Simply Fellowship — Episode 8: Not by Works

May 16, 2026

David Holdsworth

​This is a gentle space. No pressure, no performance. You don't need to have your theology sorted to be here. You don't need to feel worthy, or confident, or certain of your standing before God. ​You're welcome exactly as you are, wherever you are reading this — carrying whatever you carry, however long you've been carrying it. ​If you need to read slowly, or stop and come back — that's completely fine. There's no right way to be here. Just be here. ​Hymn ​We begin with a hymn verse. Read it slowly. You might want to sit with each line before moving on. ​Not the labours of my hands Can fulfil thy law's demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears for ever flow, All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and thou alone. ​— Augustus Toplady, Rock of Ages ​Prayer ​Gracious God, ​Thank you that you do not ask us to earn what we could never afford. ​Thank you that the verdict you speak over us in Christ — righteous, beloved, accepted — is not a verdict we worked for, or argued our way to, or deserved by any accumulation of effort or goodness. ​We confess that we still reach for the scorecard sometimes. We still half-believe that we must do something more, be something more, before we are truly welcome. ​Meet us today in the gap between what we have done and what you have done. Let the love of Christ cover it. ​And may we leave this time knowing — not just in our heads, but somewhere deeper — that the gift is already given, and our hands are simply asked to be open. ​Amen. ​Old Testament Anchor ​Before Paul writes his great argument in Romans, a voice from the wilderness of Israel's own history had already heard the same word. ​"Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?" ​— Isaiah 55:1–2 (ESV) ​This is the heartbeat underneath the whole gospel. The invitation is to those who have nothing. Not those who have almost enough, or who are nearly ready. Those who have no money. Those who are hungry without the means to feed themselves. ​The question that cuts is this: why do you labour for that which does not satisfy? ​Why do you keep reaching for something that will not hold? Why work for a righteousness that will always fall a little short, that will always leave you wondering if you have quite done enough? ​There is bread here. It costs nothing. That is not a bargain — it is a gift. ​Scripture ​Our reading today is from Romans chapter three, verses twenty-two to twenty-eight, from the Easy English Bible. ​"God makes people right with himself. He does this through faith in Jesus Christ. He does it for everyone who believes. All people have done wrong things and have fallen short of God's glory. God is kind to us. He does not give us what we deserve. He makes us right with himself as a free gift. Jesus Christ set us free from the power of wrong things. God offered Jesus as a gift. Through his blood, Jesus became the way for God to forgive our sins. God did this to show that he is right and fair. In the past, he had been patient and had not punished people for their wrong things. Now he shows that he is right and fair. He is right himself and he makes right any person who has faith in Jesus. So there is nothing for us to be proud of. Faith does not let us be proud. No! We must be right with God because of faith. This is the law of faith. We believe, then, that God makes people right with himself. He does not do this because they obey the law. He does it because they have faith." ​Devotion ​There is a question every human heart has asked, in one form or another, since the very beginning: Am I good enough? ​It shows up in different ways. The rich young man came to Jesus and asked: What good thing must I do to have eternal life? The Philippian jailer, rattled and undone by earthquake and grace, asked Paul and Silas: What must I do to be saved? ​Both questions are really the same question. They are the sound of a soul that believes the door must be earned. ​Paul, in these verses from Romans, is doing something extraordinary. He is not simply answering the question — he is dismantling the premise. ​The question assumes that righteousness is something we produce and present. That it is like currency: we accumulate it through obedience, through religion, through moral effort, through keeping the law. And if we have enough of it, God will count us in. ​Paul says: no. That is not how this works. That has never been how this works. ​All have sinned, and fall short. That is not a verdict delivered with contempt. It is a statement of shared human condition. It is the level ground at the foot of the cross. No one arrives with surplus. No one negotiates from a position of strength. We all come empty-handed. ​And it is precisely to empty hands that the gift is offered. ​Paul uses several words worth holding for a moment: ​Justified — the word of the courtroom. To be justified is to be declared righteous by the judge. Not reformed, not improved, not given a suspended sentence. Declared righteous. The verdict spoken over you is not "guilty but forgiven" — it is righteous in Christ. The robe Paul speaks of elsewhere, the righteousness of Christ, is placed on the shoulders of the undeserving, just as the father in the parable threw his best cloak around the shoulders of the returning son before a word of explanation had been given. ​Redeemed — the word of the marketplace. To be redeemed is to be bought back, purchased out of the place where you were bound. And the price paid was not your own striving. It was the blood of Christ. You did not work your way out of the debt. Someone else settled it. ​Propitiation — the difficult word, the one Paul does not apologise for. It means a sacrifice that satisfies the just requirement. Because the offence against a holy God is real. Sin is not a minor administrative error. It requires an answer. And the answer the gospel gives is staggering: God, in Christ, provides the sacrifice himself. The judge descends from the bench. The holy one enters the condemned place. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ​This is the justice of the cross. Not that God looked away from sin. Not that he pretended it did not matter. But that in the death of His Son, the full weight of human sin was met — and met by Love. ​Paul then asks the question that has been building: Where is boasting then? ​It is a sharp, knowing question. Because human beings love to boast. We boast in nationality. In ancestry. In achievement. In religious performance. The Pharisee in the temple stood and listed his credentials before God: I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything. He was not lying. He had done these things. But he had confused the keeping of a ledger with the receiving of a gift. ​Boasting, says Paul, is excluded. Not because we have been told to be humble, but because the structure of grace leaves nothing to boast in. You did not earn this. The robe was given before you asked. The ring was on your finger before your speech was finished. The gift was complete before you arrived. ​And so the conclusion — a person is justified by faith, apart from works of the law — is not a cold theological formula. It is the most liberating sentence in the world to anyone who has been exhausted by the effort of trying to be good enough. ​Faith is not itself the achievement. Faith is simply the open hand. The hand that stops trying to manufacture what it cannot produce and receives what is freely given. ​The rich young ruler went away sad, because he had great wealth and could not imagine leaving it — including the wealth of his own moral record. The Philippian jailer fell to his knees, in the ruins of his certainties, and asked with nothing in his hands. And Paul and Silas said to him: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. ​Just that. Just faith. Just the open hand, the turned face, the willingness to receive. ​The gift is already given. The price is already paid. The verdict is already spoken. ​Our only boast is in the cross. ​Wondering Questions ​These aren't questions that need answers. They're just things to hold and sit with. You might want to pause here, step away from the screen for a few minutes, and let them settle. ​I wonder what it would feel like to truly stop trying to earn what has already been given — and whether there is a part of me still reaching for the scorecard? ​I wonder what Paul meant by the empty hands of faith — and what it actually takes to open them? ​I wonder about the rich young man who went away sad, and what it was he could not let go of? ​I wonder what the difference is between knowing that salvation is a free gift and living as if it is? ​I wonder whether I have ever confused religious effort with trust — and whether God minds the confusion as much as I do? ​I wonder what it would mean today, in practice, to let my only boast be the cross? ​A Query ​(In the spirit of the Quaker tradition) ​Is there a righteousness I have been quietly accumulating — counting up, presenting, relying on — that I have not yet been willing to lay down at the foot of the cross? ​A Moment of Quiet ​Before you read on, you might like to pause here. ​Close your eyes, or look out of a window. ​There's no rush. Just rest for a moment. ​An Invitation ​Before you go — a quiet word. ​If you have spent a long time trying to be good enough — working, striving, measuring yourself against others or against an imagined standard — this passage was written for you. Not to condemn the effort, but to relieve it. The door is not locked waiting for you to produce the right key. The door is already open, and the One who opened it is standing there, not asking what you have brought. ​If you want to respond to that today, you might simply say, in your own words or in the quiet of your heart: ​I have nothing to offer. I have no case to make. I come with open hands. I believe in Jesus, and I receive the gift. ​And if you already walk in this grace, and have for many years — perhaps there is still a corner of your heart where the old scorecard lives. Where you wonder, quietly, if you have done enough, been enough, prayed enough. The gospel says to that corner, too: It is finished. Come home. ​The gift is not for the deserving. It was never for the deserving. It is for the ones with open hands. ​Going Out ​Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. ​May you carry today the strange lightness of one who has been told the debt is paid and has, against all habit, believed it. ​May the word justified settle in you — not as doctrine only, but as news, good news, the best news you have ever heard. ​May you stop, just for today, trying to earn what love has already given. ​And may your only boast be the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ — in whom all the fullness of grace has come to meet us, with nothing required but an open hand. ​Above all, love. Amen. ​Thank you for being here. Above all, love.