Ephesians 2:1-10 | Brian Lowe

Our scripture for today's sermon is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

Ephesians 2:1–10

Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 to 10.

Ephesians 2:1–10

And you were dead, and the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once live in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and 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 and 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.

This is the word of God.

And I'm grateful that you would share a little bit about 23 Project, but I would love the privilege of telling you a little bit more about it because I love what God is doing with it.

Um 23 Project uh birthed out of a vision that God uh kind of put on the heart of a family in our church.

Um they believe it is more blessed to give and and uh more blessed to give than to receive, and so um God has been really super kind to them uh financially, and they wanted to be generous with the money that God has provided to them.

23 Project partners with pastors and planners for the advancement of the gospel.

We do that through pastoral sabbaticals.

Since 2023, we've uh partnered with uh ten pastors for sabbatical.

Uh we provide funding for those coaching, care uh during their sabbatical times.

We've also been able to partner with nine uh new church plants um over the last three years, uh, one of those being Huntsville Hills.

And what a joy to see all that God is doing here.

Um it's it's just awesome.

It's wonderful to have watched God work over these couple of years to see uh you gathering here this morning and to get the privilege of being with you.

Um again, all this is the fruit of God's grace and the life of uh a family in our church, uh Thomas and Laura Griffin.

And I would urge you to continue praying for them.

Um in fact, the one request I have for you related to 23 Project today is that you pray.

Um on our website, you can click, uh, you can either go to 23project.org slash pray or uh you there should be a button somewhere that says click here to pray.

You'll get a monthly email that tells you what's going on in the lives of the men that we're partnering with and the lives of the churches that we're partnering with.

Um, and we would just ask you to consider praying.

And so if you would sign up uh for that, I would be grateful.

Um I hope that you have your Bible uh open to uh Ephesians 2.

I'm about to, and uh kind of get myself situated here.

Um we're gonna be in Ephesians 2 today.

So if you are ever in the Charlotte area, that's where I live.

I live in a uh suburb of Charlotte called Belmont.

If you're ever in the Charlotte area, uh I would encourage you to go to the Billy Graham Library.

Now, I am super cynical and critical of all things Christian subculture, okay?

Super cynical and critical.

So the first time I went, I had a very low bar and a lot of sarcasm prepared.

Okay?

And I was wrong.

This library is built as a testament to the faithfulness of Dr.

Graham and uh as a testimony to the gospel that he proclaimed.

Um, we have members of our church that work there.

They tell us they have thousands of people visit a month.

They also tell me that they have hundreds, not a hundred, hundreds of professions of faith a month.

Again, super cynical.

So if half of those are real, praise God, right?

Now, if so, if you if you walk through it, the the primary thing I would point you to is a tour that helps you kind of walk through the life of Dr.

Graham and a lot of history, a lot of memorabilia, a lot of things that uh that you might enjoy if you enjoyed that kind of thing.

My favorite piece in the whole museum is a small plaque that's very easy to miss that has a list of names of those God used to get the gospel to Dr.

Grant.

And if you know anything about American church history, you would recognize the names, uh D.

L.

Moody, Billy Sunday, F.B.

My uh uh F.B.

Meyer, some of those names.

But at the beginning of that list is a name that you would not recognize unless you knew this story or had seen this plaque.

And that name is Edward Kimball.

Edward Kimball was just a regular Christian, uh, not a perfect man by any means, but a faithful man who one day in a shoe store shared his testimony with a man named D.

L.

Moody.

And D.

L.

Moody's life was radically changed, and he invested in F.B.

Meyer, who invested in Billy Sunday, who invested in Mordecai Ham, who one day at a tent revival was preaching the gospel and Billy Graham was radically saved, and now millions of people around the world have heard the gospel and been radically changed.

And all that started because a man was faithful in a shoe store.

In that moment, there's no way Edward Kemble could have imagined, well, I'm gonna share my faith today, and then eventually millions of people are gonna hear the gospel.

There was no way he could put that together.

All he knew is that he had a faith worth sharing, and he was faithful to do it.

And God used it and his purposes in ways that we could never have imagined, all because he was faithful.

And what I want you to leave here with today is that if you are in Christ, if you are in Christ, that is not just possible for you.

It is prepared for you.

That God uses redeemed people living regular, faithful lives, and he changes the world.

And it's not just possible that that might be true, it is prepared for you that that might be true.

And so to show you that, I want us to be uh in Ephesians 2, 1 through 10.

Our big idea is that God uses regul redeemed people living regular lives to change the world.

I would love the privilege of praying for this church and for us as we look at God's word.

So let's pray together again.

Lord, thank you so much for what you are doing here at Huntsville Hills Church.

Thank you for the vision that you've granted to the leaders here and the grace you've given.

Um, thank you for your provision for this church, uh, provision of people, provision of resources, uh, even this place to meet.

Um Lord, we're so grateful for all that you are doing, all that you have done here.

Lord, I pray that as we gather today and as we study your word, that we would see wonderful things from it, that you would give us eyes that see just the riches that we find here in Ephesians 2, 1 through 10.

Lord, I pray that you would give us uh hope, uh that you would give us uh an excitement about what you have prepared for us.

Lord, I pray that if there are those gathering with us today who do not yet know you, uh who are more reflected in verses one through three than in verses four through ten, I pray that you would capture hearts today, and that you would grant uh that people would be brought from death to life uh by faith in you.

Lord, for those of us who know you, I pray that we'd be reminded of your good gospel and that we would be captivated uh captivated by it once again, energized by it, uh filled with hope, uh, filled with a passion to not just know you, but make you known to others.

And Lord, that you would work uh during our time in your word to make that happen.

Lord, we ask that you would give us eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that are receptive to and responsive to your word for our good and your glory today.

We pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

So we're gonna get to that God uses redeemed people living regular lives, but to get there, we're gonna have three points.

I've got a Baptist background, okay?

So we're gonna have three points today.

Uh bad news, good news, and great news.

Let's start with the bad news.

We see that in verses one through three.

Uh we start there in verse one.

It says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Now, when Paul says, and you, he's writing to a group of Christians and Ephesus.

And he reminds those Christians and Ephesus what used to be true of them.

So if you are in Christ today, verses one through three used to be true of you.

If you are not yet in Christ today, if you have not yet trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, verses one through three remain true of you.

That is not what I think of you simply.

That is what the Bible says of you.

And it tells us a few things about those who are not yet in Christ.

First, it tells us that we were dead.

It says, you were dead.

Now that word dead means uh does not mean sick, it does not mean asleep, it does not mean mostly dead like the Princess Bride.

Oh, okay, so we've all seen that.

Good.

We can we can work together.

All right.

What it means is non-responsive.

It means dead.

It means that when when when before Christ, we were non-responsive to the things of God.

And we were living that out, it says.

Dead in trespasses and sins, these acts of error and rebellion opposed to God.

And so part of the bad news is that we were dead.

We were non-responsive to the things of God, and that was affecting the way we lived.

The next thing it tells us about the bad news is not only were we dead, we were following.

It says, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Now, this word following is a really interesting word.

It means to just kind of go with the flow.

Just kind of go along.

Uh, you might think about being at a resort on a lazy river, you know, you're laying on a on an inner tube and just kind of going along with the lazy river.

But a more uh appropriate mental picture would not be a lazy river, more like a riptide on the Gulf Coast.

You you've heard stories or you've been there uh in the summer or spring break or sometime where you're out in the Gulf and you feel that tug pull at your feet.

Uh we spent a week uh on the Gulf Coast of Florida a few years ago, and there were 15 deaths because of the riptide in that one week.

One of them was a firefighter who was trying to save someone else.

The water just took him out, gone.

This idea of following is more like a riptide than a lazy river because of the danger represented in these verses.

It says we were following the course of this world.

So whatever the world said, we said, whatever the world believed, we believed, whatever the world did, we did.

But we were also following an enemy.

He speaks of the uh prince of the power of the air.

Now, this is Paul's shorthand for the evil one, Satan.

Now, anytime I talk about Satan, I want to remind people that he is not a myth, he's not a metaphor, uh, that he is a very real creature, and he hates everything God loves, including you.

Now, he is not God's equal, but he is certainly God's enemy.

And before we were in Christ, Paul says we were following him.

We were following him.

It says the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

So part of the bad news is not only were we dead in sin and following the world, we were following the enemy.

We were not deceived, we were on his team, following along, wearing his jersey.

Now, certainly, as we uh walk with Jesus, sometimes we can still be deceived by him.

And he's been running the same play since Genesis 3.

Now, I'm a bit a bit of a college football guy.

It was a tough, tough game last night for some of us.

Um but often, if you watch college football, you'll hear an announcer say, Well, that team has found a play and they're gonna run it because the other team can't stop it.

Well, the enemy is not like omni anything.

He's not omniscient, he's not omni con he's not omni anything.

He's just been around a while and he's got one good play, and he's been running it because it keeps working.

Christians, I want us to stop following it.

I want us to stop following, falling for it.

Now, to see his play, we need to look at Genesis 3.

Now, it will be on the wall for you, on the screen for you, or you can turn in your Bible.

Genesis is really easy to find, okay?

It's the first one.

All right, so you can go to Genesis 3 and read along with me if you want in your own Bible.

Genesis 3, verse 1.

Genesis 3:1

We're looking for his play.

What is the play he's running that we're falling for?

Verse 1.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field the Lord God had made.

Crafty.

Okay?

Not omni anything, just crafty.

And he said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

First part of his play is he wants you to doubt God's word.

If he can get you to doubt God's word, did God really say that?

Now the way he runs that play today is, does the Bible really say that?

Does the Bible really mean that?

That's the first part of his play.

The second part of his play is if he cannot get you to doubt God's word, he's going to try to get you to doubt God's character.

Look at verse 4.

But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Notice what the evil one does.

First he comes after God's word.

Did God really say?

And then he comes after God's character.

You're not gonna die.

God's lying to you.

And he's trying to keep something from you.

So he goes after God's word, and then he goes after God's character.

God's lying, and he's trying to keep something from you that would make you happy.

And if the evil one can get you to doubt God's word and doubt God's character, he'll get you to want what God has clearly forbidden.

And we see that there in verse 6.

So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Now there's so much we could we could spend hours on verse six alone.

But what we see is this path.

Doubt God's word, did God really say?

Doubt God's character, he's lying to you, and he's keeping something from you.

And if he can get you to do those two things, he'll get you to want what God has clearly forbidden.

I've had so many conversations with professing Christians over the last three years who were about to shipwreck their lives.

And every conversation went like this.

Does the Bible really say I can't do that?

I mean, scholars suggest.

I'm not anti-scholarship.

But you can Google and eventually you'll find somebody who says crazy things that you want to believe.

Did God really say?

Why would God not want me to have that?

Why would God not want me to be happy?

Is typically how that conversation goes.

And then they will say something like, Well, I'm just gonna do what I want to do because I think I should do it.

He has been running the same play since Genesis 3.

And it may be that you're here today and you've been falling for it, and today would be a bucket of cold water in your face.

Because if you listen to this enemy, he will lead you down a path of destruction.

And so let today be a moment of just awakening where you would stop being deceived by your enemy and trust the God he wants you to not believe.

Now, before we meet Jesus, we are on his team.

Sometimes, even after we meet Jesus, we can be deceived by his plague.

My hope is that we would not fall for it.

Now let's go back to Ephesians 2.

Because there's one more piece of bad news.

Not only are we dead in our sins, not only are we following the enemy.

Verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, that were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Notice what Paul's done.

He's gone from our actions to kind of who we're following and our patterns, all the way down to passions, desires, and nature.

Here's what Paul's getting at in verses one through three.

You might not be as bad as you could be, but every part of you is tainted by this thing called sin.

All the way down to your nature.

And so Paul wants us to know and understand the bad news.

For those outside of Christ, you are living in rebellion against God.

You rightly deserve the wrath of God.

And then he gets to the good news.

Point number two, the good news.

That's going to be in verses four through nine.

We'll start with four through seven.

Now, I don't want us to hurry through verses four through seven.

I want us to eat this not like drive-through Chick-fil-A on the way to soccer practice, right?

I want us to eat this like a fine meal we spent far too much money on, not unlike Chick-fil-A.

But I mean, we I want us to really savor every part of this.

Verse 4.

But God.

Notice the difference.

And you in verse 1, but God in verse 4.

Being rich in mercy.

Our God is rich in mercy.

He's not barely scraping by in mercy.

He's not having to budget out his mercy.

He is rich in mercy.

He's not bouncing checks in mercy.

He is rich in mercy.

I love the way Lamentation says this.

Lamentations 3, 22 and 23 will be on the screen for you.

It says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.

Now think about that.

Mercies never coming to an end.

Okay?

From all eternity never coming to an end.

And then it says they're new every morning.

You think about the compound interest of mercy from all eternity, all never ceasing, and always new every morning.

Just think about the richness of our God's mercy.

You will not exhaust it, Christian.

Now, some of us give it a good go, right?

We give it our best shot to exhaust God's mercy.

But there is more mercy in our God than sin in you.

He is rich in it.

Look at the rest of that verse.

Because of the great love with which he loved us.

Not only is he rich in mercy, he has great love.

A love that he set on us from the foundation of the world.

Knowing everything about you.

Do you know that God is the only being in the universe that when he says, I love you, means it completely?

Like my wife tells me she loves me.

I believe her.

But God knows me more than my wife does.

God knows everything you've ever wanted, ever clicked on, ever googled, ever, ever liked, ever, ever whatever.

He knows all of it about you and loves you anyway.

With a great love that would prompt him to send his son as a sacrifice to pay for your sin.

He's got a great love for us.

He loves you fully, he loves you freely, and he loves you forever.

Verse 5, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you've been saved.

This phrase, made us alive together with Christ, is used only two places, here in Ephesians and in Colossians.

It means what it sounds like.

It means we've been resurrected.

That we were dead in our sin and our trespasses, and we've been made alive together with Christ.

We've been resurrected with him.

We've been brought to new life.

And then Paul includes this phrase by grace you have been saved as if we have to be explained, as if that has to be explained.

But think about it if you were dead and now you're alive, that had to be grace.

You didn't do that.

Dead people don't make themselves alive, they're dead.

And so he says, By grace you have been saved, as if that wasn't already clear.

Verse 6, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that.

All right, verse 7, I love verses 8 and 9.

Verse 7 might be my favorite.

Okay?

Think about it.

That so that means that everything in 4, 5, and 6 was getting us to verse 7.

So that in the coming ages, now, track that.

Not age, but ages.

Often Paul will say in the coming age to refer to uh the the the uh uh uh the next age after Jesus' return.

We're not gonna get into eschatology today, okay?

But what whatever after Jesus' return means for you, that that's how Paul talks about the coming age.

But here he says the coming ages, which means this one and that one.

So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So if you want to know what it means to be a Christian, here's what it means to be a Christian it means that from now into all eternity, God is going to show you what cannot be measured.

And he's gonna show you what cannot be measured by being kind.

I love this word immeasurable.

I love this word.

Think about that with me.

This word immeasurable.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?

You ever been there?

I've had the privilege of going to the Grand Canyon a few times.

I love it, it's one of my favorite places in the world because I feel so small there.

You know, you're looking out over this thing, and anytime I bring up the Grand Canyon, someone will inevitably say, Well, it's just a big hole, but it's a really big hole.

I mean, it's it's massive.

And we know how we can measure it.

We know how long it is, how wide it is, how deep it is.

Or maybe think about the last time you were near the ocean or the gulf or wherever, where this massive body of water, and you're looking out over the water, feeding the sand, and you realize there are things out there that can eat me.

You know, it's it's this massive, massive body of water that looks so very large, but it's measurable.

We know how deep it is, how wide it is, etc.

It's measurable.

God's gonna spend now and all eternity showing you what cannot be measured.

And the way he does that, Christian, is by being kind to you.

That's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

And as if this good news could get any better, then Paul makes it even more and more clear in verses eight and nine.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

Grace is the free gift of God.

It's undeserved, it cannot be earned.

It is the free gift of God to sinners through the work of Jesus Christ.

Free.

Well, I say free.

Uh I think one of the most dad things I do in our family, oh, there's two things.

I turn off lights and shut doors, but the other thing I do as a dad is to help my kids understand the word free.

We'll be at a hotel when back when they were living with us, our all our kids are like over 20 now, so we we get to see them rarely.

But um we would be at a hotel traveling together, and they would say, Hey Dad, do we get free breakfast tomorrow?

I would say, oh no.

No.

The word you're searching for is complimentary.

You you get this breakfast because dad paid for this room.

That's one.

Um, we had two of our children go to uh Anderson University in South Carolina, and as part of that, uh they get an iPad when they become freshmen.

And they brought that iPad home, both of them, first month or so after being in school.

Hey Dad, look at my free iPad.

I said, Oh no.

That's the most expensive iPad I've ever bought in my whole life.

Like, it is not free.

And we've got to remember that grace is not free either.

Grace is costly, it's free to us.

But it costs for God to be gracious to us, it costs him the death of his son.

For by grace you've been saved through faith.

Martin Luther said, faith is the outstretched hand of a beggar seeking bread.

It does not merit, it does not earn, it does not deserve, but it simply receives.

And this is not your own doing, it's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Believer, if you've been brought from death to life, you have nothing to boast about, but you have everything to rejoice in.

You have everything to rejoice in.

We've been brought from death to life.

We've experienced what cannot be measured, the grace of God.

We've experienced it in his kindness toward us.

It's been given to us freely to us, costly to him.

We receive it simply by faith.

We don't have to earn it, we don't have to deserve it, we don't have to measure up to something, we don't have to check all the boxes.

We just receive this gift of grace from our God who loves us.

That's the good news.

That's the good news.

There's bad news that we were dead in sin, following the enemy, deserving of God's wrath.

There's good news that there's a God who loves us, who sent his son to die for us, who made us alive by his grace.

And if this news could get any better, it does in verse 10.

We get to the great news, point number three.

Verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

We are his workmanship.

I love that word.

Workmanship means masterpiece.

Uh, and that we has both an individual component and a collective component.

Now, the way I say that where I live is there's a unus and a yawness to it.

Okay?

There's a you individual and there's a yaw collective part of this we.

We are his workmanship, we're his masterpiece, and it says we're created in Christ, which means we're we're doubly blessed.

That we are his workmanship in creation, and we are his workmanship in Christ.

In creation.

You are the amount, you're the image of God.

You are not the chance collision of uh uh amino acids and the primordial oods.

You are not an accident, you are not an animal.

You are the special creation of a holy God.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are not a mistake, you are a masterpiece.

And then not only are we filled with dignity, value, purpose, and worth because we are created in the image of God, this verse tells us we have been created also in Christ.

Paul later in 2 Corinthians writes, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away, the new has come.

And so if you are in Christ today, you are the workmanship of God, you're a masterpiece.

You have been created in his image, you have been recreated in the image of his son.

Why?

Verse 10.

For good works.

You're not saved by good works in verses 8 and 9, but you are created for good works in verse 10, which means, listen to me please, which means you are not a masterpiece for a museum, you are a masterpiece for mission.

You're not a masterpiece to be seen, you're a masterpiece to serve.

And God has so worked in you and in y'all for works that he has for you to do.

And so, do you ever look around at what God's doing here at Huntsville Hill Church and think, man, this is amazing?

Like, do you ever look around and think, this is a masterpiece?

Like, God is putting something together here for his purposes.

Do you ever look at somebody close to you and say, wow, that's the special creation of God?

Do you ever think about how you're put together and go, God could use me?

And you might have all the list of reasons that could never be possible, but listen, God factored all that in.

God knows all that.

He factored all that in.

And when he made you and prepared these works for you, he knew about all that before.

I love how 1 Peter says it.

This will be on the screen for you.

1 Peter 4, 10 and 11.

It says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

Whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies.

In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Okay, look, go back up to that first part of that.

Okay.

I want you to notice a few things.

First, as each has received a gift, not achieved a gift, received a gift.

It's a gift of grace.

Second thing, we're to serve one another.

We're not to use our gifts to be special, we're to use our gifts to serve.

And then we're also called stewards, good stewards of God's varied grace.

That phrase varied grace is translated multicolored in one translation.

I love that thought.

I don't like the translation it's in, but I like the thought.

It's this idea of God uh taking uh multiple colors of gifting and creating a masterpiece.

In other words, God's not trying to paint a black and white picture.

He's trying to paint something with like the 16 million colors that our computers can create.

And he's doing that here.

Like he's so he so put together this body of believers that he's painting something beautiful with it.

And then on the next slide, he lists two kinds of gifts.

Whoever speaks, you've got upfront leadership, preaching, teaching kind of gifts, and then whoever serves about the strength God supplies.

And he tells those who speak that they need to do it, uh, use that gift as if they're uttering the uh oracles of God so that they're to have a fear and trembling about them.

And then whoever serves, it says to serve with the strength God supplies, because those who serve are often tempted to do it with the strength we have instead of the strength God supplies.

And I want us to know and understand that those two gifts are not, one's not better than the other.

Both are super important.

Back to that uh Billy Graham story from the beginning.

In his biography, he references one more person in that chain that did not make it to the plaque.

When he went to that tent revival to hear Mordecai Ham preach, there was a greeter there.

We don't know his name.

There was a greeter there who saw Billy Graham and his friend not find a seat.

And that greeter grabbed him and said, Hey, are you looking to stay?

He said, Yes, sir, but I can't find a seat.

He grabs two people that he knew were Christians, moves them, and puts Billy Graham and his friend there in that seat.

We don't know his name.

We don't know his name.

But can you imagine?

Now listen, God's sovereign, we we can do that.

We can do that together.

God saw, I get it, but in God's means, God used that man who was a greeter to change the world.

All so that in everything God may be glorified.

All that to say, God is putting together a masterpiece here in this church and in your life, and he's got works prepared for you to do, and they were prepared beforehand, verse 10, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Now, what does it mean that we were prepared beforehand?

Here's what it means that when verses 1, 2, and 3 were true about your life, God had prepared works for you to walk in.

When you were living in sin, dead to God, following the enemy, deserving of God's wrath, he had stuff prepared for you to do.

Think of it this way: when Paul was approving of the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts, Paul writing Ephesians was prepared.

And when you were living in rebellion against God, he had stuff for you to do.

And he saved you and changed you and made you so that you would do it.

And it's not just possible, it's prepared.

Prepared for you.

And so, Christian, your life has purpose.

If you've got breath, you've got a meaning, you've got purpose to live.

Your life has purpose.

Church.

Huntsville Hills Church is here for a reason.

Huntsville Hills Church is here for a reason.

Because God's got prepared works for you individually and y'all collectively to walk in.

All that gets us back to just something I hope encourages you today: that God uses redeemed people living regular lives to change the world.

Redeem people, not exceptional people.

And isn't that good news?

God doesn't need you to be awesome.

He just wants you to be his.

And God uses regular, just redeemed people living regular lives, like a man sharing his faith at a shoe store.

I mean, that just feels kind of like normal Christian stuff, doesn't it?

And in God's economy, that moment of faithfulness has changed millions of lives.

God uses redeemed people living regular lives, people like Edward Kemble, people like the Apostle Paul, people like you, and people like me.

And he does it for his glory.

Now, sometimes that looks like sharing your faith in a shoe store, sometimes it looks like serving at your church, sometimes it looks like serving with children, sometimes it looks like be just being a faithful husband or wife or a mom who's investing in her children.

Sometimes it means doing things like going around the world to share the gospel with others.

We never know how our moments of faithfulness will be used in God's great tapestry of history, but they are.

God uses regular people living redeemed people living regular lives.

All of it so that God gets glory.

All of it so that God gets glory.

When I was in fourth grade, um we uh we played recess every day at I mean, we played football every day at recess.

I'm sorry, I got my words phrased.

We played football every day at recess, and um I was hardly ever on the winning team.

I just never happened.

And there was always that psychologically traumatizing moment where you lined up and they picked teams and it got down to you or the Seesaw and they didn't know quite which one they wanted on the team, you know, that moment.

Well, one day the jock of the fourth grade, his name was Lance.

Lance could run a 4240, bench press 500 pounds.

He was that guy in fourth grade.

That's a bit of a preacher story, in case you wondered, okay?

Um, but one day Lance decided he was going to pick the scrubs for his football team.

So he picked me, and I've not always been the paragon of physical fitness that stands before you today.

Um he picked Del Harvey, who liked to draw, and David Eaks, who was 40 pounds soaking wet.

Okay, and that was Lance's team.

And we won.

And we weren't used to it, so we were high-fiving and missing each other, you know, and all that.

And we're running back into class and celebrating our victory.

And my nemesis of the fourth grade, her name was Valerie.

She comes up to me and she says, Why are you so happy?

As if I'm not allowed, right?

As if I'm not allowed to be happy.

Why are you so happy?

I said, we won the football game.

She said, What do you mean you won the football game?

I said, We won.

She said, Well, who was on your team?

I said, Well, Lance.

And she said, Stop.

She said, That's the only reason you won.

I know! I'm not confused by this.

And listen, God uses people like us so that we would say, the only reason we win is Him.

Like the only reason we could ever imagine that our lives might be used in His big story is Him.

Like that, that's the only thing that would get us courage to share our faith with somebody at a shoe store and to see our lives matter in His big story.

The only thing that would give us that kind of hope is Him.

And again, we have no idea how our moments of faithfulness might be used.

We we don't we don't even know why Huntsville Hills is here, really.

But we do know that Huntsville Hills is going to be used for God's glory in some way, and is already.

In 1871, there was a church planted in downtown Minneapolis.

Now, this is like 13 years after Minnesota became a state.

In 10 years, it had grown to 127 members, and in 20 it had grown to 400 members.

So good growth trajectory, good slow and steady growth.

You fast forward 100 years, and that church in 1980 had dwindled, average age of the people there were 75, it was in decline, and they hired a Bible college professor who had never been a pastor before to be their pastor.

And his name was John Piper.

And now that church has worldwide influence because a group of people in 1871, and we don't know, we we don't know their names, planted that church.

And so it may be that God has purposes in the near term for Huntsville Hills.

We believe that to be true, but we know that God has purposes for Huntsville Hills in the long term, because Huntsville Hills Church is the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus for good works that we are to walk in.

And so our lives have purpose and meaning and value because our lives are part of what God's doing in the world.

And so my hope is that we individually and collectively would walk in these works that God has prepared for us faithfully.

Because God uses redeemed people, living regular lives to change the world.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for your goodness to us, your love for us, thank you for your grace.

Lord, thank you that you made a way for us, those who were dead in sin, who were deserving of your wrath, to experience your great mercy, your great grace.

Thank you that you are rich in mercy.

That there are immeasurable riches of your grace.

Lord, thank you that we've gotten to many of us have gotten to experience those.

Lord, I pray for those who have not yet experienced your love and grace that they would today.

That they would be saved, that their hearts would be pricked with your gospel, and they they would be uh that they would be saved today.

For those of us who have experienced your mercy and your love and your grace, Lord, I pray that we'd be filled with a hope that our lives might be used for your glory, that we would be faithful to use the gifts we've been given, whether those are speaking gifts or serving gifts or upfront gifts or behind-the-scenes gifts, whatever gifts we've been given, that we'd be faithful to use them for your glory.

To be faithful men and women.

And for Huntsville Hills to continue to be a faithful church.

Lord, we pray that this church would walk in whatever works you have prepared for her.

And that this church would be faithful to do everything that you've called it.

And we pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen.