It's not raining for a change.
Blue sky out there. Let's open this morning's service
with a hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. So let's all
stand together, we'll sing the hymn on the back of your bulletin.
?? Our sovereign God maintains His
universal throne. In heaven and earth and hell
He reigns and makes His wonders known. His counsels and decrees
firmer than mountains stand. He will perform whate'er he please,
And none can stay his hand. All things His will controls,
and His all-wise decree, Has fixed the destinies of all in
matchless sovereignty. Jacob, by grace He saved, and
gives no reason why, But Esau's heart he left depraved, And who
shall dare reply? What if the potter takes Part
of a lump of clay, And for himself a vessel makes, And casts the
rest away? Who shall resist his will, Or
say, what doest thou? Jehovah is the Sovereign still,
and all to Him must bow. My soul bow and adore the Lord
in all His ways. His sovereignty none can explore,
but I will trust His grace. For of him and through him and
to him are all things. To whom be glory evermore. Amen, amen, amen. Please be seated. Good morning. What a beautiful
day. I'll be speaking to you this
morning from Jude, the book of Jude, verse one and two. Verse
one and two of Jude. The title of this message is
The First Step. The first step. Jude, the servant
of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them who are sanctified
by God the Father, preserved in Christ Jesus and called, mercy
be unto you and peace and love be multiplied. All over the world this morning,
free will preachers Our end in their service with an invitation
and they'll tell you one of two things. They'll tell you if you
take the first step. That God will do the rest. Or
they tell you that you need to make Jesus Christ the Lord of
your life. The first 35 words of Jude tell
us everything we need to know about God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit, and us. It tells us who took the
first step in our salvation. Who took the original first step? Have you ever considered that?
The original first step. Genesis chapter three in verse
one. Now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he
said unto the woman, yea, hath God said you shall not eat of
every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it,
lest you die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, you shall not surely die, for God doth know that in a day
you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. And you shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil." Come on, sister, take the first
step. Be a whole person. Make a decision,
Eve, what are you going to do? And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did
eat and gave to her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes
of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked.
And they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves aprons. That was the original first step. And our Mother Eve ruined all
of us. Every one of us. Scripture says,
what must we do to work the works of God? And our Lord Jesus Christ
said, this is the work of God, that you believe on him whom
he hath sent. And this morning we're gonna
take a look at the work of God. Now as far as making Jesus the
Lord of your life, that's already been taken care of. Being found
in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted
him and given him a name which is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. So we don't have to worry about
making him a Lord of our lives, no matter who we are, no matter
where we are, no matter what we do for a living, whether a
believer or an unbeliever, Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives. So we can just rub that right
off of the list. If you take the first step, God
will do the rest. There's no excuse for believing
that. None at all. Scripture is too explicit about
who took the first step. Hebrews 12 and verse 1. Seeing we are cumbered about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us cast aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us. And let us run with
patience the race that is set before looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. There's no excuse for believing
we can even take the first step. Second Thessalonians Chapter
2 in verse 13. We're bound to give thanks unto
God always for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. Second Timothy 1.9, who
hath saved us and called us, saved first and then called,
who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not
according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So there's really no excuse for
believing we can take the first step. Now in Jude, verse one,
Jude addresses this letter to those who are sanctified by God
the Father. Now there's no mystery about
being sanctified. Sanctification, sanctified in
a scriptural usage means to set apart. to a holy purpose. I can take a $10 bill out of
my mail fold and say, I'm going to give this to the offering
box on Sunday. I've sanctified that $10 bill. I've set it apart to a holy purpose. That purpose is to go in that
box in the back for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
sanctification is not a mystery like people want to make it out.
The question is, when? When were we sanctified by God
the Father? Turn, if you will, to Ephesians
chapter one. Ephesians chapter one and verse
one. Now, Ephesians is not written
so we can use it like a club to beat free will people to death.
Ephesians is a unique letter. that the Holy Spirit wrote to
the children of God. And it's unique in this sense.
Only two times I can think of this happening in the scriptures.
Whenever the Lord Jesus Christ died, the veil in the temple
was rent, torn from the top to the bottom. And the mercy seat
was exposed to everyone. The mercy seat, the symbol of
the Lord Jesus Christ, it means that salvation no longer is of
the Jews, that salvation is open to the whole world. He is the
savior of the world. He's the only one this world
will ever have. Now, because God loved his children,
he showed the whole universe that the Lord Jesus Christ shed
his blood for Jew and Gentile. Now that's one of the strongest
comforts we'll ever get. And Ephesians, the letter to
the Ephesians is the same thing. There's a veil between us and
God, our ignorance. Our sin, our stupidity, our pride,
our arrogance, all of these things stand between us and God. And
we don't know a whole lot about God because the veil is there
and we don't have the ability to see through the veil. But
because God loves us, because we are children of God and he'll
give us every good thing, The Holy Spirit opened this veil. It opened the veil and allowed
us to see a time before there was time. To see God, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit working for our
salvation. Going about causing those to
believe the Lord Jesus Christ that he has chosen. This is the
greatest thing. to read Ephesians chapter 1 and
know that God was working for our salvation before He ever
created the world. Before there was ever time, God
was working on our behalf, doing things we could never do for
ourselves. Never do for ourselves. That's
why the book of Ephesians is so special. Romans chapter eight
and nine is basically the same thing. How would we have known
that we belong to God except for Ephesians chapter one? How
would we ever have known that our salvation was secure before
he laid the foundation of the world? How would we ever have
known that when God said, let there be light, I was as much
saved then as I will ever be? We'd have never known these things. But how strong is the comfort
to know that God did these things for us? How strong is the assurance
to know that the Lord Jesus Christ took on the responsibility for
us? And that's a Holy Spirit agreed
to call us. This is the covenant of grace. Now, when I was a Calvinist and
a Calvinist preacher, I considered this as a legal matter. I considered it strictly from
a legal standpoint, but when God opened my eyes, I realized
it can never be a totally legal thing because love is involved
in it. And love is never involved in legal things. I hope by the grace of God to
show you some things this morning that will comfort you and build
up our faith. Ephesians chapter one and verse
one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God to the saints, which are at Ephesus and the
faithful in Christ Jesus. Well, it's plain to all of us.
We're not in Ephesus. So we must be the faithful in
Christ Jesus. It hadn't been that long ago
that Greg preached a really good message on the faithfulness of
Christ. Now, Ephesians chapter 1 shows
us that we went into a union with the Lord Jesus Christ. An
eternal, everlasting, unbreakable union. We are in Christ. We were crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, we live, yet not
us, but Christ liveth in us. And the life that we now live
in the flesh, we live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved us and gave himself for us. We are in Christ, Ephesians
chapter 2 and verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy,
For his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, raised us up together with Christ, and caused us to
sit together in heavenly places, for by grace are ye saved. If Christ is faithful, then we're
faithful. It's as simple as that. So this
letter is addressed to us, the children of God, right now here
today. Because we're faithful in Christ
Jesus. So Paul gives his salutation
after that, it's in all of his letters nearly. He said, grace
be unto you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace we can understand. Grace
is unmerited favor. Grace is why I'm a child of God,
because it is nothing to deserve it. The Lord Jesus Christ, God
the Father, God the Holy Spirit brought me to salvation purely
by grace. But peace we do know about. Romans 5.1, therefore being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's it. I got peace. You've all got peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, but we don't always feel
like it. When we're up on the mountaintops,
oh yeah, God loves me, God's working together for my good,
everything's good, but you let me slip down in the bottom of
the valley, all of us. And we don't feel the peace. We don't feel like that God is
close to us. And we'll, and me especially,
I'll think I don't have the faith. I could never have the faith
to believe if I could but touch the hem of his garment, I'd be
healed. I envy that lady, her faith.
I don't feel like I've got enough faith for nothing. And it bothers
me. And it interferes in my peace
with God. I want to tell you something
about faith. Ever how much faith we must have. Whatever faith God demands from
us, God will provide. All we have to do is stand still. Stand still and consider that
if I needed to have more faith, God would give it to me. And
be satisfied with whatever faith I have. Just stand still and
quit trying to do anything. And I'll think, well, all of
my prayers are skimpy little prayers. And I think probably
all of us feel that way. They're short and they're shallow. And I can get busy and go all
day long and forget to pray. Now, is it possible that a child
of God can be that bad off in his prayer life and have peace
with God. You better believe one thing,
if we stand still and listen, we'll hear Romans chapter 8 and
verse 29. That we are children of God and
we'll see before that, that the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit bears
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and
it intercedes in our prayers because God said you don't know
how to pray for as you ought. We can't pray. We don't know
how to pray. And yet the Holy Spirit is in
us and he intercedes and he takes my shallow little prayer and
he refines them and he makes them acceptable and he presents
them to God on my behalf as an offering. So I don't have to
worry about faith, and I don't have to worry about prayer, because
God has taken care of all those things. All I have to do is just
stand still, quit worrying about it, and let God give me peace
in my mind. Verse three, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now the blessings
are there, but eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard all the
marvelous things that God has ready for us. We'll know about
it one day, but one thing's for certain, they're in Christ. Without Christ, we don't get
these blessings. Without Christ, we don't get
anything. Verse four. 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. And there is the
sanctification by God the Father. Election, the choosing that God
chose me and set me apart for a holy purpose. If you're a child
of God, He chose you and He set you apart for a holy purpose.
What was the holy purpose? That we might stand holy and
without blame before Him in love. That was the purpose. Now, there's
always been controversy about the choosing, and there shouldn't
have been. Because if you wonder, and whenever
God calls you, you normally will, why would God choose me? And he didn't choose anybody
in my family as far back as memory goes. Why would he choose Deanna
when he didn't choose anybody else in her family forever that
we know of? Why? The answer is here. Whenever Moses asked God, said,
show me your glory, what did the Lord say? He said, I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and whom I will, I
hardeneth. That's the only answer we're
ever gonna get about why God chose us. Because he's sovereign,
and because it's his sovereign will. John Gill, a expositor that I
really do respect in most things. He believed that God looked out
over mankind, all of mankind, and they were all a pure soul,
all the same. And he chose whom he wanted. Now, I beg to differ with John
Gill in this respect. I went to people when God first
called me into Calvinism, and I asked the question, why would
God choose me? You know what they told me? They
said it's like God dips his hand in grace and does like that. And if a drop of grace hits you,
you're one of God's elect. That's blasphemy. Because God
never did anything by chance. Salvation is not by lottery. It's not by chance or anything
else. Time and chance and circumstance
are subject to God's will. That's blasphemy. I believe that God did look out
over all of mankind, every person that would ever be born. And
they were all the same. They were sinners. One of the
reasons I believe that is I've never had a pure soul. Never,
never, never, never. And I won't have until I go home
to be with the Lord. As long as I'm in his flesh,
I'm going to be a sinner and I'll not have a pure soul like
John Gill was talking about. I believe when God looked out
over mankind, every one, with the exception of one, was conceived
in sin and shapen in iniquity. And we went astray from the womb,
speaking lies, Psalm 58. I believe that when God looked
at all of mankind, they had a heart. that was deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked, who could know it? And we were
all the same. And yet, I think Ezekiel chapter
16, the infant, I think that applies to me and to us in election. That when God put his eye on
mankind and he passed by, He saw me, Robert Horton, laying
in an open field in the hogwalla of my own sin and depravity. My skin was not washed. I was not swaddled. I was not
supple. No one cared for me. No one took
care of me. No one was interested in my welfare. My navel was not cut. And I was
polluted with my own blood. And I believe that God looked
down at me and said, live. I say unto you, Robert Horton,
live. And God took me up from that
open field and the sin and the iniquity and everything that
I was in. And He loved me. He loved me. He said, I am going
to make you able to stand before me holy and without blame because
I love you. Verse 5. Having predestinated
us under the adoption of children unto himself by Jesus Christ,
according to the good pleasure of his will. He took that dirty,
filthy sinner and He predestinated me to be His child. He prepared
everything leading up to my day of grace. All of my ancestors. Everything was taken care of. I will be His child. Verse 7 according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. That's why he did it. He's a
sovereign God. He showed mercy on whom he'll
show mercy and whom he will. He hardened us. Wherein he hath
made us accepted in the beloved. And whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of
his grace. He presented me to Christ. And Christ said, yes, I'll be
his surety. I'll be a surety for Robert Horton. I'll guarantee you. That He will
be your child. I'll do whatever it takes. And
the Lord Jesus Christ took me and washed me in His blood. And
made me pure. And He gave me a white robe of
His righteousness. And my name was written in the
Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. That's
why Ephesians chapter 1 is so precious. We see God the Father
doing these things, sanctifying me, taking, this is the first
step in our salvation. He sanctified me, set me apart
to a holy purpose, and then he gave me to Christ and Christ
died for me and cleansed me from my sin and guaranteed me that
whenever he appears in the sky, I'll rise to meet him in the
air. Now, you're not going to get any more comfort than that.
And you're not going to get any more assurance than that, knowing
that God took the first step and God did the rest. Ephesians 1, it's one of the
most wonderful things that God ever gave us is the knowledge
of what he did for us before time ever was. preserved in Christ
Jesus, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ
Jesus. We have been put into an eternal
union with Christ. This union is so close. that the Lord Jesus Christ told
the Pharisees, except you eat the flesh and drink the blood
of the Son of Man, you're none of mine. That means unless God
the Son becomes part of us, unless He is in us, then we're none
of His. That's how close this union is. Corinthians says, flee fornication. For every sin that a man doeth
is without the body. But he that committeth fornication
sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which you have
of God? You are not your own, you're
bought with a price. Glorify God, therefore, in your
body and your spirit, which are God's. We're preserved in Jesus
Christ. You better believe that. We are
safe in the hands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No
man can snatch us out of his hand. And we are all in the hands
of God. And nobody is ever going to take
us away from the Lord Jesus Christ and God. I am persuaded that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is given us in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Romans 8 38. We are preserved
in Christ Jesus through every trial of this life. We belong
to him. We belong to Christ. And one
day the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel and a trump of God, and the dead
in Christ will rise first. Can you believe that? Moses and
Job and all these old timers, they're coming out of the grave.
And we are going to be a witness to that. The dead in Christ will
rise first. Then we, which are alive and
remain, shall be caught up together with them in the air, and so
shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort ye one another
with these words." So we are preserved in Christ Jesus and called. The calling of a child of God
is a very special event. One minute, you're of the world.
One minute, you could care less about God. One minute, you think
only about yourself. And in the twinkling of an eye,
the Holy Spirit borns you again. You couldn't see anything before,
but now you can see the kingdom of God. Now, you know that you're
a sinner. Now, you know that you need Christ. Now, you know that you're unable
to take the first step. When the Holy Spirit borns us
again, he opens our eyes to the fact that we know nothing. He opens our eyes to the fact
that I was born a sinner, I grew up a sinner, I'm a sinner right
now. I'm a sinner saved by grace,
and the only time I stop being a sinner is when I go home to
be with the Lord. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes
to the fact that we need Christ more than anything else ever
in the whole universe. And after the dust settles, and
you start looking around you, you realize that there are brothers
and sisters that the same thing has happened to. The calling,
being called of God, We need to not worry about the calling
and I'm going to tell you why. Because every child of God has
a day of grace. You will be born again before
you die. It might be the last hour of
your life hanging on a wooden cross with the Lord Jesus Christ
and you only have time to say Lord, remember me when I commenced
into the kingdom, but your child of God will not die without being
born again and called. And in your day of grace. In
my day of grace. God will send someone for you. He sent a little maid all the
way to Syria to call Naaman down to Samaria to hear the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ sat on
the edge of a well in Samaria, hot and dusty and thirsty, especially
to call a woman to the knowledge of himself. I that speak unto
thee am. The Holy Spirit sent Philip out
into a waste howling desert. Because there's an Ethiopian
eunuch that's a child of God and he's headed back to Ethiopia.
There's no gospel in Ethiopia. There's no church there. Not
at that time. So the Holy Spirit sent Philip
out into the desert. And Philip asked the unit, he
said, understandest thou what thou readest? He said, how can
I except some man should guide me? And the man that God had
sent out there to call him got up in the chariot with him. And
scripture said, beginning at that same scripture, he preached
unto him Jesus Christ. And as they went along, they
came to a certain water. And Eunuch said, see, here is
water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?
And Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. That was the calling. That was
the Holy Spirit sent a man down there to call this unit. And
if you're a child of God, he'll send a preacher, he'll send a
Christian, he'll send a friend. Someone will bring you the gospel
in your day of grace. We can rest assured of that. Now, I hope that in this message,
that I've shown you the grace that God showed whenever he gave
us Ephesians, that we might know, we might know that God loved
me enough to pick me up off of the dunghill of humanity and
give me to Jesus Christ and the Lord cared enough for me and
loved me enough to die on the cross for the forgiveness of
my sins. and that the Holy Spirit takes
good enough care of me and loves me enough to send someone to
call me in my day of grace. All these things are guaranteed. The Holy Spirit doesn't really
come to save you. It comes to tell you you're saved.
Had you ever considered that? We've been saved since before
the foundation of the world. But in time, God calls us. In time, God brings us to a knowledge
of himself. We need to take a break.