The Practice of Godliness: Godliness has value for all things (24 page)
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Authors: Jerry Bridges
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DOING GOOD AT HOME
In Galatians 6:10, Paul tells us to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Our good deeds are to be scattered upon all men, Christian and nonChristian. We are to follow the example of our heavenly Father, who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
Nevertheless, there is in Paul’s instruction a priority of responsibility: first believers, then nonbelievers. I believe we can infer from this order a similar priority involving our families. We are to do good to all men, especially members of our own families. Paul told Timothy, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Good deeds should begin at home. If we are out doing good deeds for others while neglecting the needs of our spouse, our parents, or our children, we are not practicing the grace of goodness.
I recently heard of a course on biblical marriage in which one of the lessons is entitled, “Who Takes Out the Garbage?” That may be a humorous title to grab our attention, but the author is on to something. Mundane household duties are sore points in many homes, even Christian homes. But for the Christian growing in the grace of goodness, the distasteful and despised duties of the home provide the opportunity of doing good deeds for those he loves most.
One of the rich heritages of The Navigators, the organization I work for, is the emphasis on serving others which our founder Dawson Trotman built into the very fabric of the work from its earliest days. As a result, Navigator discipleship training always includes serving others. But when I have had opportunity to address young people on this subject, I encourage them to begin at home. It is a lot easier to clean up after a weekend conference than to clean out Dad’s garage back home. Somehow it seems more spiritual to baby-sit some other lady’s children for free than to help Mom with the dishes after Sunday dinner.
Husbands, most of us have a lot of growing to do in this area of good deeds at home. There are a lot of little things we can do in the house, as well as
around
it, to be more sensitive in meeting our wives’ needs. Who does take out the garbage at your house? The best teaching is by example. If we would train our children to do good deeds (and they
must
be trained—they do not learn it naturally), then we must be examples to them. I wonder how many boys growing up in Christian homes ever have the privilege of seeing their dad do the dishes or mop the kitchen floor? Let us do good to all, but especially to our own family.
around
it, to be more sensitive in meeting our wives’ needs. Who does take out the garbage at your house? The best teaching is by example. If we would train our children to do good deeds (and they
must
be trained—they do not learn it naturally), then we must be examples to them. I wonder how many boys growing up in Christian homes ever have the privilege of seeing their dad do the dishes or mop the kitchen floor? Let us do good to all, but especially to our own family.
DOING GOOD TO ALL PEOPLE
Good deeds in our vocations and in our homes are important, but there is still a big world out there for each of us, with numerous opportunities for doing good. Thus far I have emphasized meeting the physical needs of people; but being a disposition to promote the happiness of others, goodness certainly directs much of its energies to the spiritual and eternal needs of others. Here again, God has prepared good works for each of us, consistent with our gifts and circumstances. We need to pray, “Lord, what will You have me to do?” and then we should do it.
Although we do need to observe Paul’s priority in Galatians 6 for “the family of believers,” let us not overlook the “all people” referred to in the same verse. Because opportunities for doing good are virtually unlimited, we must be sensitive to God’s Holy Spirit as He selects opportunities for us.
One kind of behavior we must guard against is the impulsive and often superficial response to the needs of others. On this point Bethune very wisely remarks,
True goodness is not merely impulsive, but rational and considerate—It will therefore pause, and be at some trouble to inquire what service, and how best may it be rendered.... Goodness should be willing to give time, and thought, and patience, and even labor; not mere money and kind words and compassionate looks.
3
True goodness is self sacrificing, not only of money but of time. Like the Macedonian Christians who gave “even beyond their ability” (2 Corinthians 8:3), the Christian who wants to do good for others will often have to give time he does not have. Often this is an act of faith just as much as giving money we think we cannot afford. We will always be too busy to help others, unless we truly grasp the importance God puts on our doing good deeds for others.
One of the less obvious but more critical needs that many (shall I say most?) people have is for someone to listen to them. They don’t need our advice as much as our attention. A friend of mine went through a personal tragedy. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I hesitated to contact him. Finally I called and invited him to lunch. For an hour I sat and listened—no advice, just listened. The only time I talked was to draw him out. One thing he said stuck in my mind: “It really meant a lot to me when you called last night.” We hadn’t even gotten together yet. Just the phone call and the invitation to lunch encouraged him; just realizing that someone cared meant a lot to him.
I believe most people, Christians as well as nonChristians, are so starved for the genuine interest of one other person that a little bit of concern from someone who cares goes a mighty long way. One of the most plaintive statements in the Bible is David’s cry in Psalm 142:4, “No one cares for my soul” (NASB). Do you know someone who possibly feels that way? If so, you have an opportunity to do good to that person by saying, “I just want you to know I care.”
True goodness is not only self-sacrificing, it is also untiring. It does not “become weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9). It is one thing to do good in a few, or even in a number of, isolated instances; it is quite another to face cheerfully the prospect of doing some particular deed of goodness day in and day out for an interminable period of time, particularly if those deeds are taken for granted by the recipients. But true goodness does not look to the recipients, nor even to the results, of its deeds for its reward. It looks to God alone, and, finding His smile of approval, it gains the needed strength to carry on.
Perhaps one of the most sobering statements in the Bible is found in Hebrews 12:14: “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” It is not my profession, but my holiness that proves the validity of my Christian experience and my possession of eternal life. But Jesus’ account of the judgment day recorded in Matthew 25 is just as sobering. There the test is good deeds: feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the needy, showing hospitality to the stranger, attending to the sick, and visiting those in prison. Jesus is teaching in that passage not that doing good deeds earns our admittance to heaven, but that they are necessary and vital evidences that we are bound for heaven. Bethune explains,
And so in the judgment day, the inquiry will be made not into our opinions or professions alone, but into our deeds, as proving the correctness of our faith and the sincerity of our professions. Never can we know that we are in the right way, except we walk in the footsteps of Him, who did good in all his life and death. He came from heaven to do good on earth, that we in doing good might tread the path to heaven.
4
Without holiness no one will see the Lord. The essence of Matthew 25:31-46 is that without goodness no one will see the Lord. Both of these thoughts are very sobering to the one who takes seriously the words of Scripture.
WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES
One objective in studying godly character traits is to become more conscious of the vital importance of some of the perhaps lesser-known qualities. Have you ever reflected, for example, upon how important good deeds are to Jesus, as He indicates in Matthew 25:31-46? What better stimulation to good deeds can we have than to meditate on that passage of Scripture from time to time? Or you might prayerfully consider the truth of Ephesians 2:10, asking God to make clear to you some of the good works that He has prepared for you to do.
Consider your gifts, your talents, your vocation, and your circumstances as a special trust from God with which to serve Him by serving others. As Peter says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). Remember that you are responsible not for doing all the good that needs to be done in the world, but for doing what God has planned for you.
Remember also that most opportunities for doing good come across the ordinary path of our day. Don’t look for the spectacular; few people ever have the opportunity to pull a victim from the wreckage of a flaming automobile. All of us have the opportunity to administer the kind or encouraging word, to do the little, perhaps unseen, deed that makes life more pleasant for someone else.
Accept the cost of good deeds in time, thought, and effort. But remember that opportunities for doing good are not interruptions in God’s plan for us, but part of that plan. We always have time to do what God wants us to do.
Acknowledge your need of His divine grace to enlarge your soul and enable you to look beyond yourself to the concerns and needs of those around you. Then come to His throne with confidence to receive the grace you need to grow in the fruit of kindness and goodness. May it be said of each of us as it was of Dorcas, that we are “always doing good and helping the poor” (Acts 9:36).
17
Love
... And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:14
When Paul lists those godly traits he calls the fruit of the Spirit, he puts love first—very likely to emphasize its importance. Love is the overall grace from which all the others grow; I have reserved it for last in these studies, because, as Paul indicates in Colossians 3:14, love binds all the other virtues together in perfect unity.
Devotion to God is the only motivation acceptable to God for the development and exercise of Christian character (see chapter 5). But devotion to God finds its outward expression in loving one another. Or, to state it another way, our devotion to God is validated by our love for other people. As the apostle John puts it, “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21).
We cannot truly love God without loving one another. To recognize that there is someone I do not love is to say to God, “I do not love you enough to love that person.” This is not to deny the reality of spiritual struggle in loving a particular person, because it often exists. I am referring to the attitude of not even wanting to love the person, of being content to allow a lack of love for someone to reside in my heart unchecked and unchallenged.
Jesus linked loving God to loving man in Matthew 22:37-40, when He was asked about the greatest commandment in the Law. George Bethune observes of this passage, “The command to man to ‘love God with all his heart, and with all his mind, and with all his strength,’ is followed by a command to ‘love his neighbor as himself,’ which could not be, unless love to our neighbor is included in love to God; for how else can we give all our heart to God, and love ourselves and our neighbor too?”
1
1
Devotion to God is the ultimate motivation for Christian character, but it is also true that love for our brother is the more proximate motivation for the exercise of Christian graces among one another. If we rephrased the virtues of love in 1 Corinthians 13 in terms of motivational statements, they might sound something like this:
I am patient with you because I love you and want to forgive you.
Expressing love in this manner, as a motivational factor, helps us see what Paul had in mind when he said that love binds together all the virtues of Christian character. Love is not so much a character trait as the inner disposition of the soul that produces them all. Bethune says love is “a holy, abiding and vigorous spirit, which rules the whole man, ever directing him to the humble and loving fulfillment of all his duties to God and man.”
2
But although love may be more a motivational force than an actual display of Christian virtue, it always results in actions on our part. Love inclines us and directs us to be kind, to forgive, to give of ourselves to one another. Therefore, Peter says to us, ‘Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8).
2
But although love may be more a motivational force than an actual display of Christian virtue, it always results in actions on our part. Love inclines us and directs us to be kind, to forgive, to give of ourselves to one another. Therefore, Peter says to us, ‘Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8).
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