Alright, let's begin reading
in verse 3. Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Paul writes to these believers
at Ephesus. He says, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heaven, in Christ, 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, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. Now here's our text. To the praise
of the glory of His grace. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. We're just going to look at that
one little phrase. And the last of the verse says, wherein He
made us accepted in the Beloved. Praise the glory of His grace. That's what I've titled this. Praise the glory of His grace. Everything that God the Father
does from beginning to end is so that every last child that
He brings to heaven with Him shall praise the glory of His
grace. That's the reason God is doing
everything from beginning to end is so that every child He
brings to Himself shall praise the glory of His grace. The Spirit of God moved Paul's
hand right here to write some of the most blessed words in
all of Scripture in these four verses right here that I just
read to you. He tells us right here that God
the Father blessed a people with all spiritual blessings. He did
it in heaven. He did it in Christ. It tells
us here that God the Father chose a people. He elected a people
unto salvation. Chose them in Christ Jesus before
the foundation of the world. It tells us God did it that they
should be holy and without blame. He didn't do it because they
were holy and without blame. He did it to make them holy and
without blame. It says here that He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. This is what pleased Him. This
was His will to predestinate, order all things that come to
pass from the little leaf out there that falls down out of
the tree to every aspect of your life and mine for the purpose
of bringing all His children to Him. That's why He's done
it. That's His purpose. And in doing so, He's made us
accepted in the Beloved. Accepted of holy God. Accepted of holy God in His beloved
Son, Christ Jesus. That's what God's done for His
people. He's revealed many divine attributes about Himself. He's
revealed how wise He is. He's manifest how powerful He
is. He spoke heaven and earth into
existence. He subdues men as He will. He's immutable. He doesn't change. The unchanging, unchangeable
God is who we're talking about. We see His glory manifest in
many ways. We see the glory of His justice.
We see the glory of His longsuffering, of His goodness, of His truth.
of His forgiveness. All these things He's manifest
to us, including these things we see right here in these four
verses. But God the Father says to crown
all of what He's done. This is what pleased Him right
here. That everybody He saves will
praise the glory of His grace. That's what we're going to praise.
All of this is by His grace. And I like how he says it. I
like how he says, the glory of His grace. Grace is something
in itself, by itself, but say the glory of His grace. It is
glorious grace. Praise Him for His glorious grace. That's what it is. Glorious grace. Mr. Spurgeon wrote this, he said,
when God glorifies His grace, He glorifies His whole character. All His perfections, and they,
albeit bright enough in themselves, seem to be doubly bright when
they glow in the brilliance of His grace. The praise of the
glory of His grace. What does that word grace mean?
We'll make sure we understand that first. What does grace mean?
By grace, we're talking about the free, sovereign favor of
God the Father given to guilty and helpless sinners. We're saying
that every detail in a sinner's salvation, from his election
to the final act of carrying him into the glory of heaven,
is all by the grace of God. If there's a sinner that can
lay claim to just one little detail that he did and pat himself
on the back and praise himself for that one little detail, however
small it may be, they say, but at least I did that. Then it's
no longer grace. That person has got to save himself
entirely by himself. It got to be all of works. because
grace and works cannot go together. They don't go together. They
cannot go together. They're opposites of one another.
Grace and works are opposites. They cannot go together. Salvation
is not a combined effort between grace and works, nor is it partly
grace and partly works. They're not mingled together
to accomplish it, nor is it partly one or partly the other. It's
all of grace. Romans 11, 7 says, If by grace,
then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it's
no more grace. Otherwise, works is no more work. So it's either one or the other.
Our texts are over in Ephesians 2 right here. We read in verse
8, For by grace are you saved. Look down at verse 9. Not of
works, lest any should boast. You see, there's going to be
a lot of praising going on in glory. There's going to be a
lot of praising going on in heaven. But there won't be any praising
going on to anybody but to God, to His Son, to the praise of the glory of
His grace. We're going to be singing boasting,
excluded, pride I base. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. That's what we are. All right,
here's the first thing I want you to see. The everlasting covenant
is a covenant of grace. It's a covenant of grace. We're
going to be saved by covenant. That's how we're saved. And the
everlasting covenant That is the covenant by which He saves
His people, and that's a covenant of grace. We see here in these
first four verses that by grace, God the Father elected a people
unto salvation, and He gave them to Christ. And this is when the
triune God entered into covenant to save this people that God
chose. Each one would have a part in
saving this people. That's when that took place before
the foundation of the world. And so because there was nothing
left in the hand of those that God chose, it's all going to
be accomplished by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. It's a covenant of grace. That means God's doing it all.
Now this is the New Covenant. Look over 2 Samuel. I want you
to see 2 Samuel. This is the New Covenant. That's
the promise that He makes in the heart that salvation is done,
shall be done by Him. That's the promise He makes in
the heart of those He saved. And He makes you, you hear me
speaking right now, and you kind of pay attention, But when He
speaks, you'll really pay attention. When He speaks into the heart
and writes this on the heart, this is where fear is cast out. This is where we stop fearing
men and we start fearing God when this happens. This is when
we stop... We stop looking to ourselves
for anything and we start looking to God for everything. Right
here. He makes this covenant. This is what David said. 2 Samuel
23, 5. Although my house be not so with
God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things. That means God did it. And sure,
that means God did it. That means it's all by grace.
Because if it was any part of it by us, it wouldn't be ordered
in all things and it wouldn't be sure. Because it's His, it's
ordered in all things and sure. And it's by grace, therefore,
because He's doing it. He's the only one that can order
it and bring it to pass and make it sure. For this is all my salvation. This is it. This is all my salvation.
So you might say when I say grace, I'm saying grace is all my salvation. It is. Grace is all my salvation
and all my desire. although we make it not to grow.
He said, My mercy will I keep for him forever. My covenant
shall stand fast with him. That's what He said in the Psalms.
Now let me ask you this. When you hear about salvation
being all by grace, when you hear about salvation being done
by His grace so that He does all the work involved to please
Himself and to make you the perfection you have to be to be accepted
of Him. When you hear this message about
this, does that not give you an interest in these things?
Does that not make you say, I want to hear about that? You know
you're a sinner. You know you that haven't called
on God, haven't come with nothing, come confessing your sin, to
do justly with God and to take sides with God against yourself
and to beg mercy from Him and say you've got to be saved by
His grace because you can't be saved any other way. You who
have never humbled yourself down low enough into the dirt to be
saved by God's way have pleased God to say, you're a sinner and
you're going to meet God. That's just a matter of time.
So do you not get interested when you hear of these things
that He saves by His grace and He does it all? Isaiah 55.3, I'll just read this,
but He said, Incline your ear and come unto Me. Hear, and your
soul shall live. And I'll make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. That same covenant
of grace. And He said, just hear. And that's something you can
live by hearing. What would you do if you got
up in the morning and you said, I need to eat. I'm starving. I got to eat something. And all
you had to do was hear and you'd be full. What if you saw all
this great amount of work that needed to be done and you're
sitting there just overwhelmed with all this work that needed
to be done. And all you had to do was hear and it's all done. That's what He's saying just
here. He's telling you, it's all done. Everything's done.
So that's the first thing. This covenant of grace is accomplished
by Him. Secondly, grace is sure because,
go back to Ephesians 1, grace is sure because God the Father
gave His Son, and His Son came and did the work. to justify
His people and clear us of all our sins. That's what He did.
That's what God the Son came to do. Look at verse 7. Ephesians
1, 7. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, even the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches
of His grace. All those He chose to save They
have to be forgiven. They have to be redeemed. They
have to be purchased out from under the law because the law
has you lawfully captive. You belong to the law. You sin.
You owe the law death. You owe the law perfection. And Satan has you lawfully bound. His head's got to be crushed.
Sin's got to be taken away so that he has no more power. You've
got to be delivered. You've got to be redeemed. You've
got to be purchased. and then be forgiven. And that's
according to the riches of His grace. There's no other way.
No other way it could come about. Paul's writing to those chosen
by grace. And these who he's writing to,
they came to God confessing they're sinners. They came to God confessing
they had no goodness in themselves. They came to God confessing they
couldn't save themselves. That's the requirement. God won't
save anybody but sinners. That's the requirement. You've
got to be so nasty and dirty and filthy in your sin that you
think God won't have anything to do with you, period. Right
now, the reason you had to come is not sin keeping you away from
Him. It's righteousness. You think you're alright without
Him. But we got to be so ruined in our sin that we come confessing
to Him that we can't do anything, that we have to have Him to save
us completely and wash us by His blood. That's the requirement. These ones did that. They came
guilty. They came vile. They came confessing
their sin. I know that. You know how I know
it? Paul said, you've been redeemed and you have forgiveness of sins.
That's how I know they came that way. Because that's what he does
for everybody that comes that way. Isn't that amazing? Justification. Redemption. Righteousness. Forgiveness of
sin. All this is free of His grace. to those that simply come and
say, I believe if you're willing you can save me. A leper came
to him one time. He come running up to him and
he said, he said, he said, knelt down to him, knelt down at his
feet and was begging him, begging him. And he said, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean. And the Lord cleaned him. It's
not coming to Him and demanding Him to clean you. He don't have
to clean you. Grace is free. Grace is sovereign.
It's at His discretion to give it to whom He will. But if you
come to Him begging for mercy, He healed that leper. He healed
him. But that's how you got to come
to Him. You got to come to Him begging Him saying, if you will,
you can save me. I said, I need to be saved. I
can't save myself by my will. I can't save myself by my words.
But if you're willing, you can. And all those that He justifies
by grace, He justifies freely. It means they come confessing,
they can't be justified any other way than by His grace. They come empty, empty. The publicans
smote upon His breast and He said, have mercy on Me, the sinner. And the Lord said He went down
to His house justified. Look at Romans 3. Romans chapter
3. Look at verse 20. Romans 3.20.
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified
in its sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. That's why it was given. It was
given as a measuring stick, all right, but not to measure how
good we're doing or how holy we are. It's to measure how sinful
we are. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifesting. being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Now look who this faith of Jesus
Christ... Jesus Christ has done this. He's accomplished this.
This work's accomplished. It's accomplished for somebody.
He's done this for those God gave Him that He went to the
cross for. But look who this righteousness
is given to. It's unto all and upon all. Them
that believe. Them that believe. Do you see
that? Them that believe. You mean that's
all? It's just believe God? That's
all, but that's a lot. That's something man can't do.
A natural man cannot just stop doing and believe God. Look, for there's no difference.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But look
at this, being justified freely. This is what, if we come believing
on Him, this is how we'll be justified. Freely, by His grace. through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus. Because God set Him for it to
be a mercy seat through faith in His blood. See, there you've
got the mercy seat, right in the middle, the propitiation.
And you've got a sinner over here and you've got God the Father
there. And the two can't come together except in this mercy
seat. And there's blood on that mercy seat. And He says, who
comes in that mercy seat? Comes to that mercy seat begging
mercy. under the blood, bowed down under
the blood. He'll get mercy. God will have
mercy on him. Because God did that to declare
His righteousness. He did it to declare that He's
the one who's just and the justifier. We don't justify ourselves. And
the reason this justification is free is because Christ paid
all the debt His people owed. He paid all the debt we owe so
that God gets all the glory for justifying His people. Remember
now, grace and works, they can't go together. Paul said in Titus,
being justified by His grace, we shall be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. Being justified by His grace.
Alright, here's the third thing. Look back at Ephesians 2. If
you can come this way, it's going to be by His grace. We said now
this covenant He makes in the heart is a covenant of grace.
We said now that if we come to Him, begging Him to save us,
have mercy on us, if He will, our justification will be by
His free grace accomplished by the blood of Christ. And then
if we can come that way, it's going to be by His grace. Look
here at Ephesians 2, 3. He says, among whom also we all
had our conversation in time past. He's talking about how
we were dead in trespasses and sins. In the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh of the mind, whereby nature
of the children of wrath, even as others." I think this is one
of those wise things God did in choosing to save through the
preaching of the Gospel. In choosing to save by gathering
up a church like this and using them to to support the preaching
of the Gospel so that it can go forth. It's because those
He's saving are terrified to come to Him. They see their sin,
they see their rebellion, they see what they are when He's made
it known in their heart, and they're terrified to come to
it. But here's what He's done. He's put you together. There's
a whole group of people sitting right here that's already experienced
that. They already can tell you, we
walked according to the same course. We were the same dead
conniving, lust-filled rebels that you are. We sure were. We're the same. And the man standing
here preaching to you, I'm the same. I've been through it. I
know exactly what you feel like. I know when you feel like you
want to believe Him, but you just, you're back to that old
dead flesh again. I know what that's like. I know
exactly what that's like. But look what He said here. That's
where we were. We were children of wrath, even
as others. How did we come to Him then?
Verse 4, But God, who's rich in mercy. For His great love
wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sin, He quickened
us together with Christ by grace, you see. And He raised us up
together, and He made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding
riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
Those who truly believe on Christ, they don't boast in themselves.
You won't hear a believer boasting in his faith. You'll hear professing
believers boasting in their faith, but you won't hear a believer
boasting in their faith. We don't have anything to brag
about. God gave it to us. He sustains it. He's the object
of it. We were the object of His grace
to give it to us. Why would we boast in it? Oh,
it's all by His grace. We're saved and called with a
holy calling. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ before the world began. I told you this the other night.
I heard this from somebody. I really like it. He saved us. He chose us. He sent His Son.
His Son came and redeemed His people, went back to glory, sat
down at the right hand of the Father. And in time, He sent
forth a preacher. And it was just like Him saving
us and then pick up the phone and calling us and saying, I've
done it for you. It's done. He called us and told
us, it's done. And He calls His people. He calls
us by the Spirit of God and He whispers in our heart and He
says, it's done according to His own purpose and grace which
was given you before the foundation of the world. It's done. It's
not of Him that willeth or runneth, but it's of God that shows mercy.
He said, I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious. So we
don't boast. It's a faith that it might be by grace. to the
end the promise might be sure to all to see. It makes it sure
because it's by faith, because He gives it, so that you just
rest in something He's done, and that's all by grace, so that
it's sure. It's sure to all His people that
way. Alright, here's the next thing. If we continue in faith,
it's going to be by His grace. Look at Philippians. Philippians
chapter 1. Paul was saved by grace. And
he went forth laboring in the gospel, and he was beaten, he
was shipwrecked, he was thrown in prison. Men forbid him to
preach. And you would think this man,
you know, going forth, always trusted in his work, you'd think
he'd never trust that God's gonna save people through this gospel. And he went forth and preached
anyway, and God saved people through it. And he said this
about himself, by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace
was bestowed upon me. It was not in vain, but I labored
more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me." Aren't you glad the grace of God's with
His people? He continues to keep you by His grace. We got two
nations warring within us against each other, and then we got all
the warring and fighting going on without us. And Paul was in
prison when he wrote to the Philippians. And this is what he said to them.
He wrote to them, there he is in prison, facing execution.
And he writes to them and he says this, he says verse 6, Philippians
1-6, being confident of this very thing, that he which has
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. And he said, even as it is fit
for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart,
in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel,
and here's why it's fit to think of this of you, because you all
are partakers with me of grace. Of grace. Look over at Philippians
3. He was trusting Christ in that
risen... Paul in Ephesians is talking
about how He's been risen into the right hand of the Father
to fill all in all. as the head of his people. And
that's the power of his resurrection. And the more weak Paul became,
the more weak he became, the more he talked about the power
of his resurrection. Because the more weak we become,
the more we depend upon him and his mediatorial glory as the
head and husband of his church to fill all and all in us and
to keep us and sustain us by his grace. And so he said here
in Philippians 3.10, he said that I might know Him in the
power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings
being made conformable unto His death. I said to you before,
being made conformable unto His death is to die like He died,
to suffer like He suffered. He suffered going to His Father
continually and casting His care into the hands of the Father.
And He says, tells us, therefore come boldly unto the throne of
grace, to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. That's right. It's all
by His grace. He said He'd make all grace. He will supply you. Let me see
here. Listen to this, God is able to
make all grace abound towards you that you always having all
sufficiency and all things may abound to ever good work. A man
in prison facing execution would say that, yeah, he said this
is going to turn out, this is going to turn to my salvation,
this is going to turn to my good one way or the other, whether
I live or I die, it's going to be good either way. Grace makes
a man say that. Alright, here's the last thing.
That last stone He brings, His living stone, say last stone
He brings to the temple and puts in the temple. He started with
the first one by grace, the last one by grace. It says He's going
to bring the headstone thereof with shoutings crying, grace,
grace unto it. Beginning to end, everybody He
saves is saved by grace. And we're going to see, we're
going to end up in the end, that's what we're going to see. We're
going to see that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal
life. Grace reigns, grace conquers
through righteousness unto eternal life. Peter started his first
epistle and he said it this way, Wherefore gird up the loins of
your mind, be sober, hope to the end for the grace that is
to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And
he ended it this way. the God of all grace, who's called
us under his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After you've suffered
a while, he'll make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle
you. That's why now, right now, his
true people, his true people, and forever his true people,
praise the glory of his grace, because we're saved by grace.
That's all, by grace. Well, did not? Nope. Grace. Just
grace. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. Amen.