We're going to look at verses
17 through 21 and I want to begin by reading the last line in verse
21. The truth is in Jesus. The truth is in Christ. The truth is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. People are searching for the
truth. People search for the truth. The truth is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what I want us to get
a hold of. When we leave this Bible study That's what I want
us to have right here, hammered home. The truth is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now I want to say something that
I hope will be very eye opening for anyone who has never had
this revealed to them. If the Lord has not yet revealed
this to us through his word, I pray that he might do so right
now. The truth. The gospel, the gospel is not
about us. The gospel is not about you. The gospel is not about me. The gospel is about Christ. The gospel is about Christ. Period. It stops right there.
The gospel is not about man. Everybody is trying to insert
man into it. Their mind becomes, now how do
I figure this out? How do I insert man into it? The gospel is not about man.
The gospel is about God and what He has done for man in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is in Christ. The truth is in Christ. Now, I don't want this to be
confusing. I'm going to explain this, but
this is the truth. This right here is the truth.
The gospel involves us. But the gospel didn't involve
us. The gospel of salvation is something
that we are allowed to take part in. But the gospel of salvation
is not something we took part in. Salvation came to sinners through
the will and the work of God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Spirit. It involved them. Salvation involved them. It was something that only the
three of them took part in. Only the three of them. Redemption
was their collective work. through, by, and in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is in Christ. Now, I want to take a moment
and give a side note. I give this side note every now
and then, and this is a good time to give it. This is important to me. This
is just something that's important to me. You may have noticed that
I read that line to you the way that it's actually written the
first time. The truth is in Jesus. I read
it that way, it's actually recorded that way, and I read it to you.
From here on out, I will refer to him as Christ, or I will refer
to him as the Lord, or the Lord Jesus, or the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason is because I personally
have a hard time, it's just difficult for me to refer to him only in
his precious name of humanity. only by His dear precious name
of His humanity, His humiliation. Lord is His name of deity. Lord means Jehovah. Lord means God. That's what Lord
means. Sovereign God. High, holy God. Jesus is his name of humanity. Jesus is his name of humiliation
and it means that he's an actual man. He is an actual man. We're going to meet a man. We're going to meet a man. He's an actual man. Christ is
his office. He is the God-man. He's the only mediator between
God and men. He's the union, the perfect union
of both God and men. He is 100% God and 100% man,
the anointed, the Messiah. And because of what He accomplished
for His people as a man, because of that, God the Father has given
him a name which is above every name, Lord. God hath made him Lord. Isn't
that what Peter said at Pentecost? God hath made him Lord. He's
given him this name, Lord. He's earned the office of Christ. And he's worthy to be called
by that name. So to me, it just feels a little
disrespectful. Just to me personally, it feels
disrespectful to only refer to him in a common way, in a humbled
way. In the same way that I would
not walk up to the President of the United States, no matter
who it is, no matter who it is, it would not feel right to me
to walk up to the President of the United States of America
and call him by his first name. I just don't believe I could
do that. It's Mr. President. Yes, sir. I don't even refer to my father
by his own name. I don't call him on the phone
and say, hey Marvin. He told me to call him dad. And out of love and out of respect,
that's what I do. In the scripture, the facts have
been written. These things have been recorded.
God told the apostles. All scripture is written by inspiration. The Holy Ghost wrote this. Paul
didn't write this. God's Holy Ghost wrote this through
the hand of Paul. The mind and the hand was just
writing what God's Holy Ghost said to write. And so they recorded
Jesus did this and Jesus did that. The man, you will see his
name in that sole name of humanity saying the man. I mean a man
did this. A man earned this for us. And you'll see that recorded,
but they never, ever personally spoke to him. by His sole name
of humanity. They never, ever walked up to
Him. Not one time did they ever walk
up to Him and say, hey Jesus. Never, never. It was too disrespectful. In
John 13, our Lord told His disciples, you call me Master and Lord and
you say well, for so I am. He said, you're calling me Lord,
you're calling me the Christ. He asked Peter point blank, who
do you say I am? Peter said, the Christ, you're
the Christ. And he said, you're calling me
Lord and you're calling me Christ and that's what you need to call
me because that's what I am. So that's why when we come to
his precious, precious, I love, I don't want to diminish his
name of humanity, I love it, I thank God for it. But when
we come to it, you'll usually hear me add Lord with it or Christ
with it. And the reason is because that's
what he is. That's what he's earned and that's what he is
owed. And it just feels too disrespectful
to me. It's just difficult for me to not refer to him by one
of those names. Now, most of our hymns in our
hymnal say Jesus. I even, because I was gonna say
this, I searched, I don't believe any of the hymns that we're gonna
sing this morning refer to him by his name of humanity alone,
because I thought, well, everybody's gonna be like, it's hard to find
a hymn that doesn't say his name of humanity alone. Because of
rhyming, because of timing, because of the way it sings, we're not
gonna go through and try to rewrite all the hymns in our book. When
we come to those, we're in our heart going to be singing to
the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to hear them.
We're going to sing them. But every time I come to one, it's
just something to me that my heart ups the respect just a
little bit more. And I just want to point that
out to you. Let's not ever refer to him in a flippant way. Just
never, never. You know, he talks about taking
his name in vain. Let's just not ever in any way,
shape, or form take his name in vain or just in a common way
speak of him. Okay, with that being said, concerning
the truth, concerning the gospel, the good news of salvation. It
is all in Christ. It is all in Christ. Now this
right here is where all of us either were or are. This is where we were or this
is where we are. Every soul on earth begins in
this condition. All of God's people, this is
where he finds them when he comes to them. Verse 17 says, This
I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth
walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who
being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness
to work all uncleanness with greediness. That just described
me and that just described you. Man naturally walks in the vanity
of his own mind. Vanity is self. Vanity is the
love of self. Man naturally thinks that it's
all about him. Man thinks it's all about me.
He thinks life is all about me. That's what man thinks. Life,
this life on earth, I better get what I can and do what I
can while I can because this life, my life, this is my life
and I'm going to do it my way because it's all about me. So he'll go find a preacher who
will stand up and tell him, you just go ahead and live like you
want to. God just wants you to be happy.
That's the main thing. Whatever it is you're doing,
God just wants you to be happy. Man naturally thinks religion
is all about me. Religion's all about me. You
know, I go to church because I want to hear how wonderful
I am and I want to hear about how much God needs me. Men stand
up and tell people, God needs you. Oh, he needs you. Man naturally thinks salvation
is all about me. This thing is in my hands. This
is my decision. It's my work. Man thinks eternity
is all about me. That's what man thinks. Now I
want to make sure that I get a good location when my mansion
is built up there. You build my mansion right next
to His name of humanity. Isn't that what man thinks? It's
all about me. That is the vanity of man's mind. Verse 18 says, His understanding
is darkened. He doesn't see the light. He
doesn't see the truth. He does not see the light of
his own self, the truth of his own self. He doesn't see the
light and the truth of salvation. He thinks he has some understanding
of God and his relationship with God. He thinks he has an understanding
of what God demands of him and what God sees in him. But verse
18 says, his understanding is darkened and he has no idea that
he is alienated from the life of God and it's because of the
ignorance that is in him and because of the blindness of his
heart. It says, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. In my center margin for blindness
says hardness, the hardness. He's darkened, there is blindness,
but he's also hardened. How blind and how hard are we
talking? In verse 17, he said, this I
say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you, he's speaking
to you, and I'm included in the you. And if you look back at
chapter two, Ephesians chapter two, verse one, it says, and you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. How blind? Does a man just need
a stronger prescription in his glasses? That's what most people
think. Well, I saw some things, I just didn't see as much. He's dead blind. I mean dead
blind. How hard is man's heart? Does he just need to fix his
bad attitude? He is dead hard. No light, no
life, not at all. If God had left us alone, that's
where we'd be. That's where we would be right
now. We would be probably sitting in a pew somewhere, dead and
blind, so dead, so blind, spiritually. We would be walking the course
of this world in our spiritual blindness, ignorance, and deadness. Verse four says, but God. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you are saved. Quickened means he gave us life. He quickened us to Christ. He
quickened us with Christ. And with that quickening, spiritual
light comes. Spiritual sight comes. Spiritual
life comes. The truth is revealed. When God
quickens a sinner, all of a sudden, the scripture starts to make
sense. All of a sudden, you can read
the Word of God. People who were in the Word of
God and said, none of this makes sense to me. I'm reading this,
but I don't understand what it's saying. When God gives light,
when He spiritually quickens a sinner, they say, I see it. I see it. This is what they say.
This is what comes alive to them. spiritual life. And the more
God's people see of it, the less they walk in the vanity and the
blindness and the deadness of their own mind and heart. This
is what happens to God's people. Look with me if you would at
John chapter six. John chapter 6 verse 44. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him
up at the last day. No man can come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That announcement goes out, come
to Christ. Come to Christ. No man can come
except the Father which sent Christ draw that man. Verse 45
says, it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught
of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. The Father draws the sinner to
Christ. And when the sinner comes to
Christ, God opens that sinner's eyes, opens that sinner's ears,
and they see and they hear the gospel. And that sinner learns
the truth. Each one of God's people individually,
they shall all be taught of God. They are all taught what they
truly are by nature. All of them. Didn't see it before,
but they do now. They are all taught their insufficiency,
their inability. They are all taught just how
unworthy they are. So unworthy. This is what they're
taught. Not only are they not the central
focus of heaven, they're not even allowed to come in. It's
an eye-opening moment. Not only is it not going to be
all about me, I'm not even allowed to be there, not in my flesh,
not as I stand here in my sinful flesh. God humbles His people
by giving them right thoughts. He teaches them right thoughts
about God, right thoughts about themselves, and right thoughts
about the only way of salvation. Now go with me back to Ephesians
4, verse 17 says, this I say therefore
and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who
being past feeling, because they're spiritually dead, who being past
feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, filthiness,
wickedness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. All about me. All about me. Verse 20 says, That is, boy, that's the precious
word of scripture, isn't it? The notification, as you read
this word, it looks at us, and it's terrible news, terrible
news, terrible news, terrible news, awful, no hope, without
God, but. Back in chapter two it said,
but God. And right here in verse 20 it
says, but. You have not so learned Christ. That verse literally translates,
but you Not so, have learned Christ, but you're not so, it's
not so with you. He's talking about all this vanity
of the mind and all these things. He said, but it's not so with
you. You have learned Christ. God
has graciously taught you Christ, not the law. Not Hebrew and Greek. You know, people want to go back
to school and learn Hebrew and Greek so they can understand
that's not where it is. Not even morality. I love morality. I love morality but salvation
is not in morality. Salvation is in Christ. It's in Christ. It's in who he
is. It's in what he did. It's in
why he did it. It's in where He is right now. Is He standing at our heart's
door knocking, wringing His hands, hoping we will open to Him and
let Him save us? No, that's not where He is. He's
seated in the heavens. That's salvation. And it's in the fact that he's
coming back. He's coming back for us. He's coming back for
us. He's coming back for us. We're
his people. And here we sit in our bondage.
Lord willing, in a minute, I'm going to tell you about a prisoner
of war that I know, knew. And now here we all sit, you
know, in our POW camp waiting. He's coming. He's coming. He
hath delivered us, but He's coming to deliver us. He's coming back. He's coming to get us. The truth,
the gospel, the good news is in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're going to declare Him. We're
about to declare Him. Who He is. Who He is. In His deity, in His humanity,
in everything that He accomplished. His work, His glory. He said, I'm going to show mercy.
That's where salvation is. He said, I'm going to show mercy. in His power, in His sovereignty,
in His Lordship, the truth of the gospel, the truth of salvation,
every bit of it is in Christ. It's all in Christ. Christ is
all. Now go with me to Philippians
chapter 3 and we'll close. Philippians 3, verse 3 says, For we are the circumcision,
that means we are God's people, we are God's chosen people, which
worship God in the Spirit. The true God of Scripture, not
the God that men have made up, the actual God, those who worship
the high and holy God. We are the circumcision, which
worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. That's wherein we differ. We
worship God, we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence
in this flesh. God's people are all taught that
it's not unto us, O Lord, it is not unto us, it's unto thy
name. Give all the glory. We worship
God by rejoicing in Christ Jesus. We love Him. We praise Him. We exalt Him. We magnify Him. We worship Him. We believe Him. We trust Him. We honor Him. Christ is all. Christ is all. The truth is in Christ. Alright,
you're dismissed.