God's Masterpiece

Well, if you would take your Bibles and go to Ephesians 2 this evening. Ephesians 2, I appreciate you being here on this Monday night. It's been a real joy to get to know you guys and see the way the Lord is working in this church. I get to visit a lot of church plants and I know you don't technically call yourself a church plant, but it's pretty much like that. A rebirth, maybe, a restart, and just real thankful and grateful. In the right sense of the Word, I'm real impressed with what the Lord is doing here. I sense very strongly that God's hand is on your pastor and on what's happening here.

And I've seen a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff in these four decades of ministry. And I don't know why I've traveled so broadly, but I have. It's unfortunate to say that there's only small pockets of works that I would say are biblically, spiritually healthy churches. And I think you're one of those. And I think you ought to pray biblically big prayers and have a biblically big vision of what God can do through this church for His own glory. You've got to be careful.

Everything has to be qualified today because there are folks out there that are man-centered and gospel-deficient and Christ-dishonoring, actually, in some ways, talking about doing big things for God. But I mean biblically defined big things for God. And one of the things that I would have said this to Chris, but he said it to me before I said it to him, or Brother Chris, I should say, is that you guys have grown and matured together in the Lord, and there's healthy stuff going on. It's kind of like the organs in a body. They're healthy. They're doing well. But it's time for you guys to put some structure to the whole thing.

And the New Testament gives those, I call them structures of grace. I think some of you passed around some of my messages from the conference. And I've talked about that some. I'm just going to touch on that tonight. But the New Testament gives us the means of grace and the structures from which those graces should flow, those works of grace through our lives should flow. And we ought to be very intentional about those things. And those are things that somehow in God's grace, He's let us wrap our arms around and function in. So the things I will tell you about structuring your church are things we've been living for going on for decades.

I didn't just read this in a book a few years ago and throw this out there because it sounds good. Our church very imperfectly and with a lot of repentance along the way and realizing we were messing up and had to change direction at times, but a lot of repenting and learning is starting over. But nevertheless, in these main structures, we functioned a long, long time. And so for several reasons, I would commend them to you. Now here's what I want to say. I'm not your pastor. And I'm not an apostle. I'm just a brother, okay? Your pastor has chosen to connect with us and ask for guidance and some things.

And we're honored and humbled to do that. But it's an iron sharpening iron relationship as we sharpen each other. But I'm going to throw out some things that I know he generally agrees with or I wouldn't do it, all right? But if he changes something, he's right and I'm wrong. You got to understand that. I mean that wholly with all my heart. An evangelist came to my church one time and I'd never heard anybody else say this.

And he said, "I want you to know that if Brother Jeff did not want me to be here and every one of you wanted me to be here, I would not be here." But he said, "Brother Jeff wanted me to be here and all of you did not want me to be here, I would still be here." And that's the way I feel. If I can't come and be a servant to your pastor and a blessing to him, I'm in the wrong place. You sit in my pulpit, I'm borrowing it for a little while. And so let me say this to begin with, you've already turned to Ephesians 2. Let me say this. I love to say this to my people because I want to shake their thinking in this direction. God loves being God.

God thoroughly enjoys being God because since he is God, now listen, he can only rejoice in what is truly holy and perfect. So he has no one else to rejoice in but himself. But think about that. Of course, until he makes us in the righteousness of his son, then he can rejoice in us. But God rejoices in being God. God's the only being in the universe that can righteously, rightfully look in the mirror and say, "Perfect." God loves being God. And the purpose for everything, now don't just let that run through your mind. Let that grab you a little bit.

The purpose for everything that ever was, ever is, or ever is going to be is that he might be glorified. And the word glory or glorified in the Bible has a lot of dimensions. It's like a multifaceted gem. But generally, we can hold to glory being this, when we from our hearts look at him and genuinely say he's worthy of honor and praise. When we see his works, when we comprehend his wisdom, when we consider his beauty and his majesty, in whatever way God has, is, or will work, we deem him worthy of honor and praise.

Everything God's doing in you as an individual Christian and in his local churches, which is his primary work on earth, as a matter of fact, it's going to be his primary centerpiece for time and eternity. Do you realize when we all get to heaven one day, there will be no preaching like we know, at least we have no biblical indication there'll be preaching. There'll be no evangelizing, but there will be a church. Everything is to the end of his glory, centered in his church. And God just loves bringing himself glory and everything is to that end. Now there's one caveat there. It's always to the end of his glory and his children's good.

And those always go together. His glory is always wrapped up with doing good for his church, his children. Now all that exists or ever has existed is God's workmanship. I mean, you can take the most hardened unbeliever, and even the most hardened unbeliever cannot claim that some man or mankind somehow created the galaxies that exist, the solar systems, the stars, the planets. No man could possibly claim he pushed up the Rocky Mountains, or that he smoothed out the Great Plains, or that he filled the Atlantic with water, or that he dug out the Grand Canyon. Nobody can do that. It's all God's workmanship. It's all really a gift of God's grace.

We call these things common grace. In common grace, it's God that gives all mankind various abilities, talents, or aptitudes, levels of intellect, or certain levels of strength, or beauty, or combinations of different things, talents, personalities, and even quirks and strange things. God created us all differently. Brother Chris, I have to remind my staff sometime we have a church member, and they're not really causing trouble, they're just difficult or different. God's got all kinds of sheep. Have you figured that out? And that's one of the reasons you need to be in a church, is to get over your way. Amen.

Some of you are real, I got a buddy, he's an engineer, and buddy I'm telling you, he believes everything just perfectly structured, organized, and that's okay, he's a help to us, but there's some brothers over here that love God just as much, so just not quite as structured as he is. And he'll be the first to tell you, it's good to be in the church, because I get with brothers who don't look at things the way I do, and they love God just as much. Iron sharp as iron, one man, God, He made us all different. But I can't get off the church, I don't mean to be on the church yet, I need to be on mankind. All of mankind has these grace gifts.

God's given this to all of mankind. Why? Because we're all His workmanship. The Bible says He brings the rain on the just and the unjust. Again common grace. The most wicked, vile, God-rejecting atheist in South Mississippi woke up this morning and enjoyed this beautiful weather. That's a common grace. Common grace goes to all men, the redeemed and the unredeemed. Now all of this pertains to what we call the first creation. This is what God spoke into existence back when He made Adam and Eve, and it's marvelous in our eyes, but here's what we need to understand.

As marvelous as this first creation is, from the physical creation to the glories and the uniqueness of humankind that God made, it's not even to be compared, now listen to me, it's not even to be compared with the glory of God's work in the second creation. The Bible calls it the new creation. In 2 Corinthians 15, Paul talks about the first Adam, where all of the first Adam were naturally born as descendants of our foreparents, Adam and Eve, and that's being of the first Adam, and there's glorious wonders in that. But when you're born again, when you come to Jesus Christ, you're of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

You had a new spiritual birth, and that's the greatest work, the most wondrous work, the most glorious work, far exceeding in glory when compared to the first creation. Now where all the blessings of the first creation are considered common grace, all the blessings of the new creation is what we would call redeeming grace. Now I want you to look at a text. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10. When you get to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10, you come to a summary statement.

And here's what he says, summarizing everything he said, and trust me, in Ephesians chapter 1, down through Ephesians 2, 9, he said a lot of wondrous things about how he saves us and makes us his church. Then he comes to verse 10 and he says, in summary fashion, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." We are his workmanship. That is, if you're a Christian, you're the result of God's work. You're the product of God's hand. Now when you get to that phrase in verse 10, "We are his workmanship," actually the literal Greek rearranges it.

It literally means, "His workmanship we are." And it's as if there's been a great orchestra. Instrument after instrument section has been coming together and joining in. And then you get to this grand climactic crescendo and he says, "His workmanship we are." So he started in Ephesians 1, 1, putting precept upon precept of the glories and the wonders and the wisdom and the power of God in sovereign grace. God saving his own in his own way for his own glory. And so Paul gets to chapter 2, verse 10, and it's if I can't handle it anymore, Paul's saying, "It's just bursting out of me, his workmanship we are." That's what he's coming to.

It's a powerful climactic crescendo here that Paul is bringing to us. Now when he says, "His workmanship we are," created in Christ Jesus. Now that Greek word therefore created is the exact same Greek word that's used elsewhere when God created the original universe, when God spoke it all into existence. Now that's very interesting that he didn't use a different word. He doesn't mean he changed something up a little bit. He means he made something brand new. When you become a Christian, he made something brand new. The new man, the new person, and you're of the new Adam.

As a matter of fact, in Colossians 3.10, the Bible says, "And having put on the new self, who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one," listen, "who created him." Same word again. Brand new creation happened. And the problem with some of you sitting here, and I'm not being mean to you, I love you. Probably some of you sitting here, you've collected some information in your mind about God's truth, but you have not been created a new man. There's not been a new creation in you. You've never come to the grasp of your sinfulness. You've never come to a brokenness of your condition before a holy God.

You've never come to the full release and joy of embracing Christ by faith alone. You're just a worker. You're a doer. You're a daughter and a T-crosser. And there's good in that, but there's great error in that if that replaces the new birth. You're His new creation and new birth. God's great and glorious work. "Therefore, for any man be in Christ," 2 Corinthians 5.17. He is a new creation. It's a brand new thing God's doing. The old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new. So here God is with this word workmanship.

We get the idea that God is both artist and creator, and God in order to manifest to make much of His own greatness and His own glory uses His power, His wisdom, and He takes man, man fallen in sin and in ruin, and with matchless skill and wisdom, He creates something new, a masterpiece work, a new creation. And this new work He's creating when He saves a person is a work beyond anything else God's ever done. And you say, "Well, I look around and I know God's changed me. It is new and it is fantastic, but we're still kind of down here.

We're still made of the same old fallen, unredeemed humanity." Yeah, but here's what you hadn't considered yet, the day of glorification. God's going to catch up on everything that's lacking on that day. And on that day, it's going to be glorious. For so many years, I kind of looked, are going to be with the Lord and glorification is one thing and that's not biblically unsound, just that the Bible does give us more information than that. When you go to be with the Lord, you're not glorified yet. Your soul and spirit is there, but your body's still in the grave.

And I want to tell you not one aspect of your being that Jesus died to save is going to be left in that grave. He's going to resurrect that body, purify that body and glorify that body, reunite it with your spirit and soul and you'll be a perfection and whole glory, the very glory of Jesus Christ. And when we all get done and look at each other, we'll say, "This is the greatest thing God's ever done." I used to think a sunset was glorious, but look at you now that God's glorified you. I mean, you're a part of the great masterpiece of God. That's what Paul is saying. He is workmanship. We are.

Now, I want to just glean some parts of Ephesians 1, 1 down to Ephesians 2, 9 and talk about this masterpiece work. Romans 1, the masterpiece planned. The masterpiece planned. And if you would look at chapter 1, verse 4. The masterpiece planned, chapter 1, verse 4. He says here, writing to the church, and by the way, everything we're seeing here is a church context. He's not writing to an individual. It's always plural pronouns all through here.

In verse 4, he says, "Just as He chose us," that's each individual of us in this local church, in this case, the local church at Ephesus, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world." There's no way you can make that mean it. You know what that means in the original Greek? It means He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. So what it means? You can't make that mean anything else. God's sovereign purposes, listen to me, God's sized love toward you, this unbelievable, infinite covenant, everlasting love was cast toward you before the world began. He knew you personally then, and He cast His choice of love on you then.

Powerful, powerful. Really continues on, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love." So He cast this unbelievable love. Now look, what a lot of you try to do is make God just a higher lover like you're a lover, but His love is not just higher than your love. It's radically unique from your love. His love transcends anything you can comprehend. So in love, He cast His favor toward you, His choice of you being the object of His everlasting love toward you. And He did that before the foundation of the world.

To the end that, He would say to it that one day you will be before Him holy and blameless. Wow, that is powerful. What am I talking about? That's the statement of Him planning the masterpiece work that He's doing in you. And He does it all. Don't miss these two little words because they're gigantic in meaning. He does it all in Him, in Christ. Through the merits, through the person, through the power, through the performance, Jesus came into the earth and He performed exactly what was needed to redeem us and secure the children. And can I tell you something? Jesus never fails. He never fails. That's the masterpiece plan. I chose you.

I did it all to cast this special love on and toward you to make you holy and blameless before me on one day in love. That's mean when we face Him one day in heaven and I've done it all through the merit and the work of my son Jesus Christ. Now, not only the masterpiece plan, let's notice the masterpiece provided for. The masterpiece provided for. There was something that actually had to happen. It had to be more than plans. Look at verse 7 of Ephesians chapter 1. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. So God, before time began, chose to do this.

And then in time and space history, He sends His son, the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ literally and actually goes to Calvary's cross. Some people said, "Who killed Jesus? Did the Romans kill Jesus? Did the Jews kill Jesus? God the Father killed Jesus. That's who killed Jesus. It was God. And now I'm slain from the foundation of the world because God had a purpose to redeem those He cast His favored love toward before the world began. But it had to be wrought out in time and space history.

He had to be literally man and literally a holy man and literally the Son of God and He had to hang on the cross and literally shed precious blood for the remission of our sins. He provided for the masterpiece work. He in effect is the artist that puts the paint on the canvas. And look over in verse 19 of Ephesians chapter 1. And what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe? These are in accordance with the working of His, rather the working of the strength of His might. When He came in His strength and in His might, He finished the task. Can I challenge you, friend, tonight?

Can I challenge you with all of my heart tonight? Are you resting, resting in His strength to save you? The only way you can be saved is you come to Jesus Christ radically and wholly bankrupt, empty with no hope in yourself. You say, "Well, Pastor, you don't know how beat down I am. You don't know how discouraged I am. You don't know how much I fail. It doesn't matter." You take that to Christ and say, "All I can bring is this ruin and failure." And Jesus says, "That's just exactly what I'm looking for. If you bring one tiny molecule of confidence in yourself, I can't save you.

You come to me empty and bankrupt and ruined, and I will save you." It's through the working of the strength of His might. That's how He provides for this salvation, what I'm calling His masterpiece work of making us these glorified trophies of grace that we are before Him. It's all through His mighty power. Now look at verse 20 of Ephesians chapter 1. The Bible says, "Which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places." All right? He is right hand in the heavenly place. So what He's saying is, this is how He provided. He came to the earth. He shed His precious blood.

He died on the cross. He rose again, and He went to heaven. And by the way, do you know you're actively being saved right now? Jesus is actively interceding for you in heaven right now. Not as if you could lose it because He can't fail His intercession. The only way you could lose your salvation is somebody toppled Jesus off the throne of intercession.

He's faithful, and He'll keep faithfully, faithfully, faithfully, bearing the scars, showing the blood before the Father until the day when He departs from heaven on that white charger and in effect says to all the bodies of His elect, "Arise, my love." And He'll finish the work completely then. Jesus provides for it all. You are the great creation, the great masterpiece work of God planned in eternity fast provided for by Jesus Christ. Now Roman numeral three, the masterpiece applied. The masterpiece applied. There has to be a point in time when man in a sense takes responsibility, and man must repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

Look at it there in verse 13 as we talk about the masterpiece applied. In Him, you also, in other words, you like many others have done, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. There is that point in time when you hear, and that's God's ordained means. I don't know why God did it that way. He could have written the gospel in the stars. He could have written it on the side of the mountains, but God has ordained, listen, the foolishness of preaching. At least that's what the world would call it.

Now listen, He hadn't ordained fanciful, creative, multimedia light shows and everything else. He's ordained preaching, preaching to deliver this truth. And He says after listening to the message, here's what I challenge some of the guys who want to be so creative in church. And I'm not saying everything that they do is wicked, but when you pile it all up together, what it begins to be is the tail that wags the dog. And the main things keep slowly. See, Satan's not going to come in and just remove the gospel. He's going to come in and just slowly chip away and get our hearts and minds on something else.

And when you read people talk about going to these churches, they seldom talk about the great gospel message. They talk about the great experience of the light show and the music and the so-called worship. But Paul says here, it's when you listen to the message, and that's why brothers and sisters make sure you raise your children, make sure you raise your grandchildren under strong, clear spirit and powered Bible preaching. That's what will save their souls. And by the way, are you listening to me? If that won't save their souls, their souls won't be saved. You don't have to go to plan B. God doesn't have plan B. That's what God's ordained.

There has to be that he says after listening, you also believed. There's an idea there, believing has the idea of a settled resolve. And literally it's a settled rest. Brother Chris, if I could do one thing for many people, I would just try to get in their hearts and minds and get them just to rest on Jesus. So many people make simple faith into a work. You can make faith into a work. Did you know that? No, but faith is believing it can't be a work and I just rest on what he did. I just throw myself hopelessly on what he did. So this means you listened and you believed. You came to that settled rest that you're a sinner.

And as it says in chapter two, verses one through three, you're a sinner, you're ungodly, you're God's enemy and you're helpless. And that doesn't mean that when you are converted, you grasp all of that, but it does mean you grasp something of that. And as you learn, you agree with it. Are you with me church? As you learn more about it, you say, well, yeah, that's true. Yes, that's true. Yes, Lord, that's me too. I didn't know how rich it was. My pastor started preaching the Bible and I keep seeing how wicked I am, but I have more joy because I keep seeing how great Jesus is to save one like me. Oh, I love the balance of that.

What do you think Jesus said? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. He's not saying be beat down. He means what you hold in your heart all the time, what you are naturally. At the same time, holding your hearts what Christ has accomplished for you and that gives you joy. It's a humble joy. I sometimes call it a crushing joy. Now, see the world can't understand that, but we carry both of those. God help us for the person who claims to be a Christian that misses one of the two. The one who depressed you to death.

Just all the time, I've seen these guys that put on the show of humility, always trying to out humble everybody else. Don't get caught in that trap. I'm more lowly than you are. I won't buy myself but a $100 suit. You probably bought a $200 suit. I won't buy but a $30,000 car. You probably bought a $45,000 car. They're always out humbling you. Then don't be the guy on the other extreme that basically thinks God got a good deal when he got him. That's wicked beyond hell. I come to a settled resolve. There's nothing in me in any way that appeals to God. God didn't save you because he said, "Oh, they're precious. Look at them.

I got a..." God looked at you and saw a worm, a wretched worm, and said, "Watch me prove how big my love is. I can love a worm the way they love their cherished children." You see, that's why God loves us like he does to show off that he's worthy of honor and praise because we can't love this way. We begin to learn how after we're converted, but we don't get it until we get glorified actually. We get a little of it. We see through a glass dimly, but we don't get it until we get to heaven. A settled resolve that I'm a sinner.

A settled confidence and resolve that Jesus has done all that is necessary to give me a right standing before the holy God. A settled resolve. You know what I pray all the time as I live my life? I get saved 100 times a day. I mean, throughout my day, when the Bible says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," it doesn't mean a one-time call. It means you become one who calls on the Lord. You become one who looks to God's provision, his son Jesus Christ, to be your salvation. It's not something you did. It's something you became.

It's something you think, "Well, I got saved." No, you got saved, but you're continually being saved. Justification is settled, but sanctification follows. And I live my life saying, "Oh Lord, if you don't save me, I'm sunk." "Oh Lord, if you're not sufficient, I'm sunk. I cast myself again on you." And I know every time I pray that prayer, I didn't get my salvation again. It just reaffirms that I'm one of those. He's changed because I have to look to him. I have to look to him. I have no hope and no confidence anywhere else. A settled resolve, a rest, nothing I can bring to God will save me.

A settled resolve that Jesus did all necessary to make me holy and blameless in Paul's terminology. That's what I call a righteous standing, or a righteous standing before holy God. Thirdly, it will always include a settled resolve that he is the only wise and true Lord of my life. I'm beginning to banish and vanquish every hope in anyone or everyone else and look holy to the Word of God to find Christ's wisdom for my life. You don't get saved without the germ of confidence in the lordship of Jesus Christ.

I didn't say you had to have perfect obedience to his lordship, but there's something in your heart that says, "He's now Lord," and that's right. That's best and that's true. When you get a church full of people who have this settled resolve in them, you have what I call a gospel humility in the body. And it's sweet and it's precious. And Brother Chris, that's where that unity comes from and that sweet love comes from because we're not stuck on ourselves. We know what we are. We're stuck on Jesus and we just want the church to be built up and be strong for his glory. The masterpiece applied when you come listening to believe on Jesus Christ.

Well the masterpiece planned before the foundation of the world. He cast his covenant eternal love toward you. Love you can't comprehend. The masterpiece provided for in time and space history, he sent Jesus to die. Be your vicarious atonement. Be put in the grave, raised for your justification. Ascend it up into heaven to every faithful to intercede for you and waiting for the day when he will just as faithfully come and glorify you. If you're dead already, he'll just raise your body up. If not, he'll just bring you up to heaven to meet those in the air that are already there. And then the masterpiece applied.

There is that time and space when you rest in him. Now number four in our outline, the masterpiece preserved. You think God's going to go to all the trouble sent his son to the earth to deal with what his son dealt with? The rejection, the scorn, the ugliness punched in the face, spit on him, plucked out his beard with the cat of nine tails across his back and then the work he provided for be lost? You think God's going to let that be lost? The Bible says he will receive his reward. He will see his offspring. He'll get all the ones for whom he came to perform this masterpiece work upon. The masterpiece preserved.

Look at verse 13 of Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one verse 13. "In him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed," here it is, "you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise." You were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Once the masterpiece work of the Spirit comes into your life, the Holy Spirit of promise indwells you and he, he doesn't bring the seal, he doesn't make the seal. Listen, he, the Holy Spirit, is the seal of your salvation. He is the security. He is the assurance of your salvation.

When I was a young Christian, I went to a conference and there was a guy there that said a lot of you need to nail down your salvation and he led everybody in the so-called "sinner's prayer" into quote and he said you might need to do what one fella did one day. He kept doubting his salvation so he asked Jesus to save him again and he went out to his daddy's shed and he got a tomato stake.

And he went out behind the shed and he drove that tomato stake in the ground as a reminder that he asked Jesus to save him and he said every time Satan would tip me and I'd save he said I went out there and I looked at that tomato stake to assure me I was saved. Brothers, you don't need a tomato stake when you got the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit in your life telling you you're God's child. He is the seal of the Holy Spirit. And some people don't know how to look for him. I mean honestly they don't know how to sense. Well how does the Spirit affirm to me?

One of the greatest ways the Spirit affirms to you that he's in your heart and you're his is when the Word of God is preached even if your heart and mind don't agree with it the Spirit says amen, amen. That's right. I call it the amen of the Spirit. There's a Spirit affirming thing in your heart as the truth of the Word is preached. I want to say more about how it's affirmed but let me say a little bit about the seal for just a moment. When they marked Jesus' tomb, you know they put the stone there and they put the seal on the stone, what that was saying was that all the power of the throne is securing this.

When you get the Holy Spirit all the power of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is working to secure you for eternal salvation. That's what that means. That's what a seal would mean. It also meant this is authentic property of the King. Don't you touch it. Don't you mess with it. When he gave you the Holy Spirit he put his insignate ring on the wax of your heart and sealed you as authentically God's property, the great masterpiece work of God. And thirdly it meant it was now a part of authentic royalty. You're not just getting into heaven. You're going to heaven as a joint heir of his holy and righteous Son Jesus Christ.

That's powerful. That is powerful. So God through his Holy Spirit keeps working in us. We keep being convicted of sin. I've had people come to me, "Pastor, I know I'm saved or I thought I was saved and I keep doing this and I feel awful about it." I said, "That's a good sign you're saved." The Holy Spirit's convicting you. You can't just get by with it anymore. You can't just say it's just no big deal anymore. You start fighting sin at a deeper level when the Holy Spirit comes into your life. You don't stop sinning. I wish we could. I wish we did.

But you start fighting sin and dealing with sin and overcoming sins in a way you never could before. And by the way, you're doing it for the good and the glory of God and not to save your own hide. The motivation for why you fight sin begins to change after you're truly converted. All of this is the witness of the seal of the Holy Spirit.

Philippians 1.6 reminds us, "For I'm confident of this very thing that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." John 6.37, Jesus said, "All that the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." Security, the seal of the Holy Spirit. John 6.39, "This is the will of Him who sent me; of all that He has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day." They're sealed. He loses nothing. There's never, ever, ever been a case of a child of God losing their salvation. It can't happen because you didn't win it. You didn't earn it. You didn't even secure it.

The Spirit secures it. You are, as one of the Southern Baptist advantage, you say, "Bill Stafford, you say, 'I'm so saved it's pitiful.'" And I know what he means by that. It's just amazing when you think about it. Roman numeral 5, "The masterpiece proven." The masterpiece proven. Now there's a sense in which you're proving this before yourself, but this is the way you prove it before the church family. Now the world can't comprehend it anyway. They'll see a difference in you and glorify God.

The Bible does teach that, but it's required before you join a church that there be enough proof of your salvation evident in your life because we can't bring anybody into membership that God's not joining to the church. It's not about us voting somebody in. It's about God adding them. Voting is okay. I'm not saying that's all wrong, but the voting is to affirm what God has done not to start or create anything. The masterpiece proven. Look at verse 10 again, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 10, "For we are his workmanship, his workmanship we are, crescendo of praise of all this that God's done." He did it.

"Created in Christ Jesus," here it is, "for good works, which Christ Jesus," or rather, "which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Now here's another fantastic thing. Not only did he prepare beforehand that we would be his masterpiece work, Ephesians 1 before that he did choose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. He did preordain that, but he also preordained that those whom I've chosen to say, I've also chosen before the foundation of the world that they would walk in good works after their justification and their salvation. That's proving forth the salvation we have received.

We're created, if you will, in Christ Jesus to the end of good works, not to obtain salvation but to prove out the evidence of our salvation. He planned it to be the case. It's a primary foundational essential part of the masterpiece work of salvation that we would walk in good works after conversion. It's the visible proof. Works do not save, but they are the verifiable proof one has been saved. In 2 Corinthians 3, 2, Paul talked to them and said, "You are our letter known and read of all men. You see the difference.

You can see the change." Now there's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing that proves your salvation more than this work I'm about to tell you. A new love for Christ, a new love for Christians, a new love for His church. And those always kind of together. You show me somebody, and I've seen folks that talk about, but they can quote Bible, they're great teachers, they do a lot of things, but they don't love the church. Something bad wrong there. You can't love Jesus and not love what Jesus loves. Now here's what I did as a new Christian. These things were not taught to me very well.

And Brother Chris, I'd go out into the world thinking I need to love everybody. And I did. I had a new, you do have a new love for everybody by the way. But I thought every single solitary need or want or our hungry person or whatever that I knew about in the world, I had to meet that need or I wasn't doing the good works and proving I was a Christian. Well, I don't know about you. You don't live in a very big area down here in South Mississippi, but if you just go into your area and try to meet every need and love to prove you're a Christian, you're going to be overwhelmed in about a week and have a nervous breakdown.

Then I begin to understand something. God does love everybody, but He has a unique, special, eternal covenant love for His children that's different. And Brother Chris, I begin to realize that verse in the Bible that says, "As far as it is possible, do good unto all men, but especially to those of the household of the faith." Men, aren't you to love everybody, but not like you love your wife. You bring that check home to her and let her buy groceries and let her provide for the amen. That's, she's your wife. We love all, but especially we take care of our spouse. Well, that's what the Bible teaches.

A real Christian, as they learn and grow, will find that they do have a love for all men. Kind of course we do. We would help with needs, as the text says, as far as possible. But we make sure our love and devotion to the church is always there. That's our priority. Matter of fact, now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you diminish your love for your children and for your spouse in your home. But listen to me, the day may come when your spouse dies, but you'll still have the church. You can still love the church and they can still love you.

The day may come when your kids move away a thousand miles away and you can't even be around them hardly at all, but you can still be around the church and they can still love you and you still love them. You see, that's why Jesus said, "Who are my brothers and fathers and brothers and sisters?" These believers is what he meant. You took on a new wife when you got saved called the local church. You got a new responsibility. That's where your love is. And Brother Chris, once I started getting that, men, the just lights went off to me about the way God meant for all this to work. Because I can put my arms around that as it is possible.

I do loving things for all men. Fell sometimes, but I'm especially devoted to my local church. That's the proof. That's the proof of being a true child of God. That's the work, that loving work for the body of Christ. Here's what you need to understand. You yourself individually, you are a masterpiece work of God. But you're just a little masterpiece. You're a little masterpiece that's incomplete and it doesn't tell the whole story of his glory and to you as an individual little masterpiece come together with all these other little masterpieces and function together as a biblically structured, biblically empowered local church family.

And you become a great, big, glorious masterpiece of God's work. Are you getting me? Are you getting this? Remember what the Bible says? Some of you are the arms, some of you are the legs, some of you are the eyes, some of you are the ears. What do you mean? Just we are interconnected in this local church. And that's why it's of vital importance to be in a sound, solid local church. Because if you're in a local church that doesn't understand the gospel and doesn't understand healthy church membership, there's going to be people in that congregation who are not part of the church. They're unregenerate.

And the love thing don't work because they don't have the Holy Spirit that manifests that love and it's a mess. You know what I sense here? I sense that this church has a large percentage of truly regenerate spirit-wrought people because I sense that kind of love. And it's a beautiful thing. So you're a masterpiece of work, but the great big masterpiece of work is the local church. Now, Rick, real quick, I want to show you a wheel illustration that we use at our church and we've been using this for a long, long time. And I know it's kind of where you can't see it, but I think this is a... And I don't mean to be braggadocious.

It's not my heart, but I mean, I've worked hard on this for 40 years. I keep thinking on it and praying on it, looking at scripture. And I think it's as good as we can get from the balanced teaching of the New Testament of how you should structure your church. First of all, the hub of the wheel is preaching the Word and the power of the Spirit. As I've told you before, I know your pastor believes this. If that's not right, nothing else matters. And I'm going to get a little personal here.

Brother Chris may have to reprove me later, but you're all going to have to help him and Christie to realize the best thing that they'll do for the glory of God and good of this church for the next several years is say no to good stuff. Because at your size now, and as you keep reaching folks, he can't put his arm around everything he's putting his arm around now and have the energy and the passion to preach like you must here. So it's going to be your job to help him understand we can do it. Let me give you this quick testimony. I know we're going a little bit long, but you'll still make it to heaven. All right, real quick.

I was in the hospital one day visiting folks. This is several years ago. Now I have a large church and a leading doctor who's a member of our church, we ran into each other in the hospital. And he said, what are you doing here? Just like that. Like I was doing something wrong. What are you doing here? My young in cheeks said, I'm a bad just preacher. This is what we do. We visit sick folks. He said, you know what's interesting to me, and he knows his Bible well. He said in the body of Christ in the local church, God's given lots of folks with the gift of service, with the gift of helps, with the gifts of mercy.

And he listed some other spiritual gifts, but we only have one lead preaching pastor. Why don't you let those other people do those things? Those gifts are perfect for visiting the sick. You're not a priest. God doesn't show up when you show up. Why don't you go back to the study and get ready to preach? Because after I can work all week here, I need to hear the Word of God in the power of the Spirit. Brother Chris, it was like boom. It was like whoa. It's like, I mean, just the lights went off.

Now I haven't stopped ministering to people, but from that point onward, I radically changed what I gave my energy to and from my heart what I gave myself to. And literally, to the glory of God, we have hundreds and hundreds of pastors, probably to a lot extent thousands of pastors who have been impacted by our ministry, and it would have never happened if I hadn't moved with more of my energy back to the pulpit. I probably wouldn't know y'all. See God knows what he's doing. The preaching of the Word is the foundation stone. That's got to be right. And your music here is so good, and I praise the Lord for it.

The music though complements the preaching of the Word. It is the overflow and the attendant too. And y'all have got that down. And then there are three spokes. I believe if you take the New Testament canon and the systematic truth that's there, you'll find these structures of grace. First the preaching of the Word that's hub, and then up the top right, it says every member of ministry through small groups. And that's an area you're going to have to start developing so that you can start fleshing out this work God ordained before the foundation of the world. The work he wants you to walk in is the work of the local church.

To do the work of the local church, you've got to have biblical structures. So every member of ministry through small groups. I tug in cheek and say, "I don't think you can work harder at that than we've worked at my church for 40 years." And we will literally run about 95% of our morning worship attendance active in small groups. And that's unheard of. And it's because we believe that if the body's not ministering, it's not a church. We're not just putting on a worship event on Sunday. We're a church. And that's a powerful way to do that.

And we're available to help you learn all the mistakes we've made and not mess up the way we messed up on things and give you some guidance on that. The other one is called personalized strategic world missions. In the New Testament, all the local New Testament churches took ownership of missions. They didn't just send money off. That's good. We do see that in the Bible. But from their hearts, they embraced the missionaries and the work. They kind of claimed it as their own. And that's why we developed anchored in truth missions.

Not only because we had a growing distrust in the integrity of a lot of the mission boards out there, but also because we wanted local churches to connect with us and all together do this mission work because that's exactly what the New Testament teaches. Local churches cooperating together, those of lack doctrine and conviction. So the other spoke, "Hub of the will, preaching the word in congregational worship, every member ministry through small groups, personalized strategic world missions." Then the bottom spoke is family discipleship. I've already alluded to that. Some folks like to be real structured about that. Not saying that's wrong.

Some folks, it's more lifestyle. I would just be careful that it didn't become a work and a legalism in the home. Your children have a lot of formal training in the church. Be careful making more formal training in the home. Just be careful. Make sure your children know it's real in your heart and your life. It's not just a structure. Okay? Hey, God gives us a lot of freedom there. You don't have to do it my way. I don't have to do it your way. The scripture didn't give us enough to be definite on that. Alright? Then everything, everything, everything, everything is worthless if the spirit of God is not empowering it.

Just real quickly, God brought me through three horrible splits in my church. I've lost about 600 active people as we reformed the church to biblical hell. It was tough. It was a tough journey. And one of the things that got, well, let me just say this. Though I was never guilty of sins they'd like to have convicted me of. I've never cheated on my wife, embezzled money, and all that kind of stuff. But God knew there were things in my heart I needed to deal with. And one of the things He had to do to me was to humble me and cause me to give up my hope in my structure. Because I had an excellent structure.

I had leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention say that our church is the best structured church in the Southern Baptist Convention. And I'm not saying it to God, I'm just saying we worked that hard at it. But God knew it had become an idol in my heart. And I wasn't depending on His means of the preached word and the power of the spirit like I needed to. I believed in the preached word. We've always had a strong pulpit. But in my heart I wasn't resting on it like I needed to. And God brought me to a place of persecution and suffering. And my energy was gone. I was just wiped out.

And Brother Chris, I just kind of went to the Lord and it's almost like the Lord spoke to me and said, "What one thing must you do?" And I said, "Preach." So, I let small groups go. Boy, that was my baby. I developed it for two decades. Let it go. Personalized war missions, gave it to somebody else because I stayed right on top of these things. Make sure they were all just right, you know. I let the things go that I had created and built over decades. And I just took what strength I had and crawled into that pulpit and preached as hard as I knew how to preach and the power of the spirit. And God began to change people's hearts and lives.

And then without me even realizing it, I came to a radical dependence on God's primary means of preaching. And then God started giving me these things back. He in fact said, "This isn't wrong. You just had it the priority wrong." And now we're functioning in those trusting the spirit to do the work, not the system to create the ends. But see, there's a real balance there. You got to be structured well, but you got to trust God to do the work. Are you with me there? Now, Southern Baptists have made that mistake a lot in the past. If the structure's right, we can kind of coerce people into getting in our numbers. No, the structure's good.

Don't throw out everything Southern Baptists have done. There's some good stuff. It just needs to be purified and spiritualized sometimes. And so God brought me through that humbling and gave me all of this back. And I don't know how many churches literally around the world are following this structure. But here's what I want to say to you. At our church, everything, everything we do is subject to be increased, decreased, reorganized, or eliminated to fulfill this biblical pattern. We may do other things, but if anything starts making these become weak, we cut them out and get back on this again.

And Brother Chris, what we find is everything else you do can grow out of these and be a compliment to them and not a competition to them. I have people come in and say, "Man, we want to start a men's ministry. Let's do a men's ministry." And I said, "I bet. That's a wonderful thought." They'll say, "Let's do a men's ministry." I said, "We've got a men's ministry. I've got 25 men's small groups. Let's do that well, then we'll do the other stuff. Are you with me on that?" So we keep bringing people back to the main things over and over. And God has richly blessed it.

And when you're functioning in these thoroughly biblical structures, the Spirit is empowering it. Then you become a God-glorifying local church that God will use as a pattern for others. And that's what I want your vision to be. God make us so sound in your Word that other churches will look to us and say, "Can you help us plan a church? Can you help us reorganize our church?" Because our churches desperately need that kind of reformation. Folks, this is a vision you can get behind and believe in. And I haven't told you anything your pastor doesn't already believe. I hadn't convinced him of none of this.

It's in his art already or I wouldn't have taught it tonight. Because I'm not going to teach you anything against the pastor. So I have great, great, great confidence and encouragement about where you guys are going. Now somehow in God's sovereignty, I've been at it longer so I can see a little closer to the end goal, let's say. But you're always repenting. You're always learning. You're always growing. But when that's all functioning right and you all are the real genuine little masterpieces, then that's the great masterpiece that shows the world God's wisdom, God's beauty, and God's power like nothing else on earth can.

And that's what we're about. God's great glory. Can we just bow in a spirit of rededication here tonight? First of all, with heads bowed and eyes closed, are you sure you're His? Have you been born again? Have you passed the test? Have you come to Him bankrupt with no hope in yourself? But also not just bankrupt with no hope in yourself, are you now confidently believing Christ is your Savior? Christ will save the most wretched, bankrupt, empty, helpless sinner. Oh dear friend, dear lady, dear gentleman, dear young person, oh turn to Christ now. Now say, oh Christ. I rest in you as a wretched sinner to be my Lord and Savior.

Now I want to challenge you as churchmen, church ladies. Will you dedicate yourself to a biblical structure of doing church work? And will you bond your heart to say, "Lord, but Your Spirit must do the work through us. We can't just manufacture a system. It's got to be structured biblically but spiritually empowered. Father, we commit ourselves to Your wisdom in going forward in this church. Oh God, bless these dear people to the end that this church would be a standard raised up, a lighthouse of truth for Your great glory. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.