A WORK IN PROGRESS
Have you been learning anything lately? Are there peculiar things happening in your life? Do you find yourself yearning to spend more time with God, yearning for the next worship service? Are you understanding God’s principles more clearly than you have before? Do you find yourself adhering to higher standards?
You ask, “what’s happening to me?”
What is happening is, is that you have become a work in progress.
The grace of God is doing a work in your heart and life.
Titus 2: 11
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”
“Grace” is commonly defined as “unmerited favor” but more specifically it can be defined as “unmerited divine assistance given man for his redemption and sanctification.”
GRACE BRINGS ABOUT SALVATION.
There’s two things we should know about Salvation.
Salvation is wholly by the grace of God:
Ephesians 2: 8-9
“For by grace you have been saved though faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works. Lest anyone should boast.”
Salvation is universally available:
“has appeared to all men.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
II. GRACE TEACHES CONSECRATION.
Consecration begins with “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.”
Our consecration grows as we “live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age…” Titus 2:12
III. GRACE PRODUCES GREAT EXPECTATION.
There are two parts of this expectation:
(1.) “looking for the blessed hope” (being changed into the likeness of Christ without seeing death…referred to as “the rapture”)
(2.) “and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (the return of our Lord Jesus in power and glory…referred to as “the revelation”)
IV. GRACE WORKS TO PURIFY OUR LIVES.
How provided: “…who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people zealous for good works.” Titus 2:14
If you are not experiencing any of these things in your life right now, please don’t loose heart because God will begin this process this morning if you will open your heart to Him.
Phil 1:6
6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
One interpretation says;
There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.
Many may look at this steel bar and see nothing to it. A bar with limited use.
A blacksmith sees this as a $10 horseshoe.
A manufacturer sees this as $350 worth of sewing needles.
A watch maker can turn this into springs for a $250,000 Rolex watch.
It depends whose eyes behold it and whose hands touch it.
We looks at each other as this steel bar; limited use at best.
But God sees us as unlimited potential. People, whose lives that can be transformed to be what God initially intended for us to be.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Jer 18:1-6
18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
You may be new in your faith and wondering how did I land here. You are here because God wants you to experience some things, but you are also here because He wants you to see His handy work.
If you will look around you this morning you will see people who don’t look all that much different than you do, but who came from many different backgrounds.
People who were raised on church pews, but there are also people who were struggling in their marriages, drug addicts, alcoholics, sexually immoral, thieves and liars who gave their hearts to Christ and was willing let the potter reshape their lives, and here they are today rejoicing in God’s House because He pounded out the lumps of sin in their lives and set them free.
These are people whose lives God has changed.
Ps 107:8
8 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
I want you to know that both the clay and our lives must be pliable in the potter’s hands.
You ask, “how dose all this happen to a person?” It all starts in your heart, with your personal journey to the cross and seeing what transpired there for you.
It happens by simply believing, by faith, prayer, the Word, trusting God through trials, testing and obedience.
Rom 12:1-2
12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
Its God saying, “come here, get on this wheel. I want fix you, take out all that junk in your life and make something useful and good out of you. I want to make you a real man or a real woman, free from the slavery of sin.”
2 Tim 2:21
21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.
Rom 6:13
13 [Don’t] yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Isa 64:8
8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Ps 51:10
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Jesus said, I want to;
John 8:32
….make you free.
Matt 4:19
….make you fishers of men.
Heb 13:21
21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
Ps 92:4-5
4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands.
5 O LORD, how great are thy works!
Ps 119:73
73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
The song writer wrote,
Take my heart and form it.
Take my mind and transform it.
Take my will and conform it.
To yours, To yours O Lord.
Phil 1:6
6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Rom 9:21
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Ps 143:5
I muse on the work of thy hands.
Both clay and we our selves can be discarded, but that’s not the potter’s will.
The clay has no choice but you and I do.
Please let the potter fashion your life.
