SONNET SAINTS
Ephesians 2:10
· This morning we looked at this wonderful gift of salvation that we possess. It is BY GRACE - THROUGH FAITH - OF GOD. As we look to verse 10 it reminded me of a story I once heard.
There was a minister out taking a walk on a beautiful street. He noticed a small boy attempting to ring the doorbell on the porch of a house. The boy was short and the doorbell was higher than usual. The boy could not quite reach it.
The minister stepped up to the porch beside the boy and reached up and aggressively rang the doorbell for the boy.
‘AND NOW WHAT YOUNG MAN? ‘NOW, the boy said, WE RUN LIKE CRAZY’!
Now that you know what salvation is and hopefully that you are saved: WHAT NEXT?
(10) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
· Next step after knowing you are saved it to know what it really means to be a saint.
· Grace doesn’t end at the moment of conversion but the same grace that delivered us from the penalty of sin also begins to deliver from the power of sin.
Sanctification is daily grace, it is that which makes what is true about us in position real about us in our behavior.
· Divide this into three different very important statements about us.
FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP,
1. God’s workmanship: What does that mean?
Some of the most interesting paintings that an artist might paint, at least to me, are what are called ‘self-portraits’. Michaelangelo, Norman Rockwell. You can see Van Gogh’s progression into insanity by looking at a series of self-portraits he painted.
We are to be God’s SELF-PORTRAITS. Where He can reproduce Himself on the canvas of our lives. Hopefully every passing year does not show a progression into insanity but a picture more and more exact to the Person of Christ.
2. Word for workmanship is really unique: ‘We are His masterpiece’. Only other place in Scripture this word is used is ROM 1:20 which talks about God’s creation being a testimony of Who He is.
a. Wonders of Creation: expanse of the galaxies, sun, moon, stars
b. Fearfully & wonderfully made: One strand of our DNA contains more information than the most complex computer.
Meaning is beyond the physical but talks of us spiritually.
c. God has a work in progress in our lives. Conversion was not the end but the beginning. We are NEW CREATIONS
d. Salvation was foundation but sanctification is the structure we build: 1 COR 3 Wood, hay, stubble or gold, silver, precious things.
1) Tools he builds with: His Word, our prayers, the circumstances and sufferings of life.
3. We get an English word from the Greek word for workmanship: POEM – We are God’s Psalm to share His truth to a lost world by using our lives.
FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP,
CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS,
1. Every wonder what you are here for? What God created you for?
John 11 Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. When Lazarus stepped out of that tomb, Jesus said, ‘LOOSE HIM AND LET HIM GO’. Get those graveclothes off of him.
Eph 4:22-24 That in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.
The NEW YOU: Created for righteousness and holiness.
2. The difference that Christ makes in our lives should be evident in a change of life that happens.
a. Verse 9 states that we are not saved by works but verse 10 assures us that if we belong to God then good works become evident in our lives.
b. Works do not produce salvation but are the evidence of salvation
JOHN CALVIN: It is faith alone that justifies but faith that justifies can never be alone.
Years ago a drunken man in Chicago headed towards Lake Michigan to drown himself. He stumbled past the PACIFIC GARDEN MISSION where someone got him in the door. He collapsed and fell asleep in front of the preacher who was speaking.
The superintendent cared for him, gave him a bed, and led him to the Lord the next morning.
HARRY MONROE was transformed by the grace of God that day and later would preach the gospel from the same platform where he once slept in a drunken stupor.
He would eventually become superintendent of the mission and
when he died it took all of a day for the people to pay their respects.
A NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL described him as ‘one of the most useful men in Chicago’. USEFUL? WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE: The world would not have missed a drunken derilict but God took His life and made him a masterpiece.
How useful are you to God?
3. Good works are meant to direct people beyond seeing us to seeing the God Who works through our lives.
Matt 5:16 Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
2 Cor 9:8 We should abound to every good work
Col 1:10 We should be fruitful in every good work
2 Timothy 3:17 ‘thoroughly equipped for every good work
Titus 2:14 we are to be zealous for every good work.
JOHN 15:8 Jesus said, ‘By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.
FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS,
WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND SO THAT WE WOULD WALK IN THEM.
1. How important are these good works to God. Packages He wrapped before the foundation of the world.
a. 1:4 Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Also chose the plans for our lives as well.
2. God pre-ordained that our lives should be lived as portraits of Who He is. In a lost world we might ring loud the truth through our lives.
Should give us a lot of encouragement to know. One young man was traveling with Ray Stedman as they approached Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Not exactly sure of how the ministry time would unfold there but as they prayed the young man said, ‘Father, I than you for the good works already prepared for us in Albuquerque, for the fact that they are waiting for us to step into them and experience them’.
ONE MISSIONARY was very discouraged and upset, ready to quit, when he came to understand this great truth. After considering this truth he said, ‘I am going back to my field completely revolutionized in my approach. Now I have learned how God operates’.
Phil 2:13 It is God Who is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
His twofold work: build the desire and complete the work through us.
ARE YOU WEARING GRAVECLOTHES OR GRACECLOTHES? Practicing your position in Christ Enjoying the benefits of Grace Living out the preordained plans of a loving God?
Ask it another way: Think about four animalsARE YOU A SALMON OR A JELLYFISH.
Are you more like a salmon or a jellyfish?
Salmons begin their lives in the fresh water rivers of the frigid Northwest. Not long after they are born they begin a long swim down stream. Their destination is the ocean. It is here that they spend the majority of their adult lives.
Then something strange happens. Scientists don’t even understand how, but at some point the adult salmon begins to swim back home. Though they may have swum thousands of miles from that original river location they head back home. They swim upstream, against the current of the river.
seen nature programs on TV that show them leaping out of the water to overcome waterfalls and other barriers impeding their progress. They face predators like bears and people. Incredibly, though they’ve been gone for years many of them return to the exact spot where they were born.
a documentary on one determined salmon that even swam through a maze of pipes and nudged open a grate to re-enter the hatchery where it was born. After an incredible effort the fish spawn and then die. The new salmon are soon born and repeat the process.
Does your life have a destination? Are you going in a specific direction and are you willing to face all the obstacles to get there?
Are you controlled by one overriding passion in life?
the jellyfish. There are numerous species of these yucky-looking little creatures. Some of them are tiny. Others have tentacles that can be measured in feet.
Jellyfish are born in the ocean and die there too.
They have limited movement, but never really use that ability to go in any particular destination. They’re moved along primary by the wind and waves and tides. They drift about stinging and surviving.
Are you more like a jellyfish than a salmon? You just kind of float from here to there. You’re carried by circumstances or other people’s plans, but you really have no particular destination of your own.
The difference between salmon and jellyfish is the same as the difference between people. Some have a direction. Most just drift.
Drifting can be fun. I’ve spent most of my life as a jellyfish. You just go with the flow enjoying life as much as you can.
The problem with that kind of life is that you don’t accomplish anything of significance. You reach your final days, scratch your head and ask, What was it all for anyway? Jellyfish people never find nor fulfill the reason for which they were created.
Then there are those who have direction. They can look back with satisfaction because they discovered their life’s purpose and went full force in that direction. That kind of living is one of the secrets of success. Successful people find and embark on their life’s purpose.
hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.
