WE ARE GOD'S WORKMANSHIP

WE ARE GOD'S WORKMANSHIP

Ephesians 2:1‑10

Key Verse: 2:10

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In the previous chapter Paul mentioned about abundant spiritual blessings in Christ to the saints in Ephesus. He told us that God chose us one by one before the creation of the world and predestined us in love and adopted us as his sons so that we may live as his precious children. God redeemed us by the blood of Jesus. Today Paul talks about individual salvation by God’s grace before talking about the church. Paul describes who we were in the past without Christ (1-3) and who we are now (4-7), and what is the role of our new man created in Christ (8-10). May God bless us to serve his church as his workmanship. Once we were dead but now we are alive by the grace of God and we have responsibility to do good works for the glory of God. I pray that God may bless us to work hard for the summer Bible conference because God saved by the grace of Jesus.

PART I. YOU WERE DEAD IN YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS AND SINS (1-3)

Some movie title says, “Don’t ask me about my past.” But once Socrates said, “Know yourself.” How many people know who you were in the past? Knowing our original condition without Christ is the first step to understand the nature of God’s salvation. Then what is the condition of a man without Christ? Look at verses 1-3. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.” Here the word “you” refers to the Gentile Christians. Paul boldly declared that they were dead. Some one may protest saying, “I am active and vigorous and alive. How can you say that I am dead?” Paul meant that they were dead spiritually. They were cut off from God. They were slaves of sins. They followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air. They gratified the cravings of their sinful desires. Based on Genesis 3, sin is precisely cutting the relationship, or separation. Sin separates man from God. Sin cuts us off from God. The consequence of sin results in death. People treat sin lightly. But sin brings death to all men. When we sin, we bring God’s judgment on ourselves. That’s the reason why we must obey God and live for the glory of God.

What does "the kingdom of the air" mean? Here “air” refers to the world. We committed transgressions. We committed sins. We followed the ways of the world and we became like Satan, because we lived in this world. This world is known as the kingdom of Satan. If we do not belong to the kingdom of God, we belong to the kingdom of the world. But remember that Satan work among the disobedient. Satan has no power when we obey God. Many people think God is invisible. So there is no wrath of God. But Romans 1:18 says, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness...." Godly people have the fear of God in their hearts and want to live for the glory of God. But ungodly people live by the ways of the world under the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Men must have hope. But those who are objects of wrath do not have any hope in the world. Let me ask one question? Who were we in the past? Yes, we were dead in our transgressions and sins. We were dead without Christ. But this is not the end of the story. We have good news.

PART II. GOD MADE US ALIVE WITH CHRIST (4-7)

Look at verse 5. "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved." A dead person cannot save himself. He even does not know he is dead because he is cut off from God. When we were ignorant of God, we did not know that we were dead spiritually. Therefore, only God who is the Creator of all things can make us alive. So, Paul insists that it is by the grace of God that we are saved. We have not earned, nor could we have earned it; it is the gift of God, and our part is simply to accept it by faith. Paul's point of view is undeniably true for two reasons. First, God is perfect and therefore, only perfection is good enough for him. God measured man’s spiritual weight on his spiritual scale 1-10. All men fell short of God’s standard. What will be your spiritual scale? Who has a perfect 10? Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We cannot have a perfect 10 because we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. By our human effort we cannot meet God’s standard. Man, by his very nature, cannot bring perfection to God; and so, if every man is to win his way to God, it must always be God who gives and man who takes. Second, God is love. Because of his great love for us, he saves us from our transgression. God so loved the world and he gave us his One and Only son to save us from our empty ways of life. God did not condemn sinners but saved them through the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ. God is abundant in his love. He looked for Adam when Adam sinned. God called him, “Where are you? Adam!” One girl is missing in Utah. Her parents plead, “Please send her back to us.” In the same way God is looking for us to come home out of his love.

We know by now that salvation is the result of God’s grace for all sinners like us. Not only God saved us by his grace, but also he seated us with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm. Look at verses 6-7. “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Here Paul used the past tense “seated” as if God raised us with Christ and seated us with him in heaven. Wow! This is an amazing grace of God. Once we were dead men but God made us alive by his grace and love. Now he elevated us from the earthly men to the heavenly men. He removed us from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm. Seating is very important in the meeting. Now God seated us with Christ. What a great honor we have in Christ! Once we were objects of God’s wrath. Now we are objects of God’s honor and glory. 2 Timothy 2:11-12a, “Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will reign with him.” We will participate in the rule of Jesus Christ. We will reign with Christ.

Many of us attended the homecoming ceremony of Dr. Daniel Hong at Lehigh yesterday. God called him home on the 6^th of July, 2002. We know that he was our fellow missionary coworker, a devoted professor of physics, a distinguished scholar, a loving father, a faithful husband, a compassionate shepherd, a decisive Bible teacher, a champion of faith, and a powerful closing messenger with humor and insight. We will miss his closing message mostly. He used to say in his closing messages, “You have to make a decisive decision of faith. Life is like a balloon. Jump on it before it is gone. Fix our eyes on Jesus, our raiser beam.” He delivered our 2001 Easter Bible Conference main message based on John 20:1-31. He wrote “This January, I visited Korea, and met my brother. He told me an interesting story. There are two mayflies: one was born in the summer, and the other was born in the winter. Both wrote an autobiography for their descendants. One talked about the beautiful summer, hot weather, rain, and green trees. The other talked about snow, freezing ice, and cold weather. Now, we know that the life span of the mayfly is only one day. Those born in the summer either have to reject the story written about snow, or simply believe what was written. Suppose 365 mayflies wrote 365 books about the whole year. If I were one of the mayflies, I find that there are stories that fit to my personal experiences, but there are some stories that have nothing to do with my life experiences. We are like mayflies. We are mortal, but our God is immortal. We are finite, but our God is infinite. Resurrection is like talking about winter by those who only know about the summer. I always find the resurrection story difficult to grasp. Like Mary, we know the story by our head, but it takes great deal of effort and the work of the Holy Spirit to sink it in our heart.” Dr. Daniel C. Hong was a truly great man of God and touched our hearts and inspired us and made big differences in our lives. Little Danny said in his testimony with many tears, “You are my example. I will follow your example of faith. Keep watch over me from heaven. I miss you, Dad.” We all miss our dearest coworker. But now God seated him with Christ in the heavenly realms. God welcomed him to his bosom saying, “Missionary Daniel, my faithful servant! Well done. You will reign with me in my kingdom.” How can it be possible that God seated us with Christ in the heavenly realm? Look at the words, “rich in mercy, it is by grace, his great love for us, incomparable riches of his grace, and his kindness.” In the past we grieved God due to our sins and disobedience and invited his anger and wrath. Who can quell God’s wrath? No one can do that except his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus extinguished God’s wrath and turned it into mercy and grace because Jesus obeyed the will of his Father through his death on the cross. God’s anger subsided through Jesus and he showed incomparable riches of his grace to all of us. Now we became objects of God’s love and mercy. No one can be saved without God’s grace and mercy.

Why did God show his mercy and grace to sinners such as we? Look at verse 7 again. “in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” God did this for our future believers. The highlight of our Summer Bible conference will be the life testimony night. We see God’s wonderful grace whenever we hear life testimonies. Whenever we have chance, we should share God’s grace with others so that God may show the incomparable riches of his grace.

PART III. WE ARE GOD’S WORKMANSHIP (8-10)

Look at verses 8-9. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.” Apostle reemphasized the fact that it is by grace we have been saved. Why did he repeat again and again that we are saved by his grace? He did not give us any room for us to boast about our salvation. He did not allow us to become self-righteous. Someone may think, “I deserve to be saved because I feed more sheep.” Other may think, “I have better faith than all others.” We should not compare our faith to others. Then we can look down others or become proud. 1 Cor. 1:31 says, “Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” We have nothing to boast other than Jesus Christ our Lord. We must be humble when God blessed us and should not forget that we are saved by God’s grace alone. Isaac Watts wrote in the hymn number 143, “Was it for crimes that I have done he groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree!” What have you done to save yourself? What have I done to save myself? We did not do anything. We only complained and hated others and followed our sinful desires to please our flesh. But God demonstrated his love while we were sinners through his Son Jesus Christ.

What was God’s purpose of our salvation? Look at verse 10. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." God saved us to be his workmanship to do good works. Romans 6:1-2 says, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin: how can we live in it any longer?” This means that God did not save us to go on sinning. God saved us to do good works. This work is not related to earn our salvation. This work is related to our new relationship with God. God changed our status from the objects of wrath to the objects of love and grace. We became partners in God’s new creation. Now God invited us to become members of his new community of believers, his church. By the grace of God we join in God’s world salvation team.

This part explains God’s work of recreation in Jesus. We are a new creation in Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” First, "we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works." What a mysterious secret that we are created in Christ to do good works. There is no other such love for mankind. Suppose God created man in Christ to be miserable, and with hard-earned money, to buy his grave for his departure to the unknown world. We cannot but say that this is terrible. God is good. So God has the best purpose in his creation. God’s purpose is revealed in our new life. We are God’s workmanship. We have responsibility to respond God’s grace. It is to do good works for the glory of God. After Paul received God’s grace, he said in Romans 1:14, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.” Where does his sense of obligation come from? It came from the fact that Jesus did not kill him but saved him for the world salvation.

The second part of this verse says, "which God prepared in advance for us to do." This verse has a deep spiritual meaning in it. Through this we can understand the meaning of suffering and remove the root of bitterness from our hearts. When we see the world, there are many suffering people. Among many suffering people are some who made success. So they have to be joyful, because they got out of the suffering and now became wealthy. But 99.9% of those who made a success in the time of suffering complain about their past sufferings and amplify their sorrow to the maximum degree. And they forget the fact that from their suffering, by God's grace they become honorable persons. In other words, the root of bitterness in their hearts is not taken away. So they are just the same when they are wealthy as when they were suffering. But there is God's great purpose for their suffering. In chapter 1, we thought about St. Paul. He was humanly so ambitious that he mastered the philosophies of East and West, plus the Talmud and Torah, and all the details of Judaism. But from God's point of view, his study was not for himself; God wanted to use him as the founder of the theology of Christianity, with which the early Christians could conquer the whole world.

The words, "in advance," solved his bitterness problem. He understood the Bible secret that God made him suffer so much in advance so that he could be well-prepared as the one who understands those who are hungry and sorrowful. When he solved his life problem in the Bible, God used him preciously. In the past I was bitter towards the world because I was deprived of having parent’s love. I did not know why God made me suffer endless without parents. I longed for motherly love and fatherly discipline. I carried the unquenchable burden of life. I tried to satisfy the void of my life by chasing after girls and pursing worldly glories. Nothing in the world satisfied my deep inner thirst. The more I worked hard, the more I became empty. But God saved me by his incomparable riches of his grace and called me to become a missionary. Now I know the meaning of my suffering. God prepared me in advance to become a shepherd for many fatherless people. Now I rejoice even in sufferings. All of us carry scars and wounds inflicted by sins of the world. We feel that we are suffering endless without any meaning. God has purpose in our suffering. God is molding us to become compassionate mother-like shepherd to raise many disciples of Jesus in this generation. God called us to make America a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. God prepared in advance for us to do his glorious work. Amen! Let’s read the key verse 10.