Legalism is relying on works to earn favor with God, even to the extent of needing to do works to achieve or maintain your salvation. Now no true Bible believing Christian would claim this, but there are some who act on it. Legalism is a very dangerous thing, so let's take a quick look at some of the dangers of legalism. There are many different people who have tackled this and done a much better job than I so I will just give you all the tip of the iceberg.
1. Legalism says that Christ blood on the cross was not sufficient of our salvation. To truly rely on works to justify, sanctify and/or glorify you is to say to Christ that His work was not enough and that I need to add to it to make it valid. It drains the cross of its power.
2. Legalism brings glory to you and not God. What does Paul say in in Ephesians 2? That the work of salvation is by grace alone, “not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Because if we did something to get our salvation then we have all the reason to boast. We can say: We have achieved righteousness, We have achieved holiness, We have the power to redeem, We are like God, but as we all know we cannot redeem ourselves, so I guess we will just have to give all the glory to God on that one.
That's just two of the most predominant reasons that legalism is false that come to my mind. But today, I had an interesting conversation with a friend which started by me coming out of the gate making a bombastic statement, which I do way too often, and her countering it. I won't go into detail, but it spurned an interesting conversation about legalism and service in the church. I made the statement that if you are faithfully attending a church then you need to be serving in the church. I still stand by that statement but I could have said it more tactfully, as my friend lovingly pointed out. She said that there could be a family that's taking care of a disabled family member, or a man and woman that work 40+ hours a week each with a family to keep up with, which could be very true, but I still think my statement is valid with the qualifier that there are SOME special situations where they may have a valid reason to not be serving. But, I would argue that is maybe 5% of the church which leaves about 20% that are serving faithfully and the other 75% that come on Sunday mornings, hear good teaching and leave till the next week. (these are not exact numbers or anything but generalizations) And that is not the way the church was meant to be used. It is not a place where you come to hear a great sermon and then leave. You need to be involved in your local church.
A red light may be going off in your head thinking, Didn't he say that we don't do anything to earn our salvation? Then who is he to tell me I need to be serving?
That, my friends, is the other danger of legalism. We have the opposite mentality of legalism. We have a license to do nothing because we don't earn anything by our works. The only problem with this thought is that it violates scripture.
The main scripture that comes to mind is James 2:14-26. I would encourage you to read it for yourself but In a nutshell James is saying that you cannot say you have faith and not have any works at all. Your works come out of the abundance of your faith. True saving faith should bleed into all aspects of your life. We have a mentality as the "churched" to ok I'll serve for an hour then I can get back to real life and I'll serve my hour tomorrow and so on and so forth. That’s not how God intended our life's to be at all! Our life IS ministry! But that’s a whole other post for another day.
Coming back to the point that we technically don’t need to do anything to earn or keep our salvation, if we have that mentality we are completely missing the point of serving! You do not serve to gain! You serve to give back! You serve not only because God commands you to, but because it is an overflow of your love for a God that you could not even begin to match in giving. Service should be an overflow of the faith and love you have for God, If this is true then you won't want anything back! Your heart will be so full of gratitude that His glory will be the focus of your life, not gaining anything for yourself. We need to be serving in our local body if we claim Christ. I'm not saying we need to devote 5-8 hours a week, that would be legalistic, but you should want to do something. If we don't, that is defiantly a red flag to evaluate our heart and desires.
Now please don't see me writing this pleading for you to be like me, not in the least! But it is so easy to fall into a mentality of works-based Christianity or no-works, lazy Christianity. I have been guilty of both of these and want to spare you the agony of sin. There are so many snares that catch us as Christians, my goal is to encourage you in reading this.
So the real question today is not only do you serve, but why do you serve? Do you serve because you are grateful to God and want to give back what He's given to you? Or do you serve to get noticed by others? Do you serve so that God will “owe” you? These are some serious questions to ask yourself.
I will end with a quote from John Calvin from his book “Golden Booklet of the True Christian” He writes,
“All who have not been influenced by the principle of self-denial,
have followed virtue merely from the love of praise.”
This can definitely be applied to legalism, service and really, the whole Christian life. Why do you exsist? Is it for Christ's glory or your own gain and selfish desires?
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