Ephesians 2:1-10
Early on during my second year in college, I was invited to preach at a local, about 20 minutes away from Crown. It was small and intimate, a beautiful setting, and while I was preaching I got the sense this is what I was made for. Looking back over the road of how I got here, to this point, is a crazy spiritual journey including, physical healing, emotional turmoil, painful loss, amazing gifts, and lots of comical nostalgia. To even process the idea, in my own personal life, of being brought from death to life is insane, as I still distinctly remember as a 5yr old working to contemplate my own death as I was facing an impossible survival against Cystic Fibrosis. Yet, here I am, 46yrs old with the CF being held at bay through God’s providence, living this dream of a calling from God to preach His gospel. It is a huge blessing to be able to do this and even more so in realizing that I was made for this!
Yes, I was made for this, and so are you! Maybe not for my specific job, but Paul says it right in this passage that you were made for ministry – for God’s purposeful good works. I’m talking about the calling for us to build His Kingdom as His witnesses. You are made for this! Let me explain.
You Were Given Life for This
The main idea for Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church was to help them understand their identity as Christians and ultimately what that will look like in a healthy church situation. We learn about unity in the Spirit, what a healthy household looks like, and what a person looks like as they become more like Christ. But none of this can happen with dead people. I don’t mean physically dead – obviously nothing is going to happen in a room of only dead people – I mean spiritually dead people. V1-3 give us a good picture of what that means: following the ideals and desires of this world, living in the passions of our fleshly (sinful) desires, obedient (usually unwittingly) to the enemy of God, and ultimately children destined for wrath. This is describing people who have not yet surrendered their lives to Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins so that they can be under His banner of love and grace. At some point in your life, you were spiritually dead, headed for destruction and trapped in the same problem as the rest of mankind. Maybe you remember a lot from that time, maybe not. Let this video remind you of what God saved you from.
But God. God acted – v5 – even when you were dead in your sins, God made you alive through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ. Just like our sister in the video, you – those of you who have surrendered your lives over to Jesus – have been literally made alive to live out His calling by being His witness to the world right in front of you.
You Were Called to This
You were made for exactly where God put you. Andrew van der Bijl (Brother Andrew) was a Dutch missionary who became known for smuggling Bibles into the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. While a soldier in Indonesia, he was involved in a massacre of Indonesian villagers and became severely affected PTSD. During his rehabilitation, he began reading a Bible given to him by his mother. When he returned to the Netherlands he started attending church and committed himself to Christianity (Wikipedia). This was God’s gift to him of new life so that he do good work. This was something God planned and purposed well in advance for Andrew’s life. It’s no surprise that getting scripture into the hands of as many people as possible was so important to Brother Andrew; he was made uniquely for that mission! God planned it and set it up so that Brother Andrew could accomplish that purpose! You are His workmanship – a project in process that He is designing to be a specifically crafted masterpiece that will carry His gospel to people He has intentionally put you around.
Next Steps
My friend is going to be in prison for a while. This was certainly not his choice, but him and I have discussed multiple times now that he is in a specific place inside the providence of God to be his witness amongst people in prison. He has a chance to be a missionary for the Lord even as a young believer himself. There are no other qualifications for this ministry other than surrendering yourself to Jesus (no Bible college or licensing required). You are made for this!
- If you’ve not yet, surrender your life to Jesus – receive His forgiveness and life and then let Him work in you for good in this world.
- Discuss with others how you can see your life as part of God’s plan for the world
- Engage with God’s mission! Do something good (actions, service, ministry)
It doesn’t matter where you came from or what difficulties you’ve faced (health, family tragedy, abuse, etc…). You were made to share God’s grace!
Comments are closed