This week is our third week in Ephesians 2:8 – 10. And in case you’ve missed the central theme of the last two weeks we’ve been honing in on this simple truth that salvation is a gift from God.
In week one we learned that the gift of salvation is given to us by God’s free grace and it’s received through the pipeline of faith. And then in week two we learned that the gift of salvation results in humility and humility is cultivated by resting in the truth that God’s doing + God’s working + God’s results = God’s glory.
Look at Ephesians 2:8 – 10 with me…
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
The big idea for this week from verse 10 is that the gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives. But before we dive into that, I want to bring us back to the central theme of salvation being a gift from God.
God’s grace is a free gift. The faith he gives you is a free gift. Salvation is a free gift. Salvation by grace through faith is one gigantic free gift.
You can’t do anything to earn this gift. You can’t work hard enough to earn this gift. You can’t manufacture the grace to get this gift. You can’t muster up enough faith to receive this gift. No amount of good deeds can balance the scales enough for you to deserve this gift.
The gift of salvation by grace through faith costs you absolutely nothing because it cost Jesus absolutely everything when he went to the cross. The Father, the Son and the Spirit made a master plan of salvation long before the details of the plan of creation were ever made.
That master plan of salvation includes images of every person God planned to give the gift of salvation to. If you are a Christian and even if you aren’t a Christian but you sense that the God of the universe is calling out to you then you can rest assured that you are a part of his master plan of salvation.
You are priceless because the priceless blood of Jesus was poured out on the cross of Calvary for you. You are priceless because God created you and he paid the price to purchase you. You are twice owned by the God of creation. You’ve been adopted from the pawnshop of Satan, sin and death. That’s a gift and that’s a Giver worth bragging about.
This week as we hone in on verse 10, the apostle Paul says that God has given us the gift of salvation because “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” There are four distinct phrases in this verse that act like brush strokes on the canvas painting of the gift of salvation.
It’s almost like God in his unique and creative way, used the apostle Paul like a paintbrush to paint four distinct phrases onto a canvas so that we could see the beauty of the gift of salvation. Let’s take each phrase one at a time and see what the Lord paints for us.
1 :: We are his workmanship…
Another word for workmanship is masterpiece. Think about that word “masterpiece” for a minute. When I think of a masterpiece I think of a beautiful home or a skyscraper or a piece of art in an art gallery or an awesome song or a beautiful sword or a juicy nine course meal.
But when I think of all those masterpieces my mind is immediately caught up with images of a master architect or a master painter or a master songwriter or a master welder or a master chef. In other words, when I see a masterpiece I’m not just in awe of the masterpiece itself I’m in awe of the master behind the piece.
And that’s the thing behind the thing of the gift of salvation. When God gives someone the gift of salvation he gives that gift because that person is his masterpiece. That person is his work of art. That person is his handiwork. That person is his creation. That person is his design.
And the purpose of God’s masterpiece is to bring attention not to the masterpiece itself but to the master behind the masterpiece. Think about it. God takes little lumps of unformed clay and he shapes them into priceless wine glasses. God takes wandering sheep and transforms them into a peaceful and loving family.
God takes broken people and designs them into some of the most powerful gospel communicators on the planet. God takes selfish people and makes them into generous people. God takes enemies and turns them into family.
Now when we see these things happening, don’t we typically stand in awe of the God whose handiwork is on display? Don’t we catch our breath when we realize we’ve just witnessed a work of art by a master craftsman? Doesn’t it take your breath away to see someone move from being an enemy to a child of God? That’s what’s supposed to happen my friends! That’s suppose to happen because that’s what gifts do.
Gifts take our breath away. Gifts leave us in awe of the gift giver. When Paul says that, “we are God’s workmanship” it’s suppose to take our breath away as we come face to face with the master of the masterpiece. The gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives.
2 :: We’ve been created in Christ Jesus for good works…
This phrase gets at the purpose for which we’ve been created. Why does a blacksmith spend so much time creating an intricate knife? Why does a carpenter give his life to framing houses and making things out of wood? Why does a young couple spend so much time dreaming about making a baby?
The answer overwhelmingly to all of these questions is that all of us have a sliver of God’s creativity in us and the reason we love to create things is because the things we create have a purpose.
The family tree my wife painted in our home has a purpose. The car that was made by that car manufacturer was made with a purpose. The coffee on the back table was made by people early this morning they made it for a purpose. And it’s no different for you and I.
According to this passage, God created us with a purpose and that purpose was good works. We’ve been created to do good works. We’ve been created to reflect the goodness of God in our doing and in our working.
Some of us think that we don’t do much good at all. We think I work at Walmart or I work in a factory all day or I work at a gas station or I work doing odd jobs or I work in a restaurant or I work fiddling with numbers on a computer or I take care of kids and a home all day and we shortchange the glory of God by downplaying the good work God created us to do.
Others of us get stuck thinking about all the bad things we do. We think I got angry with my spouse today or we think I had that lustful thought today or we think I got so frustrated with my coworker today or we think I lived in self-pity today and we shortchange the good things that God wants to do through us today.
We’ve been created in Christ Jesus for good works. When you receive the gift of salvation you become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Your purpose used to be living for yourself but now you’ve been re-purposed to live for Christ.
Your old life is gone and your new life has begun. It’s like before receiving the gift of salvation you were a lump of useless steel laying in the corner getting rusty with sin. But now that you’ve received the gift of salvation the master creator has refashioned you into a sharp sword ready for battle.
If you’ve received the gift of salvation then you’ve been created in Christ Jesus for good works. Good works are your purpose and the purpose of your good works is to point to the master of the masterpiece. The gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives.
3 :: God prepared our good works beforehand…
When the apostle Paul uses this phrase it reminds me that I’m not an accident. I’m not an afterthought and I’m not a mistake. The master behind the masterpiece of my life made me on purpose. I wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction and I’m not the product of leftover scraps.
When Paul says that God prepared our good works beforehand in verse 10 and then he says in Colossians 1:15 – 17 that all things were created by Jesus, through Jesus and for Jesus and then when John says in the first three verses of the first chapter of his gospel that Jesus is God and that all things were made through him, I get the sense that you and I are not mistakes.
We’re not accidents and we’re not afterthoughts. The master behind the masterpiece of our lives made us on purpose. We’re not knee jerk reactions to a world gone mad. We’re not leftovers. We are masterpieces meant to bring attention to the master of the masterpiece of our lives.
Now the truth according to the 9th chapter of Romans is that God is the master builder, master architect and master artist behind everything that’s been created. And people are the crowning achievement or crowned jewels of his creation. And some objects of his creation have been created for honorable use while other objects of his creation have been created for dishonorable use.
Nevertheless, everything that has been created has been created for the glory of God. All of creation whether honorable or dishonorable has been designed to point our attention to God. So God laid out this plan like a master architect and he included the good works that you and I are called to do in the blueprints of his masterpiece.
When an architect draws up the blueprints of a brand new home or a brand new office space he plans the good works these masterpieces will perform. The boardroom will perform the work of housing business meetings and the bathroom will perform the work of personal relief and the bedroom will perform the work of rest.
Sometimes those rooms don’t get used for the good work they were designed for but that doesn’t mean that the architect didn’t design them for those good works. And it doesn’t mean that those rooms can’t still be used for those good works either. Those rooms simply need to be redeemed.
And that’s the beauty of the gift of salvation. Remember! That’s the painting that the master artist is using the apostle Paul to paint. When I think of the gift of salvation as it connects to this phrase regarding good works I am awestruck once again.
God knew every sinful desire I would have and he knew every sinful act I would perform. He knows every sinful desire and every sinful way I will perform in the future. He know that I will not perform the way he designed me to perform and yet he designed me with the capacity to do the good things that he has called me to do despite my weaknesses and despite my failures and despite my frailties.
As I unwrap the gift of salvation I’m awestruck because deep down inside the package I find that God has prepared my good works beforehand. He didn’t save me and then turn me loose to try to make it on my own. He gave me his Spirit to enable me and to animate me to perform the good works he created me for.
So God not only saves me but he also gives me a new work list and he doesn’t just give me a new work list but he also gives me the energy and the ability to do what he’s called me to do in the power of the presence of the gift of his very own Spirit. How’s that for catching a glimpse of the master’s work behind the masterpiece of our lives? The gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives.
4 :: God prepared good works so that we should walk in them…
In this last phrase we get a little taste of what’s to come in the rest of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The themes of this letter could rightly be summed up as sit, walk, stand. If you have received the gift of salvation then you are seated in your new identity in Christ in Heaven and therefore you are called to walk like a new person and to stand firm in your new faith.
To be clear, Paul doesn’t launch into the full aspects of what it means to walk like a new person until chapter four of this letter but in one phrase or in one brush stroke he gives us a tiny taste or a small glimpse of where he’s headed.
Walking is all about performance. You perform the act of walking by placing one foot in front of the other. Sometimes slowly if you’ve been injured and sometimes quickly if you’re in good shape. God has prepared our good works so that we can walk in them sometimes slowly (especially at first) and sometimes quickly (especially in special seasons of God’s grace).
Think about your own journey of learning to walk. A child learns to walk very slowly and they often fall down because their wobbly legs are weak. But as a child gets older and matures a bit and as their legs strengthen they begin to walk much better. That doesn’t mean they walk perfectly. I still stumble around my house sometimes when I get off balance or when my muscles are sore.
It’s the same in the Christian journey. We’re just like little children learning to walk. We’re just like a young child who practices walking from the couch to his mom’s arms every day. We’re just like a little boy who learns how to run across the room and sometimes biffs it in the middle of the room.
We are called to walk out our salvation in fear and trembling as we fall into the arms of the master builder of the masterpiece of our lives. The gift of salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross along with the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God is what compels us and enables us and energizes us to walk in a manner that is worthy of our calling.
When God calls us to follow him he calls us to walk with him and if you are walking with Jesus then you will see a noticeable difference in the direction you are walking. In terms of our walking out these good works we will sometimes sprint like gazelles and other times we will crawl like caterpillars but the emphasis of our walk isn’t placed upon the speed of the walk but on the direction of the walk. (this thought isn’t original with me but I do not know the original author!)
Walking in the good works that God prepared for us beforehand is the purpose we were created for because when we walk in these good works we walk in a new direction that is towards God. And as we walk in this new direction we bring attention to Jesus. And this is why I say that the gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives.
Summary…
The gift of salvation points us to the master of the masterpiece of our lives. We are his workmanship. We’ve been created in Christ Jesus for good works. God prepared our good works beforehand. God prepared these good works so that we should walk in them.
Walking in good works is all about direction not speed. It’s not about us it’s about Him. It’s not about our works. It’s about his work. It’s not about our speed it’s about His direction. The gift of salvation reveals the master behind the masterpiece of our lives.