Created For Good Works

Created for Good Works

June 15, 2008 Evening Service

Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK

Rick Boyne

Message Point: We are saved by grace IN ORDER to do good works.

Focus Passage: Ephesians 2:1-10

Supplemental Passage:

Introduction: Before and After tactics of advertising.

I. Before:

a. DEAD!

b. Indulging in desires of the flesh

c. Objects of God’s wrath

II. After:

a. ALIVE!

b. Raised up with Him

c. Seated with Him

III. How:

a. Grace

b. Gift:

IV. Why:

a. For good works

b. God has already prepared them for us

c. We can let God direct us in our spiritual service to Him.

Invitation: We think we have to work for God’s love and approval rather than simply accepting His gift by faith. Do you struggle with that? Do you find your service to God becoming an attempt to earn His love and acceptance – in essence trying to earn your salvation? Works don’t save us – they don’t make us more holy or more spiritual or more important to God. But works flow naturally out of who we have been made to be by the craftsmanship of God. We are not saved BY works, but FOR works. So they are important – they are crucial – but they do not earn us salvation of more of God’s love.