Ceated for good works

PRAY that God will do what we need Him to do even if it is uncomfortable.

As we start this message today, think of people who have played an important part in your journey to faith in Christ and the growth in Christ that you have experienced. Any who weren’t pastors?

Have a few people shout out a name and what they did.

Most people who made a difference stepped out of what could have been comfortable place to a place of personal inconvenience, to impact lives and glorify God. There were always the unseen people.

They lived intentionally with a higher call.

I look back over my life and I thank God for the people, ordinary people, who lived out ordinary lives serving an extraordinary God with joy. They exercised the discipline of ministry.

I don’t remember this being taught when I was growing up, but I remember this being modelled. I saw it modelled that the pastors weren’t the only ministers in the church.

My parents modelled this - my dad holding a full time job and yet serving churches. My mom, praying.

Sunday school teachers - for them it was a weekly commitment to teach us.

Youth workers - from the time I was young I was in a church where church members gave themselves to serving the next generation.

Many other who opened their homes and supported in so many ways.

The result of this was that there was hardly a time, since I surrendered my life to Jesus, when I was not actively involved in serving in some kind of ministry.

That was right!

Ephesians 2:8–10 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on those few verses.

Reflect

i. God saved you

You are an object of God’s affection

If you are in Christ, you were dead and He made you alive. You couldn’t save you - it’s a gift from God. It’s all grace. There’s nothing that you could even boast in! If you have anything to boast in, it’s in what Christ has done for you and in you!

Shouldn’t that affect us deeply?

Doesn’t it fill your heart with gratitude

Doesn’t it humble you?

when you think that God came down and went to the cross to save you.

When you think you have nothing to boast about

You just can’t think too highly of myself. Phil 2:3 says I should consider others more important than myself.

This is hard when our goal is to have other people serve us. Home, work etc.

ii. You are God’s workmanship

God was making you into something! That ain’t junk!

I am a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

God has made me new

New heart

New identity

New family

New life

New purpose

New power

God is making me new - more and more into the image of Christ.

God has equipped me for more

Talents

Abilities

Gifts

Passion

Experiences

God wants to redeem them!

We are so used to operating in the natural that we forget that God is calling us higher to serve Him.

iii. God made you for a better purpose

“You have been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”

What if we don’t allow God to use us? We miss God’s purpose for our lives. We could miss something so wonderful if we aren’t willing to see this or make ourselves available to God to be used - you have been made for good works - that God prepared beforehand for you to do.

Many places you have been expected to sit and attend church, watch, give, and repeat next week. We have created consumers and embrace consumerism in the church because it’s comfortable.

You have been saved and made for more than Sunday attendance. More than safe and comfortable lives. More than reading your Bible when you remember. The good works may be in this life but serving an eternal purpose.

The God of the universe has chosen to use you to advance His Kingdom! Impact generations. The work of God advances through clay pots that are cracked.

We need to think about how that impacts our lives on a daily basis.

Ephesians 4:11–13 CSB

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

God’s will is that you see yourself as a minister and that you minister! Minister is the word diakonias - means servant. To be a minister is to be a servant. My role as your pastor is equipping you for the work of the ministry - to be servants. I do that as a minister - a servant.

What does this mean for you?

It means whatever God has given me is meant to be used to serve him and the needs of others In love.

We see that expressed in 2 ways.

i. Formal ministry - what is done at church

Using the gifts to build and strengthen the body.

It has often been said that 80% of the work in the church is done by 20% of the church. As a church that wants to honour God, let’s set out to change that.

Showing a willingness

Fulfilling our commitments

This can be quite safe for us if we don’t do anything. Yet, there will always be a need for people to serve in churches ministries.

ii. Informal yet intentional - what happens when we see the need in others

We begin to ask, how can I meet those needs in love?

Both are important. God is concerned with your heart. When ministry opportunities arise, God wants you to take them - there’s a sense in which there’s evidence that you know God

Matthew 7:21–23 CSB

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

Imagine seeing our churches embracing this fully. Where we serve Jesus and people.

Why is this important for us?

1. We follow Jesus

2. We reflect Jesus

We carry the heart of Jesus Who took the form of a servant Phil 2:1-11.

Ministry trains our hearts to think of others

Helps us see others

Matthew 25:35 ESV

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

That’s the basis for ministry in our homes.

3. Models Christ for others

Even our own children.

We love

We serve

We combine those. Think of the impact it will have in teaching our children how generous Jesus love for us has been as we start inviting strangers to the table.

We did this so much that there were times our kids would say to their friends, “If you need a place to stay, go to mom and dad’s house.”

When you do that you are making a statement that it all belongs to God. Our time, talents, possession and even our own lives.

We dedicate our kids to the Lord, but what happens in us when God says to them go to the hard places. That’s when our idols are shown.

I rejoiced when my kids put themselves in hard places and even gave away things that were theirs, but someone else needed.

When we live ready to embrace the good works God prepared in advance for us to do…

4. Our lives open for the adventure called faith

We get to experience God in ways we could never have imagined.

That’s often uncomfortable but rewarding.

R Kent Hughes: “No one has ever cultivated a ministering heart and lived to tell of a life of ease.

5. We get to demonstrate love, not just speak about it

We are demonstrating a love…

For God

For others

For ourselves

Do you get tired doing this? You bet. But Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

6. Our Challenge

i. To believe - God made me for more

ii. To surrender. We need to dethrone our idols - Approval, comfort, power, and control.

iii. To reorder our lives so that we embrace the works that He has created us for.

iv. To declare - “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”