Sonship and Eternal Purpose (1 of 4)

Mike Connell

Page 3 of 10
So God's inheritance, what is he planning? In the Bible, because spiritual things are not always easy to understand, God uses lots of different ways to describe it. He uses pictures.

One way he uses is: a family. God is a father; wants a family; sons and daughters just like Jesus Christ. He loves Jesus. Jesus is his exact reflection; Jesus is his delight and joy, and He wants many, many more like him. A family - God is a father; God is a family person.

Secondly, another picture is the picture of a bride - a bride for a son, Jesus Christ. God is choosing people, and he uses the image of a bride, being be beautifully prepared for a wedding feast with her husband.

Then then he uses another picture; He's got many pictures... Another one, is a picture of a temple, a corporate building of people, and they're filled with the holy ghost, the spirit of God dwells on them.

These are all pictures, and you can go and look into each one, because each one helps to give an understanding of the bigger plan.

We're going to focus on the area of Sonship. Let's look at God's design, His intentional design. God is intentional in how he made us, and designed us.

Genesis 2:7 - "God formed man from the dust of the ground. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man become a living being."

The word 'form' means to shape, like a potter with a clay. He took clay out of the land, and he took it in his own hands - He began to shape man. He was engaged in forming us. That word there means literally form. He become a living being. To form man literally means to design or create a piece or work of art.

You get pictures through the meaning of that word formed. It means as though, like God got involved personally, and took earth, and took it up in his hands, and began to shape it and mold it, untill he got it exactly the way he wanted.

The word describes almost like a work of art, in Ephesians 2:10 - "You are his workmanship, a creative work of art that he's working on, not completed yet."

It uses the image that there's nothing random about you being here. Now, you understand that the way evolutionists teach, that you just began to stand out of a monkey; out some animal, or out of some cell; whereas the biblical perspective is no, a loving God, who created everything, formed us intentionally. There's no accident. You are intentional. Even if your entrance to the world may have been accidental, nevertheless, God is intentional about his plan for you. Everything about you is intentional. That's why you want to celebrate who you are! There's noone like you; don't try and be someone else, be yourself.

He fashioned us; there is workmanship. The Bible also tells us, in Philippians 1:6 - "What God has started, He will complete."

God has started something, and He's going to finish it. If you look around the church, it's like a building project that's not complete. Everyone you look at is a building project that's not complete. So don't look at it like it should be complete. There's a part of it that's built - that's good. Enjoy the part that's built, and say thank you for that, and celebrate that. The rest of it's a mess. It's a work in progress. It's a work site, there's tools, there's dust, there's stuff everywhere. That's true of all of us; so don't get focused on the bit that's not done. Focus on the bit God has done, and where he's going with it all. He got a great and mighty plan at the end of all of this.

He's intentional. You are his workmanship. He will complete what he started. All you have to do is just co-operate with him. God is intentional, you're not an accident! Tell someone next to you: you're not an accident. You are intentional. God is diverse, and I think God's got a great sense of humor.