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Grace, mercy and peace be to you …
One of the things we’re working with… with our confirmands this year is the understanding of the difference between the Law and the Gospel. In fact, if you’re one of our confirmand’s parents you may have noticed that those terms, Law and Gospel, are used on their sermon reports.
Why are we talking about this? Because when it comes to living a Christian life, Law and Gospel help us see God’s hand at work in all that we do.
Now, in a minute, you’ll see how relatively easy it is to classify something in God’s Word as either Law or Gospel … but the real challenge, we’ll see, is to live out Gospel-centered lives.
So first some definitions: The Law is what God requires of us. The Law of God commands Good Works of thought, word and deed and condemns and punishes sin. We learn from the Law what is pleasing in God’s sight.
And now, the Gospel on the other hand, tells us the good news of our salvation in Jesus Christ. In the Gospel, God gives us forgiveness of our sins, life, faith and the power to please Him with Good Works. We learn in the Gospel what God has done and is doing in our lives.
Did you notice the two words that were in both definitions, in both the Law and the Gospel? The two words: Good Works?
We’re going to get back to those two words a little later, but first we need to talk about how God uses both the Law and the Gospel in our lives.
Now, although the Word “Law” is sometimes used to refer to actual physical parts of the Bible … for our purposes, the “Law” means anything that God has told us to do to live moral, God-pleasing lives.
Anything from the 10 Commandments… to Jesus’ Great Commission, to go and make disciples of all nations.
When Jesus says, “Be perfect, as my Father in heaven is perfect,” He means that we should keep all the Law perfectly. Do everything God has commanded us to do perfectly… and do so with a heart with pure motives.
Now … when we look at ourselves in light of that expectation of God, we know without anyone having to tell us, that we’re just not that good. And if we’re thinking we’re not that good, but we’re not all that bad, either … Well, Jesus tells us that if we break just one point of the Law we are guilty of breaking it all.
The point is this … the Law always, always condemns. You can’t go to the Law and try to use it to say “Oh, look at what a good boy or girl I am,” because the Law will always condemn us.
So the Law can’t save us. What can? The Gospel. The Gospel tells us that God sent Jesus to live THE perfect life under the Law for each of us… as our substitute, in our place.
The Gospel also tells us that Jesus died on the cross to suffer the punishment that all our failures to keep the Law perfectly have earned for us.
And then the Gospel tells us that Jesus rose again to assure us of our own future resurrection in Him. And so … the Gospel is the message of what God in Jesus Christ has done for us. The Gospel has the power to create faith, to give life, to forgive sins, to secure a heavenly resurrection from the dead.
Hurray for the Gospel! So, tell your pastor: “Pastor, every Sunday morning just preach nothing but the Gospel to us, okay?”
Love to. But. In the words of one of our great theologians, CFW Walther, ‘Unless we Christians regularly hear the Law we will become more sinful than even the worst heathen.’
Fighting words. Why did he say that? Because in us lives both the old Adam and the New. Both saint and sinner. The saint in us loves to hear the Gospel, but the sinner in us needs to hear the Law, why? To be kept in check.
If all you hear is, Your Sins are Forgiven, Your Sins are forgiven … what is the sinner in us going to do? Just go right at it, isn’t it?
Likewise, just preaching the Law is just as troublesome. If all you hear is: “Clean up your act, clean up your act.” You’ll be doomed to despair, because there is no way that it’s humanly possible for us to clean up our own acts.
And so… we need to hear both… both the Law and the Gospel … the fact that God calls us to a moral life, a life of producing fruit for the kingdom … is His expectation of us expressed through the Law.
But then we also need to hear that God enables us to live that way, by the power of His Holy Spirit, even as He forgives us our failures… which is the good news of the Gospel.
The law tells me what I should do … and the Gospel gives me the power to do it.
Now. We’re ready to go back and pick up those two words we saw that our definitions of Law and Gospel had in common earlier … those two words: good works.
And we want to look at those two words in light of our reading from Matthew for today, where we hear Jesus addressing His audience in Jerusalem saying, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s … and to God what is God’s.”
We know what Jesus was referring to when it came to Caesar … that his audience should pay the taxes the Roman Government had levied. But, Jesus was also saying it was right and necessary to give to God what was due Him, as well.
So. What kind of statement do we have here from Jesus, then, Law or Gospel? “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” ? It’s all Law, right? Good.
How do we know it’s law? Well, because of what happens if you don’t do it … If, you don’t pay your taxes there are penalties, right?
There are always penalties and consequences for breaking the law. In Jesus’ day, I don’t imagine you wanted to find out what the Roman penalties were for not paying your taxes.
And that goes the other way, too. “Give to God what is God’s” … That’s also a Law statement. But … here’s the real question … like Caesar’s taxes … do we give God what is due Him … out of fear of punishment from Him if we don’t?
We hope not. And so, if it’s not the law and its punishments that motivate us to Give to God … what DOES motivate us? The answer is Love.
You see, love is a Gospel response. Now, do some people give honor, respect, time, and even their offerings to God out of fear of reprisal if they don’t? Sure. But, God’s not looking for that kind of response from His people … and so … neither should His church.
Churches that resort to the Law in order to make people show up in worship, or to be in Bible Study or to give money to the work of the kingdom … saying they should, they ought to, that they must … will get a good response. Yes, they will… out of guilt.
They get a good response, but for the wrong reason. They’re demanding Good works for the sake of the works themselves, and our human nature knows how to respond to that kind of pressure …we obey!
So … what happens if the church appeals to its membership on the basis of the Gospel, on the basis of love … to come to worship, go to Bible Study, give to the work of the kingdom …
And do so solely in response to the love that God has first shown them …? What will happen?
It will depend on the Spiritual maturity of the congregation. Some souls will respond, others will not.
So, here’s the pattern we see most often in Scripture. The Law is used to uncover the problem. God says this … and in light of that, we see that we’re doing something different, sometimes something just the opposite.
And so … we become convicted by the Law. And as we are, we repent of our failure to live up to God’s expectations. We see that our sinful Adam, our human nature, has been leading us astray. And we recognize our need to change direction.
And then comes the message of the Gospel, with the assurance of God’s love in His forgiveness … and the power of His Spirit to make the change in course we so desire. We bury the Old sinful Adam in us and we ignite the saint in us with the fire of the Holy Spirit.
And when that happens, we joyfully and completely “give God what is God’s.” We do Good Works not because the Law requires them, but because it’s our joy to offer them to God as our form of praise.
Now. As we said at the outset … it’s relatively easy to distinguish the Law from the Gospel … but it can be difficult not to confuse them in practice. Especially and particularly as we talk about Good Works.
Good Works are not Good unless they come from the Gospel, unless they are motivated by love. But just talking about them conjures up the Law and God’s expectations.
Our human nature likes to imagine our good deeds earning us brownie points before God, as if anything could add or take away from what God in Christ has already done for us.
And so, that’s your pastor’s struggle, your Bible Study leader’s struggle, your ChristCare leader’s struggle every week … to keep the Gospel message pure and to avoid misusing the Law.
So… when we urge people to attend the current Bible Study, when our Stewardship Chairman urges us to give sacrificially to the work of the Kingdom … we are constrained by the Gospel.
“Give to God what is God’s” … must come from a willing heart … not begrudgingly, from a guilty conscience. The Law can show us where we may have missed the mark. The Gospel will assure us of God’s forgiveness for doing so … while it enables us, by His Spirit, to respond… by giving God what is God’s… joyfully, in love.
That is truly how we bear good fruit for the kingdom each day as we live “All for Jesus.”
In Him,
Amen.
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