Open your Bibles again this morning to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. I've called this message Today, trusting the one God trusts. I want you to look with me and
we'll jump right into this first chapter of Ephesians at verse
12. That we should be to the praise
of His glory, who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise." Have you ever been disappointed
in somebody that you trusted? I don't know what the answer
might be that you give, but I can assure you of this. If you haven't
been and you live long enough, you will be. I know of no earthly individual
or thing that has not failed at some point those who trusted The nearest and the dearest relationships,
such as fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, children,
friends, all have been shown to prove untrustworthy. And certainly at this present
hour, lest we should ever put our trust in such things as governments
or politicians, we ought to know that they cannot be trusted. And sad it is to say that preachers
have proved themselves very untrustworthy. And the reason is because each
and every one of these, they are all sinners. They are all weak, fallen, depraved
humanity. and they cannot be trusted in
the highest sense. What is it to trust? Well, to trust means to rely
upon completely. If I trust something, if I trust
someone, I rely on them completely. It means to depend on entirely. And it means, as we find it in
this verse, it means to hope, to have a genuine, well-based,
grounded hope in someone. Paul wrote this letter to some
people at a place called Ephesus who, like himself, trusted in
a man. They had been brought to trust
in Jesus Christ. We read him talking here about
them trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. And I need to ask myself
this question in the midst of this morning. What is it to trust
the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, it is, as I have already
said, It is to rely on Him entirely, that is, on Christ Himself. Paul expressed it like this,
writing in II Timothy, he said, I know whom I have believed and
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. He trusted in and he relied on
Christ, the man Christ Jesus, and his ability to save him. It is to give up all hope in
myself or in any other but Him. If I trust the Lord Jesus Christ,
that does not mean that I trust my faith, or my experience, or
my decision, or that I trust any doctrine apart from the Lord
Jesus Christ. I trust Him. It is to rest in
and rely on and depend on the Lord Jesus Christ for all things
and in all things, and first of all, in the matters of my
soul. It is to trust Him in the matter
of my sin, in the matter of my salvation from sin, and it is
to do so in all matters pertaining to God. Let me read you a verse
out of the book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews says, Wherefore,
in all things, It behooved him, that is Christ, to be made like
unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people. We trust Him in all of His offices
as the King to rule over us, as the Prophet to reveal God
to us, and as the Priest to accomplish all things pertaining
to God in our behalf. Paul, writing to the Corinthians,
expressed it in such a concise manner to show that all trust
and all confidence is to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says,
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." In other words,
we are to trust Christ as being made of God all of these things
for us. He says again, dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, which is the
head of all principality and power." You see, to trust Christ is to
rest all hope of salvation, all our peace with God, all our true
and lasting joy, all of eternity, and all of heaven in Him. And I don't think it can be said
any better than the Spirit of God directed this man Paul to
express it when he wrote to the church at Philippi. And he said
to those believers there, he said, for we are the circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We worship God without any external
thing, and we have absolutely no confidence in the flesh. That is, we put no dependence
on any past merit. We have no confidence in any
of our present resolutions. And we have no hope in any future
work that we might do. I guess it could be said like
the hymn writer said it. He said, my hope, my trust, my
hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly – that's W-H-O-L-L-Y – but wholly, completely lean
on Jesus' name. An old writer, I believe it was
Spurgeon maybe, he said, if I am trusting Jesus Christ as my righteousness
and sin offering before God, I rest at all times the entire
weight of my sin and my soul's affair on Him alone. So that
looking at my sin, I trust Him. And looking at death and judgment,
I trust Him. And looking at heaven or hell,
I trust Him. Is that what we do? You see, to trust Christ, And
a hope in Him is to trust the only one that God trusts, which
is God Himself in human flesh. Look back at that twelfth verse. He says that we should be to
the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ. Who first trusted in Him. We are to be, Paul says here
to these Ephesians believers, we are to be to the praise and
glory of the One who Himself first trusted in Christ. He trusted in His only begotten
and well-beloved Son before the world began. He trusted and moreover
entrusted all the salvation of His elect into His hand and made
Him their surety and chose them in Him. Look back. at that third verse. He says,
Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. Now, I can tell you this, and
I can do so without any doubt whatsoever. And that is, anything
that is given of God in grace and mercy, any lasting and real
spiritual and eternal thing, He has given it in Jesus Christ. And when you stop and think that
in this world today there are a multitude of people There are
multiplied millions of people who expect things from God, and yet deny and do not trust
the One in whom He trusts and has given all things, all things
to His people. He says, according as He hath
chosen us, in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved." He first trusted the Lord Jesus
Christ. And my friend Paul is saying
here simply this, the only one that you can trust, the only
one that you could ever have hope in, especially in the matter
of your soul, in the matter of your salvation, in the matter
of your acceptance and standing before God, is the one whom God
trusts. You see, these Ephesian sinners
trusted Him for the same reasons we are to trust Him, because
He accomplished as a man, a sinless, perfect man, all that was necessary
to pay our sin debt, to satisfy God's justice, to redeem us to
God, and he shed the blood upon which our justification was based
and established righteousness in our place. He carried out the divine will
concerning his people and he obtained for them an eternal
inheritance. Listen to what he says in verse
7, "...in whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his
grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
having made known unto us the mystery of his will according
to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself." There are a lot of people who
claim to be trying to find out the will of God. Christ manifests
the will of God. that in the dispensation of the
fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all
things after the counsel of His own will that we should be to
the praise of His glory. We are to trust Christ for the
very same reasons that these believers all this long time
ago trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. because of who He is
and because of what He has done. As a matter of fact, someone
said to trust Christ is to trust Him and receive Him as He is,
not as what we think He is. Sometimes it scares me. When you stop to think, and when
you hear the words of men and women all around us every day,
and even sometimes things that we say, that may well demonstrate that
we don't know as much about Him as we thought. Because we are to trust Him as
He says that He is. We are to rely upon the work
that He tells us that He has done. And if we're to trust Him and
receive Him as He is, and not as we think that He is, How does
anybody do that? How can anybody say that they
are truly trusting the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, how did these Ephesians
come to that point? Don't you think it's safe to
say that they were these for the most part that Paul wrote
this letter to by the Spirit of God? Don't you think it's
safe to say that they were believers? He by the Spirit says to them
that they trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. How did they come to
do that? Look at what it says in verse
13. in whom ye also trusted, after
that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise." How did they come to trust Christ? Well, Paul says here, first of
all, They heard something that they had never heard before. Do you realize that the whole
force in one aspect of the gospel is that the gospel of Jesus Christ
comes to sinners as news? as glad tidings, as good news. They heard something that they
had not heard before. Now, it wasn't that it hadn't
been preached before, but that God gave them, as He must also
give us, a hearing ear. Have you ever heard something? Have you heard something from
God that at a point you had never heard before? And it isn't maybe that there
was not at some point someone who preached the true gospel
to us, but it is this. that there came a point in time
when God actually caused us to hear, and to hear with the ear of faith. They heard something. in whom
ye also trusted after that ye heard." Do you suppose that they
had lived as deaf people all their years and Paul came and
did a great miracle and caused them by a power given him by
God to be able to hear? Do you think that's what he's
talking about? No. He's saying to them and saying
to every believer, saying to us, that we are spiritually deaf
to anything and everything that has to do with God and grace
and salvation and Jesus Christ until God gives us an ear. You say, well, preacher, why
in the world would you preach to a bunch of deaf people? Why
would you preach to a bunch of people who are spiritually dead? and spiritually lifeless and
spiritually powerless, because the one who we preach, the one
who we trust in, is the one who is able to give the hearing ear. I'd never open my mouth again
to say anything in the name of God or anything about the gospel
of Jesus Christ did I not believe that God is able to open the
heart, open the understanding, give spiritual life and eyes
of spiritual sight and ears to hear. what he says in his word. He says in Proverbs, the hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. Who made the eye by which we
see naturally? God did. Who made the ear by
which we hear naturally? God did. And it is God who must
come to us, not only with this gospel, but in the power of His
Spirit and give us ears to hear. Every one of us by nature. We don't hear, first of all,
because we don't want to hear. Do you know that? Do you ever tell your child as a
child something, and later on they came and they said, Mom
or Dad, I didn't hear you. That wasn't the problem. The
problem was they didn't want to hear you. What you were saying
to them was so contrary to what they wanted to do, they didn't
want to hear you. My friend, until God by His Spirit
does something in us, it doesn't matter how much the gospel is
preached. It doesn't matter how clearly
the gospel is preached. It doesn't matter who preaches
the gospel, how eloquent or whatever they might be. He has to cause us to hear something. This gospel has to come to us
as news. It's so contrary to everything
that religion has taught us, everything that we have wanted
to believe by nature, everything that we have embraced in our
heart as true. It comes to us as shocking news. You mean I'm a sinner, a dead,
lost, doomed sinner who's unable to do anything? You mean that
God in mercy chose a people in Christ before the world began
and purposed to save them and give them everything in Christ? You mean to tell me that Christ,
one outside of myself, He has done all the saving? That's right. They heard something. That's why I'm trying to preach
that little message on the radio each Sunday, hoping that God
will call somebody to hear something. That's why the effort is made
to put it up on the Internet or send it out on a CD or a tape. It doesn't matter what means
we use, our hope is that God will cause somebody to hear something. And they will if they're His
sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. The only way we'll ever trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ is if God causes us to hear something. Well, what did they hear? He says, you trusted in Christ
after that you heard the Word of Truth. I got to thinking about this
especially yesterday. This is why so few people believe,
because they've not heard the Word of Truth. The gospel is the only word of
truth. Do you know that? He didn't say, you trusted in
Christ after you heard a word of truth. He said, after you heard the
word of truth. Now, somebody always has in their
mind, that it's really not this narrow. Sometimes I get accused of being
very narrow-minded. Well, I'm only as narrow as this
book. They heard the Word of Truth. Meaning, they heard the Word
that comes from the God of Truth. And the word of truth from the
God of truth is concerning His Son, who it is said of is the
truth." Oftentimes, a young person goes
off to college, and they've been taught maybe a A few things that
are right and wrong and some things that are, maybe they are,
maybe they're not. But when they get to that college
scene, one of the first things that takes place is somebody
tries to tell them and teach them that there is no absolute
truth. They try to tell them that truth
is whatever you choose to believe. There is no objective standard. There is nothing that is really
actually final and really truth. That is so far from what the
God of truth, who alone is the one who speaks the truth, has
said. They heard the Word of truth. And it is never the word of truth
unless it concerns the person and work of Jesus Christ, who
is Himself the truth. Somebody said it involves the
truth about man, what he is. It involves the truth about God,
who He is. It involves the truth as to how,
as a just God and a Savior, He saves His people. It involves
the truth about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's not about Him. It's not
the truth. The psalmist said, For the word
of the Lord is right. And all his works are done in
truth. Paul says to the Corinthians,
who he said, being pitiful as they were in so many ways, they
had hope. And he said, the hope which is
laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of
the truth of the gospel. It looks like in my day that
the greatest objective of so many politicians and so many
so-called news people and such is to make all people to be devoid
of any hope whatsoever. We're going to run out of oil.
We're going to run out of water. We're going to be destroyed by
global warming. We're going to die of corruption
in our cities. We're going to do this, that,
and the other. No hope. But even those poor
believers at Corinth, they had hope. And remember,
that's what this word trust involves. It means to have hope of. They
had hope. Where did they get their hope?
It was a hope, he says, which is laid up for you in heaven
whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. They heard the word of truth.
And they had hope. He said to the Thessalonians,
For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because
when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you
received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the
word of God. which effectually worketh also
in you that believe." You heard the word of truth. And God by
His Spirit called you to believe that which you heard. And that brought hope in you. But what was the word of truth
to these people? What is the word of truth? He said, the gospel of your salvation. You trusted Him. You were brought
to have a genuine, well-grounded, based hope and expectation in
Jesus Christ Because of what you heard, which was the word
of truth, which was the gospel of your salvation. They didn't hear how to be saved. That's not the gospel. You know
that most people in this world believe that the gospel is simply
the news of how you can be saved. I'm telling you the truth. It
may take one way or another way or a multitude of ways, but it
boils down to this. It tells you a way by which you
can save yourself. That's not what these people
trusted. The word of truth that they heard was the gospel, he
says, of your salvation. Not what to do, but a message
concerning what God has already done in Jesus Christ. He's the Savior. Paul says to
Timothy, who have saved us and called us. Wouldn't be good news, would
it, to tell a dead man what he should do? Wouldn't be good news to go and
tell a blind man what will happen if he'll see? He said, it's the gospel of your
salvation. Can you imagine this? I look out in front of you, in
your faces this morning, and I see people that I love. But in all truth, I don't know
that any of you are celebrities. If I spoke your name to one of
the presidents or prime ministers of this world, would they know
who you were? They wouldn't know either. But the gospel comes to us as
the gospel of our salvation that God, not only knows of us, but
that He knows us, and that He loved us with an everlasting
love, and that He set His affection upon us, those who the world
knows not, He says. And He purposed and He predestinated
all things to accomplish the sure salvation of our souls. He purposed in His grace to give
us not what we deserve. He purposed in His mercy not
to put upon us that which is justly our due, but to save us
altogether and give us everything in Jesus Christ. I'll tell you, on the one hand,
the Gospel lays us low because He tells us just what we are. But not only does it kill, it
says it makes alive, and it raises us up to the highest place seated
in the heavenlies in Jesus Christ. It shows us that in ourselves
we are nothing, but at the same time tells us that God in mercy
has given us everything in Jesus Christ. That He saved us. Here you are working and trudging
through life being told that if you do this and that, God
will save you, or you ought to do this or the other thing, and
here along comes this news which is not simply a message of do,
but a message of done. He saved us. He saved us. When somebody comes along immediately,
that's the way we are. But what about this? But what
about that? He saved us. What about if you
did this or that or the other? What about if in the future you
do this? He saved us from all our sins. He did it. It's the good news. It's the
glad tidings of your salvation. There's salvation in the one
that you're to trust in and rely on and have confidence in because
He is the eternal God. He is the Creator of all things,
this Jesus Christ. He is the absolute sovereign
ruler over all things. He is the surety of the everlasting
covenant. He is the Lord, our righteousness. He is the crucified One who suffered
the just for the unjust and brought us to God. He is the risen, successful,
God accepted sacrifice for sins once forever. He is the One who
put away our sins. He is the glorified, exalted,
enthroned Lord of glory. He is that great High Priest
forever who ever lives to make intercession for us. He is the King of kings and Lord
of lords. And all who trust Him as having
saved them from their sins, they do so because God has enabled
them to believe on Him, to believe what He says about His Son. Now, we can attribute any lack of trust and hope in
whatever we want to, but it all boils down to this. We're not
trusting Christ. When they believed on Him, when they heard the Word of Truth,
when they heard the gospel of their salvation, when they believed
on Him, They were sealed by the One that Christ promised, the
Spirit of Truth. Now, I know there have been a
lot of misinterpretations of what our being sealed in this
instance and text is. But he says, after that they
heard the Word of Truth, After that, they heard the gospel of
their salvation when they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. They
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. And I think to get
an idea of what that means, that word seal here, is to look back
in John 3. Let me read it to you very hurriedly. He says, he that hath received
his testimony has set to his seal that God is true. In other words, when we believe
the testimony of God, when we believe the word of truth, He
says, we set to our seal the fact that God is true. Someone said, to seal an instrument
is to make it sure, to acknowledge it as ours, to pledge our veracity
that it is true and binding, as when a man seals a bond, a
deed, or a will, Believing a doctrine, therefore, in the heart is expressed
by sealing it, or by believing it, we express our firm conviction
that it is true. And that God who has spoken it,
it is true. We vouch for the veracity of
God and assume as our own the proposition that it is the truth
of God. That's what believing is. We
set to our seal that we take this as the truth of God. But I think it's a little more
here also. It is that God, we believe the
promise Because the promised Spirit bears witness in us that
all the promises of God in Christ are true, and true to us. You remember in John 6, when all that multitude had been fed by Christ, who had
been shown miracles by Christ, and they all left Him with the
exception of just a handful of you. And He said to them, will
you also go away? And our Lord said, they said,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of life and
truth. Then they said this, and we believe
and are sure that you are the Christ, you
are the Messiah, you are the Son of the living God. And assurance, therefore, comes
through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, he says in John 6, "...labor
not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endureth
unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto
you. For Him hath God the Father sealed." God the Father set His seal to
this. All His promises in Jesus Christ
are true. They are yea and amen. And when we are unable to believe,
we are unable to set our seal to those same promises that they
are the truth of God. But I want you to turn also to
1 John 5. I'll try to close quickly. 1 John chapter 5. Because what he means here also
is that the Spirit of God sets His seal to our hearts. That this is the truth. And this
is the promise that he has given unto us. I John chapter 5, and
look down at verse 9. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater. Why? Because it's the truth.
And because he's the God of truth. For this is the witness of God
which he has testified of his Son. He that believeth on the
Son of God hath the witness in himself." How does he have the witness
in himself? Because he has the indwelling
Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, which Christ said will take the
things of mine and show them unto you. He hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believes not the record that God gave
of his Son. And this is the record that God
hath given to us, eternal life, and this life is in his Son. I can preach the gospel to you. And I try by His grace to do
that. But only God, only God the Spirit
can bear witness in your heart that this is the truth. Why would you ever believe what
I say, or any other true gospel preacher, any more so than what
a multiplied millions of other people say. Why do they seek to get people
to come down the aisle and believe something and do something that
they don't really want to do? Because their goal is different
from my goal. Because they think that they
can do, and cause men and women to do, what they really can't
do. And that is believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Believe the truth. An old preacher said years ago
concerning the gospel, the gospel that we preach, He
said, only a fool or a Christian would believe this. It's the truth. And I can't convince you. If
I could convince you, then somebody else could come along and unconvince
you. But if God convinces you, there's nobody. There's no devil. There is no preacher who could ever unconvince you of
what God the Spirit bears witness in your heart is the truth. Paul says, in whom? In Christ. You also trust Him. That word trusted is an added
word in the translation so that it might be made known here that
you, like God Himself, were brought to trust the Lord Jesus Christ
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, in whom also after that you believed you were sealed
with that Holy Spirit of promise. He likens the Holy Spirit in
another place to the earnest. Suppose you and I agree that
I'm going to buy some land that you have for $10,000. And I promise
you that on the 10th of September, I'm going to pay you that money
for that land. Now, to show you that I'm actually
going to do this, I'm going to give you some earnest money.
I'm going to give you a thousand dollars now. And that is the
pledge. That's the evidence of my promise
to you to give you the rest of it on the tenth. That's what the Holy Spirit is
likened to. It's called the earnest of the purchased possession.
And He bears witness in our hearts that we are the children of God,
that this is the truth, that God has done this for us in Christ,
and we can rely on and trust in and believe on Him, because
whoever believes on Him, they'll never be disappointed. When a man or a woman trusts
Christ, they openly confess Him and worship Him and identify
with His people. And they trust Christ not only
on an occasion, but they continue to do so. And if they don't, they never trusted Him at all. I don't know how many times in
the Scripture this says this, and in so many different ways. Whosoever trusts in the Lord,
happy is he. O taste and see that the Lord
is good. Blessed is the man that trusts
in Him. Blessed is the man that trusts
in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. And this is one I've read and
quoted to others many, many times. In Isaiah 26, he says, Thou wilt
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee,
because he trusts in Thee. We trust in the one that God
trusts. and for the same reason. May God help us. And apart from
His help, we never can. And we never can continue to
do so but by His help. But may He help us to trust in,
rely upon entirely, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and believe
the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. Father, this day we give You
thanks, and we pray that we might be enabled to trust
Your dear Son. because to trust Him is to trust
you, to trust Him as our Savior, to rely upon Him as our King
and our Redeemer, our Priest, our Prophet, our Everything,
the Lord, our Righteousness, to rely upon His person his faithfulness,
his unchangeableness, and upon that work which he accomplished
through the laying down of his life, the shedding of blood,
the work of righteousness, which you are pleased by your grace
and mercy to impute to your people, and wherein he is made to be
God our Savior. Calls us, we pray, to hear Your
Word as the Word of truth and believe on Your Son. Take Your
Word and by Your Spirit make it effectual to the hearts of
Your people. For we pray and we give You thanks
and praise in the Lord Jesus Christ Amen.