Faith Working Through Love

Where your good works come from make all the difference. You stand at an altar next to your soon-to-be-wife. You make crazy promises about what you’ll be doing 25 years from now in relation to that particular woman. You have no idea what’s going to happen in 6 months, what troubles may come. You may even be naively of the opinion that it’s all going to be Pot Roast and Beer - good days followed by better ones. You don’t know what will happen in 2 weeks. You don’t know what time and pressure and piles of laundry will reveal about this woman. You don’t even know what years of work, broken sprinkler lines and endless lawn mowing will reveal about you. But you make those solemn promises regardless. Do you make those promises because it’s the right thing to do? Do you make those promises because as of right now you are hopelessly infatuated? Do you (foolishly) make those promises because you believe your moral fortitude and stick-to-itiveness is adequate for whatever challenges may come? Or, as is true in particularly sad cases, do you make those promises because you think this is your only shot? The only stable ground on which to rest such enormous and solemn vows is in the promises of God and faith in those promises. How can you stand up and swear to be faithful to this one woman “‘till death do us part”? Only on account that God has said marriage is good, its to be fruitful, its given to demonstrate the gospeland you believe Him - come what may.

Love and good works are the necessary good fruit of faith in God and His promises. As we discussed last week from Hebrews 11, it is vital that these two, faith and good works, maintain the right sort of relationship in our own understanding. Faith in Jesus is not the same thing as good works, but neither are they unrelated. Faith divorced from obedience to God’s commands is what James called (along with the Westminster Divines) “dead faith” - it leads to a Christianity that treats the moral commands of the Bible as “not a very big deal.” It plays fast and loose with God’s law. And in the end, such a faith is not real saving faith.

But it is also possible to bind the two together such that they are one and the same. In this schema, my worship, my obedience, my love for neighbor is not simply the good fruit of faith in Jesus but instead is my faith in Jesus. This was one of the Reformers criticisms of the Roman church’s defacto position. Such a Christianity abandons its center- namely an eternal celebration of the work of Jesus and His reign, but instead becomes a celebration of my own good works done in the name of Jesus. If faith without works is dead, then this sort of faith is no faith at all, but a moral position devoid of Grace.

Good parenting should be born of faith: not fear, not as a demonstration of your own parental expertise, or out of some firstborn need to get everything right. Good parenting is born of believing the promises of God - belief working through love. We teach, we have afternoon wrestling sessions, we discipline, and we are patient because we love our children and that love is put to work through faith in the words of God. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) ““Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  (Acts 2:38–39) And what was that promise? The gift of the Holy Spirit - the one who sanctifies us into godliness and fruitfulness. You believe all the promises of God, your love your children, and you persist in the good, hard work of parenting.

Good, faithful work in your week-to-week responsibilities should be born of faith. Not born of your need to achieve greatness, not merely from a desire to compete or the fear of being fired. Rather we trust all the words of God and so we work wisely, diligently, and with all our might in whatever God has set before us. We believe the promises of Gd and so we manage our households well - budgeting, hospitality, good joyous meals and that pesky lawn. We work as lawyers and contractors and managers - trusting that God has made us for these good works and that because of the resurrection, they will bear fruit (1 Corinthians 15). Here is faith working through love - love for our neighbors, our spouses, our children and for one another.

Finally, we must worship by faith. We don’t gather and sing and confess and pray in order to earn some merit badge in the quest to be a “good Christian.” We gather because God has promised to meet with us when we do so. We confess our sins because God has promised to forgive those sins. We sing because, though we cannot see Him, we know Him to be Holy, Glorious and Good.

You are saved by grace through faith. And this faith is a living faith, the very soil out of which the good life grows and bears fruit everywhere. Keep it all straight and keep living by every word that God has spoken.