Well, good morning, everyone. We'll give this just a couple
minutes here as people start jumping on here. Good to see everybody this morning,
or say, see everybody. I'm glad y'all could see me this
morning. Good to be with everybody this morning who's joining us
or will join us. I want to send out a happy Mother's
Day to my mother, Pam Knight, and wish her a happy Mother's
Day and to my grandmother. to my stepmom, my grandmother,
Ruth Tidwell, and my stepmom, Sarah Smith. And I just want
to wish them a happy Mother's Day, as well as my mother-in-law,
Jeannie Wilton, and just thankful. The Lord has given me all these
ladies in my life and appreciated their love and their care for
me over the years. And that's glad to be there. And I want to also wish my wife
a happy Mother's Day. She's the best mother any kid
could have. So happy Mother's Day to her as well. But it looks
like a few people starting to come on here and We'll go ahead and get started
this morning. This was a message actually that
I was planning on preaching last Sunday, but as I was kind of
praying and studying my message for the morning, the Lord just
really placed upon my heart something else. And so I spoke last week
on on the things that we talked about and about how we need sovereign
grace, why we preach sovereign grace, our need for sovereign
grace, and because of our inability as the natural man. And so we
looked at that last week, but this week is actually the message
that I prepared for last week, and I've been looking at it some
more this morning. And what a beautiful truth that
we find here in Scripture. Go ahead and turn with me, if
you would, to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter one, and this
is a passage of scripture. As I say a lot around our church,
this is a passage of scripture that is very common to our church. We preach and use the passages
in this first chapter quite a bit. And it's not because we're just
stuck on one thing, it's because there is so much depth of understanding
that you can find here in this first chapter. There is so much
theology here and we're so blessed to have been given this by the
Lord to have this record of God's work in salvation and God's work
among his people. in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
chapter one if you're there and I'm going to start reading in
verse one and there's a particular passage that I'm going to look
at, a particular phrase that I'm going to look at this morning,
but I'll go ahead and read starting in verse one so that we can have
the context here. So follow along with me if you
have your word of God and open it up and turn with me and follow
along as I read. It says, Paul, an apostle of
Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus
and to the fateful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace
from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us all, excuse me, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. 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, the glory of his
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, 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. 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 worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will, 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, and whom also after that ye believed ye were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. which is the earnest
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession
under the praise of His glory. And I'll just stop right there.
Of course, there's a lot of good that's after that as well, but
we'll just stop there. Here we see in the first chapter
of Ephesians and verse six will be where I take my text and what
I want to look at today. To the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for another day that you've given to us. Lord,
we thank you for this time to come together around your word.
Father, we are grateful to you who are sovereign over all things.
We thank you as the creator for giving us life and giving us
this world that we live in, for setting our habitation where
you have, Lord. We're thankful for this country
that you've given to us. And as evil and as wicked as
it has become, it's still, Father, a place that you have blessed
beyond measure above many other places. And we have received
from your hand, Lord, blessing upon blessing from this place.
Father, we just look to you and praise you and glorify you because
of your kindness and your goodness for your holiness. Lord, we thank
you for all that you are. We thank you for the way that
in wisdom, you and by providence you have governed this world
to accomplish the purposes of your glory and Lord we thank
you for the church and we thank you for our time that we have
together to fellowship and how you have brought us together
and Lord we just pray that in the days to come, Lord, that
you might strengthen our love and fellowship together, that
you might strengthen our faith, and that you might give us, Lord,
a hope that we have through the Lord Jesus Christ, that it too
might be strengthened. Lord, we pray that now, as we
gather around your words, you might open up the understanding
to us by your Holy Spirit. We need your Spirit, Father,
to give us understanding. Our natural minds do not receive
the things of the Spirit of God, but through the new man, through
the new creation, we have the Holy Spirit to lead us into all
truth and to teach us the things of God. And without that, Lord,
we know that we'll never understand, that we'll only understand these
through human understanding, through natural wisdom. So please,
Father, by your divine power give us understanding into these
spiritual things. May we rejoice in the fact that
we have been accepted of God. May we rejoice in the good news
that Christ has brought us and given us salvation and that we
have obtained it, not by any merit of our own, not by any
works of our own, but because of Christ Jesus. And so Father,
now I pray that you might speak to me and allow me to minister
and preach the word of God in truth. I pray that you'll speak
to all those that are listening and that you might edify them
for it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. I want to talk to you this morning
about being accepted in the Beloved. You've probably seen that in
the title there. Being accepted in the Beloved. Look with me at the verse there.
It says, to the praise of the glory of His grace, What is he
praising here? What is the grace that we are
talking about here? The Bible says, for by grace
are you saved. We talked about that last week
a little bit. For by grace are you saved. We
are saved by grace. What is grace? Grace is unmerited
favor. Grace is God bestowing upon one
who is unworthy the inheritance, the salvation, the acceptance,
the love, everything Matter of fact, our passage here in Ephesians
tells us the spiritual blessings. He has given us those things,
though we don't deserve them and that we're not worthy of
those. That's grace. Grace is something
that is done not to get anything back in return. God showed us
grace, not expecting us to give him anything back in return. Otherwise, that would be a wage,
right? God would be giving us something
to get something. My employer gives me a paycheck
in order to get me to do things for him to accomplish his business. And so there is a transaction
that takes place between us in where I work. And then I am given
wages, I am given payment for that. And that when he gives
me that check, he expects me to provide some sort of a return
for him. Now, while it is true that whenever
one is born again, we give praises to the Lord, we give service
to the Lord, and our love to the Lord, and those things we
give back to him, but in no way does he ever regard that as repayment
for what he has done. Matter of fact, anything that
we do to repay him will always come up short of being enough
for repayment. And so the Lord is not looking
for repayment. And so grace is something that
is freely given. Grace is something that is given
irregardless of the person being able, to accept it, being willing
to receive it. Grace is giving somebody something,
even though they have nothing to give in return. Grace is a
free gift that is given to another person. And in this case, it
is God showing mercy and favor upon some who could not ever
do anything for Him or to Him. The Lord has given us grace,
has shown us grace. We talked last week about our
total inability, about how we as the natural man are unable
to do all these things. We're unable to have faith. We're
unable to believe. We're unable to receive the Lord.
We're unable to trust upon Christ. We're unable to believe upon
Him. We're unable to come to Him, to drink and to eat of Him. We're unable to do the things
that God requires. We can't keep the law. Any law
keeping that we keep is tattered with sin, and it's not gonna
please God at all. Not to mention, the Bible says
that if it's gonna be according to that, according to the law,
then we have to keep every bit of it at all times. And we've
failed so often and we will continue to fail as long as we're in this
tent. And so... We have an inability to meet
the standard that God requires. We have an inability to hit the
mark. That's what the word sin means. It's an archery term. It means
that you've missed the mark. And we've missed the mark. We've
not just missed the bullseye, we've missed the whole entire target. We have missed the whole
entire mark. We've not just come falling a
little short and if we do just a little bit better. Now we've
missed it all together. And so we're in need. And that
need is something that we can't produce in ourselves. The Bible
says that we cannot become good who are evil. We who are sinners
cannot change the fact that we are sinners. We cannot just quit
sinning. The Bible says that the leper, he can't change his
spots. And that's true. We can't change
who we are. We can't bring ourselves up to
a place where we're able to do spiritual things. We're all dead
in trespasses and sins. And because we're dead in trespasses
and sins and void, of the Spirit of God and that divine life,
and I'm talking about before we're born again, because we
are void of that divine life, void of that spiritual nature
that gives us the ability to do spiritual things, then we're
without hope. We don't have any hope. unless
God in grace comes to us, brings to us that which is required. Is repentance required? Yeah,
God calls us to repentance. Is belief of the truth required? Yes, God calls us to believe,
not only upon the Lord Jesus Christ, but to believe the truth
about God and about Christ and about salvation. God calls us
to do that. Is love towards God something
that is demanded and commanded of God? Yes, it is. But because
of our sinful nature, we are enemies towards God. We are enmity
towards God, and we are children of wrath. We are wrathful towards
God. And so we hate the God of the
scripture. Now, we love that God, like we
talked about last week. We love that God that we've made
in our own mind, this ooey-gooey feeling God that we've made in
our own minds that is not the same as the God of the Bible.
Now, the God of the Bible is a God of love. And what a wonderful
love it is. Matter of fact, it is an unchangeable
love. But yet the God that is being
preached in today's society and in most churches today, is not
the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible that is
a God of love is also the God that hates. The God of the Bible
that loves is also the God of the Bible who has predestinated
all things that has taken place, including the sin and evil of
this world, that it might accomplish his purposes and that his son
might be glorified in the redeeming of a sinful people. And so God
is overall, watching overall, not just watching though, but
also governing overall things. And so the God of the Bible that
we are commanded to love, we can't love. We don't love this
God that we see in this Bible. We don't love Him. out of our own fallen, sinful
nature. The Bible says that we love Him
because He first loved us. He first showed His love towards
us. He set His love upon us and He
give us the new birth. He'd give us the new creation.
He'd give us that divine life and shed that love abroad in
our heart. He didn't shed that love abroad
in our heart at birth, first birth. We were, like I said,
enemies of God. And so we are given that love
in the new birth. That's a divine love. It's not
a human love. Human love cannot love that which
is divine. It will always find enmity with
that because it's always at odds with our sinful nature, with
our sinful flesh. And so we must have grace. Grace has to be given. And so
we see here, that the praise that is being given is grace,
but what specific grace is he given praise to? We'll look back,
if you would, in the passage, and I don't wanna harbor too
long on this, because I wanna speak mostly about our verse
here, but look back at the things that was given to us in grace. Number, verse two, grace be to
you. Okay, so he starts out saying
grace be to you and peace. So grace and peace comes from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath, past tense,
blessed us." Who is the us that he's talking about? Well, he's
not talking about the whole world. He's only talking about the elect
of God. Look back in verse 1. The epistle is written to the
church at Ephesus, the saints which are at Ephesus, and to
the faithful in Christ Jesus. So, not only was this letter
written to the specific church in Ephesus, but it was also intended
for all those faithful in Christ Jesus. And again, not to get
into a long, drawn-out discussion on this, But anybody who is in
Christ Jesus is the faithful in Christ Jesus. The term faithful
there, in Christ Jesus, we are considered faithful because of
His faithfulness. We have been imputed His righteousness. His law-keeping has been laid
to our account. so that the full measure of the
law has been kept by us in Christ Jesus. And so we are considered
fateful, even though in our flesh, we are unfaithful. God views
us as faithful because we have been justified in Christ Jesus. But look, he says, we've been
blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, but it's
in Christ. Those spiritual blessings was
given to us because of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. So
on the account of the Lord Jesus Christ and our being in Him,
God has given us all spiritual blessings. Now just think of
some of those, whatever you can think of right there. I mean,
love is a spiritual blessing. We know that being elected is
a spiritual blessing. We know that justification is
a spiritual blessing. We know that sanctification is
a spiritual blessing. We know that glorification is
a spiritual blessing. We know that redemption is a
spiritual blessing. Propitiation is a spiritual blessing. We know that that forgiveness of sin is a
spiritual blessing. And if you'll look here, and
if you're honest with the scriptures, if you're honest with the text,
and you put away your presuppositions and put away your traditions
of man, you'll see here that it is God who has given us this,
and it was no condition that we had to do for him to give
us this, because he gave us this in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, verse four, according, according, that word has meaning,
according as he hath chosen us in him. So these spiritual blessings
that are given to his elect, to the saints, to the faithful
in Christ Jesus, the spiritual blessings is given in heaven,
okay? So that's where it was bestowed,
is in heaven. That's where it was meted out.
That's where it was applied. That's where it was accredited,
was in heaven. And it was according to election,
according as He hath chosen us in Him. It's according to our
spiritual union with Christ Jesus that was in heaven. We had a
spiritual union with Christ Jesus in heaven before we were ever
born, before we were ever brought forth and manifested as sons
of God in the new birth. We had a spiritual union and
grace was given to us In that, grace was us being given to Christ. Jesus said, all that the Father
hath given me shall come to me. So we know that they were given.
We know in John 17, we'll get to that passage later. In John
17, Jesus teaches that we were given to Him in like multiple
places that the Father had given us to Him. That we were a gift
to Christ by the Father, and that we were given in Him We
were given to him and placed in him. Go back to Genesis and
we see the picture of that in Adam. Jesus is a type of Christ,
or excuse me, Adam is a type of Christ, and it says that he
had his wife was in him before she was ever brought forth and
manifested. She was in him. and was called
him, was part of him, even before she ever was brought out of him
and was manifested and shown to be his wife, Eve was in Adam
and was blessed. Matter of fact, just go ahead
and turn here, because I want you to see this, that it is a
spiritual principle that follows through all of scripture, that
this salvation is an eternal salvation and this salvation, the sovereign grace salvation
began before we ever were created. And so it doesn't have anything
to do with your repentance and faith and works and things like
that. It's given to us before we ever could have even done
that or even existed to do that. But back in Genesis, if you would, Genesis chapter one, verse 26, It said, and God says, let us
make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion. It says, let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth on the earth. And so God created man in his
own image. In the image of God created he
him, male and female, created he them. And God blessed them and said
unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue
it and have dominion over the fish and the sea and over the
fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth. And God said, behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face
of the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree
yielding seed to you, it shall be for meat. "'to every beast
of the earth, "'and to every fowl of the air, "'and to everything
that creepeth upon the earth, "'wherein there is life, "'I
have given every green herb for meat, "'and it was so. "'And
God saw everything that he made, "'and behold, it was very good,
"'and the evening and the morning was the sixth day.'" Okay, so
we see here that God created man, and he created he, man,
male and female, and it says, he created man, and he created
them male and female, and God blessed them. Now, if you'll
look over at chapter two and look at verse seven, it said,
and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life And man became a living
soul. Now, side note, that doesn't
say that he was given a spiritual life. He said he became a living
soul. He just, he became a living person.
And the Lord God planned it. Oh, I'm sorry. Go down to verse... 18 And the Lord God said, It is
not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for
him. And out of the ground the Lord
God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the serpent,
and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the
cattle, to the fowl of the air, and every beast of the But for
Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused
a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one
of his ribs, and closed up the flesh, and stood thereof. And
the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone
of my bones and now flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man
leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and
they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. And so we see here
that God had created man at the very beginning. And he created
them male and female. And before a woman was even taken
out of man, he had blessed them. And the Bible says that he called
their name Adam. He called their name Adam. He called their name Adam. That's a particular weird thing. God created man, but he created
man male and female, male with female inside of him, and he
called them Adam. Now, of course, we understand
Adam to be just that one man, right? But he called him Adam. I'm thinking about the spiritual
application of this again, brethren. we have the Lord Jesus Christ,
whom God had brought forth from eternity as the son of God, as
the man Jesus Christ. He brought him forth and in Christ
was his bride, was his wife. And in that, she has not yet
been brought forth or manifested, but yet was blessed in Christ
Jesus. And this is where the spiritual
connection, just like with Adam, they both were called Adam, even
though Eve was not yet brought forth out of Adam and manifested,
she was blessed because of her spiritual union in Adam, or because
of her union in Adam, she was blessed with all of Adam's blessings. We, are in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world spiritually, and we are blessed in all him,
and we are given his same name. Isn't that correct? And I said,
I'm gonna say, well, what are you talking about? Well, doesn't
the Bible say that we are his, that we, Jerusalem, we, the people
of God, that we are named the Lord our righteousness? Isn't
that Jesus's name? He is the Lord, our righteous.
That's his name, the Lord, our righteousness. Jehovah Sidcanu,
I believe is the term. I might be wrong on that. Some
of y'all might correct me, but it says the Lord, our righteousness,
but the scripture also says that's our name as well. We are named
with the same name as Christ. And so that shows us, and there's
more to this as well, brethren. I have a whole study that I do
on our eternal union with Christ, but that's for another day. But
anyway, we see that it is in Christ Jesus that we were blessed
in Christ, and we were unionized with Christ before the foundation
of the world in election. Look at that. If words have any
meaning, then they have this meaning. This is what this is
talking about. They have meaning. And if they
mean things, then we need to take them for what they mean.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. That means that we have been
blessed because of a union to and with in Christ Jesus, according
to election, according as he hath chosen us in him. When? When? Yes, it can be in heavenly
places, but some may say, well, yeah, yeah, I agree it's in heavenly
places because that's where God resides, but we're here on earth
and he gives us those blessings here on earth, but he sends them
from heaven. Doesn't the Bible say that? All
good things come down from the Father of Light. They come down
from the Father of Light. Well, brethren, yes, that is
true. All good things do come down from heaven, from the Father
of Light. But what does it say here? It
says here that we are blessed with spiritual blessings. Who
is blessed? The faithful in Christ Jesus. The saints are blessed
with spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. according
as he is. So that connection between being
in Christ Jesus and receiving the blessings given to Christ
Jesus is according to election. God's electing a people to receive
those things in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did that according
to the scriptures here before the foundation of the world.
He didn't do that in time. He didn't do that as things are
progressing. He didn't do that because you
made a choice. He didn't do that because you
came to Him and repented of your sin and followed after Him. He
didn't do that because of that. That happened because He blessed
you with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places. That's grace. Grace is providing and giving
something to you that you don't deserve or something that you
can't do for yourself. And we couldn't have done that
for ourselves. We couldn't have ever done that. And God graciously
give us a standing in Christ Jesus, being in Him, being blessed
with all spiritual blessings. justification, sanctification,
glorification, propitiation, redemption, righteousness, forgiveness
of sin, all these things Christ blessed us with and God gave
us in grace, free, it was free. It didn't have any conditions.
The only condition that was placed upon this was the condition of
being in Christ. And He put us in Christ according
to His choosing, according as He hath chosen us in Him. When? Before the foundation of
the world. Why? Because that takes it out
of the hands of you and me. it takes it out of our hands
where we can't receive any glory of it. If God has done this before
he even made anything, then we can't lay our hand to it and
say, well, it was because of us. Now, some of the Armenians
want to say it was that because God looked down the corridor
of time and saw what we were going to do. that God foresaw
our acts of choice and then blessed us accordingly. That's not what
this is saying right here at all. It says that we have been
given grace. Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings. Wouldn't the choice that you
make be a spiritual blessing? It absolutely is because no man
chooses God. The Bible says, you did not choose
me, but I chose you. Would your repentance be a spiritual
blessing? Absolutely. Repentance would
be a spiritual blessing. But the Bible says that it has
been granted unto you to repent. It has been granted unto you
to believe. The Bible says that repentance
is given to us. The Bible says that belief and
faith is granted to us, it's given to us as a gift, that it
is not of our own works, it is not of our own ability, it is
a gift of God. And so these spiritual blessings
are things that show up or manifest in one who is given life from
above. And that life that we had already
was in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, but
it is placed within that vessel In time, it is a new creation. It is a treasure that is hidden
in vessels of clay, and it is placed there by Christ in that
new birth. And that life already existed,
now not to us, but to God, it was there. Matter of fact, the
Bible says that our life, speaking of the Christian's life, the
child of grace's life, that eternal life that is gifted to us, the
Bible says that our life was hid in Christ with God. It was
hid, but now it's made manifest. It's made manifest to us. Again,
another passage that we go to all the time in Timothy. In Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter
one and verse nine, who has saved us and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace. Here again, it's speaking of
the grace, which was given us, this grace was given us. in Christ
Jesus before the world began. It was a gift given to us, the
elect, the people of God, the saints, the called of God, the
brethren, the beloved, all these terms that is given to us. It
is given to those whom the Lord has chosen according as he has
chosen in Ephesians chapter one, verse four. But here he says,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
but now is made manifest. This salvation, this grace, this
calling that God has made of a people for himself happened
before the world began, but it is now made manifest by the appearing
of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light." See, it was hidden.
It was in darkness where we couldn't see it. We didn't know that we
had it. We didn't have any spiritual
discernment to realize that. Matter of fact, isn't that what
we learned last week in our verses in 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians 2. It says, for what
man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man, which
is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the
spirit of God. Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. That's grace, right? Something
freely given to us. That's grace. And that was given
to us of God. It wasn't exchanged for us based
upon conditions. It was given to us freely by
God. And only those who are born of
the Spirit will see that and believe that and love that. If
you're not born of the Spirit, you're going to continue to think
that salvation is conditioned upon something that you have
to do, that you have to repent to get born again and to get
redeemed and to get forgiven, that you're going to have to
believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ before you can get all that.
Brethren, the good news is that you get all of that ability to
trust in Christ because you have been given that spiritual blessing
in heavenly places because grace was given to you in Christ Jesus
before the world began. But guess what? Whenever the
Lord comes and gives you a new heart, takes that heart of flesh
out of you and puts in, or excuse me, that heart of stone and takes
that out and puts in a heart of flesh, and He causes you to
walk in His statutes, that means He causes you to repent, believe,
trust, come, drink, eat, you know, all those things, He causes
you to do that, and that is a graciousness on His part, because you, on
your part, could never do that. That's why it's good news. That's
why the teaching of overcoming grace or sovereign grace or irresistible
grace is such a beautiful doctrine because the fact of Scripture
is no man ever would or could but God enabled so that we can. No man would ever have worshiped
God or believed on God or loved God, but God enabled us. God gave us that ability in the
new birth by giving us eternal life. Eternal life gives us that
ability to do those things which God requires. And so we see that
life and immortality is brought to light through the gospel. It isn't caused by the gospel,
it's brought to light. It was already there. You know,
if I turn this light out in my room where I'm at here, and it's
completely dark, and I'm sitting here, I'm here. But you don't
know it, you couldn't see it. But if I turn the light on, what
did the light do? It revealed something that was
already there. And that's what the gospel is. The gospel is revealing to us
what was already there. It's revealing to us that we,
the people of God, have always been loved of God, we were elected
of God from the foundation of the world and given to Christ
Jesus, and that He has stood in our place as our mediator
and our surety, that in the days to come whenever we would be
manifested and brought out just like Eve was, that Eve was blessed
because Adam was blessed. Why did God give a coat of covering
to Eve and to Adam? Because Eve was in Adam when
God blessed Adam. And so she received of the blessing
of God because she was in Adam when God blessed Adam. And so
we, because we are in Christ Jesus and have been given these
spiritual blessings, then we are recipients of that, but it's
not made manifest until He reveals those things to us. And so that's
why we preach the gospel. It's to reveal to those who the
Lord gives that spiritual life to, it's to reveal to them and
to tell them the good news of their salvation. As we've seen
in 1 Corinthians, that the Spirit of God, whenever it is placed
in there, it will give them the understanding that they've been
given to it, but not on conditions, but on freely given, which is
grace. That's what we're talking about.
To the praise of the glory of His grace. Why do we praise God
for His grace? and not his conditions that he
extended. I am so thankful that God gave
me the choice. No, we're not thankful that God
gave us the choice because if it was just choice, we would
never have chosen. No, we're thankful that God gave
me the grace so that I could choose. I'm thankful that God
gave me the grace so that I would trust him, that I would believe
him. Because if he didn't give me
that, than I never would have because my nature before the
new birth was one who could not, would not. And that's scripture,
all over scripture. Yes, there are scriptures all
over saying come and believe and receive and trust and talking
about faith and all those things, but brethren, we got to keep
those in line with the rest of scripture that teaches the inability
before the new birth and then what is given in the new birth,
after the new birth that is given to us. We are given some things
that are not able to be done apart from Christ's grace that
is given to us. But look, look at the passage
here. according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him
in love." So God, not only did He set His love upon us before
the foundation of the world, but the reason that He's doing
all this is so that we, wretched sinners, would be holy and without
blame before Him and that He could still love us even though
we are sinful people. The Bible says that God hates
all workers of iniquity, okay? You know, we have this phrase
in our human understanding that is passed down in tradition,
you know, that God loves, God hates sin but loves the sinner.
But yet the scriptures, it says God hates both. He hates the
sin and he hates the sinner. He hates the doer of iniquity,
the worker of iniquity. That's what the Bible says, that
God hates the workers of iniquity. But see, here's why God can love
his people, because that love is given on behalf of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who has made us accepted in the beloved. That's
what we want to talk about. See, God can love us and He doesn't
hate us. because iniquity has been dealt
with on our behalf. We have been blessed with spiritual
blessings to the place where he does not see our iniquity
anymore. The Bible says that he hath not
beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel.
The shout of a king is among them. The people of God, the
Lord does not see iniquity upon them, and so they are not judged
or looked upon as iniquitous people because of our surety
and substitute, Jesus Christ. That is one of the spiritual
blessings that we have been given, and that was given to us by grace. And so we see verse five, Ephesians
chapter one, verse five, for those just coming in. Brother Howard Jett, glad to
see you with us, brother. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children. Okay, so we were predestinated,
that means our destiny was set beforehand. Having predestinated
us, see our election, and are being chosen before the foundation
of the world, are being blessed with all spiritual blessings
according to election before the foundation of the world so
that we would be a people holy and without blame before Him
and in love by God, having predestinated us unto adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of our belief
of our faithfulness because of our conditional outworks that
we do to get it, right? No, that's not what he says.
According to the good pleasure of his will. God elected a people
for himself, give to Christ Jesus, blessed with all spiritual blessings
before the foundation of the world so that they would be holy
and without blame and love because it was the good pleasure of his
will. And so the adoption of children, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children, we were his children before the
foundation of the world. That's why I keep calling us
children of grace. I always use that term, a child
of grace. We are a child of grace. Grace was given before the foundation
of the world. It is manifested in time, but
it is given to us before the foundation of the world, as we
just seen here in our passage. And being adopted as children,
we are adopted as his children. We are not God, okay? Only Christ
is God. But we are his children. And
we are his children by adoption. And that adoption took place
before the foundation of the world. The Bible says, because
ye are sons, he has sent his spirit into us, whereby we cry
out, Abba, Father. The reason that we cry out, Father,
to him, recognize him as father. The reason that we cry out for
grace, for mercy, for help, for salvation is because we were
already his children and he has sent his spirit into us so that
we might know that what has been freely given to us to ask for. It's been given to us by our
father. That's what it says here, right?
Ephesians chapter one. Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us. The blessing,
the grace that's given to us that has brought blessing, that
has brought salvation, that has brought adoption, that has brought
election, that has brought the standing of holy and without
blame, the grace that has brought love to us. All these things
we're seeing in this passage is being brought here because
of the work of God the Father before the foundation of the
world. He hath loved us and set that love on us, and so He has
chosen us to be the recipients of that. But because of His justice,
there were some things that had to stay in place, because in
the discourse of time, in the manifestation of all things,
the people of God would be brought out of one lump of humanity that
is a fallen humanity, that has fallen into sin, that has fallen
into death, and is, as others, children of wrath. Okay? They
are children that hates God, that their nature will be not
of God. And He did that. He created us
that way, and He is planned it all before the foundation of
the world so that we, just like everybody else, would be shown
to be forth His glory and His grace in that while, yes, we
were enabled to meet the standard of God just like everybody else
was, but grace was given to us on behalf of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. And so because of that, we are
like children, you know, just like my children. When my children
do wrong, you know what I do? I love them. I love them. Even
though they've done wrong, I love them, and I love them on the
fact that they are my children. Well, we have been adopted as
children, and we are to God as his children on the account of
Jesus Christ, because of Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who have blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. And it all is connected
to being in Christ Jesus. And so whenever we come to our
text in verse six, to the praise of the glory of His grace, we
need to know what that's talking about. That grace is not grace
that's just bestowed upon us after we come and ask Him for
it. Okay, that's not what it's talking about. The whole reason
you're asking is because there already was grace given to you.
Okay? And I'm not talking about grace
at the cross. Yes, there is grace at the cross.
I'm talking about the grace that's in view here in the context of
this passage. Whenever we get down to our text,
wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, we need to know
the context of that. What is the context of being
accepted in the beloved? Is that something that happens
because we've asked for it? Is it something because we did
something spiritual for it? Is it because we started to go
into church? What is the reason that is that?
And here it says, to the praise of the glory of his grace. And
the reason I'm harboring on that is because of the word right
behind it. Where in? Wherein he hath made us accepted
in the Beloved. Wherein. It's wherein the grace. Okay, the reason that we're accepted
in the Beloved is because of the grace. And if we don't understand
how grace is given and bestowed, then we're not gonna understand
the rest of salvation, whether it's in eternity or time, we're
not gonna understand it rightly. The grace here. referring to
eternal grace, not time grace. It's talking about eternal grace.
Go back and look with me. Look at the preceding verses. Everything that is up till verse
6 still is nothing to do with what we do. It has nothing to
do with anything that's happening in time. It is everything that
is happening in the eternal time of God. It is happening before
the foundation of the world. I don't mean to get off into
some bunch of philosophy here and things like that. I know
people say, well, you know, we're in time. God is outside time.
He's not constrained with time. I agree with that. I, to some
degree, as much as I know, uh, I don't have exact scriptures
that tells us exact things like that. Other than the fact that
I know that God is eternal. And I know that to Him, the time
isn't like it is to us. A day with the Lord is a thousand.
And so I know that time is different to God and that we exist here
in this time frame. And we know beginning and end,
but God doesn't. And so I understand those things.
And I know some people will say, well, God exists outside of time.
And to him, everything is happening in the eternal now. So even though
we experienced it in sequences of time, God, he is experiencing
all everything at the same time. Okay. I, whether that's true
or not, I don't know. And I'm not going to try to say
that I do know, but I will say this. God has, um, God has described things for
us in the context of time. He has
recorded for us how things are in reference to time. We understand
things because we are a product of God in a time situation. And here he says that he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. So in some respects
of time, whether it's God's eternal now, or whether it's our back
then before the world began, the fact remains is that before
anything was made, before any man did anything, or could do
anything, God had already accomplished this. That's what God is conveying
to us with these terms of time, is that all of this was a decided
matter even before anything was ever manifested in time and happening
in time. Okay, so God has made it clear
to us that His choosing of us and blessing of us, His adoption
and His love for us. is according to His will. It's
not according to your will. It's not according to your choosing.
It's not according to your belief and repentance upon Him, or you're
turning your leaf over and becoming a better man or better woman.
Hey, I'm glad that people quit being drunks. I'm glad that people
quit being drug addicts. I'm glad that people quit being
adulterers and that there's reformation in their life. Hey, I'm glad
for that, but that's not believing the gospel. That's not being
given new life. That's reformation. There are
a lot of people who do not believe and trust on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who have quit cheating on their spouse, who have quit drinking
to excess, who have quit taking drugs, who have become very involved
in charitable and sociable activity. And all of that kind of stuff,
can be mimicked by the natural man. And so that is not our evidences. Yes, do we have changed lives? Whenever we become a child of
grace and are born from above, is there a change in us? Yes,
there is. We begin to desire the things of God. It is the
grace of God that leads us to repentance. God's grace, whenever
we see God's grace, it leads us to repent of our dead works. It causes us to come before Him
and want to love Him. Our love for God comes because
of His grace. And so we desire those things
and we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
yes, our lives become changed and we desire to be holy and
right before him. We desire to do good. We desire
to do right things and follow God. We desire to do those. But
brethren, that is not what gets us that. God doesn't give us
that because we've done that for him. And so here we see that
the grace in verse six, is referring back to everything that was given
to us in eternity. So grace is an eternal action
that God give to us before we ever were born, before we ever
was created in Adam. He has given it to us. And so
that's important because the being accepted and the beloved
is tied to that grace. It's tied to that grace. It's
not tied to the grace of conditions. Now, um, we, um, we oftentimes,
uh, uh, um, look at this and, and, and at least I'll be honest
with you. I look at this verse and I, at
first I thought he has made us accepted in the beloved. And
I thought, uh, you know, that's talking about being accepted
in the people of God. Um, Well, who is the beloved that
it's talking about here? It says, to the praise of the
glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. He hath made us accepted in the
beloved. Well, who is the beloved here?
Well, the first thing I will say is that it's not talking
about the elect, okay? This passage is not talking about
the elect, although God does love the elect. The beloved here
is not talking about the elect. Look if you would over at Ephesians
chapter two, And verse four, the word beloved is used of the
elect in several places in scripture. And I mean, matter of fact, whenever
I was studying this out and looking up the word beloved, there was
more places than I really wanted to read this morning. There was
so many of them, but I'm gonna read a few. Ephesians chapter
two and verse four, it says, but God who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us." So there we see
that God has a love for his people. Again, the context of who the
us are is back in chapter one, verse one, the saints or the
faithful in Christ Jesus. we see in John chapter 13. And
if you wanna turn with me, I'm gonna read these fast. Turn with
me fast. If not, write them down and go
back and look. John chapter 13, verse one. Now before the feast
of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that
he should depart out of this world under the Father, having
loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto
the end. And so we see that, again, we
see that God has a love for his people, Colossians again. And of course, if you look in
the context in John, in the whole, Gospel of John you'll see there's
a differentiation between those that God loved and those that
God didn't love He loved his sheep He loved those who were
of God The children of God not the children of the devil Those
who he had put into the world, but weren't weren't of the world
There was a delineation that was made there between them.
And so whenever we read that we know that he is talking about
the people of God and not just people in general. Look with
me, if you would, to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter
3. I wanna try to move fastly here.
I preached two and a half hours last week, and I wanna try to
keep it shorter this week. Colossians chapter three, verse
12. It said, put on therefore as
the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, longsuffering. So here again, We are called
the beloved and it's directly tied to the elect of God. The
elect of God are called beloved, okay? Second Peter, look if you would,
second epistle of Peter, chapter three. Peter writing to the people of
God. Matter of fact, it's the elect
of God, scattered throughout all the region. It says, this
second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you. And if you go
down through this third chapter, you'll see that the word beloved
is used, verse eight. But beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing. We see the word in verse 14. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in
peace without spot and blameless. Verse 17, ye therefore, beloved,
seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also be led away
with the air of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness.
So we see that the term beloved is given to the people of God. Look, if you would, at Romans
chapter 16. God calls us his beloved, but
we also call each other beloved, right? We call each other beloved. In Romans 16, as Paul is closing
out this letter to the Romans, just kind of reading down through
here, he says, I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, which
is a servant of the church, which is at Centuria, that you receive
her in the Lord as become a saint and that you assist her in whatsoever
business she have need of, For she is a sucker of many, and
of myself also. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my
helpers in Christ Jesus, who have for my life laid down their
own necks unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the
churches of the Gentiles. Likewise, greet the church that
is in their house. Salute my beloved. Ephinatus,
who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ, greet Mary, who
bestowed much labor on us, salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen
and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles,
who also were in Christ before me. Greet Amphilius, by the way,
that being in Christ before me doesn't mean in union with Christ
before him, it means that they were in the church before him.
Greet Amphilius, my beloved in the Lord. Salute Urbane, our
helper in Christ, and Stachius, my beloved. Okay, there's that
word again. Salute Amphilus, approved in
Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus's
household. Salute Herodian, my kinsman.
Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the
Lord. Salute Tryphania and Tryphosa,
who labor in the Lord. Salute the, here it is, beloved
Perseus, which labored much in the Lord. And on and on, there's
more in there, and I won't read it all. but you'll see we call
each other beloved. So the term beloved is a term
that is given to the elect, but back in our passage in Ephesians
chapter 1, that's not who is in view. The other thing I would say is
not in view in our passage here is the church. The elect is not
in view in the term beloved, even though we're called beloved,
and neither is the church. The church is not in view when
considered this term beloved. Look with me, if you would, at
1 Thessalonians chapter one and verse four. We see that this is a letter
that is written to the church in Thessalonica. And it says in verse four, knowing
brethren beloved your election of God. So here we see two things. Number one, he's talking to the
church at Thessalonica and that church is beloved of God by God. Okay. So does God love his elect? Yes. Does God love his church?
Yes. He loves both of them. And is
there a distinction between the two? Yes. And if you don't know
what I'm talking about, go to sermon audio or go back in all
my videos back to the nature of the church study that we began
way back when, about a year ago, and start listening to our sermons
on the church. But anyway, Knowing, brethren,
beloved, your election of God." So here we see not only election
is talked about, but also the fact that he is speaking to the
church at Thessalonica as being a loved church. Is that corroborated
with Scripture? Yes. 2 Thessalonians chapter
2. in verse 13, but we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you brethren. Who's he talking
to? The church again at Thessalonica.
Beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren,
stand fast and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether
by word or our epistle, Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and
God, even our Father, which hath loved us and have given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and
establish you in every good word and work. Okay? Side note is
God who establishes you in every good work, not your own ability
and also the words that you say. But what does it say here? It
says that the church at Thessalonica was beloved of the Lord, and
it was according as God has chosen. them as well. Now remember, we
are chosen and elected as individuals to Christ and become one people
or one body of, or excuse me, one family of people. But whenever
we are brought to the understanding of our salvation, we're commanded
to be baptized and we join ourselves to a local assembly That local
assembly is what is called the church. It is a called out gathered
assembly, which becomes the body of Christ gathered together. And so. The Lord loves the elect
individually, and he also has a special love for the gathered
assembly, the church, okay? So we know it doesn't talk about
the elect, it doesn't talk about church, even though those phrases
or that word is used. Who is the beloved in verse six? Brother Gabriel Gonzalez has
already pointed it out there. In the chat, if you've already
seen it, it is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the one. We have been made accepted in
Christ. Now, don't you think that should put
away all this foolish talk this human tradition of you have to
accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Don't you think we
ought to stop that? That's nonsense. It's foolishness.
It's unbiblical. You need to accept Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior. According to Ephesians chapter
one, the Lord and Savior is the one who made you accepted. See, it's God's acceptance of
us based upon the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and what He is to
us and for us. He is to us wisdom and sanctification
and righteousness. He is to us all those things.
And for us, He is everything that God required. He is holy
and He is just and He is righteous. He is the law keeper. He is everything
for us. He is everything to us. Everything
that we have need, that we lack in our nature, Jesus is. And
so our acceptance is not of Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but it
is, are we accepted, are we found to be accepted by God because
of Jesus? It is only because of Christ
that we are accepted of God. And that's what this passage
is talking about. That's why there is praise going
on. That's why Paul is telling these Ephesians, listen, there
is something to be praiseworthy of here. The thing that is to
be praiseworthy is not that you accepted Jesus Christ as your
Lord and Savior. And I've seen that in my past.
We clap and we pat people on their back and we stroll them
in front of the church and, you know, we... You know, I came
from a background where, you know, whenever you were saved,
man, they wrote out a little certificate for you and held
it up and, you know, your baptismal record and, you know, all this
stuff and made a big to-do about you being saved. And I'm not
saying that there's anything wrong with people being happy
and being glad that, you know, the Bible says that even the
angels of heaven are rejoiced over one lost sheep that repents
and comes to the Lord and repents of their dead works and is coming
back to Christ. for their salvation. So I'm not
saying that we shouldn't rejoice over those things, but we make
a big to-do that this man has accepted Jesus as his Lord and
Savior. That's not what's so praiseworthy,
brethren. It is what Christ has done, not
what you have done. Forget what we have done. What
we have done, if we've done anything, is only because of the outflow
of what He has already done for us and in us. The only thing that is praiseworthy
is what He is praiseworthy for. That's why you find me not talking
about what you have done. That's why you find me not congratulating
men on their choices and their acceptance and on their free
will and things like that, because that is, That is null and void. That is null and void. As I mentioned
on Facebook last night, some thoughts that I was thinking
and how the Lord has brought me to the place where I am today
and my understanding of things and everything. What has caused
me to differ from who I was? What has caused me to cease from
dead works? What has caused me to be different
than the child of wrath that I was born as? And it's only
Christ. Christ has made me to differ.
It hasn't been my choice. See, if that phrase means anything,
who hath made thee to differ? And of course, we know rhetorically
that speaking of Christ, Christ has made us to differ. But see,
if God does not give us the new birth until we believe, if it
takes our belief and repentance before God gives us the new birth,
then we've made ourselves to differ. See, God changed us because
we believed upon Him. God accepted us in Christ Jesus
because we believed upon Him. So we made ourselves to differ. But the Bible speaks that we
don't make ourselves to differ. We cannot make ourselves to differ.
Your repentance and faith does not make you differ, does not
make God give you anything. God has already given it to you.
As we've already seen, He give it to His people eternally and
then in time when it's manifested, it's given to you already after
the fact that you have been given grace in new birth. And so this
silliness, brethren, this silliness to continue to hold up a man's
work system of believing and receiving in order to get this
conditional system, this whole entire foolishness of defending
man's right defending man's ability, defending man's worthiness, defending
man's everything. The whole tenor of scripture
tells us that we are unprofitable servants. The whole tenor of
scripture tells us that we are sinners and that we are worth
nothing and inhabited, that he looked out across the world and
he saw that the inhabitants of the earth, that their heart was
continually evil all the time and that he regarded them as
nothing. That's what it is in view with God. And only by grace
are those that are given the blessings, the spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. It's only those that the Lord
has set his love upon. It's only those that are accepted
in the beloved. And what we should be rejoicing
about is the fact that we were accepted. Not that we accepted
God, that God accepted us. And we should be thanking Christ
because if it wasn't for his life and his death, we wouldn't
have been accepted. Whether we accept Him or not
is immaterial. Do we choose Him? We do come
to Him after He gives us the ability to see that, after He
gives us life. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the beloved. We're accepted in Him. He's the
one loved of God. And if we're to be loved, we
have to be in Him. Look with me, if you would, at
Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three, and I
wanna start reading in, Verse 13, it says, Then cometh
Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
And Jesus answered, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now,
For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered
him. And Jesus, when he was baptized,
went up straightway out of the water, and, lo, the heavens were
opened unto him. And he saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And, lo, a voice from
heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So here we hear God the Father.
speaking out of heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Jesus is the beloved who we are
made accepted in. Not the church, not the people
of God, not the elect of God. Although that we are brought
into those things, he's talking about we are made accepted in
the beloved. It's tied to our union with Christ
Jesus. Look, if you would, at Matthew
chapter 12. It says, that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying, behold, my servant,
whom I have chosen my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my spirit upon him and he shall show judgment to
the Gentiles. That is, that passage there is,
see that is, Isaiah 42, Isaiah chapter 42. It might be 43. Hang on just a second.
Let me look here. Bear with me, brother. I didn't
write it down. Yes, Isaiah 42. It says, behold
my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him
and shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not
cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flag shall he not
quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall
not fail, nor be discouraged, till he hath set judgment in
the earth, and the isle shall wait for his law. Thus saith
God the Lord. he that created the heavens and
stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and that which
cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto the people and upon
it, and spirit to them that walketh therein, I the Lord have called
thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep
thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of
the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. I am the Lord, that is my name,
and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise
to graven images. Behold, the former things are
come to pass, and newly things do I declare. Before they spring
forth, I tell you of them, singing to the Lord a new song and his
praise from the end of the earth. Ye that go down to the sea and
all that is therein, the isles and the inhabitants thereof,
let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice.
The villages that Kedar doth inhabit, let the inhabitants
of the rock sing. Let them shout from the top of
the mountains. Let them give glory. unto the
Lord, and declare his praise in the islands. The Lord shall
go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like
a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall
prevail against his enemies. I long time holding my peace. I have been still and refrained
myself. Now will I cry like a travailing
woman. I will destroy and devour at
once. I will make waste mountains and
hills and dry up all their herbs and I will make the rivers islands
and I will dry up the pools. And I will bring the blind by
the way that they knew not. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them. They shall be turned back. They
shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images. They
shall say to the molten images, ye are our gods. Hear ye deaf,
and look ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? Or deaf as my messenger that
I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the
Lord's servant? Seeing many things, but thou
observeth not. Opening the ears, but he heareth
not. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake.
He will magnify the law and make it honorable. But this is a people
robbed and spoiled. They are all of them snared in
holes, and they are hid in prison houses, and they are for a prey
and none delivereth. For a spoil and none saith restore. Who among you will give ear to
this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? who gave
Jacob for a spoil in Israel to the robbers. Did not the Lord,
he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his
ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath
poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle,
and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not, and it
burned him, yet he laid it not to heart. But now thus saith the Lord that
created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear
not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee, and thou walkest through the fire,
thou shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindleth upon
thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sebia for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not,
for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east, and gather thee from the west. I will say to the North,
give up, and the South, keep not back. Bring my sons from
afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Every one
that is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory. I have formed he, yea, I have
made him. Bring forth the blind people
that have eyes and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations
be gathered together and let the people be assembled who among
them can declare this and show us former things. Let them bring
forth their witnesses that they may be justified or let them
hear and say it is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith the
Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen, that ye may know and
believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there is no
God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the
Lord, and beside me there is no Savior, I have declared, and
have saved, and I have shown where there was no strange God
among you. Therefore, ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
that I am God. Yea, before the day was, I am
he, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. I will
work, and who shall let it? Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I have sent to Babylon and
have brought down all their nobles and their Chaldeans, whose cry
is in the ships. I am the Lord, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King. Thus saith the Lord, which maketh
a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters, which bringeth
forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power, they
shall lie down together, they shall not rise, They are extinct,
they are quenched as toad. Remember ye not the former things,
neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new
thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall
ye not know it? I will even make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field
shall honor me, the dragons and the owls, because I give waters
in the wilderness. and rivers in the desert to give
drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for
myself. They shall show forth my praise. But thou hast not called upon
me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast
not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither
hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused
thee to serve with an offering nor wearied thee with incense.
Thou hast brought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast
thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast
made me to serve with thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotted
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. And there's more that could go
on, but I wanted to read that whole long passage so that you
might see that our being accepted is in the beloved, and that beloved
is Jesus Christ. And listen, what the scripture
said about him, that he is the servant, who God loves and the
reason that he loves him is because of all the things that he did
for his people. He is the beloved. Well, brethren,
I'll continue this message, Lord willing, next week. We're kinda
getting kinda long here again, and I wanna cut that off. But
we've seen here that the praise, again, to recapitulate what we've
already talked about, is that we are accepted in the beloved,
and this acceptance in the beloved is due to the grace that's found
in the prior verses. the grace of being unionized
with Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, being
in Him before the foundation of the world. And so we see that
it is because of grace that we have been made accepted in the
Beloved, and this Beloved is the Lord Jesus Christ. himself. Now, Lord willing, next week
we're going to look at this a little bit further and we're going to
see why Jesus is the beloved. We're going to see what it means
to be accepted in Christ, Jesus, and what he has done in making
us accepted. And so we'll, Lord willing, finish
that up. next week. But thank you again
for watching and tuning in. For all those watching and listening,
we will be resuming our meeting at the meeting house next week,
May the 17th. We'll begin meeting back there
again. I think the time of being careful
about this COVID-19 is over with. You know, it's You know, we can't just continue
to not meet and continue on the way that we are. The Bible instructs
us that we are to meet and we ought to be doing that. And we
were trying to be respectful and to help so that the spread
of this virus wouldn't continue. And we did so at our own volition
to do so as a church, not because the government made us. I kind
of like my friend that I was speaking to the other day. If
this was a totally different situation, we wouldn't have quit
meeting at all. If it was just the government
telling us, no, you can't meet, we'd still meet. But the fact
that it involved a pandemic, that there was a possibility
of a spread of a highly contagious virus, we wanted to help. We wanted to be part of making
sure that that wasn't being spread, and we did so. But as we look
at things now, we see, especially in our area, there doesn't really
seem to be much of that around here. And long as we continue
to take our precautions with each other when we meet, I believe
that all that will be just fine and that we should get back to
what God has called us to do, and that is together with the
people of God. That's his command. A lot of Christians, They talk
a lot about the Great Commission. Oh, I'm all about the Great Commission. The Great Commission had three
parts to it, remember? It was make disciples, and it
was baptize those who are made disciples, and then it was to
meet and continue in the doctrine
and to learn and be taught all things whatsoever Jesus had commanded.
And they were commanded to be baptized and they were added
to the church and where they were given instruction. And so
the Bible says that we're not to forsake the assembling of
ourselves together. And so we need to be very mindful
of that. And while if we decide as a church
that we're not gonna meet for a specific amount of time, that's
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together because
the church has decided amongst itself to do that for an amount
of time. But now, there doesn't really
seem to be much of a need for us to worry about that anymore.
Of course, I never worried about it to begin with. God's sovereign
over COVID-19. The Bible says that it's appointed
unto man who wants to die, and after that, the judgment. My
days are numbered. My habitation is set by God. If I'm going to die of COVID-19,
it's because God chose me to be taken out by COVID-19. And so whether I stay in my house
or whether I don't, something is going to you know, take place
just as God has ordained for it to do. And so I trust Him
in those matters. And I don't think we ought to
tempt God and go out and start, you know, licking people's hands
and face and, you know, go out and, you know, eat after people. you know, saying, if God's gonna
kill me, he's gonna kill me. I'm not talking about that. I'm
talking about being prudent, but also trusting the Lord and
knowing that, you know, do what is in prudence and wisdom, but
knowing also that the Lord is in control. And he has also promised
safety and watch care over his people, especially as they meet
and gather. The Bible says that he is with
us whenever we meet and gather. And so we have those promises.
So because of all that, we are going to be meeting again, even
though there's still a somewhat of a restriction on meetings
and big gatherings and things like that. Our church is going
to go ahead and start meeting together again. And if you're
watching and listening, you're welcome to join our meeting.
We're at 1218 East 32nd Street in Joplin, Missouri. You can
reach us either through, you can reach me through any of our
website, Facebook site, my Facebook site. You can reach me. Our church number is 918-622-8276. You can reach that or you can
reach me on my personal cell phone, which I'm not gonna give
out over the air, but you can contact me and I'll give you
that number. But anyway, we are gonna be meeting and gathering
together and so, Looking forward to being back with the brethren
next week and get back to Yeah, my number is at Maria calm
brother If you don't know what that is
click on his link anyway We are going to be meeting next week
and I'm looking forward to meeting with the brethren again and getting
back to preaching the way I'm used to preaching. Although I
have enjoyed this sitting here in my easy chair in my bedroom
and discussing things and no pretense and things like that.
But anyway, It'll be great to be back together
again and Lord willing. Please continue to remember our
sister Louetta Carlson. She still is doing rehab for
not only her broken hip that had surgery, but also the stroke
that she had the week following her surgery. And so she's working
both with the motor skills of the stroke and also with her
walking. So please continue to remember
her. Also remember my Aunt Jay Blythe. She also had some surgery just
not too long ago and has been dealing with some health problems.
And then my Aunt Judy Tanqueray. Remember her if you would, as
she has been going through some stressful times of anxiety and
different things in her life. Please keep her in your prayers
if you don't mind. And then continue to pray for
the Lord's churches as we begin to meet again. And then also
continue to pray for this whole COVID thing. But that's it, brother. I think
that's all I have to say for today. If I keep on going, I'll
just keep on going. So the Lord bless you and may
Christ be glorified in all that we do and say.