The Workmanship of Grace

Everything we possess as believers is ours through and by the grace of God. We’ve earned nothing, deserved nothing and purchased nothing. Everything we have in Jesus Christ has been given to us by the grace of God.

God has given us the gift of His grace without asking for anything in return. And while God doesn’t expect us to repay Him for His grace, He does expect a return on His investment. The work of grace in us should result in some very real changes in our lives. These changes allow us to live for God and when we live according to His will, it brings glory to His name.

When grace comes to a lost, dead sinner, that sinner is born again as a “new creation” in Jesus.

The old desires and ways of living are put aside for a brand-new life in Jesus. What God works in us by grace will work its way out in our lives. Not only are we saved by His grace; we are changed by that same grace. As that grace works itself out in our lives, it reveals itself in us through our works.

Last week when we studied Ephesians 2:8-9, we learned that works play no part in our salvation. We’re not saved by what we do or by what we produce. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone! However, the proof that God’s grace has worked in us is our works after we are saved.

Someone said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”

In other words, works don’t save us, but we are saved to work.

James 2:18 ESV

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James is reminding us that while faith brings us into God’s salvation, our works prove the truth of our profession of faith.

The verse we are going to look at today is about the work of grace in our lives. It tells us what the Lord does in us when He saves us, and how He works through us to accomplish His will in the world. It’s a challenge to all of God’s people to be the examples of grace He saved us to be.

Let’s pray and we’ll read our verse for this morning.

Pray!

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The first thing that we’ll look at is a word:

About Workmanship

Paul begins this verse by saying, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.”

The words in the Bible are important because God inspired every word in the Bible. It may help us in our study of Scripture to look at the words used and this is especially helpful in understanding the meaning in this passage. So, let’s spend a few minutes doing just that.

workmanship

The word “workmanship” means, “that which is made, a work, a work of art”. It comes from the word that gives us the word “poem”. It refers to a “piece of literary workmanship.” It came to refer to an author’s greatest literary achievement. Basically, it refers to his “masterpiece.”

Paul is saying that the redeemed are God’s masterpieces, his greatest achievement, the greatest work of the Master Potter, the greatest letter ever written by the hand of the Master Author.

We are saved because He took the shapeless, dead clay of our lives in His loving, powerful hands and He molded us into something new for His glory. With loving care and infinite skill, God shaped us by His grace and wrote His love into our lives.

When you stop to think about the raw materials God has to work with when He saves sinners and changes live, it’s even more incredible!

The redeemed are God’s love letters to a lost world.

Paul says it this way,

2 Corinthians 3:2–3 ESV

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

If you are saved, your life is God’s love letter to a lost, dead world.

He’s written His love in you and on you. And through you, He tells the world that He loves sinners; that His Son died to redeem the lost; that there is life-changing power in the grace of God; that the Gospel is real, and that Jesus Christ makes a difference in every life He redeems through the power of His blood.

You are God’s billboard where He writes His love for the lost.

No artist paints a painting to hide it in a closet. No sculptor fashions a sculpture just to hide it so no one can see it. No writer pens a literary work to keep it away from the eyes of others. Every artist wants his paintings to be seen by many. Ever sculptor wants his work to be viewed by others. Every writer wants his words to be read by other people.

God didn’t save us to hide us within the walls of the church. God saved us to display us to the world. He saved us so that through us He might show others what He can do for them. If you are saved, you are God’s testimony to the world that He saves sinners.

Let the world see what God has done in you, with you and for you!

Michelangelo was once asked what he was doing as he chipped away at a shapeless rock.

He answered, ‘I’m liberating an angel from this stone.’

That’s what God is doing with us.

We are in the hands of the Creator, the ultimate sculptor who made the universe out of nothing, and he has never yet thrown away a rock on which he has begun a masterwork.

created

The word “created” means, “to form or to shape.” It refers “to making something out of nothing.” It speaks of “a new thing.”

That’s what the child of God is! One moment he is dead in trespasses and sins and the next he is alive in Jesus. The believer instantly becomes a child of God and is forever changed by the power of God.

When a sinner is saved, it’s the greatest of all miracles, and it is the greatest demonstration of God’s creative power. When God saves a sinner, a new person is formed. Something that has never before existed comes into being at the instant of salvation.

Psalm 19:1 ESV

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

The heavens above, the sun, the moon and the stars, all stand as testimonies to God’s power in creation. When you see them above you, they shout out, “There is a God! He made this!”

As surely as the stars, planets, sun and moon declare the existence and power of God, nothing declares His glory, His power and His existence more than a life that has been saved by grace!

Every child of God, who walks, talks, acts, thinks, and lives differently because of grace, is a bold, powerful witness to the power of our great God.

All around this room are living, breathing testimonies to the live-changing power of God. All around this room sit examples of His “workmanship.” All around this room sits the tangible evidence that God makes a new thing when He saves someone!

He takes something worthless and transformed into something of infinite value.

That’s almost enough to make a Baptist shout!

in Christ Jesus

The words “in Christ Jesus” remind us where the ground upon which salvation rests. When God makes a new creature out of a dead sinner, He does it in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the only way of salvation for the whole world.

The only way a sinner can be saved is by believing the Gospel, and Jesus Christ is the axel around which the Gospel turns.

If you are “in Christ Jesus” you are saved. If you are not, then you are lost!

1 John 5:12 ESV

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

The only way for you to be saved is to be “in Christ Jesus.” How? By believing the Gospel by faith. You “must be born again” and the only way for that to happen is for you to come to Jesus by faith and trust Him and Him alone for your salvation.

for

The word “for” carries us back to verses 8–9 where Paul told us that God’s salvation is not the result of works. We didn’t save ourselves. We didn’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We didn’t turn over a new leaf. We didn’t just decide one day to change out lives.

Salvation happens when God comes to us in grace, draws us to Jesus and gives us the faith to believe in Him. We become “new creations” but we didn’t make ourselves! We are the work of His hands, and we owe Him all the glory! There is no room for us to brag about who we are or what we have in Him. We are what we are “by the grace of God’”

We’ve looked at workmanship and next a word:

About Works

Paul tells us that we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

Works do not save us, but works are a sure product of our salvation. As surely as you are truly saved, “good works” will mark your life.

The word “good” means, “that which excels; is useful; of a good nature.”

The word “works” refers to “employment; that with which one is occupied.” In other words, it’s how you spend your time.

The child of God will live a life that is occupied with actions that reflect well on Jesus. The good works of our new life in Christ Jesus stand in stark contrast to the old works of the flesh. The new life God gives us when He saves us always manifests itself in “good works.”

When we are in truly Jesus Christ, our lives will be different.

When God saves someone and changes a life, He moves into that life and takes up residence. When God dwells in any life, He makes His presence known. If He’s in your heart, He’ll let His presence be known through the way you live your life.

The new life He creates within us when we are saved will always work its way out through us in our works. Whatever is on the inside of man always works its way to the outside.

Matthew 7:16–23 ESV

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

There are many who say they’re saved. They prayed a prayer, made a profession, walked an aisle, joined a church. They gave up a few sins. They did what they thought was required, but they missed the most important thing of all: they missed Jesus!

Because they missed Him, their lives never changed, and never produced those “good works” that are the evidence of genuine salvation!

Those folks are like the man who built his house on the sand. When the flood came, that house was destroyed. That’s what it will be like when the wrath of God falls on those who don’t know Jesus. If that life has never been redeemed by the blood of Jesus and saved by the grace of God, that person will be swept away into the fires of eternal punishment.

The message is simple: repent or perish!

And, if you truly repent and believe on Jesus, “good works” will mark your life. Not the works of the flesh, but the works of a new man, who is walking in faith!

We’ve looked at workmanship, works and finally a word:

About our walk

Referring to those “good works” Paul says, “which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This makes it clear that God expects His people to “walk in” “good works.” The word “walk” means, “to make one’s way; to regulate one’s life; to make full use of opportunities.”

It isn’t something you turn on and off. You don’t walk for God for six months, then for yourself for ten years.

How does God expect His people to walk?

· In Love

· In Obedience

· In Faithfulness

· In Holiness

God saves you from a life of sin and begins the process of transforming your life. He remakes you into the image of His Son. We’re not perfect the instant we get saved, but we are changed. That change should manifest itself in an ever-increasing holiness before God and before the world.

Once a little boy was acting up in his Sunday School class and his rowdy ways were really frustrating his teacher.

She said, “Why do you act like that? Don’t you know who made you?”

He said, “God did, but He ain’t through with me yet!”

That’s the truth; we’re all a work in progress. But, I have it on good authority that God will finish what He started in our lives.

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

You see, we weren’t saved by any accident. It was God’s plan to save us by grace so that we could live for Him. Before we ever came to Jesus, God had already planned the path for us to walk in life.

Jeremiah 1:5 ESV

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Psalm 37:23 ESV

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way;

Proverbs 16:9 ESV

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

The same is true for us. The Lord has planned our path through this world. We may make our plans and do the things we want to do, but in the end, the Lord’s will for our lives will be the final outcome.

It’s God’s will that His people do good works that have been prepared for us. Our calling is to surrender our lives and allow Him to take us where He will.

Find the path God has laid out for your life and walk in it for His glory! The fact is, a legitimate faith will always manifest itself in good works. If works are missing, so is saving faith.

Martin Luther, who had made himself champion of faith alone, said:

“Faith is a living, busy, active, powerful thing; it is impossible for it not to do us good continually. It never asks whether good works are to be done, but has done them before there is time to ask the question, and it is always doing them.”

A faith that is real reveals itself through works that are righteous! When God, through His grace, saves a sinner from the deadness, the deception, the depravity and the doom of his sins, He does not save that person to live as they please.

· He brings us out of death so we can live a new life in Christ!

· He brings us out of deception so we can know the truth.

· He saves us out of depravity so we can walk in righteousness.

· He saves us from their doom so we can enjoy the blessings of His salvation.

God doesn’t save us so that we can live for ourselves; He saves us so we can live for Him!

· He saves us so that we can walk in newness of life.

· He saves us so that He can use us for His glory in this world!

· He saves us to put us to work for Him in bringing a lost world to Jesus Christ.

As we close, here a couple of questions you need to consider.

Have you been saved and changed by God’s grace?

If not, you need to come to Jesus today. If you will come to Him, He will save your soul.

Is your life marked, not by perfection, but by a profound change and by works that glorify God?

If it is, you should thank God for that is evidence of your conversion, if it is not, then you should come to Jesus because your lack of works is evidence of your lost condition.

Are you doing everything God has called you to do?

If you are not, let me invite you to fully surrender to His will and allow Him to take the reins of your life for His glory.

Are you grateful to Him for His work of grace in your life?

If you are, come to Him today and thank Him for His life-changing work on your behalf.