Pastor Brian Taylor
The Things We Must Do
In his sermon series “Good or God,” actually a series taken from John Bevere’s book of the same name, Pastor Dave has taught us his fourth sermon on getting our life in the right order. This tells us we have to do certain things. In Mathew 21:28-32, The Lord Jesus tells a parable of two sons. Their father asks them to go work in his vineyard. The first answered “I will not,” but afterward regretted it and went. The second answered “I will” but he did not go. Now we must not over interpret the story, but it means one thing if it means anything at all: our Heavenly Father wants His people to obey and serve Him. John Bevere quotes W.E. Vine on page 94 of his book: “it involves the idea of loving as well as being loved”
We love Him because He first loved us – John 4:19. In this loving relationship we have to accept that one of the important words in the Bible is a two lettered word: DO. As children of God we have to obey, serve, we have to “do” and get things in the right order as we do them.
There are some extreme views held by some. I have had experience of two. When I was young, in my early twenties, and sharing my faith, a guy said out loud in front of the group I was with: “I know all about the Christian Faith, doing good things all the time, being happy. I could do all that without believing in Jesus or going to church, but I don’t want to.” Now there was someone who thought being a Christian was someone who did good things all the time without any reference to our lord Jesus. We know this is not possible, for it all begins with belief in our heart for our Lord Jesus. Sure enough doing good things now is His Life flowing out of our heart.
The second experience happened this year, and we are now older in our seventies, and while we were visiting home in the UK. A lady said to Christine, my wife, “I am closer to God than you will ever be, and I do not need to go to church, or have anything organised or need a Pastor.” The shock of this was because Christine had known her from being three years old. They had been best friends all their life. Started school together, went to college, graduated together, went to church together, and now she did not “do” anything about her faith. She thinks it is all done, finished by our Lord Jesus and there is nothing left to “do”.
She has verses of scripture: Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast,” and we agree. We also agree the Lord Jesus finished the work of salvation for us and we are complete in Him. We also know that when Paul wrote this letter, he did not write chapter and verse. He wrote one letter and he wants us to read it that way, and following Ephesians 2:8-9 is verse 10, which says: “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”
So, we read there are a lot of things we must “do” as Christians, prepared by our God, who loves us so intimately that He is Jealous if our hearts are somewhere else and on other things. Come see and listen in Coastal Church as Pastor Dave teaches and helps us to put things in the right order, so the good things in our life are of God.