Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's Holy Word. And now, the message. This is the epistle of Paul the
Apostle written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the church
located in a town or a city called Ephesus. And like most cities
in that day, the Gentile areas, especially one like Ephesus,
which was a larger city, it was a city that was wrought with
much idolatry, much religion, much superstition, as well as
much immorality. But the Apostle Paul had a special
place in his heart for the church at Ephesus. He had spent three
years at this church. And that was unusual considering
his missionary journeys where Paul went from place to place,
being the apostle to the Gentiles. But he stayed there and actually,
one might say, he had a pastor's heart for this church here. This
church was in much danger. They were being attacked and
were about to be run over with false preachers. and false professors
so Paul stayed with them and he taught them and in the book
of Ephesians we have some of the clearest statements of gospel
truth and also we have some of the clearest statements of the
church the mystery of the church we're going to talk about that
But I want to begin this message with this subject, Faithful Saints. That's the title of the message,
Faithful Saints. And there's some important things,
and I'm going to refer quite a bit to the book of Acts, chapter
20, to open up this series in the book of Ephesians. We begin
reading in chapter 1 and verse 1. He identifies himself, Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Now, we know
about Paul the Apostle. We know who he was before he
came to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. His name was
Saul of Tarsus, as you know. And Saul was a Jew. He was also
a Roman citizen, we learn from the book of Acts. But he was
a very zealous, religious, outwardly moral Pharisee. And you know
the Pharisees were of the strictest, most moral, and religious, serious
sex of the Jews' religion. Paul writes of himself in Philippians
chapter 3 when he describes his change of heart, his change of
mind, in his conversion, when he spoke of those who had confidence
in the flesh. Now, the thing about salvation
And one of the main marks of a true believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ is that his confidence is in Christ and Him crucified. His confidence is not in the
flesh. That is, his confidence of salvation,
his assurance, his peace, his hope of salvation, is not in
the flesh. That is what he can do. Even
the best of the flesh, even the best the flesh can produce, the
flesh there meaning himself, In other words, my salvation
is not attained or maintained by anything I do or that comes
from me. My salvation is totally wrapped
up and attained and maintained by the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's a matter of God's grace.
It's a free gift of eternal life and righteousness and salvation.
that I receive freely by the power of God based on the doing
and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ." So when he describes
himself in Philippians chapter 3 as one who before salvation
had confidence in the flesh, he goes through a list of things
that he thought highly recommended him unto God. He said, I was
a Hebrew of Hebrews. I was a Pharisee of Pharisees,"
he says, circumcised the eighth day, is touching the law of Pharisee,
of the tribe of Benjamin. He mentions all those things
that are fleshly things, that may appear outwardly righteous,
that men by nature highly esteem, but which are an abomination
to God and are in reality wicked and evil when aimed at the ground
of salvation. For example, I've told people
many times in my messages, you know, for example, that Saul
of Tarsus was a Hebrew of Hebrews. That means he was a pure-blooded
Hebrew, no mixed blood. Now there's nothing in itself
wicked about being a full-blooded Hebrew, but when you think that
that makes up your salvation, or that recommends you unto God,
or when you begin to think that that is your righteousness before
God, then it becomes wicked and evil. You see, Christ will have
no rivals to his person and work. There'll be no additions, no
enhancements to what he accomplished. The Bible says that Christ did
it all as to attaining and maintaining the salvation of his people,
as to justifying them before God and redeeming them from their
sins. So Paul, this Paul who wrote
this letter by inspiration of the Spirit, was the same man,
Saul of Tarsus, but he was changed. He was changed by the grace of
God. He talks about his conversion. We read about it in the book
of Acts where he was on his way to persecute Christians and God,
Christ, God the Son in His resurrected glory appeared to Saul and brought
him down and brought him to a saving knowledge of Christ. So this
is the same Paul. Paul, an apostle, the word apostle
means a messenger. It's a man with a message. Apostle,
as an office in the church, has ceased. There were 12 apostles.
But these men had a message that was given to them directly by
the Lord Jesus Christ, by revelation. And that's why he says Paul an
apostle of Jesus Christ. He's not an apostle of men. He's
not an apostle of the church. He's an apostle of Jesus Christ.
And he says, by the will of God. It was God who saved Paul. It was God who commissioned Paul
to be an apostle, and it was God who gave Paul his message.
Over in the book of Galatians chapter 1, Paul mentions that
the gospel is the gospel of God, and he did not receive it by
men, he received it directly from God. This message is a heavenly
message. It's not of men, it could not
be concocted of men. All the major religions that
populate the world today, There's not one of them who could come
up with the message of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. For
they are all human religions, human inventions, human imaginations,
sinful human imaginations. But it is God alone, by revelation,
who intervenes in the minds and hearts of his people to reveal
unto them the gospel of his grace in Jesus Christ. God saves by
grace, not by works. Every other religion is a religion
of works. And what is sad, we're going
to see, is that much of what comes in the name of Christianity
today is no more than a cleverly disguised system of works. And that's why we need God's
word. That's why we thank God that he sent men like Paul and
used them as instruments to record his word as inspired by the Holy
Spirit. There is no word of revelation
but that which comes from God. So it's Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ, by the will of God, not by the will of men. Now, that's
who's doing the writing here. But who's he writing to? He says
he's writing to the saints, which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful
in Christ Jesus. Now when he says he's writing
to the saints, which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ
Jesus, he's not writing to two different or separate groups
of people here. This is just two ways of describing
the same group. The group to whom he's writing
are the people who are members of the church at Ephesus. They
gather together in this city in a certain place to worship
God. They identify with each other
in unity and love for the cause of God's glory and the salvation
of sinners by Christ. And he identifies them two ways.
He says they are saints and in location at Ephesus, and then
they are faithful. in Christ Jesus. Faithful saints. Now the scripture teaches us
what a saint is. You know many people have a lot
of different ideas about saints, about sainthood. We speak of
Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint Peter. A lot of people tell jokes
about Saint Peter and the pearly gates. The Catholic Church has
made it popular today to point out certain individuals that
they have ordained or canonized or appointed by committee to
be saints. And these are men and women whom
they feel have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their
Christianity as they see it. Those who have, I think the criteria
today is that they've had to have given their life to the
ministry and the priesthood or whatever, and they had to perform
at least three miracles that could be documented by witnesses,
all of those things. But let me tell you something,
none of that constitutes or makes up a saint or sainthood. Let
me tell you exactly what a saint is. The word saint comes from
the word sanctified, and the word sanctified means set apart. So this saint is one who is set
apart by God and sanctified by the Lord Jesus Christ. A saint
is nothing more and nothing less than a sinner saved by the grace
of God. And what I'm telling you is this,
and understand this, Every Christian, every true Christian, every believing
sinner, every regenerate born-again sinner is a saint, a full-fledged
saint. Now, how does one become a saint?
It's not by dedicating yourself to the ministry or to the church.
It's not by performing two, three, four, or however many miracles. The way one becomes a saint is
by the sovereign grace of God in Christ. The Bible teaches
that God's people are sanctified before the foundation of the
world in divine sovereign election. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. Paul is going to speak of that
in Ephesians chapter 1. And then on the cross of Calvary,
the sins of Christ's sheep, his church, were laid upon him. And He went to the cross and
suffered and bled and died for their sins. And in that transaction
they were set apart in Him. They were sanctified in Christ.
The Bible says, for by one offering He hath perfected them that are
sanctified forever. Christ, by His one offering.
He set them apart from the rest of the world and died for their
sins, satisfied the justice of God, and made them righteous
by His righteousness. God the Father accounted, or
charged, or imputed His righteousness to them. So they are saints in
Christ. And then in time, by the power
of the Holy Spirit who comes to each and every one of those
sheep in each successive generation, And He brings them under the
preaching of the gospel where He gives them life, spiritual
life from Christ, from God. He gives them, as the Bible teaches
us, ears to hear what they could not hear before. You see, they
could hear physically, maybe, but they could not hear spiritually.
They were spiritually dead, spiritually deaf, but the Holy Spirit in
the new birth gives them spiritual ears to hear things that they
didn't hear before. They hear the glory and the beauty
of the gospel of Christ. It becomes a message of life
and death to them. Whereas before it was nothing
more than just words. So it's the word of power. Paul
wrote that in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 when he told them,
I know your election of God because the word of God came to you,
the gospel came to you in power. and not just in word only. In
other words, it wasn't just words that fell on deaf ears, but it
became a message of glory and grace and beauty of life to you. You heard it and you loved that
truth. God the Holy Spirit, that's the new birth. That's regeneration
and conversion. He brings his people to faith
in Christ and to repentance of their own dead works and idolatry.
Now that's when they're sanctified by the Spirit. Paul wrote in
2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13, he says, But beloved, we're bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth,
whereunto he called you by our gospel. You're sanctified by
the Spirit, not as the Spirit makes you in some way progressively
holy. No, no, no, no. There's no degrees
of holiness. You are sanctified by the Spirit
when you're set apart in the new birth, and when you're given
ears to hear, and eyes to see, and hearts to know and understand
the glory of God in Christ. Now, that's who the saints are. They were set apart. They're
sanctified by the grace of God in Christ, chosen before the
foundation of the world, redeemed and justified in Christ. and called, regenerated and called
by the Holy Spirit. That's who the saints are. And
then he identifies them the second way as to the faithful in Christ
Jesus. How do you know if you're a saint?
Well, do you believe in, do you rest in, do you trust the Lord
Jesus Christ for your whole salvation? That's what a saint does. Somebody
says, well, you talk about God's elect. Well, the Bible speaks
of God's elect. We're going to talk about it
here in the book of Ephesians. He talks about those he hath
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The scriptures
do. And many preachers will tell you, well, now that only applies
to the Jews. Now let me tell you something. Those who are
chosen of God are those chosen before the foundation of the
world and they are the elect of God. They're made up of Jew
and Gentile. How do you know who they are?
The scripture tells us plainly. They are those who come to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of God. They are those
who come to rest in Him. They are called by the Holy Spirit
in power in that irresistible call to see their sinfulness
and their depravity, to see that God would be just to eternally
condemn them based on their best efforts to keep the law, to see
the impossibility of being saved based upon their best efforts
to keep the law. But not only that, the Holy Spirit
brings them to see that their only hope of eternal life Their
only hope of righteousness, their only hope of salvation is in
the person and the glorious work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot
be saved by anything but God the Son Incarnate, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who is He? He's God and man in
one person. All throughout the first chapter
of the book of Ephesians here, the Apostle Paul is speaking
of the great treasury of blessings that come in salvation, which
are all wrapped up in and given by the Lord Jesus Christ, in
Him, in Him, by Him, through Him. He's the God-man. He's the only one who is able
to save to the uttermost, and He is the only one who's willing
to save to the uttermost. For He is able. Paul wrote this
in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 12, I know whom I have believed,
And I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. Now what I'm saying is this,
have you committed your whole soul, your whole salvation to
Jesus Christ and Him alone? That's what a saint does. And
then He brings them to see that there's no hope anywhere else.
He sheds abroad within them the love of God which inspires them
to follow Him and to be His disciples. So they are faithful saints.
There's no other kind. There's no one who is faithful
in Jesus Christ who's not a saint. And there's no one who is a saint
who is not faithful in Jesus Christ. Now, saints will sin. The Bible teaches that. The Bible,
from Genesis to Revelation, records some of the greatest faults and
sins of some of the greatest saints that God ever saved. So
it's not one who has found the secret to not sinning in that
sense. The only way that we will be
sinlessly perfect in ourselves is when we go to be with Christ
and are glorified. Right now I'm sinlessly perfect
in Him, but not in myself. Now Paul writes here in verse
2, he says, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace. How many times
does the Apostle Paul open his letters with that salutation? Grace to you and peace. And it's
always in that order. And the reason is, is before
you can have peace with God, there must be grace. I hear preachers
all the time telling people to make their peace with God. Well,
my friend, there's only one way that peace can be made between
God and sinners. And that's by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the Peacemaker. The Bible
speaks of Him as the Prince of Peace. He is the Shalom, Peace,
that can only come to His people. You see, God is holy and righteous
and just. And though He, in love and mercy
and grace, has determined to save a people, the people He
determined to save are sinners. And God cannot save even one
sinner without His holiness, His justice, His righteousness
being honored and magnified. God must be just when He justifies
the ungodly. God must be holy whenever He
shows love to any of the objects of His love. His mercy, His mercy
must be consistent with His justice. And the only way God can be both
a just God and a Savior is by the person and substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Christ had to die
on the cross. His death on the cross is the
product of the love of God for His people. But His death on
the cross, shedding His blood, was a satisfaction to the justice
of God. You see, without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. Christ had to come and
die to pay for the sins of His people. Christ had to obey unto
death to establish righteousness, based upon which God could be
just and justified. And there's no other way. So
all that is the way of God's grace. Grace reigns, Romans 5.21
tells us, through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Grace without justice is empty. Mercy without truth is deadly. You see that? Love without righteousness
is vain. God must be both and the only
way he can do that is through Christ. So those who have been
graced have peace with God our Father from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now over in the book of Acts chapter 20, we see Paul, now
this is something to understand because he had been in Ephesus
and he met with his church for three years with a pastor's heart. Now he's on his way back to Jerusalem.
And through all of this, Paul is going to eventually end up
in Rome. And on his way back to Jerusalem,
he stopped in a city called Miletus, and he called for the Ephesian
elders. That city was about 30 miles from Ephesus. And they
came up there, and Paul spoke his last words to them. And he
told them some very important things. And let me just close
with this. He spoke of them, of his time with them. He says
in Acts 20, verse 19, he served the Lord with all humility of
mind and with many tears. Many temptations or testings
which befell him by the line and wait for the Jews, all the
time Paul was going around preaching, and all the time he was on his
way back to Jerusalem, the unbelieving self-righteous Jews were after
him, they would not let up. And he says in verse 20, he says,
and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but
have showed you and taught you publicly and from house to house,
testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance
toward God. and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. That was the mainstay of Paul's
message to the church at Ephesus and everywhere he went. I preached
unto you Christ and Him crucified, how God can be just and justify
the ungodly, how there's no other hope, no other way, no other
recourse to be saved. than Jesus Christ. So repentance
toward God. When we repent by the power of
the Holy Spirit, we turn away from ourselves, we turn away
from our idols, we turn away from our false refuges, and we
turn toward the God who justifies through Christ. Faith towards
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way. And then
he told them, he said in verse 27 of Acts 20, he said, For I
have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. A
faithful minister doesn't just pick and choose what he tells
the people of God. He doesn't just feed them with
things that he thinks they need to know. Whatever God reveals
to him, he tells them. That's why we preach the whole
scripture. And he says, take heed, therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased
with his own blood. Two things there, or three things
rather. He says you take heed. Take heed,
be very careful, be very diligent. To do what? Secondly, to feed
the church of God. That's what a faithful minister
does. He's not out to feed himself, he's out to feed the sheep. Christ
told Peter, if you love me, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. And
then he says, the church with he hath purchased with his own
blood. Christ purchased the church. It doesn't belong to the pastor.
It doesn't belong to the elders or the deacons. It doesn't belong
to any man. It belongs to him. It belongs
to Christ. He owns it lock, stock and barrel.
And then he says in verse 29, for I know this, that after my
departing, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing
the flock. And he says, also of your own
self shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away
disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember,
and by the space of three years I cease not to warn every one
day and night with tears." What he's saying is you're going to
be attacked by false preachers from outside the church, and
sad to say you're going to be attacked from false preachers
inside the church. You take heed. Stay true to the
Word of God. Keep your focus upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. You're saints made so by the
grace of God in Christ. You've been called to a vocation,
and it's a vocation of grace and glory. You're not here to
please men. You're not here to satisfy men. You're not here to be guided
by men of themselves, but to be guided by men who will show
you God's Word in Christ. Take these things in mind and
be careful. I hope this message has been helpful to your understanding
of the Scriptures. If you'd like to receive a copy
of this message, listen to the announcer as he'll give you the
details. The title of this message is Faithful Saints. We're glad you could join us
for today's message. If you would like to receive
a copy of this message, or if you would like more information
about Eager Avenue Grace Church, remember we are located at 1102
Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call us at 229-833-7000.
432-6969, or visit our Reign of Grace website
at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you, and may the Lord be
with you.