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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
Steve McVey in his book called The Godward Gaze, tells an imaginary story of Bob and Jill. Bob and Jill were a young, married couple who began to have a conversation on their 1-year wedding anniversary.
Bob said, “You know, I’ve really been thinking about how I could use some help around here.”
“I mean you know how crazy my work schedule has gotten, and I just can’t keep up with all of the things that need to be done around the house.”
“I can’t seem to find the time to mow the yard, trim the hedges, pull the weeds, clean out the garage, and of course all of the handy-man things inside the house that need attention.”
“It’s just all become a bit overwhelming.” I just feel like I could use some help.
Jill says, “It’s funny that you should mention that b/c I’ve been having the same kind of thoughts.”
“I mean, with my work schedule, I can’t keep up with the laundry, the cooking, the dishes, vacuuming, sweeping/mopping, and just all of the things that it takes to keep up the house.” I agree that we could use some help around here.
At that point, they stopped and looked at each other and said, “Well, that settles it then, it’s time to start a family!”
Now that is obviously not the way that couples dream about having their children. We dream about the relationship we are going to have with our kids…We don’t dream about having a family for the sole reason of having our kids to be our servants and do all of our chores.
But that seems to be the way that many of us think about God and His children…
Some of us believe that the reason God decided to have children is not for intimacy but so that we could do all of His chores…so that we could serve Him.
He is the Master, and we were created to be nothing more than His servants.
All we really are, are minions. Just servants who were created to do the Master’s business. He is the Drill Sargeant and we are His army. He gives the orders and we obey.
Serving is simply a duty that must be performed because that is the reason we were created.
Some even live by the slogan, “Saved to Serve.” Serving fulfills the purpose of their salvation.
A lot of times, people point to the Bible to prove this is the case. One of the places they point to is Ephesians 2:10.
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
See, it says it right there… “created to do good works, which God prepared in advance for US to do!”
We are “Saved to Serve.” We were created to do God’s work. Just like the parents who needed to have kids to keep up with all of their chores, God created us to do His work!
Can I just tell you that God was doing just fine before He created us? Listen to what the apostle Paul said in Acts 17:25…
25 He (God) is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
If you think that God needs you, you are sadly mistaken. You are making yourself out to be way more important than you really are compared to Him.
But here’s the other thing: To use Ephesians 2:10 as the basis for this idea that God created you simply to serve Him is taking the verse out of context. When you go back and look at the entire section, you begin to see what Paul is really saying here.
Now, we don’t have time to do a deep dive into every verse, but you really need to see this to better understand what Paul is saying in verse 10…(if guest today, this shows what christ. all about)
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Okay, so a lot of us tend to think that our biggest problem in life is the need to become a better person. We need to learn how to serve more or make better life choices. So we come to church looking for the 7 steps to becoming a better person.
But what we see here is that Paul starts off this section by making sure that we all understand we are separated from God because of our sin nature in our lives and that we are left spiritually dead.
Our biggest problem is that we are spiritually dead and need a resurrection. And there are no amount of good works that will make us undead.
We are in a problem that we cannot get ourselves out of…which is why verse 4 is such good news!
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
So what we see here is that salvation is a work of God. It’s not anything we do. He accomplished the work necessary to forgive our sins through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection.
And He offers us that salvation as a gift (it’s by grace you have been saved). And the moment we accept the gift, we are completely forgiven, and as Paul says in verse 5, made alive with Christ.
We were dead, but now we are alive! And verse 6 goes on to show us how alive we are…
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
The moment we receive God’s grace…His gift of salvation…we are spiritually raised up and seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
Our eternal life starts now. We get to experience eternal life in Christ all throughout our earthly life and then when our bodies give out and fail, we will receive new bodies and spend eternal life with Him in the coming ages.
And again, it’s not because of anything we’ve done…which Paul is about to remind us of again.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Once again, salvation is a gift that we receive, and the way we receive it is by faith. We put our full faith and trust in Jesus’ finished work on the cross (push all of our chips in on Him).
And in that moment, He raises us up to new life. We were spiritually dead, but now we are spiritually alive…all because of His work.
So the emphasis over and over again throughout this entire passage is on God and what He has accomplished and is accomplishing through our salvation…
And as we get to verse 10, the emphasis is still on His work, not ours. Look at the first part of the verse again…
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works…
Notice… “God’s handiwork.” The emphasis is on Him and His work.
And a lot of times, we quote this verse as that we are God’s masterpiece about our personality and giftings and to remind us that we are special, regardless of what we think about ourselves sometimes.
And that is true about your value and the way God created you as a human being, but the main emphasis here is on your RE-CREATION IN CHRIST.
The entire section has been about how you were dead, but now you are alive in Christ.
And watch this…BECAUSE you are alive now in Christ, you can do good works.
Once again, the emphasis is still on God! It’s His work of recreating you into someone new through a spiritual union with Christ that allows you to now do good works.
And Paul even finishes out the verse with that emphasis, although at first glance it may not seem like it…v. 10b…
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
So the first part of this last part of the verse we see the emphasis on God, “which God prepared in advance.” He’s already prepared them for us. We don’t have to figure them out. He’s going to show them to us.
But it does seem like the emphasis switches back to us on that last part, “for US to do.” But do you know what this literally says in the original Greek?
“That we should walk in them.”
Not, “for US to do,” but “that we should walk in them.”
That perspective changes things. Especially in light of God’s work being the emphasis of the entire passage…
Here’s the way Harold Hoehner, who was a professor of N.T. Studies at DTS, writes about it in his commentary on Ephesians…
The purpose of these prepared-in-advance works is not “to work in them” but “to walk in them.” In other words, God has prepared a path of good works for believers which He will perform in and through them as they walk by faith. This does not mean doing a work for God; instead, it is God performing His work in and through believers.
So we were stuck in our sin. Spiritually dead. BUT GOD made us alive in Christ Jesus through His handiwork and now that puts us in a position for Jesus to express His life through us and do the good works that He planned for us in advance.
God didn’t create you to do His chores…to be a minion.
He recreated you in Christ so that He could do good works in you and through you that speak of Him.
If you do the work then that speaks of you, but if He does the work then that speaks of Him. That brings Him glory. That is a reflection of Him and His life through you.
But here is the other thing that I don’t want you to miss: That isn’t independent of you. He does those good works through YOU, as YOU.
In other words, not only are the people being served impacted, but YOU are being impacted as well.
You are experiencing the LIFE of Christ being expressed through you. You get to participate with the living God in the good works He is doing through you.
We’ve been saying that spiritual disciplines are not the end goal. Intimacy with God is the goal and spiritual disciplines are a means to experiencing that intimacy with Him.
As you get into A RHYTHM OF WALKING IN GOOD WORKS that Jesus is doing in you and through you, you will experience things in your relationship with Him that you can’t experience in any other way.
Because sometimes it’s scary. You don’t think you can do it. You wonder if it’s going to make any difference.
And when you trust Him and begin to walk into those good works with Him, He shows up and does things through you that you wouldn’t experience otherwise.
And so, as we talk about the spiritual discipline of service or this rhythm of walking in good works, we need to see it for what it is…
I love the way Steve McVey writes about this…
The enemy has fooled many into thinking spiritual service is their gift to God. But good works are not our gifts to God but rather his gifts to us! Our heavenly Father has a plan to do some wonderful things in this world and, because of his great love for us, he has chosen to allow us to participate in that work. He doesn't need us to do the work. He chooses to do the work through us because he loves us. Those who believe that Christian service is the way we are obligated to glorify God will never clearly see his lovely face smiling at them with pride. They will forever be caught in a performance trap, wondering if they are doing enough.
So, we don’t discipline ourselves to serve out of obligation or duty. We allow Jesus to lead us into a rhythm of walking in the good works that He will do in us and through us, and we get to experience our intimate relationship with Him throughout the whole thing.
So, what does that practically look like? What does it look like to be in a rhythm of walking in good works?
Well, Richard Foster says “True service comes from a relationship with the divine Other deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings. Energy is expended but it is not the frantic energy of the flesh.”
So, knowing that Jesus will express His life through us by serving others, we listen for Him to prompt us to participate in those acts of service with Him.
And as we say yes to those, we’ll expend energy. It’s our bodies, minds, and emotions that are involved…but it’s not the frantic energy of our flesh trying to perform to justify ourselves before God or others, it’s His energy at work in us and through us.
I was talking to a few of our members this week, and they were telling me about how they felt this inner prompting…this divine urging to bake some bread and take it to some of our widows and shut ins. Now, it was their hands that pulled out the ingredients, put them all together, baked the bread, packaged it, and then drove to their home or walked into their Sunday School classes to give it to them. They were a part of it, but it all started with a whispered prompting through their relationship with Jesus…and they got to experience Him working through them to love and serve these people in this way.
And the same will be true of you. We’ve already talked in weeks 1-2 of this series about the rhythm of awareness and that Jesus is with us at all times and speaking to us in more ways throughout our day than we could probably imagine.
As we develop that rhythm and listen and look for Him to express His life through us in service to others, my guess is that He’ll open our eyes to see and our ears to hear what He is doing in this area and there will be so many opportunities…
It could be at school where Jesus whispers to you that He wants to love and serve another student, teammate, or teacher through you.
It could be at work, the gym, or in your neighborhood.
He might whisper to you about serving in the church…
We’ve had a few people have to rotate off of our Greeting Team. Maybe that is a rhythm of service that Jesus is whispering to you about. Or it could be some other ministry in our church like children’s ministry, student ministry, or teaching an adult Sunday School class.
But it might even be something Jesus is doing out in our community. One of our members shared with me recently that Jesus whispered this prompting to mentor someone through the Mentoring Alliance, and now he is paired with this boy in Junior High who he got to take fishing for the first time in his life and is developing a fatherly relationship with him that had been non-existent in his life up until that point.
And listen, he’ll tell you that he was nervous about that. He wasn’t sure if he had what it takes to do this, but He is experiencing this intimacy with Jesus now as He steps out in faith and is watching Him show up and provide for what he needs to mentor this kid and be there for him.
And if this is the kind of thing that Jesus is whispering to you about, here’s how you can find out more about that...
Let’s just all remember that God as prepared good works in advance for us to walk in and to be looking and listening for Jesus to lead us into those and empower us to carry them out through our relationship with Him.