Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Human boasting is excluded, because human merit there is none. We are God's workmanship, not our own. I. THE DIVINE WORKMANSHIP. 1. Characterized by truth, reality, thoroughness, Not on the surface — not merely intellectual or mental; but a deep, subterraneous power heaving from the depth of the spiritual nature, and working from the centre to the circumference. Born again. Created anew. 2. When complete it will be perfect in beauty. He who made these bodies of ours so beautiful, so kingly, so majestic, so unutterably wonderful; He who bent with such majestic grace the arch of the firmament; He who clothed the earth with its infinite variety of beautiful objects; will make His spiritual creation in harmony with the material; so that, when finished, it shall be said, "He hath made this also beautiful in his season." God will look upon it, and say, "Yes, it is My workmanship, and I am pleased with it." That is the highest thing that can be said. His heart will rest in it. II. THE COMPASS OF THIS WORKMANSHIP. "Created in Christ Jesus unto good works." Good works here, and good works hereafter. We are to serve God in the best way we can here, and we shall serve Him in another world in the distant future more perfectly than now. 1. Good works have their origin in love. Nothing noble is done from any other motive. 2. Good works are always inspired by the Holy Ghost. He inspires the love, and the love gives existence to the good works. 3. The good works we are to do are ordained by God. God thought of you before you were; He resolved that you should be — that you should be to do good works — to do good works which belong to you alone, just as in nature the tree is created to bear a particular fruit. How shall we know what we ought to do? (1) By the predispositions of our own minds, which are themselves the creation of God. (2) From our abilities. All we can do we are bound to do. Not much is expected from a mere mountain brook. Let it flow through its narrow channel; let it make a little green on its banks; let it murmur as it goes — and that is all you can ever expect of it. It is only a mountain brook. But, of a vast river starting at one end of a continent, and flowing through the heart of it, gathering to itself volumes of water, much is expected, for is it not a great river? And so, you who have education and genius, you whom God has richly endowed, you who have noble opportunities and fine talents — God expects great things of you; you must water the continent, as it were; and the question for each one is, to what work does my heart gravitate, and what work can I do? It is a great mistake — a mistake often committed — to try to do what we cannot, and to leave undone the thing which God has ordained for us to do, and which we could do with perfect ease. (3) We are bound to pray, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Life oftentimes seems a pathless region, and it is evening with us, and the clouds are lowering, and the dark, black forest is before us, and there is no pathway, and a kind of bewilderment comes over a man at times; he does not know what to do, or which way to go — a conscientious man, especially. If God has placed him in a position in which others are dependent upon him for all blessing whatsoever, it becomes a great question, and a bewilderment sometimes, what he is to do. Rut we are not alone in this pathless place. There is always the invisible presence, the Eternal Friend at hand, and to Him we must go in solemn prayer. This if we do, we shall not go astray, but when life ends shall find that accomplished which He desired. (Thomas Jones.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. |
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