Alright, let's open our Bibles
to Ephesians 3. I want to commend you for the way the services are carried
out here. You're so worshipful and respectful. I appreciate the piano playing.
That's a blessing. I sat there listening to that
one that you played to begin with. Why was I made to hear
thy voice and enter while there's room when thousands made a wretched
choice and rather starved than come? I believe the next one
you played was Overshadowed with His Love. as sweet, delightful
hymns. Good selection. You make good
selections. I appreciate that. I'm grateful
to all of you for your warmth and hospitality extended to Nancy
and myself. You've made us feel very much
at home. She appreciates the birthday
cake last night. and your kindness and love. I'm thankful for your dear pastor
and his wife. And that's such a blessing to
us, and I know they are to you. And I just so enjoy their fellowship. I love all the brethren, all
who set forth the gospel of God's grace. I esteem them very highly
for their work's sake, for the gospel's sake. Some men, though, you just feel
nearer to than others. Somehow or another, you just
have such a kindred spirit and a friendship that and just appreciate
him even more and such as your dear pastor. And I'm so thankful
for him. And I'm thankful that God has
given you a desire to set forth the gospel by means of radio. And I thought it was so excellent
the way he began this morning. And it's so thrilling to be able
to get on the radio dial and find somebody who's exalting
the Lord. Isn't that refreshing? In this
day in which we're covered over by false religion, and men and
women who are lying on God, people are listening to them,
believing what they're saying. And they're not setting forth
God in His true character, nor are they setting forth men in
our sinful, helpless condition. And they don't set forth the
only mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Oh,
how thankful I am that God has raised up a voice. And this morning,
it was such a A blessing to me. I didn't get to listen to all
of it, but I hope Gary will send me the tapes of them, the CDs
of them. But we were talking a little
bit there a while ago about how God gave him such wisdom in how
to begin. He began with God. That's where
the Bible begins. In the beginning, God. That's
where our theology begins. That's where our doctrine begins
with God. I told him, I said, you know,
I certainly love sovereign grace. I love what we call tulip, T-U-L-I-P,
total depravity. I believe that, don't you? And
I see it in myself. I see it in the world, but I
see it in me, total depravity. I know if the Lord didn't choose
me, I'd never come to Him. The Spirit hadn't called me.
I'd never been drawn to the blessed Savior. I stooped in false religion. I'd give an altar calls and try
and get everybody to make decisions and all that kind of stuff, thinking
that we had that kind of ability within us. And then I learned
that we're depraved. We lost all power. We lost life
in the fall. I believe total depravity. Unconditional
election, don't you? That's what the Bible teaches.
God unconditionally chose a people unto salvation before time even
began. And He did it in love. It wasn't
an arbitrary choice, was it? It wasn't eeny, meeny, miny,
moe. It wasn't this one heaven, this
one hell. God loved us. He loved us in
the blessed Savior. He loved us. And He would save
us, whatever the cost. Unconditional election and limited
atonement. It doesn't mean it's limited
in His power. It's limited in the ones to whom
or for whom the Savior died. He died for those the Father
gave Him. The shepherd laid down his life for the sheep, for the
sheep. The bridegroom loved the bride.
He gave himself for her. An irresistible grace. God the
Spirit conquers our will. He's the conquering Spirit. Invincible grace. I like that,
don't you? Invincible grace. Perseverance
of the saints. I told the pastor, the only problem
I got with all that, it starts with man. It starts with man. That's not
where it began. All things start and end with
God. And really, that's what Paul
does in the book of Ephesians. He begins with God. He begins
with this declaration of grace in chapter 1, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God blessed us. Huh? God blessed us. God chose us. God predestinated us. God accepted
us in His Son. And the Son of God, He redeemed
us. He bought us. We are forgiven
through His blood. I'm thankful for his birth. But
his birth didn't put my sins away. I know he had to grow up and live
a life of righteousness as a man. And he was a real man. David
said, by divine inspiration, quoting the Father, I've chosen
one out of the people, he said, over there in Psalm 89. He is
a man, Christ Jesus. But it wasn't His birth that
saved us. It wasn't His miracles that saved
us. Men love to talk about the miracles of Christ. They haven't
verified His deity. But those miracles didn't save
us. Those miracles didn't put our
sins away. Christ died for us. That's what
we read in Romans 8. Who is He that condemned us?
It's Christ that died. Huh? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather, is risen again."
What does that mean? That means God accepted what
He did. God was satisfied with the price He presented to divine
justice. And He's gone back. He's making
intercession for us. He's the Savior. He's the Redeemer. There is no other Redeemer. Do
you know Him? Huh? He's God. This salvation begins with God. The Bible begins with God. Ephesians
begins with God. Your radio program began with
God, and rightly so. The Gospel begins with God. It's
the Gospel of God. It's the Gospel of God's grace.
It's the Gospel of God's love. It's the Gospel of God's Son
who came and satisfied what you talked about this morning, God's
holy character. And that's something men don't
know about today. They don't know about the holiness of God.
And God help them, they don't care. Men don't care about the
holiness of God. They want to talk about the love
of God. And we're thankful for the love of God. But God's not going to show His
love at the expense of His holy character. He'll have to give
up the throne if He did that. He'd have to cease being God.
He'll never do that. That's why the Lord Jesus came
to this world, that God might be just, a just God, holy, pure,
righteous, and uncompromisingly holy, and yet embrace you and
me in love and in grace as His children
through the merits of His Son now, through His blood. He talks
about God the Spirit who is the earnest, He is the One who sealed
us. The Spirit led us to Christ.
That is why the Spirit has come. He has come not to speak of Himself,
but to show us the things of Christ. He opens up the Bible
to us. He shows us Christ in all the
Scriptures. The Spirit of God does that.
That is when you know the Holy Spirit is in its service. That
is when you know the Holy Spirit's blessing is when all eyes are
pointed to Christ. We're focused on Him, who He
is, and what He did, and why He did it, and where He is now.
That's what Spirit-powerful preaching is about. And this Savior, He's been exalted.
Chapter 1 is a declaration of the grace of God. In chapter
2, you know, I think chapter 2 best be summarized this way,
the triumphs of His grace. The triumphs of His grace. He
talks about regeneration. You have He quickened. He triumphed
over us. It's not about us letting Him
have His way. He has His way in the whirlwind,
in the storm, in your heart, in my heart. He has His way.
I'm so glad He conquered my will. Aren't you glad He's triumphant
over your will? God didn't leave this to us.
God didn't say, I've done all I can do, now the rest of it's
up to you. What foolishness! If the rest
is up to us, then we're all going to hell. Isn't that right, Pastor? We're all going to perish if
the rest is up to us. Oh, He was triumphant over us. He sent us the Word of His Gospel,
and He quickened us. Christ told Nicodemus, you must
be born again. You've got to be born again.
You've got to be born from above. And He's begotten us by the Word
of what the Scripture says. And this regeneration of the
Lord, He triumphs over us in regeneration and reconciliation. That's of God. We're reconciled
to God by the blood of His Son. Oh, the triumph of Calvary! The triumph of the cross! the
victory of the cross. The Savior redeemed us. He saved
His people. He did what He came to do. He
did what He came to do. We don't preach a Christ that
wants to save, that's trying to save, that's doing His best
He can to save. We preach the Christ who is triumphant,
triumphant over Satan He bashed His head in. Triumphant over
our sin, He washed them all away. Triumphant over the grave, He
conquered it. And because He lives, though
this body is going to decay and fall asleep and be buried in
the ground, we'll live again. All because of Christ. That brings
us to chapter 3. Chapter 3 is the revelation of
grace. Chapter 1 is the declaration
of grace. In chapter 2, it's the triumphs
of grace. In chapter 3, it's the revelation
of grace. It begins this way, for this
cause. For. Because. Because. For this reason. He goes back
and in three words, he picks up everything he said before. And he says, I, Paul, the prisoner
of Jesus Christ, for your gender. He's a prisoner. He's writing
from Rome. He's in prison. For this reason,
he preached the gospel to the Gentiles. And he said to them,
it's not by deeds of the law. It's not by obeying some code
of ethics. Salvation is by grace. The Jews
said, they've got to be circumcised. Paul said, no! By grace. By grace. They said, you keep
on preaching that message, we'll put you in prison. He said, well,
you've got to do what you've got to do and I've got to do
what I've got to do. He kept on preaching the Gospel. They
put him in prison, sure enough. During the reign of Nero, there
he was chained between two soldiers. They thought, we've shut his
mouth now. We've done with him. We got rid of that creature.
And we'll get rid of any other. We'll put him out of business
too if somebody else comes around here preaching salvation by that
way, that way, that way of grace, that way of the despised Galilean. We'll put them in prison too.
We shut his mouth. They put him in prison. The Spirit
of God says, start writing. Start writing. And I tell you,
the letters he wrote, we still got them this morning. And the Roman Empire has come
and gone. The Word of God is still here.
And heaven and earth will pass away. And these inspired letters
of the Apostle Paul and all the rest of the Holy Scripture shall
abide forever. It's the Word of God. That's why he's the prisoner
of Jesus Christ. What does it mean he's the prisoner
of Jesus Christ? I think it means possibly two
things. I know it means, I'm certain
of the second, I'm pretty certain of the first, or I wouldn't say
it. I believe it means, number one, he's been captured by Almighty
Grace. The Savior has captured him at his time. You know, when we
say the Lord is seeking the lost sheep, we're not saying that
He's been seeking a long time and He finally finds them. It's at the appointed time He
finds them. The Savior gave that parable
over there, the lost sheep. Man had 99 sheep, had 100 sheep,
99 of them in the fold. One of them out lost, He went
seeking it. That's what the Savior does in
regenerating grace. He finds the lost sheep. We're
not going toward the Lord. Adam wasn't going toward the
Lord after he sinned, was he? I don't believe so. I don't believe
that Adam went to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, forgive me. I've
sinned. I've sinned against You. No,
he was running from the Lord. It's the Lord who went after
him in the cool of the day. The Lord finds His people at
exactly the right time. I've had people say to me, you
know, somebody be converted when maybe they're quite old, and
they'll say, well, you know, isn't it a shame that they wasted
their entire life? And, boy, I'm glad that they
finally come around, you know. No, they didn't come around.
They didn't finally come around. This happened in the Lord's time.
That thief on the cross, that believing thief, the shepherd
found him right on schedule, just exactly when he determined
to find him. In old eternity, God had set
His love on that fellow, and the Savior, the Son of God, came
in the world to redeem him, and at just the right time. Not a moment too soon, not a
moment too late, at the right time, He found him. And He overshadowed him with
His love. He saw him out, cast out like Ezekiel's deserted infant
in his pollution. And it was the time for love.
And He said to that thief, in the time of love, He said, I
say unto thee, live! He lived and he said, Lord, what
will you have me to do? Lord, remember me. Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. The Lord Jesus says, well, today
you will move me to paradise. Just like I always determined
to be so. Captured by, you've been captured
by his love. Have you, have you been laid
hold of? by the Lord Jesus. Oh, how sweet
to be laid hold of by the Lord Jesus. To be arrested by sovereign
grace. To be arrested by sovereign love.
He makes His people willing in the day of His power. Paul said,
I'm a prisoner. I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And the second thing is, obviously,
he's a prisoner in Rome due to the fact that he proclaimed the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul knew there was
no way anybody could arrest him except by the will of the Lord.
He wasn't in jail by accident, by strange turn of events. It's just not bad luck. It's
not bad karma or something like that. He didn't say, I'm the
prisoner of Nero. He didn't say, I'm the prisoner
of Rome. He didn't say, I don't deserve this. He said, I'm the
prisoner of Jesus Christ. The prisoner of Jesus Christ.
He learned something that we need to learn. Wherever you are, Whatever your
state, whatever your condition as a child of God looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ, you're in that condition. You find yourself
in these circumstances because of God's eternal decree. That's why he could write to
the Philippians from the same prison and say, I've learned
how to abound and how to be abased. I've learned how to get along
if I've got money in my pockets. I've learned how to get along
if I don't have any money in my pockets. He said, I've learned
in whatsoever state I'm in, therewith be content. He's in jail by the
will of God. By the will of God. One hymn
writer said, content with beholding his face, my all to his pleasure
resigned. No changes of season or place
would make any change in my mind. While blessed with a sense of
His love, a palace, a toy would appear, and prisons would palaces
prove if Jesus would dwell with me there." Old John Newton wrote
that. He said, I'm a prisoner. I'm
a prisoner. He says, for you Gentiles, I'm
a prisoner for you Gentiles." He went forth preaching the gospel
to these people that the Jews despised. So often we read in the book
of Acts, and I don't have time to turn there, but you know this,
he'd go preaching the gospel to the synagogue. That's where
he always got. And a bunch of times they'd say,
we're not going to hear this. Well, I'll go preach somebody
that will hear it. The Gentiles are here. Here's the apostles
of the Gentiles. I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
He says in the second verse, if you heard of the dispensation
of the grace of God, the dispensation, What does that mean? Dispensation. Well, it doesn't mean a set period
of time. This is not an era. This is not
a period of time. The word dispensation means assignment
or arrangement. Even the word ministry. Paul
is talking about his ministry. His ministry. The gospel of the
grace of God had been assigned to Paul. And he was to preach
that gospel. It was given to him as a sacred
trust. You see, you have a dispensation. You have a dispensation here
in Jacksonville. You have an assignment. You have
a ministry. What is your assignment? Well,
we're going to close all the bars. That's not your assignment.
Well, we're going to march on Washington and get them to change
some of these immoral laws, some of these laws pertaining to abortion
or some other things. That's not your assignment. Well,
we're going to change the world for Jesus. That's not your assignment. Your ministry, your dispensation,
your assignment is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. End
of assignment. Paul said to the Corinthians,
when I was among you, I was determined not to know anything except this,
Jesus Christ. But he didn't stop there. Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. That's my subject. That's my
theme. I've got one string on my guitar and I'm just going
to keep on playing it one string. We're just going to keep at that.
And everything he said Related to that. Everything. Just read, you read again the
epistles of Paul. I don't care what subject he's
dealing with. He may be dealing with husbands
and wives. He always brings it to Christ.
He may be dealing with giving. He'll say thanks be unto God
for his unspeakable gift. Wherever you read the writings
of the Apostle Paul, you always know this, he is going to wind
up with the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a determination, don't
you? I have a determination to set forth my Savior, the Son
of God, the Son of Man, In all that He is, in His righteous,
holy character as the eternal God, as the Man Christ Jesus,
that One who humbled Himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross, I am determined to preach Him
and Him crucified and the triumphs of His death. That's your assignment. That's your assignment. And that
involves giving to keep on making sure that this message goes forth.
It involves being prayerful for this man as he prepares, as he
preaches on the radio, as he faithfully expounds the Word
from this pulpit. It means you being faithful to
be here and encourage one another And as God gives you opportunity,
pass out the CDs and the printed literature, because this is your
ministry. It's not just His ministry. This
is your ministry. This is your dispensation. This
is your assignment. You're active in the assignment,
aren't you? You're involved in the assignment,
aren't you? I hope you are. He said, you've
heard of the dispensation of the assignment of the grace of
God. That's our message. The grace
of God. Not the works of the flesh. Not
putting people under a bunch of rules and regulations. Man,
those Judaizers came to Antioch. or came from Antioch and they
met in Jerusalem. And Peter said to them, why do
you seek to put people under the law? Our forefathers couldn't
bear that law. It's a dispensation of the grace
of God which is given me to you. Watch this. And what I look for
in verses, I look for very key words. And usually in a verse
of Scripture there will be a key word that kind of opens up the
whole verse to you. Watch this in verses 3 through
5. I give you a couple of key words. Revelation and mysteries. How that by revelation He made
known unto me the mystery. As I wrote a 4 in a few words
in chapter 1. whereby when you read, you may
understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other
ages was not made known unto the sons of men." That is, it
wasn't made plain like it was then and like it is now. The
gospel was a mystery hidden in types, in pictures, in symbols,
in the tabernacle, in the figures. It was hidden in the lambs and
the turtle doves and the goats that were butchered and their
blood offered unto the Lord. It was hidden. Hidden in Abel's
land. Hidden in Noah's ark. Hidden
in the Passover lamb. Hidden in the brazen serpent.
Hidden. Hidden in the smitten rock. Hidden. In shadows. Not as clear as it
is today. Oh, how thankful we are for the
entirety of the Word of God. You see, the Old Testament is
explained by the New Testament. The Old Testament is full of
the Gospel, and we know that as a result of the New Testament,
which sheds light on it. In fact, this is one of the ways
that we know that our Gospel is the true Gospel, because it's
the same Gospel today as it was back in Genesis chapter 4. And if you can't find your gospel
that you believe, if you can't find it in the Old Testament,
you've got the wrong gospel. And I know this will never happen.
So maybe it's no use in even making this point. But I'll make
it anyway. Just forgive the shallowness of my mind. It's just the way
it works. If somebody tore out the New Testament and took it
away from us, Could you still rejoice in the gospel in the
Old Testament, those 39 books? I could. I'd just keep on preaching,
couldn't you? I know you could because I heard you. Let's keep
on preaching. But when all they had was the
Old Testament, it was hidden in those shadows and types and
pictures. It's mysterious. All the mysteries
of the Bible. The Bible talks of the mystery
of godliness. The mystery of the gospel. This
is a mystery. It's a mystery. And a mystery, once it's revealed, then it's
pretty simple. You know that? I watch our grandson
Austin. He's going to fifth grade. And
he plays those computer games. I bet some of these young people
in here play them computer games. And I look at that and I scratch
my head and I say, I don't know how you do that. He looked at
me and said, it's easy. It's easy, Papa. It's easy. Yeah,
it's easy if you know how. But if you're like me and you
don't know up or down about it, it's mysterious. And the Gospel
of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. It's a mystery to
the world. And it was a mystery to us before
God enlightened our darkened minds. But you know what now? It's kind of simple. I'm not
saying that it isn't. I know it's profound. As it says
in verse 10, that by the church is made known the manifold wisdom
of God. Not the wisdom of the world,
but the wisdom of God is made manifest in the Gospel. Oh, what infinite wisdom devised! eternal plan of redemption, infinite
wisdom, that God would be made man, join Himself to humanity,
and then be made sin for us and bear our sins away. What a mystery! What a mystery! I'd have never
known that except by revelation. By revelation. I'll tell you
what, a good bit of the time, Paul talks about things being
revealed to him too. Look back in Galatians chapter
1. Look back in Galatians 1. The Gospels are a mystery. The
inclusion of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God, that's a
mystery. Look at Galatians chapter 1.
He says in verse Look at verse 13. Well, verse 11, he said,
But I certify you, brethren, Galatians 1, 11, that the gospel
which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Huh? This is the age of decisionism. Wouldn't you like to hear somebody
talk about revelation? These things have got to be revealed.
The Lord has got to be revealed to you and in you. Keep on reading. He says, for you heard of my
conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure I persecuted the church of God. I wasted it. I
profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine
own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of
my fathers. But when it pleases God, I talked
a while ago about when the Lord finds sinners, it's when the
Lord, it pleases the Lord. That's when grace will come your
way. That's when grace will be triumphant in your soul, when
it pleases God. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace,
to do what? To reveal His Son not only to
me, but in me." The Savior looked at His disciples
one day and said, who do men say that I the Son of Man am?
Some of them said, well, some say Jeremiah, one of the prophets,
some say you're John the Baptist. Come back from the dead. He said,
Who do you say I am? Huh? Who do you say I am? Simon
Peter spoke up and said, You're the Christ. You're the Son of
the living God. The Savior said, Flesh and blood
didn't reveal that to you. My Father did. My Father revealed
that to you. That's what he's talking about
over here in Ephesians 3. Like in Galatians 1, the other
passage, divine revelation. He reveals a mystery. He reveals
a mystery. Years ago, our son's in Japan. He was in the Marine Corps. And
he put in five years. He wound up over there at Iwakuni
at a Marine Air Station. and married a Japanese girl and
got out of the Marine Corps and they settled down over there
and he's been teaching English classes to Japanese. He's learned
the Japanese language. Our first time over there, he
wanted me to speak to the Japanese class. Here are all these students
and they're learning some English, you know, and he said, Dad, I
want you to talk to them. Talk to them out of the Bible. Where do you begin with them?
With God. And I tried to use an illustration.
I said, here's your sensei, here's your teacher, David. I said, imagine him as a little
boy. I said, if he had fallen down
in a mud hole, hurt himself, and here I'm all cleaned up and
I've got a nice white suit on. I said, how can I embrace him,
my son whom I love? How can I embrace Him to myself
without being soiled, without being made filthy with His muddiness,
with the dirt that's on Him? And I explained to them what
I was saying. And they said, you can't do it. I said, here's
what I'm trying to say. God is immaculately holy, white,
purity. And I've fallen in the mud hole
of sin. Now, you tell me, how can a holy
God who is... He charges His angels with folly. The heavens aren't even pure
in His sight. You tell me how that holy God
can pick me up out of the mud hole, out of the cesspool of
sin, and embrace me unto Himself and not get my filth on Him.
You tell me how He can do that." That's a mystery. And one of
those students in this true, Nancy, one of those students
said, through Christ? I said, right. You've got it. You've got, through Christ, through
His blood redemption, God embraces foul sinners. He embraces us
because we made the righteousness of God in His Son. See, that's God revealing the
mystery. Has He revealed the mystery to
you? Huh? Revealed the mystery. And then
He talks about, boy, I've got to move on here. He talks about
the fact in verse 7, He says, I was made a minister. I didn't
volunteer for this. I didn't go to a revival meeting
and walk the aisle and volunteer for full-time Christian service.
He said, I was made a minister. It says of John there in John
chapter 1, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. That's the man you want to listen
to. The man that God made to be a minister. I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the
effectual working of His power. Watch this. Unto me. Now listen
to this. Listen to what a humble man he
was. I mean, he wasn't one whit. behind the very chief apostle.
This guy, he wrote, he was using the Spirit of God right over
one half of the New Testament. He preached to more people. He
preached in more places than anybody. Listen to him. You think he's arrogant? You
think he's a guy's head up in the clouds so high he doesn't
forget where he comes from and what he was by nature? Oh, no.
who am less than the least of all saints." You take the saint
who you might think in your esteem, he's the least. That's the least
saint. They can't speak. They can't sing. They can't play
an instrument. They're the least saint. They don't have anything to give.
They don't seem to have anything to contribute. Paul said, I'm
less than they are. I'm less than that. Another place,
he said, I'm the chief of sinners. He said, this is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom He didn't say, of whom I used
to be the chief. He said, I am chief. Why was this grace given to him?
That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches
of Christ. The unsearchable riches of His
person. Oh, the person of Christ. The
riches of who He is as God and man. The riches of His life. Of His obedience. The riches
of His righteousness. The riches of His substitutionary
death. The riches of His intercessory
work. The riches of His mediatorial
reign over all things for His glory and the good of His people.
The riches of Christ. Unsearchable riches. We keep digging, and the deeper
we dig in the mind of the gospel, the more we uncover the unsearchable
riches of Christ. You're never going to reach the
bottom. to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, this
God who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent, to
the purpose, that now under the principalities and powers and
heavenly places might be known by the church or through the
church. This is our assignment to let
folks know, to proclaim, the manifold wisdom of God, according
to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence. I
can draw near to God. You can, too, through Christ,
with boldness. You think about it. You've got
access to God. You can go in where angels can't
go. Go in and embrace the Father. hug up to his bosom. They can't
do that. They can't do that. And it's
by the faith of Christ, by the faith of Christ. Wherefore, he
said, I desire, I don't want you to faint at my tribulations
for you. I don't want you to faint because I'm in prison.
It's for your glory. It's just for your good. And now in verse 14, he begins
to wind it up. He says, Wherefore, for this
cause, And that's really the same three words he begins this
chapter with for this cause. It's almost like verse 1 down
through verse 13, he digresses just a little bit. He kind of
leaves the main point to talk about his ministry, and now he
goes right back to it. He picks up in verse 14. He says, for this cause, since
God chose you and predestinated you and redeemed you and called
you and regenerated you and reconciled you, I bow my knees unto the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I bow my knees in thanksgiving
for you, for what God has done for you, of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named. Some of that family of God is
in heaven. some of the family of God's own earth, but the whole
family is named for the Lord. We're the Lord's people. We're
all born of the same seed, the incorruptible seed. We're born
by the life of the same Father, born by the grace of the same
Lord, redeemed by the same blood. This is His prayer that He would
grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with might by His Spirit in the inner man. The inner man. Oh, I have people call me every
once in a while. Preacher, would you pray for
me? I've got cancer. We should pray about it. If anybody is sick, let him call
for the elders of the church. I'm not belittling that at all.
What I'm saying is this, what I'm trying to say is this, it's
not very often that people call and say, would you pray that
I'd be strengthened in the inner man. It's the outer man, it's going
back to the dust. Oh God, strengthen me inwardly
in grace, in Christ. Verse 17, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith. That ye, being rooted and grounded
in love, rooted and grounded in His love, His everlasting
love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the
love of Christ which passes knowledge that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. unto him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think." You can't even
think of anything too hard but what God can't do. When Sarah
laughed inside the tent when the Lord told Abraham he was
going to have a son, the Lord said, is there anything too hard
for the Lord? Huh? You've got children that's lost,
got no interest in the gospel. You reckon their hearts are so
hard that God can't break them? Huh? Anything too hard for the
Lord? According to the power that worketh
in us unto Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout
all ages, world without end. Let me read you just two or three
verses here. I've got to close this out on
this idea The Lord is able. What He's able to do. Let me
read some verses to you. Hebrews 7.25 says, Wherefore
He's able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
He's able. He's able to save. Titus 1 in
12, for the which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless,
he says, I am not ashamed, or this is 2 Timothy 1, 12, for
I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I have committed unto him. against that day. And listen to this in Hebrews
chapter 2 and verse 18, For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
You know what that means? He's able to help us with feeling. Paul says in Romans 4, verse
21, concerning Abraham being fully persuaded that what God
had promised, he was able to perform. And Jude says, now unto
him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
he is able. Paul said in Philippians 3, "...who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto
his glorious body, unto the working whereby he is able even to subdue
all things unto himself." He's able. Don't talk to me about
what God can't do. He's able. He's able. He's able
to even use the voice of a man. to bless people, like your radio
broadcast this morning. He's able. Chapter 1 is a declaration of
grace. Chapter 2 is the triumph of grace. Chapter 3 is a revelation of
grace. Bless the name of our God. Amen.