The following sermon was presented by the Rev. John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The sermon was presented on September 30, 1984. The title is, Whatever He Says to You, Do It. And the scripture reference is the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, verses 28 through 32. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. I'm reading from the 21st chapter beginning at the 28th verse. Jesus is speaking and he's telling a parable.

What do you think? A man had two sons and he went to the first and said, Son, go and work in the vineyard today. And he answered, I will not.

But afterward he repented and went. Then the man went to the second son and said the same thing, and he answered, I go, sir. But he did not go.

Which of the two did the will of their father? They said the first. Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the harlots believed him, and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him. The Gospel of the Lord.

Mark Twain one time made the comment that it's not the things that I don't understand in the Bible that trouble me, it's the things that I do understand. And I suspect that may be true for a lot of folks. I trust that of all the parables of Jesus, there aren't very many that are clearer than this one.

God is far more interested in what we actually do than in what we say we're going to do. Far more interested in what we actually do than in what we say we're going to do. One boy says, I'll do it, and he doesn't. The other voice says, I won't, but he does.

And it's that one that the Father is pleased with. Jesus was upbraiding the Pharisees at this point, as he had to do very frequently. In essence, he's saying to them, you put on such a show of religion, you make such a grand profession of piety.

You go through all the motions, you sing the hymns, you may even clap your hands, You have your prayer and praise service. You kneel at the right place. You stand up at the right place.

And inside, you're proud, arrogant, power-hungry hypocrites. And God knows it. It's pretty strong, isn't it?

See, Jesus had to say that over and over again because we tend to judge people by outward appearances. And it may be that you can fool some of the people some of the time. or most of the people most of the time.

Maybe all the people all the time. But you don't fool God for a second. God looks on the heart.

God knows what we're really like. Jesus says God sees that there are some harlots who are closer to the kingdom than you are. Pharisees could not imagine that.

As far as they were concerned, a harlot should be taken outside the city and stoned to death. You have nothing to do with that sort of person. a tax collector that's the worst of the worst he sold out his own people he's involved in graft and corruption you have nothing to do with that sort of person Jesus says there are some who are closer to the kingdom than you are now don't misunderstand Jesus in no way is condoning sin when they dragged a woman to him who was taken in the very act of adultery he says on the one hand I do not condemn you but then he adds go and sin no more he called sin sin but he was interested in the heart of people and people can turn from their sin and receive a new beginning and that's a whole lot better than those who go through the show of religion and in fact never got started there's a far worse sin than that of sexual immorality and that's spiritual hypocrisy.

God is interested in what you say, for sure. He's interested in what you say, but He is far more interested in what you actually do. I'm reminded of a comment of Marshall McLuhan.

He said, when all is said and done, a whole lot more will be said than done. God is interested in what you say, but a lot more interested in what you actually do. There's a little phrase that runs through the New Testament.

It comes up in a number of different books over and over again. It says, Be not hearers of the Word only, but what? But doers.

Be not hearers only, but doers. For instance, Romans 2, verse 13, For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Do you believe that?

You're not too sure. Got to be honest with each other, friends. There are an awful lot of Christians who have a great deal of trouble with that statement.

The doers of the law will be justified. They say, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought that the Gospel was that it's by grace we're saved.

God's free, unmerited gift through faith. It's not of works lest anyone should boast. Right?

Ephesians 2. You with me? Not of works.

What is this doers of the law will be justified? Isn't in fact the purpose of the law to convict us of our sin? The law comes to tell us how holy God is and what He expects of us and how horribly we've fallen short so that we'll flee to Him for forgiveness.

Isn't that the purpose of the law? We sang this morning our first hymn was Holy, Holy, Holy. The words of the angelic host as they're hovering about the throne of God.

The vestry was away on retreat this weekend when we began our time with a meditation on that very passage in Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy. Unspeakably holy.

And the more you see of that, the more your reaction is exactly that of Isaiah. Woe is me! I'm a man of unclean lips.

You see the holiness of God in like a reflex action. You have to deal with the sinfulness of your own heart. Isn't that the purpose of the law?

To convict us of sin and to drive us to Christ? Yes, it is. Absolutely so.

And it's by grace you are saved through faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast. I come to Jesus just as I am. But He doesn't leave me that way.

And if that's all the Gospel you've got, you've got an incomplete Gospel. Say that again. If that's all you've got, it's incomplete.

I come to Jesus just as I am and He accepts me just as I am. I don't understand that. I accept it by faith.

It is the astonishing fact of all of human history that a holy God could accept a sinner such as I. But He doesn't leave me that way. He gives His Holy Spirit to live inside me to make me a new person. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Old things are passed away. Behold, all is become new. That's part of the Gospel.

And the Holy Spirit living inside me enables me to at least begin to do the things that God wanted me to do all along. I may not see that right away. You may not even see that right away.

You may not see it for quite a while. but there's a genuine new beginning and that leads to a genuine change and over a period of time if we could look back and sort of see where we've come from we might be amazed that God really has made a difference not that I'm better than anybody else but I'm a whole lot better than I would have been without Jesus He really is working inside me do you hear what's being said? be doers of the Word do it!

I wonder if it's ever struck you as you've read through the Gospels how often Jesus comes up to somebody and He tells them to do something that is absolutely impossible. Only Jesus doesn't seem to notice the problem. Have you ever seen that?

You know, I mean, like the guy, he's got a withered hand. And Jesus comes up and He says, stretch out your hand. don't you see the problem Jesus no I don't see any problem stretch out your hand and he begins to stretch out his hand and suddenly it's whole comes up to a man at the pool of Bethesda folks went there because they believed that an angel came down and troubled the water and whoever could get into the water first would be healed.

I don't know if there was any substance to that belief, but that's what they believed. And people came, sometimes at great difficulty, hoping that they could get into the water. Jesus comes up to a guy.

He's laying on a pallet. His friends have dragged him in there on a stretcher. He's been lame for 38 years.

And Jesus says, come on, get up. What, are you mocking me? I can't get up.

That's why I'm here. Jesus doesn't seem to notice pick up your bed, walk comes up to a man who's been dead for four days his sisters say he's beginning to stink and Jesus says get out of there didn't you notice I've died comes up to a man whose very name means rock, rock. And he says, come, walk with me on the water.

Thou art Peter, and like a stone thou shalt sink, right? He says, help me, Lord. And Jesus gives him his hand.

No problem. No problem. No limitation.

Little boy has five loaves and two fish. And Jesus says, let's see how far we can stretch this meal. 5,000 men not to mention their wives their children and 12 baskets full left over he's got more to end with than he began with no problem that's enough plenty comes up to a man who says my name is Legion because there's so many evil spirits living inside me and Jesus says no that's not your name get out of him you belong in a herd of swine Jesus doesn't seem to notice the problem no limitation he comes up to people and tells them to do what is absolutely impossible and you know I always picture every one of these instances I picture that guy laying by the pool of Bethesda and for a moment there's anger for a moment he feels as if Jesus is ridiculing him and then suddenly he kind of looks again into the face of Jesus and do you know what the real miracle is?

The real miracle is he believes Him. It's a miracle of faith that somehow this man has the power to enable me to do what I can't do and he rolls over onto those spindly little legs and all of a sudden he finds he can not only walk but leap and dance and carry his bed around. Jesus enables people to do what is absolutely impossible as they dare to believe Him.

I want you to look at a passage in the book of James with me. Page 1054. I believe this little paragraph is almost always interpreted to mean exactly the opposite of what it really means.

Chapter 1, verse 22, we come to the same phrase once again. Be doers of the Word. That's a command.

Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets, but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in all his doing.

I don't know how you've heard that interpreted, but most of the time I've ever heard it spoken about, it's something like this, that we look into the law of God as if into a mirror, And what we see there is a description of what we ought to be. And then we reflect upon ourselves and we see how unlike that we are. And once again, out of a sense of shame and guilt and remorse and repentance, we're driven to Christ to ask Him for forgiveness.

Have you heard that interpretation? That is not what that passage says. That law would be a law of condemnation, a law of judgment.

And that's not. It's a law of liberty. It in fact is saying exactly the opposite.

I look into this mirror and what I see is what I really am in Christ. I see who I am in Christ. I see that in Christ I'm able to do what He wants me to do.

It's a law of liberty. Only the problem is that so often I turn away from it and I forget who I am in Christ and I settle for so much less. Can anybody identify with that?

But I look into that law of liberty and I persevere. I dare to believe that's who I am in Christ. Not of myself.

Of myself I can do nothing. But it's not of myself. The Holy Spirit lives inside me to enable me to do that, to be a doer of the Word, to do what God wants me to do.

Now, I know what's going through some of your minds is Romans 7, where Paul is saying, but I keep doing the same old rotten things, the things that I want to do I don't, the things that I hate, those are the ones that I do. That's worthy of a whole sermon in itself, which I promise you I will preach. But just very quickly, notice how that passage ends Paul is saying in essence I'm a divided man it's as if there were two selves here there's the old Paul that I used to be that keeps trying to reassert himself but there's also a new Paul made new in Christ and the passage ends it's sort of a prayer and sort of a rhetorical question O wretched man that I am who will save me from this body of sin and death?

And immediately he answers his own question, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, there's an old self there. There sure is.

But there's a new self that can be victorious in Christ. And it's as if Paul steps out of his shoes, turns around, looks himself in the face, and calls himself up, to the standard of who he can be in Jesus. Put it to you this way.

The Gospel says, God has paid the price in forgiving your sins. And the epistle consistently says, now you're a new person. Act like it.

Be who you are in Christ. Have this mind in you which you have in Christ. That was the epistle.

Be what you are. You already have the mind of Christ. Now live like it.

Don't settle for something less. Passage ends. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, which sounds as if it's all up to us.

But the sentence isn't over. For it is God who is at work within you, both to will and to do His good pleasure. You work it out.

That doesn't say work for your salvation. It says work it out. Work it. Express it.

Somebody said work out what God works in. God has given you salvation. Now you work it out.

Why? Because it's God who's at work in you both even to want to do it and to do it. David, even in the Old Testament, David commands himself.

How many of the Psalms are like this? Bless the Lord, O my soul, And let all that is within me bless His holy name. It's as if, again, He steps out of His shoes, turns around and faces Himself, and calls Himself up higher.

Bless the Lord, my soul. He commands Himself to bless the Lord. Let all that is within me bless His holy name.

If David could do it, how much more we who have the Holy Spirit living inside of us can do the same thing. Dear friends, that's the Gospel. is not just that I'm a miserable offender saved by grace, but it's that I am a new creature in Christ and I have power to live His life by His Spirit.

Put it in a nutshell. The key to the victorious Christian life you can find in one phrase the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, John chapter 2, His first miracle, you remember the story, He went to a wedding in Cana of Galilee. They ran out of wine.

And His mother Mary said to the servants, Whatever He says to you, do it. That's it. Whatever He says to you, do it.

He's the one saying it. Look into His face. Just look into His face for a moment.

up until now it's been impossible but what he tells you to do he'll enable you to do he gives you his spirit to make you a doer of the word not just a hearer he will live out his own life in and through you if you dare to believe it whatever he says to you just do it let's bow our heads together if you believe what I've just said join me in this prayer Lord Jesus Christ I confess today that I'm a new creature not by anything that I've done but by Your grace You have made me a new creature and You've put Your Spirit inside me and You enable me to live as You would please. Lord, I remind myself of that today. and I choose to believe that and I'm going to act upon it with Your grace and with Your help.

Lord, help me to keep that ever before me that I might live to the praise of Your name. Amen. Amen.