And Abba, Father Abba, and Father
Abba, Father Christ. A few weeks ago, I was asked
to preach to a group of people in Pindell. Some of you were
there. And I sure wrestled with that
as much or more so than ever before. I agonized over it. And
I believe the Lord gave me a message. And I want to bring that message
to you this morning. It's not the same message. I
didn't grab that. I didn't grab it. But it is the same message. But it's not. I hope it will
be brand new. You've heard this before. Very
few people in this room haven't heard this message before. The truth of this message. Verse
6 of chapter 1 is the title of the subject, and it's on our
sign out front. Verse 6 says, To the praise of
the glory of His grace. Wherein, that is, His grace,
He hath made us acceptable in the blood. To the praise of the
glory of His grace. we changed our church's name,
as you know, years ago. Always wanted to do it, and finally
did it, to Central Grace Church, because we felt like that more accurately declared our purpose,
what salvation is, our purpose, our message, Every, our message
could be summed up in there. It's all to the praise of the
glory of His grace. Salvation is, that's what this
is talking about. The salvation of God's people
is to the praise of the glory of His grace. Did you notice
with me how many times it says His grace? His grace, by grace,
chapter 2, verse 8. Four, by grace you're saved. Paul is writing in parentheses
in verse 5, he can't get very far without saying grace. He
can't write six lines without saying it's by grace. That's
what salvation is by grace. A gift bestowed. Unmerited favor. Something done for you. Something done to you. Something done in you. Grace
doesn't mean an offer. No. When you give a gift to someone,
you don't offer it to them. If you give a gift, you give
it to them. Grace is not an offer of God,
but it's an act of God. It's an operation of God. It's
not a cooperation. It's an operation of God. He
said, by grace are you saved. It's grace from beginning to
end. It's all His work, something
He does for us and to us and in us by Christ, by the Spirit
of God. I want to make this just as plain
as I can, okay, by grace, by grace. This whole book is the
story of God's sovereign saving grace of the people. It begins
and ends that way. All of the epistles of Paul,
especially, all the epistles of Paul begin with grace unto
you. Because that's how salvation
starts. And all the epistles, every one
of these epistles end with grace unto you. Do you know what the
very last line in the Bible is? Revelation 22, 21? The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. That's the very last line of
the book. Why? Because it's by grace. This is
the foundation of the gospel of God's grace, of the truth.
By grace, you say. And it's the topstone. When it's
all over, all said and done, Zechariah 6 says that the topstone
is going to be laid on this great temple called His church, His
kingdom, by Christ Himself with shouts. with crying of grace,
grace unto it. It's all of grace. This is central grace, church. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. Grace, not works. It's not of
works, lest any man should boast. He even said, That's not your
work. Faith is not of yourselves. It's
a gift of God. It's by grace. Repentance, it's
a gift of God. Works, good works, you didn't
do that. That's by grace. That's the work
of the Spirit of God. It's God working in us of the
will. No flesh is no glory in His presence.
Everybody that is in glory is glorying in His grace. Now, what do we mean by grace?
Listen to dear Brother Britt Worthy preach on what does it
mean to preach Christ. People say that. Religion says
Christ. Religion says mercy. Religion
says grace. What do you mean? Say, we preach
Christ. What do you mean by that? What
do you mean by grace? Well, look at chapter 1 here,
okay? Paul, he begins, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Paul preached God's sovereign,
electing grace. Paul preached the will of God
is sovereign in all things. Man doesn't have a free will.
Paul, he found that out, didn't he? His name used to be Saul. He was a Pharisee, a Pharisee.
Do you remember? A Hebrew of Hebrew. on his way
up the religious ladder, thought he knew God, zealous and all
that, knew the law, thought he did. And Christ in mercy and
grace, he said, I obtained mercy. Christ came to me. and revealed
Himself to me by His sovereign will, by His sovereign choice. Jesus Christ came to this dark
sinner, this rebel against God, this religious, moral, bowel
rebel, and He said, He chose me by His will and made me one
of His saints, made me an apostle. Paul knew this, didn't he? This is his message everywhere
he goes. Everywhere he went, Paul preached that story about
himself. He went around telling people what great things the
Lord had done for him by His grace, by His will, by His choice. He said, everything I am is by
His grace. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Know what I know. Know whom I know. And where I
am, it's all by grace. By the will of God. To the saints.
Saints. God's people are called saints
more than anything else. Do you know that? It means sanctified
one. A saint means a sanctified one.
One who's been separated. One who's been called out. One
who's been chosen. One who's been set apart from
others. The Lord began saying this all the way back to the
Israelites in Egypt. He said, I put a difference between
you. He said, you're going to know that the Lord doesn't put
a difference between you and the Egyptians. That you're no
different than them. You're sinners just like them.
That I'm saving you by my grace, by my choice. I'm setting you
apart. What is it? What set them apart
from the Egyptians? Blood. Blood. They were led by the Spirit,
the Spirit of God. Ah, saints at Ephesus, to the
faithful in Christ Jesus, those full of faith in Christ Jesus,
all of God's people, their faith is 100%. I'm talking 100%. Their faith is not in their faith,
their faith is not in themselves, their faith is not in their creed,
their faith is not in doctrine, their faith is not in anything
or anyone but Jesus Christ. Salvation is in Christ Jesus.
They're full of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You ask them
what their hope is, they'll say Christ. Ask them what their righteousness
is, they'll say Christ. Ask them how they're going to
get to heaven, they'll say Christ. So how did you hear this? Christ.
He sent the Word. Faithful in Christ. That's what
it means. In Christ. Ask them what their hope is.
Be found in Christ. In Christ. You know how many
times it says that? In Christ. In Christ. In Christ.
You ask all the saints, they'll tell you that their salvation
is to be found in Christ, like that ark. Not having their own
righteousness, but covered, pitched, shut up, shut in, kept, saved
100% by Jesus Christ. That's what that means. It doesn't
mean, oh, you're such a noble, faithful person. We're saved
by the faith of Jesus Christ. He is faithful. We're like Gomer.
We're like Gomer. Lots of times we're unfaithful.
How are we going to get there? He'll never let us go. He's our
faithful husband. Do you like that? You know grace,
you love it. See, this is to the praise of
the glory of His grace. His grace. Verse 2, grace be
to you. What grace? All grace. Every
grace. God of all grace. Keeping grace. And we're going to go on to describe,
define this grace. And peace. God's not angry. He ought to be. That's what we
were talking about this morning. The truth of the matter is, God
ought to be angry with us. The truth of the matter is, we
ought to be in hell right now. The truth of the matter is, we've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Still do. The
truth of the matter is, our sins are worse than the sins of unbelievers. That's the truth of the matter.
But here's the grace of the matter is, Christ died. There is no condemnation. In
Christ. Peace from God our Father. He
is our peace. That's what he said there in
chapter 2, verse 14, that He is our peace. He is our peace.
We all know that. God sent Him. It's from God and
from the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, according as He hath Here's the first grace
that he mentions. Verse 3, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessing in heavenly places or things in Christ, according
as he hath chosen us in him, in Christ, before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame, but
for him in love. This is the first grace, sovereign
electing grace. Don't you love the sound of it? Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. This is where it all started.
You know, everything, all of salvation started with God making
a choice, with God electing a people before the world began. That's where it all started.
And he elected a peace, set his love on him, purposed to love
him, and never quit loving him. This is such good news. This
is all my salvation. And those that he chose, and
those he set his love on him, never quit loving them. He loved
them even while they were dead in trespasses. Even while they
didn't care for his son, he cared for them. Not everybody. but
all of his elect. And he gave them to Jesus Christ
in a covenant, in a covenant made in the counsel of eternity
before the world began. He gave them to Jesus Christ
to come to this world and be their substitute, be their
covenant head, to die under his wrath and his judgment against
their sins, and be made sin for them. They even knew no sin.
that they might be made the righteousness of God, holy and unblameable
in God's sight before Him. He did it in love. And to make
them love Him and love the Son and love the truth. He did it
all, you see. He did it all. And it was all
determined. This was all ordered in all things,
predestinated, ordered in all things, and it's what? Sure. Yes, Paul wrote in Romans 11,
I believe it is, he said, it's by grace through faith that it
might be sure to all to see it. Electing grace, sovereign electing
grace, chosen in Christ to be holy without blame. They did
it in love. Verse 5, predestinate, having predestinated us under
the adoption of children, Predestination. That means your destiny is predetermined. Who wouldn't like that? Huh? Oh, my. Predestination. Everything is
ordered and sure. He said, the hairs of your head
are numbered. Predestinated under the adoption of children. It
said predestinated to be conformed to his image in Romans 8. Predestinated. Adoption of children. All ordered and sure. Here's
a pretty good illustration. Before Hannah was born, when
we knew that Mindy had conceived, and we began to make plans. Did you not? Did you not make
a room for that baby? Did you not fix it up? Did you
not prepare a place for that baby? Did you not already name
it? Did you not? Did you not make
all those purposes and plans? You had everything already prearranged. You're a child. Did you love
that child when it was in your womb, before it was born? Did
you? Ask one of these mothers. Oh yeah. Loved you before you were born. And you made all these purposes
and plans. And that child was born, everything
was ready, waiting, determined. That's our God. That's Psalm
139. Psalm 139. Everything about Him. He knew
us before we were born. Everything was purposed about
us to the very hairs of your head. And He's ordered all things
and assured concerning His people. We've been adopted in His family.
I like to call it, well, it's in His planned parenthood. God
purposed how many children you have, who they were, yeah, don't
you? I mean, if you think we do, we
like to think we do. You know, women are pro-choice,
aren't they? Huh? Aren't women pro-choice? Well, this is God's choice. I'm
pro his choice. But I ain't pro. He made this
choice. Here's the amazing thing about
it. This is grace. This is sovereign, electing,
predestinated grace. Here's the amazing. See, this
is amazing grace. Here's what's amazing about it.
This is why it's to the praise of the glory of His grace. The
amazing thing is, why in the world did He do this for anybody? You know when Adam and Eve sent
against him in league with Satan, they had gotten in league with
Satan. Yeah. Who's God think He is? After all God had done
for Adam and Eve, shook their fist in God's face. Yeah, you
know. After all God did, what would
you have done? What if you had a dog that did
nothing but bite you? What if you had a dog that did
nothing but bite you? You'd feed it and feed it and feed it and
it'd bite you and growl at you. Wouldn't come when you called.
What would you do? That's Isaiah 1, isn't it? That's Isaiah 1. He said, I've nourished and raised
up the children and rebelled against me. Ox knows his owner.
Ash knows his master crib. He said, my people don't know.
They don't even consider. He said, the whole head is sick.
The whole heart is pain. Here's amazing grace. But God. God's going to have to take that
old battened off Biden dog, Brother Bruce said, and just break it. Make it realize, I found you
in the pound. You were destined for death. I found you, and I chose you,
and I brought you home, and I did everything for you. Isn't that
amazing? Isn't that amazing? My old dog
Annie, I don't think she ever got over that. Every time she
saw me, she'd just shake all over. She didn't just wag her
tail, she'd wag her whole body. Thankful. You saved me. She was destined to be euthanized
the next day. And I chose her out of all of
those. And she never got over it. Neither
will God's people. We're talking about amazing grace.
We're not talking about a doctrine. We're talking about Him choosing
me. Jacob saying, Esau's a better man than I am. And Jacob said
he loved me. That's amazing, great sinner.
Amazing. Chose us, predestinated us to
be his children. Why'd he do it? The good pleasure
of his will. First time, it was his will.
It's just the Father's good pleasure to make you his children. Oh, verse 6 says, to the praise
of the glory of His grace, you see. It's His grace. It's His
work. He made us accepted in the Beloved. Made us accepted in the Beloved.
Like I said, the Lord Jesus Christ was sent down here not to a good
people, not to a nice people, not to a worthy people, not to
people that asked for Him or even wanted Him. No, no, no,
it's the opposite. Not to a lovely bride. Not to a poor woman who's just
fallen on bad times. She really has some virtue in
her. No, we're talking about a harlot. We're talking about
a woman who's just vile and ugly. He married her, paid the price for her, his own
precious blood. What did she do? What did she
do after that? She played the harlot again.
That's who he married. Is that you? And boy, after a
while she finally realized, I can't believe he loves me.
I can't believe he chose me. I can't believe he came to marry
the likes of me. Why would he choose me? That's
what we're all going to do in glory. All that are there, all
that know they were saved this way by His grace, they're all
in glory. All the bride, they're going
to be made beautiful through His comingness. And they're all
going to say, isn't our husband one of them? Can you believe,
for lack of a better way to put it, can you believe that He'd
come to us? The thief on the cross is standing
there. It's amazing. Amazing! Mary Magdalene
said, yes it is. It's amazing. Amazing. He did it. He did it. It's grace. See? Is that clear
about what we mean by grace? Offer. Even if it wasn't offer. You don't want it. By nature,
you wouldn't accept it. Don't want it. He came down here,
told them who he was, told them why he came. Come unto me. He
said, you will not come unto me. He said, come unto me. They don't need you. Go back
where you came from. Better yet, we'll kill him. Oh,
my. It's amazing, isn't it? Amazing
grace. He did that for the very ones
that killed him. Not all of them. Some of them. Burst accepted
in the blood. You know, we're going to get
into glory. We're going to walk in on the
arm of our blessed husband. The Father who made all things
for His blessed Son, who ordered all things for His Son's honor
and glory, who made this marriage supper of the Lamb, who made
this Kingdom for the honor and glory of His Son. And buddy,
if you're not on His arm, you're not going in. If you're not covered in His
righteousness, you're not going in. If you've got some fig leaves
you've covered up, you think, I look pretty good, He'll let
me in. No, if it ain't the righteousness of Christ, you're not coming
in. You're not accepting. Unacceptable. God sees right
through it. God says, you're getting your glory here. You're
taking the glory. He said, cast him out of there. Who are you here? How are you
all here? Why are you here? Him? You see that? Everyone that comes
to God says, we're coming by Him. We're coming because of
Him, your Son. It's Him that we're here. We
don't deserve to be here. Would you accept us in your Son?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Over here, we haven't
been that bad. We've done some pretty good things.
We're not as bad as them. Get Him out of my face. What it took for God to put away
our sins was the blood of His Son, putting His Son through
hell. For anybody to say that they
had anything to do with it is an abomination to God. God's
absolute sovereign free choice of His people and election of
His people who didn't deserve to be chosen. No man doesn't
deserve a chance to be saved. Nobody deserves to be saved.
But God chose Son. And every one of them know that.
That if He hadn't chosen them, they wouldn't have chosen Him.
And they all praise Him to high heaven for His amazing, sovereign,
electing grace of such unworthy, despicable, vile creatures as
they are. That's a fact. If you don't know
that and believe that, you're not one of the elect. How dare human beings say, yeah,
but I, I, I, I what? Here's what we did. Here's what
I did. You know what I did? I did the
sinning. Here's what he did. He did the
saving. I did the rejecting. He did the choosing, the accepting.
I did the running. He did the finding. I did the rebelling. He did the
obedience. Is that you? Then I believe you're one of
the elect. This is to the praise of the
glory of His grace. When Moses said, Lord, show me
Your glory. Remember that? Exodus 33, show me Your glory. God said, okay, I'm going to
make all my goodness pass before you. I'm going to proclaim the
name of the Lord. And this is all Christ. All my
goodness is going to pass before you. You're going to walk on
this earth, the goodness of God. All the goodness, all the grace
of God is going to walk this planet in a person. I'm going
to proclaim the name of the Lord, your Lord, whom I've given, whom
I'm giving you to, your salvation, the Lord of your salvation, your
Captain, your Messiah. I'm going to proclaim, and I
will be merciful. You know, mercy means not getting
what you deserve, being spared. You see, God spared not His own
Son in order to spare us. That's the
only reason He spared us, because He spared not His own Son. He
said, I will be merciful. Praise God for His mercy. Suck on whom I will be merciful. Mercy, by definition, must be
sovereign. Show it to whom you will. And
I will be gracious. I will give everything. I will
do everything. I will provide everything. I
will apply everything. I will do all that they need. I'll do it all. And all I expect
in return is praise. That's about all I can do. That's all
I can do. Redeeming grace. Look at verse
7. It's only been 26 minutes. Verse 7 says, In whom we have
redemption, redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins. The forgiveness of sins. Boy, if we really stop and think
about that. What sin? Oh, my. Forgiveness of sin. Sin's past. David said, Lord,
don't remember the sins of my youth. Remember that? Lord, please don't remember the
sins of my youth. And then at the present, I said,
oh, my sin is ever before me. And then now what are we going
to do in the future? John, we have the forgiveness
of sins. All of them. Past, present, and
future. Why? Because God killed His Son. Because God killed His Son. I
see the blood. I'll pass it over you. Sinners,
all of you, sinners. You're sinners. But Christ paid
for our sins. I see the blood, he said. You've
been redeemed. You've been paid the price. The
ransom has been found. The price has been paid. The
penalty has been paid. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. Christ has been made sin for
you. His soul had been made an offering for sin, and God is
satisfied. He said, your sins are gone. I won't remember them
no more. But what? But God. Redemption. To those who have
no redeeming qualities at all. Christ redeemed. It's according,
you see, verse 7, to the riches of His grace. And read on. He
says He's abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Oh,
of God are you in Christ Jesus. I've got to quote it to see if
you remember. Of God are we in Christ Jesus, who of God, he
says it's His grace, who of God is made unto us. I want to hear
you say it. Of God is made unto us. What do we do? Anything? Anything? He's made all things for us.
All of us. By His knowledge, my righteous
servants are justified. Wisdom. Wisdom. Righteousness.
By His righteousness, we're made righteous. Not ours. Sanctification. He said, I sanctify myself that
they may be sanctified. He set Himself apart. and redemption. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Christ is our Redeemer. Because
Boaz married us. Because he's our kinsman Redeemer.
Because he came to us and we found grace in his eyes
and he set his love upon us and married us. Now everything's
on purpose. Oh, He's made this known unto
us, verse 9 and 10. This is revealing grace, a mystery
of His will. It's a mystery to most. The good pleasure He purposed
in Himself, in Christ, before the world began. And verse 10,
here's gathering grace. Verse 10, they might gather together
in one all things in Christ. Gathering grace. Dearly beloved,
We're gathered here this morning by Jesus Christ to the praise
of the glory of His Christ. You know that? Everybody in heaven
is gathered because Christ sent the Spirit to gather them. Because
God chose them, because Christ died for them, and He said, none
of them are going to be lost. I'm going to send my Spirit through
the preaching of the gospel around them all. I'm going to gather
them together. What are they going to be doing? That big marriage supper, praising
the Lamb. Gathered, dearly beloved, God
may say that, dearly beloved, I have gathered you here together. Here's my son. Praise Him. This is the last thing.
Verse 11, in whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose, the will, the purpose of Him who
works all things after the counsel of His will, that we should be
to the praise of His glory, an inheritance, an inheritance that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, that Christ, He deserves it. He's the heir.
He's of all things. And we're joint heirs with Him.
And we're all going to be standing, God's people are going to be
standing in glory with Christ on His arm, His beloved Bride.
And He's going to say, look, all these things I've prepared
for you before the foundation. This is all yours. New heaven,
new earth. It's all yours. It's yours. It's
yours. It's yours. You're my sons. For me. All this for me. Inherit it. because of the Son
of God. Well, who did He do this for?
Chapter 2 says, dead sinner. You that were dead walked according
to the course of this world. Children of wrath, even as others.
But God, rich and great, love, mercy and grace did this. Quickened
you together with Christ. Oh, it's by grace you say. Raised
us up and made us sit together in a heavenly place. You've heard
a glorious message. You've heard the message of the
gospel of His glory this morning, which things the angels desire
to look into. Oh, it's by grace, for by grace are you saved through
faith, and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
worthless. Any man should know where his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good work, which God
hath before ordained that we should walk under. And in the
ages to come, He's going to show us exceeding riches. of His grace
and His kindness toward us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise
be to His grace.