The Lord's Good Use of You

By Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman

You, the baptized, are HOLY and royal (1 Peter 2:5, 9)—holied with Christ’s righteousness in that sweet swap of His taking all your sin as He atoned for and died for you on that Good Friday cross (2 Corinthians 5:21) and then buried it in the black hole of His tomb. Now the Holy Spirit rolls up His sleeves and goes to work on you and FOR YOU by delivering through the Word and Sacraments what Jesus achieved and won in His very good Good Friday dying. Martin Luther faithfully preached it this way: “the Holy Spirit effects our being holy through the following: the community of saints or Christian church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” (The Small Catechism, Third Article). Through the Gospel word of Baptism, Absolution, preaching, the Lord’s Supper and the consolation and conversation of the brethren, Jesus bestows His holiness on you. His holiness counts FOR YOU before God. Faith, of course, which is the divine miraculous new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) trusts this to be true according to Christ’s promise.

So now what? Glad you asked. Really I am! The Lord has good use of you, His holy people. He gives you holy work to do. You want to do that, don’t you? Of course you do! However, I give you fair warning. What God expects you to do and enables you to do via the power of the Gospel as His holy one may just blow your mind.

Let’s get started. For the sake of the discussion I will focus on six of the Commandments as the beginning template for our learning. Yes, that’s right! I go to the Commandments! After all, the Ten Commandments, while they don’t save anyone, are “the most salutary doctrine of life” (Heidelberg Disputation, #1). With the Commandments there is holy work and holy living— the most salutary doctrine of life—in relationship to God (First through Third Commandments) and in connection to others (Fourth through Tenth Commandments).

Please note that for such activities and livelihood to be holy they must be done according to God’s Word, not yours. After all, “God’s Word is the treasure that makes everything holy… all our life and work must be based on God’s Word if they are to be God-pleasing or holy,” Luther tells us in the Small Catechism. That bears repeating. I’ll let Luther, who learned all this from Jesus (John 15:3; 17:17), nail it again: “When we seriously ponder the Word, hear it, and put it to use, such is its power that it never departs without fruit. It always awakens new understanding, pleasure and devotion and it constantly creates clean hearts and minds. For this Word is not idle or dead, but effective and living,” Magnificent!

Love for God

The most important holy work, of course, is faith! It is faith in the Triune God who promises to be God FOR YOU: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created you in order to redeem you and to sanctify you. This is precisely why the First Commandment categorically declares: “You shall have no other gods.” Since you are one of God’s hangers-on, your heart looks to the Triune God for all good and clings to Him in every need. Then you, the faith-er, the trust-er, use God’s holy Name properly with your mouth for prayer, praise and thanksgiving (Second Commandment). No wonder Jesus teaches you to pray: “hallowed by Thy name.” Second Commandment work is holy work that you do as God’s holy one. Then your ears are eager to hold God’s Word sacred by gladly hearing and learning it (Third Commandment). Once again this is holy work—holy living because it is done according to God’s Word and it is done in faith!

Love for Neighbor

Then there is holy work and living in your relationship to others (Fourth through Tenth Commandments) that flow from the fear, love and trust in God above all things(First Commandment). Let’s not forget: faith in Jesus is the gift you are given that saves and holies you before God. Now Jesus will have good use for you, his faith-er, in this world as His hands and mouth, as you live sacrificially for the sake of the neighbor (Romans 12). Like Jesus, you will live not to be served but to serve. In the Bible this is spelled: L-O-V-E. Love, of course, doesn’t save you. However, love is also a gift that flows from faith and serves others simply because they need your sacrificial service of love. It is what you, the baptized believer, want to do and delight in doing (Psalm 119:35).

The holy work and living before the parental units and other authorities is to honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them as God’s representatives (Fourth Commandment). You want to use God’s gift of authority (parental / civil) properly so that horizontal relationships in life go well. Martin Luther says that you, the faith-er can say, “‘If I am to do good and holy works, I know of none better than to give honor and obedience to my parents, for God himself has commanded it ” (The Small Catechism, Fourth Commandment).

In the Fifth Commandment, the gift of holy work is the protection of life from its beginning until its end. You live to enhance the life of others. You will not hurt or harm your neighbor in his body. Among the many positive ways of defending life is to pray for the protection of the unborn, pray for the repentance of those in authority that will not protect the unborn and to work for the repealing of Roe v. Wade. Another avenue is to provide help for a friend or classmate that has the unhealthy desire to hurt himself, abuse his body with alcohol and/or drugs, or take his own life.

From the Sixth Commandment comes the holy work of your leading a sexually pure and decent life in what you say and do. That means that the gift of intimacy between a man and a woman is to be enjoyed, but only in the estate of holy marriage (Genesis 2:39). Holy marriage is to be held in honor and the marriage bed is to be kept pure (Hebrews 13:4). You are to do nothing that would adulterate marriage. After all, adultery is not adult. It is childish, selfish and self-serving. So when you live as husband or wife, you are to love and honor your spouse. You are to live sacrificially for the other. You are to serve the other (Ephesians 5:21-33).

It’s All Gift

To have the Triune God by faith (First Commandment) is to have every good gift from Him in the way He wants to give it and the way He wants it to be beneficially used: Name, Word, authority, life, marriage, and sex (Second through Sixth Commandments). I’ll bet you can guess the rest. Yes, that’s right, property, reputation and contentment (Seventh through Tenth). Very good! I hope I have whetted your appetite for more.

You are holy in Christ. You live outside yourself through faith in Jesus. That is salvific. In the meantime, the Lord has given you work to do in this life and world as His holy one for the sake of others. It is holy work because it is done in faith according to God’s Word. You are given to live outside yourself for the sake of your neighbor. The Lord will bless it and through you He will bless others. He has good use of you! Happy working! Happy living!

Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman is the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Murdock, Nebraska. He was also a plenary speaker at the Higher Things Sanctified 2018 Illinois conference.