What am we doing? We hope we are doing something with eternity in mind. We are doing something which is only worth doing because there is an eternity to come, and people need to find that path to eternal life. Christian people need to have their eyes lifted set on eternity, and all of us need our motives to be adjusted, so that everything that we do is done in the light of heaven. If I have got a choice to make: ‘Do I do this, or do I do that?’, the question should be, ‘Which of these things is going to serve the purposes of God, bringing people into the kingdom?’ This is what these verses are about. ‘God is not unrighteous to forget your work.’ – everything you do with his kingdom in mind to bring glory to Christ in that last, that great coming day. When we start reading about the assurance of hope, it is assurance discussed in the light of eternity and our work for that. ‘God is not unrighteous to forget [he never will forget] your work and your labour of love’, everything which is done with him in mind.
What are the things that accompany salvation? ‘Works of faith’, the old writers used to call them. They are ‘you showed toward his name in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.’ There's a full spectrum of works which are all part of salvation. Of course they are given to us; There is no merit in them. The first thing that God did, if we may construct an order – but there is no order; many things happen at one and the same time, but if we make an order to study them better – the first thing that happens is our illumination, when, by the Holy Spirit, our mind is unable to grasp spiritual things for the first time. It’s a work of God. Things that we dismissed and paid no attention to, or even understood to some extent but wilfully scorned and rejected, suddenly become truth to us and meaningful. They concern us, and they challenge us. Illumination! We begin to understand the truth and our sinfulness and our separation from God, and our need of his redeeming love, and we are humbled by this, and we begin to be concerned and even alarmed and dismayed. We say, ‘Oh that I could be clean, that I could be accepted by God’, and we begin to enquire and to search. Faith has been given to us. It doesn't necessarily seem like it at the time. All I know is that this is happening and I'm now believing and desiring and lamenting my sinfulness and past life. Later I will hopefully learn from the word of God that it is God that did all this and gave this to me in his great mercy. ‘We are persuaded better things of you.’ We are persuaded that all these things have taken place in your life, and because you've trusted him, and it's all part of God's work, you've received a new conscience, a spiritual life, a capacity to pray, an awareness in a strange sense of God, and an awareness that he is yours and you are his, and you have a measure of assurance to help you to trust him all the more. These are all parts of the work of faith. All of a sudden, this insensitive self-considering person has become concerned about the plight of others, and particularly brothers and sisters in the Lord. He finds himself giving to the missionaries and to the needy believers. It’s come about suddenly as the result of my conversion. My money is not all for me. There’s a change within me; I have a desire to help. So these are God-given attitudes and works, but nevertheless, although he put them within us, on seeing them he is absolutely righteous to reward them.
It follows that if it is an act of love, then whatever our act of service is, it won't be painful to us. We won't be considering ourselves. We won’t say, ‘Oh, this is rough congregation’, or ‘this is a rough Sunday School class; they make you work for every ounce of attention.’ There won't be any of that spirit or any feeling I'm doing too much, because I’m doing it for the Lord first and foremost.