Lincoln, make a mistake recording
what I say. Gary Shepard once made a statement
at one of Don Fortner's conferences. He was the last speaker. And
the Belmont State race was just won yesterday. And his statement
was, there's a winner, a place, and a show, and an also ran. So you've gotta also ran standin'
up here today. Hearin' the mayhem says a little
bit better, differently, same thing though. Graze is like a
cow's tail. The more and longer it grows,
the closer to the ground you get. So I'm about as close to
the ground as you can get, I'm just. This morning, I wanna talk
about a subject Curtis got me thinking about a couple of weeks
ago, and it's 2 Corinthians Ephesians 2.10, and it concerns works. And before we even start, it's
something I don't know a whole lot about. But by the same token,
I do know some things about it, and when I look at scripture like this.
The scripture tells me you see through a glass darkly. You are
in no way know it all. So in part, I know, but I'd like
to share what the grace of God has revealed in my soul to my
brethren. and I hope you are forgiving.
I want to take this scripture and show you that we are his
workmanship. Fortner says we're his masterpieces. His workmanship,
we are perfect. Ordained, the good works are
ordained. I guess I might as well read
the scripture. Chapter 2, verse 10, for we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, that God
hath before ordained that we should walk in them. People use this to say, oh yes,
salvation is by grace, not of works. But aha, here it is. After you're saved, you gotta
work. Yet, I look at these verses and say the same way of those
he talked about in verse 5. We were dead in trespasses and
sin. Therefore, the first thing that
must occur for a work to occur is you have to be alive. It says
he quickened us. I heard the statement, we are
born hating God, we are born wicked. And most people will
say, I have never hated God. I have never done anything wicked.
I'm a good, outstanding, moral Christian. But let me tell you,
one simple thing makes you a God-hater, dead in trespasses and sin, and
despise God, and be wicked. And it's called unbelief, not
believing the gospel of the sovereign grace of God says, God is a liar. God is a blasphemer with everything
he says. That is spiritual hatred and spiritual wickedness, not
anything to do with morality. The first thing in us being able
to work a work of God is he must give us life. And Tim James will
tell you that everything we do alive in Christ is good. It is a good world. Every single
thing that we do. Why? Because it's in Christ. It's we in Christ and Christ
in us, this union. To make sure, when I talk about
works, just look at verse 8. By grace you are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, and not of works, lest any man
should boast. I'm not talking about works for salvation. There is no work that you can
do to be saved. And no work that you do after
you're saved that can remit or redeem one's sin. That's not
what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the spiritual
work of the Spirit of God in a child of God. I often wonder what the difference
between works and believing and faith and all these terms are.
These terms are inseparable, every one of them. And there's
something that God breathed. This song we just sang, Rupert,
breathe on me. Oh, what a statement. Breathe
your spirit into my spirit and it will declare God's glory and
all that he is. That's all it can do. We owe
his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus. You
cannot separate this masterpiece that God is bringing, his hand,
created, made a new creature, given life, given a spirit, a
new creature. You cannot separate it. It's
in Christ. It's a spiritual union between
the soul of man and the soul of God. And essentially, Christ
gives his soul to his people. He gives his love to his people. He gives his all to his people. So everything that we have is
his gift. And it is a union that the scripture
says nothing shall separate us from the love of God." It's forever
and ever and ever. Then it says all of our works
are ordained, meaning established, authorized, ordered in all ways
by God Almighty. And he says, we walk in them,
we should walk in them. And I like what Dennis said,
just read that word as shall. We shall walk in them. Why? Because God decreed, declared,
said, you shall walk in them. And guess what? What he says
occurs. Ordained means God ordered. Psalm 1-3 says, whatsoever he
does shall prosper. When God ordains something, orders
something, appoints something, anoints something, it prospers. Isaiah 53-10, the pleasure of
the Lord shall prosper in his hand. All that's prospering is
in the hand of God, creating this masterpiece, creating his
workmanship. And one of my favorite verses
is Isaiah 55, 11. So shall my word be anything
that God says, so shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth.
When God speaks, he's speaking his desire, his will, his power,
his authority, his glory, his honor. He is declaring himself. And he says, when I speak, When it comes upon you, it shall
not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I
please, and shall prosper in the thing whereinto I send it.
When God says to us in his majesty, you shall walk in good works. Guess what? What do we do? We walk in good works. Now to
me, the basic meaning of that, what is our life? That's our
walk. What is our life? It's Christ.
Where is our life? It's in Christ. Who is our life? It's in Christ. So Tim James
is right. Everything we do after God gives
us life is a good work. Because why? God does it. drew
us, in us, but it's his work. Why does he do this? Why does
God say, I make this masterpiece through salvation and the sovereign
mercy and grace and the shed blood of my son Jesus Christ.
to declare his name, is who he is, he's God, he's the Savior,
it's his honor, his glory, all that he is, his majesty, his
dominion, everything he is, everything that God says is good, declares
his name. And that's his purpose. Why does
he say poor sinners? Each one of them is a masterpiece
that declares the glory of God and the grace of Lord Jesus Christ. Every one of them is a declaration,
a witness, a testimony, evidence. That's what these things are. In order to perform a good work,
one prerequisite. You gotta be a believer. We,
you, we, you who he has made alive,
we shall walk in him. Only a believer can do a good
work. Only a believer. What is a believer? This is the work of God that
you believe on my son whom I have sent. Believing is the work of
God. Making somebody alive is the
work of God. It's creating his masterpiece. In order to do anything,
we must be alive. A dead man can't do anything.
So who does a good work? A believer. Someone that the
Lord orders. Live. Come forth. His commands, His authority,
this breath of life. In the same sense that He breathed
life into Adam, that piece of clay, He breathed it into us.
And what does that breath say, this Spirit say? It cries right
back, Abba, Father. It recognizes the Creator. You
are my Father. You are my Creator of my life.
You are everything to my soul. What is His purpose? Romans 9. His purpose in making his masterpieces,
that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels
of mercy which he hath before prepared unto glory. That said
the same thing as Ephesians 8. God hath ordained, God hath prepared,
and I am declaring this glory through what I am creating, what
I have made, these vessels. Now I'll use this word vessel
again in Thessalonians 4.4. Vessels that he makes are sanctified,
made holy, and honored. Honored what? Honor his mercy
and grace. Sanctified to what? Separated
from sin unto holiness, from ourselves unto himself. 2 Timothy
2.21, vessels unto honor, sanctified and fit for the master's use,
and prepared unto every good work. There it is again, with
good work. Fit, made fit, created fit, and
prepared, ordained. How? Of God is both the will and to
do. Everything that a child of God
does that is spiritual in nature is given the will and to do,
the ability, the desire. He is given everything. And guess
what? He does it. That's what the script
is saying. These good works. The master
shall use them for what purpose? To declare his honor and his
glory. Every one of them. 2 Corinthians
4, 7. We have this treasure in our
other vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. Every work that a child of God
does declares the excellence of the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he puts it on display. Look what I have
wrought. Yet, it's wrought in his people,
in good work. Philippians 1.6, been confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. If God performs
a work in you, gives it to you, he said, he will guarantee with
surety that this work will be performed and done. All I'm saying is these good
works is an act of the love of God to declare His glory. It's that simple. It's that simple. Life, clay vessel, breath, declaring
the riches of His glory and mercy, prepared to be a vessel of honor,
sanctified, made holy, made fit, and make sure that we perform
every good work. What are we saying? Look what
God has done for my soul. I am prepared unto a good work. I am his masterpiece. Now, when
I say that, I am very well aware, if you
want to read something about that, you can go to Romans and
look what Paul says, and I'll get to that in a minute. Another prerequisite for any
good work is faith. The scripture says, Hebrews 11,
6, without faith it is impossible to please God. Now the scripture
says where does this faith come from? What is it? It's a faith
of God. His faith given to us by grace
and it is a gift and has nothing to do with good works, poor works,
bad works, ugly works, pretty works. It has nothing to do with
works. So here's faith. You have to be alive and you
have to have faith. Where does the faith come from?
God gives it. I heard one somebody describe
what is faith. And the best description, Rupert,
that I understand is the faith is the hand of the soul that
receives every other grace. We see by faith. We hear by faith. Everything is God-given faith.
God gives us this grace. so we can receive the exceedingly
abundant grace of God in Christ. We can see it. We can hear it.
We can understand it. It is absolutely essential. Without it, it's impossible to
please God. What is faith? How does faith
work? Faith is the expression of love
of God for a dead sinner that he gives life and says live.
What you see is an expression of the mercy and grace of God
on the soul. Faith worketh by love. What does that faith that God
gives us do? It's his faith. He gave it to
us so that faith looks to Christ and looks to Christ only. That's
all it sees, that's all it hears. This faith is in union with our
soul, and it's in union with the soul of God. It's one and
the same thing. Alright, by faith we love one
another. Two very important things, and
I'm going to get to some specific words later. Here is this faith
that gives us the knowledge that we are alive, the knowledge that
we were dead, the knowledge of who made us alive, the knowledge
of who we here, the knowledge to know what we were, the knowledge
to know what he is. This faith is what gives us,
makes us alive in Christ. All right, let me ask you a simple
question. What is a good work? I've heard preachers list them
1 through 5, 10, 12. I've heard people like Tim James
say faith, not faith, but a good work is everything that a person
who lives in Christ does from the moment he is saved until
he goes to glory. Both of them are true. Walking
in good works is walking in Christ. Walking in good works is feeding
upon Christ. Walking in work is walking in
the light. Walking in good works is walking
in the way, which is Christ. Everything that we do points
to Christ, and it's to his honor and his glory. We are declaring
a testimony, a witness. What is a good work? John 4,
23 and 24. But our comment now is, when
the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
God is the spirit, and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth. My definition of works is real,
real simple. A good work is worship in spirit
and in truth. And it's without exception. When
we have this meal a couple of weeks from now, Rupert, we will
all bring food and stuff. That is a form of worship. Sitting
here in this church, fellowship, that is a form of worship. And
if it's true, based on the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
it is in the spirit God gives us desire. God gives us understanding. God gives us everything we need
to hear. That's worshiping God. And it
is a good work. All works are a form of worship. But note, it says, worship him
in spirit and in truth. Any other worship is inequity. A good work is worshiping Christ. A good work in one sense is like
this. I look in a mirror and what do I see in my reflection?
God looks at our soul and what does he see? He sees a reflection
of himself. No matter what he's doing, he
says, it's good. Why? Because it's me. It's like
an echo. You say something and that word
comes back to you. Oh, that's the same thing as
God said, it shall prosper wherever I send it. Here is this intimate
union between God and his saved sinners, his poor sinners. He
is the cause of that, and to worship him in spirit and in
truth is the only work that we can do. How many of you can name me a
specific good work that you've done today? How many of you can name five
you've done in the past week? Let's go back to the past year.
How about 10 in the past year? The answer is we have no idea
what a good work is. And that's scripturally true.
You remember when they were sitting there before the judge, Christ,
separating the sheep from the goats? And Christ said to one,
depart from me, you workers of Nicodemus. And the other, welcome
to my eternal home. What did they say? The Pharisees,
and he listed a whole bunch of things. He said, the Pharisee
said, when did we not do those things? And here to the sheep,
who he sat on his right-hand side, their response was, Lord,
when did I any of those things? We have no idea what a specific
good work is. Why? So we cannot boast in a
single work. We don't know what good works
are. Give you an example. I can take
an atheist and go help a poor person. I can take a believer
and go help a poor person. I can take a believer and go
help another believer. Which one, the same act now,
is a good work? Only God knows. the ones that
he prepared, the ones that he ordained, the ones that he declared
to be good, is a good work. When did I any good work? The scripture also says, when
you bury the seed and it comes up and one of the plants gives
off 100 fruit and one gives off 60 and one gives off 30, is there
a difference in work? Absolutely. same god same spirit but adversity
and what he does the example the apostle paul look what apostle paul did in
writing those epistles it glorified god almighty fully completely
in his mercy and his grace and his honor and his glory and everything
else but yet what did paul say That which I would, not that
I do. That which I wouldn't do, that
I do. Paul was not taking any credit
whatsoever, anything he did that was good. Didn't look as good,
he said. I look at myself and I say to
my soul, why aren't you doing what you ought to do? It's called
aspiration. And, Rupert, the best example
I can think of is how many tongues would you like to have to sing
eternal praises to God Almighty? A thousand tongues to sing His
praise. You'll never get it. It'll never
happen. We've got one poor wagon tongue
and that's it. So, works does not matter whether
we want to, whether we wish to, It's not based on what we want,
it's not based on what we think. That which I would not, that
is exactly true. That which I want to do, I do
not. It's true every day of our life,
and Paul says those wretched men that I am, but good works
has nothing to do with the wretchedness of our flesh and our soul. It
is a statement. There is no good work in our
flesh whatsoever. If there's a good work, it is
by the sovereign mercy and grace of God. And here is God saying to Paul,
Paul, don't worry. My grace is sufficient for thee.
I'm all sufficient in all things, including these ordained good
works. You have no idea when and what,
but I am performing those things in all things, and I work it
all in all. All right, examples of good works. And I'm going to be bold, Rupert,
and say some examples of good works. What about prayer? A grace-induced
prayer. Is that a good work? We count that as a good work?
Listen to what Romans 8.25 says. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we
ought but the Spirit itself make an intercession for us with groanings
that cannot be uttered. So here is the most intimate
relationship, conversation between a sinner and God Almighty, and
what does Scripture say? We have no idea how to pray as
we ought, and I'm talking about a grace-induced prayer. What
does it take to make that a good work? It takes the intercession
of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to wash it and cleanse
it, and then it's accepted in the blood. Every prayer we pray
is a good work. Not for the work itself, because
God Almighty intervenes, intercesses the intermediary between us and
God the Father, and He cleans it up. And it is true for every
work that we do. Every work, to be a good work,
must be washed in the blood, and then it is accepted by God
Almighty in the blood. And then God said, it is good.
I ordained it. It shall prosper. Okay, repentance. Have you ever come to a repentance
Crying and weeping and feeling sorry and all this for yourself
and your sin, I think all of us have. But listen to this, Hebrews 12,
17. Esau found no place in the penitence,
though he sought it carefully and with tears. You mean this person comes and
diligently, carefully, with tears of sorrow comes for repentance
and can't find it? Why? Godless sorrow worketh repentance.
In order for that repentance to be a good work, it must come
from godless sorrow, which he gives freely, instantly, abundantly. Then it becomes a good work,
and we all do it. Love. Is that a good work? Work, faith, work by the love
of God. This love that God expresses
to us, gives to us, is His faith. that causes us to love our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, do we love him as we ought? Nope. Then the scripture comes
up. It's not that we love him so
much, it's that he loves us. Do we love the Lord? Absolutely. Oh, infinitesimally small. But the love that he sheds abroad
in our heart is his love, and that's infinite. Brotherly love,
one for another. Loving one another is a good
work. The fellowship that we have sitting
here Participating in a declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is expression of that love. What is the purpose of all this?
to the praise of the glory of his grace when he hath made us
accepted in the blood. Now let me end that, and I probably
spent too much time. But Bill and I were talking about
verses in scripture that was written on our souls on a
daily basis. And it comes from Jude, and you've
heard it a thousand times before. But my point this morning is
we are to the honor and the praise and the glory of the sovereign
mercy and grace of God and Jesus Christ. What we do in Christ
is a testimony and a witness and evidence to his mercy and
his grace. It's a declaration of the gospel. Our life is a declaration of
the gospel. It's a testimony. to his sovereign
love and to thank miracle of miracles for poor sinners. Jude
24 and 25, now him that is able to keep you from falling and
to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy. I can't even imagine this, Doug.
Here is God Almighty taking a sinner elevating him all the way to
the throne of glory and saying, this person is perfect. And the
most amazing thing about that, he does it with exceeding joy. Why? Because this person that
he holds in his hand, this soul, is his masterpiece, his perfection,
his good work. And he's presenting, and he said,
look what I have created. It is a testimony to my honor
and my glory. To the only wise God, our Savior,
be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and ever. Amen.