His Workmanship - A New Creation

Introduction. It is fascinating to tour a factory that recycles glass or metal. A truck enters the factory with crushed old cars, piles of old metal, or broken glass. Such factories take broken products and recycle them into something new. From old glass to a shiny new light bulb that produces light.

We too have been recycled! The church is God’s factory, taking lost souls and recreating them into His productive servants.

• For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them Eph 2:10

God designed (Eph. 3:9-11) and Jesus built (Mt. 16:18) a church that takes dead souls and changes them into living servants. We are his workmanship (product). We were created and changed in Christ Jesus (factory). As a new product, we now perform the good works God prepared beforehand for us walk in

The chapter began with our raw state (Eph. 2:1-6). We were “dead in trespasses and sins” and “by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Though far worse than the pile of broken glass, “even when we were dead in trespasses, God was able to “make us alive together with Christ.” Because God was “rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,” He “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” After all this, we became His workmanship.

It began when Peter preached the first gospel sermon and Jesus built His church (Mt. 16:16-18; Acts 2). One after another, those dead in sin became alive in Christ. Just as broken glass is gathered, placed in a furnace, melted and reshaped, creating a new product, so were we.
We were gathered when “repentance and remission of sins” was “preached in His name to all nations” (Lk. 24:47). God created five “stations” we must pass through in this recycling and manufacturing process.

1. Gathered as each hears the gospel (Rom. 10:17).
2. After hearing, believing it to be the truth (Jn. 8:24; Mk. 16:15-16).
3. After believing, repenting of the things condemned (Lk. 24:47; Acts 2:38; 17:30-31).
4. After believing, confessing Jesus is Lord and Christ (Mt. 10:32-33; Rom. 10:9-10; Heb. 4:14).
5. With all this preparation, burial in water (baptism) completes the process. (Mk. 16:16; Acts 22:16; Rom. 6:3-4; Col. 2:11-13).

As we passed through these five steps, God took our dead soul and made it alive. Just as the glass was cleaned and moved into the furnace, the first four steps prepared us to enter “Christ.” As we were lowered into the water, we are still dead in trespasses. It is not until we are under the water that we are “buried with Him through baptism into death.” While under the water, “God made alive together with Him,” and just as “Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” While under that water “our old man was crucified with Him” and we were “made alive together with him.” It is while we are under the water that we are “circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.” It is while we are under the water, that we are born of water and the spirit, and completed “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:1-8; Col. 2:11-13; Rom. 6:1-8; Titus 3:4-6).

Coming out of the water we have gone through the same process as the glass in the furnace. As the furnace removed all the impurities, melted the glass, and prepared it to become a new product, so did baptism for us. We entered the water dead in sin and came up out of water “alive in Christ.” We came forth from the water “in Christ” For “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” After leaving the water we became a new creation for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” We came forth from the water with every spiritual blessing for God “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Gal. 3:27-29; 2Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:3).
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Conclusion. Through the process of hearing, believing, repenting and being baptized, “we are His workmanship, created in Christ for good works.”