Made for More | Caleb Speer | Youth for God Weekend | Ephesians 1–2

We were blessed to welcome Caleb Speer as our guest speaker for our annual Youth for God Weekend. In this lesson, Caleb opens God's Word to Ephesians 1–2, reminding us that we were made for more than simply existing—we were created in Christ for His purpose and His glory. Caleb challenges our teens (and all of us) to find our identity in Jesus, embrace God's mission, and live out the good works He has prepared for us. 

Before this lesson, Caleb spent time getting to know our teens through games, conversations, and fellowship, making this weekend a meaningful time of encouragement, growth, and spiritual connection. 

Key Scripture:
📖 Ephesians 1–2

Theme:
Made for More

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Alright, I just had a good time getting to know the teens in the back room there. We had this game that Robert set up of basically could you find someone who's had COVID? Uh no one was skydiving. Uh Motoryard, those most people, it's kind of a fun game. I learned a lot about myself or how people view me. Everyone kept asking, and I wish this was the case. If I'd been skydiving, and that was not the case. If I've had a speeding ticket, which may or may not have been the case, uh, or if I've been to Africa. So those those are the quite that's what the kids think of me. So thank you, slash, not thank you. Uh but I was doing the same thing. I was just sizing you guys up as well and trying to stereotype you to find that game. But we got all weekend to get to know each other. Uh hopefully you know me now. We're looking at Ephesians. If you don't have your Bibles open up already, open up with me to Ephesians teens. You also have those journals that you can make notes on uh all weekend, obviously, so you can pop those open if you've got a pen or pencil uh as well. Just a few minutes here in Ephesians chapter 1 and Ephesians chapter 2, just a little bit, and we'll see what God has for us in this text. Why are you here? You could not get more cliche, you could not get more existential than the questions of what are we doing here, even from a Christian point of view, let alone from someone considering Jesus Christ and God. That's kind of a really big picture and existential crisis of sorts that we would ask. If you read my bulletin, uh I kind of had growing up in a Christian context, I had this idea of why don't we just skip to the very end, cut to the chase, and let's all just get sucked on up, vacuum. Whoever did the artistry with the bulletin, really good job with a little vacuum on there. It said heaven on it. I was like, why not just vacuum us in heaven and just get to the end already? What's the deal, even if I've decided already to follow Jesus with with the seeking the city that is to come as Hebrews uh speaks to. Out of Ephesians 2.10, we've titled this weekend that you were made for more. And that's the message for all you uh you teens and the adults, even. But I want you to know, starting here and the rest of this weekend, that God has made you for more. He's not made you to suffer mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. He's not made you to just seek uh the greatest joys and successes and pleasures in life either. Those are not the reasons why you're here. He's not made you to be alone. Uh, he's not uh made you to, like I said, enjoying pleasures and power. Ecclesiastes tells you all is vanity at the end of the day. We're also not made to just show up in an air-conditioned church building, though I'm thankful for the air conditioning. It is hot out here. I'm getting too used to the Seattle weather. Uh, but you're not made for just showing up to air-conditioned building and do that. Nope. We're not made for a division, we're not made to just be even a good Bible student. What are you doing here? For all you teams, what do you think God desires for you? What do you believe about God and what he has for your plan and purpose? For everyone in this room, what do you believe? What is God doing? Okay, what is God doing? Look at Ephesians chapter one with me. We're gonna start verses nine and ten, quickly summarize a little bit of two, but you were made for more. Let's take a look at verses nine and ten of Ephesians chapter one. Go ahead and read with me. This is God. He is making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven, and things on earth in him. Yes, God and in Jesus Christ has died for each and every one of you in this room individually. The individuals certainly make a whole, though. God's not only saving individuals, they make up groups. We're gonna talk this week in teens about I don't know how much you guys know about uh Jewish and Gentile backgrounds or what those words mean. To sum it up, they did not like each other. And yet they both were saying, We're gonna follow Jesus. And there's gonna be this message of what's that look like, even when I disagree and say I'm gonna follow Jesus. God's plan is to unite all things. Look at the language here. It's his purpose, his plan for the fullness of time, and what's the plan to unite everything in Christ? Everything. And first and foremost, that is going to be you, right? Us here on earth right now, right? It's things in heaven, right, where our citizenship is, as Philippians 3 speaks to, and things on earth in him. The hymn is Jesus. Okay, the the unification of heaven and earth has this idea for us right now, and God's purpose and plan for even the youngest of you up front, for everyone else in this room. We were not saved just to say, I am saved, and wait for the vacuum day or whatever that we can think of and the and the return of Jesus. Where you are saved for something right here now. This is God's plan. The world has a lot of ideas of why you're here. The scriptures are going to tell us that this is no accident or backup idea. I like to put it this way: God's plan is bringing the entire universe, the entire cosmos under the reign of Jesus. Right? Philippians chapter 2, another Pauline epistle says, one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. God's plan is bringing all these things together. That includes bringing us to Him and us getting along with each other and many other things that we're going to talk about this weekend. God's plan is not some sort of future thing of just merely you're going to the good place when you die or something like that. That's in the background there, but there's a plan and purpose for the right here and now. That Jesus is reigning, that he is king, and all things are coming under his feet. And as the scriptures say, the last enemy to be defeated is death. That too will be put underneath the feet of the resurrected Jesus. This is where we're headed. This is the purpose and plan that God is inviting all of us into. Now, you've got some good news in here that you were made for Jesus Christ. You could say you're made for God, kind of to middle smotto here, but you're made for Christ. All things are being united in him. There's something about your creation and being born, and as we're going to talk about, in your salvation, that makes you this treasured possession as 1 Peter and Exodus speak to God's people. You are a value to God. You are made for Christ Jesus. Now look at these first three verses of chapter 2. This was before you were in Jesus. If you are in sin right now and you're not following Christ, this is what God's word says is the actual spiritual, eternal, potentially reality of where we're at. Now, he's talking to Christians in Ephesus. So you see the past tense. You were dead, but you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Think of the picture of a corpse. You're dead. You are dead. But in this is something you walked, that's a lifestyle. You're following the course of this world. Notice the word following repeated twice there. You're following the course of this world, its patterns, its values, the way that it is headed. And you're following the prince of the power of the air. That's an allusion. I'll just cut to it to the devil, to Satan, the accuser. This language for princes and powers are used in Ephesians chapter 6 for the heavenly spiritual enemies that oppose God and his people. That is in the background here. This is what we are before in Christ, the chorus of the world. Disobedience. You're following the passions of your flesh, the desires of your flesh and mind. It starts in your brain, and then you act and do something. You're by nature children of wrath. Think of wrath like a judge. This is not like an angry psycho type, but this is someone who has justice against evil and wrongdoing. This is the picture. It's no different. He says, uh you were dead in your trespasses in this reality. This was everyone. It's not like anyone's better than the next. This was the reality. And the truth is, following the way of the world, which comes in many forms and many times in many cultures, but following the way of the world is following the spirit of the power of the air. It's following Satan. And if you're in line with Satan, that means you're in line with death. The wages of sin is death. You see, this was the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. It is death. The physical and spiritual reality are telling a story together. The fact that you see a bird sadly run into a window and die. The fact that you and I, provided we die before the return of Jesus, go in the ground and rot and decay, speaks to the reality of brokenness and sin, to a spiritual thing behind it all. You can't separate those two. That's what's telling us. But there's good news. There's a new story, a better purpose and plan that God has for you in Jesus Christ. Look at verse 4. Some of the most relieving words, I think, in the Bible and context, after saying you were dead, that's where you were headed, following the spirit of the power of the air. It's as if it's saying this fallen world is like the air we breathe is in the very realm of the enemy of death all around us. But then we have this great language in verse four it says, but God. This is not a bank account that is lacking. This is lavishly overflowing and spilling. What is God spilling and overflowing with? What is it? It's with mercy. He's rich in mercy. He's wrathful and just against wrongdoing. We all want justice, except when it's for us, right? But we also want mercy. And God, it it's like He's just, like I said, gushing, spilling out rich, rich bank accounts of mercy. Why? Because God loves us. It's of this great love in which He has loved us. Even, verse 5, even when we were dead in our trespasses or our sins. Okay, this is like Romans 5, you go look at it. Even while you were disobedient, hating and disrespectful and rebellious against God in many forms and ways that we've all done, God still wanted to bring out mercy and love upon you. When someone wrongs us, I don't think that's that's not Caleb. That's not my natural reaction of, oh, I can't wait to show you mercy when you wrong me. That's not my that's not our gut reaction. That's not a gut reaction. And what did God do? He made us alive together with Christ. God made us alive. We're gonna hear how in just a second. And it's with him, and it's by grace you have been saved. You probably hear a lot of definitions for grace. A lot of them are probably pretty good, but just think of a gift. Grace being a gift. It's a gift. Think of your birthday perhaps, think of Christmas, something like that. There's this gift in which you've been saved. Past tense has happened. If you're in Christ, you are saved. And there's a spiritual lesson. Maybe it's an illusion to baptism, but certainly spiritual reality that you're raised up with Jesus. And the spiritual reality, though it doesn't feel sometimes or look like it, certainly right now, just sitting in this room, the reality is it's as if you're already in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. The resurrected Jesus, as we'll talk about a little bit this weekend, is reigning at the right hand of God the Father as King, prophet, as our priest and mediator. There's a spiritual reality that you are in the very presence of God there, and in the Holy Spirit, we'll talk about God in the very presence with you here, you're with him. There's a heavenly reality to that. This is not, we wouldn't want someone hanging out in our house if they wronged me. This is God being rich in mercy. Why is this the case? So that there's a logical reason. So that in the coming ages, and we're talking about the return of Jesus, the resurrection that's coming. He might show the immeasurable riches. Again, think of a bank account. It's calculable. The immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So God's mercy and grace, they flow from his love, from his very essence and character. It's just who he is. You and I are sometimes loving. Are you all the time loving to your siblings or your parents? No. God always is that. 1 John 4, 8 and 16. This is his character. This is who he is. He's just, right? There will be wrath against sin and evil. We all want justice against evil. But this mercy and it flows from his character of God being love. It's who the heavenly father is. Even when we've messed up and sinned. This is good news, right? That's what gospel means. Remember that gospel talk about that is good news. This is who God is. Now, the purpose, as we begin to wrap up in here, is where we're headed for. There's purpose with this. You're made for Christ. He takes joy and pleasure in you. And not only that, I wasn't talking about, you're made alive with Christ. May not look that way in the broken, sinful world, but the spiritual reality is you're in the heavenly space already. You're made alive as the spiritual truth. And that spiritual truth is telling of a future story, a resurrection that's coming akin to Jesus'. There'll be eternal life, God dwelling with us in the full and final extent. You're made alive with Christ. Because Jesus is alive, you can be made alive if you are in him. Now, let's look at verses 8 through 10. There's some reasoning. For okay, because you see for, think of because. By grace, you've been saved. Think of a gift. By a gift, you've been saved. If you're in Jesus, you've been saved. It's a gift. Grace. Okay, this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. How do we receive it? Through faith. It doesn't just magically happen to us. It's not something you have to earn and work really hard. It's through faith. I like the terminology. I find a side study. I really like the term for biblical saving faith. Uh, that this is trusting loyalty. I trust God, and therefore I will be allegiant. I'll be loyal to Him. It's not perfection, it's not legalism, that there will be obedience in my loyalty, and I trust. I trust Him. It's through faith. It's not a result of works. No one can boast or brag. You can't say, look what I've done or what I believed. There's none of that. You were dead. It is only through faith, trusting in the promises of God, giving loyalty to Jesus and believing his promises that we are saved. Salvation is God's free gift. It cannot be earned. You can't earn it. It's received by faith. Alright, if I offer you a, I think I'm hungry right now. We're about to eat here in a few minutes. So I offered you a slice of pizza that's coming up, and you received, I say, here's some pizza that I bought for you, and you accept the pizza. Did you work really hard and earn that pizza? I mean, no. Yeah, you could take the pizza box and smack it out of my hands or not eat it or reject it. You could reject that. But you could receive the gift. And I say, here's the pizza, or here's a gift for your birthday. You receive the gift. That is the action of faith, this trusting loyalty. Salvation's God's free gift. It can't be earned, it is received by faith. But it's not done. He doesn't say, and now we're just sitting around waiting for the vacuum session to fly on up to heaven or something like that. That's not what he says. We've not heard that, right? There's a story of a unification of everything underneath the feet of Jesus. That's where we're headed. That's where the story is headed. And so now we have our theme verse, Ephesians 2.10. Okay, for again, there's a reason. There's a reason why you're saved through faith and you can't earn it, and it's God's good gift. For we are God's workmanship. Heard some people uh put it like a like here's masterpiece of source. God is proud of this, he loves us, right? He wants to lavish you in these things. We're God's workmanship, created in in Christ Jesus. We're created physically in the sense of God makes us and we're born in this world, but the spiritualities were created in Jesus for good works. Okay, here's where we're gonna be talking about this week in teens of why am I here? What's God's plan? What's that have to do with my story and my purpose? It's something so much more bigger than just me individually, but it certainly includes you individually. And when did God do this? It's not an afterthought. God prepared these good works for us beforehand. You could say an eternity past, perhaps. I don't know how that works exactly, but it's so that we should walk in them, do them, live in them, right? Be obedient, right? The trusting loyalty, uh so to say. You're not an accident. And some of the world's views is that you're just here, congrats. So maybe good or bad or indifferent. You're not an accident, according to God. You're not self-made, you're not earning these sorts of things, salvation, you're not made for worldly purpose, whether that's pleasure or pain. You're not made for that. You're God's masterpiece and artwork, made in his image, redeemed by his own son, and you're made for a purpose of good works. You do have a purpose in Jesus. We are made for more, for oh so much more than where some of you are right now. Where you're not actually stuck or have to be stuck in the things that some of you are going through right now. You're made for so much more than we could possibly think or imagine. We are all, all of us, saved for more. Salvation brings a life of purpose. Reason. There's purpose in Jesus Christ. That's where it does. We'll talk this weekend. Your plan, your story is gonna go different. It may be great, you're gonna have some hard times, it may include uh successes, it'll include failures, all sorts of great things that you can have in this good life from God. The main line, though, is it's all within this framework. This is a framework. That salvation is not just some sort of merely a future thing, it is a future thing. And it's not only a past reality. If I've been by faith baptized into Jesus, though it is that, it is a current reality being lived out and your day-to-day thing that you do, and it's going to give us all and give you purpose. So we're made for Christ, we're made alive with Christ, and we are made for good works in Christ. We're not just made to sit around. I hope that's clear. We're gonna talk so much more about that. Identity is not primarily from, or perhaps at all, I dare to say identity is not just from yourself, your history, your family, from what the world says. It's all going to be changed and defined by God, your creator, your father in Jesus Christ, to join in the story and the very mission and purpose of God. Why? Because he's making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose that he set forth in Jesus as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in him. That's you. That's us. God's bringing everything under Jesus, and you are invited to participate. We're gonna talk about this all weekend long, teens. And if there's anyone, including the teens, if there's anyone here who has not received the free gift of salvation, and you're looking for meaning and purpose and want to join in the very plan of God, the leadership of this church can love nothing more than help you do that right now, even. It would be a great way to start the weekend. Let's stand and sing the song of invitation.