Well, good morning. My least
favorite day of all the year. We're losing hours of sleep.
Everybody looks pretty bright-eyed for losing hours of sleep. If
you would open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 2, that's
where we'll be studying from this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together. Our Father, How thankful we are
for this morning that you've given to us, the day that you've
appointed that we can meet together and worship you. And Father,
I pray that you would enable us to do that this morning, to
worship you. How I beg of you that you'd not
let us just go through the motions of religion and play at church,
but Father, that you'd speak to us through your word, that
you'd open our ears, that you'd lay open our hearts, and enable
us to hear and believe the things that you have prepared for us
today, to hear from your word, and that we might worship in
awe and wonder, bow at your feet and worship. That someone as
amazing, holy, reverend, high and lifted up as you are, would
do something so amazing for low-down, wretched, vile sinners such as
we are. How could we not worship you?
How could we not thank you? Father, bless us as we look into
your word, we pray. Bless our children's classes
right now that are going on. Father, how we thank you for
all these little ones that you've given to us. Father, I pray for
them. I pray you'd protect their minds
and their bodies from this world in which they are forced to grow
up. And Father, above all, that you'd
be pleased to be merciful to their souls, that you'd be pleased
to reveal Christ to them. Father, cause us to be faithful,
to teach Christ to them. We pray for their teachers at
this time and also for us, Father, that we might be faithful witnesses
of Christ to them and to all the loss that you might bring
our way. And Father, we dare not forget
to pray for those that you brought in the time of trouble and trial.
There's so many right now, many in deep waters with various sicknesses
and heartaches. There's so many. Father, we're
glad that none of these cases are too hard for thee. And that's
why we hold our loved ones, those from this congregation and other
places, that's why we hold them up to thee. Thou art able. Father,
we pray that your hand of healing, Comfort be upon them, that you
give them a special portion of your presence at this time of
difficulty that you've ordained for them. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior. Amen. While I've titled our lesson
this morning, Don't Forget, we're going to be reviewing some things
this morning, some things that we ought to remember. I want
us to remember where we were when God found us. I want us
to remember what we were when God found us, what we are by
nature. I also want us to remember this. If you're a believer, you are
where you are now only by God's grace, aren't you? That's the
three things I want us to get from the lesson this morning.
You know, if you know God now, The only reason that you know
Him is God's been pleased to reveal Himself to you. We didn't
figure Him out. God revealed Himself to us. If
you believe on Christ now, the only reason you believe Him is
because God's been pleased to give you faith in Christ. If
you know anything about any truth, anything whatsoever about God's
Word, the only reason you know it is God's been pleased to teach
it to you. That's right, isn't it? And remembering these basic
truths. I mean, it's good to know and
remember these basic truths. But more than just a head knowledge,
really knowing these basic truths, where we were when God found
us, what we were when God found us, and what God's been pleased
to do for us by His grace, you know, that'll keep us humble.
And that's the only right attitude that a sinner saved by grace
can have, a humble, thankful attitude. So number one, don't
forget what you were when God found you. Verse 11 of Ephesians
chapter two, Paul says, wherefore remember, now remember this,
that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called
uncircumcision, by that which is called the circumcision in
the flesh made by hands. Now Paul says, you remember this,
you were a Gentile. Now he means more there than
just not being a Jew. Every believer here is still
a Gentile in that way, that you're not Jewish. The word means pagan. And that's what Paul, he's not
talking about your nationality. The word means opinion. This
is where you were when God found you. You were an idolater. Even somebody raised right here
in the sound of the gospel. You didn't believe it, you were
an idolater. Wherever it is God found you, you were an idolater.
You were worshiping the God of your imagination. And you know,
worshiping the God that we make up in our dead mind leads people
to do bad things. We're so twisted. We make up
this God of our imagination. We say we're worshiping him,
and we convince ourselves that it's an honor for a family. It's
an honor for a young girl. She's young, so we know she's
a virgin. And we tell her, we convince
her, we convince her family, you know, it's an honor that
if we take you and kill you. But maybe we throw you off a
cliff. I saw that down in Mexico. They have what they call cenotes.
They're just bodies of water just pop up out of the earth,
you know, they're all over the place down there. And they're
all clear. They're blue or they're just
beautiful colors. Except for one. It had like algae
in it. I thought, that's weird. And
Cody said, you know why this is the only cenote you can find
that's got algae in it? This is what they think. They killed
so many children there, so many young girls there, threw them
off and drowned them down in that water that it plugged it
up. Because that land down there is all rock. It's kind of like
Swiss cheese. That water is clear because it's just flowing under
the ground. But this one place, Cody said, it's blocked up from
all the people that they killed. And those people thought it was
an honor. You sacrificed me. rain god or whatever, you know,
will send rain. That's shameful. Isn't that shameful?
That's our nature. We don't have any reason to look
down on those Mayans, those Aztecs. That's our nature too. Now that's
what we were when God found us. We're Gentiles, and you know
the Gentiles were uncircumcised. The Jews were circumcised. They
had that outward token. of God's covenant with Abraham.
And it was such an insult for a Jew, this is the worst insult
they could think of, to call a person uncircumcised. It was
the worst thing that they could think of. Remember when David
came down there and he saw Goliath defying the armies of God, his
brothers, and everybody else was afraid to go out and meet
Goliath, remember? And David said, who is this uncircumcised
Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?
And he's talking to Saul, telling Saul, King Saul, I'm going to
go down there. I'm going to take my little shepherd's
bag with some stones in it, my sling, I'm going to go kill that
fellow. And Saul said, these mighty warriors here, I'm not
so sure about this, David. David told the king, thy servant
slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine
shall be as one of them. Because he's defied the living
God. Calling Goliath uncircumcised, that was the worst insult David
could think of to call anybody. And that's what we are by nature.
Pagans, just idolaters. And if you're a believer now,
why are you? Why aren't you still an idolater?
It's because of God's grace, do you? It's the only reason. See, we have to depend solely
on God's grace to us. We have to depend solely on God's
grace to save us and God's grace to keep us. Because pagans like
us don't have any ability to do any good work that would please
God. We're not even trying to please
God. We're trying to please the God of our imagination, not the
true living God. So if we're gonna be saved, it's
got to be by grace, doesn't it? It's got to be. Now Paul here
talks about the circumcision and the uncircumcision. What
the Jews used those two words to mean was the impure and the
pure. Now, we're the circumcision.
We are the uncircumcision by nature. But what if? What if you were what they called
the circumcision? What if you were a natural born
Jew? That was your nationality, to be a Jewish person. Did that
make any better than the Gentiles? No, it didn't. Now let me make
a point here that that probably doesn't mean anything to anybody
here, because we're all Gentiles. There's not a difference between
Jew and Gentile anymore. So let me bring this right down
to where you and I live. What if you were raised knowing
the right doctrine? You could call yourself a circumcision
in that way. You knew the right doctrine.
You knew about God's covenant of grace. You knew the five points
of Calvinism. You even observed some of the
right ceremonies. the bread and the wine at the Lord's table,
the waters of baptism. You observe some of the right,
right ceremonies. You knew the right doctrines that didn't do any good either.
Did it do any good? Brother Henry said you better
off, but not better, not better. See, no one, the right doctrine
and knowing the right, uh, the ceremonies to go through. That's
the circumcision Paul says made by hands. It's an outward thing. It's a fleshly thing. It's just
an outward fleshly religion, and that doesn't do your soul
any good either. Just be very careful of this. I can't stress
the importance of knowing the right doctrine. It's just so
important. But don't make knowing right
doctrine an idol. Knowing right doctrine is not
what saves you. Now, we need to know right doctrine. We need
to know the right teaching of who Christ is. But knowing right
doctrine is not going to save you. No, Christ is what saves. Christ is who saves. And like
I said, the Jews, they use these words, uncircumcision, to mean
impure, and circumcision to mean pure. Well, we can only identify
ourselves as uncircumcision, can't we? We're impure by nature.
There isn't a speck of purity in us. And fleshly outward religion
can't cleanse our souls. It's fleshly. It's outward. It
can only deal with the flesh. It can't reach the heart. It
can't touch the heart. It can't touch the pollution
of sin that's in us. The only way that pollution can
be taken away and cleansed. There's just one way. It's the
blood. The blood of Christ. Our knowledge
of right doctrine won't do it. Observing the right ceremonies
won't do it. It's the blood. It's the blood. It's the blood.
It's the blood. It's the blood. It's the blood,
the blood that makes atonement for the soul. And if you do have
a pure nature, now, by nature, we're all impure. We're the uncircumcision,
aren't we? But what if you do have a pure
nature now? Huh? You don't still have anything
to brag about, do you? The only reason you have it is God gave
it to you. A supernatural power and work of God that he washed
you in the blood of his son, caused you to be born again with
a new nature, a pure nature. If you have that, the only reason
you have is God gave it to you. And it's a miracle of his power
and his grace. It's the only thing we ever had
to brag about is Christ did it. That's the only thing we had
to brag about. So that's what we were by nature. Don't forget
that. Don't forget what you were by
nature. Number two, don't forget where you were. where you were
when God found you. Verse 12, that at that time you
were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. Now, Paul reminds us this is
where we were when God found us. We were without Christ. I tell you, there cannot be a
worse place to be than without Christ. If we're without Christ,
we're without any life. We're without any hope. We're
without any sacrifice. If we're without Christ, we're
without a mediator. There's only one mediator between
God and man. Man, Christ, Jesus. If we're without Christ, we don't
have a mediator. If we're without Christ, we're without any wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, or redemption. Because all those
things are Christ. Not only are they in Christ,
God's made those things, Christ to be those things. So if we're
without Christ, we're damned. We're damned. If we're without
Christ, we cannot be saved. We cannot. If we're without Christ,
we don't have faith in Christ. And you can't have faith in somebody
you don't know. We don't have faith. And salvation comes by
grace through faith. If we're without Christ, We don't
love Christ. I mean, you can't love somebody
you don't know. And if you don't love Christ, you don't love his
people. And if you don't love his people, there's no outward
evidence that God saved you at all, that you know God at all,
because love is the mark of the disciple of Christ. By this,
shall all men know that you're my disciples, that you have love
one to another. Well, you can't have love one
to another if you don't love Christ, and you can't love him
if you don't know him. If we're without Christ, we don't know
the way to God. We don't know how to come to
God if we're without Christ. If we're without Christ, we're
without the way of life, without the way of peace, without the
way of grace, because we don't know Christ who is the way. And
if we're without Christ, we can't understand the Bible. This book is the word of life. I would say, in my childhood,
nearly every home in the United States of America had a Bible.
And I don't know if that's still true or not, but there's a whole
lot of them. A whole lot of them. This is the word of life. But
the Bible is a closed book to us. If we don't know Christ,
who's the subject of the whole book. This is interesting. Chris told me before the service,
when he was in false religion, that I'd make a Sunday school
teacher out of him and gave him a book and said, teach this. I wonder
why they didn't give you this. You know why? They don't know
what it means. They don't know what it says.
So we got to come up with our own thing, you know. It's a closed
book to us if we're without Christ. Because we don't know the subject
of the whole book. That's why I said, can you think
of a worse condition to be in? than without Christ. It's just,
it's misery. It's misery. Paul says you're
without Christ. He also says you're without God
in the world. Now this is where we were when
God found us. We're without Christ and without God. Now if we're
without Christ, we can't have any acceptance with the Father,
can we? Because you can only be accepted in the beloved, in
Christ. And you can't be accepted if
you don't know the way to God. If you don't know Christ, the
way to God. If you're without Christ, you have to be without
God. You have to be without the Father, don't you? Because the
Father and the Son, they're one. They're one. When God found us,
we're without any knowledge of who God is. Without any knowledge
of how God saves sinners. We're without any knowledge of
how God gives his people spiritual life. We had to be without salvation,
because salvation comes from knowing God, knowing the Father,
In Jesus Christ, it means sin. If you're without Christ and
without God, without any fear, without any reference, without
any worship of God, without true worship. Now, you might be religious
and you might be doing, you know, your Sunday morning, Sunday night,
Wednesday night, maybe a Thursday night or Friday night thing down
there at the church building. But now, that's not worship. It's just religion. And you know
what God said about that? He said, it's offensive to me.
It's a smoke in my nose. If we don't know Christ, if we're
without Christ and without God, we have no worship, never worship
God at all. So that's where we were when
God found us. We're without Christ, without
God. Paul says we were also aliens,
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Again, he's not talking
about just that little nation over there. He's talking about
spiritual Israel. We are aliens from the Commonwealth, the state
of spiritual Israel. We were undocumented, illegal
aliens. Had no right to be there. That's
what we were. We're in our flesh. We're in
our sins without faith in Christ, without love for Christ. We did
not belong in the congregation of God's people. We're aliens. who are shut out from the worship
of God, shut out from the fellowship of God. How can you have fellowship
with God if you're without Christ? How can you have communion with
the Father if you're without the Son? And just like those
Gentiles of old, you know, they could come into the outer court
of the temple, but boy, they couldn't go into that inner court.
They couldn't go in the door, you know. That's us, the illegal
aliens. We had no right to come to the
altar. Christ is our altar. We have
an altar, don't we? We had no right to come to the altar. We
had no right to claim the benefits of the sacrifice. We had no right
to the blood. We had no right to the priesthood.
Somebody who would represent us to God. Well, who's that priest?
It's Christ. Christ is the great high priest.
We had no right to any of those things. That's where we were
when God found us. Paul says we're aliens and we're
strangers. Strangers to the covenants of promise. Oh, God made plenty
of promises, but we couldn't rest in any of them. We had no
indication whatsoever that God had made any of those promises
to us. He made them to Israel. He made them to his people. He
made them to people who believe on him. See, all of God's promises,
where are they? They're in Christ, aren't they? They're in Christ. Well, if we're
without Christ, we can't say any of those promises belong
to us, can we? All of God's promises are made to people who God has
given faith in Christ. They believe Christ because God's
given them faith in Christ. Well, we're without Christ, we
don't believe him. So that we have absolutely no
reason to think any promise in this book, promise of grace,
promise of life, the promise of peace, we have no reason to
think any of those promises of God's grace are to us. Now, we
might have heard some good doctrine, Some true things. We might have
heard about God's covenant promises to his people, but we had no
right to apply any of those promises to us, because we're aliens.
We're strangers. The only promise of God we could
take to ourselves, there's one, one I could think of, is damnation
for our sin. Separation from God because of
our sin. That's the only promise of God I could think that we
could take to ourselves, think of, that we could take to ourselves
by nature. Without Christ, without God, we're aliens, we're strangers.
And I'm telling you, that left us hopeless. This is where we
were when God found us. We were without any hope. We
had no hope of eternal life because we didn't know God. Eternal life
is knowing God. I don't have any hope, hope of
eternal life. I don't have hope of anything
from God because I didn't know anything about God's grace, the
grace of God. I had no hope. And the only way
a sinner can have a good hope is how? By grace. It's by grace. I tell you this
often, this word hope means expectation. When God found us, now we did
have an expectation, didn't we? But it wasn't a good hope. It
wasn't a good expectation. It was an expectation of condemnation. It was an expectation of God's
wrath because of our sin. We are separated from God and
we did not have any hope of coming back to God, none whatsoever. That's where we were when God
found us. And the only thing that we could
expect, the only way we could expect this story to end is one
way, eternal separation from God. That's where we were when
God found us. And don't forget that, don't
forget that. All right, now here's the third
thing. Don't forget, if you're a believer, if you're an object
of God's grace, don't you forget how God has brought you to where
you are now. He brought you to Christ by His
grace. Why are you here now this morning
instead of off in Timbuktu somewhere? Why are you here now instead
of sitting under some false gospel? Why are you here now instead
of sacrificing your children to Baal? If I remember this right,
that idle bale had hands, you know, come out and they would
heat that thing up and put their infants in those hands to burn
that infant up. Why aren't you doing that? Huh? God's grace. God's grace. It's the only explanation. That's
what Paul says in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, you
who sometimes were far off, you're made nigh. You're brought to
the very presence of God. by the blood of Christ. See,
I know we remember where we were. We remember what we were when
God found us. But now, you who believe, you're in Christ Jesus. You used to be without Christ.
Now you're in Christ Jesus. And if you're in Christ, you
have absolutely every blessing God Almighty has for a sinner. Every single one of them, because
they're all in Christ. Remember that back in chapter
one of Ephesians, verse three? Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, not one missing, all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. That's where they're all in Christ.
He said, Paul says in verse four, this is a blessing you have.
You're holy. You're without blame. God, who
sees everything, says you're without blame. I can't find Him
blaming you if you're in Christ. He's made you holy without blame.
Here's a blessing, verse 5. He made you children of God.
Oh, to not be a child of wrath anymore? But to be a child of
God? That's a blessing of God's grace,
isn't it? He says in verse 6, if you're in Christ, you're redeemed. You're redeemed. from all of
your sin. You're redeemed from the price of your sin. You're
redeemed from the curse of sin. You're redeemed and your sins. Oh, there are many, aren't they?
They're forgiven. They're forgiven because Christ
shed his blood to put him away. Can you think of any blessing
greater than that? A blessing of God's grace. God
took your sin, took it away from you and put it on his son. The
only way God can forgive your sin is by punishing Christ, His
Son, as your substitute. Punishing Him in your place.
Oh my, that's a blessing. I mean, it's just... I mean,
we talk about redemption, we talk about the substitute, we
talk about the sacrifice of Christ every single service, I reckon.
I hope, though, that just because that's set before us, all the
time, that we don't ever take this for granted. This has become
something commonplace to us. Our sins are forgiven. Because
Christ sacrificed himself for those sins. Oh my. If you're
in Christ, you can't get any more blessed than you are. Hear this Sunday morning. That's
pretty easy to say. You were all here comfortable
in our Sunday best and pretty easy to say. How about when you're
all alone, it's dark at night, you got a, earlier that day you
got a diagnosis of cancer in your body. You found out earlier
that day, you're losing your job, the company, it's gone bankrupt
and they're closing. And the bank, where we had all
our money, it failed. And we can't even pay you for
this last week. And you think, how can I pay
my bills? How am I going to feed my family? What am I going to
do? I mean, the way looks dreary. It looks bad. The diagnosis is
bad, isn't it? Even then, this is something
to hang on to. You cannot get any more blessed
than you are right now. if you're in Christ. Even with
all this other stuff going on, you can't get any more blessed
than you are in Christ. Look over Colossians chapter
2. Here's why I say you can't get any more blessed. Because
if you're in Christ, you're complete. Complete. So you can't get any
more blessed, can you? Colossians 2 verse 9. For in him, in Christ, dwelt
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. and you are complete
in Him, which is the head of all principality and power, in
whom also you're circumcised with a circumcision made without
hands and putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision
of Christ. See, in Christ, you're complete. You can't get any better. You
cannot get any better. You've been born again. You've
been given a new heart. That's what Paul says here when
he talked about the circumcision made without hands. Now in false
religion, and that religion of the Jews, the ceremonies and
the laws and all those things, that was a circumcision made
with hands. Salvation is a circumcision of the heart made without hands,
made by God the Holy Spirit when he gives you a new heart. This
inward work of grace makes you complete. So you can't get any
more blessed than you are right now in Christ. If you're in Christ,
you're justified. You don't have any sin. It's
not like you don't have any sin. You don't have any sin. That
new man created of God has never sinned and will never sin. And
that's the way God sees you. Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that's where? In Christ Jesus. If you're in Christ, you can't
be condemned. Never. because Christ has already
been condemned for you. Romans 8, 1. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. If you're
in Christ, you have eternal life. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22. For as in Adam, all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. If you're in Christ, you
have eternal life. If you're in Christ, you cannot
be defeated. Can't be. By your sin or by anybody
else's sin. 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now thanks be to God, which always
causes us to triumph in Christ. You can't be defeated if you're
in Christ. If you're in Christ, you're a brand new creature. A brand new creation. A brand
new man, a brand new woman, a brand new nature, who's never been
here before. Born of God, the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5,
17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. Now, I remember what I was, but
all those old things are passed away. And behold, all things
are made new. It's a good thing that I'm a
new creature, that all those things are made new, Paul said
in Galatians 6 verse 15, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
avails anything nor uncircumcision. Nothing about the flesh matters
anything but a new creature. That's all that matters. A new
creature. That's the only thing that avails
anything for our souls and that's what God has made you. A new
creature. If you're in Christ Jesus. See, there's a big difference
being in Christ, isn't there? Big difference. Without Christ,
it's all bad news. Without Christ, everything is
a curse. But in Christ, everything's a blessing. You weren't far off. Remember, that's where we were
when God found us. We were far off from God and trying to get
further from God. The only reason we didn't get any further from
God is a good shepherd came, found us where we were, put us
on his shoulder and carried us home. That's the only reason.
You weren't far off, but not anymore. Now, Christ has made
you nigh. He's made you what you weren't
before. He's made you nigh. It's the
very same word we read in 2 Corinthians 5.21. He has made us righteous. Made. Made. He's made you what
you were not before. You were an alien. You were a
stranger. Now Christ has made you a citizen. And you know where you belong?
You belong before God's throne of grace. You belong there. That's
why you're accepted in the beloved. You belong there. You can come
before God's throne of grace, throne of mercy, his sovereign
throne, to find grace to help in time of need, anytime you
want. Because you belong there. God's
made you a citizen. You belong to spiritual history. You belong. You're a citizen
there now. Christ has come, he's translated
you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear
son. You got a new citizenship, so you have every right to claim
every covenant promise God's made to his people. You just
go through this book and find any promise of grace you want,
and it's yours. You can take that promise to
yourself if you're in Christ, because that's what God's made
you. I hope we don't forget that, don't you? God bless you.