Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich on prayer

There’s a wonderful line in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, set in the horror of a Soviet prison camp. One day Ivan is praying silently with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and says, ‘Prayers won't help you get out of here any faster.’ Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, 'I do not pray to get out of prison, I pray to do the will of God.’ That is how we should be praying.

The Christian God's workmanship

The Christian is God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works

Paul likens the Christian to a work of art, an article of furniture or a machine. For we are God's workmanship he says created in Christ Jesus. All that has gone before would fit with that. The Christian is no self-made man. We do not turn ourselves into Christians. No, God does it. It is by his grace we are saved and even the faith we express is a gift from him. Now when God created this machine, this work of art, he created it with a purpose. And what was that purpose? To do good works! That's the reason why God makes Christians. He doesn't create them simply to make them happy or let them do as they wish. No, he fashions and creates them so that they may do good works! One writer says rightly “The primary object was not to bring us to heaven. It was that we should be 'holy'.” There are people who say they are Christians yet they seem to have no interest in good works. They seem to think that because we are not saved by good works then good works are somehow unimportant and it doesn't matter whether you do them or not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, if you say you are a Christian and there are no good works, something has gone wrong somewhere. Either, you are not a Christian or you have completely misunderstood. No, if you really are a Christian then your whole aim in life should be to do what is good and pleasing to God.

It is the Christian who is ideally placed to do good works. He is not doing his good works to get himself to heaven. That is already certain. He's doing it for God's glory.

One thing that stunts good works is the thought of past failure. The Christian is forgiven for all his sins and every new day or hour he starts again with a clean sheet. All his bad deeds, all his failure to have done good in the past is all forgotten and he begins again to do what is good.

I want to urge you who believe to good works then. There a thousand different ones, from little acts of kindness to great acts of charity. We cannot do them all but we can, by God's grace, do some. Let's do all we can. In John Wesley's famous words “Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.”

Saved through faith

The Christian is saved through the gift of faith

Paul then adds that this grace comes through faith – and in case you are then tempted to think it is, after all, all a matter of what we do, he adds and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Even faith itself - putting your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, leaning on him – is a gift from God. Faith is more a matter of the means by which God's grace is received.

If I drink a milkshake with a straw I don't say I'm drinking the straw – I'm drinking the milkshake through the straw. The milkshake is the thing not the straw.

If I say to you “come and see me” I will tell you my address and you will knock on my door and I will open the door to you. The knocking on the door and the door are important but quite incidental really. It is just the means to the end.

In case there is any confusion, however, Paul says that even faith is a gift from God. You can't have it unless God grants it to you. It really is all of God's grace. The through faith is important though. To have faith is to believe. It is to put your trust in.

How the Channel Tunnel was made and how good works happen

The good works spoken about in Ephesians 2:10 were prepared in advance for Christians to do by God himself.

Let's not miss this encouraging bit - which God prepared in advance for us to do (literally to walk in). God not only prepared us who believe to do good works but he has also prepared the works that need to be done too.

You know that when they dug the Channel tunnel, they didn't simply start this end and work through to France. No, they started at this end and at the other end, in France, too. And then on one historic day (December 1, 1990 it was) the two halves met and were joined to make a whole.

Now in a similar way, God has worked not only to make believers capable of doing good works but he has also prepared in advance good works for them to do.

10 Illustrations on worldliness

1 To be worldly is only to think horizontally and to forget about the vertical

2 Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mould

3 If someone kills your brother you would not be his friend. Given the crucifixion of Christ, why would you want to be the world’s friend?

4 When negotiating hair pin bends in the Alps, the thing to do is not to see how close to the edge you can get but to drive safely all the way

5 Keep the boat in the water and the water out of the boat

6 A characteristic of adolescents is often their eagerness to follow the latest fad - worldly Christians often behave similarly

7 A stick insect can so blend with its environment that it can’t be seen - some Christians look no different to unbelievers

8 If two live electric wires touch there will be sparks. To prevent this there are two options - isolation or insulation. It is the latter that pictures the Christian - in the world but not of it.

9 Gollum and his detrimental obsession with the ring

10 Accents People often pick up an accent from others if they spend time with others, sometimes quite quickly. Others retain their original accent even after years of living with those with a different accent

Impressing by means of the flesh

In Galatians 6:12, 13 we find four marks of false teachers to be on the look out for.

The first is that they are out to impress, Paul suggests that part of the motive the false teachers have for insisting on circumcision is that they are out to impress people by means of the flesh. They know that for some circumcision will be difficult and so in a rather fleshly way they insist on it as a means of impressing people.

This is something to watch out for with false teachers. They insist on one fleshly requirement or another partly in order to impress people. They insist on a certain period of fasting or of vigil or wearing certain clothes or speaking in tongues or some other marker that is simply a fleshly act designed to impress people.

To take two examples. On the last day of July in Ireland, people climb the mountain Croagh Patrick barefoot in an act of devotion, mass being celebrated at the summit. Or even more extreme, every Easter in the Philippines certain men will flog themselves with whips and even get themselves crucified (usually without actually dying). Such acts of the flesh are designed ultimately to impress people. What devotion! What commitment! Don't be fooled.

Advisory Warning

You know everything has to have a warning on it these days. Cigarettes, advertisements for mortgages – if you do not keep up payments, etc. We are aways being warned about the weather or given content warnings by TV and radio stations. Whenever there will be flashing lights they like to warn you too.

We always need to issue a warning when we declare the gospel. We cannot simply say, come to Christ and all will be well. No, we say come to Christ but realise it may cost more than you bargained on. It is going to cost you everything.