Who are you? How are you made? How are you being made? Those questions rattle in our brains throughout life, sometimes in the open and sometimes in deep subterranean portions of our consciousnesses, because it is true that we are created human beings and because God has as his largest project to get us to see his glory.
Second century bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus wrote that man fully alive is the glory of God. Man was created by God and is informed, shaped, and led by God to be all that he was created to be. Us living out of that forming and shaping is God’s glory because it shows the character of God. Because we were made dependent, we show the sufficiency of God. Because we were made vulnerable and weak, we show the kindness and goodness of God as he provides and heals. Because we were made with a will and because we use that will to move away from God as good as he is, we show the forgiveness and mercy of God.
And notice to whom we show these things – to each other. What I see about God and how I interact with him shows you about God. We were made as conduits. God accomplishes work through us by working in our spirits.1
So, if I was made to receive and depend where do my efforts at good deeds fit in? Surely doing good is good, right? But also doing good is not something I can do to earn good standing, at least good standing with God. He has loved us with an everlasting love2, one not influenced by my good or bad deeds. The blood of Christ Jesus is totally sufficient.3 I do not need to gain approval from God by working hard.
Our world, on the other hand, works that way with promotions and raises and entrepreneurial success coming after hard work. And often in our churches we work to gain the approval and satisfaction of other people around us. (Haven’t you helped put away the chairs because so-and-so was watching? Haven’t you volunteered for the nursery because you wanted to be seen as giving?) But in God’s economy we don’t earn favor from him. He gives it. That is grace. Our works should flow from, and be a response to that grace.
In fact, I have wondered if putting away those chairs and serving in the nursery to gain the approval of onlookers may actually get in the way of my doing something I was made to do the doesn’t usually get praise from onlookers. If I was made by God to be a good listener, sitting patiently with people as they talk abut their struggles (an activity done in private conversations not noticed by the crowd), but I chose to spend my time and tire myself, busy with more visible activities, I have not lived fully alive the way God created me to be in that moment.
And if I am the nursery worker recruiter and I twist your arm appealing to your desire to be seen as giving and hard working, I have just helped you turn your back on what God is calling you to do. I have just helped you sin. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were experts at this kind of God-ignoring do gooding. Jesus said that their “good” deeds were for show and didn’t depend on God. He exhorted us to depend on God based on seeing that he does provide. Good deeds that come from that basis don’t need to be seen to be good.4
And my doing good to get your praise tempts you away from depending on and rightly seeing God. The glory of God that Irenaeus wrote of is displayed in the human that acts like he was made to be. You have probably heard a parent tell a child, “We don’t act like that.” The implied message is that who you are informs what you do. Who we are is connected to who God is. If I live out of something other than how I was created, I show a distorted picture of my creator and director. When I depend on my own efforts to make my way and gain my value, I say that I am not dependent and God is not necessary or dependable. I also say that you are able to set my value, to give me the needed good valuation. That teaches you to do the work of God in a usurping way.
Oh, that we would know who created us and how he created us! To live with that wisdom would be being fully alive.
1 Having the Mind of Christ, Sternke and Tebbe. 2 Jeremiah 31:3 3 Hebrews 7:25 4 Matthew 6:1-2, 8
- Dr. Joey Degraffenreid
Advisory Council Member