Sonnet Saints Series

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.