HOW DO WE THANK THE LORD? IN OUR GOOD WORKS
Prayer: Merciful God and Father, You make Your sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and You are kind even to those who are unthankful: We pray You, teach us by Your Holy Spirit to have compassion on all people, cover our neighbor’s faults and frailties, be always ready to forgive, and show forth everywhere the fruits of faith. Amen. [Collect on the Gospel for Trinity 4]
The Sermon Text, St. Luke 6:36-42 (v. 36). “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth; Your Word is truth. By Your Word of truth, lead us on the way of truth to life everlasting, with hearts united in the truth and walking in love. Amen!
Dear people loved by God in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus, whom we confess to be both Lord and Christ. Amen.
These words of Jesus in today’s gospel are from the Sermon on the Mount, the version that’s in Luke’s gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching the deeper meaning of God’s Law. It’s really a sermon on the Law. The Law is God saying, “You shall” and “You shall not.”
This verse is one that I use in catechism class to test whether students know what Law is and what Gospel is. I ask, is this Law or Gospel? – “Love one another.” Is this Law or Gospel? – “Be merciful.” Although Jesus is saying it, and it’s about love, it isn’t Gospel. It’s Law. Because it isn’t about Jesus’ love to us. It’s a command for us to love and show mercy.
So when we speak of faith and good works, this falls under “works,” not what we believe but what we do. There’s an intimate connection between faith and good works. In God’s eyes there is no good work apart from faith: Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (Jn 15:6). But if you have true faith, then you will do good works as a result of faith. They go with faith. Good works follow faith: first comes faith, then comes love. Faith is never without good works, although the works will always be imperfect.
We don’t have to wonder what these good works are. God tells us in the Ten Commandments. These are the “do’s” of the commandments. In each commandment God gives us the “don’t” – what is forbidden – but He also gives us the “do’s” – the good that He commands us to do.
This is what Jesus is teaching in Luke 6, when He says: “Be merciful … Judge not … Condemn not … Forgive … Give.”
Because they’re commands, certainly they show us our sins. They do condemn you for your “sins of omission” – the good you omit: what you fail to do when you aren’t kind, when you don’t have forgiveness for someone, when you don’t have a giving heart for others, or you play favorites and only give or do good to those who are good to you.
But Jesus’ chief purpose here is not to condemn for past sins. His chief purpose is looking ahead, not behind. He preaches the Law as a guide. He directs us to the good works that show the faith that’s inside us.
But we are the ones who categorize them as good works. Jesus is more personal. He just classifies it as love. In all His commands a person is the beneficiary, you don’t focus on the “work” but on the person: being merciful to him, forgiving her, not judging or condemning that person, giving to that family in need. He wants you to picture the person.
But that’s not all. There’s another Someone in this picture: God Himself. He’s a personal God – the Three-Personed God. Jesus says: “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” This is the Gospel. Where do we see the Father’s mercy? He sent His only Son. He didn’t have to. That’s mercy: kindness that isn’t forced or compelled, isn’t deserved, and can’t be repaid. God didn’t wait until we asked for a Savior. He didn’t first require us to show some sign of repentance or worthiness. He didn’t leave us in our sin, or turn away from the human race. He gave up His beloved Son for us all.
So you look at God first and see His mercy. This makes what you do for a neighbor not just obedience but thankfulness.
How do we thank the Lord? In our good works. Our good works are how we thank God for His kindness to us. If we lack good works, it shows that we’re not thankful to God as we should be. The hymn we sang begins by asking, “How can I thank You, Lord, for all Your loving-kindness?” The answer is found in these things we do for the neighbor. We serve God by serving our neighbor. When we ask of each commandment, “What does this mean?” each one begins: “We should fear and love God, so that we” do this and don’t do that. The neighbor commandments too are about God.
This is when we hear Jesus direct our faith toward action: “Be merciful … Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you.”
Because we are asking how we as forgiven Christians live, Jesus is not saying there is some conditional relationship between these things. He isn’t saying that God not judging you depends on you not judging others; or that not condemning someone is the reason that God won’t condemn you to hell; or that forgiving someone is the reason that God forgives you.
God judges you “not guilty” for Jesus’ sake. God forgives you by grace alone; it is the gift of God, not of works. He won’t condemn you, because Jesus took your punishment, and you benefit from it by faith alone.
Instead, Jesus is stating what faith – born from the Gospel – does. We are accustomed to thinking of these good works as “obedience,” and I guess that’s true. But too often that means we’re looking for a law to obey. Too often you do the kindness or do the “good work” out of a sense of duty, or to look good to others, or to keep your parents or other authorities off your back, or because it’s expected, or it has to be done.
In God’s eyes, that is not a good work. A good work proceeds from faith, and from love for God, not from being compelled or pressured at all. The good news is that Jesus’ blood purifies our works and removes all that’s not pure. The good work proceeds from looking at God and what He’s done for you, from being full of thanks and full of love for Him.
Actually, faith – born from the Gospel – doesn’t need any law to do these things. The Law – the 10 Commandments – just tell us what these good works are: to honor authorities, to be respectful, to have compassion on someone and help them, to maintain purity, to be faithful to your spouse, to be honest and trustworthy, to speak the truth in love.
Faith – full of thanks to God and full of love for Him – simply looks for a person who will benefit from the doing of these things. It happens as a natural result of the Gospel and of faith. Luther said: “Oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. It’s impossible for it not to be constantly doing what is good. … Faith is a deliberate trust in God’s grace. Such confidence and knowledge of divine grace make us joyous and merry toward God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit works this by faith, and therefore without coercion a man wants and desires to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything for the love of God and to His glory, who has given such grace to him. It is as impossible to separate works from faith as it is to separate heat and light from fire.” (Preface to Romans)
This all is true, but we know in our experience that faith isn’t always strong and we struggle to love as we should. We still have the Old Adam. So we still do need the Law, with its threats and condemnation and knowledge of our sin and God’s wrath over sin, so that we repent. The Old Adam – our sinful self – struggles against the new man in us – our forgiven self. Our forgiven self just needs to be strengthened. But because of Jesus, a Christian doesn’t live under the Law, under its burden. Christians “live and walk in the Law of the Lord, and yet do nothing in the Law because of force” (FC VI:18), since the Gospel is what drives us forward.
This is just what we hear in the Lord’s Supper, which is the Gospel. We hear that we’re being strengthened not only in our faith in God, but also in love for one another. Holy Communion isn’t only for faith and forgiving our sins. It’s also for our life of good works, to send us with a clear conscience into the world to serve God in our life with others, to live thankfully in our vocations. It’s called the Eucharist, or Thanksgiving. The Supper fills us with thanks, which takes form in what we do for others.
Remember, faith – born from the Gospel, strengthened in His Supper – is looking for someone who will benefit from the mercy we can give.
If you want to know how it works, this is influenced by a few factors: First is the commandments, what God says His will is for you to do. Second, what your callings and vocations are – where God has placed you. The people right in front of you, starting in your home. The third factor is need. When you see someone in need – as we do with the Hill Country flooding – there’s someone you can help. (But the special need comes after the people right in front of you.) The fourth factor is your God-given abilities – what are you good at, what are your skills? (But even if you’re not as good at it, what takes precedence is if there’s a need in front of you. And what comes before that are the people in front of you. And first of all is doing God’s will.)
In all this, we don’t place confidence in our own works and how we do things. We’re exercising our faith as we do good works. Faith alone saves us. Faith is built on Christ and His Word, and keeps looking to Christ and listening to the Gospel. God begins the good work in us, He will complete it. Our confidence and trust, and all that we are, is in Him, from Him, and through Him. Amen!