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I want to welcome you to day three of our look at Ephesians chapter 2 in daily
drive time devotions. We are looking at verses 8-10 today and as I said to you
at the end of yesterday's look at Ephesians 2, these are really three of my
favorite verses in the Bible. I find myself coming back to these verses again
and again and again for encouragement and direction in daily life.

Let me read these three verses to you, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10, "For it is by
grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is
the gift of God, not by work 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. " I want you to notice as we dive into these verses very
carefully from the very beginning the place of our works, what God has given to
us to do.

When you understand the place of what God has given to us to do, the works that
we do, the spiritual things that we do, then you really get a grip on who you
are in Christ. And as you read Ephesians 2, 8-10, you see first of all that our
salvation is not by works. In fact, these verses go from not by works to us
being a workmanship to doing good works.

Let's walk through those three things, not by works to being a workmanship to
doing good works. When you get what that means, there's great joy in that. It
begins with not by works.

We're not saved by works. William Barclay said about this, "Our good works do
not put God in our debt. His love puts us in His.

" John Calvin said, "It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies
can never be alone. " So there is a place for what I do, but not at the
beginning. Why didn't God offer salvation by works?

Well a couple of reasons. First, it wouldn't have worked because none of us
could be good enough to reach Him on our own effort. Oh, we think we can.

We compare ourselves with ourselves and we say, "Oh, that person is spiritually
better enough than I am. Maybe they could get closer to God. " The problem is
we're comparing ourselves with ourselves and not with God.

When you compare yourself with the perfection and the holiness of God, none of
us, by our own work, could even approach a relationship with Him. So God doesn't
offer salvation by works and He doesn't include works even in any way. Because
if He did, well, never underestimate our human pride.

If He did, we would take the free gift of eternal life and if one little measure
of works were lifted in, we would say, "Well, look at what I did. " It's
interesting to me that I meet people all the time who when they hear that
salvation is a free gift, they say, "No, no, I couldn't take that. " But if they
hear there's something that they have to do that would appeal to their pride,
there's something about that that says, "Well, maybe I should do that.

" If you say to somebody, "You have to push a peanut up Mount Everest with your
big toe," there are some people who would buy that because they think when they
got to the top of the mountain, "I did it. " And there's nothing of that in
faith. To boast about our faith would be like boasting about taking a gift that
someone had given us to pay a debt.

"Yeah, I'm really proud of myself. I had to reach out and take that gift with my
own hand like it was something that I did. " There's no boasting at all because
He did it.

God's grace is the cause. Our works are the effect. In fact, that's why
Ephesians 2.

10 says, "For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.
" So how does this work? It goes from not by works, my salvation is not by
works, to a workmanship.

Once I trust in His work, what He has done on the cross, what Jesus has done in
His resurrection and giving His life and being raised for me, once I trust in
Him, I become what the Bible calls God's workmanship in verse 10. It's a
beautiful word. We use our English word poem from the Greek word that's used
here, it's the word poema.

And we become God's beautiful poem, His workmanship, something that He alone
could write. You see, the way that you and I as believers renew our minds for
doing the good works that God has for us to do is by recognizing I am God's
workmanship. I am made for doing the things that God wants done.

This whole idea of being a self-made man or a self-made woman, there's no such
thing. God is the creator of all of us and anybody who thinks that they've put
together their whole life by themselves is not recognizing, is ignoring, is
living in denial about the gifts that God gives us every single day of our
lives. We become a workmanship, something that God has fashioned.

And what happens out of that? It's not by works that I'm saved, but when I'm
saved I become His workmanship and what happens out of that? I get to the place
of doing good works.

We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Some people
get this thing confused and they think that somehow the fact that it's not by
works means there's nothing to do with works at all in my Christian faith. Well,
of course not.

God wants me to do something. He has a work for me to do. I'm not saved by that
work, but because I'm saved I do that work.

You see, these good works that God has for us, they're always prepared by God.
They're always pre-planned by God. A question a lot of people have is this, wait
a minute, if God has some good works for me to do, if they're prepared in
advance for me to do, how come I don't know what they are?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I've become a Christian maybe a year,
maybe five years, maybe 20 years, and I'm still not sure exactly what it is that
I'm supposed to do. How do I know the specific good works that I should be doing
today?

Well, the key is in verse 10. God prepared these in advance for us to do. Since
they're prepared by God, my first task every day of my life is to get close to
him and to listen to him.

If I rush off on my own and try to do all the good works that I can think of, of
course I'm going to do a lot of things that I just think of. The closer I get to
him, the more I'm going to understand the good works that he's prepared for me
to do. So whether it's five minutes or 20 minutes or an hour, you spend some
time with him and you listen to him and you say, "God, what is it that you've
prepared for me to do today?

" Many times a thought will come to your mind and you do that. You do what he's
prepared for you to do today. You also realize, we talk a lot about God's
purposes, that as you study the Bible, that's where God's purposes come from,
you discover his works.

You discover what he has for you today. You discover that his work is the work
of worship. His work is the work of ministering to other people.

It is the work of fellowshipping with people, getting to know them better and
better in Christ. It's the work of growing closer to him in maturity. It is the
work of sharing the good news with other people.

That's what he has for you to do. The question here is, what am I going to do
about this? And before we even end this study, you can begin to do something.

You see, sometimes doing good works happens in your heart. It happens in your
mind. It happens in your praise.

So before we even end today, what are you going to do about this? The fact that
you've gone from not by works to workmanship to doing good works prepared by
God. Here's something you can do.

You can deeply praise. Deeply praise God that he's moved you from eternal death
to eternal life. Here's something you can do.

You can use these truths to defend yourself against temptation, against the
schemes by which sin worms its way into our lives, to say no to temptation so
that you can say yes to God, to say yes to God and thereby say no to temptation.
Here's what you can do. You can begin to see yourself in a new way, God's way,
in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for you.

What we're talking about here is renewing your mind, a new perspective of life.
And it's the perspective of grace. To sum up these last few days, we've been
talking about our life history from God's perspective.

And in that life history, God sees things that you and I do not see. He sees
you. He sees me as now seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

And he sees that the future is already secure from his perspective. It's a
future of riches and grace and kindness. And God sees that it's all by grace,
nothing is by my works.

And it's also that I can be a workmanship, created to do good works. My good
works growing out of God's grace work. God sees all of that.

He sees all of that in you. So as we talk to him today, let's ask him, let's ask
him to give us the grace gift, to see things just a little bit more like he sees
them. Would you pray with me?

And Father, we ask you, we ask you to help us to see things in a new way.
Sometimes all we see are the things around us, the people around us, the
circumstances that we're right in the middle of. And we think that's all there
is to life.

It is not. It is not. So help us to see you and your love for us.

Help us to see you in your plan for us. Help us to see you and your grace
towards us. And out of that grace, help us to see the works that you have
prepared for us to do.

Lord, we can only do those works one day at a time. I can't do next year's work
today. I can do today's work.

So God, help me to see what you have for me to do today. And then to draw upon
you, the strength that you've given me, the love that you have for me, to draw
upon you in doing what you've given me to do. I ask this.

I ask this, Father, trusting in you, in your name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're
going to be looking at Ephesians 2, verses 11 to 16.