We can sing great songs about the kingdom coming, and the glory coming, all that kind of thing, but you know what? It's really quite simple. He's connected you to his glory, so that you can change the community, one person at a time. Doesn't seem such a big task then does it? So God wants all of us to be at work, one person at a time, changing our community. Every life that gets saved, built in Christ, discipled to follow Christ and added to the church, the community begins to change. Get enough of that happening, whole cities change; so it's not waiting for some great big thing. If you wait for that, you'll actually miss that actually it's one soul at a time we change the community - quite simple. So who is the soul that you're reaching out to change?
Okay, so let's have a look what it says here; for we are His workmanship, created in Christ under good works which God prepared beforehand, that we would walk in them. So salvation is His work, our work is advancing the kingdom; and it has a general aspect, every believer is called to reach out and to befriend the lost, and to advance the kingdom, in whatever sphere of society God's placed us. That's why the Bible tells us, wherever you're called; don't quit your job to do something great for God. Your job is where your place of calling is. Your community where in is where our place of calling is, so notice this, it says here that: the works God's prepared for you, were prepared before you began. In other words, God made the assignment, then He made you.
I want to talk about your assignment, and I want to show you very clearly from the word of God, that before we were born God, had an assignment for us. So my challenge is, and your challenge is this: how do I discover it? How do I prepare for it, and how do I fulfil my assignment, so that when I get to the end of my life, I can look back and say: I have finished my course, I fought my fight, and henceforth is laid up a crown, a reward? So the reward is not going to heaven. The rewards are rewards in the next ages to come, so notice this. He says: we are created for works; so you're created to do something that has spiritual significance and impact. Every one of us is created for works, and God prepared them before we even arrived in the earth. In other words, God knew when He designed you, why He designed you, and why He brought you in where He brought you in, and what He would accomplish through your life. He knew all about that.
If I was to take the Bible like this, now I'm looking at Jeroboam being sick. See, I've just opened up the Bible, so from eternity you can just open up history at any point, and step straight into it. It's just from here, we're on a timeline you know. So God has designed something for us to do. The challenge always is finding out what our assignment is. Firstly I want to just show you just quickly from scripture, how God has designed us for assignments.
In 1 Kings 13 verse 1 and 2: the man of God went from Judah to Bethel, by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. Then he cried out by the word of the Lord, and said: O altar, altar! It's interesting, they spoke to things, solid things. Thus says the Lord God: a child, Josiah by name, shall be born in the house of David; and on you he'll sacrifice the priests of the high places, who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned on you.
Now he's talking to an altar, and he's decreeing something. Now notice what he's saying. He's talking 300 years ahead of his time. He's saying by the word of God, that in 300 years time, there'll be a man born. His name will be Josiah. He will arise, and he'll become a great king, and he will take this altar here, where people have been sacrificing to false gods, and he's going to burn the bones of the prophets on it. You notice now 300 years before Josiah turns up, there's an assignment prepared for him to do. Then when you read the story of Josiah, he comes on the scene, it's exactly what he does. In other words, from God's point of view, He had the assignment before He had the man. He made the garden, then put the man in the garden, with a job to do.