Identity and Purpose PT. 2

August 26, 2026 | Ben Taylor concludes his two-part series on Identity and Purpose, focusing on Ephesians 2:8-10. He explores the believer’s identity as God’s workmanship and emphasizes that Christians are created for good works prepared by God beforehand, highlighting the importance of living out these works through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Show Notes

Ben Taylor wraps up his sermon on Identity and Purpose in Ephesians 2:10.

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Bellevue Baptist Church | Young Adults | Memphis, TN

Last week, if you remember, we started a two-part series. This is the conclusion, the dramatic conclusion. We called on the theologians of the day. Who were our theologians that visited us last week? Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy. We learned about who we are and our identity makes a difference in our purpose. Remember, Buzz Lightyear was just convinced that he was a space ranger on a mission to save the universe, but yet, in reality, he was a what? A toy. He was never gonna be fulfilled or satisfied because he was not living in his true identity. And it wasn't until he recognized that he was a toy and actually started living the life of a toy that he found fulfillment. And what we learned last week is that we have an identity in Christ, that he makes us a new creation. We are coming from these two weeks, from one passage, Ephesians 2, verse 10, and I want you to look at verses eight through 10. We're gonna, this is just a reminder. It says, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as 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 and that we would walk in them. Last week, we settled in on, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. And we talked about three realities. Reality number one, we belong to God. It says, for we are his workmanship. Reality number two, we are God's masterpiece. The idea that he has uniquely knit you together and he knows your frame and you are created in his image. You are his work of art. And the third reality is this, that we are created in Christ Jesus. When you step into a relationship with Jesus, you are stepping into new creation. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new what? Creation, creature, the old things have what? Passed away and the new things have what? Come. Are you living in the reality that you are a new creation? Are you stuck in the past and you're allowing your past sins, your past mistakes to hinder the life that God has for you? Because remember, John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it to the full, have it abundantly. If you are a believer and you are following after Jesus, young adults, if you are not living in this reality, you are not living the abundant life. Your identity should revolve and begin and flow out of your relationship with Jesus. Now, last week, we laid the foundation of identity that you, if you are in Christ, you are a new creature and all these realities that we just talked about are true for you. Based on this reality in your life, now we are going to step into your purpose, your purpose for existing. Anytime somebody creates something, we create it for a purpose, whether it is a house, a work of art, or some food, everything is created with a purpose. And now that you have an identity that you know, now you can live freely out your purpose for living. Some of you, I think tonight will recognize, I identify with Christ, I'm a child of God, I belong to Him, but I am not living out the purpose that He has for me. So, we are gonna tackle the last half of this verse of Ephesians 2, verse 10. It says again, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God had prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. So, we have a one point sermon with two sub points, all right, and I can still talk a long time even with that little amount of material. Here is point number one. You are created for a purpose. You are created for a purpose. When you think about everything in your life that you use, your cup that you're drinking from, the seat that you're sitting in, everything around you is uniquely designed with a purpose in mind. So, everything that humanity has ever created has a purpose. Whether it is a good purpose or a negative purpose or whatever, it has purpose. Creators create things with purpose. Do you think that Creator God, who created all of the universe, who created every tree that you have ever seen, every ocean that you have ever visited, do you think in His incredible complexity that He would create humanity to just exist, to have no real purpose? No, He wouldn't. So, what are we created for? What is our purpose? You are created for a purpose. And that purpose revolves around what we see created in Christ Jesus. What's the next phrase? For good works. You are created for good works. When you think about this phrase, and I love this verse, there's so many different other areas of Scripture that I could have come to, to really talk about identity and purpose. But one of the things I love about this is this is a broad understanding of what we are created for, good works. We could fit a whole lot of things in that, and I am so glad that you are excited to talk about this at your tables. So, what I want you to do is I want you to, at your tables, take the next seven minutes, maybe five, I'm trying to keep up, and I want you to answer this question that's on the screen. What are good works? All right, now here's the caveat. What are good works? And I want your answer supported by Scripture, the Bible. So, you can't give me just a pat answer. I want to say, what is the answer? And I want a biblical text that supports your answer. And you have friends. You have chat. Do whatever you need to do. Make it happen, okay? All right, you've got seven minutes. Go for it right now. Talk with each other. Everybody has to participate. All right, let's bring it back in. All right, let me explain to you how this is gonna work. So, this is very much a conversation. And it is okay to talk. It is okay for us to have a conversation back and forth. I think when we are in circles, we can still learn and engage and really learn from one another. I don't think that I'm the expert and I have all the answers. But I will tell you, if you say something that I don't like, I'm probably just gonna skip right over and just go to the next person, okay? So, if it looks a little awkward or obvious, it's not my fault. I'm joking, guys. It's okay. I don't want y'all to talk. All right, so seriously, so many times in church we use these words and we're like, go do good works. But what does that mean? If we are created for this purpose, and the Apostle Paul says right here so clearly, you are created in Christ Jesus for good works. Let's answer this question. Who wants to be bold enough and give me the first answer? Fruits of the Spirit are good works. What do we think about that? Come on out and use it.

Okay, okay, right, yeah, right. He gives the deeds of the flesh, talks about immorality, sensuality, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outburst of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, all that's in there, and then talks about the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, fruit, faithfulness, goodness, faithful control, self-control, I got it, but it's there, it's there, trust me. All right, PJ, what you got? Good scripture. Yeah, great answer, PJ. Everybody give PJ a hand. So PJ loves attention, so that's why I did that for him, so just give it, yeah. So I love this definition, the fruit of the Spirit, so it's flowing out when we have the fruit of the Spirit in us, because we have Christ in us, we are a new creation, He lives in us, and those fruits of the Spirit, they bear out in our actions, actions that give glory to God. So when you do good things, they are not necessarily always good works if they don't do what? Give glory to God. Y'all tracking with me? What do y'all think about that? That's a good answer, but here's the thing, there are times where we do good things for ourselves, to make ourselves feel good, so that we get the glory, we want to be up on the stage, so that we are seen, I mean that sometimes we have what I call false humility, and we say give it all to God, but on your heart, and this is a heart thing, I don't know, I have to check my heart every time, am I wanting the accolades, am I wanting the applause? I want my good works to give glory to God, and it's more of a heart posture than it is an action, and so you have to begin to say with humility, God, everything that I do, may I give it back to you. Lord, when somebody says I'm doing a good job, may I give glory to you, and it really has to become a habit, because if we're not careful, we love when people talk about how great we are, and we have to be careful of that. That's good. What other answers? That's good. I'm gonna come back to that. PJ, what was your scripture reference again? I want everybody to see it. Matthew 516, thank you, and then fruit of the Spirit is Galatians 5. If you want to see the deeds of the flesh, start in verse 16 and go through 26. Silent obedience. Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, so that what you're doing may be done in secret, so that he gets the glory. I love that. Y'all are doing great at this. When you think about the idea of pursuing good works in Christ Jesus, what does it look like for you to take a back seat and allow God to be raised up? And I think what I'm reminded of is when we talk about this idea of giving, not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing, I think about the idea of the widow's might in the Gospels, where you have all of these guys with their big old money bags, and they're going up, and they're throwing it in, and making sure that everybody hears all of the change falling into the offering plate. And then you have this one widow who comes up, and Jesus says that she gave everything that she had. She wasn't making a show, but she was sacrificing for God. When you sacrifice for God, whether it's money, time, talent, you are giving Him the glory. And so young adults, I want you to begin to identify good works in your life and ensure, and this takes work, ensure that you have a good heart posture that allows you to give God the glory. And when somebody tries to give you the glory, be quick to say, man, that's all God. There is nothing good in me. There's nothing good in us. And do it in such a way that you mean it, not just because that's what you're supposed to say because you're a Christian. Y'all ever do that? Just say what you're supposed to say because you're a Christian? Not y'all. Y'all are perfect. All right, look at this verse of Scripture, Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 14. It says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, listen to this in the action part, instructing us to deny ungodliness, worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope that is appearing, that is, and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works. I love that idea, zealously pursuing good works. What do those good works look like? Go back up to verse 12. Denying ungodliness, denying worldly desires, living sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, right now. Not looking forward, not looking back, but looking here right now and doing those things. That is what it means to pursue good works. Young adults, I want to be clear, this does not happen apart from a relationship with Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. You have to have a Holy Spirit-empowered work. Otherwise, you are going to be seeking the glory. Now, so we see that you are created for a purpose, and that purpose is good works. Secondly, I want us to see that those good works are prepared good works. Look with me. In Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 again, it says, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in Him. So it says, created in Christ Jesus for God works, and then it says that God has prepared those good works beforehand so that you would walk in them. Think about this. How many of you have ever cooked a meal? All right. Some of y'all need to get it going. Y'all are old enough. Y'all need to be cooking some meals, okay? Well, we'll talk. We'll have a class or something. Secret-savored. Secret-savored. Do secret-savored. All right. Listen, when you prepare a meal, you get ahead of the game, and you get everything together. You cook, and you get it set, and it is prepared beforehand for a purpose to eat. And you will invite people over for the specific purpose to eat this meal that you have prepared. And it was prepared, it was thought about, planned out. Unless you live in my house, we are like day-to-day, hour-to-hour. What are we going to do? It's like 8 o'clock at night. What are we going to eat for dinner tonight? That's kind of how we roll. But prepared beforehand for good works, just like that meal that you work, you have a purpose in place, you work ahead, and you prepare all those different things. Think about your life. God, and get this, before you were born, knew that you were going to be His child. And He says, I have good works. Oh, this is... I'm getting excited, guys. I have good works created just for you. That means that there's certain things that you are able to do that I cannot. That means that there are certain people that you're going to be able to reach that I will never be able to reach, because God has already prepared that beforehand. When He made you in your mother's womb, He said, I have these good works for you. And that is why you were created. Before the foundation of earth, God knew every single one of you, knew that you would be His, and knew that you would have good works that are just for you, just laid out for you. Just like that Thanksgiving meal that you maybe had when you were a child, and all that work and labor that you didn't have to do anything for, it was prepared just for you, for you to enjoy. God is a loving Father, and He has good works laid out just for you.

for you that only you can do, because He has done it beforehand. Prepared works. He has created you for a purpose. He has created you for good works. He has created you to prepare for those good works that He prepared beforehand. Now, I got a couple of more table time. We are running short of time, so we'll have to go quicker. Three minutes on this one. I want to, all of that is good, what I just said. Y'all should go back and get it online, listen to it again, you're gonna love it. All right, I promise. It's gonna be better the second time. But here's the reality. You were created for good works, and God has prepared good works for you beforehand, but many of you are not living out those good works. When we go to those scriptures that we've already talked about, the fruit of the Spirit, those passages in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, that does not represent your life. So what's the problem? Has God changed? So if we have those works prepared beforehand and we're not living in them, that's not God's fault, that's something on us. I can prepare a Thanksgiving meal for you and you can come over and sit down, and if you don't eat it, that's on you, not on me. So there's something in us that keeps us from living out those good works, and that's our next table time. I want you to answer this question at your tables, three minutes. No scripture this time, I'll give you a break. What obstacles hinder you from walking in the good works God has prepared for you? What obstacles hinder you from walking in the good works God has prepared for you? Table time, go. All right, let's bring it back in. Same thing, we're gonna answer the question, and we're gonna write it down, and we're gonna kind of talk through this for the next couple of minutes, and then I've got one more question that will close out the night, okay? All right, so what obstacles hinder us, hinder you from walking in the good works that God has prepared for you? Yes, sir. Judgment, can you go a little bit deeper? Yeah, yeah, so it's not necessarily judgment, but it's the fear of judgment, right, is what I hear you saying. It's like, if I am living out these good works in the midst of lost people, and they don't know where I'm coming from, I don't wanna be judged for that. All right, now, I don't wanna be judged for my spelling, because I don't know if I spelled judgment right, okay? But that's just, I just ignore it, and just write sloppy, okay? All right, great, I do think that our fear of what other people are gonna think of us keeps us from living out the good works that God has prepared for us. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, so insecurity, selfishness, those are just realities of who we are, and so we've got to live in that and kind of come out of that. Insecurity, well, basically what you're saying is, I don't think that I can do what God has prepared for me to do. Who prepared the works for you beforehand? God, so if he prepared for you to do the work, do you think that he's gonna allow you to do the work? Yes. Right? So that's, I mean, that would be like telling my son to go mow the grass, but not giving him any gas for the lawnmower. Like, go do that, but I'm not gonna give you the power that you need to make it happen, right? All right, anything else? Busyness, okay? That's, is that right? Yeah. It's okay, don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me. All right. Okay, okay, okay, all right. Busyness, yes, sir. Comfort. All right. Anything else? Go back to selfishness, yeah, you're right. Okay. Okay. Like, when I hear busyness and I hear comfort, I automatically go back to selfishness. Because what's happening in that, you do what you wanna do. Can I just tell you that? I don't care who you are, I don't care where you work, you do what you want to do. When you decide to make something a priority, then you're going to do it. My challenge to you is change your priorities. If you think that you need to be engaging in God's good works that he has set before you, how can you rearrange your life to do the things that you wanna do? It's a form, busyness is a form of selfishness, because you are making yourself busy with the things that you wanna do. Comfort, because you don't wanna be uncomfortable, you are being selfish because you like the way things are, you don't wanna stress yourself, you don't wanna be uncomfortable, therefore, that leads to selfishness. Y'all tracking with me? All right, now, so this is all well and good, we've identified the problem. So let's go to the next question, and I'll just write it up here, Naomi, so you don't have to switch back and forth, she's being awesome. So here's the next question. I wanna end with, like, there's hope. So here's the question. How can you overcome these obstacles? Sometimes my brain just stalls. All right, so here are some of the things that we're dealing with, judgment, insecurity, busyness, comfort, selfishness. How can we overcome these obstacles? Two minutes, go. Talk it out, talk it out. All right, let's come and answer these questions. How can we overcome these obstacles? Yes, sir? Say it one more time? Prayer. All right, what else? Scripture, man, y'all are giving some good Sunday school answers, awesome. Love it, not bad, because they're right. That doesn't look right. Just go with it. Yes, sir? Yep. All right, so you gotta be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I think that's important, Micah, as we think about that, because there's sometimes the issues that we have, dare I say, the sins that we have in our life, quench the Holy Spirit in our life. And so if you are living in unrepentant, habitual sin in your life, you need to understand that the Holy Spirit is not gonna be as strong. Go to Romans chapter seven and read it. Paul says, the things that I wanna do, I don't do, and the things that I don't wanna do, I do. And then he goes down further, and he talks about this war between the spirit and the flesh. And that war between the spirit and the flesh is always ongoing, and some of you are feeding your flesh more than you're feeding your spirit. And the only way that you can have a strong spirit to overcome these obstacles is by prayer, scripture, fasting, any of the spiritual disciplines. That's a way that you can begin to strengthen. Yes, ma'am? Come on. Okay. I know that God loves you, and while you're still a sinner, he has that grace for you each day. Even if you, let's say, mess up or something, that just doesn't define you, and I'm not saying that you need to continue with fasting necessarily, but you're just, it was all paid for at the cross. Amen. So you just get back up. Yeah, living out this purpose that we've been talking about all night, it can't happen unless you identify with Christ. And so we have to start with a relationship with Christ, and then our purpose flows out of that. And some of you are on a trajectory. I mean, I wish I had about 30 more minutes to teach. And so this idea is, and you're all like, no, please no. All right, so you get saved right here. This is when you find Jesus. And then you are on a journey, and that journey is glorification. You are gonna be stronger than you ever have been. You're gonna have abs, and you're gonna have muscles. You're gonna have just glorified body. That's what you're going towards, right? I'm joking. I don't know. Maybe our heavenly glorified bodies are fat. I don't know. But think about this. You're going on this journey where you're gonna be face-to-face with the one who created you, and you're gonna be perfect before him, and he's gonna see you. But now, what we're on now, before we get to glorification, this is sanctification. S-A-N-C-T. Don't worry about it. You're going through sanctification. Now, some of you think this is what your journey of sanctification should look like, one straight line. I'm just, every day's another step forward. But let me tell you what reality is. I'm gonna go up, and then down. I'm gonna go up, and then way down. I'm gonna go up, and go way down. And then up. This is more of what our sanctification process is.

looks like, but there's hope. What is the general way that we're going? When you put it all together, we're going to be like Jesus. See, Romans chapter 12 verse 1 says, Therefore, brothers, I urge you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God. You are presenting yourself daily as a sacrifice and you are working your way up through the power of the Holy Spirit like Micah said, and you're there and you are going to get there. But see, some of you are feeding the flesh so much that your journey has been stunted. And the only way, the only way that you start to see an upward trajectory in your life is by the allowing the Holy Spirit to weed out the sin in your life that is hindering your spirit from growing and being powerful. The Spirit is in you as a believer, but you've got to get to that place where you're willing to say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit.