Do the Works You Are Given to Do

"Do the Works You Are Given to Do" – Matthew 16:27 We cannot live thrown back on ourselves, passing the day troubled, under circumstances, under our age, under what I can and cannot do. Today it is easier to put our hands over our eyes and see no one: I exist, and no one else. But the Lord reminds His own of the glory that follows the suffering, and says that He will come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will reward each one according to his works. Works do not save; salvation is by the blood of Christ, who has redeemed us. Works are what springs out of what is inside our being: that is what cries aloud.

I. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works (Matthew 16:27).

A. Works are not salvation.

1. If you can save yourself by works, do not even let me know when you get to hell; and you will not be able to, for no one can send messages from there.

2. Works are what springs out of what is inside our being. Salvation is through the blood of Christ, who has redeemed us.

3. And how do you discover the works? When they stand in front of you. But one does not grow in the desire to love and to serve, and to bend down and pick up what someone drops before you.

4. Today everyone has the right to think as he pleases; the trouble is not that right, but when from it comes the judging, the talking, the commenting, and setting ourselves up as teachers without having learned what love is.

5. When one is converted he is not merely someone ordinary. There are no wiser people than those who have the Holy Spirit: they perceive, they know what to say, and they take in the atmosphere of what is being lived.

B. The only way to live a life of success is to look ahead.

1. What is it to be a spiritual person? Anger does not take you, rage does not take you; not that nothing strikes you, but that you know how to handle it. You do not live under anger, strife, malice, or hatred.

2. Wait: I was converted, I am clean by the blood of Christ. When I sing the songs I weep; when I hear the Word it convicts me. Well then, I am a daughter, and I look ahead as a daughter of God.

3. This earth has much to offer you, but everything it offers will demand ninety-nine percent of your payment to the flesh. And then you do not grow spiritually.

4. And if you do not grow spiritually, you do not know heaven; if you do not know heaven, you do not know Jesus; and if you do not know Jesus, you do not feel.

5. You cannot spend twenty-five or thirty years in church and feel nothing, with no passion for anything of God. The flesh is easy, easy to destroy us.

6. And what is important in life is to love. Not that I be loved: to love. And you have to learn that you are important, because you belong to God.

II. So an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom (2 Peter 1:11).

A. The reward will correspond to the fruit produced.

1. Those who have been faithful in producing the fruit God expects of every believer will have an abundant entrance into the kingdom; those careless in the Master's service will enter, but ashamed.

2. We must have works because in them we exercise faith; and that faith moves the hands of God, and God is the one who acts. That becomes a work of one's own, and it produces fruit.

3. What capacity do we have to do anything great? If you do something strenuous today, tomorrow you cannot even get up. The one who can do great things is God, and through us.

4. One follows another: you grow in doing good. And by the twentieth you no longer recognize it as a work, because it has become natural and you think it is simply your own character.

5. If people knew how to do works, they would never be waiting on anyone. No one looks at me, no one helps me: one always reaps what one sows.

6. To reach heaven without that is to arrive with the head down, because there is no fruit. So often good can be done and is not done, because we are absorbed in ourselves alone.

B. The heart that hardens.

1. As the years pass we grow hard; we have filled up with so much annoyance at the world that the heart is indifferent to everything around it.

2. When two cars must pass: no, it is my turn; no, I got here first. Fine, you cut in; but all day you will feel bad and miserable.

3. And if you let him pass, how do you feel? At peace; and you forget the incident, but your body receives peace.

4. Everything in our existence must bear fruit. You bend your back, you stop being the tough one, you stop insisting it is your turn: that is fruit.

5. The more fruit you have, the more you are a person who wins others over: meekness, love, tenderness, care, concern. And it is not being foolish nor letting yourself be trampled.

6. When someone gives you a fruit, value it, for it shows in a transparent look. The half smile in mockery or sarcasm, and the gesture of annoyance, that is not fruit.

III. Thou renderest to every man according to his work (Psalm 62:12); I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins (Jeremiah 17:10).

A. God does not only see what we do: He looks for why we do it.

1. It is by mercy, and God pays according to our works. Salvation is not by your work, but God will render to a man according to his work.

2. We cannot excuse ourselves before God by ignorance, since He knows our hearts and actions, and will judge us accordingly.

3. We cannot say: I did that without meaning to. The trouble is that everything done acts in consequence; it was done, and then comes the effect.

4. If you think your thoughts are contained in your own mind and heart, I warn you today: your motives and what you meant to say, God knows plainly.

5. Not one of our intentions escapes God. We can deceive a husband, a wife, our children, and everyone; but one day, when God says so, it will all come out.

6. Do we do things to live in revenge, in rage, as victims, complaining and tearing others down? And where is the fruit, and the love, and the maturity? Otherwise we will be children all our lives.

B. The judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10).

1. We must all appear, that every one may receive according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

2. The verse stresses individual responsibility. It was that mother did not treat me well, that father did not treat me well, that I had this problem: all the excuses.

3. It is one thing to go to a doctor's office, and quite another to be given an X-ray of the body, which is internal; and there it shows that veins are damaged and that the heart is failing.

4. The judgment seat of Christ will reveal our life of service exactly as it has been: not only the quantity of our service, but its quality, and even the motives that drive us.

5. The believer's sins as such will not be brought to examination on that solemn occasion, because if we did wrong we asked forgiveness and live in humbling. But there are things we can come to lose.

6. If we live in the flesh, we are staining the blood of Christ. When something makes you feel wrong, you know it is the Spirit convicting you; and if one day the Holy Spirit departs, it is better never to have been born.

IV. Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be (Revelation 22:12).

A. Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear (1 Peter 1:17).

1. God is a just judge who weighs each person by his actions; so in heaven you are known by your actions and by your decisions.

2. We are exhorted not only to holiness but also to a reverent mind. In not receiving the Word, the torment is one's own.

3. It means a respectful fear, a deep appreciation of who God is. When Satan came to speak to Him about Job, God listened, but would not let him touch his soul: He said, this far.

4. If God, holy three times over, knows how to handle matters and is perfect in everything, why do we not learn from Him and handle things as He does?

5. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son (John 5:22): He has entrusted the judgment of sinners to the Lord Jesus, the very one they despised.

B. The books were opened (Revelation 20:12).

1. The book of life holds the names of all the redeemed by the precious blood of Christ; the other books hold a detailed record of the works of the lost.

2. The fact that his name is not there condemns him; but the record of his wicked works determines the degree of his punishment. The punishments will be by degrees.

3. It says small and great. That is why the little ones are watched over, rebuked, and exhorted; for if the Bible records it, whom are we going to save? One fights so that they are not lost.

C. My reward is with me.

1. I come quickly means the nearness of the second coming. And you may say: it has been two thousand odd years and He has not come. Your time is your time.

2. It is reserved for those who have known how to fight, for those who have battled and faced every circumstance they had to live, for those who suffer for Him.

3. For the worms are going to eat you. Why do you love yourself so much? Why do you pretend so much? Why do we not keep our children from being condemned?

4. In the world you will have no reward; nor in a friendship, for the one who is a friend today comes to your house and envies you, and it turns into a disappointment.

5. But if we are able to reach the end, we will be blessed. Amen.