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Trust his word. Jesus made each star in heaven. He created earth and sea. He's the keeper of all knowledge,
what is past and what will be. Yet He offers His great wisdom,
so you will not lose your way. Like a lamp, it glows, every
step it shows, you can know His will each day. Trust His Word. Trust His Word. All God's promises are true,
trust His word. When your pathway disappears,
when your joy gives way to tears, when you're plagued with doubts
and fears, trust His word. He is not a distant stranger. He can be your closest friend. And He'll always listen closely
when you share your heart with Him. Jesus walks the path beside
you. He has been there all along. And He'll guide your feet when
your step is weak, and your strength is almost gone. Trust His Word. Trust His Word. All God's promises are true. Trust His Word. When your pathway disappears,
When your joy gives way to tears, When you're plagued with doubts
and fears, Trust His Word. I was reading last night about
King Hezekiah and Sennacherib and the armies of, what is it,
Assyria or something, come against the city of Jerusalem. And over
and over again, it's like they say the same things. Don't trust
your God. Your God will not deliver you.
Don't trust, don't trust, don't trust. And it's precious to know
this morning, we can trust God completely, entirely, no matter
how much it seems like things are going God for us, God is
faithful. All right, Maisie, you can head
to your class, and I forget, does Matthew go to class on Sunday
mornings? Six and under can head to class with Mrs. Shore in the
creche. The rest of us can take our Bibles.
And again, we're back in Ephesians chapter two, and I probably,
if I was preaching a series, I might preach this the other
way. Last week we looked at lost and found, and how our condition
without Christ was Christless, hopeless, godless. We talked
about the search that took place, how Christ came to earth, how
he died on the cross for our sins. We talked about how you can be
found, that you become Christful, if you want to put it that way,
godful. You have that relationship with God, you're part of God's
family and all those things. And now we're going back to the
beginning of the chapter for some reason, just because I honestly,
I didn't notice that I was preaching from the same chapter until I
looked at the bulletin. to change my scripture. That's
how, it was just different ways God led me to this text that
we're in. And so, it's interesting though.
And it'll go, I think it'll tie in at the end because of what
we're looking at. Because what we looked at last
week is what we've become. And kind of what we're gonna
look at this week is how we got there. And so, it'll make sense. You know, I speak to people a
lot of times about the gospel and as I do, I like to ask them,
you know, if you died today, you know, where would you go?
I like to ask them, you know, why they think they'll go there. And a lot of people say, you
know, everyone says, I'm going to heaven. It's only rarely Either
I meet somebody that's blasphemous, hates God, anti-God, and just
says I'm going to hell, or somebody sincerely, honestly says, you
know, I'm probably, I'm going to hell. You know, and when they
say it like that, I appreciate it, but when they blaspheme,
I don't appreciate it that way. But most times, people say I'm
going to heaven. And most often, the reason for them saying they're
going to heaven is I'm a good person. If you press them on
that and say, why are, you know, how are you a good person? And
they go, well, I've never murdered anybody. And it's kind of funny
to think about it, if that's like the category for being a
bad person. I mean, it's interesting, but
because there's a lot of other bad things, isn't there? But
I'm not a murderer. You know, it's interesting. I
say to those people, as I'm speaking to them, I said, you know what,
murderers can't go to heaven. And I'm glad they can, because
frankly, you and I fall into that category. If you go back
to Matthew chapter five and look at the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
said if you hate somebody and have that hatred in your heart
for them, and you wish they were dead, it's the same sin as killing
them. It obviously has less physical consequences, but in eternity
the consequences are the same. But anyway, murderers can go
to heaven and they'll look at you like, oh come on, how could
that be? Because their concept is, no
wait a second, good people go to heaven, how could a murderer
go to heaven? But the truth is this, the Apostle Paul was a
murderer, he's the author of the majority of the New Testament,
and it says in Acts 26.10, "'Which things I also did in Jerusalem,
"'and many of the saints did I shut in prison, "'having received
authority from the chief priest, "'and when they were put to death,
"'I gave my voice against them.'" Paul was called on trial with
these people, and Paul would say they're guilty and worthy
of death, and they'd be put to death. He had some children who
lost some parents because of the Apostle Paul. Later in life,
Paul probably met believers who had been impacted by his sin
against God. I mean, it's no wonder Paul at
times said, I'm the chief of sinners, and he hated his sinning. And
he had, as most of us do, regrets about the way that he had failed
God. But he was a murderer. He killed
people. And yet he's in heaven. And the logical question that
they have is, how can somebody who is so bad become someone
who is so good? It doesn't make sense. So they
would say things like, so they just say, I'm sorry, and that's
it, and they're forgiven. They can't comprehend that because
they think you have to change and be good to earn favor with
God to be accepted by God. They don't understand what the
Bible speaks about when it speaks about our goodness, all right? And so that's where we're at
here in Ephesians 2, and really this morning I'm preaching a
topical message, but we're gonna start in this passage, Ephesians 2,
as we step out into what we're gonna look at. But in Ephesians
2 here it says, verse 8, Alright, what I'm going to do
for a little bit here, I'm just going to take an introduction
for a while before we get into the actual message of what I
want to share. And really the introduction is gospel and some
of the application of what we're actually gonna look at goes beyond
the gospel. So it's gonna hit all of us this morning. But let's
just pray and ask God to bless as we look to his word. Father,
it's good to be in the house of God. It's good to be here
with these that have gathered this morning. I've been encouraged
lately, Lord, when I think about the fact that Jesus, how you
would love to stand in this pulpit today and share your word with
those that are gathered here. And I pray that you could do
that today. I pray, Father, that I could just be a vessel, by
the grace of God, unto honor sanctified me for the Master's
use. I pray, Father, that the water of life would flow freely
from my life. I pray, Lord, that nothing in me would hinder you
today. I pray, hide me. And Lord, less of me, more of
you. I praise you, Lord. When we listen to Pastor Gorman
preach, I very rarely focus on the man. And the message just
came through. And I pray, God, help me to be
a preacher like that. And I pray, Spirit of God, you
speak to each heart. May you give grace to each one
to consider your truth this morning. And Father, I pray, use this
message to strengthen us, to help us. Lord, may it be a fruitful
message. May it be a good sowing time.
May it be a good watering time. May it be protected by the Holy
Spirit. So, God be glorified. Help me
now as I speak. It's in Christ's name I pray.
Amen. All right, so that passage right there is what we're gonna
look at here as we get started. So, for by grace are you saved
through faith, that not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not of works
less, any man should boast. So I'm gonna begin with this
salvation and what the gospel is, or what salvation is. Salvation
is first of all by grace. It says for by grace, R-E-C. Very simply, grace is God doing
for us what we can't do for ourselves. It's God's gift, it's His unmerited
favor, it's His ability to do something in our life that we
can't do. It refers to God's good will, His loving kindness,
and His favor. Grace is like the queen when
she comes to Holyrood Palace, which I know her husband was
here this past week, but she comes every summer and has a
garden party about this time of year, I think. But when that
takes place at Holyrood, it's like the queen sending me an
invitation by her grace saying your presence is requested at
this garden party in this state. And it allows me to go up to
the gate there at Hoi Ri Palace and show them that invitation
and demand entry because I've got the Queen's grace. I can't
do that on my own. I can't knock on that door and
expect to enter into that party that's an elite party. without
anybody. And it's only grace that gives
that to me. I can't, as far as I know, it's not something you
could buy. Maybe it is, but as far as I know, it's not something
you could get in any other way. It just has to be given or given
through somebody to you so that you can go. You know, God's grace
is like that. It's God saying to everybody, hey, "'I've got
a party I'd like to invite you to. "'There's a wedding feast
that's gonna take place. "'I want you to be there. "'My
son dies so that you can have access to this "'and my grace
offers this to you.'" And he does so freely. Luke 14, 23,
the Lord said unto the servant, "'Go out into the highways and
hedges "'and compel them to come in that my house may be filled.'"
I like that verse more and more as we get closer to the end times.
I feel like it's highways and hedges ministry. The vast majority,
they're too busy. They got too many things going
on. They're not interested in God. And God says, look, just
go populate eternity. Try to get people to come. My
grace is reaching out and say, hey, it doesn't matter who you
are. It doesn't matter where you're at in life. I want you
there so you can come. Praise God. I mean, that's the
drug addict, or the drunkard, or the adulterer, or the fornicator,
or the whatever it is in somebody's life, the embezzler, or it's
us, isn't it? The liars. And it's God saying,
hey, I want you there. I want you there. Salvation is
by grace. Secondly, salvation is by faith, not works. Salvation
is by faith. It says saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves, not of works. Salvation's through
faith. You know, there's this idea,
I talk to people about faith. If you believe it, that's good
for you. It's kind of like this placebo effect. You know, if
you think it's good for you, it's good for you. You're kind
of this, oh, you know, belief in God is your crutch, and it
helps you. You go through a difficult time in this. And even though
they say, I don't acknowledge God exists, I don't think God
exists, but you believe in God, that's good for you. That's not
faith. Biblical faith is active, not passive. Biblical faith,
because of what they understand, based on truth, there's a decision
that takes place that is a very concrete decision based upon
the truth. For instance, back in Noah's Ark, when the flood
was coming, because Noah believed God about the flood, Noah built
a boat. Because his family believed God
about the flood, they got on the boat and they were saved
from the judgment of God. So faith is active. Somebody
could have been outside that boat, heard Noah preach. The
Bible says a preacher of righteousness saying, hey, God's judgment's
coming. He's going to send a flood. And explaining what a flood was
and how the water was going to rise and how that boat was going
to be the only way of salvation from the wrath of God. If somebody
believed that, they could repent of their sin and say, yeah, my
life stinks. God's wrath is coming because of my sin. I repent of
that most are not Moses. No, I want to help you with that
boat and get on that boat in DC It's acting or it's like in
the time where the children of Israel are under the judgment
of God the serpents have Come into the camp and a bit and then
and God says to Moses Moses. I want you to raise up a Pole
with a bronze serpent on it. By the way, I see all the time
over here on ambulances and things, you'll see a pole with a serpent
on it, the symbol we take as medical, it's from this passage. It's a bronze serpent that God
said to put up, why? So that people that were bitten,
if they believed God, because God said if they'll look at that,
they could be saved. And it's kind of the idea where
we get the song, look and live, my brother, live, all right?
It's look to Jesus now and live. Then it was look to that serpent
on that cross. pull and limb. And if they believed
God when they were bitten, they ran to that, they looked at it,
and it's a great picture of salvation, because just like sin is like
that serpent that's bitten us, it's killing us, it's gonna take
us to hell, but we can look and limb. And so for us, the activeness
of it, and this is faith, is I believe God, and so I'm gonna
pray, and I'm gonna confess to God that I believe Him, I'm gonna
accept Him as my personal Savior, and I'm gonna get saved. Alright? Salvation is by faith. It's by
faith. Alright? Next, salvation is a
gift which must be received. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. To go back to the Garden Party
illustration, if I got there without an invitation to the
Queen's Garden Party, and I say to the soldiers that are there,
look, I am worthy to go in. I'm a good person, I'm an upright
citizen. You don't understand how much
I do for this nation. I demand entry. You know what
the Queen's gonna say? You're a foolish, proud person. The only people that come to
this party is by my gracious invitation. Do not demand entry. It's not allowed. You know, God
is not gonna say to somebody that gets to heaven, they feel
like they're a good person, and now they wouldn't say it this
way, but in reality, what they're saying to God is, God, I'm so
good. God, I've done so many good works. God, I'm a good citizen.
God, I'm all this. And they stand before God with
all their goodness, and they demand entry. And God says, well,
it's by grace. It's a gift. And it's kind of
more like this, and I used this illustration yesterday with the
young lady I was witnessing to, but I said, you know, it's like
me giving somebody a diamond ring that has a two million pound
diamond in it. They can't afford it. And I offer
it to them, and they say to me, well, I'll wash your car for
it. And I say, well, wait a second. First of all, you understand
the value of this is way more than you could ever earn, and
it's a gift because of that. It's priceless. And see, God
looks at us and goes, you know what, you can't afford it. It
took the sinless son of God coming from heaven and dying on a cross
for your sin. Your goodness can't earn it. It's a gift, it's the
grace of God, and you gotta receive it. To receive it, you gotta
have a humble heart. James 4, 6 says, but he giveth more grace, wherefore
he saith, God resisteth the proud that giveth grace unto the humble.
It's somebody that understands, look, I'm not worthy to go to
the women's garden party, I'm not worthy to walk into your
presence, but I'm so thankful that I've got this invitation
I've received and I'm gonna go. But I'm not going because of
who I am, I'm going because I've received this gift. And it's
the same with somebody that gets saved, they understand, it's
not me, it's not my goodness. It's like Naaman, we preached
a message on Naaman a few weeks ago. And Naaman had to humble
as hard as he went under the water, and he's baptized, as
it were, seven times in the Jordan River, and then he's healed. But think of the humility it
took for this great man to do that. And it takes the Lord doing
that kind of humbling in a man's heart to bring him to a point
of salvation as well. And so, now, Here's where we're going, and
I feel a little bit this morning like we've kind of gone all over
the place to get here. But what God did in my heart, I was reading
this passage, for by grace are you saved through faith, and
that not of yourself. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. But then it says what? For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. We don't do good works to get
saved, but the question is, how can a murderer have a transformed
life? How can a murderer have such
a changed life? They don't understand it, because
they go, what, they just say they're sorry and that's it?
No, it's more than that, because when they get right with God,
God changes them. And what I wanna look at this
morning is how God changes somebody. Like Paul, here Paul wrote the
majority of the New Testament. How does God do that? And so
look at verse 10 again. It says, for we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them. Have you been to the
woodworking shop in Peebles? Anybody been there? I think Alec,
you and I might have gone in there one time. It's a nice wee
shop in Peebles, a little village about 20 miles from here. But
in that shop is not just your ordinary block of wood. It's
not a branch of a tree that a dog carried in, you know, and sat
on the floor. These are things that a workman has taken, he's
crafted, he's made them beautiful. He's made some of them tools,
he made some of them toys, some of them just works of art to
put on the wall, you know, clocks and that sort of thing. But he's
made them, he's made them presentable, he's made them acceptable. And
so it is with us this morning. It's that when we get saved,
God does a work in our life that changes us and makes us something
that is acceptable, something that could actually do things
that pleases God, does good works. And so this morning, how does
God work in us? How can bad men become good? And this idea of we are his workmanship,
okay? And if you are preaching this
message, you'd be able to say probably different things than
I'm gonna say. Because in reality, as we now look into just some
simple points about what God does, the list, by the way, I've
given these guys permission to stand in the back. Since they
flew through the night yesterday, I told them, please feel free
to do that. So I'm glad that you feel free to do that. You
could come up with tons of ways that God works on us. And they'd
be different, maybe ideas than what I've got this morning. And
we can't look, we can't begin to look at all the ways God works
on us. But I just wanna consider some
of those ways. And so we'll begin with, God
works on us by putting us under the blood. He works on us by
putting us under the blood. And I wanna go to Isaiah, you
can turn there if you want, but we're just gonna jump to different
passages now. Isaiah 118. It says, come now
and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. So again, you go
back to that murderer. How can a murderer go from a
murderer to a good person? Well, first of all, when they
go to God for salvation, there's a cleansing that takes place.
And it's a soul cleansing. You know, I was speaking with
somebody a couple weeks back about, Asking them because they're a
different kind of religion or they wouldn't even necessarily
say it's a religion But how do you get rid of your sin? How
do you cleanse your soul? And they said, the same way you
cleanse your body, you just scrub it. You know, and really, honestly,
and I've never heard somebody necessarily say it that way,
but just, you know, they're thinking cleansing in the sense of, you
know, you go on a diet and you purge your body of different
things. I mean, it's just that idea. But you know, the Bible
says in Jeremiah 2.22, You know, it doesn't matter today
how much somebody wants to scrub to try to clean their life or
try to take a hold of the outside of their life and make themselves
a better person. You know, it might be a person that has been
a drunkard or something. They want to clean up the outside
and maybe they would think in cleaning up the outside that
they're acceptable to God and that they can please God, but
it doesn't clean the inside, does it? And so there's a need
that that person has for a soul cleansing by the blood of Jesus.
Revelation 1.5 says, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first
begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings of the earth, unto
him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. We got saved. God washed us from
the inside out. He cleansed us. I am so thankful.
I can say before God, I've got a clean heart. I'm so thankful
that I've been cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not my goodness that got rid of my sin. It's that God
took the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, applied it to my heart,
just like the blood on the doorpost in the story of the Passover.
and that blood is there and that God sees the blood. I'm so thankful
for that. Praise God for the cleansing
blood. I've told the story before about
George Minsik. George Minsik was a gangster
in Al Capone's gang in Chicago. He got saved at Marquette Manor
Baptist Church. George Minsik was made fun of
by the gang. They would come and make fun
of him as he worked as a street sweeper on the streets of Chicago
saying, George, God's treating you really good, isn't he? But
George started preaching in the prisons. And so many prisoners
got saved and so many lives were changed that the city of Chicago
took the record against George Minsik and burned it. You know,
one of the crimes that George Minsik was likely guilty of was
murder. Yeah, he was in a gang. He was
a part of that gang. It's very likely that if he wasn't
directly involved in murder, he was probably involved in other
ways in murder. But George Binsick had to change
life. Why? Because of the blood of Jesus.
Isn't that awesome? Praise God. And unbelievers don't
get that, because they're thinking good works and a murder is really
bad, and so they gotta do a lot of good things to get rid of
the bad things. But the thing is, it doesn't matter how bad
somebody is, when they pass under the blood, the blood cleanses
them completely. And so God begins to work on
us. How? By putting us under the blood.
By putting us on his altar. Now, if you want, you can turn
to Romans 12.1. Romans 12.1, by putting us on his altar. It
says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. Okay, after you get
saved, God says, now, live a holy life. Bring that life to God.
Say to God, God, here's my life, a living sacrifice. And by the
way, the great high priest is the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
believe that it's us actually necessarily putting ourselves
on the altar as much as offering ourselves to God to be put on
this altar. And that our life is in his hand. Revelation, this
Thursday, we're gonna speak about the prayers of the saints that
the Lord Jesus Christ offers to his Father in heaven. And
so it's an offering acceptable to God, but you know, like salvation,
much of the work God does on our lives is through our willing
submission to God. Somebody gets saved, how? They
submit to God. Somebody's life gets changed, how? They submit
to God, they put it on the altar and they say, God, there it is,
do with it as you please. I just heard yesterday from my
brother-in-law, Kirk, back in the States now, God is, by the
way, pray for them, they are, They've made an offer on a house
five minutes from the school where he's teaching. He's got
a longer contract now with that school, so God's been good there.
But Kirk, when he was over here, he was doing tutorial teaching
at the University of Dundee. And he would say that sometimes
half his class was absent. They just didn't come. And they
wouldn't be there. And you know, if they weren't
there as a tutorial teacher, my brother-in-law's impact on
them was minimal. There was only so much that he
could do in the life of somebody that's not there. They had to
be there for him to work on. And you can look at believers
today and you see some believers really developing for the Lord
and becoming a great work of the grace of God, others not
as much. And you can say, well, why is it? Well, have they put
themselves under the Lord? Are they there? Are they submitted
to the Lord? Sometimes part of the workmanship
is just us presenting our life to Him and saying, God, I just
want you to work in my life and be there for God. Hannah. Remember
Hannah praying and asking for a son. When God gave her a son, what
did she do? She took her flesh, her son, and she gave her son
back to God. What a great picture. And Samuel
became a great man for God, but what a great picture of this
Romans 12, one passage of us presenting ourselves to God,
a living sacrifice. And so have you presented your
flesh like that to God? So, By putting us on his altar, he works
on us. By putting his word into us, Romans 12, two, okay, the
next verse in that same passage, by putting his word into us,
Romans 12, two, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You know, in that
song I just have sung before I preach, did you notice it said,
you can know his will each day, Isn't that awesome? You can know
God's will today. You can know God's will tomorrow.
You can know God's will the next day. As you're serving God, as
a believer, you can know God's will. And that's exactly what
this verse said. Do not conform to this world, be transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And it all goes
back to what? Being transformed in your mind,
with the renewing of your mind. You know, one of the key tools
that God has on his bench as he works on us is right here,
praise God, in front of us today. It's this book. And again, it
comes down to a lot of what God does in our life has to do with
us. We can neglect this book, set it aside, not read it, not
care about it, not listen to it, not sit under the preaching
of the word of God, the teaching of the word of God. And you know what? Not
much is gonna change our life. Our thinking isn't gonna be impacted,
we're not gonna be renewed in our mind, but the Bible does
change and renew our mind. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, but
we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord. beholding as in a glass, just
like a mirror that, rather than just purely reflecting us, also
reflects Jesus Christ. And when we see Christ, we see,
in our life, we see things that, you know what, that's wrong.
That's wrong. Just like I look in a mirror
and I go, you know, that hair's out of place, or that needs to
be wiped off, or that needs to be changed. The Word of God does
that. I look at it and I see Christ, and I see myself, and
I go, that needs to change. and I reduced my mind and I began
to understand the truth as God wants me to see it and it changes
my life. So by putting his word into us,
again, that's one of the best tools God has. How much time
do you spend in this book? I've been challenged by that.
This past year, I've been challenged in my personal Bible study time. As a preacher, I'm studying the
Word of God to preach, but I need to study the Word of God personally
just to let God have his way in my life. By God's grace, right
now, every night as I go to bed, I'm spending time in the Word
of God. I told you recently I got a new Bible, a Bible that I loved. All Bibles are the same, but
this Bible's a study Bible. that has a Hebrew Greek, study
helps in the back, has plenty of room to mark in it. And I'm
just enjoying marking a new Bible and having that time with the
Lord. You know, that's good. Why? Because that's gonna grow
us. That's gonna make us into his workmanship. How can a bad
person become a good person? Again, as God works on us with
his word. But then as well, by putting
pressure in just the right places. If you wanna turn there, Jeremiah
18. by putting pressure in just the right places. Jeremiah 18.6,
O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, saith
the Lord? Behold, as the clay is in the
potter's hands, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. All
right, God dealt with his people, hell, as a potter. Have you watched
a potter before? You ever seen a potter? A potter
takes the clay, and I don't know that they do this, but I mean,
there might be some punching of the clay, or some twisting
of the clay initially, and then, you know, they wet it, and then
they got the wheel, they're spinning it. If it gets messed up, they
gotta start over, re-break it, put it back in, it's gotta be
fired. Okay, if that's a picture of God working on us, How comfortable
do you feel? And it's kind of a painful process.
We ought not expect, people have this idea of Christian life,
oh, you know, it's supposed to be a life of ease, a whole health
and wealth gospel. You know, you give your, that means God's
just gonna make you rich. Your life's gonna have no problems.
You're gonna have perfect health. Well, wait a second. God's gonna
use pressure, pressure, and God knows where to touch us to make
us what he wants us to be. And he's gonna work on us just
like that. I read a verse in Isaiah. I think it was in Isaiah. It's
in the bulletin. I'll tell you where it is. On the front page. Ecclesiastes, I'm sorry. 3.11 says he hath made everything
beautiful in his time. You know what that verse reminds
me of? It reminds me of, is it Romans 8? I think it's Romans
8 or Romans 5. All things work together for
good. Yeah, all things work together for good to them that love God.
Why? Because God's gonna make it work
together for good. He makes all things beautiful in His time.
He's doing something with our life. He's fashioning us. He's
getting ready to display us as trophies of His grace, now and
in eternity, as far as what His grace did. And praise God, He's
working. We may not like it at times,
but He's working on us. And so praise God for that. And then how else does He work
on us? By putting us into His service. Romans 6.13. If you
wanna turn to your Romans 6, 13, putting us into a service.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto whom, if you're there, unto God. Do you know, We use writing instruments. Some
of you guys are taking notes. That's an instrument of writing
unto you. It's something that you use.
The Bible's saying, don't yield your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin so that Satan can pick you up and use
you to do Satan's things, just like we looked at here in Ephesians
chapter two. It says, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. He's active, not passive in the
lives of those that are unbelievers. He's there. We talked about that
last week. And God says, hey, that was you
before, now you're safe. There has to be a change that's
taking place, because we are His workmanship unto good works.
How does that take place? Well, we become tools that God
can use. We become something that God
can pick up, and that God instruments a righteousness unto God. I've told this story before,
of our cat. I've told a story about our cat
probably too many times, different things about him. But our cat,
Missionary, and we called him Mish, but he got grumpy. The older guy just got grumpy,
cantankerous, you know? Then my brother backed out of
our station wagon, out of our garage, and ran over Missionary
right across his stomach. My mom saw it and said the cat
just kind of spun. And then ran up into the top
of the garage for a few days and we thought, oh great, he's
going to die up there. We didn't really want him to die, but we
didn't want him to die up there either. But then after three
days, He comes down, and he was a totally different cat. He was
sweet, he was kind. It's almost like he looked at
his life and thought, you know, life isn't about being grumpy. Life
is about this. You know what we need to do this
morning? We need to remember as believers, life isn't about
this anymore. That's the stinking life that
put Jesus Christ on the cross that is against God, that is
anti-God. What's our life for? It's to
live for God. We looked at it in Sunday school. It's my old
man died with Christ so that I can live for God. How can somebody
go from a bad person to a good person? It's because all of a
sudden there's a new purpose to life. It's not an instrument
of unrighteousness anymore, it's an instrument of righteousness.
Here's another verse, I can quote it, but I'm not sure exactly
where it is, but, that we be a vessel unto honor, sanctified,
and meet for the master's use. You know what that means? Meet
for the master's use means it's a very easy thing for God to
take hold of us and use us. So we're holy, sanctified, set
apart, and prepared unto every good work. You know, God wants
to do something, he does it, because he's got a hold of us.
That's great. Not only is God working on us,
but we're a tool for God to work on others so that God can impact
others with his truth. And so putting us into a service.
And then by putting us under his chastening, Hebrews 12, 11,
if you want to turn there, Hebrews 12, 11, putting us under his
chastening, that's his discipline. It says, now no chastening for
the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward,
it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which
are exercised thereby. Exercise never sounds like a
fun word, but especially not in this context, right? unto
them which are exercised thereby." I mean, God is chasing, God's
disciplining those that he loves, and it's not joyous, it's grievous,
it's like, ugh, but it's for our good. You know, we don't
always respond the way that we should to that, but the Bible
tells us, Proverbs 3, 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth,
even as a fatherless son, in whom he delighted. If I love
my children, I correct them. I praise God I had loving parents.
They disciplined me. You know, one time, I hesitate
to say this because I don't want kids to pick this up as a good
thing. I liked to play with fire when I was a kid, and that's
not a good thing. Stay away from that. We would, and I probably, I don't
know if I should tell stories, but I'm gonna just briefly. We
would take paper plates, pieces of paper, and our church, Rock
Lake Baptist Church, near Watertown, Wisconsin, near Maranatha, my
dad was a pastor there. And here's the pastor's kids
at the church, out on the back, kind of flat roof of part of
the church. cement on top, thankfully, with
nice bushes that are the type that would have just flamed like
a torch, using magnifying glasses and burning bits of paper. Not
too smart, right? Fun, but not smart. My mistake was I forget, you
know, some things smell when you burn them, and I decided
to burn incense in our garage one time because the incense
burner was there. We picked it up out west or something. of fun,
but of course my parents smelled it. You know what happened because
of that? I was disciplined. Why? Because mom and dad knew that
fire could kill me. My youth pastor had nothing to do with
me at that time, but my youth pastor at five years old set
his bedroom on fire. Okay, don't mess with fire. It's
bad stuff. What does God do because he loves
me? He sees me messing around with sin and he goes, no. Why? Because he loves me. Praise God. Aren't you glad God loves you
this morning? Enough to say, no, no. So he disciplines us, same thing
we do with our children. Proverbs 29, 15 says, the rod
and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth
his mother to shame. If we just let our kids grow
up without discipline, they're gonna break our hearts. But if
we love and discipline them, just like God does us. And then
by putting himself upon us, Romans 13, 14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the
lust thereof. And so God is working on us. He's desiring to make us into
the image of his son. And so he says here in his word,
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we become from? bad to
good by putting on Christ and letting Christ be seen in us.
And it's something God helps us do. Back when I was a kid,
my brother had a Commodore 54, I think, or a Commodore 64. It
was like an original computer and you look at computers nowadays
and it just blows you away the difference between the old stuff
back in the 1980s and the stuff that we have now. Why? Because
externally with monitors and things and internally with memory
there's just a vast difference. You know, when we got saved,
God took out the old, he put in the new, and he allows us
to put on the new, to put on Christ. Again, he works on us
from the inside out and on the outside as well. Barry Webb,
that was here in January. We enjoyed having the Webbs with
us, but Barry Webb had that ministry of ventriloquism or puppetry,
remember that? But everything that Barry Webb
did, had an element of himself in it, didn't it? Because he
is inside the puppet. He's the one controlling the
puppet and making the puppet be seen. It's the same idea this
morning. How does somebody go from being
like this to being somebody that can honor God? It's because Christ
is in them and helping them. So what stood out to me, again,
as we just look back at it again, if you go back to Ephesians chapter
two, and beginning at verse eight, Says, for by grace are ye saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained, that we should walk in them. You know what's neat
to me? Is God's working on me this morning. God's making me into what he
wants me to be, and that God, takes somebody from where they
were and takes them to where He wants them to be. You might
be here this morning thinking, I can't get saved, why? Because I'm not
a good person. I mean, there's people that think they've got
to change themselves so that God will accept them and God
will allow them to come into His family, but it's rather the
opposite. It's that God takes us where
we are and then He changes us into his image as we accept the
gift that he offers through salvation by faith. So I hope that's encouragement
to you this morning. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful
for the word of God this morning. Father, we pray that the spirit
of God just take it deep into our hearts. And Father, give
us grace to yield. And there's so many different
ways that we can look at this morning, ways that you're working in our
lives, ways that you're changing us. This is just a brief overview
of some of those ways, but we are His workmanship created in
Christ Jesus onto good works. Father, it's not the kind of
works that people think about to try to achieve salvation.
It's just the fact that Christ could be seen in our lives. And
Father, that there is a change taking place, and there is a
change that is taking place. I pray this morning, Father,
if there's anybody that has struggled with salvation because they thought
they're not good enough, that they'd understand that it's not
dependent upon our goodness, but it's dependent upon us receiving
the gift of salvation by faith, through the grace that you offer
to us, and that you'll change us. And it's a process that takes
both us yielding ourselves to you and also you doing the work
in us. So I just pray, Spirit of God,
encourage us in that today. Father, you use your word. I'm
thankful for it this morning. Thank you, God, for your grace
and your help. It's in Christ's name I pray, amen. All right, our
hymn. Hear this as we have a hymn of
invitation. It's 251, near the cross, 251.
We Are His Workmanship
Although good people don't earn salvation. Those who get salvation by God's grace become good people. "We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works...."
| Sermon ID | 51716111301 |
| Duration | 45:26 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 2:8-10 |
| Language | English |