A Model of Good Works

Let’s hear from God’s word together.
This is Titus chapter two, verse 14. Speaking of our God and savior,
Jesus Christ, he gave himself for us to redeem us from all
lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own
possession who are zealous for good works. Amen. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is our foundation. It is our foundation for all
truth. It is our foundation for all
guidance in the way of the Christian life. And so now take your word
and put it deeply into our minds and our hearts so that our hands
and our lives are willing to serve you in the way which you
call us to do so. We ask for your help, your grace,
your blessing, and your mercy in these things we ask in Jesus
name, amen. Never did an artist have such
a useless bunch of material to work with when setting out to
work or to make a masterpiece. Let me say that again. Never
did an artist have such useless material to work with when setting
out or beginning to make a masterpiece. Which artist am I speaking of?
Go back through your mind of the history of the world and
the famous artists, the sculptors, the painters, the architects,
if you will, music makers, and so on. Never did an artist have
such useless material to work with when setting out to make
a masterpiece. I’m not talking about any human
craft maker. I’m not talking about any ordinary
craftsman. I’m talking about God, the one
who spoke and put the universe into existence. He took nothing
and made something. And it is that same God who can
speak. And in the same way he spoke
and the world came into existence, he took what was formless and
void and he formed it and he filled it. He can take men and
women and boys and girls who are dead in their trespasses
and in their sins. And he can speak. give them new
life and make them into the greatest masterpieces the world has ever
known. It is God Almighty who spoke
at the beginning and created the world and everything in it,
who can speak into the mass of dead bones, as he tells us in
the book of Ezekiel. And he can make us into something. He can take what it is bent and
bruised and broken and corrupted and maimed and mangled by the
fall. And he can turn us into masterpieces. Or as Paul says in the second
chapter to the Ephesians, he can make us into his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, prepared for us before
the world began. Excuse me. In the book of Titus,
we have the apostle Paul. We have him writing to Titus,
a young pastor on the island of Crete, and he is writing to
Titus a pastoral letter, encouraging him, exhorting him to put the
church in order so that as the church is ordered with elders
and with the teaching of the truth, the refuting of what is
false and so on, that church will be an effective and faithful
witness in the community, in the region of the world where
God has placed the saints of Almighty God. And so in our little
letter of Paul to Titus, we have the theme or the subject of good
works. As some of you have the older
translation, the authorized translation, it’s good deeds. And so the theme
of good deeds or good works pops up in the book of Titus several
times. Today, I want us to use this subject to help us in our
charge to Those who will serve us in the congregation when in
our form of government we have duly nominated and elected Officers
of the church they are to stand before you and they are to be
asked and answer questions regarding their convictions their beliefs
and their willingness to serve and then we are to charge them
before God and To serve God will and so I want us to use the sermon
today not only to encourage our brother Gary as he comes to us
to be installed again as a deacon in the life of this congregation.
But it’s a charge to all of us. And that charge is for us to
be zealous for good works, to be models of good works, to be
ready for every good work, to devote ourselves to good works. These are all phrases right out
of the book of Titus. Now, many months ago, when I
was sitting down with our brother Gary, over a couple of lunches,
we were talking about the things that were going on in our Christian
faith. And he told me, I’m reading through
Titus and this little phrase zealous for good works had stuck
out to him. And so how fitting it was in
conversation about our lives and our growth and our desire
to serve. He was already by God’s grace
and the move of the Holy spirit, thinking about these things.
And then we sprung the question on him, would you, if asked,
serve again as a deacon? And so what a fitting theme this
is for us on the day when we will install him as a deacon
in the life of this church. Titus chapter two, verse 14 says,
show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. Now we got to think about a couple
of things here. in order to understand good works.
I mean, after all, we’ve just celebrated in 2017, the 500th
anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the
door of the Wittenberg Chapel and one of his big, big, big
complaints. was that you are not saved by
good works. We are justified by faith alone. So how is it today that we can
have a sermon on good works? Well, and there’s going to be
a few more because it is going to pop up as we make our way through
Titus. So how is it that good works don’t save us? That’s true. We’re justified by the good works
of Jesus. and his death on the cross and his satisfaction for
our sins. But how is it that we are then commanded to do good
works? Well, a couple of thoughts about
that. The book of James so well teaches us that good works are
the fruit of a real faith. When a person is truly saved
by God almighty, their life will then produce good works. And so we understand that we
are not saved by good works. We understand that good works
cannot ever save us. We can never do good works to
such a degree that it merits or earns us a standing before
the God of the universe, where he looks over his judge’s bench
as the all righteous God and says, you have done enough. You
have earned your salvation. Welcome into heaven. That can
never ever happen for two reasons. One is we are all born with Adam’s
original sin. We are born in sin. We are corrupt
from conception. We are born with original sin
and from that original sin, which we inherit from our first parent,
our first father, Adam, from that original sin comes all actual
sins. Oh, we love to say babies when
they’re born, they’re cute, they’re cuddly. And then we say, and
they are innocent. But the Bible teaches us otherwise,
that we are born in sin. We are born with original sin.
And from that original sin, that’s our second reason that we can’t
earn. We commit actual sins. So we are born with a little
sin factory in us. And we commit sins daily and
thought and word and indeed. And so a person can never ever
become righteous in the sight of God through their good works.
Now, you say, I’ll become a Christian. I’m going to do good works. Don’t
those merit in some way? Well, no, we believe that as
Jesus teaches, and we read it in the book of Revelation, that
we are saved to do good works. And yes, those good works do
follow us to heaven. And there are rewards for those
good works. We are given crowns. and jewels
in those crowns. God says to us, well done, good
and faithful servant. But what then do we turn around
and do with those rewards given? We lay them at the feet of the
one who alone is to be worshipped. We like to say at the time of
death, A little verse from Revelation, blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord. Yes, blessed indeed, says the
spirit for their deeds shall follow them. And so, yes, our
good works are important. Our good deeds are important.
God saves us unto good works, but they can never earn our salvation.
So we keep that in mind as we consider for a few moments the
subject of good works. Show yourself, Paul tells Titus. in all respects, to be a model
of good works. We are saved for good works. We are saved in order to be busy
bees. We like that little saying, don’t
we? We want to be busy bees. Busy bees working to make honey. Busy bees working in the kingdom
of God. Busy bees who are passionate
and excited and energized to serve in the household of Almighty
God. So how do we want to think about
good works today? Well, I want us to think primarily
in this way. Leaders in the church do good
works and they show as an example to others. how God wants us to
live. Now think for a moment about
how that is true. I’ve grown up in the church all my life.
My earliest memories of church are not the first church where
I was born and baptized and maybe went for a year or two of my
life. My first memories of church are a little church on the other
side of town where my father served. And I can remember the
people who did things. I can remember the door holders.
I can remember the children’s sermons. And I’m talking about
age three, four, maybe. I can remember the elders and
the deacons and the organ player, the piano player. I can remember
the nuts and the bolts and the doers of church. And you know,
that’s very often how we learn about church. We’re not a people
of book learning when it comes to church. We don’t sit down
and read our Bibles and say, well, the whole Bible says this
about church, this about elders, this about deacons. We often
learn by watching. And so how important is it for
us as leaders in the church, as members in the church, as
people in the church, for us to lead by example? And so chapter two of Titus verse
14, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. People learn by watching. People
learn by watching you do. People learn by watching you
not do. So I want us to consider that
subject today in light of how leaders can show an example to
us all about doing good works. Now there’s four phrases in Titus
that pop up about good works. Exhibit good works or model it.
That’s what we’ve looked at in verse 2, 14. be ready for good
works, be zealous for good works, and be devoted to good works.
So if we’re gonna model good works and teach others what God
would have us do in the church, we want to first exhibit them.
Chapter 2, 14, show yourself in all respects to be a model
of good works, to be an exhibit, a display, an example of good
works. People should see what we do
And what we do should be according to the scripture. And what we
do should be according to the scripture and give glory to God.
And what we do should be according to scripture for the glory of
God, and it should be for the good of the whole congregation. So that as we learn by watching,
what is on display is worthy of imitating. Because isn’t it
very often true, we learn by imitating. Think for example,
back in the 1980s, What did every little boy do when he shot a
basketball? Well, he watched Michael Jordan.
And Michael Jordan stuck his tongue out. And Michael Jordan
was a great, even though he went to Carolina. But he stuck his
tongue out. And so what did every little
boy in the driveway do? He stuck his tongue out. I can’t
do, I can’t shoot and stick my tongue out. But he stuck his
tongue out as he shot the basketball. I wanna be like Mike. And that
has translated in every sphere of life. And we imitate those
that we adore, those that we believe are doing it right and
doing it well. And so we want to exhibit our
good works, put them on display. We want to be zealous for good
works. We want to aspire to good works. We want to be on fire or energized
in such a way. that we do our good works and
others see our zeal, our energy, our passion, our drive, our very
heartbeat is to do good works that give glory to God and serve
the body of Christ. And so we want to exhibit them.
We want to be zealous for them. We want to be ready for good
works. What does it mean to be ready for good works? Well, it
probably means we need to know what good works are. and we need
to be ready to do it. I’ll give you an example. I have
a friend who, when he prays for a person in the church to get
a job, he prays that that person will get a job that matches their
skills and abilities and gives them a job that will use them
in the way that God has made them so that that person who
then gets the job can provide for his or her family, support
the work of the church and help the poor. It’s a godly use of
money, support the church, give to the poor, provide for
the family. Those are good works. Those are
biblical commands. But what does it take in order for you to be
able to help the poor? How does that translate into
the command, be ready for good works? Does that mean you just
spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, and you have no money left to
tithe or provide for your family or help the poor? No, you budget
and you’re ready for good works. It also means you budget your
time. When your neighbor calls, as one of you told me they did
this week, even late at night, you’re able, within reason of
course, to go and serve them. You’re able to do good works. You’re ready. It’s budgeted in
your time and in your pocketbook. So we’re to exhibit good works.
We’re to be zealous for good works. We’re to be ready for
good works. There’s a fourth aspect here. We’re to be devoted
to good works. What does it mean to be devoted
to good works? Well, simply in the language
of the New Testament, it means that we are to maintain good
works. We’re to make that a high priority in our lives. We are
devoted to knowing the will of God and doing it, knowing the
needs of God’s people and meeting them. And so the question I’m
sure has popped up in your mind, well, what are the good works
we are supposed to be doing? Well, if you read the whole book
of Titus and you always want to get your answers from the
immediate context of where these verses we’re looking at are,
you’ll see that he’s going to instruct younger men, older men,
Younger women, older women, and then he’s going to address a
cultural issue, the slaves. He’s going to address elders.
He’s going to address various people groups and tell them what
they ought to do. And so we understand from the
context that good works are things that God commands us to do in
order to bring glory to his name and help to the church. And so good works, at least in
the church, since we’re talking about church today and installing
an elder, it’d be helpful for us to think about good works
in the church, good works in this particular sphere. Be elders,
be deacons, be teachers, be doers and helpers and turn on lights
and turn them off afterwards. Lock the doors, unlock the doors,
tidy up. Do the things that are needed
to make worship and discipleship and fellowship and mission possible. That means we come. That means
we give. That means we do. And in different
stages of life, that can mean all kinds of different things. There’s a question I always like
to ask, and I’ve asked this in every congregation I’ve served.
And it’s this question. Where do you, like individuals,
you singular, where do you spend your time and your talents and
your resources serving the church of Jesus Christ? Because very
often we can say, um, so-and-so is a missionary. They’re more
holy than I am because they went. And we can categorize serving
the church in these kinds of ways. And so the reason I ask
this question is because I want people to think and answer that
question in such a way that they see themselves as valuable. So
where do you spend your time and your talents and your resources
serving the church or doing good works? You say, I give. You say, I come, I’m on a committee,
I teach a class, I’m an elder, I’m a deacon, I’m a treasurer,
I’m a counter, I’m a door locker and unlocker, I make the food,
I clean out the coffee pot, I set up the chairs. I’m a greeter. I’m a bulletin maker. I’m a,
you name it, you fill in the blank, but answer that question
and you will see, I do believe that in some way, shape or form,
you are serving the church. You are contributing good works
to the church according to the will of God or the standard of
God or the word of God. for the good of the people and
for the glory of God. And it’s gonna come in all kinds
of shapes or forms. When you’re in the season of
life where you’re having babies, you may not be serving the church
as you did before. Or if you’re older, or if you’re
in the midst of a job change or some crisis in life, you may
not be able to serve God the way you used to or the way you’d
like to. And I want you to never ever hear from me a complaint,
also and so doesn’t serve. We have to look at our lives
and our skills and our abilities, our free time, our resources.
And we also have to look at the struggles we may be facing in
the rest of the world. There may be some in this room
who are going through things personally or in their families
where they are serving, serving, serving. And they’re obeying
the will of God outside the church. And they come into this place
on Sundays with nothing left. Literally dragging themselves
into the door. And it’s our opportunity to serve
them because they are serving in such a way that they are exhausted
and worn out. We understand there are seasons
and moments in time and in life that are like that. And so keep
that in mind as you think about doing good works in the life
of the church. One of our elders in this congregation
always points out that, you know, we’ve got the 80-20 rule. 80%
of the work is done by 20% of the people. And then you got
the issue of so-and-so steps up to do some work in the church.
And what do we say? One week we say, nobody does
anything, nothing’s happening. And then we see somebody step
up and we look at them and we say, well, boy, don’t they think
they’re hot stuff. And so we put ourselves in this
difficulty. We complain when nobody does
anything. We look in jealousy when someone
does do something. But we must understand that we
are all called. We are all called. We are all
called to do the work of the church. There’s always something
that we can do. There’s always something that
can be done for the glory of God and for the good of others.
And surely, surely you see places where a need has not been met,
and you could step in. And this church, I don’t think,
is all that territorial. You know what a territorial church
is, don’t you? It’s like the warehouse my family had for our
furniture. We had a rental house on one
side and one on the other. And at each house, we had a Doberman
pincher. You know what Doberman pinchers
are, don’t you? They’re the dogs that say, keep away or I’ll eat
you. And so we bought the food. We encourage those people to
keep that dog up. If anybody tried to steal our
furniture, guess what? They were going to have to get through those
two dogs. And a lot of times it can be that way in the church
where you’ve got junkyard dogs running the fence and say, don’t
you come in my kitchen, you know, roof, roof, roof, roof, roof.
I’ll eat you. It can be that way in the church.
But we are a place, I believe, where if you see a need and you
have the skills and the ability, I think you can step up and meet
that need. And if anybody chases you like
a dog and barks at you, we have a few sticks around here that
we can take care of that with. But this is a place where I believe
whatever age or station in life you’re in, you can serve. And
so surely you see places and opportunities. that could use
your attention, your gifts, and your good works. You’re ready,
you’re zealous, you want to be a model of good works, and you
want to be devoted to good works. And so we want to provide that
opportunity for you to do good works in the church, as well
as outside the church. Now, I want you to think really
big about good works for a moment. Who is the most zealous in the
Bible for good works? I mean, is it a person? Is it
Moses? Paul? It’s God. We just read through in our scripture
readings through Advent, in the book of Isaiah, unto you will
be born one who will be the savior of Israel. His name shall be
called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, the
prince of peace. And we get through all those
wonderful passages and verses in Isaiah. And then it says the
zeal of the Lord of hosts. We’ll do this. We are made in
God’s image. We are saved for good works.
And so shouldn’t it encourage us as Christians that if our
God is zealous for good works, how much more than should we
be zealous for good works? God, my friends, is not half-hearted.
He didn’t halfway save you. He didn’t halfway go to the cross.
He didn’t halfway give you the church and halfway give you the
spirit and halfway give you the Bible. He gave you everything,
both barrels, the full throttle, the whole thing. And if God is
zealous for good works, how much more should we, his image bearers,
be for good works? Friends, the zeal of the Lord
of hosts sent Jesus. Jesus came and was obedient.
Oh, and don’t we see him zealous? He goes into his father’s house
and he sees it turned into a den of thieves, and he clears the
tables, he dumps the money, he clears out the animals, and he
says, would it be that my father’s house is a den of thieves? It’s the house of God, the house
of prayer. And we see the zeal of Jesus.
And we’d say this day and time, oh, that wasn’t nice, Jesus.
You’re not gonna grow your church. You’re not gonna get many visitors.
But we see the zeal of God, the zeal of Jesus. Jesus was zealous
unto good works. He went to the cross obedient.
He went to the cross willingly. He went to the cross and he suffered
and he died. And all the wrath and curse of God that was due
for us to be put on our heads was put on the head of Jesus.
And he died for us. We are not saved by good works,
but we are saved by Jesus’ good works. You know, we’re supposed
to be busy bees. What is it when you walk by a
beehive, you hear? You hear the buzzing and the
humming. And you know that there’s two
things you need to know. Danger, stay away, don’t mess
up those bees, because they’ll mess with you if you mess with
them. But what’s taking place inside that hive, inside that
hollow of the tree? They’re busy making sweet things. And any of you who put honey
on your toast today or in your coffee, or like me, you put it
down your throat to coat it so you could speak. It’s a blessing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people
drove by this congregation and they said, boy, there’s a busy
beehive. We hear the buzzing and the humming and the product
of their ministry is sweet. Pray with me. Our Lord and our
God, we thank you for this, your word. Help us today to think
about how we spend our time, our talents, our resources, our
gifts, our strength. Lord, help us to serve others,
our family, but help us also to serve your church so that
it is strengthened, it is blessed, and it is built up in such a
way that you are worshiped and that worship is known to the
world who looks in and sees and that our witness to the gospel
is powerful and effective and wonderful and true. May it be
for your glory, for the good of others. Lord, make us busy
doing good things. For this end, we pray in Jesus’
name, amen.