And Such a blessing they're thankful
for John and Vicki and this church. Thank you for having me If you would turn with me in
your Bible to the book of Ephesians chapter 4 Ephesians chapter 4 In way of
introduction, let me say that God never intended for His gospel,
this gospel that we are endeavoring to preach, to be complicated
or hard to understand. It's not hard to understand,
but it is impossible to believe apart from a divine revelation
and intervention from God. Let me give you an example. The
Lord Jesus said, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen you. Now
let me ask you, is there anything about that statement you don't
understand? You have not chosen me. That's pretty plain, isn't
it? But I've chosen you. Election is plain and simple.
It's not that men and women don't understand it. Men and women
don't believe it. Men and women hate it. In John
chapter 14 verse 6, the Lord Jesus said, as plainly and simply
as any man could say it, I am the way, the truth, and the life,
and no man, no woman, no sinner, nobody comes to the Father but
by Me. Whoa, isn't that simple? Is there
anything about that we don't understand? Nope. Nope. The problem is not with understanding
the gospel. The real problem is lies in believing
it. Men don't understand what the
Lord said. Not that they didn't understand
what the Lord said. They just hated what he said. The point
I'm trying to make is this. The gospel message is simple
and it's singular. Amazingly so. Amazingly so. Throughout the scriptures, we're
reminded often of the oneness of spiritual and eternal things.
I was just an average student in school, but I was below average
in math. Barely made it through. But there
was never a time from kindergarten on when I didn't understand the
number one. Can you get more simple or singular
than one? Here in Ephesians 4, in verse
4, we read, there is one body, one church, and one Spirit. That's capital S, the Spirit
of God. Just one. Even as ye are called
in one hope of your calling. How much hope? One hope. That's Christ. Just one hope. Religions divided
into many denominations, but there's only one church. There's
only one body. And we live in a day where there's
a building on every corner that calls themselves a church. One
denomination believes this, another denomination believes that, and
then the third one believes something entirely different from the other
two. If men don't like what God says in His Word, Men and women
say, well, this is what God meant. And if you don't see it my way,
then we'll go down the road and do our own thing. Kind of reminds
me of that story I heard. I know it wasn't true, but still
a good illustration about the man that was shipwrecked on an
uncharted desert island. Natural man. Anyway, the Navy. came upon this island, found
it wasn't on the maps. So they take a smaller boat to
shore. And sure enough, there's a guy
on the seashore waving his hands and yelling. They got up to him
and said, are you the only one here? He said, I've been shipwrecked
here for 20 years. I'm the only survivor. And they
said, well, you're by yourself. He said, yeah. And he said, well,
I see there's some structures over here. What's this? And he
said, well, that's my house. He said, I built that by myself.
That's where I live. And he said, well, what's that
building next to it? He said, well, that's my church.
And they said, well, what's the building next to that? He said,
that's where I used to go to church. Natural man can't get along with
himself. But there's only one true church.
Just one. I understand one. One true body
of believers. God says there is but one church,
not many. It's impossible for everybody
to be right. I know it's a popular thing today
to have no wrong answers. It's popular today to have no
winners or losers. They don't make it any less so.
A man and his brother can believe two different things, but they
can't both be right. Now they both can be wrong. But
if one is right, the other must be wrong. And the Apostle Paul
tells us here so plainly and so simply that a child could
understand it. There is but one body of true
believers. Just one church. One Spirit that
reveals the truth to God's elect people. Only one hope. One calling. How many? Just one. And that
being the effectual call of the Spirit of God. I only have one
hope of ever being redeemed. And that's the hope that I have
in Christ alone. That's what Paul says in verse
5. Look at it. One Lord. How many? Just one. There's just one Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's just one faith. And that's
the gift of faith, the faith that God gives His people to
believe and trust in the one Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not
simple? One baptism. You know, one day
the mother of James and John came to the Lord Jesus and the
scripture says, desired a certain thing of the Lord. You remember
what it was? She requested, grant that these my two sons may sit,
the one on my right hand and the other on the left, in thy
kingdom. And the Lord said, you know not
what you ask. And then he asked this question
himself. He said, are you or your sons, or any sinner for
that matter. This is a good question for us
to ask ourselves. He said, are you able to drink
of the cup that I shall drink of? And are you able to be baptized
with the baptism that I'm baptized with? Our Lord is here speaking
of His reproach and His sorrow and His sufferings, His death,
and He compares these things to a bitter cup. that he alone
must and would drink. His sorrows, his sufferings and
reproach were so many and so great that he seemed to just
be plunged into them, covered with them, comparing them to
a baptism. Now we all know that the ordinance
of baptism by immersion beautifully represents what Christ did for
His people. Paul said, therefore we are buried
with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
must walk in newness of life." Romans 6.4 Friends, there's just
one baptism. The child of God in Christ is
dead to sin, buried with Him under the wrath of God and risen
with Him unto life everlasting. This is the beautiful thing about
substitution. By my union with Christ, God's
wrath and justice fell on me. Just as that rain of God's wrath
fell on Noah's ark. But those in that ark were covered. God's wrath fell on them, but
they were in the ark. and they were safe from the wrath
and judgment of God. You see, God's wrath fell on
Noah and his family too. But the difference was that Christ,
the believer's ark, took the blow of God's justice and wrath
and all that are in him are safe. Are you in Christ? That's the
question. What think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? Friends, there's but one baptism,
there's but one hope, there's but one Lord. There's but one
faith, only one place to put your trust. And that's in Christ
Jesus. It should come to no surprise
to you or me that according to verse 6, there is but one God. and Father of all who's above
all and through all and in you all." Speaking to believers here.
Do you see this simplicity? And I say this all the time in
preaching. I mean to be redundant. I mean to be repetitive. We need
to hear this, don't we? Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. One God, one Lord, one Spirit.
How many? One, just one. Turn with me to
Romans 5, if you would. Romans 5, look at verse 12. Romans 5. God's Word here tells us about
one man. Speaking of Adam, here in verse
12, Paul tells us, as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned." Look at the first part of verse 17.
For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, you see it was
Adam's one sin that gave death its reigning power over all the
sons of man. I don't understand much, but
I'm telling you, I understand one and I understand all. Don't
you? Sure you do. Look at verse 19,
for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. One God, made
one man the representative of all men. But when that one man
sinned, sin was imputed to all men and women, and all men were
alienated from God. That's our problem. We've offended
God. We're alienated from Him. How are we going to be reconciled?
That's the issue. And you answer that question,
you've preached the gospel. But then we're told that God
gave another man. Oh, and this man came to save
his people from their sin. By this one man's obedience,
many are made and shall be made righteous, perfectly righteous. God won't accept anything else.
In school, I never understood algebra. I just never got it.
A2 plus B2 equals C3? I'll never use that, I thought. But I understand one and I understand
all and I even understand many. It's pretty simple. The Lord
tells us, don't let your minds be corrupted from the simplicity
that's in Christ. All this is a simple message.
But God's going to have to reveal it to you. Maybe He will. Look at verse
15 here in Romans chapter 5, but not as the offense, so also
is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of
God, which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many."
Oh, I want to be one in that number. Don't you? Many. Not
all. Many. simplicity, singularity. There's
one man, Adam, a representative of all the human race, and one
man, Jesus Christ, the representative of all God's elect. Men and women
don't miss these blessed truths because they're too hard to understand.
Men and women refuse to bow and they reject these truths. One day the Lord Jesus said,
I'm the bread of life that cometh down from heaven, and if any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And everybody said,
boy, this is a hard saying. No, it wasn't. It wasn't hard
at all. What He was saying was, I am
salvation. If you don't partake of Me, you're
going to die in your sin. And to make it clear to them,
He repeats to them what He had just said to them minutes earlier,
which was, no man can come to Me. No man has the ability to
come. And I'll just go in and throw
this in for free. Nobody wills to come. No man, you will not come to
Me, the Lord Jesus said, that you might have life. We're not
able and we're not willing. So throw your free will out the
window. I don't know how anybody can believe in free will. and
read the Scriptures. And it's then that we read those
sad, sad words that from that time, many of His disciples went
back and walked no more with Him. Oh, they understood Him. Trust me, they understood Him. They were offended. And when
you tell men and women that they can't do anything to save themselves,
they'll get offended, they'll get mad. Our Lord looked at His closest
friends that day, and He said, will you go away also? Dear sinner, will you go away
also? Peter said, Lord, to whom shall
we go? You see, the Lord had revealed something to him. Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words to eternal
life. Do you see that Christ is the
Word? Do you see that Christ has eternal
life and that Christ is eternal life? Salvation is at a person,
and that person is our Lord and Savior. Peter said, Lord, to
whom shall we go? Let's go a step further in this
singleness and simplicity. Paul told Timothy, he said, there's
one God and there's one mediator. Just one. One mediator between
God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. How many gods are there? Just one. One true and living
God. Oh, there's the God of men's
imagination. But there's only one God. How
many mediators are there? There's just one. The man Christ Jesus. What did
this mediator do? Well, he offered one sacrifice
for sins forever. Just one. That's all it took.
Why? Because He's God. He's God Almighty. If you want to see the horrificness
of your sin, you look at Calvary, and you see God Himself dying
to put away your sin, because that's what it took. It took
God to die to put your sin away. Does this mean anything to you? The writer of Hebrews said in
chapter 10, verse 12, but this man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down. He sat down because
it was finished. The work was done. Then he said,
for by one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Boy, that's good news, isn't
it? Why did this one man offer one
sacrifice for sin? Well, you answer that, you've
preached the gospel. That he might die, the just for
the unjust is the answer. That he might be both a just
God and a Savior. So that he might perfect them,
his elect people, forever with one offering for sin. There's
just one offering for sin. Only one sacrifice, there's just
one. Child of God, do you hear what
I'm saying? When Christ died, your sin died with Him. You can make no offering that
God will accept because it's got to be perfect to be accepted.
That rich young ruler, Paul Mahan and I are convinced that was
the Apostle Paul. I don't know, but I'm convinced
it was. That's neither here nor there, but he came to the Lord
Jesus and he said, what good thing must I do to be saved? And the Lord, you remember what
the Lord said to him? If you desire to be perfect. You see,
that's the issue. You've got to be perfect. Being
good is not enough. You've got to be perfect. It
has to be perfect to be accepted. You're in Romans 5, right? Look
at verse Verse 9, knowing that Christ, being raised from the
dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. For
in that he died, he died unto sin once." How many times? Once. but in that he liveth,
he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but live alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. That rich young ruler, he told
the Lord Jesus, said, there's just one thing thou likest. There's
always something that we like. We can't provide what God requires. That man said, all these things
I've kept from my youth up, what yet do I like? He said, one thing,
there's one thing you like. If you desire to be perfect,
go and sell all you have and give it to the poor and you shall
have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. But when that
young man heard that, the scripture says that he went away sorrowful
because he had great possessions. No matter how much men and women
try to reform themselves, they will always be lacking. Thou have been, you've been weighed
in the balances and been found what? Wanting. If we claim to
have kept and done all these things like this young man did,
God will always meet us with one thing that we lack. This
young man's lack was his unwillingness to part with his riches in order
to follow Christ. God always meets us where we
are, doesn't He? Oh my, let me ask you a question. Can a dead man stand trial for
breaking the law? No. A dead man can make no restitution
to justice. He's dead. The law can no longer
hold God's elect accountable for breaking the law. Why? Because
Christ died in their place and for their sin. And they died
unto their sin in Him. Dear believer, the law of sin
and death has no more claim on you. No more so than it does
on the Lord Jesus Himself. God's law has been satisfied.
God's justice has been paid. Christ fulfilled the law and
now we're dead unto it. The child of God has been redeemed.
Their sin is paid. That's what being redeemed is.
And the one God, the very One that we have offended is satisfied. He's no longer angry. He who
was angry with the wicked every day is now no longer angry with
those that are found in Christ. Won't you come to Him? And what we lack the most is
what brings us to the thing that we need the most. There's only
one thing needful. How many? Just one. Just one. Martha said, Lord, I'm working
my fingers to the bone. My sister's sitting over there
at Your feet doing nothing. Martha, Martha, thou art careful
and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and
Mary has chosen the good part. Have you chosen the good part? You will if God enables you.
But one thing's needful. Mary's chosen that part, that
portion that shall never be taken away from her. What we need is a perfect righteousness
before God, and there's only one way to have it. Mary's chosen
the good part. Mary's chosen the good portion.
She sat at Jesus' feet and heard His Word. That's what we're doing
this morning, isn't it? Christ is the sum and the substance
of the Word of God. That's what Mary heard. For the
Law and the Prophets and the Psalms are all concerning Him.
We say it all the time, but it's so true. This is a hymn book. H-I-M. It's all about Him. From Genesis to Revelation. He's the one thing needful. There's
only one way to have the one thing needful. That's pretty
simple, isn't it? We better find out that way. We better. You see, there's a
way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death. And so many are telling sinners
today that there are many ways, and if you want to go this way,
that's okay. If you want to go that way, that's alright. But
God says there's only one way. There's a way that seemeth right,
but it's the wrong way. It has a wide gate, and it has
a broad way, and it leads to destruction. And many there be
that go in there. John was baptizing in the River
Jordan. He looked up and he saw the Lord
Jesus coming and he said, Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. The Lamb of God. You see, there's
only one. The Lamb of God. Not many, just
one. Only one Savior, only one Lamb
that can take away sin. And do you remember what our
Lord said? He said, I am the way. the truth
and the life. Just one way, that's pretty simple. That's pretty singular. And there's
also one thing that I know. We see through a glass darkly,
don't we? We preach in part, we know in
part. Religious folks in our Lord's
day asked that young man that had been blind from his birth,
Over and over again they asked him how he was made to see. And he answered and he said,
a man that's called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes. And
they asked, where is he? He said, I don't know. Then they called his parents
and they said, is this your son? And they said, yeah. And they
said, was he born blind? Yeah. Yeah, he was born blind. How does he now see? They said,
we don't know. He's of age, ask him. We know this is our son. We know
that he was born blind. Obviously, he can see now, but
we don't know how. You see, friends, we don't know
much, do we? No. Then they turned back to
that young man who could now see for the first time in his
life. Can you imagine? Never being
able to see colors or leaves on a tree or the sun in the sky
or the stars at night. And for the first time in this
young man's life, he can see. And they're fussing about it
being done on the Sabbath day. And with tears in his now-seeing
eyes, oh, I can just see him. He looked at them and he said,
I don't know if he's a sinner or not. They said he was. They
said, this man's a sinner. He said, I don't know if he's
a sinner or not. But this one thing I do know,
there's something I know for a fact. He said, I was blind,
but now I see. I know that, and that's all that
matters. Friends, I don't know much, but
I'll tell you this. There's one thing I do know.
I was once blind, but now I see. I was blind to His grace, His
mercy, and His love. I was blind to His holiness in
my sin. I was even blind to my blindness.
I thought I could see. But now I see that I couldn't
see, and now I see that I can see. Like the Apostle Paul, all
God's people will tell you that they haven't arrived, I haven't
arrived, they haven't attained or apprehended, but there is
one thing that we do. What is it? We press toward the mark. of the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus. That's what we do. We keep on keeping on, don't
we? Keep on trusting. We keep on believing. We keep
seeking God. We keep praying, Lord, have mercy
upon me, the sinner that I am. And you know what? He's faithful
and just. And we're kept by His power.
Salvations of the Lord from beginning to end. Oh, what mercy that He
saved me, but what mercy that He keeps me. Kept by the power
of God. How do we keep pressing toward
the mark? My dad used to put out a a sizable
garden, and I'm telling you, it was a thing of art. I didn't
know much about gardening, but boy, that was a beautiful garden.
It was well-kept, and the rows were just straight. You know,
it was just, I thought, a thing of beauty. And I remember one
day I was out there as he was tending the garden, and his neighbor
came over, and he asked my dad, he said, how do you keep, when
you're planting this garden, how do you keep those rows so
straight? And my dad said, well, I'll tell
you, it's pretty simple. I like simple. Don't you? He
said, it's pretty simple. He said, I drive a stake in the
ground where I want the garden to end. And then I start my tiller
where I begin. And I take off towards that stake. And he said, I never take my
eyes off of it. And he said, I take off towards that stake,
don't take my eyes off it, I don't look back, I don't look around.
I look straight forward at that stake in the ground. Brothers
and sisters, that's what we've got to do. We must drive the
stake of the gospel in solid ground and keep our eyes on Christ
and press forward We can't look back. There's nothing we can
change back there. We can't be sidetracked with
what's going on over here and what's going on over there. We've
got to keep our eyes on Him. My dad's neighbor was amazed
at the simplicity and the singleness of his method. And I'm amazed
at the singleness and the simplicity of God's message. May God enable
you to believe it. Friends, there's one body, there's
one spirit, there's one hope, there's one calling, there's
one Lord, there's one faith, there's one baptism, there's
one thing needful, just one. One man, one mediator, one thing
that we know, one thing that we must do, one way, one gospel,
one message, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the message
of Holy One. Recently someone asked a man
in our congregation what his preacher preached on Sunday.
And you'd have to know this fella. He's pretty funny. But he said,
well, he preached the same message he preaches every service. And
the person that he told was a bit taken aback. Oh, really? The
same message, he said? The same message. Every service,
he said. There's only one message. Now,
I don't know if she ever caught on to what he was saying, but
you know what I'm saying. Just one message. If you're here
this morning without Christ, I pray that God will reveal Him
to you. There's only one who can save
you from your sin, and it's not you. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. This world in which we live is
full of uncertainty, isn't it? But just because we're in this
world does not mean that we're of this world. The scripture
is very clear about that. The realm in which we dwell is
a sure one. The child of God, you better
believe it is. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus Christ, and if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That's pretty simple, isn't it? But impossible apart from grace. May God enable you to trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only substitute, sacrifice,
Savior, surety. Thank you.