God’s Masterpiece

GOD’S MASTERPIECE

Eph. 2:10; Phip. 1:6

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

Since this is Labor Day, I thought I would give you “The 7 Signs of Aging.”

B. GOD’S MASTERPIECE

1. Q: In the Universe, what do you think of when you think of God’s Masterpieces?

2. Examples:

a. Great Mountains c. Sunsets

b. Niagara Falls d. Hubble pics of galaxies

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F79Ck8rFIes

C. AMAZING THINGS ABOUT HUMANS

1. SNEEZE. A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.

2. SPIT. The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.

3. FEET. The feet account for one quarter of all the human bodies bones–that's 52 bones in the feet alone. A pair of feet has 250,000 sweat glands.

4. NOSE. Your nose is not as sensitive as a dog's, but it can remember 50,000 different scents.

5. SYMBIOSIS. Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

6. BRAIN. In man is a 3 pound brain which has a 100 billion neurons intricately linked to each other. The total number of connections in the brain approaches 1015 or 1,000 million million.

7. EYE. An eye is composed of more than 2 million working parts.

An eye cannot be transplanted. More than 1 million nerve fibers connect each eye to the brain. Your retina is thinner than paper, yet its tiny surface (only 1 inch square) contains 137 million light-sensitive cells. These retina cells perform up to 10 billion calculations per second in determining the nature of the image transmitted to the eye by light photons. No supercomputer on earth is capable of matching these virtually instantaneous calculations.

8. DNA. Francis Collins, the scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome, says, "When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information…you can't survey that…without a sense of awe….and…a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God's mind.”

D. THESIS

1. Eph. 2:10; “For we are God’s handiwork [“masterpiece” ISV, NLT], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

2. “Workmanship” = poiema (poem). Not “made in the USA” but “made by God.”

3. We are His masterpiece. Remember the creation account? The 6th Day?

4. Ps. 8:5, “Made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.”

5. You are the Crowning of God’s creation! I hear someone saying, “He didn’t do too good a job.”

6. Remember, God always makes Masterpieces! You are one. But there is a problem:

I. IDENTITY THEFT/ CRISIS

A. DEFINITION:

1. “Identity Crisis” was a term coined by psychologist Erik Erikson in 1970 for a developmental stage that especially teenagers experience when they lose a sense of “personal sameness and historical continuity.”

2. But this can happen to adults too, in our fast-paced world.

3. “Today we see millions desperately searching for their own shadows, devouring movies, plays, novels, and self-help books…that promise to help them locate their missing identities….They urgently wish to leave their present existence and leap somehow to a new life – to become what they are not.” Alvin Toffler.

B. THERE’S A SPIRITUAL IDENTITY CRISIS!

1. There are many Christians who, when they go to church, they are:

a. Drawn into God’s Presence &

b. Spiritual things become real;

c. They hear the Word &

d. Are convicted of its importance & their need to obey.

e. They may even come to the front & “make a commitment.”

2. But almost as soon as they get out the door of the church,

a. They forget their identity;

b. They forget what they’ve heard.

c. They forget all that God’s done for them.

3. Like the Scriptures:

a. 23 “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like” James 1:24.

b. “But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins” 1 Pet. 1:9.

4. Most Christians live beneath God’s will for them. Some think of themselves like creations from the Junkyard Wars (The Learning Channel series). It was an engineering contest where people had to build machines with parts they scrounged out of a junkyard.

5. Example – the teams were required to make a street cleaner, a torpedo, a monster truck, and an egg shooter, all out of junk. The egg shooter was a machine that would shoot an ostrich egg as far as possible and bring it back to earth in one piece.