His Workmanship (The Lord's Perfect Provision for His Own Masterpiece)

Selected Verses:

Ephesians 2:10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Opening:

We ought to remember that we are "His workmanship"--His masterpiece. This morning, I picked a flower that blooms very profusely in the park. I don't suppose many people pay attention to it, but I can't help it because when I was in the jewelry business, I made such things with diamonds and platinum and gold and silver. And I looked at this little flower that practically nobody pays attention to, and I couldn't help but say, "Oh, Jesus! How wonderful You are!" Every detail so perfect--the design of it, the shape of it, the beautiful coloring of it: different colors, and just perfectly marvelous! And it's only one of billions of flowers and plants that not only are made by Him but held by Him: "He upholdeth all things by the word of His power."

And then taking a flower into my hand, I see a little ant crawling through it. And what is the ant looking for? Well, for an uncle, I suppose. But anyway, to think that of all the billions of creatures that Jesus Christ created, He has food for them all! They can all find a table spread, and they didn't have to make it; God makes it for them. He feeds them all. He feed the crabs in the sea, and He feeds the fish, and He feeds the birds--He feeds the sparrows. He feeds the squirrels too, and provides them with acorns and nuts and things. And God knows just what tastes good to them. Just think!

Talk about baking cake: My mother used to complain. She said, "Well, my cookbook says, 'Take a half a pound of this, and take fifteen grains of that, and so on, but it didn't tell you where to take it from!'" But Jesus knew where to take it from.

Beloved, everything is so very marvelous and so very wonderful that we're great sinners if we don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ--if we don't fall down and worship Him, and if we don't have perfect confidence in Him. For these things were all created "by His word." They didn't create themselves.

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Selected Quotes:

And He tells me that I am His masterpiece, and He's going to show me forth not only to the angels but to the Father: a masterpiece immaculately, "without spot or wrinkle or any such a thing," provided I yield and abandon myself to Him. That's where faith comes in. We like to monkey with this masterpiece and we spoil it. And we ought to quit that. We ought to enter into perfect faith and perfect confidence. And here we have it. And when God gives us the New Testament, He gives us His cookbook. And He says, "Now you take this, and take that, and take the other. It's all provided!" But it's His command that we take it and let Him use it in the proper place.

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Beloved, Jesus Christ is a perfectly marvelous and wonderful and all-sufficient Savior, and we cannot please Him if we don't allow Him to make us His masterpiece. And He does that where there's no natural hope and no natural strength. And I've known God to allow some people to really backslide badly because they thought they were so good. They judged everybody else, and God allowed them to see that they were good for nothing. And then, they were willing to let Him save them.

But here He is: God's proposition; the New Testament is His proposition. "What the law could not do" why? "It was weak through the flesh." The law showed me the sinfulness of my sin. And the law said, "Thou shalt be holy, even as I am holy." But it didn't tell me where to take the "flour" from!

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"Though if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptation..." What for? Every temptation is an opportunity for God to give you Himself in place of yourself--to give you "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for the spirit of heaviness." Oh, children, we're in school! Let us get acquainted with Jesus. And we can only get acquainted with Him in these hours of trial and testing.

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I was trying to make jewelry one time at home, and I didn't have silver; I didn't have gold; I didn't have diamonds, and I didn't have the proper tools. But when I got a job in the largest jewelry house in Chicago, everything was supplied. The boss was only too happy to give me all the metal I needed, and all the machinery I needed, and all the tools I needed, and all the diamonds I needed. He was only too happy. And he liked my work, but my work was really his work because he supplied all the wherewith. And oh, beloved, we're here--we're "heirs with God and joint-heirs with Christ." And what matters it whether I live or die? But it makes a great deal of difference whether I let Jesus Christ live in me and finish His job.

Illustrations:

The story of a woman who delighted in her inventory of diseases. "Now you take a piece of paper and write down all the things that might trouble you in body, soul, and spirit. Listen, that's none of your business. It's His business." (from 4:22)

Stories of Egyptian guides and the Egyptian prince. "Before that baby was born, everything was provided for him, I suppose, for the rest of his life. That's what God did for you and for me, and He did it 'before the foundation of the world.'" (from 5:48)

An illustration of man's failed recipe. (from 12:21)

An important minister who lost contact with Jesus. "What have you got if you haven't got Jesus Christ within?" (from 16:50)

References:

My Father Watches over Me, a hymn by Rev. W.C Martin, circa 1910:

I trust in God wherever I may be,

Upon the land or on the rolling sea,

For, come what may, from day to day,

My heav'nly Father watches over me.

Chorus

I trust in God, I know He cares for me,

On mountain bleak or on the stormy sea;

Tho' billows roll, He keeps my soul,

My heavn'ly Father watches over me.

He makes the rose an object of His care,

He guides the eagle thru the pathless air,

And surely He remembers me,

My heav'nly Father watches over me.

I trust in God, for in the lion's den,

On battlefield, or in the prison pen,

Thru praise or blame, thru flood or flame,

My heav'nly Father watches over me.

The valley may be dark, the shadows deep

But O, The Shepherd guards His lonely sheep;

And thru the gloom, He'll lead me home

My heav'nly Father watches over me.