Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Epistle Lesson just read, from Ephesians 2. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- Some of the people who were listening to Jesus once asked Him: “What must we do to be doing the works of God?” This appears to be a very pious question – and how often we wish that many more people might be genuinely concerned about and committed to “doing the works of God.” This seems to us – pious and committed Christians – to be the most important thing a person could consider and be committed to.
- However, Jesus answered their question by asserting something even more important. He responded by saying: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.” The people asked about what work they should be doing; Jesus responded by talking about something even more important, and that is the work that God is doing – bringing people to faith in Jesus!
- We too need to be confronted with this most basic of considerations: What is more important, the works that we should be doing, or the work that God is doing, the work He seeks to do in us and through us? For you see, this is one of the most basic religious questions, and it is also the most fundamental question in regard to our relationship with God.
- And the answer to this question is what distinguishes “Christianity” and the faith and religion of the Bible from all other religions. Christianity, and the Bible, clearly teaches that what is essential, what really matters, is the work of God, what He is doing – and there are a number of essential reasons for this. Every other religion in the world asserts that what is most important is the works that we do – and views God as thinking the same and demanding the same from us.
- But Paul makes clear in our text that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Yes, our works are important, but not nearly as important as God’s work. In fact, without God’s work upon us and in us it is impossible for us to do God’s works, to do truly good works at all. This requires humility – and willingness to allow God to do His work for us and in us. And this is the point of God’s Word, for His Word is the means that He uses to bring us to “believe in the One Whom He has sent,” thus “creating us in Christ Jesus.”
- His Word is the “tool” that He uses upon us if we are in fact “His workmanship.” But all of this requires a great humbling of us – acknowledgement that we are needy, that we require His work upon us and in us! This is the gist of our text – that we be “HUMBLE AS GOD’S WORKMANSHIP.”
I. We Must Never Forget What We Once Were, What Human Beings Are By Nature
Text: “And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom WE ALL once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
Statement: Because God began His “work” upon us early on, for most of us in our baptism as infants or young children – and Scripture says of Baptism that it is “a washing of regeneration [rebirth] and renewing in the Holy Spirit” – this description of us in our text is hard for us to fathom and believe. Yet enough of our sinful nature remains that we surely understand “the passions of our flesh” and the sinful “desires of the body and the mind.” In fact, if we are “His workmanship” we are constantly aware of this inner dissonance and our whole life is one of conflict – fighting against the sin which is enmeshed in our whole being. We do so principally through repentance – acknowledging and confessing this sin and rejoicing in His gracious forgiveness and mercy.
Application: But if our focus is upon our “goodness” and the “good works” which we do to commend ourselves to God and to others, then we are essentially committed to “looking away” from the reality of our sin and are denying our need for God’s gracious mercy. The one who assumes and believes that he has the capacity for “good” denies his need for repentance – even when confronted directly with his sin and guilt. He must rather deny it, or minimize it, or excuse it, or justify it with clever rationalizations – and we are all well aware of how adept we are at doing this, which is also grotesque sin and rebellion against God and the truth.
This is humbling to be sure, even crippling inwardly, but it opens our hearts and minds to the greatest work of God. And it is certain that:
II. We Must Always Keep In Mind God’s Gracious Mercy, Forgiveness, And His Gift Of Salvation In Christ Jesus
A. Our Sins Have All Been Forgiven And Washed Away From Us In Christ’s Blood
John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.”
Eph. 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
1 John 1:7 “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sins.”
1 John 2:2 “He is the blood atonement for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
B. We Have Been Called To This Faith By God – Raised From Spiritual Death To Life By God Himself – And We Are Even Now Exalted With Christ
Text: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up together with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . . by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.”
Statement: If this is true – and it is, clearly asserted by Scripture, by God’s own Word – then how could anyone ever think that our works are of greater importance than God’s work? It is an utterly absurd comparison, yet one that demonstrates the utter confusion and darkness of the minds of the vast majority of human beings, including our fellow citizens living around us, whose minds are captivated by the prince of darkness!
Application: Sadly, even among those in whom God has done this great work, the power of darkness and our own sinful nature continues to try to inject confusion and disorientation into our hearts and minds – luring us to forsake our contemplation of God’s work and to not allow Him to continue His work in us, but instead focusing our minds back on “our work.” But this will only plunge us back into spiritual death and make us once again children of wrath. May God preserve us!
So we are encouraged by Jesus, by God Himself, to focus on the works of God, to allow God to do His work in us, to be His workmanship! For only then is our life and our work of any enduring or abiding value and goodness! Our text encourages us to:
III. Live Humbly As God’s Workmanship, Created In Christ Jesus By Faith And Trust In God’s Gracious And Merciful Salvation, For The Good Works That He Has Appointed To Us And Destined Us For
Text: “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should be walking in them.”
Statement: If we are His workmanship then our good works are not so much our own but what God has foreordained and prepared for us to be doing. In other words, our good works are principally and primarily God’s work! That is not to say that we are not doing them – we are! But it is to acknowledge that “it is God Who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” It is God’s work that matters, and His work alone.
Application: If we humble ourselves to understand and acknowledge these things, we are allowing God to do His work in us, and He will be crafting us for a most rich and blessed life. We will not be arrogantly and presumptuously taking credit for anything good that we do, but will instead be humbly and self-effacingly giving all praise, thanks, and glory to God. And while we will remain painfully aware of the sin within us, other children of God will in fact be aware of the marvelous things God is working in us and through us – although there will also be many wicked and unbelieving people who are incapable of seeing God’s work in us and who remain compelled to criticize, attack, and accuse us! But God will both protect us from them and deal with their dark malice and malevolence against us – we who are in fact His workmanship, His dearly beloved children!
Conclusion: These are your existential options in regard to your own person and being, in regard to God – what He wills for you, and in regard to your religion and faith. There is no question as to the work that God is doing, the work that He wills to do for you as well. There is no question that His will is for us to be “HUMBLE AS GOD’S WORKMANSHIP,” and to be among those in whom His blessed work is accomplished.
The path is humility – true and genuine repentance and confession, true and genuine faith and trust in the goodness and kindness and mercy of God, and willingness to allow Him to be doing His ongoing and continuing work in us, so that humbly and compliantly He accomplishes through us the good works which He has foreordained for us to be walking in.
May God grant such blessedness to each and every one of us, and for us to be blessed to live in a fellowship of His people, fellow believers who can see and recognize His gracious and miraculous work! Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.