Good Works, Purpose Of

GOOD WORKS, THE PURPOSE OF

I.          GOOD WORKS PROVE.

Well, we do love good works.  Do you ask, of what use are they?  I reply, first: Good works are useful as evidences of grace. . . .  Do you see yonder clock?  That is the evidence of the time of

day.  The hour would be precisely the same if we had not that evidence.  Still, we find the clock of great use.  So we say, good works are the best evidence of spiritual life in the soul.  Is it not written, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren?” Loving the brethren is a good work.  Again, “If any man abide in me, he shall bring forth fruit.” Fruits of righteousness are good works, and they are evidences that we abide in Christ.  If I am living in sin day by day, what right have I to conclude I am a child of God?  A man comes to this chapel, and while he hears the gospel, he exclaims, “What delicious truth!  What heavenly doctrine!”  Yet when he leaves the place, you may see him enter one public house after another, and get intoxicated.  Has this man any right to think himself an heir of heaven?  The man who comes to God’s house, and drinks “wine on the lees, well refined,” and then goes away and drinks the cup and enjoys the company of the ungodly, gives no evidence that he is a partaker of divine grace.

II.        GOOD WORKS PREACH.

Secondly, we think good works are the witnesses or testimony to other people of the truth of what we believe.  Every Christian was sent into the world to be a preacher; and just like every other creature that God has made, he will always be preaching about his Lord.  Doth not the whole world preach God?  Do not the stars, while they shine, look down from heaven and say there is a God?  Do not the winds haunt God’s name in their mighty howling?  Do not the waves murmur it upon the shore or thunder it in the storms?  Do not the floods and the fields, the skies and the plains, the mountains and the valleys, the streamlets and the rivers, all speak for God?

Assuredly they do, and a new-born creature-the man created in Christ must preach Jesus Christ wherever he goes.  This is the use of good works.  He will preach, not with his mouth always, but with his life.  The use of good works is, that they are a Christian’s sermon.  A sermon is not what a man says, but what he does.  You who practice are preaching; it is not preaching and practicing, but practicing is preaching.  The sermon that is preached by the mouth is soon forgotten, but what we preach by our lives is never forgotten.  There is nothing like faithful practice and holy living if we would preach to the world.  The reason why Christianity does not advance with a mightier stride, is simply this:  that professors are in a large measure a disgrace to religion, and many of those who are joined to the church have no more godliness than those who are out of it.  If I preached such a contradictory sermon on a Sunday as some of you have preached the most part of your lives, you would go out and say, “We will not go again till he can be a little more consistent with himself.”

III.       GOOD WORKS PROMOTE.

In the third place, good works are of use to a Christian as an adornment.  You will all remember that passage in the Scriptures, which tells us how a woman should adorn herself.  “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.”  

The adornment of good works, the adornment in which we hope to enter heaven, is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; but the adornment of a Christian here below, is his holiness, his piety, his consistency.  If some people had a little more piety, they would not require such a showy dress; if they had a little more godliness, to set them off, they would have no need whatever to be always decorating themselves. The best ear-rings that a woman can wear, are the ear-rings of hearing the Word with attention.  The very best ring that we can have upon our finger is the ring which the father puts upon the finger of the prodigal son, when he is brought back; and the very best dress we can ever wear, is a garment wrought by the Holy Spirit, the garment of a consistent conduct.  But it is marvelous, while many are taking all the trouble they can to array this poor body, they have very few ornaments for their soul; they forgot to dress the soul.  Oh no!  They are too late at chapel, all because of that other pin, which they might have left out.

[Spurgeon, MTP, Vol 2, pp. 218-21]