Now I get to say that your even if your theological reasoning may sound strange to me, if it is producing a good fruit of the Holy Spirit then it isn't isn't so important to argue against. Matthew 21:31, "Whether of them twain did the will of his father?"
I didn't expect for people to dodge and evade that question... I thought it was an opportunity towards resolution.
It didn't seem like a question that wanted a direct answer. It seemed rhetorical.
My point is that it isn't about doing, it's about being. People get so lazer focused on doing this, working on that, trying not to do one thing while making every effort to be disciplined about doing something else. The guy in the pew in front is better than you and you really wish that you bring that reprobate over there along side.... Blah blah blah!
That isn't what Christianity is about. God is a whole lot more concerned about what He is doing in you than what is being accomplished through you. Sometimes those two things are one and the same but frequently they are not and if one is running around trying trying trying to be better better better, the Holy Spirit can't do His job because they are in His way. God is not interested in HELPING people be better. He is happy to do it for them but He will not partner with their flesh. In fact, this reliance on the flesh is easily the biggest hurtle in the life of a Christian and what God is interested in having happen is for the flesh to be crusified so that our work ends and His begins.
The fact - the biblical fact - is that you have been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer you who live but Christ lives His life through you, all of which is accomplished by faith and by no other means. That is the only way it works. Before, as in your cited passage from Matthew 21, it was believe and work. That was law but grace says believe and rest. We have been crucified in Christ, executed by the Law. What more does the law have to say to one it has killed? What work can a dead man do? NOTHING! Now it is not OUR fruit but the Holy Spirit's. It is not our work but Christ's. "Not I, but Christ." is Christianity in four syllables.
Galatians 2: 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Resting in Him,
Clete