Chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
10. For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should, or the word is shall, walk in them. Now our text begins with this
word for because this verse, verse 10, is putting the finality
on what was said before and it's adding one more thing to what
was said before. Now from the beginning of the
epistle you know that God has been showing us through the apostle
Paul that salvation is entirely by the grace of God from the
beginning to the end. And now he's showing us that
every step in between including our works are of the grace of
God there by the grace of God so that nothing is of our works. God gets all the glory not of
works out of works. All right, go back up to verse
1. It began there in Ephesians 2, 1 and it gave us a general
statement of what our natural born state was. All men, the
elect of God particularly, this is what we were. You can take
the italics out because they were added by the translators
and you read it. And you who were dead in trespasses
and in sin. Then the next two verses elaborate
on that reminding us how we walked in time past and what our conduct
was in time past. Verse 2 says, wherein, in death,
in trespasses, in sins, in time past you walked. according to
the course of the world. This is how we walk. That's a
very important word, because we're fixing to talk about our
walk. That's how we've walked in time past. According to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in time past. That's conduct. That's deportment.
including conversation as we know it, but everything about
us, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. So there we were, we were nothing,
going after nothing, ruled by nothing. Alright, now here, the
next verse, verse 4 begins describing how God interrupts His elect,
and saves us by grace. And he even interjects that statement
into the verse. Look at verse 4. But God, but
God, we were going to hell. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you're saved. By grace you're saved. We could
go back to chapter 1 and see how many times God says, by grace,
by grace, by grace. This is what He's wanting us
to get. By grace you're saved. And hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now in
verse 7, He declares why God quickened us, why He raised us
up, and why He made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.
Verse 7. that in the ages to come He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards
us through Christ Jesus. He saved us to tell us all about
His grace. His grace, how He saved us by
His grace. Now verses 8 and 9 summarizes
all that was said up to this point. And it declares why it
is that the exceeding riches of God's grace is what he will
spend ages showing us. Now look, Ephesians 2 verse 8. Here's why he's going to spend
ages showing us the exceeding riches of his grace. For by grace
are you saved. That's why. For by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So
we get the context. He's declaring the truth that
believers are what we are by the grace of God. Now verse 10
is a very instructive verse, because God the Holy Spirit gives
an answer to what God knows sinners will say when they hear that
salvation is not by our works. And then secondly, God the Holy
Spirit, having heard that, God the Holy Spirit answers what
He knows we'll say when we hear we're created unto good works.
Verse 9 says, Not of works lest any man should boast. So lest
anybody vainly conclude from that, that since we're not saved
by works, then the believer does no good works. Verse 10 says,
It's not of works lest any man should boast, for we are his
workmanship. But now be sure you understand,
we're created in Christ Jesus on two good works. And then lest
anybody hear that, and attempt to boast of their good works.
He says of those good works which God hath before ordained that
we shall walk in them. Sinners are not saved by our
works but every sinner saved by God's grace shall walk in
good works because God has before ordained those works which we
shall walk in. Now here's the first thing we
see. Believers are not saved by our works. We're God's workmanship
created unto good works. If our salvation in any way was
by our works, we would be our own workmanship. If you had a
painter and he's painting his masterpiece, and another painter
comes in and just adds a little shadowing to it, it ceases to
be that artist's workmanship. So that artist, nobody else can
touch it and do anything and have any part in it for it to
be his workmanship. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast, for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works. Now the Greek word that's translated
workmanship here is poeme, and it's the word where we get the
word poem. We get the word poem from this
Greek word. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
3. Just a few pages back. 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. And look at what the believer
is in verse 3. Verse 3 says, You are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ. Christ is the divine
author and we're his poem. We are the epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, Paul said, written not with ink, but with
the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in
fleshly tables of the heart. God's child is God's poem. We're his workmanship. The we,
when it says we are his workmanship, the we is not our fleshly man
born of Adam. That man steal nothing but sin,
and he shall soon return to the dust. In me, Paul said, that
is in my flesh dwells no good thing. That's the case with a
believer. God makes a new creation, a totally
new creation, a newborn child within the old man of flesh. There's a newborn child. Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. Our new man's not a reformation
of our old man. That's not the case. Nothing
of our old man of flesh is involved or used of God. And you know
when I talk about our old man of flesh, I'm not talking about
this skin right here. I'm talking about our old sinful
nature that we got from Adam. God uses nothing of that old
man. When Christ is formed within a sinner, that sinner becomes
a new man in Christ Jesus. And it's not merely a change
from a lower nature to a higher nature. It's going from being
apart from Christ to being united to Christ. So we're united to
Christ. Now I said to you, this is a
creation. And in fact, the only other place
that this Greek word is used in the New Testament is in Romans
1 in verse 20. It says, The invisible things
of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made. And that word made
is the same word here that is translated workmanship. the things
that were made, even His eternal power in Godhead is seen by the
things that are made. Now, Psalm 19 tells us that the
heavens are His handiwork. We can look into the heavens,
into the creation, and we can see God's masterpiece in creation,
what He created in creation. But that's not His masterpiece. That is nothing. The works of creation are nothing
compared to that new man God has created in Christ Jesus in
His people. That's God's masterpiece. That's
His true handiwork, His creation. Know ye that the Lord, He is
God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. He did it all. Now, this word
created in Christ Jesus means to make inhabitable. I have trouble
with that. to make it so he can inhabit
us. Look in verse 22, Ephesians 2.22,
it says, You are built together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit. That's what the word means. Now,
can we boast of that? Can we boast of any of this work? There's nothing we can boast
of. We were dead. That's all we were. In time past
we walked according to the course of the world, under the power
of Satan, according to the lust of our flesh. We were under the
dominion of Satan and sin. Somebody gave the illustration
and they said one time Michelangelo was carving a big block of stone
and somebody asked him what he was doing and he said, I'm releasing
an angel from this stone. But God didn't use any part of
our old stony man. He created an entirely new man.
He didn't release an angel that was there. He created a whole
new man. A whole new man. What happened?
Christ sent his gospel to us. He sent his gospel to us. Paul
said, you are the epistle of Christ ministered by us. Now Paul was just an earthen
vessel. And Paul didn't do anything to
contribute to the workmanship. No preacher does. God's preacher
does nothing but preach the word that Christ gives to preach. Just a vessel, that's all, to
pour out the word from God to his people. Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos? But ministers
by whom you believe, even as the Lord gave to every man. The preacher can't even boast
in God giving him to a people. The Lord gives his preacher to
every man. He said, I've planted, Apollos
watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
We're laborers together with God, Paul said, but you're God's
husbandry, you're God's building. He did it. He's done all the
work. So through the gospel, Christ came. He came and he bound
Satan who ruled our house and Christ spoiled all his goods,
creating his people anew. Can we boast of that work? We
were bound. We were bound. We couldn't free
ourselves from Satan. He bound him and he spoiled his
goods. The spirit of the living God
entered in. And He used nothing of us, but
He gave us a new heart, and Christ wrote the gospel on our hearts.
And He made us to behold this, what our verse says. He made
us to behold where God's workmanship, God's workmanship created in
Christ Jesus. What does that mean? We've been
seeing it throughout the epistle as we've been going through it.
It says, God the Father blessed us with all spiritual blessings
according as He chose us in Christ Jesus. And it said, God the Father
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself. And then it says we have redemption
through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins by God's grace. You see Christ and God in this.
God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus. It says, God gave
us faith to lay hold of Christ, in whom you also trusted after
you heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation.
And in the end, God shall gather together all of his people in
one, even in Christ Jesus. God's workmanship created in
Christ Jesus. And that's what he makes us to
see. Now, none of the workmanship was by our work. But His grace
in creating us in Christ is unto good works. It's unto good works. For the first time, when God
works His work in the heart of a sinner, and He brings him to
life, and He gives him faith to behold that He's God's workmanship
in Christ Jesus, for the first time, that child begins to do
truth. He begins to do truth. What's
that? Let's look at John 3, verse 21. What is it to do truth? John
3, 21. John 3, 21. The Lord Jesus said
this is what it is to do truth. He that doeth truth will create
it unto good works. This is a good work right here.
This is the first one a believer is going to do. He that doeth
truth cometh to Christ the light that his deeds, all his works
may be made manifest that God worked them all. You see that? They're all wrought in God. John
3, 21. John 3, 21. The result of God's workmanship
is that His child walks continually from then on in the works that
God has wrought, that God has before ordained for him to walk
in. We walk from here on till the
end of this life walking by faith in repentance. That's a continual,
never-ending walk for a believer. And listen to this. In Zechariah
12, 10, now here's the workmanship. He said, I will pour upon my
people. That's God's workmanship. I'll
pour upon them the spirit of grace and of supplication. And here's what the good work
is. They shall look upon me whom
they have pierced. They're going to believe me for
the first time. And they shall mourn for him. They're going to repent. As one
mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him. Repentance. And one, as one that
is in bitterness for his firstborn son. You see that he brings us
into a living relationship with him to where we start regarding
Christ. Now we see him by faith and we
repent and bitterness beholding him made sin for us and we mourn
our sin. We mourn what it caused upon
him. We mourn what it did for him like like a person mourns
his his first born son. That's how much That's how close
we are to Christ when He does this work. Before we walked according
to the course of this world. Now we walk by faith continually
and we never stop repenting. Never stop. Now, I want you to
get this as I go through this with you. God doesn't tell us
specifically in the scriptures what the work is. He doesn't
just lay out works. If he laid out works and said,
these are the good works I'm talking about. If he just laid
them out, we would take on a form of religion and check them all
off and say, well, I'm doing a good job. He doesn't do that. There's more to it than that.
What God shows us is what constitutes a good work. You notice it's
called a good work. God shows us What makes the work
good? He shows us where the goodness
is in the work. For an example, for any work
to be good, it must be done in faith with Christ as its object. You could have two people, they
could do the exact same work. But underneath the work, in the
heart, one of them's doing it unto the Lord with the Lord as
his object in faith. That's the goodness of the work.
The other one's just doing a work. But God does not regard it as
good. It doesn't matter how nice the work is and how much somebody's
benefited from it. God doesn't consider it good
at all. It's not done in faith. Walk in the steps. He says walk
in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had
yet being uncircumcised. He didn't have the law. He was
under no kind of covenant whatsoever. He had not the Ten Commandments
and yet he walked in this faith and he did good works. He did
good work. Any work that's done has got
to be done in faith. Now that eliminates most of what
men call good works, doesn't it? That eliminates the majority
of what people in this world are calling good works. It may
be a good work in itself, but not before God for whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. All right. God creates us to
walk in love and to work by love. Now listen. 1 John 4, 7 says,
Beloved, let us love one another. That's the work. Let us love
one another. For love is of God. It's of His workmanship. And
everyone that loveth, there's the work. Everyone that loveth,
he does it because here's the workmanship. He's been born of
God. He's been born of God. And knoweth God. And in verse
19 he says, We love him because he first loved us. We love Him. That's the work. But we do it
because here's the goodness of the work. He first loved us. That's the workmanship of it.
But you see now, a man could be a generous giver. There's
a work. A man could be a giver. He could be a giver. A generous
giver. But except it be done in faith,
constrained by the love of Christ. It's not a good work with God.
Listen to Paul, though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor.
Now men would look on that in churches. That fellow is going
to have him a parking spot with his name on it. But God says
through Paul, though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth
me nothing. You see, the goodness of the
work is the love which is the workmanship of God, and He's
created us unto the work. You follow me? In Jesus, neither
circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. It's not
the work itself that God's looking at, but faith which worketh by
love. God's looking at the heart, at
the heart. From then on, we walk in submission,
Worship in God. Jeremiah 32, 39. He said, I will
give them one heart and one way. That's the workmanship. God's workmanship. He said, I'll
give them one heart, created in Christ Jesus. I'll give them
one way. Christ is that way. That. Here's the work. They may fear
me forever. That's the goodness of the work.
They do it in submission, in fear to God. After they cast
that blind man out of the synagogue, Christ came to him and found
him and revealed himself to him. And that man said, I believe,
and he worshipped him. He worshipped him. For we are
the circumcision. Now all these men doing these
works and saying, we're keeping the law, we're doing this and
that, we're in covenant with God. No, no. Here's what the
circumcision is. We worship God in spirit. It's
in here. It's in the heart. And we rejoice
in Christ Jesus. That's who we're praising and
glorifying. And we have no confidence in
the flesh at all. Remember Saul? Brother Eric brought
this message a few weeks ago. He brought back the best sheep
to sacrifice to God. Was that a good work? No, it
was not a good work because he wasn't in submission to God.
Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices? Is God just want you to do works?
As he does in obeying the voice of the Lord. God looks on the
heart. He's looking at that submission,
that faith, that love, that worship that's in the heart that he put
there. He said, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. Obeying is better than a work.
You got to have the good of the work. Or it's not a good work. It's just a work. And to hearken
then the fat of rams, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
Stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Men preaching works
and telling men to do works, but they're not telling men these
things I'm telling you now. And God says, you're practicing
witchcraft. That's witchcraft. You're teaching
men to work witchcraft. The sacrifices of God. The work
of God. Is a broken spirit. Submission. And a contrite heart. Oh God, thou wilt not despise.
There'll be a work goes with it. We can see that. There'll
be a work goes with it. But it's got to have this first. This is the workmanship first.
And then by God's grace we persevere. This is a work He creates us
unto. I'm telling you what the principles of these good works
are. Now get this now. He said, I
will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn
away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their
hearts. There's the workmanship of God. That, now here's the
result of it. Here's the good work He created
us unto. They shall not depart from me. Now listen to this.
A man can do what appears to be a wonderful work. He's doing
his many wonderful works. And yet, in his heart, he's drawn
away from Christ. He's drawn back. He started looking
at his works now. He's not persevered in faith
anymore. Or he's joined in with will-worshippers. And he's doing a bunch of good
works. Looks like it, but his heart's
far removed from God. Paul said, God's not unrighteous
to forget your works and your labor of love which you've showed
toward His name in that you've ministered to the saints and
do minister. That's a good work. You've ministered to the saints
and you do minister. But here's what makes it a good
work. Not just a work, but a good work.
We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to
the full assurance of hope until the end. Until the end. You see, your heart's set on
God. You haven't grown impatient and
said, well, I don't feel like God's given me any kind of reward
for what I'm doing. I'm going to go back over here
where they'll at least pat me on the back, praise me, and put
my star up on a board so everybody can see it. That's not persevering. You've drawn back to works, to
law. He says, Be not slothful, but
followers of them who through faith and patience, endurance,
perseverance, inherit the promises. You see what he's saying? Do
the work by all means, but do it persevering in faith or it's
in vain. You've drawn back. God makes
us walk in good works. Our walk is altogether a new,
because it's from a new heart. We got a new master. We got new
methods. We got a new motive. We got a
new message. Everything's new. We walk in
newness of spirit. We walk in newness of life. Henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind.
All these things. He's talking about a walk that's
inward. Outward. You see what I'm saying?
Walk in love. That's inward. as Christ loved
us and gave himself for us and offering a sacrifice to God for
a sweet smell and savor. Walk in wisdom towards them that
are without redeeming the time. Walk in the light as he's in
the light and we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. I have no greater joy
than to hear my children walk in truth. You see what I'm saying?
It's a spiritual thing. Inward, inward. There's some
outward thing. Now let's look at these works
here. I'm out of time. And I don't have enough really
to take it over to the second hour. Let's look at them real
quick. Go to Exodus 3. Exodus 3. Every
believer shall walk in the good works because God has before
ordained the works which we shall walk in. It says these good works
that he created us unto God has before ordained that we shall
walk in them. All right. Now you remember in
the tabernacle, in the tabernacle, God gave Moses the pattern for
all the work that God before ordained to be done. The work
he before ordained to be done, God told Moses, now you go tell
the people this is the work I will have done. Alright, so God ordained
all the children of Israel that they were going to offer the
materials needed to build that tabernacle and all the furniture
in it. That was a work God ordained before to be done. So before
he could do anything to get them to do anything, he had to give
them the substance. He had to give them the materials. And
so Exodus 321, here's how God did that. God said, I will give
this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall
come to pass that when you go, You shall not go empty, but every
woman shall borrow of her neighbor and of her that sojourneth in
her house jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment, and
you shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters,
and you shall spoil the Egyptians. And so God loaded them up with
all kind of gold and silver and bracelets and all kinds of things.
Go to Exodus 35. Exodus 35. But not only did God
provide the materials necessary, God also gave a willing heart
to the people to offer those materials because God before
ordained they would. Look at Exodus 35 and 21. We're just talking about the
work now. And they came everyone whose heart stirred him up and
everyone whom his spirit made willing. Now how is our spirit
made willing? They shall be willing in the
day of my power, God said. God makes us willing. And he
says, And they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle
of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the
holy garments. And they came, both men and women,
as many as were willinghearted, and brought bracelets, and earrings,
and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold. And every man that offered,
offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. They brought those
things God provided, put in their hands. Verse 29. The children
of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord every man and woman
whose heart made them willing to bring for all manner of work
which the Lord had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses.
So God before ordained for them to do this work. So God provided
all the substance they needed and God gave them the heart to
do the work. You see God created them unto
this. All right. Furthermore, God ordained somebody
to do the work of taking those materials and making the curtains
and the gold and the brass things that would go into the furniture.
All right, go down to Exodus 35, 25. And all the women that
were wise-hearted did spin with their hands and brought that
which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet
and of fine linen. They were what? They were wise-hearted.
Where'd they get that wise-heart? Let's go on and read and see.
Verse 30, And Moses said unto the children of Israel, See,
the Lord hath called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the
son of Hur of the tribe of Judah, and he hath filled him with the
Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all
manner of workmanship. to devise curious works, to work
in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting of
stones, to set them, and in carving of wood, to make any manner of
cunning work. And he hath put in his heart
that he may teach, both he and Eliab, the son of Amach, of the
tribe of Dan. Them hath he filled with wisdom
of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and
of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer." See those women
that were embroidering? This is where they learned how
to do this in blue and in purple and in scarlet and fine linen
and of the weaver, even of them that do any work and of those
that devise cunning work. Verse chapter 36, verse 1, Then
wrought Bezalel and Eliab every wisehearted man in whom the Lord
put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all the manner
of work for the service of the sanctuary according to all that
the Lord had commanded. And Moses called him and every
wise hearted man and whose heart the Lord had put wisdom everyone
whose heart stirred him up to come into the work to do it because
God stirred him up and they received a Moses the offering and then
they that they brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary
to make it and verse thirty two says and thus was all the work
of the tabernacle of the ten of the congregation finished
chapter thirty nine verse thirty two so it was all finished the
children of Israel did according to all the Lord command his motives
so they did So let me give you a verse in the New Testament
that sums all that up. God is able to make all grace
abound towards you that you have always having all sufficiency
and all things may abound to every good work. So you see, they're not works
specifically laid out in scripture where God says now it's up to
you to do these things. It's not that. It's that he didn't
ordain some works and say now these are all the works that
you go to them and do them. No no. And they're not works
which men look at and by their natural judgment say those are
good works. These are not works you set out to do to be seen
of men so everyone around you will think you love God. That's
self-righteousness. And the man who does that has
his reward. He gets a pat on the back and
that's it. Self-righteous folks will say in the day of judgment,
when did we not do these works? But the believers say, when did
we do them? When did we do them? We just did what we could. Why? Because these are works of everyday
life for a believer. These are works God has prepared
for you for each day, which when you come to the work, you shall
do them, not even giving a second thought to them being good works,
because they are works of faith, labors of love, done with submissive
hearts to God, as unto the Lord, as you persevere in faith. And
you don't have to worry. And you don't have to second
guess yourself. When the ordained time comes, God will have equipped
us for everything necessary to do the work and stir up your
heart to do it. And you'll do what you can. Remember
that woman that broke that alabaster box of ointment? Christ said
she did what she could. She did what she could. God gave
her the heart. God gave her the substance. God
gave her the opportunity. God brought her to the place.
And she did it. She did what she could. These
are works of a new creature God created, performed by us by God's
grace, all of which was in God's mind and all ordained before
we were ever born. And therefore, there's not one
possibility that one believer shall not walk in the works God
has before ordained. We all shall. We shall do every
one of them. And so therefore, we can't boast
in our good works. That's the point. Paul says,
for we're His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
but don't start boasting about them, because God before ordained
that we should do them too. Amen.