What are You Doing With Your Faith

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Have you ever wondered or even stopped to consider what God really expects from you? Or what God really expects from us? Interesting question, isn't it? We talk a lot about things like faith, we talk about salvation, about the grace of God, about the love of God, and all those are important. And rightfully so. But what comes next? There we go.

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Today I want us to take a look at something the Bible calls good works. I think we are we're gonna discover something that good works are not about earning the favor of God, but good works uh is about demonstrating his grace and his work and what he's already done in our lives.

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Uh the past couple of weeks we've been studying on the topic of of context and making sure that we're we're getting the right things out of scripture. And let's take just a second to or a few minutes here to revisit some things that we've talked about. That way if you're hearing this episode for the first time, um you kind of can get caught up as to where we are. And second Timothy chapter number three is where we're gonna be starting at today.

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And we see in here that Paul is is warning Timothy here in chapter three about the perilous times that's going to be coming, the perilous times that we're living in right now. And we can see here in verse one that Paul tells him, he says, This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. He's giving them them that warning. And then he gets down here to verses 10, 11.

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10 and 11 of chapter 3, and he's reminding Timothy about some of the difficulties that he has faced in his time as the Apostle Paul in his ministry. And he gives Timothy a warning here, and a warning that we would do good to take heed to. In verse number 12, he says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

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That's a stark warning that none of us, frankly, wish to hear. Because we don't want to deal with persecution. We don't want to deal with those things. And so Paul has given us a warning here that we're going to go through them things. Why? Because we're living in perilous times. That's why uh context in the Bible is so important, making sure that we're actually interpreting the things that God wants us to see.

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And the things that God is trying to teach us. And then in verses 16 and 17, well before that, verse 14, he tells them to continue in the things which he has learned, the things that Paul has taught him, the things that Paul has showed him. He said, continue in those things. And then in verse 16 and 17, we see how how Paul is teaching Timothy how God's going to equip him to make sure that he's ready to do the work, to make sure that he's ready.

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To do what God has called him to do. He says all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Now we talked on, let's see, this Thursday, we talked on Tuesday about each one of what these different things mean here in verse 16. Uh so I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode or watch that episode if you haven't already.

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But he's he's telling us here that this is how God equips us. He equips us through his word, through the inspired word of God. And I firmly believe that all 66 books of the Bible that we have is the inerrant, the perfect, the inspired word of God. And that the Holy Spirit uh inspired each one of these men that wrote these books to to give us a roadmap of how we're supposed to be living.

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And to give us insights, to give us understanding as to who God is and what we need to be doing, so that we're ready to do these good works that he refers to in verse number seventeen.

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Uh he talks about how these these good work or these these items make us ready for the good works that God has for us in our life. And if we go back to the Old Testament, another verse that we had looked at quite a bit here, uh we looked at in the last episode was Jeremiah chapter twenty-nine.

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Jeremiah chapter twenty nine.

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And we see here that God has a plan for us. That's what He's promising to the captives in in Babylon here at this point. Um, he's promising them in verse 11, he says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. That's many people's life verse right there. And in this verse is teaching us that.

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That God has a plan for us, that God has thoughts for us, that God has a uh definite plan He has for our lives. And we need to make sure that we understand that plan, which we can understand that plan by getting into the Word of God, allowing it to do the things that Paul wrote about there in 2 Timothy chapter three. To do the good works, that's that's the plan God has for us. And he says, plans for peace here, plans for peace.

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Peace between God and us and the only way to get that is through the shed blood of Jesus. But then I also want us to look here at verses twelve through uh let's see, let's look at verses twelve through fourteen of Jeremiah chapter twenty-nine. Scripture tells us Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you, and ye shall seek me and find me.

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When ye shall search for me with all your heart, and I will be found of you, saith the Lord, and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from the nations and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord, and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive. Alright, one thing we need to understand here, talking about in the context here.

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Is that Israel was scattered. Israel was in captivity because they had sinned against the Lord, because they had rejected the Lord. And that was the result. That's that's what happened. Is they they the Lord had them taken captive because as punishment for their sins. A lot of people don't talk about and we don't discuss very often the punishment of God, that God corrects us, God chastens us, God punishes people when they're not.

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Living for him. And that's what happened with Israel. That's why they're away in captivity now. But even though they're away in captivity, God reminds them, I know the thoughts, I know the plans I have for you, thoughts for peace, thoughts to give you an expected end. And that expected end for them was revealed in verse 10 when he says, In causing you to return to this place. And then he says again in verse 14, and I will bring you again into the place.

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Once I caused you to be carried away. So God says, even though you've been punished, I'm still going to bring you back to the place that you were at. I'm going to bring you back to what I've given you. You're not going to lose anything. I'm going to bring you back. But we see here, what I want us to look at here is in verses 12 and 13 specifically, because we see an idea of the good works that that we're going to be doing here. He says in verse 12, then shall ye call upon me.

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And ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. So as a result of the good works that we're going to do, as a result of the plan that God has for our life, we're going to call on God. We're going to go to Him. We're going to pray on Him. And what happens? He's going to hear us. He's going to listen to us. That's exciting. That should make us all get us all excited there.

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And then he says in verse 13, and ye shall seek me and find me when ye sh shall search for me with all your heart. What's God saying there? He's telling us that we're going to seek him, and when we seek him with all our heart, we're going to find him. When we seek him with all our heart. You see, that's what happened. If you study the old testament, that's what happened as a cycle over and over and over again for Israel.

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Was that that God restored them? They lived for God for X amount of years. Then pretty soon they started falling into pagan idol worship and they started worshiping other gods. And some nation like Babylon comes along, takes them captive, carries them away, and they sit there in captivity for X amount of years until they start crying out to God, until they start repenting of their sin, until they start seeking and searching for Him. And then God brings them back to Israel again.

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And they live like that for the next X amount of years, and pretty soon they fall into that cycle. It's the same exact cycle, my friends, that you and me go through. That's why I think stories like this is in the Bible, so that we can look and we can say, hey, that looks a lot like me. How many times do we we live for God? We we we read his word every day, we we go out and we we feed the homeless, we we do all these acts of of worship.

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And we go to church on Sunday and we lift our hands and praising him. And and then we we s get back in the workplace and pretty soon we're telling them dirty jokes again. Pretty soon we're stopping by the bar and having a little cocktail on the way home. Um we start having an affair, whatever, whatever. And what happens? We start falling away from God. God punishes us. We say, oh God, I'm sorry, I repent, I'm not gonna do that anymore. And we get back into church.

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And we start doing those things again. And then pretty soon we fall off the wagon again. You see, it's a it's a cycle. How can we how can we overcome that cycle? How can how can we do that? Well, we need to make sure that we're we're praying to God, we need to make sure that we're searching for God. But I think if we go to Ephesians chapter two.

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Ephesians chapter 2, there's some things we need to understand here. Because in and of myself, I can never overcome that sin. Romans chapter 6 talks about being slaves to sin and being servants to God. Read that chapter sometime when you get some time. But in and of myself, I can't overcome my sin nature. And neither can you. But here's the key in Ephesians chapter 2.

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That we need to understand. Let's look at verses 8 through 10. Scripture says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus on the good works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. What's Paul teaching us here?

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Paul's teaching us is that our salvation doesn't come through the good works. We're going to talk a little more about this here in a minute, but our salvation comes solely and only through the grace of God, through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross. That's it. That's the only place our salvation can come from. When we repent, we're repenting of our sins and we get that salvation because of the shed blood of Jesus, because of God's grace. God's grace is simply

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The favor of God in our lives. And it's because of that favor, he says here in verse 8, that we are saved by grace through faith. Nothing I can do. Nothing I can do. But it's the gift of God. I like gifts. Many of us like gifts. I like getting the Christmas gifts. I like getting birthday gifts. I like when when someone gives me a gift for no reason at all.

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That's what God's offering us is a gift today. Are you gonna take it? Are you gonna accept it?

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He says, talking about talking about being saved, we're saved by grace through faith. Then he says, not of works, lest any man should boast. Does that mean the good works that Paul talked about in 2 Timothy chapter 3, does that mean that they're irrelevant? No. We're going to look at why here in a minute. But what Paul is trying to emphasize, and what I want you to understand today, is that we're saved by

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Through the grace of God, by our faith in Jesus, not of works, not of any work that I can do. I can't go and clean myself up. I can't go and say, okay, I'm gonna get away from sin now. Okay, I'm gonna turn from sin and try and do it on my own. He can't do it. It's not of works. There's no work that I can do other than repenting of my sin that's gonna enable me to be saved.

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Here's the key, verse number ten. For we are his workmanship, we are his creation, we are his design, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. First Timothy chapter number one, verse number nine, says this, talking about God now.

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Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given, given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. See, you see, Paul is telling Timothy here that we are saved and we are called not according to our works, but according to God's purpose, according to God's grace.

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And that's what Paul is reiterating here to this church at Ephesus. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Our salvation is solely based on Jesus. We are the work of God. We are created in Christ for the good for those good works, those good works of prayer, those good works of seeking God, those good works of of telling others about Jesus.

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Those good works of going out and feeding people that's less fortunate. But you see, we got to make sure that we're doing it with the right motive, that we're doing it because we are called of God and we are saved by his grace. We got to make sure that we're not doing it for our own desires to try and make me look good.

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Those good works that we're created to do, they're not going to save us, but rather they're going to prove the faith that we claim to have. James chapter number two, verse number eighteen, he says, Yea, a man may say thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. That's an important principle, an important lesson that we need to take heed to.

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You can claim to have faith, you can claim to have all the faith in the world. But unless you have works to back it up, the faith means nothing. If your faith isn't strong enough to get you to do anything, then you don't have a faith. And James is saying you that that you show me your faith through your without your works, and I'm going to show you my faith by my works. Your faith and works work together. Your faith, your works.

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Prove your faith. And your faith is proven by the works you do.

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God's word equips us to live for him, to do the good works he's called us to do. God's word equips us. Our relationship with him directs us. God gives us the direction we need to have. God shows us where we need to go. He tells us what we need to do.

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And our good works demonstrate the difference his grace makes in our lives. Let me ask you this: if you were if you were in a court today, if you were in a courtroom and you were being tried because you claim to be a Christian, is there going to be enough evidence in your life to prove that claim? Think about that as you go through this day. And remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you. And then share that word.

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with someone today. Have a blessed day.