If you would turn with me to
Ephesians chapter 1 in your Bible, please. I love Paul's letter
to the church at Ephesus. I know it's a favorite of many
of God's people. And I think the reason that God's
people love it so is that it's saturated with Christ. Saturated
with Christ. And that's what we need. That's
what we've got to have. That's what great sinners need. And that's the saturation with
the preaching of a great Savior. And what a Savior He is. As Gene
brought up the study, I kept thinking to myself, what a Savior. What a Savior He's declared. I remember years ago hearing
a famous evangelist, I won't mention any names, preaching
on television to an all-Jewish audience. And you know the Jews
don't believe that Christ was the Messiah. And he never once
mentioned the name of Christ. Not one time. Oh, he mentioned
God, but he never mentioned Christ. Who is God, by the way? And I can assure you that no
one was saved that night. And you may say, how do you know
that preacher? Because I know the means that
God uses to save sinners. It's the preaching of Christ
and Him crucified. How are sinners saved? Well,
in the book of Acts, chapter 16, verse 30, we have the story
of the keeper of the prison where Paul and Silas was jailed, and
he asked his question. The Lord sent an earthquake,
all the prison doors opened, all the prisoners could have
escaped, which would have meant his life. He said he knew God
was behind that. He didn't know much before that.
But he asked this question, he said, Sirs, what must I do to
be saved? Do you remember what Paul and
Silas answered? They said, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Not believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and do this, and not believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and do that. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. No ifs, ands, and buts. No questions. You'll be saved. Believe on Christ.
Listen carefully to what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 10, verse
13. He said, for whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You see, believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ and calling upon His name, calling
upon Him, it's the same thing. No sinner can be saved apart
from believing and calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And as
Gene said, and as I reiterate, this is a simple message. It's
not a difficult message. Impossible to believe. Yes, brother,
you're so right. Apart from God's divine revelation. And then there in Romans chapter
10, Paul asked three questions. I want you to listen to them
carefully. He asked, how then shall they, speaking of lost
sinners. Are you a lost sinner? Listen.
How shall they call on Him in whom they've not believed? And
how shall they believe in Him of whom they've not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall a preacher be sent,
except they be sent of God? Preaching Jesus Christ, well,
that's the ordained means God uses to save them that believe.
And if you restrain from mentioning His name or preaching Him, then
you've missed. You've missed it. You've missed
what preaching's all about. Jesus Christ is the constant
theme throughout Scripture. From the beginning to the end.
He's Alpha and Omega. He's the beginning and the end.
He's the first and the last. When man sinned in the garden,
God spoke of the seed of the woman. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. When Adam and Eve conceived and
brought forth a son, two sons, Cain and Abel, Christ is seen
in the sacrifice of Abel. And man's works is seen in the
sacrifice of Cain. But that's speaking of Christ.
He's that lamb that Abel sacrificed. He's the Passover lamb. I've heard men who call themselves
gospel preachers bring sermons on just about every subject there
is. It's a popular thing today to
stand and proclaim how to do things, how to live, how to do
this, how to do that. But that's not preaching. That
kind of preaching has never ever saved a soul. Can a baker make
a loaf of bread without flour in it? He may call it bread,
but it would not be. And it's the same with a man
who preaches a Christless gospel. He may call it the gospel, but
the gospel it is not. Paul's harp had but one string. Paul's trumpet blew but one note,
and it was the most beautiful melody ever heard. If I had sung a special this
morning and sung one note all through it, you'd have been tickled
when it was over. But when we preached that one
note of Christ and Him crucified, nothing more beautiful. Nothing
more beautiful. Now, in Ephesians 1 and verse
1, we see that Paul, right from the beginning of this letter
to believers in Christ, they're called saints, they're called
the faithful of Christ Jesus, that's what a believer is. These
letters, these epistles, they weren't written to the world,
they were written to God's chosen people. And Paul clearly sets forth the
simplicity of the gospel found in this one note symphony of
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. According to verse two, all grace
and peace from God our Father is from, it's in, and it's by
and it's through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no grace, there
is no peace apart from Him. And I tell you, that'll mean
something to you if and when you understand that God is angry
with the wicked every day. And if you're without Christ
by nature, you are wicked. You and I have greatly offended
God. Have you ever been offended? Was something said about you
that wasn't true and you were offended? Or were you offended
because it was true? How did it make you feel? Did
it upset you? Were you angry? Was your integrity
insulted? I sometimes wonder how it could
be, that is our integrity, how it could be insulted when by
nature we have no integrity. How can one have integrity when
they hate their maker and their master without a cause? No reason for us to hate Him.
No reason for us to not worship Him. And you know, I think about
this often. Sin is a little word, but it's
not a little thing. Sins, plural, are what we do. Sin, singular, is what we are,
as you very capably and well put. No soundness in us. None. Not
by nature. From the sole of our feet even
to the top of our head, there's just wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores, rotting, decaying, rancid and repulsive. That's what putrefying
is. That's what God said. There's sores that haven't been
closed or bound or mollified with ointment, with medicine. Our child falls and scrapes their
knee and what do we do to it? We bind it up, we put a band-aid
on it, we put Neosporin on it, we doctor it up. And there's nothing that you
can accuse me of. And if you're one of God's people,
you'll say the same about yourself. There's nothing that you can
accuse me of that I have not thought, done, or thought to
do. I've offended a holy, just, righteous
God who's perfect in every way. God gave man whom He created
one law. Adam, you can partake of all
the trees of the garden, but there's just one commandment
that I'm giving you. Don't eat of this tree. That's
my tree. It's reserved for me." And Adam shook his fist at God.
He said, I'm going to be my own God. And that's what man by nature
has done ever since. And because of that, God is displeased. He's angry. He's annoyed and
resentful. And that's hard to hear because
all my life, a preacher told me that, well, Jesus loves everybody. Does he? That's not what this
book says. Our Lord Jesus said so. His exact
words were, they hated me without a cause. No reason for us to
hate him. He does all things well. Someone
that does all things well, there's no cause or reason to hate them. No cause in our Lord to hate
him. And if you don't now, you once
did. Every child of God will tell you that. And that is why grace and peace
must be given to us. That is why grace and peace is
ours. Paul wrote it's from the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's where it's found. That's
the only place you'll get it. This grace and peace is undeserved.
It's unmerited. It was freely You know what that
word means? Without a cause. We hate Him
without a cause, and yet He freely, without a cause, saved us by
His grace. Isn't that amazing? Ain't that
the greatest transaction that's ever occurred? Christ being made
sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him
freely without a cause. We should bless Him. Look at
verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Now, do you see that word blessed?
It's used twice in this verse. Two similar but yet different
Greek words. The first time it's used, it
instructs us as to how a believing sinner looks to Christ. In the
first sentence, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that word blessed means adored. Adored be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. We shouldn't hate Him without
a cause. We should adore Him. It means that we should deeply
commit ourselves to Him without a cause. That cause being what
He's done for us. A child of God doesn't strive
to do good things in order to be saved. They do them because
they are saved. They want to be a blessing to
the one that they adore. The one who's blessed them. How has He blessed His people?
Well, He's blessed them with all spiritual blessings, it says.
How many? Some spiritual blessings? No,
all spiritual blessings. Every one of them. He's blessed
them with heavenly blessings. Oh, every good and perfect gift
comes down from the Father of Lights, in Whom is no variableness
or shadow of turning. They're heavenly blessings. They're
spiritual blessings. And they come down from Him who
loved us and gave Himself for us. The second time the word
blessed is used, it means to invoke upon and prosper with
spiritual blessings. That's what God's done for us,
for His people. Where are these blessings found? It tells us, in Christ. You won't
find them anywhere else. Why do we look anywhere else? They can only be found in Christ.
What are these spiritual blessings? Well, Paul tells us in the following
verses. In verse 3 we see that these
spiritual heavenly blessings are according, or because, that's
what the word means, because He had chosen us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. You see, if God chose me in Christ
before the foundation of the world, then common sense tells
me that I didn't have anything to do with it. What is the first spiritual blessing?
God has chosen us that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. Now listen, if that's something
you think you can do on your own, if I believed in luck, I'd
tell you good luck. That's something only God can
do for us. That's a spiritual heavenly blessing. And you think about that, a perfectly
holy God who requires holiness and perfection. He's the one
who'll accept nothing less than perfection. It's got to be perfect
to be accepted. Gotta be without spot, gotta
be without blemish. It's gotta be perfect. I've used this illustration many
times. A young child is born. We look
at that precious little thing. See, I'm just by habit to call
them precious. We go, they're just perfect. No, they're not. No, they're not. In time, it
will reveal itself that they're not. God is the one we've offended.
God is the one that we must appease. How are we made holy and without
blame? In love, it says. Well, see,
there you go, preacher. It does. God is a God of love.
Yes, He is. But He loves His Son. And we're
blessed in Him. We're found in the one whom God
loves. All my life the preacher told
me that God loved me. Does God love sinners apart from
His Son? How could God love the unlovable?
I heard someone say one time, you
know, I want to love that fella, but he's just unlovable. How
do you love somebody that's unlovable? Well, in our case, with God,
He loves Christ, and if we're in Christ, then He loves us.
It's called substitution. Christ is God's elect, and we
are electing Him. We just looked at that a couple
weeks ago. God points at His Son, and He said, Mine elect.
He's mine elect, and we're electing Him because we're chosen in Him,
right? He chose to love us before we
were born. We love Him because He first
loved us. So in verse 5, we see the second
spiritual blessing. God predestinated us. Well, that's
a glorious word. Listen, don't hate that word. It's a glorious word. God predetermined. God determined beforehand. God
decided in purpose before the world was ever framed, before
He ever spoke it into existence, before the chosen sinner had
done any good or any evil to adopt us. Make us His children
by Jesus Christ, it says. And look at how the Holy Spirit
records it. He adopted us by Jesus Christ
to Himself. The only way I'll ever get to
God is through Jesus Christ. He became my Father. I became
His child by divine adoption. Not because of anything good
in me. Not because of anything good I did. No, before we were
ever born, before we'd ever done anything. Why did He adopt them? Verse 5 tells us. According to
the good pleasure of His will. But what about my will? The Scripture says when Pilate
stood that day before the Jews, and said, it's a custom, I can let Barabbas
go, or I can let Jesus go, and they said, Barabbas, that's our
boat, what about this Jesus? Crucify Him! And then the scripture says,
Pilate delivered them unto their will. Now if you want to see
something about your quote free will, there it is. If you could
get your hands around God's neck, you'd kill Him. If you could,
but you can't. God does what He wants to, and
what God wants to do, God does. That's what David said. He said,
our God's in the heavens, and He's done whatsoever He is pleased. God's not limited. He can do
anything. He can do everything. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did He. In heaven and earth and in the
seas and all deep places, Psalm 135, verse 6. Look at verse 6. It's according to the praise
and the glory of His grace wherein. Now, you know what that word
means? It means because He wanted to. because He willed and purposed
to, wherein He hath made us His people." Who's He writing to?
Saints, the faithful in Christ Jesus. He has made us accepted
in the Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. See how saturated this
is with Him? It's all about Him. The unacceptable has been accepted. Do you know what the word accepted
means? It means to be made valid and correct. God validated me. God corrected
me. I was on the road to hell as
fast as I could go and God stopped me in my tracks. He validated
me. He corrected me. He fixed me. And He fixed me perfectly. How marvelous is it that we who
are unacceptable and unworthy, and all of us are, are made to
be worthy and accepted. And this is the most amazing
thing. Only the unacceptable are made
acceptable. Right? Only the unholy are made
holy. How are they made so? Only in
Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, in the beloved. Those who are
well, righteous, acceptable in their own eyes, have no need
of Christ. The Lord said that. They have
no need of the great physician to make them acceptable. But
let me tell you who does need a physician, one that's sick.
One that's diseased, heavy laden with sin. Oh, got to have him. Got to have the great physician.
He's the only one that can heal me. He's the only one that can
help me. We talk about holistic doctors.
There's one. He can make me whole. My message to you this morning,
it's a simple one. These spiritual blessings are
simple. God did for me what I can't do
for myself. We like that definition, don't
we, Shelby? God did for me what I can't do
for myself. And yet as simple as they are,
they're impossible to see and believe without a divine revelation
from God. The Apostle Paul told the church
at Corinth, he said, but I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtlety, his skillful ability to deceive. That's what that means, subtlety.
So your mind should be corrupted, infected, contaminated from the
simplicity that's in Christ. There's simplicity in Christ.
This message is a simple message. Simplicity means the quality
of being easy to understand. You said several times this morning,
this is easy to understand, but impossible to believe. That's
what it is. Salvation is not hard to understand.
God requires perfection. We cannot provide what God requires. Nothing too hard to understand
about that. Christ provided for us what we cannot provide. Is
that hard to understand? The simplicity is in Christ Jesus. But it's impossible to believe
until God gives us life. And this is what sin has done
to all of us. Our first parents lived in a
garden of delight. I've often tried to think what
the Garden of Eden must have been like. God created everything
that man needed and then He put man in that garden. There wasn't
anything for man to do. Just rest. Enjoy. Leave one tree alone and the
rest of it's yours. I want a tree. I want a fat fruit. I want to be my own God. I want
to do what I want to do. How did that work out for you? Sin entered Eden's garden and
every leaf withered. Every flower died, and man was
driven out of the garden to till the ground that brought nothing
forth but thorns and thistles in abundance. You know, we look
in this world around us and there's just so much, it's just a mess,
isn't it? Sin's the cause of it. Sin's
the cause of this world's condition. There's no doubt that sin is
a great thing. Sin is a great thing in a bad
way. There's only one way that sin
can be removed from us, and that's in Christ and through His blood. Christ must die, but just for
the unjust, to what? Bring us to God. I want to be
brought to God. How am I going to be? Only one
way. The one who is just died for
the unjust. That's our message. That's the
gospel. That's the good news. So for our consideration concerning
these things, verse 7 would be our text, I suppose. And I want
to show you just a few things here, and I'll finish. In whom? You see that? Salvation is in
whom? It's not in what, it's not in
how, it's in whom. In whom? Jesus Christ. We have
redemption through His blood. The forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace. Now there's the gospel right
there in a verse. May we always remember what it
cost God for Him to forgive us. May we always remember the price
that our Lord paid to remove and pardon us from sin. What
are the wages of sin? You know the answer. Death! Eternal condemnation. Eternal
because apart from Christ, our sin can never be paid in full. Not by us. Our eternal condemnation
cannot pay for one sin. If God sent me to hell for eternity,
and that's what it'll be, it wouldn't pay for one sin. Much
less the multitude that we've all committed. So the first thing
we see is that it takes a great grace to pardon our great sin. The forgiveness of sin. What
a wondrous thing. It's only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's only in the shedding of His blood. That's what this verse
tells us. It's only according to the riches
of God's grace. Our forgiveness is great because
our sin is great. Dear sinner, look to Gethsemane
and see what it cost our Lord to bear our great sin there. It says, as it were, He sweat
great drops of blood. Follow our Lord to Pilate's hall
and hear the hateful and cruel thoughts that fell upon His sin-atoning
head and shoulders. See His own nation choose a notorious
criminal like Barabbas over the perfect Son of God. And I've
heard men foolishly say things like, well, if I'd have been
there on that day, I would have stopped it. No, you wouldn't
have. No, you would not have. You'd have been crying with everyone
else at the top of your lungs. Crucify Him. Release unto us
Barabbas. He's a murderer. I heard all my life, misery loves
company. I guess that's what they did. They loved Barabbas because he's
just like them. They just like him. See them beat our Lord and Savior
till he was unrecognizable as a man. His visage was marred
more than any other man. He didn't even look like a man
when they got done with him. They shoved a crown of thorns
down on his head as the blood ran into his eyes and into his
mouth. See them mockingly worship Him
as King of the Jews. Hail, King of the Jews! They'd
hit Him and then go, well, you're a prophet, tell us who hit you. See the soldiers take Him away.
See them nail Him to the cross. See Him as He hangs there between
heaven and hell, or excuse me, heaven and earth, both which
He Himself created. Child of God, it was by His stripes
that you were healed. But here's what most can't see.
They cannot see Him suffering that what they themselves should
have suffered. We don't see that. Not unless
God gives us sight. They can't see Him forsaken of
His Father because they should have been forsaken and He is
dying in their room instead. How great is our sin? It took
the sacrifice of God Himself to put it away. That's great. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me. Wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His anger. Who's doing
all this to Him? His own Father. And why is He
doing it to Him? Because my sin was found upon
Him, and your sin was found upon Him. Oh, the forgiveness of sin
is a great thing. And your age matters not. 20,
30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. Matters not how old you are.
Some are in your 90s. You must believe and trust in
Christ. No different for the young or
the old. And you're commanded to do so.
John the Beloved wrote, These things have I written unto you,
that ye believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know
that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name
of the Son of God. Now, we touched on that a moment
ago, but what is it to believe on the name of the Son of God?
Well, the Lord's name has everything to do with His attributes. It's
at the name of Jesus that every knee shall bow and every tongue
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Things in heaven, things
in earth, and things under the earth. Every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Jehovah Nisi, He's Christ, He's my only refuge. Jehovah Jireh,
He provides everything for me. Jehovah Rapha, He's the Lord,
my helper. Jehovah shalom, Christ is my
peace with God. There's peace nowhere else. Jehovah
rah, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Jehovah t'sidkenu,
He's my righteousness before God. Jehovah shamah, the Lord
is there. He's with me. He's my presence
before God Almighty. When God looks at me, He sees
Him. We can't measure the greatness of, we can measure the greatness,
I should say, of forgiveness by the guilt of the sin forgiven.
He'll forgive the greatest and the blackest sin. People say,
but brother, you don't know what I've done. I know, but God does. And he'll forget the greatest
and the blackest sin you ever committed. It's the blood of
Jesus that cleanses us from all sin, in whom we have redemption
through His blood. Martin Luther once said, Christ
isn't a sham Savior for sham sinners. He's a real Savior who
provides real atonement for real sinners who have real sin. None of us can say that we're
too guilty to be forgiven. It's in Christ alone that we
have redemption and forgiveness. You know, I was surprised at
Webster's Dictionary's definition for the word redemption. It's
defined as the action of being saved from sin. The action of
regaining possession of something in exchange for payment or clearing
of a debt. The action of buying one's freedom,
and synonyms are absolution, and recovery, and rescue, and
discharge, and conversion, and satisfaction, and accomplishment. Christ does all those things
to us. Christ paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. The greatness of God's forgiveness
can be seen and judged by the freeness of it. When a sinner
comes to Christ for pardon, they're not asked to pay anything for
it. I've often said, what kind of gift would it be? Somebody
hands you something and says, this is a gift, and then go,
and then stand there looking at you like, okay, that cost
me $20. It wouldn't be much a gift, would it? It's free! It's free. It's without money
and without price. If you go to the store, the only
way that you can get something without money is to charge it.
And all my sin has been charged, my pardon has been charged to
Christ's account. You charge something, thirty
days you've got to pay for it. Or you're going to be charged
more. But He paid it in full. I owe a debt I couldn't pay.
He paid a debt he did not owe. That's free. There's nothing
free in this world but that. The greatness of forgiveness
is also immediate. God will forgive your sin at
once. The moment you trust in Christ, you're forgiven. There's
no 30-day grace period, no waiting. Everything's good immediately. The father saw the prodigal son
afar off. His forgiveness was immediate.
As soon as he saw him, he took off running. Did he forgive him when he got
to him? No. He forgave him before he took
off to him. Or he would have never taken
off running. That's the only time in the Scripture that we
have a picture of God our Father running. Only the one and only
time in all the Bible that we find our Lord getting in a hurry
to do anything. When it comes to forgiveness,
He runs to give it. Well, that makes me happy. What did that father say? He
said, for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost
and is found. And he said it immediately. He
didn't wait for his... I mean, his son did confess his
sin and his son did confess his sorrow. But the forgiveness was
already in his heart. I have redemption. I have forgiveness right now.
Now are we the sons of God. There is therefore now no condemnation. The greatness of God's forgiveness
can be measured by the completeness of it. I love that verse in Jeremiah
50 verse 20. In those days and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none. God will look for it and it's
not there. And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found. For I will pardon them whom I
reserve. That word reserve means kept,
set aside, preserved. There's no condemnation to those
whom God has reserved. Why? Because there's no sin found
to condemn them. There shall be none, He said.
They shall not be found. You can't find something that's
not there. When God pardons a sinner, they're
forever pardoned, never to be condemned again. Oh, you believe
in one saved, always saved. Yes, I do. When God saves you,
I believe it. Well, what if they don't live
right? They've never lived right. Yet in Christ, they've always
lived right. If I can be saved by what I do,
then I can be saved by what I don't do. But if I'm saved by what
Christ has done, then I can never be lost. All is done. All is accomplished. All is finished. And it's in whom? In Christ. The elect sinner has redemption.
And it's through the washing of sin by His precious blood.
And that precious blood is given by the riches of His grace. How do I know it's complete,
forever, and unchanging? Because He Himself is complete,
forever, and unchanging. And it's found in Him. That's
what our Lord said, For I am the Lord, I change not, therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, how? According to the riches
of His grace. And His grace never changes.
It's called amazing grace because it's unchanging grace. It's called
marvelous grace because His grace is forever. And that's why it's
called the riches of His grace. Our thoughts of God's grace are
just too little and too narrow. We thank God to be all together
as we are. But He told us differently. He
said, my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways
your ways. As the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. And friends,
you can bring God mountains of gold and silver, and they're
no worth to Him. And you can bring to God the
tears of rivers, they wouldn't amount to nothing. Forgiveness
comes by the riches of God's free grace alone. God forgives
because He chooses to forgive. The riches of His grace hints
to His royalty. He never concerns Himself, nor
should we, that there's enough grace to go around, because God
is rich in grace. And again, like the prodigal,
in closing, it's harder to come home to the Father than it is
to be received of the Father. It's harder to ask for grace
than it is for God to give it. I'm confident of these things.
Christ is worthy of our confidence, is He not? When the child of
God stands before God on the day of judgment, there won't
be one sin left for Him to judge. And the Spirit and the Bride
say, Come. And let Him that heareth say, Come. And let Him that is
athirst come. Are you thirsty? And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life May God be pleased to make it
so, for Christ's sake.