Back to Ephesians chapter one. I realized when I sat down, I
set myself up for failure. I said, if you can't preach on
that, you can't preach on anything, so I better get this one right. What a wonderful subject. God's
glorious grace. And what a wonderful occupation
to praise that glorious grace in all of its forms, in all of
its manifestations, in every aspect of it, to stand in awe
of it. like John Newton did when he
said, amazing grace. How sweet the sound. To stand
in awe of it, to find such joy in it that it's almost impossible
to believe. When our Lord was raised from
the dead, the first to find out about it were the women who had
gone to his sepulcher to anoint what they thought was going to
be a corpse, to anoint it with the spices and stuff that they
normally did. They hadn't been able to do it
until then because Sabbath observances had prevented them. And when
they went back and told the apostles what the angel had said to them,
that he had risen from the dead, it said, they could not believe
it for joy. You talk about showing the contradictions
within the hearts of believers. They could not believe it for
joy. Well, why was there any joy if they didn't believe it?
But that's just the point. Like that one man, we say, Lord,
I believe, help my unbelief. There is a part of us that looks
on these things of the grace of God, and certainly the resurrection
of Christ is very important to the demonstration of God's grace
toward us. We who believe it provokes such
joy in us, but His grace is such a wonderful thing to think upon,
then we think, I can't believe that. That's beyond belief, that God
would do all things for me and require nothing from me. Now, we can't believe that, because
that's not the way we treat other people. I don't know that we ever do
anything completely, as they say, altruistically, entirely
for their sake, because we're a mixed bag in everything we
do. But to do something for someone
without the expectation of any return, You know, when we're
raising our children, even what we do for them while we're raising
them has within it the expectation of a return, that as they come
to maturity, they'll come to appreciate what you've done for
them. Having been through childhood
and adolescence ourselves, we realize they're not likely to
appreciate a whole lot of it until they're grown, but we do
expect that there will be a harvest from our efforts. and that the
love we showed to them, they'll return it. But the grace of God is such
that whatever God did for us, He did for us not because of
anything we had done or anything that He expected that we would
do. Now God who not only knows all
things, but ordains all things, knows that His grace is not only
an action that He does before us, but it contains within it
a transforming power, and that indeed all for whom He does these
things will give a return of praise. Still, it was not for
the return of that praise that He did it. It will be to the praise of His
glorious grace. But that praise was not the motivation
for the grace. This is a hard thing for us to
understand because it's utterly foreign to us to act that way.
But everything God did for His people in Christ, He did for
this one reason alone. He wanted to. He wanted to. to the praise of his glorious
grace. A couple of things we can say about that phrase, and
what Paul is saying with that phrase, very simply, is that
all these things that God does in salvation, the things he's
mentioned before, verse six, and the things he mentions afterward,
all of these are for the purpose, or will, indeed, bring about
the praise of his glorious grace. But there's a couple of things
we can say. First of all, we can say this, everybody's gospel,
that is the message of salvation that is preached, and I use the
word preached there in a broad way, not just pulpiteers, but
as people are talking to their coworkers and family and all
this, all religious people pretty much are trying to convert other
people to their religion. And so by whatever message people
are trying to create converts, it can be judged by this. Is
it to the praise of God's glorious grace? If it's not, if it is
not entirely to the praise of His grace, it is not God's gospel. Brother Spurgeon made this statement.
He said, the merest babe in Christ may judge, and may judge rightly
too, the gospels that they hear by this one rule. Is it to the
praise of the glory of God's grace? If it is, it's God's gospel. If it's not, it's not God's gospel. He went on to say, they may not
be able to tell you exactly what point of their preaching is failing,
but they will sense within themselves that what's being preached is
not to the praise of God's glorious grace, and just as, and this
is my little added comment, he didn't say this, but just as
you put nasty food in a kid's mouth, that's what I like about
kids, they'll let you know right away what they think about the
food you put in their mouth. I mean, you can do the airplane
thing, you can tell them how good it is and everything, you
stick it in, it's not good, it's coming back out. And a babe in
Christ, he listens to someone preach, and he may not hardly
have any understanding, that intellectual kind of understanding
of abstract doctrine and all, but he's listening, and if some
of that nasty strained peas or whatever it is, gets stuck in
his mouth, it's coming right back out. He will not eat it. He will not have it. We can judge the message of others
by this. Is it to the praise of God's
glorious grace? We could also say this. That
which unbelievers hate most about the gospel and believers love
the most about the gospel is the fact that it is to the praise
of God's glorious grace. Took me a lot of years to realize
that was what went on, but the more you preach The gospel of
God's amazing, glorious grace, the clearer you make it, the
more the unbeliever kicks against it. I was raised in what would loosely
be called Arminianism. Strictly speaking, it wasn't
Arminianism, it's a freewillism. Our church never mentioned anything
that I ever remember about election, They used the word total depravity
on their statement of faith, which is on the back of every
bulletin every week. But when they got done describing
total depravity, it really wasn't total. But I'd never heard of what is
popularly called Calvinism or sovereign grace until I went
to Bible school. And even then, when I heard it,
it was not described to me by people that wanted me to believe
it. They were just describing it because it was a theology
class, and when you're going to school for theology, they
teach you other theologies as well. And this Calvinism that
somebody brought up was one of these others. And I remember
when I heard it, my first thought was, well, if God's God, that's
the way it's got to be. But I struggled. theologically
with that middle point, which they call limited atonement.
And the reason that I struggled somewhat with it is I always have been, when it comes
to truth, a slave to scripture. I believe this is the only book
you can trust when it comes to telling you the truth of the
things pertaining to God. And whatever it says, we are
obligated to believe. and it's difficult to find limited
atonement in the scriptures. And the reason is the scriptures
never talk about the limitations of the atonement, they talk about
the success of it. So the problem with my understanding
of limited atonement or particular redemption or definite atonement,
some people try to call it, you know, the problem with that is
that they gave it a poor name. But once I understood what redemption
is, and understood what that doctrine was actually saying,
I had no problem with it, and in fact, I don't know if we're
supposed to have favorites, but of those five blessed doctrines
from the scriptures, that became my favorite. So that which was,
at the beginning, the hardest to believe, became the most glorious
thing to believe. And of all the things that I
hear people preach that gets under my skin and makes me want
to stand up and say, that's not true. It's that common doctrine
preached that Christ died for everybody. And now it's up to
you whether or not Christ's work will be effective for you. And
I want to stand up and say, who do you think you're talking about
here? How could someone like the Lord
Jesus Christ die and whatever his death was intended to accomplish
actually be accomplished? How could Christ offer himself
without spot to God for all sinners and then God who is the judge
of all and is in all cases just, how could he ever send someone
to hell for whom Christ had offered himself without spot to God?
It was such an offense to the character of God and it's such
a comfort to me. I spent many years trying to
convince myself I was saved by looking back to when I made a
profession of faith, or tried to figure out, you know, well,
I'm better than your average Joe. And that's just a phrase. I know my name's Joe, but I was
including everybody when I said that. You know, I mean, you know,
most people thought I was a decent guy. I would think, well, I can prove
I'm saved by overcoming this sin or that sin. I know I'm saved because I'm
a believer. But brethren, my sins just kept piling up. And
there were so many times I certainly didn't feel like a believer.
And then what did I do for assurance? Well, by the grace of God. I was allowed to sit under some
really good preaching by someone who did understand the grace
of God. And he always pointed us to Christ. What did Paul say? Who is he
that condemns? It's Christ that died. People go out and preach and
they will start with a general message. God loves you. The scriptures
never instruct us to tell anyone that. But I know one person God loves, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know
that. And I know that even though God
loved him with a love we can't even begin to understand, God
did not spare him, but delivered him up. for all
his people. And he gave testimony to the
fact that he accepted the work that Christ had done in our behalf
by raising him from the dead. And therein do I find my assurance. The reason I believe that God
loves me is that I know he loved Christ. I know that Christ died
for sinners. And then I know God accepted
his sacrifice. It always comes back to looking
to Christ. That's where my assurance is. Are you sure you're gonna
go to heaven? That's not the issue. The issue
is, is Christ in heaven? If he's in heaven, I'm gonna
be there someday, because I'm in him. Is Christ, or am I accepted
by the Father? Well, is Christ accepted by the
Father? If He is, then I am, because I'm in Him. Have I been chosen by the Father?
Well, is Christ the chosen one of God? If He is, I am, because
I'm in Him. We look away from Christ and
look at ourselves, hoping to find something there that will
give us a reason to be confident that we know God, that our sins
are forgiven, and that when we die we'll go to heaven. The moment
we do that, we undermine any real foundation of assurance. I only heard this sermon one
time, but boy, it spoke volumes about how folks can mess up preaching
the gospel. Heard a fellow preaching the
gospel, and boy, he did a bang-up job. I mean, it was good for
two-thirds of the way. He preached on the wages of sin
is death, and he got that exactly right. Then he went on, and he
even said it with a with good expression, he says,
but the gift of God is eternal life. And this was a funeral
message. How often do you get happy with
a funeral message? But I wanted to jump up and say,
hallelujah, praise God, amen. The gift of God is eternal life. And after he preached on that
subject, if he'd have stopped, it would have been an A number
one message. But then after that, he said,
but the question is, and I didn't actually think it then, but this
is what comes to my mind right now. You've already dealt with
the question. Our sin, God's gift of grace
in Christ, that's the question. There isn't any the question
after that. But he goes, but the question
is, has God done a work of grace in my heart. And I did think,
you just ruined it. You started out and we set our
eyes on ourselves and saw what sinners we were, then you turned
our eyes from ourselves to the grace of God and the gift of
God of eternal life in Christ, and that's where our eyes are
supposed to stay, but you have now made us look at ourselves
again. And I'll tell you folks, and I'll tell you sincerely,
I'm not just trying to sound like a grace preacher. Whenever
I look at myself, I think I'm lost. In fact, it's when I look at
myself that I begin to wonder, is there a God at all? When I
look at the world, is there a God at all? Oh, but when by the grace
of God I look to Him and I see the glory of God reflected in
His face, oh, assurance, confidence, faith
wells up. That's why I love coming here. I love coming here because, you
know, when we gather like this, what are we going to hear about?
We're going to hear about Christ, aren't we? I know that as the
preacher here, as much as life within me, that's what I'm going
to preach until I'm not preaching anymore. But I'm not doing that in fulfillment
of a vow. I'm not even doing that simply
because I think it's my responsibility to do that. I'm preaching Christ
all the time, brethren, because that's what I need to hear. You understand when I'm preaching,
I'm listening too. If I don't preach Christ to you,
I'm not preaching Him to me. If I don't preach Christ to you,
you don't get the benefit of Christ. Neither do I. People don't like grace. They
don't like God's grace. Because God's grace always directs
the praise toward him. Always. I hear people say, I'm
proud to be a Christian. And I understand some people
are just expressing what they mean very poorly. What they actually
mean is, I'm not ashamed to confess that I'm a Christian. And that's
good. You shouldn't be ashamed to tell
people you're a Christian. But there's nothing about being
a Christian to be proud of. If you declare yourself to be
a Christian, you're saying, there's nothing good in me. Will you
take pride in that confession? If you say you are a Christian,
you are confessing that you are willing that someone else bear
your punishment, bear the punishment due unto your sin. My uncle, my dad's brother that
was just two or three years older than him, was dying of cancer,
and my dad would go to him, and he was getting very near time
to die. And dad tried to impress the
gospel on him again. And my uncle, he said, that wouldn't
be right for me to have lived a life of sin like this. and then, at the very end, beg
that my sins go unpunished and that someone else pay for them.
Well, that sounds real honorable, doesn't it? All that is is pride
speaking. That's all it is. A pride so
stubborn it's willing to go to hell to maintain itself. That's
the human heart. There's nothing to be proud about.
in being a Christian. A lot to be proud of in Christ. I glory in Him. To the praise of His glorious
grace. Everything about our salvation
is a work of grace by God. For by grace are you saved. And that's it. Oh, but you've
got to believe it. If you're saved by grace, you
will believe it. Because the same God, who by
His grace worked out everything for your eternal good, which
included the deliverance up of His Son in payment of sins and
all that, that same grace produces the faith that lays hold of that
grace in Christ. It's not as though God's grace
went this far, went right up to the edge of your will, and
when it got up to your will, it stopped and said, okay, if
you're willing, I'll save you. People use that metaphor, our
Lord did in Revelation 3. I believe in his letter to the
Church of Laodicea where he said, Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. And I've seen him draw pictures
of that, you know. I mean, there's one still in
my mind. Maybe it was hung up at our house or at the church
or something. But, you know, you see this. you know, a picture
of what's supposed to be Jesus, you know, and he's come up to
this house and it's got ivy and weeds and all this growing up
around it and he's got his robe around like this and he's really
politely with a knuckle. If that's your Jesus, you will
never open the door and you will never be saved. They're misapplying what that
scripture means. Brethren, if that's how God does salvation,
every one of us is going to hell. Because if he knocks on our door,
waiting for us to open it, we'll never open it. Because in our
natural selves, we hate him, we hate what he stands for. He
comes bearing testimony of our guilt. We don't want to hear
about that. We've been spending our lives trying to show people
how good we are and convince ourselves how good we are. We
don't want a testimony of our sin. You say, well, Jesus is
about the forgiveness of sin. Well, yes, he is. But you can't
forgive what doesn't exist. So if he's forgiving sins, that
means we're sinners, doesn't it? Oh, but this is a word of love,
and He showed that love on Calvary. Yes, He did. God commended His
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. That is a demonstration of love.
But I'm going to tell you, if all God wanted to do was demonstrate
love, there were other ways it could have been done without
Jesus dying. What His death shows us is just
how horrible we are, that nothing less than the wholesale slaughter
of the Son of God could save us. If the Lord approaches your heart
with an intent to save you, oh, he may knock for a while, just
like he wrestled with Jacob all through the night, not because
at any moment he couldn't have won, It's just there's a time appointed. But when it's time, as Paul said,
when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, he quits knocking
and he picks up his cross like a hammer and he swings it at
the door. And the door breaks in pieces. The latch and the hinges pop
loose. And His glory streams into that
darkened mess of our heart. And in the face of His glory,
we see how wretched we are. And at the same time, bow to
Him and love Him and believing. And that's to the praise of God's
glorious grace. How many times I heard as a child,
God's done all he can, now it's up to you. Oh, to the praise
of God's glorious grace, he didn't leave it up to me. I would still be a good little
church boy. I'd be 68, but I would still
be a good little church boy impressing everybody how many Bible verses
I could memorize. And I memorized a lot of them.
How good I could do on the Bible quizzes that they did in our
Sunday school. I'd be impressive in my own eyes
if he'd left it up to me. But since he first opened my eyes, since he
blasted down the door of my stubborn heart, he has been showing me
in ever-increasing revelation how wicked I am and how glorious
he is. And the more I see of how glorious
He is, the more I see of how wretched I am by nature, and the more I love every aspect
of the grace of God, the more glorious and amazing it appears
to me. The world doesn't like something
that won't bring them praise. And that's why they don't like
gospel preaching. But there's nothing the child
of God loves better. So much so that he won't stand
very long to listen to something else. There are no perfect ministers
of God in this world. There isn't a preacher in the
world that every time he stands up to preach, he delivers a good
solid message of Christ. I'd like to say that in general,
that's what I've done. But I know I've preached messages
in the strength of the flesh. And if you preach in the strength
of the flesh, you're not preaching Christ. That's not what people
are gonna be thinking of when you're done. I've come up here with something
aggravating me on my heart and I preach on that instead of preaching
Christ. I've done that, I know it. But I do feel sorry for believers
who go to churches and a good, solid sermon on Christ is a rarity. It's like a Thanksgiving meal.
Once a year, man, you get really spread out to feast nice. Rest
of the year, eh, who knows what you're gonna get. And they have
to live on such short rations. Oh, to be so blessed of God is
to be able to worship with those who are hungry for Christ and
are being fed by someone who is also hungry for Christ. And
by that hunger is compelled to preaching. God's grace, his glorious
grace, Look at how it's described. Verse three, His grace has blessed
us in the heavenly realms with every blessing in Christ. Once again, I go back to my childhood
religion, and we're talking here from about the time I was nine. That's when we started going
to church that I spent the rest of my time in my parents' home
going to. And I remember them talking about,
you know, salvation's by grace. And what they mean by that, getting
a spot in heaven is by grace. But there's something more than
a spot in heaven you can get. You can work for crowns. You
can get a crown of righteousness. You can get a crown of life.
And the way they were preaching it, the way I heard it, it's
kind of like, You're good enough, or you do this and that. You
can go around in heaven with this crown. And they always showed
them like a king's crown. And that's not really the kind
of crowns the Bible's talking about. It's victor's crowns,
the laurel wreath that would be given to someone who won the
race. But we were going to go around heaven, and we'd be having
these crowns on our head with little spikes coming out, you
know, and say, righteousness, right across. And we'd go, yeah,
look at this. I notice you don't have one. And then we'd stack
another crown on top of that one. Life. Where's your crown
of life? Now, they never said a mocking
thing like that, but what they were preaching would make you
think that way. Boy, I want to get to heaven, you know, and
have all these crowns. And they'd even go talk about,
will there be any stars in my crown? Because I guess if you
could earn a crown of righteousness, and then if you're really good
at it, you get little diamonds or whatever, stars that you can
put in your crowns. Maybe I shouldn't make fun of
them. That's where we'd all be if God's
grace didn't do it. Let me tell you something. Are
you in Christ? then everything God has for sinners
is yours. Everything. It didn't say he blessed us with
some of the spiritual blessings in Christ, enough to get us in
the door, but after that, you gotta work. If you do real good, you get
the big mansion. If not, you get a three-bedroom rancher. Maybe a double Y. And knowing the glory of Christ,
what spiritual blessings must be in Him? What kind, you know, if you have
a wonderful treasure box, what kind of treasures do you put
in it? Well, if Christ is the depository, as it were, of God's
blessings. What kind of blessings must be
in there that only Christ is fit to contain them? And they all belong to every
one of God's people. Every blessing for every saint. Oh, we'll enjoy all those blessings
But there won't be one word of praise to us for having blessings. It'll be all praise to the grace
of God that gave them to us. He blessed us with all those
spiritual blessings, for He chose us before He said, let there be light before
he made the heavens and the earth. He chose a people out of Adam's
fallen race to be his. He chose us. He chose them to
be holy and blameless in his sight, not because they were
holy and blameless. They weren't. He made them that
way. He made them holy simply by choosing
them. The word holy means set apart.
He set us apart to himself. As that wonderful and so powerfully
touching scripture in Isaiah says, it's so powerful I can't
hardly even quote the whole portion of it, but it ends with, I have
redeemed you, you are mine. That's what it means to be holy. You are mine. Blameless? Well, if I look at me, there's
a lot of things you can blame me for. But God blames me for
nothing. Why? He blamed His Son for it. When it says, He laid on Him
the iniquity of us all, that's exactly what it means. He blamed
Christ for what I did. What does that make me? Blameless. He chose me to that. In love, he predestined us to
be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. Election, God's choosing. It's in there in verse four.
Election and predestination. They're like sticks of dynamite
in most churches. You mention those, I don't believe in predestination. I'm sorry, the word's right here.
It means something, doesn't it? What it actually means is not
so much to predetermine your destination, but to predetermine
your destiny. It's not so much about where
you will be, it's about what you will be. And what has he
predestined us to? To be adopted as his son. And adoption means, particularly
in the Hebrew world, and remember Paul was a Jew, but it was true
even in the most of the Gentile world. The word adoption had
less to do with someone outside the family being brought in as
it had to do with someone in the family being recognized as
in the family and made an heir. Paul says you are now sons, heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. The old covenant said
that the firstborn was worthy of the double portion. So when
it came time to pass out, you know, a portion of the father's
inheritance, and it went to sons, and that's why Paul said that
we're sons, regardless of what gender we are in this world,
we are counted by God to be sons. And he said that because it's
sons who inherit. But the rule was, If there were
five sons, then the father's household was divided into six
parts, and the firstborn got two, and then the other four
got one part each. That's why Joseph, even though
he wasn't the firstborn, he was the firstborn in Jacob's household. And when the Israelites went
up there to Israel and it came time to apportion out the tribal
allotments, you'll notice there's no tribe of Joseph. But Joseph had two sons, Ephraim
and Manasseh, each one of them got a whole tribe. Which meant Joseph got two tribes,
two tribal allotments, the double portion. Okay, we're heirs of
God. predestined to be adopted as
his sons, meaning we've been made heirs, we're heirs of God,
and while Jesus Christ gets the double portion, what must a single
portion of the kind of inheritance of which Christ is worthy, what
must that be? Someone came up to me and said,
well, Jeff Bezos, he's the guy that
started Amazon, he included you in his will, but don't get too
excited about it. You're only gonna get 1,000th
of a part. I'll take that, that's $200 million. Half of what Christ is worthy
is beyond our imagination. predestined to the adoption of
his sons in accordance with what? Our faith. Well, if my inheritance and my
sonship in God's home is according to my faith, some days I'm kind of a son. Most other days you'd say, well,
If He's God's Son, I'll tell you this, He don't look anything
like Him. No, it's according to His pleasure
and will. Paul said, Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God who justifies. Greek doesn't have the word there,
and don't put it in the English translation. The sense of what
Paul is saying, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect, it's God that justified them. And if God justified them,
how can anybody unjustify them by laying a charge against them
and making it stick? It can't be done. All this to the praise of his
glorious grace, and here's another word of grace, which he has freely
given us in Christ. Freely carries two senses. First
of all, without cause, without qualification. We might also add this as a third. Freely, when it says God gave
it freely, the word actually does mean without cause. Nothing
caused God to do this. But freely also means in abundance. If you turn on your faucet and
just a little tiny stream comes out, you call the plumber, what's
wrong, you know, and he comes over and he works around the
arm and then he turns the faucet on and the water comes out freely
in abundance. Oh, grace has been given to us
freely. It flows freely. Where sin did
abound, grace did much more abound. It's not a trickle of grace.
It's a flood. He freely gave to us in the one
he loves. Here we're back. Does God love
me? Well, I believe he does, but that's not the point. His glorious grace was given
to me in the one that I know He loves." Redemption, verse 7. Forgiveness. Well, nothing to
glory in there, is there? Oh, something to give thanks
for. I thank God I'm redeemed. I thank God I'm forgiven, but
I'm not going around saying, look at me, I'm redeemed, I'm
forgiven. As though there's something for me to be proud of in that.
But I'll tell you, I'll glorify the God who redeemed me and forgave
me from all my sin. Because the glory is His. Who
is a pardoning God like Him? that forgives iniquity and passes
over the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance, he
delights in mercy. Have you ever heard of another
God like that? There isn't another God like that. Verse eight, this grace has been
lavished on us. Again, it's not a trickle, it's
a flood. Verse 9, and He made known to
us the mystery of His will. Here's more of His grace. Not
only do these things, He told us what He did. He revealed it
to us. And then back in, down in verse
13, and I'll close with this. Now Paul, he said in verse 12,
he said, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ,
and he's talking about the Jews. Not that the Jews, well the first
believers in Christ on the day of Pentecost and for some time
afterward, they were all Jews because the gospel wouldn't be
preached anywhere else. But actually they hoped in Christ
way back before Christ came because they were given the promise of
Christ. The Gentile world didn't know anything about it, so they
were the first to hope in Christ. But then he goes on, he says,
and you also, what does he mean by that? Well, the church of
Ephesus was made primarily of Gentiles. And he says, you also
were included in Christ. In Christ, there's neither Jew
nor Gentile. When you heard the word of truth, the good news
of your salvation, not the good news of the possibility of your
salvation if you'll just cooperate with God on this matter. When
the gospel is preached, it naturally hits the ears as a possibility. But in the day of God's grace,
as that gospel falls upon the ears of one of his elect, It's
not a matter or a message of what might be. It's a message
of what has already been done by God. It was a good news that
I've been saved. Not that I can be, but that I
have been. And we were marked with him or
marked in Christ The seal was put over us to keep us protected
in Christ, that seal, the Holy Spirit. I know I'm obsessed with the
passage of time, but I don't mean just this worship service.
You know, this June, it'll be 36 years. And some of you, many
of you here this morning, you were there when we got started.
Why are you still here? because you were sealed in Christ
by the Holy Spirit. That's why. And you'll be sealed
by Him until you are in the presence of Christ to the praise of His glorious
grace.