Today’s reading: Jeremiah 7; Matthew 12
Jeremiah 7 gives us some interesting insight into the question of what God is looking for from us in regard to our works.
This comes up a lot in the question of faith vs. works. The New Testament makes it clear that we are saved by faith alone apart from our works (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-9), but there is also plenty of expectation that the Christian life is characterized by works (e.g. James 2:14ff). This leads people to question the need or point of works in the Christian life, and/or to have varying theologies around these concepts.
While answering these questions is not at all Jeremiah's concern in our reading today, I do think some of what God says through him is really helpful in how we think about this question.
The Israelites, despite all the apostasies and abhorrent worship of other gods, were evidently continuing to make the offerings and sacrifices that God had called for through Moses. Far from commending them for at least staying faithful in this regard, God essentially tells them not to bother. Why? Because before God ever told them to make offerings or sacrifices He told Israel, "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you." God's desire, first and foremost, was for Israel to be His people, and for Himself to be their God. God was most concerned with having a relationship with His people, and the offerings and sacrifices were an expression of that relationship from Israel to God. God couldn't care less about the sacrifices in the absence of the relationship.
Think about this in terms of a marriage. If a husband loves and is faithful to his wife, then doing kind things for her is a wonderful expression and outworking of their relationship. If, however, the husband is unabashedly running around sleeping with other women, his wife is not going to be interested in any act of affection on his part. If the faithful husband regularly brings home flowers for his wife, it may be routine, but it is a regular reminder of their love and it is a relationship building gesture. But if the unfaithful husband does the same, his wife will probably throw the flowers in the trash because they are a nothing more than a reminder of how much relationship isn't there.
This is what Israel was doing. They were doing the right religious things, but it was not rooted in any kind of love for or relationship with Yahweh, so those works were more disgusting than they were good or useful. In the same way, if all we have is our works, but we have no relationship with the Lord, no matter how good our works may be, we will find ourselves with those in Matthew 7:21-23 who are cast away from the Lord, being told, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
On the flip side of this though, if we have the relationship, we should also have the works. You would rightly question the husband who claimed to love his wife but then lived as if he wasn’t married, or who shared a house with his wife but otherwise treated her with indifference. No matter how many times he claimed to love his wife, if there was never any action that aligned with his words, you would rightly assume he was lying, or at the very least was self-deceived. In the same way, our good works do not earn us a relationship with God, and there’s not some minimum number of works that are needed to maintain our relationship with God, but if we have a relationship with Him, good works should be the outworking and evidence of that relationship.
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