The Blessing in Store for You
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). Our new birth in Christ is a rebirth into good works: in Christ, we live to give rather than to take. Paul seems to be telling us that, since God long ago prepared these good works that we will be doing in Christ, it will be as if we are unable not to do these works. We will feel something like a compulsion, a conviction, to do them.
That’s very good news for us as we consider the Day of Christ, which I’ve been preaching about these past weeks. It’s natural if we don’t often think about the Day of Christ. We should never feel worried about that day: for us in Christ, it will be a day of celebration and victory. In the meantime, we may now and again feel a nudge, sense an intuition, hear a whisper: help that person; say something kind to her; be patient a little longer with him; open this charity solicitation letter; take a meal to your neighbor; stop and talk to this one; offer to pray, here, now; write a little Thinking of You note; hug this person; look that person in the eye and let him, let her, know what you appreciate most about him, about her. These are small things, and we can do them with great love.
My guess is that we’d all like a bit more love in our lives. What the world needs now. We can help prepare the ground for more love as we heed these promptings, these intuitions and whispers. Any prompting, any urging to do what is good, kind, patient—these all come from the Spirit, just as any urging or prompting to do what is not good comes from the Tempter, always pitching us the line that real happiness comes in what we already know always just ends in sorrow and hurt.
It’s as we listen to the Spirit and reject the Tempter that we grow in love. As we grow in love we prepare ourselves—the truth is it’s the Spirit preparing us, all along, always—preparing for the day of Christ, so that, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, as Jesus promises us he will, we can have all confidence, full faith, that we shall be among those he puts to his right. Those whom he puts to his left had been living a lie, willingly, complicitly, complacently—only at the Day of Christ do they protest, because only then are they compelled to acknowledge the truth, knowing it’s too late.
But that’s not us. There aren’t many of us who have the holy Jackfruit of our works to show. We know that boasting in our works or expecting our works to impress Jesus is all wrong, anyway. We don’t love and help in order to be saved. We love and we help because we are saved, because we are living the undeniable truth of God’s love and God’s help. We can’t help doing good works; there’s a sort of holy compulsion at work in us: the presence and guidance of the Spirit, tethering us to Christ, leading us to God. The day will come. We aren’t living that way every day. God calls us to keep focused on this present moment, His gift to us, because, in Jesus Christ, we already know God has given us the sure gift of the future, eternity. God doesn’t want us to worry whether we’ve done enough. Be attentive to what is within your ability to do, now. He wants you to do it: that’s the whisper, that nudge. A missionary’s words have stuck in my head, my heart, since I first read them: “Love looks like something” was one thing she said; the other was “Stop for the one.” This is what Jesus showed, what he did. If we’re going to share Jesus with anyone, let’s try to practice what Jesus practiced.
The Son of Man will come in his glory. I can’t describe that! Let your imagination picture it, see it, vividly, wonderfully. I’d like for you to feel the glory, the wonder and awe, but I don’t know how. All the angels with him—this isn’t some limited though brilliant event—that day, the sky will be alight with no light we’ve ever seen, ever known: perhaps like the light of every star, concentrated around the earth.
And he will sit on his glorious throne. Will there really be a throne? Apparently, something. Probably not like the massive gold and ivory throne Solomon had made for himself; no, probably like the throne the prophets describe: like a rainbow, though no rainbow you or I have ever seen. Why a throne? A king has to have a throne, I suppose. But why? The king sits to symbolize his security, the firmness and permanence of his authority, his reign. The king sits to listen, to decide, and to speak. The Son of David will come, not to sit on the throne of David, an earthly, perishable throne, but to sit on the throne of heaven, the Son of Man, Christ the King. He will sit to listen, to decide, and to speak his decision.
All nations will be gathered before him. We saw a similar vision in Revelation 7. He tells us a separation will take place. “[H]e will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (25:32). Sheep? Goats? What’s this about? Jesus is telling us. It should come as no surprise. He has already told us the weeds shall be separated from the wheat (Mt 13:29-30). He already told us that, after the net is drawn back in, there will be a sorting: the fish worth keeping will be kept; the fish that are good for nothing will be thrown away (Mt 13:47-50).
There was a big emphasis upon separation in Judaism. The Pharisees were all about separation; the Essenes, who wrote the Qumran scrolls, lived for an even more exacting separation than those half-measure Pharisees. The separation had to do with purity and adulteration, preservation and corruption. God instructs Moses, saying, “You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them” (Lev 15:31). Separate. When Christ the King sits upon his throne brilliant with every color of God’s rainbow, he shall be among us; he allows no defiling thing in his dwelling place. Paul reminds the faithful in Corinth how God told His people, “‘Come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’” (2 Cor 6:17). Paul’s memory of the words from Isaiah doesn’t quite match what we read, where the verb is not separate, but purify. In Paul’s mind, however, the words appear to have the same meaning. Separation is for purity, so that no defiling thing may be found in the presence of God, who allows no defilement in His presence. Be in the world but not of the world; be separate: live for purity, not corruption.
How do we live for purity? It’s hard to see that there’s much reward, in this life, for purity, for innocence, for laboring tirelessly for Christ and his kingdom. The world assures you that such living is just no fun, that it’s just so dry and uptight, and it will make you boring. Envy is the highest form of flattery; he who has the most toys wins. People around us, even some in the church—I’m not saying this congregation—people do things, say things, believe some things, commit to some things that might seem questionable by what the Bible seems to be saying with clarity and directness. These people don’t seem to care; they know a better way: the Christianity Jesus would teach if he were here now. These people seem just as happy as anyone else, maybe happier, since what they do and say and believe is rewarded and encouraged by the power in our culture. They’ve found the way to be of the world yet for Jesus!
We’re positively scared to death of the contagion of COVID-19. In the imaginary scenario where you get COVID, how long does your bravery last? Let us be just as concerned, let us take the same degree of precaution, against contracting the contagion of disobedience—this is what has infected those goats. Calvin, reading Jesus’ words, reflects that the sheep “ought to beware of being [. . .] infected by the contagion of [the goats’] vices.” This separation to right and left is “to inform [us] that in a holy and innocent life [your] labor is not thrown away, for the difference will one day appear.”[1] Your devoted living for Jesus now—despite all the discouragement the world can and will throw at you, now—will be fully rewarded, then. O come, O come, Emmanuel.
We know there is confusion out there, confusion even within the church. We don’t come from here: we come from out there; now, as disciples, we go from here. Our sure guide can never be the example of other believers, all struggling just as we are struggling. Our sure guide, as ever, is the Word of God and the Spirit at work in us to will and to act, to get our lives aligned with the Word of God. The Word is Jesus, our salvation and our hope. When we aim at righteousness as the Bible describes it, when we want this righteousness to be our goal and our labor of love in this life, we do so by the Spirit. This knowledge is for our comfort and perseverance.
We need both comfort and perseverance in this life, while we await the Day of Christ. Calvin has a talent for putting things in a cheerful way, “though the life of the godly be nothing else than a sad and wretched banishment,” he writes, “so that the earth scarcely bears them; though they groan under hard poverty, and reproaches, and other afflictions; yet, that they may with fortitude and cheerfulness surmount these obstacles, the Lord declares that a kingdom is elsewhere prepared for them.”[2] I don’t suppose many of us think of our lives as “a sad and wretched banishment.” Brothers and sisters living in places where their faith is the warrant for their grinding persecution may feel differently. Not many of us have known “hard poverty,” though we know it’s out there.
Calvin connects with us in this, though: we all have experienced “other afflictions.” We see others around us, we know there are many others around the world, suffering with other afflictions. What to do? What can I do? Can anything truly helpful be done? Can I do it? Remember love looks like something. Stop for the one. We are not required to do big things—do them if you can, if the Spirit urges you. We are under an urging from the Holy Spirit to do the small things: do them with great love.
Maybe like me, you have the painful sense that it’s going to be increasingly harder for Christians to live according to God’s Word. If you’re looking for your reward in this life, to be rewarded by the world, with the things the world calls good, then this suffering for the sake of being a follower of Jesus Christ that I’ve been talking about these past months will be especially hard on you. It won’t seem worth it. You won’t see the point, if the reward you really want is the reward offered here in this life. If, however, you are looking for the reward Christ promises, if you are living your life here for that reward, there, then no difficulty, no disappointment will deter you. Your desire for Christ’s reward, your determination to live here for that reward there, are from the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit doesn’t let go. The Spirit is always whispering, in the warmth of His holy embrace, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re going to be alright.”
Does the good we do make any difference, all those small things, even if they’re done with great love? Even if we do stop for the one—it’s only one. Small things are small. In what Jesus says to his sheep, I hear what Calvin also heard: we are being told, quite clearly, quite directly, for our comfort and conviction, that “God will one day repay with [interest] what we bestow on the poor,” on those, that is, “from whom nothing can be expected in return.”[3]
What repayment or even acknowledgment will we ever receive from those children for whom we just packed shoeboxes, those families in our own community to whom we gave food for this week of Thanksgiving? What thanks will we ever have from the people of Madagascar for our support for the work of Dan and Elizabeth Turk, who have freely given twenty years of their lives to ministry, there? Ever have feelings of being underappreciated, unappreciated? You know you matter to God, don’t you? Small comfort? It’s good to know you matter to people around you, too. It’s hard, sometimes, not to hear a “Thank you.” It can hurt—not that we’re looking for a “Thank you,” but because we can be left feeling as if nothing we do is appreciated. That can leave us feeling unappreciated, like we’re not valuable, not loved. If you find your heart bumping along down that dusty road, consider this: there is always a “Thank you,” quick, warm, sincere, amazed, happy: it’s the Thank You that Jesus says, every time. Does no one else see? Christ sees. Does no one else hear? Christ hears. Does no one else feel? Christ feels. Your King feels. Your God knows. Keep loving, keep giving, keep calling, keep faithful—oh, such blessing in store for you, as you live in this way!
To the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, be honor and eternal dominion.
[1] John Calvin. Harmony of the Evangelists. https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom33/calcom33.ii.xxiii.html
Leave a Reply