God's Working in Our Working

Big idea: Keep good works in their proper place by relying on His grace.

1. We can't boast, but we can marvel.
2. We can't boast, but we can clarify: 
   • what we are
   • what we are for
3. We can't boast, but we can anticipate.
4. We can't boast, but we can abide.

• When I am obsessed with doing more...
• When I am guilty for not doing enough...
• When I am bitter because others aren't helping me...
• When I don’t get the credit for what I have done…
• When others point out I have failed…

• Automated Transcription
• 0:21
  Well, good morning, church family, and good morning, guests and visitors. We're so glad you're here. I want to add my welcome to Ian's, and we are in the middle of the letter to Ephesians. So stand with me for the reading of God's word today. We're going to look at the grace of God and good works. It's a vitally important topic when we think about works. The fundamental difference between biblical Christianity and every other religion is related to works. In every other religion, good works precede heaven or salvation, whatever that may be, as they define it. In Christianity, they follow, and that's the case here. Let's read a couple of verses, and we're going to focus in on verse 10, starting in two eight. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is the word of the Lord. God, we do look to you, our our great and gracious Father. From before the foundation of the world, you already looked into eternity, you, Lord Jesus, you Holy Spirit, in your counsels have chosen to select for yourself children out of a sea of humanity that is rebelling against you and deserving wrath, and you chose some in time, Lord Jesus. You came and you lived and died and rose and paid the penalty granted new life and we are now the experiencers of the gospel and new birth. With that, there are good works for us to do. We want to be faithful and joyful in what you have given us, and there are a lot of ways to use works badly, and there are ways to use works for your glory and our joy. And we pray for that this this day as we look to these, and we pray for endurance in the ministry that you've called us to to do by your grace. I do pray for churches around our city that they would be faithful in their ministry, pray for South Hill Bible Church, which is in a pastoral search. Pray that you would find God's man for them. Help them continue faithfully ministering on 29th in the South Hill. Pray for Lilac City Bible Church, new church plant. Pray that you would bless them and help them be faithful to the proclamation of the truth. Pray for humility for them all, Corum Deo and Soma all meeting on the South Hill. Pray that there would be humble shepherding among those churches, faithful proclamation and evangelism. Help us do the same here, and we pray that you would help us in the end joyfully endure the labors that you've set before us in Christ's name. Amen. May be seated. Every religion ideology has its idea of what heaven is like, and every other one, but Christianity thinks that the way you get that heaven is by doing good works, and Christianity has the opposite. Good works don't precede salvation; they follow from salvation. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul tells us here. I was thinking of of an example of something like this. Some of you love your gardens. You love your plants. I'm the one who tends the plants in the house. Sometimes I put human characteristics on plants. Like we'll look at a plant, and I can tell a plant is a happy plant. Right now, our fiddle leaf fig is about nine feet tall with the massive fiddle life-like leaves. They're so big. I think you could play them like a fiddle if you put strings on them. It's deep green. It's doing great. New growth is vibrant, and I was thinking about this this week. What does the fiddle leaf fig do to be a happy plant? What does it do? It receives what's supplied, like any plant. It receives what's supplied: light, water, fertilizer. Interestingly, Jesus. Uses this happy plant metaphor in the Gospel of John. He says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Now Jesus is talking about plants with choices, it's a metaphor.
  
  5:23
  But he says that abiding in Him when we bear fruit, he goes on to say in 15 five. By this is by this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Jesus has much fruit for us to bear. Then he says in verse 11, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Full joy is what God is going for in participating in the works that He has for us. Are you a happy plant growing in the soil and receiving the light and the water that are in Christ. Good works in their proper place glorify God and they fill you with joy. I often tell you this, especially for those of you who are new, we we welcome you. We're glad that you're here. What we want you to find here, what we want to show you, is we we want you to find Jesus and know Him. We want you to find your people and experience the the church life, the community that He's designed for you, and we want you to find your purpose. We want you to be fulfilling your purpose, serving the Lord, working for the Lord, and in that, all three of those together should bring you joy. The big idea for us this morning, since it's so vitally important, is is this: we keep good works in their proper place by relying on His grace, relying on His grace. Paul speaks extensively about our works and good works all over His writings, because we do all kinds of things with our works, good or bad, and Paul sums up the bad ones with one word in two nine, boasting. We we have in our fallen condition a tense tendency to boast. How do we do that? Well, we turn them into something so that we can feel better about ourselves, we try to impress people with them or please people with them. We make them our ultimate identity. We take the identity in the work and working rather than in God Himself. We point to them to justify ourselves. If somebody points out where you failed. You quickly point out where you've succeeded. I have a counter argument. We make them the basis of being a good or bad anything. I'm a good mom, dad, mom, good, good mom, bad mom, good grandpa, bad grandpa, good uncle, bad uncle, good employee, bad employee. Based on how we work, we compare our worth or our righteousness by our works. We look at other people, see what they're doing, and ask ourselves: Are we doing better or worse than they are? We compare by our work. We attempt to manipulate God, and we attempt to manipulate others with our work, deal making. These are all part of that category that the apostle Paul is going to call boasting. But we can also do good works, at least those who have turned from their sin and idols and self-glorifying works to Christ. We can also do good things with our works. We can provide for our families. We can bless people in need. We can fill what's lacking in a ministry, in a in a place that needs volunteers. We can take part in a team or a community, and in taking part of a team or community, we can make an outweighed impact. We can we can do more than some of the parts. The way we do it can be virtuous, exemplary, beneficial. We can carry out God's creation mandate, which He has commanded and built every human on the planet. The creation mandate: God made mankind to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. And Hindus do a level of that. So do Muslims. All kinds of people carry that out for idolatrous ends or selfish ends, ultimately, but they can carry out those. A new creation can carry out all of those things in holiness to manifest God's glory through us. So we want to look at today in in this one verse is how God helps us keep perspective, proper perspective, on works, on good works. It has been the the greatest trouble in the battle for orthodox faith, biblical faith, understanding our role of works.
  
  11:06
  So we're going to look at this today for ways to keep works in their proper place, and they're a contrast to the end of verse nine: boasting, so that no one would boast. We're saved by grace through faith. It doesn't come from ourselves. It's the gift of God, not by works, so that no one would boast. So we're going to talk about these. We're going to talk about the contrast. We can't boast, but we can marvel. We can't boast, but we can clarify. We can't boast, but we can anticipate. And we can't boast, but we can abide in Christ, and therefore abide in those. We're going to look at that today, and let's start with number one. How how do we get a proper perspective of our good works, and then how that shapes what we go after? Number one, we can't boast, but we can marvel. God's works are not a payment to God to save us, they're not a repayment to God after saving us. They are evidence that God is the master craftsman at work. Look at verse 10. For we are His workmanship. Paul's including himself and the believers who have already shown the fruit of faith and love. If you flick back up to 115, the apostle Paul was regularly giving thanks to God for the work that was going on in the church at Ephesus. In 115, he says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease giving thanks to you. The apostle Paul recognized something happened in the Ephesians that was proof of a miracle and a new creation. You love each other because you're God's workmanship. The word workmanship-it's the Greek word poema. Scholars think that our modern-day word poem comes from it. A poem is a highly crafted literary work. So the focus here is not on us. The focus is on God and His workmanship. God is the master craftsman. The Creator is the master builder. You should ask Willie Gallion to see his 3d end grain cutting board. I've made a number of cutting boards. I like to work in the shop, do woodworking, but I have never seen a better cutting board than this. I mean, in truth, God is the craftsman behind Willie's work, but you you can just see craftsmanship, and whether whether it's Van Gogh's Starry Night or Michelangelo's David or Dale Chihuly's Chandelier that's on display at the John's Art Museum down in Gonzaga's campus, you go to look at those pieces. They're exquisite. But but here's the thing about the pieces: none of the pieces, none of the works, can take credit. Look at me; I'm pretty amazing. What did you do to become amazing? I just sat here. What they do is show the ability of the craftsman here in my you can argue with me later about this gals home designers, but I have a working different differentiation between decor and art. What's the difference in my? This is just me. Because both are valuable, decor uses subject matter to change your enjoyment of the room that you're in. Art uses the subject matter to change your enjoyment of an idea and the artist. Art communicates the artist's idea, and you look at art and you think, "What was he or what was she thinking and going for? And that's what we should do when we look at each other in the room. Those who have turned to Christ and followed Christ, you are an evidence that God, the Creator, has created a new creation, and you are now His clay in process as he is molding and shaping you to use you for his glorious purposes, and you should marvel at that. In in the context, we were dead in sins, producing works of pride, hostility, vulgarity, using people for what they could give us. Now we pursue Christ-like virtues, holiness. We sin less and less. We selflessly serve more and more. We grow in Christ-like love, and it has a myriad of applications. We should marvel at this from pond scum to a fruitful vine, bearing fruit for God. Tuesday night we met elders and deacons. We have a couple meetings a year with all of the deacons. The deacons shared shared what was going on in their ministries.
  
  16:39
  Some some people like listen to ministry reports and are like their ministry reports. You know, I love ministry reports. I love looking around the room at our deacons, seeing how they're serving, and I think of God's craftsmanship. Look what God is forming in them and how He's using them. I like preaching and teaching. God's called me to do it, and I want to do it faithfully. But it's not the most joyful thing I do at church. The most joyful thing for me at church is what God's doing in you. How God transforms you by the various ministries and people in the church, and when I see you trusting God, serving the saints, loving God, loving the saints, that is the greatest joy. That's why I'm a pastor. Is so that you would be shaped by God to give evidence of His craftsmanship. I mean, we we can't boast in our work any more than Da Vinci's Mona Lisa could boast in her delicate smile. Story about Da Vinci is that he kept the Mona Lisa with him for a couple of decades, just always fiddling, always working, always remaking, redesigning until he got it just right. God is at work in you if you are a follower of Christ, molding you, making you just as He wants for His good pleasure, He is the craftsman. You can marvel in the work God has done and is doing. The Apostle Paul could say this in First Corinthians 510. He says, "By the grace of God, I am what I am. And he's comparing himself with other apostles. By the grace of God, I am what I am. It's all God that's made this happen. His grace to me was not in vain. It was not meaningless. It was not empty. It was not just a whiff of smoke. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me, we can't boast in our work, but we can marvel that God would take us from dead, bearing wrath, to life, working and sharing blessing. We can't boast, but we can clarify what's what he's doing. The clarity is this: we're new creations in Christ, in union with Christ, and in union with with Christ, we're made for good works. We're not saved by works; we're made for works. He says it very plainly: created in Christ Jesus for good works, so here we have the picture of the Father as the Creator, the Son as the Worker. He's talking about union with Christ. A couple weeks ago, when we studied the union with Christ, I think I titled that message "Salvation is Union with Christ. It's being brought from separation from God, hostility. To God from God, wrath from God, to being bound in Christ, His death, His resurrection, the forgiveness that comes into Him, binds us into an inseparable relationship. We we think of union with Christ in terms like a head to a body. Christ is the head; we're now a body attached to Him, getting our life from Him. We think of it in terms of of a husband and a bride united together. This verse says that we're created. It's already said we've been made alive in Him. We were raised with Him, seated with Him. He's the one that breathed new life into us, so that we could see and believe. He elevated us by the resurrection over all of the temptations and challenges and difficulties of the world in connection to him. He seeded us with him in that we are now not dominated by Satan, temptation, or sin in the world. In him there is a power over the world. Here's that additional element: we're new creations. Therefore, and the focus is on the inner man. There is the outer man and the inner man. The inner man is being renewed. Second Corinthians 517 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. There is a new creation. So Jesus emphasizes this union using that vine illustration. Listen to some of those words again that I read in the introduction. He says, 'I am the vine; you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing that is good or meritorious. Obviously, plants don't break away from their branches and live.
  
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  The union has a twofold purpose: to display the eternal, exquisite design of the Father, and the supreme, skilled craftsmanship of the Son. We see this work. Titus 214 says it this way about Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, he's describing the works of the old life in terms of lawlessness. To purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works. Good works are what he made you to do. You former sinner, whatever you were, I think of the the kids that are raised in the church, whose mom and dads are faithful in reading the scriptures, pointing them to Jesus, reminding of their need for salvation, shaping their character and their work ethic. I think of all of those things, and at some point, a kid who has been going along to get along, going along to live a little easier life, agreeing with some of the principles, but essentially living for self. That kid comes to some realization at some point that all this good is still really selfish. I'm actually a really selfish person, and I'm doing all of this for me, and I'm guilty. And suddenly, there's an awakening. That person is as dead pond scum as the person who's was raised with no limits, with no restraints, fulfilled every pleasure they wanted, ended up doing work for their own glory, trying to gather all the resources that they can, or doing the drugs or the alcohol, drunkards or druggies who've came to an end of their sin, recognizing its its terror, and repented and trusted Christ. You know what? If you are in Christ, you're a new creation. God has made you new. An obvious question is: Are you in Christ? Are you in Christ? Have you recognized your sinful condition, the direction that you're headed? That essentially it's all about yourself and your glory. Have you come to the conviction that it's bearing terrible consequences, and you're just waiting for the wrath of God to fall? That's you. There's an invitation. Jesus' invitation to the disciples in the upper room in John 15 is, "Abide in me, my word. Abide in you, and you will bear much fruit. It's an invitation to come to Jesus. He gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness, to make us a people zealous for good works. This is why Jesus could teach the crowds in Matthew five 516 in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Jesus is saying God is at work in you, so shine your light. Do what God's built you to do, the way He's built you to do it, and you will give testimony to the Father's creative and new creation power. You can't boast in your good works, but we can marvel. One, two. We can't boast in work good works, but we can clarify. We're new creations in Christ for good works. Three. We can't boast, but we can anticipate. We can anticipate. We don't look toward good deeds, hoping that they will impress God or get us new special benefits. But we can anticipate being used by God in showing His glory to the world. This short little phrase is this: which God prepared beforehand, and God, the Creator, calls us back to the creation, Genesis one. Before that, God has laid out before creation. God has laid out good works for His children to walk in. He's prepared beforehand. This prepared beforehand is very similar to the idea of predestination, marked out or set out. The focus is on the work that God has planned from before creation. I do know a handful of seamstresses, knitters, even a tailor, when they set out to make a dress or a garment, like Larry Gardner took my daughter's wedding dress, took it all apart, custom adjusted it for my daughter for her wedding day. You know, seamstress makes very very careful plans before they start cutting pieces and Sewing, why? Why don't they just say, you know? Then I'll add a little bit of this, and eventually I'll add a little bit of that. You know, I just go with the flow. When I make something, I just go with the flow. Why do?
  
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  Why are they careful? Well, it needs to fit, and it needs to look uniform. God, the the master craftsman, the master tailor, has an end game, a new heavens and a new earth, which will reverberate with the works that has his children have done in time and space, Hebrews 115 uses this metaphor. Says God will one day roll up the earth like an old garment and roll out a new one, the new heavens and the new earth. Your works in God, your works in Christ, have been prepared by God from eternity past to prepare for eternity future. You don't have to invent new works to impress God, as if there's something that you can do to impress Him. You discover what He's already laid out for you. Each day we have eternally significant tasks, little things, big things, which reverberate in eternity future. We ask some questions about that. What are the tasks? How do I do them? What's the goal? What are the tasks? Let's get really practical. Most of your tasks are already laid out for you. If we read the rest of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, if you have trusted in Christ, you then are joined into a church. So, chapter four begins your activity in relation to your life with fellow believers. Chapter four goes on to talk about putting off sin as an old garment, putting on righteousness as a new garment. So holiness is one of those things. Putting on virtues is one of those things. Then there's a whole discussion about roles in marriage. For kids, for workers, there's a fight against the devil. Like there are some of those. Most of you are already in a rhythm where your good works are simply laid out for you. You need to walk in them. You discover what he has already given, and each day they're eternally significant. There are some really important things to say. There are some really important things to do. As you step back, let's think of Paul's metaphor of the walk, walk worthy, as being on a path, and there's two ditches. This is a classic way to think about. You want to avoid two ditches. On one hand, there is overwork and misplaced guilt. On one hand, there's overwork and an overestimation of your abilities. On the other hand, is laziness and a bent on pleasure or distractions. You want you want to stay out of both of those. Let's talk about one of the ditches, the the overwork ditch. According to Genesis two one through four, God made us with a work rest rhythm. Every day you have work a good amount of it. Every day you have rest. Every week you need extended time for rest in God. This is the the Genesis creation, and you can only do what is possible in six workdays. And then Solomon commanded you to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor after sin, labor turned to toil. But he says this in Ecclesiastes nine seven: Go eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. A couple verses later, he says, "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your brief, vain life, so that he has that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life in your toil at which you toil under the sun? It's Ecclesiastes nine, seven and nine. There is an imagination that when I see this verse, there must be a million things for me to do, and I don't know how I'm going to get them all done. No, there is your portion to do. There's your portion to do, your day's worth, and it includes work, rest, a measure of enjoyment. God has assigned you your tasks. God has assigned someone else with their tasks. Now I want everybody to look. I want everybody to look at me because I want you to hear this. Because I know you. I know. I know Faith Bible Church. Do you always feel like you're not doing enough? There's a couple ways it happens. I'll use gals' names for this. You look at Sally, and she is doing this Bible study and raising these bees and making this honey, and she's sewing these clothes. And then there's Jenny.
  
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  I'm just making up the names, although my friends are named Jenny. And she's running these four Bible studies for these four sets of women's ministry, and and she is she is driving her grandkids to all kinds of places. She's babysitting a lot. She's doing all these things, and then you add this woman and that woman, and you take the things that they're busy doing, and you think you're supposed to do all of them. I'm a loser. I'm not doing all of those things, and you bury yourself in guilt. This person's doing all these ministry things. They're they're doing all these home things, and and I just can't get to all of my things. I must be doing something wrong. No, you may be forgetting that God's called you to your tasks and to this person their tasks and this other person their tasks, and they're not all your tasks. One, you assume that you can do it all, which you can't. And two, you're judging your works by the works of others. It's a ditch to stay out of. Tom Dudenhoffer had a really important insight. Many of you, because you walk with Jesus, you look around the church, you look around the community, look around your family, and you see needs. People are suffering, and you feel bad, and you think I'd like to meet those. He he said this this week. He said needs can be a terrible taskmaster. Here's what he means by that. There's always more needs. There's just always more, and you can't get to them all, and you feel bad because they feel bad, and then you feel like I should be doing something to meet their need, but your 24 is already full. Here is an extraordinary gift of God. You're not God, but God is God, and God meets all needs. You're not God. God is God. God meets all needs. You can pray for what you can't get to because God can get to it. Now it's not to say on the other side, the other ditch to avoid it, which is laziness, or a lack of compassion, or selfishness. You need to stay out of the ditch of selfishness, laziness, and a lack of compassion as well. But let's say Sally, our beekeeper and extraordinary Bible study leader. You're also gifted to lead a Bible study, and she's done it a while ahead. It doesn't mean you can't pick her brain for how to do it better. It doesn't mean that you can't use productivity tools to be more effective. You certainly would want to. You can't meet all the needs, but your heavenly Father can. And here, Paul is has an express statement: these deeds are laid out from before the foundation of the world, just the ones for you, just the ones for this church. So Paul says we can't boast in good works, but we can marvel that God would take the worst material. Sorry to keep propping you up. You're the worst. You're pawn scum. Let me let me think of a million other insults for you before you meet Christ. But truly loved, saved and recreated, you you can marvel that God has crafting you and giving you work, and now you need to stay in your lane, so to speak. We can't anticipate what God has laid out for us. So here's the final question: How do we do that? How do I discern what I should be doing, what I shouldn't be doing? And there's a really important principle set in here. It's abiding. We can't boast, but we can abide. And it's a Christiany word. We don't use it outside of this very often, but to abide means to remain. He uses the language that that he has set works for us that we should walk in them, and in the Bible, there's a picture of a path that you're on and walking. You've been set on a path if you're a new creation in Christ to walk on the path, and He says we should walk in them. Talks about our way of life, what God has set out for us, and it speaks of a holistic, wholehearted way to live. It's constant, renewable, and renewed. And if you notice this section, there's an inclusio in two two. It talks about our sins and trespasses in which we once walked.
  
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  Now he's given us new holy, loving works in which we should walk. It's a total turnaround. We can't boast in our works because God's the craftsman, God's the assigner. All we can do is abide in those works. How do we stay out of the ditches of laziness, misplaced priorities on one side, sinful guilt, and impossible wishes for doing good on the other? It starts with intentionally living in relationship with Christ. Right here, you have the greatest motivators possible in speaking about our union with Christ. Although you were dead and under God's wrath, verse four, it says, "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Here we have the riches of God's mercy. We have the greatness of God's love. He's raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness. Here are the greatest motivators with which you stand up and walk out of this auditorium, saying, "I want to serve my Creator and Recreator, the mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God, and the kindness of God. Lean in to the gracious attributes of God. Ian Murray, an author, pastor, church historian, once commented at a Q and A session with other pastors. He says, "One of the greatest tasks of the pastor is to persuade believers that God really loves them. We don't naturally really believe that God really loves us. Some of it is because He doesn't give us every pleasure and whim, and some of it is because we suffer, but some of it is we want glory and He won't share it. So Jesus' metaphor of the vine and branches, Jesus acts like the branches have a will and make choices, and so what he is saying in John 15, and what Paul is telling us here, is that Jesus Himself is life. Jesus says to Mary and Martha, "I'm the resurrection and the life. Not that there's a future day that I give you resurrection and the life. I'm the resurrection and the life. You can't do anything good or useful in the kingdom disconnected from me. So come to me. The answer isn't to walk away from this message thinking about what are the 25 things that I'm supposed to do. I assign pastoral ministry books. There's a great book called Dear Timothy, and it's 20 things a young pastor is supposed to do. Great, on top of the other things somebody else told me that I'm supposed to do. No, come to Jesus. All those things could be helpful. All of them have their use. What Jesus wants you to do is abide in His love. Cultivate nearness with Jesus, and that's why His Word must be in your minds, in your meditations. That's why you talk to Him. That's why you pour out your heart to Him. That's why you ask Him for wisdom. You are in a covenant relationship, bride to husband, body to head. Loving God will push competing loves out of the way, so that you can more accurately see how to love the people around you. Remember, sin still dwells in your flesh. When you repent of it, seek Jesus to help you. You will be more like Him, and you'll be more ready to see. In in J.R. Tolkien's Hobbit, The dwarves who want to reclaim their kingdom need a way to get into the lonely mountain, back into the kingdom of Erebor, and they find out along the way that they have a map and the door is there. But the only way you could properly read the map is by moonlight that shows up once a year. The runes suddenly appear. They're hoping that it would happen at just the right time. Now I know the way in. The light to see what your next good works are is the love of God in Christ, in communion with the Scripture, His Word in the Scripture. Unlike Tolkien's moon, it's always shining His word. God wants to be known; has made Himself readily known. You need to have an open heart to trust Him.
  
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  Given indwelling sin, assorted weakness, and world that wants to knock you off your path, your faith is going to be expressed. And here we have this context: you were saved by grace through faith, and your faith is going to be expressed in walking in those good Deeds. If we use the question, "Do you want to be a happy plant? Are you a happy plant? And I've got my gigantic fiddle leaf fig. It's a happy plant for the moment until I kill it, which I can do. I have abilities. Do you want to be a happy vine, fruitful, like Jesus talks about? Here's how it's going to come: by grounding your identity in your union with Christ, not on your performance, you are who you are because Jesus brought you to Himself, and I have some questions at the end of the notes that trip all of us up. When I am obsessed about doing more, I can dream up 10,000 things to do. There's people in my life who can dream up 10,000 things for me to do. How how could I be a happy plant, the vine that's producing the fruit. When I'm obsessed with doing more, it's got to come back to your identity. Your identity is in your union with Christ, not in your performance. So, if you did more, what would that make you? Go ahead, do more. What will that make you? Obsessed with the next thing, is doing things your identity, or is relating to Jesus your identity? What about when I'm guilty for not doing enough? It's true. Sometimes you doom scrolled for an extra 20 minutes, or you're watched an extra four Netflix episodes on a binge watch night. It's true you've wasted some time. The one glorious thing about sin is that's what Jesus died for, and you can confess that. But what about I'm tired. I feel like I should be doing more. I'm holding on to Jesus, but I just feel like I'm never doing enough. Is that because doing is your identity or your glory? It's grounding your identity in union with Christ, not on your performance. What about when I'm bitter because others aren't helping me? There's just all this work to do. Remember the Mary Martha story where I think Mary sat at Jesus' feet and Martha was upset. I think I got that right. Why did you make my sister help me cooking the dinner for 12 guys. She's Jesus. She's choosing the better part. Like the food will take care of itself. You should enjoy me. What if you're bitter because others aren't helping me? Well, what do you think the work is making you that you need the help for? Grounding your identity on union with Christ, not performance, is the only way to be a happy plant when you're the only one doing the work and there's more than you can do. What about when I don't get the credit for what I've done? Are you grounding your identity in the credit that you get, how people notice me and praise me, you you recognize because you're a child of God by the grace of Christ and the work of Christ. He's pleased with you. You were a dead rotten vine. He put life into you to grow, and as he shapes you and you grow and you work for him, he smiles at his workmanship, and he smiles at your faith. What other credit do you need? When others point out that you failed and you hire your inner lawyer, actually he's on retainer. He's ready to go. And you say, "Well, I know I've failed over here, but look what I've done here. Why aren't we talking about that? Well, because that's not the problem right now. The problem is where you failed. Oh, I don't need to use my good works.
  
  50:06
  In fact, the fact that I've failed, sinned, been unwise, or not figured it out yet, just makes me lean in all the more to the fact that my identity is in Christ and what He has done for me, anyway. Jesus wants you to be a happy plant, bearing fruit, abiding, working, showing God's glory, and enjoying and marveling when He does. Let's pray, Father. Thank you for these words from Paul and Jesus bind them into our hearts. Help us think about those and put them into practice for Your glory, in Christ's name, Amen.
  
  50:55
  Thank you for listening to this audio. If you are not part of a Bible Teaching Church. We invite you to join us this Sunday at Faith Bible Church. Visit fbchurch.org for information about our services and ministries.
  

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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