Well, good morning. Good to see
everyone this morning. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Ephesians chapter three. Ephesians chapter three. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Father, we come before
you this morning, a grateful and a thankful people. How thankful
we are for the mercy that you have reserved for your people
in our Lord Jesus Christ. How thankful we are for your
mercy and your grace that would allow sinful men and women such
as we are to come before your very throne, crying Abba Father,
that you would be our father. Oh, how thankful we are. And
Father, I beg of you this morning that you would enable us by thy
spirit to worship you in spirit and in truth. Deliver us from
just plain church, going through an outward show of religion.
And Father, enable us to worship you from the heart. Enable your
word as it's preached to reach our hearts and enable us by it
to see our Lord Jesus Christ, see his glory, trust in and believe
in and rest in him. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, we especially pray for our children's classes at this
time that you would use this time to plant the seeds of faith
in their heart, to show them who and what they are. Father,
that in your time, in your eternal mercy and grace, that you would
cause them to run to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank you for
your mercy and your grace to this congregation for so many,
many, many, many years. And Father, we beg of you that
you not leave us alone now, that you would continue to call out
your sheep, feed and comfort and edify your sheep by the preaching
of your word. And Father, we pray a special
blessing for those that you brought into the valley of trouble and
trial and sickness. Father, we pray you'd be with
them. We pray that you'd use the doctors and nurses as instruments
to heal and touch their bodies. Father, all these things we ask
and we give thanks in that name which is above every name, the
name of Christ our Savior. It's for his sake and his glory
we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning
Boldness, Access, and Confidence. We just have two verses I want
to look at in our text, verse 11. according to the eternal
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now the
eternal purpose of God is the salvation of God's elect that
would be accomplished by the sacrifice, by the doing, the
righteousness, the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ who
would come in the flesh. It's the eternal purpose of God
that the Son of God be glorified because he, and he would be glorified
because of what he did, because he accomplished the salvation
of his people all by himself. He needed no help. His obedience
is all it takes to make his people righteous. His sacrifice for
the sin of his people is all that it takes to wash away their
sin, to redeem them completely and utterly. When Christ came
in the flesh, he completely fulfilled all of the Father's purpose of
redemption. So because of that, verse 12,
Here's the result of this for God's people. In whom we have
boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. Boldness,
access, and confidence. These are the three things that
God's people all have since Christ fulfilled the Father's purpose
of redemption for them. And that's what I want us to
look at this morning, these three blessings. The first one is boldness. And that word, the Greek word
means confidence. It means cheerful courage, and
it means freedom in speaking. So this boldness that God gives
his people, it's not a cocky arrogance. There's something
wrong with a person who claims to believe being saved by grace
that's cocky and arrogant. Something wrong with that, isn't
there? The boldness that we have in Christ is a humble confidence. It's confidence that's based
on who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he's accomplished
for his people And it's humbling. That humbles God's people to
think what God did for me. That Christ would do that for
me. That's humbling. And we have complete and utter
confidence in what he's done. And it's humbling to think that
God would do something like that for the likes of me. It's a cheerful
confidence. That's confidence in Christ.
Confidence, he's all it takes to save me. But it's a cheerful
confidence, how happy we are to be able to trust in Christ
as all of our salvation. See, the believer's boldness,
and here's where all three of these blessings come from. They're
all based on the faith of Christ Jesus, our Lord. You notice it
doesn't say faith in Christ. These things are accomplished
by the faith of Christ Jesus. They're accomplished by the faithfulness
of Christ to fulfill all His Father's will and to do everything
that it takes to save His people from their sin. And none of this
is based upon what we've done or what we haven't done. Let
me show you a few scriptures, Romans chapter three. All this is accomplished, it's
based upon the faith of Jesus Christ. Romans three and verse 21. But now the righteousness of
God without the law, without your obedience to the law is
manifested. Be witnessed by the law and the
prophets. Even this is the righteousness he's talking about. Even the
righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all upon all them that believe for there is no difference. The
righteousness of God's people has been accomplished by the
faith of Jesus Christ. It's been accomplished because
he was faithful to obey every jot and tittle of the law perfectly. See, you and I were made sinners
when Adam sinned. We were in Adam, so we did what
Adam did. Adam's race was all made sinners
by the disobedience of Adam. Well, God's elect are all made
righteous by the faith of Jesus Christ, by his faithfulness to
obey the law perfectly. And if you're in Christ, his
righteousness is your righteousness. God's not treating you like you're
righteous. You are righteous because you were in Christ when
he obeyed the law. That's the only way any son of
Adam can ever be made righteous. That's why Paul, when he was
writing to the church at Philippi, chapter three, verse nine wrote,
he says, my great desire is to be found in him. If I'm found
in Christ, He's made me righteous. I have a righteousness because
I obey the law in Him. He went on, not having my own
righteousness, which is of the law. This is not something I've
accomplished in the flesh, but that which is through the faith
of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ to establish righteousness
for His people. Now, I don't want to stand before
God in the rights of my own righteousness, my own doings, do you? I agree
with the apostle Paul. I want to be found in Christ. That's the only way that a sinner
can be made righteous. Righteousness comes by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ to obey the laws, the representative for his people.
All right, now look over Galatians chapter two, Galatians chapter two, In verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, by his works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. A justification comes by the
faith of Christ. Righteousness comes by the faith
of Christ. Justification comes by the faith of Christ. Justification
means being made without sin. Not like you don't have any sin.
God's not just pretending you don't have any sin. Being justified
means you have no sin. Now you and I cannot justify
ourselves by our works of the law, because all of our works
of the law are sin, aren't they? We can try to keep God's law
and obey God's law all we want, and every time we try to keep
it, all we do is break it. So all of our works of the law
just add to our sin debt. So God's elect are justified
by the faith of Christ, by the faithfulness of Christ to take
the sin of his people away from them and put it away forever
so that they have no sin. We're justified by the faithfulness
of Christ. and we receive that blessing
by faith in Christ. That's what Paul's saying here.
Now look over same chapter, Galatians 2 verse 20. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me. So our righteousness is based
on the faith of Christ. Our justification is all because
of the faith of Christ. And our life comes to us because
of the faith of Jesus Christ. Paul said, I was crucified, I
am crucified with Christ. When Christ was crucified, the
law demanded he suffer and die. He must die that cursed death
upon the tree. When he was crucified, I was
too. because I was in him. Just like
I was in him when he obeyed the law, I was in him when he suffered
and died. To satisfy the law's demand,
there's got to be death for sin. Well, since I've already died
to sin, since I've already died to the law's demand in Christ,
sin has no more damning power over me. Sin can never demand
that I die again, because I already died in the person of my substitute. So the I that lives, Paul said,
I live. Now, I was crucified with Christ.
I died in Christ, but I live. That I that lives is the new
man, born of God. It's Christ living in me. That's
what Paul says. The old man's not fixed up now.
And this thing of being given spiritual life, the old man's
not fixed up and kind of strengthened a little bit. So now he, you
know, he hasn't really been dead. He's just kind of been on life
support. And you know, God's revived him enough a little bit
that the flesh can believe on Christ and the flesh can live.
No, no, no, no. The old man's not fixed up. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh. It'll only ever be dead,
sinful, rotting flesh. The new man is a brand new creature
that's been born of God that lives in the hearts of God's
people. The believer has life by the faith of Christ, by his
faithfulness, to die the death that I deserve so I can live
the life that he earned. That's by his perfect obedience.
Our life is all based, spiritual life is based upon the faithfulness
of Christ. And our salvation has been accomplished. It's all been accomplished by
the faith of Christ to do everything that it took to save his people.
So our confidence that we have, this boldness that we have It's
not based upon the strength of our faith in Christ. Now, if
we're being honest, we may as well be. Our faith in Christ
wavers, doesn't it? Sometimes I'm trusting more completely,
more fully. Sometimes I'm resting more fully
than I do at other times. Our faith wavers. Well, thankfully,
our boldness is not based upon the strength of our faith. Our
boldness is based upon the faithfulness of Christ. that he'll continue
to do what he promised to do. He saved his people, and he'll
keep them saved. He saved his people, he's made
them holy, and he's made them accepted with the Father, and
they'll never be thrust out. That's our boldness, it's based
upon the faith of Christ. And the salvation that Christ
was faithful to accomplish. Remember, one of the meanings
of this word boldness is a cheerful courage. This gives a needy beggar
the cheerful courage to come to God and beg for mercy. It's
a cheerful confidence, a cheerful courage, because here's why we
know how we can be cheerful. We're accepted for Christ's sake,
not ours. If God would give me what I beg
for, based upon how well I've done, I'd have no confidence
and certainly no cheerfulness. But if it's based upon who Christ
is, and what Christ has accomplished, I have a cheerful confidence.
I'm an empty, needy beggar, just completely empty in myself. I have a cheerful confidence,
I can go beg God for everything that I need and everything that
he requires. The righteousness that Christ
was faithful to accomplish, it gives his people a cheerful courage
to come to God in prayer, to come to God in worship confident
I mean, as sinful as I've been all week leading up to our worship
service this morning, there's a cheerful confidence in coming
to worship God. Because he's not going to accept
our worship based upon my lack of sin. He accepts our worship. He hears our prayer because of
the faithfulness of Christ. For Christ's sake, let me show
you that Hebrews chapter four. I want to spend some time with
this on this this phrase, the faith of Christ is the key to
understanding the whole passage. Hebrews four verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly,
boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. And how can, how is it
possible a sinner can come before the throne of God boldly He's
talking here about a cheerful confidence. You need mercy, grace
to help in time of need. You have a place to come beg
for it. For God promised he'd give it to his people. It's not
because of who we are. It's because of the faithfulness
of Christ. See that? The faithfulness of Christ gives
us boldness to speak freely to the Father. One of the meanings
of this word bold, boldness is a freedom to speak. Before we begin this lesson,
we bow before our God in prayer. Now what right, what would ever
make sinful people like us think we can come before God and cry
out to Him what's on our heart? Put it into words and cry out
to Him. What reason would we ever think
He'd hear us? What reason would we ever think
that I have the right to come talk to God Almighty It's the faith of Christ. Look
at Hebrews chapter 10. This gives us the boldness to
come and speak to our heavenly father. Hebrews 10 verse 19. Having therefore
brethren boldness, this is the same word, boldness to enter
into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that
is to say, his flesh. See, we're coming in the person
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And having an eye preached over
the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. for he
is faithful that promised. See, here's how we can come to
the father and lay out our hearts before him. It's the boldness
to speak freely because of the faith of Christ and the confidence,
the boldness to, he's going to keep hearing, I can keep coming
to him and he'll keep hearing me. It's because of the faith
of Christ. He is faithful that promised. Because of the faith of Christ,
what he's accomplished for his people, it gives us boldness
in preaching. It gives us a freedom of speech
to, as we come before God, to cry out to him in prayer. And
it gives us a freedom of speech in preaching. It's the faithfulness of Christ
that gives us the boldness to preach Christ and only Christ. You've heard this story told
in different places so many times The pastor is just afraid to
only preach Christ because he knows people don't believe it.
He knows they won't have it. He's got to mix in some free
will. He's got to mix in some other
things in his preaching. He's got to mix in some other
things in his methods, you know, in order to keep people there.
If he only preaches Christ, if he only preaches grace, well,
people, you know, will leave. Why isn't he bold enough to just
preach Christ? The Lord just simply has not
been pleased to reveal to him the faith of Christ. The faithfulness
of Christ means Christ is all we need. And that gives us the
boldness to only preach him because I don't care who's here. All
we need to hear is Christ. He's who we need. Look at Acts
chapter four. It's having this confidence in
the faith of Christ that gives us the boldness to preach the
gospel without any compromise whatsoever. And it doesn't matter
what men think of us. Acts 4 verse 12. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. Now that was the sum of Peter's
message to them. Now when they saw the boldness
of Peter and John, they perceived that they were unlearned and
ignorant men, and they marveled, and they took knowledge of them
that they had been with Jesus. Now Peter and John could have
been killed here for saying what they said in verse 12, their
salvation and no other. It's Christ alone. Your obedience
to the law, you're observing all these ceremonies, does it
contribute to your salvation in the least? Matter of fact,
it harms it. If you're doing it to make God
happy with you, if you're doing it in order to be righteous,
they could be killed for preaching that message. What gave them
the boldness to keep preaching that message? Why did he preach
it anyway? Because this is what Peter and
John knew. The salvation of sinners can only be accomplished by the
faith of Christ. If we believe Him, we love Him,
and we have any care at all for people, we're gonna be bold to
preach that. We're gonna have the freedom
of speech to tell sinners freely, you don't have any hope but Christ. See, it's true faith in the faithfulness
of Christ He's all it takes to save me or anybody else. That
gives us boldness in preaching. We're not going to compromise.
It's preach Christ and Christ alone. Look at 2 Corinthians
3. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul
tells the church at Corinth. 2 Corinthians 3. In verse 12, seeing then that we have such
hope, we use great plainness of speech. And that word plainness
of speech, there's the same word translated boldness back in our
text. Seeing we have such a hope, a
hope in God's grace, a hope, a confident hope, an expectation
of eternal life because of the faith of Christ, because of his
faithfulness, to fully accomplish the salvation of his people.
That gives us great boldness, plainness of speech, to preach
Christ so that nobody can mistake what we're saying, that it's
Christ and Christ alone. All right, one more scripture,
1 John chapter four. As being because of the faith
of Christ, That gives us boldness in speech, doesn't it? To come
before God in prayer. It gives us boldness in speech
when we preach the gospel, to preach Christ and Christ alone.
And when this life is over and we stand before the judgment
seat of Christ, it's the faith of Christ that gives his people
boldness, a cheerful courage to stand unafraid before the
judgment seat of Christ. 1 John 4 verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as he is, so are we in this world. Now think about yourself. I won't even ask you if you've
been perfect, because I know everybody knows better than that.
I mean, even the most self-righteous person you know said, well, you
know, I'm not perfect, but can you even think of one good thing
that you've done? One holy, righteous thing that you've done that's
perfect so that God will accept it. Even one? Of course not. Then why would you say you can
have boldness in the day of judgment? In the boldness standing before
the judge of all the earth? Why could you have a cheerful
confidence in that? Well, Paul tells us, because
as he is, as Christ is, so are we in this world. Well, does Christ the Savior
have any reason to fear standing before God in judgment? Does
he have any reason to fear he ever would be judged and found
guilty? Does he have any reason to fear
that? Does he have any reason whatsoever to fear condemnation,
any? I know, no, he's the perfect
holy son of God. He was made sin for his people,
but he suffered and died to put that away. He rose from the dead
the third day to prove his blood put that sin away. Of course
he doesn't have any reason to fear being condemned. He will
never be found guilty again, never. Then neither do you if
you believe in him. because right now in this world,
while we sit here in these sinful bodies of flesh, as he is, so
right now, if you believe me, right now, that's a cheerful compliment,
isn't it? Cheerful, and it's because of the faithfulness of
Christ. That's our boldness. All right,
the second word is access. according to his eternal, or
in whom we have boldness and access with confidence. Now that
word access means to approach near, knowing that God will accept
us. Now the writer to the Hebrews,
remember we just read this a minute ago, said God's people can come
to God's throne of grace boldly. With this, you have access to
come to the very throne of God anytime you want, confident that
God will accept us in his holy presence. Now how is that possible? It's only by the faith of Christ. The faithfulness of Christ to
do everything that it took to please the father. The father
can never be pleased with what I've done. But I have access
to the father because he's pleased with what Christ has made me.
What I am in Christ. Now you think about this. If
you trust Christ and you come to the Father in Christ, because
of the faithfulness of Christ, He made you righteous, He made
you holy, He put your sin away, He's made you accepted. If the
only basis by which you would come to the Father is in Christ,
the Father welcomes you just like He welcomes His own darling
son. Now try to get a hold of that. you have access to the father
just as much as the son does. If the only way you come to him
is based upon the faith of Christ. Look back in Ephesians chapter
two. Ephesians two, verse 18. For through him, through Christ,
we both, Jew and Gentile, we both have access by one spirit
under the father. Now therefore, you're no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
that have the household of God. Christ has made it, so you're
a fellow citizen. You're a member of the house. Then you come knowing you'll
be accepted. You're accepted because of the
faith of Christ, what he's made you. Look back at Romans chapter
five. Verse one. Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. If God has
given you faith to trust Christ, that all your salvation, everything
you trust is the faithfulness of Christ, to do everything that
God requires of you, then you have access to the Father. Now
go to Him. Go to Him. Go to Him to hear
from Him. To hear from Him. Ask God, Lord
give the preacher a message from You to me. Let me hear from You. You have access to come ask the
Father, speak to me. Speak to my heart. And if you
trust Christ, now do you trust Him? that you have access to
the father, go to him. Go to him in prayer. And go to
him in worship. Go to him in prayer. The way
a loving son would go to his smiling father. Now you know,
this is the way a loving son comes to his father. You know, I don't care, my dad died a whole
lot younger than I wish he would have. But if he were still alive
even today, and I'd come to my dad. There's just a hierarchy here.
He's dad and I'm me. He loves me, I love him, but
now there's just a, there's a respect there. It's
just I wouldn't talk to him like I talk to another friend. I just
wouldn't do that. Come to the father as a loving
son or daughter. You come to him with reverence,
but come to him knowing you have access because you're a son,
because you're a daughter. Don't come to him like a disobedient
slave, afraid you're gonna see the frowning face of your master.
Come to the father as a son, as a daughter. I could never
imagine my daughters coming home that they wouldn't be met with
a smile. If we didn't know they were coming, whoa, we wouldn't
be, what are you doing here? They'd always be met with a smile.
Whether they brought grace or not, huh? They'd be met with
a smile. If you're a child of God, you have access to your
father. Now come to him. Come to him.
See, there's no fear. There's no fear for a child of
God because we're not approaching God on the basis of the law.
We approach God based upon the obedience of Christ, upon his
faithfulness to obey the law for us. We're approaching God
in grace, not law. That's what gives us this access
to come to him accepted. All right, the third word is
confidence. That word means trust and reliance. Now, the only way that we can
have any trust, anything to rely upon, is Christ our Savior. We
can't even trust our own bodies to our own care, do we? Somebody
else is gonna have to take care of that for us. You get sick,
you gotta go to a doctor. I mean, we can't even doctor
ourselves, you know? Well, we certainly can't trust our souls
to ourselves to what we can do. No, but we can trust Christ.
We can cast our soul and rely upon Him to save us from our
sins. We can rely upon Him to save
us, and we can rely upon Him to keep us. See, we can't trust
anything, anything other than Christ. Our reliance is based
totally upon the faith of Christ to do everything that the Father
requires. Paul, remember when he wrote
to the church at Philippi, he said, you think you got something
you can trust in the flesh? I promise you I'm more. I got
more than you do. I have more things I did that
men call those things righteous. And Paul said, they're nothing
but dung. They're nothing but manure. Now
Saul of Tarsus could not be saved by trusting in his words, I promise
you, you and I can. The only hope of righteousness,
the only hope of salvation, the only way that we can have any
true reliance on this is the faithfulness of Christ to save
us from our sins and give us life in him. And if all of our
hope of salvation is trusting in Christ, you have confidence,
boldness, and access. to come to the Father anytime
you want. Now that's a blessing, and it's
all based upon, it all stems from the faith of Jesus Christ. All right, I hope God will bless
that to your hearts.