Open your Bibles with me to 2
Timothy chapter 3. A couple of weeks ago, I preached
a message, and even the week before that, talking about good
works. And I want to talk to you about
that today. The title of the message is Furnished Unto Good
Works, from 2 Timothy chapter 3. And I'm going to, I'm just
going to begin at verse 12 just to read, instead of reading the
whole chapter. Not that the other words are
unimportant, they're not, but it kind of sets things up here.
But one of the things that I want to do, I want to preach the message. I want it to be simple, but I
want you to understand how profound this is. and how important it
is for us as believers to be well-versed, have it clear in
our minds what these issues of good works are. And if you look
at verse 12, Paul writes, he says, yea, and all that will
live godly, godly living, now that includes good works, all
that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And that persecution we suffer is over the gospel. the gospel
that we preach, the gospel that we live by, the gospel that we
stand for, that which we witness, and he says, but evil men and
seducers shall wax worse, they'll grow worse and worse, deceiving
and being deceived. We've seen this in the book of
Revelation, we've seen it all over the scripture, and Paul
talked about it in the first part. this chapter. I do want
to go back to this part in verse one, look back at verse one.
This know also that in the last days, now that's the days of
the new covenant, the church age that we're in now, and as
we grow nearer and nearer to the second coming of Christ,
he says perilous times shall come. Troublesome, perilous,
the people of God will be in peril, that's what that means.
And he says in verse two, for men shall be lovers of their
own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. Look
at this, you can see it in our world, even in the religious
world now. And understand that, don't relegate
this only to what men and women by nature measure as immorality,
that's part of it. And we certainly don't want to
go along with that. But even in the highest religions,
these things can be applied in a spiritual sense. You know,
when we talk about fornication, for example, which is sex outside
of marriage, you know, that's evil in God's sight. But there's
also a worse thing called spiritual fornication. And that's worshiping
of idols, preaching that which is wrong concerning Christ and
His work, all of that. So understand that. That's how
we develop a biblical view of things. And that's real important
on this issue of good works, and I'll show you in just a minute.
He says in verse three, without natural affection, that would
include things like homosexuality and things like it's unnatural.
It's not according to how God created man and woman. truce
breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that
are good. And in the Bible, we know that
those who are good are sinners saved by grace. I'm gonna refer
to this later on in Romans 3 in verse 11, where he says, there's
none good, no, not one. What he's talking about there
is us in our natural state before regeneration and conversion.
And you know, God makes his people good in his sight through Christ.
And we'll see that. But he says in verse four, traitors,
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of
God, having a form of godliness. They look on the outside, religious. Like the Pharisees, you do indeed
appear righteous unto men, but inwardly, death. But denying
the power thereof, because the power thereof is in the gospel. Empowered by the spirit the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation so what he's saying is they will
appear Good, and they will they will appear godly to people that
they'll deny the gospel And that means everything It's the gospel
that sets us apart. The gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in Christ. How God saves sinners. By His
grace through the merits of the glorious person and finished
work of Christ. Not conditioned on us, but conditioned
on Christ. And see there? The righteousness
of God in Christ. Denying the power thereof from
such turn away. He says, for this sort are they
which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with
sins, led away with diverse lusts. Now this kind of language is
unpopular in our culture today because we want to say, well,
there's no difference between men and women. But there's a
big difference. I got news for you. News flash. There's a big difference. And
it's not that- it's not any inequality in Intelligence, now there is
an inequality in power. I mean, strength. Of course,
Debbie and I were talking about this yesterday. We were working
outside in the yard. I realize right now she could
whip me. You know, I carry this around. But there was a time. But there's a big difference
and we don't need to act as if there's not. And in the church
especially, men are to hold the positions of authority, and women
are to be subservient. Now, women have a very important
place now, needed. Godly women, you know, the Bible
talks about that, and that's what Paul's talking about. But
anyway, most false religion, a lot of false religion is led
by women. They are, because it's emotionalism
and not truth. I know that's offensive to a
lot of people, but I'm sorry, I'm preaching the Bible. You
live in whatever world you wanna live in. I'm living by the word
of God. But this is what he's saying.
There's perilous times. And it's gonna grow worse and
worse and worse as we near the end of this world. But now look
at verse 14 now. Here's what Paul says to this
young man Timothy. But continue thou in the things
which thou hast learned. and has been assured of, knowing
of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast
known the Holy Scriptures." You see, any learning concerning
salvation, concerning a right relationship with God, and any
activity, any walk that is not consistent with the Holy Scriptures
is bad, evil. So he says, you've known the
Holy Scriptures, that's the written word of God, which are able to
make thee wise unto salvation, and we know that that's by the
power of the Spirit sent by God under the preaching of the gospel.
Christ is the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification, and the redemption
that God has given us, through faith which is in Christ Jesus,
God-given faith. And the first message that I
preached on this was Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. For by grace
are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. Not because of good works. Unto
good works, that's the result, the fruit, the effect, the product,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And so he says in verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration
of God. You know that means literally
God breathed. This is the word of God. It's
profitable for doctrine. Where do I get my doctrine from?
Do I get it from some creed? Or do I get it from God's word?
We talk about the doctrine of grace, the doctrine of sovereign
grace. That's the word of God. I know
people throw these terms around and a lot of people don't understand
them. You hear the term Arminianism and you hear the term Calvinism.
And Arminianism is the term of free will, works-based religion. Calvinism is a sovereign grace
of God. But we didn't get our doctrine from a guy named Jacob
Arminius. And we don't get our doctrine
from a man named John Calvin. We get our doctrine right here
from the word of God. And that's what we're talking
about. Profitable for reproof. That's when we need to be disciplined.
Are you a disciple of Christ? Disciple means discipline, doesn't
it? And then for correction, when
we need to be corrected, like children. That's what chastisement
is about. It's the correction of our father
to his children. It's an act of love. For instruction
in righteousness. Now that's important. What do
I know about righteousness? I know what the word of God teaches. And what does it teach me? It
teaches me that the only way that I can stand before a holy
God and be counted righteous is through the righteousness
of Jesus Christ imputed, charged, accounted, credited to me. That's my justification. And then it says in verse 17,
now here's my main text, that the man of God, that's a sinner
saved by grace, a justified person, born again by the Spirit, may
be perfect. The word perfect there means
complete. We wanna be complete believers. Verse four, throughly or thoroughly
furnished, equipped. That's what that means. Unto,
not to. Because of, not by or out of,
but unto all good works. Furnished unto good works. Now let me say this about good
works, that word good, works, all of that. And I'm going to
give you some statements here and I'll ask some questions that
we're going to answer. And I want this to be prevalent
on the minds of every true believer, because this is important for
us. This is the way we live, the way we act, by faith in Christ. And the first thing that we need
to see about this issue of good works is what we're talking about.
Number one is works that are good, not according to man's
standard, but works that are good according to God's standard. Do you understand that? man has
his standard of goodness and it's way lower than God's standard
of goodness. In other words, it has to be
good as God declares it and accepts it as He instructs in His Word. Now let me give you an example
of what I'm talking about. Two people can do the same act. Let's say an act of charity.
Right now, because of the disasters that have taken place in Georgia
and in Florida and North Carolina and South Carolina, people are
giving money, and that's great, to help those people. They need
help. And if you donate to give money to help people, that's
something that you should do. So two people can do the same
act of charity, for example, and for one, in God's sight now,
it's evil deeds. It's dead works. It's fruit unto
death. Well, does that mean that they
shouldn't do that? No, they should give the money, but they should
do it in a different way, for a different reason, and that's
what we're gonna get into. For the other, in God's sight,
it's good works. Acceptable unto God, fruit unto
God. Now, what's the difference? Well,
look with me over in John chapter three. I've got a lot of scripture
with this, but I'm not gonna be able to turn to all of them.
But I want you to see this. John chapter three. What's the difference? Well,
one person whose works of charity are evil deeds, fruit unto death, that's a person who is a servant
of sin. Now, what is a servant of sin?
Well, that's the immoral people of the world. No, a servant of
sin is an unbeliever, an unbeliever. Now think about that. Look at
John chapter 3 and verse 19. It says, well look at verse 18.
It says, he that believeth on him, that is Christ, is not condemned. If you believe on Christ, you're
not condemned. Now that state of justification. You're justified
if you're in Christ. That didn't come about because
you believe. You believe because you were
already justified in God's sight. But if you don't believe, that
gives evidence that you're in a state of condemnation. Now
what that's talking about is people who are in unbelief and
continue on through their lives and die in unbelief. That's what
that's talking about. It's kind of like if you'll jump
over to verse 36, listen to this, John 3, 36. He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. If you believe, that's a sign
of life, spiritual life. You've been born again by the
Spirit. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him. That's a non-elect, it's
a reprobate. Going through this life, he may
be religious, Sincere, he may give all his money to charity,
all of that, but if you don't have Christ, if you don't have
his blood to wash away your sins and his righteousness to justify
it, the wrath of God abides on you. Now that's so. And our prayer is when we see
unbelievers. and we have opportunity to witness
the gospel, our prayer is that God will bring them to faith
in Christ and repentance and we find out they're not condemned.
They're not under the wrath of God. They're justified in Christ. We'll go back to verse 18 now.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth
not is condemned already because he had not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. What he's shown us there is our
state in this world has to do with our relationship with Christ. I'll tell you, you know, the
Bible says without faith it's all sin. And verse 19 says, this
is the condemnation that light has come into the world. Well,
what is that light? That's Christ. That's the gospel
of how God saves sinners. And men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Think about Christ
speaking to the Pharisees of His day. The Pharisees were the
ultra moral and religious people as others saw them. Even Christ
said you appear righteous outwardly, but inwardly it's death. The
Bible says the spirit convicts us of sin because we believe
not on him. Here Christ came and they thought
they were okay, they thought they were righteous by their
works, and he tells them no, that's no good. That'll be your
death, that'll be your condemnation. The only way of righteousness
and goodness in God's sight is through Christ, who is our righteousness.
And all your attempts to make yourself so, to save yourself
by your works, are evil deeds. You say, well, what's evil about
it? It denies the glory of God. It denies the glorious person
and finished work of Christ. It's an act of religious pride. It's an act of unbelief. And
he says in verse 20, he says, for everyone that doeth evil,
hateth the light. They hate the gospel. They hate
the light of Christ. Neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved, exposed. You see, the gospel
of Christ, when it's preached or right, exposes the works of
men and women aimed at trying to save themselves, their evil
deeds. Their dead works. But now look
at verse 21. but he that doeth truth. Notice the way that's put. He
didn't say he that doeth good works, but now that would be
included. To do truth is to what? Is to
believe in Christ. And that's a gift from God. You're
not gonna do that on your own. He that doeth truth cometh to
the light. We enjoy hearing the gospel.
preaching the righteousness of God in Christ, and showing us
that our works have absolutely nothing to do with saving us,
or keeping us saved, or bringing us to glory. I love to hear that. You do too. Because we know the
truth. We do truth. And it says, he
that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be
made manifest, made known, that they are what? Look at that.
Wrought in God. other words, it's God doing that
work through us. Philippians chapter 2 I believe
it is verse 13 says, for it is God that worketh in you to do
his will and his good pleasure. That's the reality of it. We
have the Spirit of God who has brought us to the truth of the
gospel. Look over at first John chapter
3. Here's talking about Cain and
Abel. Cain was rejected. What did he
do? He brought his works, the works
of his hands to God for acceptance. Abel was accepted. What did he
do? He brought the blood of the Lamb,
which pictured Christ. And it says in verse 11 of 1
John 3, For this is the message that you heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore, or why, slew he
him? Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's righteous. Now what was righteous about
Abel's work? It's the Lamb, it's Christ. See? The only righteousness that we
have before God is Christ. the merits of his obedience unto
death, the glory of his person, the power of his finished work.
So, going back to God's standard of goodness, one person's works
are accepted, ones are rejected. Well, that one who's rejected,
he's a servant of sin, lost, unbelieving, unregenerate, not
born again, with evil motives, legalism, Fear of punishment,
promise of mercenary earned rewards, all right, and evil goals. It's
not to glorify God and to honor God. The other who is accepted,
he's a servant of righteousness. Now to be a servant of righteousness
is to be a servant of Christ. walking by the grace of God,
saved by God's grace, born again by the Spirit, which evidences
that they've been justified before God, forgiven of all their sins
on the ground and basis of the blood of Jesus Christ, not because
of anything we do or don't do. Declare righteous in God's sight,
again, based upon the obedience unto death, the merits of Christ,
not based upon what we do or don't do. We've been given a
new heart, A new spirit, new motives, good motives. What are
the motives? Grace, love, and gratitude. We'll
talk about that in just a moment. All of that by the grace of God. Now, go back to our text, 2 Timothy
chapter three. What's Paul's point here about
these good works and all of salvation? And here's the thing. Everything
we need to be saved, Everything we need to be kept, preserved
under glory has already been furnished for us by God in His
grace through Christ. All these things for a believer
have been furnished. You know what that means. That
means you're equipped already. That means you've got everything
that's required and needed. You ever rented a furnished apartment?
That means you don't have to bring your own furniture. If
you ever go to a furnished supper, that means you don't have to
bring your own food. It's already there. That's what the gospel
is. There's a metaphor in the Old
Testament about a furnished table. Everything's been prepared. Come
dine, come eat. Don't bring your own dishes.
That'd be evil deeds. It's all been furnished for you
by God in Christ. And we didn't furnish any of
it. Salvation is of the Lord. And good works are the fruit,
the product, the result of that which has already been furnished. Is that sealed in your heart
and mind? To do good works, acceptable
of God, We're not trying to earn anything from God. Yes, we want
to be blessed of God, not because we earn it, but because this
is the way God freely and fully furnishes it. So before there can be any good
works, there's got to be a furnishing. Go back to Romans chapter six. The last time I preached on this
subject, I took you to this verse, but I want you to see it again.
Romans chapter six and chapter seven. And it's really important
that we have this sealed in our minds. He's talking about a believer's
identification with Christ in his death, his burial, his resurrection. Christ as our representative,
Christ as our surety, Christ as our substitute, so much so
that when He died, I died. Now I didn't die literally, I
wasn't there with Him on the cross, but I was there with Him,
He as my representative, He as my surety, my sins having been
imputed to Him, His righteousness to me. I was with him, he was
my substitute. He died for his sheep. Am I one
of his sheep? Well, what does he say? My sheep
hear my voice, and they follow me. That's the gospel. I was
with him as my substitute, as my redeemer. I'm with him now
as my intercessor, my protector and preserver. And so he says,
In verse 6, look at Romans 6, knowing this, that our old man,
our old identification with Adam in his sin and death, is crucified
with Christ. My sins were laid upon Christ,
and He put them away, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
everything that sin is, and that henceforth we should not serve
sin, for he that is dead is justified, freed from sin. Our justification
is already furnished for us by God through Christ. We don't
do any good works in order to be justified. Now I'm going to
talk about Lord willing next week in the book of James where
James says that we're justified by works. James is not talking
about this subject here. He's talking about a different
subject altogether. And we'll talk about that next
week. I have already furnished for
me by the grace of God in Christ, all the righteousness that God
requires and that I need to save me and bring me to glory. That's
grace. Reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And then I have furnished
for me before I can do any good works, spiritual life from the
dead in the new birth. Look at verse 17 of Romans six. He says, but God be thanked that
you were the servants of sin, that is in unbelief, unregenerate,
not born again, spiritually dead and totally depraved, but you
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, that's the
gospel, which was delivered to you, or you were delivered to,
being then made free from sin, that is liberated, doesn't mean
that we're not sinners still, we are, but we're not condemned,
we're not deceived unto unbelief, you became the servants of righteousness.
And it's only the servants of righteousness who can do good
works. That means a servant of Christ. Look down at chapter
seven, verse four. Now listen to this. This supports
the point that I'm making. Wherefore, my brethren, you are
become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Now what is it
to be dead to the law? It means the law cannot condemn
us for our sins. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. We cannot be condemned. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies.
You realize that? Doesn't that just thrill you? I mean, we deserve to be condemned,
and we've earned it, but we cannot be condemned. We are righteous
in God's sight. And you can't tell that by looking
at me. Because I'm a dying man. And
if you watched me throughout the week, there'd be plenty of
times I'm sure you'd say, huh, you're righteous? I'm telling you the truth. Dead
to the law. But how did I get that way? Not
by my good works. not by my morality, by the body
of Christ. That's his death on the cross. That you should be married to
another, united to him spiritually. We've been united to Christ representatively
before the foundation of the world as our surety. And when he came to earth to
die on the cross under the law, we were united to him as our
substitute, our surety, and our redeemer. But when we're married
to him, it says, even to him who's raised from the dead, that
we should bring forth fruit unto God. Now that's the good works.
The fruit unto God. And that's what this furnishing
unto good works means. Our salvation, totally in him. Look at verse five. For when
we were in the flesh, when we were servants of sin, unbelievers,
unregenerate, The motions of sins which were by the law did
work on our members to bring forth fruit unto death. That's
man's religious moral activities aimed at saving themselves, aimed
at making themselves righteous. Verse six, but now we're delivered
from the law that being dead wherein we were held, that we
should serve in newness of spirit. That's good works, serving in
newness of spirit. What is that newness of spirit?
It's motivated by grace. Motivated by gratitude. Motivated by faith and love. And not in oldness of the letter.
That oldness of the letter is legalism. So before there's any
good works, there's gotta be a furnishing. And God furnished
it all for our justification. God furnished it all for our
sanctification. Good works don't sanctify us.
They don't make us holier. But our works are sanctified,
set apart for God, by God. That's furnished too. Our new
birth, our spiritual life, that's been furnished because that's
according to God's power and grace, not ours. Remember John
1, 12, 13, he talks about those who have received Christ. It
didn't come by their fleshly inheritance. It's not by blood,
not by the will of the flesh. and not by their works, and not
by the will of man. It didn't come by their free
will choice, but it came by of God. You gotta be born again. Well, how can I be born again?
God has to do it. He furnishes it. He gives us
a new heart. That's furnished. He gives us
new life. That's furnished. He gives us
a new mind and truth, faith, repentance, perseverance. That's all furnished. And that's
what he's talking about, that the man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto good works. Isn't that amazing? The unbeliever cannot do any
good works before God, because all his works deny the glory
of God, deny the grace of God, deny Christ and his righteousness. You remember Paul. In Philippians
chapter three, he talked about all those works that men and
women admired and that he thought recommended him unto God. When
he saw the reality of God's grace in Christ and the personal work
of Christ, he said, I count it all but loss, even done, that
I may win Christ and be found in him. Well, what are these
good works? What are they? There are people
who say that good works are only those related to witnessing the
gospel, preaching the gospel, and nothing outside of that.
But that's not true. These good works are any action,
activity, performed by a sinner saved by grace, justified already,
sanctified already, born again, to the praise of the glory of
God's grace, And let me say this right now. It's not my business, and this
is in light of, you've heard people say this. They say, well
I'm no judge, but I'm a fruit inspector. That makes me sick. It's not my business to track
your good works, and it's not your business to track mine.
It's not our business to keep a count. How many good works
did I do today? Did I do enough? Let me make
this statement to you and let me explain. Good works are important,
but they don't count for anything. What do you mean? Our account
before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ, not our works. And having been found in Christ
at the judgment will be a declaration that our works were accepted
with God. Not because of any merit, Not
because they contribute to the righteousness that Christ has
already furnished me. You see? So it's not our business
to go around tracking, you know, I'm a fruit inspector. That's
self-righteous, that's all that is. Well, you haven't done enough
good works today. Well, how do you know, idiot?
That's religion. And it's bad. Somebody says,
have I done enough? Enough for what? I know you haven't
done enough to save you. I know you haven't done enough
to make yourself righteous. None of us have. It's all by
the grace of God. And then another subtle heresy. Some try to gain their assurance
by measuring their works. You may have heard the term lordship
salvation. That's what that is. It's trying
to gain assurance. by looking at myself and my work.
Well, that's evil. Assurance is to be gained not
by looking at yourself and your work. Assurance is to be gained
by looking to Christ, the author and finisher or furnisher of
our faith. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. Furnished unto good works. can talk about acts of charity,
acts of kindness, you can go through the scriptures and I'm
going to do some more of this. But what are these good works
for? What are they for? That classic passage, you don't
have to turn there, I'll quote it for you. Matthew 5 16, I quote
it all the time. Let your light so shine before
men that they may see your good works and do what? Glorify your
Father which is in heaven. That's what good works are for.
They're not to draw attention to you. They're not to try to
gain the key of the city from the mayor or get your name on
a statue or something. They're to glorify God. And what
is that light? The light is not the good works.
The light is the gospel of Christ, who is our light. When anybody sees us do a work
that is good in God's sight, acceptable in Christ now, not
on its own merit, And they bring it to our attention, let's say.
Oh, and say, I saw you do that for that person. You gave some
money and helped that person. I know you're a Christian now.
What are you going to tell them? Say, hey, look, that doesn't
make me a Christian. And I'm glad I did it. I'm glad
I had the ability to do it. I'm glad I have the heart to
do it. But that's not my salvation. My salvation is the good works
of another, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let your light shine, see? That's
what that's about. Good works are not to merit righteousness,
not to contribute to our righteousness, they're not for justification,
they're not for sanctification, but they're to glorify God in
Christ. And we'll talk about some more
of this in the next message that I bring on this. Lord willing,
if I'm here. I hope that's helpful to you.
These are the things I believe have to be sealed in our minds
as believers. Let's sing Blessed Assurance.
Hymn number 255, Blessed Assurance.