Grace is the bottom line: "Professing Faith and Bearing Fruit"
3 John 11 “Dear Friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children, and those who do evil prove that they do not know God.”
As John writes it is apparent that there are those in and around Gaius’ life that are a bad example in the faith. John warns Gaius not to fall prey to those that are claiming the name of Christ but living in a completely different manner. At the same time, John encourages Gaius to find those that are living out their faith and pattern his life after them. We see here the importance of having a mentor and the utmost importance of that mentor having a life that is worth patterning after. John suggests that one’s fruit is how we know if one know’s God.
Over the past 100 years there has been a intense focus upon a personal confession of faith and the eternal security of one’s life. This comes from stressing the point that it is only by God’s grace we are restored into relationship with God and nothing of our own doing. It is also a critique against any works righteousness. However, in the attention to this confession of “words” we have turned grace into a cheap grace of an empty confession. I think we fail to realize that a confession without a changed life that bears fruit is no confession at all. However, we must also realize that all fruit that comes from this confession is not on our own doing but is through the grace of God at work in our life that restored us back into relationship with Jesus in the first place. The reminder for me this morning is that the confession and works are both necessary and both are only possible through the grace of God. I am only restored into relationship with God through grace and I only bear fruit in response to this restoration through grace. At the same time, an empty confession is an attempt at works righteousness that really isn’t a mark of God’s grace at all but only an attempt to “save” my own neck from the possible consequence of not claiming Jesus.
Jesus, I thank you today for your word that continues to address the very issues that are at stake in the church today. May you continue to speak fresh words to us today that we might see how we have manipulated and constructed our own comfort in the faith. May you use your word to guide us into the new tomorrows that we might come back to the center of your gospel. Help me to live a life today that holds together my confession of faith and my works with the reminder that both are only possible through the grace of God at work in my life.
Grace is the driving force behind a confession of belief and the fruit that follows.
Click here for Crossroads Church!
