Well, good morning to all of
you. If you would open your Bibles with me to the book of Ephesians,
chapter one. I have several things to say
by way of greeting, but if you'll allow me, I'm gonna save that
for the second hour. Your pastor told me I had 30
minutes, and I'm going to do my very best to stay in that
window, so if you'll allow me to hold those off until a little
bit from now. This letter that Paul has written
to the church that was in a city, Ephesus. Ephesus was a wealthy,
metropolitan kind of town. It was full of business and trade
and education. I thought this was a lot like
what San Diego is to Hillbilly like me, you know, coming out
here, this big city. That's what Ephesus was like.
And the whole city was given over to idolatry. There was a
magnificent building that they built there to the goddess Diana. And it was kind of like the center
of that idol worship of the goddess Diana. And the whole city was
given over to it. The economy, everything hinged
around this worship of Diana. After the Apostle Paul had been
there preaching, the silversmiths of the town got together and
they're trying to find a way to get rid of this guy. Because
so many people believed on the Christ that Paul was preaching,
the silversmith's business was hurt. Fewer people were buying
these silver idols and so forth of Diana. Big uproar about this,
because this is affecting our pocketbook. And you can read
about that in Acts chapter 19. But I just point that out to
say how central this idolatry was to this town of Ephesus.
But in the middle of this large, idolatrous, worldly city, Almighty
God had hidden away some of his elect in the middle of that city,
and a large, very blessed church grew up in that city, much like
here in the middle of this city. Looks to me like it's all one
giant city. We go from place to place, and Kimberly says,
well, now we're in this city, now we're in the, I mean, You
know, at home, you have a city, then there's a break, there's
country. You can tell when you go from one city to the other.
Here, it just looks like all one giant city to me. In the
middle of this large metropolitan area, God's reserved some people
for himself and called them out. That's what happened at Ephesus.
And you remember before the apostle Paul went to Rome, where he was
sure that he would be put to death, He called together the
Ephesian elders, remember, those great words he had for those
men. Well, that was a pretty good-sized group of men from
this large, very respected, blessed church. But if you look over
Revelation 2, the very last thing that we read about in Scripture
about the church at Ephesus is when the Lord wrote those seven
letters to the churches, and he sent a letter to the church
at Ephesus. and told him, I know your works. You haven't quit your works.
I know your doctrine is straight, and you hadn't quit. He said,
but I got something against you. You've left your first love.
Now it seems like this church had remained doctrinally straight,
but they left love, a tenderness for Christ, and a tenderness
for the gospel. Look at Revelations 2, verse
5. The Lord says, remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place,
except thou repent. Now when the Lord said he would
remove the candlestick, we know from the rest of the book that
the candlesticks represent the pastor. He said, I'm gonna take
the pastor out of that place, so the gospel won't be preached
there anymore. And notice the Lord didn't say, I'm gonna extinguish
the candle, He said, I'm gonna move it. I'm gonna move the candlestick
from one place to another. I'm gonna raise up a pastor in
a different place. The Lord's not gonna leave himself without
a witness. He's gonna move the candlestick. Robert Hawker said
on that, that the candlestick is a movable piece of furniture
that can be moved around the house. And that's what the Lord
had warned the church at Ephesus that he would do there. So I
point that out, we've seen how the church at Ephesus started.
We've seen the very last thing written in scripture about them.
I think it's good for us to keep this in mind and pray that not
only does the Lord keep us doctrinally straight, we have to be doctrinally
straight. Nobody can be saved apart from
the truth, that the Lord keep us faithful. We ought to be faithful,
shouldn't we? But that the Lord also keep us
tenderhearted. loving Christ, loving the gospel,
because we know how dependent we are on him. I think when we
leave our first love, one of the big problems is we've forgotten
how dependent we are on the Lord every second of every day. I've
seen people who become so taken up with knowing sound doctrine,
I know sound doctrine and somebody else doesn't, that they seem
to depend on their knowledge of sound doctrine. instead of
knowing Christ and believing Christ. I think that's a good
warning to us, because when that happens, that's when the Lord's
going to move the candlestick from one place to another. So
that's the people that Paul's writing to, the church that he's
writing to. In verse one, he begins his letter, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints, which are
at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. And Paul says
he's writing this letter to the saints. the saints which are
at Ephesus. Now every believer is a saint. Every believer. Not just a few,
you know, who did some spectacular things, worked some miracles
or something, you know, in their life. Every believer is a saint. We don't vote on you after you
die to decide whether or not you did enough to be a saint
or not. That's not how you become a saint. Matter of fact, if you're
not a saint before you die, you sure aren't gonna be one after.
Every believer is a saint right now, right now. And the word
saint, it means a holy one, one who's separated to God and one
who's worthy of veneration. I don't think any of us would
raise our hands and say, yep, that's me. None of us are holy
in ourselves and none of us are worthy of veneration by nature. So here's my question. And this
is the question I want to answer this morning, is how does a person
become a saint? How does a person become a saint?
I titled the lesson, The Saints of God. I have three or four
points on this. Number one is this. A person
is the saint of God by the will of God. In verse one, Paul says,
I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. I'm an apostle
and we're all saints by the will of God. Now this is one thing
we got to get down. All of salvation comes from and
is dependent upon the will of God. Salvation is not a choice
that man makes. Preacher is wasting his time.
You'll notice your pastor never takes the time to try to talk
you into doing something because salvation is not the will of
man. It's not the doing of man. Salvation is a choice that God
made and a work that God performs. both for us and in us. First
of all, saints become saints by the will of God when the Father,
by His will, chose a people unto salvation. God chose a people
and it was His will that those people become saints. Look at
verse four. According as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. So how do sinners
become saints, holy ones? It's by the will of God. You
who believe Christ, you were made holy when the Father put
you in Christ in divine election. When he put you in Christ and
not in yourself, not in Adam, not in your works, but in Christ. Everyone who's in Christ is holy. Paul said, and we wrote to the
church at Corinth, chapter one, verse two, he said he was writing
to them who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. That's how we're
made holy, by being in Christ, because he is our holiness. Our
holiness, then, is the will and doing of God, isn't it? When
the Father chose us and put us in Christ. Second, sinners are made saints. Now, the Father chose us. But
boy, we're born in this world sinful, aren't we? Scripture
says dead and trespasses in sins. Well, how am I gonna be a saint
with all those sins on me? Something's gotta be done about
that sin, doesn't it? So second, we're made saints
when Christ died for us and washed our sin away. Look over at Colossians
chapter one. Colossians one, verse 21. and you that were sometime alienated,
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy, unblameable,
and unreprovable in his sight." And that word holy translated
there is the same word translated saint back in our text. The only
way any of us can be holy is if the Son of God took our sin
and died for us to put our sin away. If Christ didn't put our
sin away, it's just obvious. I can't be a saint because my
sin's still on me. But if Christ took it away, it's gone forever. And that's how we're made saints
of God, when Christ washed our sins away. By third, look at
Titus chapter three. Sinners are made saints. when
God the Holy Spirit causes a new holy nature to be born in us.
Titus 3 verse 5, not by works of righteousness,
which we've done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. He did all the work. He did all
the work of salvation. He saved us by the washing of
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Now, this
could be a shocking statement to some people, but holiness
is not how you act. It's not how you act. Holiness
is a nature, a nature that can never sin. And that holy nature
can only be in us if God the Holy Spirit causes it to be born
in us through the incorruptible seed, the word of God. You know,
our nature is determined by the seed, isn't it? You know why
I'm a sinner? because of the seed of my father.
As much as I loved him, as much as I respected him, he was a
sinful man. And the only nature he had to
pass on to me was a sinful nature. Well, God's people, scripture
says, are born from the seed of the word of God. This seed
is holy. It's perfect. It's sinless. Well,
then it can only produce a nature that's perfect and holy and sinless,
can it? The only way that nature can
be born in us is by the will and doing of God the Holy Spirit,
causing that nature to be born in us through the preaching of
God's word. Now, we still have an old nature
of sin, don't we? When God causes us to be born
again, that old nature is unchanged. God doesn't take that old nature
and change it and make it any better. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh. It'll only ever be sinful, dead
flesh. That's all it can be. But thank
God, he willed to give his people a second nature, a new, holy
nature. And someday, when these bodies
die, till then, those two natures are gonna war and fuss and fight
against each other, aren't they? Someday when this body dies,
flesh is gonna go back into the ground, back to the dust from
whence it was made. And that new man is finally gonna
be set free from this clay prison. And it's that new man born of
God who's gonna go directly into the presence of God Almighty.
Now you get a hold of that. That's how God makes his people
saints. And that's why I said, if you're not a saint before
you die, you're not gonna be one after. It's that nature that God made
a saint that's gonna leave here and directly go to the presence
of God. You think of that. That's how
sinners made a saint. All right, number two, a person
is a saint by faith in Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 1, verse
1, he's writing to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Every believer
who's been made holy in Christ, they trust Christ. Saving faith,
just in the most simplest way you can say it, is trusting Christ. Trusting Christ to be everything
the Father requires of me. Trusting Christ to be everything
that I need. And here's how I can tell if
I trust Christ. I don't feel like I got to add anything to
him. He's enough. I just trust him. For the believer,
Christ is our holiness and we're not looking for another hope.
I don't want another hope. All I want is Christ. Looking to Him, that's the only
assurance I need. I'm not looking for any other
signs of assurance. I just trust Christ. That's saving faith. Now, we say a believer's holy.
Here's something only a saint can understand. A saint is holy,
but we don't see anything holy in ourselves. I can't look at
myself and see something holy, because it's not there. but they
trust that they're holy. You know why they trust they're
holy? Because God said so. That's faith. Faith's just believing
God, isn't it? A saint is a saint by faith. It's not because you
understand everything in this book. It's not that you understand
how and why God's doing everything he's doing. It's just belief
in God. My wife and I have two daughters,
and when they were real little, They didn't understand almost
anything their daddy was doing. But it was all right by them.
They just trusted daddy. It's the same way for a believer. We don't understand all the mysterious
workings of God that go into this thing we call salvation.
We don't understand how God could love us. If you do, take a step back. A saint does not understand how
could God love me? I don't understand the mystery
of the new birth. God caused a new nature to be
born in me? How can I be one person in two
natures? I can't explain that. I don't understand the Trinity.
How can God be one God in three persons? I don't understand God. I do not understand His nature,
I don't understand what he's doing and why he's doing it,
but I tell you what, I sure do trust him. I sure do trust him. I don't understand all these
mysteries of the scripture, but by God's grace, I sure do believe
him. I sure do love him. A saint doesn't
have to understand it. great article in today's bulletin,
Brother Donnie Bell, about asking God questions. I agree with Brother
Donnie. I don't have any questions for
God, but I sure do believe him. If he told me, I couldn't understand
it anyway. I just believe him. And I tell you the thing about
saints, every saint is going to keep believing God all the
way to the end. I know our faith won't be perfect,
but Every saint is going to keep believing God all the way to
the end. They're not going to have any
other hope but Christ because nothing else is worth believing.
And I'll tell you why they're going to keep believing to the
end. And this will take some pressure off of you. Why is a
believer going to believe all the way to the end? If you believe
Christ right now, you're not going to quit. I can promise
you that. You know how I can promise you that? It's not because
of your strength. It's because of the strength
of the Savior. He said, my people are in my hand and no man is
able to pluck them out of my hand. And what I find most comforting
about that no man, it's not just no enemy can pluck me out of
Christ's hand. The fellow I worry about the
most is me. He won't let me jump out either. That's why you're
going to keep believing to the end because God won't let you
quit. He won't let you go. I'm going to get out, Kimberly,
I'm going to get out of my half hour. I beg Kevin's forgiveness. I'll use this illustration. My youngest daughter, Savannah,
she was two years old. We were going to church one morning,
heavy, heavy snow. There'd been some ice and some
heavy, heavy snow. And we were walking into the
church building and I was holding her hand and we're walking across,
you know, they scraped a lot, but if you've never seen a lot
like that, it's been scraped by the snow. There's still ice
and stuff on, you know, we're carefully walking across there.
I'm holding her hand. This little two year old looks up at me and
she says, don't worry, daddy. I won't let go. Well, that's
good. But her hope of making it across
that ice was not her letting go. It was that I won't let go. By God's grace, I'm not letting
go. I mean, honestly, my heart can
truthfully say this, Father, I'm not letting go. But that's
not my hope of salvation. It's that he won't let go of
me. All right, here's the third thing. A person is a saint by
the grace of God. Paul says in verse two, grace
be to you in peace. from God our Father and from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now grace, it's the free, undeserved,
unearned favor of God. Grace is God giving us what we
do not deserve. Well, what don't we deserve?
Any blessing from God. We don't deserve salvation. We
don't deserve eternal life. We don't deserve the new birth.
We don't deserve to be given faith in Christ. We don't deserve
for God to keep us. What we deserve is eternal damnation. But God saves his elect anyway,
even though we don't deserve it, in spite, not because of
our works, in spite of our works. I think that is such a good definition
of grace. God saves us anyway. And that
salvation, it's all of grace. It's none by works and all by
grace. Look at verse eight over in chapter
two of Ephesians. For by grace, by grace, by grace,
by grace. Can we get this through our heads?
By grace are you saved. through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it's the gift of God. And in case you don't understand
what that means, he says in verse nine, not of works, lest any
man should boast. Now here's the thing that makes
grace so glorious and so comforting to God's people. Salvation by
God's grace makes salvation sure. God does not and he cannot show
grace at the expense of his justice. In order to be gracious to his
people and give them what they don't deserve, God had to give
Christ our substitute what we deserve. And in return, he gave
us what the Lord Jesus Christ, our federal head earned for us.
Now that's great grace by God's grace. Justice is satisfied. Christ died to satisfy God's
justice so that God could give us what we don't deserve. So
not only is God's salvation gracious, it's just. It can't be reversed. Isn't that gracious? Isn't that
comforting, thrilling to your heart? The fact, and here's the
thing, oh, if God has set this in our hearts, we won't leave
our first love. The fact that the father would slaughter his
only begotten son, as a sacrifice for my sin. I know he died for
a number no man can number, but I'm thinking now just about me.
You think just about you. The fact that the father would
slaughter his son in the most horrible, most shameful way possible
as a sacrifice for my sin so that he could be gracious to
me and give me what I could never earn. That's the most amazing thing
I've ever heard. And it's not a fairy tale, it's
true. Oh, that's what God has done
for all of his saints, so they could be his saints. Isn't that
something? See what I said? If God set that
in our heart, we won't leave our first love, will we? And here's the last thing, I
gotta give you this before we close. We've seen how a person
is made a saint, And the fourth thing is this, a saint has peace
with God. At the end of verse two Paul
says, grace to you and peace from God our father and from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice the order of things
here first. First is grace, then peace. Peace is the result of
God's grace. Grace is the foundation of our
salvation. God's grace is the foundation
of every blessing that we enjoy from God. And peace is the fruit
of it. Peace with God is the fruit of
it. This grace and peace comes to us, Paul says, from our Lord
Jesus Christ. From who he is and what he's
accomplished for his people. Do you know why God's saints
have peace with God? Because the blood of Christ put away
the sin that made God angry. And there's peace. If Christ
died for you, God has no reason to be angry with you. When trials
come our way, don't think God's punishing you, because he's not.
He already punished Christ for your sin. He's not punishing
you for them, too. He's teaching you something.
He's weaning you from something, but he's not punishing you. He
already punished Christ for us. The Father has absolutely no
reason to be upset with you if Christ died for you. That's why
we have peace with God. And with that same blood of Christ's
sacrifice, is applied to our hearts, and that's what the new
birth is. When it talks about the blood of sprinkling, the
blood is applied to our hearts, it's a new birth. When there's
a new nature birthed in us, when the blood of Christ is applied
to our hearts, we're not mad at God anymore either. Now by
nature we are, aren't we? The carnal mind's enmity against
God. It's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
it be. But when God applies the blood
of Christ to our hearts, we willingly surrender. Brother Henry Mahan,
you say we stack our shotguns and willingly submit to Christ,
and there's peace. And that peace is peace which
passes all understanding. I'm going to give you something
about peace. It's true from what I read about in scripture. It's
true from my experience. And if you don't need it this
very minute, file it away because you're going to need it. The peace that God gives his
people is not peace that comes as a result of God removing the
trial. We're undergoing a trial, there's
pain, there's heartache, there's disappointment, there's anxiety
because we don't know what's gonna happen. When God gives
his people peace, it's not removing those things that cause you pain,
it's not removing the trial, it's giving you peace. even though
the trial is as bad as it ever was. That piece is more precious,
it's more valuable than peace that comes from removing the
trial. Does that make sense? I hope it does. That has been
a great blessing to me and to have experienced it. And this
is just my advice, you get this for free. When the Lord puts you in the
midst of it, and if you're his, he will, he will. Not because
he's mad at you, but because he loves you. In this world,
you shall have tribulation. And you know why? Because tribulation
work with patience. See, these trials are sent to
increase our faith, to increase our dependence on Christ. When
Lord sends a trial, almost never will it be over quickly. Now
pray that the Lord deliver you, absolutely pray that the Lord
deliver you from the trial. But also pray this, in the meantime,
Lord give me grace sufficient for this trial. Give me some
moments of peace right now. Will the Lord end every trial?
No, he won't. Something's gonna come, gonna kill this body and
take us home, isn't it? But will the Lord give you grace
sufficient? He promised he would. Then I tell you, if we want the
Lord to answer our prayer, pray what the Lord promised, he'll
do that, won't he? All right, well, I don't know
if I went over half hour or not, but I hope the Lord blessed that
to you.