When my heart groweth drear,
when my sin I remember, cause thy face to shine through the
dark, By Thy grace, hear my call, for
Thou art holy and I am not. Save my soul, precious Lord,
give me Christ. Precious Lord, by Thy hand, in
Thy righteousness I stand. Thou art holy, Thou art truth,
Thou art just. As my substitute I trust, dying
only for those you love. Save my soul, precious Lord,
give me Christ. Cause me to forsake my works,
trusting only in thy blood. May I be found in thy sight. Guide my heart, steer my mind,
cause me leave this world behind. Save my soul, precious Lord,
give me Christ. Precious Lord, by Thy hand, in
Thy righteousness I stand. Thou art holy, Thou art truth,
Thou art just. As my substitute I trust, dying
only for those you love. Save my soul, precious Lord,
give me Christ. Save my soul, precious Lord,
give me Christ. Aren't you thankful for the grace
to be able to enter into that? The word saved my soul. Give me Christ. Will you open your Bibles with me?
Thank you, Caleb. To Ephesians chapter four. I
like the words you came up with a lot better than the original
ones. And it fits well with what I
want to try to say this morning from this passage of scripture. I've titled this message, Shut
Up to One. And I hope the Lord will shut
us up to Christ, who is that one? You remember when Martha
was complaining because Mary wouldn't help her in the kitchen
and she came to the Lord and said, Lord, tell Mary to help
me. And our Lord said, oh, Martha,
you're troubled and encumbered with many things. But Mary, she's
chosen that one thing needful, the one thing needful. And that
shall not be taken away from her. The Lord gives us the one
thing we will come to believe that It's really the only thing
that's needful. The only thing that's needful. The gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in the glorious person and accomplished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ is simple enough. It's simple enough for
a child to understand it. And it's profound enough so that
all of eternity will not be sufficient to plumb its depths. But here's
what I believe we've been charged with. Not to try to plumb the
depths of its profundity, but rather to preach it in its simplicity. Because in fact, the depths of the gospel can
only be experienced. can only be experienced. They
can't be described. They can't be preached. They
can only be had and known by personal experience, and you
can't tell anybody about it. Other believers can enter into
it with you to some degree, but The depths of the gospel is the
love of Christ spread abroad in our hearts. It's the peace
and the joy and the comfort. It's all those fruits of the
Holy Spirit that keep us rejoicing in Christ Jesus. And so I've
not been charged to preach the depths of the gospel. I've been
charged to preach the simplicity of the gospel. a simple-minded
man preaching to simple-minded men. And the proud are offended
by these statements because they think that they can understand
and dissect and describe the depths of the gospel. They cannot.
They cannot. All we can do The secret things
belong to the Lord, our God. Those things that have been revealed
belong to us and to our children. And our charge is to keep it
simple. Keep it simple. The more I preach,
the more desire I have for the simplicity of the gospel. And you'll notice in our text,
in Ephesians chapter four, at verse four, there is one body
and one spirit. Even as you are called in one
hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God,
and Father of us all, who is above all, and through all, and
in you all. How can we escape the emphasis
that the Lord is giving us on the number one? Shut up to one. Men pride themselves in making
statements like this. I like to consider all the options
and listen to all the opinions and viewpoints so that I can
weigh the accuracy of them and the benefits of them for myself
and come to my own conclusions. Now that sort of thought might
work well in politics, or it might work well in choosing a
meal from a restaurant menu. But when it comes to the salvation
of your soul, when it comes to the truth, that which matters, that only
hope that you have to be made right with God. Do you want choices? Do you want options? Do you want
opinions? Do you want to weigh and consider
all the different viewpoints and come to your own conclusion?
One of the evidences that you have found grace in the eyes
of the Lord is that you don't want any options. You rejoice in being shut up
to one. You don't wanna be given any
choices. And you're not interested in
other men's opinions. You love the simplicity of the
gospel. You love the oneness of the gospel. And you say, you know, don't
confuse me. with anything else. David said
in Psalm 27 verse four, one thing have I desired of the Lord and
that I will seek after that I might dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life and behold the beauty of the Lord. That's the one thing. I just want to know him. I just want to know Christ. Don't
confuse me with what might sound profound to the ear of the flesh. Don't confuse me with anything
else. Paul said, and we were talking
about this during the break, Tom and I were, about how brilliant
the Apostle Paul must have been when it comes to natural intelligence
and how well educated he was. We have the Apostle Paul in the
New Testament, we have Moses in the Old Testament, and yet
he said, all those things that I counted for gain, I now count
but loss. for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord, and I determined not to know anything
among you save Christ and him crucified." The pseudo intellectuals don't
like this kind of preaching. It robs them of their glory.
They love to think that they've bathed themselves in the depths
of knowledge that no one else has. Don't leave me any choices, Lord.
Shut me up to one absolute truth. The gospel is offensive to the
pride of man because it leaves him no options no opinions, no
exceptions, no exemptions. It leaves him at the point to
where all he can say to what God says is, Amen. Amen. So be it. How thankful I am. or the simplicity
and the oneness of the gospel. You see, the freewill gospel
allows men to reserve their dignity and their pride because it gives
them a choice. They can decide one way or the
other. Those who have found grace in
the eyes of the Lord don't even want that choice. Lord, don't
give me a choice. Don't give me a choice to accept
or reject the gospel. Make me to believe. Turn me,
Lord, and I shall be turned. Invade me with your grace. Stop me on my Damascus road of
self-destruction. Knock me off my high horse. Shine
a light from heaven, Lord, and give me Christ. No one likes to be told it's
my way or the highway. No one likes that. You don't
like that when it comes to other men, do you? But that's exactly
what you wanna be told when it comes to God speaking to you. Lord, don't give me any options. You said there's one. You see,
if there's just one, then coming to Christ is not a choice. Choice
implies two or more options, does it not? But if there's just
one, then you don't have a choice. Don't I have something to say
about it? No. No, you don't. Did our Lord not say, I am the
way? I am the truth. I am the life. No man cometh
to the father, but by me. One. There are not many ways,
but one way. And God's people say, amen. I
love it. I love it. I don't want any choices. I don't want any options. I don't
want any exemptions, exemptions or exceptions. I rejoice in God
shutting me up to one. And let me show you what else that'll
do. Look at, go back with me to our text. Not only is believing
God's one, the only way to be saved, but here's the other benefits
of it. Look at verse one of Ephesians
chapter four. I therefore the prisoner of the
Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherein
you're called. If there's any hope of me walking
worthy of this vocation, Don't you, don't you? The Lord's not
talking about preachers having a vocation. He's talking about
every one of God's people. This is your vocation. Walking
in Christ is your vocation. Now, everybody here does something
a little different to make money to get by in this world, but
that's not your vocation. That's just your job that you
do on the side. Your vocation is walking worthy
of the gospel. With all lowliness and meekness,
with all long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. Forbearing one another,
putting up with each other, and just loving each other. See, this is what the oneness
of the gospel does for God's people. endeavoring to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is what the oneness
of the gospel does in his church. We don't have a variety of opinions
about the truth of the gospel. We may differ on other things,
but not on the gospel. And then he begins with, for
there is one body, One body. This is offensive to the natural
man because the natural man thinks, well, you know, there's truth
in every religion. And every church has a little
bit of truth. God says there's one body. Just like your head only has
one body. You don't have two bodies attached
to your head. And when the Lord likens his
church in the book of Corinthians, he speaks of his church as the
body, as his body, the body of Christ. And some are an eye and
some are an ear and some are foot, some are hand, but no one
member of the body says to another member of the body, I don't need
you. Had a man working at my house yesterday and he injured
his finger and you know, we just, everything stopped. brought him
in the house, cleaned it up. I mean, all attention went to
that one injured finger. Perfectly healthy in every other
way. And yet he had one cut on one finger had to be attended
to. And that that's, there's one body, one body. Turn to me to Ephesians, turn
back just a page or so to Ephesians chapter two. Look with me at verse 14. Now
this is particularly significant. I mean, we think about the cultural
differences, even the language differences and the other differences
that we have in our congregation. But I want you to think with
me about that early first century church made up of Jews and Gentiles. You know, all prejudice is bad.
And thankfully, we're growing more and more as a culture to
not being as prejudiced as we used to be even when I was a
child. And that's a good thing. But the Jews and the Gentiles
hated each other, and they made no apology about it. They both
called each other dogs and they wouldn't even be in the same.
The apostles didn't even want to travel through Samaria. They
were willing to go 50 miles out of the way to avoid going through
Sychar, to be even near the Samaritans. And they were half Jews. And the Gentiles were hated more
than that. They didn't try to hide their
prejudice. They vehemently hated one another. They fought one
another to be dogs. And yet God saved Gentiles and
Jews and put them in the same church together. Put them in the same church.
Look at Ephesians chapter two, verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus,
who were sometimes, ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh
by the blood of Christ. Talking about those Gentiles,
those who were estranged from the Commonwealth of Israel that
he spoke of in the previous verse, that the middle wall of partition
between the Jews and the Gentiles had been taken down. Now they
have one body, one community, one common bond in Christ. Verse 14, but he is our peace
who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity,
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for
to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. This is the one body. It's the
body of Christ united together under one head. Don't you love
it? Colossians chapter three, verse
15 says, let the peace of God rule in your heart to the which
also you are called in one body and be you thankful. Be you thankful. Now you have a hard enough time
with one body that you're responsible for, don't you? And your parents
have other bodies, but they've got their own body too. How would
you like to be? No, one body, one body. Isaiah chapter 53, verse eight,
speaking of the watchman of God, the preachers, the pastors, the
prophets of God, The scripture says, and they shall all see
eye to eye. They're all in perfect agreement
with one another. So we have brethren visiting
us from other churches and we visit other churches and we're
in lockstep conformity. Not to a man, not to a natural,
not to a church or a preacher, but to the man, the God man. And we rejoice in being in lockstep
conformity to him. One body. And while I'm dealing
with this, let's, why do we meet together? Why do you come here? I've heard people say when they
miss services, well, you know, I really missed the fellowship,
but I watched the message. No, you missed a whole lot more
than the fellowship. This is the one place in all
the world where God Almighty has promised to show forth His
grace and His glory. The only place, you're not gonna
get it anywhere else. And if God's made you to be a
sinner, the one thing you need more than anything else is grace.
And the one thing you long for more than anything else is His
glory. That's why we're here. That's
why we're here, that the Lord would fulfill His promise in
attending this service and in the songs and in the scripture
reading and in the prayers and in the preaching that He would
manifest to us His grace and His glory in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is it. I've had people say, well, you
know, I come to to learn the scriptures or to hear the word.
And I'm thinking there's a whole lot better teachers than I am.
If that's what you want, if that's what you need, you can read a
whole lot of books and listen to a whole lot of men that are
more eloquent than me and more intelligent than me to give you
an education if that's what you're coming for. No, I've got to have
Christ. You just sang about it, Caleb.
And this is where he's promised. This is the place where he's
promised the gathering together of his people. The word church
means called out to a gathering. This is the one body. Amen. One
body. And I wouldn't have said this
individual congregation is the only one body in the world. We're
saying that there's one body that Christ has and they meet.
in assemblies all over this world, but just one. And they're all
in agreement over the simplicity of the gospel. Look back with me to our text
in chapter four. There's one spirit. There's one spirit. Now the Lord
tells us in 1 John 4, verse one, try the spirits to see whether
they'd be of God. There's a lot of false spirits
that masquerade, the scripture says, as ministers of righteousness
and as angels of light. In other words, they declare
themselves to be sent of God and to be God's messengers. And
yet it's another spirit. Just like alcohol, those spirits
will intoxicate you to lose sight of the truth of God. Turn with me to that passage,
1 John chapter 4. The Lord warns us in the latter
days, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. There's
a whole lot of spirits out there that will seduce you. And they
will, how do I know that they're bringing a doctrine of the devil?
Because they're leading me away from the simplicity of Christ.
They're trying to get me to delve into something that does nothing
but feed my flesh and boost my ego and make me to think that
I'm more intelligent than I am. When the gospel is reduced to
one, one, there's one body, there is one spirit. This is an offense
to the pride of man. And what some of us came out
of was on the top of the pile of pride as far as what I'm talking
about right now. And I call it pseudo-intellectualism
because it's not intellectualism, it's pretend intellectualism.
It's men boasting and thinking that they know something that
they don't know and talking about things and competing with one
another over their knowledge. And there's so much pride, so
much pride. God says, except you become as
a little child, a little child of knowing, Lord, I can't explain
the deep things of God. I pray that you would enable
me to experience them. I can't explain them. Keep me
looking to the one. One. Don't give me any options. Don't give me any choices. Lord,
I'm too simple. I'm too simple. I remember, I think I shared
this with you all. Some of our brethren sent some messages to
another church in another country that were reformed. And some
of the men listened to the messages from here, and their response
back to the brethren in our church was, well, that's okay preaching
for children. for children. One of these guys
attended the church in Lexington recently. I think we have a brother
from Lexington with us this morning. And he was, I've read some of
the stuff this guy writes, and he's just off in space somewhere. And he told Todd Nybert, he said,
you're just obtuse. He said, you'd make a good Sunday
school teacher in my church, but you ought not to be preaching.
You're too simple. Todd said I had to go look up
the word obtuse to see what it meant. But isn't that true? You've been
around those kind of guys, haven't you? You have your Bibles open to
1 John chapter 4. This gospel offends men. They don't want
to be left with no options. They don't want to be left with
no choices and no contributions to make, but that's exactly where
the gospel leaves you. There is one baptism, there is
one body, there's one Spirit. Look at first John chapter
four, verse one. Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many
false prophets have gone into the world. Hereby know ye the
spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has
come in the fleshes of God. You say, well, don't they all
confess that? No, no. Jesus, Jehovah saves. He has accomplished the salvation
of his people. The work was done before the
foundation of the world in eternity in the lamb that was slain in
the covenant of grace. That's what his name means. Jehovah
saves. He does all the saving. He's
the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He doesn't
leave anything left up for us to do. He is the Christ, the
anointed one, the promised Messiah, the one sin of God in the full
power of the Spirit of God to declare the message of salvation
and to accomplish the salvation of his people. And having been
made sin, he put our sins away by the sacrifice of himself and
satisfied God the Father. He did it all. He did all by
himself. And He's come in the flesh. He's
the God-man. He sympathizes with our infirmities. He was tempted in all ways that
we are, yet without sin. He's God's perfect man, which
is what God requires. And you and I are not. We've
got to be found in Him. And he's man's perfect God. He's
the God-man. He's fully God and he's fully
man. He's the sinner's substitute.
He's all and he's in all. He's everything in salvation.
And the one spirit points to him. There is one spirit. There's lots of seducing spirits.
There's lots of masquerading spirits. Satan is a counterfeiter
by trade. That's what he does. He counterfeits
the gospel and he counterfeits the body of Christ and he counterfeits
the spirit of God. And every spirit that confesseth
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And
this is the spirit of antichrist. whereof you have heard that it
should come, and even now already is in the world." Now that was
written 2000 years ago. Somebody starts talking to you
about the antichrist as if it was some man that's gonna raise
up and rule the world. You tell him, no, no. No, this
spirit has been in the world for 2000 years, at least, at
least. We confess consistently that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Not that he has come, he is come.
He is come. He's accomplished what he came
to do. He's ascended back into glory.
He's seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. And my
sin problem, I have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous one. And I can come to him and he's the only one that can speak
peace to my heart. Nobody else. He convicts me of my sin. Our Lord said, when the spirit
of God comes, he will convict the world of righteous, I mean,
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. of sin because they
believe not on me. Isn't that your problem? It is
mine. You know, men who are not part
of the one body and who have not been taught by the one spirit,
they pride themselves in their faith. They glory in how much
faith they have. Let me tell you one of the ways
you know you have been given faith of God. You don't glory
in the faith that you have. You're ashamed of how small it
is. You declare with that father,
Lord, I believe. And then in tears, Lord, help
thou mine unbelief. There's my problem. It's the
sin that doth so easily beset me. It's the cause of all my
other sin. It's my unbelief. Isn't that true? We don't pride ourselves in how
much faith we have. We're ashamed of how small and
how weak our faith is. And we want to honor God with
every fiber of our being, and we can't, and we don't, and we
won't. We're so full of flesh. We're
so full of unbelief. That's how we know we have faith.
We don't have faith because we're looking to the strength of our
faith as the hope of our salvation. We're looking through a glass
darkly and we're, we're, we've not yet apprehended that which
has apprehended us, but we, we keep pressing, keep looking and
hoping and, and crying, Lord, help them on unbelief. There's
my, there's my, my problem is my unbelief. Well, I've gotten ahead of myself
because I was intending to say that when we got to the part
about one faith, but turn back with me to our text. Turn back with me to our text.
There's one body, one spirit. This one spirit, I know how I
got on that. This one spirit convicts us of
our sin. Oh, you don't need the Spirit
of God to convict you of some lawless act that you performed
or some lawless, shameful thought that you had. You've got a conscience
for that. The scripture says, he shall
convict the world of sin because they believe not on me. And those lawless acts and those
lawless thoughts are the result of our unbelief. There's the
problem. There's the seedbed. There's
the polluted fountain. There's our cry, Lord, help thou
mine unbelief. That's my problem. That's why
I said last Sunday, if you don't see yourself as your own worst
enemy, I fear maybe God hasn't made you to be a sinner because
that's the root of our problem. And the Holy Spirit convicts
us of that. And he continually convicts us
of that. It shows us how little faith
we have so that we're crying out to him always, Lord, increase
my faith. Increase my faith and forgive
me of my sin for Christ's sake. And the hope of my salvation
is not in any way founded in my faith. It's in his. He was perfectly faithful. If
we could have the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, we'd be without
sin. So the Spirit of God comes to
convict you of sin, of righteousness. You have none. If the Spirit
of God's taught you, you've come to that conclusion, or God's
brought you to that conclusion, you don't have any righteousness
outside of Christ. Of righteousness? Because I go
to my father, your only righteousness is seated at the right hand of
the majesty on high in the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you strain to see him and rest the hope of your salvation
in him for all your righteousness and of judgment because the prince
of this world has been judged. You know that when the Lord Jesus
Christ shed his precious blood and bowed his mighty head on
Calvary's cross and said, it is finished, that all the judgment
of God was poured out and quenched. The prince of this world has
been judged. Christ He's your judgment. He's your faith. He's the object
of your faith. His faith is the hope of your
justification before God. He's all your righteousness.
And the only hope that you have that your sin has been judged
is by the sacrifice that he made of himself. You can't add to
it. You can't make up for not one sin. Christ has to do that. He has to do it all. Oh, what
a glorious, don't you love the oneness of the gospel? Have you
been shut up to one? Just to one, one body, one spirit. Look at, look at, look at our
text. Even as you are called in one
hope, one hope, look back, look back one page to Ephesians chapter
one. Verse 18, this is Paul's prayer for the church at Ephesus.
He said in verse 18, oh, that the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his
calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints. We have a sure hope, a hope that
will not disappoint. A hope, the scripture says in
Hebrews chapter 16, that is an anchor for our soul, the forerunner,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone into the holies of holies
to be our sure hope. We have one hope. Not hoping
in Christ plus anything that I've done, or plus any prayer
that I've prayed, or plus anything that I haven't done. Christ is
all my hope. Oh, that we could know the hope
of his calling. And there's but one calling.
2 Timothy 1, verse 9 says, he hath saved us and called us with
a holy calling. A holy calling. Now, what we're
talking about right now is the profundity of the gospel. I can't
describe a holy calling to you. I can't explain a holy calling
to you. That's something you have to
experience. And when you experience, you know the depths of the gospel
in the holy calling of God. It brought you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. I can tell you what God says
about the holy calling, but the depths of this have to be experienced. Lord, give me that holy calling
and keep calling me. Don't leave me too much. Keep
me on a short lease, Lord. Cause I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm
like that rebellious dog. I'm going to, I'm going to pull
the, the, the, the, the length of that leash as far as you let
it go. You got a dog like that? You let him have a little, he
wants a little more. He's going to take all every bit of it.
Lord, I'm like that dog. Keep my leash short. Keep me close. He has called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ before
the world began. Oh, what hope. What hope. What a calling. Turn with me
to 1 Corinthians. We have to look at this passage.
1 Corinthians 1. How do I know he's called me?
Am I looking to a feeling or an experience? No. I meet the
qualifications of who it is that he calls. And Lord, I need you
to speak peace to my heart. Look at verse 26. For you see
your calling, brethren, how many of you, not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world. Are you foolish enough to be
saved? Are you foolish enough to not
be able to figure out anything past one? You know, we, we applaud our little
children when they're able to count to 10. Lord, I can't count
past one. I'm just that small and that
foolish and that I just stuck on one. Not many, but God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world, verse 27, to confound the wise,
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things which are mighty. The base things and the things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, those things which are not.
You know what that word is? Zero. I can't even get to one. I'm just kind of, I'm a not,
Lord. Are you going to have to take
me from a not to a one? You know, it's kinda like, isn't
that, I don't know much about computers, but isn't that the
language of computers, zeros and ones? Okay? Yeah, so, you
know, there's the message. You're either zero or you're
one, and all zeros are ones, and all ones are zeros. Isn't
that true? You see that? God has taken that
which is not. to bring to nought those things
which are. The people who think they're
ones are now being made zeros. Lord, are you saying that we're blind?
What did our Lord say? Oh, if you were blind, your sins
would be forgiven you because you think you can see, therefore
your sins remain. God takes the ones and makes
them noughts and he takes the noughts and makes them one. that no flesh should glory in
his presence." There's where we are. We've got nothing to
glory in, Lord. We didn't noodle this through. We didn't read it out and research
it and study it and gain some intelligence about it. Lord,
you just took us from a naught to a one. But of him, of God Almighty are
you in Christ who himself is all your wisdom all your righteousness
all your sanctification and all of your redemption that according
as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord in
the Lord We'll reserve the rest of this
passage in Ephesians for another time, but let's go back and read Ephesians chapter four. There's
one body. There's one spirit. There's one
calling. There's one hope. There's one
Lord. There's one faith. there is one
baptism. And we dealt with baptism in
the previous hour. It's just one. These things all
happen around the one head, one God and father of us all. Anthony, Anthony was baptized. Was that two weeks ago, Anthony?
And convicted by this very passage, I just don't feel comfortable
about, I don't know exactly when the Lord saved me, but I know
that my baptism wasn't among believers. It wasn't among the
one body. It wasn't in a place where there's
one spirit. And I want to confess that there's
only one baptism and only one Lord. And Anthony, your confession
is the same as Jeff and Megan's. Their testimony has been the
same. Don't know exactly when the Lord saved me, but I rejoice
in Christ. I have no confidence in the flesh.
And I know that when we were baptized, it wasn't one. It wasn't right. Wasn't among
the people of God in one body. And I want to profess that with
simplicity and with clarity. And so that's what we're going
to do right now. Let's pray together. Megan, you
and Jeff get ready. And Tom's going to come and lead
us in a hymn in just a moment. Our merciful heavenly father,
we thank you for the unity of the gospel. We pray that you
would continue to Make us ones out of knots. And Lord, that
we would not glory in our flesh, but that we would glory in Christ.
For it's in his name we pray. Amen. 186. Let's stand together. Number
186. We'll sing two hymns.