Open your Bibles to Psalm 62
there, where Mark just read. Now the title of the message
this morning is The Believer's Work. The Believer's Work. David, the psalmist, mentions
this in verse 12, which is my main text there. Also unto thee,
O Lord, belong with mercy, for thou renderest to every man according
to his work. and we're gonna talk about, you
know, they're the works of unbelievers, they're the work of believers. I'm still talking about the role
of good works, the believers' works, our works, at the judgment. That's still the subject, but
you know, let me just preface it this way. You know, the issue
of sin, or sins, plural, and good works at judgment. That's
really what it lays down to. I've talked about some of the
false images and teachings that men operate under in religion,
even that which comes in the name of Christianity. I spoke
to you last week about how some people believe that when we come
before God at judgment, He's going to flash on a screen like
a movie our whole lives. He's going to every work and
every sin and every thought and all that. And that's not scriptural. There is a record. The scripture
speaks of that. We saw that in Revelation 20.
The books, plural, out of which the dead, spiritually dead, unbelievers,
unregenerate, those who are found at the judgment without Christ
will be judged out of and it's a record of their sins because
their sins are imputed to them, charged to them. That's why we
who are saved by the grace of God in Christ, we can say with
David of old, as he wrote in Psalm 32, blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. And Paul, as you know,
in Romans 4, he had a commentary on that as the Holy Spirit inspired
him. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. And that's where we stand. So
as far as a believer, Standing at the judgment. Let me just
read you some scripture. You don't have to turn to these
But let me just read you these God. Here's what God says About
his people. This is from Hebrews 8 in verse
12 if you want to write these down, that's fine But you don't
you won't have time to turn to him because I'm gonna read through
it But he's talking about the new covenant in Christ and salvation
by grace and he says, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness
and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. God says that. Now, how's he
going to flash them up on a screen if he says I'll remember them
no more? Of course, we know that's human language. God doesn't forget
things. He never changes. But what He
means there, He won't hold it against them. He will not charge
them with sin. And think about it. He repeats
that in Hebrews 10, 17. Their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. He's not going to call them forth.
And here's some Old Testament passages. Isaiah 38, 17, listen
to this. He says, Behold, for peace I
had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back. Now, again, that's a metaphor,
that's human language, but where is the back of God? That means
they'll never be brought up again. Here's one, Isaiah 43, 25. God
says of his people in Christ, that's what he's talking about
now. He says, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgression
for mine own sake and will not remember thy sin. He blotted
them out. What did he blot him out with? The blood of the Lord.
The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 103, 12. Listen to this
one. He says, as far as the east is
from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from
us. You know the old poem, east is east and west is west and
never the twain shall meet. As far as the East is God, what
he's saying there, what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 103, and that's
the Psalm, you remember he says, he hath not dealt with us after
our iniquity. Now understand, he doesn't say
there that he hasn't dealt with our iniquity. He said he hadn't
dealt with us after our, he dealt with Christ for our iniquity,
the sins of his people. And he says, I'm gonna remove
your sins from you as far as the East is from the West. and
they'll never meet again. You will never meet again with
those sins. They will never be charged to
you. That doesn't mean we're not sinners, we are. Listen,
sin is something we confront every day, every second of our
lives here on this earth. But God, this is how God sees
it now. God, the judge of all. He says,
I will remove them from you as far as the east is from the west.
Let me read you one more. He says in Micah 7, 18 of his
people, thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. Brother Mahan used to say he
cast them into the sea and he doesn't go fishing for them.
Like we do. And that's something. The fact
is, When it comes to believers, God's people, sinners saved by
grace, justified people, standing washed in the blood of Christ
and clothed in His righteousness, the fact is this, God not only
will not charge them with our sin, charge us with our sin,
God cannot do it. And that's no limitation on God,
that's no affront to God, that's just simply honoring His justice
and His holiness and His righteousness. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Once
God justifies you, He cannot charge you with sin. You're not
guilty. So however we stand before judgment,
that's our state. As I said last week, you know,
some people say, well, He's going to flash all of our sins up there,
not to condemn us, but just to shame us. Well, that's not scriptural
either. Because the scripture says that
if we believe in Christ, if we're in Him, we have nothing to be
ashamed of. Whosoever believeth on Him shall
not be ashamed. And of those who stand before
God in Christ, he will not remember their iniquity. It says he won't
visit their sins. And of course, the word visit
there has to do with God's wrath. Now, in consideration of that,
the role of works at the judgment for a believer, we can conclude,
and I want you to see this, the role of the works of a believer
at the judgment has absolutely nothing to do with what our works
earn for us or what our works do for us. The works of believers at judgment
It has to do only with what they say about us as far as evidence
of the power, the goodness, the grace of God, and our standing
in Christ. Do my works evidence that I'm
a sinner saved by grace? And believers, as I said, we've
already been judged for all our sins. All of them. And that judgment took place
on the cross of Calvary. You weren't even born then. Me
neither. And that judgment at the cross,
if you want to talk about at the cross, all right, that judgment
at the cross took place not only for all believers' future, but
for all believers' past. Abel's sins. were paid for at
the cross. Now Abel was justified based
upon the righteousness that Christ brought in before because of
a promise that cannot be left unfulfilled. All the promises
of God in Christ are in him, yea, and in him, amen. but we've
already been judged. And judgment for the believer
is declarative, God setting forth the glory of Christ in our salvation.
We looked at John chapter five where he talked about those who
will be resurrected unto life and those who will be resurrected
unto damnation. Those that have done good, that
doing good has to do with our standing before God in Christ.
It's a description of the whole life of a believer as a sinner
saved by grace. It's not a listing of every little
thing we've done or didn't do. Those who are in Christ will
be resurrected unto life. He is our good. So it's a judgment
of our works as they are either fruit unto death or fruit unto
God. That's what 2 Corinthians 5 means when it talks about how
this judgment will take place. But doesn't the Bible say, now,
here's what I'm gonna do, this message and several messages
coming, You know, anytime you deal with a subject like this,
you've got to deal with what I call the whatabouts. What about
this verse? What about that verse? And there's
a few whatabouts that we're going to deal with. This is one of
them. Look at Psalm 62. This is Psalmist David. He's expressing his heart as
he's being attacked, as he's being cruelly criticized and
slandered by his enemies. That's why he says in verse 3
there, how long will you imagine mischief against a man? In showing this, in his heart
trouble, his heart feelings, going through this trial, some
say this was an expression of his sorrow of being attacked
by his son Absalom. I don't know if it was that.
Some say it might have been his experiences during the time that
Saul, King Saul, was out to get him. But either way, he's a man
in trouble. And we, you know, Job said, man is a few days and
full of trouble. And there's a lot of trouble,
isn't there? Trouble comes from the world, comes from the flesh,
comes from the devil. But there's trouble. And so what
he does is he first expresses his trust in the Lord. Truly, my soul waiteth upon God. Waiting upon the Lord means believing
in the Lord. I believe God. Though the whole
world stand against me, I believe God. That's what David is saying.
From him cometh my salvation. It doesn't come from man. All
those who would do me harm, they may be allowed to do harm for
a while, but my salvation doesn't come. If they stop doing me harm,
that's not my salvation. My salvation doesn't come from
them. It doesn't come from myself. It comes from Christ. It's the
grace of God in Christ. And so he says, he only is my
rock, my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. I'm not gonna fret too much. He fretted, he's like all of
us, you know, we fret, don't we? We worry, we complain, but
David said, I'm not gonna do it too much. And he said, God's
my defense, he's gonna defend me. And so he goes on to describe
them. And he says this, look at verse
7, he says, In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my
strength, my refuge is in God. These are the expressions of
his heart. And you know, a lot of these Psalms now, when you
read the Psalms, you see a man in struggle here, don't you? Struggling in the warfare of
the flesh and the spirit. Verse 8, Trust him at all times,
you people. Pour out your heart before him.
God is our refuge. As Mark read, Selah, think about
that. That's something for you to think about. That's something
for me to think about. And then look at verse 9. He
says, Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree
are a lie. What he's saying there is the
station in life that you are, that's not the issue here. You
see, there's men of low degree, there's poor beggars, like low
Lazarus, there's men of high degree, rich, powerful, influential. Doesn't matter in this situation
now. I mean, now we all would rather
be men of high degree than men of low degree, wouldn't we? But
what he's saying here, that has nothing to do with this problem
here and the remedy, which is the grace of God in Christ. He
says, to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than
vanity. In other words, when they're weighed and measured
in the balance of the scales of God's justice, Vanity is going
to outweigh them. They're lighter than vanity.
In other words, vanity is going to win. That's what Solomon's
saying. The preacher in Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanity is all is vanity.
What was he describing? Was he just being a downer or
something? I'll tell you what, he couldn't
preach at that big church out in Texas that guy preaches at because
that's a negative message. We just don't want that. You're
not going to get millions of people flocking in to hear vanity
of vanities, all this vanity. And what's he describing? He's
describing life on this earth without God, without Christ,
without grace, without salvation. That's what it is. I mean, and
you may go from zero to 70 or to 80, happy as you can be, but
when you're weighed in the balance of the justice of God's scales,
that's what judgment is all about, being weighed in the balance.
Remember the Babylonian king, outweighed in the balance and
found lacking Vanity is going to weigh out. You say, but I
was rich. I worked hard. I was religious. I had a profession. I walked an aisle. Got baptized. I gave to the church. Here's
my Sunday school pen. Vanity is going to outweigh all
that. It's worthless. You say, well, it's got to be
worth something. Well, to men it is. But to God it means nothing. There's only one thing that God
is concerned with at judgment. Do you have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice? And if you don't, vanity will
outweigh you. You know what vanity is, don't
you? It's nothing. What does that mean? Man without
Christ is less than nothing. Isn't that right? That's what
it's saying. Vanity is nothing. Worthless. It's like emptiness. So whatever you've accomplished
here on this life, whether you're a man of low degree or a man
of high degree, if you don't have righteousness, if you don't
have Christ, nothing's going to outweigh you.
Or me. We're less than nothing. Then he says in verse 10, trust
not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches
increase, set not your heart upon it. I think he mentioned
that specifically because it's so natural to men to think if
things are going good financially and physically, that God's blessing
us. And what we need to understand
is that although we want those things, we desire those things,
they may be a curse from God. Somebody said that prosperity
takes more people away from the gospel than trouble. And you
know a lot of times that's true, isn't it? Don't set your heart
upon, that's what he's saying. Nothing wrong with being rich,
nothing wrong with being a person of high, but don't set your heart
upon this. Your treasure is where your heart
is. Set your heart upon the Lord. And he says in verse 11, God
has spoken once, twice have I heard this. You know why he says it
that way? God only has to say a thing once,
but he's made it in our realm of human existence to say that
two witnesses confirm a thing. The mouth of two or three witnesses.
So what David is saying there, this is a real confirmation of
this truth. He says that power belongeth
to God. Now that means this. You're healthy
today, and I'm glad, but God has the power to take it away
just like that, can't he? I got a cousin who passed away
last week. He's my age, just a few months
older than me. Both of us born in 1953. And
he was doing well. He'd been overweight most of
his life, but in the last 20 years, he'd lost that weight. They even had his picture in
the paper and all that. That's how bad it was. And he
lost that weight, and he was doing all right. And then all
of a sudden, he started feeling bad, went to the doctor, and
found out that he had stage four aggressive pancreatic cancer. Went to the hospital and then
put him in hospice, and he passed away. I think it was Thursday
or Wednesday. That's Wednesday. You see, here
today, gone tomorrow. You got a healthy bank account,
that's great, but it can all go belly up tomorrow. See, God,
all power belongs to God. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh
away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Don't set your heart
on these things. So he says in verse 12, also
unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy. Now there's a thought.
That's what I need, isn't it? That's what you need, isn't it?
Mercy. I need mercy from God. Whatever state or station I'm
in in this life, I need mercy. And here's the way He, listen
to how He defines it. For thou renderest to every man
according to his work. Now does that mean that God is
going to judge us on the basis of our works? What about that,
do you see? What about that? You know, turn
to Romans chapter 2. And of course you know that David's
thought there is that those who stand against him as the Lord's
anointed, God's going to judge them according to their work. Now it says God's going to judge
every man according to his work. And what I want to talk to you,
what is our work? What is the believer's work? But I want you
to understand this first. Dave is not saying that in a
self-righteous way. Like, well, they're standing
against me, so Lord, get them. You know, that kind of thing.
I'll never forget the story of back in the 50s, there was a
very popular evangelist going around. and he claimed to preach
sovereign grace and probably did to a point, I'm not real
familiar with all the messages, but he came into a town to do
what they called a revival and he was preaching election and
the election of grace and one of the deacons of this Baptist
church stood up during his message and started railing on him. Just
during the mass, I'm right there, you know, just like if you all
didn't believe what I was saying, and one of you stood up and just
started railing against me. And that's what happened. And
he started railing against the preacher, because he didn't believe
the true gospel, and he got up and he went out. The pastor was
sitting down in the front pew, and he stood up and he said,
let's all stand up and pray for that man. And the evangelist
standing behind the pulpit, he said, yeah, I'll pray for him.
I'll pray God send him to hell. Now that's not right. That's not right. Now we do pray
that God will be just in all his judgments upon all of us. We pray that God will honor his
justice, both in the salvation of his people and in the damnation
of the wicked. But it's not in the sense that
we desire anybody to go to hell. We pray, you know, what did Christ
say from the cross? Father, forgive them, they don't
know what they do. So David is not saying, well,
I'm praying God send them to hell. No, he's just simply saying
and reminding people, look now, here's the issue. God's gonna
judge every man according to his work. Well look over at Romans
chapter two. Here he talks about the Jews
who had the law of Moses and the Gentiles who didn't. And he says in verse eight, verse
six rather, God, he's talking about God's righteous judgment
here, God who judges according to truth, who will render to
every man according to his deeds. Now what about that? There's
the whatabouts, just like David said back in Psalm 62 and verse
12. He says, look at verse seven,
to them by who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory
and honor and immortality, eternal life. Now you can apply that
in one of two ways. If he's talking about a person
trying to be saved by their works, then they've got to keep the
law perfectly. Isn't that right? You're a debtor to do the whole
law. But we know what well-doing is according to the scripture
if we go all the way back to the law first mentioned when
God told Cain, if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And what did he mean by that?
Do what Abel did. Come as a sinner, begging for
mercy, pleading the blood of the Lamb. That's well-doing in the sight
of God. You say, well, Can't people do well without that?
Well, let me tell you something. The Bible teaches us there are
no good works before God in an unbeliever. Now, they may be good works in
the eyes of men. And I'll be honest with you.
I'm glad that people try to be good in the human realm. I am. I don't want chaos and
anarchy and all of that. But when I, listen, when we're
talking about salvation and how God sees people and how God accepts
or rejects people, there are no good works in an unbeliever. Not according to God's standard,
because anything good according to God's standard must meet that
righteousness and holiness that is displayed in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember I said it last week.
God's gonna judge the world in righteousness by that man whom
he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance unto all
men and that he hath raised him from the dead. That's Christ. An unbeliever can only bring
forth fruit unto death, even at his best. Man at his best
state, altogether vanity. The Bible says without faith
it's impossible to please God. And no unregenerate person has
faith. So what is the believer's work? Now, go back here. He says,
In Romans 2, he says, verse 8, he says, but unto them that are
contentious, that means unbelieving, and do not obey the truth, but
obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, anguish,
upon every soul of man that doeth evil, the Jew first, also the
Gentile, but glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh
good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. There's no respect
of persons with God, you see that? For as many as have sinned
without law shall also perish without law. As many have sinned
in the law shall be judged by the law, for not the hearers
of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall
be justified. What about that? Well, if you're
gonna be saved, if you're gonna be justified before God based
on works of the law, you've got it all to do. And here's the
problem. There's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none that do it good. All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And it does us no good to compare
sins. Well, you know, I've got this many sins, but now look
at how many sins he's got. Well, all sin, one sin, any sin
deserves damnation eternally. So where's our hope? Well, let
me give you some things about the believer's work. I'll be
brief on these. Number one, the believer, him
or herself, is the workmanship of God. Start there. Ephesians 2.8 through 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 but unto, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in. So that's the first thing. If
you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're a work of
the Lord. You're not your own work. It
didn't come because of your free will. It didn't come because
of your decision. It was the sovereign grace and
mercy of God. You were chosen of God before
the foundation of the world. We talked about that, the Lamb's
Book of Life. You were redeemed by the blood
of Christ. You stand before God justified
based on His righteousness imputed to you, and you've been given
life, spiritual life by the Holy Spirit in the new birth. Didn't
come by you or anything you decided. It was totally the grace of God.
You're a workmanship of God. Paul said, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. Here's number two. Any work performed
by a believer is the fruit of Christ divine. It's the fruit
of God's grace and power. It's the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We're not the source of it, we're not the cause of it, we're not
the goodness of it, we're not the perfection of it, and we're
not accepted because of it. We're accepted in the beloved. We stand before God, washed clean
by the blood of Christ, both in our persons and in our works. And our boast, our glory, our
confidence is Jesus Christ and him crucified, period. And when I deal with some of
the other whatabouts, I'm gonna show you this. But any mention
of the works, the good works of a believer, does not come
from the believer, it comes from Christ. And I'm thinking about
passages such as Matthew 25, that's gonna be one of my messages,
where the sheep and the goats stand before the judge. So any
work performed by a believer is the fruit. It's not the cause
of our salvation. It's not the ground. It's not
a condition we must meet in order to attain or maintain salvation.
And it is absolutely no part of the righteousness we plead
before God. Our righteousness is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. It's one that He worked out in
His obedience unto death. It's His goodness. It's His work.
It's His good work. and it's imputed, charged, accounted
to us. The white robe that we wear has
nothing to do with our efforts, our promises, our determinations. It has everything to do with
what Christ finished when he died at Calvary's Cross. Am I
right? That's the white robe. Thirdly,
Any work performed by a believer that's acceptable to God is a
work of faith in Christ with no faith in the work. That's
right. In other words, it comes from
our faith in Christ. Therefore, it's not performed
trying to earn God's favor and blessings. It's not performed
trying to dissuade God's wrath or displeasure. It's simply It's
simply a work inspired by love. And that's the fourth thing.
Any work done by a believer is motivated by love and aimed toward
his glory, the glory of God, not our own. Let your light shine
before men that they may see your good works and do what?
Glorify your Father which is in heaven. And what is the light?
It's not the works, it's Christ. He's the light. Didn't the scripture
say that? Where in the world do you find
any verse in the scripture that says the believer's works of
obedience is a light? You don't see it. It's not there. Now, we're to shine forth as
shining lights in a dark world. How do we do that? Holding forth
the word of truth, he says there in Philippians. Preaching Christ. Telling sinners about Christ,
don't look at me, don't look to me or at me, look to Christ
for salvation, for righteousness, for forgiveness, for eternal
life, for salvation, for glory. Fifthly, any work performed by
a believer because of remaining sin and corruption and contamination
must be washed clean in the blood of Jesus Christ to be acceptable
to God. How many times have you sat down
or kneeled down or whatever you do to pray and you're determined
that you're not going to let your mind wander? Or you're not going to let anything
else enter into your mind or distract you? How many times
have you sat down in the pew and said, I'm going to hear this
message and nothing else is going to enter my mind? You got problems, don't you? You'd be amazed to hear me say
this, that I have the same problem up here speaking to you. I'll be preaching and somebody's
cell phone goes off. People up 13th Street, they were
amazed. They said, boy, you can do that and not even miss a beat.
And I said, you don't know what I'm thinking. But you know, those
are just minor problems in our lives, aren't they? We got problems
very much greater than that. You know, sin still contaminates
everything we think, say, and do, doesn't it? Even as believers. And that's why we sing from our
hearts, what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of
Jesus. What can make me whole again? The issue at judgment concerning
the believer's work is not, again, what our works earn for us, but
what our works say about us. They're evidence of God's grace,
God's power. They're evidence of our union
with Christ. They're evidence that we don't stand before God
based on our works. We stand there before God in
the righteousness of Christ. Now, I'm gonna deal with some
other whatabouts now. There are others in scripture, so we'll
get to them, but we'll get to them later, all right?