I'd like for us to turn to a
few verses of Scripture in the Old Testament. Look to Isaiah
40. This is something I want us to
take a look at here as we start into this study. Listen to what the Lord says
concerning man. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the isles
as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn. nor
the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. And all
nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less
than nothing, and vanity." Then look down at verse twenty-one.
Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not
been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the earth? It is he that said it upon the
circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers that
stretch it out the heavens as a curtain and spread it them
out as a tent to dwell in that bring it the princes to nothing.
He make it the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they shall
not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown, yea, their stock
shall not take root in the earth, and he shall also blow upon them,
and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away
as stubble. To whom, then, will ye liken
me, or shall I be equal? Sayeth the Holy One." Now look
at chapter 44. These sure are some strong words
from the Lord. Chapter 44, verse 25. Well, look at verse 24 here first. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer,
and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that
maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that
spreadeth abroad the earth by myself, that frustrateth the
tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad, that turneth wise
men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish. This is the Holy Lord God speaking
of Himself. This is what we learned when
He said, I'll in no wise acquit the guilty. He's angry with the
wicked every day. This is what He does with those.
Now look over at one more, Habakkuk. Second chapter of Habakkuk. Second chapter of Habakkuk, verse
20. God is holy. It says, But the
Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence
before him. In verse 6 of Ephesians 1, the latter part of that verse, the apostle says, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. You know, this perhaps could
be the most profound words ever recorded. It seems to me like
He hath made us accepted in the beloved. This holy God, he is
of more pure eyes than the behold evil. He records something like this.
We are accepted of God. Sinners, worms, grasshoppers
like he talks about. Man in all his vanity and corruption
and sinfulness. He's made us accepted. Accepted in the Beloved. That's
the only way we are accepted, too, in the Beloved. I want to look at this thing,
being accepted in the Beloved. We'll begin at verse 1 and work
our way on down here and see how all this comes about. In
verse 1, We find it recorded, 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. Paul became an apostle of Jesus
Christ by the will of God. That's how he became an apostle,
by the will of God. To the saints which are at Ephesus,
no one can truly be called a saint. regardless of what Roman Catholicism
says. No one can be called or considered a saint
except there in Christ Jesus. If you realize, if you have noticed
as you read these epistles, most every one of them opens up the
same way, in Christ. Look at Philippians, Paul and
Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ
Jesus, which are at Philippi. In Christ, in Christ, Colossians
is the same way. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother, to the saints and
faithful brethren in Christ. No one can be called a saint
except they be in Christ, and no one can be called faithful
except they be in Christ. And how do we find out that we
are in Christ? In Colossians 1.6, Or 1.5, it says, For the hope
which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel. That's how we found out we heard
the word of the truth of the gospel. Which is come unto you
as it is in all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth
also in you since the day you heard of it and knew the grace
of God in truth. The only way you can be called
a saint, and you're not going to be considered a saint by God
unless you're in Christ, unless God puts you in Christ. You can't
put yourself in Christ, but you've got to be in Christ. Regardless
of whether you know a whole bunch of doctrine or what, you've got
to be in Christ. You've got to believe on Christ
and be in Him. Paul says, Grace be unto you
and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace comes by Christ. Because
of what Christ did, God can show mercy to us yet. Yet we were chosen by God before
Christ came to this world, but we were chosen in him. God poured His grace on us before
we ever come into this world. And He poured His grace on us,
and He chose us. And no one can have peace with
God. You see that? And peace from God our Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ. No one can have peace with God
on the grounds of what they do without being Christ. Those angels
came down when Christ was born. They said, Peace on earth, goodwill
toward men. That's coming from God down here. You must be found in Christ.
Over here in Philippians 3, 9, none of our own merits and cause
us to have peace with God. We've got to be found in Christ.
Paul said, I want to win Christ and be found
in Him, not having my own righteousness, my own works, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. And notice
it didn't say faith in Christ. It says through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Paul wanted to have Christ's
righteousness, not his. And he wanted to be found in
Christ. And I want to be found in Christ because I know God
won't have anything to do with me unless I'm found in Christ. In verse 3, he said, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It says a lot in here about in
Christ. It says in Christ so many times
right here in just this one chapter. Paul, he's emphasizing to us
that we must be in Christ. The apostle is speaking of glory
and the things pertaining to glory. You notice he says spiritual
blessings and heavenly places in Christ. He's talking about
glory. If a sinner in his natural train
of thought has thoughts of heaven by what he considers heaven to
be and the goodness of God's presence and knows not and is
not in Christ, his expectations are vanity and vexation of spirit. Like Solomon said, it's all vanity,
vexation of spirit. You can't have faith in God except
you have faith in Christ. I wonder how the... Paul spoke of the Russellites. How can they have faith in God
without faith in Christ? How can they have faith in God
if Christ is just a good prophet or an example to us? If He's
not the King, the Savior of sinners, Philip said to Christ, Lord,
show us the Father, and it suffitheth us. Jesus said unto him, Have I been
so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He said to the Pharisees, If
ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. That's
what he emphasized to the people there when he was here in the
flesh. They spoke about the Father. Even when they said Abraham is
our father, he said, if Abraham were your father, you'd do the
works of Abraham. And then they said to him, what must we do
that we might do the works of God? And they pointed them again
to him. He said, this is the work of
God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. To believe
on Him is to be in Him. Spiritual blessings are in Christ. He says, in heavenly places in
Christ. Well, that's what heavenly places
is, Christ. He is heaven, and it's in Him. In verse four, it says, 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. When were believers chosen in
Christ? It says before the foundation
of the world. We don't know when it happened,
but we do know we didn't have anything to do with it. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Foreknew. That was a long time ago. He
knew us before the foundation of the world. God chose us to be sons and daughters. We'll look at a few verses of
Scripture. There might be several verses of Scripture we'll look
at. Like I've said before, I want to stick with the scriptures.
You don't need to hear my opinions. You need to hear what God says,
and I need to hear what God says. 1 John 3. These are very familiar verses
of scripture. 1 John 3. Verses 1 and 2. We're sons and daughters of God.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God. That holy God that we read about
here to start with. This holy God. We're sons and
daughters of him, therefore the world knoweth us not because
it knew him not. The world knows us not because
we speak of Him and the world don't know Him. But Christ said
that they may know Thee and be in us. Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be,
but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is. It tells us here what God made
us and what we're going to be. We're sons and daughters in Christ.
God chose us to be sons and daughters. It was done in Christ. Revelation
21, 27 says none's going to enter into the kingdom except their
names are in the book of life and before the foundation of
the world. That's that Lamb's book of life. God said unto Israel,
I have loved you with an everlasting love. That sounds like a long
time ago. Everlasting is eternal from before,
from who knows when before, and there's no end. Look over here at Romans chapter
nine. Romans has a lot to say about God's
election. And that election of God took
place a long time ago. Romans 9, 22 and 23. And that he might make
known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy. Well,
verse 22, what if God willing to show his wrath and to make
known or to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might
make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy
which he had afore, see that word afore, prepared unto glory. That's the same thing he's saying
over here in Romans 8.28. or 829, for whom he did foreknow. That's a fore, foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son. All them in Christ God foreknew,
and he prepared them afore unto glory. He knew them before, and
he prepared them before unto glory. And then look over here in Jeremiah
1. There are so many. So many places in here where
God speaks of calling a person because he chose him before the
foundation of the world. Verse 4 of Jeremiah 1. Listen
to what the Lord said to Jeremiah. Jeremiah said, I can't go out
and speak to this nation. I'm just a child. God said, Then
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee
in the belly, I knew thee. That's before he's ever made.
Before his mom and dad ever thought about having him. And therefore
thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctify thee. And I ordain thee
a prophet into the nations. That sounds like what we find
in Acts, where Paul spoke to those people on Mars Hill. He
said he's laid out the destination of all men. He's determined beforehand what's going to happen to the
people. Jeremiah said, Lord, I can't
speak for I'm a child. The Lord said, I'll put my words
in your mouth. You go speak, and don't be afraid
of their faces. I am with thee to deliver thee,
saith the Lord. God formed him in the womb, and
he formed all men in the womb. I believe David mentioned something
about that in Psalm 51, about how the Lord knew it beforehand. And the Queen of Sheba knew something
of God's eternal love, too. when she came. Well, let's look
at it here. 1 Kings 10 9. 1 Kings 10 9. She knew something about this.
She bound to have the Lord recorded it here. Recorded her words. She said in verse 8, Happy are
thy men. She's speaking to Solomon when
she came and seen Solomon's wisdom and heard him speak. Happy are
these thy servants which stand continually before thee and that
hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God,
which delighted in thee to set thee on the throne of Israel,
because the Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore made he thee
king to do judgment and justice. He loved Israel forever. She
was saying he loved Israel from the beginning. Had to set you
on the throne like that. Look at the last part of the.
Ephesians 414. That we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. God chose us in Christ, and this
is the preach of that, that we should be holy and without blame
before Him in love. God has no sin. He's infinitely
holy. So how should we be holy? To
be holy, we must be without sin. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
washed away all the sin of all His children. Therefore, we're
without sin, so we're holy. The only way to be holy is without
sin. God's without sin. He's holy. He knows no sin. And all those sin is all over
us and all in us. When God looks upon us because
of Christ and his precious blood washing our sins away, God don't
see him. He considers us holy. That's
something kind of hard to get a hold of, but it's true. We're holy because of what Christ
did, but not in and of ourselves. We had nothing to do with the
putting away of our sins and nothing to do with our being
holy. Neither one. It was God's work. God pronounces
us to be holy because of what Christ did. So we're holy and
holy means to be without sin and blameless means to be without
guilt. In Christ. God says, Be ye holy,
for I am holy. Well, I can't be holy. I don't
know how. But God says, I declare you to
be holy because of what my son did. God declares us to be holy. It's like when God accepts us
because of impeded righteousness. Our holiness is imputed to us. We don't have no holiness of
our own, and we can't produce no holiness of our own. That's
all God. When Jonas said salvation is
of the Lord, that was the whole of salvation. Everything that
has anything to do with it is of the Lord. But our salvation is in Christ
and by Christ. And verse five, having predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. Here it says, by Jesus Christ. God purposed in his mind long
ago that all of his people would be conformed to the image of
his son. The word predestinate This means
to lay out and purpose the destination or the consummation of something
before it's ever made, what it's going to finally become before
it's ever made. It's like when you take a trip.
You know, you make plans for your trip, the layout, the route
you're going to take and how much gas it's going to take you
to get there and what provisions you'll need. You make reservations
and stuff like that before you even start. So you won't get
off track. God laid out our destination
beforehand. That's what it means to predestinate. And in the last half of the verse, according to the good pleasure
of his will, he predestinated us to be conformed
to the image of his Son and to the adoption of children. We're
adopted children. Christ is God's only begotten
Son, and we're adopted children through Christ. See, unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ, He made us to be like
Him. We're adopted children. We're
adopted from heathenism, really. We're just heathens being adopted
by God and made children. It is by the good pleasure of
His will. Oh, look at John here. This is this is the birth of
Scripture very, very. We could just about. Some of
us might. Know this by heart, we could. Repeat this by heart. John 112. 111 He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Not by their own power. He empowered them to become the
sons of God. What is, he pronounces us sons
of God. even to them that believe on
his name, because he gave his faith, which were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God." I'd say that's it, but of the will of God. That's
according to the good pleasure of his will. I'm glad it is His
will. I'm glad it's the will of God
to save poor, miserable, wretched sinners and make them to be like
Christ. I'm glad it's His will. Christ
said Himself, and ye will not come unto me that ye will have
life. Well, I'm glad God makes us willing
in the day of His power. He says, to the praise of the
glory of His grace. If you're in Christ, that's exactly
what you'll do, and you'll do it willingly and thankfully.
Praise to His grace. Praise to His glory. The Scriptures say, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And the only one that will glory
in the Lord is His, the ones in Christ. Romans 923 said we just read
a while ago that he might make known the riches of his glory
on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory. We glory in that because God
prepared us. He chose us and had mercy on
us and prepared us. In the last part of that verse,
wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." Oh, these are precious words.
I'm glad that's recorded in there. He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. It tells us that we're reconciled
to God, that we're no longer aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. having
no hope and without God in this world, no longer like it used
to be, but no longer like that. Being accepted in the beloved
simply means now in Christ Jesus, you who were sometimes far off
are made now by the blood of Christ. What were we far off? It was
a great gulf there fixed between us and God, but Christ came And
he spanned that goal. And he brought us, he made a
connection there between us and God by his precious blood, because
he removed that which separated us from God. God said, your iniquities
have separated between you and your God, your sin. And Christ came and put that
away and brought us together, reconciled to God through the
blood of Christ. Our acceptance before God is
in and only in Christ. Only in Christ. No works here
except his works, not ours. God has never accepted anyone
or anything done by anyone except in Christ and upon his merits
and his righteousness and his shed blood. Never accepted anyone. All those
saints back in the... And tried their best to keep
God's law. They were accepted in Christ
just like we are. We were accepted in Christ before
the world was, before we were created, before we had done any
good or evil, as we find recorded in Romans 9. And before we fell
in our father Adam, we were accepted in Christ. It's a long time ago. To be accepted
in the Beloved is to be secure in the Beloved. He said, My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, they follow Me. I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish. Those are some profound words.
They shall never perish. If the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
said that, then Mark Adam will never perish. I like that. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of the united hands of the Father and I." Nobody going to
pluck them out of His hands or the Father's hands. He said,
I and the Father are one. Our acceptance in Christ the
Beloved is a threefold acceptance. It's an eternal acceptance. It's
an immutable acceptance. You've heard that word a lot,
immutable. That means unchangeable. God don't change his mind. An unconditional acceptance,
eternal acceptance, we've been accepted of God from eternity
past to eternity future. There's no end to it. An immutable
acceptance means it's unchangeable, unconditional acceptance. That
means. We're not accepted of God only
on in on any terms or conditions. done by us. God says, first, I have redeemed
thee, return unto me. He don't say, return unto me
and I'll redeem thee. He said, I've redeemed thee,
and you return unto me, and we return. Well, it's eternal acceptance. Though we sin and Though we came
forth from our mother's womb speaking lies, like David said,
Psalm 51, though we have stubbornly rebelled against the Lord our
God for many years, we were and are still accepted in the Beloved. It makes no difference because
of that. Look at 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy
1. 2 Timothy 1, 8 and 9. Paul says, Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who hath saved us and called us with a holy
calling. And here, look what it says about this.
It don't have nothing to do with us. Not according to our works. That sounds like what we read
in Ephesians 2. But according to his own purpose
and grace. That's the will of God. He done
it. It's his will. Which was given
us in Christ. When? Before the world began. That's had eternal acceptance.
And it's in Christ. He saved us. by Christ, in Christ,
called us in Christ according to His own purpose and grace.
And that was given us in Christ before the world began. There never was a time when God
did not view His elect in Christ. Never was a time. We were in
the heart of Christ from all eternity as the objects of His
love and favor. There exists a positive and eternal
union between Christ and His people. We're one with Christ. He said so Himself. And look
over here real quick in John 17. This is what the Lord said Himself
about us being in Him. He was praying to the Father
here in chapter 17. This whole chapter is the Lord
Jesus Christ praying to the Father. Look down here in verse 21. Well, verse 20 says, Neither pray I
for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word. God's word is passed on down,
and people believe on it. that they all may be one as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And in
verse 24, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given
me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which
thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation
of the world. Verse 26, And I have declared
unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith
thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. We were
always in him. He said that they may know this,
that they may know what's already there. He says the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. Let us know about it. I'm glad
He let us know about it. We're bone of His bone and flesh
of His flesh. We're members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. We're one with Christ in His
heart from all eternity, and our names are written beneath
His name in the book of God's eternal election. God calls his son, mine elect. God elect him, he's always been
with him. But God calls him his elect.
My servant, mine elect. He sure does. And we're God's
elect, and our names right belong his. In that book, We are in the hands of Christ
as the surety or the guarantee of our redemption and eternal
glory. He said no one's able to pluck
them out of my hands. That's a guarantee. When he died
for our sins, he put them away and he made us his. We're always
his, but he purchased our redemption through his blood. And when he
ascended up to heaven, he sits there to make sure all that is
carried out. We are in the loins of Christ
spiritually. As in Adam, we sinned and died. Even so, in Christ, we died on
the cross and rose again. We are in his very person. By
living faith, we are joined to him. He lives in us, and we live
in him. He's the head of the body, and
we're the members of the body. The Song of Solomon is recorded
in there. I am my beloved's, and he is
mine. Being accepted in Christ, we
have become the objects of God's favor, God's pleasure. Let's
look at Zechariah 9. Y'all bear with me. I want to
look at these verses of Scripture here. I just want to show you where
some things here we can take comfort in. I heard someone the
other day, a grace preacher, said whenever you read the Scriptures,
If you can't apply all of this to yourself in a personal way,
then you're not going to get anything out of it. Zephaniah 3, 17. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He's mighty to save. He will
save. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. God will rejoice over us with
joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. Can you imagine that? He will
rejoice over thee with singing. God will rest in his love because
his love to us is accomplished. It's always been that Christ
came. and redeemed us, reconciled us
to God, and He's resting now. He will joy over thee with singing.
God is going to sing over us because of us. He's going to
sing because He's done something for us. As God is pleased with His Son,
He's pleased with all who are in His Son. Just think about this. When the
Lord Jesus took our sins upon himself, God looked at him and
seen sin in him. And he punished him for our sins. So when God looks at us now,
we're without sin because our sins put away. He sees us in
Christ. Just as he's seen our sin in
Christ and punished him. No, he looks at Christ and sees
us in Him without sin. And as long as we're in Him,
everything's alright. In Christ. It's the only place
to be. Alright. Immutable acceptance. We looked
at eternal acceptance. Immutable acceptance. Since we
first came to Christ by faith and repentance, our lives have
been a constant struggle with sin. I hope it's been that way. It's supposed to be that way.
If it ain't, we're not one of these. It's a struggle with sin
in ourselves sin of the world, mostly in us, though. It makes
no difference what we are or what we do. The very best we
can do is tainted with sin. Our worship, our prayers, our
testimonies, our witnessing, even our faithfulness Yet God
declares that we are accepted in the beloved. Our acceptance
with God never varies. The only way for one of God's
elect to become unelected is for God to reject his own son. And so if we're in him, it's
all right. God's not going to reject his
son. Not going to do it. John said, if we sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. OK,
another verse of Scripture. Look at Jeremiah 31. We looked at Jeremiah 1 a while
ago. Let's look at Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31, verse 35. God will never turn us away,
because he'll never turn his Son away. Listen to what he says. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth
the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and
of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the
waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those
ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me
forever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven
above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of
Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord." Can you measure the earth, the
heaven and If you can do that, then God will cast you off. That's His way of saying, I'll
never cast you off. Never cast you off. Then there's
an unconditional. This same acceptance is an unconditional
acceptance. Unconditional, like I said, means
it has nothing to do with us. God doesn't accept us on condition
that we do anything. Our acceptance before God is
altogether in Christ and Christ alone. It's a matter of pure,
free, sovereign grace. Therefore, it never changes. That's immutable, it never changes.
Our acceptance with God is in no way dependent on what we do.
I think we've learned that very well here. And I hope we've learned
that. I hope we've learned it down
in our hearts. We're not more pleasing and acceptable to God
when we do good. And we're not less pleasing and
acceptable to God when we do evil. It makes no difference. God forbid that we should do
evil, but it's in us. And when we do that which seems
to be good, We're not more acceptable to Him. Our acceptance in God
is in the Beloved. We're accepted in the Beloved.
And by what He did, there's nothing in us. And just because we seemingly do good, there's no
good in us. But God does in us both the will
to do of His good pleasure And that which he does is good, and
if he works in us to do that, which is good to him, I guess
that's a good, but it's not in us. But we're not less pleasing
and acceptable when we do evil. Our acceptance is in Christ.
It just don't depend on what we do, but solely on what Christ
does. And let's look at one more verse of Scripture, Acts 2. second chapter of Acts. Ye men of Israel, hear these
words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken by wicked
hands, have crucified and slain. God raised up. having loose the
pains of death because it was not possible that he should be
holding of it. See in verse 22, Jesus of Nazareth,
a man approved of God, he is approved of God and all those
that are in him are approved of God. Although we look at ourselves
and wonder how in the world could we be approved of God? How could
we be accepted of him? Because God accepted him, and
we're in him, and we're accepted of him. God required that our
sins should be punished, and when Christ took all of our sins
on him, God punished him. And he accepted that sacrifice
that Christ offered up to him, his own body, his own blood. There had to be the blood of
an innocent victim, shed for the sins of God's people, and
he offered his own blood as a sacrifice, his own body as a sacrifice for
our sins, and God accepted it. He didn't reject him, he accepted
it. All that we would receive of
God is in Christ. All things that we have or receive
of God is in Christ, and all that we would offer to God is
in Christ. We can't offer anything up to
God. We can offer a broken spirit
and a broken and contrite heart because, she said, these things
are all not despised. How are you going to do that
except to be in Christ? Natural man can offer up a broken,
contrite heart to God. Well, I got a couple more verses
of scripture I want to read here. Colossians. Colossians 1, 3, we give thanks
to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always
for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ. That's the only
kind of faith that will do us any good, faith in Christ. And
of the love which ye have to all the saints. There's fruit.
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. For of ye
heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is
come unto you, as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth
fruit, as it doeth also in you, since the day ye heard of it,
and ye the grace of God in truth. As ye also learned of Epaphras,
our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister
of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit,
For this cause, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease
to pray for you, a desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge
of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that
ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. being fruitful in every good
work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all
might according to his glorious power and to all patience and
long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light." He's made us meet. You see that word
meet? Made us accepted. When John the Baptist told those
Pharisees that came out when he was baptizing, they come out,
they all gathered around, everybody gathered around, they came too.
And he said, who warned you of the wrath to come? He said, you
go back and you bring that which is meat for repentance, that
which is acceptable. You go back and bring a broken
contrite spirit and a broken contrite heart over sin. He knew that, I believe he felt
some way that they were coming the same way they came to Christ,
just to find out something, just to trickery or whatever. Then John 1, the last verse,
John 1. John 115, John bear witness of
Christ and cried saying, This was he of whom I spake, he that
cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before
me. And of his fullness have all
we received, and grace for grace. Of his fullness have all we received. We only receive anything Anything
at all that we receive of God is in Christ. And he said he was before me.
He's preferred before me. God prefers him before he does
John. And as great as John the Baptist
was. I said a greater than John the
Baptist is here, a greater than Solomon is here. We're accepted in Christ. Only
in Christ. Accepted in the Beloved. God
said, this is my Beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And
He looks at us and says, these are my Beloved sons and daughters
in Him whom I'm well pleased. In Him. Over here it says so much about
in Christ, in Christ. See verse 10. He might gather
together in one all things in Christ. That's all saints in
Christ. Even in Him. In whom we have
obtained inheritance. What's our inheritance? God is
our inheritance. that we should be to the praise
of His glory who first trusted in Christ? God trusted in Him and He trusts
in us. How can God trust in something
like this? He does. In whom we also trusted. We trusted in Christ after we
heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. In whom,
again, also after you believed, you were sealed with the Holy
Spirit of It's all in Christ. But I hope this study is helpful
to us. I just thought it'd be good to
look over this thing again of being accepted in Christ. That's what it's all about here.
That's what the good news is. We're accepted of God in Christ.
We need to be constantly reminded that we need not to look to ourselves,
but to look to Christ and trust in Him. That's the only acceptance
we have before God is in Christ. Okay, I'll dismiss this in prayer. Our Father, we're such miserable
sinners in and of ourselves. Sin is all through us and all
in us. It seems like sin is all in us like maggots crawling on a dead carcass. Lord,
we long to be without this manifestation in us, this sinfulness. For even the best that we can
do is so filled full of sin. Lord, forgive us. Even this prayer
is so full of sin. Our mind wanders. And we're all caught up in the
things of this world. I pray that You'd deliver us.
Lord, I pray that You'd hasten the day that we might be delivered
and be without this sin, that we might be in Your presence. standing before Your throne,
sinless. Lord, we don't know what that
means to be sinless, but we know that our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ, was without sin, and You accepted Him, and that He
took on our sins, and You punished Him for our sins. and now that
we're without sin in thy sight. Lord, you said as far as east
is from the west, so far have I blotted out thy transgressions. And we know you've blotted them
out because of what he did. Thank you for Christ. Thank you
for that precious blood that washed away our sins. Thank you
for that righteousness of his that he worked out for us. Lord,
we just can't We can't begin to fully understand
that great deliverance that the Lord Jesus Christ took on Himself
on our behalf to deliver us. He calls us to trust in Him and
believe in Him and just rest on Him. Lord, help us. Cause us to trust
in Him. Cause us to believe on Him. And
Lord, forgive us for our unbelief. We're so full of it. Lord, I
pray that You'd bless Your Word. I know it'll go out with power. It won't come back to
You void. It'll accomplish that which You
purposed for it to accomplish. Lord, I pray that it might Accomplish
the edification of your people, of your saints, of your children,
that it might comfort our hearts to know that we're accepted totally, unconditionally, eternally, and
immutably in Christ. Lord, don't let us look to any
work in ourselves. For all our righteousness is
filthy rags. We're not trusting in our righteousness,
Lord. We trust in the righteousness
of Christ. We want to be clothed in His
righteousness. We want to be clothed in our
right minds, Lord. A mind and heart that's set upon
the things of God, not ourselves. Keep us in Christ, and we know
You will. We trust in you. Lord, Christ,
through the rest of this week, until the next appointed time,
meditate upon the things we've heard, the things we've read.
Your Word is mighty and powerful. And it's
the power of God and the salvation of this Gospel. Our Father, we
remember those I brought up earlier. Asked that you'd be with Virgie
and bring healing to her body. My precious sister. She might
be back with us soon. Lord, we pray that you'd be with
Barbara and her family. Comfort them, Lord. And in these circumstances, Lord,
I pray that you'd just cause them to look forward to Christ
and trust in Him. Lord, I pray that you'd