Ex 35:1, Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and said to them, "These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do. 
    	In this passage we come face to face with an issue that has plagued mankind since the fall in the Garden of Eden. It is the matter of obedience to all that God commands. We know that Adam and Eve failed in their human efforts to do all that God commanded. We also know that this was always an impossibility based on human effort since the fall. In succumbing to the lie that man could be as a god unto himself, humanity has tried to find some means of saving himself from the consequences of the sin that he commits. 
There have been so many futile and worthless efforts put forth to appease the inner dread of man’s depravity and sinful nature as evidenced in all the religious ceremonies and rituals throughout the course of the history of human society. In every culture there is some kind of worship sequence to try to alleviate the inner sense that there is a deity or a number of deities who need to be appeased because of the actions of mankind. All of these are religions and customs of works, even the most basic and heinous ones dealing with child sacrifice and self-mutilation.  
God has instilled in the heart of humanity, the need for fellowship with Himself. The issue is that because mankind does not want to honor the True and Holy God, man makes all kinds of other idols and symbols and means of filling that void, especially to the point of elevating himself as the one who controls his own destiny. 
Even within the Christian church today, there are those who are caught up in the idea that we can earn our way into forgiveness. Whole denominations and Christian religious organizations place the burden on the individual to perform works or contribute money as a means of justifying or paying for the salvation to which they are granted access. It is so very often that we hear the idea voiced that if we do enough good things to balance out the bad things, then we will be OK. 
Sadly, what is not realized is that this is a further means of making us as gods unto ourselves with the utterly false premise that we have enough power, minimal as it might be, to save ourselves. This is absolute idolatry of the human mind and defamation against the truth that we are only saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that we can do to earn or to maintain our salvation. It is not given by God and then dependent on our doing enough good things to keep it. He, Alone, out of His so great love, saved us in that He gave His Only Begotten Son to become our sin and to nail it to the cross forever! If we try to base anything on our efforts, we devalue and besmirch the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We basically tell God that His suffering and torment and death in our stead was not enough, and that we need to add to it through our own means and methods. We inherently thumb our nose at God with contempt and with ridicule by telling Him that He is impotent and unable to save to the uttermost. He needs our help to make our salvation a reality.
What arrogance and blasphemy and audacity! We can’t save a single soul and yet we try to tell God that He needs our assistance. This is the danger of looking at works as a means of making our salvation sure in any measure. This is the falsehood of anyone who tries to add anything, in any measure to the so wondrous and miraculous and glorious saving grace of God in His Only Begotten Son! 
On this basis of understanding, then, let us look at the passage before us with the realization that the works that we do as unto God, we do, not for our benefit, but for His glory Alone. This is a completely different reality of how we live our lives on this earth. Rather than doing good because we need to try to prove something, or because we would benefit because of it, or that we would make a name for ourselves as a good person, we do those things that bring honor to God because we love and cherish Him. We simply desire to bless Him and to increase the glory that He is due! It is not in any measure based on what we can receive or try to earn. It is all based on the fact that our lives single purpose is to bring more glory to His name, period!
    	Our Lord Jesus, in Matt. 7:15-29, makes this evident in terms of warning His listeners against those who would deceive them. The works of men will be evident in the reasons that those deeds are accomplished. False teachers will bear false fruit while those who hold to the Lord and His Word will manifest the fruit of righteousness. Again, this will not be for their own sakes or for their own enhancement but for the sake of increasing the further manifested magnificence and splendor of God. Please turn in your Bibles to Matt 7:15-29, and let us read it together. 
	Matt 7:15-29, "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? "Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit. "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "So then, you will know them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.' "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. "And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall." The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. 
	There are several aspects to this scripture. The first is that the Lord lets the hearers of His word know that there are those false teachers who are preying upon them with words and directives which serve only to deceive and to destroy. They even deceive themselves thinking that what they do will gain them entry into heaven. At that time, they will be forever tormented in their own deception, and eternally separated from the joy of the glory of God. 
The fruit of the true servant of God will never be false or diminished. It will stand the test of time and the assaults of this age. It will be a solid and eternal work that is anchored in Jesus Christ, Alone, and therefore bringing eternal glory to His name and His witness and His Throne as Lord God Almighty. 
As well, because this fruit is evidenced in the labor of love for God, no matter what the cost in terms of this world’s consideration, it will stand the test of the raging storms of this age. It will constantly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and worthy of all praise and adoration, no matter how fiercely the gales and maelstroms assail it. There will be peace and there will be faith and there will be earnest adulation no matter what turmoil and tribulations abound. This is evidence, not of the will of man, but of the Person of Jesus Christ abiding forever in the hearts of those who call upon Him and live their lives as His servants.
Christ, Himself, manifested this heart to those who would listen, as we read in John 12:44-50. John 12:44-50, And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. "And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me. "I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness. "And if anyone hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak. "And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me." 
    	In this passage, we see the connectedness of our service unto the Lord God Almighty. As we honor Christ in our lives, so will the Father be glorified. Christ only did what the Father showed Him to do in order to please Him utterly and to glorify Him fully. 
So it is in our lives. We live in the manner in which Christ directs so that He is pleased with the testimony that we present before man and all of creation. As Christ is honored and blessed, so is the Father magnified and receiving of glory and worship and adoration which in turn brings fullest joy to Our Lord and Savior. Each member of the Godhead seeks to honor and to glorify the other and so works in our hearts and minds and lives unto that plan and purpose. Christ could only share and do that which He was shown by the Father. We can only do that which we are shown and directed by the Holy Spirit as He so honors the Son and the Father in His ministry and His comfort and His strength in us. 
	Now please turn to Rom 2:1-16, where the Apostle Paul gives further depth of testimony to this truth. Rom 2:1-16, Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment upon those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. 
	It matters not whether we have received the Law directly, as in the case of the nation of Israel, or if the law of obedience unto God is set into our hearts through our consciences, we are all subject to the penalty of breaking that law. When we have become covered by the grace and the mercy and the saving work of Jesus, the entire focal point of why we do deeds of holiness and righteousness and that which honors God is changed. We are transformed from seeking to save ourselves to simply being honoring to Him Who has eternally saved us.
	This is further detailed, so famously by Brother James in James 1:17-27. We will close with this passage in reading it together. James 1:17-27, Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 
	All that we are, all that we say, all that we do, we do to the glory of God, Alone. We do not seek any credit or fame or honor for ourselves. The entire reason for the good works that we do is because we are now indwelled by the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the fact that we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. On that single truth, our lives now manifest the power and the life of the risen Lord Jesus, and we do only that which He shows us to do unto the glory of the Father. So be it!
	
Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and said to them, "These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Col 3:16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Amen.