1 John 3:14; Ephesians 5:1-20
Okay, turn to Ephesians chapter five, verses one through 20. Ephesians chapter five, get there. Okay, this is the Apostle Paul, and notice the word therefore. Remember, therefore always points back to the previous. And in, Books like Ephesians, you have indicative. This is God, this is Jesus, this is what he’s done. And then there’s always the imperative, how to live in light of what is true. It says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Therefore do not associate with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. but when anything is exposed by the light and it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then 1 John chapter three, verse 14.
We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Amen. This is God’s great and gracious word. So there are a couple of issues that pop up in our passage this evening, in our section of the Heidelberg Catechism. The question is asked, since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works? Okay, so here’s the question. If Jesus’ good works have saved us and they have merited our salvation, why then should we do good works on our own? Now, probably some of you are scratching your heads and saying, that’s sort of a goofy question. Of course, I mean, what are you gonna do? Get saved and do bad works? Or are you gonna get saved and do no works? It’s kind of goofy.
You’re gonna do something, right? you’re alive living breathing so I don’t know to me it sounds goofy but it’s not so much because there is this um aberration of our theology we call anti-nomianism so anti against uh nomianism nomos is the greek word for the law so deutero Deuteronomy, however that goes. So second law, whatever. So antinomianism is anti-law. And you know the antinomian’s chief hymn, free from the law, O blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still get remission. That’s right. So the antinomian, It’s kind of a ditch, right?
You got people that are biblically balanced. I’m gonna live for God and my new heart is gonna do good things for God. But then you got the Pharisees or the, I don’t know, what was it? The people that are just fundamentalist. And I mean that in a bad way in this case. And they get in this ditch and they do good works because it keeps them from doing bad works, something like that. And then you got this other ditch, antinomianism. You people are just too obedient. God has already saved you through Jesus. You don’t need to be holier than thou and do good work. So you’ve got these two ditches, trying to do too much and then doing absolutely nothing.
And what we want to find tonight is there are five biblically balanced reasons that we ought to do good works. Okay, so that’s what we wanna think about tonight. But you’ve got people that are anti-nomens. I can send my brains out and ask for forgiveness. Now you would never, because you’re good Christians on a Sunday night, never say in your mind, I can do this and then ask for forgiveness later. But shame on us, we do it.
We go to the refrigerator at 10 p.m. And we say, I’ve been a good boy today. I can afford in my calories a midnight snack. And worse, we open the freezer, and we get some high-calorie, high-fat ice cream. But we justify it and say, I was good today. I didn’t go to Five Guys. I was good today. I didn’t go through Wendy’s. I was good today, and I ate fruit and vegetables and oats and fiber and whatever. I can be a good boy.
So we’re antinomians sometimes when it comes to food, right? We have enough room to cheat. And that what we call a cheat on our calories. But what can happen to a Christian in their walk with the Lord? Maybe they get a little, I don’t know, too big for their britches and they begin in their mind and their heart to say, you know, I am so justified by Jesus. and that we don’t think about leaning into our holiness. We don’t think about leaning into our sanctification, our growth in grace.
And so tonight’s catechism will help us. Another issue I wanted to bring up that I think is a helpful one to bring up, your understanding, our understanding of the nuts and the bolts and the parts of salvation is really important. If you’ve been around long enough, Our church, you’ve heard me say a thousand times, the ordo salutis, the order of salvation, the nuts and bolts of salvation are really, really, really important.
Tomorrow morning, if you get out your lawnmower and you put gas in it and you pull the string and it starts, that’s all you need to know. You’re not in your mind saying, well, there was a spark plug, and there was ignition, and there was a fuel line, and there was a fuel pump and a fuel filter, and you’re not thinking about cylinders and compression and all the rest. You’re just putting gas in and pulling the rope and saying, why did Adam have to sin and create thorns and thistles?
That’s all we know. You don’t get in your car and stick your key in or push your button and start thinking about ignition and fuel electronic injection, spark plugs, and all the rest. You just mash the button, as a good southerner would do, we mash buttons, and you just go. You don’t think about that.
But I think it’s helpful in the Christian life to understand God loving us before the foundation of the world, him electing us to everlasting life, him regenerating us, him giving us faith and justification and adoption and sanctification. It’s really, really, really important to understand sanctification, but it’s also good to understand perseverance and suffering, but also our future glory in heaven. These nuts and bolts are good and helpful. And I think tonight will give us a little, maybe a little sharper edge on this.
So the question is asked, since we have been delivered from our misery, and what’s our misery? That’s our sin. Since we’ve been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ, without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works? Now pause for a second. This is the 1560s. What just happened in 1517? A little German monk quietly nailed 95 theses on the chapel door at Wittenberg where he taught New Testament. He was hoping to have a little debate, a little quiet debate. But what happened?
It sparked the Protestant Reformation and one of the big tenets of the Roman Catholic Church was you must do good works and your good works must outweigh your your sins. We have some recovering Catholics in here and they’ve lived under that burden. But the answer is so wonderful because Christ has redeemed us by his blood. Because Jesus accomplished the work of redemption on the cross.
He was the sacrifice. He was the priest. He was the offering, He was the offerer. He satisfied God’s divine justice by paying for every one of our sins. The work of Jesus on the cross is judicial, it is legal, it is exact. He died specifically for your sins. He didn’t just die and say, come jump in the fountain and get clean. He died for my sins. He died for your sins. And he died for them exactly.
God is a just God. He would not make his son pay for sins for people who sinned. who would not come to faith and therefore end up in hell. And so then Jesus would be punished and they would also be punished. God’s redemption accomplished through his son, Jesus on the cross is exact. And so having been redeemed by his blood, we want to understand five really important things. First, God is renewing us by his Holy Spirit into his image. That’s right there in the catechism.
The second thing, our whole lives are meant to show our gratitude to Jesus. So why good do good works? Well, so far the Holy Spirit has worked. Why do good works? Because it’s gratitude to God for what he’s done. Third, for the praise of God. Fourth, that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits. And then finally, kind of an evangelical use, By our godly living, our neighbors may be won over to Jesus. Now I want to go through these backwards, no rhyme or reason. First, by our godly living, our neighbors may be won over to Jesus.
I was chatting with dad in maybe the hospital before he died. We were chatting about life and ministry a pretty good bit. And we were talking about a church that he pastored. And they had evangelism explosion. And maybe some of you have been trained in EE. That was the D. James Kennedy deal. And we were chatting about how this big group of people in his church all did EE training. And then they went out and did EE work.
They’d go knock on doors and they would present the gospel, follow up with people, hope they’d come to church. And D. James Kennedy did a great thing in coming up with evangelism explosion. But evangelism explosion is not for everybody. The thing that we ended up chatting about is how it is for very organized people, particularly ones who are really good at selling insurance and making cold calls. I would not be a good door knocker. It just would not be my thing. I also don’t sit in a restaurant, and when the waiter or waitress comes, I don’t evangelize them. It’s just not my thing. I’ve got a really good friend in Greensboro, that’s his knack and he’s really good at it.
But most of us, this is where most of us are, by our godly living, our neighbors can be won over to Jesus Christ. I mentioned earlier that I’ve got a ton of Bible verses. In Titus chapter two, Paul is telling Titus, the young pastor, teach sound doctrine in the church. So here’s where sound doctrine is gonna get nitty gritty practical. Sound doctrine will lead to godly living and what will godly living ultimately do? It will win people over to Jesus. So Paul says to Titus in chapter two, as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
And remember he gives instructions for the older men to be sober minded. He gives instructions for them to be dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love and steadfastness. Older women are to be reverent, They are not to be slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
So one thing, know your doctrine, live your doctrine, don’t revile the word of God. And then likewise, it says to the younger men, be self-controlled, Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teaching show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us.
What’s the number one complaint about people when you ask them to go to church? I’m not gonna go to your church because it’s probably a bunch of Hypocrites. Well, if you know your sound doctrine and the Holy Spirit is at work in you and you are living a life of gratitude, it will be a witness. It won’t be perfect, but it will be a witness to others.
They will say, I want what you’re having. I want what you’ve got. And it goes on to say slaves are to be submissive to their own masters and everything there to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior. What’s the point of knowing doctrine? Lots of things, but it makes good livers, not the one inside you, but good livers live well for the gospel and are good witnesses. All right, so our godly living, by our godly living, we may win our neighbors over to Jesus.
And then 1 Peter chapter, Two, I think it is. First Peter chapter two, verse 12. Somewhere I’ve got that in here. First Peter 2, 12, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Remember when Abraham was living in the promised land and Abimelech comes up to him and says, your God blesses you. Make the covenant with me. And so Abraham and Abimelech, the pagan, make a treaty, a covenant, because Abimelech realizes, I don’t know what it is he’s got, but I know what he’s got is something I want. And if his living and true God is blessing him that way, I’ll take a piece of that pie.
So why do we do good works? It adorns the gospel and we may win over our neighbors. That’s one good reason. Working back up the list. Second, we may be assured of our faith by its fruits. In Matthew chapter seven, Matthew chapter seven, Jesus says, Matthew chapter seven, verse 15, he says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will recognize them by their fruits. And then he goes on to speak of how we ought to live. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. If you are a person of faith, your true faith will be evidenced by good works.
Now, you know, in, in James, I think it’s James chapter two, this is that passage that confuses people. Uh, but James chapter two about good works says I can get there. What good is it? My brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works, can that faith save him? So the question is, if you say you have faith, but there’s no fruit, Do you have actually saving faith? So I guess the question would be then for us, how do I know I’m saved? There’s a bunch of ways you can know if you’re saved.
One of the ways is you bear good fruit. So if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says, go in peace. Be warm, be filled without giving them the things needed for the body. What good is that? So faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. So if you want to know if you have true faith, saving faith, just look at your life and say, do I do good works? And do those good works come out of a heart that beats for God and his kingdom? So godly living is good witness. The fruit of good works assures us of our salvation. The third thing, we’re working backwards, that he may be praised through us.
In John chapter 15, the Lord Jesus, in verse eight, I believe it is, John 15, eight, the Lord Jesus says, by this, my father is glorified. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” If you wanna glorify God, okay, the ladies that teach the Sunday school class, you’re in the hot seat. How can I glorify God?
By loving Him and teaching or doing what He commands. Yeah, doing what He commands. Yeah, so you wanna glorify God? Just obey Him. You wanna make your parents happy. If you’re a child at home, obey your parents. Parents love obedient children. They’re wonderful to have and easy to raise. Just apply the same principle. You wanna glorify God? What does he want you to do? How does he want you to live? Do that and you will be blessed. But more importantly, he will be glorified.
Okay, so why do good works? It’s a good witness. Why do good works? It can assure us of our salvation. Why do good works? It praises God. And perhaps that’s the most important, isn’t it? Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Okay, the fourth thing. We want our whole lives to show that we are thankful to God for his benefits. Y’all know Romans 12, one and two, probably by heart. Romans 12, one and two is the turning point in The book of Romans, where God has given the truth, things that are true, the indicatives, and now he’s going to the imperatives.
And he says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable, and what is perfect.
Your whole life can show gratitude. when you live obediently and do good works. We make evangelism really complicated by saying, oh, we gotta hold crusades, oh, we gotta hit the streets and do this or that. Your quiet life, your quiet words in the corners where you go may be what wins someone over. And so our whole lives living in gratitude to God, yes, we’re a great witness, but they also show God that we’re thankful.
You know, you say you do something for one of your kids, you know, maybe, I don’t know, you take them to the toy store and you get a toy they want. And what are they for the next few days? They’re gonna do their chores, right? The trash is gonna go out without you asking, why? Because you have done something that has triggered the chemicals in their body to say, wow, mom and dad love me. They took me to the toy store. And so how are they going to show their thanksgiving?
They’re going to sweep and they’re going to mow and they’re going to empty and they’re going to do things. Now it may wear off because we’re humans and we’re sinful. And so maybe the question for us is, has our gratitude to God for what has been done for us in Christ, has it worn off or do we still have the juices flowing, want to live a life of thanksgiving? You know, we, in our gospel telling, we say to people, Do you wanna go to heaven or do you want to go to hell?
And okay, that’s great. But the gospel is more than a change of address form. It’s a change of life. And so when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you are born again, you are a new creation and your life until you go to glory is a process of becoming conformed to the image of the son, Jesus Christ. Your life is a, new creation that’s getting newer and better and changing from one degree of glory day by day by day. It’s a progressive growth in grace. It’s a progressive growth in holiness.
You are not the same person you were 10 years ago when you were, say you were first saved or 40 years ago or 50 years ago. We heard something interesting this week up at Synod. You aren’t the same person you were last Sunday night when you sat under God’s word. Hopefully since last Sunday night, you have been more sanctified. You have grown in grace through your daily living and through your trials and ups and downs in Bible and Holy Spirit. And perhaps this morning sermon was of help to you.
And so there is a change of life here and there. When you come to Jesus, yes, you don’t go to hell, but your life is turned right side up. Your life is turned inside out. Your life is a growth in grace and it’s being renewed day by day back to what it should have been when God made Adam and Eve holy righteous in the garden.
And so our whole lives, we want to show that we are thankful to God for his benefits. And what are those benefits? He’s loved us with an everlasting love. He’s called us by name. He sent us on. He sought us and he saved us. He’s regenerated us. He’s made us embrace the gospel. He’s sanctifying us. He’s going to glorify us. And we’re going to be with him forever in heaven. And his benefits are too many to count.
So we want to sweep the floor. We want to mow the yard. We want to empty the trash. And it’s not because our parents took us to the toy store. It’s because God has saved us in Jesus. And if you’re not thankful, you don’t know what you were apart from Jesus. That’s the trouble, isn’t it? We need to think about what we were apart from Christ. Well, the fifth thing, he’s renewing us by his spirit into his image. And I think I just spilled all that out because I got too excited.
But when we come to faith in Jesus, we are born again and we have the seed of regeneration, but we have the ongoing work of the spirit. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. And so born again from above, but growing progressively into the image of Jesus, the ongoing work of the spirit of God in us will make us good works doers.
Your heart over time will begin to change. Remember the Grinch who stole Christmas? And how does it go? His heart was about this big. But what happens by the end? His heart is coming out of his chest and he loves the people of Whoville and he’s sorry that he stole and he’s sorry that he ruined Christmas. And there he is at the very end having, what is it they eat? roast beast, his heart’s changed. He loves Christmas. He loves me.
Well, you know, Dr. Seuss, whoever, that’s a pretty good little allegory is a pretty good little image, but we are not the same people because God is at work changing us. Now, sadly, what have we done in American evangelical culture? Well-meaning Christians have well-meaningly told people, if you’ve prayed this prayer, You are a believer. But then these people, they stick their prayer card in their Bible and they say, when the fire comes, I won’t get singed by the flames because I got my fire insurance.
But their lives are not changed at all. And why is that? Because they were coerced into making a commitment of faith that was not born again from above. It was born from below. They were persuaded, they signed the card, they walked the aisle, but there is no change in their lives. And we see that very often in the culture around us. You say to somebody, oh, you’re a Christian. Why, yes, I am. Where do you go to church? Well, I don’t need organized religion. I don’t need the feeding trough. I don’t need the bread from heaven, the manna from above. I don’t need the word and the sacraments and the fellowship. I don’t need all that.
That’s just messed up stuff. And your brain is saying, well, that’s what Jesus designed. And that’s what Jesus commanded, and it’s working well for me, but we’ve really done a bad job of presenting salvation and assuring people that they have it, but there’s no growth in grace. So why then should we do good works? Those are our five good reasons. Now we switch to another question that’s a really tough one, and I’m gonna drink a sip of water. My mouth is dry, but this is a doozy.
Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and unrepentant ways. Let that one sink in for a moment. Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and unrepentant ways? How would the United Methodist Church of 2026 answer that question?
Well, they would change the language. They would change the language so that Either a lifestyle or a behavior is not sinful. They’ll say things like love is love and all we need is love and a bunch of little slogans. And they’ll actually change the words of their creeds and confessions and even a hymn book.
The PCUSA has even done that. Sadly, this week, our denomination, the Associate Reform Presbyterian Church, disassociated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church came out of the Northern Presbyterians in 1980. My dad served in the EPC for years. My daughter is a member of an EPC church. The reason we broke fraternal relations is because for the last several years, we have sent them letters and warned them you are dilly-dallying with apostasy.
And what they’re facing right now, in addition to their ongoing habit of ordaining women to the office that Paul and God clearly limit to men, they are considering, I don’t know exactly where they are, but considering allowing men with homosexual tendencies to the office of minister.
And so we broke fellowship with them. There was zero discussion. And there was zero debate. That’s sad. I love the EPC. One, because it’s the church. I love the EPC. Secondly, because I have family in it. My daughter is a member of one. My dad was a minister in that denomination for 10 years. I love the EPC. I have friends there. But what happened is they took in too many PCUSA congregations over the last 20 years. And that influence crept in.
Interesting, how will different denominations that say we believe in Jesus, we offer the gospel, how will they answer this question? Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and their unrepentant ways? And what is the answer here? It’s Paul’s answer, by no means. Crystal clear, isn’t it? And then how does it defend itself?
Well, we believe, or we theologians think, no, it says scripture tells us, and it quotes Corinthians, no unchaste person, no idolater, no adulterer, no thief, no covetous person, no drunkard, no slanderer, no robber or the like will inherit the kingdom of God.
If you read Revelation chapter 21, you read about the new heavens and the new earth, you read about the city of God and, in heaven, says in Revelation 21, talks about God being there, Jesus being there. And in chapter 21, it says in verse eight, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, idolaters, and liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. And remember the new Jerusalem has lots of big, pretty things, including walls and gates. And what’s the point of walls and gates?
It’s to keep out things that ought not be there. And so think about for a moment, particularly sexual sin in our world today. And really the big one, I think on the map is the sin of homosexuality and how does the church deal with it? Scripture tells us that People living in sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. And so it is so crystal clear. And you think back to the Levitical laws. The Levitical laws have a lot to say about homosexuality. The Levitical laws have a lot to say about sexual purity, both heterosexual and homosexual. Think about the whole business of, gotta get the word right, circumcision. a lot of the point of circumcision, it was to clean the thing that would perpetuate a generation after so that they were born in holiness. You ever thought of that?
And we live in a day and time where two men, and it’s even come to the Hallmark channel and watch a Hallmark movie and two dudes are having a family, right? Two women are having a family. What God is saying to us in the scripture is simple creation order is how things work. Don’t live in a mockery of how God made the world and everything in it. And that’s the struggle since Adam and Eve in the garden. We’ve taken God’s design and said, eh, it doesn’t work for us. And then we have these extreme perversions, particularly of a sexual nature, and it does not work.
You remember way back in the 1980s, that’s a long time ago, when the AIDS epidemic was started. It was largely attached to a certain demographic. And if you read back then the journals of medicine and the journals of psychological evaluation, they were crystal clear in their reports. This is why this happens. And maybe you remember monkey pox a few years ago. That was found in one particular demographic of our culture, our society. But we’ve tried to whitewash it. But disease does not lie.
And you know, you’re flipping through the channels nowadays. And have you seen these commercials? They ought to shock you. I’m living with HIV. And do you think to yourself, how did you get it? And why do you want to live with it? And why do you want to promote and live in that lifestyle that is against God’s creation order? And so we as a church have to love people. We as a church have to pray for people. We as a church have to weep for people, but we must be crystal clear.
God in Christ can rescue and redeem you from that behavior. God in Christ can rescue and redeem you from that lifestyle. You can be a whole Christian the one who spoke the world into existence, the one that holds it by the word of his power, the one who can speak in the dead live. He can free you from that sin.
The church does not need to accommodate it. They don’t need to sanctify it and bless it. They don’t need to make it holy as if somehow that can be holy. And so I want to mention this one thing. What about a Christian? What about a true believer in Jesus? They are born again. but they are caught in a sin. Maybe one of the ones listed, they’re an adulterer, they’re an idolater, they’re unchaste, they’re covetous, they’re drunkards. Can a Christian fall into sin? Yes. Can a Christian fall into grievous sin? Absolutely.
And what is the purpose of the church? Church discipline, church order. Remember the keys to the kingdom? Our job is to rescue and redeem and to put people back on their feet. And so what have we done though? Not we as this church, whatever, but at least in my childhood, if a girl gets pregnant in the church, what do we do? Oh, you get the scarlet letter. And then what do we do if we hear about homosexuality?
Oh, don’t come here. You’re not welcome. What do we do when people sin the sins that are of particular distaste to us? Now, all sins are bad in God’s sight. You hear what I’m saying? We seem to say, well, there’s certain sins you can never be redeemed from. But a Christian, and I want you to understand this, a Christian, because of remnant sin and because of the deception of the devil, the power of this world and the wickedness of our own hearts, You could be a Christian and fall into one of these sins. You will not persist in it, you will not live in it, and you will not die in it, and it will not keep you from glory if you have true faith.
But it’s our job to keep an eye on one another and to rescue and redeem one another. But we wanna think on these things as we live for God. Is he at work in your life? Do others see it? Does God see it? And more importantly, does it encourage you? Does it put wind in your sails that God by his spirit is making you less and less of a rascal and more and more of one of his children? Let’s pray and ask that it will be so. Father, help us to live for you. Help us to live by your grace, by your power, for your glory so that we do good to others. and we so adorn the gospel. We ask this in the name of Jesus, our savior, amen.