Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2006 : August 6, 2006

Theme: God Has Plans for You -- To Be a Work of His Art

Church year occasion: Pentecost 9

It's amazing how people can see two totally different things when they are looking at the same object. If two people are looking at a pen, one person might see it as something that just sits around cluttering up their desk, while another person will see it as a communication device which has remained useful for thousands of years in various forms, even in a technological age when a five-year-old computer is obsolete. One person looking at a psychiatrist's ink spot sees only a big splotch of ink while another sees a butterfly and another, a pirate.

The great sculptor and painter Michelangelo was well known for looking at an ordinary, huge block of stone and seeing a beautiful object imprisoned in that stone just waiting for his hammer and chisel to free it from its rocky prison. In fact, one of his more famous sculptures looks half-finished, but it actually depicts a man struggling to get out of the rock. You and I could look at the same huge block of stone and see a huge block of stone. Just think if Michelangelo had never used his talent to make his works of art -- many blocks of stone would remain just that to this day. And try as they might, those blocks of stone could do nothing to change that.

This morning as we look into Scripture, we see a very similar situation regarding our ability to become a child of God and a believer Jesus. As we continue our sermon series in Ephesians which shows the amazing plan that God has for you, we can thank God that he took us and made us into a work of his art, by his grace alone and through faith alone.

Paul writes in Ephesians, chapter two:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This is a favorite passage for many people because of the comfort it gives to sinners in need of the assurance of their salvation. It's like watching Extreme Home Makeover where they completely gut a house and remake it into a mansion. Have you ever turned on the TV only at the end of that show? You get to see a beautiful house and owners with their mouths on the floor in amazement. But that doesn't really do it for us, does it? We might look at that and think, "How nice, a rich person with a huge house," and we surf for another channel faster than you can say Rumpelstilskin. What might keep our interest more in the show? If we saw it from the beginning so we could see the desperate situation these people were in and how their lives were transformed by someone's generosity.

The same is true in looking at the message, "It is by grace you have been saved." So let's look at the first verse of this chapter where Paul tells us our relationship with God before God the great sculptor starts to work with us. "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world." (Ephesians 2:1-2) You see, what we are by nature is not a beautiful work of art. No, we are dead spiritually. The psalmist David says the same thing: "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5) And we see the result of that sin in today's world: violence, crime, corruption. But make no mistake -- it's not just the world that is guilty of it; we are as well. And every time we think an unloving thought, speak an unloving word, perform an unloving act, we are showing that we are sinners as well and deserving of eternal damnation, for God tells us through Paul: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) and "The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) We don't have to look very far in our own lives to see evidence of our sinful nature. It shows itself when we put on that nice "show" of happiness and contentment and godliness at church or in public, but it comes out at home, behind closed doors. Siblings fighting. Parents neglecting children physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually. Husband and wife using the blame game to perfection. Even by ourselves, in our own minds, we harbor ill will against others -- whether they have harmed us or not. Maybe they are more popular. Maybe they are more privileged. Maybe they are more successful. Maybe we just want their house even if they didn't get an extreme home makeover. It shows our spiritual nature very clearly. We were dead. We can't escape it. We were like a block of stone, incapable of doing anything to get out of the situation. But even worse than that, because of our sins we were objects of God's holy wrath against sin. And that means we deserve God's holy anger against sin -- eternal damnation.

How can we get away from death and sin? "Try harder to please God," you might say. But remember: You're dead spiritually! Like a dead block of stone, we can't change anything about ourselves. When was the last time you saw a block of granite transform itself into, well, anything! Living in southern Wisconsin shows us that very well. The glaciers left all kinds of huge boulders behind when the ice melted. You can see them as part of a landscaping plan in many yards. They are even accent pieces. If you live for 100 years, you might see two or three houses built on that land and the landscaping changed 20 times, but what will happen to that huge boulder? Nothing! It will sit there forever -- unless someone does something with it.

That's what our sins did to us -- we could try to do all kinds of things in our lives to change our situation, but we would remain dead in sin, and as a result, objects of God's wrath forever.

Only when we realize that, can we fully appreciate these words: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." Instead of leaving us dead in our sins, God made us alive, just like an artist chiseling out a sculpture from dead rock. Paul says, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved." (Ephesians 2:4-5) How did it happen? God sent his own Son to live here on earth in this sinful world. But even though he was surrounded by sin and tempted just like we are, yet God's Son, Jesus, never sinned once. He did what God demanded: He lived perfect life, the only one in history to do it. It wasn't easy, just like a sculptor taking months and even years to make a work of art, so Jesus spent 33 years fulfilling God's holy law perfectly where you and I could only fail. But then he did another amazing thing: He gave that life of perfection to us when he died on the cross. He became our substitute. He endured what we deserved. He became dead in sin instead of us. He suffered our punishment for sin while on the cross -- he suffered hell itself -- so that we could live forever. The prophet Isaiah foretold this when he said,

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

So where does that leave us after Jesus suffered our punishment and gave us his perfection? In God's eyes it is as if we had never sinned, never told a lie, never tried to steal a cookie out of the cookie jar when our parents told us not to, never held grudges against others, never fought, never did anything to displease our God. In God's eyes we are perfect. And it is all by God's grace alone in Christ. Yes, what a work of art we are. Not our art, but a product of God's art, only by his grace, only by Christ.

But not everyone will receive the blessings of what Christ has done for all people because many will reject it. Then they will get what their sins deserve. But God has given us the one thing that can receive this amazing grace: He has given us faith. Faith is like the hand that grasps this salvation. Without a hand you can't take hold of anything. In Michelangelo's most famous sculpture of David, he pictured David holding a sling with which he would slay Goliath. But if Michelangelo hadn't sculpted David as holding that sling, then the sculpture of David would not have it now, right? Well salvation through Christ works that same way. Even though Jesus did the work of salvation for us, we wouldn't receive salvation unless we have something that holds onto that salvation -- unless we had faith. And God is the only one who can give it to us. How does he give us faith? Paul says to the Christians in Rome and to us, "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17) Jesus himself said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." God not only has accomplished your salvation in his Son Jesus, but he has also given you the faith to accept it.

And that's where we come to our status today as God's children, struggling in a sinful world with our sinful flesh. Yet, for all our sins, we are still God's children, by God's grace alone, through the faith the God alone gives. We are a work of God's art. Have you ever wondered what happens to those people in Extreme Home Makeover after the building crews leave? What are their lives like? Do they show their appreciation for the builders' generosity? We would hope so. And the same it true of us. So Paul encourages us with a final thought: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) How much does it mean to you that God has saved you from eternal death and given to you eternal life as a gift? You did nothing for it at all, but you can sure show your appreciation by living according to his word and his will. And even then we know it is the Holy Spirit working in us -- for it is God who works in you to live and act according to his good purpose. From first to last, we are saved and made children of God and heirs of heaven by God's working alone.

All of us have different talents. Some of us can look at a block of stone and see a block of stone and nothing more. Others of us can see what that block of stone can become through the work of a sculptor. Thank God that He saw from eternity what we could become, not through our efforts, but only by his working. He has made us a new creation. He has made us wonderful works of his art, by his grace alone, and through faith in him alone. Let us live our lives as a wonderful work of God. Amen.