Note: In preparation for this message, I set the atmosphere as such:
1) We hung artwork (Van Gogh, Kandinksy, Salvador Dali) around the auditorium, on easels.
2) We played classical music - ambience.
3) An artist in our church made a painting of three crosses (in remembrance of Good Friday) that I displayed on the communion table to unveil during the message.
4) We purchased canvas and paints and at the end of the message, the entire church contributed to a collage, solidifying our commitment to the church.
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Throughout my life, I have had the change to visit some museums in the world. I have visited world famous museums in Washington DC, New York, Boston, Madrid, and Toledo, Spain. I love artwork. I love seeing how completely worthless materials, when put together in such a way by a capable artist, becomes a treasure.
A man takes some regular paint, a typical canvas, and some regular paint brushes – and over a small period of time – “Presto!” – a Van Gogh is created! Or a Salvador Dali! Or a Kandinsky! Valuable pieces of art are created with the most ordinary, worthless materials.
I don’t know if you realize this, but the Bible talks about God Himself being an artist, taking ordinary materials and making them into magnificent displays of His greatness. Look at Psalm 19:1 on sheet – let’s read it together – “The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.” How many craftsmen or artists are there in here today? You take after God, who is Himself a Craftsman, the Master Artist.
From the beginning of creation, God shows Himself to be an Artist. Turn to Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created…” – 5 words into the Bible, we see God as artistic, creative. And according to Genesis, He created everything. There is nothing in this world that exists that God did not create, because part of God’s nature is to create and make things beautiful. Genesis chapters 1 & 2 record the creation of the world, and notice in – Genesis 2:7 – turn there (on screen) – “And the LORD God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.” God acts just like an Artist or Craftsman by taking worthless materials (“dust of the ground”) and making them into something valuable (man). Mankind is part of God’s glorious artwork – even David pointed this out in Psalm 8:5 (on sheet), “For you made us only a little lower than God,, and you crowned us with glory and honor.”
So mankind, as the crowning point of God’s creation, the masterpiece, is placed on the earth that God created, and is given some instructions, one of which is recorded in Genesis 2:15-16 (on screen), The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. 16But the LORD God gave him this warning: "You may freely eat any fruit in the garden 17except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die." The permission to “have anything you want” is followed by a simple warning – “if you disobey Me in this one small area, you will die.” God’s masterpiece would become a major mess.
Listen to this news story dated January 30, 3006:
A visitor to a British museum destroyed a set of priceless 300-year-old Chinese vases after tripping up on his shoelace, the Daily Telegraph reports. The three Qing vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, had stood on a windowsill at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for at least 40 years. Their prominent position made them among its best-known artifacts, the paper said. The report was accompanied by a photo, taken by another visitor, of the culprit, an unnamed man in his 40s, attempting to pick himself up among the porcelain debris after last week’s accident. Steve Baxter, another visitor who saw the accident, was quoted as saying: "We watched the man fall as if in slow motion. He landed in the middle of the vases and they splintered into a million pieces." "He was still sitting there stunned when museum staff appeared. Everyone stood around in silence, as if in shock. Then the man started talking. He kept pointing to his shoelace and saying, ’There it is; that’s the culprit!’ (taken from ABC News Online, January 30, 2006).
I could not imagine the complete embarrassment and horror of breaking something priceless like this. It was a masterpiece that turned into a major mess. From masterpiece to major mess – created to be a thing of beauty, preserved over the centuries – in one careless move it went from timeless treasure into tiny pieces of trash - what a tragedy!
Turn to and let’s read Genesis 3:1-7 (on screen). God’s masterpiece – mankind - turned into a major mess because of a moment of carelessness and disobedience. While Genesis 1 & 2 are inundated with words speaking of creation and artistic beauty, the words in chapter 3 after Adam & Eve’s sin, reflect a ruined masterpiece:
• Vs. 7 – “they felt shame…”
• Vs. 8 – “they hid…”
• Vs. 10 – they were “afraid”
• Vs. 14 – “you will be punished”
• Vs. 15 – “you will be enemies”
• Vs. 16 – there will be “intense pain and suffering”
• Vs. 17 – this will be “cursed…”
• Vs. 18 – “you will struggle…”
• Vs. 19 – you will “sweat…”
• Vs. 19 – this will happen “until your dying day…”
What ruined the masterpiece? Sin and disobedience. Where we have been in Ephesians 2 has revealed the long lasting effects of Adam’s sin. Paul reminds us in verses 1-3 that we were hopeless and helpless, dead in our sins. The masterpiece that we were in Genesis 1-2 turned into major messes, and Paul exposes us to be hopeless and helpless messes in Ephesians 2:1-3.
But what are the first two words of Ephesians 2:4 that we have emphasized over the past 3-4 weeks? “But God…” These two words, words representing God’s grace and kindness, launch us today into how we can become masterpieces of grace instead of major messes of sin. Let’s read Ephesians 2:7-10 (NIV) together (screen).
Over the next two weeks, I want to give you seven declarations of truth (we’ve been focusing on truth), that will help you live as God’s masterpiece, even if you’re life currently reflects a major mess. I’ll give you three today, and then four next week for Resurrection Sunday.
Declaration #1: I am timeless – vs. 7. What does that mean? Well, God created us to live forever. God is the only Being that has always existed and always will exist. We are created beings, meaning we had a beginning. But God made us so that we will never stop existing. Even after you and I die physically, our spirits will continue to exist for eternity.
Paul writes here in Ephesians 2:7 that God has extended a wonderful invitation to all of us, to live “in the coming ages” as examples and trophies of the Almighty Artist forever. The term “in the coming ages” refers to eternity, as in “in the coming epochs” – that is, God wants you and me to forever be examples of what He did for us, of His grace. What is grace? Grace is undeserved kindness extended to me, and it is God’s response to my guilt. God didn’t have to extend His grace to us, but He did. And it will be because we embrace His kindness and grace that we will continue to live forever even when we physically die, because God made us to be timeless.
But there’s a flip side to this – you can choose to live your life as a major mess – denying God’s grace and living your life without God. Because the fact is, masterpiece or major-mess, you are still timeless. If you are living as a major mess, denying God’s grace, whether you are a Christian or non-Christian, you need to know that God created you for different purposes. And God’s grace, regardless of your sin, is still there. I believe even right now He is pursuing you, begging you to turn your life over to Him while there is still time. He created you to be a timeless example of His grace, not a timeless example of His judgment.
But there is a second declaration of truth, and that is this:
Declaration #2: I am priceless – vs. 8-9. This is a simple yet profound statement – let’s read verses 8-9 again (sheets), “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Salvation is a gift of God – you can’t possibly purchase it because it is priceless. But it is a gift that is reflective of God’s love for us – a priceless gift for a priceless creation.
Illus: Take out and hold up a $20.00 bill. Ask, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Crumple the $20 dollar bill up, then ask, "Who still wants it?"
"What if I do this?" Drop it on the ground and start to grind it into the floor with your shoe. Pick it up, crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?"
There’s a valuable lesson here. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make, and the circumstances that come our way. Eventually, we feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, God still desires you and loves you – remember last week – grace means that there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, or make God love me less. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to God. In God’s eyes, our worth comes from who we are – priceless treasures.
God thought we were so valuable that He gave His Son, Jesus Christ (unveil Amy’s painting). There was no amount of money or good works for us to do that could have changed our hopeless and helpless state (remember our status from vs. 1-3?). But then Jesus came and died for OUR sins so that we could have an eternal relationship with God, which is why we remember Good Fridat. He paid the price we could not because He considers us PRICELESS.
Invitation for non-Christians.
But there is one more declaration – and this is an interactive declaration.
Declaration #3: I am part of a greater picture – vs. 10 “For we are God’s workmanship…” The fact is that we are God’s specially crafted piece of work (not like, “you’re a real piece of work, Chuck!) – the Greek word here is the word “poinma” – from which we get the word “poem” and which is also translated “masterpiece.” You thought I came up with the term “masterpiece” on my own, but Paul tells us that God considers us to be His “masterpieces!” Wow!
And because this is a two part message, I want to steer us in one direction this week and then a different direction last week as we look at this last declaration. As I looked at verse 10, Paul writes “WE are His workmanship/masterpiece” – he switched from “you” to saying “we,” from individual worth to corporate worth. This leaped out at me. While I do believe this has personal application, I can’t help but think that there is some reference here to “we, the church, are His workmanship…” Turn to Ephesians 5:25-27 (on screen).
God loved the church and gave Himself for her. He desires to one present the church (including The Journey) as spotless, unblemished church. While this refers to the church as the Bride of Christ, it is important to know that the church is God’s masterpiece as well.
Christian, you are part of this great picture, this great poem, this great masterpiece called “the church.” Many of you are specifically a part of this body at The Journey. God through His Word and His Spirit, is teaching us and training us. I believe every week, like an artist applying the paint in exactly the right places, God is making us more and more what we are to become. He does this through the preaching, the fellowship, and the worship. He also does this through adversity. Notice the phrase in verse 10, “we were…created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
There are good works that God has already set aside for you to do that will rise out of necessity. Someone will need you to minister to them, and God will put you in the right place at the right time to do it. When you act, the church acts because you are part of the greater picture.
There are also good works that God has set aside for you to do that will arise out of adversity. Someone will mistreat you or talk about you or respond to you in a wrong way, and God puts you in that place at that time so that you can do the right thing – this happens right here at the church. We get mad and angry when adversity comes in the form of a person or an event, and yet God wants to use that adversity in our church to mold us more and more into His masterpiece.
I call on us now, as we get ready in three months to celebrate our 3rd anniversary, I call on us to recommit ourselves to this church as God’s masterpiece. Let’s recommit ourselves to the five purposes of the church (from 40 Days) – worship (loving God more), fellowship (loving each other more), discipleship (growing in our relationship with God), evangelism (loving others not at the Journey), and service (doing God’s work at God’s time). “WE ARE GOD’S MASTERPIECE” at The Journey.
Where is your place in this masterpiece called The Journey? I want to call you to action this morning. If you are a member, or considering becoming one, or even committing today, I want to ask you to commit to making the Journey a masterpiece of God, and not a major mess. Would you pray this prayer of commitment with me: Heavenly Father, I receive the truth that I am a timeless, priceless masterpiece, an example of your grace and kindness. Because of these truths, I recommit myself to the greater picture. I will be what you want me to be as part of this church. I will act towards others the way that You want me to act. I recommit myself to loving You more and loving others more, to growing in You, to telling others about You, and to serving you whenever I can. I want to make The Journey all that you want it to be – Your masterpiece, In Jesus name, amen.”
(Heads still bowed) Raise your hand if you prayed that with me? (Look up). I want to invite you to solidify your commitment to this church by becoming a part of our first corporate piece of art (even if you didn’t raise your hand). But by participating in this, you are solidifying your commitment to this church and to our God. We are God’s masterpiece.
