Christians are called to "walk in the Spirit" by engaging in the good works God has prepared for them. These good works are not a means of salvation, but rather the purpose for which believers are created in Christ Jesus. The sermon emphasizes that God's grace, mercy, and love are the foundation of salvation, and through faith, believers become His workmanship, empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill His preordained plans. The works of Jesus Christ serve as a model for these good works, which include proclaiming the gospel, showing charity, caring for the sick, praying for others, and serving. By walking in the Spirit and fulfilling these prepared works, believers honor God and become trophies of His grace.
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Good evening. Hey, you look good tonight, all dressed up. Are you wearing the things that God bought for you? Did you wear them all day long? Uh, how'd it feel? I know they fit. How'd they feel to dress up in the wardrobe of God? It's in one place called the robes of righteousness. In other places, we talked this morning about the apparel. This morning, I have to, uh, confess I didn't finish the message, which is not unusual in my church. Often I tell the people that my message is like link sausage, you cut it off where you need to and then pick it up the next time. Uh, but, uh, this morning I didn't cover the verse that says, and on top of all these, over all of these, put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
And God is saying to us in that particular verse, he's saying, uh, you have all these other things that I've mentioned that are characteristics and activities of the child of God, but none of them are done properly without God's love being displayed in all of them. And it's the love of God that brings us together in unity, and it's the love of God that enables us to, to function with each other in the ways that God describes our wardrobe. On top of all these things, put on love. Eugene Peterson has a, uh, translation that says something like this, and, uh, on top of these, put on love, which is your all-purpose garment, and never be without it.
And indeed, I think that's so true. But this evening is a different matter, and I appreciate the music. As you were playing the harmonica, I was thinking about the fact I've never played one. The best I could do was a comb with wax paper on it, and I didn't do very well with that either. It just sort of was a monotone, but I thank God for your ministry and your wife's ministry this evening. And now tonight, I'd like you to turn your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians, uh, chapter two. And while you're turning, let me tell you a little more about myself, uh, and my dear wife. Don and I, married over forty three years now, have ten grandchildren. And I suppose there are people here that have more than ten grandchildren and some that have less.
But our grandchildren are special, and I know yours are too. Uh, the youngest one is seven going on seventeen. He is the, the one who keeps us on edge all the time with reference to what he's going to do or what he's going to say. He lives in Texas with his parents and three brothers, and Rhonda, our oldest daughter, was our, um, our strong-willed girl, and, uh, she has four boys, and she deserves every one of them. I've often said that grandchildren are little revenge machines. It's the way you get back to your kids when, uh, they did what they did in their lifetime. But Tyler, he's an interesting young man at seven, and there's so many things he's done, it's not even funny, and I can't time to even begin to talk about them all, but the most recent one, uh, Donna, my wife, called him, uh, just before his birthday and says, Tyler, we want to send you some presents.
What would you like to have? And he said, Grandma, could you give me some hints at what I want to have? And then she said, but Tyler, when he came to the phone, she says, Tyler, what are you doing? He says, Grandma, I'm talking to you on the phone. That ought to be obvious, woman, don't you know that you're talking to me? But he is just something else, and all of our grandchildren are dear to us, and each one very special. To our knowledge, we believe all of them have, uh, come to know Christ the Savior, some at a young age and, and some a little older, but we thank God for that because indeed that's what makes, uh, our life, uh, real special in the sense that we know that our daughters know the Lord, and we believe their children do too.
They have some growing to do, of course, especially Tyler. Uh, we were told here several weeks ago that, uh, he had his best friend, and her name is Christiana, a little girl about his age, and she's his best friend. So while she was visiting in their home, he decided that he and Christiana should go out in the backyard where the man who owns the home has a, a, a pop-up camper parked and beat out all the lights on the camper with a stick. And so they went out there and beat out every light on the camper, and his father had, of course, make repairs. He went to the, uh, camper, uh, uh, garage, and and he says, I need to get some lights for this camper that my son has destroyed.
He said, they don't make those anymore. So he had to rewire the whole thing. I don't know what happened to Tyler after that, but I suppose he had to suffer the consequences of being destructive and disobedient. But nonetheless, that's not why we're here this evening. Let's pray. Father, we come this evening again to thank you for the privilege of speaking with you. What a great privilege to talk to the God of the universe, the sovereign one. And as the psalmist says, he listens, he hears our voice. We pray as we come to your word this evening, we'll come with hearts that are open to hear your word and to do the things we hear. We're grateful that you've provided salvation freely through your son, and you've called us your sons.
Yeah, you've made us your sons. And so we look to you for your direction and blessing upon our time. Meet needs of heart, Father. I know that you know what they are, I don't. And help me to declare the word in truth, indeed, your will would be done this evening in Jesus' name. Amen. In Colossians, or in Ephesians chapter two, we're introduced to one of the walks that are mentioned in the, the New Testament. And I've often asked a question of people, uh, this way. Usually we'll say, how are you doing? And you'll get the, the normal answer, fine or okay.
I don't ask that question as much anymore. I ask them, how are you walking? You can tell a lot about a person by the way he walks. I've been watching some of you walk, and some of you walk because of age with a bit of a limp, and I assume there's a hip problem or something else. Uh, some of you walk wi- with something of a swagger, and I assume you're still pretty strong and virile, and and you're able to walk around with a sense saying I'm as strong as I was at seventeen. Uh, I've seen people walk like this, and you wonder what was going on, and you could guess what happened. They were inebriated, and they weren't taking very many straight steps. You can tell an awful lot about people by watching the way they walk.
Isn't it interesting in the Bible it uses that word to describe the life of people? As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament, we have the statement regarding Enoch, and Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for the Lord took him. You have the same thing said of Noah, and Noah walked with God. And it's not unusual that in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul and others will pick up on that term and apply it in many different contexts regarding the lifestyle or the conduct or the way of life of people, especially believers. And in Ephesians, Paul uses that expression walk several times, and I want to just look at them all, and then tonight look at two of them in detail, and then pick up the rest in the morning.
But you're in chapter two of Ephesians. Would you look with me at verse ten where you have the first use of the word peripateo, which is the word, uh, to walk. For we're his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, that we should live in them. Uh, come with me quickly to chapter four, the beginning of the, the chapter. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. And Paul now challenges them to, to walk in a worthy manner of the calling they have from God.
Uh, come a little further in the book, and, and you see the word walk used again in a, in an improper sense in verse seventeen, This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles in the futility of their mind. There are certain ways we shouldn't walk or conduct our lives or have a lifestyle. In chapter five, verse one and two, therefore be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. You come down a little further in the passage in verse eight, For you were once darkness, but now you're light in the Lord.
Walk as children of light. And then the last time he used the expression is down a little further in chapter five in uh, verse fifteen, See then that you walk circumspectly, or carefully, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Paul uses his expression walk several different ways to challenge the Ephesians Christians to live a life honoring to the Lord. And as I said, the word walk is used mostly in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John. And he uses it to say, look, I'm talking about your lifestyle, about the way you live, about your conduct.
And as you and I think about that, I can ask you the question, how are you walking? Are you walking like an Enoch? Or not? God knows that, and you know that. But the challenge this evening, as we study two of the passages, is simply this: how are you walking? Consider the way you're living in light of who you are in God's family. Let's come back to chapter two and let me just pick up the thought in verse ten and then I want to back up to the first part of the chapter, because you have to appreciate what Paul says in verses one through nine to really appreciate what he says in verse ten.
because without the first nine verses, uh, you don't understand the greatness of God and the goodness of God that has brought them from what they were outside of Christ to what they are in Christ Jesus. And so let me do background, but first in a verse it says, for his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. This word workmanship is used only two times in the New Testament. It's used here. It's from the Greek word poima, and some have paraphrased the idea of poem, and I think J. Vernon McGee in one of his messages, uh, you're the poem of God.
Well, this is not the word for poem in Greek, it's the word for something that's produced or something that's made, workmanship. The other place it's used in the New Testament is back in Romans chapter one. Let me read that to you because it gives us a sense of what Paul is saying here in light of who the Ephesian Christians are. In Romans chapter one, you have Paul declaring the creative work of God, and here's what he said. Uh, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. That expression, that are made, is the word workmanship.
Paul says God's creation has displayed his workmanship, his handiwork, and you can know God by what he's made. And he takes the reader back to Genesis one and says, in the beginning, there wasn't anything but God, and God decided to make something out of nothing. And Genesis one tells us how he did it. By the breath of his mouth he spoke into existence the universe, and began to speak in the ex- existence of life on this particular planet, the creative work of God. And this universe, as vast as it is, is directly from the hand of God. It's his workmanship. But Paul says, uh, you, the children of God, you who've come to faith in Jesus Christ and come to forgiveness through the grace of God, you are also his workmanship.
And so I'm coming back to Ephesians now, and I want to just look in a very quick manner at the contents in verses one through nine that set the platform for what Paul's saying in verse ten. So hurry with me as I hurry along. In the first three verses, I see this. Paul describes the previous or the past condition of God's workmanship. Paul describes the previous or the past condition of God's workmanship. Let me read the verses and just make some passing comments. And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
And Paul, in using the two prepositions, you and us, is saying, you Gentiles and we Jews, we were all disobedient children. In these three verses, I summarize what he says in four statements, and here's a summary. Number one, he said, in your previous condition, you were dead, spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. That's everybody in the whole human race except one, who is Jesus Christ. Spiritually dead, physically alive, dead in a sense to God, that you could do anything meritorious in his sight.
We were dead. The second thing he says in these verses, we were deceived in our lifestyle and goals. The things that we thought were meaningful and real and of value, God says they're of no consequence in light of, uh, who I am and who you are apart from Christ. Deceived. He says, thirdly, we were disobedient and lustful, coming out of verses two and three. Uh, I don't know about your life, but I know about my. And I think of the times when God should have taken me out of this world, physically, when I was without Christ because of my utter disregard and disobedience for the moral law of God.
And I suppose some of you can testify to the same thing, but all of us have to admit that God says through Paul's writings, we were all disobedient and lustful people apart from Christ. And then the last thing he says, you were doomed for judgment. The very last part of the verse. It says, who are by nature children of wrath, just as everyone else. Those are the kinds of people that God is going to use to make his new workmanship. He starts with building or with people that are ruined to make something precious. Years ago, I went up to, uh, Pennsylvania, not quite to Pennsylvania, I was in Maryland.
I taught public school in Maryland for a couple of years, uh, while studying, uh, for a master's degree in history. I taught in the public school there, but before I could start teaching, we had to find a place to live for our family. And so a friend of mine and went down to the area and went to Washington Bible College, and we said, we need a place to stay for a while until, uh, we can find a place for our families. And Dr. Miles, who was the president then, and it was in on Rhode Island Avenue, right in the heart of DC, not a very good section either. He said, look guys, we'll give you a place to stay here in the dorms. The students are away this summer, but you have to help us repair the new apartments we built, or we bought.
And uh, they were in disarray, believe me. He said, we've got to tear out all the old wallboard or drywall. We have to put in some, some fireproofing, and we have to redo the whole thing so we can paint it and get it ready for the students who are coming in early September. What a mess. You had to remove the squalor of the building before you could start working on the, on the walls, and he, my friend and I spent some very hot summer days in the dust of tearing out dry walls and pulling out old asbestos and things like that, getting the place ready. Uh, in my opinion, on the times we said, you better if they just burned them down and built something new, because it, this is an endless job.
It is not easy to do remaking of things that are old. I have some friends who do, uh, remodeling. They'd much rather work in a new building than get into some of the older buildings in Lancaster County and try to, to rewire to do things like that. They said it's, it's just, it's just difficult at best. But when you think about it, think about the materials God had at his disposable to create a new workmanship. You're looking at one of them, and I'm looking at the rest. We're described in verses one to three. God says, this is all I have to work with, and none of it's very good. As a matter of fact, they're all sinners, and they need my help before I can make them good enough to be part of my workmanship.
So there's a previous condition of the workmanship. Beginning in verse four and going through verse nine, he talks about our present condition as God's workmanship. And I want you to look with me at verse four. The first three verses leave us in this condition of saying, it's hopeless. How can God make anything out of those kinds of people? And I don't mean to, to point my finger at anybody, but God does, and he says, this is what you are because of the fall of, uh, Adam, because of your own sinfulness, and all I have are sinners who need my grace.
But in verse four, the very first word in the verse is but. God says, here's what I think of them. They're not worth anything in themselves. They are doomed, they are deceived, they are, uh, dead in trespasses and sins, but I want to do something. And beginning in verse four and going through verse nine, Paul relates to us what did God did in getting himself a new workmanship, a new product, in reality, the body of Christ that we're part of.
But notice the basis for it, and it's quickly stated here in verse four. The basis for God's workmanship, or our present position in God's workmanship. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us. And Paul will say there are three things that make it possible for God to take ruined people, sinners with ruined lives, and make them into something that he can say, this is my special creation or recreation. And the words are, he was rich in his mercy. In the New Testament and the Old Testament, the merc- word mercy often carries with the idea to express pity or deep concern for somebody that's helpless and hopeless.
And it says God is rich in his mercy in doing that for all of us who were in our sins. He has a second word to build on that when he said that not only was he rich in mercy, but he had great love for us. And God's great love, the John three sixteen love, the Romans five eight love, is a love that moved God to reach out to men and women such as you and I, who are totally unworthy, and saying, I want to do something for you. I want to give you what you need to bring you from your condemnation to a state of acceptance with me, and you know the gospel as well as I do. God sent his son into the world to save sinners, Paul said, and thank God for that.
Why did God do this? Because of his love. But he has a third reason or a third basis for his, uh, establishing us in our position of, uh, workmanship. It says in verse five, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. God's mercy, God's love, God's grace made it possible, made it a reality for some to come to him through Jesus Christ and become part of that great workmanship that has been going on since the day the body of Christ began, and we'll go to the day when Jesus comes for his church, and we're part of that.
Each one is a part of that, and individually we're his workmanship, and the body of Christ is his workmanship, based on his great mercy, based on his great love, based on his superabundant grace, as he says here. But notice he adds, and I must hurry again, look at the blessings that come to us in our present condition as God's workmanship, and they're recounted for us here in verses five and six. Uh, notice what he says. He made us alive together, and in verse five and verse six, you have a statement in the, the original language that uses the idea along with or together with, and it's translated beautifully in our English Bibles.
Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, he quickened us together with Christ. Our coming to life in the family of God is directly related to a relationship to Jesus Christ. We are made alive, having been dead spiritually in Jesus Christ. But it goes on and says, not only were we made alive, verse six, he raised us up together. And I think this relates to the co-resurrection that Paul talks about in Romans chapter six. We died with Christ, we were raised again with him in newness of life, but raised up not only in newness of life in the sense of being co-identified with Christ, but now being alive unto God, raised up in Christ.
But there's a third thing that's part of that. It says, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I became a Christian in nineteen ninety five. Didn't plan on being a Christian the day I got saved. It was the furthest thing from my mind, but God had had a plan going for about a year where the gospel was getting into my head, and finally, in a summer day in June of nineteen fifty five, it got into my heart. And that day, God says, I've made you alive with Christ. I've raised you up with Christ. I've seated you in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
That's my position in the Lord, and it's been there since the day I came to know Christ as Savior. I didn't understand any of that when I got saved. Not a, not a bit of it, but came to understand the reality of what it is to be identified with Christ in my life, because God has identified me with him in, in his death and resurrection. And when Jesus went back to heaven, I didn't go back to heaven with him, but he says, because I'm there, you can come there someday. He's seated at the right hand of authority. I'll never sit there, but I'll sit at his feet while he sits on the right hand of authority and say, indeed, I'm here with him because God, you wanted me to be here, and you made it all possible on the basis of your grace.
So we're raised up. He adds something else in these verses. He tells us God's reason for it. Why was he able to do this? How could he take me, Ron Gibson, or you, see us for what we were in Adam and outside of Christ, and saying, but I think I can do something that can make not only your eternal destiny different, but your life on earth different. And he says, I have to do it my way. And in verses eight and nine, uh, uh, verse seven, we're told the reason why he did all of this. Why did he, why did he give his grace to us?
Why did he raise us up? Why did he seat us in the heavenlies? Verse seven, That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. God says, I want to have trophies of grace in heaven for all eternity, and I want to say I'm pointing to that person and that person and that person who came to me through faith in Jesus Christ, and I want to say to you, they're a demonstration of my grace and my kindness. They're here because I am that in my person and my actions toward them.
There was a lady in our church who had been a missionary in, in the Netherlands for years. She came home because she'd had something of a breakdown and just couldn't handle life very well anymore. And for a number of years, she lived close to the church and was often in a, in a nursing facility, and sometimes she, she wasn't all together there. But she was in church one evening, and we were talking about some of these things, and I asked the question of the audience. I said, why did God do for us what he did in Jesus Christ, and related some of the things that are mentioned here. And I waited for an answer, and she said, just because he wanted to.
And that's the, the truest thing of it, just because he wanted to. Nothing in me or you or her made us meritorious inside of God. He says, I know you need me, and I want to do this. That's the reason that he might display his exceeding kindness in the ages to come, the riches of his grace, and these are my trophies that my son bought through my grace. Now, one further thing that we need to get to before we get to the topic of the evening. Would you note how this is accomplished? This is what God did, but how do you and I get this?
How's it become part of our possession? How do we come into the place and say, you know, I really am one of God's trophies? And the answer's given in verses eight and nine, and I suppose probably everybody here could quote them. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. God's grace becomes the very means whereby we can be received in his family. In verse eight, one of the strongest statements for the security of the believer is given.
For by grace you have been saved. It's used earlier in verse five, and it seems that Paul repeats himself, but I think for p- with purpose. It says, in effect, as you look at it, by God's grace you have become initially saved. By God's grace you are continually saved. By God's grace you'll be completely saved, body, soul, and spirit from this world. What a great declaration of God saying, I will make sure that you're mine forever. And it's put so clearly, and it doesn't come out as strongly in the English, but it's saying because of the construction in the Greek, uh, you have been saved by God's grace, you're being kept by God's grace, and you will be ultimately delivered into God's presence by God's grace.
It's grace all the way through. And Paul would say in the book of Corinthians, second sentence, God's grace is sufficient for me. Thank God. Now, let's look at verse ten very quickly. On the basis of what God did, he says, I've now been able to recreate, if you will, another workmanship. The first one failed me miserably. The head of it, Adam, sinned and plunged the world, my, my creation, into sin with him. And I've lived with that, that sinful creation for centuries and centuries and centuries, but I'm entering into time and to do something about it. And at the advent of Jesus Christ, God says, I'm now going to begin a new workmanship.
He accomplished redemption on the cross, and those who believed in him now become part of, of this workmanship of God, created in Chri- Christ Jesus for good works. When you think about walking, realize that though we're never saved by works, human works are never enough. Really, they have no merit at all in the sight of God for salvation. There's nothing I could do or you could do to make God accept me in a sense of saying, well, there's something that I see in you that makes you worthy of me, uh, me saving you.
He says, that's not the way it is. But God does say, once I've saved you, I want good works. And that's the thought here in verse ten. Look at it with me again. For we as workmanship created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works. And then he adds in verse ten, which works God prepared beforehand or for or ordained ahead of time that we should walk in them. Think about what that's saying. The day I came to know Jesus Christ as Savior, the day you came to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, God says, I've already planned out a life of good works.
That's what the verse is saying. He prepared ahead of time. So beginning in June of nineteen fifty five, God says, I've got a plan for Ron Gibson's life that includes the good works I want him to do. And that's amazing and astounding in the sense that we're always trying to say, what can I do for you, God? He says, nothing. Just do the things I've planned for you, that I've prepared for you to do. Well, how do you do that? The simplest thing, the way I know, is simply by walking in the Spirit. God has given to you and me, the child of God, the Holy Spirit to indwell us.
And he says, I know the plan, and I'm ready to work the plan through your life if you will submit to me, if you'll be filled by me, if I'm in control of your life. And Paul writes in the book of Galatians, walk in the Spirit, and you won't do the deeds of the flesh. Paul will say later on in the book of Ephesians chapter five, be filled with the Spirit. So if I'm going to accomplish the good works that God has pre-planned ahead of me, then it behooves that I walk in close allegiance to God the Holy Spirit, who will govern and direct my life into all those things.
I know that's true, but I'm, I raise questions. I ask, okay, God, what are the good works? You said you prepared them, what are they? And as I began to study the subject, I decided I would look at the one who did good works of God all the time that he lived. Would you turn back to the Gospel of John? Jesus raised the question of his tormentors when they were, uh, uh, raging against him, and in John ten, the question is stated in a way that, uh, ties into our thought this evening. John chapter ten, Jesus talking in verse thirty one, Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them, many good works I've shown you from my Father. For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him saying, for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. And then Jesus will come back with a rejoinder down in verse, um, thirty seven. If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.
So if I want to learn about what kind of works are good works in the sight of God, I will look at the works of Jesus Christ. Now, many of the things that are talked about here in John ten are his miraculous works, and I can't do those. Jesus Christ did those as credentials for his, his authority and his, uh, messianic, uh, position. So, so I, I rule those out. I, I don't have the ability to heal or to give sight to the blind or to raise the dead. That was his right, and he gave that to the apostles in a delegated way. But what are the other things I can do that God would classify as good works?
So I'm going to ask you the question, and it's not rhetorical, and we don't have a lot of time, so don't wait a long time to answer. What are some of the good works that Jesus did that we can say could be good works that we could do? Help me out now. I'm s- proclaim the gospel, I heard somebody say. You have to speak louder because my wife says that I'm not hearing well anymore, which means I'm not listening to her. I think that's what she means. Yeah, preach the gospel. He proclaimed the truth of God. What else? Beg- beg pardon? Show charity.
Oh, all right. I heard it, but I didn't hear the word charity very well. Yeah, to display God's charity, to display the love of God in different ways toward other people. Uh, someone says, uh, be concerned about the sick, and he was. He had compassion upon those who were in great need physically. What else did he do that indicated he was doing the works of God? Prayed for one another. You ought to study the prayer life of Jesus, and I'm sure you have. This son of God prayed probably more than anybody ever prayed. Prayed for one another, expressed concern.
What else? He served. He said, I've come not to be served, but to serve and give my life a ransom for many. And we could recount a number of different things that you and I can do that God would call good works. The things that he's prepared for us to do. I think of a, of a lady, her name was Dorcas, I think. She died. Peter was called to her side, and he was concerned about her and eventually will give her life as the power of God came through him. But it says, while he was waiting, the widows, weeping, said, look at the things that Dorcas made, the good works that she did.
And she was a lady who apparently was good with her hands in sewing, and had made various articles of clothing for the benefit of others. It's a good work. And we could go on and go on and go on and enumerate different kinds of good works that God has prepared for you and me today. I don't know what they are for tomorrow. God has already planned them for me. So if I'm walking where he wants me to walk in relationship to him, they're going to occur naturally without me manufacturing or trying to come up with something new and special. God says, uh, in the book of Titus, Jesus redeemed that he might, um, purify himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works.
You're never saved by human works. I am not, you are not, nobody ever was or will be. But because we can't do anything that's meritorious, God saves us to be his workmanship that display his good works in the world. Thank God for a God who says, I've saved you with a purpose. How you walking? Are you walking in the good works that God has prepared ahead of time for you to live in? As you close your day, can you look back and say, God, nothing real special happened, but I believe the works you wanted me to do were done today.
And what's interesting, often the things that you and I do that nobody notices, God says, I've marked it down, I've marked it down, I've marked it down. It's a, it's a good work that I call good. And God's the one who determines what they are and their quality. But he says, you know, when it's all over, guess what? I prepared for you to do them. And this is the amazing thing about the grace of God. He, he will lead us through our life to do the things he wants, and then he says at the end, if you've done them, I'll reward you. I don't understand that, but I believe it. Indeed, that's a gracious God. So, how you walking tonight? Did you have God's will accomplished in your life today as you did the things that he wanted you to do?
We've numbered several, but I would suggest you get through the New Testament and just look at all the things God expects of us, yay, commands us, the imperatives of the New Testament, like love one another, like build one another up, like speak the truth in love, lie not one to another, and all those things that are part of his instructions to us, saying these are part of the good works that I want you to do. My son did them perfectly. I'd like you to do it like he did. You'll never do it perfectly, but I want you to emulate his life and be a workmanship that's honoring unto me.
Thank God for the privilege of walking in the good works that God prepared ahead of time, for which we can live. Would you pray with me? Father, I don't know these people as you do. There may be somebody here this evening that doesn't, doesn't understand fully that salvation is never of human merit, never of man's good things. Salvation is a gift to be received by faith. I don't know who that person might be, but I trust if there is one like that, a man or a woman, they'll realize that salvation is a gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and they take it by faith and just God, trust God and his words, and Christ died for your sins according to the scripture, was raised again the third day according to the scripture, and if you'll believe that, I will forgive your sins.
I will beget you again to a lively hope. I'll make you one of my children. If there's somebody like that, Father, visit them again with the message of salvation, and may they respond tonight. There are other of us, oh Father, that perhaps have been wasting our time, not concerned about the good works that you prepared for us to walk in. And I think of, of men and women I know, even a daughter tonight that is squandering the grace of God and the life that she'd be living day by day, doing the things that God had planned for her, being discarded because she's where she shouldn't be in a relationship to you.
There may be some like that here tonight. They've been, uh, backing off. They've been slacking off. They've been unwilling to let the Spirit of God lead in their lives so that he can accomplish through them the good works that you've pre-planned. Pray that that will not go any longer, if that's the case, that they would deal with you and you would deal with them, so that indeed you'd be pleased in each of us. We pray today and every day until Jesus comes. Amen.