fence in our backyard. The Paulsons were an interesting family because they went to church on Sunday morning and Sunday night.

I mean, we Lutherans, yeah, we'd go on Sunday morning most of the time, some of the times. We lived in a neighborhood of mainly Catholics. There was a Catholic church right across the street, St. James.

And Catholics, you know, they'd walk to church on Saturday night, Sunday morning. Lots of people would come, park in front of our house. Dad would get mad.

Those darn church people.

And the nuns lived across the street. And the Paulsons, though, they were different. They were Baptists. We had no idea what a Baptist was. Here's what we thought about Baptists. They not only go on Sunday morning, but they go on Sunday night.

And they go on Wednesday night.

The Paulsons. Oh, man.

And if you were over at their house playing on Sunday afternoon, they would have cereal for dinner before they went to church. I thought, these people are weird. But cereal was full of sugar. Might as well.

Paulsons. Thanks for my introduction into the life of a pastor. Having your children eat cereal on Sunday night before you go to church.

Crazy.

I do also remember, and I know Mark won't care. I don't think he'll listen. But if he did listen, that Mark got diagnosed with terminal cancer. I don't know how old I was, 10 or 12 or something like that.

And he was, I don't know, down to 60 pounds or something. And the family allowed me to go in to the hospital, if memory serves, to see him, to say goodbye. And they put their hands on him and prayed. I'd never seen that before.

And then they asked God to heal him. And matter of fact, God did heal him. As you know, because I just saw him in October. Mark Paulson. So, Mark, if you're listening, praise the Lord that God answers prayer.

That your mom and dad would take you to church on Sunday morning, Sunday nights. Wednesday nights, you probably were going to Awana, too, on Wednesday nights or some other night of the week. There was a kid in the neighborhood and his name was Simeon.

And I'd never heard the name Simeon before, probably because I never read the Bible. I couldn't pronounce Simeon, so I said his name, Mom, was Cinnamon. So we just called him Cinnamon. Maybe between Cinnamon Paulsons and the sugar, we're covered.

But back to the car. How do we get on this whole topic of cars? Well, I was thinking about Christian Harris. He probably had, I don't know, a Mustang or something. My first car was the Nova. And then after that, I think I got a 1972 Plymouth Fury.

It looked like a cop car, except it was light blue. It was robin egg blue. And it didn't have a gas gauge that worked. So I'd have to calculate how many gallons that I'd have to buy.

I'm so stupid.

How stupid can you get?

Pretty stupid.

Mike Ebenroth here, I'm stupid. We're talking about works today from Ephesians chapter 2. So, for you, dear Christian, do you do good works? Do you think they're important? Are you so far on the liberty side of things, on the grace side of things, on the gospel side of things, that you don't think you need to do any good works?

Of course it is wrong to do good works. To try to get saved, they'd have to be perfect. To try to stay saved, they'd have to be perfect. But Christians should do good works because they are thankful, because it strengthens their assurance, it's good for others, it adorns the gospel, and more.

Do you do good works? Some Christians I know, it seems like the only good works they do is listen to podcasts, listen to YouTubes, listen to sermons. Now, I love it that you can listen to sermons. I love it that you can listen to podcasts.

I love it that we have so much information available. But it's got to translate into something. It's got to translate into good works. Worshiping God through good works. I think if you listen to this show and don't have any good works, something's wrong.

Because you're learning so much about Jesus on this podcast, and other podcasts, and sermons that you go to, and sermons that you read, and YouTubes, and everything else. You know so much. If you know Christ-centered preaching, if you know law-gospel distinction, if you know redemptive historical hermeneutics, if you know verse-by-verse teaching, if you know expository preaching, if you know a variety of these things, then you should be at the top of the list in terms of good works are important.

Good works are showing my obedience to the Lord. And whether that's encourage one another, that's a good work. Evangelizing, that's a good work. Building up other saints, that's a good work. Giving to the work of the church, that's a good work.

There's all kinds of good works that you can do. Loving God, that's a good work. Loving neighbor, that's a good work. Speeding past the church or that truck out there, that's not a good work. Unless I'm driving.

So, if you know all these things, and you do, if you're a regular listener, then you should be about doing good works. It's an overflow. It's something that you think, you know what, my Lord and Savior, he was the master, and he was a master of good works, and he was always about doing good.

And you see other people in the Bible that have been regenerated, men like Paul. I mean, think about Paul's life. A life of doing bad works, that's Paul. To now, a life of doing good works. A life of persecuting the church, to a life of building up the church.

A life of incarcerating people, to a life of preaching the gospel, so people would no longer be incarcerated to the world themselves and Satan's system. And Satan himself, 2 Timothy 2. 25 and 26. If you listen to this show, and think that I do not believe good works are important, that lawlessness is the soup of the day, you haven't understood.

Now, do I stress certain things on No Compromise Radio? Of course. Because it's in contrast to people that aren't stressing it. But I'm stressing today, one more time, the importance of good works. Of God's work in you.

Good works are important. I just keep repeating that. Are you doing good works? Do you want to do good works? You say, well, I don't do as many as I want to. I wish I could do more. That's a good sign.

So, today we can do good works. Something we could do for someone else. We have 10 fingers, and often I just work down my fingers for the 10 commandments. Think about things that I could do. Think about honoring parents.

Thinking about loving neighbor. Thinking about what could be good for other people. I regularly put a little post-it on my office, my study desk. It just has one word with an exclamation point, and it says, encourage.

It's such a discouraging world. People not encouraging one another. Do you think encouraging is a good work? Yes, of course. Do you think praying for other people is a good work? Of course. If you're so old that you can't do anything except just listen, you can still pray, can't you?

The works that God has created for us ahead of time are important. I have friends that are getting older. Well, most of my friends are old. I have friends getting older, and they're wondering why they're still on earth.

I have a dear friend, and he's gone through a lot in his life, and I think on occasion he wonders why he's left on earth. The earth is sin-tainted. While there's great joys on earth, there's also incredible sorrows and losses.

You lose children, you lose spouses. This is a very difficult world. But why has God left you, dear Christian, and that friend of mine, on earth? Well, there's something to be done, because if there's nothing more to be done, he'll take us.

I often think, when my work on earth is done, I'm gone. Whether that's public ministry, whether that's paid ministry,.

Whether that's...

When the work is done, the work is done, and then off we go. So God has created us for good works that we might walk in them. We need to walk in them. Now, lastly, before we close the show, after you do a good work, how do you respond?

I think that's a good question to ask and answer. We ought not to be prideful. We ought not to be self-congratulatory. I wanted to make sure I pronounced that right. We ought not to be hitting ourselves on the back, thinking, oh, we are so wonderful.

We should be thinking, Lord, thank you for that. You prepared that ahead of time. I sat next to that guy on the plane, I met that person on the bus, I talked to so-and-so, I met them at church, I encouraged them, and you had it all planned out.

Even that was all planned out. I just, from my perspective, saw somebody over there, and they were crying, and I walked over and said, how could I help you today? How could I encourage you today? That's a good thing to say.

How can I encourage you today? That's probably the thing that I think is lacking in so many places, including churches. How could I encourage you today? If the Bible says encourage one another, I think that's a command.

We're all about commands. No problem there. Third use of the law, to guide and direct. How sinful we were, and how we needed a Savior. And now we think, you know what, I'd like to encourage people. How can you encourage your spouse today, if you're married?

That's my homework assignment for you. How can you encourage your children? Maybe they're grown, but they need encouragement too. How can you encourage your grandchildren? How could you encourage somebody at church?

Today on No Compromise Radio, I think the key is, these good works are prepared ahead of time, and you were created in Christ Jesus to do those good works. Not to get saved. Not to stay saved. Jesus is the Savior.

Faith isn't the Savior. Works aren't the Savior. Keeping the law isn't the Savior. Jesus is the Savior. And because He saved you, you should respond with gratitude. So today, for gratitude, how about encouraging one another?

Mike Eamon Roth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.