Book of Ephesians, chapter 1.
As we noted yesterday, the first thing is
relationship.
Our relationship must be established with God, and
that relationship is in Christ Jesus.
Apart from Jesus Christ, you can have no
true relationship with God.
And any thought of relationship with God apart
from Jesus Christ is only a pseudo-relationship.
There is no true relationship with God apart
from Jesus Christ.
So the first thing that he establishes is
relationship.
And then the blessings of that relationship, all
that is ours through that relationship.
So we are chosen in him.
And all of these blessings come as the
result of that relationship in Christ Jesus.
And we told you yesterday that you should
go through the first chapter and note the
blessings that are yours.
And verse 4, chosen in him, that we
should be holy and without blame before him
in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ.
You see, this blessing of being predestined and
adopted as God's child is by Jesus Christ.
In whom, well, 6th verse, accepted in the
beloved.
God accepts you in Christ.
He cannot accept you outside of Christ.
There is no basis of acceptance of you
outside of Christ, but accepted in the beloved.
I love that.
And in whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of our sins, according
to the riches of his grace.
And then having made known unto us the
mysteries of his will, that he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, even
in him.
Verse 11, in whom you have obtained an
inheritance, that we should be to the praise
of the glory of his grace who first
trusted in Christ.
So all of these blessings and then finally
in verse 13, after that ye believed, ye
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance until
the redemption of the purchased possession under the
praise of his glory.
So these are the spiritual blessings.
Paul enumerates them.
They're all as a result of relationship in
Christ Jesus, by whom, through whom, in whom.
We have received all of these wonderful things.
Then Paul closes off the first chapter with
a prayer.
I think that the prayers of Paul are
deserving just a study in themselves.
And I have no intention to go into
that because that is not the direction we're
moving in these studies as we are looking
for the church and the purposes of the
church and the ministry of the church in
a biblical setting and Ephesians being our pattern.
So this prayer though is something that deserves
a lot of meditation.
And I would encourage you to get in
and really meditate in this prayer.
Now in chapter two, we're going on back
to the subject of the blessings that we
have through relationship.
You know, there is a interesting balance in
the Christian life.
God has done many things for you, for
me.
That work of God in our behalf.
Now there is always the corresponding our work
for God in response to what he has
done for us.
My responding to the grace of God, my
responding to the goodness of God.
And you'll find that the scripture lays out
what God has done and Paul in the
first three chapters is going to lay out
for us what God has done for us.
Then he is going to lay out what
we are supposed to do for him.
Now you'll find this pattern throughout the New
Testament.
God's work and then man's work.
Now as we study it, we find that
God's work is always the greater and is
always more.
And mine is just sort of the response
to that which God has done.
For instance, Peter said, Thank God who has
begotten us again unto a living hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, that
fades not away, reserved in heaven for you
who are kept by the power of God.
That's all God's work.
He's begotten you again to a living hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
An inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, fades not
away.
He's reserved it in heaven for you who
are kept.
He even is keeping you for that.
And then he gives us our part through
faith.
But God's part has to be first.
The faith would not have validity unless God
had already done these things.
And so God's part.
So in Ephesians, the first three chapters, we're
dealing with God's part.
The scripture is always interested in, first of
all, what God has done for you.
Then your response to God for that which
he has done for you.
Now, many times in our preaching, we frustrate
the church because we are emphasizing their part.
What you should be doing for God.
And so often, you'll find that the greater
emphasis upon the ministry is the minister emphasizing
to the people what they should be doing
for God.
And even has worked it out for them
in a neat little program.
Now you ought to be witnessing for God
and this is how you witness.
You ought to be giving to God and
this is the amount.
You ought to be serving God and this
is how you should serve.
And preaching usually is overemphasizing or emphasizing more,
and that's an overemphasis, on man's part.
And not enough of God's part.
Now the scripture always emphasized more God's part.
And then our automatic response to what God
has done.
But in our desire to get our program
rolling and desire to get the church going,
we start laying upon people their part.
What you should be doing for God.
And here we find people then trying to
do for God something that they have not
yet been equipped to do or enabled to
do by the Spirit.
Because they don't yet know fully the relationship
and the benefits of that relationship.
So many times people are pressed into a
service for God, because I ought to serve
the Lord, without first of all realizing what
they are, what they have, what they can
become through their relationship with God in Christ
Jesus.
So Paul doesn't talk a thing about the
walk until he first of all establishes what
they are.
He gets them positioned in Christ Jesus first.
Once he has them thoroughly positioned in Christ
Jesus, then he said, now walk worthy of
the vocation wherewith you were called.
In other words, here is all that God
has done for you.
Here is all that God has given to
you.
Now respond to it.
Now any work that is not a response
to the grace or the goodness of God
is a work that is, in its end
result, is going to have a tendency in
my heart to even say, well, look what
I have done for God.
I've given this to God, look what I've
sacrificed for God and all.
Because I've put the works out first.
Any work that I do that comes from
the response of God's grace in my life,
after I have done it, I say, I'm
an unprofitable servant.
What I have done is the least that
could be expected.
I am responding to all that God has
done for me.
I'm not then resenting it.
I'm not becoming embittered.
I have met so many people who are
bitter against God and against the church because
the church made workaholics out of them, made
slaves out of them.
They were pushed into all kinds of service
unto God, but they resented what they were
doing for God.
It became a heavy obligation.
They chafed under the load.
God doesn't want you to give anything to
him that you cannot give willingly and hilariously.
And that's not just money, that's of time
or service or anything else.
God wants whatever you offer to him to
be offered willingly out of a free heart.
And if you can't give your life to
God that way, then don't give it.
If you can't give your money, then don't
give it.
If you can't give your time that way,
then don't give it.
It's better that you not do it than
to do it and gripe about it.
To do it and then go around and
moan about all you've sacrificed or given up
for God.
I'm sure that God says, keep it.
I don't want it.
He doesn't want any griping service.
The important thing is that whatever I give
to God, I give willingly, cheerfully, hilariously.
Now, I can only do that as I
recognize the greatness of God's love and what
God has done for me.
And when I look at all that God
has done for me, oh, the least I
can do.
As the song said, how can I do
less than give him my best and live
for him completely after all he's done for
me?
But you see, people aren't always shown what
God has done for them.
That isn't the emphasis always in our ministry.
We're emphasizing to men what you can do
for God, what God wants you to do
for him.
And actually, what you are doing is you
are creating a congregation filled with guilt-ridden,
frustrated saints.
Because as you're telling them what they ought
to be doing for God, they bow their
heads and say, yes, I know I ought
to be doing that.
As you tell them how miserable a Christian
they are, they bow their heads and say,
yes, I know I'm a miserable Christian.
I'm a miserable witness.
I'm a failure.
I don't love as I should.
I don't pray as I should.
I don't give as I should.
I don't serve as I should.
And here you're laying it on them week
after week, and they're just getting more guilt
-ridden all the time.
But along with the guilt feelings, there is
a frustration.
Oh, God, I want to serve you.
Oh, God, I promise I'm going to do
better.
Oh, Lord, you know.
And the frustration, I want to do.
I can't.
I fail.
And the guilt-frustrated saints, they're all over
the country.
Why?
Because they have never been taught the resources
and the blessings that are theirs by relationship
with Jesus Christ.
They've never thoroughly been established in Christ Jesus.
They're not aware of all of the resources
that are made available to them by God.
Because man's part has been emphasized rather than
God's part emphasized in their lives.
They've tried to do it in their own
strength, in their own abilities, and they just
have never come to that realization that God
does not require us to do a single
thing but what he will and has enabled
us to do it.
I'm certain that we've pushed many people into
works that God never intended for them to
do.
And no wonder they were failures at it.
And then they feel a failure at Christianity.
I'm so anxious to see this program go.
I'm conscripting people.
I'm pressuring people.
I'm pushing people to get involved.
Maybe God doesn't want them involved.
Maybe that isn't what God has for them.
I was reading in Samuel where it said,
for by strength shall no man prevail.
That is by our own strength.
And yet we've been trying to push people
into these things before establishing them in what
they are.
So as we get into chapter two, we
continue now in what God has done for
you.
And you hath he quickened or made alive
who were dead in trespasses and sins.
Once you were totally dead unto God.
Dead because of your trespasses and your sins.
God said the soul that sinneth it shall
surely die.
Notice he uses trespasses and sins and there
is a difference between the two.
Sin has as its root meaning missing the
mark.
Now, I would like to suggest that many
times I've done my best to hit the
mark, but I'm just a poor shot.
And I missed it.
In other words, sin isn't always a willful
deliberate act.
Sin can result from just a weakness, a
weakness that I hate, a weakness that I
detest.
An inability and a failure in myself to
hit the mark.
You say, well, shame on you.
Well, if I'll tell you what the mark
is, shame on you.
It's perfection.
Be perfect even as my father in heaven
is perfect.
So you can hit that mark.
Great.
Now we try.
And because I am weak and I've missed
so many times, it's not an excuse to
not keep trying to hit the mark.
We're never excusing our weaknesses, but just the
recognition of the fact that sin means missing
the mark and thus it is not always
a willful deliberate missing of the mark.
It can be actually a heartbreak experience.
I'm doing my best.
I'm trying my hardest, but still I have
failed.
Whereas a trespass is a deliberate willful disobedience
to God.
It's not even trying.
It's almost defiant.
God has said, don't cross over that line.
I step over it and say, okay, what
are you going to do about it?
I have trespassed knowingly, willfully.
That's a trespass.
Now, trespasses and sins, either, both of them
alienate me from God.
I cannot make God a party to my
sin or to my trespass.
And yet in this relationship in Christ Jesus,
actually Christ has become a party to your
life.
And Paul in writing to the Corinthians shows
the total inconsistency of relationship and then the
relationship with Christ and bringing Christ into a
ungodly relationship because he's indwelling you.
In other words, if you, with Christ dwelling
in you, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians,
if you actually have sexual relationships with a
prostitute, he said, then you're making Christ a
part of that horrible act.
You're bringing Christ into that.
And he shows how the inconsistency of that,
making him one.
You've been one with Christ.
Now, if you join yourself to a prostitute,
you're making Christ one with a prostitute.
That can't be.
We need to realize that this relationship with
Christ, being one with him, makes him a
party of all that we do, drawing Christ
into this.
Now, sin and trespasses, the effect of death,
but you as he made alive who were
dead in your trespasses and sins.
And of course, this is a reference to
your life prior to coming to Jesus Christ.
For now, if we walk in the light
as he is in the light, having come
to him, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son, is continually cleansing us from all sins.
And if we say we have no sin,
we're only deceiving ourselves.
The truth isn't in us.
But if we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And if we say we have not sinned,
then we make him a liar.
And his truth isn't in us.
So, this relationship is a great relationship because
it's one of a continual cleansing.
You hath he made alive.
You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
Now you're alive unto God through Jesus Christ.
Wherein in time past ye walked, according to
the course of this world.
The word walked here, and in Greek there
are a couple of words for walked or
more.
But this particular word for walked is a
word which means to meander.
Now, there is another Greek word for walked
which does speak of a gate, of a
directness, with a steady gate.
You see a fellow walking down the street,
a fast gate, head up, shoulders back, straight
down the street.
You say, well, he's going somewhere.
There's purpose expressed even in the way he's
walking.
He's on his way someplace.
But you see another fellow, just sort of
hands in the pockets, looking in the window,
going out and examining a tree, looking at
the fireplug, looking back in the next window,
and just sort of, you know, back and
forth and meandering.
You say, hey, he's not going anywhere.
He's just killing time.
There is no purpose.
He's not really headed anywhere.
And that is what this particular Greek word
is, is you meandered.
In other words, life was lacking real purpose.
You weren't going anywhere.
Life apart from Christ is without purpose and
meaning.
You're going nowhere.
You're just passing time till your time comes.
But your life is lacking in definition and
in purpose.
So, you at one time were meandering, living
a life without real meaning or purpose, going
nowhere, getting nowhere, as you meandered according to
the course of this world.
The word course is the word used also
for weathervane.
Now, you see the weathervane on top of
the barn, and what does it do?
It points in whatever direction the wind currents
are flowing.
Now, as you look at some people's lives,
their lives are just turned whatever direction the
current or the flow of the world is
going.
Whatever fad comes along, wherever the world's pressures
are pushing, they just turn with it and
they just sort of flow with it.
They're meandering according to the weathervane of the
world.
Life without purpose, life without meaning, among whom
also we all had our, word conversation there
is, our manner of living.
We all, our manner of life was this
way prior to Jesus Christ, in times past,
in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others.
So, he is describing our past life apart
from Christ, the former life, before this new
relationship, as a life without purpose, a life
without meaning, a life that is governed by
the desires of our flesh and of our
minds.
Man is a threefold being, body, soul and
spirit in his fallen state.
In the original state in which God created
man, he was spirit, soul and body.
God is a superior trinity of father, son
and spirit.
Man is an inferior trinity of spirit, soul
and body.
And as God originally created man, spirit, soul
and body, spirit uppermost, man had communion and
fellowship with God because God meets man and
fellowships with man in the area of the
spirit.
His spirit bears witness with my spirit.
God doesn't come and deal with me and
my flesh in a direct way.
He deals with my spirit and from the
spirit through the flesh.
Not even with my intellect in a direct
way, but with my spirit and from the
spirit to my intellect.
My place of meeting God and fellowshiping with
God is in the spirit.
No man by searching can understand God to
perfection.
My intellect is not an adequate tool in
the discovery of God and in relationship with
God.
It must be a spiritual relationship.
Thus, his spirit with my spirit.
Now, in the fall, what precipitated the fall?
She saw that the fruit was pleasant to
eat, the lust of the flesh.
Pleasant to look upon, the lust of the
eye.
And if she ate it, it would make
her wise even as God, the pride of
life.
So in following the suggestion of Satan and
eating of this fruit of which God said
she should not eat, she allowed the fleshly
desires to dominate.
And in allowing the fleshly desires to dominate,
she became then inverted and became body, soul,
and spirit.
The mind now no longer being ruled over
by the spirit, but the mind now being
ruled over by the flesh.
And the spirit being subjected and subdued, dead
actually, the consciousness, the awareness of God, gone,
hiding from God, running from God.
The new birth is what?
It is again an inversion.
And it is God putting man back into
his proper order.
As they reported to the magistrates in Berea,
these men who have turned the world upside
down have come here.
That's what the gospel is to do.
It's to turn men upside down.
Well, let's correct that.
It's to turn men right side up.
They've been upside down for a long time.
It's to bring men back into a spiritual
dimension of life.
It's to awaken and make alive that spirit
which was dead because of trespasses and sins.
And that alive spirit now again in fellowship
and in harmony with God.
But the former life is described as a
life that is living after the desires of
your flesh and of your mind.
Now, as we look at man apart from
Jesus Christ today, what are the controlling factors
of that man's life?
The psychologists have a word, hemostasis, by which
they describe the body needs or the body
drives.
Or, if you please, the body appetites.
And they have listed the body needs, the
biological needs or drives of man.
And the strongest is your air drive.
Then comes your thirst drive.
Then comes your hunger drive.
Then comes your bowel and bladder drive.
Then comes your sex drive.
And they've listed all of these drives of
the body, the desires or the biological desires
or appetites of the body.
Now, the scripture describes the man, apart from
this new relationship with Christ, as a man
who is controlled by his body drives.
His mind is under the control, and he
is thinking always of how to fulfill the
body needs.
Dead in his trespasses and sins, living after
the desires of his body and of his
mind.
And so they have listed the sociological drives.
The need for attention, the need for security,
the need for love, the need to be
needed and all.
And they've described these lusts of the mind
or the drives of the mind.
And these are the things after which the
natural man lives.
This is the life of the flesh.
Now, this life of the flesh is actually
life on the animal plane.
It's exactly what a dog does.
He lives only to satisfy his own physical
needs.
And many men are living as animals, living
only to satisfy their own biological, sociological needs.
No awareness of God, no fellowship with God,
no relationship with God.
No wonder natural man seeks his best to
identify himself with the animal kingdom and looks
to the ape for a relationship.
Because he is living as the animals live.
But the Bible teaches that God created man
in his image and in his likeness.
And rather than man being a highly evolved
animal, he is a fallen creature.
And the missing link is not on the
scale downward, but it's on a scale upward.
And that man was intended to be related
to God, not to the animal kingdom.
And that is, of course, exactly what happens
when you become quickened or made alive by
this relationship in Christ Jesus.
You come now to a new relationship with
God.
You have been made alive, and that missing
link is found.
And Jesus Christ has become really the missing
link, and he links us back to God
by making our spirits alive again.
And with that quickened spirit, I now have
this beautiful relationship with God.
And life no longer is without meaning or
purpose.
I'm no longer meandering through life, following every
whim of the world.
But now there's direction, there's meaning, there's purpose.
And thus, when Paul says walk worthy, he
uses the other Greek word for walk.
Not to just meander, not to walk or
meander according to the course of the world,
but now with direction and purpose.
We're walking.
Then he goes on to say concerning the
past life that actually, not only were we
meandering according to the course of the world,
according to the desires of our own flesh
and mind, but it was also according to,
or we were by nature, the children of
wrath, even as others.
The sad, sad picture of the history of
every man apart from Jesus Christ.
No exceptions.
You say, oh, but he's such a good
man.
He's walking according to the course of this
world, according to his own desires of his
flesh and mind, and he's by nature the
children of wrath, the child of wrath.
You see, he's in the kingdom of death
and darkness, and I don't care how high
he climbs in that kingdom.
There's a wide spectrum.
You have the street walker to the lady
in purple or whatever.
But they're all in the kingdom.
Makes little difference.
This still describes them.
Verse four, of course, is always glorious but
God.
In spite of all of this, in spite
of what we were but God, who is
rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead
in sins, hath made us alive together with
Christ.
God reached down to you into your helpless
state.
God's work.
Salvation is God's work.
It was God who reached down to you.
Man had attempted to build his towers to
God.
They always end in confusion.
It is interesting that Jacob on his flight
from his brother Esau when he came to
Bethel laid down his head on a pillow
and he went to sleep and he dreamed
and he saw the heavens open and he
saw a ladder that was going up to
heaven and the angels of God were ascending
and descending on that ladder and the Lord
spoke to him.
And he woke in the morning and said,
truly the Lord is in this place and
I knew it not.
But what did he see?
He saw a ladder that went from earth
to heaven.
Men have been searching for that ladder.
Men have been trying to make a ladder.
Men have been trying to build their towers
of philosophy, towers of religion.
But man's efforts have failed to bring him
to God because you cannot start with an
earth base and reach heaven.
God has built a ladder and Jesus declares
that he is that ladder that Jacob saw.
When he began his ministry he said, henceforth
you are going to see the heaven open
and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man.
God has built the ladder.
Jesus Christ is that ladder whereby men may
come to God.
But God who is rich in his mercy
established the basis of our salvation for by
grace are ye saved.
It is not something that you merit or
can merit.
By grace are you saved.
God's glorious unmerited favor in Christ Jesus.
And he hath raised us up together.
Now again we get back into the blessings.
These are the blessings which are ours.
He has raised us up together and made
us to sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus.
Now remember back in chapter one your blessings
are spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in
Christ.
So we come back to the theme of
chapter one there, verse three.
He has raised us up together, made us
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus
for it is there that we have these
spiritual blessings that God desires to bestow upon
each man.
Now this is looking out to the future.
In the ages to come he might show
the exceeding riches of his grace in his
kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
In Christ Jesus, by whom, in whom, and
now through Christ Jesus.
One, his marvelous exceeding riches of his grace.
Now I would like to suggest to you
that God's love and God's grace for you
is so great and so vast that it's
going to take all eternity to reveal it.
Through the ages to come he is going
to be revealing the exceeding richness of that
grace and love that he has for you
through Christ Jesus.
I sit down sometimes now and I bemoan
the fact that I just can't comprehend it
all as I seek to understand God's goodness
and God's grace and God's love towards me.
And I drink it in and I seek
to get more, but listen, it's so vast
that it's going to take all eternity to
reveal.
Throughout the ages to come God is going
to be revealing new dimensions of the vastness
of his love and grace towards you through
Jesus Christ.
For by grace are ye saved through faith
and that not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God.
What is the gift of God?
The faith.
You see, we are so anxious to get
our part in there.
We're so anxious to do something worthwhile that
we are prone many times to exalt and
magnify our faith because I want some credit
somewhere along the line.
But God gives me no place for boasting
except in him.
God forbid that I should glory save in
the cross of Jesus Christ.
I can't even glory in my faith whereby
I believe.
Where did that faith come from?
It was a gift of God.
For by grace are ye saved through faith
and that not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God.
And it's not of works lest any man
should boast.
You remember when God came to Gideon and
told him that he was to lead the
children of Israel into victory over the Midianites,
that the Lord was going to use him
to deliver the Midianites.
Gideon objected because of his family's background and
so forth.
And when he was assured that it was
God that was calling him, then Gideon gathered
the men of Israel together, some 32,000
of them there in Mount Gilboa.
And they looked at the 135,000 Midianites
spread out in the plains like grasshoppers.
Well-equipped, well-trained armies.
Their companies and their camp out there in
the valley.
And here was Gideon over here in Mount
Gilboa, 22,000 scraggly fellows that had come
in off the farm.
32,000.
God said, Gideon, you've got too many men.
I know these people.
I know the wickedness of their heart.
If I would deliver the Midianites into the
hands of the 32,000, they would go
around glorying and boasting in what they had
done.
So you go out to the men, Gideon,
and you tell all of those that are
fearful to go home.
Gideon went out to his men and he
said, fellows, all of you that are afraid
to go into battle, you better go on
home.
20,000 of the guys packed their bags
and headed home.
22,000 left him with 10,000 men.
Now Gideon looked at the Midianites out there
like grasshoppers covering the valley and he looked
at his 10,000 men and the Lord
said, Gideon, the men that are with you
are too many.
Oh, wait a minute, Lord, 13 to 1
odds.
If I would deliver the Midianites into their
hands, they would be boasting in what they
had done.
What is God saying?
I want the glory for the work that
I do.
God doesn't want you going out and taking
vows for Him.
And one of the greatest dangers in the
ministry to a man used of God is
that you start to take the glory or
the credit for what God has done.
And the moment you start taking the vows
for God, you're in big trouble.
It's not of works lest any man should
boast.
God has eliminated boasting by what?
By works, no, but by the fact that
His grace has done all of this for
you by your believing in Him.
And thus through faith and the fact that
faith is the agency, it eliminates boasting because
even that faith came to me as a
gift from God.
So God has wiped out any area of
boasting or glory in my flesh at all.
He's just totally wiped it out, given me
no place for boasting.
Not of works lest any man should boast
for we are His workmanship.
The word there in the Greek is poema.
And it is a word that expresses more
than just a work.
It is a word that expresses a work
of art, poema.
Now we actually get our English word poem
as a transliteration of this word poema.
Our word poem comes directly from it, which
is a work of art.
Now, when an artist is working, producing a
work, what is the purpose of the artist?
The purpose of an artist is always the
expression of himself in his work.
A feeling, a thought, an inspiration, something that
is within me, a beauty.
I want to express it.
And if my fingers are gifted, I may
express it in a sculpture or I may
express it in a painting.
It is something that I can see in
my mind, a form of beauty.
I want others to be able to share
that beauty that I can see within.
If I'm a musician, I hear it.
It's beautiful.
I want others to hear and to enjoy
the beauty.
And so I write and I compose and
I arrange that beautiful melody and the instrumentations
that I can hear in my mind.
I always admire the work of an artist.
I love to see them working.
A person who has been gifted the expression
of themselves in their work, to see them
really get into it as they are really
expressing themselves in their art.
Now, God seeks to express himself in this
world.
God has a thought, an idea, and he
wants to express that thought and idea before
the world.
And you are his workmanship or his poema.
You are the expression of God.
Your life is to become the expression of
God.
God seeks to express himself in you and
through you.
You are God's work of art.
The expression of himself before this needy world.
It is interesting that in at least three
places in the scripture I can think of
the figure of the potter and the clay
is used to express the relationship of God
and man.
Jeremiah, the Lord said, go down to the
potter's house and watch him work a work
on his wheels.
And so Jeremiah went down to the house
of the potter and he watched him as
he made a work on his wheels and
the work was marred in the hands of
the potter and he took and he crumpled
it all up and put it back on
the wheel and began a second work and
all informing again.
And the word of the Lord came to
Jeremiah, the prophet saying, you know, is not
Israel like clay in my hands?
And though it has been marred, I'm going
to remake it and so forth into a
vessel that is pleasing and all.
Paul uses it in his chapters in Romans
in which he is speaking of the sovereignty
of God over man.
And what right has the clay to say
to the potter, why hast thou made me
thus?
Why did you form me like this?
Hath not the potter the power over the
vessel to make of it however he wants?
And uses it as an illustration of the
awesome sovereignty of God over man.
That's a figure that would frighten me if
I didn't know the potter.
But when you tell me the potter is
love and that his purpose and his plan
for my life is love, then I can
yield to the touch of the potter.
Otherwise, I'd be prone to challenge and resist
because I don't always understand every circumstance in
which I find myself.
There are times when I am prone to
complain about the conditions in which I find
myself.
And to say to the potter, why hast
thou formed me thus?
Why, God, did you allow this?
Why, Lord, did this happen?
Why, God?
And I'm prone to challenge the potter except
that I know that the potter loves me
and every pressure that he brings against me
to form and to shape has a design
in his mind and a purpose in his
mind as I become his workmanship, his poema,
his expression of himself.
For God wants to use my life as
the expression of himself in this world in
which I live.
The potter has in his mind a plan,
a purpose for that piece of clay.
And apart from the potter's touch, that clay
will always be worth very, very little because
it is so common.
One of the most common materials in all
the earth is clay.
And thus the value is so small in
its native state.
But yet the potter is able to take
a piece of worthless clay and by the
deft touch of his hand he is able
by his mastery to take that worthless piece
of clay and make of it a priceless
vessel.
And when the potter begins his work on
that piece of clay, the potter has in
his mind what he wants to do with
it.
Now, the clay can only discover the mind
of the potter by submission to the hand
of the potter.
The minute I start getting my own self
into it, the minute I start resisting the
work of God, the minute I start going
my own way, then the purpose of the
potter is thwarted.
The type of vessel he is seeking to
make can be changed.
I must remain yielded and surrendered to God
if I am going to understand what God
has purposed and planned for me as he
works in me, his work of art, his
work of love, as he expresses himself through
me.
So you are his workmanship.
God is working in your life today, forming,
developing, shaping, molding.
God's working in you today.
You are his workmanship created together in Christ
Jesus.
You can't get away from it.
It's all in Christ Jesus.
Created together in Christ Jesus unto good works
that God has foreordained that you should walk
in them.
God has already foreordained that which he has
planned for your life, the purpose, the work
that you are to accomplish for the kingdom.
Your ministry has already been completely foreordained by
God.
God knows exactly what he is bringing you
to.
God knows what he is preparing you for.
Now it is after you get up to
my age that you can begin to look
back at some of those experiences in the
past that while you were going through them,
you cannot and I could not understand what
God was doing.
There were times in my life I felt,
boy, I really missed the leading of God
in this one.
God, you get me back on the track
and I promise I'm going to be more
careful in the future how I listen to
your voice.
And while I was going through those experiences,
I could not understand them.
I was complaining, I was kicking, I was
screaming against God.
But now as I can look back, I
can see why God led me through that
path, why God brought me to that situation,
why this had to happen, what God was
doing, because all the while he was preparing
me for the work that he had already
prepared for me.
I didn't know the work God had prepared
for me.
I had no idea, no dream at all
of the work that God had prepared for
me.
It was so far beyond anything I had
ever hoped or thought or conceived.
If just ten years ago you would have
told me the work that God had prepared
for me, I would have laughed and said,
blessed are they who dream, you know.
Dream on, brother.
And yet I can see where God's hand
was in my life in even those discouraging,
difficult experiences that I could not understand while
I was going through them.
And yet all the while God was working,
God was forming, God was faithful as he
was preparing me, working in me in order
that he might prepare me for the work
that he had foreordained that I should accomplish
in Christ Jesus.
It is so glorious to be a servant
of God for you are his workmanship, his
poem.
You've been created in Christ Jesus, together in
Christ Jesus, unto these good works that God
has already foreordained that you should accomplish for
his kingdom.
It's glorious to know that God has a
plan for your life because sometimes our lives
look like chaos, you know.
We can't understand and it looks so confusing,
but it's glorious to know that God already
has the plan, he has the work that
he wants you to do, and this is
just necessary preparation as he is equipping you
and preparing you for that work that he
has down the line.
And I found that some of the greatest
works of God in my life were the
works of God wherein he wrought total failure
in me by those times when I sought
to take over and to do the work
of God myself with my own ingenuity and
my own genius and my own drive and
my own determination.
And God let me go ahead and use
my genius and my drive and my determination
to build the body of Christ and God
let me fail utterly and completely.
During all of those great years of my
life when I still had a lot of
hair and a strong physique, good physical condition
and all of these, you know, natural characteristics
going for me.
And God let me fail utterly in every
effort that I endeavored for his kingdom in
the energies and the abilities of my own
flesh and he allowed them to all come
to dust in order that after I had
expended all of my genius and all of
my powers and all of my good years
then he accomplished his work.
He brought me to the work.
But knowing what I can do, having it
proved to me over and over again, there's
no way that I can boast in what
I have done.
But I can only glory in what God
has done through an old worn out man
whose stomach hangs over his belt, who's out
of shape and out of condition and out
of gas really as far as energies and
powers and drives that I once had, ambitions
and all that I once had.
Just, you know, gone.
Ready to go.
So, God's purpose in your life to bring
you to that relationship in Christ that he
might work in you as he prepares you
for the work that he has for you
to accomplish.
Already ordained that you're going to accomplish for
his glory.
Then what's he going to do?
He's going to turn around one day and
reward you as though you did it.
That's not real.
But he's just so good.
Father, we thank you for your goodness and
for your work in us today and we
pray, Lord, that we might abide in Christ,
his word abide in us.
And Lord, help us not to resist that
work of your spirit in our lives, but
may we yield ourselves to your touch, to
your hand today, that you might accomplish, Lord,
in us your full purposes, through Jesus Christ.
Amen.