One of the biggest differences
between Bible-believing Lutheran Christianity and the rest of Christianity is
our teachings on good works, and why they’re done.
For many Christian denominations
(most of them, in fact), good works are a requirement: you must do them if you want to earn or
achieve a place in heaven. Heaven then
is up to you. You must pray hard enough,
you must care for the poor and the sick you must give a certain amount to the
church, you must invite Jesus into your heart, etc. because those are all good
works. All these good works throughout
your life add up. If, upon your death, the
number of good works you’ve done have passed a certain threshold, then you get
to go to heaven. If they haven’t, then
something else will happen, perhaps a purging away of sin, or even worse, the
eternal punishment of hell.
This idea is common in our world,
but never found in Scripture! Really, if
we understand good works in this way, they are really rather self-serving. It would be like this, “I’m caring for you
while you’re sick so that I can get myself into heaven (not because I actually
care about you or your problems).”
Good works don’t save us. In fact, Scripture says the exact opposite. St. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8 “For by
grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works.” In other words, it is God’s good works that save you. The good work that saves us is nothing other
than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Jesus bled and died as a good work for
you.
It is Jesus’ good works, not yours,
that save you.
So what does that mean for
us? If we don’t need to do good works to please
God or earn our salvation, why should we do them at all? Why don’t we just take care of ourselves? Why don’t we just work for our own good? Let’s live for ourselves and our own
desires.
Except for one thing: good works are necessary – not to serve God but to serve your neighbor. You do good works to care for the people
around you.
God allows some to be sick so
that others might do the good work of caring for them. God allows us to grow
old so that the younger generation might care for them. (As an aside, when we are the one who needs
the caring, we are also learning that we must rely only on the grace and mercy
of Christ and others, but that’s another topic.) In all of these things God is
teaching us what it means to live as a Christian, following in the path of
Jesus.
Paul writes to Timothy that God “who
has saved us and called us to a holy life-- not because of anything we have
done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in
Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”
Did you see what he says? God
calls us to a holy life (of good works) because of the grace of Jesus.
We do these good works in our
everyday lives in something we call vocation.
Vocations are the jobs we have in relation to our neighbor. For example, I am a father to my children, a
husband to my wife, a pastor to you, and son to my parents. We all have jobs in relation to our
“neighbors” (those closest to us). We
have special duties in all these jobs.
We change diapers for our children – and God sees that as a good
work. We mow the lawn – and God sees
that as a good work also. In fact, everything
we do in these various jobs is a good work in God’s eyes when we do it – not
because we are so great and good, but because we do them in faith trusting in
God’s word and mercy.
In the Small Catechism, there is
a chart that explains many of these vocational duties that we have. It’s called the “Table of Duties.” I’d encourage you to take a look at it. When you do those things in faith, it is
pleasing to God, not because you are earning your way to heaven, but instead
because you are showing God’s love to your neighbor.
There’s much more I
could say, and perhaps we should have a study on this topic, but I’m going to
bring it to a close, because right now I need to spend a bit of time fulfilling
my vocation as a father and spend some time with the kiddos.
