What are Good Works?

1. 0:00Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 33. What is involved in genuine repentance or conversion?
2. 0:14Two things: the dying away of the old self and the rising to life of the new.
3. 0:20What is the dying away of the old self? To be genuinely sorry for sin and more and more to hate and run away from it.
4. 0:30What is the rising to life of the new self? A wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work. But what are good works? Only those
5. 0:46which are done out of true faith conform to God's law and are done for His glory, and not those based on our own opinion or human tradition. A number of things to be said with respect to this Lord’s Day.
6. 1:03Notice that in talking about what is involved in genuine repentance or conversion, note first of all where this is located in the Heidelberg Catechism.
7. 1:13It's located in the third section.
8. 1:17Why is conversion in the third section of the catechism and not in the second where you would naturally expect it to be, dealing with grace or dealing with salvation from sin and misery.
9. 1:30Well, the reason for that is that repentance or conversion is not envisioned by the catechism as a one-time event.
10. 1:39In North American evangelicalism, we think of conversion as punctiliar, that is, as the point from which you are translated from darkness to light, from death to life, from being lost to being found.
11. 1:52But the catechism, when it talks about conversion, talks about it as a lifelong process.
12. 1:57In Luke chapter 9, Jesus says that if anyone is to come after him, he is to deny himself, take up his cross daily. And the cross is an instrument of death, and the catechism
13. 2:11refers to conversion as a dying away of the old self. That needs to happen each and every day, and that's why it's in the third
14. 2:19section of the Gadechism, not the second. Very important. Secondly, notice that when it talks about what's involved in genuine repentance or conversion, it talks about two things. It talks
15. 2:32about the dying away of the old self and the rising to life of the new. Both of those things are important, not just one.
16. 2:39As it goes on to talk about what is the dying away of the old self, it says it's to be genuinely sorry for sin and more and more to hate and run away from it.
17. 2:50I think that again in North American evangelicalism when we talk about repentance, the predominant conception of repentance repentance, if you were to ask most people, would be to be repentant is to be sorry for
18. 3:06your sin and leave it at that. But notice that the catechism does not leave it at that.
19. 3:11It says it's not only to be sorry for sin, but to hate it and more and more run away from it.
20. 3:19important. Repentance is again a changing of the mind literally, but it's also a changing of one's behavior so that we are sorry for sin, but it doesn't stop
21. 3:31there. Esau was sorry for his sin, Judas was sorry for his sin, but they were not truly repentant as we understand the Bible's teaching about repentance.
22. 3:39Next, what is the rising to life of the new self?
23. 3:44A wholehearted joy in God through Christ, and a love and delight to live according to the will of God.
24. 3:52Here we see the positive side of repentance.
25. 3:56It's turn away from and turn to.
26. 3:59to a delight to live according to the will of God. Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is now our desire.
27. 4:07And note significantly that the catechism talks about it's a wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to do this, living the Christian life.
28. 4:19life, living according to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, living according to God's written word, is not burdensome, it's not dull, it's not
29. 4:31something that is onerous or something to mourn about. It's something that we should joyfully engage in, and that's what Jesus Christ gives us, when He gives us a spirit of repentance, His
30. 4:43Spirit works in us a delight and a joy to live according to God's commandments. And then lastly, it says, "What are good works?" Very important. There are three aspects to what is a
31. 4:56good work. It must be according to a right right motive, it must be according to a right standard, and it must be according to a right goal.
32. 5:06We may look at morally upstanding people in our community, let's say a good citizen, somebody who's a benevolent person, maybe Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or even Elon Musk.
33. 5:19to give a lot of money to charity.
34. 5:21Why is that not pleasing to the Lord?
35. 5:24Why is that not a good work?
36. 5:26Because it doesn't arise from a right motive.
37. 5:29It doesn't arise out of true faith.
38. 5:31It externally conforms to God's law in being generous, compassionate, concerned for others, but it is not done for God's glory. So the two essential components of three in what makes a good work according
39. 5:45to the catechism are missing. So when we look at unbelievers and their good works of charity or community involvement, we must not make the mistake of thinking that somehow that's pleasing in God's sight.
40. 5:59That which arises from true faith in the Lord is done according to His Word, according to the standard of God's law, and is done for His glory is a good work.
41. 6:19Thank you.

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