Faith and Works

What is the relationship between faith and works? That's what I considered in this morning's sermon. I used the old song "Love and Marriage" that go together like "a horse and carriage" to understand faith and works as two things that belong together. You can't get rid of either one in a vital Christian life! What do you think?

Some of you may remember a song from way back called “Love and Marriage.” Frank Sinatra used to sing it. It went something like this:

“Love and marriage, love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell you, brother:
You can’t have one without the other!”
Campbell’s Soup even used it in one of their commercials. (Of course, they substituted “soup and sandwich” for “love and marriage.”) But the point is the same. There are some things that just go together; and one without the other is incomplete.

Faith and works are two of those things. One without the other just isn’t complete. Faith without works is like the horse unhitched from the carriage; and works without faith is like a carriage without a horse! That may seem to be obvious, but many Christians seem to prefer one over the other. We don’t do a very good job of keeping both the carriage and the horse. For example, we Protestants claim that “All you need is faith.” What we mean by that is that no one needs to do anything to earn their salvation. God has already given us salvation as a gift through Jesus Christ. But many people misunderstand this statement. They take it to mean that if we have faith, we don’t have to do anything else. James must have been writing to a congregation who thought like that. Remember what he said to them? ”Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” (James 2:17-18) Can we show our faith without taking any actions? I’m not so sure that we can. Other religious traditions make the opposite mistake. These folks concentrate on works, and forget about faith. They believe that we’re not acceptable to God if we don’t dress a certain way, worship a certain way, or believe a specific doctrine. They don’t understand that we are already acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We can’t earn God’s love by any works that we do! We act as Christians not to earn God’s favor, but in thankfulness for what God has already done for us.

So, what is the proper partnership of faith and works? That’s a difficult question; and the answer will depend on who is giving the answer. My answer goes something like this: We do good works in gratitude to God for the salvation that we have as a gift. We get the power to do those works through our faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In other words, our faith is the horse that pulls the carriage of our works. Think about that for a minute. Faith without deeds is like the horse unhitched from the carriage. It looks beautiful as it runs around. We can admire its beautiful color, its smooth gaits, and its flowing tail. But it isn’t any good to anybody, because it doesn’t do anything. And if we do works but have no faith, we’re like the carriage without the horse. Without energy to pull it, it can’t go anywhere! Oh, we may try our best to do good things; but without faith, we don’t have a chance of doing the kind of works that God really wants us to do! What kind of works am I talking about? I’m talking about the hard ones. I’m talking about loving our enemies, praying for those people who wish us harm, and caring as much for others as we care for ourselves. I’m talking about giving needy people the shirt off our back, the blanket off our bed, and the food off our table. I’m talking about taking up our cross and following Jesus. Without faith, we don’t have a prayer of living like that. But with faith – calling on Jesus for help and trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit – we can do amazing things for the glory of God! If we hitch the horse to the carriage, there’s no limit to what is possible.

You may be thinking, “Well, that sounds good for spiritual giants. Of course, the saints did wonderful things. But that doesn’t work for somebody like me. I’m not smart enough, brave enough, or resourceful enough to do anything really important.” In response to that reaction, let me share what Corrie Ten Boom said about our natural talents: “It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.” Not my ability, but my response to God’s ability. God’s ability is the horse that pulls the carriage of our ability to places that we could never go on our own!

Let me share with you not only Corrie Ten Boom’s quote, but the story of her life as an example of what is possible if we allow our faith in God to power our works.

Corrie Ten Boom grew up in Haarlem, Holland, in what is now the Netherlands. She lived with her sister Betsie and her father Casper in a comfortable, middle-class home. They were devoted Christians, with faith in Jesus Christ and service to others as the twin foundations of their lives. In May, 1942, a well-dressed woman carrying a suitcase appeared at their front door. She told the Ten Booms that she was a Jew, and that the Nazi Occupation forces had arrested her husband several months earlier. Her son had gone into hiding, and she was afraid to return home. She had heard that the Ten Booms were kind to Jews. Could she stay with them? Casper’s response was, “In this household, God’s people are always welcome.” With this simple act of hospitality, the Ten Booms began nearly two years of hiding refugees from the Nazi Occupation forces. Some were Jews, while others were members of the resistance movement. All risked being sent to the death factories of the concentration camps if they were caught. At any one time, there were usually 6 or 7 people living in their home. The Ten Booms fed them, clothed them, and gave them shelter, saving the lives of an estimated 800 Jews.

In late February, 1944, the Gestapo raided their home. They arrested everyone who tried to enter it, seizing over 30 people. Corrie’s father, Casper, was an old man of 84. When the Gestapo asked him if he knew he could be executed for helping Jews, he responded, “It would be an honor to give my life for God’s people.” He died in prison only 10 days after his arrest. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to a concentration camp near Berlin, where Betsie died in late December. Before she died, she told Corrie, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” Corrie was freed just 12 days later as a result of a clerical error. The following week, all the women her age in the camp were executed.

Corrie devoted the rest of her life to sharing what she had learned about faith during her years of living as a Christian at the risk of her own life. She was able to do what she did, she said, only through the strength that God gave her through her faith. “Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength,” she said, “is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.” Perhaps the greatest challenge to that faith came in 1947, just two years after the war’s end. She was approached by one of the guards at the camp where she had been imprisoned – a guard who had been known as one who was cruelest to the prisoners. He asked forgiveness of her. But how could she forgive a man who was responsible for the death of countless innocent people, including her own sister? Listen to her own words about the encounter. “Even as angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him… Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness… And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives us, along with the command, the love itself. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

Corrie Ten Boom died on her 91^st birthday after spending more than 30 years sharing her faith and her experiences with people in over 60 countries. If she were here today, she would tell us that she was no one special. She simply did what God asked her to do using the strength that God gave her. She would assure us that “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” That’s not a bad way to end this sermon. “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” When we try to do good works in our own strength, we fail more often than not. But when we have faith in God who promises to fill us with the Holy Spirit, we can do works that are truly remarkable. “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” Now that’s what I call hitching up the horse to the carriage and going somewhere!

 

If you are interested in reading more about Corrie Ten Boom's life, you might want to read one of the books that she wrote: The Hiding Place, about her experiences hiding Jews during World War II, and Tramp for the Lord, her experiences around the world as she shared the gospel of Jesus Christ.