God’s Workmanship

But 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—by grace you have been saved— and 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 in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not 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.

Ephesians 2:4-10

One summer in college, I had the privilege of working at a Young Life camp in Colorado. I applied and was accepted onto summer staff without knowing what my work was going to be. I knew I was going to live at the camp for the summer, be part of the staff that loved on the high school campers, but that was about it. When I arrived at camp, I was assigned to the ice cream shop. It was messy, exhausting, and often out of my “comfort zone”. But nothing could have been more fun or more to my liking than serving soft serve cones and making “mix-in” milkshakes all day for those kids. Thinking of this reminded me of the privilege we are given by God to work for His purposes. We have no idea what it will be like before we are His. Amazingly, God not only saves us, but His plan includes us reflecting Him to the world in all we do and say.

Ephesians 2:10a says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…”  The previous verse (Ephesians 2:9) has just said our faith and God’s grace are gifts from God. We don’t deserve His lavish grace and rich mercy, and we cannot earn them. We can’t even have faith apart from God’s generous giving it to us. So, we have nothing to brag or boast about, as far as ourselves are concerned. We are His doing and His workmanship. We are God’s poema. This is a Greek word Paul uses to describe what God has made, His masterpiece, His work of art in creating not just the beautiful world and everything in it (Romans 1:20), but the new creation – all believers in Jesus. All those who are made alive, raised, and seated with Christ in the heavenly places are God’s new creations. We are His beautiful work of regeneration, justification, salvation, adoption, and conforming us into the likeness of His Son, who made this all possible by His sacrificial life, death, and resurrection. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

What is the new creation? We have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). We are no longer children of wrath, but children of God. We are given new hearts, indwelt by His Spirit. We are no longer slaves to sin, and we are free from the condemnation sin brings. We are given a new way of living, being transformed into the likeness of Jesus for His purposes. And that’s only a short list of all the benefits and blessings we have been given in Christ. 

The rest of Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Our transformation, our sanctification, is also a gift of grace from God. This work in us is ongoing until we meet Jesus. No work we do will ever earn our salvation or acceptance from God. Yet God has a plan for us to actively work in His Kingdom. But what are these works? What does it mean for us to walk in them? Paul says in Ephesians 5 for us to be wise and careful how we walk, in other words, how we live. We walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). In Galatians, Paul tells us to “walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 25). As we walk in or live in the Spirit, we are abiding in Him, and He will produce His fruit in us. This is our response to being created new in Christ Jesus. This is the evidence and the calling of being new creations in Christ. Later in Ephesians, Paul describes some of this fruit – loving and forgiving one another as Christ loves and forgives us, speaking the truth in love, doing works of service, putting off the old self, giving thanks, submitting to one another, and praying at all times. These are just some of the works prepared for us to walk in. How will this look in your daily life?