Good Works Are Permitted by God

Please turn your Bibles to Galatians chapter 5, that can be found on page 972, if you're using the Pew Bible. Please stand when you have that for reading of God's Word. But I say, walk, I'll begin in verse 16.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, you have given us life by your Spirit. We pray that we would keep in step with the Spirit. We ask that you would reveal to us the truths you have here, that we would meditate upon them, that they would not be just simple things to us, but deep things.

That you would help us to contemplate the height, the length, the depth, the breadth of your kindness to us in the Gospel. We pray that we would understand the mercies of Jesus Christ, as he has not only forgiven us from sin, but sanctified us.

Good Works as a Privilege Before God

That we might live before you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it's been a while, but we were in the middle of what I am terming a mega-series on motivations for good works. Why is it a mega-series? Because it's, I'm breaking it down into small sub-series about different aspects of good works.

These next eight to ten messages, roughly, will be on our duty to God. There are different reasons to pursue good works. Some have to do with your relationship with yourself. Your own enjoyment of your own life.

Some of them have to do with your relationship with your neighbor. Many of them have to do with your relationship with God. Those that have to do with your relationship to God have to do, largely, with your duty before him.

Now, people often think about good works in a primarily negative sense. They think about all the things that they are forbidden from doing by God. And so, that becomes a heavy burden for them to bear.

To think about all the different things that they are not permitted to do. And it weighs down on them greatly. But rather, you may think positively about good works. That it is a privilege to be able to do good works before God.

That he would even be so kind as to permit such things. Now, that might surprise you to speak of this as a thought worth contemplating. That God would even permit good works to be done. Of course, they're good.

Why wouldn't he permit them? But no, if he is the God of the universe and we are sinful creatures, why would he permit anything from us? And so, we have this verse. That might seem like a simple truth to you.

And in some ways, it definitely is. But I would like you to contemplate the excellency of this truth. That God has permitted us to do good works. It may be helpful to begin by walking through what has happened in Galatians thus far.

In Galatians 1, Paul talks about his gospel that he has received. And moving on to Galatians 2, he continues the narrative of his apostleship. Explaining that his gospel is not from men, but is from God.

That's important because there are some aspects of his gospel that sound so counterintuitive. It sounds so counterintuitive that he would tell people that it is not by obedience to the law that one is made right with God.

But rather, through the Spirit's work, through faith that one is made right in Christ Jesus. Christ having perfectly fulfilled the law for us. And then because we are not made right by our works before God, we therefore no longer have the ceremonial law to instruct us in that need for Jesus Christ the way that we once did.

He has come. He has made that way clear. Though he has always been the way of salvation, even before he came. And people looked forward to the coming of the Messiah in faith. It is now so plain that the ceremonial things have been taken away.

And those who continue to pursue those ceremonial things, in Galatians, circumcision being the quintessential sign that must be done away with. Those who would continue to pursue that ceremonial law demonstrate that they do not understand the way of salvation.

Whereas before, it was out of an understanding that one would pursue that ceremonial law. And Paul's gospel is so plainly not from them, but from God. It came to him through Christ Jesus who met him on the road to Damascus.

Paul did not speak with any of the other disciples for three years. And then he even was willing to oppose Peter at the end of Galatians 2. We read of that. These are not things that came from other men, not even the other apostles.

Rather, they came from God himself. So he goes on in Galatians 3 to explain that one is justified by faith. That means they are made right with God as they turn to Jesus Christ and trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

It is not physical descendants from Abraham who are the true descendants of Abraham. It is those who are of faith who are the true descendants of Abraham, according to Galatians 3 .7. Know then it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And then going on to Galatians 4, he explains this further, even giving the example of Hagar and of Sarah. Hagar having a child that was not the child of promise, Ishmael. Sarah having the child of promise, Isaac.

Those who are of faith are the children of promise. It is not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise. That is those who have faith in Jesus Christ. And so he continues on in Galatians 5 to describe this freedom that we have been made free from the penalties of the law.

We have been made free so that we are not living under the law. Yet those who are filled with the spirit to have faith, to trust in Jesus Christ, are also filled with the spirit to love one another and thus fulfill the whole law.

The whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, as it says in verse 14 of Galatians 5. And so because of this, Paul's message is not, therefore, go ahead and disobey the law.

The message is, if you have been freed from the law as being some kind of means of righteousness, you having no other means at your disposal, but having Jesus Christ, trusting in him, being filled by his spirit, that freedom is not an opportunity for the flesh.

Rather, that freedom is an opportunity to serve God in the way that you had no capacity to otherwise. And so he says at the end of describing the fruit of the spirit, which is in contrast with the works of the flesh, against such things there is no law.

Sin Includes Both Commission and Omission

Against such things there is no law. There are many things that are against the law of God. So many things that are against the law of God. There are direct transgressions that are against the law of God.

You might think about those sins that you would commit pertaining to the first table of the law, the first four commandments, that talk about a relationship with God. There are all kinds of ways that you are obligated to serve God.

And every time you fail to do these, every time you transgress against those commandments, not honoring him as holy, not honoring his name as holy, not honoring his day as holy, not worshiping him as you ought, worshiping him in a way contrary to what you should, worshiping other things.

All those things are contrary to his law, heaping up guilt upon the soul. Moreover, there are ways that you can sin against your neighbor according to the second table of the law. Whether it be matters of hatred, matters of actual harm against neighbor, matters of lust, all kinds of ways that you can harm one another, adultery, theft.

All of these things are ways you may sin against the law of God. And these are not constrained to those great outward sins. You might think to yourself, well, I've never really stolen anything large. I've never really been that much of a liar.

I'm not defined by lies. But have you ever lied? All these various ways that you may sin against the Lord, but then moreover, in your heart, as you do not honor God in your heart, any way that you fail to, are additional sins against God, transgressing his commandments, heaping guilt upon the soul.

There are many ways to disobey God. And now you might think, well, if I just keep from action, then I will be at rest. If I just keep away from any kind of activity, and this is how a lot of people live their life.

They're so afraid of making some kind of mistake, they live an idle life. Well, guess what? Idleness itself is still sin before the Lord. Think about the parable of the tenmenos, the servant who was entrusted with wealth from his master, and then did not invest it because of his laziness.

He was cast out into utter darkness. 2 Thessalonians 3, 6 says,. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness. Idleness is sin before the Lord.

And not only is idleness sin before the Lord, but idleness also leads to additional sin. As we just read about in 2 Samuel, David was led to sin after sin after sin that began with what? It began with his idleness, not going out and doing the duty that God had called him to, to wage war against the enemies of the Lord.

So this led to much more sin. Proverbs 18, 9 says,. You see, there are really two different kinds of sins, if you could distinguish them at all. There are those sins of commission, where you act contrary to what the law says, and you do what it forbids.

But then there are sins of omission, sins of omission where you fail to do things that the law requires. And many people think about the former, and they have their life oriented in sort of a negative way, where they know that God has forbidden things, so they try to avoid those as much as possible.

But their life is not very much at all oriented in a positive way, where they recognize those things that God has required of them, that they ought to positively do. This is sin as well, these sins of omission.

James 4, 17 says,. In Matthew 25, when Jesus describes the sheep and the goats, how does he describe the goats? He says, He describes idleness. He describes a failure to do the right thing as being the thing that defines the goats in contrast to the sheep.

Sin is not just about those outward things that directly do what God forbids. It's also failing to do the things that God has called us to. And the more that people walk in unrighteousness, the more that they walk according to the deeds of the flesh, the more they experience guilt in their life.

The Spirit's Work, Faith, and the Believer's Experience of Forgiveness

Now this is of course true of the unbeliever who does not have forgiveness from God. As they do not have forgiveness from God, they can try to suppress that truth. But the more and more they walk against God's law, the reality that they live in God's world presses upon them, and they will not have true peace.

You, if you do not have Jesus Christ, if you do not have a sacrifice for your sins to take that wrath of God away, you will not live in peace. But this is also true of the believer who has forgiveness of sins.

Now you might say, how can that be true of the believer who has forgiveness of sins? Think about the relation of things in this chapter. I'll just read the last verse here. Okay, there are two things that are happening here.

One is the forgiveness that we have as the Spirit gives us faith, and we turn to Jesus Christ, and so we are justified. We are forgiven for all our past, present, future sins, but it's by that same Spirit that we have faith.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. That faith works in love. What does it mean if someone is not walking in the Spirit?

Can that go on independently of the faith that they have by the Spirit? Faith works through love. A weak walk before the Lord represents a weak faith before the Lord. Now if it is a true faith, God honors that.

And not out of any kind of righteousness in the faith itself, but as one looks to the Son of God, they are forgiven. But the experience of that forgiveness is tied to your recognition of it, obviously.

You will not, the less you think of Christ as your Savior, the less you will experience Christ as your Savior. And the less you think of Christ as your Savior, the less you will walk as Christ being your Savior.

The less you will walk by the Spirit with Christ being your Lord. These things go hand in hand, living by the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit. They go hand in hand and yet they also must be distinguished so that one does not think of the absolute truth of forgiveness before God having such a control over their life that it guarantees just a perfect kind of peace in all circumstances and they do not recognize that that will vary as they do not walk according to the Spirit.

Does this make sense, what I am saying? Okay, it is not by our own works that we are made right with God. It is by the work of Jesus Christ as we look to Him in faith. But the more someone is looking to Him in faith, the more they will experience that peace that they have already.

And it is in looking to Him in faith that the Spirit works out bearing the fruit of the Spirit in a man. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. So the one who does not keep in step with the Spirit, what is their experience?

Their experience is guilt. And this is true even of the believer who has grown negligent in his duties before God, not pursuing the works that God has called him to. Psalm 40 verse 12 says,. And think of Psalm 51, David having sinned against Bathsheba, having sinned against Uriah, having sinned against the whole nation of Israel and even those men who died along with Uriah.

All those things, David is a man who already trusts in the Lord. He is a man who is already in a great sense forgiven by God. And yet his experience of that forgiveness was contingent on going before the Lord and renewing that strength of his faith in him to grant forgiveness which involves a renewing of that walk as well.

These things go hand in hand. Proverbs 21 verse 8. One who is not walking by the Spirit will not have the peace that is becoming of a child of God and they will also not have the boldness that is becoming of a child of God.

They will walk about in cowardice. You do not want to be one who is not at peace with God. You don't want to be weighed down by the anxieties of the world like all the world is. So many people so full of all kinds of anxiety, not having peace with God, not experiencing God as their Father because He is not the new as a believer, not experiencing Him fully as a Father because there is something marring that relationship, not of your right standing before Him but bringing His fatherly displeasure and you not recognizing the goodness of Christ and His mercy because you are not looking to Christ and His mercy.

You will not have peace and then you will not have boldness. You will have instead guilt and you will have cowardice. And these are things that affect all areas of life. You might think of peace with God as being something that really only matters in the quiet moments.

You may think of boldness as being something that only matters in the moments when you are interacting with others in very difficult situations. But these are things that affect every single aspect of your life.

Every single moment throughout your day as you live before God is going to be a moment that either has peace or does not. That either has courage in great measure or does not. Just think about your activities.

Even when you are by yourself, courage matters. Because it is as you are standing there and thinking about your relationship with the Lord, going before Him in prayer or even going about your own duties, that you will be able to do so confidently knowing that God is on your side.

The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Even in those moments, courage is necessary. And even in the hustle and bustle of life, peace is important. Because what happens if you do not have peace?

You will be weighed down by anxiety over the hustle and bustle of things. Do not think of these as small things. They will shape every single moment of your life and no matter what you do. And so it is important to have the right kind of faith before the Lord.

God Permits Good Works Despite Our Sin

And the right kind of faith that is strong, that has been strengthened by God, is one that not only lives by the Spirit, but keeps in step by the Spirit. And so God and His kindness has permitted us to do good works.

He has permitted us to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Consider our verse, Now on one hand, that's an important reminder for us today because there are many what are known as antinomians. An antinomian is someone who is against God's law.

And they would often identify someone who is serious about following God's law and who is zealous for good works as being someone on a misreading of Galatians, as being someone who is burdened by the law or living under the law.

A lot of times if you find yourself growing in a knowledge of God's law and you begin to cease from certain activities that maybe others who identify with Christ do not cease from or begin doing things that other people who identify with Christ don't do, they will see you following God in a way that they don't.

And they will assume that you must be burdened down by the law. You must be following the law in a way that God has not required and therefore you must be burdened by it. Now, knowing that God has permitted every form of righteousness is a wonderful truth in this modern age where righteousness is often frowned on as being something that represents a lack of right relationship with God.

That's an unfortunate truth but it is a reality that many people think that great righteousness is evidence that you do not have a right standing with God on a misreading of this whole book. So this verse is comfort against that.

Of course, this is not what Paul was dealing with though. Paul was dealing with people who did think that their right standing with God was reliant on their performance before him. And so this is an important truth that against such things there is no law because it is a form of what's known as laetitis.

Laetitis is an intentional understatement. Like if you say, well that isn't bad at all. That's a way of saying it's very good. This is Paul's way of telling them that God has encouraged them in walking by the Spirit.

But I would like to not just leave it at laetitis, not just leave it at this is an intentional understatement and really there's nothing else to take from this except for the obvious that yeah, of course God's not going to punish good works.

Of course God's not going to punish such things. I would like you to contemplate the wonder of this as a novel thing that is not just guaranteed with how the world exists and not just guaranteed by the nature of how things are.

Why is it that we would be permitted to do good works before God? Why is it that there wouldn't be a law against any kind of thing that we would bring before Him? And I say that on at least two accounts.

One has to do with the notion of dominion. Okay, imagine that you crash landed on an island. And I say an island because imagine that you can't escape this island. This is just where you are. There's a king over that island.

And you have, in crash landing, brought fleas, brought all kinds of pests on your ship. You yourself end up, in the course of trying to figure out how things work, but not innocently, you have maliciously sinned against that king.

You have transgressed against him. You have committed high treason. Now, how is that king going to act? Is he going to say, well, okay, stop doing those works. But you can do some good works. Or is he going to say, no, I will not permit you to do anything.

Now, imagine someone just showed up at your house offering to do good things in your home. It's not just a guarantee you're going to let them in your home and do whatever they want to do. Right? Even if it's mostly good things.

It's not something that you're going to necessarily just grant them. Yet, if that king were to say, I forgive you for this high treason. I will permit you to continue on my island, obeying me. And more than that, I will make you a servant and give you special tasks to do.

That is just a wonderful privilege. This is how we are. We have transgressed against God. Adam has sinned against him. We are all born in unrighteousness and then we commit our own acts of unrighteousness.

There is no reason why God should permit us to do good works. Do not think that, okay, well, I have some capacity to do good works. Of course, God isn't going to be displeased with that. That's not a given just inherently in the world that God created.

It's not just a given that he would accept any good work that you would bring. He needs nothing. He has all things. Why would he accept any of it? And yet he has. Now also, in addition to that, is the fact that we are, in Adam, corrupt, such that we do not have the ability in ourselves to do good works.

So it's not just that it requires permission from the owner of the world to go about in it doing good things. We do not even have the capacity to do good things apart from the work of the Spirit in us.

But God has given us his Spirit in order that we might do good works. And he has given us his Son in order that these good works, being imperfect, would still be accepted by God, being mediated through the Son, offered up to him as high priest, the high priest offering them up to the Father.

I'd like to read you something from our confession. I'll read the proof text for it afterward, but it just states it so plainly. 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, 16 .5. Speaking of good works, This is the nature of our good works.

They are so imperfect they cannot endure the severity of God's judgment. Now the confession goes on to explain why God accepts them. It's the reasons I just gave. By the work of the Spirit and by the mediation of the Son, God accepts these things.

He has been kind to us in granting us the Spirit that we might bear fruit, which against such things there is no law. Because he has no law against the things his Spirit bears. Isaiah 64 .6 says,. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags.

And we all do fade as a leaf, and all our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Every single deed that you commit, even the great ones, it's not worth anything to God.

It's like a filthy rag. And yet God, out of his kindness, does not condemn our good works. That would be the default. The default would be for him to not permit us to do things before him. But he has permitted these things because they do not only come from us.

They come from the Spirit, his Spirit, working in us. This is a wonderful blessing that he has given. This is a rest. A rest from the wickedness of sin. All your life, apart from Jesus Christ, apart from his Spirit, every single action you do, even those things that are outwardly good, not accepted by God because you don't have the Spirit working in you.

It's only when you have the Spirit in you that they are true good works because they have come from a heart that is actually renewed, looking to Christ in faith. All your life, heaping up more and more sin so that you have no peace before God.

You just have a greater sense of guilt before him. And God gives us rest. These good works are a rest from sin, a rest from that guilt that we might experience the forgiveness of God working itself out in us.

Good Works Bring Rest Even Through Suffering

Rest comes in doing the work that God has called us to. A lot of people think that good works are kind of a heavy toil that doesn't grant rest. Even in the most difficult good works, they are a rest from the lack of peace one has in the soul doing anything else.

Now, some people would think about this and say, well, isn't there a lot of suffering in serving Christ? Isn't there just incredible amounts of suffering? Well, yes, he has called us to bear our cross, there is suffering.

But do you not know that you will suffer regardless? You will suffer even if you do not serve the Lord. This whole world is full of suffering. As it says in 1 Peter 3, 17, The implication there being that everybody's going to suffer.

You're going to suffer one way or another. And if you're going to suffer, it might as well be for doing good. That itself is even a rest. Look at Paul and the way he speaks. You know, he speaks of being poured out.

And this is something where on one hand, he describes it as being as an exhausting experience because he is actually being exhausted in a literal sense. His capacities are being drained. But he speaks about it in a way that he has such fire and he is at such peace with God.

These are not things that are burdensome. He would not describe himself as not having rest. It is in that being poured out that Paul has the rest that God intended for him. Now beyond that rest, there is great freedom.

Freedom to Serve God Creatively

There is an incredible freedom to serve him. Think about this passage. Verse 1, He has set us free. Then in verse 13, You have been set free. Now there's multiple things that that freedom is referring to.

On the one hand, it's talking about freedom from the penalty so that we are not burdened down by the fact that we will one day have to face God and judgment knowing that we will be vindicated on that day.

It's also talking about a freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law that we no longer have to follow the different ceremonies that the Jews did in order to instruct them in what was coming. We are free from that as well in a way that even true believers did not have a freedom in previous ages.

But then there is a freedom in being so enabled by the Spirit that we can walk in the ways that God has called us to rather than being bound to sin because we have no nature that is capable of righteous deeds.

Maybe you think of it as this way, where there are all these options for doing things that you want that would not serve God and serving God is this very narrow road. It is how it's described. And so you might feel justified in thinking of it that way.

It's this very narrow road where there's really not many options. You just have to do what you're told and that's all there is to it. Jesus' point in describing the wide path and the narrow path is not to primarily speak of there being many ways of sinning and only one way of doing what is right as though the unbeliever has all kinds of options before them and the one who is a slave to God instead of being a slave to sin is locked into just a very dull path where they have no options or choices before them.

How could that be called freedom? The kind of freedom that's described here is a freedom from the slavery that you would be... The experience of the unbeliever is to be slaves to their own sins so that they can only do unrighteousness.

Yes, there might be various forms of unrighteousness, but they are all unrighteousness. And the believer has a veritable smorgasbord of options before them, of good works that they might do before the Lord in their pleasing of Him.

People think about the law of God too negatively and not sufficiently positively. One example that I think is helpful because it has been a common experience for so many is trying to understand how you ought to honor the Lord's Day.

A lot of people begin, once they start taking the command seriously, the fourth commandment, the honoring of the Lord's Day seriously, they first start off by thinking about negatively. Oh, well, there were all these things I'm doing.

Now I'm not allowed to do those things. And so I'm locked into this thing where I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And I think about it very negatively, and it becomes not really a freedom, but a kind of slavery.

And yet as they understand it better and they learn more, they realize that the whole day has been given to them to use for whatever things would be good for the soul. And then they realize that they have all kinds of ways that they can serve the Lord on that day.

There are all kinds of opportunities for fellowship. There are all kinds of opportunities for serving the Lord in piety and prayer and in studying the Word. All those things that you would like to get to that throughout the week you can't.

Time spent in the Word, time spent understanding truths that just seem like you don't have time for them. And then He has given you this day. It is a positive thing when understood rightly, you recognize what an incredible freedom there is that rather than before where you were kind of locked down to just doing the things that your flesh was telling you to do, God has freed you to serve Him in all kinds of ways.

And there are so many options. This is the way that you should be thinking about your opportunity to serve the Lord. That He has given you just an incredible set of options. There are so many ways that you can serve the Lord.

Now this is not to say that there is no wisdom to be employed in the matter. As you look at your life and you see the things that you have been gifted for, you ought to, with a real kind of sober clarity, think about what things you should be doing.

And you should feel yourself obligated to do those things that you are most fit for, that God is calling you to the most for. But knowing that there are just so many ways that you can serve the Lord. And knowing that you have the freedom to do so, not being judged by others, because others do not know the things that you need, know the things that you are capable of.

Or they might, in some degree outwardly, to the degree to which they could counsel you, but it's not like matters of sin, where it's often a lot more plain. You have been tasked as a steward of God, having dominion over your life, having the Spirit of God, asking yourself, how is it that I should serve the Lord?

That is a wonderful task. God has left that to you to figure out. Now, He has given wisdom. He gives wisdom by His Spirit. He's given you His Word. But you are not to think yourself of one who is just slavishly bound to do a bunch of precise things, as one who does not have to think about anything.

Rather, God has called you with creative freedom to serve Him. When God created Adam, He had him name all the animals. He gave him dominion over the garden. He didn't say, okay, you're going to do this with this plant, and then you're going to do this with this plant, and then you're going to name this animal this.

Adam had the freedom to serve God the way that he saw fit within that rubric of naming the animals, of caring for the garden. And so God has called you to serve in His kingdom, giving you freedom in how you ought to do it.

What a creative opportunity that people of the old creation do not experience you being made a new creation in Jesus Christ. Have a creative freedom in how you would build up God's kingdom and how you would tend to His garden.

That those of the old creation do not know, do not fail to recognize that and to appreciate that wonderful truth. And then of course, after all that, there is the experience of innocence that one has walking before the Lord because once again, not because walking with the Lord makes you more right with Him, but rather it is keeping in step with the Spirit that faith is strengthened and you are looking at Christ more intently such that you experience His goodness more intently.

Walking in the Spirit Brings Peace and Boldness

You will have a greater peace, a greater boldness. It says in Proverbs 3, 24, if you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Now, how many times has it been in your life that you have had trouble sleeping because of the anxieties of things that a Christian who is truly trusting in the Lord and not, and understanding that they shouldn't borrow trouble from the morrow and that God loves them and will care for them just wouldn't be worried about.