contained in your Word, and we
pray that we'll be blessed by the things that we read and hear
from this book. It is in the name of the Lord
Jesus we pray it, amen. Now we're going to look at verses
9 through 14, but let's start with verse 13, because it sort
of provides us with the theme, for it is written here, for he
has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into
the kingdom of the son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins. Now, one of the things about
Paul's description of salvation, as he's going through the history
of it, and then the consummation or perfection of it in time to
come, you'll notice that he never interjects into that whole stream
something that we do. It's just not there. Now, the,
popular version of Christianity. The one I was raised in sets
it forth as God did all of this and then he stopped to wait to
see what we will do, whether we will put his work into effect
by a exercise of our faith. And then after that, he picks
up again and finishes it out. But you can't find that in any
of Paul's descriptions of the pattern of salvation. Now, he
describes this salvation. He said he rescued us. And I
like using that word for salvation. And it's good for us from time
to time to change up the words we use to describe what we believe. The reason is we become so accustomed
to the words we hear them and they mean nothing. As I've been
trying to reorganize our webpage and I've been looking on, there's
this one website where a guy who specializes in actually all
the things that a church may do via the internet in order
to build itself. But anyway, he was talking about
social media, and I guess this would apply to the internet as
well, but he said, you have to make sure that your posts don't
all look the same. He said you can have a logo on
it if you want that's always there so that they recognize
that, that identifies it as something from you. But if every time you
put up a post or anything like that, it has the same overall
look, eventually it just goes by and they just scroll past
it. And they said one of the things,
they had this three-point deal in using social media, and the
very first thing was stop the scroll. You have to put something
on there that gets someone to stop scrolling through their
newsfeed on Facebook or something like that. But if you look, if
your post has the same basic look every time it comes, they
just scroll right past it. Well, we do the same thing when
we use the same words all the time. When we use them in our
speech or particularly when we're listening to them. If I say justification
by faith, Well, that's true, but I can say that so many times
in describing the doctrine that before long, it just becomes
the background noise. It no longer has an effect. I
remember experiencing this one time when I was, and this was
roughly a year ago, and I was listening to the funeral service
of a preacher that I knew back in Owensboro, Kentucky. And the
fellow, he'd grown, he was old enough that he was semi-retired
from it. And so another man was the pastor of that church, but
this man was preaching the funeral. I don't know what his name is,
but he was telling a story, which best I can understand was about
an experience his wife had had and how One night at the end
of the day, everybody else was in bed, but her mind was just
spinning. And she was wracked with guilt
because she was, now they were Sovereign Grace, but this church could also be called
a Reformed Baptist church. And I think this woman's background
was in what would be called reformed Baptist, which most of the time
means they act just like the reformed churches around us,
with the exception of the infant baptism. And that's about the
only difference. Because they bring in the law, and they've
got all of these things you're supposed to be doing, and all
these things you're not supposed to be doing. And that occupies
the major portion of their ministry. And that's what she'd been brought
up under. That's what she was familiar with, and that's what
drove her conscience. So she's there alone, and you
know what that's like, alone in the night, alone with your
own conscience in the night when you're living under bondage.
And she was broken over the fact that she'd lost her temper at
her kids. And I'm thinking, wow, you're
gonna have to come up with a whole lot more serious sin than that
before you're gonna shake my conscience, because I mean, that's
just what kids do to you. But maybe she'd said some things,
words that we're not supposed to use, but whatever it was,
she felt an utter failure. And as she was there, and I don't
know whether she was consciously praying, but understand that
the Lord hears our thoughts. and he knows the agonizing torture
we put ourselves through and our questioning, they are open
to him. But in the midst of all this,
it occurred to her, she says, I do not need the Lord Jesus
as my example, I need him as my replacement. And I remember
when I heard that, wow, I've heard the word substitute used
so many times, people use substitute and, you know, it's just, yeah,
okay. But she said, replacement. And
it had more power with me than if she had said, substitute.
Well, here, instead of save, we use the word rescue. And does
that not, in a sense, enliven in our minds again what this
process is about? It's about those who are in trouble. A trouble from which they cannot
extract themselves. When we think about rescue missions,
you know, sending out a rescue team, we don't send rescue teams
out to people that could get themselves out of whatever trouble
it is they're in. You rescue those who are beyond
their own help, whether it be those who are drowning or drowned
and just You know, the last bits of life flowing out of them,
somebody's gotta go out there and breathe life back into them.
Rescue. I remember the news stories of
a plane, and I can't remember where it happened, but obviously
it was near a body of water, and it took off, and right after
it took off, it crashed into the water. Well, there were many
survivors, but it was freezing cold. And so they sent out rescuers. Now they couldn't get to them
in boats because there was ice involved. And so they were using
helicopters and they would let down a rope to them. Even a rope with a hoop in the
end of it. But some of the people had been
in so long that hypothermia had set in and they couldn't hang
on to the rope. And you know, I look at that
kind of rescue and I think that's the kind of rescue that most
of Christianity is offering. God lets down a rope to you,
but you got to grab it. We're not able to grab the rope.
This is a full and complete rescue. What they did then, and they
had films and it was so sad, you know, they showed him trying
to rescue one guy and he's putting his hand, he's trying to grab
that rope. But as soon as they start to pull it up, he lets
go. And then finally he's under the water and gone. And so they
had developed new equipment that did not require, shall we say,
a response from the person they're rescuing. A kind of rescue made
exactly for people who can do absolutely nothing to help in
their own rescue. And that's what we are, and that's
what God has done. He did not throw us a rope. He
did not throw us a life ring. He himself swam out to where
we are, came into our place down to where we are, grabbed us lifeless,
breathed life into us, pulled us to shore and set us on dry
land. He has rescued us. And you can't call it anything
less than a rescue. And you know, that's why people
don't like it. It's embarrassing to need a rescue. I had to get pulled out of the
pool one time. It was embarrassing. And I was
just a little kid. Got in over my head, literally.
And they had to pull me out. And it embarrassed me. And people
are embarrassed to admit they need rescue. So they want to
have at least the ability to grasp the rope. but we don't
even have that. He's rescued us from the dominion
of darkness. I think the King James says kingdom. I didn't look it up in Greek,
but I like this word dominion because you can see, see now
it comes from, I believe Latin, our English word dominion comes
from the Latin word, but what it indicates is to dominate,
to dominate. It's not so much a legal form
of authority, it's a powerful domination of one person over
another. And so we were in a dominion
of darkness, which means that we were under domination. It's not as though we were in
darkness because we walked into it, we were born into it. And
it's not that we stayed in darkness or we did stay in darkness because
we loved it. But not only that, the God of
this age has blinded us. We didn't even know we were in
darkness. Utterly consumed, utterly surrounded, and utterly driven
and controlled by darkness. And he brought us, and it's interesting,
he doesn't say he brought us into the kingdom of light, which
would have been a good, plenty good description of what went
on, and certainly would be the contrast, darkness, light. But he said he brought us into
the kingdom. Now we go from dominion to kingdom. Now, does the Lord
Jesus Christ not dominate us? Not in the way that we think
of domination. I was reading a thread and got
involved in it, and I don't even know why I do, but I'm sucked
into those things. And they were arguing about whether,
quote, Calvinism was true. And they actually said, in Calvinism,
God forces you to be saved even if you don't want to. I said,
y'all don't understand. what Calvinistic doctrine is,
and the fact of the matter is, none of us want God's salvation,
can't want God's salvation, but he doesn't force us into it against
our will, he changes our will. And we become willing citizens
of a kingdom. There is nobody whom God has
saved that goes around saying, wish I didn't have to live in
this kingdom. They rejoice that God has brought
them out of the dominating darkness into the kingdom of the son he
loves. Now he can say this instead of
just saying the phrase light, because Jesus is the light of
the world. So being brought into his kingdom
is being brought into the kingdom of light. And it also directs
us away from any regard that God may have had for us because
of something he saw in us and founds this work of rescue from
the dominion of darkness entirely upon his love for the Son, Jesus
Christ. Now, I'm not for a minute gonna
take away from the scriptural declarations that God loves us,
but that's difficult for us to believe, isn't it? I mean, why would God love us? And it's hard for us to grasp
the concept that he would love us for no other reason than that's
what he wanted to do. And so Paul shows us that this
kingdom into which we are brought in his rescue is not founded
upon his love for us, which we may doubt. It's founded upon
his love for his son. And I have absolutely no reason
to doubt that God loves the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything God
loves is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is that son with which
any father would be absolutely pleased. And the father did declare
his pleasure in the son. People begin, in our day, begin
their so-called gospel preaching with the concept, God loves you.
And yet the apostles never did preach that way. They never did
excite people to a hope of salvation through the declaration that
God loved them. It sets forth a pattern of salvation
founded upon God's love for his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
once you learn about Christ, you can understand why God loves
him. And then you can say, well, if
I have been saved because of the love that God has toward
his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, then I have no reason to fear.
that that salvation shall ever be removed from me because I
do something contrary to God's love. Now, like I said, we do have
plenty of assurances in the scriptures that God loves us, including
the words of the Lord Jesus himself who says, the Father himself
loves you. But we still are troubled by
doubts on that matter. Therefore, Paul turns us not
to the love of God for us on this matter, but the love of
God for his son. And it's in this, verse 14, it's
in this beloved son that we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins. Now, what does this say? It says
that this kingdom founded upon the, son whom he loves, this very
son was given by God to be the redemption price for our souls
and the reason for the forgiveness of our sins. Now, going back
to the kind of gospel I was raised under and was commonly preached,
they start off with God loves you. And because God loves you,
he gave his son. as a redemption price for you,
and as the means by which your sins are forgiven. But if you
don't do such and such, and most often it's some kind of free
will decision, make this decision, that when you stand before him,
he's gonna send you to hell, even though the blood of Christ
was poured out for you. What does that say about God's
love for the Son? If God would shed His blood and
then allow anyone for whom that blood was shed to be lost, that
would be such an utter disregard for the honor of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It would be for God to show disregard
to the blood of His own Son. And I would have to say that
the father cares little for the son if he will allow someone
for whom the son poured out his blood to go into eternity lost. The people of this world may
have no honor for the son and therefore no regard for his blood,
but I'll guarantee you this, the father has regard for the
blood of his son. and whatever was intended to
be purchased by that blood, God is going to see to it that it's
collected. Now, that's what Paul was moving
to in the previous verses. And we start back up in verse
nine. He says, for this reason, we
have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you
with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom
and understanding. Now, again, harking back to my,
mostly my teenage and college years, they were always talking
to us about, you gotta find the will of God for your life. And
I remember hearing these people, these, you know, big name preachers,
you know, I went to a school that was big enough to attract
some of the big name fundamentalists. to come speak in and speak at
chapel. One of them was a fellow named
Tim LaHaye. His daughter was a student at the school, and
I remember him coming and talking about the will of God for our
lives, and he was there in Romans chapter 12, and he said that
you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God. And he said, and I'm not kidding
you, this is how he handled that. He said, now, there is an acceptable
will of God. And then there's a good one.
And then there's a perfect one. And you want to find that perfect
one and do it. Now, by the time I heard that,
I'd already learned enough to know that that was not what Paul
was saying. But the older I get, the more
ridiculous that sounds. So when Paul says that you may
know what his will is, he's not talking about what is his intention
for you in the remainder of your life. In all likelihood, he's
not going to tell you that. He's not gonna say, now he did it like to the apostles
and others, he said, I have chosen you. Said that to Paul, I've
chosen you to be a light to the Gentiles. That's your destiny
here in this world. Most of us, we're just gonna
live day to day. So the will he's talking about
here is not that he is praying that God would somehow, as we
sit in silence, that he would somehow give us some revelation
from on high about what we're supposed to do with our lives.
Rather, the will he is speaking of is the will mentioned in Ephesians
1, verse 11. He says, the one who works all
things according to the counsel of his own will. Now, that doesn't
simply mean that whenever God is deciding, you know, well,
do I want this man to live or die? What's my reasons? Well, it's just gonna be whatever
I want. That may be true, but that's not the point Paul's making.
The will which rules, shall we say, the entire decree of God
and all its details, the will of God is the exaltation of His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as head over everything. That's
God's will. It's kind of like, you know,
if you say, well, I'm going to, for vacation, I'm going to go
to the beach in Florida. Okay, that's your will. And from
that point on, you begin working all things in accordance with
that will. You make your plans, your trip
plans, your flights, and all of that. And you bring everything
else into the accomplishment of that will. So God is working
all things according to this will, the exaltation of his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, as head over all things. And therefore,
Paul says, I would that God would fill you with knowledge of his
will through spiritual wisdom and understanding. Because if we realize that that
is God's purpose, His will, the goal to which everything in history
is moving, then we can begin to see our place in it and know
how we ought to act in this world. And that's what he says in the
next verse. And we pray this in order that you may live a
life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way, bearing
fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. Now,
when he talks about us living a life worthy of the Lord, he
doesn't mean live a life that would make us worthy to receive
the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ. He means live a life
that is consistent with your claim to be one who loves and
believes the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we never do that perfectly,
but we know the difference between someone who is pursuing a life
that shows consistency to the claims he makes concerning Christ
and someone whose life is inconsistent. Take, for example, Abraham. Now,
Abraham, failed in a lot of things, no question. But one thing, at
least his life as recorded in the scriptures, he proved that
when he said he believed God, he really did. He moved from his native area
to an area he didn't even know where he was going until God
got him there. And over and over again we see
that Abraham Despite his stumbling and stuff, he ordered his life
according to the promise of God. But then he had a nephew. Now
his nephew was really a believer, but he did not live in a way
consistent with the faith he claimed, did he? Instead of being
willing to wander as a stranger, like his uncle Abraham, He set
his sights toward a walled city and set his affections on the
things that he might be able to do for himself in this life
if he were to get himself in the stream of urban commerce. And oh, what a, made a mess of
his life, of his family, That's inconsistent. That's not walking
worthy of the Lord. But if we begin, the more we
understand of what God is doing in his ultimate will, which is
to honor and glorify his son, the more we will walk according
to that path. And we'll bear fruit in every
good work. Remember, good works are not the same thing as righteous
works. There are works of faith by love. It's doing good to others
because of love and the love that's born of faith. Growing in the knowledge of God.
Our Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. We learn
about God as we enter in willingly and even purposefully enter in
to the flow of what he's doing. We can stand on the bank of a
river and watch it go by. And we can learn a whole lot
about the river, but if you really want to know the river, you get
in the river and you float along with it. And so we enter into
the flow of what God's doing. That which God has set as the
ultimate goal becomes our ultimate goal, the glorification of Jesus
Christ. And all else is put in subservience
to that. Verse 11 says, being strengthened
with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may
have great endurance and patience. If we have our eyes set on the
same goal that the Father does, the strength of God himself strengthens
us, causes us to joyfully give thanks to the Father, verse 12,
who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints
in the kingdom of light. Now, notice it does not say that
he found us qualified. to share in this inheritance.
He qualified us. Qualified us by his son. Now the more these things occupy
our thoughts and drive the way we think, the more peaceful our
lives will be, the stronger we will be in the face of everything
contrary, and the more thankful we will be for whatever it is
that God sends our way. And we will realize what a great
rescue was mounted on our behalf. And more and more we'll see the
darkness that dominated us. And more and more we'll see the
light of the son whom God loves and who rules the world for us.
All right, you are dismissed.