God Put You Here "On Purpose" - Part Two

 

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

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In the second place, let us look at some of the things that God proposes to do in us now. God is beginning to work in us who are believers, rooting and preparing the purposes that He plans to work out now and in eternity.

 

In Romans 9:23 it says He saved us in order "that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." We were vessels of mercy. We had been vessels of wrath, and then we became vessels of mercy. Now a vessel is a vase, it is a container. And He says that we are vessels of mercy, prepared to glory. We are, if you will, candles that God intends to light up with a fire that burns and is not consumed as we blaze forth His glory. The angels in eternity, when they see us, will know that the Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven to save us from the pit, lifted us up, and gave us eternal life.

 

They will know that Jesus was made lower than the angels and stooped to the cross in order to bring us from the depths of the depravity of sin; that everyone of us who is thus lifted, and made like Christ, shall call forth from the full and angelic world the thought of "How great is the grace of God! Look at that flashing saint! Look at that child of God! Look at that human being become an heir with Christ! How great is the grace of God that dust has been taken to heaven and has been fashioned to show forth the glory of Christ!"

 

But God has done that already. In the midst of a world that knows not Jesus Christ we can already witness to the fact that our vessels of wrath have become vessels of mercy. And such were some of you: but you were washed. You were by nature children of wrath and children of disobedience. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ" (Ephesians 2:4-5). God chooses to use us as torch lights that shall flame His glory through eternity. And He wants that process to begin right now so that anyone coming in contact with you shall say, "That is a redeemed one."

 

One of the tragedies of Christians in America today is that so many fundamental Christians get together with each other. They have their parties together, they have their fellowship together, their socials together, their picnics together, and all of their friendships together. Many of them are not aware of the light they could cause outside. Oh, some of you run up against it in business life. But even business life is organized in such a way that it's rather possible for nice people to have their lives bounded on one side by their home, and the other side by their office, with occasional side trips to this amusement or that amusement, or to this church or that church. But you do not know the horror of what life is outside of Christ. And yet, God has meant that we be in the midst of this world as shining lights, holding forth the Word of Life.

 

Not only does God want us to be vessels of mercy, but it tells us in Ephesians 3:10-11 that another purpose in saving us is "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other words, God is saying, "The reason that I have saved you, the true church, is that I wanted to exhibit you in the invisible realm. I wanted to let all the angels of heaven that followed the devil to look on the earth and see you. I want them to realize that the principles I established in the beginning are true, that I don't take men to the highest heaven by their own climbing. I take men who deserve to go to hell, who go down to the cross, and by virtue of the death of Jesus Christ, pass out of death and into life. I lift them up through Jesus Christ. The moment I do so, I have proclaimed the eternal law," says God, "that power does not come from grasping, that power does not come through climbing, but power, true power comes through descending, through surrender, through yielding. The way to climb up is down. `For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased"' (Luke 14:11). Each believer is a witness before the forces of Satan that God's way of doing things is the only way that works. And that's why we must learn to say in response to Him, "Make me a captive, Lord. Then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be."

 

Another purpose of God that has already begun now, and will be carried on forever, is defined in Romans 8:29 where it says, "He also did predestinate [us] to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." The reason God saved us is that out of this world and out of the mud of the fall, He might reach down and grasp in sovereign grace countless multitudes from Adam's race and then transform them and shape them into the image of Jesus Christ. And just as a butterfly flying around your garden probably can't tell the difference between a man of seventy and a boy who is twenty, or the difference between a man and a woman, so in the future, in heaven, an angel looking up to God will have trouble telling the difference between you and Jesus Christ.

 

Now it's tremendous as we understand what is being taught here-that we might be shaped to the image of His Son, that we might be the "firstborn among many brethren" in God's family. Now you can readily see that, if He has begun this in us, He desires greatly that this work be continued.

 

In Ephesians 1:4, God gives another purpose for saving us. It tells us He saved us in order "that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." He wants to begin this in us NOW. He has given us the holiness that is in Christ. He had made us without blemish in His sight. Because we are already saved, we are seen in the perfection and glory of Jesus Christ.

 

He wants us to be holy, without blemish, in our practical life and living. The moment we understand God's eternal purpose in saving us, that eternal purpose becomes a divine imperative to call us to yield ourselves to Him, and to walk worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called.

 

Still another purpose is set forth in Ephesians 1:12 where it states, "That we should be to the praise of his glory." Anyone-men, angels, or demons-seeing us should say, and we should say of one another, "How wonderful is the grace of God that He should be able to touch me without dirtying His finger! How wonderful the grace of God that He was able to take hold of us and that we are the monuments of His love and His grace."

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