LOC 052 The Life of Christ:
Charitable Deeds
This morning we continue in our study of the Life of the Lord
Jesus Christ as it is found throughout the Gospels. However, there is one small
excursus I would like to make before we go further in the Sermon on the Mount
in Matthew chapter six.
Two of you asked me questions about what I said about the sermon
on the mount to Christ’s disciples relates to the doctrine of Justification by
Faith. So, in a brief overview, I hope
to clear up the question with an answer.
So far, there have been a few places where we have encountered
phrases like “many of his disciples believed on him”. The one I can think of off the top of my head
is John 2:11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and
manifested His glory; and His disciples
believed in Him. Before Jesus called
the twelve disciples to be in special relationship to him and his teaching and
training ministry, Jesus had disciples who followed him regularly wherever he
went. In the multitudes that pressed in
upon him each waking moment, there were some who had already believed. Or in the words Jesus spoke to Nicodemus,
there were some who were born from above, or born again.
Peter, Andrew, James and John are examples of disciples before the
final cut was made. It is from these
disciples who, at least outwardly professed Christ to be their messiah, that
the final twelve were taken. It is to be
assumed that these men were believers--that is sinners who had faith in Christ
for salvation. And, with that, that they
were justified sinners. Sinners who are truly justified have a declaration made
about them by God. When God declares
someone to be something, the person has a divine obligation to be what he has
been declared to be. We are what God
says we are. In justification we are
declared to be righteous/upright by God in accord with his standards of
righteousness and uprightness. We are to
be what God declares us to be. This is
true even if we are not that very thing in and of ourselves.
To illustrate the point of the meaning of justification, let’s
look at how it is used with reference to men.
Luke 16:15 reads, And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what
is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
The verse is contrasting the outward declaration these men would
make before men, with the intimate knowledge God has of what is really inside
of them. They speak words, they make a
declaration about themselves to justify themselves. This outward display of words that does not
equal the inner realities of grace or the lack thereof is an abomination in the
sight of God who sees it and knows their hearts. To justify oneself is to make a declaration
to justify one’s life or beliefs.
Or, look at the words of an “expert in the Law,” a scribe, in Luke
10:29 But he, wanting to justify
himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my
neighbor?”
He was making a declaration of who he was through his words. He asked the question to give a
representation about himself in order to justify himself according to the days
narrow definition of neighbor--a synecdoche that had again narrowed the broad
meaning to something manageable. He
asked to declare something about the issues.
Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan with the net
effect result of “Luke 10:36 “So
which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the
thieves?” 37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said
to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Isn’t it interesting to see the themes of the Sermon on the Mount
being used to condemn the experts in the Law?
Even here, justification is linked to works of mercy in a subtle, yet
profound way.
Let’s look at some others:
Jesus had an interesting conversation with a Pharisee. We find the text in Luke 7:34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking,
and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a
winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
Jesus is mentioning their perception of him and how he could not
be the Messiah of God. Jesus does not
justify himself by his own words, he draws attention to the fruit of what he
has done to show it was the path of wisdom.
Jesus continued: 35 “But
wisdom is justified by all her children.”
They should have measured Jesus’ ministry not by who he ate and
drank with, but by what he had accomplished.
His works make a declaration about his true path of wisdom.
Or, to make the point of the meaning of justify more directly, We
meet Jesus talking to the Pharisees once again:
Matt. 12:33 “ ¶ Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or
else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil,
speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35
“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good
things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 “But I say to you that for every idle word
men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 “For by your words you will be justified, and
by your words you will be condemned.”
Declarative justification is usually confused being made righteous
or being made justified. In these verses
we have the two Greek concepts. In verse
33 Poiesate is translated as MAKE. It is
the basic Greek word used to turn something into something else like in “Make a
choice” or “make my day.” Edikaioossav means to declare something in order to
justify it. In this passage Jesus is
talking about the Pharisees attempts to justify themselves and it has
everything to do with what they will speak.
An evil man will bring forth evil things--and this is what we see with
the Pharisees; a good man will bring forth good things. The root of a tree determines its fruit. Bad root, bad fruit; good root, good
fruit. It is that basic. The bad will be manifest either before or at
the Judgment. This is where Judas fits
in. Jesus knew from the start what Judas
would do, remember? He had an apparent
goodness in many things that he must have done as a disciple, but not a real
goodness flowing from a renewed heart.
Notice the end of the passage: 36 “But I say to you that for every idle word
men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 “For by your words you will be justified, and
by your words you will be condemned.”
As men stand before a holy God who knows all things, these evil
men will be asked to give a truthful account.
And by their words they will be declared to be just or justly
condemned.
Theologically, the word means the same thing. To justify does not mean to make someone
righteous, nor to infuse or impart someone with righteousness. It means to make a declaration about
someone. This is true even in those
verses that appear to speak of a righteousness that comes from human
effort. The word means to make a
declaration about.
Rom. 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the
law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin.
The deeds of the Law cannot bring a declaration of not guilty
before God’s judgment, nor of righteousness in God’s sight. Paul continues:
Rom. 3:21 ¶ But now the righteousness
of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the
Prophets,
There is another KIND of righteousness, notice it is not a degree
of righteous attainment, it is another KIND of righteousness. The word apart demonstrates that it has no
essential connection with law-keeping.
Yet the text goes on to tell us the source of this other kind of
righteousness....
22 even the righteousness of
God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
It is the righteousness of Christ that matters in this
context. There is a righteousness that
comes from men seeking to follow God’s Law that they might be declared just by
what they have done and there is another kind of righteousness that comes
“through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.” This is a
radically different kind of righteousness.
It is not from ourselves. It is
alien to us. It is given to all and
rests upon all who believe. Yet, Paul
continues....
For there is no difference;
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
All of those who have attempted to be justified by law-keeping and
those who believe have sinned, missing the mark of God’s standard of
righteousness. But those who believe
have this special benefit.....
24 being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
In Christ, and only in Christ, we have been declared to be the
recipients of redemption and all its accompanying blessings. God has made a declaration about us with his
words and his actions. In his words,
declaring us to be what we were not by nature.
In his actions, by an open demonstration of his undeserved grace.... For
those who have this pronouncement upon them, the comfort continues....
25 whom God set forth as a
propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously
committed, 26 to demonstrate at
the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus.
He did it then to demonstrate his own righteousness now. He did it that he might be upright and the
one who continues to declare men to be justified and therefore continual
recipients of divine grace.
Justification is fundamentally about being declared to be
righteous by God based on the work of Christ alone, not our own. God makes the declaration based upon the
instrumentality of or the presence of faith (belief) that he gives as a
gift. That is an overview is the
doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Man and merit has no place in a true justifying faith and a declared
justification or righteousness. We are
to be in reality in ever-growing measure through the means sanctifying graces
what God declares us to be in Christ.
That is the process of sanctification which brings about the obedience
or righteousness of faith.
Sanctification is built on the presence of Justification and the
accompanying work of salvation applied to those who believe in space and
time. Sanctification must not be
confused with justification. Man cannot
do anything outside of Christ to please God. And, I mean anything!
There is a long history of a confusion between these two
doctrines. Most of it came in in the
early middle ages when the language of theology changed from Greek to
Latin. The Greeks were well aware of the
nuances of the language in which the New Testament had been written. However, in translating many terms to Latin,
they were given a new meaning. Edikaioosav,
to declare was translated into Latin as Justia Facare, which means to make one
just. Since Justification and to justify come to us in English from the Latin
roots, the confusion continues. The
Greek words used for justification in the New Testament and in the Septuagint,
do not mean to make one righteous, but to declare one to be just or
upright. There is a great
difference. We do not work in any
respect to be saved, we do good works because of the grace we have received. This is the context of the sermon on the
mount. Jesus treated his disciples as
those in the kingdom of God. The
righteousness he is speaking of is the sanctifying kind of righteousness
predicated upon the declaration of them being found in him based upon the
actual presence of faith. One must never
preach the Sermon on the Mount as if it says to the unbeliever, Do this and
live. It is instruction to the disciples
of Jesus who already believe.
Sanctification and justification are inseparable in that one is
based upon the other and you can’t have one rightly without the other, but they
should not be confused, or mixed lest some get the wrong idea of the freeness
of God’s grace. It is sanctifying grace
Jesus is teaching in the sermon on the mount to his own small band of 12
disciples. Turn to Matthew 6. Justification is about declaration,
sanctification is about the process of becoming holy in line with God’s
standards of righteousness for life in his kingdom. A kingdom that cannot be seen, perceived nor
understood until one is born again (John 3:3).
Justification has to do with our standing before God; sanctification
with the actual state of our souls. We
are discussing the latter based on the reality of the former.
Near the end of the message last week I sought o make a connection
between the words of Matthew’s summary of the Sermon on the Mount and the words
of the summary from Luke. After the
contrasts or antitheses, Matthew wrote:
Matt. 5:48 “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
That standard seems impossible to us. So, how is it to be understood. The problem was compounded because we read
Paul’s words from Philippians 3 where he talks about his own righteousness from
the deeds of the Law that were nothing in which to claim any standing with God.
Paul the Apostle wrote:
Phil. 3:12 ¶ Not that I have already
attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that
for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Paul considers himself to have attained actually nothing. He was not already perfected. How are we to understand Christ’s command if
Paul hadn’t found it in his own life. Be
careful from thinking there is comfort in these words, there is only
motivation. If we think we have attained
where the Apostle Paul had not, we are spiritually proud and have missed the
basics of what the beatitudes were all about.
‘
Knowing he had not attained, Paul pressed on. Knowing he was imperfect, he kept on with the
desire to hold onto that which had gripped him.
He desired more of this perfecting work.
He also said:
13 Brethren, I do not count myself
to have apprehended;
He had not apprehended anything, but for one thing and that was
only an idea, it was a tidbit of knowledge that he had that spurred him on in
spiritual things..... He wrote:
but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and
reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Sanctification is a process: Perfection is a process. The motivation comes from within based upon a
previous work of grace. The operative
grace in a life gives strength to do what God has commanded in ever growing
degree.
It is reformation of the soul from the inside out. It is in line with the words of Christ we
already read, it is making the tree good in its fruit because it has been
changed in the root.
Yet, in the context of the sermon on the mount as it is summarized
in Luke, we find that Luke says:
Luke 6:36 “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father
also is merciful.
To live a life of giving mercy to others shows one to be on the
path to completion. It is easy to be merciful at times to your family, friends,
or fellow church members, but to live a live of giving mercy to all men, as God
does, is another matter.
Mercy must flow out of the heart, it is to be moved with
compassion. IN some places in Scripture
it is actually conveyed in the term “bowels of mercy” or to be moved (read
literally to have your bowels moved) with compassion.
This is why we can see Luke 6:36 and the emphasis on mercy as not
inconsistent with Matthew’s summary of the Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 6, which immediately follows the
verse about mirroring the Father’s perfection, has to do with works of mercy.
Let’s read Matthew 6:1-4. Speaking to his disciples, Jesus said:
1. Charitable deeds or works of mercy are not
for the benefit of any man:
Matt. 6:1 “Take heed that you do not do your charitable
deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your
Father in heaven.
2. Charitable deeds or works
of mercy are not for show:
2
“Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before
you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
3. Charitable deeds or works
of mercy are to be kept secret by the doer:
3
“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing, 4 “that
your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
Himself reward you openly.
Let’s look briefly at what is here:
These three points grate against the way we do things in our
society.
1. Charitable deeds or works of mercy are not
for the benefit of any man:
Matt. 6:1 “Take heed that you do not do your charitable
deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your
Father in heaven.
The consequence of doing your charitable deeds to be seen of men
is that you loose any benefit there may have been in the doing. Men might like you, but God will
disapprove. A life lived in God’s
Kingdom is lived to glorify him, not you.
Do whatever charitable deeds you do to be seen by him. Ultimately, that
is all that matters.
2. Charitable deeds or works
of mercy are not for show:
2
“Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before
you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
You have heard the sort of people that have to tell you every time
they have helped someone else. This is
what the verse is talking about. When
you do something good, merciful and charitable for others. Let the human reaction to the deed end with
the deed itself. Let it die. Don't
continue to remind the one for whom you did it, and don't start telling others
that they might think you are some sort of spiritual giant. GO about the business of doing good without
drawing attention to yourself. At the
end of the day, you haven;t really done anything special, you have done only
what was commanded. Actually, less than
commanded because the deeds of mere men and women are imperfect in their
motivation as a mirror of God’s mercy and they are imperfect in thoroughness as
a mirror of God’s mercy. Charitable
deeds require a God-centered humility.
Those who announce and pronounce have their reward from among
men. Live a life unto God showing forth
his perfections by a professedly imperfect life.
3. Charitable deeds or works
of mercy are to be kept secret by the doer:
3
“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing, 4 “that
your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
Himself reward you openly.
This is a pointed reminder as to the secrecy of charitable
deeds. Do it in a way that your right
hand did not know what your left hand was doing. There is something effectual about doing
works in secret. It is what God will
reward.
Do you realize how opposed to our societal conventions this
is. We naturally want people to know
about the sorts of things we did. We
want to be defined by what we do. We
should be defined by what has been done for us by Christ. Our response to his grace should be
considered as nothing compared to what we have received. Doing good to or for others is not to be done
for what we get in return. It is for the
glory of God to be seen among men.
Acts 20:35 “I have shown you in every way, by laboring
like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord
Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed
to give than to receive.’ ”
This is what we need to adopt as our theme for charitable deeds of
mercy. It isn’t about getting that makes
the difference, it is about giving out of a heart of gratitude to God for what
he has done and a knowledge of the needs in the lives of others. Don't boast about what you have done. Boast about what has been done for you, not
by men, but by God and his grace alone.
That is the fruit of a heart well on its way down the path to
sanctification. It is a man who can
exercise self-control. It is the
believer who has started to understand the God-centered world of a humble
life.
May he work those things in us for his own glory and the good of
the Church. May he make us to be what he
has pronounced us to be--sinners saved by grace growing unto holiness as his
servants of righteousness.
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