mentioned the name of Christ
Jesus our Lord and then he makes this statement. He said, in whom
we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. This is our first meeting of
2014 and I was I'm thinking Tuesday night, as
soon as the clock struck 12, I thought about how much we have
to be thankful for. And then as soon as I began to
think about that, I began to think about how much we have
to ask God for. That's what prayer is. It's constantly
thanking God for what He has given us and then it's asking
Him to provide for us right now in the present as well as in
the future. Prayer for a believer is as vital, as necessary, as
essential as life itself. Constantly asking God for mercy. The first and chief evidence
that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to Ananias that Saul of Tarsus
had been made a new creature. That he was now the apostle of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul, the first evidence
that Christ gave to Ananias that he had been made a new creature
was, he said, Behold, he prayeth. You know, when a baby is born,
the first thing they do is they cry out. And when we're made
a new babe in Christ, the first thing we do is cry out to our
Father for the first time. And then the rest of our days
we cry out to Him. And I expect if we're able, the
last thing we'll do before we leave this life is thank Him
and ask Him to bring us home to Him in glory. Our subject
tonight is prayer by the faith of Christ. Prayer by the faith
of Christ. Now believers face all kinds
of troubles. We live in a body of flesh. We live in a cursed world of
sin. And Satan walks about seeking
whom he may devour like a roaring lion. So we need God continually. We just saying, I need Thee every
hour. And we do need Him every hour. The Apostle Paul is encouraging
us here in this chapter to to hold fast to the profession of
our faith, to maintain our profession of faith unwaveringly, to not
faint in any kind of trouble, in persecution or any other kind
of trouble. And as he's telling us that,
he doesn't tell us to muster up our strength to do it. He
makes this statement right here. He says, in Christ we have boldness
and access with confidence by the faith of Him. Here's what
I want you to get tonight. As we face trials, as every believer
faces trials and temptations and difficulties, none but Christ
Himself can make us hold fast to our profession. And therefore,
always remember that we may approach the true and living God in prayer
for grace and for help to help us in every time of need. And
I want to show you tonight that we can only do that by the faithfulness
of Christ Himself. Let's look here at our text again,
Ephesians 3.12. He says, In whom we have boldness
and access with confidence by the faith of Him. First he tells
us in whom we come to God in prayer. He says, verse 12, In
whom? In the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then he tells us what we have as we approach God in prayer. Verse 12 says we have boldness
and access with confidence. And then thirdly, he tells us
how we approach God in prayer. By the faith of Him. By the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we come to God
only in Christ Jesus. In whom, he says, in Christ. In type, in the Old Testament,
you recall how the only way to get to the mercy seat, the only
way to get to God's presence at that mercy seat was to go
through the veil. There was a veil that surrounded
it that prevented anybody from coming into that mercy seat. And the only way to get to that
mercy seat was through the veil. That veil prohibited anybody's
entrance there. There was no other way than through
that veil. Well, that's true in the New
Covenant under the covenant of grace. There is no way to the
seat of mercy, to His throne of grace, but through the veil,
the new and living veil. I want you to turn to Hebrews
10. Look at Hebrews 10. Our sin and our transgressions
against the law of God, against God Himself, the enmity of our
hearts against God. All of these things barred our
entrance to God. They veiled us from coming into
God's presence. And so something had to be done.
That veil had to be split in two and a new way had to be made
for us to come to God. Three things had to happen. Now
here's what we see. We see all three of them right
here. First of all, Christ laid down His life on the cross. That's
how we got infants. Look at verse 19. Having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way. So he's saying not through that
old veil anymore, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated
for us through the veil. That is to say, His flesh. The Scripture says, "...he hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him." In his flesh, Christ
was made what it was that barred our entrance into the presence
of God. And in his flesh, Christ paid to God what all the elect
of God owed to justice. He laid down His life. And now
by His being raised in His flesh, He gives us the new and living
way. He is the new and living way
into God's presence. And then He says, we have this
entrance because Christ arose from the dead to be our high
priest. Look at verse 21, Hebrews 10, 21. And having a high priest
over the house of God. We got to have an entrance made
by His blood and we got to have a high priest. Christ is that
high priest who presents all those that come to God in Him,
He presents us to God without fault and perfect. And then look,
here's the third thing. We have this entrance by having
our conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ and our bodies
washed in pure water in the new birth by the Holy Spirit. Look
at verse 22. Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. You see,
sinners not only have to be made righteous, by Christ's blood,
but we have to be made holy within, inwardly, to have access to God. We were imitating our minds against
God. We can't come to God if we're unholy. We've got to be
made holy. So, we have to be born again
by Christ being formed in our heart. Then we're made, through
faith, we're made righteous and holy. Now we can come into God's
presence. God set forth Christ to be the
propitiation. to be the way, the one that puts
away sin, to be the way into God's presence. And you can come
to God in Christ and be freely accepted of God. He will accept
you. But if you try to come some other
way, you cannot come to God. There remains between you and
God a veil that separates you and you can't come. You have
to come in Christ. Without Christ, we're without
God. Without Christ, we're without hope. Without Christ, we have
no entrance into the presence of God. Christ said, if you believe
not that I am He, you shall die in your sins. It's just that
simple. It doesn't matter who a man is,
where he lives, what religion he's in. The only way to God
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Period. It's only on terms of
grace, not by our merit, by His doings. Not by our doing, by
His doing. It's only on terms of grace,
through faith in Christ, that God will accept a sinner. That's
the only way. The way is open, but not without
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The way is open, but if God permitted
us to come without Christ being our full, complete, total obedience
and merit, our complete righteousness, and without us being born again
in our heart by Christ, then that would be to permit us into
His presence being unholy and unrighteous. And a holy and righteous
God won't do that. He just won't do that. Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. And likewise,
without that blood making us righteous and holy, there's no
access to God. Period. Now usually, you know,
if you have to buy a ticket to get into something, to some venue,
usually, the higher the price the ticket costs you, That shows
you how valuable entrance into that venue is. If you have to
pay a high price for a ticket to get into a place, then that
place is usually highly valued so that you have to pay that
high price to get in. Entrance into God's presence
costs God's own blood. How valuable do you think that
entrance is? It costs God coming in human flesh and shedding His
own blood to give us access, entrance into God's presence.
I'd say that's about as costly and as valuable a ticket as you
can have, wouldn't you? Do you want to come into His
presence? This life is not what it's about. This life is fixed to be over
in a heartbeat. And without Christ, there'll
be no entrance into His presence. You'll get to look in, you'll
get to see what's there, but then be cast out with a view
of it forever. Alright, let's look at the next
thing he tells us here. I want you to stay with me now,
because this third thing is very important, but you won't understand
it if you don't see these other two points. So first, we can
only come in Christ. In whom? Secondly, he tells us
what we have as we come in Christ. Verse 12 says, In Christ we have
boldness and access with confidence. In Christ we have boldness and
access with confidence. Now notice we have, verse 12,
he says, boldness. What does that mean, boldness?
We have boldness to enter. Does it mean we come presumptuously? Does it mean we come self-righteously? Proudly? Does it mean we come
demanding things of God? No. Holy boldness doesn't mean
that we come without the deepest reverence for Holy God. Don't
ever forget we're coming into the presence of Holy God our
Father. We're coming into the presence
of Holy King Jesus. We're coming into the presence
of the Holy Spirit. That's whose presence we're entering
into. Boldness doesn't mean that we come forgetting what I am
and what Christ is to me. It means I don't come... Our
boldness is not due to our holiness and our righteousness. So we
got nothing to come proud about. Our boldness to come is not because
now I've mortified my sin and I've put away my corrupt passions,
so now I've got boldness. That's not what gives us boldness
to come. It's not because we think we've walked consistently,
now God, we have boldness to enter. That's not what gives
us boldness to enter. He would turn us away if we came
like that. That's how a Pharisee comes.
A Pharisee comes boasting of what he's done. We don't come
that way. It's not to come on grounds of
ourselves. And what we've done is to come
on what our great high priest has done for us. Our great high
priest over the house of God. We come in Him. Boldness means
this. To come freely. To come with
all outspokenness. To be able to speak to God honestly. Bury your heart to God. It's
opposite of slavish fear. It's the opposite of being afraid
that because he's so holy he'll turn us away. It's opposite of
coming presumptuously and in pride. Boldness is opposite of
that. Boldness is coming with liberty
to speak to God as our Father. If you don't have Christ, you
can't even talk to God. Isn't that something? Think of
how many prayers are made. Think of how many people pray
and just how much people pray and how often people pray. And
without coming in Christ, it's all vain. It's just words spoken
into the air. It's to come with liberty speaking
to God our Father, even though we've sinned, even though that
we've not walked honorably like we'd like to walk, even though
we've transgressed against Him continually. It's to come knowing
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,
and He's the propitiation for our sins. That's boldness we
have. To come in Christ freely and
humbly. Sometimes you hear folks pray,
you know, and they pray so demandingly. They speak as if they deserve
for God to do whatever it is they're asking Him for. That's
not boldness. That's pride. That's self-righteousness.
You remember when Abraham prayed to God concerning Lot and concerning
if there was any righteous man in Sodom and Gomorrah. He came
to God. He spoke plainly. He spoke openly. He didn't withhold his words.
He told God what he was asking God for. But do you remember
what he said? He said, I've taken it upon me
to pray to God who am but dust and ashes. You see, boldness
is consistent with humility. To come to God with boldness
is to come humbly. Is to come humbly and reverently
with submission in your heart as a child of God to our loving
Father in heaven. That's boldness. And it's to
do so as Christ himself prayed saying, nevertheless, not as
I will, but as thou wilt. We want God's will to be done.
We don't want our will to be done. We did want our will to
be done. That used to be all we wanted,
was our will to be done. But when God makes you willing
in the day of his power, you want God's will to be done, not
your own will to be done. So we come asking him, not as
I will, but as thou wilt. is to come believing that Christ
has made us one with Him, that He's robed us in His righteousness,
that God will not forsake us, He will not turn us away. He
will receive us because we've been made righteous by what Christ
did, we've been made partakers of the divine nature by Christ
dwelling in us. He's made us kings and priests
unto God. And when He made us kings and
priests, all the privileges of having those offices came with
those came with being made kings and priests. We have access into
God's presence, into the holy place, and we're called on to
enter without fear, to come to God. Let me give you an illustration
of boldness. How do you walk into a friend's
house, somebody that's a stranger's house, it's not your house, and
how do you walk into your own house? Is there a difference?
Somebody invites you to their house and It's not your house. You don't just walk over and
open the door and walk right in. You knock, don't you? But
when you come to your own house, you just open the door and walk
right in. Because it's your house. Well, that's how we come. Should
a child of God come and tremble because he's coming to his father's
presence? Should he come and have reservations
about asking his father for what it is he needs? We come with
boldness. We come freely, not afraid to
ask for help. We come welcome. That's how we
come. And then he says this. Look at the next thing. He says
in verse 12, to come is to come and he says we have access to
come. We may enter at all times. That's
what access means. We can enter at all times. Look
at Leviticus 16. I want you to see something. Leviticus 16. That was not the
case under the Old Covenant. And that was not the case when
you and I were in our sin. Look at Leviticus 16 and verse
2. The Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother,
that he come not at all times into the holy place. Do you see
that? speaking to Aaron that he come
not at all times into the holy place. That's what we're talking
about. We're talking about coming into the holy place, into God's
presence. And he told Aaron, Aaron was
the high priest, and he told Aaron he can't come at all times
now. He says within the veil before the mercy seat, which
is upon the ark, that he die not. If he just tries to come
at any time, he's going to die. He can come one time, once a
year, on the day of atonement. But you know what he's telling
us in our text? Because Christ has come, because Christ has
made atonement for his people, and because he's our high priest
over the house of God, we have access into the presence of God
all the time. We can come at all times now,
and not die. We can come all the time. When
your faith is weak, You have access. When you feel more like
a child of hell than a child of heaven, you have access. That's
right. When your sins bring you to the
point that you despair, you still have access. Whenever you're
grieving, a believer still has access. There's nothing that
can separate us from access to God. because Christ has entered
in. Remember the character of the
one that we have access to. He delights to show mercy. He's
opened the way and He delights to show mercy. He loves us with
an everlasting love. Those that He chose before the
foundation of the world and put in Christ, He loves with an everlasting
love. Therefore, us sons of Jacob are
not consumed. This is the character of Him
to whom we have access. James said, He upbraideth not. There'll never be another separation
between the believer and God. Paul said, who shall separate
us from the love of God? Not Satan himself can separate
us. Nothing will separate us. There's access between a believer
and his God. And it's free access forever
because Christ has removed that which separated us. The veil
is rent, the law is satisfied, our sins are put away. It's God
Himself who laid the sin of all His people on Christ. It's God
Himself who bore our sin away in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's God Himself who came and gave us a new life and
gave us faith to believe Him. It's God Himself who is the ladder
from heaven to us, to earth that gives us access. It's God Himself
who's opened the door and given us access into His presence.
And He says to you that He's given access, you have access
all the time. My door's open all the time.
That's what He's saying in our text. There's not any believer
that can sin so as to exceed the power of Christ's blood.
Not one for whom He died, Or God's willingness to forgive
us. You can't exceed that. He will help for the sake of
his darling son. That's what he's telling us.
We have access at all times. It's open. Not by our merits,
by Christ's merits. And then he says this. We can
come with confidence. Verse 12 he says we have boldness
and access with confidence. What does that mean? Well, it's
the opposite of doubting. It's the opposite of fears. It's
the opposite of having apprehension. It's to come with assurance in
our conscience. We've been brought near by the
blood of Christ. That's how we got this access. And so when Christ brings us
near, He makes us to know our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ. And so he makes us to know that
by his blood we have confidence. Now his blood ought to give us
confidence all the time. Do you have confidence all the
time? That's why we're going to get to this third point and
see why this third point is so necessary. God said when I see
the blood. He didn't say when I see you.
So why do we look at us? That's what takes our confidence
away. What takes our confidence away is that we see how short
we come of the glory of God. And we ought to, because we're
looking at us when we do that. But He said, when I see the blood,
He's looking at His Son. So that's where we need to look,
is at His Son. And then we'll have some confidence
to come. But we don't always do that, do we? We're slow to
come to His throne of grace. But confidence means, it means
this too, to come perseveringly. It means to keep coming, to come
over and over again. If you go there the first time
and you ask God and God doesn't give you what you asked for,
James tells us it's because we're not asking a right, we're asking
a miss. And if God doesn't give us what we asked for, that's
God answering our prayer. Because if He gave us what we
asked for, when it's something that would be bad for us and
something that would end in our destruction, He hasn't conducted himself toward
us like a loving father, but like a judge. He's done that
for many earthly people. He'd give them what they want.
What they want was the earth. He'd give it to them. Let them
have it. But He don't do that for His children because He doesn't
spoil His children. He keeps us in Him, in His Son. So, we come again and again with
confidence that He does hear us and He will give us what is
best for our eternal good and for His glory. And He makes us
wait sometimes because then we appreciate it all the more when
He does give us what it is that we need. And then to come with
confidence means this too. It means to ask unreservedly
with all sorts of petitions. This is a sad thing, but you
know what we do when our children come and ask us for things? Very
often we judge that what they're asking us is not very important
because it's not very significant to us. But if they ask for it,
it was significant to them. Now you think about it. What
is it that a little childish sinner like me and you could
ask the omnipotent all-knowing God that would seem significant
to him if he judged our petitions like we judge the petitions of
our children. You understand what I'm saying?
We're so childish and so babies in knowledge and in everything
that what we ask is just dumb. We ask dumb things. But God regards
them all as significant because they're significant to us. And
so, it's to come confidently and assured that whatever we
ask, whatever is burning in our hearts will be significant to
our Heavenly Father. It may be some great thing, some
great infirmity that's crushing you down. Or it may be some little
obstacle that's in your way that's nothing. But He hears the petition
of His child no matter what it is. This is what the Scripture
says, cast all your care on Him. That means the little thing and
the big thing. Cast all your care on Him. The only thing that
will insult our Heavenly Father is not asking Him. That's it. It's not whether it's too big
or too small or it meets some sort of qualification. The only
thing that will insult Him is not asking Him. We can have far
more confidence in approaching God our Father than we can in
approaching even the most loving earthly Father. Now that's true. Alright, so these three words
tell us we're invited to come into His access. We have boldness,
we have access, we have confidence. God would invite us to come into
His presence and then turn us away. Just by the sheer fact
that He's told us to come tells us He'll receive us if we come
in Christ through faith in Him. Now, I want you to listen to
this third thing. Now listen up because this is
important. And now the fire trucks are here.
They're making a noise. right when I get to the important
thing. So give me your full undivided attention. I want you to hear
this now, okay? This is very important. Verse
12. It says that we have all this by the faith of Him, by
the faith of Christ. This means by the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when you read the King James
translation, the King James translation of the Bible, The faith of Christ
means the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And
faith in Christ means your faith in Christ. Now, if you have modern
translations, this distinction will be removed. They make, modern
translations, most of them make, they change faith of Christ into
faith in Christ and they always make it to hinge on your faith
because that's not offensive to a man. But when you change
the Bible like that and change faith of Christ, you miss the
blessing that I'm about to show you. When you tell somebody to
read their Bible, you can't just say that in our day because you
never know what Bible they're reading. So let me show you what I'm talking
about. Indeed, we must be given faith. Indeed, we must come with
faith in Christ. Remember the two things I said
we have to come with? We have to come, the holy priest
to come into the Holy of Holies, he had to have two things. He
had to be sprinkled with blood, with the blood of Christ. That's
what we have to be sprinkled with. Every believer has had
that happen to us. And then he had to have his body
washed with pure water. We've had that. Every believer
received a spiritual cleansing by the washing of regeneration
when we were born again by the Holy Spirit. But now listen,
that's not a one time thing. You see, when I'm talking about
this boldness, this liberty, and this freedom to come, and
I'm talking about this access, and I'm talking about this confidence,
listen to this. Believers always have access
to approach God through Jesus Christ. But we do not always
have boldness and confidence in our access to God. Let me
say that again. We always have access to approach
God through Jesus Christ. But in our own hearts, in our
own minds, we don't always have boldness and confidence in that
access. Sometimes we doubt and sometimes
we're full of fears. You know, most of the time, most
of the time, we're so formal and just so cold in our prayer.
You know, you might get down on your knees and pray to God
and still be as dead as a hammer. Feel like you're just dead as
a hammer. There's no power, there's no fervency in it. Most of the
time we use vain repetitions, we use senseless words, we just
repeat things and we don't say anything from the heart. most
of the time. This faithfulness of Christ,
it speaks not only of that faithfulness of His redeeming us by His blood,
not only of the faithfulness of Him sending the Spirit and
regenerating us in our heart, it speaks of the faithfulness
of Him making us to truly enter in prayer with boldness and access
with confidence. To truly enter God's presence
is to come when grace is reigning in your heart. It's to come when
grace has drawn you in power. It's to come when grace flows
out of the fullness of Jesus Christ like light and like heat
flows out of the sun. But it takes the faithfulness
of Christ ever moving upon us to bring us to pray like that.
The depths of our sins, we don't see them, but you know when you
do pray? It's when you see the depths
of your sins. And here's when you really fear God and approach
Him reverently and not flippantly and not just repeating things
and just saying word is when you see that there's forgiveness
of those sins with God by the blood of Christ. And He has to
show us that. We're so lukewarm all the time
and He has to show us we're lukewarm. And then only Him can show us
the heat of His love and make us to approach Him in His power.
It's a different thing to pray by His faithfulness working in
our hearts when we see that we're surrounded by infirmities, and
we're surrounded by evil, and we're surrounded by temptations,
and we have no strength in ourselves whatsoever, but yet we see Christ
standing there with us, drawing us into His presence, protecting
us, and being our righteousness, and being our holiness, and bringing
us into His presence, and being our advocate with the Father.
That makes all the difference in the world. Then you pray. Then you pray. Then it's not
just vain repetition. It's only when the Spirit of
Christ takes the things of Christ and reveals them to us, shows
them to us effectually, that we pray. You know what the Lord
said? Where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. There's boldness. That's the
word, boldness. We come in His presence. Where
the Spirit of the Lord is. Look at Romans 8.26. I got one
thing to show you here, one thing, Romans 8, 26. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities,
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the
Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. Now, I want you
to remember something. Think about this. You may have
to put your thinking cap on here just a minute. But think about
this now. Christ, through the Holy Spirit, wrote that Scripture.
He wrote the Scripture that's our text through Paul. He used Paul to write it. But
Christ, through the Holy Spirit, wrote those Scriptures. Do you
know what Christ is telling us? Do you know what the Holy Spirit
is telling us? He's telling us that He promises to faithfully
move upon us and to accompany us to His own throne of grace. Listen to this. It is His divine
voice that says to us, let us come boldly to the throne of
grace. You say, well, I read that in
Hebrews and I think that's Paul that said that. Oh, it is Paul
that he used to write it. But it's Christ speaking through
the Holy Spirit that says, Robert, come now, let us go to the throne
of grace. You mean He comes to me? He says,
Christ says to me, come now, let us go to my throne of grace. If He don't, we won't ever go,
Carol. If He does not come and say,
come, let us come to my throne of grace, you and I won't come.
We can read that we have boldness, we can read that we have access,
we can read that we've got confidence, but until He comes and brings
us, we won't come. It's Christ that's speaking to
us in a psalm like Psalm 95-2 and He says, let us come before
His presence with thanksgiving. and make a joyful noise unto
Him with psalms. He says, I'll never leave you,
I'll never forsake you. He says, as your days are, so
shall thy strength be. And you know who that strength
is? It's Him. It's Him. So He not only presents
our petitions to the Father, when we come to His throne of
grace, He not only stands there between us and God, and Christ
presents our petitions to the Father, but He comes to us and
by His faithfulness. When we're over here wavering
and we're not faithful and our little old piddly so-called faith
don't even resemble faith, He in faithfulness comes to us and
draws us to Himself and says, come now, let us go to the throne
of grace. And He causes us to pray. And
then He presents our petitions to the Father. And then you know
what He does? Then He turns to you and me and
He says, whatsoever you shall ask of the Father, In my name,
He will give it to you. And sinners that don't know this,
that don't understand this, little self-righteous, proud boasters
go around talking about, Oh, I've done great things by my
prayer. You wouldn't have even prayed. Most of them hadn't. But we wouldn't even pray if
God hadn't in faithfulness come and made us pray. So what I'm
telling you, brethren, is be thankful for the faith of Him.
Prayers by the faith of Christ. He's the author of faith. He's
the finisher of faith. And He's the one that sustains
our little piddly faith the whole way through. He that has begun
a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
He's the way that draws us and leads us and guides us and bears
us and brings us and presents us and keeps us. He is that way. Don't speak of our little faithfulness. Don't speak of our little faithfulness.
It is so insignificant at best. But speak highly of the faith
of Him. Whatever we do, don't ever try
to sing without Christ present. Don't try to worship without
Christ present. Don't try to preach without Christ
present. Don't do anything that involves
divine worship without Christ present. And the only way we'll
do that is by the faith of Him. That's the only way. That's why
I say to you, brethren, when we come to worship God, we need
to give some time to really and truly seek Him and ask Him for
His presence and to be in our midst and to give us some some His presence with us, or
we just won't sing, we won't pray, we won't preach. It'll
all be a vain show. I don't want that. Prayer is
by the faith of Him. Amen.