T.M. Moore of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview writes about the “third fruit” of hearing the Word of God……good works:
“John Calvin wrote that a true church exists where the Word of God is preached and heard. Just because people are listening to preaching and teaching, or even participating in a Bible study group, or just because they are celebrating Christmas each year, does not mean that they are hearing the Word of God as God intends. In many ways, the famine of hearing God’s Word, which the prophet Amos foresaw, has settled on the evangelical Church in this country.
But how can we find our way out of this famine? By beginning to hear the Word as we should, beginning with repentance, and, from there, by turning away from whatever the Word of God describes as sin. We cannot expect to escape the clutches of the materialistic and hedonistic spirit of the times without some real change beginning to take place in our lives. Repentance and rejection of sin are the starting points for learning to hear the Word in all its transforming power and grace.
A people called to good works
A third fruit of the hearing of the Word of God is the proliferation of good works of ministry to touch the weary, searching lives of others with the grace of God (2 Tim. 3:5-17). God’s Word is given so that men and women of God might be perfected in divine grace, “thoroughly equipped for every good work.” We are created anew in Christ Jesus to be, as it were, sponges of grace. In the tight spots and hard squeezes of life, amid the misery and grime of sin, those who hear the Word of Christ emit not a squeal of fear nor a wail of complaint but the warmth of grace to heal and bless, renew and revive, encourage and edify those around us. Having drunk our fill at the fountain of grace and truth (Ps. 36:8), we go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water flowing out from us to bathe the unclean, refresh the thirsty, and buoy the sinking with the message of forgiveness and eternal hope.
The Apostle Paul is adamant about this. We are not saved by good works, he would say, but we’re not truly saved without them. To Titus he wrote that God wants us to be “ready for every good work” (3:1) and to “devote” ourselves to good works, “so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (3:8, 14). James wrote that you cannot claim to have true faith in the Lord, or to be a true hearer of His Word, unless there is evidence of abounding good works in your life (1:22-25; 2:14-26). And the writer of Hebrews explained that we can only be sure of having heard the Word of God in a saving and sanctifying way when good works of service and love are proliferating in our lives (6:9-12).
The Church today
But is this the image of the Christian life that characterizes the evangelical community today? Certainly many good works are being done by Christians in many different walks of life. But as a community it seems to many that we are a people ever seeking, in the first instance, someone to heal our own hurts and bolster our own bruised egos, someone to reach out and minister to us rather than a people who give themselves as living sacrifices unto the Lord. The Word that was meant to equip us for every good work is too often resorted to only as a momentary spiritual thirst-quencher, a pick-me-up to temporarily assuage our deeper thirst.
We will not begin to find our way out of the famine of hearing which has settled on us as a community until we begin to show more spontaneity, consistency, and selflessness in touching others with the good works of love that characterized our Lord Jesus, and that characterize all who truly hear the Word of God.
During the years of His Incarnation, Jesus set the pattern and established the template for a life of good works. All who hear Him speak to them from God’s Word will readily take up this high and holy calling.”