God's grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ. Your salvation doesn't come from anything you do. It is God's gift. It is not based on anything you have done. No one can brag about earning it. We are God's creation. He created us to belong to Christ Jesus. Now we can do good works. Long ago God prepared these works for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10). As Pastor Anthony mentioned yesterday, having shown us that "nothing can steal us out of God's hand or out of the future with King Jesus", Paul returns to the great topic of 'by grace alone.' When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, killed by hostile people and resurrected and ascended by the power of God, we are saved by grace alone. The Protestant Reformers were quick to add that faith was not some sort of 'work' we needed to add to the grace of God. Faith itself is a gift of grace. But I do not want to lean into that doctrine today. Rather, I want to take you into a reflection on the confluence of grace and works. The relationship between grace and works, as set forth here, is much misunderstood. The misreading goes something like this: God has saved us so that we can do something for him. The first task of the Christian is to figure out what this 'work' is that God wants us to do. And if we don't accomplish it…well, we are left to imagine what the disappointment of God looks like. It doesn't take much to recognize that this teaching immobilizes some of us whiling spurring others on to do all sort of things hoping against hope that we are meeting God's expectations. This distortion of grace is rooted in a misunderstanding of 'work'. For us, work is about accomplishment. We work for a paycheck. We work to add status to our profile, to add to our resume. It is a means of providing for our dependents and for moving up in the world. We think about religious work in much the same way. If fact, for some, the only meaningful work is 'Christian work'. In building the kingdom on earth, we accomplish something for God. And the more we accomplish the more pleased God is with us. God will listen more readily to a 'pastor' than to a lesser Christians. But this distorts God's grace. In his book, Practising Resurrection, Eugene Peterson helps us see how grace and work belong together. He reminds us that God is the first being we see at work (Genesis 1 & 2). We see God creating. Everything he makes is a gift. This gifting culminates in the creation of woman. The man is delighted. She is a gift. (We distort their relationship when we do not see this giftedness). Everything is a gift. In creating us in his image, God invites us into his work, giving us work to do that corresponds with his work. Next, we turn to Jesus who continues his father's work. He insists that the God no one has ever seen is visible in the works that he does right in front of their eyes (John 10:25). His work is like God's work of creation. It is all gifts. He feeds, he heals, he comforts, he blesses – all gifts of grace. And he dies. It is one of the great ironies of Jesus' life that what people saw Jesus do were the very things that provoked rejection of him as the incarnation of God. Jesus' work is the form in which the invisible God can be seen. We have seen God's glory in Jesus. Glory is God's invisibility become visible in Jesus at work. And — this is Paul's point in Ephesians — we also are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." Our work is a form for the glory. Work is not what we do; we are the work that God does: "we are God's creation," "we are God's workmanship" (RSV). In Christ's crucifixion, God re-makes us into the image of Christ. And with our transformation, our sense of work is transformed as well. Work is no longer about our achievements; rather, it is to put grace into physical form. To live the resurrection life in the here and now. To live the resurrection life as we work for our paycheck. To live the resurrection life at school and in retirement, among our family and when socializing with friends. This resurrection life is growing up in Christ. It is our work. Work is learning to put away the misdeeds of the flesh and dressing up in the clothing of the Spirit. We are God's work and doing God's work: "we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Eph. 2:10). Growing up in Christ means we live not in terms of what we make of ourselves but in terms of what God makes us. Whatever job we get and whatever task we are assigned serves as a container for grace, a means for us to grow up in Christ. Growing up into Christ is our work. Our work is always and only, God's grace at work in us.     Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

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