If God determined everything, then should you apply effort to pray, evangelize, and sanctify yourself?

God Created Me for Good Works

Ephesians 2:1-10

Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church

Please turn to Ephesians 2:1-10. I am going to start reading from verse 1 for us to get the contextual flow, but our primary passage under study this morning is going to be verses 6-7. Please read along with me now, starting with verse 1;

"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:1-10

Please prepare your hearts this morning for the sacred preaching of God's word, in this sermon, titled,

"God Created Me for Good Works"

Over the weeks we have seen much concerning the great privilege of our salvation. We have seen that God elected us to salvation, and saved in that salvation, according to His own good pleasure, and kindness. We have seen that our salvation is for the praise of the glory of God. We are saved for the praise of His grace, meaning that each of you is a trophy example of God's grace. You are being showcased for eternity. Paul, motivated by the Holy Spirit, loves this important truth, and so he keeps repeating it in various ways. He goes on and on about it! In our specific text we are focusing upon, we see that Paul says,

"... when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:5-7

This is the first thing we must recognize in respect to our creation for good works. You see, before you get onto the good works that you are to walk in, you must understand that you actually walk as the good work of God in Christ. God made you alive from the deadness of your lost state in Adam. It is His work alone, through the grueling work of the cross. God raised you up in positional, spiritual, identification with Christ, and seated you with Him in the heavenlies. It is God's great work, and He did it so that He would be the only one who is recognized for this great work forever and ever. Now think about your salvation. Think about what it does for God's fame and glory forever,

"7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:7

God created beings to exist specifically to demonstrate the incomparable riches of His undeserved favor toward the elect in Christ. You exist for Him, and you are privileged to be part of His plan, and so in your privilege, you experience the blessing of being saved. We recognize that this work of God is a privilege because we know we have been graciously rescued from sin and death. Sin and death is the putrid state that we all existed in once. The state of sin and death is the state of everyone born as a descendent of Adam according to the flesh. The rescue is a privilege, because you were elected to be in Christ in salvation while you were in a state where you completely repulsed God. In a philosophical sense, and follow me on this--in a philosophical sense, you and I must recognize that there are lost, blinded people all around us, and so without the privilege, you would have continued to exist just like they exist. In other words, your ultimate end would have been to perish. It is food for thought. Nevertheless, in the real sense, you had to be saved. You see, part of your privilege is that your particular salvation was necessary. What I mean, is that even though your salvation is for God in every sense of the statement, it is also something that must happen to every single one of His elect. Please understand this--we are the ones who are saved for God, and since God determined that we be saved for Him, then we necessarily had to be saved. We should always push ourselves away from the ritual side of Christianity to meditate upon this great fact. We should focus upon the great thanks we should give to our God every single day for being a part of the process that He preordained to be the means of bringing Himself glory for His grace forever. God wanted to bless Himself, and because God planned and determined to bless Himself with you as His workmanship since before the foundation of the world, then your salvation had to happen. Now, that is a privilege.

/2/
Which leads us to the second point this morning, which is what Paul says next,

"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is [the words "it is" are not in the Greek] the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8

For grace to truly be grace, and for God to truly get all the glory forever based solely upon His work alone, apart from any work on your part, then grace, salvation, and faith, must all be real gifts that are given to us based solely upon God's own perfection, worthiness, work, and good pleasure. True grace can not be based upon any of our feeble attempts, as lost people in the image of fallen Adam, at perfection or self worth, or self generated humanistic works of any kind. True grace, and the true completeness of grace, strips us of any self-glorification whatsoever. This is what Paul says right here. Paul is saying that grace, which is unmerited favor, and salvation, which is to be rescued, and faith, which is belief, is all the gift from God in one package. I realize that it may be easy to get this passage wrong and think that Paul is saying that only one aspect of salvation is the gift. But, it is not only one aspect of salvation that is the gift--rather it is everything involved with the whole rescue process of His plan in the sphere of electing us and adopting us in His Son, which is the gift. It is as the Greek scholar, and exegete Dr. Ernest Campbell states so well in commenting on this passage,

"With reference to the statement, 'For by grace you have been saved through faith,' Paul says, 'And this is not of you.' Both of the Greek words rendered 'grace' (cariti) and 'faith' (pistews) are in the feminine gender, but the Greek pronoun translated 'this' (touto) is in the neuter gender. If this pronoun refers back to the words 'grace' and 'faith,' as we have suggested, why isn't it in the feminine gender? The answer is in the latter part of this verse, where Paul considers both the grace and faith as a 'gift' (dwron), a Greek noun which is in the neuter gender, and as such, is the antecedent of the pronoun 'this' (touto). In other words, looking at the two essential ingredients involved in God's saving of sinners, Paul refers to the same as a gift which is 'not out of you' (ouk ex umwn). This verse clearly teaches that neither the grace nor the faith are of human origin, they are not out of nor from those being saved (cf. v. 5; 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:5) but are from an outside Divine source." pp. 70-71

Basically what this means is that by covering all these three aspects in blessing you according to His election, God leaves you with no room to boast or brag about any thing you have done in salvation. You can not boast in some sort of merit that God recognizes in you that supposedly gives you favor in His eyes for salvation. For God to find merit for saving us according to something about ourselves that impresses him, is a concept that is not grace. We can not boast in our faith, as if we personally generated it, and so through our own process, we are giving God faith in return for salvation. We can not boast in being smart enough, or wise enough, or adventurous enough to believe God for salvation. We must learn from what Paul says here about no one being able to boast, and what he says in so many other passages concerning these things that may not be so readily apparent. We need to understand, for example, that Paul is not talking about boastful stereotypes. Paul is not talking about what we generally refer to as someone who is a conceited braggart, or someone who is full of himself or herself, like in respect to being full of pride. We are subtly self oriented in a lot of areas when our minds have not been renewed and disciplined to think according to God's revelation, so we must be careful. We must be careful because there is more than one way to boast. Let me give you an example. Let's say you are driving down the road in an unfamiliar part of town. You kind of know where you are, but you only have a general idea. You are lost. You are lost, but you decide you are going to find a way to get to safety, which is the right destination. You know where you want to go, and so as you drive, you start to reason about where you may be, and where your destination is, and so you start to calculate how to go about getting there. You look for clues, and you stop and get directions from various people. It is all part of your decision making process. Some people don't exactly know what to tell you. Others give you some advice as to what they think might be helpful. Some of the advice is contradictory. You have to make choices about what roads to turn down. You weigh decisions; you think it through. You use reason, logic, wisdom, and intuition; then you make one decision after another as you turn down a series of roads, where ultimately, and amazingly, you arrive exactly where you wanted to go. You are safe. You are no longer lost. When you get there, you can think,

"Man, I am sure glad I made those right decisions in my decision making process."

Now, listen to me; it is a simple statement that is based upon truth. But, what is important to recognize here is something that can easily be diminished. To be glad in respect to our decision making process in getting to the goal, or the prize, is to boast in ourselves. It may seem like a small thing. In fact, one may immediately argue that such utterances are not boasting. After all, it may seem like you are just enthusiastically stating a fact. All you are doing is recognizing that you made the right decisions--right? Well, that is the point. When it comes to God, His grace, the enabling gift of faith, and salvation, to say that it is all God and His doing as just a matter of fact, means you are boasting in Him, which means he gets all the glory. On the other hand, to take any of those things and say that it was some of your own workmanship too, as just a matter of fact, is to boast in you. It is to boast in your createdness. It is to boast in your flesh. Now, contextually, has not this been what Paul keeps repeating all through Ephesians when it comes to boasting in God? Haven't we seen that God elected us before the foundation of the world to be set apart and completely without blame in adoption according to the kind intention of His determination, cf. Ephesians 1:4-5 but that Paul immediately says that God did all of it,

"6 to the praise of the glory of His grace"

Haven't we also seen that we have obtained an inheritance already, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His determination, in verse 11, but that Paul immediately says that God did all of it,

"12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory."

Haven't we also seen that In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, verse 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, in verse 13, but that immediately in verse 14, Paul says that God did all of it,

"with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."

So listen to me very carefully--what this means is that we can never say, according to doctrinal accuracy and pure praise of God for what he has done,

"Man, I am sure glad I made a personal decision to believe in Christ."

To do so is to glorify our own actions. Why would we be glad that we made a decision to believe in Christ anyway? Someone may answer,

"Well, the answer is a no brainer, of course. The fact that I won't go to hell is a great reason be glad that I made a decision to believe in Christ."

To which we might reply,

"I am sorry I sometimes come across as not having a brain, but it sounds like you are thanking yourself for doing what it takes to keep yourself out of hell, by being glad in yourself for your superior decision."

To which the other person may say,

"No, no, not at all; all I am saying is that I am glad that I am saved."

To which we would rightly say,

"That is great. I am also glad you are saved. Actually God is glad that you are saved, and it is because God is glad you are saved, that you and I can be glad you are saved too, but that is not what you are saying when you are saying, 'I am sure glad I made a decision to believe in Christ.'"

Our friend may ask,

"Then what should I say?"

and we could answer very well with,

"Simply give thanks to God for deciding to elect you to eternal spiritual salvation since before the foundation of the world, and then at the proper time, by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself; the gift of God so that you can not possibly boast."

You see folks, God has made sure that we can not boast in anything in respect to coming from us on our part in the process of our salvation. Instead, what God wants us to say is this,

"Lord, I am sure glad you made the decision to elect me to salvation, by your grace, through your faith that you have given me for your own glory. I believe in you because of your miracle in me."

But this only scratches the surface of the comprehensiveness of what God is doing with us,

/3/
which leads us to the third thing we must consider this morning, and that is what Paul says next,

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:1-10

We notice that in continuing in the contextual flow, that Paul presses the point even further. In other words, this is not a separate verse in a separate context. Not only do we not boast in how we were created in Christ, but we recognize that all of it is based upon the fact that we are the products of God's craftsmanship. You are His workmanship through the grace He bestows on you in His workshop. You are His workmanship by the faith He bestows on you in His workshop. You are His workmanship in saving you. We can't say,

"You know, I am so glad that I had the gospel explained to me the way it was explained. It was because the gospel was made so clear, that I received Christ."

Or,

"If it wasn't for the fact that the person who shared Christ with me was patient with me and wouldn't give up, then I probably wouldn't be saved."

To say such things is to glorify the presentation of the gospel, or a person's ability in presenting the gospel. It is also wrong to say,

"I am so glad that I was happening to walk through that area that day, and heard the gospel. If it wasn't for that last minute decision, who knows where I would be today."

This is wrong thinking. It is the thinking that does not believe that you are completely the workmanship of God in the orchestration of all the events that brought your regenerated state into existence. What we are talking about is the beautiful doctrine of the providence and sovereignty of God where He gets all the glory. All of your experience in salvation has to do with God sovereignly arranging it all. God arranges it all according to His own good pleasure, according to His own plans, according to His own wisdom, for His own glory. This is the reason God elected us and recreated us in Christ.

/5/
This leads us to the next point that Paul says. The next point has to do with the other reason why you were created in Christ.

"10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:1-10

This is so key to what Paul is talking about in this point. We do not do any good work, or any good effort, or any good thought, or any self generated thing to save ourselves, but rather we are invented in Christ for good works, which are works that come from our salvation. In a succinct statement, we do not do any kind of work whatsoever to be saved, but rather we are saved to do good works. Further, we can not do good works in the sense of good that God requires when we are not saved. We must be blameless before Him for our works to be blameless before Him. Lamenting upon the fact that works, no matter how good they appear, when tainted by sin, are corrupt, Isaiah says to Israel of old,

"6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;" Isaiah 64:6

Concerning the state of man, Paul says,

"There is none who does good, there is not even one." Romans 3:12

But this is not the case with us in salvation. In salvation, we do the good works that God has prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Now, think about this for a moment. According to what God is telling us, He is not coming up with the good works on a daily basis as if they are a surprise decision, and He is not picking out works for us as He observes how we are progressing along in spiritual maturity. In the respect of His sovereignty and determination, God prepared these good works beforehand, just like He elected us in Christ beforehand--before the foundation of the world. God designed who you are in every sense of the word. He designed us before the foundation of the world, and He planned out our craftsmanship. So, in keeping with His plan, God designed exactly who you are, and determined exactly how He is going to use you to glorify Him before the foundation of the world. It is His great plan of creating an endearing and enduring relationship with vessels prepared for honor. So, practically speaking, you and I need to be focusing on our relationship to Him to bring Him glory. We do not need to get bogged down with wondering how God is going to use us, or if we are really going to be used by Him or not, because God is using you right now, and will use you according to His plan. You are walking in the spotlessly clean works He has prepared for you right now. God will use you at every single moment to bring Him glory. He has already prepared the works beforehand so that you would walk in them. God always has known how He is going to use you, even before you were born. What this means is that you can not possibly be of no use to God. If you say you are no use to God then you are denying the facts concerning the way things are, which are demonstrated in this revelation that God has given us in His word.

Now, let's talk about our part a little more. If God has already prepared the works beforehand so that we would walk in them, then why, or how, should I be focusing upon doing the works of God? After all, has not God already prepared the works beforehand for me to walk in? If this be the case, then why do I have to focus upon trying to do anything that is a work of God? Won't it be done, or not be done, without my help anyway? The answer is yes. But, there is more to God's essence, determination, and creation than the partial statement;

"It will be done with or without my help anyway."

We need to be careful in saying things like that as if it is supposed to be deep, and as if it is supposed to finalize the whole subject. God has given us His word, which contains precepts, directives, and urgings that indicate that He desires us to use our redeemed minds to obey His word. He has given us of Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, to empower us, seal us, and guide us according to His same determination. He has given us His preserved scriptures, and the preaching of His word, according to His same determination, and, though God is in control, because He can not be out of control, He commands us to use our own minds to do what He has told us to do by the Spirit, through His word. This is where we must recognize that there are two sides to this coin, so to speak. For example, the same James, who recognizes God sovereign determination of our destinies in saying,

"13 Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. ... 15 Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord determines, we will live and also do this or that.'" James 4:13-15

is also the same James who urges Christians to act, by saying,

"prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." James 1:22

What James is talking about when focusing on God sovereignty and man's responsibility is the doctrine that describes both sides of the one coin, called the doctrine of concurrence. The great reformed theologian, Dr. RC Sproul defines concurrence this way:

"We are creatures with a will of our own. We make things happen. Yet the causal power we exert is secondary. God's sovereign providence stands over and above our actions. He works out His will through the actions of human wills, without violating the freedom of those human wills." (Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, p. 62)

The point is that God is sovereign and we are responsible to Him, and yet God is also sovereign over our responsibility. So, it is with these things in mind that we can now look at the good works of God that He has prepared us to walk in according to such a manner, that through concurrence, we are privileged to be part of the fascinating process. There are three biblically mandated areas that we can immediately identify where this is true; they are:

1) prayer

2) evangelism

3) sanctification

These three things are unarguably what we are elected, and created to walk in, in fulfilling God's sovereign plan.

[A]
When we understand concurrence in God's sovereignty and our responsibility, rather than ask a question like

"Why pray if God is sovereign?"

our question should be

"How can I not pray if I am in God's sovereign plan, and in being in His sovereign plan, He wants me to pray?"

We are active participants in this beautiful universe that God created and controls. God has appointed prayer as an important means through which He brings about certain ends. This is part of your great privilege, where God wants you to pray for certain things, so that He will answer you according to your prayer. Prayer is an experience that you do as part of His plan. A good example of this can be found in the life of king Hezekiah. Listen to what happened,

"1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, 'Thus says Jehovah, 'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live,'" 2 Kings 20:1

This is an emphatic statement. Isaiah told Hezekiah that Jehovah says that without a doubt, the king is going to die. Hezekiah needs to get his house in order. Continuing with the context of the flow, we see something interesting that happened next,

"2 Then [Hezekiah] turned his face to the wall and prayed to Jehovah, saying, 3 'Remember now, O Jehovah, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.' And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of Jehovah came to him, saying, 5 'Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, 'Thus says Jehovah, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of Jehovah. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life,'" 2 Kings 20:1-5

This is a clear illustration of concurrence where God had determined before the foundation of the world that He would pronounce what apparently would be a soon coming death to Hezekiah, knowing that Hezekiah would pray, and God would have Hezekiah live for another fifteen years in connection to the prayer. We must understand that God was not taken by surprise by Hezekiah's prayer. The Psalmist declares that God knows it all,

"4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, Jehovah, You know it all." Psalm 139:4

There is no room for surprises when One knows it all. We read in Isaiah, that God declared the end from the beginning,

"9 ... I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'" Isaiah 46:9-10

God is not surprised, and it is because He declares the end from the beginning, which means He declares everything. Further, we must not think that God has the limited human quality of changing his mind, like you and I do, as if he did not know beforehand what was going to happen. God did not change his mind with Hezekiah. He does not change His mind with us either. God's word enlightens us,

"God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?" Numbers 23:19

"29 Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind." 1 Samuel 15:29

So in the demonstration of God's predetermined plan with king Hezekiah, God did not change his mind, but rather God blessed Hezekiah with the honor of concurrence in prayer--an honor that you and I have as children of God in Christ. God worked out His will by working through Isaiah the prophet, which motivated Hezekiah to go to God in prayer. What this means is that Hezekiah told God what God knew already. Hezekiah said,

"I've walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight." 2 Kings 20:3

God already knew Hezekiah's past with a perfect memory, but God also knew something else. He knew what He had determined for the future. God, in His sovereignty, will motivate you through His Holy Spirit, and through His word, to pray in your circumstances, but He wants you to pray, because He created you to pray, as a good work to walk in, and He wants you to leave the outcome to Him. God in His sovereignty, is the One, Who through circumstances, has motivated you to pray. Your responsibility is to pray, pray, pray. Logically, you need to pray to experience God's hand in providing His answers to your own specific requests. This is really a beautiful relationship, because you can pray to your immense Father in heaven, knowing that you are in His will, no matter what His answer is ordained to be. God's active sovereignty in all things, including His urging to you to pray, is why we read in Philippians,

"6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God," Philippians 4:6

Praying to God is what He wants you to do.

[B]
The second area is evangelism. The same question concerning God's hard determination is tempting to ask when it comes to sharing the gospel;

"Why evangelize if God has predestined to save whom He will save."

Once again, like the prayer question, the question that we should be asking is,

"How can I not evangelize if I am in God's sovereign plan to be part of evangelism?"

Instead of dwelling on the first philosophical question of why evangelize, we should dwell on the revelation of God, which is the answer, as we read in Romans,

"13 for 'whoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved.' 14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!' 16 However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed our report?' 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Romans 10:13-17

God, in His sovereignty, has determined that salvation is to come through evangelism, so that faith in Christ comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Faith in Christ unto salvation, does not come by not hearing the gospel, which is the word of Christ. Paul, who evangelized the lost, and who wrote Romans 10, had a grasp on God's election, foreknowledge, and predestination. Paul knew that God determines all things, yet Paul purposed to evangelize. Paul evangelized because Paul was not darkened by philosophy. Paul realized that God told Paul to evangelize. Paul realized God's sovereignty and Paul's responsibility when Jesus originally called Him to go to the unsaved. Jesus explained to Paul,

"16 ... for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you ...to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me," Acts 26:16-18

Paul evangelized because God commanded him to open blind eyes, so that people would turn from darkness to light. Paul said that he was obedient to the heavenly vision (Acts 26:19). Whenever you recognize God's sovereignty in salvation, and evangelism, and then you tell people about God's grace through Christ, then you are being obedient to the heavenly vision by doing the works you were crafted to walk in. The big point is that we evangelize because God tells us to evangelize.

[C]
Finally, your own personal sanctification works the same way. Paul anticipated that people would recognize God's sovereignty in salvation, and yet not rightly understand God's work in separating themselves unto Godliness in a Godly lifestyle, so Paul wrote,

"20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, [God's] grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so [God's] grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that [God's] grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been immersed into Christ Jesus have been immersed into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through immersion into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin," Romans 5:20-21 and 6:1-7.

Paul is explaining in context here, that one reason God gave the Mosaic Law was so that individual sins against God would increase, thus fulfilling the primer that was to precede Christ's coming at the appointed time. There is a principle that where individual sins increased, logically, grace abounds all the more in direct proportion to the increased amounts of sinful transgressions. Paul saw that these facts could be misconstrued when people discover this aspect of God's sovereignty. Someone might say that abundant grace is good. So they might ask, "should we continue in sin so that God's grace may multiply?" The swift answer from Paul, is "may it never be!" Actually, Paul was accused of teaching similar things elsewhere. We find evidence of that in Romans 3:5, where Paul said he was slanderously reported as saying "Let us do evil that good may come." What we have been looking at here is God's sovereign act, where you have been crucified with Jesus Christ; you have died to sin as your master, and so you are now free to be righteous. Certainly God is sovereign in your sanctification as Paul says,

"23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely," 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

Yet, at the same time, we see that it's God's will that you also purpose to be obedient in your responsibility to sanctify yourself,

"3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion," 1 Thessalonians 4:3

I urge you to to recognize that you are one of God's created objects. You have the elite privilege of being created in Christ for doing good works that God prepared beforehand for you to walk in. I encourage you to recognize that as God's good work, you are walking in the good works that He prepared. With this in mind, I also encourage you to be doing those good works from God's revelation of scripture to you. In other words, be obedient to the word of God, which is given to you by God's Spirit. Obedience is your responsibility as one of God's privileged elect, and in His creation and ordination of all things, God has determined that you and I use our minds, study His word, listen to preaching and urgings from His pastors, and pray, evangelize, and separate ourselves from sin in personal sanctification. Yes, God created you for good works.