Even everyone that is called
by my name, I have created him for my glory. I have formed him,
yea, I have made him. This people have I formed for
myself. They shall show forth my praise. And then those wonderful passages
in Ephesians 2, For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. For, or because we're God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them. When I was a little boy, I had
some great Sunday school teachers. One of them was Joe Bixler. He
was a deacon as well at Grace Baptist Church in Warren, Michigan.
But he made the Bible come alive for me in Sunday school. And
when I acknowledged that I felt like God had called me to preach,
One Sunday after service, he said to me, hey, I found a passage
that I think you could preach from that you would really like
if you can find out what it means. And I said, well, okay. And he
said, it's Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship. created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained."
He said, Kent, I think if you'll find out what that means, you'll
have some preaching material. And for years, that became my
mainstay. I studied Ephesians 2.10, preached
at Bible conferences from Ephesians 2.10. He got thrown out of the
Baptist Church because of Ephesians 2.10. Last Sunday, Elder Sasser used
as his text the most quoted passage of scripture that's used here
at Grace Gospel Fellowship and Grace Centers of Hope. If you've been here once, you
have probably heard Romans 8, 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are
the called according to his purpose. God's purpose. This morning,
I'm going to speak to you from the second most quoted scripture
here at Grace Gospel Fellowship, Ephesians 2. We say quite often
here, for by grace are you saved through faith. And that faith
is not of yourself. It is the gift of God. not of
works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works." I wish you and I could just get
lost today in that truth, that I truly am the poema The Greek
word workmanship, poiema. I am the masterpiece of God. I am God's masterpiece. I am God's poem. Say, well, I
don't know about that. I have so much mess in my life. Well, God's still writing the
poem. He's not finished with you yet. You know, you are still
under construction. Did you know that? God's not
through with you. What a mess we all are in our
flesh. There's nothing good in the flesh,
correct? You know why we are told that
we are His workmanship? Because God wants us to clearly
know that we're not saved by our works. So, Pastor, we all
know that. Really? Do you? Then why so much
boasting and bragging? Do you really know how bad you
were? Do you know how far away from God you were? Do you know
what a mess you were? You know, God didn't find you
all cleaned up nice and neat. He found you in a pit. Don't
ever forget where God brought you. He's brought you a mighty
long ways, hasn't he? A mighty long ways. So the apostle Paul says, for
we're his workmanship. It's not by works. You understand
we're the poem of God. We're the masterpiece of God.
That's what you are, a masterpiece. I mean, you are beautiful. I understand the ugliness of
the flesh. I do understand that. But God
has been working on you. And salvation is not by works.
If God doesn't do something for you, you will surely perish.
That's just the absolute truth. You're in dire need of God's
work in and on you. Amen. That's true. So it's not
by works. So all of you Catholic, Baptists,
Presbyterians, making your boast in what denomination you belong
to, it's all dung. It amounts to nothing. In fact,
your brag and boast of your denominationalism is nothing but dung in the sight
of God. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, due to
the glory of God, quit talking about your church entity. We are Christians. I wonder,
have you ever considered what would come from your flesh in
the form of some kind of creation? I mean, if you were able to make
yourself a creation, wonder what form that would be. I mean, let's
say, in my flesh dwells no good thing. So, what would you create? It wouldn't be a masterpiece.
It wouldn't be something beautiful. God has made something beautiful
out of his people. And that's what the apostle is
telling us here. The truth is, the truth is this,
that right now your flesh can be described in this manner,
half beast and half demon. My flesh, your flesh. But I'm
a Christian, you just said I'm a masterpiece. I'm talking about
what God has done. You in your flesh, left by yourself,
are a loathsome mess. All of you who are continuing
in the addiction use, using those types of things to try to get
through life, what a mess you are. And if God, and those of
us who are in here who are new creatures in Christ, if God had
left us to ourselves, we'd still be in that mess. You know, many
of you are in here living in what you created yourself out
of your flesh. That's exactly right. You did
it. The devil didn't make you do it. You did it. Your flesh
is no good. And you need a God work. You
need God to do something for you. I was thinking last night,
when you consider the mass of hellions, if you were to be able
to visit hell, Think about them proposing to
create something. That mass of people that are
in hell, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, nothing
but self-centeredness, nothing but hatred for God, enmity toward
God, creating something. It's been amazing to me the past
40 years to see how creative the flesh is. You know, I've
seen about every kind of crack pipe there is. Everything from
Pepsi cans to bolts and nuts. You are a creative bunch. Just consider this. Think about your own imagination.
And every Christian in here knows that their fleshly imagination
is absolutely wicked. I don't want to hear about yours.
I got enough problems with my own. Oh, we're creative in our
flesh. You think about what you... Just
consider for a few minutes, it'll frighten you how depraved and
despicable our flesh is. So consider the cesspool of hell
attempting to make itself acceptable to God by their own works. Just
consider that. I know you're going to quit using.
I know that. You're going to quit fornicating. You're going to quit having sex
outside of marriage. I know you're going to turn over
a new leaf. I know you're going to get better this new year. No. No. You need to be rescued. You see,
you're like my FIBA chef. You're a dead dog beside the
road, rotting. on the inside. Your only hope
is that God will come where you are and do for you what you cannot
do for yourself. You need a miracle. Do you understand
that we're shut up here to seeing miracles happen? And that
we have seen them happen. God does miracles. This people have I formed for
myself. Do you understand that God is
at work bringing together a people that will one day inhabit the
new heavens and a new earth and that will give him all the glory
and all the praise and all the honor? God has a people. He does. That's a great truth that God
has a people. a people that he has formed,
a people that he has created. We are God's workmanship. They are his people, but not
through any doing of their own. I thought last night somebody
there is going to say, well, that's all he preaches, that
we're not saved by works. Yes, until you get it. Until you get it. until you hoist
the white flag and lay the shotgun down and believe that God is
able to deliver you. You see, all of God's people
are not self-made children of God. None of them are. You're
not self-made. You ought to be thinking things
like this. And I believe some of you are. Oh, when I was out
there, He came to me. I didn't first love Him. He first
loved me. And when I was crazy and insane,
He came where I was. I didn't give God a chance. You know, I heard the other day
a preacher say, you've got to give God something to work with. I thought, you're insane, man. How are you going to come up
to give God something? Besides, God doesn't need you.
And God doesn't owe you anything but extreme justice if He gives
you what you deserve. All of those of you who are here
and just, you know what? I just want God to give me what
I deserve. You've heard me say this thousands of times. You
don't want that. You don't want what you deserve. We're in an entitlement type
atmosphere here in America, and it all comes out of this. Everybody
owes me. The government owes me. Society
owes me. Mom and dad owe me. Everybody
owes me. No, you don't want what you deserve. You don't want God to give you
what you deserve. Here's what God says about his
people. I want you to think about this.
And Ephesians 2 and Isaiah 43 are such plain passages about
this truth, that salvation's of God. You know, for you to
go crazy, you know, all God has to do is take his hand off you.
You don't wanna ever say, just keep your hands off me. Just,
God, just leave me alone. I had a man with cancer. He was dying with cancer. He'd
been a very strong, rebellious type guy. Weighed, you know,
like nearly 300 pounds. But anyway... His wife asked
me to visit him in the hospital. I went up to visit him, and as
soon as I walked through the door, he said this to me, for
God's sake, preacher, leave me alone. And I said, you know what? For God's sake, I will. You don't
want God to leave you alone. What you want is an intervention
by God in your life. to come where you are. There
are some of you here this morning who are lost and in your sins.
You've never come to know Christ as your sin bearer. Your chains
are not gone. You're still in lockdown. Locked
up in your mess. Those chains have not been broken
yet. What you ought to be praying
for is not for 12 o'clock to come and pastor to stop. but
for a Holy Spirit intervention with you in this service right
now, today. I want you to note this, Ephesians
1 and 2 starts out by just saying this, Bless God. That's what verse three says
of chapter one, bless God. The apostle Paul starts out with
excitement and a hallelujah in his voice. In verse three, he
said of chapter one of Ephesians, blessed be the God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. Are you having a bless God moment
right now? Well, there is reason for you to have it. If God has
visited you, if God has done something in your heart and life,
you can say, bless God. I am a child of God. I just told
you God has a people. Are you one of them? If you are,
you're doing like the apostle Paul, bless God. And then the
apostle says this in Ephesians 1, 6, that God has saved this
people to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has
made us accepted in the beloved. If you know how dirty you were
before God came to you and worked in your heart and life, you'd
be praising grace too. Don't preach any of that work
stuff to me. Tell me about the grace of God, right? to the praise
of the glory of his grace. In fact, some of you, I know
while I've been speaking, I just feel like you've wanted to go
like this. You ought to. You ought to praise God. There
ought to be praise in this place. From people who have been brought
out of darkness, just consider where God found you. And that
he found you, as Pastor Sasson said, on purpose, for a purpose,
to do his purpose. You're not an accident. God has
an elect people. Amen. And here's what he says in verse
four of Ephesians one, according as he had chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Predestination, don't you love that word? You are a bucking
bronco. Until a tall cowboy came to where
you were and broke you. And his name was Jesus Christ.
He came. And tamed you down, literally. He saved you. His people, they
are chosen, His elect. Isaiah said that we have been
bought, redeemed by Him, that His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. You've been
saved from your... Do you know 2,000 years ago,
on the tree of the cross, Jesus paid your debt if you're here
and a believer? I mean, you have no debt. This
week, Miss Pam and I are in the past month, the month of February,
we got to talk to people with guilt. guilt and shame. And I was telling him about this
Christ. If he paid it, he paid it in full. You have no condemnation. Do you understand that? Why do
you keep kicking yourself around if you're a believer in Jesus
Christ? Why do you fear death? Why do you fear facing God? There's no judgment. He's loved
you. He bare your sins in his own
body on the tree of the cross. You'll never go to hell, there's
no condemnation. He loved you before there was
a world, before he ever said, let there be light. Before the
first dew ever fell on this earth, God loved you and had your name
written in his book. And while saying you were predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son, And this is a great truth. For
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate. And whom he
predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? I'm persuaded that neither
life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. He called
you by name. Have you heard him calling you?
We used to sing in the old church, I can hear my savior calling.
Have you ever heard? Have you ever heard your savior
calling, calling you to repentance and faith? Have you ever heard
him calling you? Are you being called today to
faith in Christ? I don't know what you're talking
about, preacher. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about somebody. today who is hearing his voice
as this feeble preacher proclaims the good news that there is no
condemnation to those that are in Christ. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Awesome. You know, that
could happen today. Pass from death unto life. Do you hear His voice? You'll
know His voice. Say, I don't know what you're
talking about. Well, if you ever hear His voice, you'll know.
I mean, deep down inside, you can hear your Savior calling. He has regenerated you. By the
time you hear His voice, He's given you life. Think about how
corrupt you were. The Apostle Paul says, and you
have been made alive who were dead. Dead! You ever been around a dead carcass
of any kind? You were dead. I was dead in
sins. and trespasses. We were like
a person who had been stabbed a thousand times. We were dead,
dead to God, inactive toward God. Can you remember those of
us who can, who have been converted and come to know Christ? We remember
how crazy we were. I mean absolutely out of our
minds to think you can drink yourself to happiness, that you
can smoke yourself to happiness, that you can inject stuff in
your bodies, that you can commit sexual sins that will bring a
heaven on earth. That's insanity. It will not
happen. So, you're out there. Some of
you, many of you in here attended Grace Centers of Hope. But it
wasn't until you were bankrupt. Most people don't drive by, there
won't be a lot of drive-bys tomorrow and say, yeah, I think I'll stop
over there and talk to them about getting off drugs. No, no, no. No, you have to lose your house,
lose your car, lose your wife or husband, lose your children,
the courts take over. And then finally, a block from
hell. you end up over at Grace Centers
of Hope. And the truth is that he brings
all of his people through that route. Maybe not over to Grace
Centers, but eventually you're gonna hit rock bottom. Whether
you're a multimillionaire drinking yourself to death and can't find
any peace or happiness with all your money. I just spent a month
with folks who are very wealthy. It was an amazing time to watch. And to see, you can have all
the money in the world. I'm talking about people with
lots of money. I'm talking about a guy who was telling me that
he sold his business for $100 million. Ah, high cotton. Do you know the joy of the Lord
that there's no condemnation and judgment? Do you know that
I am special? I am His workmanship. I'm His
poem that He's still writing and finishing, but I'm a masterpiece. Do you understand that He who
began the good work in you? I mean, He had to start working
on you, because you were a mess. You had nothing to offer him.
He had nothing to work with. You didn't bring God something
to work with. What would he want with your
filthy rags of unrighteousness? So God came to you. You know,
I'm standing up here and I'm being amazed as I'm speaking.
I'm preaching to myself. I am out of nothing. Psalm 14 says that God looked
down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
good men or women that did seek after Him. And He looked down
through time and the conclusion was, no, not one. You're not a pretty good person.
You were evil and sinful we were. And God came and gave us life. We were living in spiritual death. We were anti-God. We were enmity
against God. Not at enmity. We didn't just
dislike God. We wanted nothing to do with
God. Nothing to do with Sunday morning church. Nothing to do
with righteousness. Nothing to do with helping other
people. Nothing to do with any of that. And He gave us life. And you hath He quickened who
were dead. That's what Ephesians 2, 1 says. So let's say, God chose us, we
didn't choose Him. I say, God redeemed us in the
person of His Son. So Christ came to earth 2,000
years ago and bought and paid for us. Yeah, you were really
saved over 2,000 years ago. That's a long time. Oh, you didn't
know it. So, God sent the Holy Spirit
so you could find out. And one day, you heard a hillbilly
preacher preaching the gospel. That God invaded history. That
God came down to earth, not to spy out our sins, but to deliver
us from our sins. That God did that. And His name
shall be called Jesus, not because He's going to try to save us,
but He shall actually save us. He said it's finished 2,000 years
ago on the tree. It's done. It's paid for. It's
over. And then you were born. I've
had people say, you know, I was almost stillborn. No, you weren't. I've had people say this to me.
You know, I really don't even know who my real mother and father
was. I am such an accident. No, you're
not. Not if you're in Christ. All
of that was predetermined and planned. That was God's purpose
for you. And if you look over your life,
you'll see it's absolutely amazing how He shut you up. how you tried
to run away, how you tried to get away from Him, how you tried
not to listen, how you would not come to Him. You'd try crack,
you'd try heroin, you'd try drugs or sex or whatever, but you would
not come to Him that you might have life. And finally, all of
those things fail till you ran out of steam. and simply trusted Jesus Christ. Some of you have tried so hard
to be a good Catholic, but what a mess you are. Just what a mess. And then you look at how the
church is failing. I don't care what church you
belong to, there's such mess in church. You know why? Because
all of us are mess who belong to the church. We need a God
who is able to take nothing We need a creator God. You see,
I don't need just to turn over a new leaf. I need a new heart. I need a new heart. I don't need
conformity. I need a new heart. I need new
desires. I need to be made a new creation. That's spiritual. That's something
you can't see. And it happens on your inside when God says,
live, live. I wonder if there's anybody here
just fighting like crazy not to trust Christ today. I mean,
you're troubled by all of this. You're troubled by what I'm saying. There's a war going on inside. Your flesh is saying it can't
be that simple. You've got to do something. You've
got to do something. God's not going to do it all
for you. You've got to sign the decision card. You've got to
step over the line. You've got to come to the altar. You've
got to pray through. No? Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling, just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I come, I
come." Can you come to Him today that way? With nothing in your
hands? He doesn't want your old filthy
rags. I heard about a man in New York City who was an artist,
and he wanted to paint the dirtiest, filthiest, homeless, drug-addicted
person in New York. So he went down to the slums
of the city, and he found what he thought was just the right
person to be his model. He said, meet me at such and
such a place. I'm going to pay you for this.
I will pay you well. Come tomorrow. The next day came
and this guy came all dressed up to the apartment. He'd taken a shower, washed his
hair. I mean, he was just got bought
a Salvation Army suit. And I'm here, don't you remember
me? Oh no, I wanted you to come just
as you were. My point is simply this, God's
not asking you to go out here and quit smoking crack. He's
asking you to fall at the feet of Jesus Christ and trust Christ
for salvation and life in him. I wonder if he's enabled you
to do that today. I wonder if somebody here can
say, you know, I just didn't think this was possible. Do you
know this? All things are possible with
God. I'm thinking of a passage of
Scripture, I think it's in the Corinthian letter. For God, it
is, 2 Corinthians 4, for God who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness has shined into our heart. What God was that?
That's that creative God. That's that God who stepped out
into the mass eternity of time and He said, let there be light
when there was no light. That's how big he is, that's
how awesome he is. Now the apostle says this, for
the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has
shined in our hearts. What kind of God? A creative
God. Creative God a God who's able
to create. I know you some of you are going
like this. That's not possible It's just not possible. You know,
I've tried 15 rehabs and you know, I've gone to church all
my life I've heard all of this. I I just you know, I've tried
it all how about this stop trying and trust God there's nothing going to
happen on your inside till you trust Jesus Christ and until
you're bought to the end of your way. So God has shined out of
darkness, has shined into our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Oh, if you could just see Jesus Christ today, by faith, you could
just simply trust him. I close with this. Do you know God is working constantly
in you, believer? You know all of the good works
that come out of you, God put them in you. Do you know that
God for... Think about this. Here's what
I like to think about. You know, tomorrow, God has predestined
some good things for me. So what are you talking about?
I'm talking about what the scripture says, that he has actually ordained
me unto good works. He's already bought and paid
for those. Those are mine. You won't get those. I'm going to get those. Those
were ordained for me. Tomorrow is an exciting day. Amen. You know, I think about
this. I was thinking this morning when
we were showing the house over on Fairgrove, that five-bedroom
house that Mary is footing the bill for us to put women and
children in that house. Right down the street, there's
a house that has nine bedrooms. It caught on fire several years
ago. And it's been condemned for I don't know how long. We
bought it for $10. So I've been telling you, we're
going to have, we need at least five new houses here in the next
month or so. And I know the way some of you
looked at me like, yeah, right. We don't have money for them.
But you know, God does. So we got Mary's house, and right
down the street we have that house that caught on fire. That's
a nine-bedroom house. I talked to a person this past
month down in Florida who said, I think I can probably handle
that house for you. One plus one is two. Then I got
a call. down in Florida who said there's
another house on Fair Grove up for sale, a brick house. I've
been looking at that house for years. And it didn't have a clear
title. And the owner of that house said,
I got a clear title now. I can sell it to you guys if
you still want it. I thought to myself, of course. Of course we still want it. We've
been wanting it for years. You know, I think about the exciting
thing God, my life is not dull at all. My life is not dull. It's exciting because all of
the blessings from God's storehouse are mine because He predestinated
them for me. He's working in me. He hasn't
left me. He converted me. I look back
on 75 years, I can see so much. I used to be scared to death
to get up in front of people and speak. Just absolutely petrified. I had a speech class in high
school and I would run a fever when it was my time to speak.
It would just shoot up. And then, for some reason, I
decided I was going to be student council president. I had just
decided I wanted to do that. So for two years, I had all of
the, I look back on all that. I'm not bragging on myself. I'm
just saying for two years, I was student council president. I
was up in front of people all the time. I got used to it. You know, all of that was predestinated.
All of that God was moving. And I was so crazy to think,
you know, I'm doing all right here, you know what I mean? But
all the time, God was doing stuff, getting me ready to speak to
you, to preach to you the gospel. I want you as a Christian to
get up in the morning or this afternoon when you go home and
go like this, you know what? I'm God's poem. I'm God's artistic
painting. And he's still got quite a bit
to do on this portrait. He's working on me though. And God is making something beautiful. And one day, this is going to
happen, by the way, it's in Isaiah 63, but it's already 6 after
12. But there in Isaiah it says, I formed them for my glory, and
one day I'm going to say to the north, to the east, to the south,
and the west, give them up! You're going to leave here and
into the presence of God. Without spot. or wrinkle without
condemnation. So live your life this way. God's
got something good for me tomorrow. And by the way, while you're
doing that, while you're thinking that way, and you drive to work, thank
God for your car. I don't know why he gave you
all that snow a few days ago, but... There could be a reason
to remind you that He's made you whiter than the snow. There's so much to thank Him
for. Live your life in an exciting way, expecting God to do what
He's able to do.