Sermon Tone Analysis

The Workmanship of Grace

Ephesians 2:10

I think you would agree that grace is a mystery.

Everything we possess as believers is ours through and by the grace of God.

We’ve earned nothing, deserved nothing and purchased nothing.

Everything we have in Jesus Christ has been given to us by the grace of God.

God has given us the gift of His grace without asking for anything in return.

And while God doesn’t expect us to repay Him for His grace, He does expect a return on His investment.

The work of grace in us should result in some very real changes in our lives.

These changes allow us to live for God and when we live according to His will, it brings glory to His name.

When grace comes to a lost, dead sinner, that sinner is born again as a “new creation” in Jesus.

The old desires and ways of living are put aside for a brand-new life in Jesus.

What God works in us by grace will work its way out in our lives.

Not only are we saved by His grace; we are changed by that same grace.

As that grace works itself out in our lives, it reveals itself in us through our works.

Last week when we studied Ephesians 2:8-9, we learned that works play no part in our salvation.

We’re not saved by what we do or by what we produce.

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone!

However, the proof that God’s grace has worked in us is our works after we are saved.

Someone said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”

In other words, works don’t save us, but we are saved to work.

James is reminding us that while faith brings us into God’s salvation, our works prove the truth of our profession of faith.

The verse we are going to look at today is about the work of grace in our lives.

It tells us what the Lord does in us when He saves us, and how He works through us to accomplish His will in the world.

It’s a challenge to all of God’s people to be the examples of grace He saved us to be.

Let’s pray and we’ll read our verse for this morning.

Pray!

The first thing that we’ll look at is a word:

About Workmanship

Paul begins this verse by saying, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.”

The words in the Bible are important because God inspired every word in the Bible.

It may help us in our study of Scripture to look at the words used and this is especially helpful in understanding the meaning in this passage.

So, let’s spend a few minutes doing just that.

workmanship

The word “workmanship” means, “that which is made, a work, a work of art”.

It comes from the word that gives us the word “poem”.

It refers to a “piece of literary workmanship.”

It came to refer to an author’s greatest literary achievement.

Basically, it refers to his “masterpiece.”

Paul is saying that the redeemed are God’s masterpieces, his greatest achievement, the greatest work of the Master Potter, the greatest letter ever written by the hand of the Master Author.

We are saved because He took the shapeless, dead clay of our lives in His loving, powerful hands and He molded us into something new for His glory.

With loving care and infinite skill, God shaped us by His grace and wrote His love into our lives.

When you stop to think about the raw materials God has to work with when He saves sinners and changes live, it’s even more incredible!

The redeemed are God’s love letters to a lost world.

Paul says it this way,

If you are saved, your life is God’s love letter to a lost, dead world.

He’s written His love in you and on you.

And through you, He tells the world that He loves sinners; that His Son died to redeem the lost; that there is life-changing power in the grace of God; that the Gospel is real, and that Jesus Christ makes a difference in every life He redeems through the power of His blood.

You are God’s billboard where He writes His love for the lost.

No artist paints a painting to hide it in a closet.

No sculptor fashions a sculpture just to hide it so no one can see it.

No writer pens a literary work to keep it away from the eyes of others.

Every artist wants his paintings to be seen by many.

Ever sculptor wants his work to be viewed by others.

Every writer wants his words to be read by other people.

God didn’t save us to hide us within the walls of the church.

God saved us to display us to the world.

He saved us so that through us He might show others what He can do for them.

If you are saved, you are God’s testimony to the world that He saves sinners.

Let the world see what God has done in you, with you and for you!

Michelangelo was once asked what he was doing as he chipped away at a shapeless rock.

He answered, ‘I’m liberating an angel from this stone.’

That’s what God is doing with us.

We are in the hands of the Creator, the ultimate sculptor who made the universe out of nothing, and he has never yet thrown away a rock on which he has begun a masterwork.

created

The word “created” means, “to form or to shape.”

It refers “to making something out of nothing.”

It speaks of “a new thing.”

That’s what the child of God is!

One moment he is dead in trespasses and sins and the next he is alive in Jesus.

The believer instantly becomes a child of God and is forever changed by the power of God.

When a sinner is saved, it’s the greatest of all miracles, and it is the greatest demonstration of God’s creative power.

When God saves a sinner, a new person is formed.

Something that has never before existed comes into being at the instant of salvation.

The heavens above, the sun, the moon and the stars, all stand as testimonies to God’s power in creation.

When you see them above you, they shout out, “There is a God!

He made this!”

As surely as the stars, planets, sun and moon declare the existence and power of God, nothing declares His glory, His power and His existence more than a life that has been saved by grace!

Every child of God, who walks, talks, acts, thinks, and lives differently because of grace, is a bold, powerful witness to the power of our great God.

All around this room are living, breathing testimonies to the live-changing power of God.

All around this room sit examples of His “workmanship.”

All around this room sits the tangible evidence that God makes a new thing when He saves someone!

He takes something worthless and transformed into something of infinite value.

That’s almost enough to make a Baptist shout!

in Christ Jesus

The words “in Christ Jesus” remind us where the ground upon which salvation rests.

When God makes a new creature out of a dead sinner, He does it in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the only way of salvation for the whole world.

The only way a sinner can be saved is by believing the Gospel, and Jesus Christ is the axel around which the Gospel turns.

If you are “in Christ Jesus” you are saved.

If you are not, then you are lost!

The only way for you to be saved is to be “in Christ Jesus.”

How?

By believing the Gospel by faith.

You “must be born again” and the only way for that to happen is for you to come to Jesus by faith and trust Him and Him alone for your salvation.

for

The word “for” carries us back to verses 8–9 where Paul told us that God’s salvation is not the result of works.

We didn’t save ourselves.

We didn’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

We didn’t turn over a new leaf.