Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2. We're going to do some turning
this morning, but we're going to start here. And you want to
mark Ephesians because we'll be back here a little later.
Ephesians chapter 2. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
salvation. He is salvation. A to Z. He is salvation. Sinners are
saved by the triune God in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. Now, faith believes on Christ. Faith trusts Christ to save. That's what true faith is all
about. Trusting Christ from the beginning to the end. John said,
Whatsoever is born of God, that is, whosoever is born of God
overcometh the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. And you know what he's
saying is, the Lord Jesus Christ, He overcame and we trust Him
to make us overcome. Christ is all to those who believe
on Him. And as He grows us in grace and
knowledge of Him, He makes us to know more and more that He
is all. That He is all. Christ is all
in the covenant of grace. God saves by promise, by covenant
of grace. He's all. In fact, Christ is
the covenant. God said in Isaiah 42, 6, I the
Lord have called thee in righteousness and will give thee for a covenant
of the people to lighten the eyes of the Gentile. He's the
surety of his people. Before the world was made, God
put it in the hand of his son and looked only to his son just
like Even better than what we know as a surety. When you're
a surety for somebody, it's in case they can't pay. God knew
we weren't going to pay. He put it all in Christ's hand
from the beginning. Christ is the righteousness of his people.
He's the righteousness of God and he's provided for his people.
I'm trying to show you Christ is all. Christ is an advocate
with the Father. Right now, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. and he's the propitiation
for our sins. He's the apostle. He teaches
us the gospel. He's the high priest of our profession
by whom we have access into God's holy presence. He's the bread
of life. He is our life. We come here
this morning to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our life. He's the captain of our salvation.
He is the captain. He is the captain of our salvation. He's the deliverer in every way
at all times. He is the deliverer. He's the
forerunner. We saw last week he went in the
grave. He came out of the grave. He's
ascended into the holiest of holies, and his people did so
in him, and we shout. enter in because of him. He's
the forerunner. He is the glory of the Lord. God says, look to my son. He
pleased him that he have all preeminence and he shall in the
hearts of his people. He is God. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is God. He is God in human flesh, risen,
seated at the right hand of the Father. And he's the head of
the church. You who have been born of him
are his body, members of his body, and he's filling all in
all his church. I don't fill it. You don't fill
it. None of us who are saved fill all things. He fills all
in all in his body. So, He's all. He's your shield,
He's your strength, He's your song. Christ is all. His name
is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sin. That's
who He is. But sinners are saved only through
faith in the Lord Jesus. We have to be brought to believe
Him, keep believing Him, and believe Him all the way to the
end. They asked our Lord one day, what shall we do that we
might work the works of God? Now this is what the Lord Jesus
answered. This is not my word, it's His
word. This is what the Lord Jesus answered. He said, this is the
work of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent. you believe on him whom he has
sent. So let's look at some things
that scripture says the believer obtains through faith. Some things
we obtain through faith in the Lord Jesus. First of all, the
obvious is salvation. In Ephesians 2 He says, by grace
are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Until
born again by the Spirit of God, sinners are willing to to do
anything and everything to try to save themselves except the
one thing God commands, and that's to believe on His Son. To trust
His Son and give His Son all the glory in our salvation. No
sinner will do that until we're born again of God, taught of
God, taught what we are. When we're taught that we're
the sinner, that's when we want Christ to be the Savior. Because
we see there's no way we can come to God any other way but
in His Son. Our Lord Jesus Christ was chosen
of God before the world was made, and He was entrusted with the
whole work of salvation. He came forth, and by His blood,
by His obedience unto the death of the cross, He justified His
people freely by grace. He said here, by grace, are you
saying? Everything's of grace. He chose
His people by grace. He sent forth Christ by grace. Christ justified us freely by
grace. The Spirit of God regenerates
His people by grace. Everything is of God's grace.
Every gift He gives, everything God does to save His people is
all of the grace of God. The works of faith that He brings
His people to do are by God's grace. We're His workmanship. We're not our workmanship. We're
His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and if
you read it at the margin it says, which God before already
prepared for them that will walk therein. This is This is grace. This is our Lord Jesus Christ
in whom we find grace. The gospel is called the gospel
of the grace of God. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more bound. that as sin hath reigned unto
death in our father Adam, even so might grace reign through
righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, unto eternal life.
It's all by Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ Jesus has justified
his people. It's by one man's obedience that
many shall be made righteous. Only one. Only one. One man's obedience. shall many
be made right in the history of the world. Who knows how many
men has been born into this world, but it's one man's obedience
by which we're going to be saved, just one. So by God's grace,
he gives his child faith in the Lord Jesus. Faith in Christ is
the gift of God. He said there, in that night
of yourselves, it's the gift of God, night of works, lest
any man should boast. Faith is the only thing that
excludes boasting. If we're still boasting, If there's
something we do, we will boast in it. We will boast in it. And
if we're still partly a contributor in our salvation, we're boasting
in that. The only thing that'll exclude
that is faith. That is, it's just the opposite of work. It's
trusting Christ to do it all. It's saying Christ is my salvation.
That excludes boasting. Abraham didn't boast. Abraham
had nothing to boast in. He was an idolater that God called
and quickened and gave faith to believe Christ. And it was
through faith in Christ that God imputed righteousness to
him 430 years before he even had the law at Sinai. With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. That's God's way. With the heart
man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. You go to God and you confess
all your sin to him and your need of mercy to him and confess
that you believe the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust him and him
alone. with the mouth man confesses
to God and with the heart he believes unto righteousness.
So I pray this morning if somebody here doesn't have faith that
God gives faith draw you to Christ and give you faith and if you
do have faith that he would strengthen your faith and sustain your faith
and turn you from you to him to trust the Lord Jesus. Secondly,
a few pages to your left there Galatians 3, when we are born
again of God and given faith, it's through faith that we obtain
sonship. That is, it's that we know we
have sonship and are children of God. This is how we know it,
through faith. He said in Galatians 3.26, you
are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now when
God chose His people in Christ, When he chose us in Christ, that's
when we became the sons of God. This was in eternity, long before
we knew anything about it. But then Christ came forth, and
that's who he laid down his life for. He said, I laid down my
life for the sheep. That's the children the Father
entrusted to him. And he accomplished the work
of justifying us, and then in time, when it pleases God to
send the gospel to his child, God gives you faith, and it's
through faith when you've been made to cast it all on Christ,
and he makes you know you are his child. And he did all of
that because you already were his child before you ever knew
anything about it. Read there in Galatians 4.4.
When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. If you want to know what that
word received means, in John 20 when the Lord breathed on
the apostles and said, receive the Holy Spirit, that's what
it means. They were filled with the Holy
Spirit just like that water glass was filled with water right there.
That's how you received. God came and made you receive
the adoptions of sons. Why did he do it? Because you
are sons. because you are sons. People think they're sons because
they believe. He, you believe because you were
a son. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit
of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore
thou art no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an
heir of God through Christ. Paul's whole point here he is,
is we're not slaves under the bondage of the law. We're not
slaves. We're children of God. He didn't
give you this spirit of adoption to make you fearful. He gave
you the spirit of adoption so you cry on God, your Father,
in any time of need, and by Christ we have access to Him. So first
of all, we're saved by God's grace through faith in Christ.
Secondly, we know our sonship through faith in Christ. And
then thirdly, go to Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15. Our hearts are purified
and we are sanctified through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through faith in Him. This is all the work of our Lord.
Look here in Acts 15 verse 5. There rose up certain of the
sect of the Pharisees, which believed, saying that it was
needful to circumcise them." These are some Gentile believers. It was needful to circumcise
them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles
and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And
when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and he said unto
them, Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God
made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear
the word of the gospel and believe. And God which knoweth the hearts,
God which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them
the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, and put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why tempt ye God? Why tempt God to put a yoke upon
the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were
able to bear? But we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, us Jews who have the law, we
shall be saved just like these Gentiles who never ever had it."
The Judaizers were insisting on bringing back these Gentile
believers back under the law of Moses. And the reason they
were doing this, they were trying to put a difference between themselves
and other sinners by their works. That's exactly why they were
doing it. Most people that talk about sanctification and what
they're really trying to do is they're trying to justify themselves
before men at having made themselves differ and be better than other
men because of their works. That's generally what it's about. If you listen and talk to them,
you'll hear them boasting and you will hear that. You will
hear that. But these Gentiles were sanctified
by God. We were first sanctified by God
when God chose you in Christ in eternity. That's when you
were first sanctified. God the Father Jude said that,
sanctified by God the Father, in our Lord Jesus Christ by divine
election. Then you were sanctified by the
blood of the cross. Christ Jesus the Lord sanctified
us by his blood, dying without the count, perfected us. And then the Spirit of God sanctified
them, creating a new holy man in them, a new holy heart in
them when Christ was formed in them in regeneration. The holiness
of the new man is Christ in you. Christ is the Holy One, and the
holiness of that new heart is Christ in you. Now, the way God
made the Apostle Peter go preach to them. It's earlier in Acts,
but he, remember when he let that sheep down from heaven,
and it had all manner of unclean beasts in it, unclean beasts
that were forbidden by God in the law. And the Lord told Peter,
arise, kill and eat. And Peter said, not so, Lord,
I've never eaten anything unclean. And the Lord said to him, what
I have cleansed What I have cleansed, that call not thou common. And that was the whole point
of that law. It was teaching it's God who sanctifies, it's
God who cleanses, it's God who purifies. He does it. And Peter says here in Acts 15,
8, and God which knows the hearts, God which knows the hearts. bear
them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto
us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying their
hearts by faith." Now, one thing that tells you, brethren, is
that you're not going to have a heart purified and sanctified
by your works. That is not going to happen.
He did it. God did it. God makes the difference
between his people and the rest of this world. He separates out
his people by giving you a new holy heart. These Gentiles had
never been under the law of Moses, and now this was a blow to these these Judaizers because Peter's
saying they will be saved by the same grace, by the same Lord
Jesus, by the same sanctifying work of our God as we will be
saved like they're saved. That's what he said. He's a Jew
and he said we will be saved like they're saved. Paul, when
the Lord called Paul in Acts 26, he said, I'm sending you
to preach the gospel. This is the means the Lord's
going to do this through. I'm sending you to preach the
gospel. And he said in verse 17, I'm sending you, verse 18, to
open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by
faith that is in me. Sanctified by faith that is in
me. I'll tell you how she sanctifies to be separated out. That is
separated out from everybody else in this world. What Paul's
declaring right there and what Peter's declaring. is to be sanctified
by God so that God gets all the glory. That's when Christ is
made unto you sanctification. That's when you have a new heart. That's when we see that there's
nothing good in our flesh. That's when for the first time
we realize everything that comes from our old heart is sin. Everything. I mean everything. But at the same time, God, like
Christ said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God. And when He gives you that pure
heart, that's when you see Christ, and you shall see Him. So we
draw near with a true heart, a heart made new by God, with
full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. And when
God grows you, He's going to make you see more and more, more
and more Christ is your sanctification. And as you see that, you know,
more and more we diminish and he increases. More and more he
humbles you. More and more he's exalted before
you. He becomes more and more all and we become less and less
and less. And that's really the truth of
it. If it's of us and we accredit
ourselves with having done it, we will end up being proud in
heart. We'll end up being proud in heart.
And for God's child, we do get proud, but when we do that, the
Lord, he just lets you see again that without him, you can do
nothing. And he keeps you knowing you're sanctified by me, sanctified
by me. Fourthly, back there in Ephesians
3, we have union with Christ through faith. Union and communion. Union and communion. Ephesians
3 verse 14. Paul said, For this cause I bow
my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the
whole family in heaven and earth is named. I love that because
he's going to speak here about union with Christ. And in Christ,
we're as one with those saints already in glory as they are. We're one with them
in Christ. Now watch this. That he would
grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened
with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith. that ye, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ takes up
residence in his people. He takes up, he dwells in his
people. He dwells in his people. In that
inner man, in that new man, in that new heart, and through faith
he makes you to know you're united with Christ, inseparably unchangeably,
incorruptibly united with the Lord Jesus Christ in the new
man. The old sinful nature is what
it is, but in the new man, you have a new heart, a holy heart.
We're united with Christ by Christ dwelling in us, and we know this
through faith. We're going to look more at this
next hour, so I'm not going to dwell on this a whole lot, but
those born of God are inseparably united with Christ. Can't be
separated. The life in you, if you have
faith to believe God, the life in you is Christ. He said, I
am the life. There is no other. It's because
Christ is in you, if you really believe him. Christ in you is
the hope of glory. He is the hope of glory. If we
have hope of a future glory with Him, it's because Christ is in
you, and He's the guarantee you'll have it. We have communion with
Christ dwelling in us, and this is through faith. It's by Christ
dwelling in us that we're rooted and grounded in faith. That's
rooted in Christ. You know, you can't be moved
away when you're rooted in Christ. You're grounded in Christ. You
own this one foundation. And the storms can blow, and
the storms can come, and it won't make you leave Christ. Oh, you
might be shaken, and you might blow around like a big old oak
tree blows around, but you're rooted. And He's gonna keep you
in Him, following after Him. That's the good news of having
Christ dwelling in you. That's how we begin to comprehend
something of His great love for us. We see it, one, in that God
sent his only son when we were the ungodly, but we also see
it in that when he lets you see just a little glimpse that without
him, without his indwelling spirit, you would deny him. You would
leave him, and you'd be gone, and you'd be swallowed up in
this world, and he didn't let it happen. That's when you understand
more and more of this love of our Lord Jesus Christ. They probably
don't realize that what Paul's praying for them, that they might
be filled and know more of this love, is that he's praying for
them that the Lord's gonna send them through some very trying
times. Because that's one of the ways the Lord's gonna make
you know it. Gonna make you know it. The new man and our Savior
are inseparably united. Now fifthly, fifthly, Let's go to 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5. And before we get to 2 Corinthians
5, let me just say this. We persevere by faith. We persevere
by faith. We continue trusting Christ until
the end. Now the reason we do this is,
as Peter said, we're kept by the power of God through faith. unto salvation, that salvation
that is ready right now, ready to be revealed in the last time. It's ready. And so when we talk
about perseverance, we give God the glory because we only persevere
because He preserves us. We're kept by the power of God
through faith. He keeps you believing Him. He
keeps you trusting Him. And so that's why we continue
to the end walking by faith in Christ. Now let us see what that
is, 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 7, we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith, not by sight.
Faith is the believer's sight. Faith beholds what the carnal
sight can't behold. He says that there in verse 18,
while we look not, I'm sorry, chapter 4 verse 18, while we
look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal. All through
the scripture we find it written, the just, those justified by
our Lord Jesus Christ shall live by faith. We live by faith. Paul said, if any man draw back,
my soul have no pleasure in him. If a man's willing to leave Christ,
leave the gospel, leave God and forsake the brethren, I have
no pleasure in him, Paul said. By faith, by faith, you can read
all about faith in Hebrews 11. By faith, Abraham sojourned. He sojourned in the land of promise. That's what we're doing. We're
sojourning in a land of promise. I remember one time I think it
was Brother Scott Richardson was staying in a hotel with somebody. He was preaching and he was staying
in a hotel with somebody and there was a picture that was
crooked on the wall. And this fellow kept getting
up, going over there and straightening up that picture. And every time
he straightened that picture up, it would end up crooked again.
It just would not stay straight. And he'd get up, do it again.
And after a little while, he said, Scott, isn't that picture
driving you nuts? And Scott said, no. He said,
this ain't my home. He said, I don't live here. I'm
just staying here tonight. That's what we're doing. We're
just passing through. This ain't our home. This ain't
our home. He sojourned in the land of promises
in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles and tents. We dwell in a tent in his body,
and we dwell in tents in his heart. He did it with Isaac and
Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, because he
looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. When you read all that list of
the things they did, when you read what they did by faith,
it's what Christ did, not what they did, not what you did, it's
what Christ did. They just trusted Christ. And
you can go over there, you read the New Testament version, and
they're spotless. You go over in the Old Testament
or the Law and you see they was not spotless in themselves. But
Christ saved them, and saved them, and preserved them. And
that's how come they persevered. And these all die in faith. Not having received the promises,
but now listen, Faith looks at things that are not seen. They
saw the promises afar off. They saw them. They saw them
afar off and they were persuaded of them and they embraced them
and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. This
is what Paul said in Colossians 2 verse 6. as you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord." How did you receive Him? Through faith.
That's the first thing we looked at. Through faith. God gave you
faith, and by the grace of God, through faith, you received Him.
He says, so walk ye in Him. Walk, trust in Him. Rooted and
built up in Him, That's what Paul said in Ephesians. Can't
be moved from him. Rooted and built up in him. Established
in the faith. Established in the faith. As
you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving, beware
lest any spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Paul always
had to deal with this, and he talks about it a little later,
men trying to turn them back to the flesh and the works of
the flesh, and meats and observing the law, and if you don't do
this, you're not a child of God if you're not circumcised and
you don't do this. Don't be deceived by them. You
keep looking to Christ, you keep trusting Christ. God will shut
their mouth. He'll shut their mouth. That's
after the tradition of men. It's vain deceit. It's after
the rudiments of the world. It's not after Christ. For in
Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're
complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and
power. That's what faith believes. That's
what faith sees. That's what faith keeps pressing
toward, our Redeemer in whom we are complete. And those who
believe on Christ, We're waiting right now with a good hope, with
a confident expectation. We're waiting for the Lord Jesus
Christ to return. He's either going to return and
take you to glory with Him in death, or He's going to return
and take us all that are saved to glory with Him in the end.
But we, through the Spirit, through the Holy Spirit of God, preserving
us, keeping us looking to Him, keeping faith in our hearts,
we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness. That's a person. Christ, our
writer. We're waiting for the hope of
righteousness. And how are we doing it? Through faith. Through
faith. Everything is in Christ. Everything
is by Christ. And in the end, It's Christ we're
seeking, it's Christ we're hoping for, it's Christ we long to be
with. We're saved by faith in Christ,
that means we're justified by Christ, so we believe on Christ
and God imputes his righteousness to us. We have and know we're
God's children through faith in Christ by the spirit of his
son in us, bearing witness with the new spirit that we're children
of God. Our hearts are purified and we're sanctified through
faith in Christ and we go to him for all cleansing. You're
cleansed of a wit if you've been brought to faith in Him, but
you go to Him continually to keep your conscience purged,
keep you cleansed, keep your feet washed, to keep you walking
after Him. We have union and communion with
Christ through faith. God preserves us through faith
in Him so that we walk by faith in Christ unto the end, persevere
and trust in Him to the end. We're waiting for the hope of
Christ our righteousness through faith, waiting. Christ is all. Believe on Christ, continue believing
on Him unto the end. One of these days, you know what
the believer is seeking? You know what we want for our
reward in heaven? Christ. Christ. I don't want anything else but
Christ. Nobody else but Christ. I think I told you this one time.
Some fellows was talking to me and they said, well, we think
you're going to be in heaven, but we don't think you're going
to be quite where we are. That's what they told me. I said,
well, will Christ be where I am? And they said, yeah. And I said,
that's all I'm concerned about. That's all I'm concerned about. So believe him, brethren. Amen.
Father, thank you for this word. Lord, we ask you to work each
of these promises in us and keep us looking only to Christ. Lord,
humble us in our hearts and keep us knowing we have nothing to
be proud about, nothing to look down on anybody about. You pulled
us out of the pit and you keep pulling us out of the pit. If
we know that, Lord, we'll be gracious and merciful to others
that fall in the pit. Lord, make us see that, make
us know that, and keep us looking on unto Christ. Save us from
us, save us from this world, Father, we beg of you. Thank
you, Lord, for this grace. Thank you for faith. Thank you
for our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.